Hello, everyone. I'm David Law, Superintendent of Minnetonka Public Schools. It's an honor to be here with you as we kick off a new year by shining a light on the incredible heart and drive of our students. And I'm Kim Marie Foss, Chair of the Minnetonka School Board. We believe there is no better way to start our meetings than by celebrating the excellence and passion our students bring to everything they do. This evening is all about the power of student dedication. Whether in the classroom, on the field, or on the stage, the achievements we're highlighting tonight represent countless hours of hard work and a steadfast commitment to excellence. We begin most of our regular board meetings with recognitions to highlight the positive impact that so many different people make in our district. To start our 2026-27 school year, we are recognizing our state-qualifying student-athletes and extracurricular standouts from this past spring, as well as a few staff recognitions that were announced during the summer. Our September recognitions include Girls Flag Football State Qualifiers, Boys Golf State Qualifiers, Girls Golf State Champions, Boys Lacrosse State Qualifiers, Girls Lacrosse State Champions, Boys Tennis State Qualifiers, Boys Track and Field State Qualifiers, Girls Track and Field State Qualifiers, the theater cast and crew members who contributed to Minnetonka Theatre's Spotlight Awards for the spring musical, a Staff Spotlight Award for our Executive Director of Finance and Operations, Paul Bourgeois, and the National School Public Relations Association Awards earned by our district's communications team. Well done. We will begin by recognizing the Girls Flag Football team, which qualified for state for the second year in a row. The team is coached by David Bierley, Allie Rogers, Emma Crites, and Alex Griffith. Let's hear more about the season. Hi, my name is Maddie Moseman, and I'm a senior in high school. The most impactful part of flag football for me has been meeting so many athletic girls who come from a variety of different backgrounds. I am proud of our team's accomplishments, especially making it to state each year that we've been together. What makes this achievement even more meaningful is that flag football was a completely new sport for us just two years ago, and I'm also proud of how we have been able to go with the flow, learn new skills, and adapt from one year to the next. Because of our amazing coaches, we continue to improve, have fun, and work together. Girls, I just want to take a final opportunity to congratulate you on a really, really amazing season. Didn't end quite how we hoped it would, but when I think back on how we started the season, thinking that we were absolutely unstoppable and nobody could compete with us, and then we went out and lost our first two games that first weekend. If you would've told me how it ended up, that we were within a play of beating the state champions two different times at TCO, and the walloping we put on Eden Prairie to start off, I got to tell you, it was pretty magical. Really appreciate the senior leadership we had this year and really appreciated everybody coming together to make a pretty incredible season a reality. Can't wait to see what's in store for us in the years to come, and I'm thinking that one of these years when the school board is honoring us, it's not going to be just as a state qualifier, it's going to be as state champions. So, I can't wait for it. Congrats again, girls. Couldn't be prouder to be your coach. Congratulations to the following team members: Emerson Adler, Averie Bierley, Gracie Brown, Micah Choas, Nadia Choas, Averie Diggle, Olivia Detjen, Ewod Dirrie, Shelby Gray, Emerson Grinstainer, Piper Grinstainer, Kennedy Hochbaum, Claire Jelinek. Katherine Jewett, Claire Keenan, Lily Mescher, Josephine Martin, Madeline Moseman, Cameron Oberding, Charlotte Rosati, Giada Rosati, Eva Voves, Charlotte Wakefield, Ellery Winter, and Audrey Yanda. The boys golf team had two students advance through the Section 2 AAA Finals to represent the Minnetonka Skippers as individual competitors at state. The team is coached by Tim Jandreau, DJ Steinmeier, Mike Baumbach, Jason Henning, and Layne Thomas. Let's hear more about the season. Hi, my name is Tim Jandreau. I am the boys varsity golf coach, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about our fantastic season that we had. We had one player make the All-Conference Academic Team. We had two All-Conference members. We placed third in the section. We finished second in a tournament up in Brainerd to the team that won the state tournament, so that was a great accomplishment, shooting a 286, which I think is our lowest round in the last two or three years as a team. We ended up having two players qualify for the state tournament, and just overall in general, just a really fun season with a lot of great accomplishments by our players, and I'm super proud of them. Congratulations to our boys golf state qualifiers, Dylan Cannon and Tyler Lock. The girls golf team defended its reigning state championship title this spring, winning with an historic 35-stroke victory to set a new state tournament record. The team also placed five players on the 2026 All-Lake Conference team. Individually, Ruby Redding clinched the individual state title, and Kylie Hanson shared the third-place title. The team is coached by Sara Martinson, Jeff Wall, Mo Haskamp, Christina Malloy, and Christian Thome. Let's hear more about the season. Hi, I'm Sara Martinson. I'm the coach of the Minnetonka Girls Golf Team, and I couldn't be more excited to once again be congratulating the girls on their state championship win back in June. We have gone undefeated for the past two years, in large part due to this group of great kids and super athletes. And we also had an individual champion in Ruby Redding. She was the AAA individual champion at the state tournament. Kylie Hanson and Selena Wu also placed in the top eight and received medals. This is a phenomenal group of girls, not just as athletes and competitors, but also just as human beings and students. And they work so hard to achieve the things that they do, and it's really been a pleasure and a joy to watch and coach them over the past several years. Just last week, they also competed at Pinehurst in a national invitational that they were invited to as state champions, and they finished sixth out of 36 state championship teams from around the country, which is another fabulous accomplishment. This video could