I'd like to welcome you to the Lake Villa area schoolboard meeting this February 24th. If everyone would stand as you're able for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance 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. >> Let's start with roll call on my right. Tony Reikenberger, Matt Swanson, >> Carly Anderson, >> Amber Cameron, >> Michael Bowman, >> Kim Baker, >> Brian Thompson, >> and cabinet members or guests. Would you like to introduce yourselves? >> Uh, Sandy Georgie, director of teaching and learning. >> Amy Gishmire, American Indian Education, uh, coordinator. >> Nicole Adams, director of integrated improvement. Kelly McDermott, principal at Kenwood trip. Jason Baky, principal at Century Middle School. >> Joshua Alexander, principal at Meguire Middle School. >> And over here, >> Bill Morgan, executive director of business services. >> Tracy Bhold, executive director of teaching and learning. >> Emily McDonald, assistant superintendent. >> Lucas Yo, executive director of operations. >> Michelle Humphrey, executive director of student services. Great. Thanks, everybody. Um, I'll like to turn it over now to Superintendent Bowman for good news. >> All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, good news on February 24th. This is a long one, so sit back and and then uh at the end you're going to get a a good uh entertainment. I think Lakeville Area Schools is proud to announce that Hillary Morlock, who is the digital media specialist at Cherry View Elementary and the district digital media specialist lead, has been named a semi finalist for the 2026 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award. She is one of 30 semi- finalists from across the state. The winner will be announced later this spring. We wish the best of luck to Miss Morlock. Last week we celebrated Schmidian Suns Bus Company School bus driver appreciation week in Lakeville area schools. We celebrate and thank our school bus drivers for the vital role they play in supporting our students and families each day by providing safe, reliable transportation and a welcoming start and end to the school day. They help ensure students arrive ready to learn. We are grateful for their care, patience, and dedication and for the meaningful impact they have across our district. Thank you for all you do for our students and families. Little round of applause for our bus drivers. Congratulations to the Lakeville North High School girls hockey team. An incredible season for all our student athletes on that hockey team. The Panther girls hockey team took first place at their section tournament on February 11th and made it to cornerfinals at the 2026 state class doubleA girls hockey tournament on February 19th at Grand Casino Arena. Congratulations to all involved with Lakeville North girls hockey. Also, congratulations to the Lakeville North dance team on turning heads and making it to finals in both the jazz and high kick state competitions at Target Center February 13th and 14th. The Lakeville South Dance team also competed in both jazz and high kick at the state tournament. Way to represent Panthers and Cougars. There's more. 11 Lakeville student athletes represented our community with pride at the 2026 Boys and Girls State Ski Tournaments February 10th through the 12th. Lakeville North 10th grader Cole Peltz earned third place out of 88 competitors in alpine skiing. Way to go, COLE. and Lakeville South senior FA Brown earned 12th overall out of 110 competitors in the Nordic Pursuit event. Congratulations, FAY. Last month, our Kenwood Trail Middle School band students were selected to perform with the University of Wisconsin Oclair Middle School Honor Bands. More than 600 students were nominated to participate in the honor bands with just 250 selected. Congratulations to eighth graders Benjamin Biggs and Zach Twig and seventh graders Adelaide Nielsen and Luke Jiang for making our school at Kenwood Trails proud of your performance. Last month, 52 Lakeville Youth and Government delegates attended the 2026 YMCA Youth and Government Conference where they argued cases, presented legislation, and stepped into leadership roles across Minnesota's model state government. Highlights include 11th grade students Scarlett Wilkerson and Izzy Zamponga, selected for the Supreme Court Showcase Round, an honor reserved for top performing cases. 10th grade student Beckett Zwber's proposal passing general assembly in the national issues forum which is the highest level of achievement within that program area and 11th grade student Anna Bash elected as lobbyists executive director and six other Lakeville students selected as appointed officials. So, congratulations to all of our students who participated in Lakeville Youth and Government. Then, congratulations to the Lakeville North High School Theater on earning multiple Henipin Theater Trust Spotlight Education Awards for their production of Anything Goes. Honors include outstanding performance in a leading role earned by 12th grade student Maisy Mo. Outstanding performance in a supporting role earned by 12th grade student Mero Leo. Outstanding in a technical leadership position earned by 12th grade students Lexi Ziorski and Jackie Eert. and then outstanding ensemble dance performance and overall technical performance and several other honorable mentions and evaluator shoutouts. Congratulations to all of our Lakeville North High School theater participants. Then congratulations to Sienna Warren, a fourth grader at Orchard Lake Elementary, who earned second place in the 2026 South of the River Powow Art Contest. As one of the top three artists, Sienna will be honored during the 2026 South of the River Powow on May 2nd. Congratulations, Sienna. All right, now drum roll. We do have from our Kenwood Trails Middle School our kazoo band and they are here to perform this evening. and I'll hand it off to the director. >> All right. This is our kazoo band. We are students in grades six through eight. I think we are Lakeville's first kazoo band. So, we're making history. Um we meet here in wintertime um which is a time when students can get extra help. Um or we have enrichment activities and this is one of our enrichments. Um this supports our engagement piece of our rise standards for the school. So, we're going to play two pieces for you tonight. Our first one is um by is Star Wars by John Williams um celebrating his 94th birthday about two weeks ago. And then we will play Bean on Me and we're going to encourage you all to join us in singing uh the final chorus of Lean on Me tonight. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. One, 2, 3. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I hope you carry on before it won't be long till Follow me. Somebody That was that was awesome. Thank you all. I know. Now it's like we have to do business now, which is not nearly as fun. So, thank you for coming everyone. >> Appreciate that. Oh yeah, I'm going to turn it back over to Superintendent Bowman. >> All right, Kenwood Trails Kazoo Band. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for parents for bringing those kids over here. We appreciate it. March 9th through the 13th, we'll be celebrating District Office Staff Appreciation Week in Lakeville Area Schools. And we're proud to recognize the many dedicated professionals who support students, staff, and families across the district each day. Through their expertise in teaching and learning, operations, financial management, student services, nutrition, facilities, and much, much more. They provide critical support behind the scenes and play an essential role in helping us fulfill our mission of preparing every student for academic, social, civic, and personal success. So, thank you uh for all you do. Read more about the amazing things happening in our district at isd194.org/news. And that, Madam Chair, concludes our good news for this meeting. >> Great. Thank you, Superintendent Bowman. Uh, next on our agenda is board communications. I think the um the main thing to highlight uh from the board is that and hopefully you've heard about this already in the community is um we have approved um uh a vote on May 12th uh to secure more space at our middle schools. And so there will be a bond vote um on May 12th. Um if you are interested in learning more about the bond and what it supports, um there's many community meetings. There was one prior to this board meeting, but there'll be many opportunities um for you to connect with the school district to learn more about that and what that uh bond entails uh to see if um uh and to get you out to vote on May 12th about the bond. If you know of a community group that wants to learn more about the bond or what what it entails, um please reach out to any of the board members up here and we'd be happy to um come share information about the bond with with our community. So, um, with that, um, I would like to move, um, to approve the agenda. Um, is there a motion to approve? >> Moved. >> Uh, first by, uh, Director Swanson, second by Baker. Uh, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Uh, everyone voted. Okay, motion passes. Uh, with that, we'll move to public comment. Uh today there are two people so um both registered people will be able to speak. Uh before we begin I just like to lay out um the ground rules again in case you have not uh participated in public comment before. So the board at each um formal board meeting opens 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 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 on 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 are limited to three minutes. The board will provide a signal 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 with that, I'll draw the first name. Uh first name is Dan Stephenson. >> Stevenson. >> Oh, sorry. Stevenson. Sorry. >> Come on up. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> I'm a little disappointed. I thought the whole Kazoo team and those people were all here to support me, but then they left. So, a hard act. >> Um, yeah, definitely a hard act to follow. Um, like I said, I'm new to this. My name is Dan Stevenson and I represent the Lakeville South Senior High School Senior Committee Party. Um, and I guess I'm here to just I guess talk to you guys about what challenges I've had leading up to this. I've been doing it for this will be my fifth year and it's just been a lot of friction dealing with the community education department over the years and never being felt like uh we were part of the community or given you know any any grace on how to get our stuff done um efficiently and it felt like a lot of roadblocks were put in our place. Um, this year has been especially challenging with uh graduation ceremonies being brought back to the high school. So that involves some logistic challenges and you know I voiced some of my concerns and was met mostly with instead of sort of a productive meeting or a we want to work with you to figure out how we can succeed in in keeping this long-standing tradition. I was going to just met with nope sorry logistically staff-wise can't happen won't happen refuse to even acknowledge that it's a problem for anybody on you know the other side of me and the and the senior class um I had some meetings and was very frustrated I guess with them reached out to a few of the board members and superintendent Bowman um finally got a meeting with him went very well. Um, we felt like we were heard and I was convinced that a a possible alternative which we'd been asking about the the um opportunity would be at a a different location which Meuire Middle School um just through a series of emails was just never said whether that could work or why it wouldn't work. Um I think that's in the works. I was hoping when Superintendent Bowman was talking about the good news that he was going to say, "Yes, we've made a decision and it's going to be fine. You guys can go there." I didn't hear that. We're still waiting. Um, so yeah, that is some of my frustration has just been even just this year, part of it is just the the lack of response. It's now been about a month and we haven't heard back. Um, it started out that the fourth was not an option and then I said, "Well, all right. I guess we could maybe do the fifth." And then time went by and it was like, "Nope, not the fifth either." Okay, how about the sixth? Nope, that won't work. And and never a real why it couldn't or uh what if we did this, you know? So, that's what I'm here just to say. Please work with us. And I I think maybe we we do have a olive branch out and hopefully >> things will work out. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you, Dan. >> All right. And our uh last speaker is Libby Huddle. >> Did I say that correctly? Okay. >> All right. Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Bowman, members of the cabinet. Um I'm Libby Huddle. I'm here as a parent of a senior, a community member, and I'm also an administrator in another district who works closely with community education and facilities in my normal day-to-day job. Um, so I would like to speak about the growing frustrations between facilities um specifically surrounding the Lakeville South Senior Party and how that process aligns with this district's mission and core values. Lakeville's mission begins with together with our families and community. And the senior party reflects that mission. It is a longstanding, safe, supervised event designed to support students on graduation night. This year, graduation is going to be held at the Lakeville South football field, which I think personally is going to be great instead of the University of Minnesota. Uh but the senior party takes place indoors and currently the rain plan is to move the date of graduation, not to move it inside. If the ceremony were to be moved inside, senior parents have been very clear that they are more than willing to help with indoor graduation setup. Whether that means assisting with chairs, resetting spaces, adjusting timelines, we're asking for accommodations that offer partnership with the district. What has been challenging is how this decision was made and how collaboration occurs between facilities and the high school administration when there's this longstanding student tradition involved. The district's core values include students first, collaboration, integrity, and responsible stewardship. And when communication feels unclear or collaboration is not visible, it feels misaligned with the values of this district. More broadly, I've heard from several community members who have also described frustrations when dealing with the facilities process and find it difficult to navigate. In my own district, we emphasize accessibility and responsiveness when it comes to community education. And when families feel heard, they come back. When Lakeville groups start renting spaces in neighboring districts, that's something that should cause some pause, not as criticism, but to reflect and as feedback to the district. When families choose to go elsewhere, it's rarely about the building itself. It's about their experience. Community education has the potential to be one of the strongest expressions of this district mission. The bridge between schools and their f and the families in this community in these shared spaces with a shared purpose. The senior party is a simple but powerful example of that opportunity. It's about student safety. It is about tradition. And it's about partnership between families and schools. If we can find a way to align around something as clear and student centered as this, that sends a strong message about who we are and what we prioritize at a school as a school community. Nothing should be pushed aside that prioritizes student safety on one of the highest risk nights of their lives. >> Thank you for your time and thank you for your service to the community. >> Thank you. Thank you, Lebby. That concludes our public comment um section of the agenda. Uh next we'll move to consideration of the approval of the consent agenda. Um bear with me, it's long. Um and uh we can go over why as I read through the elements of this. Uh so the consent agenda includes our board minutes from our February 5th and our February 10th meetings, employment recommendations, leave requests and resignations, payment of bills and claims, wire transfers and investments, the resolution regarding acceptance of gift donations, extended field trips, and the ELA core resource recommendation for grades 9 through 12. In addition, um there are a number of policies under the consent agenda. Uh the first three, policy 502, search of student lockers, policy 526, hazing prohibition, and policy 533 wellness, have been discussed um twice at schoolboard meetings. Um and as a reminder to everyone um at our last um uh work session with the school board, we discussed uh kind of the MSB policy update and and the goals of our school uh school board and and trying to trying to update our policies and and I believe everyone is in consensus. I know you were absent, Director Thompson. Um but the consensus from the rest of the board was that um when there's minor changes, we'd like the district to bring forward uh recommendations uh to the board uh for consideration from um director Brenda Alrech. So, the rest of the the policies that you see here, policy 701.1, modification of school district budget, policy 705, investments, policy 706, acceptance of gifts, policy 708, transportation of non-public school students, policy 902, use of school district facilities and equipment, and policy 904, distribution of materials on school district property by non-school persons. Um these were all considered minor audits from the MSBA policy audits. Mainly um the things that changed in all of these were related to changing the um the name of the school board. So moving it from board of education to school board and um adding state statutes and legal references and cross references. So it's important that our um policies have cross references because um uh we we don't cite everything in every policy um but they do relate to one another. And so we want to make sure that that's explicit both for the board and for the school district on how those things are related. So um Director Alrech brought forward um all of the minor um edit recommendations from MSBA in the 700 and 900 series for um approval of the school board. So with that um are there any um items from the consent agenda that a board member would like to remove? >> Yeah, Director Thompson. Uh, I'd like to remove letter F, letter G, letter H, letter J, and letter O, please. >> Okay. Will you go through that one more time? Letter F. >> Yep. Uh, letter F, letter G, letter H, letter J, and letter O, please. >> Okay. Let me just Can I repeat it back to make sure I got it? Letter F, letter G, letter H, letter J, letter O. >> Yes. >> Okay. Any other items that people would like to remove? Yeah. Director Swanson, >> I just want a clarification. uh 705, 706 and 904 all have notes still remain in those. Will those be removed? >> Yes, those would be removed. So those are not stricken yet, but the notes would be removed. Correct, Director Albert? Okay. >> Any other Okay. Any other items to remove? >> Okay. And Director Thompson, do you imagine having um robust discussion on these or are these clarifying questions? >> I I've got questions around them. I've got um yeah I I'm assuming robust discussions. We I I did get a chance to listen to the board meeting last week or two weeks ago and you guys talked about some of these policies and for example I think policy 526 and policy 533. The discussion that you guys had was around getting parental consent before something happened. But if you listen to the board meeting prior to that it was more of giving parental cons parental awareness that it did happen. So that is what I think is super important that you know that we can discuss uh when we get to that particular topic. >> Okay, great. Um so with that we'll remove FG H and O um we will see how the board member progresses. If if you know we're not going to be here till midnight and so in the event um our meeting is going along um I may make a motion to table these to the next meeting. but we can um see how how our timing is for the meeting. So, with that um I'd like to um seek a a motion to approve the consent agenda which includes letters A, B, C, D, E, I, K, L, M, and N. >> So moved. >> Uh first by um first by Director Anderson, second by uh Director Reichenberger. Um any further discussion? Okay. Oh, Director Thompson. Yeah, I just have one one discussion and I don't think it's appropriate in the in the policy 706 category, but acceptance of gifts. Um I know that we've had previous discussions with naming rights of buildings and it's not really a gift, but they're paying for something in that respect. Uh so I just want to just make sure that we I tee that up for a future discussion because we ran into that scenario uh a year and a half ago and how much do we charge? Do we not charge anything? what is the calculus around what's appropriate and what's not uh and then what is the rule around having a person or a name uh established. So again there are there may be scenarios where someone may gift us a really big building. I don't know but what does that look like? So thank you. >> Okay great. Any other conversation? All right. I'd like to um or all in favor of the consent agenda as presented. >> Any opposed? >> All right. Uh motion passes six. There's six of us today. Right. Six. 6. All right. Uh, with that, let's move to district reports and discussion. Um, so I'd like to invite up um Amy. Madam >> Chair, just point of order. So, we skipping over the consent agenda discussion items. >> Oh, thank you. Um, yes, I think we should put these um after we get through our normal business today. Um, in the event that, as I mentioned earlier, we would we would need incredible time to to fulfill all these. So my recommendation uh would be to put these under um after letter or after number six um and we would go in the order as they're listed. So FGH is that Yep. Director Baker, >> I just want to ask a clarifying question about this. When we discussed this at the last meeting, we were putting through um the policies on the consent agenda because we were trying to get through them since we were behind on our three three-year cadence. This doesn't seem to be fitting with what we agreed to as a board. So, um, what exactly for review of those of us at the table would be the process if a if a board member has questions about a policy that ends up on the consent agenda because this is what we were trying to avoid by doing this. >> I think we can discuss that when we get to the items. I I do recognize that any board member has the the right to make a recommendation to pull an agenda item, but um, yes, I do think it conflicts with where the consensus of the board was last time. Um, so are are you comfortable with that, Director Swanson? I'm putting it after um >> we just do a motion to postpone it till later in the meeting. >> Um, yeah. So, how I how I consider consent agenda items based on Robert's rules is that discussion of consent agenda items um is if there's clarifying questions before it's approved, but then if there's substantial questions that those get put back put in the agenda based on um kind of the order of of urgency for those items. Um >> point point of order. >> Yep. >> Um we've approved the agenda and as it is right now. Um, so we if we'd have to revise the order of the agenda, we would need a vote to do that. >> Okay. Then we can go in order with these right now and um start with F and >> yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. Director Thompson. >> I'll make a motion to move all the consent agenda items uh that were pulled to after letter eight or I'm sorry, number eight. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. First by Director Thompson, second by Director Swanson. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. So, after letter eight, >> we're adding F, G, H, J, and O. >> That way. >> Okay. Um All right. Thank you for that, everyone. Um All right. With that, I'd like to invite um American Indian Education Coordinator Amy Gershmeer uh to the podium along with community member and parent on the advisory Steve Jacobson to present the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee vote of Oh, sorry, Johnson. Sorry. I I work with the Steve Jacobson. I'm sorry. Um Steve Johnson um uh to present present the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee vote of concurrence. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Chair Cameron, members of the board, and superintendent Bowman. I'm Amy Gishmire, the American Indian Education Coordinator for Lakeville Area Schools. So, Bju, Anin, Amy, and Djnikaz, Aijak, Nindu, uh, Nun, Jabar, Nawash, Minnesota, Anisha, Abe, Quay, I am doing my best, so please bear with me. I am trying to learn my language of Ojiway. So, I said, um, hello, my name is Amy. I am from Nawash Minnesota and I am Crane Clan and I am Anishnabi woman. So my role is to support our indigenous students, families and provide guidance and resources to staff supporting our native students. As a district of more than 180 American Indian students, we are required by state statutes to fulfill specific tasks and implement to the best of our ability culturally relevant opportunities and encourage greater understanding of the needs of our students and families. Guided by the American Indian Parent Advisory Council, my work is focused on improving outcomes for our Native American students in ISD 194. As required uh part of the annual compliance of these initiatives, our APAC meets to discuss six areas of focus detailed in our plan to ensure programs are being implemented and they vote whether they agree or disagree with the lever level of incorporation. So please welcome Steve Johnson, a me a member of our APAC to read the resolution for this year. Thank you, Chair Cameron, members of the board, and Superintendent Bowman. I'm Steve Johnson. I'm a member of the Apac. I'm representing all members, students, and families to present the American Indian Parent Advisory Council resolution. Whereas on the 24th day of January, 2026, we, the Lakeville Area Schools APAC, issued a vote of concurrence. No further action is required beyond the board chair signature, which completes the annual compliance process. The compliance documents will be submitted to the state before the March 1st deadline. This concludes the American Indian resolution for the 2526 school year. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions? >> Questions. >> Dr. Thompson. >> Yeah. So So I've got two questions. I don't know if it's uh if this is the appropriate form to uh to discuss them so we can uh table it if need be. I recall maybe last year or two years ago we had challenges identifying individuals and we wanted to put some sort of robust mechanism in place uh because I think the state of Minnesota had different designation we had different designation we didn't know how to capture that and that would have resulted in a um a a higher count but additional funding that we could then leverage to make the program larger and then the second question that I had was um last year there were six areas of focus that you guys did, how did you progress, did you make any progress? Uh, and then the new ones that you've got going on for this coming year, can you give us an example or is that for another discussion? So, those are the two questions I have. >> Probably for another discussion. >> Okay, that's fine. We can bring that to another meeting. >> Sure. >> Or good. >> Thank you. >> Unless Amy, do you want to address it right now? You're welcome to. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> sure. On the fly. Um, so as far as identifying our students, um, I think we've got a really good handle on that. Um, I've been partnering a lot more and getting a lot more information, um, through those that are enrolling um, that might be new to our district. Um, so I do have that in place for that. Um and as far as um how we're doing achieving um with the goals for this year, I'm one major um thing that was written into the plan was to add an additional uh team member which I am very happy to say we have um Maya Contraras who joined us right before the winter break and um she's been in every one of the schools already. I think she gave me a tally of she's already met over half of our native students in all the schools. Um she actually interviewed um our Sienna Warren Warner Warren who um was our art contest winner. There were actually um about 25 art pieces and it's K12 so it's not by grade. So, it was a huge honor for her as a fourth grader to actually get second place. So, we're really proud of her for that. Um, and we've been incorporating a lot more. As you heard, I was trying to use my Ojiway language. Um, and so that's something that we are working to um incorporate in for all of our students. Um and then Maya is also Lakota, so she is bringing in um also the Lakota language um which is actually part of state statute that we need to do that with as a district of over a 100 Native American students. So does that give you some director Thompson? I >> I appreciate that context and it probably sounds like we probably should have another meeting. I mean when I just think through 180 students, how much funding are we getting? Do you have enough funding? What are the things that you plan on doing this year? what are the objectives that you want to accomplish and how can the board support you along the way but probably for >> we can have a further discussion on that at a later meeting if you'd like. >> Absolutely. I'd like to be prepared. >> Any other any other questions or comments from members? I'd just like to say thank you and thank you for um Mr. um Johnson. There we go. Your service on on this committee. It's great um to see parental involvement and thank you Miss um Gersmeire for all you do for the district too. So thank you. >> I understood what you said. All right. And with that, uh, we will move to state of the schools from our middle school team. Um, we have with us tonight principal from Maguire Middle School, uh, Dr. Joshua Alexander. Principal from Century Middle School, Jason Baky, and principal at Kenwood Middle School, Kelly McDermott. So, thank you all for uh, being here tonight. >> We go by height, so >> I'm the shortest. So, uh, thank you for having us here tonight. Uh madame chair, board members, um we are here to talk about middle school and kind of the state of middle school. Um we're going to kind of break it up into a little bit about a little history lesson to start because we were here four years ago when we first came back to middle school. Uh we had a lot of good conversation about that. We've moved forward into our programming. We're going to talk about what the day in the life looks like for a sixth, seventh, and eighth grader. And we've also got some video of that uh for our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. uh and then also some of the supports that we offer to our kids. So, but I I get to kind of kick us off here. Uh Miss McDerman will go next and then Mr. Baky will kind of kind of finish us off here. So, um for that, do we have a clicker? Am I Are we the clicker? Are you the clicker? You are the clicker. There we go. So, we are three buildings. We are three cats, but we really try hard to make sure that we do things very similar across all three middle schools when it comes to programming, when it comes to support, how we do things with our kids, uh very systematically uh is how we try to do things. And this was embedded about four years ago as we started to look at what middle school is. And with that, we we came to you guys four years ago and we said we we really want to put forward that middle school model, getting it back. um sixth, seventh, and eighth grade kiddos working hard to work on their academic side, their core balance and their core beliefs and getting them not just from elementary to high school, but having a nurturing side in their academics happen all the way through. And so with that, we really focus in and we we thought we should start with what is a middle school. And it's different than a junior high. Most of us probably went to a junior high school, which is a smaller high school where you're all over the place. You don't have those adults who are really cou on you. Uh but with that, our teachers uh work on teams. We're going to talk about that here in just a minute, but we really hit those core courses uh through the day. We we're going to talk about English language arts, math, science, social studies. Um and then with that, we work to get them more independent from their their time coming in from elementary as a sixth grader to getting them ready for high school um into that eighth grade year. So with that uh we kind of have to understand a little bit about what's our core courses what's an elective and also what is an exploratory course. So Mr. Baky so with that our core academics that we have that we offer as I talked about English language arts mathematics science social studies we also could have physical education as a core course depending upon the grade level. We might have health or we might have literacy as a core course depending upon the grade level. But across all of our grade levels those four pieces hit the core. Now, we do offer exploratories and we wanted to be able to identify to you guys what exploratories are. Uh because exploratories for our kids are what all of our kids get. We provide these things as things that are good for them. So, if you think back four years ago for those board members who were here, we talked about what those explore options would be. We talked to our parents about what those explore options should be for our kids. We we did talk to our parents and they said we want certain things for our kids to have here in Lakeville. And so, for us, those could be things for the exploratory for all the kids are wheel classes. So, uh, industrial tech and STEM, uh, family and consumer science, media arts, uh, visual arts, Spanish is our is our foreign language that we chose at that time. Um, but then also having some elective offerings and so our kids and differentiating between explore where everybody gets those the elective the kids actually get to choose. And with that, you're choosing between whether it's a band opportunity, a coral music opportunity, or whether it's a music exploration opportunity for our kids. Now, what makes a middle school different than a junior high is, as I talked about, our teachers are on teams. Our kids are on teams. And so, each one of us, we have two teams per grade level. Um, so with that, we have six teams total for our uh across our buildings. But with that, those interdisciplinary teams uh take care of a core group of kids, whether it's 150 kids, 160 kids, 175 kids. Those core group of teachers have those kids throughout the day. They can do interdisciplinary things with them. But during their team meetings that they do have during the day, they really focus in on what are the needs of our kids. Do we have kids who need extra? Do we have do we need to bring in parents? Do we need to bring on our community? Uh and really having that time to really wrap around our kids, not only academically, but socially, emotionally, uh and really supporting them throughout those three years. And that's what makes middle school really special. I think you'll see the M on all of our foreheads here. Uh as we are middle school people through and through. Now, we also offer kind of a developmental support for our kiddos as well. Uh, all of us offer an advisory time, but within that advisory time, our kids get to choose. Um, and you heard our kazoo band. That's their win time. What I need, they chose that as part of an option for them at Kenwood. Uh, but there can also be options of I need to retake a test. I need to get help with Spanish. I need to go weld. I need to do some other things. Um, so with that, our kids get to choose three days out of the week where they want to go and the teachers that they want to do that with. So that's what also makes middle school middle schools kind of special. So as I hand it over to Miss McDermott here, we brought some things. These just happen to be from Meguire. I asked my uh wheel teachers to kind of wrangle some things. The artwork that you see in front of you, uh those are done by our kiddos as well. Uh and don't forget the art fair 2nd through the 20th at the art center. Uh those will have a lot of Maguire, Kenwood, and Century Kids uh doing their artwork there, too. So with that, uh we're going to leave those here for you tonight and you can kind of take a look. So, I'm going to kick it over to Miss McDermott and I'll move. And so, >> all right. >> Next up. >> All right. So, we're going to walk through a day in the life of a sixth grader, a seventh grader, and an eighth grader. So, you get an idea. So, in sixth grade, every day our students have their core classes. So, they have English, they have math, their social studies is Minnesota studies, and then their science is earth science. So, they have that every day. Plus, then they have their advisory every day, three days a week. And advisory is their wind time. And then we have every other day classes. So we call them day one, day two. Uh so one day uh one team will be in physical education. The other team will be in their music electives. So students will be in their band, their choir or their music exploration class. And then we have our term classes that are seven weeks. Um and so those are our wheel classes. Um and then also health and literacy. So uh those are two hours out of the day. Um, and that's when our teachers then are on prep or in their team time. So, one team would be in health one term and the other team is in literacy and then they switch off back and forth. And then for the wheel classes, we have facts, visual arts, media arts, STEM, and Spanish. And you can see what they do there. We differentiate each grade level. So, what they learn in sixth grade in those wheel classes is different from what they do in seventh grade and what they do in eighth grade. and we really want to give them an experience so they get a little bit of um a dip each year in those three areas. So then by the time they're in eighth grade and they're registering for high school and they're choosing their paths at North or South that they have a good idea of which route that they want to go. So that's a day in the life of sixth grade and you're going to hear from some of our sixth grade students next. Was prepping for that. We had a chance to have a sixth grader Yeah. All right, I'm going to turn that off. Um, of a seventh grader is very similar to a day in the life of a sixth grader. Um what's different is in seventh grade the social studies is US history science is life science but they still have their four classes advisory and windtime. They still have every other day uh fied and music electives. So they have band choir and music explorations. And then they still have their term classes. So they still go every other term between health and literacy. And then the wheel classes. So they still have facts, visual arts, media arts, STEM and Spanish. And you can see there behind each of the wheel classes what is different. So in seventh grade facts they're going to be sewing their lanyards. Dr. A brought some examples here. In the kitchen they're cooking, visual arts, their print making and drawing. Media arts. It's more of the motion sound comics. So it's different um STEM woodworking. I think we have some of the woodworking pieces here for you. So, it's different than what it was when they were in sixth grade taking those wheel classes. >> Oh. Oh, seventh grade was going to go. >> I don't know. >> We'll give it a try. >> Jesus. The hardest thing that I've learned this year is figuring out all the cells and the cell organels inside of science. The hardest thing I've learned this year was to not procrastinate and do my work later >> in science where I just like couldn't really study like this one part cuz it was like really hard and I just had to go home and like keep practicing and practicing. I finally got it. I got a 10 out of 10 on my test. So, >> we are very kind, very caring, very helpful. Um, very welcoming. Um, especially Dr. A and all the deans and stuff. They are very very understanding and um the teachers really know how to bring a smile to my face good and bad days. They all know how to how to help kids out through things and stuff. I would say my group of friends always make my day better. They always talk and hang out with me and like ask things like are you okay? Um how's your day been? Like what you been doing? We have to strive to make like other schools think of us as like their leader and they follow us. It makes us different from other schools in the area. All right. And then a day in the life of an eighth grade student. So same thing for our core classes, English, math, uh social studies as global studies. Um little piece that is different is physical education and health are every day now in 8th grade. So that is part of the core we call it and then they have physical science as their science class. They still have the advisory and wind time. Um for everyday classes we don't have the every other day like you don't see the day one day two like we had in sixth and seventh grade when they get into eighth grade. So they do have FIAD and health is um about a quarter about 9 weeks our FIAD teachers will take the students out of the gym and teach them health. So that's everyday which we love in 8th grade and then they have everyday elective. So they have their music elective, band, choir or music explorations. And then uh some of our students are in sports and society. So that is what looks a little different for our eighth graders. And then we have our term classes on the wheel. The facts, visual arts, media arts, STEM, and Spanish. So, day in the life of an eighth grader. I learned scientific notation in math and it was challenging but I think with the help of like teachers and asking for the extra sparkly >> everything in math really because it's just like so hard and stuff like just understanding like what's happening and stuff. My math teacher Mr. Haleyard he's like amazing like he posts YouTube videos and stuff which is like really helpful so watching those like really helps. We are responsible. We show engagement. We are very safe and inclusive here. And it's overall just a great atmosphere. And everybody is always so kind and welcoming. Finding the people you enjoy being around and learning from the people you don't and just like getting to know like what you like. >> Uh so we are as Dr. Ray mentioned earlier, we are middle school junkies. We we love it and we know that it takes a village uh to raise a child and we have a lot of other middle school junkies uh that surround and support us uh every single day and are here to lay out what some of those other support systems are for our students and we'll start with our assistant principles and our deans of students. Uh we do have three at each middle school and as you may recall that is an addition this year and we are very grateful that we shifted from two last year to three uh this current year. And what that really allows our our deans to do is to focus on one grade level at a time in supporting not only the students of that grade level, but the staff of that grade level as well. And it allows those deans to loop with the students all three years uh throughout the system. So they'll start in sixth grade and then they'll follow that group of students to seventh grade and then to eighth grade. So it gives the opportunity for those deans to really uh nurture some positive relationships uh with our students. Uh they do everything from building the schedule to being in the hallways to helping those sixth graders with their lockers every single day to helping students navigate and figure out how to adjust to sixth grade life and to be that sort of transition in seventh grade. And then in eighth grade uh they're helping guide them through that uh high school registration process and the transitions that take place as they move on to the next level. Our deans are also very supportive with our teachers attending those team meetings that Dr. Alexander was mentioning a little bit earlier. Uh they are uh instructional coaches uh for our teachers with the professional development days that we had this year. So we're very very grateful grateful that they're able to support our students and our families and kind of be that connection uh between the home and the teachers and the and the students. Uh in addition to our deans of students, uh we have a student support specialist uh at every building that is a licensed social worker or a licensed counselor. In that student support specialist will work uh with our students mainly in the SEAL uh categories, students that are just having a rough day. I don't know what it was like for you in middle school. Do you remember your 11 to 14year-old self? Some days can be hard. And our student support specialists, uh, they step in and they meet the students where they're at, whether it's difficulty coming to school, they're just having a bad day, something in their family might have happened, uh, and they team up with our deans really, really closely in attending team meetings and helping navigate what are the next steps we need to take with some of our students uh, that are having some difficulties. Uh, alongside the student support specialist, each school has a psychologist. uh psychologist primarily works with students who have individual education plans. They're helping the case managers uh with paperwork. They're doing psyche valves for students. They're really trying to take a look at the IEP and the goals and objectives that students have and to provide that support system around them. Uh we also have student success liaison in every building and we are very thankful to have them partnering with us to help meet the needs of some of our students and some of our families that have difficulty accessing some of the supports both within the school and within the community. In rounding things out, we're very supportive at the middle level to have a school resource officer that provides that link to the Lakeville Police Department. Um primarily the school resource officer is there to help all of us feel safe. We know that we need to feel safe uh when we come to school. We need to feel like somebody is there uh to protect and to guide us. But in addition to that, what is really unique about the resource officer uh at the middle school that we all share is that uh that resource officer is there for education. They team up with our teachers on getting into classrooms and helping students understand some of the legalities are out there, some of the challenges that our youth are currently facing and navigating and walking alongside. We'll often times see our SRO's in the in the cafeteria interacting with students. So students no longer look at police officers as I'm scared of that person, but more I want to connect uh wi with that with that person. So very very thankful to have all of those supports uh for our