Mhm. >> I would like to call this meeting of theRobbinsdale Area School School Board to order. Today is Monday, March 2nd, 2026.It is 7:00 p.m. and we are in the boardroom of the Education ServiceCenter um on Winnetka Avenue in New Hope. WouldDr. Would Director Wuto please read the land acknowledgement? Sure.We acknowledge Robbinsdale Area Schools is located on the homelands of theDakota and Ojibwe people. We recognize the painful history ofgenocide and forced assimilation of the indigenous inhabitants of this land.We honor and respect the many indigenous peoples who live on and hold sacredthese lands. We stand with members of these nationsto fight injustice in all its forms. We uphold the preservation of Dakota andOjibwe languages, land-based education, and tribalsovereignty. Thank you and welcome everyone. Wouldthe clerk please take the roll? With pleasure. Uh Director Bassett?Director Bowman marks herself here. Director Bruntisoe? Here.Uh Chair Evans Becker? >> I'm here. Director Hillenbrand? Here.Director Long? Here. Director Wuto? Here. Dr. Stahle? Here.You have a quorum. Thank you very much. All right. Um the first thing up isapproval of our agenda. Is there a move to approve our agenda?So moved. Moved by Director Wuto, seconded by Director Bruntisoe. All infavor, please say I. I. All who say no. We have approved the agenda. Now, timefor Ardel Proud. Superintendent Bowman? Excellent. As our guests and presentersare making their way to the front table, um as a reminder board members, Ibelieve at our last board meeting, we had an opportunity for one of ourstrategic priority themes to update us on some of the district-wide work aroundCatalyst. So, I think it's only fitting uh that this evening we have a team fromum Neil Elementary School uh under the direction of PrincipalLinda Men um to share data on the implementation of Catalyst throughoutthe school. And I think the focus this evening, one of the things that we'regoing to hear is, not only the importance of implementing Catalyst forstudents, but also the positive imp- impact for staff. So, thank you verymuch for being here tonight. We're really excited to hear from you. Andjust one thing, a heads-up to the board members, I'm not going to be recognizinganyone, uh, with questions until the presentation is over. So, if you havesome questions, please jot them down so that we can keep our train of thoughtgoing and focus completely on our speakers. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you.All right. Hopefully, I can run the clicker. All right. So, here we go.Hello, school board, cabinet, and members of the community. I'm LanaLindeman, the principal of Neal Elementary. I'm joined tonight by EmilyJames, our assistant principal, Tammy Doherty, our MTSS behavior specialistand internal Catalyst coach, and Matt Caesar, a Wave teacher at Neal. We'regrateful for the opportunity to share an overview of the Catalyst approach andthe meaningful positive impact it has had on the Neal school community. Um, as we discuss programming across ourdistrict, one initiative that consistently rises to the top is theCatalyst approach. This framework has had a profound impacton our school and our community. Developed by Nancy Burns and JackieBrinkman, the Catalyst approach is a classroom management framework designedto foster safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments. Itemphasizes proactive, nonverbal communication, and a relationship-drivenphilosophy to support both students and staff.Neal began our collaboration with the Catalyst approach in 2023,and at that time, our support calls were increasing and teachers were seekingmore effec- effective strategies to strengthen classroom management and sup-support student regulation. During our first year, we provided wholegroup leadership training for all licensed staff.Teachers were introduced to the 12 foundational skills and beganimplementing them in their classrooms. The Catalyst team also provided coachingand feedback sessions to support consistent practice. Our goal in yearone was exposure and initial implementation with a focus onincreasing student regulation in classrooms, ultimately decreasingsupport calls and increasing engagement in learning.In year two, we continued strengthening our work with the foundational skillswhile deepening teachers' learning through specialty skills. We expandedtraining to include our educational assistants and all center-based teams.Our continued focus remained clear to reduce support calls and increase bothstudent and staff regulation leading to stronger engagement in learning.And as we enter the 25-26 school year, our goal is expanded to embeddingCatalyst practices across all of our school environments, not only in theclassrooms, but also our hallways and the playgrounds and our cafe. Ensuring aconsistent supportive experience for students throughout the entire schoolday. Catalyst approach is designed There we go.Yeah, speak right into it, Shanae. >> Perfect. The Catalyst approach isdesigned to strengthen adult self-regulation and reduce fatigue byemphasizing proactive, intentional behavioral adjustments rather thanreactive responses to students. Rather than focusing solely on managingstudent behavior, it supports educators in managing their own responses.Strengthening relationships, increasing consistency, and creating calm,predictable learning environments. Tonight, we are excited to share aglimpse of this journey and the powerful difference it has made for both ourstaff and our students. The positive impact in our school hasbeen significant. Classrooms feel more regulated and focused. Staff reportfeeling more confident and supported in their practice.We have seen meaningful reductions in support calls, stronger studentengagement, and an overall increase in instructional time.Perhaps most importantly, there is a shared language and common approachacross our building that fosters connection, consistency, and a strongersense of community. Most notably, the greatest impact wehave observed over the past several years is the overall sense of calm thatis both visible and tangible throughout our halls and our classrooms.There is a shared steadiness across our school community, a learning environmentwhere students and staff alike feel regulated, supported, and ready toengage. Sarah Geremco, a first-grade Catalystcertified teacher and one of our internal coaches, states, "The Catalystfoundational skills help me help me get students' attention, keep them engaged,set students up for success, and then support and maintainthat's Sorry. And then support and maintainthat success. When I started implementing these skills with fidelity,I noticed that I was more regulated and my students were more regulated. Theimpact of being regulated on students' learning is monumental.Quite simply, kids cannot learn if they are not regulated."So, our ultimate goal around the implementation of Catalyst was centeredaround student regulation and learning. We worked to increase student regulationand engagement, knowing that stronger classroom systems would naturally leadto a decrease in support calls. At the end of the year one, we had a total of1,860 support calls from classroom spaces.In year two, we were able to decrease that number to 848.This was a 46% decrease in calls. Our goal of strengthening studentregulation and engagement continues to showmeaningful growth. During the 2024-25 school year, 75% of our students hadfour or fewer support calls from the classroom. And last year that numberdecreased to 91% of our students requiring requiring zero to fewer thanfour calls for support. The 16% increase reflects a significantshift. More students are able to regulate, remain engaged, andsuccessfully participate in learning within their classroom and thecommunity. So, how did we do this?We put it into action. Neil staff had ongoing professional development. Weprovided multiple Catalyst coaching days from the Catalyst team, which includeclassroom observation, coaching, and actionable feedback. We utilized aninternal coach who provides weekly support. Staff have opportunity toparticipate in live visits at fully implementing schools, and we have directaccess to the Catalyst team for guidance and support. During the first training, staff aretaught about the essential 12 foundational skills that are high-impactclassroom based strategies designed to help educators influence studentbehavior, culture, engagement, and equity in classrooms. These skills arefocused around getting attention, engagement, and getting students settingstudents up for success. The get attention skills efficientlybring student focus to the teacher without raising their voice or repeatedcommands. They conserve teacher energy, reduce word clutter, increaseinstructional time, and foster a calm, predictable environment. Ultimately,they allow teachers to spend less time on discipline and more time on buildingrelationships and supporting deep learning.Here we have two students, Betty Jane Flannery and Genesis RiveraPortillo, explain how their teacher gets their attention in their classroom. Girls, how does your teacher help getyour attention in the classroom? Well, first she have this call and response.So, like if I'm the teacher, I would say, "Fourth grade." I'll be like thestudent. I'll be like, "Yes." So, that just gets our attention. Andlike after we say yes, we're supposed to be like all quiet. And she also has likestand spot where she smiles and then that means we're we have to be quiet andlisten. >> likelike smile. And then when she smiles, that means we have to like look at herand get ready for all the work. >> Yeah. And these two things, they help usget our work done and stay like quiet. >> And calm. Mhm. When asked how these skills haveimpacted teachers' instruction, Becky Berg, a third grade teacher, sharedthis. "After 23 years in the classroom, I finally feel confident in my classroommanagement. The training I've received over the past few years has transformedmy practice. For much of my career, I felt like a new teacher. LearningCatalyst skills made it all click. I have always known that buildingrelationships with students is essential, but staying calm and givingstudents space to settle into the classroom and their learning has led tostronger relationships built on trust and respect. Next comes the engaged skills.These skills move students from compliance to active participation,strengthening connections, and improving instructional effectiveness.They reduce teacher fatigue, increase instructional time, and supportproactive relationships and differentiation.Ultimately, they shift classroom dynamic from passive instruction to activestudent-centered learning. Set up for success skills are aimed atcreating a predictable and equitable environment before instruction begins byestablishing clear boundaries, reducing confusion and frustration, promotingequitable access, calm and ready atmosphere, foundation for studentagency, and proactive discipline. Pia Mora and Finn Porter are two of ourfourth graders. Here is what they have to share about their experience withto-do lists, which is one of the set up for success skills. Tell me about your teacher's to-do list.Well, it has four categories. A need category, a do category, a put category,and a then category. Umin the need category, my teacher puts whatlike what supplies we need for stuff for what to do. In the docategory, she put she lists the instructions on on how to do what whatwhat the activity is. In In the put section, she she tells us what to put itwhere to put it, like to turn it in or to put it in our desks, something likethat. And af- after the assignment is done, afterthe In the then not In the then category,then she lists what to do after the assignment is done.It helps me so I know what to do and don't have to ask my teacher. Kindergarten teacher Cassie Sutherlandreacted on the impact or reflected on the impact that Catalyst has had in herclassroom and her instruction. She states the Catalyst approach, there wego. The Catalyst approach has impacted my instruction by teaching me ways toset up success. I use my to-do list during every lesson. My list provides aconcrete format for me to give my students directions and tell themexactly what is expected for them to do. Students can reference the to-do listwhile they are working independently. When I use these skills, it allows me tosave my energy and continue to feel calm and confident as a teacher. And finally, the support success. Thoseare designed to strengthen the conditions that allow students to thriveacademically and behaviorally. Not by controlling students, but by shaping theenvironment and the adult actions around them. These skills increase studentownership, strengthen classroom culture, increase equity, and improve studentacademic focus. Building on those successes we've seenin the classroom, this year we expanded Catalyst implementation into the otherareas of our school. Including our hallways, the playground,and our cafe. Nancy Burns, the Catalyst and the Catalyst team, provided targetedtraining for our educational assistants who supervise recess and lunch, ensuringconsistency and expectations and strategies across these spacesspaces. This has created a highly efficient and much calmer cafe foreveryone. Alex York, who is a veteran EA, was veryskeptical when she first engaged in learning and applying the Catalystskills in our lunch room. Here, she shares her experience. I've been here 20 years and this is the first time we've tried anything likethis. Honestly, I didn't think it would work, but I was assured by the trainerthat it would, especially if you were consistent. So, I tried it and after thefirst week, I couldn't believe that it really did work. It helps with notrepeating myself and I love showing the visuals to the students. Makes thingseasier for everybody and after a while, the students knew what was required ofthem. Having a home base in the cafe allows mea spot to stand and see my tables and then if the students needme, they know exactly where to find me and it works out because I stay calm,the kids stay calm and it's a win-win for everyone. As she stated, after learning andimplementing these skills, she is a believer and was certified by theCatalyst team in the cafe and the front office, meaning she implements eachskill consistently 90% of the time. There you are, man.I can find you. And our final teacher testimony comes from Matt Caesar, who isin his second year as a wave teacher at Neil. I'm excited that he joins ustonight to share the impact that Catalyst has had on him and hisstudents. Well, good evening.Eight years ago, I was working at a job that basically I didn't like.For most days, I spent in in of a computer looking at spreadsheets anddatabases except for 30 minutes each day when three second graders would comeinto my office to get help with their math homework.We would work on some math problems, we'd tell some stories about our days,and we'd eat jelly beans. After I left that job, I was unsure ofwhat I wanted to do for a career. But I decided to apply for my substituteteaching license because I kept thinking about those second graders and how muchI enjoyed working with them. The week after I got my license, Iimmediately jumped into teaching. I took jobs at all levels but found that Ireally enjoyed working with the elementary schools. I won't say it waseasy and in many ways I had no idea what I was doing.But what I did know is that I may have finally figured out what I want to dowhen I grow up. Along the way, I met a teacher whointroduced me to what was then called Envoy and would later become Catalyst.I literally had a 10-minute crash course in the core skills. She demonstratedthem for me and I was amazed at how this teacher, like magic, could almostimmediately control a classroom. I knew then that I wanted to teachelementary school and I had to learn this teacher's magic.That magic was the Catalyst approach. And I took advantage of every trainingopportunity I could. Some of the skills came easy to me. I'vebeen told that I'm patient and soft-spoken. And as I learned more aboutthe system, I felt natural and it sent meant and made sense even things thatdidn't that I already done naturally. Others seemed counterintuitive but Istuck with them and I've seen the positive impact they've had on thestudents. I took a position as a building subtraveling between different elementary schools working with many differentstaff and continuing to learn. It came as somewhat of a surprise to mewhen Jen Smith, the then principal at Neal, called me over the summer andasked if I would be her building sub and art teacher.I knew Jen and Latta were implementing Catalyst and I was excited for theopportunity. During that year, when I wasn't teachingart, I spent time in general ed classes as well as wave and rise classrooms,watching and learning from teachers who are implementing the Catalyst skills.I participated in all the district and building trainings and was finallyfeeling like I had a clue about what I was doing.The next year, I did my student teaching while covering for a teacher onmaternity leave. When she decided to stay home with hernewborn, I was offered to stay with the class for the remainder of the year.Between my student teaching observations, my probationaryobservations, and Catalyst, I was observed over 20 times that year. ButBut I didn't mind. It is being observed forced me to implement the skills, andby implementing the skills, I learned how they worked.When that year ended, I was once again contacted by Jen Smith. This time toteach wave a wave class at Neil. I have to admit I was a little nervous,but my experience with Catalyst have and having spent time in wave and with theencouragement of Jen, I took the job. My Catalyst skills have been invaluable.They've helped me to stay calm and in control even when my room around meseemed to be in complete chaos. That calm control has helped mystudents, too. We have established routines and structure and have improvedthe learning environment for all my students.Now in my second full year of teaching special ed, I know this is where Ibelong. Not just in the classroom, but working with the amazing staff andstudents in this district. I felt supported and encouraged by so many, andCatalyst has made all the difference for me. Being able to stay regulated myselfin a classroom full of dysregulated students has made teaching lessstressful for me and for them. I look forward to being fully Catalystcertified by the end of the school year. Our strategic plan guides our work ofcontinuous improvement. In theme B, student engagement andwellness, we collectively identified the desire to improve student and staffconnection. I have had the privilege of serving in three elementary and twomiddle schools in Robbinsdale, but it was at Neil that I had the opportunityfor training and implementation of Catalyst. You've heard in the testimonytoday the positive impact it has had on the relationships between students andstaff, and I ask for your continued support to increase the number of stafftrained in the Catalyst framework to expand to all K through eight sites.In closing, we have one final group of students,Hasnat Kazimi and Josie Luis Peterson and Giana Ruiz Nunez, who share howCatalyst has affected their learning. Okay, you are fourth graders here atNeil. You have been here since you were in kindergarten. How has Catalystaffected your learning? Um since my teacher puts up the to-dolist, it's a smoother transition between activities, and I don't have to askquestions. One thing my teacher does to getattention is then waits. Oh, yeah. And my teacherum does this. Oh, and my third grade teacher, MissMcCusker, used to do this, waterfall, and everyone would say And we just switched our lunch to havinglunch before recess. It's much much smooth, less transition, and more calm. We want to thank Nancy Burns and theCatalyst team for their training, guidance, patience, and encouragementthrough our journey thus far, and we are grateful to the district for supportingthis program as it is truly transformed our school community, and we lookforward to what the future holds as we only become stronger in ourimplementation. Thank you.Thank you. Very interesting to hear and great tohear. Um I see one school board hand up. DirectorLong. I am just wondering how does this umcorrelate or relate to your SIP goals, your school improvement plans?One of our goals is directly tied to our Catalyst goal and it's working on umdecreasing our support calls as we talked about in in our data. And so ourgoal is higher engagement of student in the classroom. And so our studentsaren't coming out of the classroom to regulate and missing instruction. And soif any support is needed, we're um helping regulate in the room and pushingin and supporting. Um and so it's directly tied to our Catalyst approach.Thank you. Director Brinderson. I I'm just curious,do you see an increase? I mean, subs aren't trained in this, obviously, orare they? I guess I'm making an assumption. I'm guessing no. Do you see>> no. Okay, that's what I assumed. Do you seemore calls when there are subs because they're not using that Catalyst system?>> Absolutely. Um however, a lot of our EAs are nowgetting certified and having the training. And so when they're in theroom, they're helping um and they're able to um use those skills.Um we do talk to some of the subs as they're coming in. Um and like Matt kindof testified, he was one of our subs previously. And so he would just ask andour internal coaches can help support that. Um so they go into the classrooms,especially if it's a sub that's frequently there, and we help providethem with some skills that they can quickly implement and utilize rightaway. Fantastic. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thank you. Our Director Bowman.Um I've been fortunate enough to come in and observe uh the Catalyst programthrough both, um, teacher assessment time when they put aheadphone on my self and um,got to hear, uh, what was going on first hand. And mostimpressive to me is the calm that's in your building. I I was just recentlythere. Uh, secondly, overall there's the general calm, but even in the classroomit was really fascinating me to go to go in and watchsix different little circles of kids all actively engaged in learning and nobodydistracted from the task at hand. Um, and I think the word that was usedtonight, excuse me, it was Matt, uh, when you said like magic. And as I havebeen telling people what I've learned about Catalyst, uh, it's like magic. Andthen the other thing that, um, I observed in that it was that it was likea sign language for regulated behavior. And it and it worked. I saw classroomkids coming out of classrooms and the slightest motion of the teacher and theywere all standing in line. And, um, the last time I saw somebody do that inthis district was Connie Grundahl, the, uh,the, uh, principal at Forest Elementary School. She had an an incredible, uh,magic gift that way. So,I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing cuz I have been in thebuildings and seen the results and I'm I'm thankful that you're asking that weroll this out K through 8 because I I really do believe in the long runit'll serve them beyond their years, uh, here in as just being a a student. So,thank you for, um, the hours and hours and hours of workand training it really has it no doubt takes, uh, to get to that point. So,thank you. Um,Director Hillenbrand and then Director Vuto.I just wanted to say thank you. I think, you know, one of the things that I kepthearing, too, is about teachers being regulated, and kids are so sensitive andattentive to the adults around them, and they're amplifiers for how we're feelingand and what we're projecting, even if we don't know it. And so, beingregulated as the adults helps the kids stay regulated, and I think that's soimportant, and um, it was really neat to hear teachers uh recognize that, too,that that they were regulated, right? Becausewe also feel all the things around us, too. And so, that that was so um,wonderful, and just want to say thank you for the fidelity at which you'reimplementing this, too, because you can say you're doing things, but ifyou're not implementing them with fidelity, it doesn't mean anything, andI see that you're getting the results. And uh, just want to say thank you somuch for the work that you're putting into this. Um, it's clearly bearingresults. You hear it from the kids directly, so.Yeah, Director Vuteo. Yeah, I don't know if I have to speak.I was going to say, but yeah, I think uh, I wanted to say thank you for youall that you guys are doing with that program. Um, I'm not sure, do we haveany comparable programs in other schools?We have Catalyst in other schools, yeah. >> Okay.Yeah, because I think, like uh, Director Hillebrand already said, when the adultsare regulated, the students don't go too far off. Right? Even if they come toschool already disregulated, it takes the calm voice ofthe teacher to bring them back to that learning environment. So, I think uh,this is a program that, obviously, the data is showing that it's working forus, and thank you guys for doing that. Thank you.Um, yeah, before I get a picture, just a couple of things that I also want toecho my thanks. Um, you know, really, as you were sharing, I kept thinking aboutthis is an investment in in improving school culture,improving um, student and staff safety. Uh, having some urgency aroundinstructional minutes, um, building student and staff skills,which in your words ultimately provides active student-centered learning.Like, that's key to all of our kids. That Those are the words, right? That'swhat we want to see. And what your kindergarten teacher shared saves energyand helps her feel calm and confident. Again, I would love that if every singlestaff was able to say that. So, thanks for the awesome presentation and for thesupport you keep providing each other. Much appreciated. I'd love to get apicture with you all with some certificates to commemorate this moment.Excellent. Great job. Thank you. Yeah, it's one of my favorite quiet downplaces. It's a water Yeah, it's one of myfavorite quiet down places. That's the side of our district.Oh, you're fine. You're good. We're trying to We're trying to let aphoto bomb you. See, we know that Okay, so just asecond. board meeting this time cuz we're going to get good pictures. Can Imove myself and my chair out of the way? Okay.Oh, perfect. Thank you. It's awesome. you. Thank you.Okay. Okay.Thank you. Thank you very much. Don't do that. The next thing on our agenda is thedistrict system of continuous improvements report and it's districtscorecard data. Yes,as Dr. Arkin comes up, um she as you recall has been with us before.She has been instrumental in helping us land the plane on some of the districtscorecard work that was started in a collaborative manner last yearand she's helping us move it along as we work with our leaders and staff to makesure that we're measuring and reporting on that which matters most to us. Sowith that Eric, I'll go ahead and hand it to you. Thank you. As you recall back in October we sharedthe district's We are going to justa small snapshot. February 17th about whether we taught it, it's aboutwhether students learned it. And so it's really about helping us think throughwe've taught it, but were our instructional practices effective for tosee outcomes with our students. And so we think about assessment in alot of different ways. Here are a few up on the screen. We have formativeassessments where teachers are checking on a day-to-day basis, daily basis,moment-to-moment, minute-to-minute have my students learned what I've hopedthey've learned. We have summative or interimassessments. Those are more unit assessments at the end of a unit thatreally check for that student proficiencyspecific to the standards they were teaching within that unit. We havestandardized assessments, so our MCA or Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment, ourACTs, our WIDA, again looking at student proficiency. And then lastly, we haveuniversal screening assessments and these are short, research-based academicassessments used to really identify our students that are at risk or notproficient. And so I've made this analogy ofa doctor office screening. I have a little 12-month-old and I've been to thedoctor's office far too much in the last couple of months that I want to and theyalways start these doctor appointments in the same way with thislooking at her facial coloring. Is she eating and drinking? They do atemperature check, an ear examination, and a throat examination. All of these,right, as basic wellness indicators to her wellness, right? And then thinkingthrough are there additional diagnostics that need to happen. So when we thinkabout universal screeners in a school district, it's very similar. We givequick assessments in math, reading, and behavioral assessments with really theidea of how is the academic health and well-being of our academics here atRobbinsdale. We are going to look at trends acrossgrade levels across schools to really learn from what's happening at oneschool and how do we emulate that and look at it at another site. It's goingto inform school decisions, right? Are do we need to put more supports in oursecond grade at one school? How do we make those shifts?And then lastly it's really going to support again looking at those at-riskstudents and teachers can look at those reports for those at-risk students aswell. So the assessment that we give here atRobbinsdale, kindergarten and first grade take the early reading and earlymath assessment. These areletter names, letter sounds, on concepts of print, matching quantities.And then grades 2 through 12 take our A reading and our A math.These are more skills around reading and fluency, comprehension,and again broad math skills as well. So they're adaptivetests in nature, they're computer-based. And so they're assessments that areoffered nationally. 2 million teachers give these assessments. So we are givenproficiency cut scores that are nationally normedand criterion-referenced. So for example, here is our second grade and ifyou look at we have two categories, on track and low risk are consideredproficient according to our assessments. Some risk and high risk are consideredbelow benchmark or not proficient. And as you can see, our assessment benchmarkgets harder and harder from fall to winter to spring. So we have a movingtarget as well that we're working for. So again, I think these universalscreeners they're offered three times a year, so they're really giving us apulse on the instruction throughout the yearand really help make help the district make informed decisions throughout thatschool year. As the MCAs are really also a summative and giving us proficiencydata, but they're given at the end of the year as a have you mastered thisyear's standards and we often times don't get a lot of that data until thesummer time and so can't we can use that data, but it's also just not quite astimely as as some of the other data. So, it's adifferent data set that we're looking at this evening than typicaluse. So, with that we're going to jump rightin. I think I wanted to just note we have alot of work to do in terms of our academic achievement and at the sametime I'm trying to highlight some of the positives that we're seeing at differentsites and different schools and in different grade levels. So, I'll makeboth of those notes. Here is our early reading assessment. So,this is our overall proficiency in gradeskindergarten and first grade. The green represents our proficient or thaton track and and some risk and then our red is really our students that arebelow that proficiency level. As you can see from the left side of the screen, Ihave last year's comparative data as I think that's just helpful to be lookingcomparatively in previous school years. So, we have fall, winter and spring oflast year and then we have fall and winterof this year on the right side. I've tried to note. So, here in the fallwe went up 1% from 52% to 53% and we've gone last winter we were at50% so year-over-year we've increased 3% in our K 1 proficiency. Um in our early reading proficiency,I've broken it down here by grade level, so you can see our kindergarteners wereat 57% proficient in the fall and winter 55%.Um again noting that this percentage is our proficient students.You want to read the right side, um that again is our students of color are 42%proficient, and then the N stands for our total population or total studentsthere. I've highlighted in green increases. Oh,clarification for the graph. Yeah, on the right is that kindergarten firstgrade or both? That's all trying to understand.Uh on the right with the students of color? Yeah. That's both kindergartenand first combined, yep. Thank you. Mhm. Okay.Um some overall proficiency shout-outs that is is really strong data that we'reseeing is Noble had an increase of 16% in their proficiency data from fall towinter. Uh Northport had a 10% increase, Sea had a 7% increase, and Neal had an8% Um which are uh incredibly high when thinking aboutpercent increase over the course of one assessment period.I want to just name some of those implementation strategies that you heardfrom Assistant Director Roberts a couple months ago. She talked through some ofthat literacy work that um is happening. We have a K and 1 science of readingphonics curriculum, and not only do we have that curriculum, but it's in yeartwo of implementation. Uh so those teachers are already feeling stronger, Ithink, than year one, I would I would say. Um and then we have data-informedinstruction as well happening in this second year. So nine Nine of 11 schoolshave achieved 100% data entry for their mastery checks. And what that means isthey are looking at their summative assessments and making instructionaldecisions based on those at nine out of our 11 elementary schools. Then we'll jump into our A readingoverall proficiency in grades two through five.As you can see from fall to winter, we've decreased by 4%. Similarly, we hada decrease from fall to winter last year by 4% as well.And we're stagnant and similar at 49% at last winter. Second grade had an increase.And fourth grade is highlighted here as a pretty large decrease and somethingwe're digging into regarding that fourth grade data. I'll give you a minute tojust look through this slide. And then something I'm naming is PilgrimLane had a 1% decrease in proficiency, Lakeview had a 1%decrease, and Northport had a 3% decrease. And you might be saying, "Whyare we celebrating a decrease in proficiency?" And that is a greatquestion to be asking. One thing that I've done a lot ofresearch on is just understanding implementationof new curriculum. And this was one study that came out of New York CityReads. It was 2022 through 2023. They implemented newcurriculums at 1,700 schools. And so these were thethree curriculums that they implemented at differentdifferent schools. And on average, this HMH had a 4.6% decrease in theirproficiency on their state assessments. Wit & Wisdom, which is the curriculumwe're using, had a 4.3% decrease. And EL Education had a 2% decrease.So, umkind of what this is norming or explaining a little bit is just thatimplementation dip. Um and a very common theme around uh implementing that newcurriculum is this idea that umthe there's a systematic shift happening with our academics and and it takes timein order to see that that that proficiency data.Uh we have a learning curve for teachers, even our best teachers thathave uh the most effective instructional practices are learning new instructionalpractices, new technology, new assessments, new pacing, uh which justslows down their polished craft. Um and then our student productive struggle, uhthe bar in terms of rigor is really raised. And so, um it takes time forstudents to catch up with their academic vocabulary,um their problem-solving, um and analysis work that all takes timefor for students in terms of rigor. But, I I gathered a few other umlarge districts across the country that are are finding similar uh dips as weare seeing. So, something that is happening, asmentioned, we are in our first year of implementation of that science ofreading comprehensive curriculum. Um and so, we are supporting with a lotof that professional learning uh in August and all throughout ourprofessional learning days both for educators and for schoolleaders. Uh there's coaching and school visits that school leaders have beengoing doing walk-throughs and learning alongside Wit & Wisdom, um and just whatdoes that curriculum really look like within practice. Um and thencollaborative learning or sorry, collaborative planning to supportteachers with that heavy lift of planning this this curriculum. So then I will jump into a readingoverall with grade 6-8. Umwe have a decrease of 2% from fall to winter and uh1% increase since last winter. Have our proficiency across grade levelsand with our students of color. And then RMS was our middle school thatmade an increase of 2%, which was really exciting to see. I know that they'vebeen working really hard within their professional learning communities alongwith their data literacy practices using the screener data to supportuh teaching and also their MTSS process. So I wanted to highlight that.Here's our 9th through 12th proficiency data. This is a subset population. Notall students in grades 9 through 12 are required to take this assessment. Umthere's certain requirements if they've been uh proficient on their 10th gradeMCA, for example, they wouldn't have to take it in 11th and 12th grade. So it'sgoing to skew the data a bit, um but still worth noting here. And then alsothere was a new requirement around students needing to take uh anadditional diagnostic assessment if they are below grade level. So you'll seeuh our numbers underneath the spring. We have 1,712students taking it in the spring of last year. We have 2,269taking it. It's almost 500 more students taking it this winter because of thatnew requirement. And here is ourum grade level proficiencies and our demographic. >> Um, something to note to just around ourimplementation with 9th through 12th. Um, as you've been hearing a lot aboutthe bar meetings and and supporting those students with no credit or makingsure they're not rece- making sure they're receiving credit. So, those barmeetings are are crucial and then also their professional learning communitieshelping support data-driven um, assessments. Here is the new diagnostic. It's areading diagnostic that was required by MDE within our um, READ Act. And so,this was uh,we had to give this assessment one time this school year for any students thatare below that 40th percentile, also known as um, not proficient or atbenchmark. And so, you can see the total number of students that took theassessment on the left-hand column. And then this gave us information regardingwhat type of reading intervention students would need. Um, and so, as youcan see a lot of our students um, in grades 5th through 12th are in thatneeding that multi-syllabic word reading intervention. This information is being used this yearright now. Uh, MDE also just released intervention curriculum that's approvedby the state. Um, and so, we have a committee right nowworking with looking at those curriculums and determining what's thebest use knowing these are our needs. And now I'll shift into math. Here's ourearly math. So, this is our screener assessment for kindergarten and firstgrade. Um,we have a decrease of 5% from fall to winter and a 3% increase uh,year-over-year from winter last year to this year. Here's our overallgrade level and demo uh demographics. Here's our grades 2 through 5.So, a decrease of 1% from fall to winter and similarly, a decrease of 1% fromlast winter. Grade level. Here's our uh A math for grades 6through 8. And then our grade level. And then finally, our 9 through 12.So, uh increase of 2% from fall to winterand an increase of 9% from last winter. Till now. And then some district implementationsupport that's also happening with on on math and literacy.Um we have uh department leader structure kind of reinvigorating thatstructure. Uh that's happening specifically for our secondary corecourses. So this group of teachers is helping plan PD. They're helpingcurriculum writing to ensure guaranteed and viablecurriculum. They're doing a lot of the standards alignment work for newstandards that MDE has put out in our fourcore content areas. And it's really a structure to help support feedback loopsbetween the district and schools, but also school to school so creating thatsystem across our schools. We have a math curriculum pilot that'shappening starting reviewing resources this right now.We have a secondary literacy committee as I mentioned working on thatintervention curriculum. We have assessment committee supportingsome of our assessments decisions that need to be made.We have continuous improvement review for school leaders. So the schoolleaders are also doing a comprehensive needs assessment where they're lookingat all the different data metrics at their specific school sites that arealso impacted with this screener data.We've been supporting with Educate Climber software training. So softwarethat houses a lot of the data and how do educators use it and our MTSS folksas well. We have professional learning communities that are going on. As we'veheard tonight Catalyst is a huge implementation for support bar andrestorative practices. Any questions? Thank you. Lots ofinformation. Any questions from board members?Director Long. So I'm assuming for the math and readingA that you're talking about FastBridge that we're using for those universalscreeners. >> Yep. For both math and reading A readingand A math. Okay. And so then I know the younger grades you have to dothat paper but the older grades are they that's just all on computer for them.>> Mhm. Okay.>> Yep. Um and then I was also wondering, too,like with the high school bands, about the opting out and what that impactmight have had on any of the data. Correct. Yeah, so umit's not really that they're opting out, but they they're not required to takeit, and this is part of the assessment um But parents can opt their studentsout of True. Yep. assessments, too. Including those, too. That's correct.Yeah. It's hard to know what that impact does.I think I don't um I don't have a lot of reference for thatat the moment. I think we could probably we're looking at no credit data, andwe're looking at credits earned data. So, we have a lot of those types ofmetrics. Um but yes, we have kids, and and if wehave a lot of students that are opting out, and they're going to be aproficient, we're going going to see an impact to the data. But already, evenwith students that are if they're proficient, they're nothaving to take this. So, that already is going to be a skewed data set.And sorry, can I go on with my question? >> Follow up. Okay. So, too, with thatopt-out thing, so you had talked about there was some new requirements Yeah.now, and I know there are some parents who are still very much like, you know,they do not want their child participating in FastBridge and MCA,things like that. So, now with these new requirements,uh what are the options for parents as faras opting out? >> Great question.They can opt out. I think where a lot of these assessments are are being requiredby in legislation, because we know they help students. So, that CAP theassessment is targeting what specific skills our kids need in order to get tograde level. So, if we're opting out, we're not going to have that deeperunderstanding of what those skills are for kidswould would be the problem, right? So, in the future, could we know kind of inthat high school range, like how many kids might possibly be opting out? Yeah.Cuz then that kind of skews our data a little.