And welcome to this workshop of the Hopkins School Board. Most of us commented as we took our seats that we feel like we never left. So welcome back to all my board colleagues. Thank you for being here. It is 6:02 PM on April 21st, and we will get started with our agenda. The first item is the weighted grades policy update, and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Roper. Hello. So we will be having a weighted grade conversation tonight and discussing some of the things that we shared over in the monitoring committee. And so I will allow Dr. Lightfoot to take over and then look forward to engaging in a thoughtful discussion with my colleagues. Thank you. And just a little bit of context for our community and board members, we did have a presentation on this topic, was it two, three weeks ago? It all blurs together. Three, four. Yeah. From one of our student board reps who's hoping to join virtually to be part of this discussion, and two of our staff members at the high school, where they shared information, and then the board sent the policy monitoring committee off to talk more about this issue of including weighted grades in our policy. We don't have to have weighted grades, but it is a discussion that we're having at the high school, and so wanted to do an update. The monitoring committee, when we met and discussed it, felt that we needed more data to make a decision on this. And so what's included here for board members to look at is that additional data that was requested. Yeah. It's really the follow-up from the conversation. There were some additional questions that came forward from monitoring committee members, and thanks and appreciation to the high school staff who were able to pull the information together so that the monitoring committee could look at some additional components related to free and reduced lunch, looking at honors, looking at students who participated, and looking at the overall impact and analysis. So part of that discussion has really led to the monitoring committee's recommendation to bring it forward in a workshop for the full board to really analyze and look at what options are available for us and for the community. Before we draft anything in particular for a specific set of policy language, knowing that there was some additional information and additional monitoring committee dialogue, the feeling was that bringing it forward to a full board before specific language is drafted, put into policy, and then, as has been the practice of the monitoring committee onpolicies that do have large impacts and significant change, we try to see if we can also get a community engagement element built in. And so we're on deck with that, but wanted to make sure that before we start to do that work, that we received this conversation in more detail with you all. So, that kind of sets it up. I believe if monitoring committee members may want to speak to some of the individual components, that was the next step that we put forward. Yes. So just a second. Excuse me. So could we first go through maybe the data that we received on the weighted grades before we engage in the discussion? Yeah, I'd reflect that back to the monitoring committee for what specific information was really requested, and how that's been helpful to them as they've been looking at answering some of those additional questions. Yeah. So just for further context, the conversation that we had at the monitoring committee has been between our various options, and we have several. We can, one, leave our policy as is, and grades will not be weighted. We can weight AP and honors and have that start from the date of the policy being adopted. We could decide to do weighted grades and have AP and honors classes weighted and have that be retroactive, or we could have AP honors and then include CIS and PSEO classes in that weighted class and have that be retroactive or not have that be retroactive. So there's lots of different options that we can go through. So when we were looking at this, I think that the discussion from my perspective was the why, and the clear why that was shared from... Is it Director Cool? Doctor. Dr. Cool and our student board rep, Manuel, is that our students are experiencing a disadvantage in getting merit-based scholarships because the high school does not weight their grades. So that felt like, especially in the current environment around how you fund post-secondary education, a compelling why, at least for me. I'll speak for myself. And so then it became a question of if we're going forward with this decision to weight grades, it became, well, should we do it retroactively? And then for me, the question became, what are we weighting? And for me, that became a question of equitable access. And I feel like the high school has made a lot of progress. We are not done yet, but has made progress in having our AP and honors classes accessible to all students. It's not 100%. I know that there are a lot of kids who do not see themselves in that space, and that it can be a significant barrier to imagine that you could be successful in an AP class if it's never been recommended to you or that's never been your experience. So we still have work to do around that. But at the end of the day, it is accessible in the sense that you don't have to be admitted by a higher ed institution. You don't have to have transportation. I know that some are available virtually, but virtual education doesn't work for all students. So there's just varying levels of accessibility for our students when we're talking about PSEO and CIS. And so what I wanted to do was, if our why is that we really want to give our students who are maybe struggling to afford college, access to scholarships, then I really wanted to look at the data behind are we going to have the most impact for those students if we include PSEO and CIS? And that is why I requested this data. We did get, initially in the presentation, the gender data and also the racial data, which I think is important for everyone to review to make sure that there is equitable access. But we did not have this socioeconomic data. So I requested that, and you see it here before us. And I felt that the conversation we had around it, and then also just being able to look at the numbers to see who is this impacting? Is this truly equitable? Would a change of this magnitude be advantaging the students that need it? And so-I wanted to share the data because I thought it was compelling. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Thank you. As another member of the monitoring committee, I'd just would like to give my own follow-up with that, and just to name, first of all, again, gratitude, and to echo that to Dr. Cool and to Manuel, and to all those who have been involved in really wrestling with this and seeing an equity issue and concern related to affordability of college. And as we know, college is increasingly expensive. The landscape of Federal Pell Grants is under threat and uncertain as we look to the future. And so this profound work of advocacy on behalf of our students is something that we as a board and as a monitoring committee, absolutely we take-- I just echo exactly what you were saying, Chair Andreassen, about how seriously we take that. And, just to say then, too, in the process, I think initially there was a sense that this could be a high school-based decision. It's at the board because it is a policy that we need to take into consideration, and as part of our own conversation at the monitoring committee, was wanting to really honor both what's been communicated to parents and families and community members and students and teachers, as all of these. This is a big undertaking, and so we wanted to take this up and to take it seriously. That's why we're bringing it tonight, because we don't want to forestall any work on this. And then also wanted to take seriously what we were hearing from our community as we were seeking to make policy recommendations, in view of what you've named precisely about what we're seeing also in our data. And just with that, that's where you see in the policy 620, as we're doing an initial first read recommendation, is a shift from what was originally presented to the board, which reflects, I think, both what we're hearing from our community, and from our students and staff related to having it be retroactive and go across for all of our students. So if we're really concerned about scholarships and finances, that's like, can we impact that for this next year? And then the second piece, just to name, that we had some-- and we're not done with dialogue. This is in first draft, but we've had some intentional conversation related to equity and what does that look like as it relates to the PSEO/CIS. Some of you know that candidly, I started in the place of decidedly, "Hey, if this is an equity concern and finances is the real why behind this, why would we not want this to go to everyone?" And I think in the current read, as you'll see, it does not include the PSEO/CIS courses in the weighted grade scale. And I think the rationale that was compelling is not only the data that's represented to you related to what are our students and who is enrolling in what, but the couple additional things, the one which you had already named, Chair Andreassen, which is the access and the fact that to get into PSEO, and because we have to put PSEO and CIS together. If we could separate them out, that would be different, but to have them together, PSEO requires its own application, its own considerations for if you even can get into PSEO. And then, I think the other thing that was compelling to me as a board member who's also tasked with thinking about budget, and those realities for our district, is that as a district, we pay for PSEO coursework and for the students. And on that front, if a student is already receiving credit, that is a financial incentive and positive for them, to be taking the PSEO credit on that hand. But wanting both from a culture, can you stay in the schools, but then also the funds that are retained at the high school itself, that was compelling and wanted to at least bring that forward for us to have more conversation and do more work and listening as we consider it. So in our current draft, it does not include PSEO/CIS in the draft proposal. So just to name a little bit, because we've been wrestling with this, and I want our community to know that we've been wanting to wrestle seriously with what they've said, what we've been hearing, what the data is showing, and just these considerations. So thank you. Yeah. And I think we need to be clear that we do not have any draft language currently. We held off on creating anything- Oh, we didn't ... because we- The talked about draft language. I really apologize. Everyone's like, "What are you talking about, Sarah, please?" Footnote to see my comments being strucken from the record because they're incorrect. And I know that that actually was a change from where we left off in the meeting, and we did not have our fearless leader there at the end. And so I think that for a number of reasons, there just isn't any draft- Great ... language. Okay. Because I do think that there is some appetite for perhaps pausing and looking at this deeper, and I turn it over to Vice Chair Roper to talk about that. Yeah, so weighted grades is something that I definitely support, and I believe that it will be impactful in our district. And one of the things that I did propose and have been connecting with some of my colleagues about in the monitoring committee is, are we able to slow this down a bit and be more intentional about adopting a policy that works for everyone and not-- Because right now I'm listening to Vice Chair Roper. I'm listening to Chair Andreassen, and then Clerk WG, and withThe other members, there's too many uncertainties and too many different options for us to just make an urgent decision about a policy that may have unintended consequences. And so with our new principal coming on, I thought it would be really great to pull her into this conversation because she has significant experience with high school grading and to get her perspective. I just didn't want us to take on too much at once and then make rush decisions, because at the end of the day, a student group is not going to be served, and I want us to figure out how can all students be served with this policy. And so it just didn't feel intentional to me that we are considering something that has so many different levels of consideration and just wanted to understand and see how does the board feel about slowing down a bit with this? Not saying no, but just slowing down and then gathering some more sturdy insight into this weighted grade policy, because we want to get it right. We know what it feels like to make a fast policy decision and it backfires. So how can we be more intentional with the weighted grades? And also, how can we collect more feedback from our parents, have more people involved in the process so then everyone feels like they have a voice? Because I don't think all parents or families know about this, even at the high school. So what can we do to make this more visible for everyone to be involved? Thank you. And I do see Manuel is part of the discussion. I know that you're at track. Yeah. So just start talking. Interrupt us if you want to chime in. Your perspective is really important- Mm-hmm ... because you are one of those students that's going to be directly impacted by this. And just where you're positioned in your time at the high school, I think, makes this probably more urgent for you than most. So, please do chime in. Sure, yes. Can you hear me? Sorry. Yes. Yes. We can. All right. Yeah, so I think like really great things that we're talking about here today. And yeah, I do think, though, that we do need to be really intentional about it, because there could be things that we haven't considered that could happen. But I think that in terms of, I don't know how Dr. Poole feels, I guess, but Dr. Poole and myself, we feel like we have gone through a lot of the steps at the high school level, at least, to get that feedback from the community. And yeah, I do think it is important to maybe take a step back and look and slow things down. But every cycle that we delay it or postpone it, it is kids losing money, I guess. I will be a senior next year, so I can speak for my class specifically. But for example, if we did not implement it for next year, then we would not have a weighted grade when we are applying to colleges, applying for those merit scholarships. So I think that is another consideration when we're considering the timeline of this. Thank you. And Manuel, give me a sense, because you'd think I would know because I have a senior this year, but I can't remember, when do early decision applications start going out? Yeah. So early decision and early action are usually due November 1st or beginning of November. And then, regular decision is usually by end of December to early January. And then you can start filling out those applications, though, pretty early, right? Like August- Correct ... September? Yeah. Yeah. Some schools that have their own applications even open in June. But yes- Oh, wow. I believe the Common App opens in August. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. So that's significant, timing-wise. Thank you. Yeah. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Yeah, that's an ongoing question from my seat is in order for us to effectively implement the administration and oversight without causing harm to our staff and ensuring we actually could allow our students who are seniors, incoming seniors, to be able to have their grades weighted, what is the timeframe in which the board needs to move on implementation of a policy? Yeah, I can speak in general. Part of the work that we've also been doing is looking at what needs to be true within Infinite Campus for us to be able to utilize the system in such a way that it will produce what we need. Is it possible? Absolutely. Does it take time? Absolutely. And it takes dedicated time over the course of the summer, when typically that is the time that most staff are most unavailable. And so part of the conversation is looking at what do we truly have capacity to achieve in a way that is accurate? Because part of the way that we have to look at if we are considering, at least as I understand from the brief conversation so far, is that within the system, if we were looking at, for example, PSEO and those courses, those are not readily identified in such a way that a systematic report would be generated such that would make it more readilyConvenient for individuals to go through and make sure that they had everything. Part of what we've looked at is does this really almost require that manual review, and everything has indicated that it does. Okay. Which means that if we were to get this accurate and correct, that review of transcripts would need to be done on that level, and we would need to be thinking about the time that it would take to deliver that if we were to go that route. Because part of the work would be the determination of the policy, the determination then of the courses, the determination then of which courses to which it would apply, and then that application would need to occur on those courses. That would need to be identified, and then the manual adjustments would need to occur. Mm-hmm. So that's what we've been exploring in a little bit more detail, as the system requirements are something that truly are an operational element that we have to be mindful of in looking at how quickly and how accurately we can make sure that we can do this. Dr. Lightfoot, so two things. So one, would that mean that we would need to train all teachers on weighted grades, or are most teachers already familiar with how to weight grades in their grading system? Well, I think that's part of the whole design. If you look at policies that are specific in the way that they have identified what those weights are, it's usually the policy that drives that. And then of course, yes, that training component would be an element that would be essential in the transition, which I think is part of the dialogue that you have to have about what does that mean for the most solid implementation, and what does that mean for the data that we have so far about what it delivers when we make those changes. And I think that has been part of the report information that was in front of you and presented at the table about some of the concerns about what it means to be looking retroactively versus starting at any given point in time. In different spaces, there is no consistent way that it has been done. Different districts have implemented it differently with all of those options we just stated. Mm-hmm. And so do you know maybe a projected cost, say, if we needed to have teachers or educators here over the summer to do any form of work within a weighted grades system and operationalizing it? Do we have a cost of what that may be? We have not gotten to that space where we have developed any particular training plan or at this point, to your question, what might that look like if we think about the time and intensity involved in moving that direction. I think those have been part of the considerations up front. But a lot of that is truly dependent on which of these four options. And to your point, what does the board need in order to feel better informed about the quality of each of these as an option, and what the likely outcomes will be and what we can readily put forth and promise to the community and then deliver on. Mm-hmm. Chair, any reason? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Dr. Lightfoot. Just about operations. So it sounds like the teacher needs to go in and actually do the weight. Aren't you just configuring the class to be, "Okay, here's AP calc. It's now weighted, and it does the calculation on the back end." It's actually the teacher needs to go in and... Yep. Well, remember the nuance. If it's a Hopkins course, yes. But it does take the configuration of the system- Okay ... in order to do that. So yes, we would have to go back and rebuild those course constructions in ways for past years that they were not built. So that also has to be part of the dynamic of looking at how to implement this when we think about what that means for a retroactive application, and thinking about what that looks like and what we would be asking staff to do at-- And remember, in most of our operational spaces, summer is the most active time because they are literally building everything to launch the next school year. Mm-hmm. And if at that same time, we are also asking them to go back and undo the same elements that they had spent time doing before, while that may have great value, it also has a time element that we have to make sure that we feel we can confidently deliver on. So from an effort perspective, doing nothing is obviously easiest, and then retroactive would be second easiest. No, sorry. Going forward, right? So going forward, next year we wait would be second easiest, right? And then third would be retroactive. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, and I think that that's the dialogue that we would need to have with those individuals who would be doing the work directly so that we could bring that information to you, and that's why this dialogue is really important, because then we can go back with those key questions and gather the additional information and do that diligence. Especially with that set of information, that does really have that overall contribution that needs to occur so that we can provide individuals with what they need in that timely fashion Back to light. Oh, go ahead. You can go. Okay. May I ask a question in the spirit of there's no dumb questions? Yes. When we say retroactive, do you mean that, hey, current seniors, Manuel, for example or he's a junior, but next year, right? If we were implementing this next year, he'd be a senior, would go back and adjust his transcript from senior or from his junior and 10th, and maybe even ninth grade AP classes and honors classes, but not graduates. So a graduate who has left the system would not receive a new- And in full transparency, I don't know if that has been discussed or not. That's fine. I mean, certainly those could be- I'm not suggesting that we do. Yeah. I just wanted to be clear. I was like, my interest piqued. Then how far back do we go? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I just was wondering about that. Chair Driessen, can I ask a question? Yeah. So thinking about the first day of school nuances, right? We're already talking about transportation, we're talking about all of the core work that goes into ensuring a smooth start of the school year. What risk would this put the first day of school operations, if there's any? With them building a new system, what will slow down if we were to build this system over the summer? Yeah. I don't know if I can speak specifically to what would slow down because we haven't done that level of analysis. Okay. I think in part, knowing that any time that we ask of a system something that has not been there before, and we do so without dedicated resource, there is a risk. And we just need to acknowledge that and look at what we're looking to deliver and how we can make sure that we can deliver on it. Because our goal would never be to overpromise and underdeliver. We want to make sure that we built strategically the structures that can get done what we know we need to have done. And that's, again, information that we want to make sure we get directly from the individuals who would be doing it, because they're going to be your best source of the truth. Thank you. So I want to make sure that while we have Manuel on the meeting, that you are done giving us your input. I am actually interested in what is your recommendation, because I know that you did deep research in specifically talking to colleges and universities about scholarship access. So just wondering if you had anything else you wanted to add to the conversation. Yes. Can you hear me? Sorry. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I guess in my opinion, I think that after talking to colleges, I guess I kind of realized that especially for our local universities that a lot of kids are applying to, it is becoming increasingly common that merit-based scholarships based on your weighted or unweighted GPA are becoming more common. So I do think that it is a pretty urgent issue. I'm thinking specifically for my class, because we will be applying to college in the fall. And I do think that at this point, just the implementation of AP and honors classes is a lot safer from an unintended consequences standpoint as well as an implementation standpoint, just logistically. I know I didn't read super deep into an email, but I did read an email from Dr. Cool. She did talk to the specialists who would be doing the Infinite Campus changes, and they did think that an AP and honors course implementation for weighted grades would be possible over the summer. PSEO would be a little harder to gauge because it is not our data that we keep. But AP and honors courses, because we do take them at the high school, they are in our databases, so it was a lot more manageable. So yeah, I guess that would be my recommendation. I think weighting AP and honors retroactively is doable over the summer, and it is the safer option at this point, because we can always add to the policy in the future if we do more research and determine that PSEO and CIS being weighted would be equitable. But I think at this point, we do have good information on AP and honors courses specifically. Thank you. Thank you for that. I really appreciate your input. Chair Driessen? Yes. Yeah. I think I echo the... Manuel, thanks for your just deep body of work and advocacy related to this matter and all the time that you've invested. We're really grateful for that, and I think from my seat, I want to both honor and hold intention that we don't want to get out ahead of something or make unintended consequences and these sorts of things. I think what I'm feeling aware of my own, I'll say, kind of communal anxiety is, is that we've been communicating with families and with students and with staff at the high school that this is something that was like, "Hey, this is under consideration. Here's a draft policy. Hey, we're probably going to have this done by April," or there are different dates that have been communicated. And I just think about as a person who has first gen college student myself in a time when I actually got Pell Grant to go to school, and I'm still paying for my student loans from my undergrad and then double graduate work. Yeah. I just think about what this means to our studentsAnd to families, what college costs right now is astronomical, mind-blowing. And so that's where my own anxiety in this is that I want us to be thoughtful. And so that's partially why I thought if we can put forward a draft policy that's, "Hey, here's for this year." And we can review our policies and do deeper discernment work around if we want to expand that. But I think that's where, from my seat, both from what we've promised to the community already this whole last year, and then as it relates to actually setting up our students to be able to succeed in accessing the most money they can. Those two things make me feel anxious about wanting to move on this, and in a way that is retroactive around implementation of a weighted grade policy. Mm-hmm. Chair Andreassen? Yes. From my seat, I just don't feel like I have enough information generally about how the community feels. I think the feedback that was obtained in listening sessions or meetings, I think if I remember the slides correctly, it was like 40 caretakers submitted their feedback, or less than 100. I don't remember. It was a small amount. While I appreciate the urgency and hear the anxiety around potentially affecting this next graduating class with respect to AP and honors classes, they've taken those classes at this point knowing that those are unweighted. And so what I also heard during the presentation was that there's some coherence issues across AP classes, and the difficulty, and the teacher's style, and I think there's just more to unpack here before making a decision. And so I would be, from my seat, open to sort of, I don't want to say parking lotting it, because I think we shouldn't do that, but exploring deeper what it would look like before hastily taking policy action. Chair Andreassen? So advocating for a pause while we get more information. Yeah, I think we should get more information before looking at any policy language. Chair Andreassen? Yeah. And thank you so much, Director Hyman, for naming that. I just want to be very clear that I'm all on board for weighted grades. I think that I do understand the urgency and the sense of urgency as a former college student who's a former Maverick, hey, and a Gopher, okay? I understand. I'm in so much debt with financial aid, so I get it. I just want to make sure that we are not feeling rushed to make a decision without having everything considered in this decision. Because the board, we're bought stuff, and then we're, I would say, a little bit pressured to make a decision urgently. And then if it doesn't-- Let me see. If one group of students is impacted negatively, then we're responding to that, and then if one group of students isn't, then we're responding to that. So I just feel like we're in this space of responding to urgent, and I want to respond effectively, and I want to make sure that this works for everyone, and I want to make sure that we have enough information to implement a huge policy, a huge undertaking. Because we got to think about it. We have west and north kids who are coming to our high school. Have we heard from their parents? So these are things I'm thinking about, and I also want to honor community and what they have received already. Because as we heard last night, broken trust is something that our district is trying to rebuild, so I also want to rebuild trust with our community to say what we're going to do. But I want to do that responsibly, though. So that's just where I am with it. I'm all on board, and I want to thank Manuel and everyone, Dr. Cool, who put their hard work into the research. And I also want to just make sure that we implement this in a way that honors the work that you have done without doing it irresponsibly. Chair Andreassen? Yeah. Yeah. To me, it's somewhat of a simple question, right? And I think at the root, we're talking a lot about operations and what impact. But to me it's, do we want to encourage our students to take rigorous, hard classes with AP? And I think I don't need a survey to tell me, yes, I want our kids to take the hardest classes and to stretch and achieve and earn college credit. At my root, I think I believe that. And so, I'm just trying to struggle to understand what research we would need or what data points would we need to get to be like, "Oh, yeah, we should wait or not wait." Right? And so I just struggle with that. Because we could just push this out years and years and years with more study, and I think we are not serving our students as well as we could in that regard. I appreciate that because I was just going to kind of level set everyone by reminding us that one of our values as a board is that we are student-centered in all our work. And actually we center student voice in all our work, which takes it even a step further, which is why I keep bringing it back to Manuel. I would love to hear from our student board rep here in the room as well, because I keep getting compelled, even though I'm the one who keeps asking for more data. I keep getting compelled by the reframing from talking about things like operations and how do teachers feel, while all of that is important and necessary and our job, I get compelled by the very real positive impact this change could have on our students. While at the same time, I agree with Vice Chair Roper in that I do not want to inflict unintended harm on other groups of students. Um, so yes, we want our students to be challenged, and yet we do know there are students who do not feel welcome, comfortable, or um, supported in those spaces. So are we advantaging, yet again, students that already have the resources to feel welcome in AP classes, per se? And the flip side is, and I'm not saying this is going to happen, but if everybody decides to sign up for AP, we can't even administer that many AP classes. Like, that's just a logistic. Um, so anyway, I'm sorry I went way off topic. Chair Andreassen? I just feel compelled by centering student voice in this. Uh-huh. So I'll leave it at that. Chair Andreassen? Yeah. I think one of the data points I would be interested in is what schools are our students applying to, and who's been impacted by this and what the scholarship opportunities are. Like, how real is- Yes ... is it? You know, like I- And that is actually data that Manuel worked really hard on already supplying to the board. Okay. We already have that data. Okay, I don't know our- Of our top... Can you remind us, Manuel, how many of the top universities where Hopkins High School students go to did we do the deep dive? Like, you actually contacted them and spoke to them. I don't know that I ever saw that. Yes. Sorry. Uh, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Yes. So actually, it wasn't me that put together the data, so I won't take credit- ... um, but it was Dr. Cool. And yes- Okay ... there is a list. She has a list of kind of the schools that kids are applying to, and then also their policy on merit scholarships. I'm trying to look for it right now, um, but I will get back to you once I find it, and I'll let you know. Thank you. I found that spreadsheet, and I can share it with the board, but it's a list that includes 11 colleges or universities, including University of Minnesota, Madison, Duluth, Augsburg, University of Kansas, Winona State, Minnesota State University, University of St. Thomas, St. Olaf, Iowa State, and Ohio State, and then a column, whether they use weighted grades in admissions and scholarships with a combination of yes and no's, and some recalculate the GPA. And then the third column, which only has two notes. Well, it's just a notes column. So I can share that right now if that would be helpful. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Chair Andreassen, just a point of clarification. So I just want to confirm, I've been under the understanding that there had been communications sent out to high school families this year that this would be something that had been communicated at the high school with teachers, that this is something that there would be action and movement on this spring. Is that the case? Because if that's not the case, I feel I might have my own remaining thoughts about wanting to help students access scholarship opportunities. But the secondary piece, which is promises made to our community- Mm-hmm ... if that's not true, then I don't feel that way because we didn't promise that. I just don't want to fail on a promise, um, because we didn't do a process in a way that would have allowed us to fulfill our promise. Mm-hmm. I agree. I agree. I agree. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Yeah. So just to answer the question, there was no promise that this was going to happen, but yes, it was told to the high school community that a decision would be made, whether that decision was yes or no. That we would know, I guess at this point, the dates have changed in terms of when we'd know, but yes, um, there was pretty clear communication that we would know by whether the decision was yes or no by a certain point. Mm-hmm. Okay. And that's just the challenging part for me. It's just that I wish I would have had that more clearly stated, like at least communicated to us, because I think I'm just feeling the pressure of rushing a timeline And I'm not feeling really clear on what was communicated to families so I can honor, because I feel like I do not want to undo any work, but I also want to just be very responsible with policy from the board perspective, and level set some of the rushing of policymaking that takes... This is an incredible and a very significant change for our high school. I don't want to just make an irresponsible decision. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Yeah. So, the reason, I guess, that we gave those dates and didn't give the board a super clear picture is because that was when we were still under the impression it was a school-level decision. So that's why we were going through the process under the assumption it was a school-level decision. And then when it was raised to the board, then it became kind of a different timeline. So that's why. Yeah. Thanks for that context. Mm-hmm. And, I think that that is something we need to be clear about with our community, is that unfortunately, when things get raised to a board level, we do necessarily move slower, because there's seven of us, there's committees, there's processes that we have to go through. And, I also think that it is normal and certainly understandable when there are misunderstandings- Yeah ... about what level a decision gets made at because yeah, the statutes around all of this stuff are not anyone's area of genius except Terry Morrow at MSBA. So, certainly understandable that that was made and also that our community, at least those that responded to the survey and showed up to the things, are expecting to hear something. We do want to close that loop. Mm-hmm. We're also running out of time tonight. So- Chair Andreassen? Yes. I did find a couple of family communications. So one is dated February 24, just saying Hopkins High School is considering moving to a weighted grading option starting fall of 2026. There will be a presentation and Q&A time. Please consider attending virtual meetings, et cetera. Mm-hmm. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So, what I'm wondering is, is there collective direction from the board to the monitoring committee about our next steps? What we've talked about is following a timeline on this, if we do choose to move forward, of having draft policy language before the board at our next meeting. Then, following our past practice on policies that are significant to the community, of hosting a board engagement session in the week in between. So, what is it? The 12th? Mm-hmm. May 12th would be the engagement session, and then we would have the policy and final read at our next meeting. That is one proposal that the board could direct the monitoring committee to go back. Our thoughts were we could do AP honors, weighted, have it retroactive. The other option is to pause and bring this up later, get more data. Just wondering if we have a sense from the board of a direction you would like the monitoring committee to go on this one. And we could just do a quick round. Chair Andreassen? Yeah. Can I just ask real quick what the reasoning behind weighting just AP but not the PSEO/CIS is? Yeah. It's the data that we got is that it's not equitable. Some kids have access to it, some don't. Got it. Okay. The thought is all our students have access to AP and honors. And also, there's different levels, and so we ran the data of who is accessing AP and PSEO, and what we found actually was really compelling, is that the kids who are accessing PSEO are largely kids who have accessed AP honors. So they would be getting the benefit of weighted grades. And essentially, the PSEO weight is just a little bit more. It wouldn't have much of an impact. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Are we okay going around just quickly? Mm-hmm. Do you want to start, Treasurer Hartland? Sure. My leaning is to start with AP and honors retroactive, and then do more investigation later into this PSEO/CIS to see how long that will take and what kind of runway we really need. I'm leaning the same way. Yeah. I would like us to continue to work on this and bring back policy, and I think to really flesh out the body of work that has been done, so that that way everyone has a sense of what are we talking about, and then we can make decisions from there. And do you want me to- Not sure what that means. Do you want us to do draft language along what- Yes. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. I am leaning towards weighting AP and honors retroactively. But I would ask that all the data and research be shared with our community in a transparent way and ensure that we've explained thoroughly the decision and articulated why we've made the decision we've made, so there's no confusion with respect to what we're doing, and that we are going to continue looking at PSEO and CIS. For me, I think either weighted and retroactive or weighted going forward, I think would be for me. If there's critical mass for retroactive, I'd be in that camp. I would agree with Director Zau and Director Hyman. Okay, great. So the monitoring committee will address this. We'll have draft language that we can share with the board for a policy and first read, and duly noted, yes, I think that within our board packet, we will have the data that went into this decision-making process available as part of that board packet. And then we can have further discussion at that meeting, at our next meeting. And we will have the board engagement session as well, so put that on your calendars if you have tuned in. We will be sure to share that with everyone. So thank you, everybody. I appreciated this conversation a lot. And thank you, Manuel, for taking time out of- Yes, thank you, Manuel ... your activities, too, to talk with us. Go run real fast. Yep. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you. And just quickly, so we have a few minutes of a break. A superintendent search update. I think more people than are tuning in now tuned into the deliberations that we had last night. We have hired a new superintendent, Dr. Michael Thomas, who is the current superintendent for Prior Lake Savage. We are thrilled that he has accepted the offer, and we are now in negotiations. And I wanted to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to our current superintendent, who is absolutely amazing in every possible way. And I'm not going to say anything more because I'll just start crying. So, that's it. Does anyone else have anything they want to include in the update? Chair Anderson, can I just ask, do we know how long the negotiations are expected to take? I'll keep you updated. We've done the initial reach out, and once we connect further with Dr. Thomas, I'll make sure that I keep the HR committee updated and update you all with what that progress is. So hopefully soon. Thanks. Thank you. All right, let's take a few minutes. Meet back here in five. Thank you all. Welcome everybody. I would like to call this meeting of the Hopkins School Board to order on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026, at 7:05 PM. Thank you all for being here, and we will go ahead and get started with our open agenda, which is where we invite our community to come and make public comment because we believe that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing Vision 2031. If you do wish to contact the board via email instead of publicly commenting at a meeting, please use schoolboard@hopkinsschools.org. There's a form on our website. We have a school board page you can access it that way as well. Public comment will be received in person and through voicemail. Did we get any voicemail comments? And we do not have anybody here joining us to make public comment this eveningSo, please do consider coming and making public comment. We do enjoy hearing from our community. So that takes us then to our reports section, which I would like to invite our student board reps to give their reports. Hi, I'm Adena, and I'm a freshman representative on the student board. I'm going to start with my teacher spotlight. Champ, my geometry teacher. He is really helpful and ensures that all of his students understand the work that we're doing, because geometry can be very touchy sometimes. In class, he makes sure to ask everyone questions so that everyone is involved and active. Right now, we are currently working on our sixth unit, and we just took our unit six test today. So, very exciting. Wow. Next, I want to talk about the capital event that took place on April 13th, where student board reps, including myself, had the option to go with the LAC committee to spend a full day at the capital. We had several meetings with representatives, and we talked to them about resources for student mental health and an increase in our school levy from $36 to $100 per student. We joined both the House and Senate floor sessions. The whole day was such a great experience. Being able to join the House and Senate floor sessions in person was so cool, and being a part of the meetings with the representatives was very exciting. Next, I'm going to talk about the class meetings that we just had. Last Wednesday was the freshman and sophomore class meetings, and today was the junior and senior class meetings. In our class meetings, they go over the basic goals and rules of the school that they want everyone to follow, along with ending the school year amazingly. Also, the class president candidates came up, and they gave a quick speech introducing themselves and talking about what their goals are for the class. Lastly, is the spring musical and ProStar opening night dinner for "Urinetown," which is the spring musical, coming up on Friday, April 24th. There's going to be a three-course dinner held where people can come and have a great time and give some donations to the theater and ProStart department. There is a reservation QR code, and for the first 50 people that fill out the form, you will have a for-sure seat. The QR code can be found on the last week's newsletter. So, yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. I'm still waiting to hear if I got a spot for that amazing dinner. I'm excited about it. And I just had a quick question, because we were not able to be there on Monday at the LAC Day at the Capitol, because we were doing our interviews here. So, I'm wondering, the floor sessions, can you tell me, one, was everybody respectful? Yeah. Okay, great. For sure. Good. We sat in the gallery, and we got to watch over them voting on bills and just seeing everyone talking to each other. It was just really exciting to see it all happening in person. That's really cool. I'm glad you got to see that. Thanks for being there. Yeah, of course. It was really fun. Any other questions or comments? I have one, Chair Andresen. Yeah. When you mentioned it was students running for their class presidents? Yeah. And they were talking about some of their goals. Did any of those goals you heard stand out? A lot of them were just events, ensuring that next year's homecoming and class events were going to be really exciting and engaging for everyone, and along with just making sure everyone is engaged and hyped for the school year. Cool. Thank you. Nobody was calling for better food in the cafeteria? No, I did not hear that. They didn't want Chick-fil-A in the... Thank you. Any other? That's great. Well then, thank you for the report. And Dr. Mary Perry Reid, the superintendent's report. Thank you, Chair Andresen. Champ, I can see his face. What is his last name, actually? Nelson. Oh, Mr. Nelson. Yeah. Okay. I love how the kids call him Champ. Well, I just wanted to begin by congratulating our school board on selecting the next superintendent, and congratulations to Dr. Michael Thomas, who will begin his role on July 1st. I'm personally very excited that you hired an amazing person and leader. I also want to express my personal gratitude to Andy Beaton and Rebecca Rodier for advancing all the way to the finalist stage. I've known Dr. Thomas for a while now, and one special fun fact is that he and I serve as executive coaches this year for the MASA Aspiring Superintendents. So, we've been able to see each other frequently, and he shows up really powerfully as both a leader and a mentor. And I'm just really excited for the next chapter of Hopkins Public Schools.I also wanted to congratulate Hinda Abdi, who is one of our two amazing associate principals at North. Last week, she was surprised with the awarding of the Middle School Assistant Principal of the Year from the MASSP Hennepin division. And during that time, at a staff meeting, the staff showered her