Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. I have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's work session. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Tonight's agenda is approved. We have five items this evening. Our first is a year-end update about our elementary acceleration plan. And uh this is one of the five initiatives from this year. And so, I welcome up to this table Director of Teaching and Learning Jody B. Saint Hubert, Talent Development Coordinator Deb Richards, and Aaron Ash, a uh Talent Development Teacher at Countryside, right? I think it's Welcome. Thank you. I'm used to being at the front. presentation. So, that's good. Yes, good evening. Thank you, Chair Day Blair, Superintendent Bittman, Board Directors, community members, and colleagues. Uh as mentioned, I have two wonderful colleagues here with me tonight. And we're really excited uh to be here to provide an update on our 2025-26 Talent Development, specifically elementary acceleration focus area. As we begin, I just want to make sure that we ground that the update in the is in the the holding view is in the broader scope of our work. Um the academic acceleration is one critical component of the comprehensive Edina Talent Development Framework, designed in tight alignment with our vision and our mission. Board, you have reviewed details of very, very intentional, systemic audit of our accelerated math practices in grades 3 through 5 and our reading practices in grades 4 and 5. This led by Deb Richards, who we have here with us tonight, and in collaboration I also want to mention with our T and L uh team member, Sarah Helgason. The appendix includes raw survey data from a lot of stakeholders, from students, from teachers, from parents, from administrators, talent development teachers specifically, and also I already noted teachers, but classroom teachers. The appendix also includes the talent development advisory council members' names. Um that's made up of parents and staff, and then also the talent development and elementary acceleration lead team. And that was made up of staff members across all of our elementary buildings and different levels. And these teams, the reason I'm pointing that out is because obviously, um there's a lot of stakeholder data. And that was reviewed by these collective teams, not just Deb and I sitting at a table or a couple individuals, but both teams engaged in many, many different components of the raw data that's in the appendix. Um the high-level engagement and input really reflects a comprehensive review and a very collaborative commitment to ensuring that each and every student's unique strengths are recognized early, nurtured intentionally, and type both academic and social and emotional academic growth and social emotional well-being. And with that, I'm going to have Deb give you an overview of the review. All right. I'm just going to give a brief overview. The review occurred during the 2025-2026 school year. And it was deeply anchored into Edina's strategic plan 2020 to 2030. And um the goal really was to continue um the excellence that Edina is known for. And we wanted to um take a look at what um Edina is doing well within their talent development program, or also kind of be open to looking at those opportunities that we have to continuously improve. So, we have a lot of successes to be able to celebrate. Um we have um exceptionally high student engagement, and strong sense of belonging for students who participated in accelerated opportunities. And also, we know that um students feel like they were experiencing a rigorous setting, and we know from the data metrics form that it's translating into um exceptional student um growth, which is part of our vision. And um obviously, there's a lot of variables that go into why we have these successes, and I'm a little partial, but I would say um one of those main variables is our TD teachers. And um Erin is here today to kind of represent the TD teachers, and she's going to share just a little bit about the areas um for continuous improvement that were outlined in the report. Yeah, so there were a lot of good things that came out of the data, but some of the things that we found, like areas for growth, were um a need for more robust and like transparent communication about like what we do and why we do it. Um stronger consistency between the elementary sites. Um increased opportunities for first and second grade in rigor to be added, and um more targeted social emotional support for kids um transitioning in and out of in that flexible grouping. Um so, those were kind of the four areas that we found that needed the most improvement. I want to second what Deb said. I think one of the highlights for me in this review was working more intentionally with our talented elementary teachers. Obviously, I noted how I work with a large group of stakeholders, right, in the work, but I am um blown away by have skill set, and the dedication, and the professionalism. And so I think he is the right person for the job. Thank you for your leadership. Um we are really excited to look ahead and we want to move um quickly with some things because it's important that we take action on some of these things that have been pointed out for this improvement. Not only for the review but um you know in conversations with our talented elementary parent advisory committee for for years and we know it's important to go slow with some things because we want to make sure that implementation is successful. So there's going to be a good balance of work that lies ahead of us and we're excited to hear your feedback on the report as well as our plan for next steps um here shortly. One thing I do want to point out is this summer that we'll collaborate um closely with each other as well as marketing to make us some some targeted quick action steps around the communication um web page uh kindergarten or you know kindergarten enrollment nights, transition from fifth grade to sixth grade nights. So that's something we know we can act on quickly. And then some of the other areas are the ones where we need to go a little bit slower but we already have meetings set up for example with our elementary principals to talk about that site-to-site consistency and possible ideas for rigor in in our first and second grade classrooms knowing that that will be a lot conversation and brainstorming and how that can look in the 2027-2028 school year. Um so with that I want to turn it over to you all for questions and feedback. Thank you. Mhm. Board members, what questions do you have for feedback based on what we've heard? I had a question um I don't think I fully appreciate or understood what flexible grouping really is and what was being called out for this. So I guess I'm going to use my engineering opportunity to ask. Could someone help me with third grade? Sure. So, in math in third and fourth grade, kids have in fourth grade have four opportunities I'll just speak about one grade that'll be easier. In third grade, kids have four different opportunities to be I'm going to use the word identified, but we'll call it being matched for instruction of um talent development teachers. So, they we look at a comprehensive set of data there like a portfolio kind of uh fast testing, CogAT testing, and um skills-based pre-test, teacher recommendation, things like that that look at are kids ready for more? And so, we set our time with the third grade teachers and say, "Okay, block one will be these eight weeks. These are the chapters that we're going to cover together, and then we as talent development teachers came up with a sequence where we can compact some of that and go a little faster so that we have a little time at the end to go above or deeper." And then after that set, there's another group, right? Or like another look at all the kids. So, some of the stuff around that conversation of the social emotional learning is that is hard for kids to and parents to know like coming in going out of a class that maybe traditionally would look like all in. Cuz a traditional gifted education program or gifted talented math talent development gifted education program would be like you're identified as a gifted ed learner, and then you're given that program. Would you say that the anxiety is created because of whatever narrative or expectation the parent or child is putting on what's happening with that or or there's something that's missing as far as expectations about that? I think it's a little bit yes that um it's a little bit social, right? It's a little bit maybe um perceived it that one class is better than the other, right? And that's maybe more perception-based. Um That's what I meant by the narrative is like creating the narrative about it. Yes. And so I personally, I can speak to my experience, I work really hard with the kids in the my my team of teachers to try to see as many kids as possible. My purpose is to see as many kids in third grade as I can. Because the test only shows what they can do on paper, but I can then see what are how do they respond to a challenge? Um and to me that was an opportunity for us to not just look at numbers and say, "Oh, here's all my kids with 99%s. I'll take those 10 kids and move on." Now I have classes of 20 to 30 kids where I can flexibly group them and it's less of a commitment or to have kids that peak early and then by fifth grade they're really overwhelmed. I does that sort of make sense? Yeah. Absolutely. It really aligns with that ton of instructional match and helping kids families, right? All the collaborative conversations that are developmentally appropriate to, right? When we recognize that third graders or fourth graders that sometimes this is too much and you're getting holes and gaps and that's okay to know that and learn that and then we that one of the communication gods is then like, "That doesn't mean you won't ever be a black sis. It's an opportunity later in your grade and you got to have, right?" But being able to start you know, having healthy conversations around how might what's the best match for me for learning and growing. So And there are a lot of circumstances where they could could be different like causes anxiety, but there we have to be aware of that and lean into how we help with that. Thank you. And I feel like there's two things that we really want to focus on is one is the communication, right? But also just the um helping classroom teachers or just helping us develop a culture of kids just understanding that we want to provide what they need at that moment, right? And so we're going to kind of tackle the mindset of kids and families and and staff as well as communicate. On that part, if you don't mind me following up, um do you think that that culture also needs to extend further, not just from a talent development standpoint, but just in general in all that we do in the classrooms. Because I think that really applies really to anything, not just in math or reading. It it kind of applies to everything in that it's okay wherever you are, it's okay. But we want to make sure we're matching you to where that needs to be. And whether that's in some talent development component or not is is part of that. That I would assume I mean, that would be the goal. That sounds like a fairly challenging um mindset shift. Um of