It is 7:03. I would like to call this meeting of the Robinsdale Area School Board together. Uh it is Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025, Earth Day, and we are in the Education Service Center. Will the clerk please call the role? Evans here thank you. We definitely have a quorum. All right. Uh the first thing up on our agenda is approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Approval. Moved by Bowman. Seconded by Holmes. Seeing no fingers up, all in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. I. Oppos say nay. We have an agenda. Number three on the agenda. Ardale proud. Cooper High School. Please take it away. Superintendent Stall. Excellent. I am delighted to uh Principal Smith and a Cooper High School team are here um to highlight opportunities for students to exercise their voice at Cooper High School and to show how to build student skills for them to use their voice now and into the future. Um we'll also hear from Emily and Chad, students at Cooper High School on how exercising their voice affects their educational opportunities. will discuss uh experience. Oh, Miss Lizer will uh discuss her experiences growing up in and path back to the district. So, thank you all for being here. Principal Smith, I'll let you take it over. Hello and good evening members of the board. Uh thank you for inviting us here. It is our pleasure for student. I would like to welcome my team up. All right, for our land acknowledgement, I'll call on Chad Hill. We acknowledge Robinsdale Area Schools is located on the homelands of the Dakota and Ojiway people. We recognize the painful history of genocide and forced assimilation of the indigenous inhabitants of this land. We honor and respect the many indigenous peoples who live on live and on and hold sacred these lands and we stand with the members of these nations to fight injustice in all its forms. We uphold the preservation of the Dakota and Ojiway languages, landbased education and tribal sovereignty. Thank you, Chad Hill. And the mission of Robbinsdale Area Schools is to inspire, educate all learners to develop their unique potential and positively contribute to their community. Our agenda today, we are going to do introductions very soon. Uh we're going to talk about how we incorporate student voice at Cooper. Uh we're going to have some um voices from our student speakers and from our Cooper alumnists. All right. introductions. Of course, my name is Shaunie Smith, Cooper, principal. I also have Mr. Ned Nelson, assistant principal. Dr. Josh Maym, uh, at Mantosa, Emily Blanchett, and Chad Heel, our student speakers today, and Amanda Leisure, alumnist. All right. So, this is just some of the ways in which we incorporate student voice at Cooper High School. What we know is that student voice is vital in education as it empowers learners to actively participate in shaping their educational experiences. It fosters a sense of belonging, autonomy, and engagement, which are crucial for academic success and personal growth. By prioritizing student voice, we can better understand our students needs, perspectives, and aspirations, leading to more inclusive and effective educational practices. At Cooper, students are encouraged to express their opinions, make choices, and collaborate on decisions, transforming them into partners in their learning journey. This approach not only enhances their confidence and communication skills, but also prepares our students for independence as they transition into adulthood. This is just one of our events, Black History Month, and I'll call up Emily Blanchett. Hi, my name is Emily Blanchett and so I'm part of student council and we run uh the Black History Month Expo every year to highlight black history and educate our students. and it's one of our biggest events every year and we invite programs and organizations in the community to hold a booth to like reach out to students. Um students have gotten like jobs and internships through the Black History Month Expo and we also allow students to perform um through dance, song or spoken word about black history um however they would like. And we also have guest performances at the event as well. So, it's a big community building um event and it allows students to like share um a part of their history because we do have a big um African-American population at Cooper. So, they have the opportunity to like share their culture, learn about their history, meet organizations that um that they could be interested in, find pathways for future. And so that's how we use student voice in our Black History Month Expo. Thank you, Emily. All right. And our student summit, I'll call up Chad. Hi, my name is Chad Hill and I'm a junior at Cooper High School. Uh, one of the many things we do at Cooper is uh our student summit we hold every year. um we like to hold it before sometimes some years it doesn't get to that point but some years we'd like like to um do it before the second semester to see what we can change for the second semester. Um and we we uh every year we we hold uh we sign classes sign up to uh come for third and fourth hour usually and come down and voice their opinions on how how we can make Cooper better. Um and we we collect all the data of what people say and there no answer is a wrong answer. We look at uh and we we take everyone's intake and we bring it back to a committee and we look over and see what we can do and what Principal Smith can do uh to make Cooper better. Uh so it's one of our one of our best events that we do uh to hear student voice and for students to feel like they're advocated for. Yeah, thank you, Chad. And Hawk Connections. Hawk Connections uh is something that we started this year to focus on our students that may have difficulty getting to class sometimes. Uh and so Hawk Connections gives us an opportunity to build those connections with our students to figure out where the disconnect is. We have guest speakers. Um we do restorative circles. Um we do prizes. we uh celebrate goals that they have achieved and we have seen a huge success with our connections. To speak more I'll invite up Dr. Mi. So with Hoff Connections one of the things we've been happy to celebrate at uh Robbinsdale Cooper is non-punitive um and exploratory circles. So we'll run restorative justice circles. We'll talk at length with our kids about why is it that they're not making it to class and what it is that we can do as school leaders to help out our kids and to reach them. As you probably know, attendance is a big issue in large public schools across the nation. And we've been trying to find ways to connect with our kids in a meaningful uh capacity. And so with these restorative circles, what we've been doing is building relations relationships asking them about their experiences and try and find ways to connect with our kids to bring them to school and to make Cooper a meaningful and positive place for them. Thank you, Dr. Maym. And upcoming events, Chad Hill. Uh, one of our upcoming events, we're hoping to be our biggest event of the school year is our multicultural fest is going to be held on April 29th. I encourage all of you guys to come. Uh, it's going to be very fun. Uh, we are splitting it into two two parts. The first part is going to be held during the school day uh kind of like our uh Black History Month Expo style. uh where uh booths from outside of our uh our district or even within our district and school come and uh you know just showcase their culture. Uh we want to highlight every culture if we can uh that's represented at Cooper and really show what Cooper is all about. Um also we the second part is a showcase a talent showcase in the auditorium from 6:00 to 7:30. Also encourage all of you guys to come in this room. Uh, so it's it's going to be really fun. Uh, we're going to have a cultural uh uh a fashion show and um dancing as well. So hopefully hopefully you guys can make it. Hopefully it'll be a good event. Thank you again, Chad. And I'll invite up Emily if she wants to say a few more words. So I am a senior at Cooper High School and it seems like every year I pick up a new activity or like sport. So, and throughout all of these activities, um, I've been asked for my opinion at least once, um, or asked for my voice, my thoughts on something. And I think it's good to have those reminders that they want to hear your voice and actually shown that you want your voice. They like everything that I've done has always been, what do you guys think? What would you guys want? Like, do you like this idea? Like, we're old, not old, but we're older. So, what what's something that we don't understand? And it's so throughout all these activities, I feel like my voice has been heard and been seen. And as a leader um of some of these activities, I'm able to also share other people's voices who might not feel comfortable, too. So, it's good to know that there's multiple people in the building that I can talk to because they all have asked me at least once what my opinion is on something. Um, and in that photo, it's me and my dad at our Veterans Day breakfast that we hold annually. And that is a day of for staff, students, and members of our community to come and share stories about service. We celebrate them with pastries, breakfast foods, and um then we hold an open floor for them to just speak of how they feel and hear their opinions and their memories and stuff. And it's an amazing experience every year. And another way that um we also use student voice is that our GSA is currently working on a teacher education presentation to give a little extra information to teachers on how to best support LGBTQ students. Um so we're in the process of creating a slideshow and figuring out what we fully want to say and when we want to present this to them. And it's great that we have that opportunity and I have uh the adviserss working with me to create the slides and make sure that we cover everything that we want them to know. Okay. Thank you, Emily. And I'll call up Chad for a few more words. Uh, I am I am a junior. I'm not quite at the senior at senior level yet, but um I feel like I've been at Cooper my whole life. Uh Cooper I spent a lot of my time at Cooper to be very honest with you. In a good way. In a good way. In a good way. I enjoy it, you know. And I I uh I want to talk about the idea of of service. Um I'm very passionate about service. I think everyone should be involved in service. And one of the quotes I have here, one of the my favorite quotes by Mahatma Gandhi, um is he says the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. And I think that's a very impactful statement because um I feel like I do lose myself in service in a good way. And I feel like to to serve others, you have to have a pure heart and nothing in return, looking for nothing in return. And that's what we look to do at Cooper. And I know that I do running certain events and being a part of certain events. And for instance, um this was this was a picture of me and Representative Ilhan Omar when she came to Cooper um several weeks back. Um I mean I I encourage everyone at Cooper. I people ask me how do you how do you stay engaged and maintain grades and maintain yourself while being involved in so much? How do you not overwhelm yourself? I say don't look at look at it as a job. Don't look at it or else you're not going to enjoy it. Look at it and have fun. Have fun with what you do. Um just just have a pure heart. Um and look to help others always. Thank you, Chad. And I will call up Amanda Leer, our Cooper alumnist. Hi, I am Amanda Leer. Um this is a picture of me from being a Cooper Hawk in 20201. We pulled these up from my good old cheerleading days. Um, this is my 17th year being an educator um at Cooper High School. I teach and coordinate AVID. Um, and so when Chad joked that he feels like he's been at Cooper his whole life, I I have been in Robinsdale my whole life. Um, I had the pleasure of attending New Hope Elementary, Hosterman Middle School, and Cooper High School, graduating um just a couple of years ago in 2001. Um, a fun fact, um, senior year I was voted most likely to be a teacher and it worked. Um, I have known that I had wanted to be an educator since I was in third grade. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Hellstrm, like just like planted it in my heart and I knew that it was really important to me um, to be like her and to be an educator. And I can can think about all my times growing up in district 281 because that's what we were referenced more and now we're Robinville area schools. Um and like the sixth grade team of teachers who helped me really get my feet on the ground in middle school and understand how middle school works and how that's different. and my high school experience at Cooper, um I was not only pushed academically, but supported in ways kind of beyond what we usually ask educators. Um the end of my sophomore year, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so over half of my high school career, my family was juggling that and managing that. And so to know that there were people at Cooper who had my back and people who just genuinely cared, um I feel like that has really set me on my path to be an educator and um different ways to make connections with students. And so I knew right away after I graduated from the University of Minnesota Morris that I wanted to come back in Robinsdale. Um and it just really makes me proud to have been a student here and then also to be able to interact and work with students every day. So, thank you. Thank you, Miss Lisa. And thank you all for listening. If you have any questions, we'll be more than happy to answer. You did it with 16 seconds to spare. One of me. Oh, we have a question. Can I ask one quick question? Yes. um the group that you started this year to get the feedback from the students who are not wanting to be at school or coming later any general theme that you want to share with the board at all that comes to mind is your question do I have any general feelings theme of were there any themes there that were shared with you all about the struggles they're facing as students yeah what we heard and would you like to share Mr. in their hand. We heard several things and what we heard some of our students say is they didn't feel that connection and when we pulled them in and had those conversations with them, they understood more. And you can tell a student to go to class, go to class, right? But if you don't have that connection with them and and have that circle and those intimate conversations, you really don't get to the foundation of of what really the issues are. So what we found is a lot of our kids just didn't have the connection. They love coming to Cooper. They feel safe at Cooper, but not necessarily connecting with the adults in the building. And so that's what we provided during those times. Thank you. Yeah. I don't get a quick sign for N to say something. [Music] Thank you everyone. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Next up on our agenda soon as she gets back here is our superintendent's report. Thank you very much. Good evening, uh, Chair Evans Becker and school board directors at Robbinsdale Area Schools. Our mission is to inspire and educate all learners to develop their unique potential and to positively contribute to their community. We just saw two outstanding students and earlier saw other outstanding students um who uh who are doing that every single day. Um, our collective work is focused on that mission and tonight I want to share a few of the things in which we've been engaged. So before I move on to the rest of my report, I want to take a moment to recognize some of the most generous and essential members of our Robbinsdale community, our volunteers. Each year, more than a thousand community members step up to serve in our schools. Together, they contribute nearly 20,000 hours of their time reading with students, preparing materials, organizing events, cheering on our teams, and helping make our schools feel like home. We see you. We appreciate you and we couldn't do this work without you. To celebrate volunteer appreciation week and say thank you, we put together a short video. So I want to allow everyone to take a look at that right now. Volunteers come in and they make a difference in our kids' lives. I would like to thank all the volunteers in our community. We appreciate every help and support. support our students, our family and our community. I don't think it was that been pivotal in my teaching. It's intangible the things that you provide, the learning opportunities that you provide, the unique skills that you bring that other people don't have. We really value the things that you bring to us. The success of our schools would not be possible without our caring community and all of our volunteers that give their time to Robinsdale Schools. We really appreciate seeing volunteers come through and uh their willingness to help in our classrooms here at Robbinsdale Area Schools. Just want to give a huge thank you to all the volunteers within the Ardell school system and specifically to the volunteers that come out to Plymouth Middle School every single day. Our volunteers come in and they make a difference in our kids' lives. I would like to thank all the volunteers in our community. We appreciate everything that you do and we are grateful for all your help and support. The volunteers are instrumental. I mean, they are like crucial, I guess, is what I'm going to say. Crucial to what we do. I just we really actually could not do it without volunteers. We just flat out couldn't do it. I really appreciate volunteers because when things are getting tough, they keep me going. On behalf of the Northport community, we want to say thank you to our amazing volunteers for all the efforts that they have put in throughout the years to make a huge difference on our community. We have hundreds of volunteers who serve our students and staff throughout our district each year. I want to thank you so much for what you do to give your time, talent, and expertise to helping make us better and ultimately to elevate our district mission, our purpose, which is to inspire and educate all learners to develop their unique potential and positively contribute to their community. We appreciate everything that you do. I want to say thank you. Thank you volunteers. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you volunteers. Lots of people, lots of hours and and truly amazing. So, thank you. As we celebrate uh this week and uh um into the next week, it'll be great. Um in the strategic priority theme of academic achievement, Armstrong High School senior Kenny Garpu has been awarded the highly competitive D scholarship from the University of St. Thomas. Each year, only 10 students are selected for this full tuition 4-year scholarship, an award that recognizes academic achievement, leadership, and a strong comm community commitment to community. Kenya is an outstanding example of all three. She's a senior captain of the Afro Empire Dance Team and has participated in our AVID program for all four years of high school, showing not only talent, but also dedication to personal growth and higher education. and please join me in celebrating Kenny's incredible achievement. We're proud of her and can't wait to see what she does next. On April 10th, I was able to attend the opening of the Robbinsdale Secondary Visual Art Show on display at the Robin Gallery in Robbinsdale. This annual showcase features an incredible artwork from our talented middle and high school students across the district. Each secondary school submitted about a dozen pieces and the exhibit includes a wide range of media, uh, ceramics, digital art, drawing, photography, and more. It's a fantastic celebration of student creativity and artistic expression. If you have, uh, haven't had a chance to stop by yet, the gallery is open um, until April 27th. So, please try to take a look at that. In addition to our in-person art shows, I'm excited to share that the 202425 Ardale virtual arts gallery is now live and available for students, staff, families, and our broader community to view and celebrate. This online gallery features incredible student artwork from every grade level and every school across our district. And again, you'll find a lot of different techniques, all organized by school. It's a great way to showcase and share the creative talents of our students with the entire Ardale community. I encourage you to take a look and enjoy the inspiring work on display. In the strategic theme of collaboration and partnerships, on April 8th, the School of Engineering and Arts had a unique opportunity to host international STEM leaders from Australia, India, and Japan as part of the international visitor leadership program. During their visit, our guests heard directly from our from four impressive fifth grade students who shared their experience working at the hands-on science project raising rainbow trout from eggs with plans to release them into the wild uh next month. Visitors also had a chance to observe classroom learning in action, including two second grade classrooms and a kindergartener class utilizing one of C's outdoor learning learning spaces. a great example of how we bring STEM to life for our students at all grade levels. It was great to showcase the innovative and engaging learning that's happening every single day in our schools to an international audience. In our priority uh of community engagement, we continue to make strong progress with our re-imagine Ardale Vision 2030 um engagement efforts. So far, we've reached more than 11,000 engagement touch points, which is about 23% of our 50 touch point goal. Um, all of our community engagement meetings have wrapped up. We're still uh we're grateful to everyone who attended and shared their insights and thoughts. The survey is still open through May 4th and we're encouraging as many voices as possible to participate. We're finalizing grade level conversations this week at Plymouth Middle School with uh I was with seventh graders today and I'll be with eighth graders on Thursday. Um and uh we've also will start focus groups with students and staff in the coming weeks. We've also started something new. We're engaging our elementary students in a creative age appropriate way through activity book books. Uh the young the youngest of our students will um be able to share with us how they imagine their ideal experience and share their ideas through art and storytelling. Uh it's a great way again to ensure that all voices are heard no matter the age. Um that's my report for this evening. Thank you very much. Super. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to operations. And letter A is Whoops. Wait, wait a minute. We're not going to operations yet. Uh, we have a District 287 long-term facilities maintenance information and discussion. Take it away, Director Long. Yes. At our last um 287 district meeting, which was a couple Thursdays ago, um they brought up their um LTFM plan. And since we are one of their member districts, we pay a fee and we also um have them added on to our levies as a way of them having revenue for their school district so that they can operate with the students that are Robbinsdale students along with their other member districts. So if uh chief financial officer if you could explain their plan to the board and I will take back any questions that the board might have of them. Um I'll be meeting with them on this Thursday again. Wonderful. Thank you, Chair Vince Becker, directors, superintendent Stalo. Thank you, Director Long for that leadin. Um, I'm going to take a step back because what uh intermediate 287 is in the process of doing along with the member districts is they're actually starting, believe it or not, funding for the 2627 school year. So when we start talking about uh levies and specific LTFM 281s, I'll be in front of you at some point too with with our plan. It is this is where it starts to get confusing where we're now starting to begin to operate in three different fiscal years. We're currently in 2425 as you heard and we've been discussing for months now the 2526 budget and as we work as as far as putting information together for the levy that moves us into uh the the year of 2627 collection year for our taxpayers of 26 and you vote on that in December of 25. So the levy is the the component the one component that the board solely controls. A piece of that levy is for the intermediate districts. And because intermediates don't have the authority to levy themselves because they serve multiple communities. They take their member districts. They say this is what we need as far as what we can levy legis what legislative authority has allowed us to do and we're going to ask that each individual member district vote on that so we are able to receive the funding we need. They too have long-term facility maintenance costs. They too have had uh the ability to issue debt. And what's not identified in this presentation or the materials that are provided is they will also be uh requesting levy for leases. And so tonight's focus and what will uh moving forward with director long and what comes back uh from 287 is the long-term facility maintenance piece. There are seven items in the packet um and and listed um in the board materials that anybody can look at. Ultimately, what what they are doing by law is they are presenting a 10-year plan to say these are the the areas that we need to identify um as far as facility maintenance. Um and long-term facility maintenance is doing like for like they it's not adding it's not it's replacing like for like. Um there is also a component of the debt service of what they have already issued. Again, all these talking points were presented um as part as as part of the handout materials. So, ultimately, um when when comparing what was done a year ago to where we are to date, as far as the LTFM piece, we're actually up. They're asking us to levy more for long-term facility maintenance um by about 112 $113,000. What you don't see right now and I don't know director long if this was discussed at your at the board meeting for uh 287 was the lease component and the lease component then is actually going down because the goal of 287 or at least what was my my inference of what the materials provided is that uh there's a recognition that they want to keep the levy piece or their levy piece flat as do most districts typically. So, LTFM is up. When we ultimately go to move forward, the lease levy will be down. The net result will be about a $5,000 decline from where we were a year ago. So, that's the overall financial picture of the intermediates. That is why I'm in front of you today saying here are the items that are listed. This is what they're doing. They need 287 needs all 12 members to approve their plan. I will be in front of you to ask you to approve 281's plan. All of those materials are provided and I'm I guess at this point I'll either turn it over to Director Long or I'll turn it over to uh the board directors for any specific questions you have because again there's a a lot of detailed content, but that's ultimately the overall objective. Thank you very much. Um Director Long, do you have anything you want to add? She said she might turn it over to you. Do you have any points that you wanted to share with us or not? Really? Um, no. I think you covered everything and yeah, that was right. They did talk about the lease will be going down because they have a bond that that will be paid off in um 2027. They'll have another one in 2029 that will also be paid off. And so then they'll do that reverse. And they were, like you said, thinking of our taxpayers in trying to keep it level. Thank you. Um, I don't see any hands for any Oh, Superintendent Salo. Um, not a question, but I just wanted to clarify because I know their timeline since they need approval from each district, will we plan on coming um forward at the May 5th uh meeting for action on this? That makes sense. Yeah, I hope so. Okay. Um Yeah. So, if there's any questions, try to get approved by July. Yep. Yeah. So, if we if if uh if board directors have questions again, get those to Director Long or to me and we can make sure that we get those answered so that you have the information that you need to uh take action on May 5th. Director Bass, do you have a question? I don't have a question. I just have a comment. And my comment kind of has to do with just the overall history of 287 and the fact that they're just continuing to maintain, I think, uh as steady uh cost is a good thing and they've been maintaining that for a while and I it's been a while since I've heard about them redoing anything to their their uh formula that uh we pay our um tuition for students who go there and so they worked on that some years ago and and worked really hard on it in their finance committee. So it sounds like that that plan is still working. Uh, and so this seems reasonable. And thank you, uh, Director Long and, uh, Seville. You're welcome. Thank you, Director Basset. All right. I don't see any other questions at this time, but if there are questions, please get them to the appropriate person so we can get answers. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Now, we are moving into operations. And action item A is a resolution accepting the March 2025 donations. There were over $43,000 worth dollars worth of donations in March. Do I have a move for the resolution to accept these donations? So moved. Okay. Uh Director Helen Brand and then Director Basset seconded and we'll wave the reading on the resolution if that's okay with both of you. Okay. Yes. All right. It's a roll call vote. I see no discussion. Please let's do the vote on the accepting resol uh donations. Great. Thank you. Uh, Director Basset, yes. Uh, Director Bowman votes yes. Chair Evans Becker, yes. Director Hillbrand, yes. Director Holmes, yes. Director Long, yes. Director Wuto, yes. We have 6 7. Even better. Okay. Resolution carries. Uh, item B, ad hoc safety and security m committee report. Um, we have not met again. We are waiting for administration to get back to us. I know we had to talk talked about a couple dates and they've come and went. Um, so if you all can just circle back with director long and myself so we can get something scheduled and then um I'm hoping it looked like we're going to talk about the work session the documents because I didn't get an email from council. So I don't know if that's carrying over to work session from our last meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. a governance policy procedure manual task force report. Uh Dr. Bowman, sure. Gita and I have been meeting consistently for the last number of weeks and uh we will be prepared on time with bringing it to the board prior to July 1, allowing the board to have the summer to read through it, make comments, and then we'll bring it back. We'll request a work session in September on it hopefully with approval on this manual by in October at the latest. Thank you. Um policy committee, is there a report? Have they met? Have not met. Move on then. Administrative reports. All right. We've actually got three reports this evening. Um I'm going to start out with uh executive director um Will uh Williams who's going to uh share some information about the family literacy program. Thanks, Anthony. Oh, yes. Thank you. Um, good evening, uh, Chair Beck Evans Becker, members of the board for Brent Estalo. Um, understanding that, you know, uh, family lit was talked about tonight at the listening session and has been talked about quite a bit since the decision has been made to to, um, eliminate that program for the 25 26 school year. Um, just wanted to, you know, uh, what I won't do tonight is I I won't, you know, I don't want to speak I won't speak in ways that disparages the quality of the work of the program. you know, it has been a valuable program for the district. Um we looking at the reviewing the budget um as we do every single year. Um made a financial decision within within fund 4 um that the family lit program was not viable. Um financially um it has been running a def early childhood family education is the area that funds that program. Um and for the last 10 years or so it has been running a deficit. Um so then so to continue to operate the family live program uh we projected that I essentially it runs runs us off of a financial cliff within that within that community education early child early learning budget. Um looking at the the impact of the families that we serve. We serve 27 families 31 students currently um enrolled in the site. um speaking with the students, 17 students would have enrolled next year because half of the students kids are be going into kindergarten. So it really impacts our from our current student enrollment um 17 students. Um since meeting with staff students um we have worked with the early learning team to provide them resources on how to connect with you know um our early learning programming at our New Hope Learning Center as well as um recognizing that that program is offered differently than the family lit program. the family live program is, you know, offered more hours. Um, you know, where the programming at New Hope learning center um typically is a two-hour, you know, early learning program, two-hour blocks, but we have also set aside working with my director from school age care. Um, scholarships for families who would like to current families, not new families, but current families who u would need full day care. we have our early adventures program and we've set aside some space um for them for next year if that was an option that they've that they wanted to pursue to continue to support the current 17 children who are enrolled in in early learning. So those are things that we've done um to try to mitigate the change recognizing that it is a change. It's a tough change. Family lead has a long history in the district. Um but but we've tried to a be fiscally responsible and b recognize the impact that it does have on families. Once again, we didn't just make the decision to not talk to families. We met with staff, you know, we met with families, multiple family uh feedback sessions. Um, you know, so I understand what the impact is really on those students, but this is the best way for us to really be fiscally responsible um going forward and space for questions. Director Basset. So, um, just to make sure I'm I'm clear. Uh so um the family literacy program services really are not being just moved over to the new hope learning center. Uh that is not an apples to apples move. Correct. That is not an apples to apples move. Okay. And so to the extent that you can am I hearing you say that you're going to try to build in some additional resources into that program? Yeah. So um there nothing we offer is apples to apples to family lit you know but we have gotten feedback on from the students and we continue to seek feedback from the students on what components other than just the the hour structure. We know that the hours are different and you know in order to maximize the possibility of additional hours that would be the early adventures program which we will set aside some scholarships for students who want that option that's not at the family family lit location. um that's that's offered at two of our elementaryaries uh elementary schools. But in order to we have asked students for feedback on what other resources they have that maybe we can you know utilize some of our funds to provide those other resources at the New Hope Learning Center, but it wouldn't be just transitioning the Family Live program as it is from Crystal Learning Center to New Hope Learning Center. That that that's the model that's not working for us. So chair, I just have two related questions. Uh and so then uh the um the offerings uh for the stu the children at the family lacy program. Um to what extent if any are we able to duplicate or provide a range of services similar to that? And then the partner question which is a long partner and that is the impact and you may not be prepared to talk about that that may be a CFO wholeheisle question at some later time and that's the impact on the facility where the program has been which has been at Crystal. Um and for the first question I am going to call my my counterpart up just to speak a little bit about the work that's happening at New Hope Learning Center and how they will support you know um those learners resources and what you guys say. Hello. Um, so my name is Emily Levenson. I'm the director of early learning. Uh, and and to answer your question, um, the programming, while the hours are not the same at New Hope Learning Center, the the staff continue to be licensed. They're they're providing the same curriculum, uh, the same resources in terms of supporting families. is there's um parent educator support. Um lots of built-in resources at New Hope Learning Center. However, like um Director Williams said, it's not um it's not the same. Their parents won't be at the building the whole 5 hours like at Crystal Learning Center. Um, currently I'm not sure if I'm getting to your question exactly, but you're answering very question about our staff capabilities, but in that question, what begs the question is that if these children are the children of English language learners, the capacity of the children themselves and the capacity of our staff to actually communicate with the children becomes Yeah, that's the purpose. Sure. I mean, one of the purposes. So, so I will say we have many students that already are enrolled in our early learning programs across the district, both at New Hope Learning Center and in many of our elementary um buildings that come to school not necessarily speaking English, right? And we have lots of um amazing staff that have professional development and experience um in supporting families. Will it look exactly the same? No. Do I have every confidence that our staff can support children who come to school um maybe not speaking English or English isn't their first language? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Director Holmes. Um I guess I'm looking forward to hearing more back after. I don't know if you were here for the listening hour session and then just catching up with the superintendent on some of the points that were brought up about could this drive enrollment? Is there a wait list? Um, was there no advertising before? I don't know if you can speak to it tonight. I'm just speaking to what I heard tonight that were points of interest and obviously you didn't know what was going to be said or not. Um, and then just the communication piece. If we knew that it's been operating for 10 years at a deficit and it's producing this kind of push back, I guess I just I look forward to how we're going to improve communication because financially we can all look at it and say with those numbers, it just doesn't compute. And then we have the human component and I know we're all listening to that, but if we can start connecting those pieces, it's going to build back trust. Maybe it will drive enrollment. So, I'm looking forward to hearing more on those pieces as well as that lease for that center because I know that's a real estate component and I don't know when we will be covering that. So, um to try to answer just the parts that you know um when it comes to just the the advertising component of it and and really uh so family lit operates it's not an open enrollment. anybody in the comm anybody in the community can just go there to you know um they can if they're one of our adult academic program students. So they have to be enrolled in the adult academic program to participate in that particular program that's at Crystal Learning Center. So the advertising is typically done within that student population. Um once again uh and the student you correct me if I'm wrong because you can always say no that's not right but that's from that's my level of understanding of that. Um and then you know u when we talk about the population that we serve there um we serve over 1100 students there throughout the year. Remember it's adult education so students come and go. Um and of those 1100 students right we have you know a small population who actually access that program. Um once again um that doesn't mitigate the value of the program but that's just just the raw the raw data points of it. Um when you talk about the 10 years of deficit that I referenced earlier um that's me just do I I wasn't here 10 years ago but that's me just doing a look back on the data right and seeing the trajectory and then also doing a projection of we're already dipping into the fund balance this year is projected at 154 for that for that you know for early childhood family education continued trajectory it once again it falls off of a fistal cliff there um but funding official funding for family literacy programming was stopped I believe 2011 under the Obama administration. It was called the even start program and that ended in 2011. We maintained family literacy beyond that you know but the official you know uh funding for family literacy um and that and that structure was ended in 2011 and I appreciate that. Thank you. It's just the more facts we can get out because we are not emotionless here. we are facing huge budgetary challenges and there is a human component and we still have a major problem with a a lease over there and the numbers that were served. So, thank you for that. I just hope we can continue to connect dots for that. And then I don't know what the outreach is to those families who how often you're meeting with them. I mean, obviously they're still coming here and and making sure that they know these opportunities. So, just my general thoughts for now and making sure we can we can connect because we can't keep saying that students and um staff are our heartbeat and then treat them in a way where they feel like they're not being heard or informed. Is it okay if I speak to that? I I have some information about that. So, um we shared information with families and had some listening sessions the week before spring break. the week after spring break. Uh the early learning social worker and one of our early learning coordinators um since April 7th have spent over 20 hours connecting and meeting with families individually over at um Crystal Learning Center and supporting them in um registering and finding early learning classes that would fit for their families next year. Um, and to date we have nine out of the 14 Robbinsdale school district families um that live within our our uh school district. Nine of the 14 families are in the process or fully registered for a program next year. Um, and then out of the I think there's like 10 or 11 families that live in other school districts, we have connected with them and helped them register for programs in their own district. I think um I want to say three or four of those families out of the 10 we've helped them connect with their home district. Thank you. Mhm. Uh thank you Director Hill and Brand. Yeah, I and I'm sure you guys have considered a lot of different things. I and you don't have to answer us necessarily right now, but I was just curious, you know, it sounds like it costs more because it's a longer um period of time in the day. And I was just wondering if you guys considered changing the model um of delivery, but I'm assuming that you probably did. So, um you know, just throwing that out there in case you didn't. And just curious, what funding um is used? Are you using school readiness, BPK? Yeah, ECF funding. Um and then a small portion of adult academic funding. Um but primarily it's all ACF funding. Okay. So, Right. Right. Some of that school readiness money. So, okay. I was just curious what funding sources were being used and so obviously that funding is now being and is continues to be used in preschool classrooms around the district. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Stella. No, didn't. No, I was going to go on to the next report. I just have a comment for Superintendent. I'm looking at you, chair. So, can you make it like in 10 seconds? I can do it in 10 seconds. Can you do it in five? Um, so, Superintendent, one of the things that occurs to me is that when I hear the the term connect the dots with the change away from the systems accountability and having all that merged into the world's best workforce, all of that stuff merged together. opportunities for directors to be engaged in the understanding what's happening in terms of curriculum where there are changes and also understanding where the connections are with regard regard to cost those opportunities have moved away because we don't have the that component in the way that it had used to be and I'm not advocating for it how it used to be I'm just simply saying that some of the questions that director might have about programming when they were on the committee they had an opportunity to talk about that understand it better that is gone you know and uh and when I think about our dem demographers report that talked about the increase in where we do see growth in our community is in the um eastern side of our district and those programs uh and where we see more children is in that population as Well, so I'm just thinking about those things in terms of future future focus and just sharing that with you as a comment because it brings it all together in my mind for programs like this and how do you go for 11 years and not know that there's not a trend. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next report then. Thank you very much Emily and Anthony. Appreciate um your your uh answering questions and your report. Um, next, um, I'm going to invite Executive Director Granki and Director Bdon to come and talk a little bit about the, um, the change in model for, uh, health services. Uh, good evening, uh, Chair Evans Becker, uh, school board directors, Superintendent Solo. I am going to, um, welcome, uh, director Bon to come up and speak to you about the nursing model that she was deeply involved with. Good evening, chair. Evan Becker, directors, superintendent Stallow. Um, I just want to talk about the context of how we came to the nurse model change. Um, I want to start out by stating that change is hard and these decisions are extremely difficult. Um, I know I should be removing the people from the positions, but that's really hard to do when you work day in and day out. Um, so as you received an email on Thursday from Dr. Stalo, some things that I considered for this model change. um just know that my goal was to de develop a more sustainable model uh that allows us to continue meeting student needs while aligning with our fiscal responsibilities. So the first thing I did was look at the historical context on our model um that our model change that we've had the last five years. I think every year it's been fluctuated primarily due to vacancies and shortage of staff. Um I reviewed health models in comparable districts. uh looked at districts that had similar numbers, similar buildings. I consulted with other health professionals and leaderships from other districts uh really to gain a better understanding of what are the challenges, what are the benefits because either decision there's going to be consequences either way. Uh research staffing formulas, what other districts use, um and then sought input from my own health services staff and from Robbinsdale administrators. So with all those in mind, I also made sure that um our wraparound supports that we have in the district were not um the FTE still supports that and um looked at strategically placing center-based classrooms spread out throughout the district more so that we didn't have clumps of center-based classrooms that we required um such health services needs primarily the rise students. with that. Um, my structure I believe allows for a little bit more flexibility than what we currently have in our system. Now, um, I do have a training um, plan in place for the new staff that we will be hiring. Uh, there are some contingencies with that plan and that is basically that we get applicants. Um, that is going to drive any model that we have in the next year. Um, and so I'm hoping that we're going to do lots of marketing and really get those applicants and have a great year with our new nursing model staff. Questions? Director Hillbrand, I just want to say thank you for the way you presented that information and talked a little bit about how you came to the decision that you came to. Um, and I don't know if other board members or even the public knows this, but actually state law says there only needs to be one nurse for the whole district. So, not saying that that's adequate, not saying that that's what we want, but you know, we are well within compliance with your new plan. So, I just want to thank you for all the work that you've done on it. Um, but especially giving us that um background on how you came to that. Thank you. Uh, Director Holmes. um my count the board has received two very detailed emails from um nursing staff. Have you been privy to that? Okay. I just wonder if we could have a work session conversation on this to flush out those concerns. There were a lot of points and I didn't email because they are so concise in that email and it came twice coming from experts in this field and so for it it it's kind of just a ditto. Those those emails were very um poignant. Um they had supporting documentation and then just to hear you say that you hope we're going to market and get the positions filled is concerning for me. Um, and I know you can't control that, but that seems like a roll of the dice for next year in pairing with those emails. So, I'm still very concerned about this change in model. Director W. Yeah, I just have one quick question. So, it sounds to me like the spreading of the centerbased programs in the district needs to happen to support your model that you have current that you are proposing. Is that correct? They went side by side. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no more questions. Thank you, John. Thank you, Tony. And our last report this evening had a work session. Our uh last report is uh uh chief financial officer Hohheisle who's going to share an update on transportation. Thank you. Thank you. If you were uh looking ahead as far as the agenda goes, the licensed staff personnel reports indicates a resignation from Carrie Johnson, our director of transportation. Um and that is effective next week. So the plan, just to update the board on the plan for that position is it is posted as soon as Carrie uh gave her notice. We posted the position. Uh we are required to post 10 days and then going through the process. Um, in the meantime, given honestly the timing of year, people think that because it's not snowing, transportation becomes easier. But anybody who's live through students in the spring knows how active they are, whether it be um sports or field trips or planning for summer school. Um there's a lot of moving pieces happening right now. And so the plan would be to enter into a short-term contract with CISO who would then provide the services for the director of transportation. Ironically, that will be Carrie Johnson. Um Carrie is leaving the state. She's moving um and would be able to provide those services remotely of what she's currently um at least a component of what she's doing now until we are able to get the position filled with a qualified applicant. Any questions? No, I wasn't expecting that twist. Thank you. Yeah, I wasn't quite expecting that twist either. Um, Director Holmes, uh, related to transportation, but not to that just because as a family member, I got the text of the urgent request to to do the optin for our transportation. So, I want to mention that so it gets some air time and ask people to uh pay attention to your texts and your alerts. Yes, that it matters. It's very crucial that people respond to the opt-in to transportation. Thank you. Opt into transportation. Okay. Any any other administrative? No, that's great. Thank you. Thank you. Then we're going to move on a second to action consent agenda. Uh items on the consent agenda are voted on with a singular resol singular motion and any item can be removed by a board member. Is there uh move to approve the consent agenda? Moved by director Bowman. Will you were you seconding it? I I will second. But there is an item I'd like to uh pull for discussion. Okay. What are you wanting to pull? But it might just be a question. But it's the discussion regarding the financial advisory council. So, uh, some of the comments that are in here, I was at that meeting and I don't recall those comments. So, but we can discuss it when we can move everything. I I'm fine with everything else. So, if you want to move all the So, Director Holmes, I'm pulling the licensed staff report. Licensed staff. Okay. Well, is the Okay. So that's pulled. The motion is to approve the consent agenda except for the licensed staff report. Okay. And did you hear what I asked you previously? I as I said the discussion regarding the FAC. I that's what I asked to have that poke. That's not on the It's in the minutes. Well, it's in the minutes which are part of the consent agenda. Correct. Oh, so you want to correct the minutes? Well, I I was it's in the consent agenda and you had asked for things and I just raised it. Okay. As an issue. Okay. So, my question is, do you want to pull the minutes and watch the video? Uh well, what I'm saying what I asked you to do is pull it and we can discuss it. now um because it's doesn't reflect some of the I was at the meeting and some of these and I have some concerns about some of the things that are stated here and to allow those since you asking me and asking me to discuss it now as opposed to pulled it I was just unclear when you said it I thought it was okay it didn't talk about it later and we can pass everything else it would be okay with me with the exception of what director Holmes asked to p to pull to be clear are we pulling the minutes or are we approving them and maybe amending them later. What are what was what did you land on? I just asked to pull that for a discussion and but but if you're asking me if we want to pull it, I just say pull it and we can come back and we can discuss it later. There are no there are no minutes to that because that's just a meeting of committee members. That's not something that's taped. That's something that we were all at and there were three of us directors who were there as well as community people. Just a point of order. This these notes have to do with our work session, not the actual committee meeting. All I did is I wanted to pull the discussion regarding the FAC. That's all I asked for. So, director um you know, Evans Becker continued to ask me questions about what I asked to pull. Okay. So, clear things up. Are you correcting are you pulling the minutes related to our previous discussion about FAC or is it something to do with the discussion that we're having later tonight? I'm asking to pull to pull the discussion regarding the financial advisory council from the minutes that are as they are presented for in our packet for consent agenda. They are presented as the minutes from the um from the work study. And so that would be where they're from. So it the work study minutes, work session minutes rather are included in the consent agenda packet. Got it. Okay. So we are going to vote on the consent agenda minus the work study summary and minus the license staff report. Okay. Got it. Well, I had it. You you know Well, I'm glad we're all on the same page on that now. All right. And um when is consent? I'm still unclear as to I understand the the staff report, but which section of our meeting minutes are we striking? Uh okay. Under 782, the draft of the minutes. We we are in the summary minute of the work session. Right. Under 782, the second one, uh April 7th work study session summary minutes draft. We're going to pull that from the consent agenda. And we are pulling for a separate vote uh the licensed staff report. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And what we need is a roll call vote on this. Got it. Um Director Basset. And this roll call vote is for the the balance of the consent agenda. The balance of the consent agenda. The entire consent agenda exists. I understand. I just was making sure that what I was voting for and I vote yes. Super. Uh director Basset votes yes. Director Bowman votes yes. Chair Evans Becker, yes. Uh, Director Hilling, yes. Director Holmes, yes. Director Long, yes. Director Wuto, yes. 70. Thank you. The consent agenda passes minus those two items. What we will do with the draft of the minutes is I will rewatch that work session again and bring that back at another meeting. And now uh the last thing is the licensed staff report. Yes. So I haven't even proposed or said what my comments are. Okay. Well, if you're coming to to that issue first, I I didn't know what order you want to take them to. Okay. Things that we pulled. So, well, I figured we would need to rewatch the minutes to I mean, you don't even know what my concern is, huh? you know, so okay, if you would like to tell me your concern, I'll particularly watch for that. Well, you know, so um so not only would you watch for it, all directors can watch it should should they choose to because this is not a decision that we're landing on you. That let's just clarify that it's not your decision. I'm happy to have other people. I'm just saying you if you want to watch it, great. But that's not your decision to to review it and and make that decision alone. We were all there. Yep. For the work session. So your point So my point is this. So my point is that these minutes which um where we discussed them uh where we landed is that we were going to take information back to the FAC and have a discussion which we did. And so some of the conclusions determines preferences uh and let her know uh discuss the FAC asking the board to review the bylaws and let her know how they want to proceed to determine preferences regarding whether the board treasurer should be on the FAC representing the board or treasurer plus two additional directors. I don't recall that being discussed at all because when we talked about uh who was going to be on the committee that was a discussion that happened back in when we did our committee assignments and I volunteered and director Bowman volunteered which the historically that's what directors do if they want to serve on a committee that and this committee in particular is a committee of the board. So it's not a decision that CFO Hohheisle would make nor the superintendent would make. It would be something that first would go to the FAC and then we come to the board for if there's anything changing because it's part of the bylaws. So I I didn't understand these when I saw them. I'm like we didn't just you know this wasn't the discussion and further that was just one point. Okay. Thank you. Uh, and then the one thing that I do recall that we talked about is whether the information should go to the FAC for review first and then come back to the board. And we agreed again that we needed to go to the FAC and get feedback from them in that meeting in that work session. That's what we decided. And then the candidate application process, we talked about that. Um, and I I you know, so I don't know this this last conversation about the district CFO running the FAC. The uh, you know, the fact of the matter is is that that committee has historically had a citizen chair and and and everybody has always looked to our CFO to be a part of the meeting and to help guide discussion. And if there's more information, no one ever went directly to get information without going through whoever our CFO was or our finance director. That's always been that's always been in place. So there's nothing different that anybody has ever advocated, which is not to. However, it's clear that it so there are a couple things still under discussion. That's one of my points. So these minutes should not reflect these things as something that was determined in that work session because they weren't. And I think that when things are accepted and in minutes and there's no clarification, the tendency is for people to think that later on when you refer to it, people come back and say, "Well, no, we decided this and we that's happened a few times. We decided this, we decided that because often I just if if they're not too out of whack, I just don't go into the minutes." But this one because the board established the FAC as a board committee. If there are changes to that, they're not changes that are going to be determined singularly by the su the CFO and the superintendent. We may land there there with recommendations and guidance. I I you know I just want to make sure that we are clear about what we're talking about. Okay. Thank you, Director Basset. Thank you. And here's the thing. We are talking about the FAC tonight in the work session and every board member is supposed to look at the bylaws and bring back their suggested changes. So, we will be able to discuss a lot of the things that you were mentioning. We will not vote on those minutes tonight. We'll pull them. We'll adjust them and bring them back at another meeting. Well, well, chair, my comments didn't go to any of that. My comments just really talked about these minutes right here and that they should be clarified. I realize that we're going to have a discussion tonight at the work session. In fact, uh, CFO Hoheisel and I have spoke briefly to that fact that we're going to talk about them because actually even the the notes from the meeting that were posted, what we talked about is that they're just a draft because and I could not even edit them. I'm on, you know, because we were asked to go back and edit them and edit the bylaws and I didn't have the capacity to do that. So, I'm I'm just saying to you that these are the things that I want to make clear of because you know that that that are of concern and we'll talk about it later in the meeting. I mean, I'm fine. I'm fine with that. And we each did receive a paper copy of the bylaws to make I don't want to debate that. I'm just saying this is what my Let's move on. Yeah, please. Let's move on. We will Dr. Hillbrand. Yeah. First of all, I I this is just reflecting the discussion. doesn't say any decisions were made and the bylaws currently say only the treasurer um is on the committee just for points of clarification. But um we pulled this but then are we going to uh decide if we're going to approve them or not? We're not going to approve them tonight. We're just going to pull them. We can approve them at another meeting if they get rewritten. And we are going to move on to the um license staff report. Then that is item 7B1. So is there a move to approve the license staff report? Some moved. It's been moved. Is there a second to approve it? Right. To approve the license staff report. Yes, it's been moved by Director Bowman, seconded by Director Basset. Um, Director Holmes. uh I will not be supporting this and I tried to seek out clarification previously on various points in terms of how things have changed in in in regards to compensation packages and I asked for clarification on how it relates to the current