the May 28th 2024 school board meeting to order Lisa would you please call the role director humman here Weber here Felton here uh Claflin here La birie here T Felton here and chair Rasha is absent that's six present thank you you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands Nation God indivisible liy and justice for all to get us started I'll ask for a motion to approve the agenda for this evening as well as the work session and regular meeting minutes from April 22nd and the work session minutes from May 13th is there a motion so moved second thank you any discussion all in favor please say I I I oppos uh motion passes we have an agenda thank you so we'll start tonight with some great examples of qu quality in action I'm so thrilled to see so many people in attendance tonight the activities and um sports that our students are able to participate in add so much to their education here in South St Paul um I'm glad that we get to honor all the participants from our spring and winter activities um would athletic director Brady Krueger like to introduce our students yes I'll I'll get that going again thank you for inviting us to come back uh thank you Dr zambino School Board uh Middle School and High School administration for their continued support of Packer Athletics and activities um with the we're going to be recognizing both our winter and spring activities uh Seasons here today and with the amount of people that we have I will cut my uh Speech short today and I will just bring up our track and field coach Manuel sprigle who will be talking about both our boys and girls track and field programs to get us started thank you [Laughter] looks like he just learned he was talking or something yeah we'll be really F hey everyone uh we got a big track family here and they're all just coming scoo around I'll stay over here but these these are some great representatives of of our school district and our school and they're all great in so many different ways track is a super busy busy uh thing and and these guys are all there they all have different events they do and they all represent our school all places we go to from you know becoming a pilot in p vating to having 40 times that match their GPA to being conference Champs to uh being you know again same thing for Jackson those guys they're all just wonderful Representatives they're respectful they're kind they talk to people from all over different schools lots of people lots of adults go into making a track me work and these guys are there and uh it would be it would be a really cool thing to see they're not just uh physical specimens and they are but they're also just uh super kind great people that uh would be really hard group to follow so I'm really glad glad to be here and having these guys is Isaac Burke fantastic Scarlet Johansson Grayson Annie sprago Brooke Viner Glory Johansson Jackson Ken Schultz Ben thron who's getting a haircut so look at that cuz it looks good right now and our our unofficial team captain Jake baldis so uh boys and girls TR [Applause] te all right I should uh make note that we are in the middle of section season for our spring activities so we have baseball had an obligation softball just finished up their season uh they unfortunately just lost Apple Valley earlier today so they not going to be able to be here but moving on I'm going to bring up uh seal McDonald and speech good evening we're grateful to be here with you tonight I have two of my three seniors with me uh Laya roach and Diana USA Lucio uh they we had a third senior as well um and I was so pleased with them we had three people Advanced to the section finals this year and lla advanced to the state tournament it had been several years since we had someone qualify for state so it was awesome and she's going to be around next year can help with the team too so I'm really excited about that as well so anyway that's here we are so thank you all right next I'm going to bring up one of our Affinity groups our cdlu uh group led by Daisy quink and Bridget contras to talk about all the wonderful things they have done this [Applause] year hello I'm Rihanna I'm part of the cdlu group at South St Paul which stands for community of flin United um it's a group that we have at our scho unid Latinos unidos that's said in Spanish um it helps us um celebrate our culture and share with you guys some of our culture by the events um we have here Samantha Bridget Ivan and I'll let them introduce themselves I'm not going to do all the talking tonight I promise okay my name is Daisy I am the representative of of cdlu Latinos unidos um this year in September we we started out with uh a little Festival on one of the soccer games we had Flags and different activities and then in we also celebrate the Hispanic Heritage Month with a different um spirit week every day we had something fun to do then we also went to kosia and Lincoln Center to um read and we did this with B uh we did have pictures for you guys but we can't show them in October we did muos it was pretty fun and a lot of a lot of students have learned more and more about this this day it's not just Halloween um we also had a tournament in November a volleyball where some of the teachers and admin participated it was pretty fun the kids were very happy they won and then and BP and cdlu went to Feed My Starving Children we had a lot of fun they packed 68 I mean 62 boxes and that was for $13 , 392 meals um and then in February we also celebrated with BP and we went to kosan linoln Center to read uh we also in March did the Multicultural day which it was pretty fun next year you should come and a lot of students did bring out their culture and they did bring out some food too it was pretty good in may we celebrated and we closed out with may it the CCO de Mayo it was a big event and we hope that whoever was there enjoyed it thank you thank you all right next up I'm going to bring up uh coach Isaac Douglas in our girls basketball program hi how's it going um so yeah I'm Isaac Douglas I'm our head girls basketball coach um this season was another great season in the right direction um and how we're progressing um we won our most games now which we won 10 games last year we won 11 games now this year which is the most in the last 11 11 years excuse me and then we won seven conference games as well which is the most we've won in the last 12 years um so a lot of really good things happening right now and who I have with me are two of our three captains glor and Scarlet Johansson and then we're missing Ava Wasa tonight she wasn't able to make it unfortunately but uh just want to give a big shout out to them as a lot of all this progress that we're seeing and the positive impact is on them and what they're doing with our girls so thanks to them and thank you for having us yeah thank you next up I'm going to bring up Amy McAvoy to talk about our sad program hi thank you um I'm Amy and my co- um adviser for sad which is students against destructive decisions um is jquan Williams a middle school social worker um and we this year have about 55 students um joquan and I took over as co-advisors in October from uh Lindsay alejandrino um and so it's a learning thing for us it's been great though um this year we had a a committee of senior board members we met one Thursday um a month and then carried out with our all member meeting the Thursday after um sad was not uh South St Paul sad was not previously registered as a local chapter so we um put that uh as co-advisors put that to the students who agreed they wanted to be linked to the National chapter of sad which was free we were able to do that and with that comes some structure and resources that we are implementing for our current and upcoming school year um this gives us the structure of Empower engage and mobilize so our purpose will be really defined by those three verbs empowering um our students to get out there with national contest scholarships um and learning opportunities leadership opportunities all the way into Washington DC um engaging so students um this year want to get out and be part of our kosia days our on the road again and the great Halloween get together and be out there communicating about decisions that students can make even at a young age um so there's a lot of really great ideas that these students are actually putting into action currently uh M car crash was rescheduled unfortunately and then the the dance was rescheduled as well um but those things are things that we're looking at bringing back next year and um change of structure will be instead of senior board leaders only we'll be having class chairs paired up with our senior chairs to each have a part of that empowering engaging and mobilizing thank you thank you uh Mr holson could not be here tonight he is working the spring uh Middle School show choir show that's going on at the school um so but he did have a couple students that were going to come speak on behalf of theater so theater's up next thank you Mr Krueger superintendent srino and the school board for having us here tonight we've had a really successful winter and spring season for South St Paul Secondary School theater with our Winter wac Play Festival and our Spring High School plays and our middle school plays as well the 68 plus students on the cast and crew of The Winter one act plays learned a lot as they produced six short plays we had four student written student directed skits our Middle School one act play and our competition play in addition to the great experiences our actors and technicians got with this Productions it was also a great leadership opportunity for our 10 student directors Shakespeare's dead Dames our competition Play Broke new grounds for our theater program as we were fortunate enough to be able to advance to section finals this year for the first time in a very long time awesome our Spring High School plays we actually produced two longer one acts this year for our Spring High School play the real inspector hound and the 39 steps the 42 and up actors technicians in this play got experience working with dialects tackling the dense dialogue and plot of a Tom stopper play and making the Frantic comedic pace of the 39 steps run smoothly our audience got to see a really funny double header of British murder mystery spoofs and our double cast actors in This production had a great experience learning from each other during this production this year our middle schoolers took on a super fun and challenging play in Puffs this is a spoof of the entire Harry Potter series told from the point of view of the story's lesser known characters at a certain School of Magic the 45 and more members of the stories of the cast and crew worked hard to develop their characters Works work with accents and manage the hundreds of Technical and entrance cues that the show involves this play also features leadership opportunities for our student assistant director choreographer Lily rosengren set designer Grace kinsky and lighting designer props Master Bella Mau we'd like to thank the school board the South South St Paul community and the South St Paul staff and administration for their out for their ongoing support of the important life-changing work that we do in our theater program our South St Paul theater family has worked really hard learned a lot and had a lot of fun over this past year and we look forward to continuing this tradition in years to come thank you I know I know who we're hiring you if we need a voice over right there like I know they do Fant job uh next up Mr Conrad Anderson in our debate knowledgeable programs uh good evening I'm going to start with my debate team here so yeah back off guys um so we're two different activities uh I with me I have Alex brundick and Diana U to Lucio and they are two we only had two seniors on our no or debate team uh this year um you might have recognized them if you were at the ACT these banquet uh these are both the male and female activities honores this year uh for all the work that they do and all the various programs that we have uh debate is an interesting activity because we I get kids to come after