Absolutely. Um so I'm just trying to make sure that not solely from a talent development standpoint, but if we're talking about a culture of how we want to perform as a district and and certainly in elementary school, how do we want to do that? Um I I would I I I I would applaud that effort 1,000% but I can also imagine that that's not going to show up tomorrow. That's going to take not only with the current instructors, because then what they know and how they perform things and so on and so forth, but then also people coming in with parents and kids and whatever it is that that's a cultural change is something that takes time. I was going to say that I'd watch that happen when we started with third graders that are now sixth graders was our first year of doing that. The teachers each year were like, "Well, what do you mean we're going to These kids aren't they going to be Aren't they going to get set?" no, the kids knew. The kids were okay with it, but it took the adults longer to get there, right? In terms of how how it works. So, this is only what would that make that third fourth fifth year only fourth year of doing it. So, now our fifth year. So, yeah, it's going to take a little time for people to feel more comfortable with that method. Thank you. Other questions? Um I Two questions that I mean one is I noticed in your report a lot of a couple of different things that you noticed that other districts are doing that we're not doing. Um Would you guys see us adding any plan incorporating um especially the like getting ready for kindergarten type of program um or the ready set ready set kindergarten program um which I know is a little out of scope for maybe specific, but I did find it interesting that I think those programs are great and I think it's super helpful that we have our health and safety as well because we don't, right? So, I just wanted to get your yes yes that specific piece. Because really this starts at birth. But I don't know if I can be sure about that which is transition specifically. We definitely need to tax too. Yeah, maybe we will next year. Or we put that in the report just to make sure that there was a comfort level with it being there even as something we explored. It is not something we talked about more in depth, but that would be great to talk about. It might be an opportunity for us to invest at another investigator at another time. Okay. Um I think this is a follow up to that. I feel like um so, this is kind of like the first year that Jody and I have been kind of partnering on early entrance and I made the assumption that it was going to be a lot of families that had kids that were reading chapter books and doing double digit multiplication and all those kinds of things, but really what I'm finding is um parents are planning early for what their school trajectory is going to look like for their child and a lot of times they're just not sure. They're They're so concerned that um their child may be ready for it or they're so concerned that if they do another year of preschool they're going to check out of school, they're going to be bored and so they're exploring early entrance because of that more than their skill development, right? And so I I see and then I find that when families make a decision, like if they make a decision to go to Minnetonka, they stay there for their elementary years. So I think that earlier like that if we have an opportunity like that, I think we will keep a lot of our families and maybe gain some other families as well. I prefer I think it's both programs are great. Right. Um that's and segue into one of my other uh or one of my comments, which is I think that we need to directly uh address why we don't have a specialized elementary school. Or um if it's housing, why don't we and how it benefits kids and why it's a specific philosophy we have at United for the Kids schools. Um because it is. It's a specific choice that we've talked about multiple times and we think it's not we think it's in the best interest of students not to do that and I think we just need to say that and not be afraid of saying that. Um to address it and maybe have parents think, oh, I didn't think about it in that perspective or oh So, that's just my personal opinion. But, as I tell my husband, it's usually right, but No, I I just think because we do have like parents leaving, I think we need to be about this based on um and this goes along with that. I think she has gone through this and not through this. I think I think for me, looking at it from a parent lens and from a district a strategy lens, the real key here for me is a smooth pathway that are based on a right fit and the social and emotional of our of students. And I think we really need to hammer that to parents in all of our communications um about how this is the backbone of what we're trying to do for students. And looking at some of your bullet points about communications, it's not about just the transition from element elementary early elementary kindergarten, yeah. And it's not just about fifth grade to sixth grade. It's about looking at your student and how they're going to matriculate throughout their career at Edina. Because that's what we're looking at, and this is how this was built. And it's to meet the needs of your kid at all different levels. And I think that's the beauty of this program because if we're only talking in if you're transitioning to fifth grade to sixth grade, these are your opportunities in middle school. We need to make sure that we're telling parents that first of all, you can be in fifth grade and in talent development and not want to do it in sixth grade or want to do it in high school. You could not be in talent development, but double accelerate. This is about right fit. It's about flexible pathways and and parents look at it about how to impact your high school schedule. And look at how math and reading interplay when you get into these harder classes. And I just think we need to make sure that when we're communicating this, we're communicating in a lens of this pathway and this flexibility and this is social emotional as opposed to like specific fifth grade to sixth grade. I agree. It's about a very broad vision. Yeah. And this is our vision at greater student because I think that goes a long way to answer why we don't have a specialized school. See, I eventually get around to like the point I was trying to make. So, And I think that ties directly to our need for primary um to you know, to really focus on rigor in the primary. Um so, when you have other districts that do a really good job of marketing of different setting and it you're choosing between that and Deb Richards promising you that the classroom teacher is going to differentiate, that's a hard Right. So, you're right. You have to You have to You have to have something that is is equally as attractive and we also have to share the long vision of what it is, but It is unless you're talking about the fact that we are concerned about social and emotional skills and if you look at outcomes and there is a lot of really interesting stuff around outcomes. And I think that's where I think it gets And I I would I can honestly say that I feel like the academics that we provide is equal to if not superior to what a school within a school or a separate school would would provide. And then the kids also have the opportunity of being with their grade level peers for other um parts of their day. I think that's That's amazing. That's amazing. The key that I think people don't think about a lot. Cuz that's They play with their neighbors. And then what does that mean when you're in high school? That. What does that mean from a developmental perspective? Well, what does that mean to our definition of a well-rounded graduate? Well, that's my point is all of this all of this is based in what what we're trying to do from a well-rounded student perspective, which is why we have this program. Which is If you don't buy into it, you're not going to buy into it. And you go somewhere else. But it is deliberate. Yeah. And goes back to my exact mention of the cultures. Very good point about the whole case of experience. It's actually I mean even when we have the students here. Yeah. And one of the students said something very aligned with like sharing a message but I think it's important And or being helpful in elementary to know what's I can access They probably did the same thing also. Did Do that raise any questions for our director of marketing and communications? Well, Jody and I have talked about this and Deb as well and um just wanting to have clear messaging for families and or families to really deeply understand what it is that we do versus kind of like for tradition, all the things you see in other places before. And to communicate what our value proposition is. So, they've done a stellar job at defining what our differences are. And um we'll be doing more to help them to understand. Thank you. Sheryl. Um well, I was part of the group that was working on this program the past year. So, um I don't have questions, but as I was reading this again, I just felt really appreciative for all of the work the team has put in. And it made me feel very grateful to be in a school district that would look at a program that took a lot of work to put in place in the first place. And clearly the data from the survey shows students having a good experience in the program, the parents think that it's a good fit for their kids. So, it'd be very easy to say like, you know, it's done if it's done. But to go back and look at it because there are areas that we could could do better. Um I'm just really appreciative to be in a district that would re-examine that and say, "No, let's let's get it right. Let's Let's do it even better." Um cuz that social emotional piece is it's very important to me um looking at this and I think that we got to understand that the the kids I think they're they're really good at putting on a brave face for school and then when they get home, that comes off and and it's tough. And so, the shifting you know, wasn't necessarily or isn't necessarily as easy as it might seem for some of the kids. And so, looking at that piece and figuring out how can we do this better? Um I'm just really grateful for all the work and it's going to be a lot more work, so thank you for for all of that and I look forward to seeing what happens in the summer ahead. Thank you. Thanks for your feedback Rochelle. My pleasure. Well, the three of us had a chance to see it in teaching and learning, so thank you. It is an excellent report. I wanted to especially uh thank you for the chart on page eight. I just think it does a nice job of talking about the four focus areas that Darren talked about and the why behind why we think that that is so important and I appreciate how um you talked about like the next steps and how you know, the board will be getting updates on this work as you work through the process. So, um really well done. Appreciate it. My one question I have as you work through these next steps is um outcomes. Like how will we know that this is success? How will we know that we are serving more students than we are serving better? Um and so as as you work on that and as you brainstorm and have your brain trust together thinking about it, what does that look like? Again, really