welcome and good evening everyone thank you for being here I would like to call the Monday February 24th 2025 school board meeting to order and I'd like to thank Denette Childs for filling in this evening for Lisa brandecker DTE will call the RO yep um director W Felton here Claflin here Cummings here T Felton here Duffy here Weber here chair human here that's 7 present at 6:01 p.m. thank you now I'd like to ask who are able to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance it's a tricky corner it is a tricky corner I pled Al to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all all right well welcome to all of our guests this evening I'm so excited when we get to hear from our students especially Athletics and activities happening there's so much success and celebration but first the boring stuff uh we are um needing to approve our meeting agenda and the minutes from January 27th a work session and regular meeting the February 3rd Special work session meeting and the February 10th work session minute um so I'm looking for a motion to approve so move second thank you um any discussion regarding the agenda and the minutes um I just wanted to mention we have so many of them because we had a special board retreat that was on February 3rd and a board retreat sounds like something that should have tropical drinks and warm weather it's not um it was an opportunity for us as a board to really dig in with um Ray Queener from Teamworks about how our role as governance in our school district works and how we can increase our ability to do good things for our community and for our schools by making sure that we really understand um the work that we're doing and not getting kind of too far into the world of what the teachers what the District employees do what um all of our caretakers and staff in our district do like we're making sure that we're doing what we can to make sure that everyone else can do what they do so um I just think that it's really important I'd like to point out that we are trying to grow our knowledge to do the best that we can all right I am asking all all those in favor yes all those in favor of approving our agenda and minutes please say I I I opposed all right carries seven oh all right now we can move on to the exciting quality and action I'd like to invite Brady Krueger up to help uh introduce our winter season thing all right well thank you for inviting us back to share updates on our winter activity season uh before we begin I'd like to thank again um Dr zamino the school board uh building administrators Mr oaki and Miss Borg for their ongoing support of Packer Athletics and activities uh I truly appreciate the opportunity to come before you to speak with you and highlight the incredible work of our coaches advisers and students and programs that sit behind me right now um before we get too far into this I also want to take a moment recognize the dedication of our coaches and advisers um who again work TIR tirelessly with our students every day to ensure that they have positive experiences and develop into responsible citizens which is ultimately the point of why we have Athletics and activities at the high school level without further delay though I'm going to call up uh Mr holson with our theater program to highlight some of the uh ongoings in our theater Department well hi thank you everybody um really happy to be here to talk about our winter theater season which is our one winter onea Play Festival um in South St Paul we've been doing this for for a number of years now uh we do something a little different than our schools we don't just do one competition one act we do a whole uh a whole bunch we do six plays actually um which gets a whole lot more involvement than just doing one competition play would do and giv students a lot of opportunities to experience uh a lot of different rol roles in theater uh that they wouldn't normally get to otherwise um just in terms of some numbers from our winter 1X we did six short plays one competition one act uh a middle school one act and then four student written and student directed skits we had 10 student directors involved 11 students who entered our playwriting contest uh four of those plays were chosen to be performed uh and those students also got paid $50 from the Deb Clark Memorial Theater fund uh as royalty for uh and and the award for winning the playwriting contest that contest was judged not by me but we have three South St Paul theater Alum uh who are adjudicators for the playwriting contest uh we had 49 student actors involved in the production 15 student technicians on the running crew and a total of 73 students involved in the production in in one way or another uh also very pleased to announce this was the second year in a row that we uh went to uh section finals uh and and that's in uh probably what I would describe as the toughest 1X section in the state um and so we're very pleased to have had the chance to do that um I'm actually going to invite each of these students to come up and they didn't know I was going to do this yeah you saw Bella just kind of sat up there like what hson uh but I'd like to them to just kind of introduce themselves and uh tell you what role or roles they had in the 1X um and then if they want to say something else they can too so here we go um Harrison Chile uh in the one act I was the lake which sounds stupid I know but it was cool I promise uh and um I think that I theater's like my favorite thing that I've ever done at school and I feel really at home there and it's really fun and everyone should do it at some point in their lives thank you Harrison also wrote One plays that we performed oh yeah right I also wrote one of the plays that they perform wait to take a c um I'm Trey Allen um see for this year I wrote a play I directed A play I directed his play it's true he did a good job thank you and I was in the competition one act as a knight and yeah uh I really love the one acts cuz I've written and directed and acted like throughout all of high school and it's a really great opportunity really fun and it allows people to learn a lot of new skills and just you know be creative it's really fun my name is Bella I was the props master and I did lighting design and I ran the lightboard and I really love theater because it allows me to try out all sorts of new creative ways to solve problems all right we obviously have a lot more people involved in this but a lot of them frankly right now are at Shire rehearsal uh because Shire has their last performance uh of the Season uh coming up uh this weekend so um that's where they are but I I promised all the kids I would speak well of them which is honestly quite easy to do with this group of kids um I bet you're wondering what's coming uping so right now we just actually uh the the three of us uh well and Bella was there for a little bit too just came over here from a rehearsal for All Quiet on the Western Front which is our high school play which uh performs on March 14th 15th and 16th uh so just about a little less than three weeks from now that that play opens and then uh we also will have a Middle School spring play which will be Ramona Quimby based on the on on a beloved children's book and that will perform May 16th 17th and 18th so hope to see everybody there and uh again thank you for giving us the chance to uh talk about our program thank you for coming thank you Eric uh Eric does an absolutely phenomenal job with our theater program and making sure that all of our kids have a have a space uh on our campus um next up I'm going to bring up Isaac Douglas with our girls basketball program uh they are in the middle of section play right now they actually will open up section quarterfinal game Wednesday at sou St Paul so if you are looking for something to do swing on by the comp gy took your line you took what I was going to say hi uh thanks for having us here um so yeah it's been another really good year for us and the girls basketball team um with me I have our senior captains Kate Ebert and Scarlett Johansson uh no it's been another really good year um it's our third straight year in double digit wins and uh these two have led us to a four seat again uh in the section playoffs so yeah hosting a game on Wednesday we got Minneapolis South who we played uh game one of the Season lost them but hoping that we can come out and play a little bit better um and have a lot of fun so yeah I'm not really sure about postseason accolades yet at this point since we have our conference meeting tomorrow night so uh keep your eyes out for those and look out because they I'm sure both those these two names will be mentioned in them um but yeah so please come out support us on Wednesday and should be a lot of fun we do have one Accolade don't we oh we do yeah Scarlet was the Dina winner uh when was that announced two weeks last week last week yeah yeah but Scarlet was for bringing that up to me we do have an we can um yeah thank you and that's all for me thanks for having us thank you thank you thank you thanks all right next up I'm going to bring up Raz Wilson to talk about our dance program that had another very successful year and I'll her share some of the highlights uh RZ was also a section Coach of the Year by the way recognized section one um coach of the year so congratulations RZ great good evening uh I'm Ros Wilson I'm the head coach for the sou St Paul dance team um joining me today two of the seniors Morgan Carter and Haley Carlson uh this past season we had about 31 dancers so uh we had a b Squad a varsity and a junior varsity um we've been working really hard for the past 17 weeks this year we have three All State dancers Haley Carlson Asher Lindamood and Isabella alich at sections this year our Varsity kick team took second and our Varsity Jazz team took first so that punch two tickets to State um where we placed eighth in jazz and um Ninth at kick so we had a really successful season we also made the madt All State academic team um with an average GPA of 3.5 and Haley Carlson here got a Allstate academic senior award for having a GPA above 3.85 so really successful season on behalf of the coaching staff and the team thanks for having us here tonight to recognize and yeah thank you all right next up I'm going to bring up our uh gymnastics coach Kia tajes to talk about our gymnastics program hello can you hear me okay uh thank you so much for inviting us here today um I'm Ka I'm the girls gymnastics coach um I'll start with saying we didn't have many wins this year um but that did not Define us this year has been great for a lot of other reasons uh throughout the season everybody kept getting better um we saw small personal improvements and growth from every individual on the team over the course of the Season uh we scored a high of since I started coaching um coaching them three years ago um not only did we improve at our routines um this year our sense of community grew uh we became closer with the teams in our conference um I loved seeing the connection that our kids made uh with the other teams I recall trying to peel Maggie away from her best friend at our last meet um while we were trying to get on the bus um we really they really were looking out for each other sharing hairspray chalk tape laughter the incredible sense of support everyone offered each other created a really positive environment this year U meets were super loud as uh we were cheering for our opponents and they were cheering for us um tonight I'm here with two seniors um Maggie and Scarlet I'll share a little bit about each of them and then I'll let them talk about their experience um Scarlet has been with the team for one year uh her senior year uh it's so special that she decided to share with us um her senior gymnastics season um in the short time I've gotten to know her um she shown me how kind and caring she is for her teammates um her Fierce love for the sport um she also often States uh I'd go crazy without gymnastics um in one year with the team she collected many accolades which she hasn't really received yet cuz our banquet is two weeks from now um the first of which is uh all she's all conference for allaround so that's all four events All State honorable mention for allaround