[Music] aoy minetonka I'm David law superintendent of minona schools thank you for joining us for this episode of our district podcast aoy minetonka one of three ongoing goals that our school board has set for the district is excellence in leadership and organizational support a key action step outlin within that goal is to determine whether our school facility meet the needs of our current and future students last spring an important group of stakeholders began to examine that question that group is the facilities study task force and joining me today are one of the co- facilitators of the task force kri Lindberg and one of the task force members Jenny frisella ladies welcome please take a moment to explain your connection to the district and tell us your background I'm Jenny prisilla and I have three kids in the district District I've got a junior an eighth grader and a sixth grader and we have been with the district since the 16-year-old was too so I've been around for a little while and we really are um involved in the PTA and I've been both with cites and mme and just enjoy being part of the community well thanks for your service to those organizations that takes a community to support our schools we appreciate it Carrie yeah I'm Carrie Lindberg I am a parent of three kids in The District Two that are now in college and I have a freshman at the high school um I all of my kids went through Groveland and mme and I was very involved in the PTO at Groveland ran the Scholastic Book Fair um was on various PTO committees and also served on two booster clubs at the high school and I have been the minona family collaborative coordinator for the last 10 years well we might come back and do another podcast about that for today we'll talk about the facilities task Force Carrie you're the co- facilitator with Paul brois what was your background that made you interested in this opportunity and that makes you feel confident that you're the right facilitator sure so I have been the motanka family collaborative coordinator for 10 years and the MFC is an association of Community Partners that works to improve the well-being of kids and families in our district we meet about five times a year and I facilitate those meetings but my background is really in ad City Administration uh I've spent the good portion of my career leading various boards and commissions for the last 20 years so I was excited about this opportunity and it's been a great group to work with Carrie what is this task force charged with so the facility study task force was charged uh with assessing all of the district buildings and making recommendations about how to best support our students from now into the future uh this task force was put together last spring we solicited applications from the community on our our district website and we received a large number of applicants from a wide variety of different areas of the community and ended up with a very diverse group of 27 individuals um who have been just great to work with a chance to give back locally to our school system great so um the facility task force meetings when did that start how long has it been going Jenny like what's your started last spring right after spring break last year um and we have now visited every school in the district including uh MCC and the district service center and it's been really uh an eye- openening experience to see how much the district excels in some areas where we need work yeah I'm going to back up a little bit that's a big commitment what made you as a parent put your name in to be part of this process well as I said I've been in the district for over 11 years now and my kids are involved in sports and in theater and in choir they were Navigators and so for me that was a big driver for why we entered into the district and so I don't want to see those programs miss out because things are changing and we have to make adjustments around the district and so for me it was really important to see what we need to do to to continue those and to keep adding things that will allow us to expand what the District offers um and they're just for example I know mme needs some work and so for me that was a big thing being in the middle of mme right now and so I actually had a personal conversation with Pete diit about kind of what he was looking for and that was that was part of why I applied to join the task force thank you thanks for being part of it and it's a big commitment for community members Carrie what's a typical agenda for a task force meeting sure so as Jenny mentioned we have visited every single Elementary School the middle schools and the high school twice and also toured the district service center and last night had our final meeting and got to tour the van Mo building as well so for a typical meeting um the 27 task force members will will come together they'll hear presentations from Paul bis our finance director about the history of the buildings they also hear from the district principal for the building and hear input from staff through a staff survey and also the principal's ideas of about the needs for the buildings then we'll conclude with a tour and then end the meetings with a facil a prioritization exercise talking about the needs in each of the buildings um there's opportunity for discussion at the end but our uh final meeting of the year will be in a few weeks and that's when we'll come together and make our final recommendations for the school board Jenny as you have Ted buildings have you had the chance to um see parts of the district you haven't seen before for sure I had never been in over half of the schools actually I was surprised I didn't I mean I've been in gyms in some of them because of Athletics but I don't think I had ever been inside of deep Haven or um uh Groveland and so it was interesting to see how those compare to Scenic that was I mean that's where I lived all their times and so um they just the the buildings are wonderful buildings like I'm amazed one of the things Pete told us about or not Pete um Paul told us about was the buildings used to just be brick walls and and students would not care for the buildings as much and there was garbage on the floor and people drew on the walls and he came up with a program to put actual like travertine tiles on the walls and that has been done throughout the district and just that little thing seeing comparison pictures from what that was to what it did to change what the hallways look like they just it opened them up it made them look bigger and he said students started to take care of the buildings and started to uh take pride in where they were and it just it was little things that I didn't ever think of before that going through all the schools you you notice that now right Paul was a wealth of information about the history of the buildings showing maps and um aerial views of the buildings from when they were first constructed Ed to date so and he has a story for every building every building yeah he he has intimate knowledge yes yes every renovated space and what hasn't been renovated for sure Carrie any any surprises from you or ahas as you traveled through the district well so like Janny I'd only been in a handful of the elementary school so I was struck with how different each of the buildings are but one common theme among all of the principles was just the pride that they showed in their buildings and the way they've utilized the space that they have um one thing that I learned about Kurt Carpenter our principal at Clear Springs do you know that he mows the court yard himself willingly it's not like the anyone is forcing him to but just because he has such pride in that space and so he does that on the weekends um I thought that was amazing yeah yeah fascinating well one of the goals of the district is that it is Community Driven and not District driven has your perception been that you've had a good voice in the process yes it has been uh the people that are represented represented in the group are from all walks of life we have we have parents we have um former Architects we have city planners we have uh alumni all sorts of uh people that have had some sort of stake in the district and everybody has a little bit of a different opinion and so it's been it's been really good to be able to say okay I don't necessarily agree with you you this is what I think or oh I didn't even think about it in that way and I think people really have had good conversations about oh yeah that was that wasn't something I was thinking about and so I think that's been a really positive thing for the group would you have a real cross-section of the community that's represented on this task force