contract which the board does approve um the changes in I had questions around um individual board meetings that we had and then a memo that was presented to us um the decision based off of those meetings and reflection. Um and I asked for clarification on that and I got back I believe which was your interpretation of it. But there were specific legal questions in there in terms of serial meetings or being transparent to the public about when we are increasing um compensation that's typically been done. Um a consultant was used all of these things that I just don't feel comfortable with. So, I will not be supporting it. Thank you, Director Long. I also will not be supporting it. I do not know what the cost is. Um, I know there were some one-on-one meetings where things were discussed about this, and I don't feel like that was very transparent to the public about moving forward with this, especially when we have a $21 million um deficit that we have to deal with and we made cuts to our classrooms. Um maybe if you know the cost and some of the other concerns were discussed amongst the board members I could support this but at this point in time I cannot. Thank you Dr. Basset. Well I will say that um I I was I didn't have a one-on-one conversation that I recall talking about this compensation package. Uh so uh if that happened I don't think I was one of the ones. Was was I present for the one other we had a oneonone about this? Yes. Oh, I don't I don't recall that. We may have had a conversation where you talked about some of the challenges and needs. So, I'm not saying that you you didn't, but I'm just saying I didn't have a a clear and what I said to you earlier today tonight and I will say again, I think that it's very clear that for to me that the superintendent is the person who hires all of her her team. I don't have a problem with that. I never have. uh the fact that uh we there were some some conversation about compensation that raised some concerns. What I said then superintendent what I say now is just because it's wise sometimes to have conversation with your board about things because then people can just like director long said they can get out. It's not that you have to, but sometimes it's a good thing to do so we don't come to an impass like this. It's just it's just goes into relationship building and you know um and everybody has their own judgment call about these things. I too am uncomfortable that we're spending so much money uh and that we're we're making changes uh and but but on the other the balancing act for me is you need help. It's a big job. We've just lost our associ assistant has so many titles, but we've lost an assistant superintendent position and you need that support and help. Uh so that to me overrides a lot. Dr. Bowman, I'm just going to speak to it. I'm going to support this because um if we're going to reimagine the district, we have to pull some new talent in here. I think that the talent that we're pulling in uh complements the current leadership team that has been put into place under Dr. Stalo uh since last July. Uh I think it's part of the building blocks for the future. I think it's part of the whole re-imagine to be able to have the support uh uh to our executive team uh um to help carry forth uh reimagining and rebuilding this district. It's going to be a huge and heavy lift. The other thing that I'm concerned about is that it's also really unfair to me in many ways when we talk about employee relationships is to think that our superintendent should be working 20 hours a day along with our CFO, along with our uh director of human resources and all the rest of our executive cabinet. uh the executive cabinet has been shrunk and there are gaps within that executive cabinet that need to be uh filled in so that we're not making gaps bigger and wider. We all and um I also believe in making this move the reporting to this board will be better. I'm I'm confident that the new leadership that's coming to play within this district uh from what they have shown me uh u uh bring forth uh more information that I've seen uh greater transparency in the way in which things are being done because things are being talked about from a process perspective. So, I support the superintendent in this hire and I support uh voting yes on the uh licensed staff report. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to speak. I would like to say I believe that the best thing this board ever did was hire the superintendent and I believe we should support her in her decisions that are being made and this is the superintendent that's assistant that she needs. I'm all in. I'm a yes. Director Long, did you want to finish out your two minutes? Yes, if I could. Thank you. Um, I guess I am just confused about, you know, when it comes to our students and services that they need, why it is okay to strip those away from them, to put them in environments where class sizes will be larger, to take away nursing supports from them, to take away the support staffs that they need. We've had several people here today talking about it. We've had several people at other listening sessions talking about it. So, I guess I get not understanding the disconnect we're having when it comes to providing the direct supports that we provide to our students versus the direct supports that are provided to adults. Um, and I would really like to see an emphasis on the direct supports that we provide to our students. Thank you. All right. Uh, clerk Bowman superintendent. Oh, sorry. Superintendent Salo. Um, I think it's important that I bring my voice into this conversation. Um, first of all, I want to clarify with the board and the community. Um, I did hold one-on-one meetings with every board director about my concerns about the current salary uh with the entire executive cabinet. I did multiple um looked at multiple data sets from um surrounding districts. Uh we did have I did make a request to have a a study done on this as well. I knew how difficult it was when um before me when the posting went out for a qualified CFO and I know at that time. So I was following past practice in terms of providing um using uh contract language to increase salary and I shared that with board members. I also took the input from board members and I didn't do everything that I had talked about, but I did increase the assistant superintendent position knowing how vital that position is to instructional leadership um and leadership capacity building. I also want to go on record to say that the assistant superintendent position is actually now going to be taking on the duties of two executive cabinet positions because of the restructure and the reduction that I made at the executive cabinet level. I am beyond thrilled at the candidate pool that we had. It's no secret across the metro area the complexities and difficulty and challenges of this school district. I've been told numerous times this has to be one of the absolute most difficult school districts to lead right now. They're all hard. I don't say that leading any school district right now is really very very difficult. I was beyond delighted with the applicant pool that we had. The number of experienced administrators who are choosing in the same way that I chose, in the same way that our CFO chose, in the same way that our new director of facilities chose to come into a district that needs us. And I'll make mistakes along the way and I'm not going to make people happy along the way. But I made a promise to all of you that I would serve and help move this district forward in a way that our kids deserve and need. And I will do that. And the only way I can do that if I have a team around me who is beyond excellent. So tonight, I hope you are approving my recommendation on an assistant superintendent. And I hope that that person is greeted by this board and our community and our staff and our leaders in the same way I have been because I have been treated by this community. Well, again, people aren't always going to be very excited about some of the hard decisions I have to make, but as I've talked to over 11,000 people in this reimagine Ardale process, I am so impressed by this community, which inspires me every single day to work those long hours and to work on behalf of kids just like you all do. So, I didn't do anything I want the community to know this. I didn't do anything that wasn't allowable in my contract. I hear what you say, Director Basset. I could have done it differently. I chose to have individual meetings with each board member and to use language on the contract to hire an absolutely excellent assistant superintendent. I also want to say one other thing that I just want to be sure is very clear with our community. Anytime we bring hires forward, there's always the notion because of the timing. It says pending board approval that we we never wait. I I shouldn't say never. I would need my executive director of HR to assist me with that. But throughout my career, people are offered positions accept positions and then those positions come forward on a personnel report. So again, nothing was done differently than the protocol that has been established not just here but across the state. So with that, I am delighted that uh on the personnel report is a new assistant superintendent and I can't wait for him to start and help us serve our students, staff, and families. Thank you, Superintendent Stallow. I don't see any other any more hands up. So, uh, will a clerk please call the role on voting for the licensed personal staff report acceptance? All right. [Music] Um, provide me a minute. Okay, Director Basset. Well, I'm I'm thinking Can you come back to me? I'm thinking about this. Director Basset, she she passes for the moment. She wants passes. Okay. Director V Bowman votes yes. Director, let's see. Ev chair Evans Becker. I vote yes. Director Long, no. Director Hillbrand. Yes. Uh, Director Wo, yes. Okay, back to Oh, Director Holmes, no. And back to Basset. Yep. and director Basset. I'm voting yes. Uh 5 to2 motion carries. More extreme carries. 52. Thank you. Thank you. We have an assistant superintendent. Yay. Congratulations. Congratulations and welcome. Okay, let's see. A meeting. Pardon me. When do we meet him? Hopefully at the next board meeting. I'm confident we will. Okay, thanks. Moving right along, flipping to page two. Next up on our agenda is board reports. I would like to start with Director Holmes. Yes. And I will be concise, but I'm also covering the listening time. You get you get a little bit of free period. Um I facilitated listening time tonight and we had 13 speakers. uh four speakers were dedicated to Wave and I'm not going to address them individually. I'm just going to carry through the themes. Um they spoke to the strength of staff in supporting their students and the growth that they're seeing their students make um that they wouldn't without these staff members. They spoke to consistency of staff and locations being important for students who are supported in the wave program. um they spoke and gave examples of students having been, for example, a second grader and has had three different school locations and how that can contribute to not meeting their goals in their IEP um or regression in the progress they were making. So, it's just an overwhelming um support of the staff at the Wave program and the location at Zachary Lane Elementary because of the strength that they've had there and the consistency. Um they're advocating for it to remain open. We also had five individuals speaking on the family family literacy program. Again, um giving kudos to the staff that have worked with them and their students um and their children and the growth that they have made and the welcoming um feeling that they had um as they were going through this program and how they can't measure the success of it and the impact it's had on them and their families. um emotional people who are looking to have those resources continue and um just can't imagine not having those services offered. We also had a speaker for the orchestra program and advocating for keeping the fourth grade program. spoke to the history of how it was developed, who created it. Um the the impact on students and what they learn from those components, tying it to science, math, um just detailed explanation of what it means to be part of the orchestra program and what the students learn advocating for that fourth grade not to go away, fourth grade component not to go away and actually to strengthen it. um general concerns about who is making the decisions in the district. Uh yes, these are complicated and hard decisions, but there seems to be communication concerns. Um just clar looking for clarity from the board and the superintendent on um what and when is being decided. Um, and then we also had we ran out of time because we had a full house and we did have somebody I didn't get to who dropped a note and she's going to be me emailing the board as well. Um, but wants to know what teachers, counselors, nurses, etc. options are going to be removed. Parents are looking for how this is going to impact them on a day-to-day basis. Um the uncertainty is not uh comforting and wanting to know what their options are. Uh having board members silenced for asking questions that were not clearly explained or new approaches are needed is not okay. That was echoed by another speaker as well who had concern over our last meeting and the engagement with um our legal council. So again, thank you to all those people who came and spoke with us and we hope you continue to use your voice and support 281 and we look forward to hearing from you. Then for my own um report, I want to highlight um being part of teacher of the year committee and just bear with me while I complete this. I had the great pleasure of volunteering on the teacher of the year selection committee this year. On behalf of the teacher of the year committee, I would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation and admiration to this year's 19 nominees for their exceptional dedication to the students of district 281. In addition, I want to share an overview of just what that process looks like so you all can have um an understanding and hopefully be nominating your favorite educators going forward. Teacher of the year nominations open up in November and are closed by December 31st. Information about the na about nominating a teacher is um in the direct line and on the RFT web page. All schools are notified and given information in hopes that they share it with the teachers, staff, and families in their community. So, please do that. Families, if you want to nominate someone, reach out to your off front school office and see how that process can work. Um some schools will post signs, so you might see it at conferences or an event. So, please please pay attention. Once nominations are closed, nominees are contacted and congratulated by the teacher of the year committee chair. And this year it's Deb Olsen. She does a lot of work, easy to work with, super friendly and thorough, amazing um person. And then nominees are invited to fill out survey questions by a specific date. Not all choose to do so. I thought that was interesting. They just some don't want the recognition and go about their business. Um again, like I mentioned, this year there were 19 candidates who completed those questions. Uh those surveys were then distributed to the selection committee which typically consists of 12 to 16 people. I think we fell smack in the middle this year. And then throughout March, a our committee read and utilized a rubric to score surveys. Results were tabulated by the committee chair and the four highest ranking teachers moved forward to in-person interviews on April 15th. This year's finalists were Raquel Gain, and I'm sure I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name, Raquel. She's a fed teacher at Zachary Lane Elementary, Marcus Han, a band director at Cooper High School, Becky Harmon, an avid teacher at Sandberg Middle School, and Katherine Hibbs, a center-based sped wave teacher at Zachary Lane Elementary. The Robbinsdale Area School's teacher of the year will be announced at the Seven Dreams Teacher of the Year celebration on Wednesday, May 21st at Cooper High School auditorium. All are welcome to attend. And I'll close by saying beyond the 19 candidates for teacher of the year and the four finalists. Congratulations. Um, I would like to personally offer my sincere appreciation to all of the teachers within our district. The immeasurable talent and knowledge you bring to your classrooms, even on the hardest days are so very much appreciated. I know I speak for many parents when I say thank you for all you do in a far too often thankless profession. Teachers are everything in this district. So, thank you again. That's my board report. Thank you. All righty. Uh, Director Basset, are you ready to go with the board? I am. Um, I will go fairly quickly. So, um, couple things and one is, um, the se, you just alluded to the seven dreams. They are in the process of hiring executive director. That, uh, group will meet tomorrow night. I serve on that board. Uh, and they have quite a a great pool of candidates who actually applied. So, we'll see what happens there. That's all I'll say about that. Uh, and of course, the Seven Dreams is no longer a board committee of this board. However, it the long-standing relationship and it transitioned. It had been in the past. So, uh, we've talked about the FAC and we're going to be having that on the work session tonight. So, I won't really dwell on that. Um, I but I will say that one of the extensive, uh, reports that, uh, uh, I've shared with the superintendent and with this board has to do with redesign. Uh, our redesign family service collaborative has been a long-standing program in this district um, and received awards and honors over the years. uh right now they're in a transition now. And so they're in a in kind of an important in a delicate spot. They're in a delicate spot because uh they actually um in the transition they have a director a chairperson who and they have no executive director. So the executive director or the chairperson rather has made a petition to the district and uh and actually she also petitioned me because I am the board lesson on to that committee new this year and uh in that capacity I've shared with the directors what they say their challenges are and made it very clear to her that uh whatever resolutions that that need to come they would come from the superintendent's desk and uh that's not my role but we were making sure that we get that information to our superintendent which we have uh they have some some serious fiscal challenges and at a time when fiscal challenges is something that we're wrestling with in the district already even more important than uh that we I feel like I'm transparent with colleagues uh and then uh certainly with our superintendent and uh not getting in her way so she can manage through whatever needs to happen over there but they definitely need to happen and uh the last thing I'll say is that it was nice to see the Cooper kids here tonight. Um I actually had an opportunity to go over there and visit and see some of those IB program uh projects that the students did. There were several that were just, you know, they they're all outstanding. You know, of course, that's what I think. Um but, uh they were, you know, one of the students was really looking at coding and was looking at how Python can work to code. Uh very sophisticated, um you know, kind of research they were doing. I was really impressed. Another student uh talked about her ability to be an art critic and she was very critical about modern art and so I found that really amusing. Uh then uh there was another study uh uh person oh the two that really kind of really took me away. One was this young man who was doing a a study strategically how many credits he had to earn for him to get into the college of his choice. and he's a sophomore now, but he was plotting that all on a chart and figuring out how many credits he needed to get so they can get into his college. I just love that one. Uh and then uh there was a young lady who actually did a study on uh gun violence and um she happened to be have been one of our students who was in one of our schools when there was an incident and she just did a marvelous job. she had, of course, we were in the news, so she had a news clip. But, uh, I just want to say that I couldn't have been more proud knowing that we are investing again in our IB program and that um how much those kids um really were doing and and that's not only them, it's across this district because we've all seen uh some of the other students who and the things that they do. So, that that's my report. Thank you. Thank you very much. Director Woo told you a report for us? No. Thank you. Um, I'll go next and then we'll work our way that way. So, I I attended the community education advisory council meeting last week and it was a presentation by the staff about a program that they have for adults with disabilities. If if an adult has