school that just want to learn more um and uh we debate two debate topics uh every year uh and they can uh if you want to debate them at any time they're very well versed this year on whether or not we should decriminalize drugs and uh whether or not we should break up big tech companies and so um I want to thank them for their leadership we have a very young team and they were just amazing uh to work with and they're I have them in class as well and they're just absolutely fantastic students so thank you Dion and Alex so going to have my knowledgeable team come up I have with me uh Logan Lamont Jameson Hammond and Cooper Meyer um we and then we also have a fourth member of their team we have a couple different teams but uh so you debate with four or you got debate knowledgeable just mixed up now uh you compete with four four members on your team and so they have a fourth member named Leighton Gosman as well um and they're all Juniors uh and they had an amazing season they they placed in two out of the three meets that we had they took second place at sub regions and they finished in the top 10 at the region meet uh top five go to state so that's our kind of we're shooting for next year um uh but it's good that we have them all back and uh the the amount of knowledge that these students have is absolutely amazing I have them all on my third hour and they I know they they're laughing because they know that they're supposed to be listening to me and I see them working on knowledgeable stuff I don't even interrupt them like if if you're learning that's fine so um so anyway it's I I'm just so impressed with this group of students and uh and we're competing against um there's not a triaa double a single a like we all the big schools and we are we're we're neck and neck with all them so um they're very impressive so thank you guys all right with Cooper just being up there hold on Cooper uh I'm gonna bring boys tennis up uh coach Jesse Rock to talk about boys tennis but it just speaks to one of the wonderful things about South St Paul is the all of the opportunities that our kids can be involved in and they're involved in multiple different things so it's actually a really cool special thing about this about this school got two others back there just casually hanging out see him on the TV it's all good uh hi guys my name is Jesse rock with me I have Cooper Meer Zach malumi and Trenton Smith and uh we I am the varsity uh tennis coach for the boys team I also co- coach with Nina reelman and we had a tremendous season um just recently last week just a huge shout out to Cooper and Zach who uh went to the second day in individual sections as a doubles team and placed fourth which I mean it's like really good for like we haven't done that in a long time so I just really huge shout out to them we had um just a good season new players were coming out this year and then also just the attitudes they brought to the court every single day I mean every single day we learned a lot we grew and we also had an incredible time doing it so we just had a great season and we wrapped it up last week and yeah ready to play more tennis this summer so yeah that's great do you guys want to say good all right thanks guys uh next up girls golf uh and our head coach Josh palmquest all right good evening thank you uh for taking some time to listen to us tonight um today we had our section tournament day one today um and that's why I don't have any of my girls here with me they're still drying up I think from all the rain this morning uh the kind of spring we've had a lot of rain some wind and a little bit of sunshine but uh we had three girls advance to day twoo on Thursday uh which is very cool um we're in a section that is at a lot of schools that are known for their golf so to have three individuals make it to day two is quite the accom lishment um and one thing I wanted to do is uh shout out for uh she's behind me Jean Watry I know she's retiring this year um after 40 years here um but she's also been to JV coach for the last 14 years um and she really encouraged me to uh become the coach last spring so uh thank you Jean uh for um encouraging me to take this leap so um and again thank you guys all right all right next up we got a two for one uh we'll bring up Mr Dave Palmquist who will talk about our boys golf team and as well as our girls hockey program all right thank you so much Dr Zen brino and the school board for having us tonight um really appreciate it I ask my kids how I keep my lock on my phone so it doesn't turn off here but I haven't figured out that technology I'll be really quick but a night like this always uh reminds me of what amazing kids we have in St Paul I always tell people we got great kids um it's amazing uh to see over the years um our hockey team I think uh not even so much what we did on the ice I'm so proud of them but we just had great leadership um Annie Felton Eva Beck Molly Jeffrey bayy Vesper and Lily pacle just outstanding leadership that created a great culture for our program once again this year makes such a big difference as a coach to have that type of leadership in the locker room and and then what they did in the classroom I think our GPA for our team was uh over a 3.7 cumulative um GPA for our entire hockey team I've always told people over the years I've never had to worry about an academic issue with our hockey team ever because these kids really work hard in the classroom so I'm super super proud of them and then by the way we did have a good hockey season we ended up losing to the top ranked team in the state by one goal four to3 to get back to the state tournament so super proud of uh of our girls and their efforts and look forward to uh getting back there next year our golf team um like Josh had his girls today we have our boys section uh playoffs tomorrow at River Oaks hope to see everybody out at the golf course tomorrow um if you can get out out of school um but our golf team is led by Ray Rosales and Jack mclen uh two kids that I've coached for a long time I've had Ray since seventh grade he made the state tournament as a sophomore so it's fun to see them as seniors now and see what they can do these next couple days um we were pretty low in with golf through the co years um but with a little uh hard work we we got a bunch of Junior High kids these last few years we had over 21 that are enthusiastically golfing almost every day uh it's really been fun to see that the excitement in that and that makes me happy uh as you look forward to the future with boys golf uh and again thank you so much for having us and uh appreciate all all the work that you do thank you thank you he we're going to stick with the common theme here um I'm going to bring up my boy hockey coach who is a first year coach and in his first year uh he won't tell you this but I will he was actually named the four a section coach of the year so that's a pretty impressive honor in your first year and that is Zach Palmquist thank you Brady and thank you Schoolboard for having us tonight um one thing I will say and I think a lot of first year coaches can say this is that you you know you step into a role like this and you want it to all go smoothly and I think for the most part did and I attributed that to all the players and the coaches and the staff behind me that uh helped me kind of move things in the right direction um this this year we had a tremendous amount um of hard work and uh um a lot of great listeners um on this squad and um I couldn't have asked for a better year in that regard um as far as our season we uh we went 917 and one on the year uh more than doubled our wins from the previous year um we had four all all conference honorable mention players two All Conference players um we were the number six seed in the section um and knocked off the number three seed in the first round of sections and battled the number two seed to get to the section final um which which was um a really big thing for this program um I think we're the highest seed to make it to the next next round in sections in in the whole state so um just really proud of um the leadership led by Ray Rosalez Jack mclen and Brody Shepard this year seniors that we're going to miss um but they move the needle to to another level and uh I'm looking forward to seeing where that's going to be next year thank you all right next I'm going to bring up uh coach Don neyhart to talk about our boys wrestling program and then he's just going to introduce our girls wrestling program as well all right uh thank you uh members of the board Dr Zino for inviting us back uh it's always a privilege to share a bit about our student athletes uh we were very fortunate to have uh a large group of boys on our team this year uh talking just about our boys team we had 52 participants uh in the varsity or JV or uh B Squad level uh our boys ended up finishing with a a 24 and4 record uh a varsity record uh we ended up having four boys earned all conference and two honorable mention uh we had seven athletes earned academic all section this year which was a good number uh we had two section Champs and we had seven boys state participants uh the team ended up finishing his section runner-ups and uh earned team academic all state with a uh 3.56 which was gold as far as the coaches association standard uh Team GPA uh behind me uh we have Tomas oaki Nate birto Shane Schwab Andrew Schwab uh I'm going to mention just a few of their accomplishments uh we had uh as far as all conference wrestlers uh Shane Andrew Nate and then Andrew Bon who is not here he might be playing baseball I don't know if they ended up did they get to play they did not get to play okay uh and then State participants uh Ty burto Tomas oaki CCO vukas Andrew Schwab Nate burto Andrew bnk and King Thompson uh our academic all section individuals were Ty Tomas Andrew Derek Alex and Andrew uh and uh Andrew bunk ended up being third team academic all state so uh good accomplishments there uh we lose a great senior class this year but we've got an awesome group of underclassmen coming back uh we can't wait to uh get them on the mat this summer and get them back in the room next year um I'm going to just introduce uh our head girls coaches this is our third year that the State High School league has sanctioned girls wrestling in a girl state tournament it's my first year being able to hand off the Reigns to somebody else and not run uh both programs so we were lucky to have coach tutle and Coach rtis uh coach tutle came in uh uh from Portland Oregon taught out there for 27 years and faith is a recent graduate from Augsburg College where she was an All-American just a year ago and uh is bringing her skills to our high school girls team so okay uh so coach Tuttle and I were chosen to head coach together kind of like an arranged marriage we had never met that uh but we were a great team coach niart did a great job of uh getting a scrappy room of girls ready to wrestle we showed up and we have one of the biggest rosters in the state really at the beginning of the sport I'm going to talk about the team highlights a little bit uh we go to a tournament at the end of December called the by state and there's 66 teams there and our girls kind of put the upper part of the country on notice we got second we had three Champs uh you know the home team won there might have been a little home cooking with the draws and they kind of took that momentum and gained that confidence and we competed all year we our team was always on the podium we had lots of individual championships uh we took that into the postseason and as a coach our girls wrestled their very best in the postseason which is what you want we had we took eight girls to our section tournament seven of them placed five of them qualified for State we had two champs we had three state players there those are all probably program highs and most importantly there's not a gym we didn't go into to where we were just constantly giv compliments not only about how tough and mean our girls were but about how they noticed how tight they were as a family and you couldn't Prime away from each other and how our