>> Yeah. And then I'll come back for my nextOkay. Director Wutoh, then Director Printice-son.Yeah, thanks for that presentation. I do have a question on the implementationdip based on your research. Obviously, our studentswe have a long ways to go. More than half uhstudents are not performing where they should be, right?So, with that implementation dip, how soon do we expect that to level out sowe can start to see some progress? I knew I was going to get this question.So, I think that it really depends, right? We have right now we're on yearone of an implementation plan. We We have 3 years of implementation. Whatdoes that you know, for year two and then year three? A lot of it is I thinkgoing to depend on how quickly teachers are willing to implement with fidelity.If we have teachers that are only using portions of the curriculum or not doingit holistic we're not we're not going to see thatdata shift as quickly, I think. So, I don't have a good answer to it, butthose are two variables, I think, in that equation.Thank you. Director Printice-son. Umfollow up on that. I was going to bring this up, but I did a quick searchbecause I'm super curious. Um I found two studies that actually referencesreads. There's some pretty good data that shows a few years in the futureon 78% increase. I can forward it if you want it. Thankyou. Um my question though, back at the twoslides back, you have this A math proficiency. This goes back to whatDirector Long mentions. So, grade 12, it says 121 studentsand you only have 16. So, I think some people might see that number go, "Oh mygoodness, only 16% of our seniors are butto your point, I just so everyone's to clear, that's 16% of a smaller subset.Right? So, andwe probably have that then across all of these grades to some degree.Not quite as drastic because there is metrics for 12th grade for exampletaking the ACT. There's certain metric or qualifications that you can have tonot take it. And that's on the assessment calendar to those specificcutoffs. Superintendent Brent.Yeah, I was trying to find the slide where it said it, but it it doesn'treally matter. I guess my question comes to your point about implementing withfidelity, right? You know, you said something about nine out of 11 schools,you know, implementing something or trackingum data. Andthat that's the question, right? You know, how do we get it so that we aregetting so that no matter where my kid goes to school,if they're in third grade, they're getting the same high qualityeducation. They're in sixth grade, if they're ineighth grade, it shouldn't matter what school they're in, that they're gettingthe same high quality education that is implemented with the same rigor.Um and I'm not looking at you specifically.This is just like a general question, right? That and I know I'm sure thereare good reasons that these two schools haven't achieved the 100% data entry fortheir mastery checks, but it and I'm not picking on anybody, but it's more justthe general question of how do we get there, right? Because until we getthere, kids then we're going to haveinequities. Right? And we see the inequities playingout in this data. And so, that I guess that'squestion mark. I'm just going to leave it there. You don't have to answer it.I'm not asking you to because that's not fair to you.But that is that is the bigger question here.Is that if if we're not doing things at the same level at all the schools, thenthey're going to be inequities in education. And I think that's one of thebig questions we're trying to answer even with the Vision 2030, right? And Ithink, you know, this highlights some of that for me.Um when we're talking about one high school, two high schools, things likethat, this is really where the rubber hits the road when you see differentdata at different schools, some of it is just different kids and different mixes,but also some of it is implementation. So, it's just a a thought to put outthere in the in the world. Superintendent, I do want if that'sokay. I I I appreciate your questions so muchbecause you're right and you heard it in the Catalyst presentation as well. Ifwe're not implementing with fidelity, we can't say that we're improving or notimproving because of particular strategies or assessments or curriculum.I am incredibly impressed with what the teaching and learning team are ourprincipals and our teachers have been doing in terms of having data to monitorthe implementation of new curriculum. I haven't always been places where that'staken place. So, I just have a a huge congratulations and gratitude to ourteam for saying we are investing tons of money and time and effort, how are wesupporting our teachers? How are we supporting our leaders? And then how arewe ensuring some accountability in what we expect to be happening in theclassroom? So, even that we have that data, that nine of 11 of our schools areimplementing with 100%, that's a that's a win. That's something I haven't alwaysbeen accustomed to. Um so, thanks to a lot of you in this room for doing thatwork. Yeah, let me let me reiterate thatbecause I don't want to sound like I'm >> You did it. This is great. It was theright question. It was the right question.And it's part of that system, continuous system of improvement. What's our nextstep with those two schools that now need an additional layer of support fromfrom the teaching and learning team, from the data folks, whatever, so thatwe can make sure that they can Right. And I'm sure they're greatschools that want to do it well, too. So, that's And thank you for this data.We Without this transparency, we couldn't even ask you these questions,so you're also opening yourself up to this. So, thank you for the transparencyof the data. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you. It's a lot of data,and some of it's hard data to see, but it's important data for us to see, andit gives us a lot of information about what needs to be done. So, thank you.You're very welcome. And one more question. Director Long has morequestions. Try not to hog all the time. Um so, my other question here, too, Iwould just wanted to make sure in my head I had a clear understanding of So,you talked about the continuous um improvement review by school leaders.So, who is that comprised of? All of our school principals do it, um and thenwe're also having assistant principals looking at the data as well during theirprincipal meetings. Okay. So, is that at each school, theneach school has its own school leadership team that looks at the data,or >> Good question. We're We're focusing on adistrict um kind of needs assessment that's happening at a district levelwith principals, and then at one with assistant principals. They're looking atthe same data. The idea is yes, that they also bring their school data backto their ILTs and do a similar process at their schools.Okay. And then I'm wondering, too, um for the students of color section, isthere any possibility that we could get that separated out a little bit more forthat students of color area? Is there any waywe can get that separated out a little bit more with the data?>> uh worded in our district scorecard is students of color and white, and that'swhy it's calculated this way in there. But, yeah, we have demographic dataacross all racial demographics. Okay, and is there any way we can see that,get access to that? Yep.Okay. That's all I had for right now.Any further questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.Okay. Continuing on with the district systemof continuous improvement reports, we have theme C, collaboration andpartnerships, strengthening mutual communication and responsiveness withall stakeholders. Superintendent? Excellent. Thanks very much. As Derek'sgetting set here, um, just as we ensure that we continue to report out on themonitoring, um, of the priorities in our strategic plan, uh, we've got Mr.Williams with us this evening to provide an update, um, on progress to date inthat strategic theme that you just mentioned, Chair. Thanks for being here,Derek. Yeah, good evening, Chair Evans Becker, Superintendent, um, members ofthe board, anybody watching at home. Uh, I am Derek Williams. I'm the interimdirector of communications here with the district, and, uh,tonight we're going to talk a little bit about strategic plan priority theme C 1,which is strengthening mutual communication and responsiveness withall stakeholders. Uh, as we know, the mission ofRobbinsdale Area Schools is to inspire and educate all learners to developtheir unique potential and positively contribute to their community.Uh, and our strategic plan aligns both with that mission and our districtvision. Uh, and within the strategic plan andpriority work that's focused on strategic themes with outcomes groundedin equity. And all of this is part of our system ofcontinuous improvement. Uh, as I mentioned, I'm going to beexploring the ways, uh, that we're working this year in the realm ofstrategic plan priority theme C uh strengthening mutual communicationresponsiveness with all stakeholders. Uh on my team,um we also have uh Armstrong assistant principal Cameron Opal,uh Noble principal Dr. Michael Rickenberg, uh Zorba Ross, the principalof Fair School Crystal, and Robert Ware, our principal at Robbinsdale AcademyHighview and RVA. Um this work connects directly to thenotion that uh we're a place where studentsuh and families uh can believe, belong, and become.Um and families cannot participate uh in the school district and in theireducational journey uh if they cannot understand or access the informationthat we're providing. Uh so C1 charter uh is uh focused onunderstanding family needs and improving how we communicate, especially for ourmultilingual families. Uh some of the work that we've beendoing this year, uh we've been tracking enrollment interest and feedback. Uhwe've been auditing language needs and expanding translated districtcommunications as needed. Uh and some of this work came from thegaps that we saw both in uh Robbinsdale uh Reimagined Ardale Vision2030, the community engagement process that weuh in initiated last year, um as well as a bunch of enrollmentmarketing data that we've collected over the last couple of years.Um we figure that we need better data, clearer language supports, and moreconsistent translation practices across all of our schools.Uh first, umthis year we have implemented three opt-in surveys as part of ourenrollment process. Um instead of guessing why families comeor go, um we built feedback and data gathering directly into the process.Uh, the first one is a learn more survey. Uh, so when families come to thedistrict's website or come to our enrollment center,they might not be ready yet to enroll with us, but they're seeking moreinformation. And so in those cases, we've asked those families, when they dolearn more, to fill out some information for us.Uh, we also do the same thing uh, with an enrollment confirmation survey. Sowhen a family does choose us, choose to enroll here in our school district, uh,we're asking them to fill out a survey. And the same thing for families that areleaving us. Uh, we've asked them and we've implemented an exit survey. Uh,tell us what we're doing well, tell us what we're doing wrong, what are waysthat we can grow. And importantly, we've asked them aswell uh, if they would consider coming back. Uh,and so we're gathering information like email and phone information, so that wayum, over time, we'll be able to reconnectwith those families who have told us that they're leaving. Some of the data that we've gathered,um, the learn more survey, uh, we collectedthis school year so far 375 responses. And in those, 13.1%of those requesting more information about Robbinsdale are asking fornon-English communication. Um,for our enrollment confirmation survey, we're learning that folks are obviouslychoosing us because we're their neighborhood school, they're livinghere. And so they're going to join us becauseuh, they want to join their neighborhood school.But we've also heard some feedback that's consistent with families arechoosing this school district because of our diversity and inclusion efforts andbecause of the sped support services that we offer.Um also our exit survey, we've only had 17 responses this school year. Most ofthe folks that have told us why they're leaving have done so because they'removing or they've they're leaving our community.Um but we've also had some honest uh answers of people are leaving because ofacademic class size concerns, uh dissatisfaction with the district, ortheir student just doesn't fit in a program, umand they need something a little different. Uh in addition this school year,um we have uh analyzed all of the different waysthat we're uh providing translation and interpreter services to our schoolcommunities. And to date uh 11,499minutes of language line interpreter services have been requested and usedacross the system. And in addition to that, another 370 interpreter requestshave been submitted through our language services form with our student servicesteam. Uhthe top languages requested for interpreter services obviously areSpanish and Somali, which are the two languages that we translate most oftenin our district communication and that our website is uh optimized to translatein. But in addition to that, French, uh Haitian Creole, Cambodian, Khmer, abunch of other languages are rising to numbers umuh that we need to address. Uh we also researched best practicesfound in surrounding translations, uh including what other peer schooldistricts are doing, as well as state and federal guidelines.Um and itin that uh in that study um the best practices that translation becompleted when interpreter flags uh reach 5% or more. So, if 5% of a cohortor a student population uh needs translation in particular language, uhwe provide those services. Uh our communication team uh we're supported inour language services and translations by a company called GBR.Uh when they're not available, we also use the language line uh and or staff umthat are available to spread services. So far this school year, uh we've had 52crisis communications that have gone out. Uh those are things that you as aboard uh often see. Um it can be anything from a fender bender on a busto uh a lockdown because of a medicalemergency. Umwe also have a number of larger district-wide uh messages that we've hadtranslated including a lot of our ice and federal agent concern communicationsthat have gone out this school year. Um all of our SOD process and reimagineArdale updates. Uh and then we had one inclement weatherclosure, knock on wood we don't have any more of those.Um these are all high-stress moments for families and providing translatedinformation helps families feel informed and supported.Using all of that data and information, uh one concrete change that we're goingto be making using this data is we're going to be transitioning to somethingcalled Smore for our newsletter and crisis messages.Uh one of the great things about Smore iswe can make it standardized across the district, which we do now, but it's alittle bit more cumbersome. There's a lot of training involved and in gettingstaff at our schools up to speed on the messaging platform that we currently usethrough our website provider. Smore is a little bit more intuitive and a littlebit more user-friendly, but the real upshot to Smore is that it providestranslations in 160 languages and the end user gets to choose that.And so when the newsletter comes to their email box, whether it be a schoolsending it or the district sending it, the end user will be able to selecttheir preferred language and it'll be translated.This supports what we're learning through our enrollment marketing and ourfamily communications. So to recap, 375 enrollment surveyresponses have been tracked where we're asking specifically whatlanguage preferences our audiences are requesting.We analyze our language services requests. Auditedour 52 crisis communications and we'll be implementing Smorethis school year in time for launching it before the next school yearand our back-to-school season begins. Some of our next steps in addition tothe launching of Smore is we're going to be completing an infinite campuslanguage audit. Basically, we're going to audit theinterpreter flags within Infinite Campus to make sure those who are flagged stillneed support and those who may need support and don't have flags can get thetranslation services that they need. And then we're also going to be doingquarterly data reviews of those enrollment feedback reviews just toto see if there's any changes that we need to be marking making sure thatwe're meeting the needs of our families.And we'll also keep supporting schools so translations are easier and moreconsistent. Any questions? Dr. Long.Okay, so I need some clarifying information first and then I have I dohave another question, too. But so what is a GBR language service? So GBRlanguage services is a company. It's a third-party vendor and they provide bothin-person interpreter services and translation services when we requestthem. So I literally will make a request withGBR and say, "We need interpreter services for an event." UmSo um when we had interpreter servicesavailable at our September 23rd school board meeting when the reimagined teampresented their recommendations, we organized all of that through GBR. Sothey have an actual person then that does the translations versus a computersystem? They have a team, yes. Human beings review a document that we submitto them. They translate it and then send it back.And then I was just wondering if I could get some more information about Smore.What exactly is it? How is it different than what, you know, exactly what we'reusing now? Yeah, so what we use right now,our website host is called Finalsite. One of the platform services that theyoffer is called Finalsite messaging. That is how all of our schools but onesubmit newsletters to their school community. And so the newsletters thatwe craft in our communications department, our direct line staffnewsletter, our discover family newsletter, and any special newslettersthat we send that provide SOD and reimagined updates, or inclement weatherupdates, are all run through that. It's clunky. You need to understand alittle bit about content management systems. So we're training our schoolsecretaries and our media specialists and our principals fairly often in howto use it. The end user has no ability to have thattranslated for them within their email service. Um so the idea with that is ifyou click on a headline in that e-newsletter platform, you cometo our website and now you have translation services available to you inSomali and Spanish. What Smore does is it simplifies thelayout process of newsletters. And so our schools will be able to layoutnewsletters more efficiently, maybe more often, providing more information tofamilies. And the end user then will be able totranslate those messages in real time right there in their email client folderuh in any one of 160 different languages of their choice. It won't just beSpanish or Somali and they don't have to come to our website to do it. Okay, so then my final question is umSo a couple years back we had an issue with some translation going out tofamilies that had some terms in it that were not kind referring to them.Um and so I know you had mentioned an audit of those emergency, but what otheraudits are we doing to ensure that messagesand the translations are accurate and that we're not having that mistake wheregroups of people are being called bad names in their own language.>> Sure. Um that issue predates me. I wasn't with the district when thatoccurred. Of course, I've heard about it. UmThe messages that we currently have that areuh translated through GBR have previously been audited at times byour face team to ensure quality and to make sure that they're precise and thatwe're having empathetic language and we're not running into mistakes. Nowgranted, we do not run every single one of our translated messages through ourFACE team isfrankly, we just wouldn't be able to do that with the capacity that we have.Um so, that's one of the ways in whichwe're currently making sure that the translated messages that we're providingour families are accurate and empathetic and don't run into the same issues thatthat happened before. Um Director Wito and then DirectorHillenbrand. Yeah, you going to say part of my question, but the second part iswith Smarts, is the end user able to send a message in their first languageback to the district for it to be translated into English?Uh that's a good question. I frankly we haven't explored that.Um that's something that I can certainlylook into. Um Director Hillenbrand and thenDirector Brenden. Well, I was just going to say that'smore um first of all, Armstrong does theirnewsletter in Smarts, so if anybody wants to go, just go on to Armstrong'swebsite and actually if you pull it up online, right at the top it saystranslate and then you can just select a language and you can see it starts offwith about 15 languages starting A and thatmost of them I've never heard of before. So, pretty awesome. Um and it's veryuser-friendly and easy laid out and also more cost-effectivethan most of like Mailchimp and and Survey or not SurveyMonkey, but youknow, the other ones that are out there, it's actually much cheaper than most ofthe other ones. So, um in terms of saving money, that's a good move. Umbut I just wanted to say thank you for doing all this, especially thetranslation piece um I think is going to go a long way. So, um just wanted to saythank you. That's all. Director Brenden. Um thanks for thepresentation first. As someone who's had to use Finalsite, umgreat. Um make it go away. Um number two, is there any expectationthat the uh uh that you'll use the GBR less because you go to Smore or theyjust so separate that it's probably won't? Uh it isnot only possible, but likely. So, currently when we send crisiscommunications, we do that not with the newsletter platform, but with InfiniteCampus. And that has no translations services atall. And so, anytime we have a crisis message that we're sending either to aschool or classroom or a bus, we're getting that translated with GBR.School-based uh crisis communications will now beable to be routed through Smore uh using the parent lists that wealready have and knowing that Smore then, as an end user, you can choosebetween 160 different like different languages, we'll no longer need to havethose crisis communications translated ahead of time before we send them. So,the short answer is, yeah, we will use GBR>> less. Okay, cool. And it'll save a lot of time. And money.And money. Okay.Um anybody else have a question or comment?I don't see any. Thank you very much. Good presentation.