maybe forgot. Oh, there we are. I'd like to call the October 9th, 2025 meeting of the Minnitankka School Board to order. As we get started, I will welcome our student representative this evening. We have Raymond Taha and Sullie Wrangler with us. I'd now like to stand and pledge to the flag 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. >> May I have a motion to adopt the agenda? >> So moved. >> I have a second. >> Second. >> Camry. Uh any additions, questions? Hearing none. Uh all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We have an agenda. And the next item on that agenda is a school report from Deep Haven. Superintendent Law. >> Mr. Chair, members of the board, one of the highlights of the Minnotonka schoolboard meetings are when our school principles come and give an update on what's happening in their school. And throughout the last few years, they have started to bring teachers and students to give their inerson stories about it. Tonight from Deep Haven Elementary, Principal Bran McInley and guests will provide an update on Deep Haven. Principal Mcinley. >> Well, thank you and good evening, Chair Leo Howerin, Superintendent Law, members of the school board, and our community members. My name is Brian McInley and I'm the principal of Deep Haven Elementary and I'm excited about our board report because tonight we're going to focus on the board's theme of connections and we're going to be talking about our uh student literacy or student sorry student leadership and our student literacy um and also um about our national bullying month and I believe this there we go. Um it's National Bullying Prevention Month. So before we get going with those updates, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what we're doing at Deep Haven about uh bully prevention. Uh we employ many proactive strategies to prevent bullying at Deep Haven. And these include our use of responsive classroom, character strong and social thinking as you will see in our belonging wheel and that is in the middle of the screen. Um, we focused on respect in September as we established our school culture and moved into responsibility this month as students practice meeting our expectations. These themes support our efforts to prevent bullying. Conflict is a natural part of being a student and learning how to navigate elementary years. So if you take a look on the left side of the screen, you have what we call our um navigating student conflict chart. Um this is oper operationalized um so that students understand that there's friendship when everything's working well. Then there can be the friend friction and that's when there's a conflict that takes place mo most often between students who are friends and uh typically involves like a difference of opinion. there's not something like teasing or exclusion going on at this stage. Then we can move into um student conflict that is most often an argument that continues uh on and on between students and isn't resolved easily between classmates. So they're just kind of back and forth and there's there's an equal power there which brings us to um bullying and that's when there's a power difference and the behavior is hurtful, targeted, and repeated. And so we try to delineate between them so that the the students understand um when it is bullying, when it isn't bullying, when to seek help, um when it's not okay to be treated that way, uh what friendship looks like, that that's a part of the puzzle as well. We want to promote that to get back up to that level. So, and then on the right hand side of the slide, you'll see Unity Day, which is celebrated on October 22nd of this month. It's so exciting. We're when you come over, if you if you stop by, you're going to see everybody in orange and it's an opportunity for us to visibly send a message of our solidarity against bullying. So, that's a fun one. It's put uh out by the Pacer um organization. Now, moving on to our exciting topics with our students here. I'd like to introduce Joe Sherry. He's a fifth grade teacher at Deep Haven and he is also um our teacher adviser for Deep Haven Leaders in Action. So Joe, thank you very much. So I'm Joe Sherry. I teach fifth grade English at Deep Haven. Um I also coach 10th grade football. We just wrapped up a big win over Edina, so that was pretty fun tonight. And then along with that, I lead the leadership group um at Deep Haven. So our Deep Haven leaders in action group, our mission statement is Deep Haven Leaders in Action is a service-based learning leadership group at Deep Haven. Um, our goal is to develop leaders who serve the community and connect with the community that's around them and help strengthen both our local, state, and global communities. A big thing that we pride ourselves on is it is different from the student council model where students are running and an election happens. Our leaders in action group is open to any students that apply. Any fifth grade student can apply. They just have to complete the application and are able to join it. The goal is to develop many leaders, not just a small group, and connect them with other teachers and classrooms in the building and then different organizations as well. Um, in order to apply, students complete an essay where they write about traits that a good leader should have as well as things they're hoping to gain from being part of the group. They also get a teacher recommendation from a former teacher or like a specialist teacher, just not their current teacher. So, it's a good opportunity for them to go back and reconnect with somebody that they worked with in the past. And we have two students here who are going to share about some of the different projects and things we do in student leadership. So, we have uh two current fifth graders, Axel and Kirsten, who will share. And I will turn it over to Axel. >> Hi, my name is Axwood. I'm a fifth grader at Deep Haven and I'm in English. I am excited about leadership because I get I want to make positive difference in my community. We collect toys to help our state community. Each week, we work at the same classroom to see what they have donated. Last year, I really liked that we connected with the same leaders every week. For the A food drive, we also connect with the classroom every week. We collect food donations to help the people who need it in our local community. Kirsten will say the other things that we do in leadership. >> Hi, I'm Kirsten and I'm a fifth grader at Deep Haven and I do Spanish immersion. I'm excited for student leadership because I get to connect with the community. The tackle cancer fundraiser is something we do in March to raise money to support cancer research here in Minnesota. Each leader connects with the classroom to encourage kids to donate. Feed my striving children is something we do in May. We