and all four events um at sections she qualified for the state tournament and she competed this weekend along with many other friends from our conference so I'll let her talk for a second um my first year on the gymnastics team was really fun and it was a really fun Community to be with and I really enjoyed just being part of a team and seeing how we grew throughout the season uh next I'll tell you about Maggie um I started coaching the team in the 2022 23 school year this is my third season Maggie's a Vette she's been with this team twice as long as I have this is her sixth year um starting in eighth grade all the way through her senior year um she is a five-time vicity letterer uh she has always been hardworking and persistent showing up for her team when they need the most uh she's a great senior leader and team captain and she has contributed enormously to the culture of good sportsmanship on our team I'm not sure what we're going to do with her without her next year oh yeah this year was definitely most of the um most fun years that I've had for all the seasons because I'm very glad that Scarlet joined this year she definitely helped contribute to the team and then I'm really glad that we were all on the team this year everyone we had because we all got super close this year out of all the years that I've been on the team thank you so much for having us thank you so much all right next I'm going to bring up uh Miss Chris wein ferner she has uh been leading one of our new programs here it's our cheer team um and if you haven't been able to see our cheer team in action they have completely changed kind of the environment that we have at our basketball games our football games um they've even cheered at volleyball games and so on it's just a really exciting uh thing for them to have them at our game so I'll bring up Chris weineron to talk about our cheer program hi Chris we ferner um I was approached by two girls who said can we start cheer and this is the third year we've had kids ask me two years ago we started with like 12 and it diminished so it didn't happen last year we had a group of maybe six or eight and then it didn't happen so this year we had a meeting 50 girls showed up 25 tried out and I still am 12 cheerleader strong and three managers they've been cheering at the games they raised enough money to buy their own pom poms and then I just you know went to my brother who's on the Croatian Hall board and said we need uniforms and so we got uniforms for the girls it's been really fun they're strong leaders they're great students um it adds a whole new environment the girls basketball oh they already left Bo at their um senior night it was just a super fun environment it's fun to see the girls grow um and be such great leaders in the building thank you the cheer the the cheer program has absolutely been awesome next I'm going to bring up Amber gay with uh BP group can I pause for a second yeah you can pause uh director Cummings I just I just wanted to say and I know that they've left but I went to one of the girls basketball games and was absolutely overwhelmed with the cheer program um it transformed the whole environment it was a wonderful place to be and as people talk about like what do we to do in order to think about reining Packer Pride or bringing that back it's like take the lead of these cheerleaders cuz they were phenomenal so they absolutely it's been it's been a blast watching them grow in that program grow all right H oh it says staff one right right on here I don't know I tried a bunch of times before the meeting started hi everyone um I'm Amber gay I'm the adviser for the black pride organization ation I have a few of our students with me um I'm glad that we get to go after Chris because we have a lot of B students who also cheer so it's been nice to see the overlap between our organizations right as they grow theirs they grow ours um I have a list of some of our past events that we did this year and then the end of last year after our last quality and action um do you guys want to help read some of them okay you guys can Jo pass it and I'll step back so you can talk into the microphone oh like explain a little bit all right oh and say who you are too no yeah I mean my name is Amal you guys know me um so I'm the president of BP defina and I'm the vice president of BP that's defina and then that's my brother AEL and then King and so we had a lot of past events so we went to HBCU college fair that was earlier this year and we learned about if you know what HBCU is it's a historically black college University so a lot of our seniors we went and we got to learn more about HBCU since there are not many near here in South St Paul so we got to learn about that we had a kindness Retreat and that was with Mr creger and we helped younger children um with leadership and being kind to one another we also did Dodge Nature Center Partnerships so we went to Dodge Nature Center and we learned about animals and and again this is an ongoing partnership so we have two more field trips down the line and I'll be sure to share pictures um upcoming so it's black history months we have a lot of events so we have Multicultural day with cdlu and that will be March 13th I'm going to bug you all to come because it's super fun and we're going to be reading to elementary school students this week at kosan Lincoln and we also had our ml Day celebration that was uh believe that was President's Day and I saw some of you there it was very fun um we got to learn more about MLK and we had a keynote speak that said some very profound things that all of us need to learn about and I'll let other people speak um something else we have upcoming is our food drive we're having with neighbors Inc we are we collaborating with the uh IB with IB yeah diploma kids for their little pass project yeah past project that they have going on that's going to be super exciting I believe that's Tuesday Tuesday this week two week yeah tomorrow fair for all oh tomorrow for fair for all and we also have Feed My Starving Children coming up and a movie night with women's Society you guys should share your experiences with h hi my name is AEL fak I'm a mall sister uh I've been with BP for like brother I've been with Boo for like four or five years now uh all the years I've been in it uh it's super fun we have recently we've had like a influx in like people joining I say like maybe last year we'd have maybe like 15 people come and I'd say like a meeting like two weeks ago we had like 30 people so really influx and uh yeah participation so we're hoping to grow that hi I'm king um I've been a part of B since freshman year um BP's like calm me down taught me a lot of stuff um about black history and um doing a whole lot of stuff for our like doing a whole lot of stuff for our community and going to learn about going out of our way to learn about our black history is has really changed changed how I see myself and everyone else in the black community thank you awesome thank you guys so much for coming all right thank you Amber Amber does a phenomenal job leading RBP group um next up I'm going to bring up Emily frad with women's Society to share some of their highlights hi thank you for having us um my name's Emily frad I'm our adviser for women Society um how I got involved with this was I had defina come up to me my second day transitioning from the Middle School to the high school asking me to lead a group um knowing I had a background of working with web in our district and she told me that we were here for women's rights and she has taught me so much in these students have taught me so much a few of our activities we have done so far this year are the kindness retreat planning a movie night learning about fundraisers how to plan them how to schedule them um who needs to be involved um what members of the community can we invite um so one of the pieces that we are doing is we will be having an upcoming movie night um where we are raising awareness um for women's menstrual products specifically in women shelters in our area um it's something that a lot of our girls have spent a lot of hours and time researching and making sure that they are well prepared to take it on themselves um so a lot of what our group is is forming um the skills needed in order to plan and be successful especially when they leave our buildings and make sure they're ready for all of their future endeavors um part of that is having these girls get the opportunity to be able to speak in front of you guys and practice those public speaking skills um so I am going to invite each of them to introduce themselves and share a little bit about woman what women Society is to them hi guys my name is Sophia riaga uh I'm in 10th Grade and one thing I'd have to say that I learned in women Society is how to promote feminism in our community by like our group will have dress drives to provide just in case someone is missing or without something so we'll be there to help them with anything they need good evening um I'm Luna MTH and I'm a sophomore representing women's society and one thing thing I really enjoy about women's Society is that I really love um assisting and helping planning um big events such as movie nights and dress drives and I I really love fundraisers that helps women and yeah and I'm defina nikila and I'm a leader of women's society and one of the things I really feel like I enjoyed my time being in women's Society is the fight we had to have menal products in the bathrooms at our school and I believe it was last year or two years ago is when we actually have that go through and yeah that was probably one of my favorite things um obviously we have a lot more students than what we have with us today last last year group started off with about eight girls and this year we have about 26 both males and females involved um and it's just a continuing growing program and we thank you for your support I have to ask it's been mentioned so many times what movie is playing at movie night the Barbie movie all right thank you well we are having one Thursday with BPO as well yeah 6le six triple all right thank you thank Youk you thank you all right next I'm going to bring up uh Mr Dave Palmquist to talk about her girls hockey program good evening good evening thank you for having us here tonight I'm glad I didn't have to follow my son Zach he would have embarrassed me but um I was telling Bailey I've done this for a long time and I still get nervous coming in front of you but Dr Zano and the school board thank you so much for having us I'd like to invite my guest to introduce herself real quickly before I get started um my name is Bailey vasper uh Bailey vasper um I've been a part of the varsity team for six years now uh two-year captain [Music] and plans on playing college hockey next year so our hockey season again was uh wonderful um very blessed and really humble to be able to coach young ladies like Bailey um my other two captains um Alita aher and Lily Paca weren't able to be here tonight but um uh had a lot of texts after the last game this year we finished 19 and8 again U for the eighth straight year played in the section finals to go to the state hockey tournament uh three and five in those games um heartbreaking is what I I said a lot of times over my uh text to a lot of friends double overtime loss to Holy Angels who uh was an outstanding team but um what was most proud for me is I just I just feel so uh honored and blessed when I I tell these girls every time we play to see them standing on that goal line uh with that Packer logo on their Crest I just know what that means to so many people in our community and what it means to I'm so blessed to be able to coach this group and just bring so much pride um because I know that our girls are going to play so hard and play in a special way each and every time they get on that ice and uh Bailey was one of those special players uh Bailey played for years uh really was a Cornerstone of our program throughout Those Years playing in three state tournaments a two-time captain her along with Elita Ahern and Lily PCO were three of the really Main Stays in class a hockey three of the best hockey players uh that we've had in a long time that contributed to our