Good evening. The Wisetta Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting for Monday, September 14th, 2026 will please come to order. Will the clerk please call the role? >> Good evening. Heidi Kater here. Sheila Prior >> here. >> Alicia Little >> here. >> Paris Bendy. Paris Bendy is absent. Valentina Ays >> here. >> Tanginestra. Tangenestra is present. Milan Sahony >> present. >> Rob Virgin >> present. >> Thank you. We have a porum. Please rise if you are able to recite the pledge of allegiance. [clears throat] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] >> Welcome everyone. We are glad you could join us this evening. I'd like to begin by welcoming our students, families, teachers, and staff back for a new school year. I hope everyone had an opportunity to rest and recharge. And I'm looking forward to a year of learning, growth, and continued partnership across our Visetta community. If you wish to speak during the audience opportunity to address the board, please fill out a form placed in in the other room there and hand it over to our uh district administrative assistant Amy sitting to my right at the end of that table. The first item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda and the consent agenda items. Consent agenda items are considered routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a board member so requests in which event the item will be removed as a consent agenda item and addressed the consent agenda item and the meeting agenda items are listed in the materials. The recommended action is to approve the agenda and the consent agenda items. Is there a motion? >> I so move second. >> Moved and seconded. Will the clerk please take a roll call vote? Colleagues, Sheila Prior, >> yes. >> Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. >> Dan Janestra, Danestra votes yes. Alicia Liil, >> yes. >> Paris Bendy, Paris Bendy is absent. Milan Sahony, >> yes. We have an agenda. Thank you, Dan. The next item on our agenda is reports from organizations. This section of the agenda provides an opportunity for the Visetta High School student council representative to report on information and events at Visetta High School. I would like to invite I do not have the name. I'm sorry. >> Okay. Can you can you please state your name before you begin at at the mic, please? Yeah. Thank you. Welcome. >> Hello. My name is Owen Piowski. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, Superintendent Virgin, members of the board, and everyone else here gathered tonight. I hope everyone is having a great start to the week. My name is On Pikowski, the Wisetta High School senior vice president, and I'll be responsible for giving monthly updates on the happenings of Wisetta High School. I'm also here with Addie Wines, the junior vice president, who is shadowing me today, but we will be presenting alongside each other later in the year. Starting off this year, we've welcomed in our newest class of over 1,000 freshmen to the high school with a successful orientation day led by approximately 180 of our link crew leaders. Along with the beginning of the year comes homecoming. Our theme this year is Rio. Embrace the rhythm and we to promote a greater sense of community throughout this with weeklong activities. The student council has also been hard at work putting together promotions and decorations for the dance, gathering food trucks and activities for the prehomecoming game block party and organizing hundreds of students for our annual pepfest. Lastly, we have begun working with the National Honor Society for our tackle cancer fundraiser that will happen at the end of October. But the student council is not the only group hard at work. Marching band has kicked off performing in the JJ Hill Days parade as well as starting to perform at our football games. The theater season has also started up with rehearsals for the fall play Men on Boats and the fall musical Come From Away. Lastly, DECA and the Trojan Locker Room has started up a booth at JJ Hill Days. Wisetta School High School has also been maintaining its title as a AAA school remaining dominant in academics, arts, and athletics. Fall sports have been starting off with a bunch of major successes. Boys and girls soccer both had games against Adina last week. Girls soccer is going strong at 5-1. And boys soccer is 6-0, making them the current number one team in the state. Our football team is also went up against Adina this past week and won 38 to 14. Lastly, all of our girls tennis teams are currently undefeated. Hopefully, we can keep this momentum up going into homecoming. [snorts] As the year kicks off and the students enter back into the school, let's start this year off strong. Thank you for your time tonight and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your evening. I'm now open to any questions. >> Thank [clears throat] you, Colin. Any questions, comments, board members? >> Okay. >> Thanks for joining us tonight. You did a great job for your first report. >> Yes. >> All right. Yes. Thank you. I agree with Heidi. You did a great job. Come again. Are you going to alternate between you and Eddie? >> Um, yes. And some days we'll be both presenting. >> Both of you. Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll see you next month. Thanks a lot. >> Thank you so much. All right, the next item on the agenda is recognitions and I will jump I will ask Dr. uh Virgin to read out the first item. We are not going to go to the podium now. Right, we'll wait for the presentation and then >> correct after the presentation. So thank you chair Sony and good evening everybody. I have the pleasure to uh welcome Mary Kate Hakey, our executive director of the Wisetta Education Fund to our presentation table. And while she's uh kind of settling in there, I'll just on behalf of the district state my excitement and our excitement about uh the ED fund or WE or is that education fund as they're all uh known by all those those names, but also for Mary Kate to join us and for this role as executive director. This has been uh a conversation that is many years uh in the making as I know some of you that I see in the crowd are are board members and have been engaged in this work uh for the ed fund for for several years. And so to have an executive director with dedicated time to um work on the mission of of the ed fund which is explicitly to help Wisetta public schools is is really a dream come true for many people. So, um, thanks to Mary Kate for answering the call, but also to all the people that did a lot of work to get this in place, uh, so that we can extend this partnership and really think about what the future can look like. So, they, uh, come bearing gifts as well as a presentation tonight. So, uh, I'll turn it over to Mary Kate, but just wanted to share my my excitement for you joining in this role. >> Thank you. And I have um, Casey and Corey, two teachers from the high school here, too. So, I want to do all of my um introductions, but I also want them to share some of the cool things that they're doing as well. So, um I like Dr. Virgin said, my name is Mary Kate and I've been a Weisetta mom for seven years. We've lived here in the district and I've always um before that I was a teacher and so I've really tried the last seven years to figure out kind of what's my next role going to be and where am I going to fit in to be able to give back to the district. So, I've done a lot of volunteering at the schools and I kind of tell people it's like watching double dutch for me. I'm I'm like waiting for a great opportunity to jump in at some capacity. Um, being a classroom teacher is incredible. And so, for me to have this role to be able to support classroom teachers here, too. To be able to support classroom teachers is really um a dream come true. So, the Weisetta Ed fund um really uh like Dr. Virgin said supports the Weisetta public school. Our mission is kind of twofold. It's to raise funds, and then it's also to build relationships, um, create awareness, and really bridge all of the community partners together. So, there's lots of different people that need to come together to make a public school successful. And so, we at the Wisetta Education Fund kind of see our role as bringing those partners together while also raising funds um to support the mission. uh our our strategic priorities this year. I have a lot listed, but really there are two buckets. The awareness and engagement piece and then the fundraising piece. And those two buckets will work in tandem and and hopefully kind of play off of each other. But really, it's about building relationships, building systems that work, um building networks and structures, and then also raising funds. So, that's what we're hoping to do. Um, some of the program that has already existed will continue to exist in the Wise Education Fund. One of the awesome things that the ED fund does is teacher grants. And so last year they gave um over $70,000 in teacher grants. 14 teachers ranging from kindergarten to transition received teacher grants. And this is um passion projects for teachers that are not necessarily within the budget of the White Public Schools. And so again, this is a really cool thing for me to be able to see the teachers, see their passions, and then help fund that. Um, outdoor learning is another priority that we're getting kids sometimes off technology and outside. Um, something that was really important is having an experience across all middle schools. So something consistent that touches every sixth grade student was really an important thing that they did last year based off of feedback and we will continue to do this year as well. Um another thing is um another focus area is about literacy and so helping support reading initiatives that have come from the state and then in classrooms we want to also support too. So in February we are bringing Varian Johnson um an author to all nine elementary schools. And again it's the consistency that every elementary school student is going to get the same experience um because of the work that was done um last year with that fund. And then highlighting a hero is a district or a education fund program that we do. We all we did get um Rock Elm Revival again to sponsor $10,000 worth of um givebacks. So, this program is where people will donate $25 to highlight a teacher or a staff member that's special and they want to recognize and then they get something in return um as a celebratory thank you. And then um the scholarship program, this will be the second year that we'll be doing the scholarship um for a Weisetta senior that demonstrates um volunteerism and leadership. And so we will continue to commit $1,000 to a senior for a scholarship that can be used for any secondary um education. And then last but not least, we want to highlight our um Dr. for Chase Anderson and we're kind of the house for his