go to feed my striving children as a group along with parent volunteers. We pack meals for people in need all around the world. We also give tours to families who are interested in Deep Haven. We connect with the families and share what is great about Deep Haven. Mr. Sher will wrap up what is left to share about the leadership group at Deep Haven. Awesome. So, that's a kind of a quick overview of some of the things we do um to connect with our community. Um overall, right now there's been a lot of excitement around the leadership group. Um I believe as of this afternoon, we have about 25 or so students who have submitted applications to join, which is about a fifth of the grade level. So, it's awesome to see that that many kids are eager to develop those leadership skills and help make a positive impact in our community. Um we're just looking forward to a a great year um developing the leaders that will lead in the future for us. And I'll pass it to Mr. McInley to transition to our next topic. >> Thank you, Joe. >> Thank you, Joe. And to our students, excellent job, you guys. That was incredible. Yes. Thanks, Joe. Way to go. Uh so proud and fun to see them speaking here. And I know the parents are proud as well. So, I'm going to turn it over now to Jennifer Peters. She's a third grade teacher at Deep Haven and also our district K5 language arts chair. And she's going to give some an update on how we're making connections through literacy. Jennifer, >> thank you. >> Thank you for having me this evening. Um, I sort of have the unique perspective of being what I call the boots on the ground in the classroom, right? I'm starting year 19 at Deep Haven. Um, but I also have that perspective from the district level of being our department chair and this year playing that really critical role of doing that really full implementation of two new curricular resources that go along with our new state standards. Um, we have our great minds uh publisher who we have our arts and letters which is our knowledge building curriculum and then functional phonics and morphology right here from the University of Minnesota. And you have heard from our other district leaders on the teaching and learn committee that we have fully vetted all these resources and we are so excited to have these things in our hands in every teacher's hand uh in the English program this year. We've had these professional development days now for two years from core learning and we're like okay we we know these great things about Scarbo's reading rope. We've got these things. Where are the tools now? And now we've got it. And so it's just a really exciting time to be in the classroom and and working here. And you can see two of my students in the picture. Um third grade starts with learning about the ocean and how do people explore the ocean and we're talking about Jacqu Kustoau and we're talking about artists and it's just really fun to see come alive. Students are making these connections through literacy. They are connecting with each other on their book choices and teachers are really getting that quality time with students, learning about them as readers. That may be one of my favorite parts in September is sitting with the kids and just what books do you like to read? Why did you pick this book? You like the cover. Great. I love cover art, too. Sometimes. So, we really take time as teachers in the fall to connect with kids on that level of literacy. Kids are getting choice in what text they read. They're making real world connections. Like I said, we're talking about Jacqu Kustoau. My class, one of our first lessons, it was in there, if you have an opportunity to explore a body of water. And I said, "Yes, we do." We took a walkie-talkie and we marched right on down to Lake Minnetonka, right by Carson's Bay, and we observed our body of water. And we brought it back to the classroom and said, "Yeah, it might not be the ocean, but we can draw some similarities here." And it was that putting that into practice, it was so great to see. Um, our new curricular resources bring a variety of high quality literature given that this resource was just published in 2025. We have a variety of print and digital resources because we know as great as it is to have books in hand. Digital literacy is well and alive and is not going anywhere in our students future. Uh we worked very hard over the summer to fully uh implement brand new report cards K5 English that now reflect our updated standards and assessment. And more than ever, I am happy to say that we have this vertical alignment that I feel very confident in that you have a child going from RSK through fifth grade. They are getting a very seamless literacy instruction due to these highquality resources. And on top of our quality teacher training that has already been taking place for supporting our teachers, we didn't just say, "Oh, you got your core learning, you got your things, you're off, you're off to the races." While we are off to an amazing start, we continue to have support for these teachers. We've got expanded chair team that I work with teachers from every grade in every building and we are problem solving. We're troubleshooting. There's a teacher question. There's a what do I do in this? We're constantly brainstorming and we're the first to say we're learning right alongside you, but we're going to figure this out together and and in the end it's going to be amazing. We've got our two tier one coaches that have fully jumped in to support staff uh in whatever needs arise, pulling in some of those technology pieces as well. And we're not done. Uh on August 25th, that Monday, that first day, we reported back K5 teachers or RSK through 5 had a full day of PD with the Great Minds publishers and really got to dive in deep to our first couple of units. Um on our next PD day, November 6th, we're going to meet with the folks from the U of M and talk about assessment in our phonics and morphology. So not just stopping with, oh, you had one training, great. Nope, we're going to keep continuing that because we know as we implement, we see things. Yeah, this is how it is on paper, but what does that look like in practice and now I have some questions for you. So going to continue to support our teachers all the way through our PLC and our monthly team meetings. At Deep Haven, we do have that literacy focus where we say, "What's going well? What does our data from this fall show us? Where are our needs? Where are our holes? Where are we extending that learning for our students?" So, really finding ways from the top all the way down to our individual teams at school to say, how are we supporting each other and how are we supporting kids along the way. So, I am very happy to bring you this this early report that things are going very very well and I can't