program um the Heisman Trophy in football is something that you're all kind of familiar with we had a young lady Lily pacle um was a finalist for the Miss hockey award this year uh final 10 in the state of Minnesota for the best hockey player in the state that was our first Miss hockey player since 2012 when Sam lasham um ma uh made that team so we were very proud of her and quite an honor for our little sou St Paul and I think what it stands for and and really uh means is that we're a proud tradition and people know about South St Paul hockey and the fact that they'll you know even little old class uh South St Paul still is recognized as one of the Premier programs in the state of Minnesota and we continue and we will continue to to thrive to be that um and I know that uh Bailey and Alita and Lily uh really left their Mark for our program and are going to carry us into the future uh in winds yes yes Mr paquis I was so excited because I've always been a a real major girls hockey team fan and I brought this with to share with everyone as you just mentioned Alita Ahern and Lily pacle both their pictures were both in the newspaper the Pioneer Press as U Alita Ahern sou St Paul Senior forward scored 29 goals to power the Packers offense this season and then Lily pacle South St Paul Senior defendant and Harvard commit had 19 assists and 21 goals Patrol Rowling Packers Blue Line cuz they were in the paper as finalists very proud of that which is so wonderful for as the Metro girls hockey players of the year they were finalists so that is so wonderful we congratulate them very much I appreciate that and what's really cool is um I I in my first year 1994 995 I had a young lady bob Milbert who's from South St Paul the Milbert family well well known here um Melissa Milbert came up to me um the second floor of the high school and her letter from Harvard uh she went to Harvard that 9495 season and then to have another one 31 years L later go to Harvard it's pretty cool pretty special and to see little South St Paul have two players mentioned as uh some of the top players in the metro area when you're mentioning the lives of Maple Grove and over Edina I couldn't be more proud and I just love these girls and I love what Bailey and all these girls have done for us over the years and really appreciate all of your support I know it brings a lot of sense of Pride to South St Paul and I'm very blessed to be a part of it so thank you for having us here tonight thank you thank you all right we'll stick with a theme we're going to bring up Mr Zack Palmquist and our boys hockey uh program thank you for having us if Dave was nervous I'm double nervous so um it's hard to to come up here and and follow a guy that's one four state champion ships is in the section final every single year but um I'm destined to to break those records on the boys side of things so um another successful year in in the boys program um we um unfortunately we finished our season last Thursday um losing to mamei in the section quarter finals um you know you can define success in a lot of different ways and I I don't see it as wins and losses um but it's kids like Jackson Schultz who's one of our captains this year um our captain Simons he uh along with Cole Stever and Braden wette um our other captains they couldn't be here but before I guess I keep going I'm gonna have Jackson introduce himself hi I'm Jackson uh this year you know the record didn't show that we had a great year but I would say that we got better A lot of our younger players got experience and that'll just only help us further in the future and I can't wait for next year yeah well said Jackson um yeah I mean like like Jackson said we were a young team this year we're very excited for the future of Packer hockey um you know we had our exit meetings on on last Friday and uh you know there's there's a lot there that's um I told all these young kids I said we need to have a big summer you know going into next year um to to build this program to the another level that I know it can be at so um with that being said we did have um rodic Simons was was an allconference player for us this year um Jackson Schultz was an allconference honorable mention player um Cole Stever another captain that I mentioned was all conference honorable mention and we had two sophomores um Jackson horning and Roman Knight that were all all conference honorable mention so very cool to see those guys get recognized and um excited to see the future um of what they can do for our program um and I just want to say thank you to our seniors that brought us to another level and and kept uh um building um our program to what it can be in the future so thank you for having us tonight appreciate it all right we're going to bring up uh Faith Tuttle to talk about our girls wrestling program next hi thank you for having us tonight so some of our team highlights for the girls wrestling this year we had 18 girls out for wrestling which was more than last year um one of the biggest teams in the state for us um for our dual meet this year we were 74 um we took second place in the Beni dual tournament out of probably 14 teams some from out of state as well um out of those tournaments we had five wrestlers who won those tournaments um this year we had three girls all confer for the metro metro eats conference including Rihanna Martinez our 106 pounder and we had two honorable mentions as well um and this weekend we have four girls. qualified for state that are going to be wrestling at the XL ngg Center this Saturday so if you want to watch something or do something that's will there be come here come on come on I'm Bri Martinez um I'm a senior um what am I supposed to say okay um you're doing great we're a it's awesome um um I plan on wrestling College next year um and yeah for Steven's Point yeah very cool so yeah thank you for having us tonight thank yes right good luck to Brianna and the rest of the girls uh wrestlers that'll be wrestling at the Excel on Saturday as they said all right last but not least the boys program Mr nart could not be here tonight so I get the duties of of sharing um the highlights and so Boys wrestlers come on up we have a good crew with us today so again Mr want to thank all of you um as well for inviting us here tonight um he said we're very fortunate to have the continued support in great numbers of awesome families in the district as well as many uh who work for the district as administrators teachers office staff and maintenance staff our boys wrestling team had another positive season with 45 high school boys and another 22 Middle School boys participating um last year we lost or I guess this year we lost 10 of 13 starters from our Varsity lineup last season so we had our work cut out for us getting a new Squad up to par this year uh we were able to make a lot of progress mainly due to the work ethic of our wrestlers and our leaders amongst them our junior varsity ended up winning all but two of their dual meet competitions this year and earn many medals and tournaments uh that they competed in the varsity team ended up with a 14-5 dual meet record and made it to the section finals last weekend where they finished uh four AA section Runners up two wrestlers were All Conference to honorable mention um this this past Saturday four boys qualified for the state tournament in which will be happening this coming week at the Excel Energy Center the boys will wrestle on Friday girls individual wrestlers on Saturday so four wrestlers were also named to our academic all section and the team earned the mwca academic All State gold honor Awards with a 3.7 team GPA so I'm going to let these guys talk and introduce themselves quickly then we'll share some of their highlights hello uh my name is Brady Viner and I was the 172 pounder for majority of the season and uh I love wrestling I started my sophomore year and my dad told me it was going to be really hard and I said I'll do it cuz I want to do something hard that' be challenging for myself and it really was was really hard coming out of practice every day feeling like I was GNA pass out on the ground but I kept pushing through it and it really told myself I really told myself every day I can do this and that uh this will show that I am a good wrestler I also I'm a good athlete and yeah that's that's all I can say uh my name is Amari wallow I was the 189 pounder this year um I like wrestling just because I like how much dedication it takes I love the hard work I love just how much it pushes me to my limits I think that's the one thing I've really enjoyed about this Sport and I hope to continue doing it in my senior year um I'm Oliver mud I was the 152 pounder um stay qualifier um I think our team did an amazing job this year like Mr ker said we lost 10 of the 13 starters and we had a lot of we had big shoes to fill and I think we did a really good job as a team a lot of the younger kids stepping up and our team's going to look real good in the future I'm King General Thompson heavyweight for South St Paul um I'm one of the four state qualifiers out of all of us um yeah wrestling man it's hard bro um but it it takes a lot of like perseverance to like even come back the next day after nart comes and drills up us with conditioning have us running doing burpees then attack style Drilling and stuff like that um I'm I'm proud of myself and proud of all my teammates for even getting through this season after losing all of our seniors last year um yeah we did really good I'm proud of us all right some of the other individuals I could not be here tonight but definitely deserve resn Lucas Len was academic all section Tomaso he's a captain he's also a state qualifier All Conference honorable mention Ty Burch he's a captain he's also a state qualifier um academic all section uh Melvin Gutierrez is another Captain All Conference honorable mention as well as academic all section um Enrique Reyes was their other all all conference award so again great job to these wrestlers um they're not lying when they say wrestling is a brutal and grueling sport so they do a great job and again thanks to Mr neyhart for all the work that he does he's a phenomenal coach does a great job of getting kids out um and keeping kids out all right that's all we got so that is uh the last last little bit that we have again I just want to thank all of our coaches um and advisers that work with these kids they do an absolutely phenomenal job uh one of the best parts of my job is getting watching these individuals work and interact with these kids um and just the lifelong impact that they have on them is is pretty incredible um you know we have some really really good people that do some really really good things for the kids in South St Paul and it's should all be proud of the work that they do thank you thank you for coming yes thank you Brady for bringing all of these students to present to us it's a privilege as the board to be able to get like first dibs on hearing about these things and and the opportunity to share all this with our community so thank you all right um now it's time to shift to the busy stuff uh we've got reports listed on our agenda first we will start with stakeholder comments to the board highlights as a reminder to the community there are two ways to make comment to the board you may either submit a online form that's available on the district website under school board or you may Imp in person to the entire board and we have set aside time at our extended work session meetings which are the second Monday of the month at 6:30 at the district office so on February 11th at our uh work session we had two comments submitted one was submitted online thanking the board for striving to be a safe space for all students and listing out ways that they have observed that commitment the second comment was given in person and it was challenging us as a board to be more aware of our meeting structure processes and engagement I'd like to thank these two members of the public who've come to make comments to the board first it's wonderful to hear positive feedback and second it is important to us that we hear from the community ways that we can improve and grow in addition to all the other reasons that people come to