with love and accolades, and talked about how she provides structure and high expectations and accountability for students, and that staff really lean on her tremendously, and really support her. So congratulations to Ms. Abdi for that fantastic award. And as Adina mentioned, Hopkins LAC had another successful day at the Capitol. So, as Adina mentioned, we met with seven of nine legislators and participated in briefings, observed the legislative proceedings, and hopefully our students gained valuable insight into how complex and fast-paced that environment is. We talked with our legislators about increasing the Safe Schools Levy from $36 to $100 per pupil, modernizing LTFM to allow funding to pay for things like technology and cybersecurity, and repealing the $250 million cut to the special education cross-subsidy that was passed last session. So those were a few of the many issues that we discussed with our legislators. I wanted to share with our board and community that our district has been awarded a two-year, $500,000 Native Language Revitalization grant from MDE. This was a huge effort to apply for this grant, and we're so excited to be able to offer Ojibwe language learning to our students. So the grant will support a coordinated district-wide program, including a new high school Ojibwe language course, as well as community opportunities for parents, staff, and all of our students. The work will be implemented by our current American Indian education team, and will strengthen belonging and cultural connection for students. Planning will start next year, with implementation the year after. I also want to congratulate a few of our high school seniors. So 14 Hopkins High School seniors were recently celebrated on Signing Day. And so these are student athletes who are committed to continuing their academics and athletic careers at the collegiate level. And I think what's really great about all of these students is that they really are fantastic, academically motivated and achieving students, as well as wonderful athletes on the field. So congratulations to these 14 students, Addie, Daniel, Baylor, Leah, Nolan, Caleb, Josiah, Xavier, Braden, Lucy, Skyler, Marissa, Ignacio, and Livia. A really great day for those students and their families. So another big thing that happened at our high school is that nearly 400 juniors took the ACT exam, which as you know is a test that measures college readiness. So this is a three-hour test that tends to produce, for our district, a collective average score that is higher than the state average. And we know that strong scores include 20s to 30s, and earning a perfect score is something that fewer than 1% of test takers achieve. So it's really hard to get a perfect score. And I won't tell you who, but somebody that we know closely received a very high score. Not quite perfect, but I'll let that young person tell you. And, I think what's really important about this ACT exam is number one, there's free ACT prep on Maya Learning, so that's available to all of our juniors. Number two, every year we're increasing the number of students who opt in to take this exam. I personally think we need to move toward requiring it of all juniors, but that number is very strong for this year, and we know that it plays an important role in scholarships and strengthening a student's application. So good job, juniors. Okay. So, North and West Middle Schools recently held parent information sessions for their rising sixth graders, and I heard really wonderful things about both of these events from families. And so I wanted to share one email from a staff member who is also a parent of a rising sixth grader. So I'll just let you read that, and what you can see is that the school, West, was very intentional about showing up, how they would show up for families and students on that evening, and we heard similar things from the North experience. So I'll just let you read that for just a moment. So thanks to our middle school leaders and stafffor helping to ease the anxieties that some of our families have about middle school, especially if your oldest is going to be in sixth grade next year and you've never experienced middle school before. Mm-hmm. Okay, so the next few slides, I just want to give our school board and community an update about our exploration of the career academy model at the high school. So back in 2018, we had nine strategic task forces, and one of them was a career and college readiness task force. And the team provided recommendations around implementing a college readiness program, as well as more cohesive and integrated career connectedness in high school courses. And so since that time, our college specialist, Dr. Cool, and counselors and staff have definitely strengthened college readiness programming and support, for example, through the direct admissions program, Maya Learning, SAT prep, offering a college admissions course, and lots of other things. So the big why around our current exploration of a career academy model is to strengthen our value proposition at our high school so that 100% of our students are truly prepared for college, career, and life. And as our vision and strategic plan indicates, we want every graduate to be well-matched with a college, career, or high-value post-secondary experience. And obviously, this is not just a state or district expectation, but really it's a moral imperative because we know that there's a cost to our state and national economies and also a cost to civic engagement and the quality of society when we release students into the world excuse me, who are not ready with a plan and not prepared to have a job that offers a competitive wage. So just some more data points around our why. So yes, we do an excellent job of preparing our students for four-year colleges, and there's an opportunity to expand more meaningful career-connected learning. And there's quite a bit of national data that shows that many graduates are struggling to find jobs in their fields and feel unprepared for the workforce, and our own data reflects a similar gap between students' post-secondary intentions and actual enrollment and completion rates. So we know how many of our graduating seniors are intending to go to two and four-year colleges. But then if you look at the SLEDs data, then you'll see that the number of the percent of students completing college within four or six years does lower. And so this work really is around closing readiness gaps, increasing engagement. You've seen the panorama data showing lower levels of engagement for students at the higher grade levels. And then of course, ensuring that every kid is graduating with real-world skill-based readiness. So then what you'll see here is I just want to remind folks of what the academy model offers. Now this is the structure that is offered by our current partner and facilitator, Ford NGL, and it's the structure that they have implemented in other high schools. And it's really important for all of us to know that there are multiple ways of strengthening and building career connectedness and career readiness at a high school, right? So this is one of many ways and it does offer proof points because it's been done before, but it's not the only way to do it. And so this model offers a freshman academy experience and during the freshman year, then students would have some quality exposure to multiple careers. And then the 10th through 12th graders would be structured into three or four broadly scoped academies. And then during those three years, students would take a minimum of one course per year, and these three courses are vertically stacked. Thematically connected, vertically stacked, such that you can go from exposure to skill building to potentially some kind of industry credential that offers value. Another feature is obviously if we're dividing 10th through 12th graders into broadly scoped academies, then there's the opportunity for students to feel part of a smaller learning community. And within these career-aligned courses, but also across other courses, we want to build career connectedness. For example, build skills, offer experiences around interviewing, putting together a business plan, other technical skills that might be specific to various industries, and sometimes there are shadowing and micro-internship opportunities. So we want to be thoughtful about all the ways that we can partner with folks in the career and industry spaces so that our students, as they matriculate from 9th to 10th to 11th to 12th grade, they are not only getting strong college readiness opportunities, they are receiving meaningful career-aligned opportunities.And then this model also requires and offers professional development for teachers. Okay, so one thing that I've been doing the last four weeks is calling many of the parents who wrote. So our school board received a few emails from parents, and so I did my best to have a number of conversations with parents because I wanted to have a really nuanced understanding of what some parents' concerns or anxieties or fears might be. So a couple things. I think one thing that parents are worried about is the structure or the model being too rigid. For example, there's only three academies. What if they're too narrowly defined, and what if my kid doesn't like the initial experience he or she, or they are having in that academy? Is there an off-ramp? Is there a way to transition to another academy? Also, there are some concerns that building this structure would somehow interfere with or perhaps dilute the strong college preparatory experiences that we currently offer. And so I think one thing that we really have to think about as a system, and obviously we'll be transitioning to a new superintendent, new principal, but number one, Ford and GL is not our boss. Like Hopkins Public Schools. We are the boss, the school board. You are the governing body for this district, and so we need to remind ourselves that we have control over the design of what this might look like. Right? And so what would be the design principles that would tell our master schedule, "This is how you're going to schedule courses." We create those rules, and we can also create the design principles that would inform the overarching structure. We also would be able to decide after working with our industry partners, well, what are the industries that have high demand right now? So for example, we use that research industry demand to build our CNA program at the high school, and it's been very, very successful. Right? So we have the control, and it's really important that we remember that and that we remind parents that nobody is telling us what we have to do. This is up to the school board, leaders, staff, with parent and community input. So I think we want to really think about what's important to us. We would never want to dilute or reduce the number of advanced placement offerings at our high school because honestly, those are really fantastic. In fact, we're adding AP Computer Science next year, which is a CTE-aligned and rigorous AP course. So we get to decide. You can go to the next one. Okay, so then I just want to be thoughtful about putting together some predicted costs as well as a potential timeline. So we know that phase one was around 40K, which was last year. We know phase two for this year is about $116,000. And that has been mostly paid by professional development dollars as we sort of identify additional grant opportunities to supplement that funding. And then for phases three, four, and five, because our current partner in this work, Ford NGL, they approximate, and they give a range for what it might cost depending on district size. So we think it's going to be around 100K per year, plus or minus. And then there's, of course, professional development time. Now, whether or not that also costs actual dollars might depend on what model of PD we employ. So if we do a train the trainer model, we send someone out to get trained, and this is a person who works for us, and then they train the staff. That's obviously cheaper than bringing folks in every time teachers are getting trained. So there are different approaches to that. And then if the board and community decide, "Okay, let's move toward some kind of implementation," then there would be a need for a full-time academy coach at the high school as well as a district lead. Full-time is recommended. It depends on how we are leveraging the skill sets of the leaders and staff who are in place. And then just a timeline. So prior to last year, we had staff visiting a number of schools, mostly schools that were doing innovative career-embedded learning, knowing that our college-going programming is already quite strong. So for example, staff visited a place called Kettle Moraine in a neighboring state, I think Iowa. Wisconsin. Wisconsin. Is it Wisconsin? Yeah. Oh, thank you. How did all of you know that? We've been listening to your presentation. You've been listening. Okay, great. And then, of course, we did phase one last year. Phase two is happening now. And then in response to community feedback, also a little bit of board feedback, we thought it was important to slow down. Okay?So we are officially extending phase two into the summer and the fall knowing that we do need to give time for the new superintendent, for the new principal to build their knowledge and awareness, to build their desire, their curiosity, and to align the important priorities within our organization. So extending or slowing down and extending phase two we thought was the right response. There had been too much planning going into the April stakeholder learning event. So Ford NGL partners are here this week. They have spent a lot of time at our high school today and through tomorrow and Thursday to deepen staff learning, to provide additional master schedule training. And I think the important thing about that is in order to make a decision about whether this is a good fit and whether this aligns with our vision for who we want to be in Hopkins, how we want to serve our students, and also what it would require of us, we do have to plan for it. We have to vet it. We have to put together a scope and sequence of what it would require of us, and that's the proper way that you prepare for making a decision. And so that continued learning this week was important. And then, if the community decides, "Okay, let's keep moving forward," then one thing that we had decided about a year ago is that we were not ready to launch Freshman Academy for this coming school year. So then Freshman Academy could be launched then for the '27, '28 school year, and that feels like the right time. So it's a really slow sort of exploration and learning process, really designed to help a district determine fit. Natalia? Okay. I think hopefully this is the last slide. Sorry this is so long. So then I just wanted to articulate some of the work that I believe is ahead of us as a system, and that includes just onboarding our new high school principal and superintendent. Dr. Palmer will be at the stakeholder learning event on Friday, as will three board members, a number of community members, and specifically chosen industry leaders, because it's important that we start to build the relationships, and those relationships are helpful whether we have an academy model or not, quite frankly. And then continuing to build the knowledge and desire of high school staff, building parent knowledge, identifying what those collaborative structures could be so that we can work through this together and really have an intentional plan for that. Identifying industry needs that would inform potential pathways or academy structures. Obviously, scoping a potential implementation plan, which is part of the vetting process. Being clear on a budget. There are readiness indicators at the end of every phase. So we need additional time to address the phase two readiness indicators, and so the summer and into the fall can be helpful with that. And then, of course, bringing maybe a more comprehensive report to the board whenever folks feel is the right time this fall so that the system can perhaps make a specific decision around a direction. And then I think obviously there's