had a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, they have a a education program for adults that helps them learn to uh read and build up their reading skills and their math skills and their ability to write a paragraph. This is not rehab. It's education and it's free and it's over at the Crystal Learning Center. I was so impressed by it and I I'm so glad we have it and I hope I never have to use it, but I'm just so glad that they have it. Also, uh the community ed brochure is out and registrations are being taken. So, take advantage of the great classes that are being offered by community ed pass. I just really want to quickly in addition to thanking our our volunteers, I wanted to point out that it's after school professionals week. Um so, thank you to everybody who makes after school a great time and space for our students. um whether that's in Minneapolis kids, the basement, um sports after school, any of those things. So, I just wanted to say thank you, Anthony. Please pass that on to your team. Um and then also, uh the 23rd administrative professionals day. So, thank you, Molly, and everybody else who keeps us all on track. So, thank you, Director Bowman. Uh yes, I did also participate in the educ uh EA of the year uh award a long process. uh we only had two candidates that we interviewed. We had 11 candidates that initially surfaced and eight or nine of them decided not to participate in that program. But it's always um I I was on the I've been on the teacher of the year and the EA of the year before and it is always really um uplifting uh to see the passion that they bring into the room. So thanks for that. Um and and the biggest thing along with all the normal stuff we do as board members was the popup events uh that board members had the opportunity to sign up for uh to do touch points in the community, talk to the community members. And I I would be remiss. I really want to thank Cub Foods on 36th in Crystal uh for their welcoming me. I I ended up feeling like family afterwards. I I uh I believe that that was probably Alyssa's pre-work into the thing. Um I wasn't made to feel like I I was in the way. So that was really important. Uh I also want to thank Alyssa for the pop-up kits that she has provided for us. Within seconds, I was able to walk in and put together a really professional looking table that was that drew people to it. I think one of the big thing was the very large QR R code. I I didn't put candy on the table because that always draws a cloud, but they only want the candy. But they were drawn by the QR code and uh saw the uh message in the front, the Robinsdale emblem in the front. And I talked to uh 76 people over the course of three nights. Uh there were uh they were rather extensive conversations. I was nervous uh uh after the cuts that we have made. There's nothing like saying standing in a group of people or among people you don't know, "Hi, I'm on the local school board." Um, I was grateful to not get a single negative con comment out of all 76 of those people. I was fully expecting it. I think one of the real poignant ones was a teacher who was a year away from tenure who um spoke to me and when I said I'm on the school board, I I kind of ducked because you know I again I was not knowing what to expect out of this and she was kind and gracious and said that um uh she saw the need, she understood the need and uh was hoping that she could get back into the district. Uh it was very nice. I also talked to a member from the re-imagineed committee who praised the fact that we did not put schoolboard members onto the re-imagine committee, but she also pointed out uh the work that uh Dr. Wuto had done uh with that committee and she felt that you were a wonderful addition to the committee, but was grateful that you went peacefully. So, I thought I would pass that on to you. Um the concerns from people were really uh cons concerns of yes let's get this rebuilt let's get this rebuilt. There were many people in this district from the community who understood that we have been in financial situations that we should have perhaps cleaned up in the past and we did not. Uh there was just weirdly enough an overwhelming sense of goodwill from the community over those three nights and I really want to thank um Dr. Stalo and the staff because to me it indicates that you have been in the community. You've been you and your team have been communicating into the community and that the community understands what's in front of us and that was the most um apparent thing of all the 76 conversations that I held. So, uh, I appreciate the work of the staff from the district, um, for making it easy to step out into the district and have conversations, uh, with people in the community. So, if you have an opportunity to grab a listen and sign up for one of those popup events, if not now, maybe we'll do it in the future. It's a wonderful way to uh, be very engaged with the community in a in a short period of time. So, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, Director Bowman. Okay. All right. So before this is the end of our agenda, I just want to say thank you volunteers. Thank you after school care workers. The survey is open until May 4th. Is there a move to adjurnn? So moved. Moved. Seconded by director Wuto. All in favor please say I. I say nay. Still. Okay. We are adjourned. We will start the work session at 5 to 9. We're back. It is 8:56 and a half on Tuesday, April 22nd and we're at the work session for the Groenale School Board. I'm Bria Evans Becker, the chair and we will introduce ourselves. Welcome everyone. I want to let people introduce themselves around the table and then we'll get started. Oh, thank you. Helen Net School Board. And Wood School Board. Anthony Webs, executive director of community education athletics and activities. Amy O'Harn, executive director of human resources. Willie Howard, athletic director and activities director at Robinsdale Cooper High School. Larry Tate, activities and athletics over at Robinsdale. Kristen Hisel, chief financial officer. Caroline Long, school board member. Kim Holm, school board. Renee Bowman, school board. Terry St, superintendent. Wber, attorney for the school board. Rally Olsson, the executive assistant to the superintendent of the school board of the district. Eddie White, last committee member standing, Dr. Andre. All righty. Thank you. Welcome. Okay. First thing up is activities and athletics. Director Williams. All right. Thank you. Um well it's obviously not March 17th. This is a continuation on this discussion on March 17th. I didn't change the date on the presentation there. Um but we talk March 17th beh presentation once again is to understand how activities are allocated in appendix B. We won't review the entire appendix B which just a refresher of that of understand the contractual parameters of reducing um co-curricular activity. um review the initial considerations and the impacts of those um as well as then come forward with an official recommendation um and receive feedback from the school board on how we sort of move forward. Uh and then also uh it says review but then there's there's more they review some of the equity questions. I know there's questions about equity and activity. So we have some data that we have to report out. So we review that sort of at the end of this presentation and have no for questions. Uh this is just once again repeating from the last presentation. You know what appendix B does is uh it's part of the teachers contract. Um it establishes levels of comp compensation for activities you know um and if they're sort of saying if we have a level of you know uh basketball this is what that compensation is for the head coach assistant coach this that and the third. That's what that appendis B does. Um and some of the parameters that we uh operate within contractually is if we were to reduce a level um a we have to have school board approval and so we can't just reduce a coaching stipen we have to reduce or eliminate an entire level and then that takes um that takes uh school board approval you know. So so that's some of the parameters. What it does also say in here um within these parameters is so we do have the flexibility which is going to lead to our our recommendation you know u we staff the levels as they are available versus you know um sort of a blanket you know this is what this school gets this is what this school gets we staff by by the levels that are that we have student participation numbers for right um is what is what is also within the contractual language so our our proposal later on this evening won't be something that's not contractually viable Uh you know remember the initial considerations um you know really talked about eliminating a level of competition from the following activities uh ba baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball, volleyball and wrestling. Those were uh you know activities where we do have we do have good participation but they have more stackings they have more levels. So we we the initial uh consideration not necessary recommendation but consideration was hey what if we only offered you know two or three levels versus three or four levels and what would that financial impact be? Um also for consideration was co-oping some of the ongoing activities based on participation numbers. Um and it said B/G boys and girls but it's not co-oping the boys and girls together. It's the boys teams from both schools the girls teams from both schools. I know that question came up the last time. um you know uh so we looked at golf uh golf uh boys lacrosse because girls lacrosse is already uh co-ops um and both boys and girls uh tennis um as you all are familiar with co-ops as I've bought them for before they they require board approval and they last for two years they can last beyond that but um they are set for two years for sure uh and then um the other uh consideration was to eliminate middle school wrestling and restructure some of the middle school clubs like math club, chess club to be run um through community education, not the wrestling but the clubs, the middle school wrestling. We would have uh fun those well a provided opportunities for those students to potentially play up field levels there or you know promote the youth association that we have that supports our um wrestling in the district already. Um of these considerations, the annual cost was projected to be around a cost savings of about 200,000. you can go through all the all the eliminations of the levels and co-ops and things of that nature. Um and these uh and the impacts of those that initial consideration we knew would be um disproportionate impact to individual schools. You know u we have two uh we have more than two high schools that offer activities you know um how do you send students to both of those high schools? Um but we have different participation rates at those schools. So to do a blanket just cut level, you know, um from from baseball at one school and cut that same level of baseball at a different school at the other school has a different impact on student participation, student opportunities. Um it it reduces uh opportunities for students to participate in activities because we'll be reducing levels. Um and then um but it does strengthen because it sounds like a a impact. So one of the positive impacts will be will be it will strengthen numbers for activities with low enrollment you know um it doesn't it doesn't grow your enrollment doesn't grow your participation but you know you you know you can better I think field levels or you wouldn't offer offer certain levels and once again another impact will be that annual savings of $2,000 $200,000 um the the following slides is just sort of the detail what we discussed in the previous meeting um so I won't go through this but this is you know I gave you a summary but this was the savings, you know, per per support, per reduction if we were to to um to eliminate a level. Uh but what we got from not just from our meeting last week, you know, not last week, on March 17th, you know, the appetite really wasn't wasn't there, you know, uh because it does have a it has a huge impact. Yes, there's a cost savings. It has a huge impact on sort of the core function of you know not the academic not the the instructional leadership component of it but the student participation student engagement piece that really a lot of students say they want you know they you know I think every community session every student meeting that I've been a part of I was just in student meetings today at Cooper High School um did one last week at high I've been in all the community meetings u activities has been something that has always bubbled up um in those conversations about wanting to be able to maintain you know and even grow our participation, right? Uh um so so that wasn't one that we put forth as a recommendation. Those are our initial consideration. All the all the things we re, you know, had there for consideration would have required board action without bringing that forward to you all to say, hey, if we go down this direction of eliminating the level, it'll have to come to a board of vote. You know, that that would that would have been the requirement. Um working with the the ads, the school administration, getting feedback once again from our student population. um what we did, we referenced this last time, but we looked deeper into um the implementation of a coach student ratio really really staffing um to the level you know uh and then um and then exploring opportunities to increase revenue. This is the one area where you know we can increase the revenue. Um now I will say it it'd be great to increase revenue to break even. That's probably not the reality of how high school or or school activities run. Um but we can increase the revenue um you know through various various means we'll talk about um uh in the next couple slides here uh you know with the with the uh co student ratios you know we utilize the data per sport you know to create a ratio that provides uh still provides mentorship for students while maintaining uh safety within the sport you know that those are big pieces I know um that both Willie and Larry have looked at sort of you know what other districts ST as far as you know what is a good ratio for you know a football coach to a number of student participants for a basketball coach. So there so we have you know um additional data you know for that that we could share. Um but that's just really in the weeds but we do have that data about hey you know um this is what it looks like a good you know uh student to coach ratio look like. um the the impact of going with that uh student to coach ratio is you do have a more equitable distribution of resources. So once again versus us you know um saying hey this is what schedule B says you know we have we have a coaches set aside you know in schedule B for um for basketball and then we we're allocating resources for both schools for eight coaches. Now we will look at act the actual participation and say hey you know we only got three we got three levels over here we got two levels over here we're funding funding it in that in that way um and our CFO can always check me on the numbers and see that's not really how it work that's how it has worked you know u and those are things we're trying to tighten up am I wrong correct me if I'm wrong um but you know uh um the the initial uh cost savings is actually higher probably higher than 100,000. You know, that's really a conservative cost savings. Looking at our current particip that's based on what our current participation rates are, um looking at both Armstrong and Cooper, uh we know that we would have a cost savings there. Um uh right now we you see the numbers of you know um where our uh our data is for Armstrong and participation our data is for Cooper for participation you know um that so so allocating resources based on participation would lead to a lead to a cost savings that can be looking at this year's numbers it would have probably been closer to 200,000 if we have took that approach but but we also have the goal of increasing participation right so um so you can you can had initial savings, but if participation grows, then you don't see those savings, but you but now you have more students engaged, which is our alternate goal, just just to say that. Um, go ahead. What's unduplicated? I mean, I know what it means, but here in context, uh, unduplicated, so uh, is when they we are just counting from one sport. Well, we counted for the actual they might play multiple sports. Okay. If it's multiple sports, it's duplicated. So if we counted one student who played basketball, softball, and soccer, that would be a duplicated count, right? But if we're just counting that one person one time, no matter how many sports they play, and what's the rational rationale behind why you did it that way? It it helps us with at the actual student participation when you're talking about overall percentages, but otherwise you you know, I do have some data on our one of my end ofear reports that we do it duplicated data for middle school. They don't always do unduplicated and you'll see we have 900 students participating at a middle school that has 300 students like you're you're counting them over when you do duplicated data. So you're really trying to get a true count of student participation. So you do unduplicated data. So you're not counting once again twice two or three times to add into that too Minnesota State High School League and what we have to report to MD. We have to give them both the unduplicated and duplicated numbers. And the reason I'm asking is just because you want to see which sport is getting, you know, which which bringing the team and supporting. That's why I was I got you. I got you. Yeah. So, we do have both both counts. Okay. Um so and then um and then the the ultimate impact of of going with the student coach ratio is maintaining opportunities for students. So, we're not taking the action to to eliminate levels um within the contract. Those levels are still there, but our how we fund those levels will still be based on particip actual participation. Uh some of the strategies we discussed um with as a team with regards to increasing revenue uh a and some some other districts are going this direction is charging an admission fee for lower level lower level games especially the indoor indoor activities. Um for instance basketball you know uh one of the indoor activities we would charge an admission fee for the freshman game as well versus just waiting for the varsity. We get a lot of people come for freshman and they just stay for all all three games. We're we're, you know, not gaining revenue there, so we would charge admissions fear. Oh, no. Sorry. Um uh increasing the uh cost of ticket uh cost pack. We have ticket packages that we sell on hometown ticketing. Right now that is 125 and you get a set of 25 t 25 home tickets. Um so increasing that by $10 to one 135. Um you're still paying cheaper than what you would pay if you pay per game. Um that's for the the family package. So you get 25 tickets for 135 uh should see some some uh increases there. But then really looking at how we do advertising in the district. We have to look at our advertising uh administrative precedure, but advertising policy on what we allow um and how we do advertisement. There's there's opportunities there. We do have um some on our scoreboard. I think Henipin Tech advertises. We can have opportunities to to do a lot more uh with advertising and generating revenue there. Uh and then one thing we discussed and we we haven't we have some ideas but um but really as a team we'll continue to work on if we want to move towards a system of uh implementing a student activities access fee. You know what that is in theory is just like we have a technology fee you know we we said hey every student this is an example this we haven't researched that actual numbers but he said hey you know um $75 of the year gets you access to all home home games and events right that that generates revenue right there but there's cost there's barriers to that and this is why we haven't put that as an actual number um recognizing that just free and reduced and things of that nature um but that's that's an opportunity um used by probably more so by more private type schools where you can just pay a fee and you get access to all the all the homes though. But there's an opportunity um to explore to increase revenue. Um the impact essentially is increasing revenue offsetting some of the overall cost of running activities remembering that we wouldn't break even. You know, you're not going to break even running activities. Um but we we put a dent into some of that um some of the overall cost of that. That does save the district some dollars, but you're not going to break even when you're talking about middle school, high school activities. Before we go on to the next, any questions about just that part? The next the next part of the presentation is about the sort of our our equity components and things of that. Have you um