area was cleaned up and how they were nice kids so it was a really great season and it's a really young team hi good afternoon um I would like to highlight some of these girls we got Zoe RIS she had 26 VAR City wins this year and is a state Placer we got Vivian Diaz 36 Varsity ons and she's currently a captain and she um is a section champ as well and a state Placer we got Haley Jackson a state Placer with 25 Varsity Wentz um I think this year for the Minnesota State High School league for the girls wrestling I think that joined this year were 1,400 so it was bigger than last year so it's still a growing sport but we're getting up there love it love it two seniors who are not here they were both state placers as well and they both signed on to wrestling College yes so we got Jazelle gagos she is next year going to Augsburg for wrestling and Ella George going to Ellsworth Community College to Russell as well that's great very cool that's Fant fantastic thank you all right next I'm going to bring up uh Ty here with our boys swim program good evening uh thanks for having us I have a couple of representatives from our boys swim and dive team uh we have another senior that is not here this evening Andrew Ritter uh but I have with me Noah offing and Joe Roso a couple of highlights about our season uh we had every single Athlete on our team letter this year every single Athlete on our team finished the year with personal best swims at our section meet every single athlete uh had a medal uh at the section meet um and all three of those are things that have never happened in the 10 years I've been coaching um with our uh Team placing sixth out of 12 at the section meet uh that was a really big accomplishment because we were the smallest team there um and a couple of highlights from uh the two seniors we have here uh Joe finished his season uh in the water which was uh a really big accomplishment because we had to work through some health issues um but finished the season season uh with personal bests and able to compete and contribute uh to the team which was a really great accomplishment uh we had Andrew Ritter compete at the state meet uh he's not here today but uh he competed in diving at the state competition and uh on the other side of me we have Noah offing who uh missed the state meet by less than a half a second in a couple of different events um is the third fastest breast stroker in our school's history and um had the third most points out of any athlete that I've had uh on the boys team in the 10 years I've been coaching uh so thank you for having us and um we look forward to seeing you again next year thank you all right and I I believe this is our final program uh dance coach Ros Wilson in our Dance Program hi um I'm Ros Wilson I'm the head coach of the Sal St Paul dance team with me today I have our team representative seniors um Taylor Ambrose and Josie Grant uh this past season our dancers worked really hard and achieved many of the goals they set um we saw a great improvement from our B Squad junior varsity and varsity teams our team qualified for the madt academic All State award our varsity team finished second overall in our Metro East conference this year our Varsity kick team placed fifth at sections and our Varsity Jazz team punched their ticket to state by placing second at sections um for the first time since 2018 uh on behalf of the coaching staff and the entire team um we just want to thank you for having us here and recognizing our season thank you hey I I don't believe I missed anybody but again thank you uh for allowing us to come it's always incredible even though I'm at a lot of these events and watching these things unfold it's always kind of incredible to listen to all the accomplishments like just be compiled into kind of one evening to see all the wonderful things that our kids have done thanks again to the incredible coaches and advisers for all the work that they do um they do a tremendous job and working with these kids each and every day and helping these kids develop the skills to become successful adults which is ultimately what we want our activities program to do is be that addition um you know additional bonus that just helps our kids become better people so thanks again have a great night thank you thank you and if it's okay I'll just give a shout out to Brady because we just recognize all of those programs and he's responsible for making sure those are all going in Minnesota which is a very interesting space to do that so thank you Brady yes thank you the sports and activ that our kids participate in um offer so much to enrich their education I am so pleased to see so many kids coming up with multiple Sports multiple activities wearing a t-shirt that says band and they're up for another sport um they really participate in such a breadth of activities that's fantastic um for our next quality in action uh I'd like to recognize some of our 25y year employees um is it the School principles who will be speaking about their so they do have an order so they kind of they're going to kind of flow and they know which order they're going in we're going to do um because some of them have retirees and 25 years so when they're up they're just going to we're going to recognize 25 and retirees all right together so Teresa starkman will lead us off Marty sorry my apologies yes hi I'm Teresa Marty now um I'm excited to be here to um celebrate two um outstanding employees who have dedicated 25 years of service to South St Paul schools first one is Jennifer Seau and in her current role she is my assistant principal at Lincoln Center and I'm so fortunate to um get to work with her each day um she has spent her 25 years teaching at kosia most of it teaching at Lincoln doing some um coaching and some coordinating roles before she became the assistant principal um and and I'm going to tell a fun fact about both of them at the end because the other one is Robin Winson who has spent all 25 years teaching at Lincoln Center she started as a sixth grade teacher and then now has been a fifth grade teacher um and a fun fact is they both started their teaching careers together on the same team um outside of South St Paul but then came to South St Paul together and um and so they both also live in the community their children have gone through schools here and graduated and um so congratulations thank you uh good evening School Board Dr zanino greater School Community my name is Chuck oaki I'm honored to be the principal at South St Paul high school we do have uh a couple people I'm going to talk about two of them couldn't be here tonight but I want to honor and celebrate Pete Schultz who has been working in the district for 25 years uh he's a teacher and a former coach and the fun fact about Pete he and his family run the stride for Packer Pride for the last 15 years and they've donated close to $200,000 to help our kids play pay their activity fees if they cannot pay them so it was really cool to see all those kids that were up here uh activities are really important to the Schultz's uh and to Peter Schultz and so I just want to thank him publicly for all that he does to help our kids the second person I want to honor is Beth Bern stingle who uh retired she was our district uh clerical for Student Records um when I asked her what she was going to do for fun in retirement she has some grandkids that she was going to take care of uh and then just keeping Glenn Bern stingle our former head of Maintenance here at South St Paul busy was on the top of her list and so and then the third uh this one is just an amazing this woman is amazing I'm ask Gan Watry to come up Jean wrey we're celebrating two things with Jean watchery right first is she's hit 40 years teaching like 40 years in this community touching kids making sure that they know understand math but more importantly making sure that they are really great people when they leave us right so 40 years I didn't even do the numbers I should have as a not a math guy right remember but if you think that in 40 years she sees 150 to 200 kids a year like think about all the lives that have been changed and touched by Jean Watry so uh when I asked Jean what was she going to do in her retirement it was pretty funny you said all the things you've neglected to do CU you were working um like painting guarding uh and spending time with family one of the things I really uh appreciate about Jean Watry is she is really loyal like really loyal we don't have a sign parking spots at the high school but I have a spot and it's next to Jee Watry who beats me every day and I'm not sure how that happens but uh and she lets people know that when they park next to me that or next to her that that's actually my parking spot even though it doesn't say anything right it's just kind of a hidden joke like don't take that spot next to Gan Watry so Jean thank you for your 40 years and I wish you the best in retirement and I will miss you a ton thank you you want to say anything I just I just want to thank this community I absolutely love South St Paul it's like my home I grew up in Adrian Minnesota but like you said i' I've been out here for 40 years and I I just love this community I say it's the best kept secret in the Metro I was meant to be here I can't think of another place I would have rather taught I just want to thank all the parents out there all of the supportive parents who um sent wonderful kids to us I love the kids I love the parents parents um I love the community so you gave me the best job I could have ever had so thank you so much for all of those great years I really really appreciate it you I can't tell you how many times I run into someone and they hear I'm in sou St Paul does Mrs waty still teach there does Miss watch still teach there and I'm finally going to have to say no so I'm like I'm going to be disappointing people I think for a while now but amazing amazing commitment good evening Schoolboard Dr zambino uh thanks for having us here tonight it's always fun on the night when the kids are here because we see them as almost adults and we remember them when they were this big basically running around our hallways so that's always kind of fun and all of these people have had such an impact on those kids who were just in this room who could not wait to leave by the way I don't know if you saw that um so I have three retirees uh this year and first I'm going to start with Diane Boonstra Diane could you step up right here and if you don't notice Diane looks super relaxed she's very tan and she's just calm as can be she retired in December so she's got she's got a running start at this basically uh Diane had taught for 34 years she started at Lincoln and then she came to kosia four years later she taught second through sixth grade and then last year we wanted to make sure that she had taught every grade so she subbed longterm for mediate Tech and she subbed K uh kindergarten through fifth grade and then she did some intervention too and so she uh very well-rounded teaching experience right up to to the very end uh I asked her what she wants to do and it's things like Gan had said working out golfing traveling spending time with family scuba diving who knew uh working with wood Woodworking and uh learning new things once a teacher always a teacher playing pickle ball learning Spanish things like that um and you know I I threw in the scuba diving she might be the only person I know and I didn't know where this country was before who has a condo now in ratan do you know where ratan is okay well look it up it's very nice and you'll see Diane's picture there basically um so we want to we want to thank uh Diane for her years of service and uh impacting the lives of so many kids at kosia and I'm just so glad your retirement is off to a great start thank you this is for you and now Linda Stein Linda Stein could step up she is one of our educational support professionals or perah uh Linda started at kosia 27 years ago all at kosia um her fondest memory I asked about her fondest memory and um she said when a sixth grade student they had a end of the year party and there must have been