make public comment to the board now I will turn things over to Vice chair Claflin to give us an update on this evening's work session thank you uh this evening we heard Department overviews from uh Mr Rath uh for the finance department uh Joel Miler for HR and Tina Moses for technology and it really stood out just how much our Administration is able to accomplish and how much they are responsible for with uh a really small staff underneath them these folks are responsible for our nutrition services Transportation buildings and grounds making sure we have a budget that's ready and passed on time and with within our um fiscal capacity uh to make sure that we're recruiting retaining attracting and supporting the staff that we have uh making sure we're negotiating contracts and making sure we have a technology department that supports both the infrastructure and the uh I'm going to stumble over the word the pedagogic instruction that is uh using all of this technology to its best capacity in the classrooms they were really amazing at the previous work session we had also heard updates uh from other departments uh this helps us bring in the new board members and helps remind us as well of all of the different um roles that these folks play throughout our district um and then two weeks ago at our work session we also heard from the Native American advisory committee and we'll be hearing more about that tonight um and we had a discussion with Joel Miler about the negotiations process as well quite a bit going on at our work sessions and as always the minutes very uh thoroughly go through what's happened at previous meetings thank you Vice chair Claflin uh next up is the superintendent attendance update um Dr zambino I'm going to hand it over to you to give us a kind of budget update the exciting going on in the district DTE is everything D's trying to get the slide deck to work here we figured since she's helping out we'd throw every curveball at her here tonight you know keep me on my just give a second here while she's doing that but yes you know OB it's fun to come and share the great things going on around the district and I'll be sure to do that tonight as well but as you said uh it is time to start looking at our budget and and planning for next year as we all right nice job DTE uh we talked a little bit about this at the work session how we live in these multiple years we have our calendar year that everyone knows but when you're in school you have your school year but the one that's really kind of on our minds now is the next fiscal year so we're at that point in the year um where we really need to start beginning to think through our budget for next year as a reminder our board um needs to approve our our budget for FY 26 by the end of June so that's our our our end point to make sure we're all set to go for next year and setting up a budget that uh clearly shows our values and supports our staff and students and doing their uh best work uh but before I jumped into the nitty-gritty on next year I thought it's probably worth just a quick reminder of how we got to where we are and so uh just about three years ago today I was hired on as superintendent in the spring of 22 at that time we were in the middle of our budget planning for fy22 for that uh 22 year um and or FY 23 and we were facing ing a number of things that were driving our our dollars down so we had a $1.4 million reduction and I threw just a few dates on here to show kind of what's been happening this is something we've talked about a lot with our board but we've been losing about a 100 students per year and I'll talk more about that in a moment uh and so every time we lose students obviously the funding that they generate goes with them and so we need to adjust our staffing to align with our our enrollment uh but at that time we had another thing that was going on we had a big influx of dollars of one-time funds from the federal government uh Co relief dollars Esser dollars there's a number of things you might have heard those referred to uh but because those were going to go away we in sou St Paul and many other districts were facing a pretty significant fiscal cliff and so we talked about that with the board at the time knowing that you know if no action happened we were going to be facing major reduction so on the heels of that $ 1.4 million reduction we would be looking at something in the neighborhood of around $2 million and so the board did at that time decide to move forward and ask a two questions to the taxpayers that was part of what we called our Packer Pride Packer promise so there were two questions on the ballot that fall and the first one was really to help us maintain what we had we knew uh the Esser funding was going to go away and if we didn't have something to fill that in we were going to have to make reductions so we were very lucky that those kind of came online at the same time but really the priorities on that first question maintain class size and and programming that we we had and then we added a second question uh the board decided to add that second question knowing a lot of our students were having a tough go coming off of the pandemic one we'd seen some changes to programming and supports but we know that uh everybody experienced a lot of trauma it's kind of nice that it's not in the front of my mind but I think all of us experienced a lot of trauma during that as did our kids and so we really were trying to put together the supports and pieces uh to make sure our kids were going to be successful so thankfully very appreciative that our our taxpayers did support both questions you can flip that the net uh and you know obviously with that comes a lot of responsibility for us to make sure we deliver on what we said uh again question one really was a almost onetoone replacement of the Sesser funds and so one of the things I want to do is try to push us to start thinking a little differently about uh where we are with the referendum because question one functionally Sunset when those Sr dollar Sunset so then you're looking at okay we talk sometimes about question two and we did a lot of things with question two let me just real quick point out the class sizes cuz I know that's one of the questions that's come up around that question one piece sorry D not thank you uh I did pull out of infinite campuses our student information system and so I ran a run on all of our class sizes across the district uh in elementary you have what we call home rooms those are the classroom teachers uh they are averag about 23 between Lincoln and kosia together and then for secondary it's a little bit different because the kids go class to class so I pull hold their core classes which is math English science social studies as well as like the elective classes those are the classes where most students are and at the middle school that class size average was 24 and at the high school's 26 and those are actually pretty fantastic class sizes when I've asked around uh to other superintendents where they're sitting at high school and they're saying mid mid-30s to upper 30s in a lot of cases so thankfully we were able to deliver on that part of the promise but that was just one piece so the the other piece as I said question two came in all of those extra dollars went right into our schools and so uh we did a number of great things so we brought in that extra mental health support that our students wanted so now at each site we have school counselors social workers pyes uh lots of support for our students there we brought in academic intervention so more support individualized or small group support in math or reading we've been having a really great time reworking our academic framework with our Pathway to Packer promise and it's been really fun watching the high school grow with that so one it's the courses being developed but even the processes of how kids are learning about our courses if you saw the course registration process shout out to our our high school team there uh we launched fifth grade band so great to see the picture there of our kids getting a chance to try try some instruments before they have to make that decision at middle school we added College and Career advisor so part of the work we did when I first came in was lots of listening lots of Engagement surveys interviews we met with students one of the things I see a student over here nodding they were really clear we don't know how to make some of these choices we want more guidance and support and so we brought in Mr Booth as our new College and Career advisor and if anybody knows Mr Booth the kids love him he's been helping kids do their applications and figure out am I looking at trades am I looking at University maybe the military whatever it is he's got a great uh connection with the kids to help them with that and then the picture in the bottom corner there's Mr Canal which is our new uh program we're building out called uh talent development and advanced academics and so uh Mr Canal another person I mean the kids just love this guy uh I love that he's bilingual so when he's trying to understand the talents and Gifts our kids bring language isn't a barrier either so these are the things we did and built in over the time these all cost more than question two so that's why I want to push us to understand at this point the referendum is there and it's in our general fund right and so those dollars are there they went right to our schools and a form of class size and all these great programs and supports we've built out um but but you know we have to try to keep and maintain those things now again I hold personally like a deep uh moral responsibility to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars I think everybody on our team uh feels a great sense of responsibility one we're responsible for educating 3,000 children and we're being entrusted with uh nearly $50 million a year to do that so it's a big responsibility but we have a great team of people to do the work and uh like at our sites I've talked many times about the great work our teachers are doing and our principles are leading that work with them and the proof is in the pudding we have a ways to go no doubt but we are up in Proficiency in math reading science our graduation rates are up and our consistent attendance rates are up so that tells me that the pieces we built out and put into place are yielding those dividends uh we also have seen a dramatic drop in student Behavior I know principal breed toy shared that at the PTA and I I see Miss sex hour sitting over here she and I have had that conversation multiple times you know obviously see life is Messy Kids make mistakes that's part of the the work we do but it's it's back in that just normal and our schools feel great um but again we still have our work to do um and we still are facing some challenges in particular our our declining enrollment so I wanted to give just some historical context before I jump into what's driving our budget for next year all right thank you so um what drives our budget really our money comes in often we talk about per pupil funding and there's a few areas this is not everything but it covers the big bucket so we get local dollars so we talked about our Levy we get others we have some Investments that are making interest there's other small funding streams that come in that generates about $12.5 million for the district then the state has what's called the general formula allowance and often when we hear we need more funding we need more funding often that's what people are speaking to it's just that per pupil allocation that we get uh we also receive uh grants money for students with disabilities or English Lear Learners or compensatory Revenue which is for students in poverty those are what we call categorical funds they're specific to groups within those categories and as you can see this is very complex as I explain it uh and then we also get Federal funding which is our smallest bucket about 1.25 million and I think we expect that number to decline uh as the covid funds have gone away we've seen that number kind of shrinking so there's those are the funds that we get and then it really ties to our enrollment as I mentioned sspps has