>> Sarah. Thank you. Good job.All right. Next up is our consent agenda. Items onthe consent agenda are routine in nature and will be enacted with one motion.There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a board member uhrequest that, in in which case the item would be removed from the consent agendaand voted on separately. Uh the consent agenda items include administrative,personnel matters, and financial matters. Do I have a move to accept theconsent agenda? Director Bowman is moving it, seconded by DirectorBrendenason. Okay.I don't see any hands, and so this is a roll call vote. It's been moved andseconded. Let's vote on the consent please.Thank you. Uh Director Wuchter. Yes. Director Long. No. DirectorHillenbrand. Yes. Chair Evans Becker.>> Yes. Director Brennison. Yes.Director Bowman votes yes and Director Bassett is absent.Okay. We have the consent agenda done.Unfinished business, Reimagining our deal vision 2030.Do you want me to introduce her or do you want to do you something? I thinkthat he needs very little introduction. We're going to continuethe conversation and the presentation and the work that we started last week.We'll be able to answer some questions,provide some additional information and continue to dig a little bit deeper withour work. So with that I will hand it over to Dr. McDowell. And once againboard members, I'm going to allow our presenter to finish the presentationbefore we start asking questions cuz they may be answered later on in thepresentation. Okay? Sounds great. Thank you.School board, Chair Evans Becker, DirectorSuperintendent Stahle, CFO Weisel, myself and joining us will be BrentJones and Ellie Gilliam from Nexus. They are doing double duty tonight becausethey are finishing a presentation in another school district and are on theirway here to meet ours or to meet up with us. So they will bejoining us shortly as well.As Superintendent Stahle mentioned, we're continuing the process to talktonight about facilities programming, long-term planning.And the purpose of tonight is really torevisit information that we shared last time,some data, options and some more detail. We want to examine some of thedecision-making domino effects based on the conversation we had last time andthen we wanted to provide most importantly some specific answers toquestions that the board raised after we presented last time.The outcomes for tonight really are for, hopefully, you as a board to giveus more detailed direction with regard to scope around three things.High schools, middle schools, and Spanish immersion program.Right? We're continuing to try to chunk this out a little bit because it's areally big undertaking, but I'm hoping that after we get through the slide decktonight, um not that we'll have all the detailed answers, but more of a specificdirection of where the board's feeling comfortable exploring in more detailwith regard to the high schools, with middle schools, and then Spanishimmersion programming. And then, in addition to that,obviously, we're hoping that we'll get additional questions that will help youin future decision-making. So, as we start off,like we've done before, you've seen the slide many times. We're in the middle ofour phase one and all of phase two planning andpreparation right now, and that's driving what we're still calling a draftshort-term timeline at this point. I'm thinking that by the next time we get toa board meeting, draft will not be there because we'll be feeling pretty goodabout where we are. But, we are in that second line. Right now, we are beginningthe the phase of what are the initial options as we review data, confirmdirection, and we have our construction management group that's on board withus. Last time we discussed this, we talkedabout what we're using as a foundation for our reality, and really the the fivebig documents are the demographic study, the facilities condition assessment, therecommendations from the Vision 2030 team, the residential study, and therecent SOD approval. And we talked last time about how we'retriangulating specific information from those pieces of data. The enrollmentprojections, right? The additional facilities and theidea that as we move through time, it's likely that there will be otherconsolidations. The idea that we have remaining facilities with deferredmaintenance, regardless of what we do and how we move on. And then we're kindof wrestling with this recommendation set from the Vision 2030 team. What Whatdoes one high school look like? What doesn't one high school look like? Whatdo six to eight elementary schools look like? What's it look like with twoelementary schools? What does a What's a district-wide identity look like? Whatdoes consistent programming for all look like? So now we're really getting intothat phase of what might be, and what do we have to do to get there? And it is abalance between buildings and programming, buildings and programming.How do we do this? And so that's where we look at that residential survey. Whatare the initial results of that first survey? Do they support the work thatwe're doing conceptually? How many of our residents can we assumeare either supportive, regardless of what we are doing, or can be somewhatpersuadable? And then does the community get behind or atleast have support for what some or all of the recommendations were? And then abeginning tax tolerance, which is a which is a really rough estimate becausethere are no information provided behind that question.We then talked about how from our perspective, the high school decision isreally the first domino. Once we kind of figure out whether we'regoing to stay with two high schools, we're going to look at one high school,then everything else kind of starts to fall into place, and it's just adependency of what is the priority. And so with that, I'm going to turn itover to Cif Amundson, who has the next couple of slides to start answering someof your board specific questions from last time.Good evening, and thank you. One of the questions, when we started about andI'll it's an aggressive timeline when we're looking at it was a an electioncalendar and why we hit deadlines we hit. I'dspecifically to the to this slide stand-alone. In in blue in light blue isthe November 3rd 2026 date, but I'd like to call your attention to the columnthat is all the way to the right. Because that guides the processregardless of the different election cycles that we wouldthat we would be using. For example, four to five monthsprior to an election, we need to be finalizing our scope and plan. And then120 days prior to election, the school board needs toapprove and submit the review and comment. You can find that regardless ofwhere we are where an election would occur, but again, right now our focus ison a November 3rd election. And at the last school board meeting, wehad talked about what are the pros and cons to a November anda November election. The cost we identified even during themeeting at the at the last school board meeting that the cost was less becausewe are able to uh partner with other entities and theadministrative burden is not solely supported by our district.Arguably, a pro is a higher voter turnout. You get more voices involved inthe community uh because they are coming for other issues as well.The fall is a fantastic time to engage our community. Our our families areattending many events and opportunities. And it's easier to share informationabout our request typically at that time of year.And then from a tax levy perspective, when we have a successful election inNovember, we are able to get that onto our levy cycle come January. So, if weknow the result of that November 3rd, that is being presented and spoken to atthe truth and taxation hearing at the beginning of December and ultimatelycertified by the board as we move into the new year. So, it's anice clean start as far as a levy goes for our taxpayers.Some of the cons are we we are competing with items on the ballot, like I said.So, what usually generates your your uh high voter turnout, you are alsocompeting with the governors, the Senate, uhthe the state and the So,there's a lot of noise sometimes explaining what our issue is and what weare uh looking for support for is harder to get across becausethere's distraction in other races, if you will.Um from a levy uh tax levy perspective, if we wait, that's when we start to getinto a mid-levy cycle where we're looking at if something umwere to be approved in February and April, we're doing like a capitalizedinterest. It just gets a little bit more clunky as it relates to our levy cycle.And then we do run um the likelihood that there would beincreased in construction cost due to inflation. This was This chart has been seen orthis graphic has been seen a few times now. It is Hazel Reinhardt, ademographer that was that had presented to the school board. I believe it wasFebruary, March, so about a year ago at this time, and I don't remember if wepresented it at the last school board meeting or not. I think we did.Just to highlight, where are we versus what did Hazel say or where did Hazelsay we would be at the time? We had had a conversation about our enrollment andwhat happens if we grow, um different items that came across. So, just topoint out and ironically, we have been March 2nd, we have March 2nd numbers. Wedo a a monthly total beginning of the month of where our student population istoday. When this chart was created uh a weekago or added onto a week ago, our beginning February number was 9,831students, and as you can see for 25-26, the year we'rein, we're below every category that's presented.As a matter of fact, we line up more consistently with uh high kindergarten,low migration, low kindergarten, high migration for next year already.I will say the numbers that came out today, um our enrollment count is 9,755.That was our enrollment today, which would then mirroror excuse me. Let me back. My apologies. Our number was 9,791, which would mirror the 9,755,which is low K low migration for next year. Like we're right in thatwheelhouse and in all likelihood, we're going to drop again. So,to Hazel's projections and accuracy, again, arguably, I'd say she's she'srelatively accurate, but accurate on the low side, at leastpacing right now, and not on the high side.Uh for the sake of what we're doing, we are looking at um for facility purposes,we are looking at low kindergarten high migration. For budgeting purposes, thefinance advisory council said low kindergarten low migration. So,depending on what we're talking about, sometimes where there's a variance inthere, but just so you know, when looking at facility-wise, we're we'retrending or we're trying to look at the low kindergarten high migration number. And then, as we move into 34 uh2034-2035, you can see the diff the staggered uhyears and the grade levels. What are we looking at for for apotential for a population or a forecasted population at thoseparticular grade levels? Um So, I will turn it back over to Dr.McDowell to address the academics. Thank you. Thank you.Um so, as we I'll just go back to the slide quick. If you go to the bottomright, we're looking at that uh 8 8 86 to 9457in total, and you're looking at 912 of 3,094to 3,334 is kind of where we get into that mix ofwhat might the high school be at. And then, what we have to do is subtract outstudents for RBA, subtract students out for Highview that won't be there. And sowe start very quickly landing in the 2800 to 2900 ballpark for what would apopulation out to 2035 be for a single high school or split in half for thatmatter for two high schools. So, one of the questions, additionalquestions the board had was, if we have one large high school, how do we makethat high school feel smaller? And so, what we have started to do is reach outto other districts that have large high schools, whether it's a single districta single high school district or multiple high schools. Really trying toget an idea of for you, what are other high schools doing? So, if you look atthis slide, you look at Shakopee High School. They sit just just around 2800students. Shakopee High School is what we would call an academy model, right?So, they have seven academies. Uh they start with a ninth grade academy, soninth graders are in an academy, and then there are other academies likehuman services, technology and sciences, arts and communications, business andentrepreneurship. So, you kind of get the idea. That's how they make thatschool uh feel a little bit smaller and a little bit uh unique for the studentsthat go there, and they have a very career-focused learning pathway.Everybody in 10th through 12th is a part of an academy. Then you go across to theright, you see White Bear Lake High School. So, this is one of the schoolsthat uh and we also toured Shakopee when we went with the vision team. We alsotoured White Bear Lake High School. White Bear Lake is uh the district thatjust combined their south campus and their north campus into one high school.They sit right around 2500 kids uh that are at that high school. They have alittle different approach. They have a flexible learning space. So, they'vetaken the high school and divided it into studio. So, if anyone is accustomedto seeing what a middle school house model look like. So, this is the highschool version is the closest thing I can explain to that where students arein a studio for their classes and they are out ofthe studios for that. Trying to create those adaptive spaces for students andfocus in on how do we make connections and create a feel that is a smallerfeel. Again, a bigger high school. Why is that a high school? Of course, it'sjust under 4,000 students. The way that they've approached this is they have uhwhat they call alpha base support staff. So, they take and they havea every student has a team. So, they have a dean, a counselor, a socialworker, and an achievement specialist that I as a student, I would have thatteam for my four years at that school. And so, that's how they overtly try tomake a connection and consistency with kids for that really large high school.And then the last one here is Champlin Park High School, just under 3,000students. And we listed it there is the one-stopshop. And the reason for that is Champlin Park High School is a reallybig high school and what they really focus in on is trying to get kidsactively engaged in the process, right? A process of learning, process ofgroups, process of activities. They don't have academies necessarily. Theydon't have some of the same overt things, but their focus is really ontrying to figure out how do we keep kids connected in a big high school.And so, just four initial examples, we will have more as we move throughtime of of ways in which students are or the ways in which districts have triedto make larger high schools either very overtly smaller orconceptually smaller by how they by how they do things. The next question that the board askedwas moving to our high schools,could we compare two sites, the Cooper sitealong with the New Hope Learning Center, so those that's a combined site, andthen the Armstrong site. And as we flow through this slide in the next couple,I'm going to ask Brent and or Ellie to come up. Note that when you speak,you'll have to turn the mics on before you speak or they won't pick you up.So, as you look at this slide, what we did is first look at that location,right? No different, you've seen this before, this process. Look at location,right? It's no surprise anyone, Cooper'slocated more centrally than Armstrong. JustWe start looking then at site size and the utility of the site, and Brent andEllie are going to get into this in the next slides as we move past this one,but Cooper's a larger site, andit's not just the actual 49 acres, but ofthose 49 acres, it can you we can utilize 45 acres of that site. Armstronghas about 48 acres, but we can only use about 36 acres of that site, and again,Brent and Ellie are going to get into the details of that in the next slides.In addition to that, or what's causing that is really aroundthe terrain and the wetland space, but we also look at the layout efficiency ofthe two sites. Armstrong's more layered in how it's puttogether with the different levels, whereasCooper is all umfairly common build in terms of it's either one level or it's it's a stackedlevel. Expansion potential, we're looking atthings like um does do we have places where we can addparking? Do we have places where we can add building space easily? Uh what doesthe totality of that look like for expanding? And then we also look at theoperational impact. So things like the way that the site is configured atCooper, you could feasibly be building in one part, keeping kids in anotherpart, and not disrupt the whole process where because we don't have as muchspace on the Armstrong site, you would have to figure out we would have tofigure out where will we put kids while we're adding on or or doing things. Justmakes it adds more complexity to it. And then finally, when we talk about theaquatic center, so the reason this is coming up and maybe aquatics centerisn't what we want to use in the future, we're really talking swimming pools,right? Our swimming pools are at the middle schools right now. The swimmingpools are not at the depth they should be for competition. They don't havediving wells. So as we look at this, one of the considerations is for the highschools, could we add a swimming pool or anaquatic center? Some districts go the aquatic center route because now you canget into more community ed space and how much you use that. It just depends uponwhen we get to that detail, what might the options look like and the prioritiesbe. With that, I'm going to turn it over toBrent and Ally cuz they can talk more specifically about the topographicalum areas that we're talking about with the high schools.So this first picture is of Cooper, obviously. Um one thing to note, if youlook at where the New Hope Learning Center is on the bottom,um that could potentially be brought down and the fields could beright over there. And so, you could still have your existing building withschool going on with your fields being new on the other side where you startdoing additions on the north side there while school it itmakes for a much easier phasing. So, you could start an addition on the northside and then as that gets finished you could move one of the circles over intothat area and start renovating the potential circle. You know, so you couldkind of do it in a phased approach that would allow for schoolto take place while the phasing is happening. Yeah,next slide. I think this slidethis is a topographical slide. I know you understand you're not civilengineers, but each yellow line between each yellow line is a 2-ft elevationdifference. A lot of space between the yellow linesmeans it's flat, and as you can see a slight from thehill behind the stadium you see all those lines packed together and you havea little bit of a hill on the southeast corner here by the one tower.If you look from the New Hope Hope Learning site all the way up to thenortheast to those baseball fields. Really, really nice flat site. It alsogives a perspective is that this this building allows us to really build onall four sides. Um if we need to from an accessibility standpoint, when we get tothe next site you'll understand why that'sOne of the things you could also do here is do about tennis. Who knows? I mean iftennis moves down by the New Hope Learning Center site, tennis or weexpand the tennis over Armstrong and give you even more courts so you couldhave a larger meet and maybe tennis is that site. Not We do work with a lot ofdistricts where not all athletics are on Looking at the Armstrong site, um thisis a really long linear site. Um starting the upper right you got parkingand fields and you got more parking fields next section. It's like foursections and then you got a gym and then a pack and then you finally get yourschool over here to the left side. But really no, you know, you got the newapproach to the north. And you got a big deep ravine to thesouth. There's no real place to acquire land to expand your footprint.And from a constructability standpoint, it's just hard to build. When you got two separate buildings,they can be at different elevations, floor