students uh and our and our families. I want to take just a minute to talk a little bit about the other aspect of things. We hit the the academics, but what is a a driving force and what is so special about the middle school is having students explore and to try different activities or athletics. As you can see the top uh one there is athletics. We offer three different seasons of sports uh and activities for our students, very similar to what the high school does. And you can get an idea of what students can sign up for in the fall or in the winter and in the spring. And something that we would just love, especially our elementary folks who might be uh tuning in and listening here, is that these are very nonthreatening environments. Uh you can if you've never played tennis before and you want to take up tennis, go for it. That's great. You know, we'll often times get over a hundred students that are participating in cross country. They just want to be around each other and that social aspect is so important at the middle level because it's about connecting with somebody else and trying something new. And speaking of something new, when we move on into our activities and the clubs that we offer, every fall, our activities department and our teachers put together a club booklet for our students that typically comes out in October. And then our students have a wide variety of activities and clubs to choose from. And these can be really initiated in two different ways. They can be initiated by a staff member who says, "I love chess and I want to have a chess club and I'm very passionate about it and I want to provide a space for our students to to participate and to learn more about that." But what I find really awesome about middle school students is when they come up with the idea and they say, "I would love to start this club because it means something to me and it means something to my friends." And then they find a staff member that would like to, you know, team up with them and then they they can take that and they can run with it. Some of the clubs are small. There might be 10 students in the club. They meet after school one day a week and others might be a little bit larger. You can see we have the example of the musical there. Century Middle School just had an awesome performance of Annie Jr. We're very thankful for the high volumes of parents and students that participated in that. And we had over a hundred students uh participate in that as members of of the cast and crew. And once again, just similar to the athletics, these are very non-threatening environments for our students where they just want to be a part of something. So, as kids transition into the middle school and work their way through the middle school, we do believe that this is an integral part of their experience, we want them to be academically solid, but we also want them to be socially engaged and to get to know other students and to experience something new. And then finally, just rounding out and circling back with the athletics, we know that some of our students um are really, really gifted and talented. And those students do have the opportunity uh to participate and to try out for high school teams. And then we have a number of strong booster club associations as well that offer a wide variety uh for our students with the athletics that you may not see on the screen there. And the last thing that I would just like to reference before we close things out here is I know that um uh Director Cameron talked a little bit at the very beginning of the meeting about the excitement and the need uh within the middle schools and we're feeling the pinch and the the board knows the pinch and we we we took some actions to adjust things for our boundaries and personally at Century Middle School it's going to be difficult for us to lose some of our current sixth and seventh graders as they transition to Kenwood. And I know we have some students from Kenwood that are transitioning uh to to Meuire Middle School. And that is going to be helpful uh for the next year or two. But as you can see by the chart here on the left, we know where we currently stand and we know how the numbers are growing. And don't get me wrong, it's a good problem to have. We love it that families want to to move to Lakeville. uh we know that there's going to be an increase of 8% over the next five years. And in order for us to open our doors uh and welcome our students into the building and to continue to provide the positive educational uh experiences for our students, we need the space uh to be able to to to do that. Um so uh we just encourage people that have questions to reach out to any one of the three of us. We're happy to to connect with you. We're happy to show you our buildings and you can certainly learn more about uh the the referendum at isd194.org/vote. So with that, that concludes our formal presentation and we would be happy to take any comments or questions that you may have. >> Great. Thanks for the presentation, Director Baker. So, back a couple slides. Um, you were talking about the deans and how you now have three at for one for each grade level. Um, my question revolves around um what responsibility do the deans have um with helping alleviate some of the administrative burden on principles for example um staff observations, you know, discipline, things like that. And I ask because some of the larger middle schools in the area um choose to have like an assistant principal as one of those roles and then the other two are deans just to kind of so that you have someone to help with that. So I'm just curious as to what that model looks like. >> Yep. I'll dive in to speak to that a little bit and then my counterart my counterparts can can add on a little bit. Number one, yes, it does certainly help with uh the the teacher observations uh as well and it helps with the the coaching and the mentoring of our new students uh that come into the building. Uh but it really gets us back to a point where we can be more proactive with students and teachers rather than reactive. And when you can attach yourself to one grade level and you get to know those students really well, you establish relationships with them and you know what the students need. And when you know what they need, then you can better be proactive about meeting those needs. And a lot of that time is being in the classrooms with students, with teachers, engaged in the learning versus I'm in the office and students are just coming to me all the time and I'm just overwhelmed. So, it's helped us to flip that script a little bit. >> Director Thompson, do you have your hand? You had your hand up, right? >> Yeah. Go for it. >> I've got like five questions, but I'll just I'll start. I'll fire off with the first two and then pause and give it to the floor. Um so three years ago we had to do a $7 million cut and we made a um uh the middle school team had to make the the biggest impact in in in that effort by rearranging your schedule and so forth. Uh part of that rearranging of schedule, we ended up reducing the amount of ea time reading to English. I believe it was two classes and we dropped it down to like just one and a half. So it's been a couple years. So, I'm just curious to know uh if if if the lack of that additional half an hour has uh if the data has shown if the academics have have been uh staying sta staying still or if they've declined just a little bit. And then my secondary question on top of that is with this new seventh wheel program, we've got uh our kids participating in a variety of different topics. I think that's great. Uh, but do we have are we do we have too much equipment where they don't have enough time to actually do things? So, as an example that we like I had a chance to walk through Kenwood Middle School and you guys have this massive like wood shopping c or space where you widow wood I'm sure or whatever they do. Um, but the the the STEM or the seven weeks that the seven rotation program is so short. So, I'm just wondering like does some of that stuff move? Does it not? Do we take adv are we are we underutilizing the things that we have there because of the seventh wheel program? So those are the two questions that I have right now and I'll I'll come back to a couple others. >> All right, I'm going to take the ELA question for you. Um couple of things with that is we are in um our standardsbased review process and so it's very hard to tell any impacts because we are shifting to new standards. So we were under that, right? And we have a new MCA test and so we can't compare our old data to our new data because we have a new MCA test. So that's one thing. And then two, we're going to be adopting new curriculum and so it's it's hard to tell because we don't have we won't have accurate data to be able to look at. So we don't have a baseline. um our new standards with the shifting there is reciprocity there which means we have to be teaching everything together and before we were teaching it separately in the two courses and so if you remember when we did talk about it we did have to make the shift because of the new standards. So um we need to see what the data is going to show and then also getting our staff this new curriculum and stuff. Sandy and her team have been doing a really amazing job with our staff and there's a lot of energy and excitement with our literacy teachers and our ELA teachers. So, we're hopeful um that we're still moving in the right direction despite having to make those changes. So, time will tell with what the data is going to show. >> I get to answer your STEM question. So, with I think it's more than STEM you're asking about wheel and fitting everything in. So we are guided by the times we have in the day and within that amount of time you have to fit in all of your cores, your musics, your standards that the state wants you to have. And with that when we were in front of you before we said we can fit these certain things in for all the kids to have an experience. And so you're not only balancing what the state needs as requirements, you're also balancing can I fit kids into classes? Can I have them move through? Do I have enough classes for my kids to take? And so with that, that's where we kind of have the jumping off point. Um, so with that, that seven-week time, is it fast? Yes. Is it ideal? No. Would we love to have 10 weeks or 12 weeks or things like that? Yes. But can we fit that into a a schedule that would work for all of our kids in our community and and be cost effective for our board? Probably not. Because again, you're you're talking about a lot more options for our kids that you'd have to be able to offer. Now, have our teachers done a fantastic job to be able to get a seventh grade kiddo to not only cut the wood, but make make it look like a chair at the end of the product? Um, or be able to do a clay project in a seven-week piece. I mean, your our teachers have done such a great job with our kids in that short amount of time to create products that you see here. Um, and with that, it's not just the products, it's the skills from the artwork that you have right in front of you as well. So, in that seven weeks, a lot happens and there is no downtime. they go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go and at the end of the term we get a new new group of kids transitioning and they go into that next class so would we love to have more absolutely um trying to fit into a schedule would be a challenge because I can remember having the conversation with you three years ago or four years ago and you said I want to see another schedule and I said sir we offered you five schedules and I remember that like it was yesterday and so with that it was like this is what we can do with what we have >> other questions director Anderson >> yes I will come back to I mean I do feel like we're bringing up some history here in terms of a levy a couple years ago that did not pass that aimed to increase counselor support in your schools. Um, so I realize that you have one student support specialist. Psychologist term here is not providing counseling support generally, right? It's more sped and and that. Um, so I guess I'm wondering where you all feel you stand in terms of what your needs are as we consider future levies. Do >> you want Sure. >> Yeah. when we were talking about the systems of support that you you see up there on on the screen. Um it it is really really difficult and next to impossible to do what we want to do under the current model. Um going back to what what you asked Miss Baker regarding uh the the role of the deans that has helped tremendously but it's not enough. I mean, in an ideal sense, we would love to see one student support specialist and one dean per grade level. Now, they're looping in tandem. And you take a thousand students currently at Century for one student support specialist, do the math. There is nothing okay or right about that. And it's just extremely challenging. So, in an ideal world, looking ahead to the future, the third dean has helped, but really two additional people are needed in each middle school to to truly meet uh the needs of our students. >> Dr. Thompson, I'm going to circle back to you now. >> Thank you. Um yeah, I think the high school model, we were fortunate to be able to put four deans plus four uh advis counselors and and so if the student support specialist was similar in that manner, it would one would one could argue, yeah, you should have you should have something similar to that. And a thousand students in each middle school, we've got 3,000 middle school students. That's crazy. And and we've got 3,000 more coming. And so I' I think I've seen your face a couple times on social media. I don't think there I think there's a couple videos or some there's a couple videos going around. Uh so this would be my plague also that we do have a levy coming up. Uh the board made a decision to expand the middle schools. It's about $150 million. Uh decided to go down that path versus building a brand new middle school which is $250 million. And so there's some cost savings there but enables us to be able to uh grow uh skill for growth as as we move forward over the next few years. Um I do have uh my last question is the this daily experiences. So we did get some results last year uh in the spring and and obviously there's a uh traditional drop off from elementary to middle school to high school and I believe the data that I was looking at showed that are um the the daily experiences are usually around the 85 90% for elementary. Then they realize oh this is middle school we have no recess. there's less time to maybe goof around in the schedule uh structured schedules. Uh but that but the daily experience metrics like are like in the mid60s and so while I'm not an expert I'm just curious uh there's a lot of activities that they can do. They've got these wheel these wheel programs now but these are the scores from spring of last year. So just curious um are you guys doing anything? What are you guys doing? What do you think? Or is that candidly of expected? like is 65 a good number for sixth graders? I just don't know what they're doing. I don't know. >> So, can we always improve? Yes, we can always improve and we always look to how can we improve and we talk to our kids about how can we improve. Um, but if you look about some of the daily desired experience responses of the I don't want to do homework. Well, it's it's school. We have homework, you know, so that brings down a daily desired experience. Or I want more time with my friends. That's great. However, I need math to be taught in science. And so, some of those things get dropped down because of those when we dig a little bit deeper into the data. Um, but we're always trying to improve. I think our key that you see though, the as part of our one daily desired piece is do they feel cared for and and accepted by the adults in the building. I think we're like the 75th to 85th range. um that to us is very telling uh that our teachers and our staff are really doing a great job with our kids relationship building and making sure that there's a connection with an adult and that is the data that I really look at. So one thing that I would add on there is a lot of the students when they get to the middle school they want longer passing times, they want longer lunches. >> Yep. >> Those two things are critically important. >> And no homework. >> And no homework. >> Dr. Anderson. Um, sorry. So, one of the things that has changed at the high school level is with bar with moving that in for 9th graders. Um, I guess I'm wondering with at the middle school level, do you feel like all of that is being addressed in teams or is there anything additional like in terms of how the teams are functioning or is there something additional that bar would help with at that level? Well, with our team time, we are able to um look at the data and be able to see where our students are at. So, we don't have bar, but we have that built-in time. And with going to having three deans per grade level, it's helped being intentional with having an administrator at those team meetings weekly. So, I know like in my building weekly we're looking at the reports and I know each of our buildings are getting the weekly reports, the EWS's. So, we're able to see what students are failing, where our attendance rates are at, where our behavior data is at, and we're looking at that weekly and then we're having conversations around our students. And then we're intentional about what students were pulling in for win time. We've rearranged our advisory schedule this year. Our shared leadership team has looked at that and we've rearranged things like how we operate. So we're able to look at our data first then schedule kids into win time our time when our deans are able to go in and meet with the teachers and stuff. So we don't have bar but we have team and that seal piece and that time when the you know the school psych the student support specialist the dean can go in um principles are able to go in that is so valuable and we are looking at our student data and being more intentional about it and this year I feel like we've been able to do a better job with that because we have added another administrator um to the team and so um hopefully we'll see improvement um with that I also think with the the DDE with having that extra administrator we have been able to be able to support students better with that too. So I'm hopeful that our scores will have increased because of that too. But teaming really does lend itself to be able to to look at our data and support our students. But having another counselor or two would be able to help us because then you'd have the whole wrap around there. >> Other questions? Dr. Thompson. So my my last question is very similar I think what you asked was like if we had if you had $500,000 each, right? I mean obviously you the student support specialist has been a huge function in supporting your efforts as we prepare for uh the upcoming budget for next year. We've got conversations that we need to have. We've got the budget that needs to be approved by end of June. Uh be curious like I I think uh a month ago we had the elementary staff here and there and um uh I think was it Dstrom? Professor Principal Dstrom said that he wanted more tutors and recess support so that 300 kids aren't running wild out in the in the backyard playground. But uh what would you need or would like from a resource support, a tech support or other need uh in addition to the student support specialist that that you shared earlier? Well, we could all say it at the same time that we want interventionists. We have this conversation all the time that we need uh math and reading interventionists at each of our buildings. Um for sure it is a need um we each need at least two at least two per building. So you yeah one math one reading at each building plus you would need to add two student support specialists. And if you really wanted to be nice, you could throw in a social worker at each building, too. So, there you go. There's your F. You asked for it. So, but we we need intervention, math and reading intervention at the middle level. >> Any other questions from the board? >> All right. Well, thank you so much for coming tonight and all you do to support support our kids. >> All right. Um, we'll move to the LTF bond sale update. Director um Homegrren and then Shelby McQuay of Ellers is are here tonight to walk us through this. So, thank you for for being here. >> Uh yes, good evening. Um directors of the board, Superintendent Bowman. Yes, tonight we have a just kind of a a update on the on the LTFM bond sale that'll be coming up next month and we have Shelby McQuay here from Ellers to give you that information. All right. Um, Madam Chair, members of the board, Superintendent Bowman, uh, you have the pre-sale report in front of you. It's, um, what you've seen in the past for your other bond issues. It's broken up into uh, three sections kind of. Um, first the authority, uh, which is, uh, um, board authority to issue the debt for certain types of projects like deferred maintenance. Uh and then that uh that resolution was adopted in conjunction with your tenure plan this summer uh at the July 22nd meeting. The second kind of uh areas of the report just touch on the issuance and the sale of the debt. It'll be about an 11-year bond 20.6 million and we're anticipating about a 3 um 09% interest rate on those bonds given current market conditions along with the premium uh um structure. meaning that the bond holders will pay more than the face value of the bonds. Uh and you'll be able to use that as a deposit in your construction fund. Uh the sale will be competitive. We'll get a rating on the bonds. Um and we have that that process set up. And then the kind of the last section of the pre-sale report just uh outlines a few of your obligations. Uh once you have uh uh taxexempt debt on the market, uh you already have taxexempt debt out there on the market. you're already um abiding by those um um disclosure items and so this will just be part of that ongoing disclosure. Uh the last couple items just the timeline and then the the overall um uh schedules, the sources and uses and then your long-term facilities maintenance debt plan. Uh the last page just represents where we're trying to keep that tax impact nice and level uh while still uh making sure that you're completing all the diverted maintenance projects that you have on your on your list and not um not affecting taxes up and down as a result of some of those uh initiatives that you're undergoing on an annual basis. So I'm happy to answer any questions. This is purelyformational tonight and the action item was already done this summer. >> All right, great. Uh Director Carbone. Yeah, thank you. Um, what what type of bond rating are you anticipating? >> So, the district currently has a bond um rating, an underlying bond rating of an A1. You're rated by Moody's. You'll also uh you're also participating in the state credit enhancement program, which is uh essentially like an insurance program. So, when the bond holders look at your bonds, they'll see the uh essentially the double A1 rating, which is one notch down from the state's AAA rating. So, uh, they'll it'll it'll be insured to that degree, but your underlying rating is an A1, and we don't anticipate um um much movement from that. >> Okay. Very good. Thank you. >> Other questions, Director Thompson? >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. Um, I think this is a second time for for me going through this exercise. Uh, was it last year or maybe two years ago? two years ago, uh, we took out a $20 million bond and, uh, I think right before that, our rating at a district did drop. And so there are other school districts that I think were maybe in the double A's or or AAA's, but at the time of our financial scenario, we were we we we ended up going down one. Um, I don't know if it would be a major difference for us to be at a double A and have lower interest rates, but I'm assuming there is, but I don't know how much material how material that that would be. Uh, I think that for me the biggest issue that I that not even an issue but just more and I talked about this two years ago is that as we take on more debt, $20,000 eventually we'll have to pay that interest back and and so every year we take out $20 million, we we we fix things. Uh, in the next two years we take out another 20 million and we fix things. Uh but as we continue to pay interest on five uh transactions of $20 million by the sixth transaction, what we have to pay is half or 60% interest or whatever maybe. Obviously, we're going to try to get to a tax rate of about that 20% number. Uh which is where we want to be. Uh but I think I just I don't know that that we just take out loans every two years to and we need to because our maintenance issues that they need that need to get taken care of. Uh but for us as a board, we need to think about uh when an operating levy or or a capital budget levy, I know we've had some conversations I think uh that's coming u some conversations that we just had about that. Uh that is just one thing to think about. Again, we we're taking out a loan for $20 million every two years and eventually it's going to be a point where we're paying a lot of interest. That's all. >> Dr. Anderson. Yeah, I think my question was um somewhat maybe captured in what you said to the in the beginning, which was I know that our rating went down, but it has gone back up to some degree. >> You're assuming >> it doesn't move quite that fast. Well, I always call it like a grade point average, right? It's quick to go down and very slow to go back up, but um >> So, we're at the same that we were two years ago. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Maybe next year. >> But we do have a call with Moody's next month. Right. >> Uh yes, we have a call scheduled with them. So we will get a rating on the bonds. It it certainly could go up or down. Uh they like to see a lot of trend when they start to move. >> Just want to make sure everybody knows that. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Oh, go ahead, Director Swanson. Oh, sorry, Anderson. Go >> ahead then Swanson. >> I was just going to say it it does seem like we're obviously showing a trend in the positive direction in terms of what's in our savings account and our general funds. So it's just hoping hopeful, but maybe we won't go that fast. >> Dr. Wisconsin. >> Yeah. I mean, is this just a reality for school districts across the state and this is how you fund your, you know, your deferred maintenance through LTFM bonds. And >> so, um, >> this kind of structure, >> Madam Chair, members of the board, you are um considered a big 1A district, meaning that you fall under this sort of grandfathered structure, which allows you to exceed your 380 per pupil of LTFM. So every other of the 330 districts around the state besides the so every about 302 districts around the state are limited to the 380 per pup people. You as a 1A district are allowed to um put on your LTFM plan the expenditures that you have and fund those through a mix of PIGO and of bonds. So, every year you have about $20 million of deferred maintenance bonds or excuse me, deferred maintenance projects each year on the LTFM plan. So, every other year, uh, we're looking at about an issuance of $20 million to fund a portion of those projects and then the rest is just coming from just a levy on your tax base. So, essentially paying cash. So, so you're not bonding for the full amount of the projects. um but you are bonding for a portion in order to keep the taxes nice and level over time. So um while this isn't a luxury that all school districts in the state have to be able to keep and maintain their facilities, uh most I would say of the 1A districts uh do a combination of bond and and levy. >> And just to remind the board and the and the community, nothing is changing in terms of what was approved. This is just an update on what the board already approved. Um I forget the date you said, but that's correct. Yeah, last July 22nd. Yeah, last. Yep. Great. Director Thompson. >> Yeah. I mean, and this is just more of a a financial philosophy of do we want to go to the public and ask for $20 million every two years uh as a capital budget and and use that to make, you know, m maintenance updates, you know, continuously. Uh it's just that we've got so many buildings, they're older. Uh we've got some newer ones. Uh but but again eventually as we continue to do this the $20 million loans that we take out every two years like eventually we got to we got to pay it back and so the full $20 million uh you know you know half of it ends up being debt payments and the other half is what we can actually consume. So, are we just kicking the can down the road versus do we need to do a capital budget for an XYZ dollars to kind of recalibrate where we where our building infrastructure is at so that we don't have to take out $20 million loans every two years. But those are just thoughts out loud. Go ahead. Great. >> Mr. Swson, >> Dr. Swanson. >> Oh, I mean, what you're saying is essentially if you were able to do a levy and kind of get ahead of the payments, so then you save the money on the interest payments, right? So then instead of making interest payments, you're banking money, you know, that you'd use on future payments and >> future maintenance. >> Dr. Anderson, >> it's a really great idea in theory and it's like we are continuing to consider levies that are targeted towards student student needs in the in the buildings. And so I feel like we already kind of have a challenge communicating to our um community about the needs where and there and the perception that we're always coming for more. So I can't imagine I love the idea from a financial perspective and it would be a difficult cell to do that. >> I mean it would free up money for student needs too though. >> It would >> all that interest. >> Any other questions? Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you for being here tonight. I appreciate it. >> Yes. We'll be back um with the results of the sale next month. Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. With that, we'll move to uh section five, sorry, section six of our agenda. Um the achievement and integration plan. So, um, at our last work session two weeks ago, uh, we discussed the, um, achievement integration plan that the district is recommending implementing, um, at length with, um, and thank you for being here, both of you. Director Nicole Adams, um, director of school and continuous improvement, and Jamie um, Shoemaker, achievement and integration coordinator. Um, you all weren't planning on doing a presentation, correct? So I have a little I have a summary from what we discussed. Um >> so at our work session we discussed that um the plan requires three different types of goals. Achievement goal, an integration goal, and a teacher equity goal. Um and that the plan was that was presented to us to achieve um things within those three categories was really rooted in robust data analysis of what's been happening in our district and um where where the needs are as a result of that data. um and I believe we discussed that um at length at our work session. So the three um kind of in a nutshell um that are that are also in the board packet are around um the achievement goal is to look at fastbridge scores um and addressing achievement gap that is resulting um from from our fastbridge um uh uh reading scores in particular. Correct. Uh the integration goal is around um looking at our district's use of exclusionary discipline um particularly against students of color finding that we have a much higher rate um of using exclusionary discipline for students of color. And then the uh teacher equity goal is around um fully implementing in the district's Lakeville framework which the district and board have approved uh to develop and implement a um an equity framework and infrastructure that will include researchbased um uh practices and policies create a professional development plan and better align teacher evaluation to the new state standards. So tonight um uh this plan is being brought forward to the board um for consideration for approval. Uh and so with that I would entertain a motion to approve the um achievement and integration plan as presented in the board packet. We will get to discussion too. >> I make a motion. >> Uh first by director Baker is our second by director Anderson. Uh discussion. >> Yeah. Director Thompson. >> All right. Uh so I had a chance to listen to the board uh meeting uh two weeks ago. So thank you for uh going over that and and and talking to the board. I I've got a a series of a question. So I'll try to parse it out a little bit and then let other folks kind of chat along the way. I just want to make sure I understand the the design of the 2026 29 ANI focus plan. This is the second time us going for for a few of us going through this. Um the first one's the achievement plan. Uh it it says that the goal this goal is target the student with the largest achievement gap uh achievement gap Latino and Hispanic students compared to white students. And so we're very specific about just those two demographics. And so I wonder I'm I'm looking to learn more about that. So I I for for from my understanding I thought that whatever we were doing uh it is um applied to all students. Uh and and so we're not segregating or anything around who can get the delivery services or or not. The integration section talks about how we are going to look at the key metrics uh and we'll examine the higher rates at which black students and Latino and Hispanic students are suspended uh out of out of the school compared to white students. That like that's that's what I'm reading. And so I'd love to hear the data on on if you guys did any research, why were they suspended? Did it actually warrant a suspension? And then why would we like So I'm looking to learn more. Uh why but if if the the issue warranted a suspension, we're just applying the rule and and people are following we're just following the students are following the rules and and and and our disciplinary policy. And then the third thing that I see here is teacher equity where we're going to develop implementation of a district-wide equity framework and infrastructure. So I'm looking to understand uh what does that mean because again we do state that this effort will complement the Lakeville framework. Uh but I don't know I couldn't read where equity framework was in here. So those are the three metrics that I saw. And so I do I do want to just make sure that I uh look at the budget breakdown of the spending priorities. And so while we're tracking Hispanic metrics, we're looking at why black and Hispanic kids are suspended more. and we're going to implement equity framework with the $2 million that we're going to get. So, that's how that's what I'm reading. And with the $2 million that we're going to get, we're going to we're going to pay for seven school success liaison. Uh and and so $620,000 out of that $2 million is going to pay for those folks. And and if the overall objective is academic achievement and like are these school success liaison teaching these kids how to do math reading and actually tracking and do we have data that tracks the success metrics of those seven individuals because we're only hiring three reading interventionalists out of this $2 million. And we just literally just heard the middle school teachers or principles saying that they need more math and reading interventionalists and and I'm just wondering that is more tactical that we can actually measurably see. And so I'd like to actually see us eliminate these school success liaison, get rid of the seven and reallocate those dollars so that we have 10 reading interventional lists deployed across our elementary and middle schools so we can actually tactically show uh academic achievement amongst all students who are in the lower demog the lower uh uh metrics of proficiency. So that that's what I see initially. And then lastly, I'll say our director coordinator and admin administrative assistant out of the $2 million we're allocating $500,000 towards that. Like that doesn't make sense to me. I mean that like but so I'll pause here. Those are the things that I saw that I'd love to get further discussion with the board and whoever wants to share. >> So Director Thompson, I I know you weren't able to be at the work session. However, I feel like the whole board discussed this at length. Um we end we had ample time. Everyone asked any question that they had at that moment. Not to say that there couldn't be more tonight. What's being brought forward to the board tonight is consideration for approval of this plan. If you would like to make a motion to alter the plan, you can do that, but that's not unless that's a a formal motion. The plan is presented is what's being um discussed tonight. Uh Director Thompson. >> Oh, director or do you want to respond to any of those? Well, there was a lot of content there and I would like to know which one would you like us to address first. >> I'd like to know more about the success uh school success liaison. I want to make sure that I'm um I want to be clear there's there is value in those in in that role. But if we're if we've got $2 million allocated towards academic achievement and we want to show a a data metric uh current state and future state, do we have any data that actually have that actually does that right now? >> Sure. I'm going to let Dr. Schumacher be uh address that because he directly works with our liaison and he also has expertise in the area of educational measurement. Um and so I'm going to let him speak to that piece. Sure. Well, I think there's a few different ways that it's important to answer this question. Um, first of all, I think if we look at the research literature, generally, school connectedness is an incredibly important driver of school success, academic success, as well as behavioral success for students, particularly those who are historically most marginalized in our school systems. What school connectedness is is whether or not you feel like school is a place where you see yourself as safe, as welcome, as cared for, etc. Now there's a host of research around positions like what we call a school success liaison that says that they they drastically improve school connectedness. So starting with generally the research literature says that this kind of a position is valuable. Now when I came in I didn't want to assume that anything that's on the budget that I inherited was the thing we should be spending money on. So, I've spent the first 6 months of my entire time here, basically almost all of my time, trying to do data collection about what is and is not working with ANI. I met with leaders from just about every building. There was a couple of elementary bu uh buildings that I did not meet with and I asked them I had about an hour to 90 minutes with each team and I said what is the best use of money that we are using in um with regard to the ANI budget and you know what could we do without and if you were in charge of the budget what would you want to see? Now to that third point, many of them did say the thing about um interventionists and I do think that interventionists would be a fantastic thing for us to be investing in. I think it's also important to note that the ANI budget is not a teaching and learning budget, right? The NI budget has to be much broader than that. And so the thing about a school success liaison is they do have academic uh support in the sense that they are often doing direct academic intervention even though that's not their job. they end up doing all kinds of homework support. They do all kinds of academic support um to help students who are maybe having a hard time that day get back on track so that they can get back into the classroom. And so they are having an academic impact but their impact is actually much broader than than say an interventionist might be. Um then within that the other thing that I want to note is that the very first thing that every single building leader that I met with said is our school success liaison are invaluable right every single one of them said that and they said because of the ways that they are creating connections with a family that otherwise doesn't pick up the phone when we call when we're trying to address you know an academic need or a behavior need or whatever it might be that they are able to translate cultural norms for our teachers when our teachers confused about like well why is this particular thing happening in our classroom they can say well it's common in say the Somali community for X Y and Z to be the assumption around how school works right so how can we then bridge that difference so the point here is that their their impact I could I could go into a whole bunch of data but I do think if what you are looking for is this position leads to this academic outcome. You can't necessarily even say that for most positions that exist. That's one of the notorious challenges of human subjects research when it comes to what are the things that drive educational success. Right? It's why for instance pay for performance is not something that works because we can't tie an individual learning specific thing to only the the the job of an individual teacher. Right? And so what I would say is that there is consensus among our school leaders that the school success liaison are vital. And I would say that I see day in and day out all of the important work that they are doing that is leading to greater academic success as well as um success with regard to things like what we were you you brought up with regard to um you know exclusionary discipline. Right. If our school success liaison has a relationship with a student and a student is having a really bad day and has a blowup with a teacher, if that school success liaison who has that relationship can then talk to that student, it's more likely that that student ends up back in class 15 minutes later rather than things escalating and eventually perhaps leading to an out of school suspension or something along those lines. So, I say all of this because I think it's really important that like I'll note that the way that you said, you know, these positions have value, but and I I want to be careful that we're not devaluing the work of these incredible professionals who are tireless in their efforts to support some of the families that traditionally but we're not supporting that well in our district, but also our data bears out that we need to be doing more to support in our district. And so I just I want to caution us from speaking about them at large in a way that's disconnected from the day-to-day work that they do, which includes everything from food access work to academic intervention. Right. >> Great. Let's move to Director Swanson. >> Yeah. Um just one point of clarification too for the public or anyone who's listening. I mean this is we have to fulfill certain statutory requirements and then we are reimbursed for these expenses. So, it's essentially, you know, supplemental funding, >> uh, you know, to provide services to our students. So, it's not taken away from our general fund. Um, just wanted to clarify that for anyone who's who's wondering about this $2 million budget. Uh but also kind of to Brian's question, um what I mean what are what's your flexibility with the statutory requirements for kind of you know shifting around priorities or how you want to create a staff staffing model for this ANI budget or ANI plan? I guess I mean could you could you change it drastically if you >> we could change it completely. I think the reason I think it's important to note that the budget that we presented was actually reflective of exactly what you're describing which is that we looked at the data about for instance young scholars which is a phenomenal program and we said to the district we are happy to continue supporting this and also we think that this program has shown it its success to the point where it should be at least partially carried by the general fund because it has shown how successful it is which is what then happened which frees up money for us then to propose these to new positions that are geared toward intervention for EL students specifically because of some of the needs that we're hearing through our needs analysis around how academics u can be addressed through improving our processes in that area. Right? And so we have a ton of room and we have uh and and I our building leaders have affirmed for us that one of the ways that we should be spending that money is in our largest budget item which is the school success leaison. >> Other questions? Director Thompson. Oh, sorry, Director Kerbone. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I want to springboard off of what Director Thompson said a couple of his a couple of his comments. Um, I know you mentioned that that there's flexibility in the program and you can change uh and modify it accordingly, but but once you hire a body for a position, you sort of have to sustain that cost and you sort of have to sustain that position. So, how this comes out initially is really important. Otherwise, you're going to have five of these and you don't need five six months from now. You need three, you need two of these. And you understand what I'm saying? Mhm. >> So, so I I think that's something that's that's crucial in, you know, are back to Brian's point, are these the right people for what we're going forward with? Um, a couple of other comments that Brian made that I I had some concerns about too when I when I went back um and Amber, I know we discussed this two weeks ago or Yeah, two weeks ago. Um but I went back and read everything again and as I read it there were some some cautions that that came to mind. Um for instance in the overview of the integration uh section the verbiage is you know address addressing disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline against students of color. And then you know it says academic year 24 25 um black students three times Latino Hispanics two and a half time suspension compared to to white students. Um when I looked at that and then I looked at it again and then I looked at it again I got the sense that you know there may be some who would lead or would come to the conclusion that there's bias going on in this school system when you just look at that as as a raw statement. So, so one of my questions is if you took each one of these suspension cases and and you reviewed them again and you only looked at the behavior and you took out race, you took out name, you took out income, you took out everything else other than just behavior. So, it's a blind decision. Would they still have been suspended? I'm assuming the question or the answer to that is yes. you're going maybe, maybe not. >> I I would say it probably depends because I don't think it's possible to decontextualize any of those things, right? >> So, yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> Well, I just mean like for instance, that um there's there's research that indicates that a uh a school professional is more likely to see a black boy of age 11 as acting as if they are 16. Right? Which can go into a whole bunch of different reasons for why that is the case. But if you are treating somebody from a cognitive development perspective as if they should be 16 even though they are 11 and then treating their peers as if they are 11, right? Then you're more likely to hold them to a different standard when it comes to behavior. But there's not an easy way to disentangle that. >> So where's the data to to prove that? I mean when I when I look at um when I look in um strategy number two because this this intrigued me is the more I turned the page the more I started wondering well something doesn't connect here. >> So so when I looked at strategy two in integration and it was uh data alignment and accuracy correct >> and it was specifically talking about um about the exclusionary discipline. >> Correct. Um the statement was data collection is not consistent >> correct >> and it's difficult to understand the baseline and the scope. So so if the data is not solid, how are we making solid data statements? >> Well, I would argue that we're we can't until we do that work. But one of the things for instance that drives me to say that is that so this is my area of dissertation research, right? My PhD is in the area focused on student behavior and disproportionate discipline, right? And what you tend to see across the board is that rates of inschool suspension or something that we might call inschool suspension are if if you're sort of tracking your data accurately are going to be about twice as high as your rates of out of school suspension, right? Because it's more likely that when something happens, a student is kept in the school in some form or fashion. They might miss a day of class doing something else, but they're not sent home in part because the legal standard for sending a kid home is considerably higher. But in our data, our rates of inschool suspension are considerably lower than our rates of out of school suspension. And yet I know there are things that are happening in our schools that we're coding in other ways, right? We're not coding it as in school suspension. We're coding it under nine different codes. And so what we're talking about is to get a full understanding of the nature of the problem, we need to have a better accounting of what is the consistency. Let's just use north and south between north and south about how they are recording their data so that then we can say okay the the numbers that said that a black student is three times as likely to be suspended as a white student is accurate or maybe it's not. I'm not wholly actually sure until I can get to the bottom of that. But then if it is accurate then the next step becomes are black students more likely to be suspended for the same or similar behaviors as white students which the research literature would say yeah they are probably going to be suspended more likely for the same or similar behaviors. Um and so then from there it allows us to to actually begin to take up the work which is why in the plan we said that a lot of the intervention type work would start in year two. In year one, it would be about working with our um you know, school principles and our and our data clerks, etc. to make sure that the data that we have is actually telling the story that we think it's telling. >> But but that's one last comment, Amber, and I'll I'll pass the torch. Um that's that's where I'm uncomfortable. Okay. Because we're hiring people, we're talking about a $2 million and even though it's being subsidized, I get that. but it's still coming out of tax funding, taxpayer money. We all pay state taxes and if it's not on a local level, we pay it on a state level. Um so, so where I'm uncomfortable is again if if we're basing hiring instead of interventionists, um were they leazison? >> School success leaison. >> Yeah, thank you. um if we're basing um decisions on hiring instead of Brian's comment about hiring um interventionists and we want to do leison I forgive me if I mispronounce that um but the the data that we're talking about three times black student two and a half times um Latino and Hispanic if that's not solid data because of what we're talking about here I'm uncomfortable with spending the money and hiring those Well, I'll note that that particular goal requires no hiring in the short term. There might be hiring that happens in year two or year three that we've proposed, but that in that particular goal, it's using staff that are already on our books to address the the need, right? And recognizing that those are numbers we are already reporting to the federal government and to the state government that are published, right? So the federal government says Lakeville suspends black kids at three times the rate of white kids, right? It's already there. >> So for us, it's about saying, is that accurate? Regardless, there is an issue there that needs to be addressed. >> And that's exactly it. It's the accuracy aspect of this that's making me feel >> which is why year one is about giving you what you want. >> I'd like to can I add something? And I think you're you're leading us there. Um uh Dr. Utumacher, am I saying your name right? >> Schumacher. Yeah. I always said to my students when I was a high school student, it's like but without the B and then they laugh and then they never forget it. >> Is that school districts, correct me if I'm wrong, are required to track disciplinary um actions based on track and report federally and by state. >> And so we are required to do this. What you're saying and what you're finding is that we need to make sure >> we're we're reporting numbers, but we should make sure that those are as accurate as possible. >> Correct. And then if we find that it's different than what we're what that we've been able to collect thus far, what what's the plan to address discrepancy? Y. So this isn't a new activity. Every school district has to do this. >> Correct. >> It's just we need to do it thoroughly. >> Yeah. Well, and I would be incredibly encouraged if after doing this data work, we're like, okay, black students are suspended at a rate that's one and a half times the rate of white students. I'm like, that means we're doing better than we thought. Great. That's still concerning to me. So then what can we do to try to create more parity and equity in the way that we address student discipline? >> So so tracking this is not new. >> No, >> it's required. >> Correct. Okay. It's been >> And then her hand I called on her. I realized a long time ago. >> First of all, I just want to point out that this is something through MDE that they study across the entire state of Minnesota because all of our districts struggle with this. So I just wanted to point that out. This is not just a Lakeville issue. Um, also I just wanted to speak to the work of the liaison. Um, I think when we I I love the fact of the academic interventionists, but I I think we are um I guess missing the boat when we think about the impact that they have every day on just the well-being of our students. Because if you have a student that doesn't feel seen, doesn't doesn't feel heard, um is worried about where they're going to get their next meal, like nobody looks like them. Um and if you add in special education on top of that and all the acronyms and trying to understand that when you don't originally speak the language, um those liaison are vital to the success of students. Um I I just think about the last several weeks where they've been helping families get food, helping families feel safe. um finding resources and without those resources I don't know if those students would still be attending school. So I just think that um there's so much more to that role than just an academic interventionist. I'd also like to point out in respond to that um we just saw with our middle school principles that our liaison two years ago we shifted our liaison to be full-time at our middle and high school buildings and that has made a huge diff difference to the point where they are now listing them as a vital support resource which also connects to that DTE data that we are concerned about of being seen feeling heard and school being safe. So these things are all interconnected as you pointed out, >> director Swanson. >> Uh yeah, one quick since we're talking about liaison, but I had a point on something else. Um my Caucasian children who have both gone through middle school uh love the century um student liaison, Philip, I believe his name is, who's awesome. So yeah, and I think we've seen other studies too. I mean there's certain uh states in southern Louisiana, Mississippi. I mean they're making huge strides just getting kids in school, you know, is one of the big things that they're doing through different administrators. I'm assuming our leaison work on efforts like that. Um so yeah, I mean I know there are some other things that we're probably not considering. Um which is your guys' job fortunately to put this together. I think one of the problems uh that I I think Paul is probably having on the integration side is I mean there's a higher rate of discipline versus the you know exclusionary discipline aspect. And so I mean I think and maybe it's the phrasing of it what appears to be a disproportionate use of exclusionary discipline is is probably what you're saying based on the higher rates but we're not sure yet because we don't have the data. Right. Well, I would say the data does say that we are like uh any given black student in our district. >> Can you go to the mic? Sorry, just to make sure we're capturing. >> Any given black student in our district is more likely to miss school as a result of disciplinary action than any given white student, right? Based on a these are these are um log likelihoods like from mathematically they're saying how much more likely is it that a student will be suspended? And so I think we can say that it is happening. The question from the data perspective is how to what degree is it worse than our numbers tell us? Is it better than our numbers tell us? Or are our numbers dead on? Are they are they telling us the whole story? >> Cuz cuz didn't we talk about last week or two weeks ago, sorry, um that we want to know like what's the action? What's the consequence? Correct. >> So then we can accurately analyze, okay, are there disproportionate consequences to the same action based on the race of the student? >> Right. And we don't know that right now. >> Right. And we don't and I also think that it's important to note that that it's any principal will tell you that no decision to suspend a student is as simple as like this student hit this student, right? It's about what were the different points of escalation that led to that moment that might weigh into whether or not a student is suspended. Now, in the case of a physical assault, sure, the student's likely to be suspended, but there's a whole host of other reasons. And so the point is that it's it's pretty hard to say strip away all of the context and these two actions were the same thing was one person suspended and another person not suspended. Um but as much as possible that would be our goal. >> Okay. And that and that's an effort you're going to undertake in the first year of the plan. >> Yeah. As much as is feasible within the data that we collect. >> Yeah. And then as you said ideally after you collect that data we see okay there is >> more equal treatment than you're assuming in the plan statement here >> and and I guess that's the >> that's the struggle. I mean we can say the data is appears to be saying one thing but we don't know until we actually collect data and look at it. >> Yeah. And I always say in something like this where there's smoke, there's fire. Also, we can't absent ourselves from like there's as as um our um board member Baker noted, this is something that's widely studied and widely understood, including in the state of Minnesota. And so I don't think we're probably an exception to the rule, but if we were, I'd be like, great, how can we lead the state in telling the story of what we're doing that shows that we're an exception? I'm going to guess we're probably not an exception. And so then what can we do? There's a host of of researchbacked practices that we're not doing that we would love to support the district in taking up >> director Anderson. Um I just so one I just want to say I'm so grateful for our leaison. So I don't I know that we're having tough conversation at this table today in terms of their role and they are so vital and important for our district and so I just want to express my appreciation for them. Two, I wanted to say that um a number of years ago um I was meeting with someone in our elementary schools about this. So before I was on the board, I had because I was aware of some of this research had some concerns about our students being treated differently based on behaviors and how our behavior is being addressed. And so back in that time, this uh staff member was talking to me about how the challenge was in this specific school. And it was very clear to me that behaviors are not recorded consistently and schools are doing very different things and it's just a challenge within a school and it's a challenge within the district. And so I am so happy that the two of you are doing the work that you are doing because I think you're right the first place we start and I know that we have tasked um our superintendent with this is bringing more consistency in systems across the district. And so if you know one school is doing something different than another school than another school, there's no way to track the data in a meaningful way and how you are starting this is so purposeful and thoughtful. And I just wanted to express my gratitude like you are taking on a mission that is significant and it it achieves what the board has tasked our superintendent with doing. And so good job with hiring Mr. Bowman and um I just am very appreciative of the work that you're doing. So I look forward to just getting the data that will give us a lot more information about the path forward. So thank you. >> In relating to that, I just want to say one thing because I don't want it to seem like we're saying something we're not. I don't think any of our building leadership are doing anything wrong or like hiding something. I think for instance, when I went into the codes, there's so many of them that I want us to make sure that we're that like if one school is using this code and this another school is using this code for a similar type of behavior that we're lining that up. So, I don't want those who are listening in to think that we're saying, well, like some of the principles are doing a bad job, right? I want to stress I think they're all doing a great job and I want us to create better consistency. >> I I also don't want to suggest that just more like when you have a system this big and it is >> and you're you're doing the best you can and I think some of what we have been looking for in many areas is just how does our system be more consistent because then the data is more meaningful. So, yes, I agree. Not trying to throw anyone or any school or anybody under the bus. Everybody's doing great, but we could do better. >> Um, to that end, >> and we can get there. Um, there's a first and a second to approve the plan as presented. Um, I think if there are further comments, if there are amendments to that motion, I think the board can entertain that. But I the plan will not be altered without a motion to amend. Right. So, uh, Director Brian, to that point, um, if you have further clarifying questions or if you want to see something different. >> Yeah, I think I think I would. Um, and so, back to what you you said, I I um I appreciate your knowledge because I don't have that. Uh, I did not go to school and and you've got more smarts than in that space than than I do. But I want to be mindful that we're not applying generalities into our district without knowing the data to validate this is what our district is like. And so when I read the integration um objective or goal where we are addressing the dispionate use of uh you know exclusionary discipline it it and and I as I hear uh you know the our conversation as I hear what you were sharing with me it it tells me that we've got a problem in our schools. you're tell I'm hearing is that we've got teachers and we've got principles that are not you know not not obliging and not following the the process or or or we are disproportionately you know uh you know applying these rules against them that's how that's how I'm hearing today and so I want to be careful >> to that point that's what the we're reporting to the state we do have that problem >> right but but the what what this is saying >> and what I'm hearing is that we have no data to validate if this is true or not. So I guess it's more of if the integration goal can be maybe more re rewarded on understanding the current state assessment validating the uh the actions and the decisions that were made. Uh because if the data is the data but the data is backed up that uh that these these these actions were taken because the student code of conduct was not followed followed and it doesn't matter your race then the data is the data and so if the data is the data and people are not following the student code of conduct then I don't know if changing the metrics to a lower number for one demographic versus just because they're they're a different race they're and their student code code of conduct is different from a different race and that that doesn't make sense. So I so I guess I want to make sure I understand the integration piece more but uh so that's just my thought there. the school success liaison again if you guys all have have shared and and said and I agree with you that they they they play a huge part in our schools but this $2 million is to improve the academic gap for those that are in the lower uh prof proficiency of of reading and math. And so can I just >> I think director Adams um can I can >> kind of Yeah, but it seemed like what you said might not be accurate. So I just want to if you want to jump on >> you can go ahead and finish >> because I'm sharing my my my opinion and interpretation of what I'm hearing so far. >> Okay. And so the school success liaison while they may not be you know maybe you can't have a hard data point from what they what what they do that you know one could argue that's the same for high school adviserss uh student support uh specialists but for our interventionalists you can see the data to say all right we got a person's reading level in the fall of here and we got them to here in spring and so the dollars that we are going to invest uh drastically has, you know, a relationship with that data metric improving. So, I I get where everyone's point of view is around, you know, uh the integration and these folks, but I'd rather spend the $2 million to make sure these kids know how to read, they know how to do math, uh and and so forth. So, so I I will make a motion because that's if that's what we want to do. >> Amend the motion >> to amend the motion. And I'd like to amend the motion to have an increase of our reading interventionalists uh with the liaison dollars. >> So >> um point of clarification from superintendent and from um the two of you. Is that even possible given the constraints of the of the ANI parameters that the state sets out? >> It is possible. >> Okay. uh we would have to look at a diff I mean we would have to go through a different needs assessment to look at that particular area and decide how we're going to address that particular integration goal. Um so I think we would have to give that some thought. Um our timeline is limited. This is due March 15th. Um so that certainly is something that we could take a look at. Um, so in theory, yes, but I do think it presents a whole different set of challenges. >> And I would also just note that the school success liaison's function across the entire three types of goals that we are required by statute to address. You're speaking to one of the three types of goals, right? and interventionists, which we already are funding, >> right, are speaking to one of the goals, which is important. But I I want to stress that if we're trying to recognize that there is a need that is beyond only the academic need that an interventionist might provide, that ANI again is not meant to be a teaching and learning plan. It's meant to be an achievement and integration plan which has to apply dollars across the different needs. And so my hesitance to the request is simply a that we already have these phenomenal folks who every single building leader that I met with said is their number one priority and they actually I had multiple building leads say can we hire more of them because our elementarymentaries don't get very much time with the school success liaison. Um but then I think also within that recognizing that um to to do what you're describing would be to essentially focus what we are required by statute through the work that we do which is to ensure that interventionists are are hired if necessary or other forms of academic intervention are addressed. um that's the responsibility of our district and that is not solely the purpose of ANI dollars and that we that you know I did hear from some of our like for instance our middle school principles that they're like we would love to see ANI dollars hire an interventionist and we said yeah if we can make that work absolutely we we'll do that and we actually thought we might be able to um but because of for instance the increasing cost of benefits the the dollars didn't go as far We thought they would. >> Will you um Director Thompson, will you restate your moted motion? >> Yeah. Um I can I can I sure? All right. So, yes. Uh the achievement So, the three goals achievement, integration, and teacher equity. Uh the integration goal had no school success liaison in that they're not because you said there was a zero dollar. >> Not true. They're listed as um one of the strategies. >> As one of the strategies. Yeah, >> because we because are they going to be reviewing case studies? Are they going to be reviewing >> No, but they're involved in student discipline all the time. >> Okay. All right. And so then and and the achievement is just lowering the gap between Hispanic students and white students from 5.3% across grade levels. >> And that's the only goal in in achievement. So I don't know how school success leaison could would do that. But but I I'll I'll restate my motion. And I think my motion I think we've got uh >> So your motion is to amend my I I I make a motion to amend the the ANI plan to uh reallocate uh $620,000 uh to increase the reading interventionalists and the the EL coordinators. I just want to make sure I understand that those are the English learning like they they work with those um those students. I just want to make sure I understand that one. Those are currently positions that do not exist but our data indicates that we have tremendous area of growth and improvement among our multilingual learners. Yep. >> So we are looking to bring aboard two coaches, one for elementary, one for secondary to provide instructional support for our core content area teachers and our EL teachers. >> Got it. And so those are instructional support and they're not actually teaching the students. >> Correct. So, Director Town, can we because there's a I feel like I'm already losing it. Um, in terms of structure here around Robert's rules, so I fully own that. Um, >> you've amended my motion. >> You've amended the the motion to approve the ANI plan to reallocate $620,000 from where to