be 15 minutes long, and I wouldn't begin to be able to list all of the accolades and the accomplishments of these six girls, again, from academics to athletics, to just straight-up good human beings. They have represented Minnetonka and Minnesota so well, and I'm going to miss our two seniors, and I am thrilled to have four of them back next year, to play on varsity hopefully, and we'll try and bring back another one. Congratulations, girls. You are very, very deserving. Congratulations to the following state champion team members: Elizabeth Fong, Kylie Hanson, Ananda Newibanes Fong, Ruby Redding, Mila Sloan, and Selena Wu. This past spring, the boys lacrosse team qualified for the 2026 Minnesota State High School League State Lacrosse Tournament after winning the Section 2AA title. The team is coached by Josh Hugh. Let's hear more about the season. My name's Adam Fortner. I'm a senior, and our team was fortunate to be a state qualifier for the third year in a row last spring. The best part about playing in the state tournament is being able to compete at the highest level in Minnesota high school lacrosse, and you get a chance to win the most important trophy that you can. The last four years have been amazing, and I think that especially the culture has grown significantly. Lucky enough, I've been able to have amazing captains every single year, and I'm super thankful for them showing me how to lead by example. It was amazing last year to see all the seniors just invite the freshmen and sophomores just so everyone could be together and no one really felt left out. I think that our team is more than a group of random guys that all play the same sport. I think it is a brotherhood, and I think everyone on our team thinks that, too. I think everyone really cares about each other. And obviously, our head coach, Josh Hughes, has been super supportive of all of us, even outside lacrosse and outside of school. He's a super easy guy to talk to, and it makes it easy to come to practice in a good mood and just be ready to play hard and compete with everyone. Congratulations to the following state-qualifying team members: Jordan Allen, Garrett Ahlstrand, Henry Baker, Sayer Bank, Laird Cassidy, Adam Fortner, Torsten Gardner, Winston Hommerding, Tate Jabbs, Jonah Joas, Blake Johnson, Chase Johnson, Charles Koehler, Brody Lee Tyler Ohman, Colin Ostendorff, David Piant, Quintin Restrepo, Parker Ronning, Thomas Sander, Tyler Schago, Jonas Stowe, Gabe Ullman, Luke Van Bergen, Luke Williamson, Philip Winkler, and Thomas Winkler The girls lacrosse team won its first state title in program history this spring, finishing the season with an exceptional 18 and 1 record. The team won a dramatic section final game to qualify for the state tournament, beating Orono in overtime after coming back from a six-goal deficit. The team is coached by Chandler Diseller, Anna Rydin, and Ryan Ward. Let's hear more about the season. Hi, my name is Claire Ronning, and I'm a junior at Minnetonka High School. I'm also the captain of the Minnetonka girls lacrosse team. I had the privilege of playing on the championship-winning team last year, and I just wanted to share how meaningful that was to me. It made such an impact because it was our first championship as a Minnetonka girls lacrosse team, and I'm so proud of our team and everything we accomplished that season. It's truly a feeling I'll never forget, and I'm so appreciative of that. My name is Ingrid Huber, and I'm a junior. The most impactful thing about winning the state championship was that we were the first Minnetonka girls lacrosse team to ever do it in Minnetonka High School history. I'm most proud that we played as a true team. There were no superstars, and we trusted each other, which made us unbeatable. Congratulations to the following team members: Elizabeth Barrett, Stella Bertogliat, Lily Bizants, Elena Bottin, Archer Burns, Barrett Carroll, Madeline Cook, Ellie Benske, Sydney Grant, Ingrid Huber, Grace Kelly, Charlotte Marshman Lily Palm, Elizabeth Panner, Nora Richardson, Chloe Ronning, Charlotte Rosati, Sydney Ross, Reese Schramstad, Kira Spanel, Brooke Wallin, Ainsley Ward, Ava Wendorf, and Eve Zelens. We would also like to recognize the following team managers: Audrey Redington, Arwen Suarez, and Mary Sparrow Wilker. One student-athlete from the boys tennis team qualified for state this year. Asher Zipkin won the Section 2 AA Individual Singles Championship and punched his ticket to the Class AA Individual State Tournament for the second consecutive year. The boys tennis team is coached by Hal Siegel. Let's hear more about the season. Good evening to our Minnetonka community. My name is Hal Siegel. I'm the boys tennis coach, and tonight I want to recognize and congratulate Asher Zipkin, our senior captain, for being the 2AA singles champion. Last year, he was the 2AA runner-up, and this year, he went a step further and was champion. Made it all the way to the quarterfinals of the state tournament. Asher's going to be moving on to the University of Southern California. He'll be attending USC in the fall, and we expect great things from Asher. Good luck. Congratulations again on your successful season, Asher. The boys track and field team placed 12th overall in the state standings this year after winning the 2AAA section team title. Individually, Sean Freese won first place in the 3,200-meter run and a fourth-place medal in the 1,600-meter. Grady Givenhay brought home a second-place medal in the long jump. The boys track and field team is coached by James Finch. Congratulations to the following state-qualifying team members: Sean Freese, Grady Givenhay, Leonidas Haux, Maximus Haux, Lucas Kendall, Casey Nordstrom, Benno Sandefur, and Sawyer Schultz. The girls track and field team finished in fourth place overall at the state this year. The team also was the Section 2AAA champion. Minnetonka's relay teams secured two exceptional top-three podium finishes. Adela Belseth, Margaret Nielsen, Olivia Mulstet, and Evie Malik earned second place in the 4x400-meter relay and third place in the 4x800-meter relay. Individually, Evie Malik won third place in the individual 800-meter run. The girls track and field team was coached by Jane Reimer-Morgan, Crystal Larson, Leanne LeBlanc, Tanya Andrusciewicz, Nick Van Erp, Sarah Kylo-Beecher, Julie Albrecht, Celeste Snyder, Eric LeBlanc, Kristin Gierman, and Megan Rank. Let's hear more about the season. Hello, I'm Jane Reimer-Morgan, and I'm the head girls track and field coach. And we had another