scholarship fund. So that money that comes in that's donated is earmarked. It's separate from our education fund money. Um but we kind of just house it for the time being that we're a 501c3. Um and then we have two Casey and Corey are here recipients of teacher grants if they want to come up and talk about their programs. Um they both have really neat programs at the high school. One is aerospace um aviation and then the other one here I'll get my chair they can introduce themselves. >> Hi everybody. Uh so kind of full story because I'm an English teacher and I tell stories. Um I'm a product of public schools. went to Plymouth Creek across the street at East. I went to the high school. Uh, one of my favorite memories as a high school student was doing the Children Tribune being on Newsbreak every day and it was just one of the highlights of my experience. And [laughter] uh right around co time uh we kind of cut the program and lost our paper uh lost news breakak. And two years ago actually Addie who was uh joining us just a moment ago from the back uh she and one of her classmates in my honors English 9 class came to me and said, "Mr. Zilla, why don't we have a school paper? Um we need to have a paper again. What's going on?" Uh and so they had the idea to say, "Let's let's start this again." and and will you be our adviser for doing that? And I was like, "Yes, for sure." And so we worked kind of real low budget, low everything uh for a year just trying to get it off the ground. And then um last year the idea came to apply for a grant to say, "Hey, we need if we're going to be journalists, we got to have cameras, we got to have, you know, microphones. We got to have all the things that journalists have when they go out in the field." And so, uh, we applied for the grant and thankfully, uh, received it. And so, we've really, uh, taken a step in the right direction. Um, our district administration, our high school administration has really been supportive of it. We have now have journalism running, uh, every term throughout the year. Uh, we have a journalism one program and a journalism 2 class. Uh, so we have plenty of writers that are kind of coming back in the fold and saying, "Yes, journalism is important." And, uh, want to support that. So, um, I have grand aspirations for rebuilding our whole TV studio and all of that down the road, but, um, I'll save that for another WF grant. So, [laughter] thank you. >> Good evening, school boarders, distinguished staff, uh, guests. Uh, my name is Cory Kudson, and I am a teacher also was at a high school. However, I am one of two teachers who can say I have taught at every level, elementary, middle school, and high school. I was the only one until Charlie Carr selfishly came to the high school. I won't hold that against him. Um, a few years ago, I talked with Scott Gangler, our principal. And so, those of you who don't know, uh, aviation is kind of the really, uh, all-encompassing career path for kids. A lot of people think about flight attendants and pilots and mechanics and air traffic controllers, which is all very true. Um, but we don't think a lot about the aerospace medicine or aerospace engineering or the carpenters who work at MSP airport. Um, according to the department of aeronautics, in the next 10 years, commercial aviation alone is going to increase by 13%. That's just one of many sectors within aviation. Add to that the average age of certain professions within aviation like mechanics is 60 years old. So we know there's going to be this boom of all sorts of career opportunities and I'm guessing all of you as well as many of us in this audience at some point are going to try and catch a Delta flight even if they try and close the door on us as we're trying to catch the connection. Um, so I talked to Scott Gangler and with the wonderful support of the Wisetta Education Foundation, we were able to invest in and create our aerospace and aviation one class, which implies there's going to be a second. Uh, we're working on that. But really, because of uh, Nikkate's uh, the Wiser Education Foundation support, we were able to get um, three simulators as you can see in the back. Those are called glimefield experience trainers. Those are heavyduty um simulators that allow us to take the content uh of science and math and aviation and really apply how does thrust work in an airplane or how does weather make flying that much more difficult. And you can see it started with three pallets of boxes. And we uh have set that up in a room. And almost every single student that starts the first time taxis onto the runway, onto the grass, through a building, through some planes. I mean, the first run is a little bit rough. Don't worry, quite a few staff members have also taxied off into. But what it it has made for our students some really hands-on learning. Um, it's also going to buy us uh some great curricular supplies and it's going to uh uh give me a need the opportunity to go to a aircraft owners and pilots association convention. So, it's really because of their generous support really really kicked off the aviation and aerospace program. Um, and so can't thank Mary Kate and your team enough >> here. I'll give you your chair. Don't worry. Um, as they're talking, I was also thinking about [clears throat] how these teacher grants and teacher experts and the people who are working with kids every single day really are the difference makers in a district. And so when you can fund teachers to do what they really feel strongly about, it's an incredible gift to not only the students who get to do these cool things, but also the district in itself to differentiate from districts neighboring. So I think it's just a really cool thing that I get to do to be a part of this role. Um, but also you guys get to watch um in your role in support. So that's kind of what I have. Um, do you guys have any questions for us? >> Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you for coming here and, uh, presenting this. Uh, any questions, comments, colleagues? Yeah, Licia, go ahead. >> Welcome, Mary Kate. You are coming into an amazing program and we're so happy to have you. Um, I know Sarah knows how much I love this group. I've been lucky enough, I jumped at the opportunity when I became a member of the board to be your representative. And it's like walking into a room of very familiar faces of people that have been so active in our district for years who care passionately and being an educator myself and going to, you know, whatever schools I was in and asked if I could implement various things. And it was really me writing lab or writing grants to like EcoAB or other outside agencies. And when I first came to Wisetta as a parent and was in the PTA meeting, hearing like we actually have this amazing opportunity that if we can't fund it inhouse, we could put it out. I think has just been an incredible opportunity and it's so fun to see every year how much it's grown and how much we're [clears throat] able to do and going to those check writing deliveries. I mean seeing the kids so excited, the staff so excited, some of the creativity again, boots on the ground, teachers in the classrooms, you guys know some of these innovative amazing things that go above and beyond. So just overall can't sing enough praises for this group and thank you guys for so much work. >> Yeah. Hi, thanks for coming. Um, what what stage is the grant writing at right now and who's eligible to um apply for those? >> Um, so our grant process is just starting off. So, and it's early meaning like the team is building the plan for the year. Um, I think and Sarah can maybe correct me. I think the um application opens the beginning. >> Okay. Yeah. Thanks. >> Good evening everyone, Dr. Virgin, members of the board, members of the community. My name is Sarah Griffin. I'm the board chair of the Wise Out Education Fund. I've been a member since 2018. And so consider me um Mary Kate's phone a friend as she is in her sixth week in her as our first executive director, which she's just been absolutely wonderful and we're thrilled to have her. Our grant program opens on October 1st and the window closes December 31st. We fund grants for any Weisetta Public Schools staff member. Those grants could serve anything from emergency curricular or classroom needs through the innovative projects that both Casey and Corey spoke to this evening. Um, tonight we're excited to award the most money that we have ever awarded to Weisetta Public Schools in one uh school year in what the Weisetta Education Fund's 23-year history. >> Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you've done over the years. And I'm so glad that you're here, Mary Kate. >> I am sitting here completely unable to contain my excitement over Mary Kate joining as executive director. This is a dream. As Rob said, it's I mean this has been years and years in the making. I joined WE prior to being on the board with Sarah as well in 2018. And I will say it is some of the most meaningful work that I have done in the district being able to support teachers and staff um and ultimately our students with these really cool things that they get to do. It's not just a distinguisher, but it's it's something that builds morale. Um, and you cannot put a dollar amount on that. Um, I will also say just a holler out to any uh teacher or family member. If you want a way to contribute to the district, this is a really wonderful way to do it. Contact Sarah. She is always looking for volunteers. Um, we as board members get the opportunity. We have one board member who sits on the board as an exopicio every year. So, our community should know that as well that we are here to support um the ad fund. We also have an annual gala, but it's not called a gala anymore. It's called a right now it's wild for Weisetta. >> There we go. We have a great party. >> Manifesting project that I'm just going to put out into the universe. There's Wild for Weisetta because this is in February. It's a big event February 20th. So that would be wild for Wisetta in the winter and then hopefully they'll be wild for Wisetta on the water which will be like a summer. So that's my manifesting into the universe now. Um I'm going to make it happen. >> Let's just keep having fun. >> All right. And raising money. So thank you for all the work that you've done. We're so excited. >> All right. Thank you. Thank everybody who is associated with W. I was on the board I think even before I joined uh the school board and maybe one year into the school board itself. So I've known Sarah for a long time as well. Uh thank you for all the work that you do all the all the grants that you bring and all that. I have two questions. 