been declining enrollment for more than a decade uh from census to census from 2010 to 2020 our birth rates were down 31% in Sal St Paul proper um and so basically what that looks like is in 2010 you might have seen 240 kids born in a year almost 250 this last uh time in 2020 that's our incoming kindergarten group there was about 185 births so we're seeing this decline not through anything that we haven't done well but just that we've uh seen lower birth rates now on a positive side uh we have seen most of our sites come in over projection so I'm hoping that as we start to reestablish what our Trends are we're seeing that Trend up but you know they we hear about record investment from the state and and that's great to hear that the realities for us is that uh that our costs are continuing to outpace our funding but there's really a like I said there's two main drivers one you can go to the next slide there Donette thank you would be that declining enrollment so when you think of a 100 students leaving the dollars go with them I don't like to think think about our students in terms of dollars there's so much more but nonetheless they do generate their funding uh and with that is about I'm I'm saying about because it depends on the kids if they're getting special ad Services English learner if they qualify as um in poverty they might bring compensatory Revenue but as those kids leave those dollars go with them and so we're expecting about an 850,000 uh 752 million is really the range depending on who the kids are and what we talk about there is where we can address that through right sizing or aligning our enrollment to our our our staffing to our enrollment less kids unfortunately means less staff but we can afford some uh we can do some Cost Containment there but the bigger one that I really want to make sure people are tracking is our compensatory education funding so I'll I'll go a little slower now because this is what I really want to make sure everyone hears so compensatory education in my opinion is one of the best things that the the state of Minnesota has had and what it has done is it has said when you have stud students in poverty we're going to give you extra money for those students and if you reach higher concentrations of poverty you get higher amounts of money and that has helped us dramatically we've had about $4.5 million do of compensatory Revenue each year unfortunately there was a change in as they passed the universal free lunch uh the legislation made a change and they're counting students differently and this is where it gets a little more technical but the state right now is only counting students students who receive what we call a direct certification uh students who get their families get services from the county maybe they get SNAP benefits or they're getting medical assistance there's a lot of ways that kids uh end up with the county and they get automatically certified for that what we used to call that free or reduced price launch again with universal free lunch no one pays for lunch so I'm not sure really what that term is but we still use that um free and reduced price lunch for a number of reasons uh but the way we used to do that was we would get applications so we you've heard me here many times asking families fill out your application for education benefits and we need those those are how we used to establish who would qualify for free or reduced price lunch um and we need those to come in because when we file for E rate which is our subsidizing or subsidies for our technology that depends on that count uh field trips people don't necessarily realize when we go take the kids to a field trip a lot of times the price is based on our frl status free and reduced price lunch status so might get it free or a reduced price uh and then our students and families get benefit so we needed to collect those forms but what has happened is because they're only counting those direct certifications through the county they're saying our number is 42% our actual count with direct certification plus the students who filled out that application for Ed benefits is actually 58% so our true poverty rate is right at around 58% so this means that the new funding calculation is missing about 16% of our students who do qualify through their application for educational benefits but are not generating compensatory revenue and I'm going to walk through what that looks like for us here that's um it's pretty devastating so I was at a meeting with the Department of Education again I want to make sure you know that people understand there really wasn't anything we could do we we just didn't know that this was the system that was coming forward and I really appreciate that the governor has already put forward a proposal to fix it but I need to have us plan as if it's not cuz as of today it has not been fixed and so I was shocked to attend the meeting I had already known uh Jason mutzenberg who's been supporting us from ceso as we transitioned Finance had told me did you know you're losing a million and a half and compensatory my heart about sunk and I was like what are you talking about and normally I can go on the state's website and run a report that report normally shows up in October it didn't show up in October November December I finally reached out to de right around that same time Jason mentioned that and they said yeah there was a change and that change now puts us in the top 10 most losing districts in total dollar amount so if nothing changes and we only count direct certified students we're going to go from 4.5 million to 3 million and we're going to lose 1.5 million so dollar-wise that puts us at number 10 but if we go to the next slide what I did is I took that dollar amount and I divided it by enrollment for the the various districts and you see that we're actually number five the most impacted per student of any District of all the districts in the state it looks equally troubling in my opinion on the other side of that so if we look at there are actually winners in this uh situation at the moment um you can see that some Minnesota transitions Charters set to potentially gain 4.3 million and they're under 5,000 kids if we if we take this one now and divide their total dollar amount by their student enrollment go ahead on the next slide it's staggering so you see that some of these schools or school districts are going to get over 3500 33,300 $2,400 more per student so I I truly believe this was like an accounting oversight I think there's good intention to fix this uh the governor has uh asked for the legislature to pass what he's calling a hold harmless that would allow us to maintain our student count for one more year and so I want to are some of the things we're doing to make sure that's happening so I did immediately reach out to the governor's office as soon as I found out that asked you know trying to get some information had a really good talk with our commissioner uh Willie jet the commissioner of Education to talk about it and he shared the that the governor's desire to get that fixed through uh through what he's calling a hold harmless and then what they want to do is establish a work group to then spend some time figuring out a long-term solution and the commissioner asked me if I would be willing to serve on that and absolutely absolutely uh I would uh director Cummings is working to help uh get some meetings set up with me and and uh chair human and himself to go and talk to our legislators and share uh more of that detail so they can see those numbers that we just looked at um and again I appreciate that the governor's got to hold harmless fix if they do they'll hold our count it's not the dollar amount it's the count of students that's held Conant But Not only would we get our million and a half we'd gain another 120,000 based on the numbers I saw uh in the meeting with the Department of Education and if I get that opportunity to volunteer in that committee you can rest assured I'll be there to advocate for our district uh so want to make sure people are like how can you help uh reach out to our legislators please and let them know we need you to pass the bill that creates a Governor's compensatory Revenue hold harmless we're going to have this on our website so people can go ahead and find that information on our website uh I've talked personally with Matt Klein Senator Klein and representative Hansen they they've heard it they know what's going on they're also not on those education committees so that's why I want to make sure people know there's an education finance committee both in the House and Senate and that's who can really help move this bill out of committee and so that information is available on our website I know that's a ton of information but uh I'm cautiously optimistic so if we are able to work with our legislators and the governor we're looking at keeping our compensatory Revenue Plus adding a little bit that would actually offset some of that reduction we're thinking we have to do due to our right sizing due to our declining enrollment I know that's a lot of information our board you know kind of heard some of that before um curious if there's any questions before I move forward with the report I think just a reminder I know you're saying reach out to our legislators it's really important even if we are all especially because we're all going to be saying the same thing hearing from as many people as possible really helps prove how important it is for them to take care of this right and I think a lot of it is also information like they have a lot of things come at them lots of different special interests and so we want to make sure this doesn't get lost in the noise so we want to be noisy but friendly noisy so that we can keep them in our in our corner advocating for us and like I said I'm cautiously optimistic it'll all work out um but you know we need to take some action on this one and I know there's been other things that have gone to the legislature and haven't always worked out our way I do feel like this is one where we can make a big impact so thank you for that now let's talk about some fun things Packer pride and action uh we have a nice uh slate of teachers who are nominated for teacher of the year so a great group of Educators I know them all we have a good representation obviously from our middle school with uh Larry Brittain Ty griffy uh Rachel Matel and Mark Westfall so they're all in that mix and then Megan fransen uh new mom coming back and being nominated ated for teachers year so very cool um the process is they move forward and then there's a committee that has they have a teacher of the year program that they have a committee that comes together to select those teachers who model uh excellence in education and they do that for both public and private uh so they'll independently evaluate each of their portfolio so I'm excited to see how that goes uh needless to say all of these teachers are very deserving and I could go on and on about how great our teachers are and how many deserve it with the core training they done all the work we're doing to rebuild our Pathways and we talked about tech implementation there's so many great things going on but congratulations to those folks whether they make it through or not they're they're um excellent teachers in our book every day also heard a little bit about Athena award we had Scarlet here a little bit ago uh chosen as this year's Athena Award winner uh the Athena award is given to outstanding female senior athlete and it is as Scarlet has done a lot we heard some of that earlier she earned Varsity letters in all conference honors in soccer basketball and track and field and also a varsity letter in weightlifting uh she's made two State appearances for track and field and earned All State honors in both track and soccer and of course like many of our kids she's just a proven leader she's been uh captain of all three Sports and is a member of our student council trying to pay it forward at her school so very excited to celebrate her there's a lunch on April 16th and luckily we're small enough that I get to invite so it's super fun to go every year and see all of those amazing women cuz when you hear the stories