elevations. As soon as you startconnecting with additions and Bob alluded to this, if you try to build inthe wedge in between, you start dealing with all these elevation changes. Plusit'd be very disruptive as Ellie alluded to to build a building in between twobuildings there now while school's in session.Go to the topographical.And as you notice on this one compared with the Cooper site,you know, you have some flat land over by some of your fields over where thereparking lots. That's pretty flat. The lines arespaced out. But as you move closer to the building and any areas that youwould potentially do additions or renovate, I mean, you see on the southside, it drops off with an extreme. I mean, there's an extreme drop off thereand there's even like a pond dropping off back there. There's just not a lotof areas that would be easy to add on or to renovate in that with all thattopography like that. But with all of that information, Ibring us back to a slide from last time. So this is the slide we started with andI I want to point out that this slide is just three options basedon again those pieces of information thatwe had with as our foundation. They're not a recommendation of here's what weshould do or how we should do it. They're taking the information that wehad and and putting placeholders in there. So, option A was really aroundbuilding a new high school, option B renovating a high school but keeping asingle high school, and option C was a the idea of renovating old high schoolsand keeping both high schools. So, the question the board had was, can we diginto these a little more and get some more detail? And then getting into somesequence options beside that. So,moving to one high school. Regardless,um of what you we would do. So, building a new high school from scratch orrenovating a site. And in this case, we've keptwith the Cooper site really because of what you've you've seen in the previousslides. Um you would you have to? Not necessarily, but but that's where we'reat at the moment. You as a board, again, would have to give us more specificdirection of of what you like and what you don't like, and and we adapt tothat. We would also consider thenincluding some type of an aquatic center or pool. Again, because the two middleschools currently have pools that aren't what we would consider competition poolsin the first place. The second part here moving to one highschool would then be in this scenario to renovate portions of Armstrong so thatwe would house a 6-8 middle grade middle school there, and potentially that youcould put Highview there, move ESC there long-term, maybe RTC moves there. Thoseare ideas at this point, but there's space to do multiple things with thatbuilding. The third piece would then be torenovate Sandburg because you'd have now one high school one middle school on theArmstrong site. So then you'd want to do something with Sandburg to make thosemiddle school experiences equitable for those kids from a programmingstandpoint. Um whether that's for arts, innovation, and outdoor spaces.And then Plymouth would have been emptied because we would have moved thatto Armstrong. So then Plymouth becomes an available site for Spanish immersionprogramming. And the reason is because our Spanish immersion programming issitting over 700 kids currently. So this is why one of the things we want fromthe board is an idea of what the board feels with Spanish programming. IfSpanish immersion programming is a slated to stay at a 700-plusstudent even if it's just K-5, then the only way we maintain that iswe stay at RSI. We uh we move to a building that's bigenough to hold 700, which gets us to Plymouth, or we have to add on toanother elementary school because our other elementary schools can't housethat. Another option is we keep it K-5, but we don't maintain 700-plus kids. Westart to cap the kindergarten enrollments so that we keep Spanishimmersion at a 500 to 600 kid amount of students population, and then it canmove into other buildings. What this option allows you to do at theother end is to consider going K-8 with Spanish immersion.Right, you move it into a middle school that can house a thousand kidsuntil you get to the spot where it's a K-8 program or we're able to do that,you also then have space to put something else in that buildingpotentially and shift down the road. So, it gives you some options. But, that'sreally how number four on this slide getsbroken out. After all of that, we move into theelementaries. Right? So, we're really talking about inthe one high school move, renovating six elementary schools to accommodate foursections each. That gets us between five and 600 kids in an elementary school.And the board would need to make a decision about really about magnetschools or geographically located neighborhood schools. Right? So, there'stwo parts to that. Um As an example, 5A1.No matter what you would do in terms of deciding about magnet schools, we'regoing to need a school on the west side of the district. So, Zachary Blainegeographically probably has to stay regardless of any other decision.You move to the north, Meadow Lake probably has to stay to cover the northside. You move to the northeast, Northport probably has to stayregardless of what else is done. And then on the south side, C probably hasto stay because it's your southernmost elementary school at this point. Afternext year's changes, you can see that I've left off other schools and that'swhere the double I comes in. There need goingto be a need to be a decision about the RMS site. That decision then impacts therest of the sequencing of elementary schools. It impacts what do we do withLakeview? It impacts what do we do with Forest? It impacts what do we do withFair Crystal? It impacts what do we do with early learning? So, like I wassaying at the very beginning, while we start with the high schooldecision, as we work our way down, all of a sudden, we get this domino effectand one decision plays into multiple other decisions based on what we want todo for programming, geographics, um and decisions about magnetprogramming at the elementary school. Once all of those decisions are made,then we'll be able to make the decision about what early learning programminglooks like from a location standpoint, and we'll be able to make a finaldecision around RTC and adult academic programming.At the bottom of the slide, I've includedwhat our estimates are currently for this type of a move.You'll see that the we have an LTFM estimate in there with regard tobuilding a new high school or remodeling to a one high school, andthen in addition to that, a bond estimate without utilizing the RMS site,and then a bond estimate with utilizing the RMS site.And so, you'll see there's about a $50 million difference in there once youstart saying we want to do something with that RMS site. So, we're going tohave a decision that that we'll have to grapple with there. The next option really then, so that'sone high school option, no matter which site you decide to do would decide todo, that's the one site. The other one is you keep two high schools, whichreally puts you into a renovation mode and expansion mode. So, you renovatethe high schools to make them more of what we want for programming,right? Then, we renovate the middle schools to make them more than more whatwe want for programming, and then you'll see with number three, we still have tomake a decision about Spanish immersion. Again,if Spanish immersion in this model stays the enrollment size it is,we now have two options. We either keep it at Sunny Hollow building, or we haveto find an elementary school that we're willing and able to add on to to keep itat 700, or we have to start capping enrollment to get it down to that fiveat 600. So, we're back to that decision. And then,number four is that renovate six elementary schools again. So, that'sexactly the same as I explained before. You're really start looking at itgeographically, from a location standpoint, aneighborhood standpoint, and a decision around elementary magnet schools, andthen finally, this one just opens up more decisions about RTC adult academicprogramming, High View, RVA, ESC for final locations.Again, we've included the estimates with regard to LTFM,bonding without the RMS site, and bonding with the RMS site, just to givea sandbox of costing. And then it was also asked, what does ano bond option look like? And the reality is this, a no bond option reallylooks like us reevaluating the LTFM plan.It's where we are right now. We need to We need to then makedecisions about where are we going to spend our LTFM dollars,because we we don't have dollars to do additional stuff. Um and so then thenext decision becomes what do we want to do about the geographic location, magnetschool programming for elementary schools and neighborhood schools. Wewould need to make a decision about Spanish immersion programmingenrollment. Do we keep Sunny Hollow and do what wecan to to that building with LTFM dollars and keep the program at 700? Dowe move it to a building that could house 5 600 students without adding onto it? And then we have to decide aboutlong-term locations for High View ESC, RTC, community ed, academic adultacademic programming. In this option, the biggest thing peopleI I think have to understand is that as CFO Hollingsworth has explained before,LTFM dollars can only be used for like for like changes. So, as it relates toprogramming, a couple easy examples are back to the swimming pools.With LTFM dollars, we can repair swimming pools. We can do we can replacetiles, we can fix stuff, but we can't dig the swimming pool even a foot deeperand create a new version of the swimming pool. LTFMdollars can't be used for that. Likewise, buildings. We can keepbuildings inside of their current footprint and fix stuff, make stuffbetter that's already in existence. For example, if there are five windows alongthis wall and they need to be replaced, we can replace the five windows, but wecan't add five windows to the wall that doesn't have windows in it. Thatwouldn't be a like for like situation. So, the difference betweenbonding and not bonding options are really that. Elf we are limited to whatwe can do with like for like exchangeswithout any type of a bonding option. So, that gets us back to what we startedwith, the outcomes for tonight. We've given you information, we've given yousome more detailed information, hopefully started to answer some of thequestions from last time. I'm sure there's more questions, but what we arewe're really hoping for is some additional direction with regard towhat are you thinking with regard to the high school options? What are youthinking with regard to the middle school options? And what are youthinking with the regard to Spanish immersion programming? You will noticewe do not have on there give us what you're thinking about elementary at thispoint. It we we think we need to continue tochunk this out and just focus on a few things at a time. And right now that forus means high school, middle school, and ideas about Spanish immersionprogramming. And with that, Chairwoman Becker, I will turn it overto you. Thank you. We'll start calling on peoplewith questions. We have a team here. Hopefully, we'll be able to answerwhatever you throw at us. Okay.Director Wutaw will go first. So, looking at the decision including abonding with RMS or without RMS, whatmakes those values change? What type of speculations do you have on that? Thethe with RMS, we've got a peg with net add of 47 to 50 million dollars. It'sbuilding a brand new tearing down the RMS buildingand building a brand new 600 square foot or 600 student elementary school versusrenovating Lake Crystal converting Fair Crystal into an elementary. That's justthe delta between those two options. Thank you. Director Helenbrand? Okay, I have a few things. Umwhen it comes to the high schools, uma couple of things that are still sitting on my mind. UmI I believe that we can if we choose to and are dedicated todeal with the issue of being a large school and ensuring that kids are notlost in the system. Um I think it just takes forethought and umplanning in how we do things. Umone of the things, you know, I still hear from people isyou know, extracurriculars and kids you know, having that the ability toparticipate. Um you know, my son was just in Brigadoon this weekend, right?And also they had was it Snoopy over at the high schoolyeah. And uh you know, he might not have made it into the court. He was in thechorus. He wasn't He wasn't a star and that's okay. Umbut he might not have gotten a part otherwise, right? And so, you know,those are the kinds of opportunities that you know, I worry about kidsmissing out on, right? If um and so that's just a piece and that I hear fromother people, too. And so I just want to throw that out there. I don't know howwe how we um talk about that and how we help peopleget past that. Um but that is one of the things. The other thing that I'm hearinga lot of and I think this is coded language a bit and and I I just want toput it out there. And I don't want to sound insensitivewhen I say this or say this incorrectly, but I'm I'm seeing a lot of stuff aboutsafety. And what I'm hearing iswhat I'm feeling is people on the Armstrong side of thedistrict not wanting to mix with Cooper studentsbecause they're afraid that Cooper is unsafe and I don't want my Armstrongkids mixing with Cooper kids. Andif I've misread people or misunderstood people, I'll apologize right now. Butwhat I'm hearing from it is coded language of I don't want my kids mixingwith those kids. And I don't know how we umtalk about that to help people get past that. And I'm just going to put that outthere because I'm just a put-it-on-the-table kind of person. But,um personally, I think that'ssilly. Maybe not silly the right It's the wrongword, but I think that is not the way we we're one district. That's not the waywe talk about children, right? That's That's not how we we talk about ourstudents. And safety is a real concern. I'm notpooh-poohing safety as a concern, but I am saying that we don't pick onchildren just because of their socioeconomic background or whateverother piece that you're picking on. And we need to find a way to talk about thisto help people understand that safety is an issue because safety is anissue, not because you live on one side of the district or the other. And Ithink that's something we need to just address straight onbecause that's the whispers and that's the coded language people are using. So,I just want to put that out there. And then the other quick thing is, you know,with RSI being talking about it being K-8, you know, I'm just thinking, man,we're talking about basically adding another middle school againbecause then there's all the costs, you know, because now you're talking aboutmiddle school music. Middle school, you know, so you'reorchestra, band, choir. All of those things that we were justsaving by closing a middle school. And that brings up some concerns. So,I'm I'm curious about the costs associated with that.In Español, right? And so, um that would be myhesitation about our RSI going to K-8 um because of that. Because now we'readding back expenses that we were just saving. So, putting that out there. It'snot a question so much as a comment. I'd like to start just to speak to that,if that's all right. Just um broadly, I really appreciate your questions becauseone of the things that I want to be sure that we do, and you brought us here.Right? We're going to hear a lot, and we're going to talk a lot aboutfacilities and buildings. We're going to hear a lot, and we're going to talk alot about dollars and budgets and bonds and all that. So, thank you for bringingus back to why, and what this is all about. And this is improving the studentexperience, and your questions got exactly to that point. So, I want to Iwant to thank you for that. Um in terms of I just want to just share acouple things I know. I was a superintendent of a very large highschool. Um so, one of the things that I know that as they were taking a look atwhether it was musicals or one-act plays or things like that, are thereproductions where there's more roles? There's more opportunities for studentsto be engaged. So, I will get the number of students involved in a productionthat I recall, because I don't want to misquote anything. Umbut there were a lot. Um same thing with band and choir, right? A lot of kids.So, I'll take a look at that. Um the other thing in terms of engagement,again, came from a a district with a really robust intramural program. Umfrom basketball and volleyball and some of the normal things to uh ping pong andlots of other things that students wanted. So, again, you're opening upyour schools um in the evenings and outside of classroom time for a wholelot of activities taking place either in, right, additional gyms that aren'tbeing used for practice at the time, and or large common spacesum where ping pong tables were set up all over the place.Um I appreciate the questions about safety, and that's definitely umsomething we'll continue to speak to more. Maybe some of you were ready tospeak to some of that, but just wanted to start with that and I'll let you allanswer anything else. I was super excited to speak to thestudent opportunity because it is actually something that I love and I'mvery passionate about. Um, I would say no different than honestly like creating there's efficiency in numbers. I mean,that's the reality. And even now since since I've startedhere, we've talked combined programming already a handful of times because youcan't field a team, you can't field a swim team with nine swimmers.And so yes and I believe you know, doescompetition for a competition level program, some of our sports, does thatincrease? Yes, it does, but you also then tend to get multiple levels of ofprogram. You do getmaybe students are interested in a sewing club where you're two or three ata particular building, but boy you add more students and all of asudden there's a dozen of you. They it it seems to naturally efficiencieswith numbers are created which actually expand more opportunitiesand differentiate the type of opportunities that are available tostudents which ultimately then lends itself to connecting and not losing kidsin the gaps because what where they might be feel more of a one-off, youdon't necessarily have that when you have a larger population. It's a goodpoint. The um So regardless of whether whether we havetwo high schools, one high school, two middle schools, three middle schools,whatever that is, the the thing from my perspective thatwe have to continue to come back to is What is the experience we want every oneof our kids to have regardless of where they are in oursystem. Right? Whether they're an elementary student, a part of what wesaw tonight with Catalyst, whether they're a middle school student thatwants to explore whatever they want to explore, whether they're a high schoolstudent that want some form of CTE courses or PSE experience or whateverthat is. As long as we are intentional to yourpoint about planning, as long as we are intentional, again regardless of whetherit's one high school or two high schools,the number of middle schools, if we are intentional about the how we programfor, how we support the programming, and how we implement,train, keep things going, it doesn't matter reallyas long as we can financially sustain it because because it shouldbe beneficial to that experience we wanted. If if we don't support it withall those things, it doesn't matter how many buildings we have.Um I think you will find superintendentsand high school principals that will tell youhigh schools of 800 have kids that get lost in them.High schools of 150 can feel unsafe. High schools of 2,000 can feel unsafe.So, it it is a fair concern, and it's it's the stuff that we have to keepat the front of how we are planning based on the direction we want to go.So, if we're going the direction of one high school that's over 2,000 kids, thenwhat do we have to put in place from a safety perspective to make sure thatthat is of utmost importance and and precedent.It's it's what we do as a priority. What are we doing to make sure that allkids in ninth grade have the opportunity to understand how they can becomeengaged in programming throughout their high school career.What does that look like? Because we know that the bigger the high school,the more importance we have to put on that ninth grade year for kids to begrounded. So that's going to be a focus.And then what do we do in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade to make sure thatwe've got a balance between activities, between athletics, betweenopportunities, between extension, and that kids aren't getting lostas they progress through to that senior year.So again, back to what's the experience we want. And and I think it's fair forpeople to bring up every possible concern.It It's just the concerns can happen in any building if we're not payingattention to it. Okay, I have a question and I have aconcern. My question, um thinking if we had umSpanish immersion in a larger building, like if it was atsuppose the dominoes fell, right? So that it was at PMS.Rather than have it be a K-8, it's also possible, right, to have it be like justmore sections. And so if it was still just a K-5, it would just belarger and maybe we would have more studentsfrom other parts of our district or open enrolling in. Right?