outstanding year with a very young group. We had six eighth-graders on our team, and a lot of young sophomores, freshmen who did an outstanding job, as well as our seniors and juniors, who were great role models for them. We finished fourth in the state, one point from third and three points from second. I'm very, very proud of how well they did. We were section champions. We were fourth place in the true team state meet, and we set two new school records, the 4x100 relay, and Evie Malik beat her own school record this year in the 800 meters. So it was a great season. I want to thank the girls, the parents, our staff, which is phenomenal. And this was my 41st year coaching at Minnetonka, and I will be retiring this year. And I want to say what a wonderful experience it has been for me, and I want to thank the community and the school for all the support that they've given our team, our girls, throughout these 41 years. So thank you very much. Congratulations to the following team members: Adela Belseth, Ella Bracken, Sophia Guilmette, Alayah Guliard, Emma Hackman, Marley Jack, Gianna Larson, Evelyn Malik, Olivia Mulstet, Margaret Nielsen, Elliott Pilon, and Lorna Portner. The final student group we'll recognize this evening is the cast and crew of Minnetonka Theatre's spring musical, "Spamalot." The production earned 30 Spotlight Awards from Hennepin Arts in several performance and production categories. Additionally, two students were chosen as the 2026 Hennepin Arts Spotlight Education Technical Career Pathway technicians: Grant Conley for lighting and Easton Spihar for sound. Grant was also honored as one of two recipients of the 2026 Hennepin Arts Spotlight Showcase Technical Theatre New York experience. Let's hear more from Minnetonka Theatre. Congratulations to the "Spamalot" crew and cast. We are so proud of you. Remember that day in tech rehearsal when I slammed my script down, and I told you all, "There's something very special happening with this show." It proved to be true. Spotlight adjudicated us and awarded you all for your hard work and dedication with 30 acknowledgments. That is amazing. I'm so proud of you all, actors, stage managers, all of our amazing tech crews, and the wonderful staff that helps us all shine. Congratulations. Hello, "Spamalot" actors and crew. Congratulations on your outstanding achievement in musical theater for this production. You're all amazing, and I hope that whether you were performing on stage or you participated in one of our production crews, that you are very proud of your contributions that made this production such a success. I want to especially call out the costume, hair, and makeup crews for their work backstage. Whether they were assisting with quick changes or wigs or makeup, you all did a great job, and we could not have done it without you. So thank you for all of your hard work and contributions. Congratulations, and we are so excited to get started on our upcoming season. What's up, "Spamalot" tech crews? First off, we just want to say we are so proud of all the work you put into "Spamalot," from deck crew to fly crew, painting, carpentry. So we received 30 Spotlight awards as a whole, 16 of which were tech-specific. That is amazing. So keep up the good work. We are proud of you, and we're excited to keep going. Hi, "Spamalot" tech crews. We're so proud of you to have received over 30 accolades from Spotlight, 16 of which were production crews alone. Want to give a specific shout-out to lighting crews, sound crews, and video crews. Your hard work and dedication made this production really special, and we're excited to see you back. Hi, "Spamalot" front-of-house crew. Thank you for all of your hard work and everything you did to help make "Spamalot" win so many Spotlight awards. Your friendly faces and helpfulness made it a great experience for our Spotlight evaluators and all of our audience. Thank you. And fetch another basket. Fetch another basket. What for? Well, I'm not crazy. We may need it. But there's two of them. What could they possibly do with a cow? All men don't know. Oh. Oh. Oh. Hi, my name is Dahlia, and I'm a junior in Minnetonka Theater. I'm so extremely grateful that our cast and crew of "Spamalot" got to participate in the Hennepin Arts Spotlight Showcase Awards this year. This was such an exhilarating and lovely experience, being able to share our hard work with over 2,000 students and supporters who also find joy in the arts. This was an especially big honor, since at Spotlight, we only have four minutes to perform out of our entire show. There were also limitations, meaning minimal access to props, no extravagant costume pieces, no crazy light design, and no set. Even though all of these elements are what really complete a show, the critics who nominated us could see that we worked together as an ensemble and put together a fabulous show, whether we had all these extra accessories and props or none at all. I hope to be back at the Spotlight Showcase Awards again next year. Thank you. Congratulations to the following members of Spamalot's cast: Dahlia Adams, Anya Arora, Audrey Baebe, William Baran, Ainsley Belisle, Katherine Brogan, Violet Carter, Lexi Chicoine, Ioni Dahl, Raymond Davin. Lydia DeGrood, Davis Doran, Gavin Durant, Kira Errazo, Jack Arrington, Ada Fazzenden, Addison Fogarty, Tate Gilbertson, James Griffiths, Logan Harrington. Eleanor Heidelberg, Micah Hunter, Ethan James, Anna Leigh James, Kinsley Johansen, Giobella Klobucar, Shilo Lant, Tate Leif, Henry Lindberg, Georgia Lindgren. Samuel Mendel, Liliana Matthews, Annabelle Mintz, Eleanor Mulhern, Augustine Muraski, Scarlet Murphy, Esther Peterson, Peyton Pittenger, Madeline Przybyla, Olivia Recker. Grace Rieger, August Riebey, Ella Schumacher, Pepper Smith, Easton Spihar, Sadie Stillman, Mark Turcotte, Christine Watras, Elijah Wentz, and Jaren Whiting. From the Spamalot crew, we recognize the following team members: Avery Boss, Fiona Boll, Tommy Boland, Quinn Born, Raquel Brandmeier, Zoe Bush, Sarah Carlson, Mavis Chadwick, Mason Cholmondelek, Carter Christensen. Grant Conley, Nyla Copeland, Mia D'Alessio, Natalia Diedrich, Elise Dowling, Megan Eichler, Olivia Engelking, Kavya Gardner, Lillian Gurger, Elle Grisel. Taj Hill, Joe Hoffman, Noelle Hunter, Ava Hustad, Cecilia Ingham, Andrew Jones, Emerson Kallam, Cohen Kallam, Samara Khan, Jonas Kleinhans. Dominic Kruel, Sophia Kuhn, Megan Lindahl, Lucy Mendel, Lennon Mason, Alex Matson, Gabriel Mean, Lucinda Mean, Zaria Mokamba, Alexis Mlema. Emerson Morgan, Quincy