501c3 I think that was also a long time in the making. Uh can you tell us what value that brings? Number one and number two the board still remains the same right although Mary Kay you have become the ED right so how will how will that change the function of the board itself because somebody from the board right I think the chair of the board used to do all the you know organizing and meetings and all those so now I think that has changed a little bit >> yeah so the division of work Sarah and I have kind of done in tandem um there's some things that are slowly getting rolled up to me Um, like Sarah said, this is week six for me, so I'm a sponge and I'm trying to absorb as much as I can. Um, the chair will continue. They'll always be a chair. There'll be a treasurer. There'll be a vice chair. Um, we're working through some roles and policies for our board moving forward. Um, but the ED is going to do not the work that's already been done, but elevate the work that has been done in the past. And so the ED's role will be continuing to be the face and make the connections and the relationships and be that kind of through line throughout so there's a consistency um as board members come on and off. Um that's I think kind of how we see it. You want to add >> No, that was a great explanation. >> I have nothing to add. >> Okay. How about how about the 501c3 >> and the 501c3? So, we became a 501c3 um about 3 years ago. And what this allows us to do is essentially it gives us the freedom to fund raise more um to be able you know, initially we were part of the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation. So, the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation held our operating expenses along with the uh fund [snorts] that held our grant making our grant um our grant funds and now we have control over both of those um funding sources. So it it gives us more freedom. It also allows us to do things like um build out the Chase and Barb Anderson scholarship fund to build out an endowment specifically for scholarships, legacy funds. Um it allows us to grow our assets and put more money back into Weisetta public schools. >> Does does it give donors a tax break that we could not before before the 501c3? >> It does. Yes. >> Okay. It also allows, you know, for anyone that donates and has corporate matching or anything like that. We're now on all of the corporate matching sites, Millie Giving, Benevity. Um, we're searchable in in all of those places. And as a result, we have grown our corporate matching from like about $1,000 a year to we had 7,500 last year. >> Yeah. Lots of benefits. Thank you, though. If nobody else has any questions, should we proceed? >> Yes. All right. Thank you again, Sarah and Mary Kate. Before we come over for a photo op with your large check, can you tell us just a tiny bit about what you're presenting to us tonight? >> Absolutely. Do you want to take this or do you want me to? >> You take it cuz >> Okay, great. So, tonight we're presenting a check for $119,500, which is the most money we have ever been able to give back in one uh school year to the Wisetta um public schools. This money is for the programming that Mary Kate uh spoke to us about. It's for the sixth grade trip to Camp Friendship. Last year we went to Eagle Bluff. We're going to Camp Friendship uh September 28th through October 2nd. Um, it's for Varian Johnson's author visit where every single elementary school student in Weisetta public schools, regardless of where they attend elementary school, will receive the same author visit from award-winning Varian Johnson, which is very exciting. And over $70,000 worth of staff grants. Thanks again. heard a few ideas hatched there. Uh oh, good evening again everybody. To continue our our recognition tonight, we have uh two pieces. First one is to recognize retirement. So, we uh any employees who have announced their retirement since our last meeting, um we would like to thank them for the years of service and recognize them tonight. If they happen to be here tonight after I read your name, if you could stand up and give a wave that so we can thank you in person, um that would that would be great as we just wish you all the best in your future endeavors and thank you for your service to Weisetta public schools. So, we have two people tonight. Uh the first is Deborah Balman uh from Weisetta Cafes was working last at Weisetta High School for 26 years. And Vicky Linden, building supervisor for community ed, celebrating 30 years of service. So thank you to Deborah and Vicki. Let's give them a round of applause. Our second recognition or our third recognition tonight is for uh Minnesota schoolboard association month and for to recognize our schoolboard members. So uh during the month of September we recognize our schoolboard members and Wisetta Public Schools is proud to join uh MSBA or the schoolboard association in recognizing our dedicated public servants who help ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed. This year's statewide theme is Minnesota school boards help Minnesota kids rise. Capitalize on the state's new campaign and celebrates the essential role locally elected school boards play in helping students achieve their highest potential. Schoolboard members volunteer countless hours to lead one of our community's most important responsibilities, providing students with a highquality public education that prepares them for success in college, careers, and life. Their leadership helps create learning environments where students are challenged, supported, and inspired to grow. We're fortunate that our board is made up of seven public servants who share a steadfast commitment to excellent education for each and every one of our students. I know recognition and praise is not exactly their first love language, and that's not why they do this work, and that's not what drives them. So, I'll spare them from going on further or from having them come over to uh shake uh my hand or to take a a picture. Uh but there is a certificate of recognition at each one of your spots tonight, which again, I know that is not why any of you do this and you have a much larger calling and a deeper commitment to each and every one of our students and we're fortunate for that. So, that said, we still wanted to take a minute tonight to thank you and publicly recognize you for all the great work you're doing for our community. So, thank you. Okay, there you go. Okay, so I want to take a moment to recognize my fellow board members for the time, thought, and commitment they bring to this work. Being on a school board is a unique form of public service. We make decisions that affect thousands of students, families, and staff, often involving complex issues and difficult choices. While we may not always agree, I appreciate the difference, different perspectives each board member brings, and the commitment we share to doing what is best for our students and our community. I also want to thank Rob and the entire district team for recognizing the board this month. Ultimately, school board service is a partnership with our superintendent, staff, families, students, and community, and we are grateful for all of those who work with us to make Visetta public schools stronger. Most importantly, I want to thank my fellow board members for their service. It is a privilege to serve alongside you. Thank you. [clears throat] Did you forget something? Oh, I have it here. Yeah. All right. Next is the audience opportunity to address the board. Amy, do we have anyone? Yeah. Okay. This section of the agenda provides an opportunity for members of the community to address the school board. Speakers who wish to provide input to the school board must complete the signup sheet and return it to our district administrative assistant Amy. So if anyone wants to speak that has not filled out a form can still do that. Please note that you will need to complete a request form to be included on the speaker request list. When you are invited to the podium, please identify the subject or agenda item to which your comments pertain. Priority will be given to students and families with students currently enrolled in the district. The school board practice is not to engage in a discussion or debate with the speaker, but rather allow the speaker time to express their thoughts. Please present your comments in a respectful and professional manner. This evening, each speaker will be invited up to the podium to speak for 3 minutes. We have a number of requested speakers. So, I ask that you keep your comments brief. Um I believe uh director Janestra will help us keep track of the time by holding up a red card at the 3minut mark. Please end your comments when you see the red card or when I say thank you. If you have already shared your thoughts with the school board, please consider letting someone new address the board. If a community member shares a message similar to yours, please consider shortening your message or presenting as a group. Uh first are there any students who would like to speak? I don't see are there any students in there? No. All right. So let's get started. First is Jennifer Har and the topic is ELS. Welcome Jennifer. >> Thank you. Good evening schoolboard members. My name is Jennifer Haram. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of my teachers, teachers, assistants, and staff that work at Early the Early Learning School. I have 25 years early childhood experience since we moved here 18 years ago for my husband's job. We lived in Plymouth and we have three children who all attended Weisetta schools. I've had the privilege of working um in Weisetta Early Learning School for the last 11 years and I truly love my job. I am deeply grateful for the Weisetta School District and the role it's played in my family's life. Our three adult children who graduated from Weisetta were given an exceptional education and prepared that prepared them to successfully launch into college and adulthood. Two of our children are engineers and the third holds a bachelor's and master's degree in supply chain management. All are bright independent business professionals contributing to society. To say that they received an excellent education um to prepare them is an understatement. I'm incredibly proud of them and I'm grateful for the opportunities the found in foundation they received at Weisetta. These experiences have given me a greater appreciation for the importance of early education and it has also made me increasingly made it increasingly hard to see what feels like a lack of recognition for the critical work that's being done in early learning. I believe I need to speak up today not only for myself but for my colleagues because we have a significant um impact on our children's future. So I have a few examples here to demonstrate my point. I have a colleague who works down the hall from me who's a single mom and she can't afford to insure her son on the school district's insurance because the um cost is just unaffordable under our current contract. Another example is a student