like a dance I don't know what administrator thought having a dance uh for a sixth grade party at the end of the year was a good idea but he was so afraid that he wouldn't know how to dance so her and a former colleague Kathy kid taught this kid how to dance every day until the party and um I'm sure he was fantastic Glenda yes obviously right um so she plans on spending more time with her family and friends traveling and comp completing her NeverEnding to-do list which I hope it requires dance teaching okay so Linda Stein everybody and Lisa Bolter if you could please step up she absolutely does not like this being on camera uh she has worked in education for 25 years she has worked at Lincoln Center at the high school and uh as my right-hand person um at kosia um her funniest memory or one of her funniest memories which I don't know what this means but she really enjoyed me being in a dunk tank and getting dunked at some point so um her plans for retirement are spending more time with family and friends traveling working on Home Improvement projects exercising uh getting a part-time job again these people who retire who look for jobs right away um volunteering with an organization and learning to play pickle ball and I have to leave you with this quote that she had given to me because she is kind of the mother at kosia right she sits right in the middle of the office and everybody comes in and everybody wants to talk to Lisa and I'd have to say to her sometimes like we got stuff to do man you got to let's get moving they just keep telling me stuff I don't know so um she is the heart and soul of that office and I know I will miss her but her advice is this she wants to tell her colleagues to be kind to everyone don't let work overshadow your personal life take care of yourself so you can be more well balanced and a happier person and to support each other and that's exactly what she did for every member at the composure site so I want to thank you Lisa for all your time you really wants to say a speech doesn't she no she doesn't all right thank you guys thank you hello all I'm Leah Borg I'm the principal at the middle school thanks for having me here tonight um I'm to talk about two retirees who are not here because they are doing different retire things um the first I have is Beth adani and last summer Beth came to me and she said Leah I'm going to retire and I was like oh okay and I'm thinking what are we going to do after this school year and she goes no I'm retiring in September and I said wait what she's like my birthday's in September and I'm going to retire and um she has been off the radar since September um I got finally got a hold of her last week and I said Beth what are you doing with your entire she's traveled to Asia she's had family from out of town um she actually lives in West St Paul and I imagine that I would see her every once in a while I haven't seen her at all a single time since she left because she is busy um but she she does occasionally send a text and says hey and I was thinking about you and um I'll just always remember that about Beth she is so kind and so caring um she's an amazing cook she brought my family meals um last winter when we were going through some stuff and it would just it meant a lot um our second retiree at the middle school is actually retiring from the secondary and that's Melissa Miller um she has a little bit of an unconventional retirement I talked with her last week and she's like I don't want to come I'm not really retired um she retired from K12 education she is working at the state um she is raising two teenagers and a very rambunctious new dog and um she is very busy and moving around the cities a lot at hockey meets or hocky hockey games sorry um and uh tennis meets and um she is just everywhere and always and so um she she sends her love but she is not able to join us today so those are our two retirees from the secondary thank [Applause] you good evening School Board Dr Zino I'm here today to um recognize Sue Nicholson Sue is um a person of very few words but her work in the kitchen and dedication to students and others speak volumes she is one of the first people to step up when we are short staffed or need someone to work extra hours she's always willing to go the extra mile to make sure meals are ready to serve to our students um as Sue moves on to the next chapter and her story I want to at first say thank you for everything you do every single day to provide the students with the fuel they need to learn and second I simply want to say congratulations on your retirement um you will be missed by your kitchen family very much and we all just want to wish you the best on your next adventure thank you so can hello Schoolboard um I'm here to honor uh Alysa uh Klan on her retirement um I had the only I had the opportunity for supervisor for 3 years but the building engineer at capoa worked with her and supervised her for 20 years so one of the great stories about Elsa I'm sorry Elsa uh was she was born and raised in uh Ur urita Africa as a young person she came to the United States and received her permanent resident card while walking working at kosia uh alsoa started at at kosia as a cleaner February 11 2003 and retired uh from her position in August 9th of 2023 the building engineer Michelle uh Penman shared these kind words about Elsa Elsa was very dedicated and a hard worker that went above and beyond her to beond to help out her co-workers her performance and knowledge of her job duties could be seen by the quality of her work caposio was very uh fortunate to have her congratulation Elsa thank you [Applause] good evening everyone I'm Amy Winter the executive director of educational services and I have the privilege to honor two individuals um unfortunately both of them are not here um the first one is for Jean Zender who is a director of Community Education and early learning and she is celebrating 25 years uh of service here in C St Paul she is home ill right now um and so I am her replacement for also honoring a retiree um Jana Beck was an early learning teacher and she retired in January so she has already been enjoying that retirement time and she worked here in South St Paul for 29 years and right now what she is spending her time doing is traveling spending time up at the cabin also uh doing a lot of babysitting for the grandchildren and just enjoying that family time now that she's not working so thank you so much good evening uh we had one retirement in our finance department this year Lynn Welsh retired as our finance specialist she was in the district for over 27 years um serving our community and serving our district so grateful for all of the work that she did and wish her well in [Applause] retirement good evening School Board I'm Joel Miler Director of Human Resources and it's my honor tonight to honor Linda King who has been with the school district for 20 years before retiring as our HR generalist in November of 2023 Linda was a huge asset to me in the last two and a half years that I've been in the district helping me on the daily work of Human Resources throughout the district and she was really looking forward in retirement to spending more time with her grandkids and also traveling and spending time with her husband who is partially retired I thank Linda for all of her work and dedication to the district thank you thank you all I don't see anyone else jumping not up to honor any more retirees or any more of our long-term employees um I am so impressed to see that many people having worked in our district for such a significant portion of their careers um that really shows the dedication they have to our students and our community and that we are great place to work and teach and just have some of the best students in the world um you've all made such an impact on the lives of our students every single job in the district um helps our students succeed all of our teachers all of the support staff we need all of these people working together um all for our students thank you very much for your years of service and your dedication to South St Paul school district uh we have seen just the whole breadth of student participation and uh the long service from our teachers and other staff members and with all of the honors uh wrapping up our audience is also dwindled but we'll move on to the the rest of the business of our meeting um we would have um at this time any notes from our public listening sessions or uh online comments and not received anything through our comments uh i' like to remind everyone that at the first meeting of the month that is the second Monday um everyone is invited to come and uh make any comments to the board those meetings are held at the district office um public comments period is about 6:30 and those meetings are also open to the public um and now we will highlight some of the items from our previous work sessions um I will start with a few points from our work session two weeks ago let's see that would have been May 13th um a few points that I wanted to uh share with the community is that we heard uh this wonderful plan from director winter about the pathway to Packer promise all of the new opportunities that are coming to our students um through better connections with counseling um career planning Pathways to careers and further education starting in Middle School um all through High School having many new opportunities and expanded options to experience careers and train for the jobs that our students are asking for um this is all based on what we've heard from our students really wanting to have that exposure to the art of the trades and more um classes in computer programming it's really interesting the uh the bread of classes that will be offered uh in the coming years and the um New programming in our elementary schools to really highlight stem education science technology engineering mathematics uh bringing those um subjects more to the Forefront in our ele education and something else we've heard the desire for and a talent development program where all of our students uh have a myriad of talents and by uh finding what those talents are and giving them a chance to develop the skills that they need um and really shine in their Specialties um I think will be a great opportunity for our elementary school students as well um and then we uh heard an update about the core values partnership with the city and we will be rolling this out over the course of the summer and just wanted to highlight that the core values that we really show here and are demonstrated by the students and teachers and staff that we honored tonight are Pride respect Equity resilience integrity and collaboration and you'll be hearing more about all these core values uh over the coming year and into the future uh and then finally we heard uh a report from a committee formed to advise the board on renaming our Stadium at at tinger field after Jim Carter and a committee report was made available in our um agenda if you look back on our board documents you'll find that report um and after some discussion among board members and comments from members of that committee and family members uh we decided to table that discussion and that proposal was later um retracted so that was the work session from two weeks ago and to give me a break director human is going to recap a few highlights from tonight's work session this evening we met at 5:00 before the business meeting um I guess the most exciting part was we were able to acknowledge the work that rata and Lise had done as our student School Board so an opportunity again to thank you for the perspectives that you brought to the board and for just kind of opening up for us how our actions truly affect what happens in the schools it's been a privilege having you with us and we also got to meet Amal and Jackson wasn't at the meeting but I assume that I'll be excited to meet you oneon-one um but to celebrate our new student reps who've been chosen through an interview process who will be officially um starting with us in in September in the new school year and we had some treats to enjoy that time we also