important piece, right? Using this chart and grounding and then now what are our action steps and how will we measure it? Um and that will be fun to be able to focus on to the board of like these are concrete measurements that we'll be tracking as well when we get there. And it might even as you're thinking as you're talking about prolonging and this might be too There might be too many other factors to separate this out, but now Darren, you said it you're in our fourth year. And are we seeing more kids take accelerated classes in secondary because they maybe had a taste of it in elementary. You know, and we want I don't know that we could ever measure that, but that would be an outcome. for sure. At least in middle school I feel like you'd know. Like I know how many kids are in it in South View this year versus last year. Okay. For sure, there's more. It may be interesting cuz I know we as a board have seen that we've seen that in our secondary level, kids are opting in when they get the choice, they opt in at a much higher rate than what our elementary um except the kids that were accessing it. Right. So, it'll be Yeah, it's it's really It probably is an interesting measurement of what kind of long-term And then you said something about right fit, and I was thinking and I want to say and right time. Because I think that's part of it, too, for kids. Like, some kids are ready at different times for that, and as they get older, I know for sure South View I can't speak to that with you, but they talk about learn agency and the kids having a voice, and I think that's really important, too. And we don't really have a place for student We do a little bit, but it's more like um case-by-case, right? Like, I've had kids that have said, "This is too much for me. Like, I don't want to be here right now." And then I can help them speak that to their parents or vice versa. So, I think that's important. Well, thank you very much for the work that's been done and the work yet to come. Yes. So. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And next on our agenda is another um initiative I don't know what for, but this is our early learning and family center report. reports um We welcome Dr. Annmarie Linglin, director of community engagement and strategic partnerships, and Ms. Elsley, our assistant director of early learning, and Laura Hunsaker, our early learning center manager, and Amy Ferguson, uh family center parents. And board members um Well, I'll let you I'll you start. Oh, please make it quick. Well, thank you so much. Uh Chair Gabler, directors, staff, community members, community members, thank you for having us here this night to present the culmination of the two years we have spent imagining, researching, collaborating on a vision of a transform early learning and family center. Uh thank you for acknowledging Amy Bergerson. We appreciate having her back, and she's going to be reading a statement at the end from our other co-president, Danielle Roback, who can't be here tonight, but um Danielle wanted to give give you a statement about this process. So, it's been a pleasure working alongside the ELFC team, BTO members, uh staff members, current and alumni parents, World Architects, of course. They've been great. Uh and the many different voices and partners who have added to the idea of taking our outstanding staff and programming to another level by positioning the new ELFC as the destination for upcoming families and the foundational cornerstone for Evanston's premier E-12 district. So, tonight, uh you have the report in front of you. We'll walk through it highlighting certain things. Laura and Kim are going to be presenting the majority of of the report. Uh but, I do want to mention as we go into summer with our little kids coming streaming, we are full with what the classrooms that we have to work with just in terms of the construction that's happening. We are at capacity, and we could have kept going. So, we feel really good. And then, going into next year, based off of this year's enrollment, we are stable and strong and growing. So, this is really exciting. So, Kim, you're Yeah. You're going to go over section two and Kim. Yeah. So, um just highlighting some of the things in section two and three. We know that most of the neurological development period in a human life is between the ages of birth and five and 90% of the brain develops at this time. Studies show that high-quality early childhood experiences and programs are linked to higher graduation rates, lower grade retentions, stronger social emotional skills, and greater health outcomes through adulthood. Implementing robust early childhood initiatives are essential for addressing systemic inequities at the foundational level, especially primarily a catalyst for closing the equity gap. NAEYC credits the environment as the third teacher, which we've talked about, parents being the first and teachers being the second. One area that we've explored last two years is spaces both indoors and outdoors. One important note that we'd like to say is on April 2nd at the community leaders meeting, it became clear that the phrase nature-based was creating some confusion in the community. So, we'd like to recreate that vision that the ELC would like to have access to nature, embedding nature within our experiences at the ELC, into our research curriculum that aligns more with STEAM. So, we'd just like to make that clear. And so, we'd like to say that Edina has a strong need to create a continuum of excellence that we're very proud of here and we are just asking for a building that reflects our rich play-based learning community here at the ELC. When we think about when it comes to the financial impact, early childhood is one of the most researched in the educational field when it comes to the financial impact and research found that every dollar invested in early childhood comes back to you um and the return rate is $7 to $13. And the socio- socio-economic benefits of that would be mental health, employment, reduction in special education, reduction in public health class, um increased earnings over time, higher graduation rates. You might ask, um which we ask ourselves a lot here, too, what would that direct impact be here in Edina? And we're thinking about, um greater impact on kindergarten readiness here in Edina, stronger E-12, um enrollment and retention here in Edina. Reduced burden on the K teachers, um quality schools and learning facilities, and increased child care for our workforce here in Edina. Moving on to section three, um Edina families here have great choice of where to send send their youngest learners. Most families visit tour spaces and talk to their neighbors. That's what we found out. Um excuse me, when touring, families are looking they're looking at our outdoor spaces or any outdoor spaces at early learning centers. They're looking at the safety of the buildings, um overall space and aesthetics. Um and they're imagining how their child might perform in those spaces. Um here at the new Edina ELC, things that we do know. We know that we have exceptional educators that are skilled and trained with their bachelor's degree, and that's something that all programs here in Edina We also know that we have a highly researched curriculum that sets apart. Um we know that our staff receive high quality PD. Just last year, they received 35 hours of intentional targeted PD designed to improve our student outcomes, which we're really proud of. What we found in our cross-functional team meetings is that our community wants these two things to kind of align together. They're looking for our high-quality, um teachers, our high-quality programs, our high-quality curriculum to marry with a a building that reflects the space, and that's what the community is looking for. Thanks, Jay. Jay, you're on. Yeah. All right. Kim mentioned, um cross-functional team meetings that we held over the span from December to April, um that we pulled together stakeholders, which included ourselves here, Amy's involved, we had family members that were part of that conversation, um community members, um staff as well, teachers that were part of those cross-functional team meetings. And from our very first meeting on December 2nd, uh we established some core principles that came from the table talk conversations. Um those core principles are nature-connected learning as Amy had mentioned, just intentional access to some nature spaces for our programming. Uh the second would be universal design. Um there's been a lot of talk about, you know, our current parking lot space and just kind of the entry and ways of our building here and just building off of that. Um we also talked quite a bit about family partnership, so the family commons area, you know, located right directly in the in the front of our um space, where families can really gather cuz we're finding that in our current family commons, we do have quite a few families that gather there, whether they're waiting for an ECFE class or, you know, if they're waiting for another class to start, they really appreciate that space to come together. I've seen quite a few of our ECFE families there, just, you know, having conversations, building relationships there. Um and then the fourth is the purposeful design, just making sure that we have spaces that are designed right from the beginning with who our littlest learners in mind. Um and that, you know, includes, you know, toilets that are made for their little bodies and classroom spaces, just little things like that that you overlook sometimes, but like that really means a lot for our little classroom spaces. Um so then our second meeting in January, we really dug a little bit deeper from those first conversations that we had, um and talked about how these learning neighborhoods, which I think we've talked about in a few of our meetings here before as well, um flexible programming spaces um to accommodate, you know, maybe different options for families, more working families and looking for different program offerings that we could have for them as well. Um intergenerational programming came up quite a bit in our conversations. Um, and also just having a space that's more of a community hub, um, expanding beyond just early learning offerings as well. And then language programming also came up. And then our final meeting in April, um, really grounding the vision about talking more about how can we take those core principles that we developed, deepening that vision, and expand from there. So, on this next page here are the five design priorities, really keeping in mind a learning space that inspires. Um, so from there we talked about again digging really a lot deeper into that nature intentional space and access to that nature space for programming, and keeping the family connection piece. Um, I think that's something that's very important for our families and for our team members as well. And we also talked about programming that meets families where they are. Um, thinking about those working families that we're really, you know, thinking about them when we're creating our programming keeping that in mind. And then also considering just what's going to set us apart from everybody else and all the other preschool offerings in Edina, and what's going to make families really want