we have parents at every level of the district with preschoolers Elementary schoolers middle schoolers high schoolers we have business owners we have City staff uh former Schoolboard member so I really do feel like we have a wide variety of interests and that's going to help with the ultimate decision- making one of the things I I know we were intentional about is trying to be considerate of unique populations within our system do you think that there's been a chance to consider like special education and the process or unique programming absolutely we've heard from Christine Breen our special executive director of special ed uh we've heard from Scott gerlier our director of safety um we definitely have made sure that the task force has heard from the people who are the experts in their field so really trying to cover all of our bases great well are there some themes after all of these School visits definitely uh the biggest one we found is the small flexible space both for students and staff so areas that they're looking for either four breakout groups with the students or just small areas for staff to work together uh during their prep time or anything like that uh what like Carrie said the principles have done an amazing job of utilizing the space that they have and at this point they just because things that we're doing have evolved the way the work in the classroom is has changed and so now we're looking at how do we accommodate some of those changes and some of those changes may be as simple as new furniture or removing lockers that aren't being used and placing Furniture in its space but I I really think that the main one of the main themes that we've heard is space that can be used for a variety of uses whether it's individual one-on-one sessions um staff meetings larger large and small group spaces have been have been um discussed during this process uh do you look outside the building too have you had conversations about I've heard certainly from community members about how long it takes to drop off my student or we could use additional space for some Community activity outside the facilities have you had those conversations we have um one of the biggest constraints that we're dealing with in almost all of the buildings is real estate and so one of the big discussions we've had is moving forward looking at investing in either additional real estate or trying to find ways to change how things are laid out to give us a better organization of what exists and part of it is what we've learned is that we really have maximized the use of the space that we have and they've done a really good job of working with the city planners and working with the Architects to at this point with what we have make it as efficient as it is we've also looked at so many different Courtyards I didn't realize that all of these buildings had Courtyards and the variety of uses in each building is very different um looking at at some of them would that be a space that we could expand into but then you lose natural light there's just been a lot of great discussion about how best to utilize that outdoor space at every school did you feel like when you went into it um you were hampered by a limited dollar amount that you could consider or do you feel like you were able to design H how did finances play into the process sure I feel like we are thinking about the finances but really this group has been going in with an open mind trying to hear from the principals and from the staff about what is going to be the the most important thing to maximize the space for our current students now and into the future so although finances plays a piece of it this really has been if money were No Object what would we what would we want what would be nice to have and what do we need how about um Community perspective have there been efforts to figure out what parents are thinking about or the larger Community has has that factored into this so there was a guardrail survey done um earlier this summer to get an idea about what the community would be interested in in terms of um additions to our buildings so there has been some Community input we also did a districtwide staff survey so that we would hear from all the teachers in all of the buildings and the staff so what's next you you've done all this work you've got one meeting left when will the whole community know the fruit of your work so we have one final discussion meeting maybe two but we have one on the books right now and we're hoping to have a final report to the school board sometime in December okay and what what will will that look like detailed plans for each building um is that the work product so our finance director Paul bis is working with an architect to put together some plans if the school board is interested in moving forward with different projects but really the the facilities task force will be prioritizing the list of needs and ideas that they've heard over the last nine months and putting forth a recommendation and whether or not the school wants to do a small amount of the work or all of the work the plan is there for whenever they decide to put it into place okay so and you're pretty confident that the plan going forward will be the voice of the uh work group I do I think so like K said at the end of each meeting we kind of laid out what we thought based on the principal and the teacher recommendations the top things they were looking for was and then each of us would kind of vote on which one we thought was the top priority and then two and three and so Carrie has all of that information compiled so when we come together for the final meeting we have an idea of really what the big big projects are that we really feel are needs not just wants and then nice thing was we have a whole list of wants that aren't necessarily at the top of the list but definitely something we've had conversations about no we don't necessarily need a large funding for that that's something we can make happen with XYZ dollars instead and so um I think the the most important part has been that that we've had a large number of the force at each of the meetings and everybody I feel like really has um shown interest in what's going on and really thought about what they thought would be the best ideas I do think we have so many different interests on this task force we definitely have the families or the people that are interested in sports the people that are interested in theater the people who are more focused on the academics and it's given us a chance to look into all of the different worlds especially at the high school because I I know there were parts of the high school that I had never stepped foot into and I think that was um probably the case for a lot of the people on the T task force so I think if individuals came into the task force thinking you know this is the one thing I really want us to focus on it opened their eyes to all of the different needs in the district and um gave them A New Perspective Jenny you referenced that every building you've had presentations are those available for the public they are actually all of the presentations are available on the district website if you just search facilities study task force then you can go out and find every presentation that has been given to us both from Paul bis as well as each of the principles in the district will the final report be available to everyone in the public absolutely good so as we're wrapping up would you do it again definitely yes and you'd facilitate again absolutely it's been a great process well my goal as a superintendent that is that you can't have a committee of 2,000 so 30 people who represent the breath of our Community really looking at what are the needs of our students and making recommendations back to us gives me confidence that we have something that our community should be proud of and then it's up to the community and the board to make those decisions about how this plays out but it's really been great having you to serve in this capacity and take some time to talk to our community about this process because over the next six months or a year people may be very interested in understanding where did all of this come from and did they consider what my school needs needs it'll be good to know that every school was walk through presented about staff surveyed that's been great thank you both for taking a little bit of time to visit with us and with the community about our facility study task force and thank you for joining us for this episode of our podcast AO bonka as we've talked about our facility study task force join us again as we talk about other Hot Topics in the community have a great day [Music]