explored the donation box at activities like think Komoo I mean they operate without a fee and then we have not I don't we have not I think We have not. So to answer that question directly, we have not explored that. Um but we do have our we have our boosters, right? We do a lot of driving the donations and and gener and you know um contributing revenue back for various activities and we like to always strengthen those booster you know clubs and things of that nature but we have not explored just like a donation box though. So that's something we Dr. woman and is there any um or have they ever in the past I'm wondering about um co-opting with the cities um to see if there might be support there you know uh at one time most of these cities well they all have park and wreck budgets not only do they have park and recreation budgets they usually have budgets that come uh through their police departments various juvenile ser you know meaning young people services those kind of things and is there any opportunity that we could explore? Uh looking at it, if nothing else, maybe even the middle school kids, high school gets a little more tricky, but um uh looking to the cities to see if they would help u fund or work with us on middle school programming for athletics. Um I'll let the ad speak to a little bit, but I'll start it off. We have not explored co-oping with the cities. Um, we did discuss when we had when we had the conversation about, you know, whether or not to to eliminate middle school altogether, what it would look like for some of our youth associations to come in and take over middle school sports. Um, that being said, the fee structure is going to be very different. We don't control the youth. So, they are independent entity and if there's a a partnership, you can work on some peace structure, but it's going to be very different than what our current peace structure is for students there. Um, and then every uh opportunity that we currently offer at middle school, we don't have a a a club that offers that same thing. But I'll let you know, they they know more about it hands- on than I do. But I think that's really what we discussed, like we don't have a club for maybe volleyball or some of the middle school stuff that we might offer. Definitely thing you have to consider when you do co-oping with um up there. The other thing you have to consider when you do co-oping, especially with our middle school programs with the cities or anybody surrounding us is transportation. At least when we have our middle school programming here, we're able to provide transportation to the activities where if we were to co-op with city of Minneapolis for chess club or we might be asking those interested to travel to and get their own. So that's there's there's some there's a lot of things to look at, but would that really actually prevent us from looking at the at the discussions because I know that there's money out there coming in from various sources from the county for youth and and through cities and I know that there are obviously barriers that maybe haven't been discussed, but it shouldn't prevent us in the long run from if it's if it's viable, which I I think it is. We used to do programming uh that way in the district. You know, I hate to go into the past, but when I was mayor of Crystal, uh we set up a computer room and the district gave us teachers and we already had staff in the building and we had this wonderful relationship of utilizing the community center for auxiliary programming for the school district. I I don't know that life has changed that much that it makes it impossible, but it seems to me they should be willing partners in our efforts to raise the bar for our students in this district because they're part of this district. So, I would advocate for it and I would stand out in front with you guys and help you advocate for it. So, my hand. Okay. Yes. Um, so maybe kind of what I've been thinking about kind of along the same lines. So, Director Tat, were you here? I think you were when the district went through uh hard times and a middle school sports was stopped and we actually worked with the cities and their their city departments to actually provide those services. Were you here again? Like when they eliminated middle school football? I remember when we had middle school football and then all of a sudden we didn't have middle school football. Okay. I don't know if that was around the team sign. There there was were relationships with the city's uh parks and wreck specifically to provide middle school sports because we had to no money. So I I wondered about that question, but it sounds like that, you know. But my my question though really kind of has to do with uh is it's maybe um it's related but not quite because um the fine arts aren't represented here. And I know that you are you you kind of our athletic directors over both of those things. So if we look at participation and I'm sure you have along those lines as well for fine arts as side by side to this. I mean I I don't know what the relationship is in terms of savings or cost or any of those kinds of things. And that may be a question for another time but it's not often you get these two athletic directors here in front of you. Okay. And so that's and if we're talking about cost savings and if we're talking about participation rates, if we're talking about equity, that has been a longgoing conversation in this district. I do think and I'll let um and Larry correct me if I'm wrong. We did our participation numbers. It is all-encompassing um of the total participation at those individual schools. So it doesn't include fine arts. It's just when we did the when we did the the reductions because fine arts doesn't have like the levels they have like the director or you know tech director we didn't do a reduction to the fine arts. The reduction components is strictly athletic side but the I believe the participation numbers that are show shown there here also includes fire and all so that that's that's all the participation at that school but the reductions didn't touch that part because it was talking about reducing levels and not individual uh like attack director or something like that. So so that's a two that so it's helpful to know in terms of the fine arts. So what's the percentage of unduplicated duplicated is there is what I know that's the whole digit. Yes. So I think just circling that is uh when we talk about athletics because we're the activities director so we do both. When you look at the appendix B, it does have a breakdown like you're saying earlier that for example, basketball may have five coaches whereas our fine fine arts music director has one coach. And so taking the original consideration of saying the sport can lose a coach, we can't afford to say that music can lose one coach because it would lose the whole program. And so in the situation where we have multiple coaches, the first consideration said that. But then when looking at the equity of saying we want all of our students to have an equitable opportunity, this now says fine arts for the most part won't have as much of a touch because of the fact that our participation is being very strong in that area and can continue to grow and want to make sure that we have a advisor coach mentor there. Whereas now with the sports based on our sports when we see a reduction of participation instead of utilizing all five in the sports we now have the ability to say in that specific sport at that school it may be three because the numbers you really helpful and I'll go further and say I think it's very important that we include and kind of call it information because we have people who think we've moved away from I think it's important to understand how much the arts have been preserved. Yeah. And that's not a story that's being told. It should and I want to know it. So it should be told what I want to know. I think other people may want to know. So I think if there's a way to to, you know, highlight that. So to be clear, we're not doing the 200,000 reduction. We're doing the staffing ratios for about a $100,000 reduction and looking for ways to raise revenue. And the specific reductions with the uh ratios aren't that is to be figured out because it's determined by participation. Right now once again if we as as we continue to promote and want to increase participation then then you start to reduce reduce the savings. I don't even call them reduction just call them savings. You start to reduce the savings because now you have more students engaged right which is what we ultimately want but recognize we're building towards that. Okay thank you so much. Director Holmes, can you just put that in an everyday context for people? Like just do a pick a sport. I don't care. For example, for girls soccer, this will mean, do you see what I'm after? So people understand where we're going with. So yes, I could help with that. Um, so let's just use, for example, if we said at Cooper High School as an example, uh, Cooper High School, if we had four coaches that are in Appendix B that are allowed to coach and Cooper High School, uh, gets four for appendix B, which means you get a head coach plus three assistants. Armstrong is getting the exact same because we're equal in that regard. Yep. Armstrong has say 75 players that come out with four coaches. they would be able to maximize that if we did a one to13 ratio because they need all four to be able to support all their levels. Cooper with 35 players as an example coming out wouldn't need all four because of the fact that we only have three levels of play. So therefore we are going to be able to have a savings because we're not going to now utilize that coach to now add a coach to a level at Cooper just because we have it. Now, if we did that for every single sport, as an example, let's say Cooper has more participation in boys volleyball than Armstrong does, then Armstrong would see a savings to the district, whereas Cooper is going to be able to maintain all of them. So, I hope families see that. So, they may see fewer coaches on the sideline wherever you are, but it's based on participation numbers and and a ratio only. So, that is 100%. So, it's all about every student in district 281. And our vision is saying everybody you go to Armstrong will just say tennis. It's a 1 to 10 ratio at both schools. So yes, they might have three over there, but they have 30 participants. We might you might see one at Cooper because we have 10 participants. And I just I just want that clarity for we talk and breathe this. And so you might see fewer coaches, but it's based on and then to clarify, so the co-oping is not going to happen or will still happen in addition to the ratios. co-oping will happen as needed. When we are we are looking at, you know, um just like it already has been happen as needed. If numbers are are low, they may co-op to to grow the sport. We are looking at our current participation in some of our numbers right now to decide, you know, what sports will we'll continue to co-op. I know we had a list of of the ones that we thought about with just with the general reductions, but we do have some that we probably going to have to bring forward that just like our normal process of hey, this works low here, high here. That's co my voters, but we'll continue with that with that process. Thank you. Question for Did you I thought you said the finance information was in appendance B is actually in the teacher contract. So it's in it's not in the B. The defendant B is the name of the teacher similar to this. You do have Yeah, we have all our data all so we'll get we'll get you all the participation. we have that um we that's I like I like to make it easy we have the data because I've already seen it but you know that's because we do daily views all the time and we'll make sure to share to share that with you all. Um the next piece you know I wanted to just touch on equity and participation you know um we talk about the Minnesota State High School League and and and Title N just title N in general. you know, um it does require schools to effectively accommodate athletes interests and abilities um regardless of sex and provide equal opportunity and benefits and and uh and opportunities um for the athletic teams. So, hey, we now let the two experts speak to this, but we do offer the same number. I go to the next slide there. This is just this is just Minnesota State say high school's commitment to equity, you know, um as once again we you know we've had some some things that have bubbled up over the past few years and and they've really come out strong and and being committed to the work of equity around around the state, you know. Um so this is just their their commitment statement. I won't read this out loud, but it but it is it is there um and on the presentation for the public to view. uh you talk about just um this goes back to just some of that participation data. Um what you can see uh when you talk about unduplicated numbers, you know, um is that you know our male and female participation at both schools is relatively um you know, relatively similar. You know, you don't see a wide gap in female participation um to male participation on either one of our schools. So they do a good job of reaching out to to to all students and seeing if they have something that they can participate in. Uh, one of the things that that we are required to do, and I think this is on this next slide here, um, is every year we're required to report our civil rights data. Um, that's something that's how the sort of the state oversees to make sure that districts are in compliance with Title 9. Um, and just make sure that we're providing equitable, you know, opportunities for both boys and girls. Um, you will see that we offer the same number of sports, um, for both male and female, uh, athletes, uh, similar numbers of teams. Once again, teams are typically based on the number of participation participants you have. Um, but we have not been found to out of compliance and when it comes to come to Title N. We report this data every single year. So, I wanted to make sure that, you know, um, from from a district standpoint and what we do and what we try to do, uh, we definitely try to make sure we're not only in compliance, really just meeting the needs of students. I think, you know, that's that's our bottom line. Um, and you know, so if you have any questions around around that, you know, um, I have the two experts here who can provide some clarity, but I I can try to to speak to that as well. Call me. Was that a finger that I saw? It was. I didn't know if Go ahead. Um, so when we talk about the number of sports, and this is probably related to you, how often are you surveying students about what sports they want? We're required by Minnesota State High School to do that at least every other year. Every other. We do it every year. Cheers. And our rule of thumb is because and ours is actually the same 13 as Coopers. The rule of thumb right now for Title Nine is if we add a male sport, we're going to add a we're going to find a way to add a female sport just to keep that ratio. If we go to 14, then we got to go 14 up on the female side, too. Okay. And so, how do how does that process work? And I'm just going off of memory because we talked about gymnastics not being offered a certain level or girls softball. So, how does that look in terms of girls softball? We offer girls. Um it was club. It's just I don't don't focus so much on that like how how does it so somebody come and I know we I think briefly you mentioned flag football is coming up now and it's going to be pretty competitive but may pull away from another sport. So how how do you what does that process look like? Because obviously the students are changing constantly and if we're doing it every year and when you're trying to grow sports and participation, how do you not have too many but the right ones? That's what I'm after. I I so I think the good thing is continue to amplify student voice and being able to have the stakeholders like today's listening session and um last year or the beginning of the fall when you had some students using Cooper as an example for flag as we are participating in flag this year uh complained that we didn't have an opportunity to do power puff and they expressed interest and participates and so because of that they had an advisor that started the club. So that's kind of what started two years ago. Both schools had boys volleyball starting knowing that it's going to be a Minnesota State High School League moving forward. So we got in front of it, but it was a club versus us running it. So opening up more clubs and giving the opportunity to kind of see if it sustains first before we say, "Hey school board, we're going to come to you because we want to put now in the appendix B the need for said coaches and then we have two people that want to come out." On the flip side, if we have the opportunity where an individual says, "Hey, I want to participate." Uh, then we talk together and say, "Would it make more sense for us to now look in our area to see if there's a school that's already doing it that would be willing to co-op with us?" But unfortunately a lot of um schools in our area are in the same situation as us in terms of sports what they're offering and trying to figure out for example I can say bad as an example people are speaking about it but do we have the true need and desire from enough people to sustain it and then it comes with equipment that you have to buy etc. So that would be the process hearing them out giving it a trial run to see will it sustain it and if we see that it does and it becomes okay how do we now let that become something that through the club absolutely thank you absolutely thank you and I do not see any other questions thank you very much thank you for coming here and answering our questions thank you team appreciate that so just to double check the support of this movement Just I know we don't vote but just want to be sure because there really is no action Anthony that won't come forward at all. Is there a thumb? No thumb. Okay, we have six thumbs. Thumbs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Byebye. Okay, moving on. Okay, the next thing up is a follow up from the April 7th work session and um the A is the financial advisory council discussion because then we'll get on to other things and you'll be able to I feel a little isolated at the table. enjoy this enjoy the space. Okay. So, board members were asked to look at the bylaws that we were given and make suggestions and also we got a copy of the bylaws bedlighted and those were your suggestions? Yes. So, uh, and thank you to Director Basset who we we spoke before the meeting, um, today in part because and and and honestly, this would be be my error. You the redline version that was provided within the packet um would be coming from me. It did not indicate with the watermark draft because honestly I was thinking like how policy is presented where it's struck through and there's red line and that was how I was moving forward. However, I did um change that, put a draft, watermark, and gave editing ability prior to the start of the listening session. So, if you have access to your email, you should be able to go in there and see um those changes that were made and the ability to edit if you so choose. Okay. Just a little point of order on the editing thing. I don't think that board members are allowed to have a document that we can all edit because that's like a then don't edit it. So, so do not edit it. Enjoy the changes that have been suggested. We will discuss changes but we are not as board members allowed. So, we'll discuss the changes and then you can implement the changes but the rest of us cannot be doing that. But if anybody you know I like to have the document so if I'm going to suggest changes on it I can use the document myself. That's different from us simultaneously editing the document. So for individual directors to make one of their suggestions, edits, comments, that's review. We were asked to review it and that is in my mind review. So I just want to make that clarification because people can edit a document or make suggestions to it and then you know we're going to come together before it's final. So make your own copy of the document that we shared. You gave us a copy and and suggested that we make our changes. And then we So we have ours and we have yours and can we just like go through this? We I would very much appreciate that. Okay. So, so in going through and just just to set the stage a little bit um at and and and a refresh at finance uh at the finance advisory council the conversation at least the direction from them was that they didn't feel as though um the way that information is currently flowing which is board members first council second that that was advantageous nor was it the intent of or purpose of the council. So, you're provided with the bylaws and the uh suggested changes that essentially would allow it to be a back to kind of a formalized working document. In my opinion, the board has two