wait to bring you another report. Maybe say in a year and say, "Look what we did this first year with our new resources." >> All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate that report. Uh, very thorough. Jennifer is quite a leader in our district, so we're lucky to have her at Deep Haven. We want to thank you for taking the time to hear our our update from our school. are very excited about the happenings and uh we're working on making connections every day. It's a great theme and it applies really well to the work we do with children. So, thank you. And if you have any questions for anybody, obviously now would be the time. I want to make sure that we are respectful of your time though as well. >> Board members, questions, comments, fantastic report. Thank you all very much. Thank you especially Axel and Kristen. you were fantastic and uh Miss Peters and uh and Joe as well. >> Appreciate your time. Appreciate the excellent report. >> Thank you very much. >> Appreciate it. >> Okay, next item on our agenda is we've reached the time for community comments. Um this is the time when there's an opportunity for the public to address the school board on an item included in this agenda in accordance with our guidelines. Do we have anyone who has uh wanted to make a community comment this evening? Nope. And we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. We have enrollment/open enrollment report. Superintendent law. >> Mr. Chair, members of the board, as you're all aware, each year after we start the school year, we provide an update for the board and the community on where we stand with enrollment and open enrollment. As this is a topic of community interest, we like to be transparent and report how we're starting the year. Tonight, executive director of communications, Dr. Dr. Jackie Getty will be sharing our annual enrollment report. Dr. Getty, >> Superintendent Law, Mr. Chair, members of the board, thanks for the opportunity to present tonight. Um, we will walk through this. So, here in Minnetonka, we maintain optimal enrollment to avoid budget cuts as best we can to keep classroom sizes small and to fund the innovative programming that we have here in Minnetonka. As of the late September count, the district's enrollment is at 11,484. This does shift daily and so I picked a point in time and that was the last report that I received in September. So that's what this report is based off of. There are some fluctuations obviously throughout the year and that 11,0484 includes in-person students and Tonka online students. There are 53 more resident kindergarteners this year than there were last year and 48 more open enrolled kindergarteners than the same time last year. Uh last year we had 11,275 including both in-person and Tonka online students. So we're well over 200 ahead of where we were as of the end of September. Uh and having a thriving school district benefits our Minnotonka community. We know that it increases property values to live in a community that offers one of the best school districts in the state and arguably the nation. And grade levels for in-person learning this year are between 732 and 921. But resident in-person kindergarten alone without the added open enrollment is 477. And while that's higher than last year, you can see that there are 395 that come in um and join us for kindergarten. And that makes a huge difference. And we'll talk about why. So total enrollment in Minnotonka as of late September, 11,33 in-person, 181 Tonka online full e-learning students. And of this, 40% or 4596 of our in-person are open enrolled and 83% of our Tonka online students are open enrolled. By education levels, 41% of our students at the high school are open enrolled. That number has grown. We've seen a big shift in our 9th grade class coming in with a lot of kids coming from other districts or coming from a program where they were K8 and looking at all the opportunities at the high school. um we really have tried to share out the things that we're doing in programs like um Minnitonka Research, Vantage, Momentum, and that really has caught fire with people and they've seen the incredible opportunities that they have here in Minnetonka. Um at the middle school level that has remained flat at 39%, that was the same as last year and at the elementary level 41% and last year that was also 41%. So we've seen some continuation there in the levels. the districts where our open enrolled students reside. Uh this year the our open enrolled students come from 47 different districts. Last year that was 44. And our online students come from 46 districts and last year that was also 44. Oh, and just one point I thought this was interesting to note. Um you know most of the students that we have that open enroll to our district are from our neighboring districts which makes sense because they have to come up with transportation. So we see a lot from Hopkins, we see from Weisetta, um from St. Louis Park, Eastern Carver, Eden Prairie, West Tonka. Um and then we also look at like who drives the farthest. We have students that are coming from South Washington County, from Redwing, from Lakeville, and from Lassour. So we definitely get students from all over the state and those are in-person students. We look at class sizes. Now, every year the state does a class size study. It's the Minnesota Legislature Reference Library and they do this comparison about class sizes across the metro and school districts can choose to participate in this. Many do we do um and so we received this report in February 2025 regarding the 2024 25 numbers. So this was last year's numbers and that's the most recent comparables we have. If they run the same timeline, we'll get this year's numbers this February. So as you can see our average kindergarten classroom size last year was 19.2 2 students. Um, metrowide or the ones that participated in this metro wide study, the average was 20. Uh, in grade 1, our average class size was 21.1 and it was also 21.1 metro wide. In second grade, our number was 22.5 students on average compared to the Metroide average of 22.9. For third grade, ours was 22.1 compared to the Metroide average of 24.1. For fourth grade, Minnotonka 23.9, the metro average 25.1 and for fifth grade, our average class size was 25.8 compared to the metro wide average of 26.2. And they look at K5 because it gets difficult once you get into middle school and you're breaking up into different classes. In high school, it would be impossible with all the different classes that you can take. So, these are the numbers that we really look at for these comparisons. When we talk about open enrollment revenue through the strategic enrollment growth model that we use here in Minnetonka and by using open enrollment to really help us reach our district target enrollment levels, our