is a assistant teacher who works in my classroom and she makes less money working with me during the day than she does in the evening doing the exact same work just because the evening class is under a different contract. A third example would be a 6 job that was posted in Edina this summer. One of the parents in my classroom, she actually took this job and she's going to make more money this year than the teachers who work full-time. some of the teachers who work full-time under our current contract. And this just doesn't feel right. It's hard to understand that our own HR department did a comp study based on neighboring districts and the district's pay. And for nearly every position, Wisetta's rates are the lowest and in many cases significantly lower. For one of the top school districts in the in the state of Minnesota, this is inexplicable. It's hard to also understand that when I calculate my own percentage of rate increases um over the last um four years, it's 32% less than inflation. I um urge you to um reconsider because we started bargaining and I urge you to reconsider um that mediation that's been invoked and come back to the bargaining table so that we can negotiate for fair wages and competitive benefits um for each and every student. excellence for each and every student in Weisetta. It must include our early learners and early learning students deserve the very best teachers and support staff. The educators who who serve them also deserve the compensation that um reflects that importance the important expertise and demanding challenges of our work. Thank you. >> Next we have Luke. Is itchaikoski? >> Did I say that right? >> Uh, Sioski. >> Sioski. Okay, thank you. >> Sorry you guys. Was prepared for five minutes. Here we go. >> Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you all for having us here to speak to you. I appreciate that you guys do a job that does not get as many thanks as it should. even though it sounds like you guys aren't working for those, you still 100% deserve them and what you do keeps our lights on. It keeps our schools running. It keeps our kids happy and it keeps them educated. So, thank you. Um, with that being said, I do want to go talk about the Wisetta Kids program, and I'm a little short on time here, so I want to make sure I get to it. Something I've come to admire about this program is that it it enables kids to be themselves. Our free choice model is amazing because it allows kids to practice having independence and autonomy at a young age while they're still being safe and in a controlled environment. Making a program like this run smoothly is no easy task, though. Each day comes with a new set of challenges such as planning new projects, scheduling staff in spaces where they'll be successful and making sure that hundreds of students arrive with us by 2:30 and remain supervised all the way out until 6. Our program assistants do incredible work connecting with kids, watching over them, helping them through issues or needs, and bringing the tools that they need to have a good day at our program. To students, this looks like a time where they get to be in charge of their lives. 200 or at 2:30, kids arrive. They get to go to snack, they go outside, and then they get to make their own decisions where they go, what they do, and who they spend their time with. We often have kids who will ask their parents to leave and come back later so that they can just hang out more with us, which I really appreciate. Um, experiences like this will help our kids learn social skills, art skills, physical skills, building and problem solving skills along with that uh valuable skill of independence. To parents, this looks like a worry-free day. They can run to the grocery store. They can stay late at work. They can even just take some time at home to rest, right? So if not before this meeting then at least by now I hope that you guys can see that Wisetta kids is an amazing program that helps kids and tremendously helps parents but [snorts] we do need help. According to frontline there are eight elementary school stu or eight elementary schools with program assistant positions open. Those are kind of our base level position [snorts] at my site alone. There are three open positions and we have somebody leaving us at the end of this month and another person I've heard leaving soon. So, we really need to get more staff. It causes a lot of problems for us. The raising or raising wages for our employees within Wetta Kids will help solve these problems. First, with more competitive wages, we'll be more likely to be able to hire the staff that we need to to fill current and future positions. And secondly, our current staff will benefit from an ease of the burden of our current economic situation. As inflation rises, gas soarses, and everything gets less affordable, we just need this for ourselves to to stay here. Thank you. Thank you, Luke. And then finally, we have Sarah Garcia. Welcome, Sarah. Good evening, uh, members of the board, superintendent, and community. My name is Sarah Garcia, and I'm a full-day preschool teacher at Meadow Ridge Elementary School. I'm speaking today to express my disappointment with the district's refusal to return to the bargaining table to settle the community ed employee contract. I've been with the district for 18 years and have always been proud to be a part of the work that we do. Our district motto is excellence for each and every student. And as a parent of a Wisetta school student, I'm glad to know that his education is preparing him for achieving great things in his life. My son not only attends school in the district, but he goes to Wisetta Kids after school and on non-school days so I can continue my work as a preschool teacher. I rely on the Wisetta Kids staff to provide excellent care. What we do in Wisetta Kids and in our preschool classrooms is foundational education. Yet, when we look at our compensation, our benefits, and how we are recognized, it is painfully clear that we are treated as the bottom rung of the district's ladder. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fundamental equity. Right now, our pay and benefits do not align with the rest of the school district staff. Our wages are falling percentages behind the neighboring districts that surround us, making it harder to attract and retain quality staff that our students and families rely on. We love our students and are proud to serve Weisetta. We are simply asking the district to recognize our true role in this system, return to the bargaining table, and settle a fair contract that provides internal equity, respect, and affordable benefits. stand with us, value our work, and compensate us fairly. Thank you. Okay. Um, next I'm going to ask Director Dan Janestra to explain an idea that he came up with about an amendment sheet for the board members to use when deciding on when voting and if they want to make an amendment to a motion. >> Colleagues, um, thank you, Mr. Chair. Colleagues, um, on your desk in front of you, um, is an amendment sheet. Um, if you would like to alter the language of an action item, please write the full text of how you wish the action item to read. Please also note the date and agenda item you are seeking to amend with your name printed and your signature provided. Once you have finished composing your amendment, please pass the amendment sheet to the clerk who will read your amen proposal in full for the community and school board to hear. Thank you, Dan. All right, the next item. Moving on to the administrative reports and recommendations. First, we have the superintendent reports and Dr. Virgin will provide a back to school update welcoming the 202627 school year. [clears throat] All right. Thank you, Chair Sony. This I knew I was going to sit here tonight, but this is much different than last time I was sitting at this table. I think this will be more fun uh to talk about. Uh so, we have the the chance tonight. Thanks for affording us time in the agenda. Um, I'm here with our strategy leadership team to talk about our back to school work and to celebrate what's been just a really successful start to to the 26 27th school year. So, we're in our third week of school, which is unique for this time of year to be already in the third week, but we with our early start and we are we are off and running. I thought our uh was that a high school student council did a nice job of bringing forward some of the highlights tonight in in a really uh concise way. And there's so much more happening across all of our district as well. So, we're thrilled to get a chance to to talk with you about that. Our first day of school um 3 weeks ago or two weeks ago today uh was was one to remember. I think all of us that have have been in schools know that there's something really special about the start of a school year. It's uh a new season. The you can feel it literally in the air. You can see students who are brand new to our schools, students who have been in our schools for many years and everywhere in between. We welcomed over a hundred new teachers this year. Uh our enrollment is up uh which will have a better count after October 1st for you next month, but enrollment is up over it was last year. New staff added and just a lot of great relationships um strengthening and and being continued. Uh I was able to get out to nearly every one of our buildings uh of our uh nine elementaryaries, three middle schools, our high school, transition, early learning school, and central services. Was able to hit all but two of those uh with a couple of board members on our first day of school and then was able to get to those uh two that we missed by about 9:00 the second day. And I won't share the name of those two schools because it was not intentional. Uh but we have made our second and third rounds to all those two. and just saw a lot of of great work happening across across our system. Uh for me that was particularly special because I've been preparing for this this transition for a few months now and for us to finally be ready and and to be all of our programs be running. As you well know, this is a very busy place um 12 months a year, 7 days a week. Uh but to have everything back uh running for the school year has been has been a joy. Uh, and that doesn't come without a significant team effort. Uh, we I I touched on some of our our new teachers that we were able to welcome back in or welcome to our district in August and to see them in action uh now with students. But there are several different departments and literally thousands of people that go into us having a great student experience. from how students get to our buildings through our transportation team to the conditions of our buildings and grounds with all of our employees that go into that to the uh having the resources through our financing and purchasing and all of our operations