uh learned about sports Co-op programming from Brady Krueger we're looking at joining a co-op for our swim program so that we can continue offering all of the Athletics and activities that our students want to be engaged in at a level where they can be competitive and getting the kind of development and support that they need as our program gets smaller um and a brief update from Joel Miler regarding things that will come up later in our agenda that's it all right thank you very much um let's see next Dr zenino will provide some updates from around the district yes thank you it's we keep saying it as we get into the spring like what an exciting time it is and we sure have had a lot of great memories and great activities to wrap up the school year hard to believe this is our last official business meeting we do have an important one next month we'll wrap up our budget but as the uh kids and some of our staff step away it's been uh wonderful year and I'll talk about some of the highlights after just kind of our usual check-in so uh very excited about the help me app and so uh Dr Burkhart uh Lisa brand Decker others our principes a number of us really working behind the scenes to get this up and started we debated if we should start it this spring knowing it's close to the end of the year but really glad we did one cuz we've had a few things reported to us where we were able to really reach in and offer some support uh to to folks in need but want to just make sure that everyone knows there's this app exists and you can get it um really easily on your phone you can access it through the web but what it allows people to do is make Anonymous reports whether it's they hear you know if a student thinks two kids are going to get in a fight and they want our staff to know and they don't want to tattle and they don't want to but here's a safe way to just say hey you may want to check in with these you know we had somebody who was concerned about the welfare of another student make a report and so a really powerful tool and we're learning about it but just want to make sure everyone else is aware of that and I really do hope our our students and families and even our staff if they weren't sure about how to report some please use it let us know and we'll get a channel to the right individual whether that's a social worker an administrator or otherwise um and we are monitoring those it's uh one of those where if there's something serious enough they will call me on my cell phone if it's on at night or on the weekend but most things would wait till the next school day like something happens you know we deal with that a lot something happens on social media we hear about it we deal with it but we're really hoping this gives us a proactive tool to kind of keep our finger on the pulse I mentioned the end of the year our graduation ceremonies right around the corner so our CLC is on June 4th at 6th and that one happens in the auditorium it's always a really fun event there with the CLC kids and then the big graduation out on the field on the 6th at 7 so we have had a lot of rain which tells me that we've gotten all the rain out of the system so that Edinger field will be dry and lovely for graduation in the grass will be as green and thick as it's ever been so really excited about that especially as I've gotten to be here longer and getting to know the kids I'm looking at one across the the room from me who I'm going to be pretty sad to see and yet happy to see come across that stage so really really fun and that'll be live streamed for those who can't make it and uh available on Town Square TV some other highlights around the district I mean we this is just unbelievable uh we saw our amazing kids we heard it um stated earlier about how we have the best kids and it's exactly what I said to the group of kids I mean we have amazing amazing kids who do the right thing time and time again and what a great gift this community gives back to its seniors we had 140 graduating seniors received scholarships toing 477,000 $250 I know a lot of us have heard that number but when you tell that number to people outside of South St Paul they like wait what um so really um so appreciative of our um our donors and others who make that possible and of course the staff at the foundation great night and just it's a fun night as it builds the value builds and um I was sitting across from Andrew Bon watching the look on his face as his name kept not getting called and then we get to the the big ones and so it's a it's a big night in any amount um we the research is clear that just getting a kid out of the Starting Gate in postsecondary uh at any amount can really make a transformative impact on their life um we had uh let's see sorry skipped the slide on mine um the just again all the amazing successes of our students we had athletic awards middle school started honor roll ceremonies this year which is great to celebrate the kids academics um we've had academic awards for IB diploma IB honor students NHS uh bilingual seal and multilingual seal which I think is so powerful because it honors are native speakers of multiple languages that they get um something on theirs I know my daughter got a platinum seal which I guess is a big deal for her French work so for any kid it's a real big deal and then we had a number of kids uh signing their commitment letters for Collegiate athletes we heard a little bit about some of that with our athletes in the room today we had an elementary track meet which was we were a little nervous about that was the morning if everyone remembers it was very smoky but we got the clear because it was like okay the air is going to clear through the day and and uh we just didn't have them run the long mile run but the kids had such a blast and here like what I love seeing is just encouragement for students who are uniquely abled or differently abled to get such um support and cheering from their peers and staff and then our older students who come down and volunteer and our mentors for for our fourth and fifth graders so I got to stop over there and it was a lot of fun but as we're ending the year you know I definitely wanted to um pause and say thank you to everyone our incredible staff um for those of you who hear me talk about things like this I struggle to want to call things out because anytime you do you missed you didn't say something so know that if I don't say something it's all appreciated because it is a culmination of everybody's work but we've had some really great highlights this year I mean we we saw the coaches and advisers and the impact they've had on our kids our teachers and principes have carried a heavy lift around academics we heard about the pathway to packer promise and really starting to think about where do we want our kids to end when they leave us but uh building a stronger foundation with the elementary literacy curriculum our elementary teachers have worked so hard this year and the rigor and the the level of um thinking and discussion and um just critical thinking that's happening is is just going to be felt for years as our kids matriculate through our system our lunch staff we had Universal free lunch this year so they served more we had a great presentation a few meetings ago um from Dory who was here tonight and Maggie I mean it was hundreds of thousands of meals they serve and I think food is love so to serve that many meals is to serve a lot of love our buildings and grounds we uh have a facilities uh task force going right now um but our buildings are aging but you can hardly tell because they're so well uh maintained our clerical staff have been uh created welcoming offices all year and all those end of year activities are are just lots of extra work our esps our security staff who give so much every day are they're like the glue that holds the place together because teachers are in front of the class who can help me with this situation when they phone a friend like I'm looking at one of the friends right over there who responds all the time uh with Bridget um let's see our we've did a ton with our safety work so we brought in I love you guys and really ramped up our safety protocols uh and the fruit of it is is really clear we did have a fire e or fire drill fire alarm went off at the high school I was at a job fair got the call like hey can you come back when I got here Chief Wiki was like wow he's like what have you guys done cuz like I pulled up everybody was lined up like every 20 people there was someone with the folder he's like I've never seen it so well organized so shout out to all of our staff who work to make that happen on June 11th we're going to do the last kind of major training which is a reunification training we're going to bring 75 of us about down to Memorial uh Community Center where we would use if we ever needed to take kids to be reunified with their parents that's where we'll do it we're going to do the training on site so super excited about that work um stakeholder engagement and I know the board has heard this a lot for me but how much I value stakeholder engagement and consultative decision making uh but it's been so fun to see our families in the school so we had musicals recently at the elementaries they were just packed um and we know all the other activities they've been at um Tina Moses started a new technology committee and is going really deep with uh technology she also brought in all kinds of technology for our teachers to try and Sample and vote on what technology they'd like to see in their classrooms uh Dr burkhart's uh special education advisory committee they had like over a 100 people attending I think the meeting last week I don't remember the exact number but I'm close um so amazing to to take kids who might be other eyes and Elevate them up um staff and family AC academic advisory committee so they've been leaning in to help us on the pathways we had a calendar committee a facilities task force so you can get the idea here we're trying hard to get a lot of people and next year I'm excited because we're going to continue uh into some strategic planning so we've talked about our core values we have our desired daily experience but what are the other pieces we need to really flesh out our strategic plan so uh I like to say we're a small But Mighty District on the move because I truly believe that again there's no way I could think of everything there's so many people who make so many contributions our board as well um Lisa who helps me and my other teams it just it's a great place to be a part of uh it's been an honor to work uh alongside of everybody this year and excited to see where we go with as we keep the pedal to the metal and then just some dates to remember we're like I said coming up on the end of school June 6th is our last day uh June 7th will be or 17th excuse me will be our first day of summer learning so we do love to keep the learning going in the summer and make it fun too so learning and some fun and then juneth is June 19th so just a reminder that is a district holiday and all buildings will be closed and then as always you can keep track of everything on our website our team does a great job of keeping everything updated but again just a shout out and thank you to our staff our students our families the broader Community uh for really making 2324 a very successful school year thank you thank you we are are wrapping up a great school year uh but on with our agenda for the evening our consent agenda items are up next these are Financial claims uh Staffing and other Personnel issues they've been presented in the board packet is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second second all in favor say I I opposed the motion passes and we have a number of policies uh before the board tonight for their third and final reading uh these policies have been brought forward to us through the policy committee and have been reviewed at two previous board meetings there is quite a list here uh policy 102 equal opportunity policy 104 School District mission statement 403 discipline suspension and dismissal of School District employees employees 