school district brings in an additional this year 68.5 million this year alone from open enrollment with $7.5 million of that going to provide more program opportunities and lower class sizes for resident students as well as open enrolled students than would have been possible without that added enrollment and we'll talk a little bit more about that in these upcoming slides. On this slide, we're looking at we call it the financial reality. This slide is from 2023 24 numbers. It's the most recent comparables we have with the other school districts. We spent $232 less than the state average that districts spend per student. That's because we receive less than other districts receive. um and 1740 below the cumulative average of these comparator districts per student. If we received enough state funding to allow us to spend even just at the state average with that additional $232 per student, we would not be facing any kind of a deficit now or in the future in the near future. So, Minnetonka receives approximately $14,448 from state aid and local sources uh for each resident or non-resident student. Each non-resident student pays 100% of the cost of their instruction through that allocation and other related costs with more than $2,834 in revenue left over per student. And that revenue is then used to fund our innovative programs. It's why we have programs like language immersion. why why we have the ability to expand Vantage and momentum. It really puts the money back in there that both resident and our open enrolled students benefit from. Let's look at the class of kindergarteners from this year. That is the class of 2038, which seems unbelievable. Um there are 872 of them. 477 are residents and 395 are open enrolled. If we only had resident kindergarteners, the reduction in revenue to the district this year would be $5.7 million. After the cost of instruction for the open enrolled kindergarters this year, including the staffing to support them, about 1.1 million remains, and I worked with Paul Bao, our executive director of finance and operations on this because math is not my best, but it is his. The district then uses that 1.1 million of revenue to support our signature programs, our student supports, and additional teachers and staff as needed. And over the time that that one class of kindergarteners of openen enrolled kindergarteners would be in our schools, 13 years if you think kindergarten through 12th grade, Minnetonka will receive about $74 million in revenue for that kindergarten class alone or more than 14.3 million above and beyond what it costs for instruction of them. And again, all that money then goes back in ways that we can expand our programming for all of our students. We're in a unique position. We're a desirable district programmatically. people want to be here for our AC acade academic excellence. So, we can set enrollment targets and close classrooms or programs as they fill. It's a precision activity. So, we'll continue to provide that information definitely to our resident families and to the non-resident families that are interested throughout the state regarding our incredible academic opportunities and in particular emphasizing the K5 experience. So, many are interested in language immersion and the high school opportunities which are just continuing to expand. I did want to put one slide out. I know you've seen the full annual parent survey and students, you weren't here on the board yet when we presented the survey in August, but it is on the website, the full survey. We we um administer this survey to parents from midmay to mid June. And I think one of the most important markers that we see from that survey is this one where we ask about the satisfaction overall and um 97% of our parents say that the education provided by Minnitankka schools is excellent or good with 69% of them saying excellent and that is just an outstanding marker. So I thought I would point that out. It's also one of the reasons why we know that we are attracting open enrolled students. Families are happy. So, I know it was short and to the point um but would love to answer questions if you have them or if I can and invite Superintendent Law to jump in if I can't. >> Thank you very much. Uh board members, questions. Megan, >> um I just had a question about the increase in kindergarten enrollment. Um is it due to people moving into the district? Like I've noticed that in my neighborhood that when a house sells, it's usually a retired, you know, community member and they sell to a young family. And so I I had kind of been expecting this for a couple years, but then it kept going down instead. So is it due to a change in actual residency or is it due to um fewer kindergarters choosing to go elsewhere like to private or do we not know? >> I will give that one to Superintendent Law. So, our neighbors north and south of us are experiencing the same surge. >> Uh, we actually met with the demographer and trying to figure that out, but Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, and Moisetta all had a jump in kindergarten enrollment last year to this year. There there's some talk that it was a year where people kept their 5-year-olds at home and sent them in when they were six, but it is there's a wave of enrollment every year. Kindergarten goes up or down. Last year was a really down year and this one was early up here and I just think that >> could have been weird timing of births but some of it is uh people moving in that that's definitely part of it and some of it is uh we think just a surge at that grade level. >> Okay, >> other questions from anybody? >> Yeah, Chris, um just a comment. Um, thank you for the the report and um, you know, I've sat through a few of these uh, for sure, but um, you know, and I know numbers aren't your thing uh, as you said, but I really appreciate the way uh, especially on on on the open enrollment and and how it really affects our all of our students and and in a clear concise way. I think it's good for the community to see that and we've presented it in so many different ways and that was one of the best I've seen. So, thank you. >> Thanks very much. It helps to be surrounded by a former math teacher and then our executive director of finance and operations too. So, math is a part of my life these days. Okay, >> any other questions or comments? I would say I was also I agree with both Chris's comments. I also thought it was good to see the class size uh remaining below the state average in K through five. Um, obviously with the budget cuts, that's been something that the board has been concerned about and I know your administration has spent a lot of time on making sure we're putting the resources where they're needed and so it's good to see that uh we're doing what we can on the classiz front. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is the adoption of the annual report. Superintendent law. >> Mr. Chair, members of the board, you had the chance to preview this. will be a able to share with the public. Hot off the press with your edits from the last uh study session is with the with the cover that you recommended our annual report. One of the prize documents that we share with our community summarizing the previous year. Returning to the microphone, executive director of communications and assistant uh Dr. Jackie Yeti and her assistant Mary Cornelius will be running through this report. >> Thank you, Superintendent Law, Mr. Chair, members of the board, we're super excited to present this final draft of the annual report. I know we looked at it extensively at the study session and you've seen previous drafts. So, you've seen this a lot of times. Um, and our our audience here also has a copy that they can follow along with that they've promised they'll give back to me at the end of this meeting. So, I'm very excited about that. But, they get a sneak peek um for being here. Um so this first slide um is the cover that you selected and this will be the cover that will be on the annual report. Um for context these are our kids. This is a class of kindergarteners from Excelsier in the Chinese immersion program. Uh there is a section um at the beginning of the annual report that provides the superintendent's message and his message is a reflection on the past year which is really what the annual report is our commitment to being connective and supportive community for all students and supporting students mental health to continue to make strides with our literacy efforts to expand opportunities at the middle and high school level and to take steps to ensure long-term financial stability and address facility needs. Uh, and this picture is Superintendent Law with some kindergarteners participating in their math project uh on graphing numbers. One of my favorites. Um, I also like this picture. Um, this there's a there's a page on the schoolboard goals, the the goals from last year, and then we also link to the goals for this current year. Um, we outlined the three goals. Excellence in well-being, connection, and belonging. Excellence in student learning and support, which is now excellence in and innovation in student learning and support for this current year. Uh, and excellence in leadership and organizational support. And a great photo from US Bank from the last graduation. We did a Q&A with the schoolboard chair, Patrick Leo Howerin. um really where we talked about um I mean I think it's just really helpful for our readers and our residents our families to hear from the board and to hear what the board thinks about the the goal setting the decision- making about how the district's doing the big gains that we've made and also what's ahead and you know what are you looking forward to and what do you feel that we have more work to do on so thank you chair Leo Howellerin for uh helping us through that section um I think that's great and another photo from um graduation I'm going to turn it over to Mary Cornelius. She's our communication specialist and she had her hands all over this annual report. She worked very hard on it for the last month and a half. Mary. All right. So, the next several pages of the report are about um academic excellence and sharing different stories and statistics about that. On this uh page, we have a shout out to our 28 Minnetonka High School seniors who were named National Merit Semi-finalists for the class of 2026 based on their uh ex papad exam they took in 2425. Um we we also have a story about the 34 students from the class of 2025 who earned the international balora diploma and of those 34 13 earned um a bilingual diploma in either Chinese or Spanish. Um then all good. Yeah. Our next uh we have uh two um it's always hard to choose which uh achievements to highlight but two really incredible national level um achievements. A student who qualified for the scripts national spelling bee and um a Borlo Ruan intern um from the World Food Bank. She was one of 16 in the world who got to participate in a summer internship program. In our testing ahead of peers spread, we have the data that you have recently heard a full report on from Dr. Amy Leoo and Mr. Matt Breen. Uh the annual report posts some of those highlights for our community um from the MCA exams and from the NWEAS. You'll see that um in uh from the MCAs that Minnotonka is first in math and third in reading among our comparator school districts. Um science did have a new MCA exam this year and the results came in late. Um so those are not included in the report this year. In the NWEAS, our students are performing well above grade level as that uh that chart shows. Uh one example, our average sixth graders reading and math levels are beyond a 12th grade level nationally. Our AP by the numbers page is a snapshot of the advanced placement uh program at the high school and it shares some statistics showing the high percentage of students who take AP courses and who test well in their subjects as well. And then we have um a two-page spread, best wishes to our class of 2025, with some incredible photos of the 885 students who graduated last year, our 72nd graduating class from Minnetonka High School. Um so some photos and and stats about where they're going postgraduation. We did a feature article this year on the community action for student education or case committee. its focus, its growth, and its efforts and advocacy in communicating state funding needs to our local legislators. And I know several of you were on that and a part of it. It was really exciting to see the growth of that committee over the year. Um, in years past, it's been a few people. Last year, it was a couple dozen people. And this past year, it was over a hundred that were involved, and we had easily 20 people that came to the capital with us, including students. and just really so exciting to see those opportunities to get in front of legislators and talk about, you know, funding schools um more thoroughly and about the needs that we have and really helping them to hear what's going on. And it really paved the way for the advocacy efforts that will continue and for ways for even more people to be involved. So, we're excited about that and definitely wanted to to highlight that in the annual report. It was a huge accomplishment by so many people. We have a two-page section introducing our two new executive directors, community education and in technology. We have Kim Carlson in community education and Amanda Fay in technology. Both amazing women and it was fun to hear about their first year with us. What brought them to Minnotonka? What led them to the career that they're in? And what are they excited