departments and the technology that they use to the people that are in front of them whether that's our teachers, social workers, counselors, paras, media specialists all across our health professionals across our entire school to our administrators to the district departments. There is a lot of people that need to make things come together and come together in a fairly seamless way so that students show up and have a great experience and I just am really grateful to be one part of that team. Uh there are a lot of people in this system that perform at a very high level uh and to see them in action over the last couple of weeks and months has been has been just a joy. So, I can't thank the team enough for uh the spot that the district is in as we as we launch this this school year. We are grounded in the exact same foundation in work that um we've we've been in for for several years now. Uh we have our strategic road map which uh this edition uh started in 2023 and carries us through 2027 and there's a few similar iterations uh before this. I like to share this when I meet with our staff mainly, but also with community members that that same strategic roadmap and kind of a little bit broader of the strategic framework that includes our equity commitment uh that was adopted in the spring of 2021 are still in place. The directions that we're headed, the foundation that we have been building on, we're still building on top of that. Though I'm in a different role um and we have others in our system that are in in different roles, we're headed in the same direction. and that stability and continuity that the board has worked hard for, that the community has worked hard for, we continue to enjoy and we're headed in in the same direction. On top of that, we've done a lot of learning and listening over the last couple of months to figure out as we look at those strategic directions, as we look at our equity commitment, we look at those seven directions from the strategic roadmap, what's needed within those? What does a year's worth of work look like? What are the next steps with those? what do we need to operationalize to bring forward? There have been four uh themes that have jumped out at us. Of course, these four themes don't uh encompass all of the the work that we're that we're doing this year, but there are four themes that we're kind of pulling a through line through or that we see crosscutting a lot of our work when we look at those seven directions. Gave you uh the school board a update on these transition update at our board meeting last month. go a little bit deeper with these four and to highlight a couple of early actions that we're taking in each of these areas. The first one as I've kind of uh gone deeper in with our data in in all different forms both quantitative and qualitative and just in a lot of conversations with staff members with families former families current families community members is the really encouragement for us to stay laser focused on our ultimate work is around improving student learning and student outcomes and the student experience. So, [snorts] we're continuing our trajectory that we're on with really uh increasing the maturity of our professional learning communities or our PLC process and our multi-tered systems of supports, our MTSF processes. We're in a very healthy spot with those and that is continuing. Uh we're also when we look at the student experience, we are spending time working on uh implementing our balanced technology framework. uh it's been a topic a conversation across the country and across the state and across the region that isn't brand new but has picked up a lot of steam in the last several months and Wisetta is fortunately a leader in this space. Uh it's not every day but it is every week that somebody across either the Twin Cities or the state or the country will reach out and say hey I saw something you're doing with the balanced technology framework. Can you tell us more about that? uh we'll stay in constant conversation with our community about that and with our teachers and and staff about that. Uh not because we think it's perfect, but because we think it's highly iterative and needs to be. And I just feel fortunate of being um kind of the newer person on the team to be coming into a space where we've already had our feet moving on that that we're didn't stick in problem admiration and we are taking steps to to see what can be done there. other early action or another area uh where we've had early action is enhancing our organizational coherence and connected autonomy. Uh as the district has has grown and as the world continues to move faster and transitions become more common um one of the themes that I've picked up on as a need for the district and that I noticed um through the search process too was this idea for where do we have organizational clarity and how can we really have connectivity across the system. So, a couple of steps we've taken with that is we're working hard toward to establishing a common language that works for us as well as goal alignment um as well as processes for how are decisions made and how do we collaborate as a team and how do we make requests of each other and what does that look like across the system and system this size of course that takes time that takes more than just a few weeks but that's work that we've we've started we're also studying our organizational structure uh I'm spending a lot of time with this to really think about how best should this organization function uh to best reach the needs of each and every student and then spend more time on okay how are we designed to really match that function. A third area that as we operationalize the strategic roadmap is strengthening community trust and partnerships and belonging. A lot of this work right now is trying to be really visible, really present and listening. uh as I talk with community members or people of that have a role in the district, regardless of what that might be, uh there's two outcomes I'm hoping for in every conversation and I share these with them. One is I'm sure at some point in this conversation there's going to be something I haven't heard before or a different lens or a different perspective or a different experience that hasn't come to my attention. and I want to know that and to be able to put that into my thinking so that I can inform my next decisions and figure out what other questions I need to ask. The second outcome of all those interactions is I'm hoping just for a connection for down the road. So, that's probably actually the bigger one. I think at times when we're having our community connection conversations that we're we're inviting people into, um I think sometimes it feels more like the first one that we're looking to learn something, which we are. Um but the second is more important of starting a connection so that 6 days or 6 months or 6 years down the road when they see something or their child sees something or they experience something they feel like they know me well enough that they can say I think Rob would want to know this or I feel like I can just give them a call or a text or an email and we can hear more about it or maybe 6 months down the road I can think oh that's what they were telling me I just wasn't ready to hear that yet so that we have that connection. So that's a a big priority in my personal calendar right now as well as in um our leadership team. Our leadership team has been very visible throughout the summer and the launch of the school year and will continue to be as we try to uh increase our our already strong community connection. And then uh fourth area as we look to operationalize our strategic plan is our long range stewardship facilities programs and safety. So, of all the great things um that the system has in place and add to that list is the passage of the referendum in April. And with that, now as we move into construction requires us to have really robust plans for how we're seeing the construction projects managed and how we're communicating about those. Uh as you know, there's a our website is up and running and isn't providing daily updates, but it's pretty close. their real-time updates as decisions happen um for the community to know about that. That's just one one strategy with that. Uh we we will have many over the next several years with the unique part of that referendum touching so many different parts of the district and being as vast as it was. It will be about a 4-year construction project here. So there will be lots of times for the community to stay opportunities for the community to stay engaged. It also requires us to have a really strong construction management uh framework so that we can uh know where we're at within the process across all those different sites. It's one thing to be it's a very big thing to be building and adding a school or to be building doing one project. It's an entirely different when you are touching about 13 different sites and adding two schools. So, we have a unique um project that we're managing there and we're spending a lot of time making sure we have the right structure in place to carry us for the long haul. We're also looking at our safe our systemwide safety, security, and preparedness um and have invested in new leadership there and uh new new levels of training for all of our administrators before the school year even began. regardless of their role. All 55 people on our leadership council uh participated in uh training that led to our um our overall preparedness as we started the year. And we're also studying our enrollment patterns for both now and into the future so that we can get even more precise than we already are with our projections so that we can be as responsible as possible with our staffing so we can get as close to that point of optimization or equilibrium as possible. as well as looking out ahead as our physical footprint expands to are we expanding in the right spot, maintaining the right class sizes, right levels of classroom so that we can uh best serve each and every one of our members of our of our district and all of our community members. So, those are very high level of just some early action areas that we've had across the district. You're going to hear more about some of those as well as some other things. Um there's a whole lot more happening than just those four areas. Uh when we look across our district, I'll be joined tonight by each uh each member of our strategy leadership team. So this is our like senior level leadership team at the district level. Um and we they're listed here in order in which that we'll present tonight. Um I just want to thank all of them. The one member you won't hear from tonight is our WA president, Rachel Falcowski. Um, but I do want to just thank her in this space for being a member of that team. And I know Rachel's here. Uh, and though I'm