404 employee background checks 4113 harassment and violence 474 staff Information Technology acceptable use policy 501 School weapon policy 502 search of student lockers desks personal possessions and students person 504 student appearance 505 distribution of non-school sponsored materials on school premises by student students and employees 512 School sponsored student Publications and activities 514 bullying 515 protection and privacy of people records 56.5 overdose medication 518 DNR dni orders 520 student surveys and form 521 student disability non-discrimination 526 hazing prohibition 528 student parental family and marital status non-discrimination 530 immunization requirements 531 the Pledge of Allegiance 536 student Information Technology acceptable use policy 550 attendance at state tournaments 611 homeschooling 613 graduation requirements and 706 acceptance of gifts is there motion to approve those listed policies so moved second any discussion i' just like to mention it was a huge list that you just read off all of these policies are available on the website if you're curious and also in the various School handbooks it seems like so many of them are coming up because we want to make sure we review them in time for the next school year to prepare so nothing major has happened in our world we're not responding to some kind of crisis this is a very standard review process thank you all in favor please say I I opposed the motion passes the policies are approved next we'll have um some HR updates um first is there a motion to approve the non-renewal of long-term and limited contract substitute teachers is there a motion so moved second second uh and for discussion I'll turn over to Joel Meer great thank you very much as mentioned in previous board meetings this is the time of year where excuse me where we are non-renewing teachers for the 2425 school year so we do have two more teacher names to bring forward to you from probationary staff members that we are non-renewing for the next school year and we're looking for the board's approval this evening on those non-renewals any further discussion Lisa will you please call the rooll director Weber Yes W felon yes La birie yes T Felton yes human yes and Clon yes that's six years thank you and now similarly I'm looking for approval of the South St Paul school board uh our approval of the 2024 and 25 continuance of teacher contracts is there a motion so moved second and for the discussion and explanation I'll hand it back to Joel Miler thank you as part of our annual Staffing process Administration identifies probationary teachers to retain and those who will be granted tenure for the coming school year as a result the attached document reflects probationary teachers who are recommended to be retained and probationary teachers who would be granted tenure for the 25 2425 school year we're looking for the school board's approval of this recommendation any further discussion all in favor say I I I opposed and the motion passes um up next we have um approval of the education identity and access management board res resolution that designates Dr Brian zambino as the identified official with authority for Education identity access management for South St Paul Public Schools is there a motion so moved second and again for discussion I'll hand it back to jelman here that's fine it's me that's fine uh well if you didn't approve it we were all going to have much less work to do but we'll get back to work thank you for approving that that allows us to go into the state systems and identify who responsible for the various buckets of work and so that's what they call that the EDI am however I this one's Iowa sorry there's two of them but anyway approving that will allow us to keep the work moving any further discussion Lisa will you please call the role director labery yes T Felton yes human yes Weber Yes W Felton yes and Claflin yes that's six y chair Claflin um we have one um human resource item that we're going to move to it's the probationary teachers okay um so it would be item a listed on that agenda I thought I had that one um oh I missed one um so we're looking for approval of a resolution um relating to non-renewal of probationary teachers is our motion so moved second second and again Joel Miler great thank you very much this is for the non-renewal of long-term limited contract substitute teachers in compliance with Minnesota statutes were required to terminate the teaching contracts of the district's long-term limited contract substitute teachers at the end of each school year a long-term substitute by definition is one who worked all or part of the school year replacing a specific teacher who has returned rights to his or her position the contracts of the long-term substitutes must be terminated at the end of the school year failure to terminate these contracts could result in the district allocating two teachers to a position for the next school year attached as a resolution to non-renew teaching contracts for the district's long-term limited contract substitute teachers have we gotten our resolutions crossed if that was long term limited substitutes yep I just yep okay so we are uh looking for the motion on non-renewal of limited contract substitute teachers correct yes okay all right um and that's a resolution so if there's no further discussion Lisa would you call the role uh director T Felton yes human yes Weber Yes W Felton yes lber yes and Claflin yes that's 6as thank you very much lots of pieces of HR formalities to keep track of there all right yep I have a script I just have to follow it uh so next up I um I'm looking for approval of the 2024 through 2027 teacher development and evaluation plan is there a motion so moved a second second and for further discussion I'd like to invite Dr winter to thank you so much we thought we'd give you a brief little uh presentation here to talk to you about just a lot of the work that we've done this year around our TDE plan uh Tiffany bran is going to do the presentation and I will just tell you personally she has done amazing work behind the scenes in bridging together a whole bunch of stakeholders um from Administration from teachers uh from my department in just really trying to honor um the work that we do and how do we support our staff um and what does that plan look like and so I'm really excited around the work that um is now this fourth edition um and again hoping that you'll get a background of the plan and ask any questions before you have to vote on it I will attempt is this one um I will attempt to be as entertaining as all of the wonderful quality and action um things that you've experienced tonight um so our team tte plan is steered by the committee that you see on the screen before you every 3 years um this group of this committee uh which is both teaching staff and administrators they revisit this plan to see if changes need to be made the plan in general outlines all of the requirements that our educator educators are evaluated by anybody on the teaching contract so the changes that I'm bringing to you today have been vetted and discussed and approved by all of the staff that you see on the screen before you and I do want to mention Amy Winter Jen sex hour and Connor Murphy as Union president in um thanking them for all of the extra time that they put in this year helping in um to rewrite this plan as well so we start with the why we want to make sure that everything we do goes back to our daily desired experience and our staff members um they're why one of their daily desired experiences is that they are provided with what they need to see be which ultimately reaches the experience that our students desire that they have a fun engaging and challenging and supportive learning environment and I think our plan as Rewritten does that so I've arranged it according to goal which made sense in my mind and hopefully it makes sense to you as well uh so let's start with our first school our first goal is to maintain compliance with the MDA guidelines and statute of course uh so you'll notice that statute requires that we our um evaluative rubrics are all making or accounting for cultural competency so we've used as our rubric for the past at least 10 years we've used Charlotte Danielson the change that we are proposing is to use danielson's updated framework for teaching the district has already decided that they want to use this and the good news for our plan is that now it makes sure that we are maintaining that compliance um because we updated that language we could remove appendix B domain which was a domain five it was a tack on that our district um made to the original framework so that we knew that we were accounting for that cultural competency the second two um PLC and student learning these both have to do with statute that requires that 35% of our teacher evaluation is um student learning and achievement so in the past that 35% we used plc's to account for that it was in the part two of our plan the impact on student learning and achievement we've moved oh yes can you define PLC oh yes thank you um plcs are professional learning communities so these are things that our teachers have done in the past will continue to do where they do really cool research honestly um and try new things to improve their practice so new uh MD guidelines note that yes plcs are good and they are teacher practice they are not this impact on student and teaching excuse me student learning and achievement so we've moved it from the 35% to that part one our teacher practice it is no longer part of the final performance rating that our teachers um receive at the end of their um cycle of performance so we've updated that including a definition to add some guiding questions to help those professional learning communities strengthen then that meant that we still had these student learning goals that we needed to account for that 35% and so in the past this was optional fortunately was already there now it is required so again not a new practice just a slight shift in our practice so those three goals all account for those three changes account for that first goal our second goal is of course to support teacher growth and development uh one thing that we realized as we were really digging into our plan is that we were heavy in outlining or outlaying excuse me laying out the evaluation not so much in the growth and support that we have for our teachers which we know is plentiful so um the fourth thing that we did here is to um Define summit of evaluator we added that to ensure that yearly training occurs um of course we have wanted this but we wanted to make sure that it was ensured could you afford one slide I think I do have figure perfect um the next one was to add this figure our educator growth and development all of the things that you see on this figure are already present in our uh District mentors uh peer coaches like myself uh over on professional development the plc's those communities uh peer review all of these things have been happening we just didn't lay it out in our plan and so we wanted to have it laid out in our plan so that we could make it clear of what the support was that we were offering once we had this big overview this big picture view of what we were providing and support for our teachers that uh opened up a new window for us if we could go forward to slide please that's when we realized and there's a lot of um writing on here that I'll focus on the right hand side that's when we realized that we wanted to rewrite specifically this uh process um this process answers the question what do we do when a teacher is not meeting expectations in the past we uh called this process the performance Assistance Plan we've changed the name to distance it from um as you can see the abbreviation the PIP the performance Improvement plan that's part of HR it's very different from our performance assistance plan and so we wanted to change the name just to make that really clear um also again looking at the right hand side you can see this unsatisfactory rating in the teacher practice score we wanted to be more clear about how do