Murphy, Seohee Negreros, Joseph Noerenberg, Lucio Halloran, Ani Oakman, Jacob Poncelet, Tessa Putnam, Kylie Rakers, Rayna Reitan. Lola Roll, Kendall Schilling, Casey Schloss, Isabella Siefert, Lena Shellendick, Josephine Shay, Jude Smith, Julia Smith, Skyler Smith, Austin Su. William Sein, Zinnia Tunks, Toby Unglaub, Caitlin Waddell-Toohey, Josie Wallman, Morgan Way, Lydia Woyniak, and Kaitlyn Woodford. We also want to recognize Minnetonka Theater staff leaders who support students in producing such an amazing show. Congratulations to Trent Boyum, Amy Jory, Austin Adler, Madison Grimsbo, Cheryl Welch, Nate Turcotte, Aaron Kors, Jennifer Christ, Jeff Geisler, Andrew Vance, Jan Battles, Kelly Tripp, and Lauren DeYoung. This spring, Paul Bourgeois, Executive Director of Finance and Operations for Minnetonka Public Schools, was recognized with a K through 12 Excellence Spotlight by Sourcewell. Paul makes an immeasurable difference for our students in the work he does each day. We shared more about Paul in the award nomination video. Let's watch. Today, I'm nominating Minnetonka Public Schools Executive Director of Finance and Operations, Paul Bourgeois. Paul is the humble, unsung hero for Minnetonka public education and a champion for Minnesota public education. In his capacity, he has probably the record in Minnesota for the longest stretch of time where a public school hasn't had to make any budget reductions because of his financial wizardry. He listens to ideas, and he's visionary in setting students up for success, both with the facilities piece, incredibly efficient operations. Well, Minnetonka is all about excellence, and the excellence that Minnetonka is known for just wouldn't be there without Paul. He just believes in public education. In his heart, he loves kids learning and public education. When students have a great bus ride, and they walk into a clean building, and it's heated well, and have a great meal, all of that was Paul's work. All of it. When our taxpayers save money because he's refinanced things, when he's found incredible deals to purchase things through Sourcewell, am I right, Dan? All of that is because Paul has found the best deal to get the best quality for our community, excellence for our community, at a taxpayer-friendly rate. All of it is Paul. Paul, thank you for everything you do to make Minnetonka such an exceptional place to learn, work, and grow. We appreciate you. Finally, we'll recognize awards from the National School of Public Relations Association for our district's communication team. This team has earned 12 national awards that recognize outstanding work in multiple areas of communications. This includes a Golden Achievement Award for the team's information campaign about the 2025 bond referendum, six top Awards of Excellence, three Awards of Merit, and two Honorable Mention awards. The work that these awards recognize directly supports our school board's goals for the district. They represent projects in many categories including creative and impactful print publications, feature writing and storytelling, marketing strategy, social media strategy, website design and layout, and dynamic podcast and video production efforts. The communication team includes Creative Director Daniel Campbell, Communication Specialist Mary Cornelius, Executive Director of Communications Dr. Jeff Langeni, Audio Visual Specialist Andy Smith, Communications Assistant and District Service Center Receptionist Michelle Klecker, and several communications department student interns who supported projects throughout the year. Congratulations, team. That concludes our recognition program. Thank you so much for celebrating with us. The school board meeting will begin shortly. Good evening, everyone. I would like to call the Minnetonka Schools September 10th, 2026, meeting to order. May we all stand for the pledge to the flag, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda, please? So moved. Dan. May I have a second? Second. Karen. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have an agenda. I would like to introduce our student school board representative this evening, Micah Lazarus. Welcome. We're so happy to have you this evening. May I just call out that Micah is a returning student school board representative. He was eagerly waiting to come back for another year, and we're thrilled to have him back. Welcome, Micah. Welcome. No community comments this evening, correct? Okay. First up, we have the presentation on our permanent school fund. Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, and members of the community, tonight we're providing information on a very important ballot question that the legislature put on the ballot for this year. It's on the back of the ballot. It relates to school funding, and it will impact every school district in the state. So, Mr. Bourgeois is providing our community and the board some information about this ballot question. Mr. Bourgeois. Thank you, Superintendent Law, and members of the school board, as I pull up the presentation. I feel a little bit... So, here it comes. Back in 1857... It's still spinning. Try it again. There it goes. Okay. Oh, Andy, you must've been... Our friend, the man behind the curtain. Thank you, Andy. He was working while I was working on it. So, okay. There's a referendum on the ballot in November, to make an adjustment to something called the Minnesota Permanent Schools Trust Fund distribution formula. It's a referendum question. And this is something that was actually established in 1857. So, the Minnesota Constitutional Convention occurred actually in August of 1857, before Minnesota was even a state. So, it was adopted in the Constitution. They put together all the pending new items for the whole state to get it organized. And it was adopted on August 29th, 1857, prior to the territory of Minnesota becoming a state. And so Article 1 dealt with the bill of rights for the citizens. Article 2 dealt with the name and the boundaries of the new state, so that's when they decided they're going to name it Minnesota. And I hope I said that right, Minnesota. Anyway, and Article 3 through 7 established all the branches of the government of the new state, the governor, legislature, judiciary, election franchise. In other words, who was eligible to vote, et cetera. And once they took care of that, the first thing they did was establish a uniform system of public schools. And the part of the Constitution reads that it's, summarizing that, it's incumbent upon having a very