sure there are somewhere between a thousand a million things she could do every Tuesday morning besides meet with uh us, she makes time to meet with us continuously and adds a lot of value to our collaboration and to that partnership. Um this is a pretty unique arrangement um that demonstrates a high level of trust um that the district has with our um teachers and just with different groups and the lens that Rachel brings from her experience as a teacher, experience as a parent as well as experience as a WA president makes this group stronger. So just want to thank Rachel for that and just how much I again how I appreciate that we have uh that level of partnership here. The rest of the team members uh you'll hear from and I'll just uh I'll stay here with them. Uh Dave, if you want to start to make your way over and then uh they'll rotate through. They've got just a couple of slides per area tonight. And one request I'd have for um the board as you as you listen tonight as we're working to build out our annual work plan or a plan for the rest of the school year of when do we bring things either to our different committees of the board or to work sessions or to our regular meetings or maybe some other way for us to engage. if you could listen tonight for what might you like to hear more about in one of those venues and we can follow up over that on that and follow-up communications and follow-up meetings about where would you like to a deeper dive on any of this. Uh I know each SLT member uh wasn't thrilled when I told them about how tight the slide count was and how tight the minutes are. So, I know each of them would be happy to go deeper with all this, but since we're trying to give you a full district kickoff tonight, um I'll ask you just to if as best we can to take note of what we'd like to go deeper with at another time. Uh with that, I'll turn it over to Executive Director of Human Resources, Dave Loots. >> All [snorts] right. Thank you, Dr. Virgin. Uh Chair Sony, members of the board, it's my pleasure to provide a human resources um overview here. And fall is an exciting time. and we get a focus on our humans back in the district, right? Um so we uh started out by welcoming 206 new staff members. Um you have the breakdown there before you. 94 teachers, 70 paras, 20 Wisetta kids and preschool staff, six Wisetta cafe staff, uh six unaffiliated staff, five principles or associate principles, three admin pros, two custodians, and counting. We are hiring every day and so that those numbers will change. Um we're just shy of the 2,000 mark for contracted staff. We're at 1960. Um if you counted our um non-contracted, casual, seasonal staff, etc., it'd be well in excess of that. So um that's the [clears throat] breakdown in percent. Uh pretty typical. I looked at the last few years. That's a pretty typical breakdown. Um their largest group being our teachers, of course. Um the next slide. Uh teacher experience levels is something we've reported out historically. So we do have an experienced staff here in Weisetta. Uh 2% are at their first year. Um and then 30% years 2 through 10 um years 11 through 20 37% and then uh 31% being 21 plus. So we do have some sticking power. We looked at our retention levels um with our teachers and and we tend to do well for for retention um levels of education. We also have a very um educated staff uh with our teachers. Uh BA is 15% 84% have our ma their master's degree and a percent have their doctorate. So a very uh highly educated and and trained staff as well. Um so when we look forward look at this upcoming year. Um, I do want to just kind of reflect on this last year. We survived it, which is great. Um, it was a wild year for leadership hiring. I think it's it's worth noting. You know, a new superintendent, we had three new uh head principles, six associate principles, five unaffiliated administrators in different roles. So, um, the the the new leadership in Weisetta um obviously brings uh some new perspective and getting to that point was a big lift. Um, also in HR, we have a lot of newness in our department. So, I'm starting year two. Um, we've, so I've been here for a year, my director's been here for a year, Laura Hoffman Hordick. Um, we admin's only been here for a year. We have a new benefits tech uh benefits tech, relatively new, and a and a relatively new leave specialist. So, as a department, we're also experiencing that newness, um, which again has its its benefits and challenges. We're getting a lot of really good perspective from individuals that come to us from other places. Um, and just have to really create uh conscious effort to not experience uh leadership lag in those different positions. Uh, so moving forward, our goal really is that stability and then practice refinement. We're spending a lot of time as a department looking at our different procedures, our standard operations, um, and refining how we do business on a day-to-day basis. The last slide is just an overview of uh some of the goals for our department. Um so thanks Rob. Appreciate that. Um recruitment and retention and engagement is always going to be a goal of ours. It aligns with strategic direction three. Um we want to hire excellent staff. It starts there. Um when when you hire great staff, a lot of the rest of it kind of takes care of itself uh to support diverse learning needs. Um we want to ensure a positive candidate experience with Weisetta. That's whether or not you get a job with us. We want the experience you had in the candidacy process to be positive. We know word travels fast about that stuff. So, we uh want you to have a good experience with us if you're in a process with us. Uh collaborate with leadership and unions to gather actionable feedback and meet employee needs. Um effective use of district resources. uh overseeing staffing districtwide, ensuring effective inbudget use of our human resources, not capitalized because it's a common noun. Is that right, [clears throat] Amy Parnell? Are you impressed? Okay, sounds good. All right. Uh operational excellence. I looked that up like two minutes ago cuz I knew I was going to impress her. Uh operational excellence for strategic direction. Seven, high levels of accuracy in compliance and reporting. We always strive to be accurate um with our work. uh standard operational procedures for consistent uh contract practice and policy implementation and then ensuring quality customer service. Our employees are our customers also. Um and sometimes when you're connecting with HR, it may be at a really challenging time in your career, in your life, etc. And we just want to make sure that we lean in with that empathy um and really care for our employees when they need us. employee health and well-being with strategic direction for uh provide support and resources um with leaves and assistance in times of needs and then maintaining all the benefits um offerings that that our staff have uh being a part of our district making sure that again the things that you need are are at your uh reach or you can ask and and learn more about those things. So those are the goals for our human resources department. we come together and and review them and and talk about, you know, what's going well and and what we need to work on within each of those areas. Good evening board members. Um I will be talking about a lot of different things. Um that's one of the the beautiful things about the finance and operations department is operations is uh um has a lot of things under that umbrella. Um from Weisetta cafes to facilities, transportation, safety and security [snorts] um and of course finance. So um we understand as a department that while we might not be in the classroom on a day-to-day basis or hourto-hour basis, we uh value our work and view it as just as important even though Dana would disagree. Um [snorts] [clears throat] but yeah, we we take pride in in the work we do to make sure that some of those behind the scenes um things um operate as they should. So, uh seven slides um a lot of it just statistical information. Um kind of some fun facts, but we'll go through those quickly. Uh first thing, finance highlights. Um nothing new here. Um uh we finished the 2425 audited financial statement. seems like a long time ago since we're in the middle to 25 26 right now, but uh we did have 100% clean audit. Um we once again were affirmed the AAA bond rating from Moody's when we had our 20226b bond sale uh a couple months ago. So that's exciting. And for the 42nd consecutive year, we were the recipient of their certificate of excellence and financial reporting from ASBO. Um and I think it's important to know that all of those are connected. um it'd probably be hard to get all of them without having one of them. Um so there is a lot of interconnectivity there between those three things and um that is something that we should continue to be proud of as a school district because it is hard to um find that at any size of a school district but especially our size. Um we we do think this is worthy of a lot of celebration on a daily basis. Um some fun facts about facilities. Um so on the left where we have a a glance at our K12 schools, our capacity and enrollment. Um so our L nine elementary schools, we have a capacity of 5,732. Um and current enrollment is 5,795. So we are exceeding our capacity there as is not a surprise. Um with our three middle schools, capacity of 3,136 and currently enrollment of 3,157. Um and then at the high school capacity just over 4,000 with enrollment of 4154. So total capacity of 12,937. Um and our total enrollment as of when this slide was done um it's always changing especially this time of year. Um but it was at 13,16. Uh we do have seven other facilities. Um one early learning school um one transition school and then then five supplementary buildings. um whether it be the district service center, central services facility, the warehouse, um those kind of buildings. Uh we do um employ about 90 custodians. Um and we operate over 2.2 million square ft. Um and we own as a district 562.04 acres. Um and that's a lot of square footage. Um, one thing to note about the total build building square footage once our projects are complete, um, in about four years, we do expect to increase our square footage about 471,000 square ft. Uh, so we'll be just around 2.7 million of of building square footage. Transportation information, as everybody knows, um, we have had the opportunity to work with a new transportation provider this year. um as is ever the case every year, it has not gone without issues. Um the first couple weeks of school, we realize that and work hard to um to work through all of those things that we know will be coming and um hopefully um limit the pain. But um it is it is a difficult logistical puzzle to put together on a daily basis. So um the staff is working hard to ensure that we get um kids to and from