>> That That is correct. You could You could do that as well. You wouldn't Youwouldn't have to go to K8 if you remember back to the Vision 2030recommendation. That original sethad six elementary schools and then one K8 building was kind of their startingspot. So, that's why that's living out there because that has been somethingthat has been suggested as an option. To your point, ityou could keep it K5 and make it I suppose nine if you wanted to 900 kidelementary school. That's pretty big elementary school, but you could youcould. You'd have the space at the elementary>> in mine. That's fine. You could also keep it thesize that it's at and it'd have plenty of room. And like I said, you can youcould put other things in that building in other parts of that building and makebetter use of the space and not have to change anything.With the building, you would have to change stuff. I'm talking programming.Okay, then my concern my concern with the no bond option andonly using the LTFM I'm concerned that we're not going to beable to give our students the opportunities that we they deserve andthat we want them to have. That that's my concern. I I think thatif it's like for like there are opportunities that I want kidsto have that I don't think that would be open tothem. Is that true?It's correct. I think especially as you look at and Bob will let you answer justa minute. Sorry, but I think especially as you look at umyou know, if if we're really exploring some of theacademies and career pathway options, there's just going to be a lot oflimitations to that. Not entirely, right? We've been able to do some ofthat right now, but that would be a place um that would have somelimitations. Thank you. The best example I can give to thathaving been a former tech ed teacher is I could have a tech room that's reallyrun down and needs needs to have new equipment because it'sit's worn out, right? Um a new dust collection system becauseit doesn't work. A new vents, whatever that might be.We could upgrade because things are worn out, but wecouldn't create a new and improved tech ed space. Like a state of the art oranything? >> of the art. We could We could te-depending upon what it is, we could go like for like and get newer equipment,but we'd be doing the same stuff. I I think the other thing just withthat, right? And I think again this consideration and Bob, I loved how youframed it with the the student experience, right? Um you know, whatwe're also doing in all of this and I think the presentations that you heardearlier tonight speak to that. Um what are we doing in terms of school culture,classroom, school climate? We saw what we're doing with Catalyst. So, we'regoing to work on those things no matter what. You saw work around literacy andwhat we're doing to implement a new curriculum and hopefully turn ouracademic scores um around into something that we're really proud of. So, right?That's work we're doing anyway. As I think about our enrollment and as Ithink about the other expectation that I know has been placed on me, how are wechanging the 62% capture rate in our community to ensure that we are thechoice school district. Some of those things we can make improvements for surewith the long-term facility maintenance, but I think some of the scope of that wejust have to have clear expectations then on what we really believe we'reable to do to hopefully capture more students and certainly through greatschool culture and improved academics and some upgraded facilities, hopefullythat would be a lot to get some people back. I don'tknow if it'd be the full scope, and I think that's one of the otherlimitations um to what we could do with thelong-term facility maintenance monies. So, board.Director Long. Questions. I was just allowing otherpeople to go first. Um so, could we go back to that table wherewe had Cooper and Armstrong? One.Yep. So, I'm just wondering, could we possibly get the acreage of Armstrongadded into that table? Sure. We can add that in.Thanks. And cuz then too, you had talked about what was it, 48 acres, but only 36was used. So, could we get both of that thosedata points in there? Okay. Um and then I was also wanting to lookat So, the um Where was that? What Oh, yeah. So, can we go to the picturesof um Armstrong? So, right there, I know you hadmentioned where that those tree areas are, both tree areas. There's ponds inthere, right? Is there any usable space if we were to take those trees down? It's not the treeShort answer is um See the blue the the pond in the middlethere? Mhm. And you see all those contour lines to the lower south ofthat? That's it's basically un it's the terrain it's unbuildable there. Youcould north of that blue pond towards thebuilding, which is a little less steep. You could potentially build back there.That makes sense. Mhm. Yeah, and are there trees right now in that locationor is that area already just cleared out?North of the pond is cleared out, south of the pond is trees. Okay.And then on the other side, too, of the field, football field? That over there, I have to see exactlywhere your where on the east side of the where yourproperty line is there. I'm not sure how far east you go. Now, building over there, it just getsyou, you know, if if for example, if you wanted to build on the east side there,that looks like there's a little hill there. It gets up there it's about 10 fttaller than the field, but umbuilding there puts you a long ways away fromNow, you could put maybe an aquatic center there with a lot ofearth moving, you could probably do that, but you really wouldn't It doesn'thelp your school setting so much cuz you'reseparated by the field, of course. Okay. Thank you for that. And then umI'm wanting to know on the slide when we talk about no bond,that doesn't have a chart about what the estimate LTFM is. Could we get thatinformation added there cuz you know how I likethings concrete in writing. We can We can add that in. Okay. Thankscuz then when I have to go back to refer to data, thenit's there for me. So, do you mean I just want to be sure, do you mean do youmean how much total we have each year or long-term planning?>> Well, on the other ones you have a chart like this on them.You know, where it tells estimate >> so I would just like to there wouldn'tbe no bond here, but what would be the estimated cuz they did give us a numberfor that. And I'm not sure if I wrote>> where we have to spend $150 million to fix the buildings regardless. Yeah.We have Yeah, we can have that. Yeah.I don't think I wrote down that number, but there was a number that was given tous. Um And let's see here. Um oh, yeah.Um yeah, I think though two, you know, Director Hillenbrand had brought up, youknow, like coded language about, you know,Robbinsdale and Cooper. I think that that is definitely a conversation thatwe can have. I kind of feel like from the information that I've been gettingfrom people, it's more about they feel like the district didn't put theresources into one school that they did that they put into another school. So, Imean, I think Yeah, I mean, we should really have aconversation about equity and making sure when we plan and go forward thatwe're keeping those things in mind cuz even if we build one big high school, wecan have inequities within that one big high school, especially for certainpeople of color. So,I think, you know, if we're thinking about that just in anything we'rethinking about doing, we should examine what is that difference betweenArmstrong and Cooper. Is it really people using coded language or is itreally resources not being put into a certainschool or investments not being put into a certain school that might be put intoanother school. Like what are what exactly are the differences there? I'dlike to assess that out, you know. I mean,coming working in a school district myself,I mean, you know, we talk about the south side and the north side and hownorth side didn't get the same investments that the south side did. So,just kind of wondering if that same thing might be happening here. Maybethere's some other things that are going on, but like Isaid when I was hearing from community members, I was hearing more from themabout just they didn't feel like the investment and resources were put intoone school versus the other. Um I know personally when Ium enrolled my daughter into one of the high schools, the enrollment center saidto me here, "Are you sure you want your child to goto Cooper or do you want to enroll them over at Armstrong?" So, I was shocked asa parent coming in and having an enrollment center say that to me becauseI didn't really know as a parent coming in the difference between either one ofthose high schools. I just knew one was closer to my house than the other one.So, that's the one I picked, the one that was closer to my house.Um also wondering aboutum I guess I'd like to know some moreinformation about, you know, uh exactly if we do these improvements ofthis one high school, like what what exactly will thoseexperiences be that will be heightened and how will this exactly look differentconcretely versus what we have here? And two, going back into that investmentpiece, if we put the same amount of investment into the two high schools,how would that be comparative to the one?I kind of am worried too if we build this one big high school,what what if we don't get enough students to fill that bighigh school? So, I'm kind of concerned about that piece, too.Um other things that I was just kind of hearing about from community isum why are we not talking aboutwhy are we jumping to this and not talkinguh what we're going to do with the buildings we've already closed?So, that was the question I've gotten from people in community. Like, why whatwhat are you going to do with the buildings that you've already closed?And my response has been so far, I don't have the answer for that.So, people are wondering why are we makingthis jump when we don't we haven't even decided what we're doing with buildingswe've closed. Um whyum why not start with uh making sure thatwe put the programming into place that we promised families in the elementaryschools that we've just closed um and invest our time in having thatdiscussion right now. Uh people are very concerned that theprogramming and things that they promised aren't going to happen in thoseelementary settings and in that middle school and in the middle schoolsettings. So, why are aren't we wait using our time right now to invest inthat? Um my own personal question around someof this high school stuff is the inequities that we've had with ourfemale athletes versus our male athletes.And so, I know I kind of asked that again, but then when you ask thequestions at the end to make sure you had it all summarized, I had forgottenthat I had asked that. So, if we could get some information about how eitherkeeping both schools or moving to one high school, how will that change andwhat will be the plan for having equitable spaces for our male versus ourfemale athletes? Umyeah, I guess you know, I just you know, just in closing just want to reiteratethat from people that I've heard from fromHy-Vee and other places that I've gone to get supplies, then they're not reallyhappy about this. They feel like we really need to work onbuilding our trust with them first. And part of doing that is they really wantus to honor our words and what we said we were going to do in the elementaryand the middle schools first before we start thinking about things like this.So, just words that were said to me while I was out in public.Okay. Great. I I don't I'm not afraid to justtry to address a few of those and I'm sure my team will help out, but I Idon't want questions to be out there if there aren't thing if there are thingsthat we can currently ask answer. So, I'd say first of all to theum what do we do with the schools that are closed right now? We can't know thatuntil we know what the full scope of our district looks like moving forward. So,I think once we know that, once we know um what we're going to do with the highschools, the middle schools, um what we would potentially do with a middleschool, and then ultimately, what are the elementaries, how many of thoseelementaries, and which ones make the most sense. I think then at that point,we absolutely have to do what what the concern is is okay, we've got someproperties. So, what's what's that look like? But I would say until we know thefull scope of what what the district looks like right-sized, we wouldn't beable to do that yet. I would say to the question of why not um start putting inthe programming in place that we promised. I guess the the two thingsthat I I'll speak to at the middle school is we are talking to stagesum right now and don't have those details this second, but they're gettinga proposal to us so that we can offer um what uh the the arts programming umsimilar to what Fair Crystal had to all uh and also the immersion. We're doingthat at both middle schools, uh the Spanish immersion instead of just one.So, from an equity standpoint, um I I think that we're we're doing whatwe said we would do. I think in terms of if they're talking about the elementary,and I know we've had conversations about arts and innovation across the district,but we're not there yet with the elementary. We We just aren't there. So,again, just want to want to speak to that and appreciate your question aboutthe inequities with the the male and female sports, and certainly somethingthat not only legally are we obligated to do it, but we'll certainly make sureit happens, but don't have specifics on that, but appreciate the question.Thank you. Thank you. D- Uh Director Bradison.Yeah. So, uh a few things just where I'm at. I I'm I'm going to take kind of aweird position here. I don't know if the district can support two high schoolsgoing forward long-term. I'm just going to be honest. If you look at some of theinformation that I'd requested before this meeting,um and we talk about, right? The public ismaking that decision for us already, right? There are 400 students that aregeographically in the Cooper boundary, and they have chose to go to Armstrong,and the number of going from Armstrong to Cooper is almost zero. So, like atsome point in time, the open enrollment number is going to get so big.It and it it, you know, Thomas Schelling back in the in the '60s and '70s did areally good analysis. It's called tipping point dynamics, where you get toa point where the school the the the the feel or the the, you know, the thegeneral public's idea of the building is such that you get this idea of stigmaspiral, where people no longer will go there, right? So, we hear about lookcoded language. You could read some of the emails we receive, right? We Thereare multiple emails that say, "That school and those students." We're noteven that coded anymore, right? Like um we're pretty being pretty frontal withhow that how it's being written. So, my fear is long-termyou're going to continue to see this move of open enrollment from one schoolto the other because there's a perception that there's a good schooland a bad school. And I don't know how we stop that.I'm just being honest. Like that's a I think that's a concern. When I see thoseopen enrollment numbers and you look at the demographic breakdown of the openenrollment numbers, um I I think that should take a momentof pause. So, I don't know if we can support twohigh schools. I'm I'll just say that. So, umI think the key thing for me at the end of this and and this is kind of myquestion. So, let's fast forward. Let's say we'vepicked an option. We're going to we're going to do option B just for the sakeof argument. The goal I would assume from the boardand administration is when the voters go to the ballot box. Yes, on the ballotit's just going to say, right? I vote for the referendum. I know I know mytaxes go up. But we would present a plan at that point says, okay, we're going tohave one high school. We're going to have the two the two middle schools.These are the elementaries that we're actually going to be using, right? Isthat a fair statement? I think that's a fair statement.>> Okay. Cuz I think the the key piece, right, in in Director Long kind ofmentioned it where the public is at. Like we don't have a facilities plan5 years, right? Like I think it would be really good for the public to say or forus to be able to go to the public and say,in the year 2032, the district will look like this. These are the schools, theyou know, we will have elementaries here, these five properties,they're going to be gone. Like how they're go I don't know where they are.They're gone, right? And then on the flip side, I think they should know whatthe other option is then, right? So, eitherwe're going to pass the referendum and it's going to look like this, orwe're not going to pass it and we're going to use no bond option. I havedubbed it plan pending plan F.Uh for plan fail, right? So, um it has failed, right? I would hope that wewould at the same time be able to go to the public and say, "If you don't dothat, that's fine. Your no vote means we're going to dothis instead. We're going to have two high schools. We're going to have twomiddle schools. These are the elementaries we're going to be using.The This is where our like I don't want usthen in December after the vote and goes, "Well, now what do we do? Whatbuildings do we put? Where do we put?" You know what I mean? Likethe public deserves a clear facilities plan to be able to say, "This is what itwill look like in 2032 or 31 or whatever year you want to pick."But I think that's when they're voting. I think that's what they're going towant to vote between, right? We want this or we don't. And that's where we'regoing to land. And I think that's how it should be positioned, honestly. Umthat's That's the work. Right. That That's the work in the the domino effecttonight and into the next couple months is exactly what you've described. Asboard is making decisions and giving us direction, we can get more clo- we canget closer and closer to what's the bond option look like, the fullscope of what the district uh facilities, the the layout of ourdistrict looks like, and some of the programming andopportunities that are probably possible through abond and might be more challenging through a no bond, butcertainly all of usin this room, not sure about the board members, but Iknow the rest of us have been through this before.So, we are We clearly know that before we would come forward to the community.They will have all we will have all of that information and our job is to sharethat information with them. I think that's one of the things right now and Iunderstand. I understand the sticker shock. I understand the the focus onmoney. I understand that. I think that's one of the things right now that aswe're hearing, some people say, "No matter what I'm voting no."Well, we haven't even talked about what that is. We haven't even talked aboutDoes that mean $25, $13, $31 per month? We haven't even talkedabout any of that and that's that's where each of these decisions that y'allprovide help us get closer to that point umof of of that facilities plan that you just talked about. Yeah. So, just acouple of I'm sorry, real quick to the specific asks cuz A, from a highschool's perspective, right? I do think I think I'm pretty clear. I think itshould be a one high school solution, but if the public doesn't want that,then we should vote and have that decision.Um from a middle school What's the specificyou you put, you know, an outcome as a question about the middle school. What'sthe exact ask, I guess, from a middle school perspectiveyou're looking for here? I think the it it really is simplydependent upon what the high school decision is. Umwhat what does that look like? I think um it it then pairs with the Spanishimmersion kind of thought process of the of the whole board. Sure. Okay. So, I Imean, Spanish immersion, like I don't like the idea of making it smaller. JustI think I think that was what one of the questions. Well, it's like I don't thinkwe should be relishing the idea of doing that. So, ideally we would try to keepit the same. I don't know if K-8's the right idea, but whatever.Um I do think from just some questions that would be good to know.Um There's a lot of people with likeaquatic center {question mark} {question mark}. Do we really need an aquaticcenter? Um I think things, right? Like I thinkthere was a number, it's like 25 million-ish just for the aquatic center.Is it in that ballpark? Yes? Okay. Um I think it'd be good to know like how much are we paying our high schools?Like they're renting space to compete, right? Like what what are those like Andhow much do we get for income? Right. Right. I mean the income would becommunity ads would go to it would go to fund four, right? It'snot going to magically go into the general fund. No comment. Okay.Can I just say about that? Community Ed does not make money off facilityrentals. If they break even, it's like >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I I think somepeople I think some people are like, "Whoa, you could make money from theaquatic center and pay down SOD." I'm like the they won't, right? Like thatgoes into a different fund. You wouldn't Right? Still no comment. Okay. I I dowant to just I'm sorry to jump in, but I I think there is an important piece tothis and and again, I had two sons that played traveling basketball. So, I don'tknow that there's a gym in the metro area that I haven't been in and I alsoknow that everybody community's always wanted to host tournaments because whenyou host tournaments, you get the people from Rochester that come up here andthey have to have hotel rooms and they go out to eat and they buy gas and theydo all of those things. So, while community Ed may not break even, again,for me this is about community, right? What what we're doing here is how do wecontinue to Right, strong schools, strong communities go together. How dowe continue to look at the big picture of of what we want for this community.So, I don't know as much about sip meets,but I'm guessing there are also swim meets that take place where people comeand need hotels and need meals and need all the things as well.