about here? So, I um I'm excited for you to get to know them better through the interviews. Our signature program story section shares stats and stories from our signature programs. We have sections on sale, the navigator program, Minnetonka research, language immersion, Tonka online, vantage, and momentum. And these stories um they include some enrollment numbers, they include highlights from the teacher leaders in the program as they looked back on the year. And they're also a spot where we really highlight student voice. Um, student voice is woven throughout the entire report, but in this story in particular, it's really great that we get to um, spotlight students from the program speaking about the impact of their learning and in some cases how what they learned in their program is uh, impacting their future direction. Another huge effort throughout the past year, we had many schoolboard uh, meetings and study sessions where we either had updates or we heard pieces of this. So, we thought it really made sense to highlight the efforts and, um, incredible dedication of the facility study task force, uh, the 26 community members that came together to really look at the facility needs for the district and to give their recommendations back to this board. They met at every single school. They heard from the principles. They heard through staff surveys of what every school's staff felt was needed most at every school and building. and then they came back with a plan based on the biggest needs and then whittleled it down even more so that it was something that was um that we were able to put in front of taxpayers and so they then presented to you and it ended in an $85 million building bond referendum as I I know you all know um that you approved and that will be on the ballot November 4th. So we really just wanted to honor that whole process uh and to explain it thoroughly and then to give resources to the community so that they could see well what's on this? What's a part of this? How did this come to be? who made these decisions. Our district points of pride section is an incredible showcase of our amazing academic activities, athletics, arts, music, theater, and service um by students and staff. Um it's an incredible collection of achievements that were um that happened in the past year. And each each bullet point could be its own article, but it's really fun to see all of those pieces together in one spot. Our Minnotonka community education page is another snapshot of many amazing programs within community education. Um there are highlights from preschool and early childhood family education, um explorers, child care, youth and adult programs and events. MCE was again named a top 10 community education program nationwide last year for the third year in a row. So great to tell those stories for our community. And then we have a story about the enhanced literacy materials that are in our K2 English and Spanish immersion classrooms thanks to a $100,000 gift from the Minnotonka Public Schools Foundation last year. um they worked in conjunction with the teaching and learning program to fund decodable readers that are now implemented in those classrooms and making a difference for students. >> A section last year that uh would sit here would have been called the world's best workforce and um that is a statewide program and a requirement of an annual report for school districts. They've changed the name to the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report. There are five goals that we've been working at to achieve for the past 12 years um since the state first put this into action. They are all children are ready for school. All racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed. All students are ready for college and career. All students are graduate from high school. And it used to be all students read by grade level at grade level by third grade. And that goal is now embedded in the district's literacy plan and that is part of the read act legislation. And so there's a new fifth goal and that is prepare students to be lifelong learners. And so in this annual report we explain how we measure those goals, our progress toward those goals and those are ongoing goals. Those are ones that we pick away at and achieve and there is growth in every one of those. So that was great to see. Uh and the full report on the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness will um happen later this school year from the teaching and learning department. The next one is all numbers. Um and I worked with Paul's team on this one or Mary did. Um this is an overview of our revenue and our expenditures, our explanation about our per pupil spending and how we compare to the other metro school districts which you saw part of in the open enrollment report. Um, a shout out to our finance team. For 30 years running now, they have received the excellence in financial reporting award and the district has once again earned the AAA bond rating from Moody's which is exceptional. There's only a few districts in the state that have achieved that. So, this is all of the information and then a lot more too on our website and later this fall the audit will be on our website as well available to the public. And then on the back uh cover is uh the highlight our highlights from our annual parent survey. Um we had really great results on the parent survey. We typically do but it was good to see growth and you'll see the uptick in almost every one of those markers and we indicated that um with parents feeling that our districts are safe that our districts are districts that they would schools that they would recommend to their friends and neighbors um that they feel like the education is excellent or good. And so we wanted to provide that as well. and then there's a link to the full results. So that is the annual report. We ask for you to adopt and once once it is adopted, we will then send it off to print and then it goes out to all residents and it goes out to all families. We give it to staff and then we give it to incoming families and incoming staff as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um why don't I start off with a motion and we'll have discussion. So, may I have a motion to adopt the 24 202425 annual report? >> So, moved. >> Okay. Marie, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Megan. >> Any discussion? Camry. >> I would just like to say that it's clear why your department has received so many accolades. This is phenomenal. Thank you so much for your work on this. And I would just like to say from a board perspective, it has encompassed everything. the goals, the every part of our district, the I mean just it's phenomenal as a parent in the district for as long as I've been in the district as a parent and now from this side of it, it's just it's fantastic. So, thank you for it's I can tell the amount of work that's been put into it and it's just I love it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Well said. Anyone else? Megan. Um, just one quick comment. One thing that's been coming up a lot this fall is I keep hearing from um people that don't have kids in the district anymore and that they, you know, kind of feel a little out of touch with the school district even though they're residents. And um I have two or three times had people say just waiting for that annual report because I like to see what cool stuff is going on. So, you know, I think that's a testament to both what we're putting out but as a way to just keep the community involved. I think it's a great tool. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else? All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next item we have. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I moved right past that important part. We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much for your help. All right. Next item on the agenda now is the acceptance of bids in summer of 2026. Superintendent law. >> Mr. Chair, members of the board, almost as exciting as the annual report is a series of bids that come in under budget. So tonight, executive director of finance and operations, Mr. Paul Bourgeois, is going to read through these bids. I will announce it once and let him go through each bid. After that, we'll be going through bids that you had approved for spending for next summer, the summer of 26, but now we're putting these bids in the books and getting ready for uh people actually doing the work. So, you can see the list of bids below you. I'll have him describe those and then you'll approve them one at a time. Mr. Bourgeois, thank you, Superintendent Love. Uh Mr. chair, members of the board, uh we have six of our summer projects uh for uh for your consideration this this uh board meeting. We did some at the last board meeting and we actually have a final six coming. Four roof bids and two window replacements at the November meeting and then we'll be everything that we're going to be doing next summer will be locked in. So the early bird gets the worm, I hope, as they say. Um the first one is acceptance of bid for fencing replacement at the warehouse and then u at the district service center. Uh we have a project budget of $150,000. The estimated or the bids are open at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 23rd. We have seven bids. The low bidder is Ericson Builders and Company at $15,440. We'd ask that you would approve this bid. >> Thank you. Uh, may I have a motion to uh approve the low bid of Ericson Builders as uh articulated in our materials? >> So moved. >> Sally, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Chris, any discussion? >> We've got a motion, a second. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Bourgeoa. >> Thank you. Our second item is acceptance of bid for cabinet replacement at Scenic Heights Elementary School. This will actually complete cabinet replacement of the original 1967 cabinets at Scenic Heights. Um, we have a project estimate of $500,000. Uh, you can see that we got a a good slate of of bids there. We had eight biders and uh the low bid was $332,000 by Lindy Construction Services LLC. We'd ask that you uh approve this bid for work next summer. >> Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the low bid of Lindy Construction in the amount of $332,000 for replacement of cabinets? >> So moved. >> Dan, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Camry. Any discussion? There's a motion, a second. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Mr. Bourgeoa. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Uh this next item is acceptance for uh bid for cabinet replacement and then also wall tile resurfacing in the hallways at Groveland Elementary School. Uh and what's unique about this one is that uh this one along with the cabinets at Scenic Heights will complete cabinet replacement around the district. Uh we've been work, you know, kind of chunking our way through uh different areas of of reconstruction of our buildings for the long term. This past summer, we actually finished uh installing HVAC in all classrooms that had not had them after about took 15 years to do. This one we're we're again we're rolling along. We have have cabinet replacement on the east wing of Groveland Elementary School and then uh also resurfacing uh portion of the east hallway. And after that, both of tile tile replacement of the hallways and resurfacing them around the district will be also completed. So, a couple of little minor little milestones there, but big big little milestones. Um the budget estimate for this project was 650,000 and we got eight bids for this also and uh so very competitive again in action construction services has a low bid of 277,548. So we ask that you approve uh the low bid. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Bourgeoa. May I have a motion to accept the uh low bid of action construction services in the amount of $277548. >> Some moved. >> Megan. May I have a second? Second, >> Mike. Any questions or discussion? We've got a motion in a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Mr. Bourgeoa. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Uh, in Minnesota, a couple things that you never stop doing and have to do a lot of is uh repaving and roof replacement. And this next item is a bid for re uh repaving a large section of the northwest parking lot at Minnotonka High School. We have a a uh a rolling plan that gets us systematically around the district and tries to keep everything in a state of good repair. Even though we still have some potholes that we got to do temp, you know, short-term repairs on and all that, but we uh steadily work our way around. Likewise, you do the same with roofing, but uh we had very competitive bids, 12 bids, and Minnesota Paving Materials has a low bid of $238,700 to to repave the Northwest parking lot at Minnitonka High School. So, we'd ask that you would approve that low bid. >> Thank you, Mr. Bourgeoa. May I have uh someone make the recommended motion that we accept the low bid of Minnesota paving and materials in the amount of $238,700? >> So, moved. >> Dan, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Chris, any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Mr. Bourgeoa. >> Okay, we're uh coming around the turn to the home stretch here. So, um, this next one is acceptance of bid for paving at Clear Springs Elementary School. Uh, we are going to be repaving all the areas in the front of Clear Springs Elementary School. We did, uh, the bus corral. We've done the area with Momentum. we did at the parking lots out here the last couple of years and now that we have a lot of the heavy construction done uh related to the um northwest wing at uh Clear Springs Elementary School, uh we're basically repaving that after it getting beat up by all the construction activity over the last couple of years. So, we have a budget estimate of 300,000 for this project and the low bid uh of 10 is a valley paving uh in the amount of $145,468 and we'd ask that you approve the little bit. >> Thank you, Mr. Bourgeois. Uh I'd entertain the recommended motion uh accepting the low bit of valley paving in the amount of $145,468. >> So moved. >> Chris, may I have a second? >> Second. Camarie. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you. Um, Mr. Chair and members of the board, this last one as we head to the finish line here is the acceptance of bid for paving at Excelser Elementary School. This past summer, we repaved all the front sections of the parking lots at U Excelsia Elementary School. And so this is to repave everything in the backside, including the former lime and lumber uh parcel and the uh second uh uh driveway into the site that we use for student drop off. Uh that goes out onto George Street. Uh so everything on the back side of Excelsure Elementary School and then this will be repaved, the whole set will have been repaid for it'll be good for another 10 or 12 years. Uh this is um uh has a budget estimate of $245,000. We received 11 bids and the low bid is FPI Paving Contractors Incorporated in the amount of $120,853 and we'd ask that you would approve the low bit. >> Thank you, Mr. Bourgeoa. I'd like to entertain the recommended motion uh accepting the little bit of FBI paving contractors in the amount of $120,853. >> So moved. >> Mike, we have a second. >> Second. Megan, uh, any discussion? >> I I was just gonna say Chris and I were both doing some quick mathing over here and we came up with the same savings, but like it's coming in about 1.1 million under budget when you add up all of those different things. So, by getting out early and getting all these bids, that's just a huge cost savings for projects that we need to do. So, thank you for that. And I'm glad that our math agreed. That's why we seat you two next to each other. All right. Um, any other discussion? All right, we've got a motion in a second. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any oppose? >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Bourjour. All right, next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. May I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Sally, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Correct. All right. Uh, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? That motion carries. Board reports. Dan, the finance committee met a couple weeks ago and we discussed a lot of things that we already heard this evening. We discussed enrollment and how happy we are with enrollment. And if we look at page 29 of the annual report everyone is about to receive, it looks like we are operating in a slight surplus this year and hopefully won't have to be making any cuts. So, uh, thanks to great enrollment numbers, we're in good shape for now. >> Thank you, Camarie. The Min sorry Minnitanka Public Schools Foundation has hired in a new executive director officially which is great. She will be starting uh on the 14th next the next board meeting. Uh they are still searching for an associate director position. So if you go on to the Mitaka public schools website under the foundation you can still look at that posting and apply. uh they had this very successful homecoming they would like to report and they are still planning for dream makers so that is still coming up um let's see the other one is for the MCE mana community education they have formed a task force related to the explorers registration process so they are still a little backed up on explorers registration but they have formed a a task force um the feed feedback has been extremely positive and they are still sort of trying to hash that out. So working on that currently in the community. So that's my report. >> Thank you. >> Any other board reports? Superintendent report. Mr. Chair, um our student school board members have a little bit of a report tonight that they're going to talk about. The members of the public might want to know how do students school board members get prepped to come to a board meeting. So Soulie and Raymond are going to provide a little bit of an update on what goes behind the scenes to get them ready to come here tonight. >> Hi. So um two days ahead of time of the actual school board meeting whether it be a study session or an official board meeting like today we are pulled in during anchor time second hour usually and we are prepped with the agenda that has been approved and we are given a lot of background about what's going on what can we expect and it's veryformational and I think we've been prepared very well. Yes, Holy said it really well. I nothing to add on. >> Thank you both. >> Mr. Chair, I also like to report uh last Saturday was one of my favorite events of the year. Um the alumni association gathers and celebrates various people that are uh brought into the Hall of Fame and there's um uh previous alumni who have passed, doctors who have made significant impacts in immunology, team members, a cheerleading team. Just a shout out to the alumni association for hosting that amazing event. And I I get every time I go I someone points out where their locker was or where lockers used to be or where their classrooms were. And the longest part of the event is when former teachers are honored and all of the incredible outpouring of students and the impact that those teachers made on their lives. Shout out to our current teachers because that will be you someday. And I want to thank the alumni association for carrying on that tradition every year. Thank you, Superintendent Long. Any announcements? Oh, >> I think this fits in an announcement, not a report. This Saturday at 10 o'clock is a community invitation to join us at Minnotonka Middle School East. We will run through for members of the public our $85 million bond request. You know, the most common questions are, how can you do this and not be raising property taxes? Mr. wall will be running through the um how how payments drop off and how we're extending payments and we'll also get a chance to run through every project they're doing and you'll get a chance to see physically what it looks like at Middle School East. We'll do a tour for people that are interested 10 to 11 at Minnotonka Middle School East this Saturday. Thank you very much. Anything else? All right, I may have a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Mike second. >> Second. Camry. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We're adjourned.