school on a timely and safe basis. Um, and that's not we know that's not always a easy thing to do. Um, but staff work hard to accomplish that. Uh, we do have 85 buses that are in routes for regular routes um, which totals 495 um, per day. We do have 45 buses that um, accompany 172 specialed routes and we travel over 10,000 m per day. Um, and it's still a little alarming to see this. It's hard to fathom, but that's two and a half trips around the Earth's equator every week. Um, we are really excited about that last bullet point that we are 100% plus staffed. Um, so not only are we 100% staffed, but we also have some um, spare drivers for um, when illnesses occur. Um, and for the first time in four years, we have not had to rely on out of town drivers. Um, so that's a celebration as well. A quick glance at our K12 September enrollment um for the last 3 years. Um as expected, there's that 13,16 number that we had talked about, which is a 81 student increase from the previous year. Um the majority of that increase comes at the high school. Um so you can see our growth has slowed a little bit um from from a couple years ago, but continue to uh see that incline on a year-to-year basis. um a quick glance at our elementary class sizes. Uh we are also really happy to see how these trends have gone the the right direction. So back in 2425 uh we did have an average class size um at the elementary of about 24.5. Last year in 2526 that was at 23.7. Uh we are happy to report that this year we are at 23.2. Um and you can see where our average class size is based on our target class size. While not every single section will be under the the target class size on average, every single one of our grade levels is well below um what our target class size is. So really good news to see that. Last year our Weisetta Cafes program for the first time ever exceeded two million 2 million meals served. Um so you can see how that has trended. Um of course that's has a lot to do with our increased enrollment as well. Um, but the the Wise Cafe staff does take pride in the quality of food as well. So, um, we are 94.5% of our staff hired. Um, I I know not so sure that number ever gets to 100% during the year, but to be at that that close to it, um, we're happy about that as well. Um, Rob mentioned, we did hire a new assistant director of security and emergency management in recent years, and it it has been a wonderful addition to our district. Um I won't read these um word word for word but you can see that a lot has happened in the short amount of time that that leader has been here. Um and we have a lot of plans uh for what's next. Um but we do understand uh the importance of this and it continue to be a um a stress in the district to make sure that um especially as our building projects um occur in the next 3 to four years that this will be a highlight of anything that we do. um just to make sure that our district standards are where we want them be as far as safety and security management goes. Dana, >> thanks Trevor. Good evening, members of the board. Dr. Virgin, thanks. Um I'm going to do a really high um 10,000 foot view of what's leading the work in teaching and learning and really kick off um what is teaching and learning along with the fellow folks um that will come next that are part of our seat team which is about that student experience and achievement. Um this year in teaching and learning we worked on um redefining our mission of the team. We had a really long verbose mission and it wasn't something that we could easily communicate on what it is we do in our department and across the district. And so really want to highlight that tonight. We're we're feeling really good about that and point out that it's around equitable systems and the partnership that we have. And so we'll be hearing from a lot of those partners tonight along with the educators that we work with focused on that student experience and this year adding in that adult learning piece. So, in prior years, we talked a lot about student learning, but a big part of the teaching and learning job is also empowering and lifting up our adult learners. As we know, you hear me say all the time, right, the key indicator of student success is the person that we put in front of them in the classroom. So, really wanting to highlight that to ensure at that strategic direction and vision of our district, we're ensuring that every student belongs, learns, and thrives. So with that in mind, we have broken down this year really honing in on four strategic or three, excuse me, um strategic focus areas. I do want to say I think we called them that before you called them that. I'm kidding. Um and so I think you'll see a lot of alignment in this work. But the stu three focus areas are around that student learning and student experience and then professional learning continuous improvement and maybe more clearly defining than in the past creating that data informed culture. So what you have to beside that is a top snippet and I don't expect you to see that or read that. Um we will be going into our strategic focus areas in much more depth with the teaching and learning committee of the board. But those three focus areas then broken down will be continued throughout many years. So that's not a oneandone this year, but it's continued work um around those specific areas. But you'll also see again that alignment to the themes or focus areas that Dr. Virgin spoke to. So that student experience and learning is directly aligned with direction one and two. And then if we look at the professional learning and continuous learning um or continuous improvement our cell work really falling into this again the MTSS the PLC work um and that while is obvious to direction one it's also really around that um direction two as as well really wanting our systems to be aligned and have that coherence so that we are strongly hip-to-hip around uh in the work not only across our departments but also across building to building teachertoteer and so forth. And then the data informed culture is really um as you know we've been we've we've been working on a tool that also aligns that organizational coherence so that we're looking at data and I think that really builds that community trust piece in us and also that organizational um alignment so that we can regularly be looking at data know what we're looking at and and knowing that we're making informed decisions that lead us back to that not only a mission in teaching and learning but also your strategic directions and mission. So again, we have a really pretty form on that. And then underneath there are our success criteria for this year. And again, that'll be something we'll go into more depth with the teaching learning committee of the board. Just to give you a highlevel overview, then this is taking maybe that next step or peeling the onion back a little bit more if you will. This is specific work and I won't go through all of these, but the specific work that is driving us in teaching and learning um this year. So, unpacking standards, doing work around common assessments, formative assessments, um, highlighting the areas of standards implementation. As you know, if Obby was here, you know what he'd say. >> Oh, is he back here? He joined us now. All right. So, I guess I'll have to say it. It is the year of math. So, um, but we are implementing our new math standards and doing some shifts at the high school along with those. So integrating new resources across the system, CTE, expanding that work in 612 pathways and really deepening that as we prepare to add that addition onto the high school. And then our music enrichment and continuing to advance that work and kick off a K12 music review, much coming out of some of your request and and direction. And then professional learning, as Rob highlighted, continuing to mature those PLC's and the work of MTSS. And then in data literacy, I you'll hear a lot about a tool called Aubrey, but that's not the work. The work is really around um expanding our data literacy and how we engage with data to inform our instruction with the students in front of us. And it's really how we help our teachers in the craft that they do dayto-day. And that tool that we will have will make that craft much easier. So that's really a highlevel overview of what we're doing in teaching and learning. And um I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues at that point. I believe Wade. >> Thanks. All right. Good evening. Um, I will not be speaking of acreage tonight or [laughter] or other uh statistics. I really appreciate that. But you'll probably hear some similar themes uh in in technology has really been a a hot topic lately, hasn't it? So I I think that's really given us and and myself kind of this um chance to kind of uh reflect a little bit on on what are we doing, what's our role, you know, from a department point of view and from a staffing point of view. What are we here to do? And and how are we showing up for work each day? And and a big part of that that purpose for us really comes back down to to service. Like our department is technology services and we show up to serve. So when you think about our our students and our staff and our educators, um you as a board, the community as a whole, um student uh that service part is really what we have in mind when we show up each and every day. So um from a a service perspective, um we have like three key areas from a technology point of view or technology services point of view that we'll um highlight tonight. And and number one is that that teaching and learning perspective. So I I kind of fought to be after Dana because um what we do in technology is really to show up and and power empower that teaching and learning infrastructure and um a lot of the different uh um you know projects and initiatives that she shared earlier are are part of if there's a technology connection as part of what we try to do to to um serve uh the teaching and learning serve the district as a whole. But a big part of this lens is also part of our balanced technology um framework. And that's something we'll go into a little bit more detail. And if you were here a couple weeks ago, you had a little bit more of that in depth. The other uh core area that you heard Trevor speak to a little bit is our our safety and security. And safety and security is like um one of those moral imperatives that we have here in the district. We have to uh really ensure that our students and our staff and our sites are are safe. And we take that from a perspective of both physical security and some of the key areas that Trevor shared from our high level emergency management point of view, but also from a cyber security and data protection point of view. So safety and security kind of falls into a couple different lenses for us. And then ultimately operational excellence. And when we think about