we know when a teacher isn't meeting expectations in fact our evaluators our administrators were the ones who were asking for our committee to consider that so we looked at um what might be a most uh doable and uh make most sense for our plan and the teacher practice score tallies all of their observations from years 1 through three so there's opportunity for our teachers to improve and opportunities for us to provide them with support further down you can see we added some details regarding what that support might actually look like we entailed it or detailed it in activities and goals uh we added a layer of how do we know when they are successful um you can see underlined in the past it was determined only by a peer coach we added that the department of educational services would also have a staff member next slide please when a teacher we wanted to clear ify when a teacher was not successful in level one um in the past they might repeat level one perhaps even indefinitely we wanted to have a clear process and a clear Journey for this um so we've changed it so that if you're not successful at level one you would then move to level two and at the end of both of those two levels at any point if you're successful you are removed from the process and you rejoin the plan as usual um but if at that point you still have not um achieved the success that we are hoping for um that's when either termination or uh discipline would be required and that is um a statute requirement as well everything else there is removed just because it doesn't actually account for it or to again simplify we wanted to make sure you're going from level one to level two hopefully back into our regular plan but if so we knew what we needed to do we're halfway there um the biggest change I think for our plan is in our minimum number of observations so I want to point out first um the pink boxes these are boxes in which we've eliminated uh an observation and here's why our probationary teachers were receiving five observations from their evaluator one observation from a peer coach and then three observations from a job alike Mentor for example a first grade teacher has another first grade teacher observing them so that was nine observations in under nine months so in trying to support our probationary teachers we really realized we were actually kind of over supporting them and perhaps be more of a burden and a stressor than a support so we removed two informal observations from their um from their requirements noting that they are still receiving um three observations from their evaluator at minimum they can always choose to do more they will receive the peer coach observations the Box in red is really emphasizing this hasn't always been happening in recent years with our peer coach capacity um and so we wanted to maintain that that red box that that one peer coach observation was happening so we were boosting the support and shifting those informal observations if we go to the next slide please we shifted those informal observations to our continuing contract teachers we did this for two reasons one our teachers want administrators in their classrooms they've said this um numerous times in numerous ways that they want to get that feedback from their teachers and in the past excuse me from their administrators in the past their administrators were only in their classrooms in year three so we shifted it so that way they could get observations in year one and year two um the second reason that this was really helpful for us is that there's also a statute that requires that we provide um longitudinal data for student engagement we've been doing that by self-reporting um as teachers and Shifting the informal observations means that our admin can collect that and it makes that data a little more robust we also um reduced the other pink box the peer coach observation for cycle year 3 that was two peer coach observations we've reduced that to one again to make sure that those peer coaches have the capacity to re meet the needs and support our probationary I know that's a lot especially on observations are there any questions about the observation the minimum number of observations question yeah how long are the observations excellent question thank you um your informal observations are 10 to 15 minutes they're almost like a drop in a a principal might drop in on a teacher at any time for those 10 to 15 minute informals a formal OB obervation has a pre-observation meeting between the administrator and the teacher um a full class period so at the secondary class period at the elementary it might be a full um literacy block so it could be from 30 minutes to an hour and then a formal observation also includes a post observation meeting and the peer coaches follow that formal observation as well other questions about the observations does the state have a minimum amount and then we're going beyond that we were beyond that now we are meeting those observation amounts excellent if you could go forward to slide please my last two goals are kind of they're the easier ones um our third goal we just wanted to Simply update our plan to reflect District changes um especially with the sunsetting of myp um and the addition of as you can see the eni coaches is we've already always had due process leads these are um coaches that support our special Educators um we wanted to add them to the plan so they could um better support our teachers um the third point there we are maintaining that the peer coaches are the only coaches who complete the peer reviews associated with this plan so we wanted to keep that um tight and uh consistent amongst that and then our fourth goal was to Simply ensure that the language is clear um expansive as our next rewrites in three years we want it to be able to um move with the moves of the district and user friendly which it wasn't necessarily so in the past so there was that peer coach definition that is applied here to we removed appendix C which is the my job coordinator description um we did that because the there's also a description of my position in the atps plan you may remember Jen sex hour presenting that to you a year ago um there's also that job description there they didn't quite align um the atps plan funds my position so it just made sense to keep it in one spot and that was the other plan we removed of course that redundant non-applicable language and the language arts teacher and me made sure that all of the appendices tables and figures all of that was aligned which brings us to and I think I'll skip over that part this was my my my mini summary summary this is really what brings us to the ultimate goal of this plan is to support our teachers and we do believe that if we support our teachers and giving them what they need that they can ultimately then give our students what they need and that's why we are all here are you do you have any other questions I know it's a lot of information it's a 28 page document and what I would maybe and thank you yeah the big takeaway is I was really excited that we had alignment across of teachers administrators and the educational service department an agreement on a plan on how to support teachers and in some of the documents what you will see is we want to support we don't want to be punitive so we realize that as teachers are coming out of colleges they're not necessarily ready to go to run a classroom without support and so this plan is designed to support them as they are also learning how to improve their skills as a teacher and so we just did a lot of cleanup and also balanced like what are the needs of teachers and what are the available resources we we realize we don't have endless resources and we can't um sustain certain models so we really wanted to work smarter uh with this plan and we're actually really proud of it do you have any other questions for me thank you for the work that you did I look through the I thought it was more than 28 pages but it did read like it made sense to me and I didn't know what I was getting into when I opened it so good job thank you any further discussion do you need anything from us to approve this or is this just all for information I believe you do have to vote on it okay so there was a motion to put this on the table so now she'll ask if there's yeah so state statute requir like there's one of two options either you have a locally agreed upon teacher evaluation tool or you end up defaulting to what the state says you have to do in statute so years ago and you heard like that 35% of your evaluation needs to be tied to student performance so that's why it's so complex because there's a piece of legislation that said make 35% evaluation this there's a state statute that says you have to be observed in a full observation one example is within the first 90 days of employment a probationary teacher needs to be observed so there's like this one here this one here this one and I think that's what kind of leads to a lot of the the complexity um and then there's the layers of support like who can do it so uh an administrator can do a formal evaluation meaning this could have an impact on your employment right you heard about probationary teachers that may not have made it through that whereas we also have other layers of support peer level where it wouldn't be evaluative so it just it's a lot of moving parts and pieces that come together because of Statute because of our own belief and like as Amy said our belief in supporting teachers because it's a super complex job and the training programs I went through on it's not enough to be successful so it really is about how do we set people up for success but it is not without its complexity so the good news is it's a three-year plan so if you approve it we don't have to come back to this for a little while and it'll be a really tight plan with great people behind it thank you that sounds like um a lot of clarity for what teachers want to know and how are we being uh evaluated doing our jobs um how can we support teachers in their own developments and making sure that all of that's balanced with our capacity so if there is no further discussion further questions right um all in favor of approving the teacher development and evaluation plan please say I I opposed and the motion passes thank you thank plan I think that the support that we give our teachers on the front end will lead to like in 25 30 years right we'll see so many more people who retire with like the huge longevity we'll maintain that like that yes yes we want to keep our teachers here in the District all right next um we are looking for approval of the resolution authorizing immediate Intermediate School District 97's long-term facilities maintenance program budget and authorizing the inclusion of proportionate share of those projects in the district's application for long-term facility maintenance Revenue do I have a motion so moved second second thank you and to explain all this I'll turn it over to Brady Hoffman good evening um so this is an annual resolution that comes to the school board uh long-term facility maintenance funding is a revenue stream that districts and intermediates can access to help maintain the Deferred maintenance needs of their buildings um as an intermediate District they don't have their own tax base they're a member um Consortium of districts so in order for them to access this Revenue each member district needs to approve their prop proportionate share of that amount which then our taxpayers will pay that portion and then we return those funds over to the intermediate to do those projects um just for a little bit of context um and and how the timeline works so the 10-year plan the ltfm plan that's being approved right now we're approving in calendar year 2024 it becomes taxes that our residents would pay in 2025 so this is actually their revenue for the 2526 uh school year so the way the Cycle Works is it's a multi-year phase so this is to for their 25 26 budget um their proposed amount is $255,500 uh where our share of that would be $1,318 um based on the calculation of um how the these costs are distributed um just for