to choose our learning center here. So, from there we also, um, these um, section six here, just kind of those final find or those findings that we had. Um, I mentioned some of these already, just that inter- intergenerational programming. I feel like that is something that really stood out to our stake- uh, stakeholders and something that they're very interested in. Um, again we mentioned uh, the emergent uh, French or Spanish immersion programming, um, and expanding our class offerings as well. And then also just possible um, options that we can include our transition services as well, um, and just a broader space for the community to kind of come together in thinking about this new learning space as a hub for the community as well. And we also talked about current limitations. I won't go through every single one that's listed here, but some hot topics that feel like they have come up over and over again as the parking lot here, how that can kind of be very limiting with parking spaces. It can be very hard for families to get their young children out of car seats and things like that and sometimes that is a deterrent for some families to attend our attend our classes. So we want to make sure that that can be addressed. Um safety concerns that conflict with openness. So keeping that in mind right away when we are thinking about possibly building, you know, a new center, um making sure that safety is always at the forefront of that. And then special education transitions across spaces. So making sure that there's a special education presence um throughout those learning neighborhoods that we've mentioned before. I think we were at 15. I'm just going to take us to seven. Yeah. And then in our final meeting, we also talked about our current strengths. Our stakeholders really have genuine pride in the ELFC and they really wanted to note our strengths because I don't think we're looking for or changing everything that we're doing because there's a lot of things that we do well. And so we took some time to talk about what those strengths would be. I'm just going to highlight a few of those. I think um our top is our inclusivity and our transition to kinder- kindergarten. That is a big strength of our ELFC. Um I think our high-quality staff, which I mentioned before. And also our expertise of our summer staff. We have a lot of our itinerant staff that we can lend a lot of extra support to our staff or to our children's staff, um I think is a great strength of ours. Um we have a very big welcoming environment um for our families. Um but I think to balance that, I think it would be great to have some kind of facility that would have access for some of our families with the zero entry. I think would be really accessible for a lot of our families that we don't currently have. Um I think a new facility that helps support um our youngest learners, which we already talked about with the smaller facilities, would be great for little learners. And then we're also talking about the social emotional and the SEL supports for our Sensory Ridge regulation and some of those supports for our youngest learners. But we have a lot of great things that we're doing well that we wanted to work on as well. Thank you. Lauren and Kim work tirelessly and really do a wonderful job of leading our our early learning families on this. So thank you so much for using your voice tonight to to talk us through the report and really just what you experience every day. So section eight is really about the architectural planning pro- progress that's been made. Uh, we've engaged Walden conversations, talked to them about square footage ideas, come up with some scenarios, so that's been wonderful progress. Uh, and section nine we've talked a little bit already about unresolved design tensions, keeping that balance of safety and security in the forefront, but also making sure it's a welcoming, bright, light place for kids to imagine and explore. Uh Section 10 was something that I thought would be just a placeholder for conversation in terms of the direction that's been uh brought forward over the last two years with some concepts, ideas, and then some things to consider for the path forward. Uh So with that, I want to mention one other person that I want to give a lot of credit to. Nicole Meehan was wanting to be here tonight. She's one of our past um, family members and PTO presidents, and she has So all of the lit review, I thought I would just formalize and say in you know as doctoral researcher right Jamie and so all the people in the room we always have to do lip reviews so Nicole provided a lot of research throughout this process and really appreciate that. She's been a tremendous asset I think to not only early learning but the entire district overall. So with new read the last part of Danielle's or that statement from Danielle and we can focus focus the conversation. I think I am Danielle. I am a current ELC parent and ELC PTO member. I have two kids a son in kindergarten at Countryside and a daughter in her first year of preschool at the ELC. Each of my kids and I participated in ECFE classes for one and two year olds and my son was at the ELC for two years of preschool. My daughter will continue preschool at the ELC next school year. The ELC in its current form offers families a high quality option for early childhood and parent education. It also brings with it a sense of community within the building and outside of the classrooms. Everyone at the ELC including the administration and front front office staff, the classroom teachers, the parent educators, the paras and the supporting professionals OT, speech, social workers, etc. is incredible. Each person in the building cares deeply about the kids that are in their collective care and is dedicated to their and their families growth and success. With the new building that has been imagined during the three ELC cross functional meetings, EPS would have the opportunity to significantly elevate the excellence that already exists at the ELC. For kids the new building would offer an opportunity to gain more independence with appropriately sized amenities, toilets, lockers, etc. An opportunity to interact and jointly learn with their peers in a neighborhood learning environment. Better spaces for movement, better opportunities to see and experience the outdoors. And the potential for more experiential learning. For parents, the new building would offer more space to meet and connect with other parents informally. The ELFC experience would also be a safer and more accessible one. The better parking lot and zero entry entrances. The addition of a community resource hub and a multi-generational space and programming would make the ELFC a truly With the new building, the quality of the infrastructure would match the quality of the education that's already happening inside of the building. With that, that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much, both. So, thank you for that. And before we take questions, I just wanted to clarify for what would be helpful for feedback from us. And what I understand is that feedback would be from the board tonight would be, are we on the right track? Is what you're hearing, is it resonating with you? Does it seem like we're moving on the right track? And um are there things moving forward that would be helpful for us to have? Like, if this is missing, I would love to see this. Is that Is that correct? Okay. And board members, because we have heard about a potential new building as part of a referendum, this is kind of it's it's kind of a parallel track. Tonight's conversation is really about what we're hearing with this, should we decide to move forward? And so, yes, there's outstanding questions about where would this be and and if we would do it, but for the sake of this conversation, it's really based on what they're proposing. Are we Is that resonating with us? Is there additional information we need about this part? And they will intertwine, but for this conversation, that's what we're looking at. Does that make sense? And be okay with everyone? Okay. I can actually go pretty quickly. It's shocking, I know. So, I really appreciate this. I think it's a lot of information that I don't think we had before, and I think it's great. I so appreciate the definition of the nature and clarifying that. It's super helpful for me, uh from a board member's perspective. Um I think two things that would be helpful for me to clarify, um I I think this is great. I don't have any um any complaints about it. Um actually three things. One is the part of the transitions program. Are you guys suggesting that a transitions program is part of this? And when I say transitions program, are we talking about a transitions program for for adults? to K, but I but I you know Or are we talking about transitions within from early learning to kindergarten. So, we So, okay. Okay. The conversation you were having in the earlier portion of tonight's meeting was exactly on track. Okay. The continuum of how the benchmarks line up with, you know, through E through 12, right? We've got some really substantial benchmarks to be focused on, and that's one of them. Yeah. I wanted to thank you. I wanted to make sure we had talked about transitions. We talked about transitions, and so I had highlighted that. I'm like, "Which transitions are you talking about?" Well, I think Kim's just last district experience was the high school in transition, so she's probably thinking maybe that. Yeah. But, yeah, we would entertain that. I can speak to that really quickly just for the sake of the board, so that if we were to move forward on something like this where we would have a separate building, we would then free up space in this particular building. That would make an adult and 18 to 22-year program possible should we have those needs in in that particular time. Um and then the two things I think I could use additional information on is I would love to see how we could potentially um add in some that kindergarten extension. Um how do we utilize this to um ensure Now, I guess I'm going to the actual transition we were talking about. Um um for kindergarten readiness as well as um the the whole language piece. And I love the language piece. Um I'm a a little concerned about what does that look like going into elementary school, and are we giving um an implied um pre-K to 12 foreign language experience that we can then give to parents past to And so, that is a concern, so I'd love to hear more information about how that would operate after that. Yep. Um And that's a preliminary thought. So thank you because I have This resonates with me. I think this is great. I only schedule went down to the Y L C. I think it's a great program. I wish I had a facility. Last I think the level of program and the staff that you have there I think would do a great job. Um What you guys have described it you guys have done great things with building that wasn't created with early childhood planner program in mind. It needs obviously shift over How old is this building? 49? No. 75 rooms. Yeah, I was going to say 49. 