[0:28] e

[0:58] e

[1:28] e

[1:58] e

[2:28] e

[2:58] e

[3:28] e

[3:58] e

[4:28] e

[4:58] e

[5:28] e

[5:58] e

[6:28] e

[6:58] e

[7:28] e

[7:58] e

[8:28] e

[8:58] e

[9:28] e

[9:58] e

[10:28] e

[10:58] e

[11:28] e

[11:58] e

[12:28] e

[12:58] e

[13:28] e

[13:58] e

[14:28] e

[14:58] e

[15:27] e

[15:57] e e

[16:43] good evening tonight is Monday January 6th and we do have a quorum so I will call this meeting to order the first

[16:50] order of business is agenda approval do I have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's board meeting so moved is

[16:57] there a second second we will vote to approve our agenda all those in favor say I I any

[17:05] opposed tonight's agenda is approved Dr Stanley will you please review tonight's agenda for us in the

[17:12] community absolutely chair gabler so tonight we have excellence in

[17:18] action and I'm really excited to be able to hear from um students and um staff

[17:24] families um I don't know if there are um members of the public that would like to speak

[17:30] if they are we'll hear from members of the public you have a consent agenda and we have a discussion related to our

[17:37] audit um from last year mmkr will be here along with um director Woodard and

[17:43] then we're going to get an update about uh student Support Services Pro programming from director remsing um you

[17:49] have several items that you'll take action on uh again the audited financial statements um the electric School Bus

[17:56] acquisition our secondary courses English language arts year 2 recommendations for curriculum secondary

[18:04] courses uh General change recommendations so new courses General

[18:09] change and um international travel uh the legislative action committee is

[18:15] bringing forward their priorities for final approval and then we have several policies that are up for final

[18:22] approval um you'll be provided with leadership and committee updates my updates and we will adjourn and note

[18:29] that there are several items under information thank you all right moving

[18:35] on we have our excellence and action and this month's excellence in action will feature principal Dr Cara rickenberg and

[18:42] some of the amazing students at Highlands Elementary Highlands Elementary celebrated a 20year

[18:48] anniversary in December with impact day the full Highland community students

[18:54] staff and family volunteers gathered for a full day of packing meals these meals stay within Minnesota providing

[19:01] nourishment for those in need Highland students staff and parent volunteers are here to share more information about

[19:07] their Highlands impact day so come on

[19:19] up and we also have Miss MSA one of their CP teachers and teacher leader of

[19:25] this effort would you go ahead and introduce yourselves to

[19:33] us let's see here ah here we go I am Cara rickenberg I get to be the principal at

[19:40] Highlands hi my name is Nyla and I'm in fifth

[19:47] grade hi my name is Riley and I'm in fourth grade hi my name is ISA and I'm in

[19:54] fourth grade my name is Kendall MSA and and I am a cp23 teacher at

[20:01] Highlands yeah perfect okay so I'm going to start if you can indulge me on the next slide

[20:07] I'm going to start a little bit on the history of impact day um oh is this the

[20:14] clicker

[20:19] perfect well we're figuring that out I'll just keep going oh excellent all right so um the history of impact a I'm

[20:27] self-indulgently going to talk a little little bit about my two children Connor and Logan who are now 22 and 25 and

[20:32] attended Highlands Elementary impact day was their favorite day of the year they still talk about it as a matter of fact

[20:38] that's Connor up there they still do their best to come back though they live in Chicago to help out with the day

[20:44] because it's just meant a lot to them they would have lemonade stands in the summer to start saving money even though the day didn't start until December and

[20:50] I've found out that this is not an isolated incident I got a call from a student at Edina High School a couple of

[20:56] weeks ago who's a photographer for the Zephyr and she shared that she went to Highlands it was her favorite day of the

[21:02] year and she wanted to come back and do a photo story of it which is now on the zephyr's website and she's a truly

[21:07] talented photographer so if you have a chance you can check that out but we also hear this same message from other

[21:13] students over the years since we've been doing it for 20 years um and our we just feel passionate about giving these

[21:19] students the gift of giving and hoping that this is a lifetime um desire more

[21:24] importantly it's a very student-led event and we have three of our fabulous um impact ambassadors we have fourth and

[21:30] fifth graders who come and do weekly presentations for all of the classes in

[21:36] the five weeks leading up to impact day they work really really hard on this and I'd love if you could share a little bit

[21:41] about what you do as an ambassador or what you enjoy about

[21:46] it I really enjoyed getting to talk to um the younger kids because it's just

[21:53] like the way like I could answer their questions made me feel really like

[21:59] independent and happy and we could present to the parent

[22:05] volunteers at the end which made me feel really

[22:11] responsible something that makes me enjoy being a b is that like I get to like to go to different classrooms and

[22:18] like teach him about impact

[22:23] day one thing I liked about being an ambassador is that I got to be a voice for people that are experiencing food

[22:32] insecurity one of my favorite things about the ambassadors is the dedication that they bring to the project and it's

[22:38] not just the presentations that they do in the classrooms but it's the conversations that I hear them having in

[22:43] the hallways and the leadership that they bring for all of our students kindergarten through fifth

[22:51] grade yeah they do put in an amazing amount of work and we so appreciate it um so many different groups help to make

[22:59] the day possible and we just it's a huge undertaking as you can imagine so we so appreciate that and in a moment we're

[23:04] going to be watching a video but I want to highlight a few things in that video before we do one of them is just that

[23:10] this is a really unifying event because kindergarteners through fifth graders all get to participate and it's hard to

[23:16] find something schoolwide that all students can meaning meaningfully be a part of um we also get over 150 family

[23:24] volunteers that come in and help us the day of and our ambassadors are back at work again because as the different

[23:31] shifts come in they do a presentation to teach the adults what their jobs are for the day which is really fun and one of

[23:38] them asked me if they got to boss their parents around so they were excited about that but um should we go ahead to

[23:44] the video all

[23:51] right trying oh there we go

[24:15] [Music]

[24:33] this video and definitely a highlight of the two days was hearing 570 kids scream

[24:41] out the students names as they appeared and would clap for each other and one another too

[25:00] [Music]

[25:51] there we go to celebrate our success we always share what um what we accomplish

[25:57] the day of and our ambass s Lead a an assembly and share if you guys want to start by sharing how many boxes of food

[26:03] we packed and I should mention that we pack oatmeal um that that stock local food shelves that's what our project is

[26:11] go ahead do you want to share how many boxes um we did

[26:17] 176 boxes which

[26:25] equals 7,49 B which equals what was our goal um 15,000

[26:35] 15,000 on clicker how many

[26:42] 56,3 192

[26:52] meals so in addition to celebrating that amazing success and just huge accomplishment this was a special year

[26:58] because as you mentioned it was the 20th anniversary of this so I sat down with a former retired Highland teacher that

[27:05] used to be very involved in Impact day we crunched some numbers to figure out how many meals that equals over the

[27:10] course of the 20 years and on the yes until something

[27:18] happens well spoiler alert we figured out that that's well over a million meals in that 20 years that Highland

[27:25] students have been able to pack which in itself is a huge accomplishment but I think one of the things that's really

[27:31] exciting is to think about the multiplying effect of all of the students that have been inspired to move

[27:37] forward and do good in Middle School do good in high school do good beyond that um and so that's really what our hope

[27:44] for this event is is not just the amazing ability to feed so many people but to help create lifelong enthusiasts

[27:52] of caring and giving do you want to add anything if anybody has any question question for

[27:58] our students well it's been about six or

[28:06] seven years since I did impact day at Highlands with my student um I remember

[28:11] it vividly because um having to put the hair net on and I didn't have it on

[28:18] correctly at one time and I got told by at least three people um that I wasn't doing it correctly um did any of you

[28:25] have your parents join you on the on the volunteering yeah so what did your no okay so for you

[28:31] your parent they volunteered what did you have them do um well we had them all work at the

[28:38] table and like help anybody that like uh like go having troubles with anything was the hardest part the

[28:44] scale uh it's probably the uh sealer the sealer right oh yes right that you had

[28:51] to put the there and go through right exactly excellent well I'm so impressed

[28:56] that Highland continues this wonderful tradition um for the Next Generation to come forth and congratulations on

[29:03] contributing to the 1 million meals packed um It's a Wonderful accomplishment I hope that you guys are very proud of

[29:09] yourself thank

[29:14] you thanks you Highland thank you so much for coming and if you want you're

[29:19] welcome to come up here and parents can take a picture of that quick thank you again for yeah thank you

[29:28] come on you want to sit here you three sit

[29:52] [Applause] here all right we do not have any

[29:59] members of the public who would like to speak to us this evening so we will continue on with our agenda uh we are

[30:06] moving on to the consent agenda is there anything anyone would like to remove from the consent

[30:12] agenda okay then we will vote to approve the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent

[30:20] agenda so moved do I have a second second all those in favor of approving

[30:26] the consent agenda say I I any opposed the consent agenda has been

[30:32] approved all right moving on to our discussion items our first item is our

[30:37] audited financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 and I'd like to invite up Mt water

[30:45] our Director of Finance and operations and Bill lower from mmkr welcome

[30:52] [Music]

[31:03] good evening chair gaer members of the school board those in attendance with us tonight Dr Stanley um tonight we're

[31:09] joined by uh Mr Bill lower principal and partner at mmkr now known as lb Carlson

[31:15] and he'll be here with us tonight to review the results of our fiscal year 2024 audit um before I turn it over to

[31:20] Mr low I'd like to make a few remarks um first of all I'd like to extend my thanks to the members of the business office who helped prepare the audit um

[31:27] even though though we know that there's an audit coming each school year it is a significant undertaking so I'd like to thank them for their diligence in

[31:33] preparing that audit second while this is the first time that the public and full school board will see the results of the audit

[31:40] um various drafts of this information have been reviewed with the finance committee at our November and December

[31:46] meetings as well as the full public as part of our five-year Financial forecast the results of the fiscal year 2024

[31:53] Financial operations were used as the base year of deriving that forecast

[31:58] lastly the this audit will be submitted to the association of school business officials International for consideration of their certificate of

[32:05] financial um certificate of reporting and financial Excellence award which we did receive for our fiscal year 2023

[32:12] audit um the plaque is hanging at the entrance of the school board for those who would like to examine that without

[32:18] further Ado Mr lower thank you m good evening

[32:25] superintendent members of the board thank you for for uh making time for me on your agenda this evening um what I'd

[32:31] like to do this evening is uh kind of quickly accomplish three things first of all I'm required to make sure that you

[32:39] as the body that oversees the financial reporting process for the district understand what our role as as auditor

[32:45] uh secondly I'm going to go through uh the results of the audit and the various opinions we issue and then finally I'll

[32:52] just touch on a few of the very highlevel uh Financial results for the year under audit

[32:59] so there we go um so I will start by talking about our role and making sure

[33:05] uh that you understand that management is responsible for all the data and

[33:11] disclosures that go into making up your annual financial statements which were the primary document that you received

[33:17] in your board packets this evening we come in and audit that information to provide an opinion as to whether it

[33:24] fairly presents uh the district's financial position and results for the year under audit uh in addition because

[33:30] the district annually earns more than $750,000 in federal Awards uh you're

[33:36] subject to a separate audit of those single audit of those um excuse me Federal award expenditures uh it's more

[33:44] of a compliance audit um then you'll see uh separate report letters that we issue

[33:50] were required to look at your internal controls and compliance uh as part of that financial statement audit as part

[33:56] of that Federal single audit you'll see separate report letters issued for each of those and finally you're subject to

[34:02] an audit of your compliance with Minnesota laws and regulations there's a audit guide that the state auditor

[34:09] office puts out and updates each year for the various uh local government entities U so we audit to that and issue

[34:15] a report letter on that as far

[34:21] as the results of the audit once again this year we issued what we referred to as an unmodified or clean opinion on

[34:28] your financial statements um once again this year because what fun would it be if we didn't get to change something um

[34:35] we are calling out there is a change to the financial statements you're looking at this year uh there was some uh G

[34:43] governmental Accounting Standards Board guidance uh that kind of changed something uh that they tried to change a

[34:49] couple years ago uh with regard to groups of capital assets that you're purchasing you have a a threshold over

[34:57] which you capitalize assets and a few years ago they put some guidance out suggesting um that if you're purchasing

[35:04] large groups of assets even when they're below that threshold you should consider

[35:09] uh capitalizing those as well and basically everyone kind of ignored that so they updated that guidance and said

[35:16] you will do that um so you had to implement that this year so you're going to see uh an adjustment of a little

[35:22] under a million dollars was added to your Capital assets and your investment in in capital L that's only under

[35:29] government-wide financial statements this doesn't affect your fund financial statements at

[35:35] all uh as far as um internal control and compliance uh

[35:41] with your financial statement audit uh was a clean report this year no control

[35:48] issues to note uh no compliance

[35:53] findings as I mentioned we issue a uh separate opinion on your schedule of

[35:58] expenditures of federal Awards um we find that those are fairly stated in

[36:04] relation to your overall financial statements um we also as I mentioned issue uh a letter with regard to

[36:11] internal control over compliance and federal compliance uh we did have one thing uh to report here you had a

[36:18] deficiency in your controls over suspension and debarment um this is kind of a requirement anytime you're going to

[36:24] spend uh over $25,000 with any vendor that's involving federal funds uh you

[36:31] have to go out to uh a website and make sure that that vendor is not suspended or divided in other words that they're

[36:37] eligible to do business and participate in contracts where you're spending federal dollars uh you also have to keep

[36:43] that documentation on hand so one of the two uh that we tested um did not have

[36:50] that documentation kept

[36:58] and then for Minnesota legal compliance uh we had three things to report this year uh the first one this is been

[37:06] finding the last couple of years and that is timely payment of claims you're required uh to pay any vendor claim

[37:13] within 35 days of the receipt of goods or services or the invoice for goods or services whichever uh is received later

[37:21] um the issue here is primarily getting those uh invoices that are being

[37:27] received out at your various School sites approved and into the business office so they can still get that paid

[37:32] timely um everything once it's hitting your business office is getting paid very quickly but um some of those uh

[37:39] invoices being received by various teachers and that out in the buildings are not getting to the business office

[37:45] to pay timely um the second one is an unclaimed property report annually

[37:50] you're supposed to be um submitting any uh General dispersement checks that are

[37:56] older than three years or payroll checks that are older than one year uh to the

[38:01] state along with a reporting form that you're supposed to file um we did have some payroll checks that were more than

[38:08] a year old uh when we did the audit that had not been submitted to the state so

[38:13] that's something that should be happening annually uh and then the final one um in your uh contracts that involve

[38:22] Labor uh for construction if you're using subcontractors uh the contract between

[38:29] the district and the primary contract contractor has to include language uh

[38:35] that the sub subcontractors will be paid timely um which is within 10 days of uh

[38:42] the contractor receiving the payment um and this is something or it's kind of a a one-size fits-all statute that doesn't

[38:49] necessarily um hasn't been updated or doesn't suit every uh every way that

[38:55] these payments are being processed but regardless um in your case you're kind of having your construction manager make

[39:02] those payments but even if that's the case uh that language is required to be

[39:07] in those contracts it's kind of just a matter of getting that boilerplate language into all of those contracts

[39:13] whenever you have subcontractors

[39:18] involved um that was everything as far as the opinions that we issued I'll just pause here for a minute to ask if there

[39:24] any questions on anything that I've covered so far I think the only question I'd have

[39:30] really quick is that um of the of the corrections that we needed to make were

[39:35] there was there anything that you've seen in the last few years that has a kind of pattern of anything like this I

[39:42] don't remember there being this many Corrections from last year um the one that that has been a finding for a

[39:48] couple years is the timely payment of claims and that was kind of the same cause um where it was the timeliness of

[39:54] getting them from the various buildings to the business office us to pay um

[39:59] other than that no I don't think there was anything that I would call a pattern okay thank

[40:09] you sure uh director bourbon to add to the response from Mr low um yeah the

[40:14] 35-day prompt payment is one that we certainly want to adhere to um we have put in some electronic um systems in

[40:20] place to help to alleviate that concern of course there's a human element involved as well and so we're trying to

[40:26] redirect invoices from being sent um to sites rather sent centrally to a An accounts payable email address

[40:38] so all right with that then I'll move on uh to some of the kind of high level Financial results uh for the year under

[40:45] audit uh which was the year ended June 30 2024 uh this graph shows uh just to give

[40:53] you some context of where your District's fund balances are uh compared to some Statewide data this shows a

[41:00] 10-year history of your uh unrestricted general fund operating fund balance so

[41:05] this percent of your annual operating expenditures this isn't the measure you use when you're looking at your budget

[41:12] but this uh gives me an opportunity to show you how you compare kind of to some Statewide uh data for your District in

[41:20] at the end of 20204 your unrestricted fund balances totaled about uh almost

[41:26] 17% % of your general fund expenditures you have historically retained a lower

[41:32] fund balance level uh than the Statewide average don't have uh comparative data

[41:39] Statewide for 2024 yet but the previous year end that was about 21%

[41:47] Statewide another thing that we

[41:52] track got a head one there we go uh another thing we

[41:57] track year to year is the number of students that you serve for Aid this drives a lot of your funding formulas in

[42:04] particular your general education formula uh you served about 8540 students in terms of average daily

[42:11] membership for 2024 uh with the various weightings app applied to the uh different uh pupil

[42:19] levels that converted to about 9351 pupil units um that was down about

[42:26] 42 from the year before a decrease of about half a percent uh you did have

[42:32] fairly large increases in both 2022 and 2023 where you were up about one and a

[42:37] half to two and a half percent each year uh but that kind of leveled off in

[42:46] 2024 um the next graph here shows a 10-year history of your general fund uh

[42:52] financial position at year end over the last 10 years in terms of your year end cash balance and fund balance uh your

[43:00] total cash and investments in the general fund at the end of 2024 was about $52

[43:06] million uh the fund balances uh totaled about $26.5 million that was an increase

[43:13] of roughly six million from the year before uh about 4.8 million higher than your final

[43:20] budget this table shows some of the numbers behind uh those fund balances that

[43:27] components you report for fund balance as I mentioned the total of 26.6 million

[43:32] you see there has broken down into five different components you got a small amount of nonspendable fund balances

[43:39] which is essentially your inventory prepaids are still assets to the district but they're no longer liquid

[43:44] you can't spend them for something else um you had about $6.2 million in

[43:50] restricted fund balances these are primarily the uh State mandated funding

[43:55] restrictions that I'm sure you're used to seeing when you go through budgets um most of that about 5.3 million is

[44:02] related to Capital uh operating capital or capital projects levies dollars that you have yet to spend at about another

[44:09] almost 600,000 in staff development and about another $390,000 in some smaller uh restricted

[44:17] buckets uh you also have then the unrestricted fund balances are committed assigned and unassigned those are

[44:24] essentially controlled at a local level um committ are fund balances that you have decided

[44:30] at a board level uh to earmark for particular purposes in this case that

[44:35] commitment is your uh 2% uh cash flow commitment that the board has set that

[44:41] 2.5 million roughly um the assigned fund balances are things that are either earmarked by

[44:49] the board or by your designated uh finance department personnel there for various purposes you've got about $8.6

[44:56] million and assigned fund balances at the end of the year uh the bulk of that roughly 5

[45:02] million is for separation and Severance benefits you also had just under $2 million in budget carryovers for

[45:09] different sites that weren't spent during the year and about another 1.8 million uh for various things including

[45:16] programming um Paid Family Medical Leave unemployment leave um we've got a couple of uh ratios

[45:25] that we track there what these those unrestricted fund balances are as a percent of your annual expenditures and

[45:31] that unassigned fund balance just to kind of show you the trend you did have a a fairly significant increase this

[45:36] year so you're seeing those ratios going up your policy calls for uh maintaining

[45:42] an unassign fund balance between 6 and 10% of your subsequent Year's budgeted

[45:48] expenditures uh for the district at the end of 2024 that was about 7.4%

[46:01] your general fund revenues were just under 161 million uh for the year that's

[46:06] where the bulk of the variance to budget came from you were about $5.5 million do over budget mainly in two areas your

[46:14] state AIDS uh were about $2 and A5 million dollar higher than budget uh primarily in special education state aid

[46:21] a little bit also in general education Aid um and then other revenues here uh

[46:27] which includes uh interest income that's about half of that and then you've got donations student fees um tuition

[46:35] rentals uh where you budget very conservatively for those kind of non-recurring revenues uh so that was

[46:41] about another $2 and A5 million dollar in that variance between those two items

[46:46] I should mention um your investment income does include both interest that

[46:52] you've received and the change in market value of your investment port folio

[46:57] which you don't realize until you actually sell those Investments but you do have to mark that to Market each year

[47:03] so that will vary with the market and you did have a a good bounce back year in the market in

[47:13] 2024 on the expenditure side you spent just over $150 million in the general

[47:18] fund in 2024 um you're about two two and A4 million dollar under budget uh most of

[47:25] that was in two areas per purchase Services were just under $2 million below budget some of that was special or

[47:32] special education I'm sorry over budget um special education and transportation costs were higher than budget uh and

[47:40] also purchase services and capital outlay uh were over budget uh for

[47:46] projects and this is partly because of how you budget for your long-term facility maintenance dollars smaller

[47:52] projects get run through the general fund larger projects have to get account accounted for uh in your building

[47:59] construction capital projects fund so you make a transfer for those larger projects um so you did spend uh about a

[48:07] million and a half more on those projects in the general fund but you transfer to uh the your building

[48:12] construction fund was lowered by that same amount because of where those projects were accounted