well-educated electorate to have an effectively functioning democracy. And then Section 2 established a perpetual school fund by granting land for use by schools within each township to help fund the schools. One acre per township across the whole future state of Minnesota. So, the proceeds from the land, from either the sales of crops or resources, were to be used for the operation of the schools. And so they started all doing one-room schoolhouses, right? All over the state. Eventually, they sold off some of the lands, but in the Constitution, it required the principal from the sale of the lands to be forever preserved and undiminished. So, the income from the principal shall be distributed, these are quotes out of the original Constitution, "shall be distributed to the different townships through the state in proportion to the number of scholars in each township between ages five and 21." So, that was before the University of Minnesota. So, land in the southern part of Minnesota has largely been sold off in the 1800s to promote agriculture. The proceeds of those sales actually are still producing income due to the sale proceeds being principal to be kept perpetually, according to that original article in the Minnesota Constitution. Now, though, the State Board of Investments handles investments of the Permanent Schools Trust Fund corpus. So, the State Board of Investments actually invests all the proceeds for the Teachers Retirement Association, the Public Employees Retirement Association, which is all of our non-teaching people, plus cities and counties, and then the Minnesota State Retirement System for the State of Minnesota employees. So, they are professional investors. They invest it, and they're also investing the Permanent Schools Trust Fund corpus every year for us. 92% of the remaining trust lands are actually in 10 northern Minnesota counties. They include forests, grasslands, farmlands used for grazing and crop production, construction aggregate mining, and mineral mining production. So this is just a short history of the last 10 years of the interest and dividends on the principal corpus, plus the royalties from the usage of the remaining funds. They're distributed annually, and the principal corpus under the current rules remains untouched. So it's the methodology that, again, was established back by that constitutional convention way back in 1857. So you can see in the last 10 years, we went in 2016, 10 years ago, calendar 2016, $28 million was available for disbursement across the 850,000 odd students in the state of Minnesota. And it's been edging up, dropped a little bit in the early part in the COVID era. But then the last several years has actually been accelerating pretty significantly. So it's up to $58 million, which is about $69 per pupil, that is being distributed from earned in 2025, being distributed for fiscal '27. The proposed change to the distribution methodology would have a portion of the corpus be used. So the proposal is that 4.5% of the three-year average of the assets of the fund, it would include investment earnings on the principal corpus, as well as part of the principal corpus in the years when investment earnings themselves didn't come up to 4.5%. So this methodology would have boosted the 2025 payout to schools by about 48%, from $58 million to $86 million, or about $33 per pupil in 2025. So we're projected to receive about $872,000 in Permanent Schools Trust Fund, and the original distribution methodology currently is getting us about $69 per pupil. So if it's approved and they're boosted to 48%, we'll pick up another $33 to $102 per pupil, and for fiscal '27, it'd be about $401,000. So the new distribution would be instead of the $872,000, it'd be about $1,273,000. And it would be the same for all school districts across the state. So on November 3rd, there's a statewide referendum on moving to the new methodology for distribution. It's pretty basic. A yes vote will be a vote to approve the new distribution methodology. It actually will be a vote to change the Constitution, and then a no vote will be a vote to retain the current methodology. So that's it in a nutshell, and it's going before, again, voters of the state in November. Thank you, Mr. Bourgeois. Questions from the board. Dan? All right. Well, am I correct in understanding that if you don't answer the question on your ballot, that counts as a no vote? That's my understanding, yeah. Yeah. So, if folks are voting, they should make sure to flip the ballot over and fill in whatever their answer is on this question, so they don't inadvertently elect something they would've chosen to do otherwise. So yeah, it has to be over 50% of the ballots cast. So if you cast a vote for governor and other offices, et cetera, but you don't fill in the blank, it's still a ballot cast so that it does basically effectively become a no vote. I may have missed this. Has there been any distributions ever from this fund? Oh, yeah. We're getting distributions every year. We are? But what it is, it's on the earnings, so they leave the principal intact. Okay. Which in some respects, I guess invitations as a sincere form of flattery in that regard because of our Permanent or our Perpetual Endowment Trust Fund, that's the methodology that we're going to use so we can build it up. Okay. But there's distributions off of the earnings- Okay ... that that principal, that corpus, has. So it was $58 million was the earnings distributed or is being distributed from calendar 2025 earnings. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Next up, we have approval of collective bargaining agreement with MISA employees. Superintendent Law? Madam Chair, members of the board, we always want to make sure our employee groups are adequately compensated within our budget parameters, and tonight we have two different bargaining groups that we're going to talk about our settlements with them. General Counsel and Executive Director of HR, Angie Flowers, is going to talk through each of these. I'll do one introduction for both of them. The first one she's going to talk through is our MISA employees, and I'll just tell you that those are our tech employees. Ms. Flowers. Thank you, Superintendent Law. Good evening, Madam Chair and board members. First, I always want to acknowledge the district team and the union team, MISA, our technical employees, for coming together and coming to a new contract. In this contract, the members will get step movement in both years. They'll get additional increases to the