49, right? Yeah, it was 49. The school we had a Yeah. I mean Yeah, I mean 1949. Um so it's we've we've gotten use out of it. Yeah. I'm excited to see this uh progress. I'm excited for this info to show the that our needs are there. Um Jeff, so yeah, thank you for this. Um I'll be excited for a new building as well. Um some questions that I would have just going forward and we once you start thinking about like what would specific programming look like, I would be interested in what would we anticipate this does and whatever I was saying to a looking at a language program, what does that do to the rest of you know, how does that shift things down the road and what would future enrollment to be, that kind of thing. Um and what other programming might we anticipate needing in terms of any special needs you know, all that fun stuff. Um and then just a question maybe actually, um how connected to to the rest of the district? I don't pretend to speak for all families, but does do you or your family feel coming to the learning center I feel like I have learned more about the district in terms of I knew nothing and now I know lots actually. For the year. At school board meetings. Um but no, I feel like I I really understand at least from what I can see coming home with Sam. Like I understand kind of how instruction will look. Like I see kind of oh, they need graphs today about what the hungry caterpillar ate. And like he ate one apple and two like and oh that is former teacher in me. I'm like I can see how this will look like down the line. Um and the skills that they're building early. I also really appreciate the um just the exposure to lots of different people. Um and he's got it and I see that as being valuable and loves it. He loves seeing all different comes up to kids. He's He's like, "Oh yeah, my friend speaks Spanish. I know Spanish." And he doesn't, but and I don't know a ton of details about the rest of the district, but I definitely feel that being here I could if I wanted to or if we were elsewhere, I don't think that's even necessarily an option. Um can you speak to a little bit about I know we've been on the PTO and I know that just the little bit that I was there at there was a family that was going to Normandale and there was another one that was going. Can you speak to that too? Like how as wherever Sam ends up in elementary school, I think actually your question like how has that You're not there yet, but how you'll do it have connections throughout the district or will in the next four years. Um, and that has been really great. Like we know people at every elementary school at this point. Um which is exciting and we can see in five years, maybe we'll be together at middle school or um and you run into people or hear about um things going on in different schools, which is great cuz then you can also see how things might be a good fit going forward or Is that That was one of the things that Nicole mentioned to me in the last meeting or last time I saw her, she said her kids always say, "Well, how do you know those parents, Mom?" And she said, "Well, it's cuz they're other parents." Right? So, yeah. Okay, yeah. So, it's very it's a it's a it's a bridge. And I feel like it fosters those um ECFE classes specifically where families are really involved. Um fosters that community and that belonging that the district is really looking for. And I knew no one in the district and now we go to places and see people this often and it's because of being here. And um that sense of belonging and being invested in our community is I I don't see how I would have come to that in a different way. Okay, so that's one of those areas where I think like I'm glad that we're doing that and it's really good. Like can we you do even more of that? Can we make that even more connected and feel more like it this is the foundation of our district. You're here and you're ours and we welcome you. Great, thank you. Um Yes, I everything that was just said. I mean I know Karen Gabler because of ECAP. I know former um board member Virginia Shaw because of Give praise every day. You could be a little more excited. Hi. It's been interesting how you all created a narrative out of I like I already said Um The the point of connection and and getting involved and so on and so forth. Like I don't think I would sit here in my role on the school board if it hadn't been ECAP. So I can only like exponentially echo and support everything about that. And and as I was thinking through as to this wonderful document and things. First and foremost, this is exactly what I would have liked to have had when this topic was first raised to us. Just to just to be clear like when we when this started, this isn't a complaint. This is but but what what the transition that we've seen over this last many months and year or whatever it is and so forth. This is what we were talking about and asking about and that we can now positively engage in versus just a here's this idea now give us support to go do that and whatever it might be. So I I just want to echo especially for Dr. Whitman's benefit that this is the kind of stuff that from a from a process standpoint and an institutional learning standpoint, this is the kind of thing that I would like us to continue going forward on any topic that we have. Um For me, it's really I'm focused on section five. Um and we talk about the design priority. So we we have all the wonderful things that are outlined in this wonderful report about all the things we do now, what we're able to do now, what we would like to be able to do in the future and so on and so forth. But when it comes to the design priorities, I'm a big thing about priorities. There's five that are listed here which are all excellent. Which is the number one priority? What's Do we I don't know if you want to answer it or not. If you want to answer it, you totally feel free. But for me, the way I sort of analytically process information Is that I need to know in the recommendation, what's the most important thing? Because knowing a lot more information about what we possibly could do in terms of actually a location to do this, we might not, even though we have I'm totally on board with all these things, do we actually have a place where we can get all this stuff? So, this is the magic wand question, which is what I asked 2 years ago. If we had a magic wand, what do we want? I now have it. But I didn't need to know, well, okay, we might not be able to produce a space that does every single thing that we would love to have done. How do I gauge then? So, then when the next phase if we get to it where there's recommendations, okay, well, here's the spaces that are available to us, and here's what we can do. I'm going to come back and like, okay, well, do we get all of our priorities in that? Or realistically, for the price point, whatever it is that we're capable of this, the community supports, we get four out of five. Well, if the fifth one that can't be done actually as it being the number one priority, that might change my calculus of well, maybe we need to think something differently. That's why I'm asking the questions. I don't have to have that today, but I'm just saying that that's helpful to me as I try to analyze these things, where that comes from. If you want to answer it, you feel free to do so, but I don't want to put you on the spot that you have to be committed to that. Well, I would say just real quickly, uh this conversation this summer because Karen and I have been working with the city council, and that group to have a joint meeting. And so, we'll give you an opportunity to maybe think about that, but this team will be part of that discussion at that meeting. And what I'd like to do also is re-engage the team and ask, you know, everybody what how to rank There's nothing that would make me happier than if we could actually find a space, wherever that magically could be, that we could have all this for a price point that doesn't kill the community and whatever it is, great, that's an easy yes vote, right? It's like, yes, let's go do that. I'm being more realistic as to I'm not so sure we're going to necessarily going to magically find it. So, I'm trying to steel myself and anyone who's actually paying attention to this, how do we navigate through it? That's all. But, as far as what's been recommended in in the components and the stakeholder feedback and all the things that are in there, this is just more than I remember when I read it last week, I even called up the mayor about it. I said, this was exactly what I was looking for and I was so happy to have it. Um and I know that when we've talked about um the early learning family center since I've got on the board 5 years ago, the amount of focus that has been reapplied to this space from the time I got on the board, oh my gosh, it is significant from where it was. For whatever the reasons were, we don't have to go back to that history. But, it's this is an essential component when we talk about E312, which we I never even We never said that before. But, now we say it and it's a component of what we are as a division. I love that. That's important. Going to what what you were just saying about this connection, it really does start at that level. And for me it was baby and me, it wasn't even one and two, it was at 3 months old. So, you won't get a stronger supporter of the you know you know FC um than anyone else here. It's now trying to figure out how do we bridge to how do we bring the reality to where we want. Um from that standpoint. So, there's really not a lot of questions or concerns or comments about this, it's just more of I'm kind of ready for, okay, great. This is awesome. Thank you to everyone, that's great. But, now we have some the next chapter, unfortunately, is going to be the I think the harder part. Thank you. Yeah, that's cute. Oops. Thinking along the same lines. With Michael's request. Also with your limitations. Like, are some of these absolute Yeah. We can't. We want to be able to fix this. Uh sort of piggyback on that because I look at some of these and I'm like, well, like I don't Is that an absolute non-starter or something? Or um And you know, little kids club space constraints. Is that just that you want more space to do more programming? And like is that really If you didn't get that, would it be as critical as perhaps um critical dedicated lunch room. I don't know. And then maybe actually one more thing as now that you said that, there's one more comment I think I that comes to me to make. Our kids went through ECFE and the whatever it was the ELC at the time, but okay. And even though they didn't have some of the things that are here, we still had a great outcome. Yeah, right. So, so I'm not trying to take any thunder or any power or or or you know, anything away from today's parents for not doing a good even with all the limitations that were there 15, 17, 18, 20 years ago. We still had a pretty good outcome. So, I that's a tension point, right? As to we should ask for what we need and and we want to be forward thinking as opposed to looking back. And the needs today are different than what they were 18 years ago. Totally get that. So, that's I think the part of this question is trying to filter. These are things that are really like in order for us to move forward in the future, to be to keep maintaining the level of success and growing our success, we got to have this. These are the things we'd love to have. And not that I don't want to give them to you because I do. That's where that's coming from. Yeah. And Yeah, so much for the high school. I think that we've been working in an inadequate space. So, I think that some of the things listed here are basic things like having a bathroom in a classroom for a teacher that's teaching preschoolers. That's not something that's like building for the future. That is basic things. So, I I think it's some of the high school stuff like this is getting us to where Totally agree. You know what I mean? Totally agree. I love that this is really important cuz I'm I'm right there with you. I'm just saying like I I want the professionals who are doing it to tell me what those are rather than me to have to infer. Are you talking like a red, yellow, green? Would that be The mechanism is I'm not I'm not pretty I'm not specific to any of that. I think it's more I'd like to make sure you guys What I always want in these situations, I want people to look to have a firm stake in the ground. This is absolute. I got to have this. Otherwise, it doesn't work. I think there's some common themes amongst the different groups. One, just really making sure that we have our priorities set and also being identified like this this has to be. In order to do business, this is what we absolutely need. And by the way, if if we even want to do more and better, here's what that could look like. So, which then becomes right if that's really the end of strategic goal that we have, then that becomes a have to have, not a want to have. Totally cool. Totally comfortable with that. So, and if you if if an easy answer is just whatever that I just put here is all things we have to have. Easy conversation, that's fine. I What I did I did not want to make the assumption that's indeed the case. But then can I ask as I guess as a board is I don't I consider as a district that we're offering exceptional experiences to our families. So, if we're going to build a new early family I don't know what acronym I don't know. It's okay. I don't con- I don't want to invest in something that we're still giving them bare necessities, but it's Now now there's a bathroom. So, I consider I hear you. So, I consider what they're telling me is what is This is what is the strategic necessity is what I think we need to build. Yeah, I guess that's my Okay, well, if if that is indeed the case That's my That's my I'm totally comfortable with that. If that is indeed the case, all you got to do is tell me that. Um and then if that if if Erica's statement just now is basically what you're doing, then it's a quick conversation. If it's not, then that's what I Because I'm I'm already thinking ahead of the next part of what we wanted to then have as terms of how we're going to actually do this. We have so many constraints about what How are we going to deliver this if that's our strategic imperative? Because I don't get the impression they're telling us things that are like we're going to have like a zero gravity room. I think they're telling us some very basic things that our competitors are doing. Right. Right. Yep. So. And to these these points, I would just say we'll make sure that we take this particular feedback and we bring that back for a more robust discussion amongst the board, really engaging you as well on what your priorities are, what your parameters are, what your hopes and dreams are aligned with our strategic plan, and then we'll we'll do that with I was just looking for a little more clarity on what this means. Organized storage built into every space. What does that mean? Like or intentional playgrounds, green space, and nature access. How many playgrounds? What are they like to Michael's point when we're looking at what's what are what's available, that might be something that looks great, but you know, we can't get the minimum of what we want for something or that with that space, so then we should cross that one off our list. I guess that's more of what I was talking about. Erica, I agree. Like a bathroom in a classroom is a very basic non-negotiable. I get that. Just a little more clarity with some of them. I think so. I think so. Yeah, both have Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Um okay. I I echo this is great. I'm as far as your questions, are you on the right track? I think so. And are there any is there anything missing? Um no, but um what I appreciated about this report was that what I saw was you talking about the building, the space, and the program together. And I don't know, maybe I mean, you may have been doing that all the way along, but that's what I really appreciated here because I do believe we the space down there is outdated. And but just building a new building, even though we have all these awesome things, isn't going to necessarily bring the fam the new families in. So, I do appreciate the conversations around whether it's language, whether it's really leaning to the nature piece, whether it's really um showcasing all the things we have, the well well-educated teachers, the great curriculum, the pathway into kindergarten. Um, so I really appreciate that you did those together. One of the wonderings I have is because it's been a while since I've been there, understanding current enrollment and space needs, and where we realistically think we would get. Um, I think that would be helpful to me because I I know for a while we were kind of seeing a bigger bump through like our preschool programming and ECAP wasn't as big as it used to be, and so I think because many of us it's been a while since we've been there, that could be helpful to understand, um, like we, like you said at the beginning, we have no more space for little kids. That's helpful because that helps me at least benchmark a little bit. So, this is the enrollment for the last couple years, we're maxed out, we're having to turn people away, or you know, and if we had a new space, this is what that possibly would look like. That would be the only thing. Um, uh, as we talk about programming, these are suggestions, which is actually not what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm going to do it anyway. Oh. Um, unless asking for kindergarten kindergarten teachers, kindergarten teachers on your panel, that feedback loop of like this is what we're seeing, not even from kids that are coming out of the EL, but I just know I I had an off-the-cuff conversation with one, they're like, "We are seeing kids come that are just not ready." Not from your, but from me, but to better that back and forth. And here's my last suggestion. Parking lots because we're talking about parking lots. Parent drop-off. Mhm, mhm. Yeah, right. Okay, has that been covered? I mean, obviously. Yeah, like where you drive up because when I had a four-two and a the the last thing I wanted to do was bring that four-year-old in. I think right there you could get every family in Edina I am not I am not joking. Maybe you do you you're right now. I'm already stressed. Right. And then your two-year-old's running around the hall, she doesn't want to leave, she wants to go to Well, that's also why the current parking lot is such a pain point. In that You can't just Yeah, it's not safe, but you can't just walk in with kids. Like if you've got you got children, you have to set up a stroller, you've got to do all of this, it's winter, it's It's hard and you can't just drop them off, you have to escort your child in. And there's something about that welcoming when you pull up and they have teachers out. Yeah. And the kids are learning how to a little bit out of themselves. They don't like it's very good. So Follow me for more. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you. Enjoyed all the photos. Yes, those were great. Okay. Next The next three items we have uh Mark Wier, Director of Finance and Operations, uh at the table to take us through the next three items. First item is our workers' compensation insurance renewal for fiscal year 2025. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the School Board. Thank you for allowing me to present a little little I would say more exciting news this time of year. Um so, first our work comp program, as a reminder, we did switch carriers last year for the current school year from RAS to SFM. Um a number of issues. One, a more competitive um financial structure was offered by SFM as well as a more robust and collaborative um structure for handling claims with our HR department. I'm pleased to announce um that this school year has done really well in that perspective. Uh and so rather than marketing our um our workers compensation program kind of statewide with the two entities that really cover school districts, SFM and RAS, we approached SFM directly for a renewal and they came back with another very strong renewal. In fact, it was about a 3.85% decrease to our premium, about $20,000 for next school year. And there's a number of different factors involved in that. Um ultimately, work comp really is about um how much you're paying your staff cuz you have to, you know, cover their their salary that you're paying out of your work comp program and then how risky um you are compared to your peers. Uh that riskiness is measured in terms of the experience mod or an X mod factor with 1.0 meaning that you are just as risky as any of your other peers in the industry. If you're above one, you're riskier. If you're below one, you're less risky. Uh we peaked at about 1.06 um a couple of years ago, which is um quite high for a school district. Um we are now down to about 0.86. Um so claims are getting better. Um and our our renewal reflects that. Um so that's really positive. Um the way that those claims are looked at in terms of establishing our X mod is um the previous 3 years minus the current year. So we're looking at the fiscal years um '25, '24, and '23 to calculate that. And so we had a a relatively significant year fall off of our claims record, which is driving that decrease. Um but I think the most significant claim year that we've had in um perhaps the district's history for a long time um was a few years ago at about $423,000 in claims incurred. That is going to fall off the next school year. And so this stability that we're seeing in our workers compensation program will likely continue for the foreseeable future, which is great news for the school district. Um so we'll bring that forward um for the June meeting. Um any questions? What about the claims that are like this past that we're not even in the current period, whatever it is, are we seeing good experiences from that then? Yeah, so the most recent year we're at about $110,000 as of the end of March. Um I don't think there's been a lot of significant movement since then. So on a net effect we'll be dropping about $300,000 in claims. Hopefully, you know, we don't see much more um before June 30th. Have you done anything in terms of from a safety standpoint with our team to help impact claims um the claims? Yeah, I think SFM has partnered really closely with our HR department. We have um uh frequent uh safety meetings. There's um quarterly claims meetings that um we've been partnering on. So it's a much more robust approach than what the previous carrier. Sony wants to chime in if she can, but I think everyone's been super super happy with the partnership. And how do you report that out to staff in terms of like, you know, like if you're at a