[48:20] for briefly some of the other uh funds that the district maintains your food

[48:26] serveice special Revenue fund uh an annually you spend about $4 million in

[48:32] this fund uh you ended the year with a fund balance increase of about $886,000

[48:37] which was uh quite a bit more than you'd budgeted there you budgeted about

[48:42] $50,000 increase um so your year end fund balance of $2 million represents

[48:49] close to 50% of your annual expenditures in that fund and most of that came due

[48:54] to a legislative funding increases is they're uh providing free free meals for

[48:59] all school age children so um that increase the number of meals served in the State uh reimbursement there your

[49:06] community service special Revenue fund uh ended the year with fund balance of about $2.3 million that was also an

[49:14] increase of about 565,000 uh almost 300,000 better than budget and that year

[49:21] end fund balance represents about 19% of what you spend in that fund annually

[49:27] um two other funds that I don't have uh graphs for just they kind of run themselves essentially the building

[49:33] construction fund um where you transferred that $5 million from the general fund uh for those larger

[49:39] projects uh you spent those dollars transferred plus some funds from uh bonds that you issued in 2023 to do

[49:47] about $18 million in Improvement projects uh during 2024 and you have

[49:52] about three and a half million dollars left in fund balance in that fund at the end of the year and your debt service fund the levies

[49:59] and the principal and interest payments are all set each time you issue uh bonds uh you retired about you paid about $4.6

[50:07] million in total principal and interest out of that fund during the year and you have ending fund balance of about 3.3

[50:15] million then the last table I will share with you as actually a very condensed

[50:22] version of the first financial statement in your uh annual comprehensive

[50:27] financial report and that's your districtwide statement and net position um this takes all that fund

[50:33] information converts it to full acral so we bringing in all the long-term assets long-term liabilities that you don't

[50:39] report in the funds so it gives you kind of a longer term uh picture of your

[50:45] financial position and how it changed from year to year uh at the end of 2024 you had a total net position of about

[50:52] 12.5 million which was an improvement of 20 million uh from the year before um

[50:58] you can see if you look at the top there where it walks you through how we get from the 37.5 million in fund balances

[51:04] and all the funds we talked about to that net position uh you've got about $294 million in capital assets n of

[51:13] depreciation and amortization and I'll remind you that's on a cost basis that's certainly not the replacement value of

[51:20] your Capital assets um you also had about $200 million in bond certificates

[51:25] and other debt out standing that you issued to purchase or construct those assets um then you had about 115 million

[51:34] dollars in pension and other post-employment benefits um that you have to report

[51:40] entity-wide and the mo the bulk of that is your proportionate share of two Statewide pension plans uh the p and TR

[51:48] pension plans that your employees participate in each year uh they do an Actuarial study and a portion any under

[51:56] funding out to all of the local government units that participate in those plans so um you don't have to

[52:02] record that in your general fund or pay it out of there but you do have to acknowledge that part of that underfunding of those State plans is

[52:09] attributable to uh Ed employees that are participating in those plans um so that

[52:16] $15 million uh number that you see there is a main reason that you're showing a

[52:22] deficit in that unrestricted net position there because there's no prefunding for that

[52:27] liability but you did see an improvement uh both plans improve slightly in their

[52:32] uh funded position in 2024 that's typically all that I cover

[52:40] then from a number standpoint anybody have questions on anything I covered there or mer if

[52:45] there's anything I didn't call out that you care to point

[52:52] out I think I would just say that um what I was impressed about with the results were when it came to our

[52:59] financials it looked great uh there was no comments or any uh revisions or Corrections that needed to be done from

[53:05] our financial management um the corrections that were mentioned earlier were just some sort of management control elements that well are not

[53:13] something to not pay attention to but are not specific to the actual fiscal management of the of the district and

[53:19] its assets um so it's another Testament to um the administration's leadership

[53:25] and the controls that we do have in place to take care of the taxpayers money and to utilize it correctly for

[53:31] all of our strategic initiatives so for that it's a great audit result um and I

[53:36] compliment uh mert and Dr Stanley uh for producing that thank

[53:43] you well said director bman um I too thank you for your work and um Mt as you

[53:49] mentioned at the top your whole team deserves things for this so um thank you for your time this evening Mr low thank

[53:56] you all right then we will move on to our next item up for discussion which is um our

[54:04] student Support Services programming update so I'll invite uh director of student Support Services jod rsing up to

[54:11] talk to us this evening

[54:19] welcome good evening members of the board superintendent Stanley um thank you for having me this evening to talk

[54:25] about the great work that's going on student support services this year okay so we have our um presentation

[54:30] up and I'll just jump right in okay so today we're going to talk

[54:36] about six different areas and it's really um the the um pieces that fall under the umbrella of student Support

[54:43] Services um special education Section 504 Health Services mental health

[54:49] Homebound and homebased services and then also um homeless highly mobile services for students

[54:56] okay so we'll start with special ed which is really um the biggest of all of the um parts that we work with in

[55:02] student support services and um special education um just to make sure that everyone um out there who's listening

[55:09] tonight um has a better idea of what it is it's instruction that is individually designed to meet the unique needs of

[55:15] eligible students with disabilities and special education is provided at public

[55:20] expense meets the standards of the state and Education Agency which is really just kind kind of describing what the

[55:27] Minnesota Department of Education is includes preschool Elementary and secondary education and it's provided in

[55:34] Conformity with that student's um individual education program or IEP okay so one of the things that I

[55:41] wanted to just take this opportunity to do is just kind of look at some of our data we talk about special education but

[55:47] really who are these special education students that we have and so there's six years of data and if you look at the

[55:53] closest column to the left that's our current school year and you can see at in the bottom category that we have

[56:00] right over a little bit over 1,200 students Within These categories there's things that I just kind of wanted to

[56:05] show um one is that we have been increasing our numbers of special education students over the years and

[56:12] you can kind of see when you look at the bottom row how that increase has come across um we have an increase of 284

[56:19] students in our child count over the past 6 years which is a 30% increase

[56:25] some of the areas that I also o wanted to call out is um speech language um impaired that's an area where you can

[56:31] see that we have um just kind of a steady increase over the years in that

[56:36] child count and that's something that we are working on we currently have a plan talking about over identification of our

[56:42] students with speech language disabilities and so we're working with mtss interventions to be able to serve

[56:49] student needs prior to needing special education services and then also we're working on our oral language um um

[56:57] specific learn um learning disability criteria to make sure that when students are eligible for special education that

[57:03] we're putting it in the right category and then also just our eligibility criteria making sure that we are making

[57:09] decisions based specifically upon what our Minnesota um eligibility criteria says so we've started the work this year

[57:16] well last year actually but this year we really went intensive on it and as you can see the the gain this year is smaller than what it's been in past

[57:22] years so we're hoping that next year at this time we'll be able to see an improvement in our overidentification

[57:28] for that area in the areas that are highlighted in Gold those are the areas that have been increasing the most over

[57:34] the years so specific learning disability other health disability autism spectrum disorders and then our

[57:41] developmental delay which is our students who are in early childhood special

[57:47] education okay and then one of the things that I also want to talk about when we look at the number of students that we have in our district and the

[57:53] number of students that are in special education we have 15% of our students that are in special education that's

[57:59] really in line with the state number which is about 14% okay and we can move on to the next

[58:06] slide okay so the science of reading has been a big initiative throughout our district and the same holds true for

[58:12] special education and so one of the things that we've been working on is that our elementary special education

[58:18] teachers right now will have their letters training completed by the end of this school year and then any new staff

[58:25] that enter in into our school district will have 2 years from their higher date to have that training completed all of

[58:32] the curriculum that we're using in special education to work with our students who have reading needs all

[58:37] align with um the science of reading and its evidence-based some of the different curriculums we're using are the sundai

[58:43] system we use something called 95 wrap which was formerly known as Hill wrap um

[58:49] Hagerty and then also Lexia so just wanting to make sure everybody knows that our students in special education

[58:54] are also benefiting from all of that training and the curriculum that aligns okay um we're also making sure

[59:01] that we are progress monitoring our students um to make sure that they're making good progress and so fast bridge

[59:07] is used to progress monitor all appropriate students and the things that we're using our early reading that

[59:13] really looks at our phonics and fluency for those grades K1 and then our curriculum based measures um really

[59:20] looks at our reading fluency at students individual grading level grade level and that's students between grades two and

[59:27] five I also want to just mention that fastbridge is not appropriate for all students in special education we have

[59:34] students who use assist of augmentative communication um to communicate and the Minnesota Department of Education is

[59:40] working on an alternative option for students that have those needs so that we can progress monitor them um as well

[59:47] so Stu right now what teachers are using are curriculum based measures they have things like probes or Running Records

[59:53] work samples to make sure that students are are making good progress and so I just want you to know that while they're

[59:58] not using fast Bridge their progress is closely monitored okay and then looking at this

[1:00:05] next slide this really shows a blank spreadsheet and it looks a lot better when all of the data is in it but I'm

[1:00:10] unable to share that with you this evening because of course we wouldn't want to show all of our confidential information and individual student

[1:00:17] levels but at the elementary level all students who have reading needs are identified in the spreadsheet based upon

[1:00:24] their school and then it lists all of the information who is responsible for really that intervention for that

[1:00:31] student and for some students in special education that could be a variety of different people perhaps we have a

[1:00:36] student special education who's really working hard in the general education setting and they're having accommodations other students might be

[1:00:42] working with a reading specialist and some students are working with special education teachers for their reading needs so we're really listing out what

[1:00:49] their needs are and we're really looking at at a granular level at each one of our buildings to make sure that our

[1:00:55] special education students are making progress and then this information in

[1:01:00] this in this spreadsheet it's periodically reviewed during the teachers PLC meetings along with the

[1:01:06] reading Specialists as well to make sure that students are making progress and if not to look at why and develop a plan to

[1:01:12] ensure that they do the next slide is something that is information that you've all seen before

[1:01:19] it's information about special education student progress from our data metrics plan and in looking at our data metrics

[1:01:26] plan what you can see this is from the 2023 24 school year we can see that our spring proficiency for grades

[1:01:32] kindergarten through third grade hovers between 61 and 50% for students in

[1:01:38] special education we can also see that aggressive growth starts out at PACE in

[1:01:44] kindergarten at 16% um we consider this to be on Pace because if we were to look at like an

[1:01:49] overall bell curve we would see that um the largest amount typically is in the Middle with smaller amounts on the sides

[1:01:55] and so 16% is really what we would expect to see for students making that aggressive growth

[1:02:02] um and then by the time that students are in grades 2 through 5 we have almost 63% of our students making aggressive

[1:02:09] growth Which is higher than the 52% in special education and so it's just truly

[1:02:15] remarkable the type of progress that both our general education and our special education students are making

[1:02:21] again when you think of a bell curve you really don't think of 63% of our students making aggressive of growth so

[1:02:26] that's something that we're really proud of okay now we'll just turn to our

[1:02:31] secondary students and the type of progress they're making and so secondary is one year behind Elementary just

[1:02:38] because the district initiative was really to start with Elementary our students who are just now learning to read and so our secondary teachers are

[1:02:46] um well on their way towards um getting letters training and we will complete

[1:02:51] that through the end of next school year and just like Elementary all teachers that are hired on will also be getting

[1:02:58] this this instruction and so that they will be letter certified within two years of their hire date some of the

[1:03:04] curriculum that we use at the secondary level is again the snd system that 95

[1:03:10] wrap um we use a chief 3000 which is a 9 through 12 supplemental reading curriculum and then also the language

[1:03:17] curriculum which is a replacement curriculum that we use for students um who have that need in grades 6 through

[1:03:24] 12 and again all of those reading curriculums align with the science of reading and are

[1:03:32] evidence-based okay as we look at progress monitoring um for our secondary students in grades 6 through n that's

[1:03:38] taking place um there as well we're using fast bridge to screen all appropriate students we're using

[1:03:44] curriculum based measures um for reading fluency at their individual reading

[1:03:50] level and it's an Adaptive test meaning that it's taken online and it really matches that student where they're at at

[1:03:56] so if we have a student who is reading below or above grade level the test is meeting them right where they're at and

[1:04:02] then our Comm our common formative assessments are reviewed with n9th grade collaborative teams through our nth

[1:04:08] grade teaming model so they're getting together and going through all of that reading um all the reading data to make

[1:04:14] sure that our special education students are also included in that rich conversation taking place and just like

[1:04:20] with elementary students fast Bridge testing is not appropriate for our students who use assist of augmentative

[1:04:25] community communication and so they're not using fast bridge at this time but again they're still having lots of different teacher-based progress

[1:04:31] monitoring measures used okay so if we take a look at this

[1:04:37] next page again this is from our data metrics plan this time we're looking at our at our secondary students and one of

[1:04:43] the things that you'll know is that only um n9th graders are currently using fastbridge for our 10th through 12th

[1:04:49] graders we have a number of additional licenses that we can use on an individual basis based upon student need

[1:04:56] and we do that in special education we have some students that are working on reading goals and we're really closely monitoring that progress and fast bridge

[1:05:03] is such a great tool to help with that progress monitoring so those are available and they are being used um for

[1:05:09] students in grades 6 through eight when we look at the data what we see is that we have about 53% making typical or

[1:05:15] aggressive growth and then for students demonstrating below grade level performance in the fall um by Spring 29%

[1:05:24] we're making aggressive growth and this is higher than general education and again it just reflects excellent student

[1:05:31] growth far beyond what we would typically expect for students in grades 9 through

[1:05:36] 12 about 53% of our special education students are proficient on the MCA

[1:05:41] reading test and for the students demonstrating below grade level reading performance about 16% achieve aggressive

[1:05:48] growth by by Spring and again um 16% is considered on target for what we'd

[1:05:54] expect for aggressive growth to be aligned with our national

[1:06:00] Norms okay Literacy for All That's a Some curriculum that we're using for students who are in grades K through 12

[1:06:06] who really fall under that umbrella we were talking about students who use augmentative assisted communication um well there are students

[1:06:13] who are in our site based programs who applying letters methodology needs to be

[1:06:18] kind of it needs to really be done in a very special way because of the level that the students are are learning their

[1:06:24] reading at and so so Literacy for all is a comprehensive approach to literacy that was developed by Dr Patricia

[1:06:30] Cunningham and Dr Dorothy hall and then adapted by Dr Karen Ericson and Dr David

[1:06:36] copenhaver through their research at the University of North um Carolina at Chapel Hill and what's really special

[1:06:42] about these people is that they've really dedicated their career and their resource their research to teaching

[1:06:48] students with the most severe disabilities to be able to read and they again just believe that reading is for

[1:06:54] everyone every person is capable of reading and so they've really looked at how are we able to do that so we're

[1:07:00] working really closely to be able to use um the curriculum that they have the instructional practices with Le letters

[1:07:06] methodology so that we can ensure that all of our students are having access to highquality reading instruction and so

[1:07:13] this this um approach is appropriate for students who have moderate to severe cognitive disabilities they have complex

[1:07:20] communication needs and sometimes they have multiple disabilities which can include things like like death blindness

[1:07:27] physical access and other challenges like that so when we're working through Literacy for all the components include

[1:07:33] shared Reading Writing self- selected reading and then also working with words

[1:07:38] and the work that we're doing with Literacy for all right now is in partnership with bright works we currently have a person from Bright

[1:07:45] works that is going through the district and providing observations to our site-based teachers and teachers who are

[1:07:50] using Literacy for all um they're also doing monthly professional development with these teachers and they're helping

[1:07:56] us with our student progress monitoring to make sure that all of our students are making um growth in

[1:08:03] literacy okay this is a happy picture so this is um the Polar Plunge last year

[1:08:08] and so we're going to just really dive into talking about unified right now because of course we're always so proud

[1:08:13] of unified and student Support Services we'll move to the next slide so

[1:08:19] one of the things that we've worked on is all of our elementary schools joined our secondary schools in signing the

[1:08:24] special Olympics unified Champion School commitment letter on this fall and so that's been a really great thing our

[1:08:31] secondary schools have a long history um some of them longer than others and being involved in unified and so it's

[1:08:36] really been a goal for us to be able to get our elementary also really involved um the commitment letter is really just

[1:08:43] a formal expression of our District's commitment to inclusion acceptance and respect for all students through the

[1:08:50] implementation of the Unified Schools program one of the things that kind of differs about element

[1:08:56] what unified means at elementary is a little bit different than what it means at secondary and really the focus on unified is pure education on disability

[1:09:04] and also on difference um so that students right off the bat are building these strong friendships and they're

[1:09:09] learning about those things our special education advisory Council many of you know are incredibly passionate and proud

[1:09:15] of the unified work that takes place in our district and so one of the things that they did today is they or this this

[1:09:21] year is they organized a donation um to the district to be used for the purchase of books that can be used to increase

[1:09:28] awareness of disability and inclusion within their school and the parents are really excited because when they come to

[1:09:33] visit a classroom or they want to pull a book off the shelf maybe to read to the classroom they now have a selection of

[1:09:38] books to choose from so they really feel proud and um always willing and eager to

[1:09:44] support unified efforts okay so the Unified School pillars one of the things that I just

[1:09:50] kind of want to talk about because there's such cool things that unified is doing but they really fall into under

[1:09:55] three categories um one is sports and So within our district we have the pillars

[1:10:02] um represented through unified developmentally appropriate physical education we often will just AB

[1:10:08] abbreviate that in special ed and call it um dape but we have some unified date classes that take place new last year

[1:10:15] was unified cheer um at the high school which was really great and then there's always an annual track and field event

[1:10:21] where all the different schools are invited out um to the campus at South you and they have a lot of fun um also

[1:10:28] whole school engagement you'll see taking place throughout our district um that can take place through disability

[1:10:33] awareness um some of our elementary schools have had the Pacer puppets out to really um talk about disability and

[1:10:39] help with education bullying prevention um to prevent that or reduce the amount

[1:10:45] that takes place by really having that appreciation for difference of course are very cold polar

[1:10:51] um plunge events that take place um inclusion week and unified assemblies

[1:10:56] and so those are just some examples of some whole school um engagement taking place and of course we have inclusive um

[1:11:03] student leadership and what that really means is that our students with disabilities are part of leadership um

[1:11:09] opportunities that involve them versus persons without disabilities having those leadership um opportunities around

[1:11:15] things that involve them so um they're participating in planning Community outings we have theater for all um

[1:11:22] unified recess unified art and then there's also unified dance parties taking place I've been told it's

[1:11:28] typically on Fridays okay and then new this year two

[1:11:33] we have unified transition which is Project search and um so appreciative of the support of the district and the

[1:11:39] board and allowing us to start this project this year um our project search interns have completed the fourth month

[1:11:46] of their 9month internship at Southdale hospital the interns are experiencing a

[1:11:52] total immersion in their workplace to acquire skills and competitive employment and we are beginning the

[1:11:58] selection process for the interns for the 2025 school year for next year and so that's getting started and I just

[1:12:05] have to say that um we've had other districts who are participants in Project search reach out looking for

[1:12:10] some tips because our program is going so well and and that is something that we just didn't expect that it would be

[1:12:16] going just quite as well as it is we're so incredibly proud of the program and our interns that we have out in the

[1:12:23] community okay and then we have a um more special education initiatives that are taking place right now um they

[1:12:30] aren't getting the spotlight tonight but we're just so thankful for all of the work that is taking place and the eagerness and willingness our teachers

[1:12:36] are demonstrating to really learning new curriculums bringing on new things and never um ever stopping trying to do the

[1:12:43] best for their students and so some of the things that they're working on are bridges math um this is an early

[1:12:49] implementation for an elementary supplementary math curriculum the teachers have started piloting the

[1:12:55] program this year and they're seeing really great results and very excited about it one of the biggest challenges

[1:13:00] we've had is when we began the pilot was getting enough kits because so many teachers really wanted to implement it

[1:13:06] and jump on and that's been exciting to see um Benchmark literacy uh we've had

[1:13:12] two Elementary special education teachers on the elementary implementation team for the district and

[1:13:17] so I really appreciate that collaboration with teaching and learning to make sure that special education has

[1:13:23] a voice and a perspective in that curriculum as well we have teacher training that's going to be taking place this month for

[1:13:29] step up to writing it's beginning this January for early implementers and again this is another situation where early

[1:13:36] implementation is proving to be challenging because so many teachers want to be able to learn our step up to

[1:13:42] writing curriculum and have additional evidence-based resources to use and so their um their willingness to stay after

[1:13:49] school and get that training and and to dig in is just really really it's really fun to have a staff like that

[1:13:55] we also have the number worlds um curriculum and this is our first year of full implementation last year was early

[1:14:01] implementation and this is a supplementary secondary curriculum that we use um new teacher supports this is

[1:14:09] something that's been new this year we have monthly professional development that we offer through a series to

[1:14:14] support teacher onboarding performance and retention one of the things that we've noticed um is that special

[1:14:20] education hiring shortage is is Nationwide it isn't unique to Minnesota it isn't unique to we Dina isn't unique

[1:14:26] to anyone and so really what our goal is always is to hire the best teachers we can and then to have them want to stay

[1:14:32] here because they feel supported they know how to do their work and when we hire brand new people we want to make

[1:14:37] sure that they feel supported in their work and so some of the topics that we've talked about is working on special

[1:14:42] education evaluation writing um high quality IEPs that are compliant um how

[1:14:48] to facilitate meetings data collection and progress monitoring um extended school year um um PA professional

[1:14:56] supervision and then we're going to talk about schoolto school transition planning for their students this spring

[1:15:01] Transportation um preparation of extended school year materials and then also conflict resolution so that's been

[1:15:08] really exciting another piece that we are also working on I just got word from the printer that it's complete so it's

[1:15:15] about to roll out we've created a par professional handbook and an online catalog of training courses so that we

[1:15:21] can also support our PA of professionals once we hire these pair of professional Prof we really want to retain them and

[1:15:27] we also want to make sure that they receive um as much training as possible so that they're highly effective in their work so because we have pair

[1:15:34] professionals that maybe start throughout the school year being able to hold training opportunities that capture

[1:15:40] all of our staff so they feel well supported and able to do their work can be challenging and so by creating this

[1:15:46] online catalog it allows us to ensure that we're onboarding our pair of professionals so that they feel ready

[1:15:52] and prepared when they're working with our students and then we have a special education teacher pipeline Grant so

[1:15:58] thankful for Dr anarie Leland writing that wonderful Grant um it is allowed for 20 of our pair professionals within

[1:16:05] the district to pursue special education teacher lure and we really want to make sure that our our PA professionals that

[1:16:12] are going through it feel really supported and prepared as they make that transition from being a par professional

[1:16:17] to a licensed a licensed person so we have um 10 great mentors each Mentor is

[1:16:23] working with um two m te's and it's just exciting I'll be walking through the hallways and I'll have pair of

[1:16:29] professionals run up to me and they're like I'm I'm in the program and they want to talk to me about it and it's

[1:16:34] just really really really super exciting and we have some really high need areas

[1:16:40] that are just so challenging to hire for and we have pair of professionals that cannot wait to be licensed so that they

[1:16:46] can be a teacher in that area so that's really rewarding okay um and that was the

[1:16:51] longest section I promise the rest will go faster but um a lot to share about special education um under Section 504

[1:16:57] of The Rehabilitation Act I just want to share a little bit in the next slide about what what that is um Section 504

[1:17:04] is a federal anti-discrimination statute and protections apply to students who have a physical or mental impairment

[1:17:11] that substantially limits one or more major life activities has a record of such impairment or is regarded as having

[1:17:18] such an impair impairment and so in this picture I I chose it because we have a student giving themselves a shot and

[1:17:24] many of students with physical impairments like um diabetes um have 504 plans that would um detail their medical

[1:17:31] cares and so just kind of showing that as an example of a student so under Section 504 we have 644 students in our

[1:17:39] district with 504 plans and during the 2023 24 school year 504 coordinators

[1:17:46] attended professional development in February um they attended a legal update really wanting just a case law update

[1:17:53] for all of the changes that have taken place over the years and then in April we did a 504 plan development and

[1:17:59] procedure professional development just so that our 504 coordinators felt really comfortable developing high quality

[1:18:05] plans and then you see um oh sorry the next slide and then you kind of see the

[1:18:11] the graphic on the right and that also shows kind of our common theme of wanting to make sure that our staff feel

[1:18:16] well prepared and trained to be able to do the work that they're working on and so we have an online course that we

[1:18:22] created from the trainings that took place last year so when we have a new 504 coordinator that is hired into the

[1:18:28] district or if someone wants to brush up or has a question we have a class where they can get um cus for taking so that's

[1:18:35] um our main update for Section 504 okay now we'll talk about health services and we'll move to the next

[1:18:42] slide okay so Health Services promote the health and well-being of students and create a safe and healthy school

[1:18:49] environment and school health services include Health Care during the school day health education

[1:18:55] health promotion emergency preparedness infection control and then also reporting and um for the 504 plan we

[1:19:02] showed a a picture of a diabetic student maybe you know getting their medical needs met and here we have a student who

[1:19:08] hurt their head and visited the health office for unscheduled care needs and one of the things that always amazes me

[1:19:14] is we collect data on the number of office visits that take place to our health offices and those are some busy

[1:19:19] places there are lots of bumps on the heads and skinned knees and Legos and noses and just all kinds of exciting

[1:19:26] things that you can imagine taking place in a health office um but we also have

[1:19:31] our health our health offices handling emergencies in addition to the routine visits and so you can see that um last

[1:19:38] year we had 37 injuries resulting in student referral to Medical Care we had

[1:19:44] 15 911 calls and 12 of those were medical related and then we stock

[1:19:49] epinephrine for anaphylactic reactions and we used three of those last year so that was really nice that we have those

[1:19:55] on hand for that life- saving treatment so we have some initiatives taking place in our health office um one

[1:20:01] of the major ones that we've worked on are comprehensive school threat assessment we call it seeg and we

[1:20:08] provided this so that all of our licensed School nurses have received the training and they can be active members

[1:20:13] of their school's threat assessment team they all have also received op op opioid

[1:20:20] um overdose treatment and so all of our health office staff have been trained to recognize the signs of an overdose and

[1:20:27] to administer Naran as needed also thirdparty billing um it's something

[1:20:32] that we're working to increase the revenue through accurate documentation of services provided to students we're

[1:20:37] always wanting to maximize um every bit of Revenue we can bring in and then just kind of a fun thing about our health

[1:20:43] services is that the community likes to provide donations to them um the lake haret Masonic Lodge donated

[1:20:51] $2,864 um to provide for some diabetic materials and then the Minnesota Lions Club and Children's Hospital and Clinics

[1:20:58] of Minnesota also provided some screening equipment to our district so we have some real fancy stuff due to

[1:21:03] some donations okay we'll move on to mental health um School Mental Health Services

[1:21:10] provide a full array of support and services that provide um promote mental health and well-being while reducing the

[1:21:16] prevalence of mental illness and so some of the things that we offer are Counseling Services Social Work Services

[1:21:22] collocated Services through fras and then also chemical health Services that we um have collocated through

[1:21:29] relate so some of our mental health initiatives I'll move forward to the next slide okay so we have been working

[1:21:36] with the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota um develop Department of Health to attend training

[1:21:43] sessions for districts to begin preparations to thirdparty bill for mental health services provided by

[1:21:49] eligible providers um we have design teams that are meeting this school year to strengthen our our district mental

[1:21:55] health Continuum last year we really did a deep dive into our mental health Continuum to see areas that were going

[1:22:00] really well and then also to identify those places that we wanted to shore things up the Minnesota student survey

[1:22:06] is going to be administered to students again this spring and so that always provides really enlightening information

[1:22:12] about how our students are doing from their self-reporting and then prepared training took place for all mental

[1:22:18] health providers to equip them with the skills needed to provide immediate Mental Health crisis interventions to

[1:22:24] student staff and community members simultaneously exposed to an acute traumatic stressor so our Mental Health

[1:22:31] Providers are feeling um prepared should something happen that they would be able to do

[1:22:36] that okay and so now we'll move on to Homebound and homebased services and so

[1:22:42] this is um something that a lot of times it's a very small group of students that it impacts but it's it's a very

[1:22:48] important service that we offer homebound students have been confined to their home sometimes um by a medical

[1:22:54] auth Authority and may receive instruction in their home and so from time to time we'll have a very very ill

[1:23:00] student perhaps a student who's fighting cancer or some other um serious illness

[1:23:05] and so they need to receive their instruction in their home we also have students who sometimes receive homebased

[1:23:10] instruction and that's due to an IEP decision or due to a disciplinary matter

[1:23:15] and so typically we provide homebound or homebased services to 10 or less students a

[1:23:21] year okay and we're on to our last one talking about homeless and highly mobile

[1:23:27] students so the mckin vento homeless assistance Act is a federal law that provides educational rights and services

[1:23:33] to students who are re um experiencing homelessness and so those those um

[1:23:39] services that are provided include a free and appropriate public education enrollment in a school immediately and

[1:23:45] that takes place even if they're lack lacking the documents that are normally required for enrollment they can be

[1:23:51] enrolled in their local school or they can continue ATT attending the school that they last attended which

[1:23:56] permanently housed um where they were enrolled they also received transportation to and fr and from their

[1:24:03] school of origin and receive Educational Services comparable to those provided to

[1:24:09] other students according to the students needs and so I think it's important sometimes in in different um communities

[1:24:15] you might think well maybe we don't have any students that that are homeless or highly mobile but but we do and we have

[1:24:21] students for a variety of reasons and so last year we just checked our numbers we had 30 students who were experiencing

[1:24:27] homelessness that different Services were provided to and and those are the 30 that that asked for support through

[1:24:32] mckin vento some families will say um you know maybe I experienced domestic

[1:24:37] abuse and I'm living in a hotel right now but I've got it okay um and so 30 students are impacted and and we're able

[1:24:44] to provide supports to be able to keep them in their in their school so really

[1:24:49] helpful okay and that is the end of my presentation I'm ready for any question

[1:24:54] questions that you might have for me thank you director Ramy board members what questions do you have Mr Man thank

[1:25:02] you director ring um I wanted to kind of follow up just on what you're talking about with homeless and highly mobile

[1:25:07] students and like you said I think people don't necessarily always understand that that's everywhere and

[1:25:14] especially it's here and kiddos are going through those kinds of issues kiddos and their families can you talk to us a little bit about what that looks

[1:25:20] like from the district if you can without you know identifying anyone obviously um what that looks like from

[1:25:26] the district side of things as far as what services you're able to help with or um just how the district is able to

[1:25:32] to do that or what that kind of looks like for kiddos yeah so something that might happen is we might have a student who is experiencing um home you know

[1:25:40] homeless sometimes we'll have parents who um for whatever reason need to move out of state and or go somewhere else

[1:25:47] and the the child decides to stay back they say I've you know been an IND student all of these years and I'm going

[1:25:52] to make it on my own through graduation so maybe they're staying at friends homes or um staying in Minneapolis

[1:25:59] perhaps at a shelter or something like that and what we're able to do is provide transportation to that student

[1:26:04] to wherever it is that they're staying sometimes they might say well I have a couch and Crystal but I want to go to school and in in Edina and so it's

[1:26:11] really helpful because these students um they might have to change school just multiple multiple times depending on

[1:26:17] where they're sleeping at night and this allows us to change our transportation so that students are able to go to the

[1:26:23] same school and keep that continuous School experience which is it's really an important thing I think without that

[1:26:31] um is it is so hard to stay in school and to keep from dropping out um and just all of those pieces so we're able

[1:26:36] to put those pieces together also sometimes there's additional supports that students need within the community

[1:26:42] about getting some type of resources and we're able to work with the students too to be able to help with that and you

[1:26:48] could imagine to the a student who you know maybe the parents have moved somewhere else and they're trying to

[1:26:54] make it on their own they maybe don't have the documents that they need or really know how to do it and so we really take it from there to help make

[1:27:00] sure that that isn't a barrier and that they can stay with us other times too we'll have students who um maybe have

[1:27:08] lived somewhere else and now they're staying here and we find out and then we can also help get them hooked up with the school because if a student is

[1:27:15] homeless and sleeping in Dina of course we welcome them into our district but if that student says no no I want to go

[1:27:20] back to my other District I want to go where people know me then we can work to be able to help get them set up for with

[1:27:25] resources over there the next thing about the mckin vento ACT is that this is something that is um reimbursable

[1:27:32] expenses so this is something that we get all of the money back that that is that it costs for the district to be

[1:27:37] able to provide those resources through through federal

[1:27:44] funds question director arum uh thanks for the report just uh two questions for

[1:27:50] you one is you'd mentioned that there was a 30% increase in special education students um but we're kind of at the

[1:27:57] state average as is most of the state seeing that kind of increase as well or are we just catching up to kind of where

[1:28:05] um the state is at so I I think there's a variety of reasons so most the state has really been consistently about 14%

[1:28:11] of your enrollment and so we've been consistently that sometimes what you will see is that um different different

[1:28:19] um different communi sometimes you will have um socioeconomic status and the

[1:28:24] incidents of of disability can be overidentified sometimes you can have students of color that are

[1:28:29] overidentified here in our district I know we over identify our Hispanic Latino students as having a learning

[1:28:35] disability and so there are pieces where you can see kind of um changes to that typical 14% within the district um our

[1:28:43] our numbers really there's there's been a large increase but I think some some of the factors that we have is open

[1:28:49] enrollment can really affect too um our special education programs are strong and they are POS popular um with other

[1:28:55] communities and families seeking to open en roll thanks second question might be

[1:29:00] more I don't know if it's more for Merch or for you but like um you're talking about like the transportation expenses

[1:29:06] and and whatnot and one of the purchase Services line items was we were over for

[1:29:11] special education transportation services is that just will that eventually catch up then when we get

[1:29:16] reimbursed for it from the federal level or is that just something that um we we need to like forecast differently for so

[1:29:23] I want to confirm but my understanding is that special transportation is 100% reimbursable And so that that will catch

[1:29:29] up with our federal funds it just is going to take some time and I'm getting the KN of approval okay

[1:29:37] thanks director Birman I'm had a couple questions um number one on the special education front um how many non-enrolled

[1:29:44] students are we providing special services to so they might be attending another school but they're din a resident and like so at a private school

[1:29:51] we might have to provide special education services for them so I don't have I'm sorry I didn't bring

[1:29:57] that number with me today but I will find and I would just say that our um our enrollment has really increase we

[1:30:02] provide two non-public within our district are the majority of the students and so we have our Lady Grace

[1:30:07] um is our largest number of non-public schools that we're providing special education services to the other is a

[1:30:13] veil Academy and it's a much smaller number over at a veil but yes that those numbers are increasing um at a large

[1:30:20] we've had to increase one special education teacher for this current school year year and their case loads

[1:30:25] are full so it's it continues to grow over at Our Lady Grace as well yeah I I I I just felt it was necessary to make

[1:30:31] sure everyone understands that while we do we have a number of growth within our own but we also have responsibilities

[1:30:37] that are not our own actual enrolled students for that purpose so thank you I just want to make sure we clarified that

[1:30:42] and if I could just add another piece about it is that when we do see growth within our non-public um students we

[1:30:48] have less control really over the interventions that take place prior to that because one of our goals in public education is that we're providing

[1:30:55] highquality interventions so that students who don't have disabilities aren't labeled as having a disability

[1:31:00] that they're able to be successful as a general education student and so we're only evaluating and labeling students

[1:31:06] who the interventions have have not been able to close that that achievement piece for them um we aren't able to

[1:31:12] control the interventions that take place in nonpublic schools or to really require that they even take place and so

[1:31:18] I would expect that um so it's it's more difficult to be able to provide um

[1:31:24] it it's it's difficult to be able to from end to end it is yes yes I well said I agree with that um thank you for

[1:31:30] sharing that I think also it's important that if I'm correct me if I'm wrong because I could be wrong here um the the

[1:31:36] compensation that we actually receive for those students to provide those Services is not the same as a full uh

[1:31:42] pup unit that we receive for an enrolled student we get something less than that in order to provide those same Services

[1:31:48] is that correct we do and I I'll just make sure that I'm accurate with Mer but we get on a shared time basis and so we get a portion of it based upon the the

[1:31:55] time that we're working with that student yeah so there's it's not that there's not a desire to want to take care of those

[1:32:01] students and so on so for that's obviously bosted by the law but then there just the whole point of not only

[1:32:07] the financial component but also the end to end result component we don't have complete control over that's still part

[1:32:12] of our function that we have to provide absolutely it's we're the only um state in the United States that requires that

[1:32:18] we provide special education services to our non-public students and so it isn't a choice that we have in the state of

[1:32:23] Minnesota it's a requirement that we have um and while we we appreciate those good Partnerships that we have with our

[1:32:29] non-public schools um there are challenges when we're providing services to students um in nonpublic because we

[1:32:35] know that special education isn't confined to a space a special education setting your disability exists

[1:32:41] throughout your school day and our ability to really control and adapt and um support our students is different in

[1:32:48] a situation where those are not our employees and we aren't able to direct their work yeah great thank you so much

[1:32:54] um a second question um while you did have in your presentation a little bit about the the transition program in

[1:32:59] terms of the um um the uh interns that we're doing in the in the work programs

[1:33:05] when that's going really well that's awesome I I know we didn't really get in tonight and I know there's going to be a presentation coming soon about sort of

[1:33:12] recommendations about what we want to do for our taking back our own transition program for our 18 to 22y Old students

[1:33:18] so is there anything you'd want to say about those programs or or our goals are

[1:33:24] related to that and so on so forth not to prejudge any pre future presentation I know is coming soon but is there

[1:33:29] anything you wanted to kind of comment about that yeah what what I would say about transition programming um for 18 to 22 year olds is it's really it's that

[1:33:37] special space between being a high school student and being an adult and it really helps students to be able to have

[1:33:43] the level of Independence so that they're able to do what they want um and they aren't limited by disability into

[1:33:48] adulthood and so it really it's a really special experience and currently we we

[1:33:53] send most of our students to 287 we still consider them our students as they go to 287 but um one of the things that

[1:34:00] I heard um from the very first day that I started here was that our community of special education students and parents

[1:34:06] have a deep deep desire to be able to have their own programs so that students um After High School are able to remain

[1:34:12] in the community receive training have Community um work experiences continue to develop their friendships right where

[1:34:18] they live and so many of the parents I hear them say you know I'm excited about housing available through through the

[1:34:23] city or I want to get a little um mother-in-law's apartment on my house or whatever because I really want my child

[1:34:29] to build a an adult future in a Dina and so that's something that I think really is a dream for our community I do know

[1:34:35] that anytime you're adding a building or a school to a district that um there are

[1:34:41] a lot of factors that need to be considered and so um one of the things that we always think about you know is

[1:34:46] financially where things are at and so that's something that we're looking at but um I think it's all of our hope I'm

[1:34:52] sure the board as well as our families myself that someday we will have our own transition program when that time comes

[1:34:58] I look forward to building it great thank you and then the last thing is a comment um one of the best slides I or

[1:35:05] moments on your slide was the grant money for the 20 um uh pair of

[1:35:11] professionals who can be get for training to get to their lure for that this is kind of a grow your own program

[1:35:17] that is common place in a lot of different districts throughout the the state I am so happy and so proud and

[1:35:22] compliment you um and Marie but also for Edina in general wanting to continue to produce

[1:35:28] that I'd love it to be an era where we lead in excellence about getting people into that program seeing them through it

[1:35:34] getting them to transition into the lure and then become special education teachers within our district that is

[1:35:40] wonderful that is so needed like you said across the country everyone's got to pull do their part to make that happen but trying to lead in that area

[1:35:46] is so important I'm glad that we found the resources to help us with that um it's just a critical element that I

[1:35:52] think the community at as at large needs to understand how incredible we can't just go and hire people to fill this

[1:35:58] problem we're going to have to grow them ourselves um that's an issue at 287 that's an issue at a lot of districts

[1:36:04] I'm just was really pleased to see that um where we are on that update uh here in Edina so thank you very much for that

[1:36:11] my pleasure just a quick question um that

[1:36:18] what director bman brought up about um the nonpublic school kids are they included in the data metrics plan are

[1:36:24] those are they excluded from the data metrics um numbers that you presented earlier so our our non-public students

[1:36:31] last year began participating in fast Bridge screening so their numbers would be included to I would want to clarify

[1:36:39] with with Bethany they had to set it up in a special way because we didn't want to um we can only set up by certain

[1:36:46] entities and they didn't want to um lose the validity of schoolwide data based

[1:36:52] upon the non-public school and so I need to just double check but I know last year was the first year that they

[1:36:57] started started with the bbge I can help with that they are not included in our data for data metrics plan so their data

[1:37:05] is not impacting the data that um is published however they did set them up so that they do we are monitoring them

[1:37:12] yeah okay perfect thank you thank you Jody for this report I

[1:37:18] have um a comment and then a followup uh you mentioned the Minnesota student

[1:37:24] survey and since that is a piece of monitoring mental health I was wondering

[1:37:30] as we think about what we put on our data metrics plan we use our Panorama data but those of you who know that

[1:37:37] survey better if there's information on that that would be helpful for us as

[1:37:43] another data point of how our students are reporting their mental health that might be something we could add to the

[1:37:50] data metrics plan at some point um so that was just a comment and then I believe that there is an upcoming

[1:37:57] open house for project search there is is that right yes January 14th okay and

[1:38:02] I know those of us on seek heard about it but um maybe the whole board can get that information because if anyone's

[1:38:08] interested in going and seeing what that amazing program is like yeah it would be wonderful to have anyone who's

[1:38:13] interested um come and attend and so it's it's the evening of January 14th I'll get the exact times out to you but

[1:38:19] what we do is we're really right now reaching out to students who we think would be excellent cand to participate

[1:38:24] in Project search and so the students will come and then we really have a showcase where we'll have our current

[1:38:29] interns um really highlighting the work that they do talking about what they've learned what they want to do afterwards

[1:38:36] last year when we went we were able to partner with another school district because it was our first year and so we didn't have anything to Showcase so we

[1:38:42] worked with the Fairview Ridges Hospital team and um one of the students um had just gotten a job working as a casual

[1:38:49] and I I don't really understand what that means because I work in education at um the medical field but apparently that means that they're a paid employee

[1:38:56] so um it was really great to be able to have just see the students success and their growth and just talking about how

[1:39:01] they have these career plans and goals and the medical industry has so many jobs and they so so badly want to work

[1:39:08] with our students and um Fairview sdale I can't thank them enough they've really rolled out the red carpet for our

[1:39:13] students um with our director coming and welcoming the students and they gave them a beautiful sunny um space in the

[1:39:20] cardiac wing and um they really really want our students to come and work within the he healthc care field whether

[1:39:25] it's one of their nursing homes or their clinics or their hospitals and so our students are getting these great transferable skills and just feel really

[1:39:33] wanted appreciated and it's it's great to see our community valuing our students the way they do well thank you

[1:39:40] and yes since we voted on that last year and it's fresh in people's mind it might be something nice for us to see so thank

[1:39:46] you yes thank you all right um moving on our last discussion item um normally

[1:39:54] uh Miss allenberg who would have taken over as the policy chair would be leading us through this but um I'm going

[1:40:00] to go ahead and start us out um we have we're I'm going to invite up uh

[1:40:05] assistant superintendent Nate Swinson and he is going to talk to us um about policy 514

[1:40:13] which is bullying prohibition thank you chair

[1:40:19] allenburg members of the board Dr Stanley um with your

[1:40:25] or I answered to anything so over thank

[1:40:31] you chair gabler members of the board superintendent Stanley um I actually have two policies

[1:40:38] and with your permission chair gaer if we could do them together um that would be great and the reason I suggest that

[1:40:45] is at uh policy committee we actually had a very

[1:40:51] um small conf ation about the idea of even combining 514 with 526 we pivoted

[1:40:57] off of that um but they're they're relatively well connected um with one

[1:41:03] another um just to start these policies both were reviewed by principls

[1:41:09] APS um Alex hatom uh Dr Leland jod remsing Sonia

[1:41:17] sailor and we had a little attorney involvement as well um just to get

[1:41:22] clarification about um some different questions that came up in the end there

[1:41:29] were not a lot of substantive changes that were that were made to um either

[1:41:35] one of the policies most of the uh changes were language cleanup uh

[1:41:43] specifically around defining report taker um things like that so um not a

[1:41:49] lot of changes to either one of these policies but there was definitely good

[1:41:55] discussion about them both so with that um what questions might you have about

[1:42:00] either one of them CH I have a question um earlier

[1:42:09] this year uh Dr hat had brought this policy sort of to our attention noting

[1:42:16] that the form at the end of The Bullying um policy might not get used as

[1:42:23] much as it potentially could um do we know how many roughly how often does it

[1:42:29] get used the form for reporting first of all you have a really great memory um because you are exactly right he did

[1:42:35] make reference to that um just first things first the form is on the website

[1:42:44] and um I think it's really important to note to that um as a part of that

[1:42:50] presentation you may recall that we talked about um the Sandy Hook promise that's part of

[1:42:56] my next question yeah yeah and uh the great news about that is we just

[1:43:01] recently signed anou with them and we will be launching Sandy Hook promise

[1:43:08] next school year so that's really really exciting because it it um takes the

[1:43:13] burden off of the school district to uh be the 24hours 7 days a week uh report

[1:43:22] taker basically um and will escalate things at the right time to the right people so we're super

[1:43:28] excited about that um so to be honest with you we haven't put a lot of time

[1:43:34] into doing much with the form that exists online other than making sure

[1:43:41] that it's uh the right people get the form um he uh Alex uncovered some

[1:43:49] interesting things when he started delving into that so that's been correct it's available online and we'll have a

[1:43:55] far better solution next school year that's great that is exactly what I was wondering about thank you

[1:44:03] yeah any other questions all right thank you assistant

[1:44:09] superintendent all right then I will welcome up director of teaching and learning jod D St Hubert to talk to us

[1:44:16] about uh policy 520 and then after that she'll talk to us about policy 601 well

[1:44:23] welcome thank you good evening chair gabler Dr Stanley board members uh

[1:44:29] community members and colleagues um I'm starting with 520 is that way she just said thank you thanks for the

[1:44:35] clarification so 520 the main work on this policy was done to ensure Clarity of the purpose as well as alignment with

[1:44:43] msba um we recognize there was a lot of language in the msba policy that was not in ours so we did a crosswalk with other

[1:44:49] policies to make sure things were covered that needed to be within other policies and that we added anything that

[1:44:56] was not covered in other policies so the purpose is to really provide Clarity on the policy around using student surveys

[1:45:03] to obtain student opinions and information about students and then you'll see that in section three um the

[1:45:11] the added sections D and F are all from msba and then the other thing to

[1:45:16] highlight with what I started with is in the cross reference section we added policies that cover um um other

[1:45:23] components of what was missing in msba and then the other piece that you'll see is just some minor edits throughout for

[1:45:29] example where we have parent we added SLU guardian and some some details like that so are there um questions or

[1:45:39] feedback all right seeing none this will come forward for Action next month and then 601 educational

[1:45:46] competencies okay so this policy um really is a technical correction that we made in section 5H to reflect the recent

[1:45:54] changes in our graduation credits that were made so we just wanted to make sure all policies reflected the correct

[1:46:00] language in that and there wasn't um confusion in our community so you'll see that um with starting um as we've noted

[1:46:08] in all all areas as best as we can starting with the class of 2028 that there will be 44 graduation requirements

[1:46:15] and that is in section um 4 5H so that is the only um piece that

[1:46:22] was add here questions or feedback on that and board members 601 of the policy

[1:46:30] committee decided we have the as a board we have a Latitude to do what's called a

[1:46:36] rapid review and that's for policies like this where because we changed

[1:46:41] graduation requirements there's just a minor little tweak we have to make so instead of sending it through the

[1:46:47] multiple month process we can review and take action in the same meeting so

[1:46:52] you'll see this one come up for Action this evening so thank you thank you thank you uh one note before we move on to

[1:46:59] action items um at our policy meeting in December policy 510 which is open

[1:47:07] enrollment came up for discussion and as we dug into it and it was a robust conversation with lots of people around

[1:47:13] the table it was decided that we are going to bring 510 to a work session for

[1:47:18] the entire board to discuss because there's some of the proc processes in there that we just haven't been updated

[1:47:25] for a couple years and so we want to make sure that um the whole board has a discussion around that topic so you'll

[1:47:32] see that coming at some work work session soon okay moving on to action items uh

[1:47:39] do I have a motion to approve the audited financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 so moved is

[1:47:46] there a second second and we have director of what is

[1:47:52] your title facilities bus business M M W

[1:48:00] uh good evening chair gabler members of the school board and public uh earlier tonight you received a presentation from

[1:48:06] our um audit partner Mr Bill ler from mmkr who discussed the fiscal year 2024

[1:48:12] audit results um this action is a result of our amended policy 704 which was

[1:48:17] amended I believe in um April of 2023 which now requires that the school board form approve the um assigned portion of

[1:48:25] the fund balance these are fund balances that are recommended by the administration for assignment um for the subsequent school year um those

[1:48:31] categories include the um Severance and OPB assigned fund balance a fund balance set aside for our Paid Family Medical

[1:48:38] Leave Act which begins in fiscal year 27 um a fund balance to support the costs

[1:48:43] of unemployment um insurance for those School term employees that receive those funds as well as um department and site

[1:48:50] carryover from donations at those um sites acred over the years um the recommended action is before

[1:49:00] you m I have a question sure so are we we it looks action the excuse

[1:49:08] me the action on the agenda is for the audited results so the assignment that you just

[1:49:15] talked about is that a part of that or is that a separate action um both of those actions are part

[1:49:21] of the recommendation of if you look at the agenda sheet okay great so the second part of

[1:49:29] that sentence all right uh do we have any questions board

[1:49:35] members all right thank you then we will now vote to approve the audited financial statements for fiscal year

[1:49:41] ending June 30th 2024 all those in favor say I I anyone opposed the audited

[1:49:47] financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 is approved thank you uh do I have a motion to approve

[1:49:54] electric School Bus acquisition so moved is there a second

[1:49:59] second all right Cher gaer members of the school board um we've been kind of formally discussing this um potential of

[1:50:06] acquiring a couple of electric school buses since the October work session I believe and we're kind of at the final

[1:50:11] stages of the the financing discussion of that um conversation um as it stands we've received two separate um EPA

[1:50:19] grants both in the amount of $200,000 for for a total of $400,000 um to acquire two um new school

[1:50:27] buses the $400,000 has to be used to acquire two not one um with the cost of

[1:50:32] an electric School Bus currently at about 400,000 what that means is to acquire two buses it's about an $800,000

[1:50:38] Capital outlay offset by $400,000 in Grant proceeds leaving the district with a balance of $400,000 it would need to

[1:50:45] pay um to acquire those two brand new school buses um at our December finance

[1:50:50] committee meeting we compared the cost of electric school buses acquired under a fleet electrification as a service

[1:50:56] contract Arrangement um against the proposition of continuing our current operations which is to run diesel buses

[1:51:03] so acquiring two new diesel buses and when we looked at a 10-year discounted

[1:51:08] cash flow analysis the acquisition of the two um electric school buses under the service arrangement with a vendor

[1:51:15] that replied to our RFP would cost about

[1:51:21] $781,000 $8 1,698 for the um two uh diesel school

[1:51:27] buses which we would be paying for upfront in cash um from The District's operating Capital fund um it was a

[1:51:34] really robust conversation at the finance committee meeting over actually two meetings both November and December

[1:51:40] and we kind of reached the consensus that the additional funds required to put into place two electric school buses

[1:51:46] um would not be something that we would be recommending to the school board absent additional funds um via grants

[1:51:52] donations Etc um luckily at the same time that conversation was was going the

[1:51:57] state of Minnesota Department of Commerce opened up their electric School Bus Grant which can actually be combined

[1:52:02] with the Federal grant um were we to be awarded that Grant the capital component of the electric School Bus acquisition

[1:52:08] would actually go away we'd be left with the service portion that we would be um working with a vendor for which is

[1:52:14] Highland and the cost of that um proposition would actually be less than the district buying two new um diesel

[1:52:20] school buses and so were we to receive that award I think the finance committee was was comfortable moving forward with

[1:52:27] a contract that was contingent upon that happening um we'll get the result of that Grant I I believe on January 20th

[1:52:34] somewhere in that time frame um but we thought we would bring this forward now since we kind of have all the information we need to move forward um

[1:52:41] the recommended action is before you and if I could add one more thing director Woodard the agreement is contingent Upon

[1:52:48] Us receiving the additional Grant funds absolutely the agreement is contingent upon that the contract was written in

[1:52:54] that way it's been reviewed by our attorneys it's in the board packet for you to review um also it's important to

[1:52:59] know at this time we've not spent a single scent other than some Sweat Equity um at this point um in pursuit of

[1:53:05] electric buses so we have no obligation to anybody at this point board members what questions do

[1:53:12] you have about this Dr Birman I would just uh as the chair of the finance

[1:53:17] committee up until earlier tonight um that uh uh what I think is really

[1:53:24] important for the community to understand is that you know the discussion that was going on was not about whether we believed in in the

[1:53:30] electrification of our Fleet or the value proposition of sustainability and going electric so on so forth that was

[1:53:37] not in any part of the conversation was that um being talked about because I

[1:53:42] think almost everybody if not everybody believes that's the future that's where we want to go and we want to be good

[1:53:48] stewards uh from that standpoint the hard part for uh the fiscal responsibility and the fiduciary

[1:53:54] responsibility to the district and the taxpayers was was spending an additional

[1:53:59] hundred and something, of the right course to take so when we were going

[1:54:04] back and forth with this it was trying to get to the understanding of where did that line cross and so we were able to do so the wonderful part was with

[1:54:12] Community Support who who came to us and reminded us of the state um possibly having additional grants we jumped right

[1:54:18] on that the team jumped right on that not I but you guys did um to work that out and then the finance Community was

[1:54:24] able to then really look at and say gosh well if we can get to this point having just the service contract with um with

[1:54:31] Highlands really enables us a low cost point for us to transition to the electrified process with two buses we

[1:54:38] don't have a lot of infrastructure costs um built into uh us doing that it then

[1:54:43] made a lot more sense and so I just want to make sure we're clear when we vote tonight is that we're voting to enter into this agreement with with Highlands

[1:54:50] with the with the assumption that only when we get confirmation of the state grants that we would then go forward

[1:54:56] with this we would walk away from this contract if that's not the case um so I just want to make sure you guys

[1:55:02] understand that but also the community understands that that's the action we're asked to do tonight I think this is a great solution and hopefully it all

[1:55:07] works out to where we can actually go down this path I know this has been a a huge thing in our community and our

[1:55:13] student population and and everybody else and I've been told many times before that uh United Public Schools is

[1:55:19] the largest emitter um of carbon in our community and so this is just a small

[1:55:24] token in that direction um hopefully it's just a for years to come that we can make the finances work to make that

[1:55:30] work so I just want to make sure there was a clear understanding of that not just to my colleagues on the board but also to the community and I'm I'm I love

[1:55:37] the fact that we had the community involvement to help us guide us further into making that happen that we were able to execute that so kudos to mert

[1:55:44] and the team and everyone I know Dr L was part of this too that trying to find the grants to be able to make this happen was really great so Dr Stanley

[1:55:51] thank you for the team's effort in trying to find a solution so we could say

[1:56:00] yes M I had a question I noticed on the RFP uh that Highlands has worked with

[1:56:05] the Highland bus fleet has worked with red Lake and at Jackson Public

[1:56:10] Schools have we at any point uh reached out to them to hear about their experience with both Highlands and just

[1:56:18] electric buses in general you know I actually tried to catch um

[1:56:24] the Jackson Public Schools official when I was on a business trip in Nashville um I unfortunately was unable to connect

[1:56:30] with them with red Lake I believe they they don't have their school buses on on the street yet so to speak they actually

[1:56:36] um did not have a school bus facility that would accommodate the charging of school buses um so they're a little bit

[1:56:41] different case than us because we're we're kind of fully prepared to get electric buses out there um but we'll

[1:56:47] definitely connect with them once they get operational um to understand how those are are working for them perfect

[1:56:53] and I Echo really briefly what uh director Birman said I thank you and the people who have worked on this because

[1:56:58] this is some everything that Michael said this was has been a topic that I think bubbled up through the board and

[1:57:04] the community and I really appreciate the work um and I think it's speaks to

[1:57:10] when communities and schools work together great things can happen so thank you um okay uh we do I have a no

[1:57:21] we already vot we will now vote to approve the electric School Bus acquisition contingent on acquiring the Minnesota Department of Commerce

[1:57:28] electric School Bus Grant all those in favor say I I any

[1:57:33] opposed the electric School Bus acquisition contingent on acquiring the Minnesota Department of Commerce

[1:57:39] electric School Bus Grant is approved thank you do I have a motion to approve

[1:57:44] the 2025 26 secondary course English language arts year 2 recommendations so

[1:57:50] moved is there a second second I'm welcome up uh director of

[1:57:56] teaching and learning jod D St Hubert to talk to us about these

[1:58:09] recommendations phone thank you as I dig through my materials um in front of us

[1:58:14] we had a discussion in November at a board workshop and then a discussion

[1:58:20] again at a board meeting in December there are some slight changes to this that I wanted to point out before we

[1:58:26] take action um and they are aligned with some changes in the college and the schools courses at the U ofm so this

[1:58:33] year we're currently um offering a writing Studio College in the schools class to our students that's no longer

[1:58:39] going to be offered because the U ofm is no longer offering it they are replacing it with a university writing class and

[1:58:47] that will be for only 12th graders so we would like to so you'll you may have noticed that in the new course section

[1:58:55] that writing Stu University Writing is added and in then the dropped section the current writing Studio has dropped

[1:59:02] so I just wanted to bring that to your attention and see if there were any questions or or comments on that or any

[1:59:08] of the other components in the report was the writing whatever it used

[1:59:14] to be was that offered to only 12th graders as well no that was open to 11th and 12th I think um it wasn't just 12th

[1:59:22] graders okay same credits mhm okay yeah yeah still work closely with the U ofm

[1:59:29] same kind of programming um next year would actually be a pilot year um with the U ofm and then um I I would

[1:59:36] anticipate we'd anticipate that all things go well and it rolls into a regular course effort at the um U

[1:59:42] ofm board members do you have any

[1:59:48] questions okay then we will now vote to approve the 2025 26 secondary course

[1:59:54] English language arts year 2 recommendations all those in favor say I I any opposed the 2025 26 secondary

[2:00:02] courses English language arts year 2 recommendation is approved and I want to again say thank you to you and the team

[2:00:09] of English teachers who worked very hard on this um and have been so yes thank you for for acknowledging that I

[2:00:16] appreciate it uh do I have a motion to approve the 2025 2026 secondary course

[2:00:22] is General change recommendation so moved is there a second second all right

[2:00:29] and Jody here to talk to us about this too okay this was also discussed at a workshop in November and then a board

[2:00:35] meeting in December and there have been no changes made to these recommendations

[2:00:41] um and just seeing if there's any questions before a final decision is

[2:00:47] made Mr bman did you say you had a question oh no okay okay okay mhm we

[2:00:53] will now vote to approve the 2025 2026 secondary courses General change recommendations all those in favor say I

[2:00:59] I I any opposed the 2025 2026 secondary courses General change recommendation is

[2:01:06] approved do I have a motion to approve international travel so moved is there a

[2:01:11] second second all right Jody's here to talk to us about some international travel opportunities for our students

[2:01:18] okay so in accordance with policy 538 there are seven International student travel experiences that we've discussed

[2:01:24] at a previous November Workshop as well as a um December meeting and there have

[2:01:30] been no changes to any of these recommendations since the last meeting in December um so if there are any

[2:01:36] questions I'm happy to answer them okay seeing none then we will vote

[2:01:44] to approve the Slate of seven international travel trips all those in favor say I I I any opposed the proposed

[2:01:50] slate of international travel trips is approved thank you thank you do I have a motion to approve the legislative action

[2:01:56] committee priorities so moved is there a second second Dan arum and Cheryl Barry our two

[2:02:03] board members leading the district's legislative action committee are here to tell us about these priorities um these

[2:02:08] were presented last month for review from the board um if there's any additional questions related to that uh

[2:02:14] there have been no material changes to the

[2:02:19] platform all right see no question we will now vote to approve the legislative action committee priorities all those in

[2:02:26] favor say I I any opposed the legislative action committee priorities

[2:02:31] are approved do I have a motion to approve policies 504 518 601 607 613 and

[2:02:40] 628 so moved is there a second second all right uh the only things that

[2:02:48] have changed in these policies from our December discussion 504 uh which is about um student dress

[2:02:57] and appearance went back to committee to just have the addition of medical masks

[2:03:03] added to um indicating that medical masks are permissible as needed uh and

[2:03:08] the other one I wanted to draw to your attention was what was spoke about before with 601 that is the policy that

[2:03:14] we just discussed in uh discussion so now it's up for Action so are there

[2:03:19] otherwise it's the same policies that you saw last month any

[2:03:26] questions all right we will now vote to approve policies 504 518 601 607 613 628

[2:03:33] all those in favor say I I any opposed policies 504 518 601 607 613 628 have

[2:03:42] been approved all right uh we are moving on to the board leadership and committee

[2:03:48] updates director arum um just an ell update um at the end of January we're

[2:03:54] going to have our Lac breakfast um which is on Friday or sorry uh Thursday the 20

[2:04:01] Friday the 24th Friday the 24th in the morning 7:30 uh here at the community center uh the public is welcome to

[2:04:07] attend um we have invitations out to all of our elected representatives and so we hope for a good discussion and some good

[2:04:14] presentations about their priorities as well as our priorities thank you any other committee

[2:04:21] updates I did want to take a moment uh for the community to just uh note that in the

[2:04:28] information part of the board's packet There's a summary of Dr Stanley's midyear evaluation and I just wanted to

[2:04:34] take a moment to read a little bit of that and to recognize Dr Stanley's work within our schools uh the comments I'm going to

[2:04:41] read say Dr Stanley displays many strengths and the board feels that she has met or is on track to meet each of

[2:04:47] her goals for the 2024 2025 school year superintendent Stanley brings great

[2:04:52] vision to her work and she combines this Vision with her ability to provide leadership to improve and enhance

[2:04:59] student learning in district schools the board and Dr Stanley will continue to strengthen their Partnerships to help

[2:05:05] ensure that District priorities are aligned with the district's strategic plan as well as work to further refine

[2:05:11] the timing and process of board superintendent work we thank her for our work all right Dr Stanley do you have

[2:05:18] any updates you'd like to share I do have a few and they are just a couple of

[2:05:24] accolades um this first one is for Community work from Community Education

[2:05:30] comes from um Kim OD and this is to Tom our facilities coordinator she says Tom

[2:05:37] Kelly and I want to thank you so much for working with us to find a new home for the mwc holiday market on Saturday I

[2:05:43] trust that you'll hear that we left the gym in good shape although the janitors had plenty of trash to empty the event

[2:05:50] was a great success in part because of the enthusiasm we heard from vendors and Shoppers for the site as a result we

[2:05:56] believe that we could uh place an offer pl we we could be in place to offer five

[2:06:04] scholarships next spring due to being able to host more vendors thank you so much we appreciate your

[2:06:10] partnership um I can't even imagine how many requests come through I don't know amme if you

[2:06:17] even know how many requests come through for facilities do you have an idea

[2:06:23] hundreds thousands maybe yeah and um our facilities group

[2:06:29] is just so flexible and especially we they often get calls from community members where something is happened and

[2:06:36] they need to get a space right away and um that is that partnership that we have uh with our community that really want

[2:06:42] it to recognize and then um finally if you could look around with the at the lovely art that is in the room um this

[2:06:51] show represents some of the Fantastic artwork created by 6th 7th and eighth graders enrolled in visual arts classes

[2:06:58] at valy viiew Middle School all the artwork was created in the first semester of this year and ranges in media from watercolors to collage and in

[2:07:06] subject manner from cityscapes to abstract um and they really hope that you enjoy their

[2:07:14] work thank you all right do I have a motion to adjourn our meeting so moved

[2:07:20] is there a second second we will vote to approve our agenda or we will vote to Jing this

[2:07:26] meeting all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion is passed and the

[2:07:31] meeting has

[2:07:50] adjourned for