of all of these athenas it's inspirational uh we've been doing a lot of great things to get our families excited about next year and into our buildings and so want to make sure people are aware of our Middle School family tours um so the middle school has a series of of Tours available for future families and really it's intended to get you into the building and your child into the building to feel more comfortable with middle school I was a middle school principal for8 years my wife's a middle school teacher I promise you can make the adjustment that everybody comes out okay and even stronger but we know it is one of that those big moments to go from that Middle School to or from the elementary to the middle school but they're going to give you a tour of the cafeteria Media Center show where the counseling I mentioned all the supports we have so we have counselors Social Work others in the office uh the gym the art rooms all kinds of things that they'll uh show off and you can see that on Friday the 7th March 7th at 10: in the morning if that time works slap but then principal Borg also put some afternoon slots on March 10th and April 30th at uh 5:00 and then on the April 30th in espanol tomen is in Spanish as well and then at the earliest level we've been earlier levels we've been welcoming in our families as well so we had uh two great kindergarten registration open houses I actually was able to attend both the one at Lincoln and kosia each unique but each awesome and such a welcoming environment for the new kids and to just see the wonder and excitement uh on the kids I know our Communications team so dette and Lee and others kind of helped rally around our principles cuz they do so much to you know to help uh make these events great and I heard uh some feedback from a parent who had an older child go through and then a younger child now and goes wow there's so much good information in there so like I said with our high school registration and all of these things we're really making a bunch of intentional focused work to help our families make those transitions so please check those out uh Tuesday the 15 at composure we did this already we have open houses still coming up at uh April 15th and April 16th so the 15th at composure 16th at Lincoln and you can always register or sign your child up for any of our programs on our website uh we have early learning but we also have just an enroll tab that you can enroll any grade level anytime we heard Mr holson talk about the new uh theater performance coming up so the winter performan is All Quiet on the Western Front I've been to some of their performances that a little heavy and I'm anticipating this one's probably going to have some heartfelt moment or some tearful moments but they have a couple Maes on Saturday and Sunday the 15th and 16th of March and then the evening performances the 14th and 15th at 7 so lots of opportunities to go and support are very talented kids and I love that like we heard about Athletics but we hear all these other ways that kids really connect through the Arts as well so excited about that fitting that we're sharing this year we do have the our na pack here and just a moment we'll hear from our Native American parent advisory committee but uh we did want to make sure people are aware that there is a powow that we'll be participating in and it is um honoring a um St Paul Public Schools I can't get the South out do you see that I've become truly South St Paul it's a recogn recognizing a staff member from uh St Paul Public Schools as well so it's a joint effort and we hope everyone will be there on March 9th at 1:00 but it does go all day into the evening there's um a kickoff of grand March if you've ever been to aawa the Grand March is amazing uh to watch people enter and then there's a feast at six so it's kind of going on all day there to enjoy that another open house we had was our national African-American parent involvement day sometimes naped naapid I hear different ways I was able to get to each one of our sites on that morning as well great turnout super fun we always welcome everybody in but the event really is focused on um learning around our you know engaging our African-American families and centered on black history and culture uh and parent involvement and again you can see we have parents from all walks coming in to celebrate that so thank you for our schools putting that on and thank you to everyone who came there sixth grade BizTown I'm looking at somebody who was emotionally invested in that we had a little blip there for a moment where the uh weather got in our way so we were supposed to take the sixth graders to Biz toown I don't remember the exact date but it was one of our few snowstorms so they got pushed we were worried that we could get it in but uh Miss Borg worked really hard to find another date that everybody could go so our sixth graders uh did get to go it's called Junior Achievement BizTown in St Paul but the BizTown trip for those who aren't aware it's a simulated City so it's designed to teach our students about the work World money management entrepreneurship again all those themes that our kids say they want to learn more about uh prior to the trip they spend time in class preparing for their workday applying for jobs interviewing they get to be they have a mayor who's elected they have all kinds of different positions so then during the day students manage payroll they invoice other companies apply for business loans work diligently to pay back those loans by the end of the day I think the payroll we have a payroll opening maybe we'll get one of our kids in there uh but between their tasks it's really fun too they get to take the money they earn and they get to spend it in the store there so really fun opportunity some learn some real applied uh life skills and then just some dates to remember so uh March 7th is a no school we have a professional development day for our staff uh March 20th there's no school for grades prek through five and then we're just knocking on the door of spring break can you believe that March 21st to 28th spring break it did feel like it out there today uh PTA meetings coming up 6 o'clock on the 4th for kosia uh 7 o'clock on the 10th for Lincoln and then we have conferences on March 19th and 20th um also again flying here so the last day of try two is coming up on March 6th we got a school dance sponsored by sad on the 7th which I know is always kind of a an emotional thing when our sad students come forward but great that they're there to remind our kids about being safe when they're doing things like going to a dance uh and then try three we're on that home stretch starts on March 10th uh lots of Athletics and activities coming up so on the 10th we got track and field and softball starting 17th baseball and golf and then uh the 24th of March opening day for boys tennis so we're hoping for a lovely weather Spring where the fields are nice and dry and everybody can perform at their very best thank you thank you Dr zambino all right that's a lot it is a lot all right we're going to get through the rest of this agenda I am now looking for a motion to approve the consent items on tonight's agenda which include the Financial claims bills payable and Staffing as presented do I have a motion so moved second thank you all right we are excited talking about baseball to have director Duffy on our board he's so well connected with our schools with the students with the staff with our community um however being super connected like that sometimes presents times when Ryan will have to abstain from voting to prevent a conflict of interest tonight is a great example of this uh director Duffy appears on the agenda technically twice once here in the consent agenda because the baseball coach um salary is part of that and then later as we pass a resolution in order to approve him being a sub and coach in our district because the consent agenda is a very specific Financial stake for director Duffy we do ask that you abstain from this vote um but the resolution later requires the entire board to vote and so you are able to vote on that one okay um is there any other discussion regarding the consent agenda okay so I'm looking for all those in favor of passing to please say I I I I opposed motion carries 70 okay section five of the agenda we are at policy uh District policies play a critical role in the governance work of the school board all district policies are available on our website under the about us tab located within the Schoolboard section under sspps policies this evening we have a series of policies on our agenda for review these policies were initially reviewed by the board policy committee on February 5th and they are now up for review for from the full board they will be reviewed a third time at our next business meeting they are listed policy 627 30741 404 536 101.1 and 101 103 51 502 505 512 526 52 28 81.1 and 903 at this time I'm seeking a motion to approve the policies listed on the agenda this evening I think we're on our second read second reading I am looking to have I'm like acknowledge that we're doing a second reading of the policies listed on our agenda okay the motion for it though or oh yeah okay we're acknowledging that we've done it I I don't think we need yeah I think lat right we're good we're good we need to it's our second reading if she left you no note then I it was me that's all good it's our second reading so once it comes back for the third then we'll have you all vote and so I just want to say 11 of the 16 policies that were listed this evening have like essentially no changes they just come up annually and we just have to make sure that we review them um the one I think that might be the most interesting to the public is policy 536 which is student Information Technology acceptable use um and most people have probably been looking for this because the state had said that we need to every school in the state has to have a cell phone policy so we have added wording in order to put our cell phone policy into policy 536 so if anyone's interested that's why all right then we move on to business items first up we are looking for approval for a girls hockey Cooperative agreement between South St Paul public schools and New Life Academy beginning with the 2025 2026 school year do I have a motion to approve so moved second thank you I'd like to call Brady Krueger up to share more about this Co-op agreement hi there uh so we are looking at forming a uh girls hockey Co-op um for a couple reasons we formed a co-op with New Life Academy on the boys side this past year and it worked out really well I think for both schools um one of the things that I think we have to kind of recognize is that there's just some changing um demographics and changing participation levels with u our current offerings and opportunities and my goal is to make sure that we're continuing to offer the programs um that we have always offered for our kids that want to compete um so we've started to co-op in some other sports and uh girls hockey is just kind of one of those Sports um that I guess the the trending and where our um numbers are showing that we're going to need to kind of Co-op to continue to offer girls hockey here so we've continued to see kind of a decline um in numbers we we are okay kind of next year but then there's a pretty significant drop after our current Juniors and current sophomores we have quite a healthy numbers there um but there is a pretty significant drop so hopefully this will allow us um to maintain um the the programming and maintain the level of program that we have uh come to enjoy as South St Paul do we have any questions chair human I was wondering are they still going to play Under the banner of South St Paul yes they will play Under the banner of South St Paul that's what uh part of the agreement was um so if you're at any of our boys hockey games you probably didn't even notice that we had a a a co-op with New Life Academy because they are all in Packer gear Packer attire Brady will that be a twoyear yes so all co-ops are initially a two-year agreement and then we are required to come before the board as well as our conference and section to continue to get approval um