manufacturing plant you say we've had this many days without an incident during It's all in emails. It's in the staff emails. I was going to give a shout out to Sony because I do see that or like watch your step and like I almost slipped on the stairs because of your nice little reminders that are all the time. Yep. Yeah, right. Right. But there might be other things If I could, Madam Chair, members of the board, just a shout out both to Director Waters as well as actually Director Daylor for the work. So much of that goes into it. They've been really planful and thoughtful about not only the communication but getting folks back to work and making sure they're addressing things appropriately and that doesn't happen without a lot of intentionality. So thank you both. So, it's nice to have a tailwind rather than a headwind going into a year. We did achieve that with our our work on the pool. Yeah, it was great to see a decrease. And more good news coming All right. coming up. All right. Uh the next one I had to do a double-take. I know. Now we will transition to talking about our property, casualty, and liability insurance renewal. Hold on to your hats if you're watching at home. Turn it over to you. So, uh the school district has been a member of the Minnesota Insurance Trust or MIT, I believe, since its inception in 2013. Really, that's just a a pooling of um total insured value so that you can approach the market um again with more financial clout and you're a little bit more insulated against the peaks and valleys of the insurance market. It's been a really successful program in Minnesota um since inception. Um as of today, total insured values are north of $8 billion among the 31 member school districts, and we're up five school districts since 2024. Um we're always continuing to to seek to add more. I am on the the MIT board now, and so I I do play a role in kind of get members to join. The more total insured values we have, just the more and more insulated we become against, you know, that the insurance market. Um post-COVID, but really over the last 8 years, but really the three or four years post-COVID, it was super hard property market. I think my first year here at we had a 36% increase. The year after, I think we had a 20% and then another 20% or so. So, some really significant increases. Over the last 18 months or so, that market has become quite a bit softer. There's a lot more players in the market. There's a lot more uh firms willing to write insurance, especially for larger organizations with a lot of physical assets like school districts, cities, counties, etc. And so, that softening of the market has led to more competitive renewals, especially when you have a large pool like Mist that even accelerates that competitiveness. Auto, general liability, sexual abuse claim, claims, school board claims, those are actually quite a hard market right now. Although they are a smaller portion of the premium you pay, so that's important to keep in mind as well. Um cyber continues to be an extremely soft market um despite the fact that cyber is an extremely large exposure for school districts and governments due to the public nature of our information. Um there haven't been actually a lot of claims out there in quite yet, and so we're actually going to get a flat increase on that. In terms of the overall um actually I'm going to back up for a second in terms of what Mist actually buys us. Um in addition to the total insured value, we also get to have a lot more control and design over the way that we're insured. For example, uh most traditional insurances provide like a 1% deductible on hail or wind damage. Uh convective storms in Minnesota are um extremely rapid, and those are some of the high claim um incidents that occur. And so on a school district like us, 1% would represent uh $7 million. And so we would have to pay up to that $7 million in roof and hail damage were we not in a program like this. And so it's super important we don't have a roof and hail deductible in Mist, um which is great. Also, this board is unfortunately familiar with intellectual property claims. A typical insurance carrier wouldn't even offer that sort of coverage. Um we are um beneficiaries of that type of coverage with Mist, and so not only the financial cloud, we also get the design element of being in a pool. The overall the most exciting part now is uh the decrease to our rate. We're having a 13.75% decrease to what we're going to be paying into the pool, uh which is roughly $175,000 saved for next school year from this school year, which is fantastic. I've been budgeting about 20% increases. So I'm sure that against my forecast will be saving roughly $600,000 in premiums, which is amazing news. The biggest component of that big decrease is that Risk Partners Associates and or Risk Risk Partners Administrators should rather and Arthur J. Gallagher who had mentioned the program they have partnered to create GoPro, which is an excess property carrier so that they can compete with the two main players in the market which are Travelers Chubb. So their introduction into the marketplace is creating a lot of competition. All three of those parties offered claims on excess or premiums on excess that were about 30% decreases and that's really driving premiums going down not only for us but across the the membership. Again, cyber is staying flat and also our loss fund is going to be receiving a 4.35% credit because we we did a little little bit better job with claims over the last year or two. So all in all, again, that can result in about a $175,000 savings. We're also adding an additional initiative to the program and that's water sensor devices. Water damage is one of the again, with from back to storms, one of the things that can really ramp up your cost but more importantly your operations. They can, you know, some schools are out for weeks, months at a time because of water damage and so we're going to be getting an assortment of water devices. They're kind of like hockey pucks and we're going to place them probably next to gyms. Gym floors are super expensive. Boiler rooms, again, super expensive machinery that can take a whole building down and then around places like our data rooms, data closets, stuff like that. So that's another added benefit of being in this. We had that happen at the high school over running water in that one year, right? Yeah, and then we had the Valley View gym floor that shut down. The one was a roof a roof Yeah, the contractor didn't properly seal the roof. Board members, questions? That's celebration. This is excellent, excellent news. I did you talked about the cybersecurity and since we've been talking about that, I did notice that it indicated that education is the most attacked industry. Well, 8,000 or so attacks a day. Of course, not all of them are reported, but most of them are stopped, thankfully. I mean, you did bring up a good point that I forgot to mention. We do have a significant savings in our overall premium package and cyber staying flat. Our coverage is for $2 million in aggregate and per incident. It might behoove us to explore additional coverage because we are getting a savings, a significant savings and it's not going to cost us that much to go up to a three, four, or five million dollar level of coverage. Unless that's something we want to do post this meeting and investigate what that would look like in terms of cost. And then bring that through finance. Absolutely. Okay. Great. I think that with that along with then the recommended investments from safety and security part of both people and systems, that makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. The school has jumped. Absolutely. I would say so. I think Uh all right. Uh thank you for that great news and um the last thing this evening is the long-term facilities maintenance update. Yeah, so this will be the first in a series of probably three different um public uh agenda items. So, we'll kind of go through the projects we're planning at the June either work session or regular meeting. I'll bring the financial components because we need that for our levy. And then in July, we'll seek um approval from the board for our fiscal year 2028 long-term facilities maintenance program. In terms of construction, um as you might imagine, we don't do a whole lot during the school year, although we did have two relatively significant projects happen this school year. First of which is the big auditorium renovation and kind of remodeling. Fully complete now. I think it turned out really well. So, for those who don't know, new lighting, new lighting controls, sound controls, brand new stage, accent lighting. Um the sound clouds are are brand new, as well as a little bit of carpeting. One thing we didn't do this round was new seating. Um the seats are in relatively decent condition, although I assume or anticipate that we'll revisit that within the next 5 years to to get new seating in there as well. But, overall, really good project, super successful. I think everyone's happy with it. The second project that kind of took place throughout the school year and will be wrapping up this summer is LED lighting at Valleyview. So, we did their um their physical education and workout space last summer. Uh the rest of the building this um school year and also this summer. Valleyview was um pretty much the last site that lacked LED lighting, so we're almost virtually LED lighting throughout the school district. Um minus some of the auditorium spaces, which need um more specialty lighting, and LED is not necessarily conducive to that. So, um also something that's helping keep our energy costs down. In terms of this summer, um we've got kind of like 10 major projects throughout the district, so it's going to be really busy for our buildings and grounds staff. At the high school, we're wrapping up the 3-year mechanical upgrades project. So, we've got a couple of air handling units that will be um replacing. Um destratification fans in the field house and activity center. Those were actually installed in 2013 or maybe 2015 or 2016 as part of that referendum. Um I recently found out they've actually never been operational, which is interesting. And so, we might have been paying for more heating and cooling costs over that time period than we should have been. So, we're going to get those commissioned and working properly this summer. We're also looking at um all other destrat fans throughout the district to make sure they're commissioned properly, and we're We're going to look at adding some destruct bands in other spaces, which over time should yield a little bit of savings in terms of rent costs, which is great. Uh we also have a re-roofing project. We had um roof area B scheduled for last summer. We delayed that to this summer, so that we could combine that with roof area C. Project bids for that were approved by the school board I believe last March, and those came in considerably under what we had thought they would be. Um so that's 77,000 square feet of uh roofing that's going to be done, partially uh built-up roof, partially rubber applied kind of a rubber roof. Um so that will be completed this summer as well. And then the field house gym floor will get a replacement floor, um kind of a rubber material. The Dana Community Center is going to be super busy. Um so the our early learning folks talked about um perhaps the space being a little bit outdated. That space is going to get all sorts of interior surface upgrades, some of which has already been done, so um carpet, floor tile, wall tile, paint. Um all of the lockers are going to be removed and replaced with uh more age-appropriate fixtures, um cubbies to be specific. Um some of the spaces will just be filled in with drywall where appropriate as well. Um the gymnasium stairs, so in front of the main basketball gym, um we've got a significant amount of water intrusion there, which is problematic um not only because it affects the structure of the stairs, but also we use space underneath the stairs to store band equipment and other athletic equipment. So we'll be replacing those stairs, also bringing it up to current ADA compliance, which is excellent. Um the locker room, we're going to uh grind and uh repolish the floors, and also reconfigure the lockers themselves, um so that the football team and other teams that use that space have um better lines of sight to the coaching staff while they're, you know, preparing for games and such. Um also new restriping the the community center south view parking lot. We heard quite a bit of commentary tonight about perhaps a lack of safety in that parking lot, so we'll be adding um turn um turn arrow stripes so that you can make sure that people are only turning left as they're coming um towards the south and they'll probably have an arrow pointing towards the west on the very um first loop so that you don't have to leave the facility and come back off the street to re-enter. Um so a little bit more natural flow. We'll also be putting up a lot more signage and speed bumps as well so that people right as they enter are noticing that they need to check their speed. Let's the community center. One more parking lot item at the community center. The main entrance to the ECC door three, I believe. Um there's quite a bit of um gradient there um near the um handicap accessible spots. Um during the winter or when there's precipitation, it can be quite difficult for people to exit their vehicles and make their way towards the main entrance. So we're going to relocate those um near where the crosswalk is so that it's a little bit easier for those people to navigate. Valley View, we're going to be removing some legacy galvanized piping infrastructure. And uh that means that we're also going to be able to replace uh two sets of gang bathrooms and also the locker rooms and changing rooms at the same time. Um so that's an added benefit. Again, closing out the LED lighting project and then replacing some aging cap flashing on the roof. Uh a gang bathroom is one where a number of people are using the facility at the same time. The technical term That's the definition. I had the same question a year ago. We were talking about it at We were talking about it at the high school. Let me to be more specific about that. For starters, all of the the locker rooms there have gang showers as well and we'll be converting those to individual stalls and individual changing spaces. Just a kind of modernize what we're doing. And that seems to be a recurring idea. And I think we've been doing that throughout the secondary we've had prior discussions. And this next generation will have no idea. No idea of that experience. Yeah, great. And that's okay. Well, no, I mean that's what they should be thanking us for, right? Yes. Brief rally, um renovation of all the restrooms which are original to the building. So, it's great that they're finally getting some upgrades. Carpet and interior surface renovation of all the classrooms with um only six to eight of those this summer. We want to get the restrooms done first. Um the rest of the spaces are done next summer. They're getting a new gym floor, a new cafeteria floor. And again, that's phase one of two. So, next summer we'll come back and we'll uh remove all the furniture and equipment from classrooms and place them into our new gym floor so that we can then go through all the classrooms and replace carpet and casework. Highlands Elementary, similar. They're getting carpet and case casework in the classrooms. Any hard flooring that's not terrazzo, so um kind of the spaces around the sinks in classrooms which are um old school BCU flooring, those will get replaced with more modern and nicer material. They also have one uh restroom that's original to the building which is going to be replaced and two kindergarten restrooms that could need um uh an upgrade. Those are going to get upgraded as well this summer. Um we also had a parking lot project uh planned there which we are postponing to next summer. We're going to engage the community a little bit more and and make sure that the needs of uh the city, the community, and the school district are met and we'll approach that a little bit later for next for next summer. Does that have to deal with the water elements in that space? Yeah, both uh there's a significant amount of site work that's needed. The area to the northwest of the parking lot is um eroding quite significantly due to the water run off. We also have um water coming off the building after a storm that's not going to the right places and so a number of storm um water retention facilities would be installed. I'm only concerned about waiting cuz I remember us going through this before. Wasn't there some safety concerns though because of the drop-off that's in happening or whatever it is? Like I mean, waiting another year to get more input or is that create any undue risk? I don't think it's that big of a deal yet, but it is accruing and something something we definitely want to address sooner than later. Okay. Absolutely. This The city has approached us on that as well. They're aware. Just need to get get through planning on that one. Concord Elementary, they're getting um interior surfaces as well. So, their floors have um hazardous materials. So, we're going to remove that and replace with brand new flooring. Um and also they're going to get uh a new gym floor, a multi-purpose floor. So, if you've been to the ELFC, their new little small gym, they've got a new floor down there. Similar similar materials going to be installed at Concord. Also, they um the main office, they have a kind of music room, conference room hybrid. So, we're going to rearrange and reconfigure that wall so that larger conference room space is created. And uh the music room should be still functioning as they are now. They don't need that additional space on the other side of the wall. That'll be a nice win for both um Principal Dolmer and his staff during the day as well as Kids Club after school. Then summer of 2027, actually um quite a uh fewer number of projects, but more significant. So, we've got a really significant project at Southview plan. Um all of their roof top units are going to be replaced, so a pretty big mechanical upgrade. They need um a roof replacement as well. And then a number of different interior surfaces will be touched up as we're taking that site down. That's going to be a minimum uh two-phase project, perhaps bleeding into a third summer as well. Edina High School, always something going on. E-PAC is going to get a pretty good renovation. New lighting, new lighting controls. And then some of the panels that were originally installed in that facility when it was constructed, uh perhaps were not um the best quality and we'll be addressing that as well. Three Valley Excuse me, will it be back then not be usable during that process or will it all be done in the summertime? That'll be in the summer. Three Valley again, phase two, finishing up their interior surfaces, um Highlands, that parking lot project as I mentioned, and then um Cornelia, we had an exterior wall um or exterior surface project last summer, which was probably 90% completed, so we'll go in and finish the rest of that next summer. Uh again, interior surfaces there, carpet, tile where appropriate, etc. And then we were hoping to do a parking lot project there next summer. Um with that facility potentially being a site that we're looking at for other um potential expansions in the district, we may look to postpone that depending on what the appetite is of the district. Um although I do think moving the entrance to the bus loop to the south um would create quite a bit of um breathing space and getting traffic off 70th and just creating more flow and and getting more cars off the street, so that's something we'll be doing that investigate with our architect partners and as well as assuming they do a traffic study this fall. Questions or reactions? Yeah, it is a lot. It's never not a lot. Because we have so much last square footage and we've got a lot of time. I don't you said there wasn't a building that wasn't being touched. Yeah, almost almost all of them. But that is not North Countryside. That's not always the norm. Well, Country doesn't need anything. Thank you and thanks for running through that with us and just giving us a heads-up of what to expect this year and also next year. Great. Board members, are there any leadership or committee updates? Yep, I have one. Um so next month board is doing Dr. Pittman's semi-annual review. And I'm going to be compiling all of the data from that, all of our comments. So next week after Memorial Day, I'll send out an email with the form that we all know and love and um they'll have dates on when to get that back to me. Uh I had two. There is on Friday from 9:00 to 10:00 MSBA is hosting a chat room entitled final takeaways from the capital, um where they'll run down what passed and what didn't pass and what we might need to um know as board members of what might be changing for us. So that's one and then our staff video is almost complete. Good job on getting me those clips, you guys. Thank you, influencers at heart. Dr. Pittman, are there superintendent updates? You gave me met you mentioned many of them. Um our send out for the end of the year video will go out next Thursday. So coordinate this. I think I should maybe go first. It Otherwise it'll be disappointing. Okay, but we can So that is the one thing. I mentioned earlier, alluded to, we're working with the city to have a summer uh end of July council meeting with the council to talk primarily around early learning type things and their interest around child care and other things that are impacting our community. So more to come on that. In your leadership update on Friday, you'll have a breakdown of all the legislative things uh and maybe I should send that out earlier for those who are going to attend the uh chat. So I can also do that. Uh end of the year, we're just finishing strong. We're excited for our kids and families, but we also recognize that our summer programming uh is intense. And so excited to to do that as well and to make the transition. And as many of you know, we're well into next year in terms of planning. So, we're appreciative of the conversations that are happening, and look forward to the work that we do collaboratively with them. Do I hear a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Do I have a second? I got All those in favor of adjourning the May 18th, 2026 work session, say I. I. Any opposed? The meeting is adjourned. It's 10:14 a.m. Thanks, everybody. Mhm.