salary schedule of 2.43% in year one, and 2.4% in year two. They will also get increases to insurance contributions, and this TA is within the allocated board authority. And with that, I am asking for your approval of this tentative agreement with MISA. May I have a motion for the approval? So moved. Sally. May I have a second? Second. Mike. Any discussion? No discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. For our Nutrition Services group, again, the teams collaborated and settled this contract pretty fast with a lot of good discussion, so thanks to them. The group will receive a $1 per hour increase to wages in year one, and 75 cent to wages in year two. This group does not have a step schedule. They'll also receive increases to insurance, and again, this is settled within board authority, and I am asking for your approval of this tentative agreement with Nutrition Services. May I have a motion to approval for the Nutrition Services agreement? So moved. Tanya, may I have a second? Second. Karen, any discussion? Dan. I just want to reiterate some thanks to Angie and the negotiating teams on behalf of the district in both sets of negotiation and to the employee groups in Nutrition Services and in MISA for doing this in such a productive and collaborative way. Thank you. Thank you. Megan. I would just echo that, and it's always really nice to have these done so early in the year, so thank you for taking it- Thank you both. And we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you much. Okay. Next up, we have approval of sale of 2026 D general obligation facilities maintenance bonds. Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, as our recognitions earlier tonight referenced, one of the things we're very fortunate to have is a very taxpayer conscious Executive Director of Finance and Operations. The timing of our bonds is usually done with input from experts in the field, lots and lots of research. But maximizing the amount of money that we'll get within our system and minimizing our obligation we put on our taxpayers. Tonight, we have two bonds that we're going to be approving. I'll let Mr. Bourgeois talk through each of those bonds, the details of what the bond is for, and the rates for your approval. Mr. Bourgeois. Thank you, Superintendent Law, Madam Chair, members of the board. We sold our 2026 D general obligation facilities maintenance bonds basically on, what was the date? On May 7th, you authorized it, and we sold the bonds on August 26th. These bonds are used to pay for next summer's long-term maintenance projects. We still have new construction going on, which is very exciting. But we also still have about 1.9 million square feet of building space that we have to maintain, much of which is over 50 years old. And so we still have those projects going on, and we're actually trying to coordinate some of that work with some of the new construction for economies of scale. But we did sell these bonds at 3.63% interest rate, which was a very good rate. And we actually hit the market a little bit before things started edging up a little bit the last few months, or the last few weeks, I should say, in late August because of what's still going on across the world. But the sale resolution was provided by Dorsey & Whitney, and we ask that you approve these bonds so that we can close on them, and we'll put the proceeds in the bank and earn interest on them besides. And then use them to maintain the investment that the community has in our facilities. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the sale of the general obligation facilities maintenance bonds? So moved. Dan. May I have a second? Second. Mike. Any discussion or questions? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. We have an approval. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. Dr. Bourgeois. Thank you. Okay. Madam Chair, members of the board, item 10 is approval of the sale of 2026 general obligation school building bonds. These are the second tranche of bonds that the voters approved on November 4th of 2025. You'll recall that we issued about $55 million of the $85 million in bonding authority in December of 2025 and actually have the money invested, earning interest while we are actually working into construction and breaking ground on our two big middle school projects, which that $55 million was to cover primarily those middle school projects, and then the installation of the Epic system at the high school, which is completed and just being fine-tuned, but it's operational. The second batch of money, the $30 million remaining in a statutory authority or voter-approved authority, is for all of the other projects at the elementary schools and the cafeteria at the high school, renovations at the high school, and the counseling area. And so we sold the bonds at this time. You authorized us to go ahead and sell them, and we did sell them. The interest rate was 5.07%, which is, in historical context, that's not a bad deal. Back before the Great Recession, if we got 5% on our geo bonds, we were actually really ecstatic. So it's still a very good interest rate, and it was, in some respects, a little bit of a defensive move in that we're concerned that rates might still keep edging up over time. So we decided, let's sell now, put the money in the bank. We're also earning interest on it, and we're going to maximize that interest, so maybe there'll be a little bit left over in the piggy bank when we get these projects done for other things to consider. But both of these sales actually sold out very quickly. They were oversubscribed. And so our financial advisors were able to negotiate with some of the buyers of different coupons to actually lower the rate just a little bit down. So our credit quality of being AAA is recognized in the market, and it is very strong. There's only about 90 school districts out of 13,000 that have a AAA bond rating, and so we are recognized as a very safe bet to put your money away and that we will pay you back with interest. And so again, very successful bond sale. So, we'd ask that you approve this bond sale, and we'll be closing on this on October 7th. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the sale for the general obligation bonds? So moved. Karen. May I have a second, please? Second. Dan, any discussion or questions? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have the approval for the sale. Thank you, Mr. Bourgeois. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have the acceptance of bid for MMW Construction. Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, we got some good news on half of these bids a little early, that our bid at MMW came in under bid. But tonight, we're going to go through both of these bids and give a little bit more detail about the process and whether they came in over or under budget. So I'll have Mr. Bourgeois take it away from there. Thanks, Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, we have in front of you our recommending acceptance of the bid of Rochon Corporation for the MMW construction that is not currently underway, basically phase two. Phase one is about $2.7 million worth of site work that's necessary to adjust the site for the new addition and new circulation and require the reorientation of the athletic fields. But this phase is actually the construction of the gymnasium performance area, the additional science rooms, and then the small group rooms and additional restrooms at Minnetonka Middle School West. So the budget estimate for that construction component was about $15,607,000, approximately. And we got very competitive bids, and you can tell they're very competitive because on the list in front of you, it's a very tight spread. So we're getting a good deal, but it's what the building costs to do that. So, the low bid is Rochon Corporation at $13,810,000. So that is basically about $1.8 million below the dollars allocated out of the bond proceeds to cover this part of the construction. So, we're under budget so far, and we have some contingencies for unknowns because you always have some unknowns, particularly before you get out of the ground. But if you approve this bid, we actually have met with Rochon. Actually, today, we spent several hours going over site and staging and striping for handicapped accessibility in other places while we're building, all that kind of stuff. So, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes, so please accept the bid. Thank you. May I have a motion for the acceptance of this bid for the Rochon Corporation? So moved. Megan, may I have a second, please? Second. Mike. Any discussion or questions from the board? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Accepted. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Keep rolling. Yep. Madam Chair, members of the board, this next board item is to accept the bid for MME Construction, Minnetonka Middle School East. And as you'll recall, that project is similar, not identical, but very close in many ways to the construction going on at Minnetonka Middle School West. In this situation, we didn't have as much initial site preparation work, but we have the construction of a large bus corral to free up space in the auto cube to get the buses off by themselves and let them do the dance of the elephants in their own bus corral. And the construction consists of, again, a gymnasium with a performance venue attached, four science rooms, and then restrooms and small group rooms. So for this budget, because we have that bus corral on the agenda and lined up for work, the estimate from our architects was for a project of $23,500,000, which was basically our estimate. And you estimate conservatively because you want to make sure, above all things, you want to make sure you can accept the bid for what you promise the public, right? So, we had $23,501,000 budgeted in the estimate, but we got a really excellent bid on this price, too. And actually, this bid grouping is actually really tight also. But the low bid is from Jorgenson Construction Company in the amount of $15,789,000. So that's $7.7 million below the amount budgeted based on the original estimating. So between these two items, we are under budget so far, knock on wood, by about $9.5 million. So those bond proceeds will still be there, earning some interest. And so maybe we'll have the ability to do some things to consider at a future point in time. We still have another $30 million worth of bonding projects to bid yet with the second phase. And so we hope that inflation stays low. We hope that construction prices stay low. One of the reasons we're also conservative on our estimates is there's a thing called the Builders Cost Index that is kept by the magazine called The Engineering Record, which is probably the thing you would read at night to fall asleep for most of us. But for people who are doing construction, it's really important because that's where they keep track of what things cost, and it's what these construction companies use to actually come up with their bids. And the inflation from June of 2025, when you approved the bond referendum to be run in November to June of 2026, was 13.5%. So we feel like we've dodged some bullets, so to speak. And so we've got really competitive bids, and so we ask you to please approve this bid also, and we will have at it in terms of starting to move some dirt pretty soon and get some walls up and- Get things ready for these buildings to be used for students. So, we also met with them today, and it's a very interesting, very aggressive schedule. We're utilizing a construction methodology on the gymnasiums that has some precast panels, and we've used those before at some of our other buildings. And so you dig the foundation, get it ready to receive the panels, which are the wall panels, and they're expecting us to have the wall panels arriving in January at West Middle School, and probably February or March after they get everything set up and ready to go. So it's going to go fast once we get rolling. Wow. Thank you. May I have a motion to accept the bid from Jorgensen Construction for MME construction? So moved. Karen. May I have a second? Second. Tanya. Any discussion or questions from the board? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Bid accepted. Thank you, Mr. Bourgeois. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have approval of the perpetual endowment trust fund document. Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, we've had several conversations on this topic. We are finally in a spot where we are going to launch our in-district perpetual endowment trust fund. All of the steps have been completed, working with an outside expert in this area to create documents that make this fund legal and really planful for the future. So tonight, Mr. Bourgeois is going to summarize that fund and request for approval, so we'll just start operating with this. It will still be five or 10 years before we withdraw from it. Maybe some year it'll be hundreds of millions of dollars, like the state fund is. Mr. Bourgeois. Thank you, Superintendent Law. Madam Chair, members of the board, yes. We've been not only constructing buildings, we're working on constructing this pay-it-forward type of perpetual endowment trust fund. And so, as we talked before, this is something where if people donate to, their principal that they donate will forever be there, earning interest and investment earnings to help fund future students. So, we have such a unique district and unique programs, and they all help students thrive. And this is one way that, with a lot of the hamstring that we get from the state of Minnesota, this is one tool that we can at least use to set something up to help the district continue to achieve long-term success and continue to help students thrive into the future. So, this is really just, again, just part of the construction process of this fund. So, in the consent agenda, we also have several of the policies about how we will distribute interest and earnings and accept donations and those types of things, too. So we've looked at that, and then this is Dorsey & Whitney's run through of our draft document and making it right for the way it should be for a trust fund, the official document. It's like our constitution for this perpetual endowment trust fund. So the document has been reviewed by them and peer reviewed by them internally, and they say it's ready for prime time and for us to be able to adopt. So we're recommending adoption of our trust fund document, and even though we've been able to accept donations, it just puts the final imprimatur on it, saying we're open and ready to accept donations from the public if they are so inclined. Thank you. May I have a motion for approval of the trust fund document, please? So moved. Karen. May I have a second? Second. Megan. Any discussion from the board or questions? Sally. No questions. Just wanted to thank you again for your work on this and your inspiration for this, and just remind people that when you first brought this to the finance advisory committee as an example, they were very enthusiastic. They had some anticipation that this could happen and were really excited that it was moving forward, and I know that's shared by other members of the community as well. So it's really nice to have this before us tonight to make it official. So, thank you. Karen. Just want to echo that, yep. Mr. Bourgeois, really excited about this endowment. And want to remind the public, we had multiple discussions. They're on our website if you want to learn more about it, and we're accepting donations, I would say. So, please donate. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Oh, I'm sorry, Megan. Excuse me. Just a quick question. If people are interested in beginning donations, is there information on the website now already, or is that coming, or how does that process look like? Yes. Dr. Goetting and her team have been working on that, and it's... Is it live? It's live, right? Yeah. It's live. And so I've been busy, I haven't checked, but it's live. And, so yes, we can accept donations by web, by the internet and clicking on our website. And also, but if people want to do something of substance or if they want to donate assets or those types of things, they can just contact me at the district offices. Great. Good question. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. So we have approval for the trust fund document. Thank you so much, Mr. Bourgeois, for all the work on that. We're starting to help kids we don't even know are born yet. Really appreciate all your work on that. Thank you. Next up, we have the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? So moved. Mike. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have approval for the consent agenda. Next up, any board reports? Superintendent Law? Anybody? It's kind of early, but Karen or Sally? Karen. Really quickly, Sally and I are on CASE. We are already getting going. We had a meeting this week with some members. Next week, we are meeting with our legislators and candidates. Just want to remind the public that everyone is up for election in Minnesota. So ask your candidates what they intend to do to help finance education, where the position is. Anything else, Sally? I would add to feel free to join CASE as well. The more, the merrier, as far as that goes. And the volume of people that we have participating has made an impression on our legislators. So, we really do welcome more people to the party. So you can visit the district website for the Community Action for Student Education, CASE Committee, and throw your name in. We'll get you on the distribution list. Great. Anybody else for board reports? How about Superintendent Law's report? A quick update to the community. One, as we all know, school started last week, and we are constantly working to be more efficient on getting kids in and out of school. I want to give a huge shout-out to our team, Paul Bourgeois and the admin at Minnetonka East. They made some significant improvements at drop-off there, and that has gone a lot faster. At West, there's construction on Highway 212, and that has impacted us and our ability to put a stoplight on West at Highway 41, which is a big step forward. People have said to me, "Why didn't we do this sooner?" Well, we had asked for a long time, and now that other construction has allowed it, it'll be there for two years. That's another question I've got about that. We're excited to have that traffic control, and parents have commented that it feels safer. And we are almost done with our new parking west of the high school. I think within a couple of weeks, that will be ready to roll. Another 40 spots will open up for high school students. As we visited with our high school kids this week, there was unanimous support for more parking spots, if I'm remembering that correctly, Micah. So just a couple of updates. We're back in full swing. Events at the high school. Our first home football game is tonight. I encourage our community to go out and see our kids. They're amazing. Thank you. Do we have any announcements from anybody on the board? Okay, I think with that, may I have a motion to adjourn, please? So moved. Oh, I do. Sorry. Oh, yes. We need to adjourn for a closed session for negotiations. So may I please have-- to discuss negotiations with the bargaining group as provided by MN Statute 13.D.03. So moved. Megan, may I please have a second? Second. Tanya. Any discussion? No. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned.