I'd like to call this meeting of the Robbinsdale Area School Board to order. Today is Monday, June 15, 2026. It is 6:01 p.m. We're in the Education Service Center ballroom. Welcome everyone. I want to start by reading our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge Robinsdale Area Schools is located on the homelands of the Dakota and Ajiway people. We recognize the painful history of genocide and forced assimilation of the indigenous inhabitants of this land. We honor and respect the many indigenous people who live on and hold sacred these lands. And we stand with members of these nations to fight injustice in all of its forms. We uphold the preservation of Dakota and Ojiway languages, land-based education, and tribal sovereignty. All righty. Let's have the clerk call the role. >> With pleasure. Director Basset >> here. >> Director Bowman Marks herself here. Director Britten >> here. >> Chair Evans Becker. >> I'm here. >> Director Hillbrand >> here. >> Director Long >> here. >> Director W >> here. >> And Dr. Stalo >> here. >> We are all present. >> Excellent. All right. The next thing up is approval of our agenda. Do I have a move to approve to approve our agenda for tonight's meeting? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Brenesen. seconded by Director Basset. All in favor of approving the agenda, please say I. >> I. >> Oppose, say no. We have an agenda and let's go right along to the special report. Um the special report is the Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for Youth. And before I Are you going to introduce Director Williams? >> I sure will. Yes. >> And I would just want to mention that on the on that committee is our um board clerk, Director Bowman, and Director Printes. Right. Okay. Well, we're delighted tonight to get uh a report and update and have you with us. So, thanks for being that here. Um I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to executive director uh Anthony Williams uh to give us some context and introductions. >> All right. Good evening, uh Dr. Stalo. Um good evening, uh Chair Evans Becker, uh members of the board, and Dr. Stalo, Superintendent Stalo. Um this evening in the uh in the spirit of theme C collaboration and partnerships we'll be highlighting a number of partnerships tonight but we're going to start here at Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for youth and the executive director uh Becca Gilgan will be uh presenting some of the work that they've done with us this year. >> Thanks Anthony. Um can everybody hear me? Okay. >> Uh Chair Evans Becker and uh school board members. It's lovely to be here today. I wanted to just say thank you to Anthony Williams and his team here. We've had an exceptional year uh especially last two years with in partnership with the district and I'm really excited to share some of the things that we've been doing together. So, thanks for having me tonight. Um BBE, I'll call us that has been was established in 2013 um for newer members of the board. Uh we are not a nonprofit. I always like to say that very clearly. We are a joint powers organization. Uh that means we are a publicly formed entity of nine public partners. Uh the four school districts that serve the two cities of Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Henipin County, and the two community colleges. These nine entities come together to advance positive youth development. That's their sole purpose for being in partnership together. Uh our work is shaped by our strategic plan which we recreate every couple of years. Um, and our mission is to actually be a backbone organization that coordinates efforts to build a system of highquality opportunities for young people that make sure that kids graduate, find that pathway to college and career, and that young people are safe and well. And so these initiatives shift um yeartoyear based on the needs of young people, the aspirations of young people, but also the capacity of our partners and the collaborations that are needed um shift over time. We have three primary goals. Number one, um, with our strategic plan currently, uh, increase our partners' ability to respond, right, to shift the things that we're doing, do different, um, do something new, right? Number two, increase young people partnering and leading this work. So, currently, right now with our summer, we're just are swamped with seasonal hiring, which I know anybody who runs summer programming is in in the thick of that. We have about 33 young people on staff right now with our We have a staff of nine people. So, we have young people embedded as partners in all of our work. And I can't tell you how much this has accelerated and deepened our success. Um, number three, uh, increase your results in eliminating predictable disparities in terms of graduation. That's probably most relevant for, uh, the school district, but also young people's trajectory to college and career and their safety and well-being. Um, I like I like to kind of this is a less attractive slide than all of our youth work slides of the things that we're doing, but it is I think it's important to articulate that BBE is a strategic partner to the school district. As I mentioned at the beginning, our the work that we do shifts over time, but it kind of falls in one of these three buckets, coordination, engagement, research, and innovation. Um and and so over time things shift and change and we'll talk about some of those those projects today. Um some of the things we've done with the district in the past has been a partner on professional development in the community education department in years past really around thinking about like how do you build a high quality youth program? Um the intentionality of that. How do you measure the results of that? How do you resource those high quality programs and and really deepen that youth engagement in that out of school time so that the benefits can then come back during schooltime hours? Um yeah, so let's talk about some of the ways we've been engaging youth and adults. Um at BBEY, we start uh with with not just data but partnering with this is a group of young people, the youth data squad. Every two years at the alliance, we hire young people. We train them as community researchers. Uh they develop in partnership with us a a survey that we give to other young people. This survey is a statistically significant survey. So we about 411 young people in the cities of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park get surveyed. These are also uh proportionate racially to the different cultural communities that we have. So that the information that we get back is then used to shape our strategic plan and to shape the direction we go. Um, some of the things that are the themes we ask young people all the time about their goals and dreams, not just the barriers or challenges they face, but what are their aspirations? What do they want to see in place? Um, topics in the 2024 survey included mental health, relationships, safety, technology, and their interests in life. Um, and as I said, this data is used to shape all of our efforts. And we know that school districts are overwhelmed with data and information. You have plenty of it. And so we um we try to offer through the youth survey something a little bit more nuanced and a little bit more shaped um by young people's perspective about what's important to them right now. um wanted to highlight for the board uh in the last survey um the number one goals and dreams 66% of all the youth participating in this survey said financial stability and I I wanted to share this because I want to ask the board just to reflect at 15 16 17 years old was this on your mind right so I think the reality that a lot of young people are telling us in this and through our work, right, is that they need opportunities for employment. They need opportunities to see that the work that they're doing right now is taking them and their families in a direction towards stability, um, towards financial stability. So, we think about how we are weaving that into all of our work. It is exactly why we have so many young people on staff and we have budgeted for that is that young people are getting u paid work experience not just through our summer programming but through all of all of our work. Um some other key themes um mental health has been persistent and consistent as a as an issue. I think we're going to be our youth youth survey was 2026 youth youth survey is underway. I was just sharing with director Basset that we've just hired our crew for this summer. they're on boarding today right now probably as we speak. Um mental health will will likely be another theme um that we that young people are talking about. We're also talking about the way that that intersects with other issues such as chemical health um and exposure to gun violence um and safety in community. Um so I'll kind of leave this question with the board um and we'll come back to it at the end. Um, we're getting ready to do this survey. The young people are constructing their questions now. We've had a chance to share the same question with the two school board, the uh two city councils and gather their feedback. Would love to hear from you tonight. What do you want to know from young people? So, hold that question as we're kind of going through this and we'll come back to that at the end. Um, at BB, we have a couple of major initiatives. The first I'd like to share a little bit about is the reimagine black youth mental health initiative. This was um begun in 2023 with a federal grant through the office of minority health um and has survived and now transitioned into uh full being fully funded for the next five years through state funding. This is a tremendous success in the current climate. Um and I what I would say that this work is really around shifting the narrative around how we engage young people around their mental health, strengthening the ecosystem of support and challenging the conditions that are actually causing unwwellness. um Rachel Warren who is our a superb coordinator of this this body of work and the advisory that leads this work and just want to give shout out to Tony Patterson here and other staff who've participated um in our work of really connecting uh students from Cooper and Robbinsdale to participate in the reimagined summits and to participate in shaping this work. So, the first couple of years, um, we're really asking black youth, what is it that you need to protect your mental health? And the answer was clear. Safety, safety from violence online, safety, excuse me, from um, bullying online, digital and harm online, safety from gun violence in community, and safety from racism in schools. None of those things are about a young person per se. those are all about the ecosystem around those young people and the conditions around them. So our work is cut out for us right around those three issues. Um and the first iteration of that um the first go was uh the school board had uh all our schoolboard partners were looking at the cell phone policy and so we had young people engaged in the cell phone policy but districts were also asked not just to create a policy about cell phone use but also how to address mental well-being. Right? So, we helped develop in partnership with Minnesota Department of Health the digital well-being safety online curriculum that we are now packaged and poised to scale up in partnership with the family resource center. So, that'll be something that we'll be looking at in this upcoming school year. But essentially, it's an eight-week curriculum, youth- centered approach. How do we help young people have a positive use relationship to their cell phones that it doesn't interfere with their sleep that they understand the pros and cons? How does it make them feel? social media, how it targets them so that they can have an educated be an educated user, but also understand how do I intervene in those online spaces, right? So that I'm not a bystander such that things escalate and then show up in the hallways at school or out in community, right? How do I become an an active person online and and create safety there? So, um, that was the initial pilot project that came out of year one. And this year, we're focusing on safety from gun violence and community. Um, and I'll just pop over here to talk a little bit about well, yep, let me go here to the reimagined safety summit. I'll come back to the project that we did with Robin Sale this last year. Um, we held a summit on May 8th. Awesome partnership. Robinale, thanks again, Tony, loaded a whole bus of young people to come out to the community activities center. But you know the purpose of the summit was a space for young people to share their experiences related to violence, envision the changes that they want to see, participate in healing activities and collective support. This is really an important throughine for how we work is that when we're engaging young people about these difficult topics that we're filling them up as much as we can with with how to heal, right? So the afternoon difficult conversations in the morning, the afternoon was therapy dogs and basketball and candle making and dancing and music and food, ways that they can all connect with each other and be safe and whole, right? To embody that and to let their bodies move, which is a really critical part to wellness. And as kind of the art from the event, the theme that emerged is where safety exists, healing begins. such a powerful message that young people brought in that opportunity in that in that day. Um I want to go back one step here and just share we had an awesome partnership this last spring. Um I'll just point out Marquita there in the pink uh reimagine shirt. She's the new staff, our outreach youth engagement staff who partnered with um the district, both Brooklyn Center and Robbinsdale through an MDE youth voice and uh well-being project. So, Marquita partnered with the staff over at High View and started to just engage young people about what was happening in their school, what was, you know, uh, impacting their well-being. Um, and the youth identified both issues but also solutions to improving school engagement at High View and student well-being. Uh, they talked about over the course of several months uh, the importance of culturally responsive programs, relationship building, and spaces for empowering youth. Um their recommendation was to create an affinity group for for girls at that site next year. Um I mean the this kind of project has twofold outcomes, right? Immediately the young people feel things like increased support between each other. Kids who didn't talk about these kinds of issues in in class, right? We're talking about them in a group. um improving communication between each other and with other adult staff, developing coping skill skills, things issues came up, right? And that was actively opportunities to coach through conflict, right? And helping young people address conflict that may be coming up, greater emotional and self-awareness. These were all outcomes that we surveyed youth that were pre-post pre- and post test who participated in the group. These were things that they named were the outcomes for themselves. Um, I will say that in in addition to those very important outcomes is we have a follow-up meeting scheduled for July to circle back on how we can uh partner to implement a girls empower empowerment group at High View and continue this work. Um, just really recognizing obviously that if you know young people don't feel that kind of affinity and that connection to school, we know that they're not going to stay connected to school, right? So, we're we want to partner with the district on that and continue to do that work. So um and I also just want to say thank I already said this but thanks you know to Anthony for writing this little grant and getting this opportunity in place so that we could and the funds by the way were used to stipen for young people um to participated in the group. So focusing on how do we get young people resources to be a part of the solution building in our work. Um another key piece of uh youth centered policy is a real uh central theme to the reimagine initiative. Um we this chart this data here we have had questions around with you know this notion of mental health what is the relationship between mental health and chemical chemical use drug and alcohol and tobacco and other drugs um as well as economic hardship and safety. So we and gun violence. So we wanted to understand these intersections and we looking at commercial tobacco use among students right. So overall that green line in the middle is 4.9%. That's like the average commercial tobacco use for students. 4.9% which is 5%. That actually feels kind of low-ish, right? I mean of course we don't want young people to use any commercial tobacco. But when you start to look at the intersections of young people who have experienced economic hardship, that disparity is stark, striking, right? the stress and that comes from economic hardship, not feeling safe or those who have experienced gun violence. These young people are at much greater risk for not just, you know, using to commercial tobacco, but obviously a set of coping skills, right, to deal with the stressors in their environment. And this is all tied to mental health. So, we're really starting to see how these are all intersecting factors. and our group is working with North Point Health and Wellness um and uh tobaccof free Minnesota really understanding all of these the data in issues related to tobacco use um looking at Minnesota student survey data policies from other cities about what cities and what are the alliance partners can do about this uh school boards have already you know set in in place policies uh related to you know tobaccof free campuses and such but we know vaping is a virulent issue um still happening across our school campuses and and ways that are impacting students health um and and safety right uh throughout the buildings. So uh the youth are going to be working over that over the summer on this project and then uh preparing recommendations for program policy and process actions to protect young people. So that'll be coming fall of 2026. um if what anything surfaces related to our school district partners, I'll you know connect with Anthony and we'll see you know see and touch base back on that. But we we anticipate uh p primarily working with our city councils on this. Yeah. So reimagine um so shifting to our other uh major initiative right now is a Minnesota Department of Education a three-year grant. Um BBA doesn't normally operate programs youth programs at this scale. our pro our public partners offer lots of youth programming. Um and when we went set about discern discerning whether or not to write this grant um kind of the thoughts were one this is the state's biggest investment in afterchool programming in like over 20 years and we would be remiss if we didn't try to leverage these funds for our community. So, in partnership with all of our schools, we said, they said, "Yes, BBEay, write the grant, and let's figure out how to kind of serve each of our high schools together. So, we are at Cooper, Champlain, uh, Brooklyn Center, and Park Center. So, serving four school districts, which is just a lot of fun navigating all those different contexts. And, you know, it's a lot of similarities, some differences, but the kids are fantastic. and it's been a really good opportunity to really deepen the programming that we're doing with our in our program part with our with our partners. Um, so what are we doing? Uh, number one, this was a response. The first piece was actually response to the 2022 youth youth survey when we asked young people about their experiences related to COVID like what are they still feeling the impacts are we asked are you still feeling the impacts of CO and they were like academically yes. So, one of our we didn't operate tutoring programs, but we have uh spent the last two years um building and growing culturally responsive tutoring and afterchool study and homework space that really reflects both the culture, youth culture, but also the racial and cultural identities of youth participating. We have peer tutors that we hire, student tutors that we hire to participate in this space, as well as uh lead tutors. Um this was really a great opportunity, an amazing partnership with Principal Smith over at Cooper, um who has really, you know, we came in and she's made a lot happen in that space and so and we're ex Yeah, she's gonna Yeah. They know >> anyway. Yeah, I figured they knew, but we're excited to work with her at High View, too. So, it's great. Um anyhow, um so culturally responsive tutoring is growing. um affinity groups. I think this is an area that we also saw related to young young pe in the reimagined policy platform around safety and well-being and addressing racism in schools is ensuring that students of color have safe spaces in that after school and out of school time space to connect with other students that look like them. So we've used our grant funding to support black student unions, Latino circles, mung clubs. Um each site that we have uh we can support two roughly two affinity groups that need support, right? Some are often running and fully supported and really developed and others need seed funding and resources to help them get up get up and go. Um and the third program we operate is youth on board. Uh we developed this program back in 2019 with and actually replicated it from Northfield Community which launched youth on board for the first time. Essentially, we train young people and prepare young people to sit on city commissions uh and city boards and hiring panels. Any place where young pe where decisions are being made about young people, we want young people to be prepared to participate in those spaces. So, when we launched this um before right before we launched this in 2020, the BBE board expanded uh from 13 directors to 17. We added four youth directors to our board to embody the thing that we were, you know, doing. Our youth council used to come and sit alongside our board, but they needed to have a vote in what was happening at the alliance. Um, but anyhow, we train young people across the four sites at the different high schools and prepare them for public service. We also work with city commissions and other boards to prepare themselves to receive young people to understand what their bylaws are and their charter, etc. so that um when young people do come to the table that there's readiness there for adults. Um the last piece with Elevate Youth is the summer program. Um this is a free six-w weekek program. We really asked all of our partners like where's the gap for summer and they're like schoolaged care is covered, you know, that's that's one thing. Jobs and employment for kids over 16, you know, once they turn 16, they don't want to be in a program. They need a job. So, we're really targeting that group of students that is, you know, too old for school-aged care and too young for employment. So, that 14, 15, some 16 year olds. Um, and so we start next next Monday. Um, and we will be at Robinale Middle this this summer serving uh hopefully about 40 young people. Um, yeah. So, summer is on its way or it's here. It's happening. It's definitely happening. Um, as I kind of start to wrap up, as important as all of our youth engagement is, is the adult engagement. Um, in some conversations that I've been having with young people, you know, I've been asking them like, you know, what do you what do you really need from adults? And one of the things that has really stood out to me is the simplicity of the answers that I've gotten, which is like, we need adults to show up, come to our stuff. show up to our events, let us know that you see us and that you appreciate the things that we're doing or just be present to understand what's going on for us. So, I want to shout out the adults in our governance structure that take the time to um come to our reimagine black youth mental health day at the Capitol. um our uh sneaker ball that we held. Uh Senator Paw come out to our youth on board and had a conversation with uh Park Center students. Um and it just it was a really profound experience of this elected official sharing her own experiences of of anxiety and with students and saying like, you know, leadership is is, you know, can be scary, but you just have to keep doing it in order to get good at it. And one of the students reflects back to her, "So, so me coming to Youth on Board is going to help me get better at dealing with my anxiety." And she's like, "Yeah." But it's like simple conversations like that that help young people's make that connection between why an afterchool program can help you turn the corner on an anxiet on an issue and a mental health issue or getting the strategies you need to be successful in school and in life, right? So just really want to shout out and and the numerous partners that we have had um both obviously our nine public partners but also our community based partners like Kapper Kappy and Acer and North Point Girl Scouts intentions all other kinds of folks that we work closely with over time. Um engaging youth key in our governance structure is our Brooklyn's youth council. The Brooklyn's Youth Council uh is a representative group of about uh 12 to 15 young people that identify issues that matter to young people. Um they they review the youth youth survey data and they identify things that they want to take action on and we use the BBY budget and funds to help resource their projects and help elevate this particular um youth project to our board of directors as well. Okay, so that's it. That's all I got. What's next for Viv? Continue to strengthen our youth leadership in adult capacity building. We are seeing huge results from partnering with young people in the way that we are. Our our work is just better. Um the quality of the work that we're doing is more interesting. Young people are more and more engaged. So, we're going to continue down the pathway that we're on. Um we are going to continue to aggressively leverage resources from state, philanthropic, and others to benefit our community. I think we're all, you know, coming out of this legislative session having an experience. I'll just leave it there. And the next one's going to be a doozy, right? And so we're all gearing up to being at that table and preparing young people for the next youth day at the capital where they can go and talk to elected officials about their lived experiences and what's important to them. Um, and then third to affirm our joint powers. Our current joint powers ends at the end of this year. And so we'll be bringing that to the school board and all of our nine public partners to reaffirm that joint powers and beautifully kick off um a new strategic plan in 2027. So really looking forward to reflecting on what has worked, where we need to make shifts and what and what we want to do together. So, I'll leave it there and come back to that question if you um if we do have I mean I've got a few minutes before the links came. So, >> um but I'd love to receive any questions from the school board if you have them, but I'd also love to hear uh any comments you might have related to what you would like to know from young people. >> Dr. Brenesen, >> um thank you for the presentation. Um, I think the the biggest as I was listening to this, um, and I I I love I had to go back and double check. I'm actually not on this committee. I was looking. I'm not on it. Only Director Bowman is. So, my question is, what more can we do? Do you want another person on the committee? I'm happy to jump in. Um, what what can adults You mentioned, >> right, showing up. I've had an opportunity to work with some of the students uh at Cooper since I'm there all the time. So, just kind of curious from your perspective. Um, thank you for that question. I I think one, um, yes, uh, the ways that we can show up to youth events, I think we have a really big opportunity at High View to demonstrate to students that we heard what they said and that we will do something about what they said. And so, you know, we'll see what that is going to look like. Um, but that is definitely going to take some resources. And I'd be happy to share kind of details of what the students went out and surveyed other students at High View. There's data there and information from students about some policy changes that they would recommend related to scheduling that is for the district to digest um and some immediate resourcing around creating an affinity group. Um that is some some ways that BBE can help out. But I think that would be a great place to start is to affirm that we heard and heard what young people said and where we can take action to do so. I think would really um motivate not only those students but motivate students at High View. >> Cool. I'm assuming that's information is heading to the appropriate people then. >> I'm seeing head nods. So, >> so the information sent or is >> the information from high view will be will be shared to the superintendent. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Good. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Bowman, >> it sounds like you first of all, thank you very much for the presentation. very um concise, very articulate. Appreciate that. Um, and I'm interested in an ongoing flow of information uh from your organization. And it sounds as though you have uh larger smaller surveys. You're always asking questions and uh that's really important to be in that circle. And um I would be interested in having just a regular amount of information of the surveys that are done. It's always interesting to find out about the >> uh the partners that you work with and the programming that is happening due to grants etc etc. But it seems to me like that information you gather on almost a daily basis would and I'm sure it shifts. >> I'm actually thank you for that question. I'm actually really grateful it's not on a daily basis. Like let's be clear about that. >> Um but I think one thing is that um every quarter for board meetings and we can connect on this too. We'll elevate data and information um that might you know you can come back and share here that we can connect on individually anytime. Um I would say too another opportunity is that as we build out our new strategic plan to think about um the way that admin administration whether it's superintendent Stallic and maybe another additional board member or yourself for sure um participate in our strategic planning process right so that we can chart that course together. When we built the last one we built it with a group of about 30 15 young people and about 15 of our adult partners. And um I'm kind of anticipating for this event that that may be a little bit more and you all know that's a time commitment. But the deeper the understanding and the deeper we decide the direction we want to go together um I think that uh and and as we build that we start all of our strategic planning with data and information and the research and the learning that we've done over the course of the year. Yeah, >> that sounds wonderful because I know and that was that's really customary. That's what happens at 287 of course >> and uh where there's a little bit of input then but yeah learning more from >> your group is >> an important thing. Thank you again. >> Yeah, one last thing I'll mention on that we are working on a joint session uh with the two city councils to do a shareback of this year's youth youth survey data which could be an opportunity to kind of broaden that to maybe all of our governing bodies. um don't want to add meetings to your calendar. Um but we don't do slide decks with data. We um are going to call it it's a data party, but like I don't know. Yeah. And we mean that. >> Thank you. Um Director Long and then Director Hillbrand. >> Yeah. So, having been on um a part of your uh group in the past, I was just really impressed on how wellprepared students were to come and be in the space when we had our um board meetings with all of us adults. The feedback that they gave us um was incredible. Um, and then kind of the way you guys then went about listening to the youth to create the programming that you guys created, um, was really impressive, too. So, kind of going back to your question and some of the information that you shared here, I'm kind of wondering for our youth in high school, middle school, maybe even elementary, what what would that look like, feel like, and what what adult language would they need to hear for them to feel like adults were dressing addressing the racism that is happening within our um educational institutions? received. Thank you. >> Hey, Audrey Brand. >> My question is and I you know I've been a supporter of Brooklyn Bridge Alliance from beginning pretty much and you know as staff member I was involved on committees and and so you know this comes from a a place of wanting to to replicate this. So, you know, very few of our students as a percentage are residents of of either of the Brooklyn's. And so, my question is as a school district, how do we because your charge is for this the kids who live in young people who live in Brooklyn Park or Brooklyn Center, right? And so, how do we take all this great stuff that you're doing to serve those students and as a district, this is really more a question probably for you, um, Anthony, is that how do we then take the great stuff that we're learning and then build it out for all of our students in Robbinsdale, which, you know, goes for all of the school districts, right? There's only one that's actually entirely in in Brooklyn's. So um and and how do we help you know learn from what um is doing or >> yeah BBE what we're up to is doing >> sorry. >> So um that was actually one of my first charges when I when I joined the district was to how to look at what BB is doing and how to uh sort of expand some of that work throughout um components of the district. I think that working with Becca and the executive leadership team we have allowed additional access. So it's not it's not you know the while the focus is Brooklyn residents of Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park um all the students who are attending Cooper who are participating in the in the opportunities they're not all those residents right so we've expanded access there we've expanded access at high view and then we've also taken certain things like like our youth like not our youth on board but we took the youth on board model and that is we used that to create the youth council um Brooklyn Bridge Alliance actually came and presented and then we took that while we don't have youth board members yet um we were able to create the youth council which impacts you know multiple schools in the district. So we just take little nuggets and then we also look at other partner models as well but that is how we're trying to expand expand the the impact and the reach without necessarily changing what BBA is. >> Thank you. I would just like to say thank you for coming and sharing all of this great information and also for hiring all those students this summer. I think that's wonderful. Director Bass, did you just raise >> I agree with you. Um so thanks for being here. It's it's really good to see you and um you know uh what from my time on Brickham Bridge Alliance I enjoyed everything that's good that people said and you know I was always pushing for we want more Robinsville area school kids is my constant refrain you know I mean it might have been a little tension but uh as I look at what you have and I look at the numbers of students that you've had that have been from Cooper and other places I'm I'm very pleased because I see that as as growth and change. Um, so your primary audience, I wondered about three things and I want to before I forget to say that I think Commissioner Lundy has been a great friend and champion for all the work, youth related work up that way, you know, so I just want to give him some kudos for that. Um, but um, so is that bus that medical bus still going? Do you remember the the bus? I mean, it was maybe it's a whatever it was. There was a medical model that went around and helped the students. I don't know if that's still Gord or not. I did wonder about that. >> Don't that's not my >> rack on the go, >> pardon me. >> Or health on the go. >> Health on the go. That's it. >> Yes. The two cities. So during co we helped the cities strengthen their public health response by designing a >> mobile public health unit called health on the go and the two cities do continue to operate that program. >> The stu the cities are not doing that any longer. So we don't that's not available. >> No they are. >> They are that is that was the question. So the youth don't go. I just couldn't remember the name of the group because it's been a little while. >> Um but my main question kind of really kind of had to do with um >> this affinity group uh support and sounds like that you're already working with director uh Williams on some of those ideas. And so that's good news to me because my understanding is that our African-American affinity group is down right now. Is that accurate? So that's not your area, but >> but the group that we're talking about with U BBE is the student affinity group and I think you're speaking more so to our parent affinity group. >> Yeah. >> So so two different two different um groups and then that would be under the um working with achievement integration and and and they do a lot of the parent affinity groups. >> That's true. But my main point is that that group is not active right now the parent or student. And so with such a high percentage and population of students. So that's why I said it's not necessarily a fair question for you, but I think it's a fair question. >> Let me look into that. I want to confirm our affinity groups at Cooper because I I want to confirm. I'm pretty sure we help support the Blacks Union in there this year. But >> that was told to me by staff. So I mean I I that's kind of a question and it's also, you know, an area where of emphasis that should be, >> you know, if it's not operational, it should be you know, and if uh there is something happened, then I got misinformation because I I didn't I didn't know, somebody told me. So, >> I can circle back and confirm and send that uh to Anthony or Director Williams and and get back to you on that. Um one of the things in addition to the um affinity work funded through the afterchool program is the affinity work happening through the Black Youth Mental Health Reimagine Initiative, which all students are invited to participate in in our in our districts. Um they twice a month hold a black youth space which is a black youth affinity group for all kinds of uh different schools and folks uh as well as the the summits that we host which are for all students in the all students in the district not just any particular site >> no question all students have always been important and always will be but I do think that in the current environment that we're in and to keep tension down I think that especially if students are actually talking about racism didn't happen a that doesn't happen >> certainly. >> So if students are talking about it instead of other things I think that maybe that may be an opportunity and if it's not then we need to lean into it better than fights. All I can say >> anybody else in thank you very much rest of your evening. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. He looks like he's ready to talk some more. >> Yes. Way to stay prepared. All right. Next up, Robinville area redesign update also with director Anthony Williams. And are you introducing and on on the redesign the board representative is director Basset? >> All right. Well, thank you again, Chairman Becker, members of the board, uh, Superintendent Tennis Stalo. Um, once again, in and you know, uh, in the theme of, uh, theme C, collaboration and partnerships, um, we felt it was important to highlight two of our, uh, critical partners here in the district. You first heard from Brooklyn Bridge Alliance. Now you're going to hear from Nisha Smith and, uh, the Robinsdale Redesign Partnership. >> All right. Uh, good evening, chair, board members, and superintendent. Uh, my name is Naisha Smith, and I serve as the coordinator for redesign area. uh schools family service collaborative. Thank you for your support um to share the update on our work. So tonight I'll provide a brief overview of redesign and highlight key accomplishments partnerships over the past year that have impacted our students in programming. I'm excited to share about how our collaboration has strengthened us uh over the last year. Before sharing outcomes, I want to briefly ground our work in the purpose of the collaborative. Redesign exists to bring public and private partners together around a shared goal, creating coordinated systems of support for our children and families. Our work is rooted in collaboration, family centered decision-making, and a strengthbased approach. We focus on improving mental health supports, strengthening early intervention efforts, and increasing pro uh protective factors that help families remain stable and resilient. We serve children from birth through age 21 as well as their families with a particular focus on those experiencing barriers, developmental concerns, disabilities, and adverse childhood experiences. The intent is to move away from working in silos and instead coordinate services across systems so families experience more seamless and effective supports. This year has truly been a year of rebuilding and re-engagement. We focused on strengthening our governance, reestablishing partner participation, and creating a stronger foundation for future growth. We successfully re-engaged our required governing partners and renewed focus on collaborative decision-making. In addition to strengthening our structure, we've began planning for the future by exploring strategies to increase youth and community voice, including rebuilding our youth ambassador program and developing long-term sustainability planning. This work positions redesign to be a stronger and more supportive collaborative moving forward. Our first two priorities focus on mental health, healthy development, and early intervention through school link mental health services. 837 children and youth receive supports this year, helping address emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs that can impact learning and school success. Additionally, 113 students receive CTSS supports, providing targeted skill-based and intervention supports. We also continue supporting our youngest learners through the helping us grow or hug program, which served 478 children from prenatal through age 2. These early supports are critical in identifying needs early and helping children enter school ready to learn. Together, these efforts represent a continuum of care for early childhood through adolescence. Our third priority focuses on strengthening protective factors and supporting family stability. Through our partnership with the Diaper Bank of Minnesota, over 2,000 families receive diaper assistance. While diapers may seem simple, they are crit they are a critical basic need and can significantly reduce stress for families with young children. We also trained 50 participants in youth mental health first aid and provided ACES and resilience training to over 100 community members. These trainings help adults recognize signs of distress, respond effectively, and better support children and youth experiencing challenges. By building knowledge and awareness within our community, we're strengthening the network of support surrounding our students and our families. One of our most impa uh impactful partnerships continues to be ready set smile. This year we expanded services from four to seven elementary schools continue serving two middle schools and expanded e access to the early learning center. As a result 571 students received dental services. More than 1500 sealants were replaced helping to prevent future dental issues and over 300 cavities were treated. Importantly, many students who receive services may not have otherwise had access to preventative dental care. Early identification and treatment help reduce barriers to attendance, concentration, and overall wellness. This work reflects our commitment to addressing the whole child by supporting them with health and academics. Another important partnership uh and accomplishment this year was our implementation of wraparound mini grants which were designed to support community organizations as they responded to increased family need during Metro Surge. Rather than direct service funding, these dollars were used to strengthen the capacity of trusted community partners so they could quickly provide housing, utility support, transportation, food, medication, and other supports needed to families. We awarded funding to nine community organizations allowing our partners to respond rapidly during a time of increased need. The funding strength strengthens excuse me the community partners' ability to respond during Metro metro surge ensuring t uh timely support of families and reducing barriers to students attendance, engagement, and well-being. As we look ahead, our focus is on building upon the strong part the partnerships and systems we've strengthened over the past year. We will continue investing in our community partnerships that directly support children and families throughout the Robbinsdale area. Whether it's addressing their basic needs, expanding mental health supports, supporting early childhood development, or increasing family engagement, these partnerships allow us to extend our impact beyond what one organization can do. We also remain committed to uh elevating our youth voice through the reestablishment of our youth ambassador role and continuing to identify uh sustainable funding opportunities that support long-term success. Ultimately, our goal is to serve as a connector, facilitator, and catalyst for collaboration, ensuring the children, youth, and families have access to supports they need to thrive and succeed. Thank you for your continued support of the Robinsdale Area Redesign Family Service Collaborative. The work highlighted tonight is not is only possible because of the strong partnerships amongst our district, community organizations and county agencies and our families. >> Thank you. That's impressive. >> Before we before we just go to questions, I do want to highlight and recognize that you know um Na really stepped into take over redesign at a really um tough time. We had a directory that you all are familiar with for over 30 years and you know uh redesign was in a position to really probably dissolve. I think that was one of the recommendations at some point in time and this being Nisha's uh first year um as the coordinator of redesign I would be remiss not to to acknowledge her and the work that she's done um this year. So thank you. Now I'll pass it back to you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Director Basset, did you have >> No, I do. And um I came on just as uh director Vento was leaving and uh really started in January and I think I've told you this in a meeting with our other partners who are there but I uh look forward it's a great opportunity to say this publicly um because having been around here uh from many years and the inception of redesign and through the former director and now some transition. I I have to say I'm so very grateful for your coming in and taking the helm of that and doing a fine job and um it it's not not an easy job and to see the regrowth of and our former chair who now has retired from that position uh the deliberate rebuilding of partners who are mandated partners to serve on that and to see the level of engagement from those partners in the meetings um is is really good. Uh, so I really appreciate that. I appreciate your hard work. And uh, and then I think it's it's our new chair is um, Mr. Gray. He's a he's an officer on the Robinsdale Police Department if I understand correctly. And >> he's a community liaison for Robinsville. >> I'm sorry, pardon. >> He's a community liaison for Robin. Yes. Well, thank you for clarifying his actual role, but I know he works for the, you know, Robbinsdale and uh, uh, and so and I'm pleased to I agreed to serve as vice chair under duress. Okay. But in any event, uh, so thank you for your work. Thank you for your service. And when I heard that you were going to get the job, I was like, "Yay, I've seen you work your work in those community schools, that realm, and you've done a great job, and I appreciate it." >> Thank you. >> Any other hands? >> Right. Well, thank you very much for the work that you're doing and for the work. Next up is our consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are routine in nature and are enacted with single motion unless a board member chooses to remove an item from the consent agenda in which case we'll work we will consider it separate. Is there a move to approve our items on our consent agenda tonight are the monthly professional development report meeting minutes by monthly dispersements reports for June 16th. uh business office monthly contracts, community education monthly contracts, de dispersements for May, monthly budget to actual report and uh licensed and non-licensed personnel reports. Do I have a move to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Bowman, seconded by Director Brenesen. Not seeing any hands up. Let's go right to vote. And >> wait a minute. Sorry. >> Oh yes. >> Point of clarification. So we got an email about a TA that's not on this one. >> Not on here. Okay, >> thanks. >> It's just the items that I mentioned. Okay. Uh, this is a roll call vote. So, let's do the roll call vote on the consent agenda. >> Great. Director Wuto, >> yes. >> Director Long, >> no. >> Director Hillbrand, >> yes. >> Uh, Chair Evans Becker, >> yes. >> Director Brennesen, >> yes. >> Director Bowman votes yes. Director Basset, >> yes. We have a motion prevails. >> Six to one. >> Yep. >> Thank you very much. Motion Motion prevails. All right. That moves us up to unfinished business and item A is reimagine Ardell Vision 2030. Recommendations to the board review and comments. Superintendent Stalo. >> Excellent. Thank you very much. Good evening board members. Uh we've been working toward this night in different ways for the last two years. Tonight's conversation is no surprise. We've had this data on the timelines that we've communicated to our community for several months. Ultimately, tonight we'll be asking the board to make the first of some important decisions related to a building bond and the scope of that potential bond required for the review and comment should the board as a whole decide to put a building bond request on the November ballot. As we consider the past two years of complex and challenging work, I want to bring us all back to the compelling why for needed change. I believe at some level school board members who hired me knew the challenges of the district's current reality and the urgency to take action and make significant changes on behalf of our students and community. My team and I have accepted those expectations and responsibility for recommendations toward improvement and we have brought forward recommendations and revisions based on the direction of the board as a whole and community input. We didn't just come up with recommendations. This is not an administrative plan. It is a communitydriven boarded plan. I want to take a few minutes to review the processes that we've designed and implemented to get us here over the past two years. We've reviewed academic outcomes and examined root causes to help inform action aligned to ensuring excellence in curriculum instruction and assessment practices for student success. We've collected data to help inform the identity of Robbinsdale Area Schools, outlining the strengths of the district and the hopes and dreams as we build our future. We completed a demographic study with Ra Hazel uh Hazel Reinhardt to ensure that we were planning with the best student enrollment data possible. We completed a comprehensive facilities assessment with Nexus to get accurate data on the condition of all of our buildings so we could determine needs and prioritize the most urgent needs. We engaged the community in a robust process to gather input about their desires for our children and the future of Robbinsdale Area Schools. We ensured broad community input opportunities through a survey, town halls, community engagement meetings, community popup events, staff meetings, and student meetings. And we convened a 40 member community vision team to review all of that data and bring forward recommendations to the board. After eight months of meetings, study, data analysis, and discussion, the recommendations from the Reimagine Ardale vision 2030 team were presented to the school board on September 23rd, 2015. We then commissioned Morris Leatherman to do a residential survey of the recommendation recommendations to gauge community perceptions of our school district and support of those the vision team recommendations. We spent several months reviewing data and plans and listening to our community as decisions were made regarding building closures and consolidations as well as other budget reductions in order to create, seek board approval for, and submit the statutory operating debt plan to the Minnesota Department of Education. We continued to work through the reimagine Ardale options over the course of 24 board presentations throughout the past nine months, ensuring that we were following the direction of the board as a whole while answering individual board member questions. Morris Leatherman completed another residential survey in May to see if community perception had changed and it has as a result of ongoing communication, education, and community engagement. The survey also helped inform the board about the scope of a potential referend referendum given the tax tolerance of our community. All of this work has been in service to our students and community. Our compelling why is to transform our school district into one that reflects what our students want, need, and deserve to be successful now and into their futures. We've worked to build trust in our community. We've worked to improve our reputation by addressing safety concerns and ensuring stability and district leadership through an experienced and competent team. We've listened to our community. We've been responsive to the direction and questions from board members in our planning. We serve all or parts of seven cities and educate almost 10,000 students in this one school district. this one community. And as I've said many times, I was hired to make this school district better. I've been fortunate to work with a team that has invested the time, energy, and expertise to work with the school board on a way to improve our district from current reality in all areas to our desired state that will sustain us into the future. And this has been a long road with many twists and turns, but our planning has been intentional, inclusive, transparent, centered on the needs of students, thoughtful, and strategic. All of this brings us here to tonight. We're prepared to provide recommendations based on the directions the board as a whole has provided over the course of the last nine months. The board as a whole will determine tonight if you're going to go out for a building bond request. If you do, you will see that our recommendations include three questions for the community to decide the scope of what that looks like for Robbinsdale Area Schools. This has been a collaborative process and I'm grateful to our community, the school board, my team and our partners, including Nexus and W for some heavy lifting getting us here tonight. So, thank you for that. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. McDow. >> Good evening, Chair Evans Beckard and board community. Tonight, uh in addition to myself, we have our partners from uh Nexus here with us. We also have our partners from PTMA with us. Um we've got CFO wholeheisel here. Um so we have the team to try and answer questions as best as we can as we work through this. The presentation that's been shared with you uh really doesn't contain new information. It contains kind of uh a packaged information based on our conversation last week. Uh and so as Superintendent Stalo spoke to, I'm going to walk us through three potential questions uh of which you and the at the end of the night could pick none of them. You could pick one of them. You could pick two of them. You could pick three of them. In addition to that, there were a couple additional questions around clarifying or trying to clarify for people what happens if there is not a voter approved bond. And so we've included yet another slide in that just to try and help clarify that. And then uh we inserted um some slides just specific to the review and comment to try and help uh work through what can be a confusing piece of just that process because I'll say we'll say it a couple different times tonight. But the review and comment is a document that at the end of the day here, if you vote to approve the review and comment, you're essentially voting to approve nexus to submit the review and comment on our behalf to uh the Minnesota Department of Education. that gets reviewed and comments back if they need to be to set you up for the ability later in this summer, probably August, right around there, to actually then decide on bond questions, referendum ballot questions. So again, the review and comment is a step in the process. It's it's kind of the document. So the first slide I'll walk you through. Again, not new information, but just um to walk everyone through it, our listeners as well. What we heard last week was that uh the majority of the board wanted us to put together what question one would look like. And this slide is question one. Uh we included the the diagram from last week so you could visually see what was going where. And then on the far right, you'll see question one in the scenario is around the $343 million mark or approximately $15 a month. And that also includes $116 million in LTFM, the movement of early learning to Neil, Fair Crystal becoming a four-section elementary school, C Olsen staying as a three section. Armstrong High School would house Spanish immersion, High View Community Ed, adult academic programming. Plymouth Middle School stays as a middle school. Performing arts classrooms and stages like we talked about last week at the two middle schools, but we would need to eliminate the pool lobby project. And at this point, Lake View houses ESC and Robinsdale Transition Center. So that as a I'm using the word loosely, but as a package is what visually and um verbally articulates what a the essence of a question one would be, the dollar amount it would be for and the potential impact to the average home taxpayer. The next slide does the same thing but for question two. So question two, as you can see on the right hand side of the slide, we have an increase of $2 a month or approximately $17 a month because question two is contingent on the passing of question one. So, a resident would see question one and they would be notified that if question one were to pass, would you be willing to approve or not approve a question two, which would raise the total amount again to about the $360 million option, which we saw last week. Again, everything's laid out for the most part the same in those bullets below that, but essentially it's a $360 million ask. And you'll see that changes happen like Samberg being having their pool converted into the theater. So what we see here is with the additional tax implication, RSI moves to Plymouth, middle school becomes Sandberg and the high school at the Armstrong site. So we're able to make that move from buildings. The third question then is a question about the RMS site. So on the far right, you can see as we talked last week, this would be an additional $53 million ask or approximately an $8 a month increase. This question would also be contingent on question one passing. So questions two and questions three would be contingent on question one passing. So there is a scenario where you could if you did all three questions, questions one and two could pass, questions one and three could pass or questions one, two and three could pass. This is the this is the option that puts a new elementary school on the RMS site. And because it's contingent on the first question getting approved, that would mean it's this and all of the things in question one would be a part of the package. So if I go back to question one, you would have 343 million for the approximately $15 a month and then you would have the 53 million for approximately $8 a month. That's how it would work if question one and three passed. If question one, two, and three passed, you would have question one plus question two for the 17 million or 17 approximate dollars a month and the approximate $8 a month for all three of them. So on question three on this slide on the on the far right, I kind of give you also an idea of what happens. There was a question about what happens to Fair Crystal. And so, and we can we can ask more specifics of Nexus in terms of how all the different buildings get laid out and and the choices, but remember what we're trying to figure out how to do is most efficiently use the existing sites in a financial way that we can do all the other stuff at the same time. It doesn't end up with a perfect result. But what you can see on the on the mid right there is if question one and question three were to pass, Fair Crystal would become the home to ESC and RTC. If questions one, two, and three would were to pass. Fair Crystal would uh because of how the buildings get laid out, ESC, community ed, and adult academic program. So, a little bit of a difference. The other reason I wanted to have this in there was just to show you that as a as something simple changes that can change how things get configured. Um, and everything kind of has that domino effect again. And we can come back to these slides as we move through this. But I also wanted to answer the question that came up again about a nonv voter. What happens if you if we don't have a voter approved bond? And very as simply as we can get it, regardless of a referendum, we we still have an anticipated $2 million reduction for next year's planning and for the year after planning. And really what ends up happening without a building bond as you as a board get put in a position, if you think about those two filters that we've talked about, right? We're trying to balance efficiency and effectiveness and equity, desiraability, uh feasibility and sustainability. you really get put into a position as a board to make make decisions only for efficiency and only for feasibility because we're really trying to make reductions in the most efficient way possible because all we can do is fix like for like at this point. So we lose the balance of that. That that's about the easiest way that I can explain that. More specifically, what that would end up meaning is, and we talked about this before, is reducing district footprint on the left hand side. Most likely, uh, the options would include some type of a reboundary so that we can reconfigure high school space to start with and free up high school space, utilizing long-term facility maintenance dollars only, freeing up those spaces in the bigger building so that we can put other programming. An example would be as the lease comes up for the CLC, what type of that programming could we put into a high school? Uh it could be other things, but that's essentially what the you could expect the first suggestion from us to be. Additionally, we're going to be looking at reducing elementary buildings to maximize or occupancy. Notice I said occupancy, not class size, to maximize occupancy. Only using LTFM. So, we won't be able to expand anything. We could fix stuff. We could repair it. We could make it look nicer like for like, but not make it bigger. And then we would be most likely looking to remove Sunny Hollow building from the footprint, which means in this scenario without a voter approved bond, we would need to reduce RSI, Spanish immersion to 500. So we could figure out where's the best building for that to go in that scenario. On the right hand side, it's a little more focused on programming. And I think this is where a lot of the questions come from. What what can you anticipate would happen? What we can anticipate is that our decisions are going to be based on how do we reduce operational costs, right? And and then also gain instructional spaces. So what that looks like is we'd be focused on core instruction and special education instruction at all of our elementary schools. Everything else would take a second seat to that because not all of our elementary schools are created with the same size, the same layout. So, we would have to come from the angle of where can we put the most classrooms, where can we support with the most special education. That means that we're going to have to start transferring staff to carts um to to make it all fit. We're going to have to look at how do we share spaces, all of those types of things. And then we would be looking at all of the current non-instructional spaces and how do we make those into something that can be used as an instructional space. Do we need a library media center at in the in the way that it's being used now or can we take half of it and make it into a classroom? Things like that type is I mean that's that's you ask for what might this look like? This is what it might look like. Um, we would reduce programming and this is not just instructional but also activities and athletics that requires extra transportation. You could expect us coming to you with how can we reduce as much transportation as possible. It's an it's an expense. Then we would be looking at how do we do programming that is based solely on student enrollment. So what that means is take a high school as an example. At a certain point we need to be running a minimum amount of classes every period because we have a certain amount of kids that need to be in the class. But that's what we would have to start looking at is what's the minimum amount of classes we we can run in order to be the most efficient as we look at making $2 million plus a year in reductions. And then at the elementary level, we'd be looking at operating classes at maximum levels to start with, right? We have we have things in place to cap it, but this is what we'd be looking at. So again, this slide was at the request of the board. What does it potentially look like? As we look through all the stuff and the reductions we've made this year, what we know we potentially are looking at for next year and the year after, this is what the next layer of recommendations from a concept looks like uh as far as what would we be discussing. And to that end, no board or district administrator wants to be in this position, right? However, back to Superintendent Stalo's initial statement, enrollment, programming, staffing, facilities decisions have created this rare and extreme circumstance. It just is what it is. Um, it didn't happen overnight. It's a compounding effect of different decisions at different points in time. And I would argue that it's the reason why we have to continue to look at things through those two filters um to to keep us on a path where not only is it something we want to do, but we have the ability to pull it off and we can sustain it over time. However, whether it's a voter approved bond referendum or not, doing nothing is not an option. We have we're going to have to do something. It's just a matter of what is going to be the constraints put upon us in making those decisions. Any decision, any action we do is going to continue to be a process of complex coordinated multiaceted solutions focused on maximum flexibility. Again, it's just it's just constraints is what it will be. Do we have a lot of flexibility to do things or are we going to be our sandbox going to shrink so that we don't have a ton of flexibility and we're just going to be operating um in a way that focuses only on efficiency and feasibility. So with that I want to shift a little bit into the review and comment. So what are we trying to get to with these one, two or three questions? So the review and comment is made up of the things on the following slides. So you as a board essentially after this presentation, the next action item is a recommendation to provide Nexus the ability to on your behalf submit a review and comment based on the decisions you make with potential questions for a ballot. And so that review and comment includes the starting of this. It's an introduction, a simple introduction. It includes the district address, contacts, it includes all the names of the school board. It includes our financial consultant and the financing process. Includes the program manager. That's Nexus. The next part includes information like the geographical area and population to be served. So, I want to point that one out a little bit. It's really basic. It's by geographic and population. It is what are the cities? What is the county? What's the population of students? Who are the what are the grade levels? How many buildings? There's a map. It's it's the very basic. Here is the physical district of uh of Robin area schools. We have to provide student enrollment past five. So there's a graph that goes in of the past five years. There's a graph that goes in to the projections of the next five years, a list of facilities, so all the information. So, it'll have all of our buildings, square footage, original build date, when additions went on, the acreage of each site, and then what what are the alternate facilities? So, as an example, do we have facilities like our bus garage? Do we have facilities that are leased? Do we have facilities that have been closed recently? So that kind of this assessment of what are the other potential facilities and then we start to get into the things that are impacted by board decision and so I've labeled those in yellow. The first is uh the need for new or renovated facilities. So this is a part of the review and comment that really talks about the process over the last really since last February when the initial conditional facility assessment was done. So from uh that we move through all the deficiencies and the benefits, all the things that you've seen before, the work of the reimagine 2030 presentations, all the board meeting presentations, and then we get into description of the actual project. So that would be contingent upon tonight. After tonight, then the verbiage for what the project actually is and the site plan for that can be put together. Next part is the estimate of expenditures, the impact of operating costs and the project schedule. Again, all contingent upon a decision tonight. It all changes if it's one question, if it's two questions, if it's all three questions. It all changes. Now, in the background, we've already been working with Nexus and with PTMA to start to have all of as many different scenarios as we can so that we can expediently get it done. But those will all change. The last part is the description of the project's plans for privacy features. So, this is something that we have to put in there. Uh we have to note where general if we're going to be putting in gender neutral, single-user restrooms, anything with locker rooms, all that kind of stuff. That's highlighted in yellow because that simply depends upon if there's a building change. Right? If we have a building where we're going to do a locker room, this becomes applicable. If we have a building that doesn't it doesn't become applicable and then the spec the specification of the sources or source of project financing again contingent upon decisions that make that the board makes tonight. The very last piece is simply compliance documentation. It's the it's the uh assurance that we're going to follow statute and building code and fire code. we're going to be working with cities and um all the impacts to utilities and traffic and all that goes into it. So, you have to provide an assurance of all of this is really just a different way to share what goes into the document called a review and comment and that is what um Nexus would be putting together for us as a district and submitting on our behalf. All of that gets us right back to what does the board believe you would like to do moving forward with one, two, or three potential questions for a voter approved referendum. And so I'm happy to go back to any of the slides at this point. We have plenty of mics. Like I said, we've got both Nexus and PTMA here. And so the six of us, five of us, um, whichever is most appropriate would be happy, Chair Evans Becker, to support your conversation in what you would like to do. >> Thank you. Might as well bring them up for just to be ready. All right. And we'll start with Director Hillbr. >> Yeah. My first initial just quick question concern is the constitutional amendment that's going to be on the ballot as well um having to do with school funding and how that might muddy the waters and confuse people and then think well you're going to get extra funding and then if we're putting one two three questions on there um how that might impact um and I I don't know that anybody has an answer I'm just putting that out there because you know people will see that oh the land trust is going to be giving more money and I know I know that's a very incremental amount but I don't know that members of the public will understand that. >> Yeah, I'm happy to address that. Um it's going to be a challenge for everyone whether you're going out for a bond or not but you're exactly right. um we're going to have to make sure that um in any communication we're really clear with what is around the trust, what is around Robbinsdale Area Schools because I think you're right, you know, people may vote for the the trust and say I'm I'm helping our schools. So, it's it'll it'll it will be very very important messaging. Just a concern that's kind of been weighing on me a little bit. Thank you. >> Okay, I will open it. Director Bridgetesen, >> um, a followup on that just because I mean the question was asked, so I'll ask the question. I I know the answer to the CFO so the public hears the land trust if it passed, it's about 300K somewhere in that ballpark for Robbinsdale. So I I believe I that was responded to previously. I was actually just on a webinar with my respective organization this afternoon and what they were now saying is that it could potentially be $25 to $50 essentially per person. So if we have 10,000 kids, >> so 250k then. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I just want >> it's not a substantial amount, >> right? That's I just want to make sure that people >> can get Yeah. I mean it it it would be a fantastic >> windfall uh should it pass because it does not impact quite honestly anybody. Um but that is just a a small revision to to that conversation. >> Yep. Okay. I had other questions. I just was following up if that's okay. >> Okay. Just want to make sure. All right. So, um let's talk about the money for a hot second because that's pretty important. Um, so the question one, the 343 million, the 15 a month in addition to that is LTFM, so that rides over at the top of the $15 a month. Correct. Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure that everyone was super aware of that. Um, so one of the things I hear a lot about is like about our bond rating. All right, BBB minus. if we do this now, like it's the worst possible idea to do it right now. I mean, I'd asked before to to the CFO, but it sounded like for a district our size and where we're at right now and just looking for confirmation, like for us to wait for our bond rating to get higher, that's that's like a 10 to 15 year journey, right? Like we're not going to go from BB BBB minus to A in like three years or something crazy like that. Is that a fair statement? >> Yeah, maybe I'll introduce myself just for the >> probably good idea. >> Chairman Becker, members of the board, Dr. Salo, Michael Hart with PTMA. We're a municipal adviser, financial adviser for the school district. >> Um, yeah, what you say is is accurate where you stand today in order for your bond to the the thing that in control of this board that most directly impacts your bond rating is your general fund unassigned balance, which is is in a negative position as we sit today. you will need to improve that and show an audited financial statement that is certainly into a positive position and headed in a right direction and show uh the path forward to the rating agency and then they're likely to upgrade you one notch at a time that the phrase that they use they say you ride the elevator down and you take the stairs back up. Uh and so it's likely that you know what's customary in the work that we've done with other school districts that have been in a similar position uh is that if you go from triple B minus to triple B to triple B+ to A minus to A to A plus and each one of those would really be probably take you a year to establish each of that. So you're talking realistically maybe not 15 years but seven to 10 years. >> Seven to 10 years. Okay cool. And then so the followup to that the I've got five questions so bear with me chair. Um, so the the follow-up to that is so being at the BBB minus like that impacts our lending rate, right? But in addition to that, like we have some protection from the state of Minnesota based on how like credit enhancement programs work and stuff like so it's not like it's an 18% loan or something like that we're taking out. It's like the impact is 0.25% like typically. >> So that that's that's actually a good estimate. It's about what we use. Um about a quarter of a percent is the difference between what you pay in interest rate versus a school district that is in a more solid financial position. Okay. And the primary reason for that you alluded to is what's called the state credit enhancement program. This is a program where the state of Minnesota promises to investors that if for any reason the Robins Area School District cannot make its bond payments, the state will step in and make the bond payments. This has never been used by any school district in the state. We are not building this plan with any expectation that we that you would want to use it. >> But if I'm an investor in the school district and I'm providing you money to make these improvements, knowing that the state's taxpayers are behind it, you know, as a secondary source is a huge advantage and it really narrows the gap, >> right? So, and that's what I was trying to get at like like the the diff the interest rate difference is really low, right, between these ratings. >> Yeah, it would be much much larger if that enhancement program did not exist. Okay. But, um, >> it's in the broad scheme of things, it's a there is a difference >> between where you but it is not it >> 25%. >> Yeah, a quarter of a percent is a is a fair estimate. >> Okay. So followup I hear often then is if we're in this BBB minus, why don't we wait five to 10 years for it to get better? So my question to my friends at Nexus annually the increase rate in construction on an annual basis is what four 5%. >> It for the last since tracking it since early 70s it's been 5%. >> Okay. recently last few years because of various tariffs and stuff has been actually higher. >> Okay. So waiting five to 10 years for a rates that's going to be 0.25% better like is there any scenario in waiting 5 to 10 years for this bond to say hey let's wait for that better bond rating so we get the better 0.25% but at the same time we waited 10 years or 5 years and now we're paying 20% more 30% more. for your question, the inflation would far outstrip the benefit of a quarter point. >> Yeah. And the other assumption that you're making with that is that nominal interest rates are the same. So it's it's 0.25% higher than today's rate. But for example, if today's interest rate is a 4%. >> Then you might borrow at 4.25%. But there's nothing that guarantees rates in five years might not be 5%, right? And so, you know, we don't have any control over that aspect of the market. It is not a large enough difference in my opinion to make a a change in this kind of decision-making process, especially in light of inflation. And, you know, frankly, I think from what you've heard, the consequences of waiting operationally are large. >> Right. Cool. Those are my questions for now. Someone else can. Sorry for the time. Thank you. Dr. Wood. >> Oh. Oh, Dr. Long. >> Long. >> Yeah. Um, so I am just kind of wondering, there were a couple of questions that I had asked previously, and I don't remember getting a response, but maybe I missed that in the email. One of them was, um, last time you were here, I don't know, like a month ago or so, we had talked about like a mockup of what it would look like. um as one person's property value continued to increase and what that would look like each month. Um, did I miss that email or? >> Yeah, I think the we I did look at some of that information and I think the challenge with that is the assumptions that you make in that can so widely vary in the result of that when you carry it out mult identified as we shared at that that meeting in May. We're assuming that the payments have an inflationary increase of about 1% per year. So you would see that in your tax levy each year. And so uh if all of the properties in the school district went up 1% or and it all went up equally, I guess it doesn't matter if they go up 1% or 5% or 10% if they all went up equally, each taxpayer would pay about 1% more for this part of the levy than they did the prior year. Um when you look at it now in reality that's you know everybody's val property goes up differently. Some years residential properties go up more than commercial properties and c or vice versa. Some years commercial properties go up more than residential. And even within that uh you know even on the same street you can have differences in terms of how much one home versus the next home or one uh business versus the next business changes. And so um estimating that going forward a long way becomes becomes a real challenge. >> And then I did have another one too. I I asked um Nexus about you know the LTFM dollars and uh kind of the statement that you had made last time about some things we could switch out and you had said you could get that information to us on Tuesday or in a couple days and couple days has come and gone and I haven't seen anything. So I was just kind of wondering about that question too. Um yeah, so I did um had to look into that. Um read the uh went to the Department of Education's website regarding LTFM financing. There's a whole guideline. There's a whole great big packet out there of what qualifies for what doesn't. But it was very clear that you can't use the money for new construction. You can't use the money to change the use of a room. But any components of deferred maintenance, any components in the room or the system serving the room, so floors, the HVAC to light switches, I think you brought up last time to roofs or whatever, if there are uh worn out or at the end of useful life, those components can be paid for with LTFM. So, do you happen to know offhand what things right now that we might be replacing as we do some of these remodels that are kind of worn out and would count under that? >> Well, a big component of that is with in the facility condition assessment we did in the 10-year plan that you have put forth in front of you, the LTFM plan. I think that lists it out in in pretty great detail uh building by building of what major systems and components that uh are planned to be changed out. Again, um when we get into the actual design phase and the district design committee decides to change a room out and you change the use of that room from a classroom to a uh innovation lab, just making using an example. um the the the new flooring or anything anything specific to innovation lab would not be qualifying, but if this case work in there or the flooring was worn out before you do the renovation, you can pay for that component. I I >> That makes sense. I don't >> Yes, that does. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So then I'm kind of wondering too, can I continue to >> then after you superintendent? >> Okay. So then I'm kind of wondering too like when we have been talking in the past about the LTFM dollars it was uh 90 90 million but now it's went to 116. So is that part of the reason for some of the increase or is there another reason I'm not sure about? >> Um part of part of the reason was uh we doing less new. So the 90 million was in the original plan it was like 425 right? So, we were doing a lot more new construction, right? I was driving that number up and replacing some existing square footage with new. And then the the the survey came back. We had to try to get to a lower dollar amount. So, we've we doing more renovation now for therefore more qualifies for LTFM. >> Okay. So, not new than just renovation. And so that since it'll be more of a renovation, then that counts under the LTFM versus versus the brand new new. Okay. Just want to make sure that I understand that and the community understands that too because I've gotten a lot of questions around LTFM dollars lately. >> Superintendent Stalo and then Director W. Yeah, I just wanted to because you're right, Director Long. I I don't know specifically that it came from Nexus, but um in collaboration with Nexus, we did respond on Friday in my um memo to the board. Um and I think similarly to what Brent just shared, um we said uh it would be very challenging to represent all of the items that would be or not be addressed in the revised plan. For example, as we get into design, it might be that a wall that was included to get new vinyl is now going away. Another example could be that painting that was going to happen, now the entire area has changed. So, I think that represents what you said is there's just um so many what-ifs in the scope of that change, but those were just a couple examples that we we had given. >> Yeah. So mine is just a question on the the layout of the review comments. So if we go to the with the three questions that we have currently uh do we have any flexibility to condense that into two later in the future or do we have to stick with the tree? So the reason I'm asking that is sounds like there are other things that may make it on that ballot, right? So then your voters are beginning to think about a cumulative effect of all these numbers. So if I'm not well into the conversation happening in this room, I could look at all three questions and go, okay, why am I paying $15, $17 and then right as an effect? So in the future if we do go with this comment now can we condense that into say question one and two become just one question and then question three becomes question two and leave it at that or would we be stuck with making sure it's three and just a >> what I've been told I've never done it but from what I've been told from MDE is that you can go down so like if you decided to go with the three questions and you decided later to amend the review and comment to go to two questions that would be allowed. You just could not go larger. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I one one kind of follow on to that. I have been part of the process where we've changed that and so in this case especially combining the first if you chose to combine the first two questions and we weren't making major changes to the scope that would not be a problem. In terms of you know I think about these things what's the point of no return as a school board in terms of a November election. you are required to call for the election formally which Dr. McDow uh alluded to in his presentation by August 11th that you must call for that which outlines the ballot language and at that point in time whatever action that the board has taken will stick. The reason and maybe this will help provide some context. The reason the review and comment is before you today is that you're required the the state has 60 days to review that. They respond to you and then you're required to publish a notice of the comment that the state gives back to you in your official newspaper. And that publication needs to happen 48 days prior to the election which is is midepptember. And so we we have to send this in really by the end of June so that July and August we get that back. The first couple weeks of September we're getting it into your paper. And that timeline is driven by the fact and I as you go into an election, this is a very important date that folks can start voting 46 days prior to election, which I believe is September 18th this year. And so the the point of this process is that that comment is published prior to the point in which folks are in the in you know in the absentee or early voting process. >> Thank you. So, last time when we were talking and we were talking about the sale of bonds and the construction, I think you were mentioning that the bonds aren't necessarily all going to be sold at the same time because you can only do this construction and then you're going to be doing more. >> Didn't you say something about that where it's not like >> Yes. more PM PMTA's uh expertise, but when we've been discussing the review and comment, we've been working behind the scenes, it's been alluded to, I think, um that the district would probably issue in multiple tranches of >> Okay. So then my question is if we're issuing them in multiple >> series >> in a stagger staggered sort of thing does the taxes go up sort of staggered or do the taxes go up just the 17 cents >> or whatever. >> Yeah. So $17 >> like for question one >> if if it was laid out the 343 million the tax impact related to our plan for all of it together all that 343 million is the $15 a month. Now we the plan requires us to to the the way we have it laid out is to do it in three different parts. Okay. So the way the timeline is likely to look and this is customary is that if you pass an election in November, most of 2027 is about design. Calendar year 2027 is about design and the heavy construction starts mostly in 2028. And then you have so many things going on. This is a, you know, a a project that's going to be a four or five year time period realistically. And so it wouldn't make any sense for us to borrow all $340 million and you run a you know effectively a bank here for a few years. We don't that's not the purpose of why the school district is here. So the the and the advantage to selling more of the debt later allows us to lower the tax impact on the front end because you have a lot of old bonds that pay off in about 5 years time. And so that by utilizing the fact that we don't need that a lot of that money for two, three or four years, we're able to keep the tax impact lower on the front end. So to kind of answer your question directly, the $15 is our estimate once we are all done with all of it together. Now, we have to build some assumptions into that in order to make that work because I don't know what interest rate markets will be in 2030 or 2028. But we we do put provide a cushion in there and we we provide some you know what are customary and reasonable expectations um um for that as we go through the process. So, um, the plan will be evolve as we move forward, but the $15 is expected to increase at that 1% a year each year going forward related to this particular component. As your other debt pays off, the the voter approved component will rise, you know. So, when a taxpayer looks at their tax statement from the school district, it's typically on two lines. It says voter and other when they received their statement from Henipin County. And so as your other your your other debt pays off, that debt is LTFM debt as it stands right now. The voter component will be larger than $15 a month, but it will be offset by the fact that some of those other parts are going away. >> Thank you, Director Bowman. >> Thank you. Um, one question came to mind and probably for Kristen or Dr. Stalo and as we've talked about this over the last excuse me couple of years, we've talked about uh the brickandmortar aspect and I'm wondering uh what other budget benefits are there from passing this referendum? The thing that I think of right off the top of my head is we wouldn't be forced to cut an additional $4 million from the budget. Is that a correct assumption? >> I would say it is. The way it was stated is an inaccurate assumption. We will still be making reductions. The reductions will come naturally though as building attrition happens as we start to as we continue to shrink our footprint. No different than what was done during the budget cycle this year with having to close a few buildings. You had to intentionally take action for that. That will be happening in the process. The plan is already laid out. It's it's going to we're going to be making those reductions as we go along. It's just going to feel different because we have the plan and you're doing construction and there's intentionality like you're building towards the future. You're not reducing to the future, but ultimately you're doing the same thing. I mean ultimately our expenses will go down as our footprint shrinks and and what that looks like as it changes our where we are currently at we we do we need to continue to work our way out of SOD we will continue to operate um we just don't bring in as much as our expenses are going up back to the the rate of inflation we will continue to make reductions however a plan looks and and and Dr. McDall presented it tonight. Having the plan looks very different on how that's done than not having the plan. Either way, you're going to be doing it. It's just how do you go about getting there? >> Thank you. So, so just so that I'm clear. So when it was stated earlier that there would be an additional $2 million cut in 4 million in the next two years that will still happen but it'll be part of the plan of reimagining and reorganizing the building structure. Is that correct? >> That's correct. And I would just like to point out that I I it's it because I'm super sensitive. It is we we're projecting and even in the SOD plan that was written, we're projecting slightly more than $2 million a year. So, but yes, conceptually speaking, that is there. Um, we had had discussions on what that could potentially look like for 27. How does that and then, you know, building closures as we move into 28. I mean it's all board decision but as we move in that direction if there is um construction then that changes maybe how you go about getting to those numbers as we move forward but yes that is what you said uh is is very accurate >> and for me then what the difference looks like is uh without a referendum we're making the cuts and we're just going to live with that and there's we have what we have and but with a referendum what we have are is really a better future forward because uh we'll be able to keep the space for Robbinsdale Spanish immersion. we'll be able to keep and you know the arts and innovation piece of it uh as we downsize those budget does that name it I I I'm make I want to make sure that my words are accurate so that when I speak to the public that that I because I know this qu question is going to come up >> well and arguably you're putting more towards programming costs than indirect costs. It's, you know, I go back to the the presentation that I've given a handful of time or I've been a part of a handful of times now where it's the three houses versus the one house and how you have triple the expenses of insurance and utilities and those sorts of things. It's back to that's not going to student programming, that's not going to students and staff, that's going to infrastructure and indirect costs. That's where back to circling back to that where are you spending your dollars? >> So, we'll be realizing savings is kind of a different term, different way to look at it. We'll be realizing a savings as a result of consolidating and all of that. So, it's a savings realization at that point. Okay. >> Yeah. And I think I think Dr. McDow spoke I a a little bit to this in terms of some flexibility if you just I think that was that was helpful maybe to this conversation as well. Yeah, I think we regardless again back to whether we have a voter approved referendum or not, we have to downsize. The real question is do we want control in our downsizing to figure out? So if you look at the the the question one that's happens to be on the screen right now, it's a smaller footprint than what we have now, but the buildings in that footprint are designed intentionally to hold the programming that we know we will need. we know that we will want and the buildings will be designed in a way that at least at the elementary level as an example they are all about the same size without the referendum we have the the physical plants that we have now and we're back to what do we put where in its current state as it currently is and we still need to get down with our footprint. >> Thank you. That clarifies it. Appreciate it. >> Director Long. >> Yeah. So, I am wondering about these questions. They won't appear on a ballot like this. They're going to get legal ease to them. >> Yeah. Okay. >> That's it. >> And well, and then can we see a sample of what that might look like, too? Because I think the public would be interested too in seeing what that legally wording would be. >> Yeah. And that's that's kind of what we heard a little bit about the actual calling of the election. And while I think that has to be done by August 11th, we'll want to depending on the board's decision this evening, we'll want to move that along as as quickly as we're able. >> Um, Director Basset and then >> I'm I'm really interested in um the it's not actually written as an option um only as a tagalong contingent upon other questions. But um there is a potential pathway where we it could be just that we do an elementary and that's it. Uh in the elementary it's possible to plan for because we're building it. It's possible to to plan for it to accommodate some additional programming just as planful as we have been about one high school. I'm not going to necessarily talk about high schools because if we don't get a referendum, it's going to be some time before we can based on the census or the enrollment before it's indicated that we need to do something. And although the administration may want to do some things moving in that direction, the fact of the matter is is that we will have two high schools until we have the resources to go to one. So with that scenario, if we have one brand new build elementary and we build it with its capacity to be able to house some other things, for example, uh early learning, which we're proposing to go into Neil that could take Neil off the we have to red continue to reduce, if I'm understanding correctly, what we're saying here is that we're going to have to continue to reduce the best way to or the biggest bang for buck is to close a building. The operational cost I mean I didn't make it up. It's real reality if we have to close two more schools. Uh and ear and um early learning is housed planned to be housed and that's a construction question about how long does it take to get to get the building up and going? How long would that take if it were were to to pass? That would be part of the equation because that will tell you how long a window you have that you have to keep paying for what you do you know what you have to carry. So um so but if we know what likely might go uh such as Neil and if we put the e you know that's when planning where some of these other buildings go other programs go really becomes really important and uh and I I really can't stress that enough because we've talked about moving the ESC community ed and uh adult ei academic to fair. There's no reason that those programs couldn't go into Neil. There's the whole big worry about where we're going to put them. If we're get if Lake View is off the table and um the construction and all those things required for Farah Crystal, we don't have to do that. And if you're placing all that in Neil instead of moving the ESC all around which of course I don't want to be labor go backwards but I I really think that until everything gets settled the ESC could have stayed right here. Why do two moves? I mean that never did make sense to me but you know uh and I and I we still haven't it's not totally moved yet. So that still could be halted. Why spend money to move two times? Um, but in any event, and then the other thing that we've been talking about is this whole idea about our students moving more than one time. If we know and our parents and families know that we and this just me, we're all dreaming here, so I'm dreaming too. If we have one new build elementary school and we build that to also how house all of our early childhood programming then that's a real decision we can make to the extent that we need to looking at geographically around the district. Is there really a need to have some other of those kinds of programs other places? That's a program issue. But the facility itself that we build could be built to accommodate some of the things so that you reduce all these other facilities that you need to have because if we're going to be in this um this position where and then the other thing that I would say is that and this is maybe on the program side but I'll say it right now while I'm thinking about it. What we know is that what the data has told us and I don't know if we still know it or not because we've got a bunch of educators around here who can correct me if I'm wrong. we got at least one um and that is where we get transition and what I've come to know is that when we lose families is from elementary to middleles then we lose them from middle to high school >> well excuse me excuse me I'm just let me just finish out what I've heard because I have heard we lose them at at high school I've heard that you know I mean and so well okay then you can >> presented exactly the opposite of that. >> Well, well, let me just finish with what I have to say. We we I know we're losing them from elementary to middle school. >> And if you're saying that the trend is I would really be interested in seeing that data that tells us the res, you know, and >> well, I mean, you know, let's pull it out and look at it. You know, I wouldn't be saying it if I had it at my fingertips. And so, I'm just saying. I mean, I I this is not an argument. I'm just sharing my view about this. Okay? And I've had five different people people weigh in. And so don't do that because I don't want to get annoyed. I mean because this is a friendly friendly board meeting. Everybody's asking the questions they need to ask. They're wondering things and getting information. That's all I'm doing. If it's inaccurate, we've got staff who can share with me at a different time. But there is transition and there is departure. I feel like I believe that our district should be putting our flag in the sand in the early years. It's, you know, rather than waiting till the back end when we go to high school, we're going to have these two high schools for a period of time. There will be a period of time before that could come in the one high school can come into fruition anyway. And so whenever that is, there's that window of time is how how long are we projecting that time window is? three years for for I mean it'll take it'll take at least excuse me it'll as as Michael mentioned we first year would be designed and be three years of construction so four years total before Cooper could be >> expanded to the point where you could >> consolidate >> okay so with regard to an elementary school or any school but an elementary we're speaking about right now before if we were to decide that we want to go out with a question for a new bill for an elementary early childhood and elementary school would That'd be the same amount of time, four years. >> Uh I No, we could you could do a new elementary school within two years, >> two and a half years. You could do it quicker. >> Just the only thing I want to caution you on is um it it does affect the dollar amount. If I'm building a building for just an elementary, >> it's 50 million with that include a couple other things. >> If I have to add early childhood there, now it's 70 million. So it the money's it. We can build it as big as you want and put as many programs as you want there as long as the dollar amounts there to do it. >> Oh, absolutely. But but I'm but the point I'm making is that if we want to cut down operational costs at other sites, that's really kind of where I'm driving. And so if we want to do that, then building a facility that's large enough to accommodate the population we need to actually gain those savings is what I'm talking about. And so and be talking about the value of having an elementary building that also houses early childhood because our early childhood program needs to go somewhere to live >> on decent ears I'm looking at. >> Yeah. >> So we think he's going to say >> director Basset I appreciate you bringing this up every meeting. Um however >> what do I bring up every meeting? >> The the these these topics however >> sorry pardon I didn't hear you. What? >> I appreciate you continuing to bring up the elementary school, the movement of the elementary school, the two high schools. However, I just want to remind folks that the task that we were given by the board as a whole is what's been recommended and presented to you, particularly in the form of three questions that we put out today, which >> So, here's the thing. >> Because they are the most >> Wait, let him finish. because in our estimation along with the experts sitting in front of you um this is the most efficient way and the most effective way to get us to the place we need to be financially and programmatically which starts with the two high schools. Well, super assistant superintendent, with all due respect, that is not my question and I have not brought this up at every meeting because I've just really arrived at my thoughts about an elementary. So, that is not accurate. But I will say this, regardless to what the rest of the board said, each one of us individually will vote for whatever we believe in. And we have the $53 million as it sits right now elementary on the table. It's fair question for me to ask questions about it and I resent being talked to in a condescending fashion about my question and know excuse me and and I'm not I don't want to reclaim my time as they say and talk about what I want to talk about and what I want to talk about is what I've just said and I've got the answer I needed which is in two years we could have an elementary we can build it because we're trying to reduce that's another approach if you have a one set vision that the one high school is the one answer. Everything, it's just like if you have a hammer, everything's a nail. If other people have other ideas and that is okay because we're all individuals and this is the appropriate place to ask those questions and I will not be condescended to because the majority doesn't think it's important and you didn't say that but you might as well have. I don't interrupt them when they're asking their questions. I respect the things that they ask. If they all think that's the best direction, that's okay with me. I don't agree and that's okay too. And so the one question about the one elementary and making it big enough so that it can actually address