>> I I agree. I just I I think a little bit more around that would be good. Whythat? Um and the last piece, right? There's a lot of talk about like studentopportunity and stuff like that. You know,I don't know if the public knows there are a lot of co-op teams at Cooper atthis point in time because they don't have the numbers to field a team. It'sjust true, right? Like the the info we'd asked for before, right? The I I'massuming I can share this number. It wasn't magical in this email.Okay. UmLike as people s- now they're head, right? Like only 35% of students atCooper are do are participating in sports. Armstrong's at 75%, right? LikeI I'm not worried about the opportunitiesnecessarily because they're actually not taking theopportunities now, unfortunately. Like if you think about it, that we don'thave enough kids at Cooper to field a team. So, obviously we're pushing thoseteams to Armstrong at this point in time. Back to my point, I'm not surelong-term the district can support two high Director Long, I just had a follow-upquestion for you. So, when you're what would these these components be of this5-year plan that you're thinking? Like what do you think that should look like?I think I think the voters and the board, well, definitely the board, weshould know with with certainty, right? I mean the the the high school thing iseasy, right? There's one high school, there's two middle schools. RSI will belocated at this site, right? ESC, Highview, like I don't want us to becoming back after the vote having questions like, "Okay, now that wevoted, where do we put RTC now?" Right? LikeShould be a plan. Top to bottom. Did that answer the question?Kind of. Yeah, it doesn't really tell me about all the different componentsthough. I mean I think the components would be what buildings are in use, whatbuildings do we know are sitting empty that we're going to sell, how much wesell them for. We don't know. I don't need to know how much we're selling themfor. I don't care about that, right? That's a down the road thing. But likethere should be a really clear what is our footprint, what is the expected sizeof these buildings, right? Like what does Robbinsdale look like in 2031? Weshould know roughly enrollment numbers at all the elementaries. We shouldroughly know the high school enrollment numbers. We should know what buildingsare here. And last and most importantly, we should have a really good idea ofwhat our operating budget is at that point in time, right? We we should know,hey, this district is going to cost X dollars to be able to maintain itselfnow and with our enrollment we can safely do that. I think all of thosekind of go into play. So that operating budget would be like an estimation ofwhere we would be in 5 years? >> Yeah, something something. I mean, weshould be able to We should have a 5-year facility plan. Ithink that's a pretty basic ask. And I think the district should have a 5-yearbudget plan, right? Is that a crazy ask? Three is very predictable.Yeah, yeah, yeah. But five as far as uh liketake legislation out of it. >> Right. Yeah, I I get that. Like we don'tknow what Saint Paul's going to do, right? Butlike you should be able to say at a basic level, here's where theenrollment's going, here's where we think the numbers are. Obviously,compensatory dollars can change and this can change, butwe should have some future planning. Thank you. I appreciate that.>> I would love to see some future >> Yeah, and that's So again, I'm justgoing to go back, right? That's exactly what the work of Vision 2030 has beenfor the year and a half that I've been here, right?All of this has been laid out. We need to take a look at our academics.We need to take a look at enrollment projections. We need to have acomprehensive facility assessment. We need to figure out how best toright-size the the district. We need to do robust community engagement. Andwe're in the stage right now of saying, do we realize Vision 2030 through a bondor not? So, I think all of what you're saying is exactly the work that we'vebeen working on. The questions now are, we can't do that work without directionfrom the board to keep building. So, the questions before you tonight, Ithink we still go back to, right? So, how do you want us to keep planning? Arewe continuing to plan through the one high school, the two highschools? Are you supportive of the Spanish immersion potentially if we lookmore to the one high school moving into another building, keeping it smaller,larger, even if we're not talking about the K-8 right now? So, all of the inputand direction you give, we're going to keep building so that wecan do exactly what you said. Before I With bond or without bond?>> Right. Yeah.Before I take the board's temperature, I have question and docChief CFO Hohisel. Thank you. It's just more of a clarification. We keep sayingbond or no bond. Either way, we're bonding.>> Correct. >> That's issuing debt. It's voter approvedbond and LTFM, which we don't need voterapproval for. Again, it's a it's it's a terminology that we live I live in in myworld, but if we continue to say that, then we go out and say there was no bondand we're issuing debt, which is what we've been doing with LTFM here, it'sstill a bond. It's just not voter approved. So,I have a question related to referendum bond voter approved.So, we haven't had a building type bond in this district for over 40 years,right? There has not been an ask to the voters for a voter approved referendum,which means we've issued debt for long-term facility maintenance, but ourvoters haven't approved capital improvements, if you will, forover 40 years. Okay. So, I have a few questions about it then since it's beenso long. Um at listening time today somebody saidthat the cost to the voters is going to be going out so far. How far actuallydoes that go out? Thank you. So, during listening session,um it was it was like extending beyond thelife of probably everybody in this room. >> Umlegally, we can't issue debt more than 30 years.I would say industry average, if you will, dependingon what you're issuing debt for, you're probably looking somewhere between 20and 25 years. I equate it to a to a mortgage. Thankyou. We're taking out a mortgage on you know, as it as it translates to anindividual homeowner. Okay. That helps a lot. Thank you. Andthen if is there some way like let's say it'sgoing to be 300 million and there's this many taxpayers and it'sover 20 years, can you like digitize that so it's like$50, $100? So, just so we have some idea. Yeah.Yes. Um I've actually uh we've been working on that along with um PMA andour financial advisors. There'sdifferent approaches. Do you do a staggered issuance, meaning we don'tneed 300 million dollars day one. You know,do you do you issue debt at different times, especially seeing our rating?Like, there we're working on different factors. Yes, of course, we will havedollar amounts and and how that plays out.Uh one of the items that I that I did have a conversation with the listeningsession speaker was the difference, you know,the hard piece is just saying, here is general fund in our operations, right?And then here's your mortgage. And they're twodifferent they're just two different categories. And so, yes, you're takingon debt, but it can substantially help you improve your operations, if youwill. Um and one of the significant differencesis you can't look at a student population and saying we're taking on$300 of debt and our population is 9,000 kids. It's our entire tax base.It's our commercial, industrial, residential. I mean, you pick thecategory. It's a it's spread across our entire tax base, not just oureducational community. Thank you. More questions? Jackie Bowman.I will look Whatever. What speak and Open mic. Isthat what we have going on here? Open mic.Um There's been a lot of really goodquestions and comments here at the table tonight that I really do appreciate. UmI'm inclined to be with the in the circle of one high school. UmCuz it just makes sense to me. And one of the things umas I've been out and about in the public uh over the last uh couple of weeks uhuh I've been I've talked to people who alsosay we have not made a substantial investment in our school district in 50years. And I can remember the last time theymade that cuz that was when I graduated from high school. Um, and and it hasalways disturbed me as a community member that uhwe have we have um, God, I'm trying to look forpositive words. Uh that we have ignored some of theimportant things that we need to do around education. Uh and I can say thatabout my first time on the board and at the turn of the century when nobody didany uh maintenance on these buildings and all of a sudden we invested ahundred and forty million dollars because we had to, right?And what I really learned from that experience is that's not the way tomanage a school district. Um, so like my concern is that along with the long-termfacilities maintenance money that's used, that our umbuilding care and maintenance have schedules to them. It's what citieshave. You know, I I'm interested in seeingand I don't really need to see them. I just need to know that they reallyexist. That our that uh uh a 30-year investment, we're not goingto get it to the end of the 30 years and once again have nothing because we haveto start all over because there was a sort of planning thing and it's likeI've I know that when we talk about money atthe taxpayer level, we want to go for these little numbers and we want to goI get that. I understand that. Uh however, I really want to make surethat our numbers are realistic over time, over the mortgage, over the caryou know, over the mortgage time period, that kind of thing. So I'm interested inin that piece of it. I'm interested in knowing that we're going to be investingin a community and into the future. I think for me umuh that's what this is about. If we do nothing, then our kids just get what wegot. And I sort of, you know, we can look in the past and talk about mistakesor perceived mistakes or whatever, uh, but the the collateral reality ofthat is is can we fix it now? Do we have Do we have the intestinal fortitude togo after actually fixing it to this for this community and actually making thatinvestment because one of the things I know from talking in the community thatthe term recapture is a ridiculous term because we don't have those things tooffer that they have in the schools out on Bass Lake Road as you drive throughPlymouth. You know, uh, and we shortchange our children whenwe at least don't even want to talk about, uh, being ableuh, to take to take this on to do it right. Many ofus remember when we bought our first home mortgages, who we were probablyscared to death that we would be able, uh, to keep that property and makethose. So, it's the same sort of thing. Um, the other thing to me that becomesreally important in the world of equity is the aquatic center because we live inthe state of Minnesota and this is in memory of Al Goodwin who used to be theswim coach in this district for 30 years.And and his quest was always making sure that every single one of our kidslearned how to swim because we know that proportionately kids of color die morefrom drowning than white kids do. So, um, I think thatthat that aquatic center is absolutely necessary as a poolas a community asset for our kids. So, um,I don't have an ask as much as, uh, the information that's coming to me seemsappropriate. The questions that we're asking seem really appropriate.Um, I'm seeing the numbers from the programming like to see the numbers fromCatalyst, to see all those points that show improvement in our district, isreally remarkable because 3 years ago we were getting noinformation specifically about what we were doing and it wasyou know, just sort of cloudy and and not clear at all and now here we havethis wonderful pathway of programs that we know in some of our buildings havebeen implemented and it should be a lot easier to justbring that all the way across all the rest of those buildings.Um soI you know, I stick with I believe that plan B is a is is a greatuh plan the option of plan B.I don't think we should be building a high school from the ground up. I thinkthat using what we have is the smart way to go. I think that our centrallylocated piece of land and thank you for the topography maps by the way becauseI haven't seen those since I was mayor of the city of Crystal and I find thoseto be um really good pieces of information and itwas very illustrative. So I support the Cooper thing. So you know, that's thefeel that's just what I'm thinking about tonight. I think that we need to investin the future if we're going to at all claim that weworry about the future of our kids because the other change that we'reseeing in this district is we're taking amore robust look at uh pathways into adulthood.Uh I waslistening to I on boarded for Brooklyn Bridge Alliance and they do surveys ofthe kids in this areas and the and their most recent survey said thatthese kids have a huge fear of not being able to support themselves into thefuture. So I want to be looking at making surethat we can um assure those students of ours thatthey're not going to have to worry about makinga living in the future that that we can help them reach that point.And again, if if we want kids to come back here and stay here, we got to givethem a reason to come back here and stay here and we got no reason right now.So, I'm more afraid of a future that looks towards denying our kids what theyneed to grow and thrive into adulthood than I am at looking at a future thatsays I'm going to take on that debt. I'm going to invest in these kids. I'm goingto invest in my community and we're going to do the right thing.So, that's just where I stand. Thank you.>> Okay. Dr. Printziron. Real briefly, I didn't mention I meant to before. Ipersonally, I think you can take option A off the list. I don't We're notThat's just way too much money. That's just me. If you're looking tonarrow the list at all, I I don't There's zero over here. Like, it's nothappening kind of moment. Okay.So, it's time to take the temperature. Um>> Mr. Bio break, one of the two. Eight Eight minutes till a bio break,but let's just take a little temperature right now. UmDo we need a motion to do this or can we just say how we're feeling?What do What does administration need? I mean,what will it What does it take? I don't know that you necessarily need amotion for anything. It would just be good to know Well, take our temperaturethen. >> of as a whole want us to move in acertain direction so we can start down the path ofdetails. Okay. So, I've heard from Dr. Printziron that he is supportinga concept of one high school not freshly built.And are you thinking on the Cooper campus area? I don't care where it is.Don't care as long as there's one not freshly built.And and Yes, II would say option A to me looked really good. So, you got one high schoolWait, wait. B was also on >> B, excuse me. Option B. Okay. Uh ityou know, that was the option that caught my attention and that's the oneI'm sticking with at this point and unless I'm led in a different direction.>> Okay. Does anybody else want to go?Sure. I'll I'll say that uh I'm definitely interested uhfeeling much more comfortable with one high school.Um and uh like the idea of moving um RSI intouh the PMS building. Um not so sure about the K-8 piece.Um but definitely happy to see it move into a largerspace. Okay. Yeah, um I think my options is the same.Uh I stated this before. Uh one high school sounds good. I think it willlevel the field for all students to have the same opportunity.I also support option B, a renovated high school. I support the the Coopercampus area. I mean, the terrain makes sense. The space with the New Hopecampus make totally makes sense to me. Moving a Spanish immersion to PMSis exciting. Uh so, yes, I would I support option B.Carolyn? I uh support no bond.So, I support the two high schools. I I am notwanting a brand new elementary school, high school.I'm not there yet with that, especially with the BB bond rating, with the thingsthat I've been hearing from constituents.I'm not there yet. Anybody else have any other commentsbefore you Dr. Brunson? Just since we're asking questions, are you open to theidea of Like if we we give them the two options,right? Like is I mean cuz again I I think if the voters said, "No, we don'twant it." then we rally around Sure, but a non-voter approved bondprocess by which we fix the buildings via LTFM. See what I did there? Yeah, Imean I think I think with the way we go on this board anyways, I mean I'm goingto vote no and we know how the other votes are going to go. So, but I'm goingto stay true to who I need to be. Yeah, I'm just saying I think we're andI I don't like the only other thing I'd say, I don't think we should toss optionC out of the window at this like I think you should still flush outdetails a little bit on on that. My guess is I can't speak for DirectorBassett who's not here, but in the last meeting she was veryinterested in option C. So, I I think it's worth continuing theconversations there. ThatI don't want to speak for it. Dr. Bowman.And uh if you are going to carry numbers out on option C, what needs to really becarried out is the sustainability of that budget over time cuz that that isgoing to be a more expensive budget every year that'll be compounded. So,that needs to also be included in that cuz then it becomes not just that figureright there, but that but the 10 years out become or 20 years outbecomes the important information. Thank you. So, do you have what you need to haveuntil we get to our next meeting for this?>> I think yes, I think we have what we what we need for the next meeting. I'lla preview uh thenext steps for us. We're going to be getting more information for you, butthe next points of clarification we're going toneed from you are going to be with regard to elementary schoolsum in this process so we can to Director Brenton'squestion. This is all trying to put together what does that plan look like?And so just so you have some foreshadowing,be thinking about all things elementary, geography, location, neighborhoodschools, magnet programming, and we will begin working ondetailing out the rest of it. I was going to give you something more to chewon. Can't wait. UmAnd we can provide laminated maps with eraser boardscuz that's what we work on most of the time. So thank you. I appreciate thequestions and and the thoughtfulness of thediscussion. It's It's helpful for us. I really agree. Okay. Uh DirectorBrenton, did I see a finger? No. Okay, good.In that case, umWe can run through the rest of this. Well, I promised a bio break and I Itwould be nice. >> Okay, bio break and then we'll come backwith new business.Ooh. No, no unfinished business, but stillbio break. These messages.Uh >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Permission. And I can't have thathappening. That's That's my life.Do what I want. Okay, we are back. And where we are isitem number seven, unfinished business, and actually 7B, which will requireaction, and it's the school board meetings schedule. Um,so if you look at it at the draft what we're trying to decide is about theum, extra meeting in November to canvass theelection. And they're giving us choices. So the first choice might be November4th or 5th or 10th or 11th or 12th. And also while you're looking at that, notethat in November of this year that would give usof the fourth meeting in November because we're meeting on the third ofNovember and we're meeting on the 16th and the 30th. However, December only hasone meeting. It's the whole calendar thing. So when in November would you bemost interested in doing the election canvassing?And spoiler alert, I would tell you I think that the day right after theelection umwould work because it doesn't there's a little bit of a spread inthere. If we have a a board meeting on thesecond there's the election on the third andthen we meet on the fourth, then we have a little bit of a break before weactually have our another meeting on the 16th.Otherwise it's like meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting for me. Thatwould be my choice. But I'm willing to listen to whateveranybody else is interested in. Director Long, would that be the onlything we would be meeting about is just toand then we would leave after that. For real for real.Scout's honor? You're on camera saying this. That's the purpose of thatmeeting. So you can't go back on it. You can't add like something to a worksession. >> thing of it is there if there's a motionfrom the board, blah blah blah. I mean it's up it would be the will of theboard. >> But what if I see you said it on camera?I did say it on camera. However, if the board overrules me, what can I do?Director I think Director Long is excited I think we should meet all fivedays. All No. Okay,um not hearing a motion on that or a second, I'm going to ignore that.>> fine. Fair enough. >> Okay, so okay, in that case I don't seeany Oh. Uh Director Hillbrand, did I see a hand? Um uh no. Okay, in that case I'mmaking The only thing I'd like to add, and Ithink Director Long will be very excited about this, isI know that you're going to be approving a calendar. I just want to also say thatwe may need, as we're planning along the way, to add an occasional study sessionor something, which we would give you far in advance notice of. Um but I do Ijust know we are doing you are doing heavy heavy lifting, I just want to putthat out there. Okay.Two months in advance notice? Two months in advance.