directions. one, edit the bylaws to have a a working council, and that is the essentially what comes before the board seeing the material or you essentially eliminate the committee, the bylaws, and make it an ad hoc committee, no different than how you do policy or other work. So it's either adjust the formalized process, eliminate the formalized process which would then create that group would then become an ad hoc committee. So those are kind of the way I see as two operating directions moving forward. Quick question. Can you define what you see as the difference between adop community members or No, it it mainly getting rid of essentially the formalized process. It would still I would still say um you would have resident members, community members. Honestly, in a ad hoc I would likely add um personnel, maybe some union representation. Here's the teachers union. Here's you know, and then board member. I mean, it the structure would look different. Um the information flow would be more along the lines of it happens. it just happens in a in a maybe a clunkier way would be coming from me um to help guide the work of how the work is done and ultimately rolled out to the board as opposed to the board going over applications and and the more formalized process of how it's represented. It's just becomes a little bit more informal. My intent would be to have the same working structure plus your homes Um, so ad hoc is more temporary though, isn't it? So this would need to be a standing committee. I guess that's where I'm lost. And I want to hear because Caroline started to speak to what other districts are doing around us and those seem to be formal standing committees. It just kind of changes who's on it. But it's still it like I don't my understanding was it wasn't union based. it was financial oriented and then there was two or three board members on it and then the time portion of it was more um in line with what you were saying being weighted on that front you know fallish area um so is that oh Dr. Yeah, I think I think that that's more in line. And I think the the formality of the the bylaws in um director group I don't know what all districts have you looked at but I know both previous districts we had a standing finance advisory council not an ad hoc finance advisory council um but really it was so there were I think three board members that sat in each one along with you know other members we had facilities because there were facilities stuff with it too I don't remember it all but x number of community members again looking for expertise all those things but really driven by the CFO or executive director um so I know here it's formalized in terms of um bylaws I don't think there were bylaws in any of the other two districts that I was in the chair like just the formalization of of a chair and voting and like it just yeah was just a little bit more flexible I don't want to say maybe flexible so you could do the work because the goal was that the CFO needs guidance and input and perspective and and in timely ways because okay, we know this is going to be coming in front of the board in six weeks. We want to be sure that we're talking about assumptions and looking at legislation and how that impacts it. So standing committee maybe and I don't want to say the maybe it is the bylaws and the quorum and some of the there are pieces of this right now that it feels to me have stalled the work that you've been able to do with with the um with the finance advisory council. We want it to be meaningful to the board, meaningful to the members and helpful and useful to our CFO. When it comes to finances, I like I I got to say I'm a big fan of rules. Uh but I also want to defer to the expert. Is there one of the two that gosh, if they would just vote it this way, it would be so much easier for me. Is there something in your head that's saying that the changes the the changes that are in front of you are honestly what it would need to make it a at least a provide for more of the timeliness and the responsiveness to keep keep the group moving if you will that's I mean when I'm looking at it in absence of of and and other than the change of title that that's a lot of that in when you remove that from it there's not a lot of changes but my like my four examples of of the stumbling blocks we we are struggling we are struggling to get a quorum at any meeting I I I have yet to participate in a meeting that at least started with we might have gotten to a quorum by the end of the meeting we didn't start that way um we have had just as I as I onboarded in in August August and September, the board was voting on um the applicants. It says in here that that should be done by June. And the reason why it should be done by June is because that work starts as you heard me talk tonight, we're already now moving into levy work. Um what happens when when someone we have a participant or someone who is on is on um hasn't shown up in two years. And so it says that my position makes the calls after missing so many meetings and then there's no direction. So now that's guaranteed no one's showing up. Is it through the application process? They technically haven't resigned. Now you're waiting till June. There's no way to it. There's there's barriers in formalization just as there's advantages. And so what is presented is to say this would help reduce the barriers while still maintaining a formalized process. On the flip side, if you go to a a committee, if you will, you lose the formality and the the board has to be comfortable with that. But we're able to uh be more adaptable to how quickly information can change or participation or whatever is needed. That that's the blessing and the curse to each side. And that lies in the board comfort level. Bass. Well, um Thank you. Thank you for your suggestions even at the FAC meeting because one of the things we talked about was assumptions and uh the board is not right now receiving assumptions correct uh prior to the development of the budget and that's an admiration from past times. It's been kind of along with that for a while. So I guess I would say that uh and one of the things that you said at the meeting really struck me. You said you're kind of hamstruck. Either way you hear you you know the we're not following the guidelines we have uh and that's an issue. So for me the question becomes what do we what do we really want to get out of a finance advisory council that's the question for me not you know some of the other things because depending on what you want out of the advisory council and one of the benefits when we talked about even establishing this was an independent voice from the community that in few that in integrated including community voice not to the exclusion of directors or staff but a community voice that could that people really respected that they could say well no they really were doing the work they were supposed to be doing and uh that has value and it's um and it's so it's up in my opinion it's up to the board to understand that if we have people been missing for two years and we don't know why not you know I mean so I think I think there's some other issues at play communication I think there's some things for the board to grapple with with regard to the bylaws themselves elves and uh I don't I certainly value your participation and things you've said and I've certainly come to you and asked you for advice about things and we'll continue to do so. I I trust you a lot, you know, so I just want to get that out there. However, I think community voice matters. I think having an independent finance advisory council because other districts when they publish something from their finance finance advisory council, it has weight. Now, if we've allowed ours to wander, you know, that's on us as a district, you know, and so that's really kind of how I see it. I'd rather um kind of look through, you know, the time we've said we want to take a look through it. What was suggested initially too was to hear from the finance advisory council. What they said loud and clear is this is broken. We want to work. They they said that. So, the pe the people who are there want to work and they were honest. this is not working. And so it's really helpful to have somebody else say that because not me, you know, but uh but I've listened to them. So I'm really interested in us doing the work of working on these bylaws. Your suggestions are great. Um and they're not done. I think we said we were going to come back to the finance advisory council. So they're looking for another pass if I if I understood them correctly. My understanding is my belief is that they are waiting for the board to make a decision. That's my belief on on either a bylaw change they're they're waiting for any sort of direction that isn't currently what is in front of us. Okay, cool. That's that's kind of what I thought. So I thought our work was to really look at these and work on them, which So we we worked on policy the last time. We'll continue to work on policy, but but the reality is even in the bylaws, it states, you know, that that the committee would come before the board in June, which hasn't happened for a few years, um to give a annual summary. Well, there's nothing to summarize at this point other than we've done some policy work. I mean, I'm I am a rule follower by all sort by to the core of me and and I've said it from the beginning. We want to follow the established rules. The rules are not able to be followed at the way they're designed. Director Hillbrand and then director HS. One thing that the what I heard was the main reason that things aren't working right now in addition to like some of the functional things like how many people and who's on and who's off and how they come on and off is really the core question is what is the purpose? And if we if the purpose is as it says in in these um bylaws um that we that CFO brings information to that committee first because these are people who work in finance and have their hands in financial information all day long and then they make recommendations that then are brought to the board and then the board sees the information. Um otherwise if they're hearing it after there's really no point. So I think we have to decide if we are going to if we want the committee to function the way that it's intended in these bylaws and then we have to accept that they're going to make recommendations. They're going to see things first. So that I think is the core question. So I don't know if we want to ask how people feel about that, but I just wanted to throw that out there. I think that was the biggest issue because if they're seeing it after it's it their expertise isn't going to help us right after the board's already what I would like to do is call in director Holmes and then get a feeling. Okay. Director Holmes gets a chance to speak on this and then what I would like to do is get a feeling from the board what the preference is for the purpose of the committee. Okay. So I did what was at. So my purpose for the board is to review district financial statements and provides advice to the board and finance department regarding financial issues and emerging industry trends. That's one of the I I don't recall which district it was but it it made total sense to me and that's why I wrote that one down. There are a ton out there like that. I see them as experts. I think the board still needs to review applications separation of church and state. I think it gives a good solid balance to the community input you're talking about. Um, you can give valuable input on what we should be looking for in those applications, but the whole board should be seeing them. It's a board committee in my mind. I love changing the time around. I'm glad that you're on board with that, too, because everybody's been asking for it. And then as far as um participation, I think part of the reason we haven't had participation is because they had recommendations and red flags for the board to consider and they were never considered. I mean, I I looked back at the past four reports and they all had the same things. So, if we get this done right, that's going to turn that committee around. But I do see it as a board committee. And so there's tweaks in here I would put in terms of CFO is included, but it's also responsible to the board. I mean, that's the ultimate and I made those changes. I don't know if we're going to actually discuss those or if we're just stuck on the purpose right now. Um, but I think it's a valuable tool. It also helps that you said you don't want to be making assumptions alone. Um, I'm fine with them seeing information before I do because ordinos will summarize it and provide substance to us to make solid decisions. Okay. So, I think what we have to make sure is we're all on the same page about the purpose of this group of people whether it is this group or whether it's a committee of the board. So per So if you are in favor of the purpose of this group being to get information from our CFO, figure things out and make recommendations to the board. And this would mean they would see information about the budget and numbers and things before the board would put your hand up or your thumb up or something. I have a question. Okay. But isn't that what we were talking about? Right. Okay. Question. So, do you have a question first? What? Me first because they said they have a question, too. So, out of the three of us, who are you calling on first? You. Okay. I I guess for me, I'm fine with them seeing the information before me, but I when I get it, I want to see the exact information that they saw, too. So, when you get the report, then it's like this is the information we saw and this is how we are our recommend what our recommendations are. Dr. Holmes, you cl Oh, Dr. Bowman, you had clarifications. Question. Yeah. And and you know to director Long's point that you just made um my concern I just have a lot of concerns. I just have a lot of micromanagement concerns. I have concerns of people feeling like they're doing work here and then they're doing work here again and the work still isn't being. You know, I I think my biggest concern about all of this is before I'm willing to make an agreement, I would like to see the details pounded out and the agreement be very specific as to what we're agreeing to because in the past two years on this board, we have argued so much about committee work and and I just see this as being another potential issue unless we're able to actually nail down the rules and more importantly decide to abide by those rules because one of the things I would hate to see is to have uh Kristen get through months of work only to have it come back to the board, which I've seen this done, and have board members say, "Well, I don't know, and we should have been in touch with and we should have been given this and we should have been given that." and and I'm sure it works really well in a lot of other districts, but I think that my concerns on how we proceed with this are really valid. And I think that we need to um if we go down that road, I just want to see the clarity defined by bullet points or whatever that we can agree to. I'm not willing to let it be vague. Excuse me, I haven't commented on anything. So, I'm not I'm not willing to let it be vague. That's all. Okay, first things first, the purpose of this group. Can we all agree what I mean? Nothing to do with bullet points, nothing to do with roles or anything. Just process per right. Thank you. Just the purpose of this group. Are we all in agreement that they get information from our CFO in a timely basis and then they work on it and they bring recommendations to the board and they might be seeing the numbers before we see them, but they're going to be making recommendations to us. If you see that as the purpose of this group, can I see a hand? Whoa, that's good. Okay, we got a purpose. Got a purpose. [Music] Now, last time we were asked to go through the bylaws. Is it your preference that we go through these bylaws and start with that or is it your preference to ditch the bylaws and have a committee? Poor Kristen. We're not putting you on the spot at all. You know, okay. And I and I No, no. There is a difference between my preference and what I'm going to say and what the board needs. That's right. Because my preference is to go to a committee. It moves faster, more concise. It's just smoother. However, if all of a sudden it gets to the board level and it is doesn't feel good and we're going through and we're undoing and there's different things. Now, I've just been able to work through a process really fast only to hit That's right. something that doesn't make the board that that the board members aren't in a good spot. So ultimately my preference as much as I think it should have weight in your decision you have to be comfortable with your decision. Thank you. Hey director I saw your hand. Yeah I was going to say though looking at the responsibilities of the committee. It will be budgetary in nature long-term planning and then those will be things that the board will have to decide yes or no on. Right. So looking at that, I think it will be useful to use the language if we stick to the bylaws to give the CFO the powers that she needs to be able to work with the committees as needed. So when the recommendations are given with or without the data with or without our representation we believe that it's coming from the community and we can decide to vote yes or no right so I think the what I'm reading here on the red lines makes sense to me so we don't hit those same roadblocks in the future. Thank you Dr. Bass. I like what Caroline said about getting the seeing the same material that the because it's it's it's uh instructive and building capacity on the board of understanding which is just as important as the work itself. That's important that the board understands in the long term where they came from in their decision making. Well, that's what I see it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, I think that I like that. I think that that's important. I also think that at the end of the day, the CFO, just like the superintendent, is responsible to the board. Uh and and I think that the way the bylaws are written now, uh I I think I like the opportunity that we're all going to have to go through them because uh and look at them and provide you with feedback. That's what I like. Uh but but working from bylaws that have some very specific rules because what you said in the end about if you have a committee and the committee does all this work and it comes to this board, good luck with that. I think you know I mean it should the bylaw should be clear. I think they should not hamstring you but at the same time uh it's for the board you know uh and we're team you have your job and we have our job and superintendent our job everybody got a job. So, uh, bylaws help everybody stay clear about what their role is and, uh, and so I like that and, um, I'm happy with them. If they can get information, give us some good recommendations, and I'd like to know what the assumptions are, how we're building this budget based on what? Yes. Thank you, Dr. Law. I still to want to say that we need to make sure that we are creating a system that's not about us or the people at this table because it won't always be us or this or the people at this table. Thank you. That's true. Um cuz eventually we all get old and we have to go on with our lives to other things, right? And I don't think they want us here in our rocking chairs. Holmes, is that an ages rumor? I just want to know right now being representative of the aegis community. I find that sort of offensive. Okay. Sorry. Thank you for letting it slide. D Holmes, I'm just going with the assignment. So, I would like to change it just from the treasurer to two or three school board members. And I think another component you said from the other districts is that you rotate which board members they are because it is our job to understand this and ultimately we vote on it and I think that's a component that's been missing too. We tend to assign somebody to a role and then we leave it that way and while it's good to have somebody who wants to serve it's also beneficial for those of us. So that allows if we increase that number and I think that would help with the quorum instance too. Um, but I I'll leave that one for that. The hardest part I understand with the quorum, but the voice of the board is the board table, right? Okay. Okay. So, that wouldn't help with the quorum. Okay. Um, but it helps for communication to the board. That's true. So if we have multiple so strike the the quorum part but at least then we can have updates at the board while you're doing critical work with them and then we are getting some updates so we're empowering board members to pass that on and then we can allow for questions too. So both things are happening at the same time. Um and then again I just changed some language in here that it ties it to you know after applications have been presented to the school board instead of you. That's kind of where I was going. And not