some of these costs that we have for operations is a legitimate question. And I have asked for a scenario that talked about, well, if we have to live with these two high schools, I have talked about that because we will have to live with them for a while. And so I've asked about that. What does that mean? What else could we do or should we do in that instance? That's a question and I'm not sure I know the answer to that yet, you know, and so you know, you don't have to I don't think you have to dumb down anything for anybody on this board. They're smart enough to understand what they've already said that they want to do. Getting new information is not going to make anybody pass out. We're just going to have the information and we will stop asking the question. So this the closest we've gotten to it is this reducing the district footprint if there's no voter approval. This first time actually seeing this on a slide like this the first time. So I'm asking my questions related to that. So the board must decide on the space and building con consolidation plans. So that means the board has a role in talking about what does consolidation mean? Now, having input into that, I would expect would be an appropriate thing for us to do unless it comes back and we already have a canned presentation that says we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and we're going to do the other. Now, when I say that, that's not derogatory. I'm just saying that you've done some prep work and here's what you think is best. But as you I mean potentially but when we've had meetings before in this room and talked about some of these scenarios and people have given input they've shifted they're not set in stone they have shifted maybe not a lot a lot of times but they have so everything that I'm asking is entirely appropriate and it's common sense question and so uh if If I'm just to recap if I understand from Mr. Can't think of your name but Nexus >> Brent. >> Brent. >> Hi Brett. If I come to understand I mean thank you for let's live liven up everybody. Why do I get all this pressure? Every time I ask something people just go crazy you know then they make me upset you know and that's unnecessary. I'm just asking questions. So which back to my question. So two years two you could we could have an elementary and of course the cost might shift if we put additional uh programming in it. Uh, and so if we're trying to chase after those operational costs, then looking at some of what we might put in it makes sense. So my notes, my comments about Neil Elementary makes sense. New Herb Learning, New Hope Learning Center closes. Neil Learning Center can close if those programs go into a brand new bill. If we know three years out that our families know that they will have an elementary that their child can go to, that's predictability. If we are working on as an organization, that includes the board. If we are working on and discussing reboundering, we will need to reboundary a lot of things. Historically or or often I have observed that in this district those kinds of options about what reboundering could look like is something that the communities involved with. Now, I'm not going to go way down far down that road, but but I'm saying these things because we're we're the ones in who live here who have to pay the money and we have experts like PMA who come and tell us the best way for us to do it and we believe that you're trying to do that, you know. So, I I don't believe you're doing anything other than that. But it's not for others to get mad about, pout about, not like for those of us who have to actually pay for it. Okay, >> superintendent. >> Um, I just want to say a couple of things. Um, first of all, I want to be really clear with the public. This is not a canned presentation. This is a presentation based on 23 meetings where we have been getting along the way direction from the board as a whole. So that has been the prep work that we have had up until tonight. The other thing I just want to be sure that um we get out there because I want people to be really clear and I heard director Basset you say that somebody could clarify it um offline but I think we need to talk about that data if Bob and Kristen if you if you know that enrollment data I think it is important that we get the the accurate information out into the public. So, if you're able to speak to that, that would be great. >> Um, when you were the the where we gain kids or lose kids. >> Yep. >> Yep. So, I just want to be sure we have facts out there. >> Me, too. >> Okay. While they're looking for uh me, you Okay. Can I go ahead? Okay. All right. And then long. All right. It'll be a little bit though. All right. So, I really like question number two. And to me, that gets us what we really want and what we need. And so, I would like you to convince me or explain to me why we need to have question one and two just to make it clear. Because to me, I would just, if it were me at this point, I would say I love question two and then question three. And so, and it's just $2 more a month than question one. And it seems to me to be less confusing. So, if there's a really good reason why I should be supporting one, two, and three, I would like to be convinced. Is that a fair question? >> Sure. Is that okay? >> We're using the data that we got from Peter Leman uh that you were given a report from the survey that the uh recommendation based on his experience and the survey was that your tax tolerance for the Robbinsdale area schools was sitting at a at a peak of 15 approximately $15 a month. And so that was his recommendation as a starting spot. He did also say you could try additional things um but you start getting farther and farther away from that original tax tolerance that was presented to you. The reason for doing it as a two-part question is that you start with the tax tolerance level and if that tax tolerance level passes, you then ask contingent upon that that passing, does the community also feel the same way you feel that if we're doing $15 a month, we might as well do $17 a month and do the $360 million plan That's that is the rationale. That's the reason for it. It is our attempt to have you as a board give the constituents of the district as much opportunity to decide and not automatically be locked into something that's over what you were told the tax tolerances. So then if they vote so if you vote yes for this one then you have an opportunity to vote here. If you vote no for that one you don't even get a choice on the next one. That is correct. And so that is sort of like a tiered thing. >> Question one has to pass for anything else to even come into play. >> So they have to say so they have to vote yes and then they have an opportunity to vote for the next two. Yep. If >> if they vote no then they're done voting on it. I'll let uh CFO Hole Heisel Oh, did you I thought you wanted to add something. >> No, I'm back to >> All right. >> I want I don't >> I want to make sure your thought is complete before I go back to the enrollment information. >> I'm good for a while. Thank you. Go ahead. Get the enrollment information. Okay. When I am I am um looking at Hazel Reinhardt's demographic study that she did February removed and I'm just going to take she has the projected survival rates and it goes grade level to grade level. So K to one, one to two, two to three. And I'm going to take um I'll take the I'll be optimistic. I'll take the high which has been the past five years. And I'm just going to give you a 10 is all kids that we had in the grade before move forward. So anything better than a 10, we gain students. Anything less than a 10, we've lost. K to 1.985. 1:2 N87 2 3.977 3 to 4.992 4 to 5.981 5- 6.956 6 to 7 1.007 7 to 8.981 8 to 9 1.090 090 9 to 10.983 10 to 11.978 11 to 12 1.128 that would indicate in those last four grade levels you are over 10 twice and the only other time you are over one equal to or more than 10 is grade 6 to7. So I understand you're you're answering that question and and the way that you are and when we have talked about it in the past we've looked at across trend lines over time. I understand that Miss Reinhardt's study is a study and she's looking at that information and talking about in those terms. Um I have had information presented differently over time. So that's what I'm sharing and that's what I was talking about. So, I appreciate that and I'm not disputing her. That really doesn't appreciably change what I think. I mean, quite I mean quite frankly. And so, but I'm back to uh Director Evans Becker's question which kind of has to do with um the um question. Uh it's also possible. Is it Is it possible? >> Wait a minute. >> Um it's not your turn. >> Oh, it's I thought you were just responding to the >> I was I was but I Okay, fine. Is this is somebody's trying to put me on >> I'll I'll put you back on the >> list. Thank you asking you. >> Fine. Okay. Uh Director Hillenbrand. >> Yeah. So in thinking about these questions, you know, I mean it's obvious that if we don't pass some sort of referendum, you know, I just think of the oraoris, the snake that's swallowing its tail, and that's what we're going to turn into. We're just going to keep devouring ourselves until there's nothing left. And so the referendum gives us the opportunity to build towards a positive future. Just cutting, cutting, cutting. We're just going to to destroy ourselves. There won't be anything left. People won't want to come here. They won't want to send our kids here. And there and and for good reason, right? Because we'll have cut everything that makes us viable and vibrant and exciting. Um and a great place for kids to go. And I don't want to see that. Um, I definitely agree with asking questions one and two. Um, I I don't have a problem with question three in concept, but it just seems like too much. Although I'm always, you know, with error on the side of letting the public decide. I just wonder if it'd be overwhelming on the ballot. Um because most people have a hard time like honestly ballots can be overwhelming to look at and with all the legal ease in the question as well. It can be hard for people to know what they're really being asked. Um, and then I just want to say, um, you know, apologize for interrupting before, but facts matter and it's important that we say in a public forum that that the truth is out there and not our feelings or our gut feelings when there are are literal facts at play. And it's really important, Caroline. >> No, thank you. Um, but >> No, thank you. But, um, I'll just wait until you're done. She's shaking her head. I don't wait for you. >> I don't know what game you're playing over there. But I'm I'm just going to say that it's important for racism. That's obviously what I'm playing. >> That's not racist. That's just facts are important in a public forum. People should know and and you acknowledge that yourself. So, I'm just saying that. I apologize for interrupting though. That was not appropriate. But the fact being out there is appropriate. So, so thank you and I apologize for interrupting. That was wrong. So, >> okay. Just wait. >> Thank you. >> I got you. I have you on the list. You're you're good. Okay. Um, I have Director Brenten, then Long then Basset. >> I have three follow-up questions based on the conversation. Hope they'll go fast. Director Bowman made a a comment about the $2 million in cuts next year. So, I just want to be really clear, right? referendum passes or doesn't pass or we don't even put one out, there is still cuts happening next year to some form or fashion. >> That is correct. >> Okay. So my question is kind of more of a trajectory question, right? So we see what happens if you know there is no referendum or it fails, we have to kind of keep cutting down. If the referendum did pass, there would be a point where we're no longer cutting anymore, right? presumably because we would have started saving money through facilities and >> like when do we start seeing that trend upward >> and when do we see to be able to take that those savings and put it back into the classrooms because we have that conversation a lot right like we're spending money on facilities so it's not going to the classroom so if like next year we cut 2 million right in the in the plan it talks about in the SOD plan it talks like magnet transportation was one of the possibilities not saying that's going to happen I'm just saying what was in the plan, right? And then there was something else for year two, which I don't remember. At some point in time, that line has to start moving upward. Is that year three, year four? Like, I'm just trying to get a sense of that that trend line. >> So, I I want to answer a question and it's going to feel or be perceived as bias, okay? >> And and it's not it's it's not it's not intended that way. If you were to solely look at the biggest bang for the buck on how to slow the role in inflationary costs. So if we go up a a few million dollars every year, the quickest way to get ahead of that is to do more than a few million dollars every year, right? Because then you're you're ahead of the curve and you're you can reduce your annual reductions. The quickest hit to that is a high school >> because that is a presumably a $3 million annual cut. Okay? >> A middle school is a $2 million annual cut and an elementary school is a one-year or 1 million annual cut. So the quicker you can knock out big expenses >> or duplicative expenses, the quicker you get ahead of that >> and then you're not doing it year after year after year. It's it's the I it's it's a coined phrase. I apologize for you using it in this venue, but you nickel and dime yourself. >> Um and so again, it it it's not a bias. It's just that is our most expensive. Back to what Dr. McDow was saying you are pres we're we're trying to present the most econ one thing an economic component of the plan. The high school is the is the largest economic component. >> Okay. So so high schools merge we save that 3 million that pushes us forward, right? So we're now we're above the line for a while. Yes. I mean, presumably at some point in time, >> we'll be >> we're going to come back like we're going to level back out in 10 15 years because inflation is just going to keep going up and it's not like our buildings are going to keep shrinking or anything. Like at some point in time, we're going to get back to this point, but that that's a 15 20 year out kind of thing then. I mean, I'm not I guess I shouldn't ask you to predict the future that far out. That's unfair. But you get what I'm saying. >> You got Mr. Hart for that. >> You get what I'm you get what I'm saying though, right? Like >> without it, we're down. We continue to go down constantly. With it, we go up and we hit kind of plateau for a while. >> Right. Right. And and that that if we're looking at a 2030, um you've you've made reductions for 26 27. There are a few more years of which we will have to do things. Yep. >> Um but again, that is and and and should the board choose to go a different route, you can do that. It's just the larger the impact is the larger the impact. So, >> okay, that was my first question. Sorry, I didn't think it was going to take that long. I apologize. Followup number two, um to to what dire director Basset was talking about and I just right like conceptually, right, the idea that if I understand it correctly, don't don't use don't do the whole Neil thing as an early learning. Why don't we just slap a bunch of more money on question three and add early learning at this new elementary? >> I think that's what you're kind of going at. >> Generally, >> generally >> generally okay. Yeah, >> I don't want to speak for but so my question because it's a fascinating what if scenario, right? That would reduce yet another building, >> right? You would go from 11 to 10. Does that get us anything or is the cost of an extra $30 million? It's kind of a wash at the end of the day. You hear what I'm saying? >> I I understand what you're saying. Um where I get lost is the reducing another building because New Hope Learning Center goes away. >> I'm saying, >> but no, no, no. Okay, back back it up >> to to the um to the information that has been presented tonight and previously in the event that there was a singular high school question, New Hope Learning Center is gone anyway. That building is gone. >> Right. Right. Right. So to say, well, if we were to build a new elementary school in lie of >> and you were to move New Hope Learning Center, you've essentially so far you you've replaced one building for another. You haven't reduced your >> I I think I I'm not asking the question clear enough. So question three is on the ballot. >> Yes. >> People vote for it and they say we're going to build RMS, right? And we're doing the swapped with Lake View and >> the new RMS elementary. The question is we still have Neil has early learning. So my point was if you make >> Neil only has early learning if question one goes away >> or stays if you're doing a I'm sorry I'm interpreting director Bassid's question as a singular question. >> Not a singular question. I'm just saying I'm saying >> I I'm just trying to do the math in my head right like >> if question three leave question one and two alone. They exist. Question three was bigger and you were putting Neil that the early learning at that site as well. So you've now spent 75 80 million. I don't know what the number is. It's big, right? We have reduced our footprint one more building at that point in time. >> You have. Yes. >> Does that math help us though? >> Crazy. >> Or because we spent so much money making this bigger, we didn't really save anything. Does that make sense? Well, I operationally anytime you can reduce a building, it helps you. I mean, it's just as that is just as it's as easy as that. >> Okay. All right. Fair question. All right. Um, last thing. I apolog I said three. That was only two. I just want to be really clear. So tonight when we vote, we're not voting to put this on the ballot. None of that. We are just voting as a group to say we would like to see this process continue so that people can comment or the state can comment on it. We can comment on it and let the voters like continue to do their voty thing. So I'll let uh Ellie weigh in a little bit on that one. is partially the case but partially not based on what Ellie and Mike had talked about earlier with you're you're putting a cap and a you're providing a direction of what you think you're going to be doing which you could back off of but you can't add on to >> right >> correct you said it better if you want to say it but basically >> I think you have to have a pretty clear direction you know what I mean like I would say don't guesstimate it but if you decide like we talked about before and you went from three to two you know downsize some then that'd be Okay. But I wouldn't say it's got to be relatively close to what you're putting on the ballot, >> right? But but whatever happens tonight doesn't lock us in. Like we could we could push this forward and then come August go well I guess correct >> we don't. Okay. That's all I wanted to say. Sure. >> Can you will you just clarify what you're saying? Are you saying we could come to August and the board could say we're not going to go out? >> I mean theoretically they could, right? I just want to I guess I'm going to request some clear direction because I know what it takes to do a referendum campaign and if we are holding and not starting that communication until August and people can begin voting in September. >> So, so while there's flexibility I believe in terms of questions and that I I guess I'm hoping tonight we have very clear >> I guess I guess I should rephrase that. I'm not saying I'm not saying it would disappear. What I'm saying is that the language could change between now and August. >> Thank you for the clarification. >> I just want to make sure that like at the end of the day, >> you know, I've said this before, right? Like I think this decision >> is too big for seven people at the table. Like we should be asking the community what they think at the end of the day. And we have a process to do that. It's called an election. So put the three votes out there what that language is. Let's figure it out. So >> um okay done director long then Basset then and then >> okay so do we have to have um each one contingent on the other? Could we just put the all three questions on there and allow people to vote yes and no to all three questions? In theory, you could you could do it that way. >> Speak up, please. >> In theory, you could do it that way >> because then we could see maybe, you know, >> they would go for question three and not question one. Well, I would say with question two, no, because question two is contingent upon going like the change at your middle schools and adding on to the middle school like back to you need question one to pass to do question two. It may not be question three maybe is a standalone but definitely if you put if if you structure it as a three question you need one to pass for two to make sense. You don't that not necessarily the case with number three. >> So three could be stand alone but one and two have to be contingent on each other. >> Well two would have to be contingent on one. >> Two would have to be contingent on one >> but one could be stand alone and three could be stand alone. >> That's good. Yeah, >> the one important detail on that. So, the reason that two would have to have one pass is that the way the ballot will read and I know you don't have that in front of you tonight, but question if it if it is as proposed here. Question one will will say, you know, shall Id281 borrow 343 million. Question two will say 17 million. It's the marginal between 343 and 360 million. It won't say 360 million in question two. Okay? So that's something that's coming to to see and then also when we put the tax impact I want to make this clear that the way that we have it structured the finance plan is such that question three is happening on top of question one. Okay. Okay. And so it's in addition to. And so if you were looking, if you told me to help you fund a 50 or 70 or $80 million project on its own, we would probably think about that differently on its own than we would if it is on top of borrowing 343 million or 360 in addition to it. So there would there would be some differences in the financial >> between the two, which would be I mean that's complex >> like what? Well, because the first questions are the bond payments change as the old bond payments go away. Like I was talking about earlier, they get larger as your current debt service or your current bond payments go away. And and we've already utilized that with the first package. And so the the marginal increase for the third question uh is different because of that. I I think you'd also if question three was standalone, you'd really run the risk of confusing voters in that I'm not paying I'm a voter. I'm not paying attention. Look at the ball. Well, 5 53 million is less than 343. I'm going to take the cheaper option. Well, all you did is swap one building out for another. You didn't do anything regarding the vision. 2030 didn't do anything to make anything more efficient. You just swapped out an old building for a new building. >> Have the same cuts coming forward then. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> All of the cuts. >> Okay. I wasn't done yet. >> Sorry. I apologize. >> Okay. No, I was just letting gria know. >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sorry. >> When you are done, then it'll be director Basset. >> Okay. So, you know, there's a lot of pressure at this table for us board members and the pressure double mounts when you're a person of color. And then when you're a person of color and you can't even get your ideas out, your thoughts out without people interrupting you, that becomes a huge problem and it makes people feel unsafe. And I really felt my body really felt unsafe today when director Basset was starting to be interrupted when she was in the middle of thought. And that also interrupts her thought that she is in the middle of telling us board members or telling the other people here at the table so that we can get a good understanding of what she what point she's trying to get across. And then it doesn't help my body start to not feel better from coming from this unsafe place and feeling harmed when then we get a sorry but you shouldn't do that. So, I just need to say that because I am feeling unsafe at this table right now as a person of color. I would like us to stop being interrupted. I would like the comments of when we bring up facts, if our facts are wrong, to be like, "Well, we gave you that information." Well, then if you gave us that information, give it to me again. Nobody here is perfect at this table. And don't expect us to be, too. If we make a mistake and we forget some information, then give it to us again. >> Yes. >> Well, uh, thank you for that, Director Long. And I will say that I didn't know you were going to say any of that, but I will say this. Uh, and I was upset when I spoke to this earlier and I talked about how I was feeling. Um, I don't want us this board to go back into a bickering and argumentative place. I am tired of peeping people continuing to say we want correct facts. We don't want misinformation. We want correct facts after I say something. If there's some additional information or some different information, there's a respectful way to ask for that. And I think before all the course I actually had said if staff have some different information they can share that. I've always felt that way and I will continue to but I will tell you that it is exhausting to have people try to correct me every time I say something or jump in to say something else about it. It's annoying. But I have not taken the bait. And I'm not saying people are baiting me, but that's this board in the past has fallen down into places like that because we're selective and who we want to a cost. I'll say a cost because that's what is happening. It does need to stop and there's nothing wrong with questions. And I will tell you something else that is inappropriate hearing constantly that the majority of the board decided this or the majority of the board decided that. Therefore, your question is, you know, superolous. It's not. We each hold the same election certificate and until we vote on something, it's open. We all are aware that there's a general support for one way or another. I have respected that when I've heard about it. I I haven't poo pooed it. I haven't done any of those things because it's inappropriate. And I respect every time I bring up something, I don't appreciate hearing, well, this is the first time you brought this up this elementary, which is was not even true cuz I haven't even talked about the elementary yet because I've been thinking it through, you know, and so I appreciate director you saying what you said. I appreciate Director Hillbrand you apologizing for interrupting and uh any all these other things and I don't need all these hand gestures. If just say, "Well, director Bass, it's somebody else." I'll stop. >> You know, I don't need all that to point me out to be some kind of a problematic person. I've served for 23 years and not had that problem ever until 2023. Things changed and that is the truth and it's on tape. So all of a sudden now I'm not going to be painted to be the bad person. And I and I do think in in um in deference or kind of in support of what Director Long said, I was planning to say something perhaps maybe not as much and and to say it when I wasn't already annoyed, but there's no I might talk over people and get excited and get ready to talk, but I never jump over and start questioning or changing or correcting somebody in the middle of their conversation. And it happens constantly by a couple of people here. and and I would appreciate if it just stopped because I don't want to argue with anybody. I'm not in a mood. I don't have a need, you know. Uh and so I'm just back to the matter at hand. And so the matter at hand, I think I've gotten the answer. And so you've answered my question because what I was really the point I was making was that closing more elementaryaries will reduce operating cost. That was one of my points. And so, uh, I thank you for kind of reiterating that, director Brennesen, and for you, Director Hohisel, talking about that again, CFO, uh, because I think it's true. And I got your point landed about, uh, if we're going to the one high school, then we're going to lose new hope learning center anyway. So, that kind of almost is a wash. So, I appreciate that you're kind of reminding me of that, but I think there are some other things that we could do. Now, back to this question about one question or the dependency of the questions. Uh, so the dependency did I understand you that you have to have question one in order to have question two? >> Yes. >> Well, I'm glad that got kind of re, you know, that kind of got emphasized again tonight because to tell you the truth, I I was kind of I I guess I hadn't seen it that way. But I will also say and that's because of these choices that have been made in this configuration. Could I step in just for a second and answer something? We have to have question two contingent on question one because question two is only like $17 million more. >> And so we get the 343 million and then the question two is just for the 17 million more and it swaps out uh the middle school high school thing. >> I know. But but and here's the other thing too. So we end up actually operating three middle schools anyway. We just Armstrong becomes Plymouth and then RSI becomes the old Plymouth basically. I mean I'm just saying because really in effect well this this schematic here for question two RSI K through five >> is just an elementary >> be okay. All right. Well, it's on that line. So I was looking at that and I've seen it in other places and wondered um but so we'll end up with the two. Well, I still believe that the configurations that have been raised that we will need to come back to. I think that if there is latitude for us to come back and look at what goes into where in this in scenario number two or question two, I think that that would be a good thing because if one is dependent, one has to pass before dependent on two. Um I'm not necessarily thinking that well I I'm just amusing now so I'll just I'll stop but but that's the reason why they are but we could have but three can be a standalone question. It it can't be and and I guess I I think that it should be a standalone question if it's not dependent on any of the other two. I think it should be standalone and then um and I yeah I'll leave it at that but I think if it is a standalone the standalone option I would really appreciate seeing in some relatively re you know uh proximity of time um what that might look like because what we're talking about in that re question three is that if we build this it's I'm assuming that that's the one new elementary and if it is then uh and if we are also considering building the early learning Neo I mean the early learning center into it that might cost some have some additional costs and what that might look like and how that impacts um that that number. So I see it says it looks like it's saying under $8 is you know that um signal that's there for the $8 a month is that just pure $8 a month more or what is that cost the cost of it? Yeah, those lines represent approximately is what that means. Approximately $8. >> Listen, it's I'm old. I'm old enough. >> Yeah. No, it's a question for sure. So, okay, good. Because I did know that one time, but I don't try to stuff like that. I want the information that I just asked you about. That's what I really want. Okay. So, it's $8 a month for this as it stands right now for the cost for that. But if we add some more to it, then we presumably I'll get the information about that, whatever that is and that cost for there. And we won't have PMS won't go crazy and come up with some big old numbers to go in that spot. That's a joke. Okay. >> No. Take a notes. >> I do like jokes. You know, I don't get to tell many up here, you know, if you haven't noticed. >> Jesus. Um, >> just a clarifying question that I'd like to turn to Michael Hart again. If and only because now as we're it's you know feels more like a work session. If question three becomes a standalone how do we represent the tax impact? I think that the conversation gets complicated very fast because I think it also and I'm thinking on my feet here a little bit here because this is a new concept for me in processing. But the next item you have in your agenda is really it's your LTFM plan, >> right? And we have uh kind of a the what you're going to approve tonight is a plan that sets you up if this doesn't pass, right? And so if you if you only pass question three in the way that I understand it, none of the other buildings are getting improvements, right? And so you probably still stick with this LTFM plan as it's comprised. And you know, it certainly wasn't thought of that way as we planned it. And so um there's lots of different that adds a layer of complexity. There's lots of different scenarios in terms of how the tax impact could look because all of these different parts, they all work together in in conjunction with each other to accomplish, you know, what the the end result is. And so I I you know, like any good economist, the answer is really it's it's complicated and that would that would um impose a certainly a strong layer of complexity, although it could certainly could be done. I I'm not sure tonight how we would effectively communicate that to your community. >> Well, then to follow up to my question, which that was my question. So, there's a followup to my question is that um I think it's important enough to me. I do want to do what is best, not just what I want. I want to do what's best for the district as I'm understanding it. That information is important. The tax impact information is important. Uh, and so if this is a standalone question, then it's important to know what that might do. >> I I agree with you. >> And so I might I don't expect you to have that answer tonight, but uh that is an answer that I will appreciate coming forward before I vote for anything. Superintendent. So, three main points that I want to make right now. Um, I know that when we were and and uh CFO Hohisel, you were talking about the financial impact of the two high school option. I just also want to remind um the board and the community that while that is a significant part of getting us to a better financial place, it also on it emerged first from the community vision team. It was then tested twice with the Morris Leatherman survey and then we also had our two lead high school principles in a presentation to the board speak about that. So I just want to share um that that piece. The second thing I want to share is I still want to think about this flexibility with reductions. If we if the board goes out for a building bond and it passes, there is a pathway to vision 2030. There's a pathway to transforming programming. there's a pathway to providing more opportunities that our our students need. So, there's a pathway to that. So, some of the decisions that the board might make around reductions or the administrators may recommend may be different. So, I just I just want to remind us of that that if there isn't a bond or the bond doesn't pass, there isn't a vision 2030. So, I just want to share that. And then the third thing that I need this evening as the board continues this communication is while I respect 100% that each elected official is an individual, I can only take direction from the board as a whole. Um, so I'm going to need very clear direction from the board and so that I can direct the work of our team and the work of our partners. So I just want to state that. Okay. I'm next. I move that we that the Robinsdale School Board authorizes Nexus to submit the review and comment to MDE on the refer on the agreed upon referendum questions with one with two with two and three being contingent on the passage of one. >> Second >> in the middle of my motion. No, it was before >> I have you. >> It was while Helen was talking. >> Yeah, I got you. So, me and then Helen Brand and then WO and then Long. But just because I made the motion doesn't mean we can't discuss, but the motion is now on the floor moved by me, seconded by Bowman. Okay. All right. Director Hillbrand. >> Yeah. Thank you. Because I was um hoping we would move towards a motion. And uh I I definitely agree they need to be contingent. Um especially question three. it doesn't benefit the community or students to have a new elementary school when we have plenty of elementary schools in our inventory and we're closing elementary schools and it doesn't um doesn't help with savings and um I by itself it doesn't it doesn't help our students and it doesn't help the district get out of statutory operating debt. Like yes, it'd be nice to have a new school, but it doesn't I don't see how it helps us achieve our goal. Um, so I'm with you 100% and uh so thank you for making the motion. >> Well, thank you. And now it's director and then Dr. >> Long. I think uh we were kind of sitting too close to each other thinking alike. I was just going to say also I don't think that trying to allow option three to pass by itself if one and two fails is going to do the district any good. Right? That is the situation we are in right now. So just building a new building and moving students into it, I I don't think in the future is going to help us get to the financial goals that we are aiming for. So >> too long. >> Um I will be voting no to adv advance the building referendum language for this November's ballot for the following reasons. Um community engagement has not been robust. Community input sessions have had attendance numbers ranging from 10 to 15 community members. The individuals I spoke with at those sessions expressed concern and um intended to vote no for additional building funding. Um the V team was an administrative initiative that lacked formal board uh support via a resolution. From its inception, two board members and I raised critical questions regarding its budget goals, participation, attendance, and scope. And these inquiries were either dismissed or only partially answered long after they were posed. Additionally, the Morris Letterman survey presented in November 3rd of 2025 business meeting revealed that 63% of the respondents had never even heard of the V team. While the administration has framed this process as something we have to and we get to, community feedback has been consistently critical, residents have expressed the process feels rushed, confusing, and lacks in vital details. These settlements of frustration and disapproval have been clearly communicated through listening hour, petitions, protests, letters to the editor in the Sun Post, and direct emails to the board. Meanwhile, my questions as a director have gone unanswered and have in fact been weaponized. The chair of the board has stated that she has no desire to discuss as a governing body the points uh petitioners have made around closing a well-performing middle school, closing elementary schools on moving a goalpost, concerns around board financial decision making protocols, deep reductions by administration to critical student supporting personnels including teachers, EA's counselors, and other on-site personnels, as well as leadership's failure to establish clear district goals and performance metrics. Furthermore, I am deeply concerned about the significant tax burden that this referendum will place on our community. Moving forward with a costly referendum when our district is carrying a BBB level bond rating means borrowing costs are higher, resulting in an even heftier financial burden on local taxpayers. At a time when families and property owners are already navigating economic pressures, asking them to shoulder an additional financial weight for a process that lacks clarity and broad community support is irresponsible. Lastly, my vote tonight is grounded in my 23 years of experience as a public school teacher and my background in educational studies. My focus and advocacy will re always remain on securing smaller class sizes, providing robust supports for students directly in inside our buildings, and ensuring our educators and hourly workers are fairly compensated and supported. >> Dr. Brendesen, >> uh, I just wanted to, um, say real quick that, uh, I appreciate the three questions. I appreciate uh having the RMS elementary as it separate as a separate question um because I think it's important at the end of the day right I think the key is that moving forward gives us a chance out of SOD and without it it doesn't um and most importantly like at the end I I you know I said it before it's too big for the seven of us I just think we should allow the people to vote and if they vote no they vote no and the district has a direction then and I think that at this point in time that's the key. We need direction from the community. >> Okay. Uh this does not feel rushed to me because we knew as soon as uh CFO wholeheisel figured out we were not where we were supposed to be in 2024. We heard rumblings right away then that there is a referendum in our future. So we have known for almost two whole years that a referendum was going to be coming and um if a person wants smaller class sizes who and who doesn't not having the referendum pass is going to result in way larger class sizes. We heard that tonight they are going to be at the maximums because that's what we're going to be able to afford. And so to me, it totally makes sense to 100% support the referendum and also let the people decide. We put it out there. We want the referendum. The people will decide. >> Any other hands? >> I have one. >> Oh, director Basset. >> Well, um, I I have to echo some of what Director Long has said, quite frankly, because I sit right next to a person who is a longtime resident. I was out somewhere in the city of Minneapolis at a meeting and I said happen by I had a lot of happen stance this past weekend but anyway by happen stance I sat next to him and uh he was here through many of the iterations that we've gone through before. He has three graduates who graduated Armstrong you know and uh has been kind of wasn't even aware of what's going on. has a high powered job, but maybe that's why. But in any case, they didn't even know. And that is true that the majority of the community who don't have kids in school don't know what's going on. They're not paying attention. They don't read the post. I'm just saying, I don't know what happens to them, but they don't know. Uh there are people who are connected who have been pushing out information, and those are folks who are connect have children at schools. But I think it's I mean I think it's you know I agree with Director Brennes and with others who say that the three questions on the ballot allow the public to choose. I think the public should choose but I I do think it's accurate that the broader community is not aware. Uh I am concerned about the tax burden of uh our residents and um while I I understand and agree more now and I I understand better really the dependency on the revised question one and question two. So, I appreciate the discussion about that because I wasn't quite clear on it and I'm more clear now. I understand that. And I understand that uh there's a question about the efficacy of a standalone elementary without anything else attached to it. Does it really get us where we need to go? I I'm I'm hearing that and understanding it. Uh, having said all of that, I'm still um concerned overall, but I want to acknowledge the things that have helped me have a little more clarity about where we are. And this has been a fastpaced push. Talking about you're going to need a referendum in your future is one thing. decisions that come that you don't even get to really ponder the options until late September right before the holiday season and then you have meeting after meeting where you're getting information one week in advance to push it through to push it through that is what happened. Uh and so that can feel rushed to some, maybe not to others, but it's a learning institution. That's okay. >> I said it's okay. >> Oops. Director Bowman. Yeah, I uh I will be supporting the um the motion because I really understand for me the disservice to our children and their future if we decide that we just want status quo. We've heard nothing in this community for years, but how terrible this school district is. And somehow magically we want to continue on the same path we've been on for 15 years, but we magically want different results. And I really believe that the buildings that those students in uh uh affect those students wanting to be there to learn and want to be excited about learning. Uh so I will be supporting it because I believe 100% that the Robbinsdale students deserve better in their life and this provides better and that if um uh we support public education, we need to finally support it in this community. And knowing that each one of our houses that we've lived in have not paid for advancements in this school district for over 50 years. We've only paid for the status quo in this school district on these properties. And I firmly believe that it's time for us to get beyond what we've always done and do something better for the kids. Thank you. >> Clerk, as long as you're still at the microphone. >> Yes. >> Uh let's take the vote. >> Perfect. So, what we're voting on is authorizing Nexus to submit the review and comment to MDE on the referendum questions with two and three being contingent on question one. >> Thank you very much for restating that. I appreciate it. Director Long, >> no. >> Director Basset, >> I abstain. >> Uh, >> why? >> Why? >> You have to state why. >> U because I'm still not totally convinced, >> but that's the direction I want to go. I spoke more fully to it a few minutes ago there. I'm understanding more things and I did say that. >> Director Wuto, >> yes. >> Direct Director Brenten, >> yes. >> Chair Evans Becker, >> yes. >> Director Hillbrand, >> yes. >> And director Bowman marks herself as a yes. Motion prevails. >> So the motion prevailed five to one. >> Yes. >> With one abstension. Did you want to still say abstaining or did you want to change your vote? >> We'll have plenty of time talking about this is the board of the future and I can, you know, Okay. Okay. >> And we can change that. Okay. >> Motion carries. We're going to move on. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Uh that's the term page. >> Okay. Uh the 20 the action we need action on the 2027 28 10ear LTFM plan. D uh CFO Hisel. >> Good evening again. Switching gears slightly. um moving into the 10-year LTFM plan that was presented uh to the school board last week. Uh again, I have requested that one of the partners that was trying to escape still remain as far as it relates because they're very intricral as far as projects go. Um but that said, there have not been project questions. I would like to turn it over again um to Michael Hart just because back to the in intricacy of the financing of a 10-year plan, seeing we haven't presumably had questions about the facility part of a 10-year plan, I'll turn it over to Michael first and we'll see where it goes. Um what looking at as far as resolution tonight is approving the 10-year plan and ultimately um the the resolution information that is attached embedded within. So please, Michael, go ahead and move forward with the financing of anything you would like to address. >> Yeah, thank you. So what's here before you tonight, it is matches what was presented to you in detail uh about a month ago, the first week of May in relation to the LTFM plan. Just some highlights. The plan funds about $140 million worth of projects over the next seven years. So about $20 million per year. Approximately half of that is paid through bond financed projects and about half of it is paid through the pay as you go tax levy. That's purposeful. It helps with the administrative burden. It also helps manage tax levies to to do the split of that between the two. In addition to these larger projects, there is also a provision for the health and safety program within the school district, which is things like testing, hazardous materials, fire safety, uh that the school district is required to do in order to keep the building safe. The uh what you have in front of you tonight is a resolution that approves the fisc year 28 LTFM plan as the school board does every summer. It's really the first step that you take in a process to certify a tax levy for taxes payable in 2027. And this is really the first formal board action in relation to your budget for fiscal year 28. Um, which doesn't start for more than a year from now where we sit today. It approves that plan along those lines. This also authorizes the issuance of $30 million worth of long-term facility maintenance bonds, which is the first part of that 70 million that is bond financed. And so that we wouldn't expect if this plan proceeds forward that you would spend that or issue that amount of bonds every year. That's going to cover us for the first few years of this plan would be uh the concept. And then the last piece in terms of the the the way that it's constructed is that there is some provision uh approximately $2 million a year that we have built into the plan for unforeseen projects. Okay? So there's going to be things that that we just don't know about today that will come up. Uh things break when your buildings are old and and we have that built in to the plan. The overall tax increase for this particular plan is $16 a month when you look at the two parts together. The LTFM uh the the portion that is related to the bonds is $7 a month and the portion related to the PO is about $9 a month compared to where you sit today. Tying it back to the prior conversation, the $30 million of LTFM bonds, if if you hold an election and it passes, we would anticipate you to sell those bonds in any case. It would be the first part of the 116 million that was presented in the prior resolution. And in it and in this case, be the first part of the 70 million that's bond funded within this LTFM plan. What we would anticipate changing significantly after the election, should it pass, is a s a significant reduction in the payo portion of this levy, which is just under $10 million. And we would reduce that down uh to to um the concept is to just pay for the health and safety type items because we're doing, you know, significant remodeling across the district. and those other projects are covered through um the the other funding mechanisms. So the $16 a month would be, you know, would look different be it would look lower, which partially would offset the the taxes on the referendum as we go forward. The other parts, if you look at the resolution, it approves a plan. It approves $30 million of borrowing for the projects within the LTFM plan. It also also authorizes us to be a part of that state credit enhancement program which I discussed earlier uh within the bonds. It uh allows us to reimburse for any project costs prior to the those bonds being received and it uh gives us the authority to to uh publish a notice which is required by state statute that the district intends to do this. It is not uh this is what we call an intent resolution for that $30 million of bonds at this time. we would need to have further action to actually go through the process of selling those bonds. Okay? And based upon what I know today, we do not anticipate taking that action prior to a November election. Okay? So, we would be back in front of you after more information is known to fund this. Again, this is to fund the program kind of starting in fiscal year 28. You have bond funds that were sold in 2024 that are continuing to fund projects this summer. And I know you've had discussions about those in the past as a school board. And um the plan, if you look at the detailed documents that were in the board docu the board packet, those include those spending down of those additional bond funds this summer um and and coming forward. So um I think that hits the the highlights here of the requested action. Again, the the information here is is really the same information that was presented to you uh back a month ago for this plan. This is a required part of the process that needs to be submit submitted to MDE or the Department of Education prior to July 31st. Um and so that it, you know, every summer the school board has had this action in some form in front of you. Although I want to be, you know, clear, transparent, this does represent a significant tax increase on your community to to proceed forward um with the plan as it's constructed. And um it does provide you significant investments in your school facilities whether or not an election passes, although they would look very different in term, you know, we've we've held that discussion at length here tonight. >> Okay. See, Director Bass, sorry, Director Bowman. >> I was just going to move approval of the District 281 long-term facilities maintenance levy plan. >> Okay. And wave the resol reading of the resolution. >> Wave it. Yes. >> Moved by Director Bowman, seconded by Director Helenbrand. We're waving the reading of the resolution. And I don't see any hands up. And so let's I have Director Basset. >> I I don't So I did send some questions, director Hohheisel. And so you did see those questions? I did and I also shared them with uh Mr. Hart >> as well. >> Okay. And so yeah, good. And so uh Mr. Hart, would you say that you've addressed all those questions in your presentation and uh and I if you have, we can talk, you know, maybe speak a little bit about that. >> However, I mean, some of the questions have been answered as we've worked through this document. >> Yeah. >> Um but um some of them are maybe technical questions that we can talk about. I don't know that they appreciably change the direction of what we're doing. It quite frankly, I mean, as I've been listening to this presentation and as for example, this application, uh, we've talked about the $30 million in incremental sales. >> Correct. Yep. >> Uh, so I mean, I'm just saying we've gone through some of the things that I had questions about. We've kind of walked through them. So I I try to weave those answers into. >> That's the only reason I wouldn't. So I don't want to belabor it and go back over them now because I only ask questions if I really think I need the answer. >> So I think you've you've hit pretty much everything. And knowing that >> Director Whole had them and and they were shared. >> One thing that uh Director Basset that uh Michael did not address was there is a question and if you if I could be so bold as to just read it that was not addressed. It says, "Is there any formal or informal relationship with the bond firm of Coutac Rock LLP and any senior leader of our district with direct involvement in this contract? If so, please please explain." >> Um, so at least as far my involvement uh coming in in 2024, which was the last time that debt was issued, Sophia Licky had worked, she was the bond council that was working with us, and she was with Kennedy and Graven. The district had been with Kennedy and Graven for a considerable amount of time prior to 2024. Um, bond council at Kennedy and Graven, uh, one who was a long-standing member, uh, is now deceased. Sophia switched firms to Coutac Rock. We followed Sophia because she was the one the the one had that had been working with the firm and our information. To my knowledge, there is no, and I'm speaking for myself, but I'm going to presume the rest of the team as well because I'm I don't have knowledge of it. There is no uh relationship indirect or directly involvement with Coutac Rock other than having Sophia do doing work in the district previously. Well, uh, you know, uh, CFO Hohheisle, I really appreciated you coming back to that question because I wrote it because it occurred to me and I know we've had questions of that nature that have been out in the community and um, but these other ones that I had on here were really come from my heart, you know, and so I really appreciate you coming back and following up on that and making that clear. I appreciate that. >> Okay. Uh, Director Bowman, I think we are ready to vote. What we're voting on is to approve the resolution ensuring our participation in the LTFM program inclusion on the payable 2027 tax levy for 2728 school year. >> Ready? Ready. All right. Uh Dr. Wuto. >> Yes. >> Dr. Long. >> Well, >> I mean Director Long. >> Doctor, you owe me pay then too. Director Long. >> Um, yes. >> Director Hillbrand, >> yes. >> Chair Evans Becker, >> yes. >> Director Bernes, >> yes. >> Director Bowman votes yes. Director Basset, >> yes. >> Uh, your vote was unanimous. >> 70. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, >> friend. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for passing that on so my questions. >> All right. Moving on. We're already up to new business. >> A resolution accepting donations. >> So move. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. I haven't even told you how much. >> Thank you. >> We have $48,94.99. And this is a roll call vote. It was moved by Director W, seconded by Director Basset, and we'll take the roll call vote when you're ready. Director Bowman. >> Director Basset. >> Yes. >> Director Brennesen. >> Yes. >> Director Hillbrand. >> Yes. >> Director W. Yes. >> Director Bowman votes yes. D Chair Evans Becker. >> Yes. >> Director Long. >> Yes. >> Motion prevails. You >> Thank you. All right. The other item of new business is a resolution establishing the filing period for affidavit of candidacy uh for the school board. We as you do we have four positions on the school board that are up for reelection. And uh the this filing categor this filing is actually set by state statute. And so it's a two-eek period and just have it I'll tell you when it is. It's like July 14th to the 28th I think. Is that correct? >> Okay. So what we need to do is move the resolution. >> Some moved. >> Second. Moved by Director Hillbrand, seconded by Director Basset, and wave the reading. >> Please. >> Okay. All right. Uh, roll call vote. It's a resolution. >> Sounds good. Director Basset, >> yes. >> Director Bowman votes yes. Director Brenton, >> yes. >> Chair Evans Becker, >> yes. >> Director Hillbrand, >> yes. >> Director Long, >> yes. >> Director Wuto, >> yes. >> Motion prevails. >> Okay. Item number eight, policy. Director. >> Yeah, we have eight policies that are due for second read. I've received no questions or concerns on any of them. So, I do want to move for the motion for the approval of these policies. >> Okay. I'll second that >> and is a voice easy for me to say. >> All right. And so, all in favor of approving these policies, please say I. >> I. Post say no. >> Policies are approved and we don't have any first read policies. So that moves us to number nine, administrators reports. Superintendent Stalo. >> Excellent. Thank you very much. And good evening again, chair of Inspector, school board directors, those of you in the room at the ESC, and the viewing public at Robbinsdale Area Schools. Our mission is to inspire and educate all learners to develop their unique potential and to positively contribute to their community. Our collective work is focused on that mission. And tonight, I'd like to share some of the work in which we've been engaged. Although the students are no longer in session, last week we experienced a week of learning and improving through various events um that are advancing expectations for improvement and excellence across the district. On Tuesday, June 9th, we gathered all the district administrators from departments and schools for the day as we reviewed and reflected on the 202526 school year and continued to reimagine improvements in all areas. The day was intentionally planned to be meaningful and impactful to our leaders. On Thursday, June 11th, the teaching and learning team and building instructional leadership teams all came together. There were about 125 teachers and administrators uh to collaborate on the new and improved focus of school improvement plans. We kicked off the day elevating the voices of students with the youth council presenting to the group. Um, and the rest of the day was spent on reviewing data and a focus on the alignment of our goals, strategies, and action plans to ensure consistency as a system, as a means to enhance student academic outcomes and success. I'm pleased to share that Robinsdale Area Schools has been recognized by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture with Bronze Berry Honors as part of the 2026 Minnesota Growing Cream of the Crop Awards. This recognition reflects the outstanding work of our child nutrition services team and their commitment to providing students with fresh, locally sourced foods while creating meaningful connections to culture, community, and agriculture. Throughout the school year, students enjoyed Minnesota grown produce, dairy, grains, and other locally sourced ingredients. These efforts extended beyond everyday meals to include culturally relevant menu offerings and special celebrations that reflected the diversity of our school uh community. This recognition highlights two important priorities in our strategic plan. It supports student engagement and wellness by providing nutritious meals and helping students develop positive relationships with food and healthy choices. It also demonstrates the power of collaboration and partnerships uh through the strong relationships our child nutrition services team has built with local farmers uh food producers and businesses across Minnesota. want to congratulate Brianna Smith, our nutrition services team, and all of our partners for making this recognition possible. In the area of staff, investment, and impact, I'm proud to recognize one of our outstanding educators, Michelle Bersshide, who was recently named the recipient of the 2026 uh Lois Angstrom Leadership Award by the Minnesota Association for Family and Early Education. This prestigious statewide award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to parent education, early childhood, family education, and early learning programs throughout Minnesota. Michelle's career has been defined by her commitment to support families, strengthening parent child relationships, and building connections among parents and caregivers. Through her work in ECFC FE, family literacy, home visiting, curriculum development, and higher education, she has helped countless families build the skills, confidence, and support networks they need to help children thrive. So, on behalf of the district, we want to congratulate Michelle on this very deserving award. In the strategic theme of student engagement and wellness, as the school year ends, our commitment to supporting students and families throughout the summer uh continues. Robbinsdale Area Schools is once again participating in the summer food service program, providing free breakfast and lunch opportunities for children and teens ages 1 through 18 at sites across the community. For many families, these meals provide important source of nutrition and stability when school is not in session. The program ensures children continue to have access to healthy meals while also maintaining connections to their schools and communities. We encourage families to visit ardddale.org or for a complete list of meal uh sites, dates, and service times. Every child is welcome, and meals are provided free of charge. If you haven't already, be sure to check your mailbox for the spring edition of the Ardale Report, our district-wide community newsletter. This eight-page publication is one of the most important ways that we communicate with our broader community. Over the years, our residents have consistently told us that mailed information remains a trusted and valuable source of district news and updates. This issue provides a comprehensive look at reimagine our deal vision 2030, including information about the statutory operating debt process, the work that's been done to stabilize the district, and the conversations that have helped are helping to shape our future. also highlights many of the outstanding student staff programs and achievements that make Robinsdale Area School such a special place. Uh this supports our commitment of collaboration and partnerships. Transparent, proactive communication helps build understanding, trust, and meaningful connections with families, taxpayers, community members, business partners, and others who have an interest in our schools. So I encourage everyone who will get that in every resident will get that in their mailbox and please take a look. Finally, in the strategic pri priority theme of academic achievement, one of the greatest privileges that we have each year is celebrating our graduates in the incredible journeys that have brought them to this moment. Last week, we shared a graduation recap newsletter highlighting commencement ceremonies across Robbinsdale Area Schools, including photo galleries, live stream recordings, graduate accomplishments, and student profiles. While graduation marks the end of one chapter, it also represents the accumulation of years of learning and hard work. These infographics tell a story of a graduating class that's prepared for a wide variety of futures. Across Armstrong, Cooper, Robindale Academy, High View, and Robinson, Robinsdale Virtual Academy, we celebrated nearly 900 graduates this year. What stands out most is there's no single path to success. Our graduates are p pursuing four-year universities, community community and technical colleges, apprenticeships, military service, employment, and other opportunities that aligns with their goals and aspirations. At Armstrong, more than 80% of surveyed graduates indicated plans to continue their education with students heading to colleges and universities in 23 states, Washington DC, Canada, and Mexico. Cooper's graduates will continue their education in locations across the country and internationally while also earning significant academic recognitions. At Robbinsdale Academy High View, we see the power of personalized pathways. Many students balanced employment, work experience, and college coursework while completing high school. Their plans after graduation reflect the career focused and technical opportunities that prepare students for immediate success in the workforce and beyond. And at Robbinsdale Virtual Academy, graduates demonstrate exceptional academic achievement, including students earning academic letters in high school. Most importantly, our students remind us that every graduate has a story. Students like Salino, a graduate of our adult academic program whose determination, perseverance, and support from caring educators helped him reach this milestone and pursue a career or a future in accounting. Whether students heading to university, entering the workforce, earning industry credentials, serving in the mil military, or continuing their education in another way, we are proud of all that they have accomplished. And I do want to uh share this video because the numbers tell part of the story, but the real story is found in the faces and the celebrations of our kids. Um, so let's just take a look at graduation season and celebrate the remarkable class of 2026. Today we gather to celebrate something far greater than a milestone on a timeline. We are here to honor courage. We are here to honor resilience. And most of all, we are here to honor you, our graduates. I feel like a range of emotions. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm excited. >> I am feeling nervous, but I'm very excited about it. >> I'm feeling excited because I worked so hard. I'm a full-time worker and mother. So, I'm so happy. >> I'm a first gen and I'm really doing this for myself and my parents cuz they came here from Mexico. I just want to make them proud. The reason that graduation is so special to me is because I lost my little brother to brain cancer when he was 12 years old. I wanted to graduate because he never had that chance to graduate. >> When I look out into this sea of graduates in front of me, I see some of the most thoughtful, kind, creative, funny, and driven people I have ever met. I love you guys. And that may be the hardest part of teaching. For nine months, you spend nearly every day together. You live through the ups and the downs, through historic moments, through the miracles of living. You become my kids. And now I have to say goodbye. >> It's really just like a surreal moment to have in your life. And doing my elementary school walk earlier today, it's just all the memories started flooding back in. I feel like I've really grown as a person from since my first day of elementary school to now graduating high school. >> Graduation's always been my favorite time. My sister graduated here and my brother and my mom. You I'm ending the family line at Armstrong. So, it's a very big deal. >> I plan on going to Henipin Tech. I really want to work in healthcare. >> I'm going to the University of Arizona. I'm studying HVAC. >> I'm going to be EMT. I'm ready to finish this chapter of my life and move on. >> I want them to hear the joy and the pride in my voice. I know it's a split second and that's all it is with each one of them, but I want it to matter and I want them to recognize how proud I am of them and that we see them and we will continue to cheer them on. Thank you class of 2026 for making these last four years so memorable. You guys are hilarious and amazing and I wish all of you the best of luck after we graduate. Go Hawks. >> I want to make my mom happy. Go and take pictures after this. We all going to feel good. We going to celebrate after. graduates. On behalf of all of us here, we are proud of you. We believe in you and we cannot wait to see where you go from here. Here I am. Wow. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Can we get the slides? >> I like your slide. >> Oh, we have one more. >> They weren't in the packet. Okay. Okay, next up on our agenda is the legislative update with CFO Hoheisel and executive director of community education, athletics, and activities, Anthony Williams. >> All right. Thank you, uh, again, and it's hard to follow up that with a legislative update. >> Yeah. See, what can you Yeah. What have you got, >> you know? Um, well, uh, thank you, uh, Chair Chair Evans Becker, members of the board, Superintendent Stylo. Um we are myself and CFO Hohisel are here to present the 2026 legislative update. Um the purpose of of this presentation is to inform the board of education and the community about the district's 2026 legislative platform and the outcomes of the legislative session. Um this year uh as you all know we we uh we focus on on five five main themes with our platform. um enhancing student learning, student centric learning. Um modernizing the long-term facilities maintenance revenue to address aging infrastructure. Um expanding safe schools revenue to modernize its uses. Um institute tax equalization for our property owners. And then oppose unfunded mandates and ensure adequate uh implementation um for resources. Uh while many of our items did uh see bills um in the House and Senate, none of them really made the final cut. You know, it was a tough legislative session as we knew going into that. We knew that, you know, this wasn't a funding year. It was a policy year. So, we tried to focus on some policy things, but you know, um obviously Operation Metro Surge and a number of other things sort of took over the legislative session. And uh none of our bills made the none of the bills that aligned with our priorities u made the final cut. Um but there are some things that were presented at the legislative that that do impact education and I'm going to pass it over to CFO Hiser to talk about those things. >> Thank you. Uh the things that did make the cut uh for the state of Minnesota was one time vehicle tab reduction fees. Um HCMC received some dedicated funding. uh several anti-fraud provisions for IT systems and the like. Uh one-time refunds on property tax, homestead credits, rural and critical access to hospitals, and then the bonding bill. And the piece of the bonding bill um that impacted that had district impact. Now, I didn't necessarily say our district impact, I just said district impact. um was essentially about $10 million uh that was carryover from a hold uh hold harmless provision for compensatory revenue. This is not going to with the formula how it is um is not going to have any great impact for our district. again in the call that I had mentioned earlier in the board meeting today um with my organization there are some charter schools that won't be in existence next year which puts some money back into the system again I don't anticipate anything but um but they did do something for someone um one of another change uh for all districts is what may be used for operating capital we've had this conversation about typically it's a useful life of more than a year it's some form of equipment. Uh legislatively, we now could uh use operating capital to uh to apply to our utility service costs. Um tax race base replacement aid, seasonal tax based replacement aid provisions. We do not as a district have enough um recreational property as primary property for this uh to impact us. anonymous threat reporting. $5 million uh was put into the system for an anonymous threat reporting. It is something and this will be in a future slide that the district is going to need to address uh before the end of I think it's the next fiscal year. Health insurance data survey data collection and reporting requirements. We are now as a district required required to report our health insurance data information on a survey. Um there is belief that we slowly could be making our way you know to a is there going to be a statewide pool of which we're all participating in and this is the first step. That's uh that that is the cautious belief um with the collection of that data that we are now required to submit. And then behavioral health grants there were two allocation school-based allocations 12.25 25 million for fiscal year 27 for the behavior for a grant and then 3.8 million in fiscal 27 for a mobile crisis service grant. Again, um it is a grant. It would be onetime funding and you would have to apply permanent school transfer. We had talked about this again uh earlier in the meeting. it will be on the ballot and what it does is it uh asks for an amendment or for a constitutional amendment to allow an increase to be paid from the permanent school tax fund. This does not impact our local taxpayers. This is a fund that's already set aside. It just changes the percent of allocation. The way this election will work, it is not a voters that show up and even if they choose not to vote count as a no vote. So in the only way it counts as a yes vote, if someone actually physically supports it as a yes vote because if they just ignore the question, it's a no vote. So that there's going to be a lot of communication, no different than what was discussed tonight around that this isn't a tax impact to our taxpayers. And not only that, it would help with all school districts revenue to a degree, but you actually have to vote yes. You can't um avoid the question. Moving on to the anonymous threat reporting um by this time of next year, the school board must adopt a policy on how what our reporting system is going to be. So, I would anticipate this moving forward um through the course of the next school year. and and the board making a decision on what option that we're going to uh use and then we must have that full fully implemented by July of 28. So decision on how we're going to do it in June of 27 and then we have another year to say we are now fully implemented on what that anonymous threat reporting system looks like. So more to come with that. And then there were various uh provisions as it relates to student and school safety. Um grooming, prevention and criminal laws and I you can see the various items with how what how that is impacted within the system and that along with other policy provisions. Um veterans can get dipl uh high school diplomas if they were in the Korean or Vietnam wars and paraprofessional qualifications um with eleas using the competency grid to verify qualification is expected in by uh the beginning of August. teacher prep requires supervised early literacy field experience for all candidates and then foster care priority. Uh if we have a student uh for community ed to get in, they get a priority. So again, not not a robust funding year, not a not a robust year um for our district per se. I was happy to hear that there was one person um or a group of people that presented earlier tonight with a BBE that was thrilled with what happened legislatively and so you never get to hear that. So it's actually to me teed up this legislative session uh presentation quite well. So uh if the board has any questions uh director Williams and I are are happy to entertain them at this time. >> Dr. Bowman >> uh I'm interested in the property tax homestead credit. have and I can do some research on it, but did you are we getting a increase to that credit or we getting a decrease? And do you know any details about that one because that might be important overall? >> Agreed. And unfortunately, I don't have a significant amount of details with that right now. any idea when that information's gonna kind of hit the >> No, but I'll be on the lookout for it to keep you apprised because again with what happened right with the board action tonight that that it all comes into play, >> right? Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Thank you very much. I don't see any other questions and sadly we are finished unless there's some future events that we're supposed to hear about. >> All right, I'll take a motion to observe. Approval to adjurnn. >> Uh Bowman moved to adjurnn. Seconded by RO. All in favor please say I. >> I. >> Say no. >> We are adjourned. >> And we will reconvene. How many minutes do you guys need? >> Let's try let's try for 10. >> Yep. >> For the study session and then the close session. Okay, we are back and this is the beginning of our study session. Today is Monday, June 15th, 2026. It is 9:42 in the evening and the purpose of this meeting is to talk about our superintendent valuation. Superintendent St. You want to do the agenda and working document talk? >> Sure. Uh one of the board responsibilities you have one employee that is me. So uh an annual uh evaluation um is part of your uh duties as school board members. Um we are abiding by the timeline that was laid out from the beginning and uh tonight um you've had two weeks to review my materials. So tonight what I'd like to do is I have a presentation um that I'm choosing to publicly share. I think it's important that uh the community also is aware of the scope of my goals um and evidence of attainment of those goals. Uh so we'll I can start with that when you're ready, chair. >> Okay. uh just so that everybody I think usually in a study session we all introduce ourselves. So we'll do that. I forgot about that. And then after the superintendent makes her presentation the superintendent will leave and we will go into close session with just the board briefly and then yes in this room and then we will come back with our superintendent and our facilitator in close as we continue the close session just so we know. So I'm greed Evans Becker board chair. >> Uh can I w to Vice Chair >> Aviva Hillenbrand, Treasurer >> Renee uh Bowman, Clerk, >> Amy O'Harn, Executive Director of Human Resources. >> DJ Brennan, school board. >> Caroline Long, school board. >> Ellen Bass, school board. >> That was Barb Dorne from the MSBA. Thank you, >> superintendent. >> All right. So when you are ready, Superintendent Stalo, let's begin. >> All right. I just want to be sure that the presentation gets up from some magical place. Thanks, Ray. Um, good evening again. Uh, board members, I know that you are well aware of this information. However, I believe it is important, as I stated, to publicly share an overview of my goals and evidence of attainment of these goals. Um, just over two years ago, I interviewed and was offered the position of leading Robbinsdale Area School in the office of the superintendent. During my interview, board members and community members heard about my work, my values and beliefs, and both what and how I would lead Robbinsdale to a better place. I knew some of the challenges facing the district at the time and embraced those challenges and the opportunity to lead here. In the first year, you witnessed my leadership focused on listening, learning, leveraging talent as the foundation of how I best could lead. I was intentional in a process and an immediate timeline to assess the scope and severity of the needs in academics, support services, district identity and reputation, enrollment, facility needs, and finances. I was also intentional in engaging the community in what they wanted to see as the future of our school district. My first year ended with not only attainment of each of the goals set, but also were engaged in a comprehensive path forward to continue to improve all aspects of Robbinsdale. As I began the second year, I utilized the feedback from board members as well as the priority work in front of us and I presented my recommended goals for the 2526 school year on August 18th, 2025. Um, in my previous superintendent career, I had never not had my recommended goals accepted by the board. However, there was not board agreement on my goals. So, I brought back revisions on August 29th and more revisions again on September 4th for the final review of my goals. Um, uh, the process and the evidence of, uh, performance area which are aligned to the standards and elements of the Minnesota State uh, Minnesota School Board Association superintendent um, process. On January 20th, school board members received a um mid-year progress report on the goals. And two weeks ago, you received materials aligned to uh the goal attainment. Well, this endofthe-year evaluation um is certainly about the superintendent goals set and approved uh by me and the board in collaboration. Um, it's also represents the work that my entire team um does on behalf of our students. So, the work aligned to my goals. Oops, I'm forwarding. The work aligned to my goals and all the other work in which I'm engaged each day is centered on my purpose, my why, and why I've dedicated my career to serve as an educator and leader in public education. Again, board members, I know you've heard this, but I'm going to share it again. I lead to inspire, empower, and develop others to thrive so we can create life chances, equitable outcomes, and a sense of belonging for all learners through trust, service, authenticity, and love. And I never forget our collective purpose and promise to our students, families. Um, and that's why at the beginning of every meeting I convene, I ground the group with our mission, our purpose, and the reason we get up. I want to make sure that every single one of our 1600 staff members understands the importance of the work that they do to support students in achieving this mission. Shared leadership and shared accountability is the um you're going to have to remind me to forward the slides because I'm not going to remember. Uh shared leadership and shared accountability is the culture um I'm working to create. I said yes two years ago to district 281. And while the challenges are greater than I could have ever imagined and we have a long way to go to improve the student outcomes in all facets of the school district, uh I'm ending my second year really proud of the amazing people who have come together for our students around the shared goal of improving Robinsdale area schools now and into the future. and I'm really proud of how I've continued to lead and navigate incredible challenges and change. During the rest of the presentation, I'm going to share my goals, some of the evaluation elements agreed upon by the board. Um there's four overarching goals and then each piece has a sub goal to it. So the first goal was established as a means to continue the work established during the re-imagine Rdale vision 2030, the robust community engagement process uh that was implemented and we knew that that work was going to be continued um based on schoolboard and stakeholder input. And the goal states uh to successfully implement schoolboard direction on the future of Robbinsdale area schools based on schoolboard study and stakeholder input including recommendations of the reimagine Ardale vision 2030 team. The first focus area to achieve goal one states, "The superintendent will provide a plan of action outlining the development and improvement of systems as the beginning stages of the vision of academics, teaching and learning, and the student experience to improve Robbinsdale Area Schools. What has become very clear in my second year of the superintendency is the critical need to develop basic systems that one would expect to be ina in place in a school district. Um but here they simply are not in place yet. The reimagine Ardale vision 20 recommendation provided a pathway to achieving a district identity with an arts and innovation focus. However, with new and excellent leadership in the department of teaching and learning, many needs were uncovered that prioritized building a strong foundation of a guaranteed and viable curriculum and academics as part of the most critical academic foundational needs. We established excellent processes for implementing a new elementary ELA curriculum and a math cycle review. We also completed the work of a portrait of a graduate which provided a unifying opportunity for our community to articulate and help design a foundational document that paints a picture of what we want for our students beyond excellence in academics. This was a collaborative process with the initial data received from staff, students, families, and community members. There were multiple drafts that were also shared with stakeholders and the final draft approved by the board was shared with department or the district curriculum advisory council students and staff in every building. Additionally, even with the changes this year, we were able to work toward that arts and innovation identity and ensure our middle school students all have access to similar arts programming through an extension of our partnership with Stages Theater. Finally, incredible work has been done this year to provide consistency in courses and programming across the district to study scheduling and instructional minutes to setting expectations and building systems for a curriculum work and collaborating with teachers to create better systems and empower them to share their expertise. The vision and expectation of academics at a foundational level is that all students have access to grade level standards and engaging curriculum that is relevant to their lives and that they are taught by quality teachers using best practice instructional strategies in every classroom. The second focus area in goal two was for the superintendent will lead the process design and implementation of school closures and consolidations to include school attendance boundaries adjustments and staffing changes and provide documentation of the process and the outcome. So over the po course of the past year, I continued a process that had started with a 24 25 to create a vision and path forward while also making significant budget reductions and implementing a statutory operating debt plan. The work associated with school closures and consolidations all aligned uh work was in progress. However, the continued data review and decision-making for school closures were a focal point for me and my team as well as for the school board immediately following the reimagine Ardale vision 2030 recommendations um on September 30th. As we work toward the SOD timeline of board approval in January with final decisions and the approval of the SOD plan, we prioritize making the work associated with school closures and consolidation, school attendance boundary adjustments, and staffing changes as detailed, clear, and supportive as possible for all involved. Evidence of this includes presentations at board meetings, opportunities to hear from school district community members as part of the input and decision-making process. Um, as you all know, it's unprecedented to make such huge changes in one year, and it's important to acknowledge the additional work that's been done throughout the year to make difficult decisions and support students, families, and staff in these transitions. Additionally, the sheer logistical details that needed to be communicated and implemented took a collaborative effort and strong leadership. As we prepare this week to new to move buildings, Noble is being moved. I think tomorrow we are able to do so on schedule because the work of our staff and our leaders. We also had to because of the school closures and consolidations establish uh and monitor student enrollment establish new processes for staffing some of the pre-pool work ongoing monitoring and staffing allocations timelines efficiencies and interviews. Um and during all the decision-m and design and implementation uh we ensured clear and consistent communication along the way. The third focus area of goal one if directed by the board the superintendent will lead the process to establish a bond referendum for future facility in improvements and provide documentation of the process and timeline. The information provided above as that goal attainment evidence demonstrates a different kind of leadership challenge than managing the the school closure process. It shows the sustained patience, rigorous preparation, and discipline to inform without deciding. My role in this work has been to lead my team to equip the school board with everything they need to know to make a consequential community-f facing decision whether to place a school building bond on the November ballot. The impact of this year's effort will ultimately be measured not by my choices but by the board's decision. And should the board decide to move forward with the referendum request, it will be ultimately made by a community. Again, that requires a different way of leading, one of thorowness, transparency, and trust building rather than directive leadership. Evidence of success in the communication and outreach of this work was seen in the changes from the Morris Leatherman survey from last October to June in terms of gaining shared understanding and more people aware of the needs of our district and the changing um some of those perceptions. So as we look at the impact of goal one um again I've provided evidence to you uh much more than what I just shared now um to show that I've met and exceeded the goals. I know that only through strong leadership in academics and a relentless focus on collaborative work will improved outcomes happen for our students. Um, after the vision team presented, the school board began a series of discussions requesting information and directing the development of a plan that could potentially lead to a bond request. The scope of information over the course of the year reflects a commitment to intentional, responsive, and strategic planning and leadership. Through those uh multiple meetings that we all had, and you all added extra along the way to make sure we'd have enough time to discuss, um we worked to be responsive to your request, uh answering your questions. Each presentation was built on the last um and we made sure that there was opportunities for financial modeling and ultimately a summary of uh board approaches to this decision. Backward ma mapping of every board meeting happened um and touch points to make sure that our timelines were on task. I think the depth of the analysis is incredibly notable. Rather than presenting a single facilities proposal, the work examined the full scope of a compre comprehensive improvement effort. All facilities were studied. We looked at critical questions about the programming vid vision. What is our future focus on arts and innovation look like? How does CT pathways and academics shape the facilities the district will need? These aren't just budget questions. They're questions about what kind of school district Robbinsdale wants to be for the next generation of students. and the board has been invited to think at that level throughout the process. Perhaps uh most significantly in this process is that it has not been conducted behind closed doors. staff at every building, students and community members have all had access to the same information, outlining the district's current reality, honest explanations of how we got here, an overview of what has been discussed and what's being considered, and the explanation of why a building bond is being considered and what if that information um should a bond not be supported. consistent messaging mattered. I think one more piece on this, I just want to say that um at the same time that that we were making these decisions, we were really intentional and looking at not just short-term solutions, really looking at the long-term health of the district. The second goal was providing leadership to create and implement an approved statutory operating debt plan. The first focus to achieve goal two was a statutory operating debt plan will be created, documented, and submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education by January 31st, 2026. All of the work to plan and create the final statutory operating plan, including presentations at multiple schoolboard meetings, listening sessions, community meetings, school closures, and consolidations, was completed on time as dictated by the goal. As part of these meetings, data was presented to provide information to the board as they were making decisions on building closures and consolidations. The SOD plan called for a reduction of $8 million in order to secure a balanced budget. Several board decisions were made along the way to approving the SOD plan and meetings were added, including an additional study session on January 12th to ensure that the board had all the information they needed to ultimately approve the plan in January. Upon board approval, the SOD plan was submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education per the January deadline and we received word from MDE of their approval in late April. Second focus area and goal two stated the superintendent will support and provide leadership for the implementation of the statutory operating debt plan. So again, the statutory operating plan required additional $8 million of uh reductions after we made almost $16 million the year before. uh reductions in staff programming and buildings as part of the SOD plan demanded demanded leadership, detailed planning and a culture of care and collaboration to implement the plan throughout the year and to prepare for the impacts to the 2627 year. Reductions resulted in adjustments to transportation program implementation and discontinuation, scheduling and staff efficiencies, non-instructional staff realignment, and the restructuring of positions to reach reduction targets. The SOD plan, while a five-year plan, will continue to be reviewed annually. And as part of our um work, we'll continue to look at the next decisions uh in terms of future reductions. impact of goal two. Um obviously the closure of three schools, the elimination of a programming at the fourth school and closing the the the district educational services were significant and difficult decisions that directly embedded enabled the district to meet its statutory obligation and achieve financial stabilization. Um these actions though deeply felt by students, families and staff were essential components of the reductions required to bring the district into fiscal balance. The SOD plan was completed and submitted as I said um and the breath of community engagement undertaken through this process including board meetings um expanding the length of listening sessions and additional study session relects the district's commitment to inclusive decision-making. Leading this work demanded operational precision along with a genuine culture of care. Throughout the process, I rem remained present and accessible to members of the community by providing space for staff members and inviting questions to seek shared understanding, meeting with and listening to families, students, and staff who were grieving the closure of their neighborhood schools and supporting building principles who were carrying the weights of these changes alongside their own communities. The emotional labor of this work was immense and ongoing. At the same time, the technical demands of the implementation never paused. Budget timelines had to be met, staffing plans had to be finalized, and communications had to be clear, timely, and compassionate. Without the support and leadership of an excellent administrative team, this work would have been even more difficult and overwhelming. I'm grateful uh to my team for their work with this. Goal three um talks about providing leadership to implement the district system of continuous improvement. Uh the first area of the focus on goal three is a superintendent will lead and collaborate with her team to provide progress and monitoring reports at schoolboard meetings inclusive of district priority work, school improvement plans, the district scorecard, student achievement data and student engagement data. Um obviously establishing a system and culture for continuous improvement has been an ongoing process for the last two years. Last year, I led the development of the framework of the district system of continuous improvement in the beginning development of a district scorecard to measure progress and impact with the addition of excellent new leaders in the teaching and learning area and data analytics. The work progressed forward and the scorecard is completed. The work accomplished by each of the strategic theme um the charter teams was shared throughout the year as part of the school board's operational oversight monitoring responsibilities and because workforce and customer service data matters we administered surveys to caregivers and staff for the first time this year in addition to the student surveys which we have been doing for a number of years. The impact of goal three um is just building and sustaining that culture of continuous improvement which is one of the most complex and important uh challenges that I face especially in a district navigating significant financial hardships, leadership transitions, and community uncertainty. Um I'm very proud that this that our our work was not only maintained um on the district's continuous improvement framework but meaningfully advanced bringing greater coherence, accountability and depth to the work across all levels of the organization. The final goal was investing in improving a culture, climate and trust with staff, families and community members. uh given the amount of change that was happening throughout the year, this needed to be and was a huge focus area for me. Uh the first goal area of this uh states the superintendent will engage with internal and external stakeholders to ensure district communication resources and information regarding the reimagine RDAL vision 2030 plans are well known and input and perspectives are gathered to help inform decision-making. evidence will include at least three engagement opportunities for input and feedback to inform final decisions. Um so robust community engagement and opportunities to hear multiple perspectives has been a trademark of the reimagine our deal vision 2030 process since the beginning stages in the fall of 2024 in recognition that a community created vision is essential to supporting the transformation of Robindale Area schools in a way that meets the needs of our students, families, and community. The design of the original process was intentional. Um, not only were there multiple opportunities for community voice to be heard through surveys, community staff and uh student meetings, but we also provided uh many other opportunities with pop-up events along the way as well. Um so you can see that in this uh the three areas that I outlined in terms of decision-making was with the SOD and the school closures the portrait of our learner and the multiple um ways that that whole process gave us the initial input um for that uh and then feedback on multiple drafts and then ultimately operationalizing vision 2030 work. Uh, in goal four, evidence of the performance area number two, the superintendent will deliver to the board a document that outlines involvement at community and school district events, including visits to schools, classrooms, and school activities. Um, the board received evidence of the dates and engagements I attended, facilitated, or convened multiple visits and meetings throughout the year. Those included community related engagements such as city celebrations, meeting with city council members, city managers, police chiefs, legislators, district 281 partner meetings. District and school related engagements included multiple visits visits at each school for school events, classroom visits or meetings with staff. It also included meeting with affinity groups, guest teaching, and district emergency management team meetings. Uh staff meetings included both meetings with our leadership team such as system leaders, learning leaders, principal meetings, senior leadership meetings, one-on-one meetings with my team members, uh professional development that we all engaged in, department visits, and um at staff meetings at each school. And while I love all of that, my time with students is the best. So I attended concerts, musicals, and plays, sporting events, meetings with student groups. I also started the superintendent student advisory council which provided regular communication and access to student voice. As a superintendent, I deeply value the importance of being present and engaged in the community events, school, and classroom visits and student activities and athletics. It's a sign to students, staff, and families that I'm accessible and invested not just administratively, but personally in the school district. As a superintendent, I believe each time I walk the halls of a school, visit a classroom, or attend a student performance or athletic event, it builds trust at every level. Teachers feel seen and supported. Students understand that their daily experience matters uh to the district leadership. Families gain confidence that decisions are being made by someone who witnesses firsthand uh the realities of what's happening in the schools. So, it's been a quite a year through the routine and the consistent flow of the school year and through the changes of what the past year has brought all of us. Uh, leadership has mattered. The work in which we're engaged, the work in which we must be engaged is a heavy lift and I expect that what matters when work matters, it is a heavy lift. Most of you have heard it, but I just want to share this again. Um, when I came for my interview, I walked into the ESC and I noticed two things. I noticed that pieces of the walls of these buildings um, literally were falling all over the patio and that there was turf around the loading dock. And I've used this story multiple times to talk about how I feel like the small things reveal a culture. And when I saw the fake grass, I wondered, is this a culture of good enough? Um, is there the care? Is there the pride? And I questioned as I rode up the elevator whether this would be a place that aligned with my values or not because I am not about good enough. I am not about status quo and I am not about let's just get by. I have high expectations and I am seeking excellence every day. And what I found out if there's that is that there are a whole lot of other people around me that feel the same way. Without being asked, the facilities and operation department took themselves on and they began to plan for a better tomorrow. So they took the fake grass, the turf, and we had a little fun with a mini golf. But then the turf was gone. Black grass or black dirt came. All of the black paper to get rid of weeds was laid down. And then pretty much pretty soon the wood chips came and then boulders came and then pretty soon plants grasses were planted. And about a week or two ago, I was pulled up to the ESC and Sylvester, who's one of our custodians, was raking the lawn. And so I just talked to him and I said, "Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable." And I told him the story about when I came and he just said, "It's about pride. It's about investment." and I thanked him for what he did. And I think this just continues to be an amazing story of transformation. You can see as I was leaving, he's bent over pulling weeds by hand to make sure that they don't come back. Right? So, it has taken a while for the landscaping at the front of the ESC take shape, but it started because there were some people who weren't asked to do it. They just had a lot of pride and they invested time and energy into moving us from fake grass into something that represents the potential of this district and ultimately the transformation that can occur. So that was the theme this year, right, that I shared with all staff at my kickoff. And as I've said before, none of us could have predicted in August what would happen between closing four schools in the ESC, reducing $10 million, developing an SOD plan, metro surge, transitioning people and things, direction and planning for the future. It was quite a year and we are certainly going to all have to continue to take ourselves on. And while it was a challenging and joyous year, it's obvious that Robinsdale Area's school future is something we build together. Tonight for me is a celebration of the collective work of our staff, our leaders, our students, and our community. I am very proud of our work. And while these goals only represent a small portion of my work, I'm proud of the evidence I compiled demonstrating goal attainment and unwavering leadership. And I'm proud of and extremely grateful for an amazing team of senior leaders. I was able to hire some key positions this year to bring on to our team. And I continue to benefit from strong leaders who were serving when I arrived and continue to invest their talents and loyalty in our district. This new team has come together that's come together I believe is unstoppable and depending on what the board and community want we have everything needed to transform this school district. So I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve Robbinsdale Area Schools and for you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. At this time, uh, the NE, uh, at this time, we will go into close session pursuant to Minnesota statutes 13D.05, subdivision 3A for superintendent end of the year evaluation. I will entertain a motion to recess to the close session. Moved by Brenten, seconded by Woot, Director Wuto. Um, all in favor say I. I. Post say no. Okay, it is 1012 that we are going into the closed session. Motion carried. to the close session at 10:12. We'll come and get you as soon as your part will be happening. Okay. So, for this part, it's just the board members. Okay, our close session is over. We are going to finish off our study session now. It is 11:46 and it is still uh Monday June 15th 2026 and we are finished. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. Good night. >> What do you want us to do with this choice? >> All right.