>> in advance, but understand also that this particular meeting is after theheavy lifting that comes before the election.So, seeing no hands, I am going to make amotion that we use the Wednesday November 4th date for the for thecanvassing of the election meeting. I'll second. Ooh, I got a second. Moved andseconded. And this is a voice vote, this is not a roll call vote, and I do notsee any hands up. So, let's just do this. All in favor of having ouradditional potential our additional canvassing of the election meeting onWednesday November 4th, the day after the election, please say I.Opposed say no. Okay. Oh. Settled.Good job. Now, we move on to new business.And uh for new business, the first thing up is the resolution acceptingdonations. And this this time we have 10,000 10,074no, $704 and 64 cents, approximately.I'll >> Moved approval of accepting thosedonations by Director Bowman. I'll second. Second by Director Hillenbrand. And I am ready to do the>> It is a roll call vote. Yep. I don't see any hands. Let's do the roll call vote.Great. Uh Dr. I mean Director Long. I'll take that, Dr.You have to furnish this to go back to reality. Especially if it came with apay raise. Donations, right? Yes. Threat, yes.Great. Director Hillenbrand. >> Yes. Directoruh Brenneman. Yes. Chair Evans Becker. >> Yes. Renee Bowman votes. Director Bowmanvotes yes. UhDirector Wuchter. Yes. And Director Bass is absent.So, 6-0. It prevails. Okay.Super. Thank you. Donations accepted with great thanks.Thank you, everybody. All right. Next thing up is letter B,and that's an action item. It's an adjustment to the 2025-26 calendar offto have a packing day on June 2nd. Dr. McFall, you want to take it away?Yes. So, this is the calendar that continues to give and give and give.However, in an effort to be responsive to staff requests, staff needs, the factthat we have a giant move coming up, and be responsive to that, and be asforward-thinking communication as possible. It's why it's in front of younow. Um I've tried to articulate it in a memoto all of you so you could read it, but essentially so that the the public canhear it as well. Uh what we have collaborativelyworked on with the teachers union is a solution that does the following things.Uh we would continue to have May 1st as a professional development day for all staff and students with theexception of grade 6 through 8. The reason is that is the grade band that ifwe simply took a day away, they would be shortminutes for the required minutes. So, that's why it's a little goofyum and we're not doing it for everyone because in our conversations with thewith the teachers union, it seemed like it didn't make sense to have everybodyhave to make a change. So, we're we're we're sticking with the idea ofimpacting the least amount possible as we navigate these changes.So, May 1st on the district calendar will remain a professional developmentday. All staff will go through otherprofessional development processes on May 1st. The exception being thatteachers and students for our middle schools will engage in a blendedlearning asynchronous day, no different than what we did the last timeessentially for the blended day. The difference here is that we don't havethe day in front of it. So, if you remember last time we had 2 daysback-to-back, so we were able to provide time on the end of the first day to getready. So, in lieu of that, we are giving more time on the single day,basically 2 hours in order for teachers to get things organized, uh posted inthe morning again online for students, and then allow for time for teachers tobe available if students have questions, take attendance. Same plan that we putin place essentially last time. So, those students in grade 6 through 8 onlywill also engage in that asynchronous blended learning day.The reason we are doing this, fast forward to June 1st and 2nd. So, June1st will then change to the last studentcontact day for the 25-26 school year for grades Kthrough 8.That's intentional, K through 8. The reason being is that grades Kthrough 8 will then have a packing day on June 2nd.That only impacts K8. Our studentswho are 9th, 10th, and 11th gradewill keep the schedule as planned. K8 staff, because not everybody'smoving, not everybody's packing. So, K8 staff that are not directly impacted bythis will report to work as a non-student contact day. That's about as simplified as I canexplain all of the inner workings of what we're trying to pull off.Except to say that we are using May 1st time for middle school tocreate an asynchronous day so that June 2nd we can have as a packing day for allof K8. So, with that I would ask the board toconsider making a motion and adopting this changeyet again to this calendar. Dr. Long.Okay, so was the is that the professional development day that we hadmoved to the end of the school year? Yeah, okay. And then when doesthe 9th the high school get a packing day?High school does not need a packing day. Not even for all the science. Oh, yeah,that's right. Duh, cuz they're not moving. Sorry. Thinking of the one highschool thing now. I'm already there. Not yet.>> Glad you're but we're glad you're on board. We're just glad you're on boardwith that. I'm not, butThose are the questions we're having and as we're going through this, who needswhat Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts anddifferent people are impacted differently.Okay. Okay, so do I have a motion? So moved.>> Moved by Director Wutoh. Seconded. Seconded by Director Brendeson and thisis the move to have me first be uh K-5 and high school no school PDmiddle school uh asynchronous learning June 1st, lastday for K8 June 2nd, last day for 9-12 and a packing work day for K8. 9-11Coming? It's 9 through 11 and also the infographic isPerfect, thank you. Chef's kiss. Yes, it's a very nice infographic.>> effort. Yes, no, it's great. >> Okay. An assist on that one by ourcommunications department. Nevertheless, it's time for a vote.All in favor of the proposed calendar calendar updates, please say I. I.Opposed say no. Alrighty, one more change for ourcalendar on its way. Okay, next up policy. I got to saypolicy committee, I'm very impressed. Um Director Wutoh, you want to take itaway? Yeah, sure. Yeah, so our last meeting was February18th. As you can all see, I believe we have about 13 new policiesin front of you for first first read. And uma lot of a lot of them really I don't think we get to keep all the credit. Ithink staff has been doing a lot of the work, administration.I understand some of the directors are having to review three or four of thesepolicies each time, so thanks for all the work that they are doing to helpmake our work a little easier as well. Uh for second read, I think these werethe two policies that we pulled uh, from our last meeting. Uh, 204 and 427.Uh, with 204, no changes were made, so itremained the same as it was uh, when we brought it forward to the board the lasttime. Uh, based on discussion, it looks likethe elements that needed clarification was clarified and uh, we were all inagreement to keep the language as it as it is.Uh, with 427, we had an addition under theverbiage or a sentence or two to satisfy the requirement for certain three andfour wet load and the director that made that requestin speaking to her, sounds like that language is sufficient, so we will beseeking for approval of those two and keeping the others as first read. So,let's take care of that before we move on to the first reads, okay?So, I'll move I'm up for approval. Um, approval for 204 and 427 has beenmoved. Seconded. >> And seconded by Director Brittison. Allin favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no.Okay, approved. Now, the first read policies. Yeah, so with the first read policies,as I said earlier, a lot of these are APs that we have in the school alreadythat are being switched over to policy, soa lot of just language changes and statute changes here and there as youcan see in the red. No major uh,drastic changes in any of them. Mostly, it looks like clarifications or ordefinitions changing. Technical versus technical versus substantive.Yeah, technical versus substantive. Those are the two words we want.>> Okay. So, this means at our next meeting on March 16th, we will be approving allof these. Uh and and if anybody has any questionson any of these or clarifications that you need you need to get your correctquestions to Director Wuto well before then. Oh.All right. Next meeting. >> Executive Director Ahearn. Sorry, oneclarification. So, the policies that we are currently working on are policiesthat we are updating in our review cycle that were out of date and are older than2020. So, we are the policy committee Thereason you have so many policies that are in front of you is because we areworking diligently on getting our policies into a 3-year cycle. So, as assoon as we can get the policy into the 3-year cycle, then we will be on trackto continue our review process. So, yes, you're going to see a lot of policiescoming before you in the next half Well, before July 1st, but that's the why. So,these are all out of date and we will continue to work through the out-of-datepolicies until July 1 when we can get into our 3-year cycle. I just wanted toget that Thank you for the clarification. Okay, but so we'll bevoting on Yes. AndI just want to add to that Amy is thatthe staff has worked on this like all the ones you see on these first reads,that's all work that the staff has done. We have reviewed them as a policycommittee, but we're not making or suggesting any of the changes that comeinto these policies here. That's all the work of the staff. I just think that'sgood to clarify. Well, thank you for your work with the staff.All right. So, anyway, questions, get them director to Director Wuto as soonas possible, and we'll be voting at our next meeting, which moves us right alongto number 10, administrative reports. Dr. Stahle. Excellent. Thank you verymuch, Chairwoman Becker, board of those of you in the room, and I guess wehave no one left, but I bet there are still people out in the viewing public.Um Uh at Robbinsdale Area Schools, ourmission is to inspire and educate all learners to develop their uniquepotential and to positively contribute to their community. Our collective workis focused on that mission, and tonight I'd like to share some of the work inwhich we've been engaged. In the strategic theme of academic achievement,as a former English teacher and avid reader, it feels especially fitting aswe are closing out February uh that it's one of my favorites when it's I love toread month. Uh throughout the month, Dr. McDowell and I have had the pleasure ofvisiting classrooms to read with students. Um we enjoy seeing theirexcitement uh and listening to all of their amazingideas. In the strategic theme of uh priority ofacademic achievement, and continuing the theme months, uh March is music in ourschools month. Um I had the immense pleasure of seeing the closing show ofCooper Theater's You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and the second performanceof Armstrong Theater's um uh Brigadoon this past weekend. The cast and crew ofboth of those musicals truly did an outstanding job uh sharing their hardwork and talents with every audience. It was a lot of fun to see them. Uh themusicals are an excellent example of uh the importanceof music in our schools. You can go to the next slide, Molly. Uh music providesstudents with the opportunities to express themselves, to be passionateabout creative works, to be vulnerable as they uh perform for audiences of allages. Uh we've heard the Robbinsdale community um that the support for finearts is so important. Um so continuing to strengthen that in our districtmatters. In the strategic priority ofcollaboration and partnerships, we also were honored uh as February is the BlackHistory Month, Cooper Student Council organized a Black History Month Expogathering nearly 35 community organizations, businesses, and programsthat set up booths connecting students with new opportunities.Uh, the next, uh, the event included music and dance from Cooper students andstaff celebrating Black History, Culture, and Achievements.Continuing our celebrations of Black History Month, our AchievementIntegration Team put together a tremendous event on February 20thcelebrating Black, uh, Black Excellence honoring culturallegacy and uplifting student voices. This annual celebration included awelcoming performance by the Fair Crystal and RMS, uh, orchestras, dynamicstudent performances from Armstrong and Cooper, inspiring music from FairCrystal Choir, impactful spoken word performances, and high-energy Africandrumming. We're really proud of our students and staff for sharing theirtalents and voices with our community in this event. Moments like these remind uswhy it's essential to honor Black History, Culture, and Achievementsensuring every student feels seen, valued, and celebrated.Additionally, in the strategic theme of collaboration and partnerships, we'velaunched a caregiver survey that will be open until March 24th to gatheranonymous feedback about our school so that we can celebrate what's working,uh, and improve what isn't. The survey is available in English, Spanish, andSomali. The uh, responses will help us better understand student perspectives,identify strengths, and focus on opportunities for improvement aligned tothe four areas of our strategic plan. Individual answers will not be sharedwith schools. Results will only be reported in summary form to guideschools and district planning. Um, we appreciate the time that families taketo complete this survey, uh, cuz it helps us all get better.The last item in the strategic theme of collaboration and partnerships, I'mdelighted to share that the Seven Dreams Educational Foundation has dedicated$55,000 for the 2026-27hands-on learning grants. This program is entering its 23rd year um directlysupporting educators in our district with additional funds. These funds aredirect results of the recent 13th annual Bird Bash, which was a very fun eventwith the Roaring Twenties theme. Uh and our district staff charitablegiving campaign. Recently, with the support of Seven Dreams EducationalFoundation hands-on learning grant, nearly 600 elementary students fromacross our district were bused to Cooper to see the high school production ofYou're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Our long-standing partnership with SevenDreams is helping us champion innovative educational opportunities for ourlearners. We invite you all uh and all members ofthe community to join us at the annual District Orchestra Festival at 7:00 p.m.on Saturday, March 7th in Cooper High School. The festival has a long historygoing back roughly 40 years. And this year's performance will featureapproximately 380 student musicians coming together to showcase their skillsand hard work. Umover the years, this annual event has featured thousands of our districtorchestra students as well as guest conductors. Uh it's a great way tocontinue musical collaboration and certainly celebrate music in ourschools. And that is the end of my report. Thankyou very much. Thank you very much. Okay, that moves us into board committeereports and board reports, and I am up first becausewe had listening time tonight. We had five speakers and several of them spokeon a couple of topics. And so overall, there were concerns about our debt andabout property and about increases related to a bond.Um questions about restructuring listeningtime um behavior support in schools and uh that was it. Okay. And then um the only other thing Ihave board members everybody as of today has filled out the board survey and soum Gil Gil Gail Gilman from MSVA will be getting back to us and then at our nextmeeting we can make a decision on if we want to go with the professionaldevelopment with her. And that's my report. Uh do I have a volunteer to gonext? In that case, how about Director Bowman?Thank you. Um I had a wonderfully busy month. I visit made school visits withDr. Stahlo to Neil Spanish Immersion, New Hope Learning Center and also toCooper. UmLots of good things always going on in our district. Um it was it was great togo into the buildings cuz our leadership in the buildings were prepared uhuh with handouts that included uh lots of information about what goes on in thebuilding that I you normally don't get. Uhuh so that was really really good. Um I'm trying to make this short but ofcourse it's not going to happen and when I'm trying to make it short. Uh when wewere at uh Cooper, one of the things that uh visited the community school atCooper and a couple of days later I had somebody in the community ask me umuh what could be done or how are immigrant kids doing and how are ourkids doing over in Cooper. Um and Iuh said that what we found was that there was some community needs at thecommunity school at Cooper. So one of the organizations that I know is goingto be I got a list from the person who runs the community school atCooper. Uh and if anyone is interested in donating some clothes or some food orsome other items at this point for the community school at Cooper, just give mea jingle. I told Aviva who said she had some. I'll come over and pick it up offyour porch if you need me to. Um cuz we want to just make this happen reallyquickly and uh this is got the super or the principal's support also, soUm let's see. Uh I had my onboarding with Rebecca from the the executivedirector from Brooklyn Bridge Alliance. I was really uh amazed at the work thatthey do and most uh um happy to learn that a lot of their work is really basedon constantly surveying their students. So um and that was where I referencedearlier that the question was raised by these students that am I going to beable to support myself uh when I when I grow up and um I so I'm looking forwardto seeing what other questions that they're asking uh of their students andum it it's good I'm glad to finally learn as to how they're even connectedto this district, so uh I did attend the AMSD legislativesession, which is always always cuz I was there last year and I think the yearbefore uh a very exciting time cuz you have uh legislatures from St. Paul thatshow up and they add lots of life to that to uh the activities that morning.And then after that I I did stay for the umdignity index uh information that Dr. Stella has talked about. I've gotten acouple of cards. It's pretty cool. I was glad to learn about it, so I've gotmaterials if you want to see any of it. And that concludes my report fortonight. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Director Hillenbrand?Um I don't have nearly as much to say, but I did go on a visit uh which I justmakes me feel like I'm not doing enough. You're wonderful. But uh I did go to RMSwith Dr. Stahlo, and that was a wonderful visit. They're doing greatstuff there, and it's just always great to see the kids, because that's the mostimportant part of what we do. And as school board member, I don't always getto see it. So, that was wonderful, and I'll pass on.Ooh. Yeah, so community ed uhmeeting is tomorrow at 5:30. We'll be talking about budgets. Uh last meetingwas focused on some of the new changes that they've tried to implement forsummer programming coming up, which I think we've already should be seeingflyers going to community about signing up for various summer programs already.So. Thank you. And uh Director Bassett wasvery disappointed that she could not be here tonight, but she said she would bewatching online. So, hello Director Bassett. Director Long.Um I had uh 287 Oops. At the 287 school board meeting, we got um a legislativeupdate, and that was back before um we had uhthe legislature had come back with where we are fiscally. So, at that time, theydidn't think that there would be any movement at all um in any of therequests that have been made around education, but we'll see I mean whatMarch forecasts uh for our state budget. Uh cuz February looked pretty good, butyou know, they're still leery about what March might look like. Um also tomention, uh we talked a little bit about the Blue Ribbon Commission, because theuh superintendent of 287 had been appointed to the Blue Ribbon umCommission, and they are going to be working on transforming specialeducation services and legislation around that. So,um it's great that somebody who services our district and other districts will begiving input. Director Brendeson. Uhtwo things uh went on some school visits with the superintendentsSandberg and most recently at Forest Elementary. That is always fun to beable to see the kids and see the different items that are happening.In addition to that, attended the district curriculum advisory committee.It was a great meeting. We talked about the new math curriculum that's comingfor 2027-2028 and the new math standards that thedistrict will be purchasing new curriculum in math because our old stuffis doesn't meet the standards. So we have to buy something new. And if theone thing that was brought up there a lot of good parents, a lot ofinteraction. It was mentioned there a bunch of times.This will not be the last time that the parents in the community will get to toreact to it. We looked at five different sets of books. It's going to getnarrowed down to two for a pilot. And the district will be looking for morefeedback from parents once they've narrowed it down to two. Soget involved. All righty then.That's it, folks. The next thing is future events willscroll and it's time for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Move.Move. And I'll take that as a move and a second over there. All in favor, pleasesay I. Opposed, say nay. Thank you very much.See you in two weeks. Thanks, everyone. >> Mhm. >> Mhm.