for those any further questions all right if there are no further discussion I will ask all those in favor to please say I I opposed motion carries thank you thank you all right I'm now looking for approval for the South St Paul board to accept the Native American parent advisory committee's vote of non concurrence do I have a motion to approve so moved is there a second second thank you um all right I welcome Amy Winter to come up and present and I would like to share that the full board was able to hear the information presented to us in person on Monday February 10th by the no napac co-chair Renee Davis I see you in the back thank you for coming and member sioban Lashley and I will ask Amy to provide us with more information thank you good evening board chair human members of the board and Dr zamino I am here uh to present on behalf of the Native American parent advisory committee or naac and I do want to acknowledge Renee Davis in the back uh and so I'm summarizing what they shared to the board the napac board members were able to meet with you in person at the board work session on February 10th in accordance with the requirements set forth by the state the napac means annually before March 1st to evaluate whether the educational offerings provided by the district meets the needs of our American Indian students this year after a comprehensive review the napac has voted to issue a resolution of non-c concurrence expressing their belief that the district has not fully met these needs Administration recommends that the board formally accept the vote decision and acknowledge the concerns raised by the napac uh I will outline the key uh concerns and recommendations put forth by the commit to address uh the ongoing challenges faced by Native American students in the South St Paul Public Schools the key concerns that they identified is that the napac remains committed to addressing the persistent achievement gap between Native American students and their peers despite some areas of improvement the committee identified significant ongoing disparities in academic achievement daily attendance and graduation rates additionally the napac has emphasized the lack of inaccurate data collection in recent years as a sign ific concern uh incomplete or inaccurate data impedes the district's ability to design and Implement targeted interventions that could effectively address these disparities some feedback that they did give um this year on the vote is that they did acknowledge that they are seeing areas of improvement um in particular that they recognize that the district has begun addressing issues related to data collection in conclusion while progress has been made in some areas the native American parent advisory committee urges the district to prioritize recommendations outlined in their previous presentation implementing these changes will be crucial in closing the achievement Gap improving data practices and ensuring Native American students receive the support they need to thrive academically in socially in South St Paul public schools on behalf of the napac I thank you for your time and consideration and encourage the board to formally accept the vote of uh the vote decision and commit to addressing these uh critical areas moving forward thank you um is there any discussion concern I just want to specifically thank r n for being here and also all the members of naac for their commitment to bettering our school system to support our Native American students we truly want to do right by all of our students but especially those who have been historically not taken care of and I thank you for your commitment and helping us do that work all right if there is no discussion I will ask those in favor to please say I I I opposed we accept 70 thank you thank you all right item C I am looking for approval for the South St Paul school board to approve the joint Powers agreement for school Wellness between the county of Dakota and special school district 6 do I have a motion to approve so moved second thank you I uh look forward to hearing more about this project and I invite assistant principal uh Jen sexhow to talk to us thank you good evening um thanks for having me I'm Jen sexhow assistant principal at Lincoln Center um how do I show the picture I'll do it okay I'm like I'm not sure where to put that um I'm here to talk about a grant that I wrote along with um the ship funds for from the Dakota County um this past fall they actually reached out to let know that um the district had funding that had not been allocated and could be applied for um at Lincoln for the last couple months the PTA and administration have been working collaboratively to um write grants to start an outdoor classroom we have the space um off of that's Fourth Street and um it's where our Garden Club has started so this um as you can see on the screen is a picture of um the visual that um the company that we've been working with has designed for us and um we are looking to expand um using the grant um of a little over $7,000 this money will help us expand the garden portion as well as in this picture what's missing um is like a a canopy of sorts to protect from elements um this money will also help as you can see in back in the picture um kind of the curricular parts of um with tables chairs and then a like a rolling um Blackboard type thing this money can help us fund that um Our Hope by having an outdoor classroom that not it only not only expands our science program but just um it can be an inclusive space for all this grant is just a tiny piece of a bigger um puzzle of money that we are um it's writing grants for our PTA is actually um in the process right now of waiting they find out by Friday if they um get a grant that they wrote for but our commitment is regardless of whether we get all of the M money through grants or if we have to do fundraising we'd like to get started um so through the ship um money one of the pieces is that I need to present our ideas um to the school board to accept this money from them and what I will tell you is our first steps will be this spring starting the perimeter of the classroom by expanding the garden that we already have there us using our gardening Garden Club um and then the science teacher would like to then um start to lay out um kind of a foundation with um some of the materials that we can buy using the doing the tables and chairs Etc um as you can see on there we are going to need to eventually put um uh like a landscape that is a flat surface I can't think of the name right now it's been a 12-hour day so um but this because this will be wheelchair accessible for all of our students um and so we will eventually have uh grounding that will be that will weather the elements Etc but at least this year we can start with um the money and get going with things and then purchase um items that will add to our science curriculum which is standards based so I am looking to do this just to make uh school just a another element you saw all these activities um that students like to be involved in and we are trying to expand our ways of providing new kinds of Le learning for our students I think it'll be used not like I said not only by our um science classes but by all of the school so I'm just here to get approval for our money uh does anyone have any questions for Jen I have one question but it's actually for our student refs who I know are both Lincoln Center students how do you feel about this opportunity at your old stoping grounds uh I think it's a great opportunity for these kids to you know get outside of the classroom and get a little bit more fresh air and learn about new things I think that's a great thing for them yeah and even hm I just said thank you oh yeah and even when we first had like the Gaga pits like installed like everyone loved being outside and playing I enjoyed it as well so having a Garden Club and plants would be amazing yeah thank you well it sounds like we have a lot of student support there great all right if there is no further discussion I ask all those in favor to please say I I I all right thank you opposed none great congratulations 70 I'll let them know thanks all right business item D approval for the South St Paul school board to approve the resolution approving employment of a school board member as a coach and substitute in a certified position in the school district do I have a motion to approve so moved thank you second thank you and I invite Human Resources Director Joel Miler to speak to us about this great thank you very much according to Minnesota statute 123 b195 school board members may be employed by the school district as an employee as long as the amount earned does not exceed $220,000 in a fiscal year additionally employment must receive majority approval at a meeting in which all board members are present the board member on this resolution has been a coach in the past and would like to also be considered as a substitute teacher for the 24 25 school year majority approval by the the school board is necessary for this vote um so as I had mentioned earlier this is the second item that includes director Duffy and because this requires a full board vote we are going to allow you to vote on this please do and it has been our past practice that we have done that this is not the first time the board has addressed this just back in October um three other members had a similar resolution passed um is there any discussion no Denette will you please read the role director clapin yes Cummings yes T Felton yes Duffy yes Weber Yes W Felton yes and Cher human yes that is seven years thank you the resolution carries our final business item today I am looking for approval for the South St Paul school board to approve the resolution directing Administration to make recommendations for reductions in programs Andor positions and reasons therefore do I have a motion to approve so moved second thank you uh this is a standard process that the board goes through at this time of year as we look towards the next fiscal and academic calendar year as we had heard from Dr zamb brino earlier the financial situation of the district is dependent on what happens at the capital but we must be fiscally responsible and prepare for the possibility that compensatory funding does not get resolved and additionally we need to look at our staffing and program to right siiz them for enrollments I hand it back to Joel maltier great thank you as chair human mentioned this is in regard to our budget each year we do pass this same resolution or bring it to the board to pass this same resolution each year just in case there's a need for us to reduce in staff or in programming for the next fiscal year so we are asking for your approval tonight for the attached resolution this resolution directs Administration to make the recommendations for reductions in programs and positions this resolution also is the initial step in the Staffing process as it relates to potential unrequested leave of absences for teachers uh any questions or further discussion no uh Denette will you please call the role director T Felton yes Duffy yes Weber Yes W Felton yes Claflin yes Cummings yes and chair human yes that's seven yes all right thank you this concludes our business items and now we move to section seven of the agenda I am happy to invite our student board reps up to give us an update on recent events and the work that they've been doing with principal otaki and their advisory committee so Jackson and AAL please our attention is focused on you I don't have okay record figure out which dongle is the right one yeah sorry guys okay did that work there we go maybe we'll find out it was gone no oh it's HDMI I don't think I have that there should be a like a have USBC yes there's a bunch of thech has been giv us a little run here tonight but's done a great job she's been all over the place I don't even know all these little attachments you can use oh let's see oh proceed drum [Music] roll oh oh promising wait I got to disconnect hold on guys good oh see can't T how do I the proceed is right here but it's not working well as we work through our Tech issues just a reminder how grateful we are to have student board reps who work with the board to help