that important work of answering the question if an academy model structure fits in with the next iteration of the school district's strategic plan. So just a reminder, this is kind of the five-phase map, and we're in phase two. And it shouldn't say February 11 on the bottom of the screen. Is there another slide or no? Okay. And then we just want to show a quick video that we're including in a more expanded FAQ and also on the district webpage so that we can continue having people have tools to deepen their learning. Hopkins High School is exploring a career academies model. Career academies help embed career connections within high school courses, which in turn help students understand their strengths, build their skills, and graduate with clearer purpose and direction, whether they are going to a four-year college, two-year technical or community school, or straight to the workforce or military. We aren't adding a million things or taking anything away. The cool part is it takes our comprehensive high school of 250 plus courses, including required classes, elective classes, and just puts some structure and alignment to those, and it still allows a flexibility for all those things to still be part of every kid's schedule and to pick and choose what they want. So for example, if I really like the language arts curriculum, not only do I take the required classes in that, but I also can take more electives in that area. Same with music. If I love that area of the building, those classes are still going to be there. So Shakopee is one example of an academies program in the state of Minnesota. The nice thing is that we get to customize the academies model in Hopkins for a model that would suit our community, our students. My experiences my senior year of high school with Propel and DECA were really influential and really amazing. If those opportunities could have started earlier, I think that would have only been beneficial. A lot of the stuff gave me the opportunity to be a little bit ahead of people in my classes at UW Madison. This is an opportunity for all of our students across the entire system to be college, career, and life ready. So I'll take questions if there are any. Thank you for listening. Thank you. I appreciate that, especially since I know there's been a lot of community interest in this and the response to community feedback that we've gotten. I appreciate that being communicated and having an update. So, any comments or questions? Chair Andresen? Yes. Well, thanks for giving us an update on kind of where we're at here. I think my main question is in the Phase Two contract that we approved February 10th or 11th or something, it said through April 30th. And so now that we are extending, are we amending the contract? Do we have to pay them more? What are we going to be doing from May 1st through the rest of Phase Two? That's a good question. So our current thinking is that it's up to us. We believe that we can extend our learning and exploration of this academy model perhaps without an additional contract or amending the contract. I think that we have benefited from partnering with our facilitators from Ford NGL, and they have helped us build our foundational knowledge for what would be needed if we continued to move forward. But I think there's a lot of additional learning that we can do on our own and we probably need to do on their own. Now, what I think needs to happen is, so we're going to go through this week, and then we're going to go through our readiness indicators and debriefings, and then we'll meet to say, "Okay, well, what would the work for this summer include?" And the second to the last slide had a few of those things that I think need to be done. But there's a big question mark around whether or not we would need an extended contract for that, because we think that it's internal work that needs to be done. Am I answering that question- Yeah, I think so ... to your liking? So as you would see it, the Phase Two contract would wrap on April 30th per the contract, and then the work that we would be doing in, almost call it phase two in quotes, because we're not in phase two anymore, it would be kind of on our own exploring, continuing this envision phase of- Mm-hmm ... learning about thinking about career academies, but just not necessarily paying Ford to help us anymore in sort of that interim period. Correct. That's what I'm hearing you say. Correct. And if that changes, then we can bring that information and the why to you. But in our preliminary conversations about what that would look like, what you stated is aligned with what we think needs to happen. Okay. And so just to be clear, no Phase Three contract has been presented, has been entered into the contract. Correct. So if Hopkins Public Schools decided to transition to Phase Three with an actual contract and partnership with the facilitator, Ford NGL, then you would make that decision after the summer's over, sometime in the fall, and that would, I guess, depend on what the superintendent and principal and staff feel like would be the right timing for a board conversation, followed by that vote and transition to Phase Three. Okay. Chair Andresen? Yes. Oh, were you done, Director Thompson? Do you have a follow-up question? No, I'm good. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Yeah. One comment and maybe an anecdote is I've been a hiring manager for 15, 20 years in cybersecurity, and I think the readiness aspect is so important. I think even college graduates coming out, they are in a lot of ways very unprepared for the realities of what work is right now, especially with AI. It's just a very different world than traditional schooling and even colleges. A lot of these folks are unprepared. And so I think, as I understand it, Ford NGL leans very heavily on the industrial partnership and partnership with thought leaders in the area. And I think that is a very unique aspect, I think, and actually puts us aheadSome college programs as well, because I talked to some candidates that apply for jobs, and they don't know the difference between Nmap and Wireshark, and it's like, "What are we even doing here?" Yeah. So, that's a very interesting, and I think, innovative connection point. And I think, if it's Ford NGL or not Ford NGL, I think that strengthening that relationship with thought leaders would be very apt for us to do. And then my quick anecdote as well. I think back to when I was a high school student, and I just didn't know anything. I thought I'd probably be a finance guy working at a bank or like an investment bank or something like that, and I'm in cybersecurity. It's still a knowledge thing. But just understanding that and having an opportunity to actually see, "Okay, this is what finance looks like. Okay, you're in a spreadsheet looking at a formula." Like, okay. And then, "Oh, here's a IT or information security thing." And like, "Oh, that's a lot more interesting." And I just wonder, would I have saved myself some heartache in college? And I think I've become pretty successful anyways, but I just wonder what would have happened if I could've fast-tracked a few years, and where would I be now? And it's an interesting question, and I think I really want our students to be able to be like, "Yes, I experienced what it's like to be a finance dude, and it was not for me. And security is..." Or whatever, nursing, or being a doctor, or a teacher. It doesn't really matter. Mm-hmm. What does that look like, and how cool would it be to jumpstart our kids' understanding about what it's actually to be like? Mm-hmm. So I appreciate that about Ford NGL and the work of the district, even if there's some questions and challenges still. That's okay. Agreed. Thank you. Chair Andresen. Yes, Director Hyman. I just have a clarifying question, and then I want to follow up on what Director Zao mentioned. So just to clarify what Director Thompson was asking, the contract with Ford NGL expires April 30th. Is that right? So is our relationship with them then, we're no longer in a contractual relationship with Ford NGL as of April 30th? Correct. Okay. So we're not really extending or continuing exploration of Ford NGL. We're just continuing and exploring what pathways or career opportunities or CTE programming, what that could potentially look like for Hopkins Public Schools? I see. I understand. I understand the question better now. Correct. It's specific to Ford NGL. Yeah. Correct. I think the concern is, and I'm just going to say it, and I want to start by saying that I do value the... I understand and truly appreciate the value proposition behind career readiness and pathways. I actually think it's something that I would have loved to do in high school, even though I went to college, and then college again, and then didn't start working until much later. And I think helping students, especially those who don't necessarily have access to real-world learning opportunities and to explore careers, is incredibly important in the work we continue to do. But openness to the idea is not the same as readiness for this. Correct. So I just want to be very clear that, and I'm not trying to come off... I just want to be very clear that whatever we decide to do, this will be a community decision and a board decision. And it will be brought up to the board and by the next superintendent and whomever when there is buy-in and readiness indicators that this is something that we want to be doing. Correct. Okay. And if I may add one thing. Just like strong literacy instruction is not just good for struggling readers, it's good for all students. Career-embedded learning is good for all students, even those who may have a four-year liberal arts college plan. Career-embedded, career-aligned, real-world learning is great for all students. Yeah, and I'll just add, I've done a lot of research on what other districts and other schools do other than Ford NGL, and I've been very impressed and inspired by other programs. Our high schools right around here, where a lot of our neighbors go, have great programs as well, and I do believe our community is interested in that. I do believe that our community wants to see progress and wants the school district to be on that edge of innovation. I don't think they want to do it right now. And so I think that, to me, was the question about is extending just this like, "We're going to kick the can down the road and hope people forget that Ford NGL was ever a thing, and then try again." Or if it's like, really, we're not doing Ford NGL, and whatever decision comes next will be up to the superintendent and the board. Mm-hmm. I agree, and I think what we didn't communicate clearly is that with our... Let's say that we had decided to continue bringing a comprehensive report to the board this spring to make a decision to transition to phase three, we still wouldn't have implemented a true freshman academy experience until the '27, '28 school year. So we were never really doing anything right now. It's been a long learning ramp that would have continued, but I think we did not make it clear to our community that there will be a long, healthy road of learning to raise everyone's awareness and desire and knowledge before making a decision to implement. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Chair Andreassen? Yes. Yeah. I echo the thanks for bringing us an update and for sharing, and then engaging also with the questions that my colleagues have named. I think from my seat, and as we continue this exploration and conversation, I think, the couple pieces that just for me continue to come up, and hearing from more than, I think I have over 50 emails from folks in the community who, because they care, and they're invested in what happens at our high school and with our students. I think that the big couple pieces for me to continue to steward well, the one is around, what does the change management look like in a collaborative, community-centric way? Because a lot of the anxiety that I know you've heard, that we've heard from folks is around, is this already inevitable? Is this a for sure... And I appreciated you naming, "Hey, we have to actually model it out to act as if, as we're trying to discern if this is an option." But I think then that question around, so what are the levers around who's the community who decides if we're moving forward? How do we discern that? Mm-hmm. What are the potential off-ramps or on-ramps to deepen this work? And so I think that's, as a community and board member, of just how do we continue to steward that and think collectively around where are our educators at, where are our parents and community members at, as we look at this and continue to consider it. I think the questions around the costs, and I appreciate you bringing those before us in a clear way as well, to be able to name that, and just wanting to make sure that we're being really clairvoyant and honest about that. Because it is, as even was named back last fall, this isn't a small decision. It is a big deal, and I think I want our community to, if we come to a yes, it's a deep yes for the majority of us. And then as a board member, whatever I personally, my own things or questions as a deep liberal arts kid who has my own anxieties about stuff, I don't really care about that as long as, as a community, there's a deep sense that we've done this discernment work in a way that can bring as many of us to a yes, or a yes to something else. And so I appreciate that, and I think it's just important that you brought it here and for us to continue open conversation with our community. Mm-hmm. Chair Andreassen? Yes, Vice Chair Roper. I would just say, thank you so much, Dr. Mary Perry Reed, for bringing this up. One of the more common voices that I have been seeing or hearing from is elementary parents. Mm-hmm. And so wondering how are we bringing and providing them with information, because some of the anxieties that I'm hearing is that it's just going to be a permanent thing- Mm-hmm ... when my kid gets in high school, and that's been a question that I've been really stuck at a crossroad with answering. So just wondering, how are we communicating Ford NGL to elementary parents where they feel confident about this road ahead of them? Mm-hmm. Because I'm hearing from second grade parents, and they're like, "Oh, okay. You have about six or seven years before you're in high school with... Your kids are in high school." And so, that's really the voice that was like, hmm, to me. I know it's a high school thing, Ford NGL, but also want to understand how are we drawing in the elementary parents. And I just want to quick, make sure that we, as a board, are talking about the same things. Mm-hmm. So as Director Hyman clarified, the contract with Ford NGL ends on April 30th. Mm-hmm. And what we're discussing in the district in a much bigger sense is the concept of an academy model, which Ford NGL was our partner in that work. And so I know that the two things have become very conflated in the community, and there's a lot of consternation around Ford NGL. So I want us, as a board, to be really mindful about what we're talking about when, and just so that we aren't bringing baggage from a And I'll just say it, mismanaged contract. Not the contract itself, but how it was presented to the board. That isn't coloring the possibility of an academy model at the high school. So just wanted to level set that and sorry, Dr. Meredith Reid- That's okay ... for interrupting you. No. Thank you, Chair Andresen. That's a great distinction. So we have Ford NGL as a partner to help us learn, and when we're not in contract with them, there's still a lot of learning that we need to do amongst ourselves to deepen our awareness and knowledge around the concept of an academy model structure and what career-embedded learning, career pathways look like and offer at our high school. And then, Vice Chair Roper, you ask an excellent question, and one thing that school districts are, if they haven't already, picking up very quickly is just like parents are researching where to send their child for kindergarten and elementary school, maybe even before the child is born. We also have elementary parents who want a clear vision