to say you don't have recommendations on what we should be looking for or that application process because Lord knows we have to hammer that out still too. Um I don't know that applications are presented to me. I think what happens is it's no different than what what happened um with a resignation of a board member and the appointment of a new board member. What happens if I'm midyear and I don't have people? That's when I can add and I I tweaked that. So then I went further and I tweaked that too. So it's it's just Can you just hold for just a second? This you have great comments, but I want to make sure that we're all on the same page. We are going to be amending the bylaws, right? Yes, everybody. I thought that's what we were discussing. It was bylaws or no bylaws. By committee, I just did my homework. I was told to bring you and you did a great job. You're great job. Love the comments. I just want to make sure we are all on the right same page. We are doing bylaws and we are okay. In that case, can we go through each of them and then when we get to the ones that you are talking about, we'll that way we'll work our way through it because it's 7 o'clock. You tell me. I just did what I was and you're doing a great job and I love the comments. But I think if we are are agreed, we have SOHisel's suggestions and then you have additional suggestions. The way to do it is to just like go through where her suggestions are and then if anybody else has other suggestions, we can just like hit them. Okay. Okay, we're doing that. Starting out with the red lines. Simple red lines on the first page. Any suggestions for changes on the first page besides the two red lines? Okay, we're moving on to the second page. Five to seven residents instead of seven residents, it says. Can we back up because we all agreed on the purpose? So, is everybody okay with how the purpose reads or I gave you another one? Okay. So, then you have a suggestion for purpose change. Okay. Okay. The purpose of the Robinsdale area schools financial aid advisory council to provide financial advice and support to the Robin Stell area school board and senior administration that is consistent with the mission of the district. Council is accountable to the school board of the Robin Stellary School and you want to elaborate on it with ones that you said earlier. Correct. I just tweaked it because if we're talking about Yes. It's just more substantive in my mind. So the purpose is to review district financial statements and provides advice to the board and financial department regarding financial issues and emerging emerging industry trends and that tracks with the financial advisory committee. U they were seeing enrollment trends they were all that that's why I strengthened I have no problem with that. Does anybody else have any problem with that with what Kim? Well what she just said and it was I didn't make it up on my own. It was from another district. I don't know all because I was looking at about seven. Stop. We're green. Okay. I agree. Director Long agree. Does anybody else agree with that as a just an elaborate on purpose? Yes. The only thing I'd say is, you know, and I don't think you said to omit this, but part of the sentence talks about being consistent with the mission. So, I just want to suggest we keep that in there somewhere. Can we add consistent with the mission in there? Dr. Holmes. Sure. That's okay. We've got her. We got Okay. Um, anybody else okay with the with the expanded purpose? I will track. Is that were you just asking for that? Is that expanded purpose? I can type it. I see. Anybody against the expanded purpose? Because you're not looking. I'm not against it, but I had your hand up. I guess not for that. Okay. Yes. Well, um, you know, unless I I don't I I don't see it in writing right now. So, I I don't I I kind of understand the comment that was made about seeing things in black and white. If Director Holmes has done that work and she can make those edits and send those in, uh, I would make my I thought we were waiting to for I thought we were going to take food to work on it and I tried to do my edits and I couldn't. So, I'm just saying I think that it is 10:00. I think we have a couple of other things on the agenda. I think we ought to take this document, everybody take it and do whatever they need to do with it. I like visuals. Okay. And, uh, and so, um, I I think we have consensus on important things, which is everybody's okay with us working on bylaws and, um, having a finance advisory council. And I think that's great. I think that's a great body of work for tonight and then uh because I I want to take time on it. I don't like to come back later and say what about this, what about that? I don't like doing that and I I would like to see what those things are in writing before I say I like it. Well, we would definitely be voting on the whole thing as as some time to do it. We don't have to do it all tonight. I like this process that you're going through. So, yeah, because then I think that then we can get those red more red line items in about what we exactly want and then we can at another meeting look it over and say, are there any final changes? Yes. And then make final changes at that time. But I I I would like to talk through some of these things together. We keep complaining about not having discussions about things. So, okay. So, my procedural question is just who's going to be responsible then for taking all these things and putting together? Who are people going to send it to? Like how are we going to move? If you send it to me, I can certainly incorporate it into the document. Okay. Notes right now what we agree on. My one concern back to again and it's in the current bylaws is right now I'm down technically one member but officially well officially one member technically two members. We're a month away from June and the work starting and we haven't even started the application process which then puts the timeline of the entire committee back down to in all likelihood new people getting named at probably closer to the end of summer. So I would then say am I just moving forward with the committee as is and allow the board time to flesh this out. I mean that that's the reality is if I'm truly following the the the bylaws again, I'm not following the bylaws. So I I either need permission here to move forward as is while this gets squared up and new members get added or I'm in the same situation that I've been in all year. Can we give you permission to continue along with the red lines part of it? No. Can I just Sure. What does the makeup of the the committee look like right now? Like who who's attending? How many do you have? I have five in totality. So if one misses, I do not have a corn. Well, it's tight. I'm down two for sure. And I'm including you. I'm I'm not a voting member. I know. I was just talking about the committee. You are a part of the committee. I am a part of the committee, but of your seven residents, I'm down to five. Yep. That's best case is five. Okay. And under this, it's just the treasurer. So, can we suspend something or just operate and then we hammer this out? What are our options right there? It's what the will of the board is. And so, if you would like to make it be three, I'm willing. Can he can we suspend? You can suspend the bylaws and have her operate as as the committee is currently operating. Yes. Yeah. With a date of having this complete by whatever. Yeah. I I wouldn't suspend that. Are you meaning suspend it and so that it will have three members or suspend it? You can suspend it in its entirety. You can suspend parts of it. The board I mean these are this is a document the board has the right to determine. Okay. Yes. I I'm just saying like you have been doing just continue to work because I'd rather for it to be done well. Okay. Right. But I struggle with not following board approved documents. I'm sorry. I have a I I personally struggle with not following board approved documents. I Well, I think we all do because I'm I'm kind of like that too. But I think what we heard is that in order for us to get to the other side is going to be a process now whether whether we like it or not. So I mean and so I think one of the rules is saying we're going to suspend these so that you can go forward and do the work. Yes. And we're going to do what we need to do. That's what this I'm just throwing this out here. We suspend these bylaws so that you can operate with the comm with the finance FAC using the purpose that is defined and having three school board members on it rather than two including the you don't want the extra school board. We only want the treasurer until then. We just have suspend the rules. So we're suspend we're suspending the B because we already have three members on it. That's staff. Dr. Mr. Holmes, what's your favor? Are we to the point where we can make a suggestion because I would like to suspend the bylaws and operate with the treasurer while we craft the rest of the document. But we already appointed two people to committee and and I say I mean right now because I well Yeah, I already heard you. Keep going. I'll call on you. I mean, go now. Oh, okay. Well, I'm just saying I think we suspended the rules. The rules are the only thing to save the treasurer. That's it. So, we already suspended that. We already passed that. So, it to continue as it is now. It's just us on the committee trying to do the best we can and this board doing the work it needs to be. That's it. Dr. Long Aiva, did you have your hand up? I I did. I It's just quick. I just something. Yeah, I was just going to say if we we're just suspending it, that leaves for with no guidelines. That's and that's what she's asking for is guidelines. So, I I'm a little I don't know if we're giving her what she needs to to operate. She currently can't operate on what it's telling her. No, I get that, too. So, pulling the requirement for her to operate under these bylaws, suspending them. I do. We need some budget assumptions and some work done. So what what can help you get continue moving forward? The reality is I'm going to move forward with the committee that's already established just to keep going until it gets resolved. Y that's the reality. Y so a point of clarification when we had committees we talked about the treasurer being on FAC. We later had a discussion about it during agenda setting where it was said that there was an oops that was made that there was really only supposed to be the treasure on there because that is not what we discussed when we discussed committees. So I would be in favor of keeping it the treasur until we can figure out some of this other stuff too so that then you can operate. I would be fine with reducing the or suspending the rule around uh how many committee members have to to be involved in this as we work on this also because we're five right just we need assumptions so we suspend this we do our work and it's the treasure that's just We screwed up by pointing three. That was me. That I think I was operating. Whatever. So that's suspendable. We hash everything else out and you can do what you need to do. I want to get out of your way. We've got five people on there. So we're not even approving anything yet. Just let them give their recommendations. I That's my goal right now. But it's an open meeting and people can attend just to observe. Right. Great. That's all. And then if we can have the meetings posted, I think that because sometimes what happens with these is instead of the meeting date being posted to all of us, which has happened over the last two years, it only goes to those people that are involved in it, which is really unfortunate. So I mean I I plan on being at those meetings. Um we just need to fix the rules, but I plan on being at the meetings. Okay, we have agreement from director and I'll be a silent uh sitting in the audience, but I will be there to observe just my role. We have agreement from director Basset on that until Well, I already said what I agreed to and that is that we suspended without the rules that includes have the treasury opening and I will say that when we were at a committee meeting when we were establishing committees is when we made that decision. Now, if people went off to an agenda study meeting and had a different discussion, that wasn't the board and the it it wasn't the board. The board did our committee assignments together as a whole. And so that's what happened. Now we just said we're going to suspend them. But wait a minute, we want to make sure it's only in the treasurer. Um because it is an open meeting and uh and like director Bowman. I mean I didn't give up my citizenship in America and go to the valley and on this board. So coming to a meeting and participating in a meeting is what I will continue to do. So whether it doesn't make any difference. People going to see you as a board member where if you show up, they're going to see you as a board member and make a comment. whether you're a fellow member of the committee or not. Yeah. I was just wondering if I can move that the board decides to suspend these bylaws and give the power to the CFO to use the current committee that she has to continue to operate. So, we put a formal bylaw in place. Thank you. We said a few minutes ago. Yes. Okay. Motion. We have a motion and a second. Please second. Thank you. I just What is the motion again to suspend to suspend the bylaws? She takes the power to function with the committee that she has. Exactly. Okay. But the question is that would be just what he said. Nothing more. That's what he said. What he said and that's what we agreed to to a few minutes ago. Director stop. Okay. Okay. Director, when you said function that way, were you meaning function with just the treasurer as in the bylaws or were you meaning function with two additional people? are the two additional people already on the committee with you. So then yes. Okay. So the motion is toend by members with those two board members. I the two board members. The motion is to spend by CFO does works with the committee. The two additional board members are can do that. Can I go back and watch the tape to see what we did at that meeting? I'll volunteer myself to go back and look at that meeting. We need a motion and I just do and I just have a motion now. There's a point of order. There's a motion on the table and so there's time to call. Yes. I wrote down review that meeting also work session by two reviewed and everything. We have a motion on the floor from the amendment. The treasur be the chair of the committee. We've got to have some control you guys. We can't I think Kristen is my No, I'm actually not the chair of this. Well, there's a chair on that committee that's a citizen chair. That's the leader of that committee. That's a citizen chair. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second stem bylaws work with the committee and there will be three people from the school board on that committee. There's a citizen chair configuration. Yes. Are they voting members? Are board members vote? I mean because it could be a case where you've got three currently it's the treasur that's the voting right we're not yeah we don't have anything to vote on currently it's the treasur that votes right okay with that parameter treasur treasurer votes otherwise we're stop but honestly with the bylaw suspended I have no vote well that's right this is all right if you can support that motion please raise your hand just I'd actually call it Yeah. Or just say all in favor. That's all in favor. All in favor say I. I. Opposed? No. No. Okay. We have suspended the bylaws. You work with the committee. You'll have three board members on it. Treasure wrote the voting. We'll figure this out. Okay. May I May I request then if this is moving on that the Google doc that was shared, please make a copy, make your suggested edits, and return them to me. and I will make sure that that is incorporated into the document. If you don't like a Google doc and all of that, I can get you a hard copy and you can write whatever you need to and send it back to me. Doesn't matter. Just just for the sake of time, I may suggest that we shouldn't send it to you because I have a feeling even if we do that at a work session, we will still want to make that information. But I can put them in I'll put them even in different colors and everything so people can then have a visual of the words that are being spoken. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. By if we already have our changes, we can submit them to you too. That's I'm happy to grab them tonight. Okay, we're going to move on to the next topic. Madam Chair, just a point of order. We do have a work rule that the board agreed to in the last study session stop at 10 and you've already exceeded that. And in order to continue, the board would need to vote to suspend that rule. Otherwise, you have committed to being done. And I would get insight from your superintendent in terms of the importance of the next item on the agenda, whether it's done or not. But I mean, you adopt rules for a reason. And the wheels tend to fall a lot hard to quum approximately between 10 and 10:30. Also, before we do that, I just want to related to the last meeting, I want to say thank you, Director W, Director Long, and Director Hillbrand. You came in under two minutes on your board reports, other boards, not saying they're not good, but maybe I cheated them. That's okay. It's okay not to It's okay not to have a report. We always like that environment of winning, right? Winners. Yeah. So, so I would say just just briefly I I think the only thing pressing um that I really hope when we come back in two weeks we can land on um again I took the liberty of revising the document that I gave you and changes are read and I'm should have put draft across because there's nothing final about this at all. Um but I want to talk through it with you. probably the most the most um pressing thing that we want to do is we need to get a calendar of board meetings. I know I just already looked at my summer calendar and I'm like worried that I'm going to schedule over things. So, one thing that I would offer, if Molly's okay with this, because I actually asked her to do it for me today, the sequence of when our meetings are, we could at least get on calendars and then the content of are we going to still do a a business meeting and a study session each night or are we going to move try to move to a different format, but at least you'd have the dates saved. Would that be helpful to you to at least have those dates? Similar, are you okay? you do just like you did for me is forward those on so people have them and again knowing we may have to change them if when we actually approve it. Okay. Yes. Are those different than we have right now? We're meeting the first and the third. If if you don't if you don't need it if you don't need them, she doesn't have to do it. I didn't have them in my calendar. I would appreciate but it's the same same same sequence same same dates but um you know just what we're going to do those times okay so we'll do that so you have it um otherwise the professional develop otherwise I can wait on that this for the rest of my but please check your calendars before the next meeting so that you can know if you are available for weekdays or weekends from May through the Director Long, sorry, Director Bowman, I just want to know that uh these items are obviously really important. Are they going to be priority items in our next work session? Will they automatically be I think priority I think we can I mean I'm looking at I'm looking at the the the next couple after that. I think we're gonna we're gonna have I mean the the last study session in May is jammed. Um and the last one in June is my evaluation. Um so I think we can get there, but I mean it'll depend if there's other things that board thinks. And then quickly looking at the committee assignments, I looked them over. I'm on seven. Director Basset is on six and everybody else is on three. How do I get on six? I'm not sure, but that's checked off. And so I was thinking the uh maybe I could get off safety. We could disband the transportation ad hoc and add director. I would give you my community. It's a wonderful committee. Does anybody else have committee ideas? Yes. I don't know what's happening with inner school either because I think they're meeting but I'm not getting notices and I didn't get and school right now says everybody can and that was in our board with a date so I that's another one to come back because that's another one that meanwhile I don't need to be on it's inner school but it's stalled a little bit and could use some assistance in school everybody is invited to attend all are invited to attend school. All are invited to attend inter school. All are invited to attend 281 partnership. What it says on the thingy? Where's it? Where's the meeting? Meanwhile, we'll start with community. I'll let uh Williams know that you will be the person our community and then the rest of these decisions we can work through at another time. Anything else for the good of the