bring in student voice more directly uh it's just a really neat opportunity for us to hear from students especially those of us who you know don't necessarily know what's happening in the high school firsthand or have kids who won't tell them firsthand what's happening at their school I don't know what's going while they're looking at Tech I did hear there was some potential legislation moving talking about mandating that every school board has two student board reps and you and I heard that together uh Ryan and I and I was like Hey we're already there so we're ready if that time comes we're well represented when we interview for next year's board reps I was like we should be talking about reps oh hey say yay Teamwork Makes a DreamWork we're cooking okay now here we are okay excellent all right here's our representative update so we had a snow day so we can conduct our climate and culture survey but we'll be conducting it tomorrow so we'll have lots of data to bring to you next meeting and the principal advisory committee will review these results and we'll review them and we'll be sure to get a summary for you all okay so we are almost done with try 2 the last day is on March 6th and I know a lot of kids are getting ready kind of geared up for finals and all that fun stuff and we also have the acts coming up as well at the end of the March MH and our last one Wednesday of the month will take place in two days uh yeah we got a homework free break again that's for spr bre be awesome for spring break yeah yeah can't wait for that and then as we've heard from our Mr fure and everybody like we have a lot of Excellence at South St Paul with our activities and Athletics uh the dance team Advanced to State and in both kick and Jazz and there's a lot of info on them they got ninth and kick eighth and Jazz uh senior Haley Carlson was named in the senior academic Awards you guys all saw her and then for gymnastics Scarlett Voss qualified and competed in the gymnastics individual state competition in bars floor and Vault so lots of talent and then four varsity girls wrestlers qualified for the individual state tournament and it's zo rtis Banna Martinez Leah Reed and Haley Jackson and then for Boys wrestlers four of them qualified for the individual state tournament so Oliver mon MSR King General Thompson Ty burto and Tomas oaki and these are section all section I academic Awards Lucas lazarine Ty burgold Melvin gueras King General Thompson who you saw earlier Zoe Rodin Haley Jackson Leela Reed and Brianna Martinez who also got to meet yeah uh these are winter Athletics coming up next couple of weeks the girls basketball team as you heard earlier has a section game on Wednesday and the competition game against Minneapolis South so go Packers go Packers and then just quick promotion we have the movie night this Thursday women's society and BP it's called six 68 and it's a wonderful film I hope many of you could attend if you'd like so that is our update next time we'll have those survey results it's been two snow days in a row all right thank you cold days that it's even worse cold days yeah thank you so much all right now I am going to invite each of our directors to share any reports or committee updates or um Andor moments of Celebration that they want to share with the community uh let's start with director Weber um just nothing in particular just you know the usual things um looking forward to you know going to some more events um later this week and then um also knowing that um 9917 as the district that I also serve on um as a board representative also has similar um fiscal challenges to what to what we have so it's it's that time of year as we set up to create our budget as well thank you director Cummings um thank you so much uh in the last month uh it's really been exciting to see our um Community I as I noted before I went to a women's basketball game and I was immediately struck by the cheer team that U made that whole gym seem to explode with excitement um and I was really happy to see that our women um won that night um did a fantastic job and um also headed out to the women's hockey game I saw Dr zambino at that uh women's hockey game before um I think they went to sections and so um that was a great victory that night um two other events there was the African-American Parents Day at the high school which was a it was a really quite phenomenal event where we um invited folks to come in from the state um to talk to parents and uh one of the people I was sitting with was King and he was um talking he came tonight to present as um Jackson was talking about and uh he talked about the many different colleges he applied to maybe a dozen colleges so um excited to hear where that went and uh Amal um I was there for the MLK Day event I don't get President's day off I get MLK day off but I was able to stay to watch uh Amal do a fantastic job in the reading so um I will finally just say that um we are going to be meeting with legislators and if people think that um I'm not able to help my school you know I maybe don't have kids in school or whatever right now is a moment in which you can contact your legislator um contact Rick Hansen and Matt Klein and tell them the importance of this um and I will also just say that you know in a time in which um so many government services are plagued with chaos that um South St Paul is doing all that we can to provide stability for our students and our parents so that we can provide high quality education thank you J Fon uh the open meets this week so nothing to add there and I don't have anything further okay Vice chair Clin thank you uh first just a brief update on the facilities finance and long range planning committee we had met uh two weeks ago and heard an update from U Mark Fenton about our facilities all of the um updates that are happening within our buildings that happen over the course of this year and what's planned for the summer uh it's uh always interesting to see the changes that are made in our schools it's not the way uh we remember any of the schools in our district um and thank goodness the kosia cafeteria is going to get rid of their carpet I that's yeah tile please tile um we also heard a a review of The Food Service audit and I'm very grateful for all the staff working on student nutrition there's a lot of paperwork and recordkeeping as well as providing the meals to our students and uh I would like to recognize all of the hard work from our nutrition services staff um and then I was also able to join uh folks from South S Hall at the Martin Luther King Day event it was wonderful to see so many people making it out on a day that was colder than the day that it was originally scheduled for and cancelled because of the cold um our senior high students representing the black pride organization were wonderful speakers and our elementary school students were involved as well um having written letters uh directly to Martin Luther King Jr and they have a way of capturing the sentiments in such uh an Exquisite way they're very honest um and finally I'd like to invite uh sass Paul residents to join um some of us and your other community members at South St Paul day on the hill on March 1st the third graders go to the capital so we can all go maybe learn from the third graders bring them with thank you all right director Duffy uh yeah um Tim said we have our open meeting this week and then uh amsd is Friday I was looking I got I don't think it's this weekend so I hope it's not Friday I'll be at the XL Energy Center uh I will be there uh in support of our s St Paul wrestlers they uh I believe have the late session in state so I'll be there next Friday but uh I was able to attend the SweeTarts dinner uh in support of the our show choir and the performances they put on were incredible the singing the dancing I I can't sing that well um and the time they put in to be able to perform that well is incredible um that was I my first show choir performance I'd ever seen so it was uh I will be back it was a lot of fun so that's cool good good yeah I just want to let everybody know I did my first really interesting fun thing if you've heard of a read across Sal St Paul I did my first little reading section at Capo education Center and what it is uh you volunteer to do a reading to A Class in the building and I this was on Valentine's Day just a couple weeks ago and I I volunteered to read a story into Mary Mal's kindergarten class and it went real well I read a was called the Red Apple because it was readed for Valentine's Day and then I'll be doing the next one again on March 14 at at kosia and then there'll be one more also in April that I'll be attending so looking forward to that the read across sou St Paul volunteer people and then as I am the representative of our board on the Education Foundation as has been mentioned in the past as you know our foundation does give out graduation scholarships to our senior students and so looking forward to that we will have potential at least 150 students will be receiving scholarships and the foundation has $616,000 in scholarship money that they can give to our students so truly looking forward to that beginning of May when we attend that at the secondary building so it's a true honor for those students and we're so thankful and grateful to everyone who does donate all this money to our students in South St Paul so we truly truly thank them very very much and then also coming up this week this Thursday at our senior center and we will be having our our luncheon this this week it is wild rice soup so if if you're a member of our Senior Center at Central Square from 11:30 until 1:00 you were invited to come to have have something to eat and it is very well I'm so thankful and grateful to Linda Jacobs fuse because she is such a wonderful wonderful cook Chef woman there so looking forward to that this Thursday to have a lunch in at Central Square thank you thank you well kind of touch on a little bit Central Square um one of my committee assignments is the tri District Community Ed Council and we had met uh just a couple weeks ago and I just want to remind our community our community aded program is amazing um and specifically I have been tasked with reminding everyone that we have just an amazing adult basic education program right in our own Central Square um on top of all the other things that Community aded is doing we are the host of the tri districts adult basic education which includes um English learning classes and people working on their High School uh equivalency diplomas and degrees and I just want to remind people like we have this amazing gem in our community and it's not getting utilized enough so if you know people who are looking to take advantage of learning more getting better English lessons or getting English lessons in general um I just want to encourage people to to remind those people and yourself that we have this available to us it's really um it's really cool and the work that they do there is lifechanging uh the second thing I would like to touch on has already been mentioned the MLK event was great and there is a YouTube video of Deb Griffith reading the kids letters um to Dear Martin and it is amazing and I will admit I cried a little bit seeing them make the direct connection between the desegregation work that they learned about Dr Martin Luther King working on and how it directly changes their lives by giving them the opportunity to have friendships and connections at school that they wouldn't have been able to have without that um I think it's amazing to see the work that our teachers are doing teaching these lessons and then their brains are putting it together and seeing how it really works in their lives um on that that concludes the public agenda for our evening I am looking for a motion for the board to move to a closed session per the open meeting law Minnesota statute 13d .03 for clerical and maintenance negotiations so moved thank you second thank you any discussion it's very late all right no discussion all those in favor please say I I I all right thank you to everyone who joined us this evening this concludes the public portion of the meeting we will be moving across to the conference hall for our clor session