for what middle school and high school offers within the district where they've selected their elementary school. And so one thing that I think an aha moment for me was when I was at a Meadowbrook PTO. I think it was at Meadowbrook. I've been to a few of the elementary PTOs. And it was clear that parents didn't really know what the high school experience or high school course offerings would be like for their child. And so when I explained that, for example, at our high school right now, we have 55 career and technical education courses. We offer culinary and ceramics and business classes in engineering and construction, right? The eyes got sort of wider and wider and wider, right? And so, one of our responsibilities as a system is to help our parents, who maybe their oldest child is still in elementary school, understand and have a specific vision for what the middle school experience is and offers and what the high school experience is and offers. And I think if we can provide a good description or maybe some video showcasing experiences or multiple ways of sort of telling the high school story, the middle school story, that'll provide a context or a framework within which parents could entertain an academy model concept or structure a little bit more easily. Because right now many of our elementary parents don't even have a schematic for what that is. Mm-hmm. When you- Chair Jason? Yes. When you say an academies model, I want to be specific, this just for the community, to be very clear. Ford NGL, the way they proposed it's set up is that there's a freshman academy, or a freshman, what do they call it? A freshman academy? Freshman academy. Yeah, a freshman academy, and then you join a career academy. Correct. And that is mandatory. Ford NGL's proposal and plan requires every student to opt in to an academies model. To select one of the available academy structures. Mm-hmm. Right. And so when we're talking about an academies model, is that something that... Because I think that's where the hang-up is for a lot of people, too, is when we talk about an academies model, are we going to ask freshmen to make a decision at the end of their freshman year to pick a pathway? Or are we going to add some coherence and structure around the 55 amazing classes we already have to work with what we have and build some structure and building upon and coherence within our current setup, I'll say. And is that what this summer is for? To talk about, or? Those discoveries have to be part of the process. So if we move in the direction of this particular concept, the career academy structure that Ford NGL has been implementing in high schools, then it's both of those things. It's looking at the courses you already have and using those to create the foundation or identify what exists and would work well within an academy model system, and what would need to be added or adjusted. And students would select into one of thoseacademies during registration for 10th grade, if we went in that direction. Okay. Chair Andresen? Yeah. Could I just respond a little bit about that? I think, one, what I keep hearing when I go to any presentation on this, and I even heard it tonight, is that we get to design this. So we don't have to make that a requirement unless it works for our students. And my understanding when I was at Shakopee and I spoke to students who are in this, is that even if you do choose an academy, you are not locked into that academy. I was talking to one of the students there, and she is on her second academy, and she takes classes in other academies. It is a very fluid situation. I know that, and I don't know, I'm Gen X, so maybe nobody else is having this experience, but whenever I hear that idea of kids having to choose their chosen career path, like the Russian boogeyman looms and like, "Oh, you don't have any freedom of choice, and you decided you're going to be a ballerina at the age of four and that's all you ever get to be." That's not how the academy model is set up. And I want to remind everybody that we currently have that in our high school. You can't take multi-variable calculus if you haven't taken algebra. This already exists in education. We have tracks, we have pathways. This is just making it codified and accessible to more students and linking them to industry people who are helping them along and giving much more, I think, interesting and engaging classes. So I think we need to just be really clear and it's the same thing in language. You can't take Spanish 4 without taking Spanish 1, 2, and 3. So I just want to be clear about what we're actually talking about and where that kind of fear is coming from. This already exists in education. Sorry. And in the spirit of being clear about what we're talking about, so there's Ford NDL, which is this kind of very specific CTE academy model, and then there's academy models, and then possibly even over that is CTE in general. And so are we investigating this summer and into the fall academy models, or are we investigating CTE and career-aligned courses? And if we might "just," I say that in quotes, like that's easy or whatever, but just expanding because we have CTE at our high school. Well, both, because if we move in the direction of a career academy model, the smartest way to build it is by identifying which CTE courses we already offer and whether they currently are sequenced in a vertically stacked way. Right? And so just by doing that work alone, that could prepare us for a, "Okay, for a few years, let's just strengthen our career pathways." Right? And if we were to move in the direction of a more pure career academy structure, then that work helps us build that structure. It helps us identify what components of a potential structure we already have and what we would need to build or adjust. Okay, that makes sense. I'm hearing you saying we're not investigating which career academy program we're going to work on. We're expanding the ways in which we can deepen CTE in our schools, and some of that work for, again, just deepening or expanding or clarifying our CTEs could lend itself to the work of adding an academy model, if that is what the community decides. Not to get too tedious, but when you said which academy, do you mean what the themes would be? No. Sometimes I've heard you say we're exploring CTE this summer, and sometimes I've heard you say we're exploring an academy model. I see. So to do this particular work, we're doing both because the academy model is a career academy model. Yes. Mm-hmm. Chair Andresen? Yes. Can this be the last because we're already an hour into the meeting? And this might be a good one to wrap up is, and I saw communications, I think, from the district, sent out Dr. Thomas' interview from last night, and I draw the community to that. And in his presentation at the beginning, his three priorities for coming on, number one, listening, learning, and building community. Number two, grounding in data and reality. So, I just think this dovetails nicely that there will be listening occurring as Dr. Thomas comes on. And so, we're exploring this over the summer. There's listening as he's coming on. Hopefully we get the community understanding, what do we want to do? Yes. Based on our hopes and desires, and goals for student outcomes, based on our Hopkins achievement, and post-high school data, and also based on some regional and national data. Yes. Great. Thank you all so much. I think it was a great discussion, and unfortunately, we have more topics in our meeting, so we will move on. I appreciate the update. I also appreciate the clarification around the contract. And so with that... Oh, and I do have to say that there is, before we approve tonight's agenda, that an item will be removed from the agenda. It is our first order of new business, the language access plan. Unfortunately, in our packet, we did not have a copy of the plan attached, so board members were unable to review it, and therefore not able to approve something we haven't been able to review. So I guess I would look for a motion that we move the item A in new business, language access plan, to old business at the next meeting agenda. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Chair Anderson? Yes. So for old business, we would still get to have discussion time and- Oh, yes ... be able to ask questions? Yep. Okay. It would be just like a new business item, just in old business. As old business. Okay, thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and language access plan has been removed from tonight's agenda and will be placed on the agenda as the first item in old business. Thank you all for that, and I again apologize for that oversight in the board packet. So with that, I would look for a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and tonight's agenda is approved. And we are considering now the consent calendar. These items provide the board with information considered to be more routine in nature. If the board deems an item to be necessary for additional discussion, a motion will be made to move the item to new business. I would look for a motion that the board approves the consent calendar. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Chair Anderson. Yes. Director Hyman. Just one question about the bus depot parking lot improvements contract. I strike that. I do not have a question about the bus depot parking lot improvement contracts. Okay. No discussion from me. Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the consent calendar is approved. And that takes us to the treasurer's report. Treasurer Hartland. Thank you. I will try to be somewhat succinct here. I mentioned to you during our last meeting that fewer than normal invoices were submitted and approved for that period due to ongoing accounts payable training, and that training was to ensure that heads of departments and all invoice submitters across the district were following the exact same new procedure of submitting invoices to a central inbox so that the larger business office department has access to it, and that both increases transparency and ensures continuity if a single contact in our business office got ill or was on vacation. That training is now done, and per our conversation yesterday of mine with the business services offices, that went well, and people across the district seem to be up to speed. And therefore, during this period, you'll see a greater than normal number of invoices processed as the departments caught up. I did submit a request to correct this. The actual message on the agenda says the dollar amount of $966,000, and that is the old number that got carried over. So I have submitted a request to get that updated. As we'll discuss, the real number is $3,376,111.74. You will see throughout this report there are a lot of invoice descriptions that state uniform reimbursement spring. That's a contracted benefit available to our nutrition staff. So they get reimbursed for a new uniform in the fall and the spring, and you can see that those expenses come out of fund two, the food services fundWe paid $24,003.75 to the Hopkins Pavilion, which is that facility on Excelsior for ice time for our hockey teams. To Kelly Services, the source of most of our substitute teachers, we paid $43,026.16. We paid $104,973.03 to Intermediate District 287 for our share of expenses incurred for the services provided to Hopkins students that receive their education there. We paid $184,822.83 for our district-wide subscription to M365, to Microsoft. We paid $1,795.93 for the Ford NGL Community Convening, and that was to the nonprofit Children First. And so that was paid for out of Fund 19, which is our local grants fund. We paid $22,350 to World Savvy, which is a local Minnesota nonprofit that goes into schools on an ongoing basis throughout the school year to work with educators, and provide professional development for them to add global competency and updated relevancy to curriculum, and this kind of global perspective, and creating global citizens is their hallmark. And that expense actually comes from the previous '24-'25 school year, so that is coded correctly to be a '24-'25 expense. We paid $135,293.78 to Connect Energy Group for natural gas for the month of January alone. And we pay a lot more for the high school, $101,000 of that goes to the high school compared to $7,600 for the next most expensive site. And I did check December and February's bills, and all of them are in that neighborhood for the price, both in total and in the proportion of the expenditure that's generated from the high school. And then actually, the majority of the expenditures on this check register were to just two vendors. One is to Metropolitan Transportation Network for the months of January and February. We paid them $901,316.11. That is just one of our bus vendors. And per Assistant Director Nasha Williams, we do still utilize MTN for many of our special ed vehicles and our Type 3 vehicles, and I don't know what Type 3 vehicles are. They're small. "They're small," says Dr. Harlar. So that's in addition to Lake Country, who is our standard provider. And then we paid $1,020,978 to Site Logic for project management fees associated with eight different referendum projects scattered across the districts, from safety and security, to athletics, to the bus garage, to Gatewood, North Middle School, and more. And with that, I move that we approve total disbursements in the amount of $3,376,111.74 for the period of March 1st to March 15th, 2026. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the treasurer's report is accepted. Thank you, Treasurer Hartland, as always, an excellent and comprehensive report. Thank you. That takes us to our next item of business, which is the permanent fund transfer. I would invite Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot and Jessica Olsen up to the table and turn it over to Dr. Miri Pirie-Reed. Thank you, Chair Andreassen. So the purpose of this agenda item is to request the school board's approval of an $11.8 million fund transfer from the LTFM fund to the construction fund to support already approved facility projects. And this transfer will have no net impact on our fund balance, and then we will ensure that expenses are accounted for correctly and in compliance with state requirements, which is a very important thing to note. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Olsen and Dr. Lightfoot for additional explanation. Thank you. So this is part of the FY25 audit work that's being done. So in FY25, all of the construction work for the LTFM 10-year plan is being able to be funded through LTFM dollars. So in order to do that, we want to move the LTFM dollars from Fund 5 to Fund 6, which is all covered under state statute that we're allowed to do with those funds. We just need board approval to do a permanent fund transfer from Fund 5 to Fund 6, and that's done through a resolution. Chair Andreassen? Yes. What is the either benefit or possibly that's not even the right word, but kind of the why behind doing this? What's the relationship between LTFM versus the construction, and why is it better to have? So the construction fund is for any project that's over $2 million, so that's still considered LTFM work that's being done within it, so you're able to use those funds. The school district did not bond for LTFM bonds in FY25, and all of the LTFM dollars can cover those construction costs, so we just want to move those funds. I just have a quick follow-up question to that. Was that something that the board should have done? This bond for it in '25? Originally, the bond was supposed to be scheduled for '25, which was done this past board meeting, was approved for the LTFM portion of it. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions or comments? No? Well, I will go ahead and read the resolution. Okay. I would look for a motion to approve the resolution transfer of long-term facilities maintenance funds to construction fund. Whereas Independent School District Number 270 maintains long-term facilities maintenance revenue in accordance with Minnesota Statute 123B.595 to support approved facility maintenance, health and safety, and capital improvement projects. And whereas the district has identified eligible facility projects that meet the criteria for LTFM funding and are appropriately accounted for within the construction fund. And whereas the transfer of LTFM funds to the construction fund supports proper financial tracking, project accounting, and alignment with uniform financial accounting and reporting standards. And whereas the district is required to ensure that all fund transfers comply with applicable Minnesota statutes and maintain proper segregation and use of restricted funds. Now therefore, be it resolved that the School Board of Independent School District Number 270, Hopkins Public Schools, approves the transfer of $11,823,700 from the long-term facilities maintenance account within the general fund to the construction fund for the purpose of funding eligible facility projects. So I would then call for the roll. So Shannon Andres- I need a motion. Oh, we need a motion. Sorry. Yeah. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, call the roll. Great. Thank you. I would like to call roll. I'll start. Shannon Andresen? Aye. Rachel Hartland? Aye. Johanna Heimann? Aye. Brooke Roper? Aye. Kai Thompson? Aye. Sarah Wilhelm-Garbers? Aye. Xue-Ming Zhao? Aye. The above and foregoing resolution had all in voting in favor, Chair Andresen. Thank you, Clerk. The resolution is accepted. Thank you so much for being up here with us for that, and I believe you get to stay with us, as we move to our next agenda item, which is the fiscal year '26 revised budget update. I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry Reid. Okay. Thank you, Chair Andresen. So this next item is to provide information to our school board about our revised FY26 budget. Through our audit prep work, we are bringing in more revenue than expected from state, federal, and local sources, and also have slightly higher expenses, however, resulting in a positive difference. So, hopefully through this update you will have a clearer picture of where we are financially, and I would welcome Ms. Olsen and Dr. Lightfoot to provide more detail. All right. So I'll start out with the mid-year consideration. So we had talked about this in the work session. Just wanted to go through it again with you on what it all entails in the revised budget. So the first thing is we look at enrollment updates, making sure the projections are similar or higher, lower, depending on what those may be for the year. State and federal funding, staffing, so any contract settlements, staff placements, or employee benefit changes. Detailed look at the account activity, so what has happened this year and what do we believe is going to happen, and then the prior year results. Next one is just for the enrollment, so this is the trends that we have been looking at for year over year and what's being projected. From FY25 to FY26, there is a slight decline in enrollment and then it flattens out going forward. So the next one we'll look at is the general fund. So this is the main fund for the district. The original adopted budget was the same for revenue and expenditures as at $130,575,130. For the revised, our revenue is coming in at $145,431,470, so that's a change of $856,340. And then for expenditures, they're coming in at $144,035,983, with a difference of $13,468,530. Overall, the district from the general fund is seeing a surplus of $1.3 million.So going through the revenue adjustments, so where did that 14 million come from? So for the state aid for the general education came in higher at 4.9 million. Other state revenue, so this also includes special education funding at a 4.5 million. Federal funds, title special education, 1.5. Athletics, gifts, donations, Roy Athletic Center, 926,000. The main driver there is just a reallocation of the revenue budget, so it was understated. Third-party medical billing assistance, 975,000. Interest revenue, 850,000. And then rental income, one million makes up the total of the 14 million. Next, we'll look at the expenditure side. So from the expenditure side, between staffing, supplies, utilities, and transportation, it was an increase of 3.4 million. State categorial funded programs is 4.9 million. Federal programs had a decrease of 191,000, and then local levy funded programs, 5.2 for a total of 13.4 million. Next, we'll look at food nutrition services. So there was an increase in their revenue from the original of 839,000. That's mainly driven by state and federal meal reimbursements. And then the expenditures increased by 426,000, and that was due to staffing increases and food increase costs. Next we have is the community service fund. So there was an increase in revenue of 503,000. This is mainly due to non-public aid, that was not included on the original budget, we included it on the revised budget. And then from the expenditures, it increased by 867,000. That is also the corresponding expenses that went along with it and some staffing costs that were increased. For the construction fund, there's no change in revenue. Expenditures did decrease by 5.2 million. That is LTFM dollars that we're going to use to fund the construction project. So similar to what we did with the resolution before this, it'd be the same thing that we're looking to do for this year. Next is debt service, so the increase in revenue that has to be related to our interest earnings. And then expenditures is just correcting where the expenditures are coming in for the bond payments. And then the last section is the trust and internal service funds. So originally there was no budget here, and we did add a revised budget. The revenues come in from the health insurance premiums, so what the district collects from employees and also what the district puts in for their health insurance premiums. It also includes interest for OPEB and the severance account, and then the district set aside for severance. From the expenditure side, it's looking at the claims history and projecting out where we believe that's going to be coming in for the end of the year, the severance that is projected to be paid out, and then also any investment fees for the OPEB account. So that is the revised budget overview. And if you guys have questions, I'm happy to answer any of them that you may have. Thank you so much. Appreciate this. Any questions or comments from board members? Chair Andresen? Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation and the revised budget numbers. One question I had is related to Appendix B enrollment projections. Just wondering, as we look forward, how do we make those projections? Do you want to take that one? Sure. You mean just the general, what's the strategy that we look toward those enrollment projections? Like, yeah, what are we looking at that's helping us to make- Sure ... those projections? So, we utilize multiple strategies. Generally, I think the easiest way is to look at what we do with the modeling that we've developed over time, which is cohort advancement. We look at, as a grade level moves, what are the general over a four or five-year period of time increase or decrease that would happen as that grade level moves. And then we look at applying that to the number that is presently there and doing so in a formulaic way. And then we also look at birth rates because the formula is incredibly and almost eerily accurate in the sense that we really do get to 98, 99, 99.95% in most of the cases when we use and have used those cohort advancement models over time. Part of the deeper set of challenges is when you have birth rates that ebb and flow within the county because that generally helps us get a picture of what we may be looking at when we consider kindergarten. Because that entry point can vary greatly depending on where we sit with birth rates. And that's an entry point that once we have that number, we can then move it forward with a better level of certainty and predictability overall. But we generally look toward that number and utilize a conservative approach so we aren't overestimating and then having to manage that number future years when the funding catches up, where we may have been overfunded, but the enrollment hasn't caught yet. So we try to be mindful of that in the overall projections. So those are the two biggest sets of indicators that we look toward when we model for that overall number. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Chair Andresen? Yes. Yes. Hi. So I have a comment and a question. So first of all, thank you Jessica and Dr. Lightfoot. This is great news. Very, very happy and about this, especially in light of surrounding districts. I worry a lot about how our fund balance is and the flow. I'm going to add you to my holiday card list, Jessica, so congratulations. It's probably the first of a school finance leader. So it brings me to my second question, though. So having a swing positive is great, but as our controls get better, should we expect next year that we get closer to projections? I want to spend at a level that is optimal, right? And so if we had money on the table that we could've spent on our students, maybe we could've done that. So, I'm a worrier, I guess I worry about that aspect, too. Yeah. So the goal is to have your budget as close to what you believe it's going to be for your adopted budget in June. The one thing is you don't know what you know this time of year back in June. So there's always fluctuations. Do we like to see as big of swings as this? No, we typically like to see them smaller because you're predicting more clearly from the beginning of the year. But you do know more at this time, so you do sometimes see the bigger swings. Thank you. And I think our hope is to, through better and more frequent communication with the board through the report structure that we've been working to build with CISO, and generating part of our forward-facing goal is to keep the board updated as frequently as we can about how close we are to those actual predictions. When we look at budget to actual, how can we get that information on more of a monthly basis and kind of a cadence, so that when it comes forward to you, you know where we are. And at different points in time, there may be different aspects of expenditures that might happen traditionally later in the year that of course, we have to plan for. And we know we have a big salary payment in June that always gets factored in. But we should be able, through the reports that we're doing, be able to give you those kinds of sets of details with more frequency, so that we can there again, be partners in that monitoring as you see that, and we're more tied to the detail of the expenditure and when they're happening, and under which accounts they're happening, so that we can be more clear also. And even building in a monthly meeting for school leaders and district leaders to review budget to actual so that we have multiple eyes on school-based spending as well. Chair Andresen. Yes. Treasurer Hartland, and then Director Thompson. Sure. We saw across your report that staffing contributed to increases in expenses, and that doesn't mean just literal FTEs, correct? That also means new FMLA laws and new unemployment insurance laws and all of this legislature that we get some reimbursement for and continues to be uncertain for us how we'll bear that expense. Yes. And even just looking as the state does its work on the implementation of paid family medical leave, looking at where the anticipated budget components were coming in in January at its implementation, where it sits right now as they're thinking about rate increases for next year, and they're looking at the overall utilization rates throughout the state. I think the piece that is critical for us is that not only does that come with increased premium and payment, but for us in the critical work that we do as we think about individuals who are with our students, it also does increase our substitute costs when we think about having to be more planful for increased expenditures and being mindful of how then that impacts the overall budget. Another example of something that we didn't know in December, but now we see some of those changes here when we're with you in April. Chair Andresen. Yes. Thanks. Just two quick questions. On slide four, so where it says fund balance adopted zero and then revised is 1.39 million. So that meant that when we had originally adopted, we weren't going to contribute anything into fund balance, but now we're able to contribute 1.39, right? Correct. Okay, thanks. And then on slide five, I know you've explained it a number of times, but just one more time as far as those first two lines, how those were able to go up as much as they did. So it was based on the state aid funding. So it's taking a calculation of the enrollment and then what we're getting for state aid, along with special education funding. So special education funding over the last few years have drastically increased more than what a lot of districts originally planned for. So a lot of districts are seeing a larger special ed coming in. So it was about 3 million alone in special ed. And that would've contributed to the other state revenue line, line two? So based on the enrollment trend- Yeah ... that's where that's coming in from. Okay. So the original budget, the enrollment was less than what the actuals is coming in at from the projection. Any other questions or comments? I would like to echo Director Rausch's sentiments of this is good news, and I'm incredibly grateful for the thoroughness in looking over past years, rectifying things that needed to be adapted and accounted for. In particular, I appreciate the attention to the trust and internal services funds. I think that that's an important thing. So thank you very much, and always appreciate these clear presentations that you present for us. So thank you, and also to you- Thank you ... Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot. And with that, I would look for a motion to approve the fiscal year '26 revised budget. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and the fiscal year '26 revised budget is approved. Thank you for being with us this evening. Thank you. Thank you for the good work. Thank you. And I feel really good about what time it is. It is 8:40 PM. Well done, all. Let us go around the table and give your report, introduce yourself. I feel like it's been a while since we've had a little space to do that. So if you're so moved, please do so. Director Thompson, would you like to start us off? Sure. Thank you. Hello. Kai Thompson. I'm in my third year on the board. I have three kids in the district between fifth and tenth grade. I got to say, having been here till 11:00 last night, my brain is not quite working well enough for a board report. But very appreciative of the deliberative process that we went through to select the next superintendent. And just the word I used last night, I felt like was excitement. And I'll just echo that again today is how I've felt all day. So appreciate it. Thank you. Clerk Garbers. Wilhelm Garbers. I'm Sarah Wilhelm Garbers, she/they, and first year on the board, and I have a four-year-old human. And just that I will echo what you did on lots of levels, and then I just want to add two things I want to name, which is we're meeting tonight sandwiched in between. On the positive side, tomorrow is Earth Day, which is just a lovely moment to remember. Shout out to Vice Chair Roper for your ongoing advocacy for environmental justice and stewardship. But also yesterday is the anniversary of Columbine, and the shooting that occurred that has just, I think, the ongoing gun violence in our country and in our schools and how it marks us, and just that ongoing reminder of the commitment that we want to deepen and continue for safety and wellbeing of all of our students. And I'm grateful for the advocacy of those who continue to say that this should not happen again. And I hope that that will someday soon be the case. Thank you. My name is Johanna Hyman. This is my first year on the board. I have two children at Meadowbrook Elementary, a kindergartner, and a third grader, who are both counting down the days until school is over. We hear every day, "30 more days, 29 more days." My third grader also shared with me that his teacher is also counting down the days with them, and I am not surprised. I think we're all ready for a little summer breather. Reflecting back on last night, I'm just so proud collectively of the work we did together and getting to a unanimous decision, and feel really positive about the future and where we're going, and am very excited about what's to come. And other than that, I don't have much else to add tonight. Thank you. Hello. This is Jiming Zhao. I'm on my third year on the board, and I've got two kids in the district in the XinXin Immersion program over here in Eisenhower, fifth grade and second grade. And I think two things I wanted to talk briefly about is our American Indian Education or Hopkins Native group had participated in a powwow on April 12th that I had a chance to attend with my family, and it was lovely. I think the community and the heritage and the callbacks to various monumental events in their experience was just really moving to see, and I was so very glad to hear about our grant. I hope we can sustain that. But I was very excited to hear about that. We have a great group of American Indian education folks here, and the community is just awesome. So, that's great. And then the other thing isI attended the Eisenhower PTO actually on the day of our first-round interview. It was a long day. But one of the things I wanted to talk about and kind of just say that, yes, I'm very excited for our new superintendent, but that I have a lot of gratitude to you, Dr. Mary Peirick. You made space to have conversations, I think with a lot of the PTOs about what the district is doing well and what we can improve on. And I think Eisenhower PTO is very vocal about it. But in reflecting on it, it was just struck me that you didn't have to do this. You're a superintendent that you're not renewing your contract. You don't have to try to figure out what's making people tick, and you don't have to give the next superintendent such a leg up even. And so, I'm just very grateful to the engagement that you still have in putting the next superintendent on a good foot. And I think you got us through some very difficult times with COVID and all the challenges, and I think you made some investments that were starting to pay off. And so I really appreciate that. I do sometimes think about a quote, paraphrased as that, "Society becomes great when the elders plant trees in which the shade they will never sit in." Mm. And I think about that in the context of your leadership, and I really appreciate that. And I see that, and I love it. And just thank you so much for all you've done. Thank you so much. Yeah. Can I say minus the elder part? Yeah. The original quote is- You are an elder. Okay. The original quote is old men, so I wasn't like, "Eh." So I thought elder was a little- It's already been. Yeah. So if you want to fact-check the quote, it's old men. Thank you. Yeah. But I appreciate you. Thank you. My name is Brooke Roper. I am serving my third year in the board. I have two incredible children in the district who I found watches our meetings every Tuesday, and they watched it last night. So thank you, kids. I love you. I told you I would tell you that if you're watching. And Corey, my husband, thank you. Hi. I would just like to say just two quick, well, a few just quick things. One, I was able to-- Oh my gosh, I lost my train of thought. Okay. Sorry. I am going to be hosting a panel this Thursday on Zoom, just with a few other school board members from St. Paul, Erica Valiant, the vice chair, and with Helen Bassett. We're going to be in. Vanessa Gill, she's not a school board member, but she does family engagement in Osseo. And we're going to be talking about the importance and the power of Black caregiver engagement as we're trying to increase diverse voices in our public school system. And so that will be held on Zoom. I want to put more information on my page soon about it. And I do want to say thank you so much to all of the candidates last night who came through and just gave wonderful, incredible, and challenging interviews for us to pick from. It was a very tough decision. But I am very proud that we chose Dr. Thomas. I'm very confident that he will lead our district, as well I was confident that the others could as well. So just kudos to everyone, and including Dr. Nolan and Dr. Lemon for your incredible interviews that you had as well. I will say that tomorrow I am going to be doing the Gatewood Earth Day cleanup. So I'm excited about that. And it is Earth Day. And just to mention that there is currently a hunger strike going on right now in Minneapolis around the HERC. As you know, a lot of our kids travel from Minneapolis over to our school district who live in an area where there are very high asthma disparities. And so I encourage you just to look into the hunger strike and what they're fighting for, because the HERC has been poisoning the North Minneapolis community for a very long time. And we are just trying to make sure that the air is safe for everyone, hence all of my advocacy around electric school buses and just health equity in general. And I do plan to go to the Spring Fest with Resource West. That's coming up next Friday, so I hope that you all got your tickets and that you all will be there to support Resource West and all that they do in the community. I will be attending my son's first basketball game with Gatewood. I think they're playing Meadowbrook, or they're playing another elementary school, but it is a league. Is your kids in there, too? Yes. Oh, are we playing your- Hope they remember. Okay. I think we're going to be playing each other on Friday probably. Let's watch the quorum rules. That's funny. Yeah. It's really- Is it? Oh, yeah. Okay. I forgot to mention it in my board report, but it was- Aw. Yeah. I'll just say I went Friday to my third grader's basketball game. And for people that don't know, they've started this year an elementary athletic program where each elementary school has their own basketball team And each elementary school will play all the other elementary schools and then have an end of the season tournament. And so this is kind of like a pilot they're trying out. Mm-hmm. And so far it seems to be going really well. And we played Alice Smith last Friday. Big win. Meadowbrook had a big win. But Alice Smith, you did a great job. The sportsmanship amongst third to fifth graders was amazing to see. Mm-hmm. And how everyone was respectful and came together and was excited to be in each other's spaces. And kudos to the community ed coaches that are taking their time to do this and putting our kids on a bus after school. They think it's really cool. They get to go on a bus from Meadowbrook to the school they're playing, like big kids go on a bus, and it really was exceptional. And the amount of people that showed up to watch a bunch of little kids play basketball was quite impressive. Mm. So I'll see you there, Brooke. Okay. Well, that makes me even more excited to go, because right after we're driving to Kansas for his AAU. So I'm just- Mm-hmm ... I'm in full sports mom mode. So, I'm excited. Thank you for that. Yes, if you all have not been there or just learn about the program, if you want to get your kids in it, it's really cool. And then, I do want to just say that in spirit of what Clerk WG had shared just about the Columbine shooting, I do want to just hold space for the juvenile that was shot in our community a few days ago. And we don't know if it's a Hopkins student or not, but I still want to just hold space because it is a young person, and just to condemn gun violence that, I mean, we know that the summer break is coming up, and just to make sure that we are doing everything that we can collectively to ensure that we are protecting our young folks and just providing them with positive opportunities to engage in this summer. And so if you do know of anything, just please share resources so we can just get them out to our kids, pass it out at parks. Let's just make sure that we're keeping our kids close because there's a lot of influence out here, and we all know that gun violence unfortunately rises in the summertime. And so, I'm praying for that young man's family. We don't know what the cause was. I don't want to give out any misinformation, but I just want to hold space to say I hope you recover well, young person, and that we're thinking of you in this moment. So thank you. Thank you for that. Vice Chair Roper. I've been thinking a lot about that individual and his family as well, so. Mm-hmm. Oh, sorry, one more thing. And Dr. Mary Prairie, I'm so sorry. Last night the theme that we heard was that Dr. Thomas was going to be a huge loss to Prior Lake, and I want to just say I hold that same sentiment about you. You are going to be a loss to our community, and I appreciate you. One of the things that I shared was that the reason why I came to Hopkins was because you met me for coffee in the community. I don't know if you remember that. I do remember. But we met at Monka Beans. And that just showed your humility as a person. And I appreciate all that you have done. And Director Zau said you have led through very challenging times, but you've also done a lot of great things for our community and our district. And I also want to leave with a quote. My favorite quote from Toni Morrison is that you are not the work that you do, you are the person that you are. And so I believe that you are- Mm ... an amazing person, a southern belle. You're not from the South, I don't think, but you just give vibes of a southern belle. I've always wanted to be. Okay. She's an elder from the South. She's not an elder. Sitting under her shade tree. I know those are the truth. Yes. Well, thank you for all the work that you do. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. I also echo those sentiments. I think one of the things that struck me the first time I met you wasn't at a board meeting, it was at Alice Smith. Our kids were in the same class. And the care with which you have undertaken this role and the individual care you display for each and every student and family in this district is evident and felt, and I thank you so much for that. It takes a great person and a great leader to show up that way in every space and all the time. So thank you. Thank you. And I'll save the tears for later. Hi, my name is Shannon Andreson. I have a senior at the high school and a graduate of Hopkins Public Schools in my life. And I also am going to say hi to Brooke's kids because I will see them tomorrow at Gatewood Elementary, and where I get to work as a paraprofessional with some great kids. And my report is going to be to reiterate the invitation to Resource West Spring Fest. It is the biggest fundraiser for that organization for the year. And one of the things that people may not know anymore, but is true still, that Resource West, origins of that organization came from Hopkins School District and the connection is deep, and the ways in which that organization supports our families areVery widespread. They include scholarships for our early childhood programming, as well as a school supply drive every fall, a warm winter gear drive in the winter, and continued and agile support for families who find themselves struggling in unexpected ways. And we all know that that has increased in our communities lately. So please show up. It's a fun night. You get to be around really cool people who are supporting our neighbors all the time. It is on May 1st, and you can still get tickets. So it's resourcewest.org, all one word, and hope to see you there. And also, "Urinetown" is the musical. Opening night is Friday. There's a show Saturday, Sunday matinee, and then there is a show on May 1st, and then a matinee and evening show on Saturday, May 2nd, at the high school. And that's my report. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. I'm Rhoda Marie Peery-Reid, superintendent, and I have already provided a board report. But I did want to remind board members in the community and my colleagues in the audience that the Minnesota Teacher of the Year banquet is on Sunday, May 3. So that'll be right before our next board meeting. So I just wanted to shout that out. It begins at 1:00 PM at the RiverCenter in St. Paul. And reminder, we're celebrating two finalists. So Amy Fong and Cher Onwu-Friezen are our two of 11 Minnesota Teacher of the Year finalists. So hopefully one of them will win. And if any board members would like to attend, just let Natalia and me know, okay? Thank you. Good evening. I am Rachel Hartland, currently serving as treasurer, and it is my fifth year on the board. And I use she/her pronouns and have three children in our district. I have a sixth, eighth, and tenth grader, and it is kind of crazy to me that soon I will have a seventh, a ninth, and an 11th grader. Two high schoolers seems big. Though I missed the day at the Capitol on April 13th due to the board's semifinalist interviews, I am still a member of the LAC, and we are in the phase of the session where we kind of observe the legislative happenings and prepare to do a lot. Some meetings, we don't actually have action items because sometimes a bill that we thought maybe was going to get a hearing or then potentially pass so we'd have more information on it, gets delayed, and that was kind of the case the last week. And I was okay with that because we had a lot of prep to do over the weekend, coming into our finalist interviews. But one legislative happening that may impact us is a movement to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow schools to draw more funds from our state's permanent school fund. And that's a somewhat esoteric but highly impactful fund that's actually established by our state's constitution. It's this perpetual trust fund made up of 2.5 million acres of land that is leased for various purposes, and it generates this kind of perpetual, at least it's a portion of our state's fund. And it's something that's kind of interesting is that our federal government's constitution does not reference education. Our state's constitutions do that, and Minnesota is somewhat unique in this land trust. And so this movement, likely the LAC and then kind of broader districts would ask to people vote yes to that amendment. It would allow us to access more of those funds every year. I also am continuing some work on the fiscal year '27 budget when needed, and I'm tracking the audit progress, and I'm proud of the work that we've done. And at the risk of being repetitive, I also want to say that I am proud of this board and our community and our staff and family members for all of the work that went into the superintendent search. Yesterday we referenced that we had almost 20 applicants, five semifinalists, three finalists. We did hours of resume review and research and reference checks. We did 30 plus hours each of live board table time. Over 1,000 community members participated in the survey. Almost 50 participated in candidate site tours yesterday and provided us feedback, and I am so grateful for that. Thank you to all of our candidates, and especially Dr. Thomas. We are so excited to work with you. And I also wanted to extend my gratitude to you, Dr. Marie Peery-Reid. I have deeply respected your leadership and echo all of my colleagues' words, and want to recognize the hard work that you've done, and also to recognize that a lot of it was at the expense of your own family and your own personal life and your own hobbies. As we worked all weekend and then sat here, worked all day, and then sat all night, it's kind of your life, I think- ... for public education. You've chosen to really invest in enriching your chosen community, and we are all better for it. Thank you. I was going to say, don't scare Dr. Thomas away, but- I think she knows She already knows. She already knows. Okay. I was going to say, I don't think that's going to be a surprise. Kids are already in college and beyond. Okay. All right. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you everyone. I appreciated those updates. And with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The chair votes aye, and this meeting of the Hopkins School Board is adjourned at 9:02 PM. Yay.