The financial settlement for teachers includes a 2.25% enhancement to the salary schedule in year 1 and a 2.2 enhancement to salary schedule in year two. That also will include and be on top of step movement in both years of the contract. And this contract will be for 2025 through 2027. In addition to the salary schedule enhancements, nurses were moved to our teacher salary schedule and that's pretty exciting for us. It's a big win for the nurses. It's a big win for the district. It allows us to be more competitive as most nurse positions are on that same salary schedule.

Yes. Employee sick and safety time. Yeah. the the new or more recent law that gives more sick time and more eligibility um for our employees to take off when they're ill or their family members.

Overall, we had 265 more students enrolled this year compared to last year, our largest increase in five years. Highest Tonka online enrollment since launching. And that's just amazing to see that also with the online as where some places are decreasing. We're still growing.

I think it was what, two years ago or last year we're at this time and had a really low kindergarten class and we can see that rebounding nicely. But I mean, a lot of the talk was across the state that kindergarten enrollment was down and it I don't know, do we have a feel for is that coming back? is was it just a blip or you know I mean we start getting kindergarten classes that are that big all the way through right that there's going to be different planning that uh good things but um you know that's a pretty big class coming through so

The market is getting better the, you know, for jobs and employers. So, that's definitely a trend that's increasing. Um, also we of course we we didn't we just didn't have as many openings given our financial situation currently, but I'd say last year before the first day of school, the couple weeks out, I think we had like four teacher openings and we were able to get those filled and get someone in there um by the first day of school or or that week. Um, but we had coverage. So it is an attractive district. So we're always getting a good amount of candidates, but where we still struggle is special education because those teachers are so sought after. So I think that's just a challenge that the whole state has.

When we built menus last year, so we have to build menus. Uh we started in March of last school year just um to be able to have the food in for September. But when we were building uh menus, I had an idea to take the top nine student favorite meals of last school year and use those for the first two weeks of school this year. Um bringing their favorites in to try to entice them um you know to eat with us. Well, as you can see, um, under the lunch category, um, for elementary, we increased 3% over last year. Uh, middle schools, we increased 1% and then the high school, we actually increased 5%.

Yeah, we have seen obviously a dramatic increase in the quality of food over the past couple of years. Um, and it's fun because you actually get excited for what you're going to eat at lunch and it's not just an opportunity to talk to friends, but it's a time to eat some great food, too.

I'm waiting for my fan badge on the Tonkaresh Instagram page. Okay. Um because I love So it Well, it's just kind of it's joyful, right? It's it's really fun to watch and I really appreciated just this week the unity day because what you didn't mention was in addition to the orange aprons that the menu was orange, which and what I really appreciated about that is that really was fun and engaging. I'm sure it was probably delightful for the students to to get to participate in that. And I just think, you know, no wonder you see your numbers going up because you're making lunch fun.

Anecdotally, what I've heard from my own children is that some of the um requirements around timing and or where where they can eat have changed for breakfasts. Okay. And so, uh it sounds like a lot of students are having trouble accessing them. Um and like my own kids are reporting that they they eat breakfast, they usually eat at first breakfast and second breakfast, but they've been eating more first breakfast because they don't know if they're going to have time to get breakfast at school. So, that's just a feedback piece. I don't know if that's true at all the buildings, but um that's been consistent this year for my kids compared to last year. So, just something to consider.

Um we have been told that our funding for meals is secured for September and October reimbursement. Um, beyond that, as far as reimbursement goes, I don't have an answer on that, but I can get back to you. But as far as what our fund or our fund balance has, we would be able to continue operation as it is.

And in the utility industry, if you're building a new power plant, they stretch the payments out over over 30 to 40 years because that way rateayers who are getting the benefit of it uh will pay for it versus the current rateayers getting a big giant spike, right? and we do the same thing. That's what bonds do. It it basically allows for an improvement and then generations pay for it over the life of the of the facility, but also over the the the generations that are getting the benefit of that facility.

The other thing is we we manage construction in house and and over that $231 million it's about $ 8.9 million of construction management fees that we've avoided. So we just plow that back into the building buildings.

There's three school districts in Minnesota that are currently rated um AAA, which is the highest bond rating you can get. Um there's four school districts in Minnesota all the time that got one. I was at Rochester when we were able to do that in Minnetonka. So, I'm just glad to be able to have had the opportunity to do that at both places because you need school boards to actually run a really tight ship to be able to do that.

And just for those watching, uh, it's it's really a great example of the wizardry of, uh, of Mr. Baja and his team is really looking at this and um and you look at how many bites at the apple they came they they look at this and you know I've been a part of a lot of these so I've seen this over a lot of years and how you are tyrously always looking for ways to improve our financial position and so being able to do what we're able to do w with so uh such a minimum uh minimal impact to our our our community and and a maximum impact for our students and staff is amazing. amazing and and this is some of the nuts and bolts things. Uh these are some of the big things and all the way down to to the small things. And so just want to say thank you and and appreciate what you and your team.