a little bit of perspective too so um for the current year right now um the cost for our residents was $769 across our whole tax base of 14.8 million in tax that were levied so it's a very small fraction of a percent that is a flow through um for this funding which allows the intermediate to um take care of some those deferred maintenance needs just like we have so it's a great tool um for them to access as well um so this is just the like I said it's an annual piece that comes through where once the school board authorizes this we return this back to the intermediate and then they're able to access these funds to maintain their buildings um so later in June we'll be bringing our own ltfm plan for you um to consider for approval which which would then give us that same access to those uh long-term facility deferred maintenance dollars so um I'll open up for questions on this but this is an annual thing that our school board typically approves to make sure our intermediate has access to these funds as well see Brady do you know why their budget increased so significantly um it's I think it's the timing of the projects they have so the details in this budget is the main piece 185,000 is to replace four um h P units um so I'm thinking is they they try and stay around that threshold but they just might have had the timing of when these projects are needed to get addressed um to tackle them when they can as opposed to when they fail and then we have to they have to get more creative I guess um so it was a slight increase from 173 to 255 any further discussion um let's see is not a resolution so it is it is a resolution a lot of words in that just have to follow the script and stay on it so Lisa would you please call the role director laa birdie yes T Felton yes human yes Weber Yes W Felton yes and Claflin yes that's six y right thank you um um glad we had a finance director to just have those numbers your tongue uh and for the last item on the business agenda I'm looking for a motion to approve the acceptance of the gifts report so moved so second second and again for the discussion I'll turn over to Mr Hoffman good evening we have a few donations to uh for the board to consider this evening one of those is a 3M volunteer match on behalf of Becky Williams for link Center uh we have two donations to the cdlu uh from HLT Heating and Cooling and Mendoza Navaro LLC uh the sou St Paul Education Foundation made a couple donations to the elementary schools for pottery wheels and and their clay programs the sou St Paul open foundation uh has made a donation for the dance line to support coaching salaries and then Volkswagen of Inver Grove has made a donation to the senior all night party okay it's great to see the community coming out to support support uh our school district all of our schools is there any further discussion all right all in favor please say I and a post all right then the motion passes all right uh we are almost to the end and almost um I'd like I'd really like to recognize the patience of our student board Representatives both from this past year Reata a and our upcoming student Representatives jackon Jackson Schultz and Amal fek um you've made it through a marathon meeting and uh as this is reata's final meeting as our student representative um I'd really like to just um recognize how important it has been for us to hear student voices through you you have been um absolutely instrumental and engaging with other students and helping us hear our student voices um we've been able to send you back to the schools with questions to talk to your peers and uh report back on what is the voice of the student body and I'm really looking forward to that continuing it informs and grounds the work of the board in what really matters most and how it impacts our students daily experiences um from all of the interviews we did in the past year and for the student representatives for this upcoming year we have some amazing students and they all have the interest of their peers um at the Forefront um the ideas that we heard in the interviews from Amal and uh from Jackson on just the connections you have to the diversity of our student body um has really been um helpful for us to know what the the students are engaged in what matters in their daily lives um how school is helping them how the activities and sports that you participate in are shaping your lives and enriching your educational experience and what we as a board can do to support that a lot of what we do is very formal um approval of long-term facility maintenance budgets and while it's very important that seems uh disconnected from the daily experiences of our students um and it helps remind us what we are actually here to do uh so I'd really like to thank you for your service um and welcome Amal and Jackson we'll swear you in formally in the fall um and if any of the other board members I actually have an update for you guys oh yes have an update from ranata so um B is actually going on a field trip tomorrow to the Science Museum um I don't know if you remember last year we went to the the Art Museum in St Paul I believe um so we we had a lot of touching issues at the art museum so we couldn't do that anymore so that's why we're going to the Science Museum so we requested to go to the Science Museum because we loved um touching a few things that we shouldn't have touched but that's something um BPO is doing tomorrow um women societ is actually closing off on Thursday we're having our last meeting our pizza party meeting um yeah and I just want to thank everyone to um bring me along I know it was it was the F it was a great first year I learned a lot and I just appreciate you guys for taking me along on the ride and yeah so thank you and you have great people next to me that are going to step in my shoes for sure thank you course thank you I shared it in our close or I mean our our um work session earlier but rata you've made a huge impact on this community and this district and on me personally so thank you for that and I'm excited to get to know Jackson and Amal better um gotten little Snippets but I know you two are very intelligent and capable people and honestly sometimes when you're sitting there going I don't know what they're talking about there's probably other people so that'll be a good reminder for us of like can you say that a different way so because if you don't get it some of us may not get it right so it's it's a really good piece there but so important to have that student voice because uh we we like to think we're making good decisions but if you tell us we're off track we're probably going to go okay we need to rethink this cuz you you know kids are always insightful and candid and so your voice matters so much so M and Jackson welcome and again we'll we'll do a formal thing but we just wanted to get you here in front of the community so they could see who's coming in to fill the shoes and I know you'll do great thank you thank you uh and now if there's any reports from our other board members and where you've seen uh a passion or um participated in activities with the schools we've done our committee updates already during our work session um so if let start with director Weber and not much just looking forward to graduation it's always a fun time um both with the CLC and with the secondary and just best wishes as you continue on your Journeys and know that there is there are no wrong paths there are just different ways of getting places so best of luck good advice director L birie um I have nothing at this time director human uh I too am looking forward to being able to go to graduation and seeing faces that we've been celebrating all throughout the year I had the opportunity to go to music concerts at capoa for the second and fourth graders and that was super fun I didn't know what to expect for recorders and it went okay so good job I also really enjoyed the middle School play was a couple weekends ago the Puffs my son declared it the best play he's ever seen so I think that's indicative of the passion that we're seeing in our district excited about that uh director Felton first I have a couple little thank you things I'd like to say I'd like to thank the kosia education center I want to thank them they did their Apex fund run fundraiser I want to thank all those that did the running and all the volunteers that helped on that program and also just a reminder to the Lincoln Center students their yearbooks are there now so if you've ordered a yearbook you can collect it and be really proud of having that of your school and I also attended the Athletics and activities celebration and of course the Education Foundation scholarship program certainly was there as I serve on the foundation board and just two things on more on a personal level I am a sou St Paul graduate as you know and believe it or not I am on the committee we are starting to plan our 50th class reunion which will be held next year so if there are any members watching this program that would like to serve on our committee I am holding a meeting this Thursday night at at my in my apartment building you can reach out and contact contact me if you would be interested in learning about our class reunion and the last thing as you know I do serve on the senior center board of directors and I know you've heard me mention a few times that I also when we have our our annual well actually it's by anual thing here I will show you when we do our our our modeling day I was totally surprised surprised I did not expect this but I found out that our picture was posted on the community aded brochure here that you've seen so I'm on there and that shirt that I have on I did buy it so so it was a lot of fun and as you know our next Fashion Show is the first Wednesday in October so it is a lot of fun so thank you director Fon uh I just would like to remind everybody about the th anniversary of the sou St Paul Open golf tournament which will be July 15th um at Southie Country Club in the Honore as Mr Randy bjorkland a very well-deserving Honore longtime coach and teacher here in South St Paul thank you um I was recently at the third grade uh music concert at capoa and was also very impressed um by the students the singing and dancing was a lot of fun to watch and the turnout from families was wonderful to see um in the middle of the afternoon it's not the easiest time for all of us to head over to the elementary school to watch them um perform for uh about 30 minutes or so but they had a great turnout so thank you for giving them an audience and showing them that we all come and support their education all of the songs were wonderful um and in multiple languages too and I was also at the middle school theater production it looked like every student was having the best time up there on stage they were having so much fun I loved seeing that and they did great accents for a Middle School production they had some fantastic accents and I really have to hand it to the senior high theater students who showed up for the Middle School theater production they cheered the loudest participated in the play and really showed those middle school students what a future in the theater Department can look like um and I was also observing the long-term facilities task force and there was 680 years of of cumulative uh experience within the school district represented by the 25 to 30 or so people that were at that meeting uh really covered a breadth of our district um students parents teachers uh folks that were in athletics and activities um so figuring out how we best use the resources that we have uh moving forward um we're looking for all of that Community input so we are finished with the public portion of our meeting tonight we do have a closed session on our agenda so pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d 03 um this is to discuss independent employee negotiations I'm looking for a motion to move us into Clos session so moved second all right any discussion all in favor say I I post all right thank you the motion passes our public meeting is concluded the board will move across the hall for the Clos session