where? >> From the liaison to reading interventionists. >> From liaison to reading interventionists. Is there a second on to amend um this motion or to amend to to accept? Is there a second on the amended motion? >> Yeah, I'll second it. >> Seconded by um Director Carbone. Any discussion on the amended motion? >> Director Thompson. >> Yeah. So, so again, as I'm looking at the ANI plan, three goals, achievement, integration, as well as uh teacher equity. We've got teacher equity, which is going to be a development and implementation of district-wide equity framework, I'm assuming. No one. Someone else is doing that. You're doing that. Awesome. Um integration. We've got someone's going to look at the data first to validate >> us. >> Is the data the data? Okay. So then if it's you guys, then that gives us a flexibility to use the funding to ensure we've got boots on the ground talking and teaching our our we can teaching the kids between second grade and fifth grade. uh whether wherever they are at uh and for those that are in the lowest in proficiency and if we're going to use generalities, right? Like like the Latinos are if that's what I'm reading in the achievement paragraph. So, right, >> I'd like to point out something about the goal. The goal is uh we are required to develop an academic goal that is specific to a particular group of students. In the past, it was stated as students of color, but that's incredibly difficult to measure how you're having success. So, this year, our proposal is that the goal focuses on Latino and Hispanic students because that is where our widest gap exists. So, by closing that gap, you're in theory closing the gap for all of our groups. um that does not mean that resources are only allocated for the purpose of um improving reading scores for Latino and Hispanic students. So regardless of what we do, we the the goal is different from the strategies. The strategies can be applied to any and all students. >> Yep. Can you discuss briefly how the ANI plan supports the the DA the metrics uh framework dashboard that the board has uh passed like why why do you think this plan will support the goals outlined by increasing fastbridge scores increasing MCA scores etc and then in the second page of the plan you talk about or or the the plan requires you to talk about three groups the multi-dist collab collaboration ation council, the community collaboration council, and the American Indian parent advisory committee. How have if how have those three groups interacted with the development of this plan to date? >> Sure. >> Where do you want to start? You can go ahead and I'll jump in. >> Um can you repeat your first question? The goal, the goals, the metric. I'm curious like given the district's goals and the board's um passage of the metrics framework, the dashboard, I see direct ties to this plan in achieving the board's stated goals, but I'm curious from your perspective how how does that fit? >> Yeah. Well, I think one area that jumps to mind and this is an example is we know that we're looking at our FastBridge scores as leading indicators and our MCA scores as lagging indicators. We are currently in the process of breaking down our FastBridge data by demographic groups and looking to see where are we seeing areas for improvement for growth and it's very clear that our multilingual learners definitely need an increased support. So this particular plan is directly trying to support that with resources that do not currently exist. This is a very rough projection, but if we were to um really address uh strategies for multilingual learners across all classrooms, we predict we'd see a pretty significant increase in their reading scores because we really are lacking in language acquisition skills um for those students right now and the resources to do that. The other thing I'll add because they've been brought up many times is I think I see direct ties for instance between reading scores and the school success liaison because for instance the school success liaison are often the very first line of contact if we have a student who's habitually absent. Right? If a student's not in school they can't improve their reading scores very readily. Maybe they will. That would be some incredible luck if they were reading a bunch at home. But for instance, when the office calls some of our families, they don't pick up the phone. When the liaison calls, they pick up the phone. Right? Then we can figure out, okay, well, what's going on? Why is the student not here? So the countless calls which they log. So if you wanted quote unquote hard data, I could say, yeah, we had 627 parent contacts in the last semester or whatever it might be. But the point is those types of contacts have a direct relationship to whether or not a student is in school and learning. Similarly, if a student is having a really really hard time and they don't have a relationship with a counselor, but they do have a relationship with a school success liaison, by telling the school success liaison, we can get the student the supports they need so that then they can be in class learning. Right. >> Great. Uh oh. Director Baker, >> I guess my um problem with this motion is that um I don't see the school success liaison as like an extra role. I see them as vital in the whole outcome of the plan. Um when I think about what they offer, um they improve the family school communication. They're supporting attendance. Um they're na they're helping families navigate systems that are difficult and unfamiliar and complex. Um they help reduce like behavior escalation. Um so when I think about all these different supports um they're addressing inequities that would negatively impact academics. So whether or not they're academic interventionists, the things that they do, all those extra supports that they provide help with academics. So um I I guess like I just I don't even understand why we're having this discussion of of removing the success liaison or whatever. Like I I just think that um it's such a vital part of the plan. I can't even imagine how it would be successful without them. Director Thompson. >> Yeah. >> So, so I want to make sure I reiterate that the school success leaison 100% agree. There is value, but I don't know if the budget of the ANI plan should be the one paying for that. If we need to find $620,000 out of the next school year's budget, then we can do that. But if we're going to use a ANI plan designed for academic achievement in in the uh in the diverse population, like like wouldn't we want to make sure these kids know how to read and do math? Like that should be the first priority. And that's my point of view. And we don't need to h I mean, we can do we can we can have a variety of different uh interventionists. I mean I think we can get can we hire more ESLs that could help versus uh you know versus not so that like we we have more dollars to make sure that there is a person teaching a student how to read versus the the uh uh the other roles. So, >> Director Anderson, >> I you you were in for me. >> Oh, now you Okay. Sorry. >> Director Swanson, >> um, two things just real quick. One, so the board is looking to approve this plan, which would then be submitted to the state for approval. Okay. So, this hasn't this draft hasn't been submitted to the state for pre-approval. Okay. Uh, and then maybe it it goes without saying, but um you this is the plan that you guys have created that you think will accomplish the goals that are set out and you guys want to achieve. Correct. >> Correct. >> And you you have the discretion. >> It's it's uh it's a redo on the plan. >> Yeah. >> Uh we're trying to redirect um teaching and learning. The first fundamental is setting the conditions with our families and our students and our success liaison are fundamental because we don't have all the other supports in the system. I think our principles and our system would be unserved and that the supplanting of it from ANI to general fund. Uh I think that the intervention problem that we have in this school system is ubiquitous and beyond this problem that what I've been trying to do and the work that that this team has done is to reset and redirect our efforts but to make sure that the undergurting fundamental capacity that our success liaison help us create and by us I mean our building leaders, our uh uh teaching and learning program. This is vital. If I take $620,000 out of the general fund to cover success liaison and 620,000 out of ANI to do integration direct um or intervention, excuse me, is to me that's that's just swapping where it's coming from. We have an intervention shortfall problem in our academic system that I would like to get uh clarified and resolved. The resolution to that long-term is more more than more likely to be uh an operating levy or a redirection of general fund dollars on scale to get that done. Um, so I just like to say those things. I think our success leaison are incredibly valuable. I know you're saying that, Director Thompson. I'm I'm not uh pushing back on that. How we fund it uh and how we redirect our ANI plan. Um, we've done some careful research on this. Um I think the issue that was brought up around uh our our um concerns around our reporting for behavior uh are valid in that we have a calibration issue across the system and we have to deal with that and they've identified that and we will we have an action plan to to uh improve that. So I just want to say those few things about this. Um, I want to I want the intervention solution to be broader and um, as you've said multiple times, uh, Director Thompson, for all our kids. So, I'll just say that. >> Director Anderson, >> I just wanted to thank you both. I feel like you are speaking so fluidly about these things. Your expertise is top-notch. I really support the plan. I thank you for all the time and effort that went into it. So, thank you. With that, there's a motion and a second on the floor to amend the presented plan to move $620,000 from um uh le school success liaison to a reading interventionist position. Um all in favor, I will do a roll call vote. Um all in favor or sorry, um Kim, could you call roll call if you're in favor or please vote please vote yay or nay? Sorry. Please vote yay or nay on the amended motion. >> The amended motion. Okay. >> Yeah. Is and this is just on the amend >> just the just on the amended motion to move $620,000 from school success liaison to reading interventionists. >> Paul Carbone. >> Yay. >> Kim Baker. >> No. >> Carly Anderson. >> No. >> Amber Cameron. >> No. >> Tony Rekenberger. >> No. >> Brian Thompson. Yes. >> Matt Swanson. >> No. >> Okay. The uh amended motion fails. With that, we're back to the um original motion to approve the achievement and integration plan. Um any further discussion on the plan before um moving to vote. >> I have a go. Director Swanson. >> I mean, I think it goes back to one of Brian's comments and something I said earlier. um with my concern. I mean, I think we can say, you know, as a plan, because this will be published, right? I'm assuming this will be on our website. >> Um or you can say that students of color are disproportionately suspended or something like, you know, along those lines at a higher rate, you know, proportionate to their population in the school. Um, I think the challenge is when we're making a statement or where I shouldn't say the challenge, but where I struggle, uh, is when we're making a statement and here, let me pull it back up so I'm not >> Is it the term exclusionary discipline that you were having a hard time with? Am I understanding? >> It is. you know, when we when the next paragraph we're saying, but we're going to collect some data cuz it might not be accurate, you know, cuz it could be true that they're disproportionately being suspended based on their percent of the population in the school, but we just don't know why, right? So, I should clarify the term exclusionary discipline is a categorical term that's used by the state and the federal government referring to discipline that leads to a student being missing instructional time. It's called exclusionary discipline because they're excluded from instructional time. So, it's not a term we're using that's that's meant to be loaded with any sort of value. It's a categorical term that is not ours. It's one that's used by the state and the feds. Um, and so when we're saying exclusionary discipline, the reason we said that instead of suspension is partially because of the exact issue that we're describing. If we say suspension, but we're not coding things as suspension, >> then we're not able to necessarily address it. versus if we can say we're trying to look at all of the different forms of discipline that lead to a student missing class time, missing instructional time, then by using that umbrella term, it gives us more leeway to try to figure out how to address the problem, if that makes sense. Does that does that speak at all to the concern that you're having? Yeah, I guess my point I mean I I get what you're saying and I love the second paragraph, you know, that you're going to really nail down on the data to make sure that we're really accurately um showing what's happening, right? Um my concern, you know, is on the first paragraph it because it reads when I read it as if there's a like a bias built into the system, which maybe there is, right? But we I don't know that we have the data that there's a bias right now that teachers or administrators are exerting increased discipline on one race over another and is I don't know if that's what it's saying or intended. >> I mean I would say that the data that is published says we have a bias right that if a student is significantly more likely to be suspended than a comparable peer then the data that is published says there is a bias. Now what we are proposing is we get to the root of what is that right what is happening >> what data is that I guess is my >> well it's the data that we report every year to the office of civil rights from the >> I think that's the part that's missing here is that we the district I don't know for how many years but has been reporting that we have an issue >> what's but the question is if the if it's just the rate >> they're being the rate is disproportionate just based on the the population correct >> but that's just one data point it's not the why. It's the what, of course, but it's not the why. >> And so, and that's what you want to get at is the why, but I feel like we're already presupposing the why onto the data set in this plan. >> Well, I would argue that there's the what we are presupposing is that the results are the reasons for this are complex. Some of which is bias, right? Undoubtedly. And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that bias doesn't exist, but I just don't want to presuppose it because I don't know. You know, do we know yet, right? >> Well, I mean, I would say as an expert in this field, I do know like I can say very confidently that there is bias in the system. Now, my question is to what degree is that bias something that we can address at the classroom level versus maybe it's not a classroom level bias. Maybe it's in the um the way that we set up our structures once a student is say sent out of a classroom. What is the nature of the bias? I don't know. But I can say there is bias, right? And and I feel very very confident in saying that >> based on the fact that we are not an exception to the rule. And this has been studied at length to show that bias is prevalent and common in school systems in this way that that simply put for there's a host of studies that will tell you that for the nearly identical behavior a black student is more likely to receive a more serious punishment than a white student. And so I would say maybe we're doing better. I'm not sure. And actually compared to some of our peer districts our rates look better. So I want to know what the nature of the problem is so that then we can say okay well here's the kinds of interventions u because we hear teachers all the time telling us we want more resources on this we know that it's happening in our school but we feel like we don't have the tools and we're like okay well let's get to the bottom of the issue so that we can then provide you with the tools right like we have free resources from the state through the office of of non-exclusionary discipline and the office of restorative practices at MDE that will provide us with training But we need to figure out well do certain teachers need training and other teachers not do all of our teachers need something and or is it all of our admin need something like what is what is the issue? >> Director Thompson. >> Yeah. I think I think if I'm if I'm tracking with what you're trying to say is like here's the data but you're but the bias is you're interpreting that because it's high we must be bad. And so that's how I'm reading it but versus here's the data. the data is just the data and like all right blank percent is blank blank percent let's go find out why uh versus inherently assuming that we're doing something wrong and so that's how I'm hearing this conversation going so if you think that there we're doing something wrong let's just call spade a spade do you think we're doing something wrong >> I think we likely are and that we also can improve our >> I'm going to jump in here so this is the sentence I think we're all talking about initial data exploration so the data that we've been reporting correct indicates states that black, African-American, Latino, and multi-racial students are many times more likely than white students to face exclusionary discipline in ISD 194. >> That's true. >> That is a true statement. So there is no there is no statement that we're bad or why this is happening, but it says that data collection and recording practices are not consistent from sight to sight. What makes it difficult to understand the baseline data and scope of the issue? And then it goes into talk about we're going to explore why are our numbers Why why do the numbers exist like they do? That's that's all it says is that we're reporting higher rates of exclusionary disciplinary practices for some students groups than others. And there's no judgment or value placed on why that's happening necessarily. >> I think you're the board is jumping to a conclusion here that >> it's bad. >> Right. >> Well, I think it's because it's being presented that way and you literally just said you think we're doing something wrong. Dr. Tom, can I ask how how would how is it being presented that way? Like the sentence I just read said this is what the data says. >> Wait, the first >> to answer your question because my default is to assume that the problem is not with individual students. The problem is with the system that we can address and control, right? Because if we place the problem with an individual student, we're saying that student is bad, that student is wrong. as opposed to can we create better interventions that serve that student so that they do not end up in a situation where they miss school because they had a blow up in a classroom right and so the difference here is about I am saying there is an issue in our system which undoubtedly there is it's pointed to in our data it's pointed to in the research literature it's pointed to in conversations I have with our teachers and with our principles all throughout the district the question is I am not going to land in a place where I say the the the the um if a student violated the student code of conduct, the data is the data because it's as I said earlier, if you ask any principal, it's never actually that simple. It's about a series of things that lead to the point at which a student is then suspended, right? And so we're saying, well, what are the points of intervention that we can back up to that as a system we can control? Because there's a host of things that we can always do better. I would say that on any metric where we could do better, it's because we can do better. We there is a problem with us as a system and it's not lying with an individual kid who's showing up to learn and maybe is super duper hungry that day and so they're grumpy or showed up to learn and had a really really hard experience outside of school and so they're reactive. Whatever it might be, the question for me is how do we prepare our teachers? How do we prepare our um you know folks who are interacting with them in the hallways better so that we can better meet the needs of those individual students? It's about where we place the responsibility for addressing the problem. >> Dr. uh Swanson, >> I I appreciate the back and forth. I really do. Um and I look forward to seeing how this turns out, you know, the data once we you guys start collecting it. Um yeah, look forward to hearing about this in a year. >> A year. Yeah, we can come back and present what we found >> because then I think we can have even a fuller discussion. So then we'll know, okay, now we've been tracking it with your expertise and and analysis. So yeah. >> Yeah. >> Any other points of discussion? >> Okay. Um I believe going back to the um motion to approve it was um first by Baker, second by Anderson. Is that correct? Um, so we'll move to a vote. Um, because we did the other one, roll call. Let's do this as roll call as well. >> Kim Baker, >> yes. >> Carly Anderson, >> yes. >> Amber Cameron, >> yes. >> Matt Swanson, >> yes. >> Tony Reichenberger, >> yes. >> Paul Carbone, >> no. >> Brian Thompson, >> no. >> Great. Motion passes. Um, 52. Thank you both. >> Yeah. And if I could just say one more thing real quick before we go. I imagine that our liaison and some of our families who have really trusted liaison with trusted relationships with our liaison might have heard tonight. I just want to say that we see you. We appreciate you and there are many many folks here who are rooting for you and appreciate the work that you're doing. Thank you. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. All right. Um with that um like to invite Director Bill Homegrren up. Um are you joining him, Jack, or no? No. Okay. just director um homegrren to go over uh fiscal year 26 revised budget which we also went through in detail at the work session but I think you have a kind of a summary report for tonight correct and then you ask an overview of what we talked about last >> right and you're you're looking for us to um consider approval of the revised budget tonight correct okay great thanks everybody >> okay >> we're gonna take a couple minutes though so I want to do a uh update on the current budget and how it's performing and then we'll talk about the revised budget. Now what we did we tried to put some more information on this slide um that includes numbers. So when we look right now uh what's happening with our budget in the general fund by object. So now on the on the top you can see what we talked about before. This is how much we've spent to date from last July 1st till now out of the out of the budget. The first two lines are actual spend. The blue line is the budget. Uh so you can see that right now when you look at our salaries and wages, we have spent 43.3% of that budget compared to spending 45.2 of the total spend last year. Now on the bottom side, you'll see now the black line is the actual budget for the salaries and wages at $10 million. And you can see that we've spent 47 six million to date. And that so I'm hoping that helps with um everyone who wanted to see some of the numbers. You can see as we go forward, our budget gets smaller and smaller. Of course, we're a we're a people business, right? So our salaries and wages and benefits by far are the largest portion of our budget. Uh so you can see here though, so at this point, you can see that our budget is is performing in the way it it should. We see a couple uh small areas that are showing a little higher and I just want to point out what those are. So when you look at um our supplies and materials, you see that that blue line is up there at 78.9%. I want to point out that the uh budget for this year is actually smaller than last year. And at the same time, what this is is curriculum that we bought earlier in the year than we have in the past. So that's why it's higher. We don't expect this to be over budget at the end of the year, but we have spent more to date. The second piece I want to point out, um I'm sorry, that was the purchase services. Now, the the uh supplies and materials, you'll look at that one. Um small small bump up, too. And that's um um tuition for for our special ed students. We got more more tuition going out than we have in the past. And that's why you're seeing a bump on the purchase services portion of this slide. Um, so with that said, um, if you go over to the right a little farther, then we put the total together. So you can see that to date, we've spent 44.5 of our total budget compared to 45.1% last year. And I'm hoping this helps a little bit in explaining our budget. We switch over to the program side. We've done this the same way. So you can see where the where the budgets are with the with the black lines with the numbers with it. So you can see our elementary of course elementary and secondary education by far our biggest portion of our budget at 87.7 million. And you see at this point in time the blue line above it is a little below where we were last year. That's mainly because we've just settled the contract and we haven't paid out the retro. We expect it to be right even with the year before. Um that piece in the middle where you're seeing 105% under community education, that's unemployment that we've had to pay out. This is 100% reimbursed, but we have spent more than we anticipated by about $3,000. Very small amount, but it shows big on the percentage. Uh the second one under pupil support, uh you see a small small bump there, a little higher at 48% over the 46. That's transportation cost. um our transportation costs running a little higher than we anticipated um this particular year. With that said, is there any questions in any of that? >> Okay, now we're going to move on to the revised budget. So just to give you an overview um if you want to see more years um you can turn to page 10 on the on the report that we put on your desk where shows five years. This is just showing uh fiscal 25 to fiscal 20 uh 26. So our state sources for the year um are expecting to go up 5.7 million. That's 4.1% more than we got in state sources the year before. And what this is coming from is a 2.75 increase in our formula allowance from the state of Minnesota and increased um enrollment that's driving those numbers. Property taxes. We've talked about this number for quite a while where in the past when we saw those huge increases in our enrollment running at six at 3% you know we have to estimate that two years before we actually levy those dollars. So when the when the enrollment slowed way down, well now we we can't have those funds. So we don't have those students. So in a sense, we're giving that money back to the community. Okay. But so we have a one-time $2 million decrease in our property taxes. And we've talked about that for for a long time, but it's, you know, it's substantial. It's $2 million. That's 1% of our budget. We look at our federal sources, very very small change. Again, that's 100% reimbured by the federal government. So even though you know we have a little more here, we're actually spending the same amount. Um our other other and lo our other and our local revenue is up a little bit 162,000. That's mainly because of interest earnings. Now that we have a fund balance, we actually have some earnings on those funds. >> Mr. um so thank you for this. Uh can we as a suggestion for the next time around? I appreciate uh seeing the fiscal year 25 actuals. So year-over-year makes sense, but I think for me it would be uh super impactful if um where did we start off with at the budget? So we had like how did uh what what did we approve back in June and did it and is the revised budget different more or less? That way then I've got a little better gauge of do we spend more money? do we not spend more money more money versus here's the new revised budget and I'm like oh well did we get an extra $2 million or did we are we spending an extra $5 million and I have no idea what it is so that's just a suggestion for the next round >> thanks >> so noted got it um an overall statement our revenue is practically the same number as it was in June and our expenditures are practically the same number but now that we know exactly who we've hired in every single different area and every single program area, our numbers are much harder. Um, we expect them to come out where we're at. Okay. Small change, but I I understand your point. >> Okay. Oh, here's just a just so you have a a picture of where the money actually comes from. So, our property taxes are about 25% of our budget. Um, I think a lot of people believe that most of the money that comes in the state comes into our district is from property taxes. It's actually only about 25%. The rest of it comes from the state of Minnesota. We have a little bit of local uh dollars that we get collected, you know, for different activities and so forth, but those are pretty small compared to the rest. When we're looking at um now expenditure by object, which we just talked about that a minute ago, but uh our salaries and wages um for fiscal 26 going to be up $6 million from the year before is coming from two areas. Number one, um increases to all of our um employees um cola increases. Uh second p second piece is just more employees as you know. We've added some deans, we've added some counselors, we've actually added some new teachers. So um besides the besides just the increase for all of our employees, we actually have quite a few new staff on on staff this year. Wh sorry I got ahead of myself. Sorry. There we go. Um employee benefits. You see actually that's up a little higher than what the salary is. And you know a big piece of this is our health insurance. And what's happening every year after year after year, we have many employees bring their spouses onto our plan because it's a much better deal than they get somewhere else. And that's just the truth of it. We're spending much more dollars on our family uh plans that used to be singles in the past. Uh so it's certainly costing us some money in the long run. Uh purchase services. Again, you can see these um on page 11. >> Yeah. Thank you, Bill. One quick question on the employee benefits. At the last meeting, you mentioned that there was a a a swell of claims that came in and and inflated it by I think it was four or five million, whatever it was. Are are we seeing a a a plateauing of that or a a dipping of that or is it uh is the wave still tsunami still coming in? >> The wave happened during the summer. >> Okay. >> The way that is is behaving right now through the fall and into the winter is the same as it was the year before. Okay. Okay. >> We're seeing about a 1.7 increase from the year before. >> Um, but we don't know what's going to happen in the summer. >> Sure. >> Okay. Well, another thing I didn't mention when we look at the benefit increase, another piece that's there is the new U Minnesota leave that we've had to pay for. Um, that started in January. So, that is a new cost to the district as as along with all of our employees paying those prices. Okay. Um, our purchase services 2%. I think it's, you know, pretty pretty standard. We expect that to go up about 2% on a daily basis. Our supplies and materials uh again up that 17.2%. Um these again are our curriculum coming in sooner and we're spending a lot more money on curriculum than we have the last couple years which has been planned. Um actually Sandy is here. Um you know has been planned for for a long time and now we are spending that money. So that's why you're seeing an increase there under our supplies and materials. Okay. To move on to the um program areas again the administration you're seeing a decrease um two two real reasons. Number one last year remember we paid for more than one superintendent. Okay. So now we're not. So it's down. We also there's some reorganization in the in the um executive directors. So some money has come out of that area gone into different areas depending on what they do. So that's why you're seeing that decrease under administration. Uh district support services you're seeing there again these some of these new people that are working are sitting there. So that's why we're seeing that 17.1 uh% increase in our district support services. When we look at our elementary and secondary education again 3.3% um when you look at the average the average person with the increase that they get on their salaries you know we're looking at two and a half pushing three. So the extra is the new teachers that have been put on special education. We do have new staff in this area. That's why we're seeing a more than a 3.3 increase in our special ed um staffing. Uh community education. Remember this is an unemployment piece that runs through the general fund. Now, that's 100% reimbured, at least at this point. Uh, so it looks like a huge increase there, but it's $10,000. Okay. Um, instructional support services. Um, here here you're seeing the increases. That's where the the the new deans fit. Okay. So, we're seeing a large increase in our instructional support, our pupil support services. You see larger increase there of 8.6. That's transportation and that's the new counselors that we put in place at the high schools. uh our sites and buildings uh at 5.5 that just continues to be um the LTFM is driving that that fund those those funds and the fix and fix program there that's all that's all insurance liability insurance the uh the market rate on that going up is around 9 to 10%. So I'm feeling good at 6.8. So overall we see a 6.6% increase in our expenditures for fiscal 26. Again, um just to give you an idea where that money is going, but overall, you know, we got 80 almost 82% um directly serving our students of the funds that we have. You look at that administration cost of 2.14. That's actually very low. We're very lean in that area. Many districts have run close to 4%. Okay. Fund balances. um that's on page 12 of your your book if you're interested. But uh really what's what's happening here, you'll see that our overall our fund balance is going up by 1.7 million, but our key on the unassigned area where it's going up 3.6 and that's where we're pushing up to the 8.3% in our in our unassigned fund balance. But uh some of our assigned dollars will be going down this year because they've been assigned and now we're going to we're going to spend it. Um, but you'll you'll see that the unassigned is increasing even though the total overall isn't increasing by that much. >> Director Thompson, >> hey, we we probably need to acknowledge this. This is fantastic. Like we we have over the past three years have been trying to reestablish our our unassigned fund balance since CO and from $211,000 to getting it to 8.3% uh where it's at. That that's fantastic and and and thank you for that. Um I know as a district our goal is to get to 10% and that's kind of where the steady state would be. Uh when we get down to roughly 7 and a half a trigger gets warned but sitting between 8 and 1 half and 10 that makes us feel uh makes me feel a lot more comfortable and and at ease. Um while it is not a a massive amount of number I mean yeah let me rephrase that. It is I mean 17.6 Six is a lot of number a lot a lot but that is the equivalent of right now only two and a half months of our of of reserves meaning that if we don't get any revenue we only get we can only survive for you know 75 days and that's it and so ideally we may want to have more in our fun >> days under current condition without any adjustment to the budget >> correct yes under the under the current conditions um uh the assigned balance dropped 2.1 are we envisioning ing what those dollars were for this year would be needing to be spent next year so that it goes into the general fund. >> It's a onetime cost. So, we will not see that happen again. >> Got it. Got it. And so, this so this when I see this and hopefully the meetings in the upcoming weeks with Moody, they'll see a positive trend. They'll see a a a much healthier fund balance and than what we've had in the past. And so, fantastic for getting us to where we are today. So, here's our our our travel or history here. So, we have made progress. Um the uh the fund balance has definitely improved uh from where we were just a couple years ago. I just want to take a couple minutes to run through these other uh funds. Again, student nutrition fund. You see here we have a change in fund balance going down about 317. That is planned. We are buying a lot of equipment um because we're trying to get that fund balance down to within that three-month period. But even after this, we still have a couple hundred thousand more that we're going to be have too much funded. Um at this point, there's no penalty. Um but I expect that eventually to come around. >> What do you do with that? I mean, like what do you I mean, you've got $3.5 million in the savings account for for lunch. >> Yeah. Well, it can only be used for student nutrition. there there's no way that we can move that to any other fund in this in the uh district. >> And and and when we buy food, is it through a particular vendor and that's the only one we can go through? There's no other vendor options or >> Oh, no. Most of the time that's shopped around. Um they do a very good job finding the lowest cost food they can they can find. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's not just pick one and buy. It's it's a it's a process. >> Okay. >> Uh Director Swanson, >> Bill, I know we were able to use it for equipment in the past. Do you think that's going to be an option in the future? >> I think it' only be an option if most schools have excess funds there. >> Okay. >> Um they haven't said anything new since last year. So at this point, we can't use it for those cafeteria tables and stuff like we were using. Um so now now it's back to just buying equipment in the kitchens. Um not not in the cafeterias. >> Okay. Excuse me. the uh community education um fund um you know their their fund balance dropped out when they lost all their revenue during during the pandemic. They've been working to bring it back. We had it come back a little bit. Now it's been kind of stagnant over the last couple years. Um but at this point they have a balanced budget um looking at improving the balance by about $30,000. Um at the same time I think they're pretty conservative. I think it'll be more than 30. Um I'm hoping we get back above zero. Okay, debt service. No, sorry. We'll go building fund first. Um, here you'll see that this fund balance is going up, but mainly because we're going to sell bonds in a month of 20.6 million. Um, so about, you know, we get we spend about out of this fund to 11 million in LTFM funds on a yearly basis. This is the same fund though if if the bond passes um that's where that money is going to go to for the projects for the middle schools debt service fund. Um this continues to grow a little bit. As you know this past year we actually did underlevy by over a million dollars to give those funds back. I expect that to happen again this next year probably a little higher rate than the 1 million. Um remember here the reason that it kind of grows is the state of Minnesota allows us to levy 105% just in case people don't pay their taxes and then we would be short and not be able to make our bond payments. Um but eventually that extra 5% gets to be too much and we give it back. a agency and trust is our mainly our scholarship um fund. Um mainly come but what these are in this fund particularly are funds that have been given to us over the year by different families where they want the principal to stay there and only use the the earnings the interest earnings to use for kids for scholarships. So then that seed money stays there for years to come. Now, here here's where the the insurance cell insurance. We're expecting this um by the end of the year at this point to be negative by about uh $500,000. We'll watch this very closely. Um we are having a meeting um I believe next week where we have our new bids come in off of our um the you know the different firms that we've been working with to see if we can get some better rates that way too. But we'll know a lot more here in a month on this fund. Um, sorry, Chair Cameron. Sorry. Um, can we can we go back to the internal service? Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you for this. I I want to make sure that I understand this again. So, you shared earlier that we were on track for what we spent last year with a positive 1.9%. Is that what I heard you say? >> Yeah. For for the Yeah. for the beginning of of the year. What we did is when we looked at the expenditures, we went back and did a did a weighted average over five years to really look at >> um not think it's going to be over $37 million again, but you know, I could be wrong. We certainly could be, right? >> Um >> but based on what we're spending right now, is that on pace of not last year, I mean last year as well as the year before. So like where there's incremental uh um spend and and but we just don't know if there's going to be a significant surplus of spread spend over the summer. But as it sits right now, if things if all things were equal and and we didn't have a a summer um claims that that that come through the 20 the fiscal year 2024, we could be probably in the 30th million if if if nothing happens. I mean, that's just not correct. >> But that's just what the data, >> but at the same time, I I want to be conservative, right? I don't want to say it's gonna be it's all rosy because it might not be, right? >> So, that's where we use a fiveyear weighted average to come up with the 36. >> So, so then so let's let me play this out. So, then if it's $30 million is what our insurance claim spend is. Uh then, um that's a $5,000 $5 million savings. And so that instead of being $500,000 in the in the negatives, we'd be a positive 4.5. And so then with the upcoming claim uh the upcoming premium insurance that is coming for for the July cycle, um that could further accelerate the savings account of the fund balance for the health insurance fund balance with the assumption if we stayed the same in annual spend. meaning that potentially the following year we could have a recalibrated premium for our staff if if that plays out. >> Yeah, we look at that. We look at that every year. I mean, we have to make sure that we have funds available to make the claims. >> Um but we don't want we're not going overcharge people on purpose. Right. >> Right. Right. I mean, healthcare is healthcare. If they're going to if they need it, they need it. But I'm just want to just make sure that if the if last year was just an anomaly of 35 million and we just do 30 million again this year, we save well not we save well we're were we were not spending an extra $4.5 million uh that we anticipated which then bolsters our internal service fund and because we already have the health insurance premiums locked in for next year we can't adjust that right away I'm assuming. >> Well actually next year we're not locked in. That's why we're looking at the bids right now from the different insurance companies >> for July. We're not locked in. >> No. >> Okay. >> No, we'll make those decisions um late March um through the insurance committee and bring a recommendation back to the board of what we think that increase should be. >> The estimate at this point because of what happened is at 15%. So, it's it's a considerable increase in rates and >> and we ideally want to be what $10 million in the savings account here. >> Yeah, we do. >> And we're at negative450,000 481,000 right? Well, that's the forecast. >> Yeah. >> Assuming if we do what we did last year. >> Okay, >> that's correct. >> And there's nothing we can do. I mean, other than it just has to play it out. And and and so how do how do we cover the $481,000 shortfall? Who pays? We pay for that. >> Talking with our auditors, um we're actually allowed to borrow against the general fund. So, we don't have to just cover it. We can borrow the money to the fund and where we cover, we get the money back. So, we don't have to just write a check and fill the hole. Okay. So, how do we borrow? I mean, can you walk me through that one more time? >> So, bills, we get premiums paid, correct? We can bring the balance back. >> If we get to the end of this particular year, right, we get to June 30th and we have a negative number in this fund. >> We can we can borrow money from a from a general fund to cover that shortage temporarily. >> And when the funds come back, then we just pay the general fund back again. So we don't have to just cover cover the dollars with a check from the general fund >> and the funds would come back from the whatever percent you sent in March. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So okay. >> How do we get >> I'm sorry like who do you borrow the money? >> I mean it's not a it's not a loan. They just borrow against ourselves. >> Yes. All right. It's like all right. >> Yes. >> All right. It's funny money then kind of. We're going to think positive and uh land positive uh for the for that. But I I told Bill we're going to paint as conservative and honest a picture uh picture as we can and uh make sure that we continue to tell this story as it develops. >> Great. You have another question. >> Yeah. No, just one more comment. It's like like hey this is healthcare again and I want to make sure I'm I'm on the record like we want our staff to be healthy so if they got to go they got to go and take care of themselves. Uh but we also just need to recognize here are the financial implications and we just need to plan around it. That's all. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So here's just a summary of all the funds. You can see what's happening here. Um so our projected balances at the end of the end of this year we're expecting our total fund balance on general fund to be at 20 27 million um down so we have a total of almost $60 million um in our total total funds. Again the uh unassigned number is at 176 at that 8.3%. So this is a general statement. The overall health and health of the school district has the financial health has improved. Um we're looking at that um the unassigned fund balance to move to that 8.3% um amount which we're very happy about. Um again like I mentioned um earlier the student nutrition needs to decrease to three months of year. So it needs to be at 33 3.3 million at the the fund balance you remember was about 3.5. Uh so getting very close and of course the internal service fund that's we're watching that very closely but we have to we'll have to make some adjustments um to make sure we build that fund balance back. >> Thanks Bill. >> So any questions with any of that? >> Are there any further questions? >> Director Thompson. >> Yeah. Um le less of a question but just more of a comment. I'm just looking at your very last slide. I think it's the uh the Lakeville school, Lakeville aerial schools ranking against other school districts. Uh I don't think you have that slide up here, but it's I think that's always good to share. We are the ninth largest school district in the state with 11,916 students on the books. Uh beating Mountains View who was who is now 10th which we were 10th I think last year. Um two things I do want to call out is our revenues. uh while we generate what is it 17 uh 17 17.5 uh per ADM um and comparable to the schools above but more importantly is our per expenditures uh ADM and we are amongst the lowest so our ranking in regards to expenditures is we're the 20th uh least expensive in how we manage our operations and so when we think about um the staffing that we have the um how the money is being spent uh and the uh additional resources and things that we want to consider. We're not spending like the 19 other schools, but yet we are the ninth largest school in our school in in the state. And so there is an opportunity where we may want to have further discussions on how do we bolster uh you know uh the the revenue that comes in so that we can have the right resource mix and allocation so that we can take care of our students and our staff. So again we are we are the ninth largest school. >> Yeah. Great. >> So >> all right. Thanks uh Director Holgrren. With that, um, I'd entertain a motion to approve the revised fiscal year 26 budget as presented. >> So moved. >> Um, first by Reichenberger. Is there a second? >> I'll second it. >> Second by Carbone. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. The budget passes. Thank you, Bill. >> Um, all right. With that, I'll invite um Director Alrech up to dis correct. Yeah. to discuss um the approval of the tenative agreement with Education Minnesota Lakeville. >> Yes. Uh good evening, Madam Chair, Superintendent Bowman, and members of the school board. You have before you this evening a tenative agreement with EML, who is our teachers union, uh for a contract settlement for the years 2025 through 2027. Highlights of the settlement include a 2% salary increase in year one of the contract and a 2.05% 05% increase on the salary schedule. Year two of the contract, a one-time increase to health insurance contributions year two of the contract, uh 2.05 increase to schedule C and D year two of the contract and integration of the small wonders contract into the EML contract. Uh this also includes wage increases both year 1 and year two for small wonders. The tenative agreement has been ratified by EML and the settlement is within schoolboard established parameters and is recommended for approval. >> Great. Thanks, Director Alrech. Um, so tonight we're here to approve uh or consider approval of the the TA. Um, is there a motion to approve the TA? >> So moved. >> Um, >> seconded. >> First by Anderson, second by Reinberger. Any discussion? >> Yeah, Director Thompson. >> Yeah. Uh so I I just want to first call call out and and and thank the administration, the teachers union uh representatives to have these conversations and getting us to where we are at. Um I know that there was a lot of conversations, a lot of dialogue. So I just want to say thank you for for that. Um I did uh so the overview of the contract um you know and I shared this two years ago when we when when we approved that the contract back then uh during the kind of I think it was a really challenging economic time two years ago uh with with where we where we were at uh as a as a nation and also in the e economically uh the the things that I saw the so let me just make sure I'm on the same page. The 2% increase is that 2% increase at each individual cell or is it 2% increase where every teacher gets the same raise increase as a flat rate? >> It's 2% on each cell year 1 and 2.05% on each cell year two. >> Okay. >> Okay, Director Thompson. >> Yeah. So, thank you. Um and and so I shared this two years ago because that's what they did that that was the contract that was uh presented two years ago and two years before that they did not uh I believe it was an incremental raise that was at each step uh not the 2% increase and and and so I want to I want to acknowledge this because we've got newer teachers that are in the BA category step one or I think they start step two or three. Um and uh and while their entry level is about $53,000, they're getting a 2% increase on that. And an individual who is on the highest step as a teacher making $97,472 are getting a 2% increase on that number. So there's a large discrepancy I feel that our younger and newer teachers, let me our newer teachers are getting uh versus the top end of of the um of the of of the of the of our staff. And so again, this is the second year we're doing this is the second time we're doing this and it just widens the gap in my mind on how are we as a district making sure that we can scale for growth and bringing in the talent. We've got like there could be a teacher who is a who's got a bachelor's degree step 10 making $59,41 like 10 years of being a teacher at our school district and that's what they get and that's what they make. Um and and that's not as as favorable as one would hope after 10 years of in working in this in in in this field. Now you got to go get a master's degree. You got to get continuing education education credits. I get that. uh uh getting a master's degree is also going going back to school. College cost is more expensive. I just I'm not aligned with this 2% at each individual cell uh versus uh you know a third grade teacher is putting the exact same amount of work as another third grade teacher uh in throughout the course of the year, but yet their raises are just uh aligned to their individual salary uh uh dollar value again. So, that's one that's one thing that that I'm not a huge uh aligned with. The second thing that I see is that, you know, the current contract states that we're going to cover 60% of the health insurance premium increase for this upcoming school year and then 50% the following year of any health insurance premium increase. And then as it sits, we always pay 50% in the premium increases. And so as healthcare continues to rise, um that is a financial obligation that we need to be mindful of as as we plan our financial forecast uh and and where the dollars are going to go. Um and then the third thing that I want to say is like we also pay as a taxpaying community $50,000 towards the EML president. Like that's that's our taxpayer dollars pays for that in this contract. And so I am not acknowledge I am I want to make sure I acknowledge that that that role is not that that uh that role isn't necess isn't needed. It it is but should the district taxpayers pay for that and and I don't know. So those are just a few things that I want to highlight out on this. Um and then the last thing I apologize and the last thing I want to highlight uh as as we shared before like like we we are we are maxed out. Um we there's a set dollar amount that we have available. We've allocated all of it. We have no more money to give. We have no more money to save. We have um and and the positive news is that we have 8.3% projected in our savings account, which is good. But like however much we we have available, we're we're that's that's where we are at and that's where we're all then that's where we've allocated it to. And so I just I want to make sure that we're we're protecting our staff and uh and those that might be in their 10 years and may not have gotten their masters and but I also want to understand there are folks that have been here for 20 years and and there are no more steps for them to get and and so how do they make sure that the cost of living uh you know stays stays in line with them as well. So, I don't have a good answer, but what I do know and and I just think that there's there's there's other there's we've got to think of other pathways and be more creative as we move forward um in in the in the agreements and so that we we we spend our money as effectively as we can. So, >> I think I'll just add um I appreciate your perspective, Director Thompson. I think through our closed sessions, we discussed all of those issues at length, including your opinion. As director Alrech said, the consensus of the board was in supporting what the TA was presented. So, while I respect your opinion, I want to be clear that the consensus of the board in close session was supporting the contract um as approved by um EML. Um, I think what's important as we think about negotiations from my perspective and Matt and I were at almost all of the sessions is that we want to do the best we can for our employees given the parameters that we're in. I think everyone up here feels that way. I know you do as well. And given our parameters, we need to make sure that we are competitive in the market. So, we cannot have a a settlement that is way under our peers. We can't we also can't do one that's way over our peers because we can't afford that, right? And so I I was I am happy that this settlement seems to be in alignment with the a more or less the average of what our peer districts are settling at and that I think is very important um as we think about attracting teachers, retaining teachers and being a competitive market for um I mean we have to even though it's public education and it's very like kumbaya, right? we have to we're we're competing against our peers to to to get students to get staff um and we need to be competitive um you know with salaries and with our contract and I I think we we did the best we can given the parameters that we have for this for this settlement >> right >> um director uh Swanson >> uh yeah thank you Amber um yeah I I support the contract um and the agreement that was reached as as Amber noted you know, we attended most of the negotiations and uh which was a great experience being able to, you know, meet everyone on the leadership team for the union. Uh it was all very cordial. Um you know, coming on to the board in having seen the last negotiation process, uh I wasn't sure what to expect. So, uh yeah, so it was very cordial, not exactly what I expected. um based on an outsers's perspective or viewpoint. But uh I do want to note I mean we're looking at a 2% increase to the the matrix not to pay and 2.5% 2.05% the second year. Um total contract price 8.19% is the increase over two years. Uh which chair Cameron said is close to alignment with a lot of other districts. and and really, you know, this board and I want the the public to know and the teachers to know um approached the district and said, "Well, let's just let's give them our best offer right out of the gate. We don't want to try to make money off the teachers. You know, let us know what we can afford to offer the teachers in the contract." And that's what we did from a financial perspective. Um it was a 7% offer right out of the gate back in I believe it was August. uh which would have been a two and two offer essentially uh depending on how you move the money around. Uh today we're at 8.19% because really what happened uh is we found out there were additional costs that the district was going to incur essentially additional $1 million for the insurance provisions. Um and then there was some negotiation which got us that additional.19%. So essentially, you know, we're at very close to our initial offer to the district. If it would have been accepted, even if we would have been offered 7.19, we probably would have all agreed to it back in in August. Uh the additional expenses on the insurance side, which were unforeseen at that time, if we would have settled, we would have eaten those costs as a district anyways. Um, so while it might be 8.19%, it's really the deal that we were offering or very close to the deal we were offering all along. Um, and again, I I might not like that it took so long to get us here. Um, but again, I appreciate that the district, you know, we put a number out there and said, you know, this is what we can afford without sacrificing other student resources. And I'm glad at the end of the day we could come to an agreement with uh EML and get this thing approved. So, >> great. Any other comments? Director Reichenberger. >> Um, I just want to I want to thank you and I want to thank uh Directors Cameron and Swanson and uh EML for uh getting us all to a point where um we've we got to maybe negotiate all about getting to maybe and um uh getting an agreement in place and and working for our teachers. So, I I appreciate it. I'm sure the city of Lakeville appreciates it. The school district appreciates it. Uh, thank you. >> Any other comments? Okay, with that, um, we made a motion, right? Sorry, I'm trying to spend. Okay, thank you. Um, uh, all in favor of approving the, um, tenative agreement for the EML contract 2025 to 2027, uh, say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> No. Um motion passes 61. Um okay, >> thank you. >> With Thanks, Brenda. Um with that, we are moving into the consent agenda items um that were pulled earlier. I would like to start first um making a motion to table letter F, the ELA core resource recommendation for grades 92. Is there a second to table this to a future meeting? >> A second. >> Seconded by Anderson. Um, is there discussion on this? And I'll I'll add I was able to to touch base with Superintendent Bowman. We can delay this. Um, correct, Director Brovald. >> It's not optimal, but yes. >> Okay. We can we'll delay it. um given that we've been here for over 3 hours and no known questions have come forward from the board around this topic and so if you have questions about this resource on English language learners or sorry no sorry English language arts um please forward them um to uh Superintendent Bowman with a CC to myself and and um director Anderson and we will get responses to you in advance of the vote. um for approval at the next at our next board meeting which would be the end of March. I forget the date at this point. Um any other discussion on this topic? Director Thompson, >> I I am in favor of that. So, thank you. Uh I think for the role that we have as as a board, one of our core responsibilities is to approve curriculum. And I think curriculum is something that that's going to be deployed to all the grade 9 through 12, which is roughly 4,000 students, is probably something we just shouldn't put in the consent agenda. So, I appreciate tableing it. We can have a discussion on it at the next meeting or whenever is appropriate. So, thank you. >> Any other discussion? >> Okay. All in favor of tableabling this to a future meeting say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. Motion passes. Um, similarly, I would like to make a motion to table items GH, J, and O. Did I get them all? The policies that were moved earlier >> um uh to a future meeting for um consideration for approval. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Seconded by Anderson. And then um is there discussion? Director Baker, >> I just have a question. when we are tableabling those four items um does the same uh flow I guess apply where if we have questions about those to um email you so that we can get those answered. >> Yes, I think with any you know topic on an agenda if you have questions before the meeting to please send them in advance. I think that gives our um cabinet and superintendent Bowman an opportunity to to fully research. Um I think I think that I think a conversation um not at length tonight but but to go back to our working session on what is our goal for policy this year and and maybe the goal isn't to to you know move through minor edits um as and and then move to more pressing policies that either are way out of compliance or that we don't even have that are needed. Um, I thought I heard from the work session and I I believe the vice chair and the superintendent um heard that the goal was to move um move these types of items onto the consent agenda. And so how does the board want to proceed? Because obviously we're not going to spend um we're not like if we allocated if we started talking about these we'd be here till midnight, right? And so what do we want to try to accomplish in the next year around policy? And if it's just one a meeting, then it's one a meeting. But I I I think we have a lot more work to do than that. Yep. Director Swanson. >> Yeah. And I can appreciate I mean I think you're trying to get a unanimous consent on some of these and we might just never get there, right? Um, so if if the board, you know, a majority of the board differs with my opinion on one of these policies, you can very well just vote and get it approved and and I won't my feelings won't be hurt, right? But I know I think the discussion was we can pass. >> Do we want to just make minor edits and then a board member can request for it to be placed on a future meeting agenda for further discussion and further edits? Um, >> yes. >> Yeah. And again, I think we we did technically approve five policies tonight, policy changes. So, yep, >> there's a little progress there. >> Uh, direct Oh, use your hand up. Director Thompson. >> Yeah. Uh, just two comments here. Um, >> I apologize. Are we moving these out to another time or >> That's the motion. Okay. My discussion was what is our goal? I don't want to bring all these back again if you know. >> Thank you. Uh, two comments here. So, I had a chance to listen to u the previous three-hour meeting that you guys had as a working session. Um the the the intent of what I shared uh at the meeting prior to that was not to get parental consent to do uh searches or look at or look at um lockers or anything like that. The intent and what I thought I was trying to I thought it was super clear and maybe I wasn't was that we need to inform parents that something occurred. If anybody like searched your child uh for whatever reason, we get alerts for uh grades. >> Brian, can I I appreciate that and I don't think we're going to hash out. >> No, I'm not here to hash it out. >> But I think what I'm hearing you say is that >> what you were thinking of editing is very different from what Matt was thinking about editing because he you were about pre-notification and you were talking about post notification. So clearly >> different things though. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think yours was pretty for criminal and mine was like I I just want to know if you're going to search my my child's locker or if you're going to do if you're going to do a person search and so that was the intent. >> I think we can bring back these policies again for the second reading. Right. But we won't do it tonight. >> Okay. >> I mean if if the board agrees. Yep. >> Yep. Director Thompson. And and the second thing is that um one of the reasons that um over the past two years of being on the board, we were trying to be very thoughtful of of um having meetings public and uh and and making votes because we uh working sessions can lead to uh indirect decisions that really warrant a vote. like you guys lit like you guys shot down a uh a board approved um a board approved policy committee through a working session. No one voted. You guys all just agreed that we're going to just go do that because we voted to have that board policy committee at a board business meeting. And so so again, one of the reasons that we want to be mindful of these working sessions of if we're going to make these kind of decisions, what are the rules on making those decisions? Are we voting during these working sessions? And then lastly, if we're not voting, then how do we know and who's capturing the decisions? And who's who's capturing who decided to do what? And and and yes or no during these working sessions. Like I'm not I'm not saying we can't make decisions, but if that's the direction we going to we're going to go, then that's one that's that's one of the reasons how we got into some of the other issues when decisions were made during a working session without any accountability. Any accountability. And so again, the board policy committee was made during a business meeting and you guys shot it down. Let me rephrase that. It was as a board and and it probably would have passed anyways during a regular business meeting, but we can't be make are we going to be making those kind of decisions during working sessions. So that's what I heard when I listened. >> Thank you. Any other comments? >> Okay. All in favor of um moving or of tableabling um GHJ and O to a future meeting say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes 70. With that, we'll move to board member reports. Does anybody have anything to report? Uh Director Baker, I'll make this short. I just um want to thank all of the staff um and all of the volunteers that were at the sports and activities festival this weekend. It was really great. Um I know I got to spend the morning with Carly and Amber and then Tony came after coaching a basketball game all day. So that was a long day. Um it was fun. It was great to see all of the community out. Lots of little ones. Um I think we stopped at 950, didn't we? When we were here >> uh it got up to a thousand. Yes, that was our goal. Like we were trying to get to a thousand. So, um it was just a really great event. So, it's good to see that back in the district and enjoyed volunteering. >> Great. Thanks. Any other updates or reports? Yeah, director Swanson. >> Uh I attended um the play Annie at Century Middle School with my family uh two Saturdays ago and it was very well done. Um the set, the actors, yeah, actresses. So, highly recommend it. uh blew me away for a middle school production. So >> that's great. >> Director Carbon. >> Yeah. Um, last Thursday night, uh, a number of it, myself and Carly and Amber and Michael and Brian, uh, attended the Chamber of the Chamber of Commerce, um, business awards dinner and, um, I'm I'm sure all of you folks did, too. But we had an opportunity to talk to a lot of the business leaders about their, uh, their appreciations and concerns, uh, about um, the educational system. Great. Any other updates? Um, I'll just add one other. I was able to attend the, and Michael, you alluded to this, to the um, state high school dance tournament over Valentine's weekend. So, I was there all day, so I saw Lakeville South and Lakeville North perform twice. Um, once in the finals and, um, I'll just say I I grew up in a dance family. I'm not a dancer, but I grew up in the family and a lot of people said Lakeville Norris should have placed. So, so for whatever that's worth, um they did they did a fantastic job as did Lakeville South. Um all right, with that, um we'll move to the superintendent report. >> Yeah, just uh two quick things. Uh they were touched on already, but I do uh want to say thank you to board members who were able to make those two events. The two events I'm referring to are the chamber awards dinner. So, thank you for that. Um, I think it's important to, as Paul alluded to, listen to what our business leaders, there's a lot of support in the business community for our schools. Um, and I think that was on display. Um, and then the activities and sports festival. Uh want to just thank all the families who came out and invite uh families to come out next year and um see if we can get more uh kids involved and uh help our activities uh and our community uh activities as well with uh with our students who can do some extended learning. So um thank you again for for doing that. Um in the interest of time I'll just leave it there. >> All right. Great. Super superintendent Bowman. All right. We're at the end of our meeting. Is there a um motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjurnn. >> All right. First by Swanson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second by Reichenberger. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. We are adjourned. Thanks everybody.