operational excellence from a technology perspective, it's about modernizing our infrastructure um or having uh reliable uh equipment or being able to troubleshoot or ultimately show up and be able to serve at the end of the day. So those key three areas are um kind of our focal points that we'll um highlight tonight. [snorts] So um kind of back to the balanced technology framework as you as you see on the slide, we have the theme alignment and some of our strategic direction alignment around this work. And as we shared before, this is very very much purpose- driven work. So it's all about the teaching and learning experience. It's about our students daily experience and ultimately their their outcomes or what they're trying to uh learn on any given day. And it's pri is prioritizing that work um and ensuring that uh the technology that we have in the organization is aligned um very intentionally to like what are our learning goals. We also have shared I think a few times our portrait of a student or a portrait of a graduate and those are very aspirational terms that we have for how we want our students to kind of go through our experience here and we want to make sure there's really strong connections between both the technology side of that and our instructional goals. [snorts] So this is um uh very timely work. We spent the last I'd say couple months from the end of spring last year really thinking about what is the balanced technology framework uh going to look like and then we rolled into the last two or three months of summer uh rolling out some of these system level guardrails that we spoke to and there's [snorts] a lot of work in there. So, we had about two months of really resetting all of our devices, getting our equipment ready. Um, kind of defaulting everything back to that standard that we said that we're going to set for this year and and removing some of that digital noise and some of those non-academic things that were being used on those devices. What I think we're finding out right now, and as Rob has spoken to earlier, we're two or three weeks into the school year and we're starting to kind of learn how this is landing and I think there's a lot of really good things that are happening. Uh we got some feedback early from from our classrooms from our principal leaders um on how kids are showing up and how there's active engagement in this. There's a really good feel and vibe about what is the classroom like today in comparison to what it was like last year. Um so I think some early wins there and we're also realizing that this is very much a continuous improvement type um uh project plan. So, as we're rolling out new areas of this and we made all these different system level uh changes within the summer, we have to give our our teachers and our staff some time to kind of adjust to those areas. And that's also some of the feedback that we're hearing right now is we have to make some um some adjustments in the work. So, we feel really good about it. We're off to a good start. I'm excited about the work. I think Dan and I are are often having conversations about where we are and where we're going. Um and ultimately we're trying to focus back on that sterning uh student learning the student learning experience and trying to make sure that this is as well balanced as we're going forward. [snorts] The other big area as I spoke to uh before is really around safety, security, data privacy and again this is broken down into a couple different areas. Again, physical um building safety and security is a is a key area. Um it's great to have a a new member of the team and safety and security is a very much a team activity. we all have to kind of be part of this work and I think you'll see some uh some crossover and collaboration around a lot of these uh different topics. A couple areas to report out here is we've done a multi-year project now to update our physical security buildings from perimeter security to door access control uh to new security cameras within all of our buildings. and we just finalized our elementary and our all buildings here in the summer and we've brought those into a a unified system and we're now kind of going live on this in the school year. So, it's a kind of one of those major projects that we worked with over a few years and it's um trying to again better our physical security plan. [snorts] I think uh Trevor also mentioned that we have some continued uh work and refinement around our emergency response system. So, that's also part of that work. uh uh systems like Crisis Go, Raptor and other emergency management communication systems are also part of those areas that we're trying to refine as we're going forward. Uh the proactive student safety area, excuse me. This is um I think best connected back to our balanced technology framework uh work. So we we spoke to this a couple weeks back in that presentation. So, as we're rolling out devices this year, we're really trying to be proactive in um both our visibility and the use of information to um be proactive when things pop up for students. So, if there's a threat for self harm or harm to others, this is a digital safety net that connects um that incident to um building leaders to crisis teams and in at the sites to be able to respond to those situations. So, it's kind of the student safety side that we're kind of taking from this perspective and trying to make sure that our students have what they need to be um okay and being able to move forward. Um, from a cyber security and AI and privacy point of view, there's a lot going on in that that space. We could have a whole presentation just on AI and I imagine we'll be back here in the future to talk a little bit more about that. Um, if you follow the news, um, AI can go anywhere from it's going to end the world to it's like the best thing since sliced bread. And there's some truth probably in the middle of that, but we really need to be mindful about what does that look like for us as an organization. What are some of the policies and governance we need to do around that? And that will be some future work as we get into that. Um AI is also an interesting topic around cyber security and privacy. So that's something that we're also paying attention to. Um and there's a considerable amount of resources that we deploy on our side to um put up protection using AI for other systems. And there's a lot of areas where AI becomes a threat to the organization that we have to manage from a cyber security point of view. So um this is again a core part of the work. We have um some really good vendor partners who help us uh have 247 365 like cyber security operations around our organization. So it's not just our eyes on these situations but it's also some of our vendor partners' eyes on these situations to help us like mitigate and and reduce threats from a cyber security point of view. And then awareness is always one of those areas of work that we do. So cyber security awareness either from a a staff perspective. So that's one of those key initiatives that we have and you all might be um or have been involved in that when you get an email and you click on a link and it gives you what you should or should not do in future links. part of our work around cyber security awareness and we're looking for other opportunities on what we can do with our our student side to raise awareness for them so they're um also connected into um you know that environment. I'd say the last part uh to report out on tonight is really about operational excellence. And this is in a couple different areas here. And it's really trying to make sure that we have really good systems. Um they're robust or redundant. They're they're in a place that keeps us operational and keep the organizational uh organization moving. Uh from an enterprise data system point of view, probably two key highlights here. uh one last year we spent about about two and a half years actually planning and deploying um an update to our finance HR payroll system from a legacy system to an updated system. This year we're starting to like what are figure out what are the continuous improvement uh factors that we have to do around that system to make it better as we go forward. Um and Dana mentioned our Aubrey uh data warehouse system which is really unifying um disperate student data from a lot of different areas into a a unified platform. That's a big uh platform that we've been working on for a number of years and we're finally getting that into teachers hands I think next week. So that's a big achievement from a technical point of view, from a teaching and learning point of view. Um it's again some of that collaborative work in the middle area just around infrastructure. Um just a couple shout outs here for some some major infrastructure work that we've done on the networking side. Uh last year reported out that we had multiple internet connections brought into the organization. So we had some redundancy and resiliency to that connection. As you can imagine, pretty much everything's kind of connected to the internet. Uh when you when you deal in the in the technology zones, we want to make sure that we have multiple pathways to get out and and be able to be functional if something were to happen to one of the systems. This year we focus on major upgrades over the summer kind of along with all that other work that we're doing uh to update our core network. So that's our our connection between all of our buildings and all of our sites and and and create and increase our capacity between those sites. So we do that partly um to number one stay up to date with that technology and and maintain our connection needs. We're also doing that from a perspective of trying to uh plan out our future growth. So what does the next two three four years look like? what does that student growth look like? And then as we're bringing on new campuses and new sites, so we're prepped and ready to do that. So core network infrastructure is not on the top of anybody's list unless it kind of gets like rusty and crusty and things are not working right. Um I think we're very um fortunate for it to be uh in a position where right now that it wasn't at that point and we can kind of begin to upgrade that and be prepped and ready for the next couple years. We also rolled that down to the sites and we updated all of our networking into the sites into the classroom and um rolled out a whole wireless network in the last couple years. So some big infrastructure updates um uh work through that team. And then probably the final two notes here again is is really around that area of future planning. So we're being thoughtful about what do those sites look like? What's our buildout going to be? How do we make connections to those new campuses? And how do we manage that student growth? And and that's not just from an infrastructure point of view. It kind of goes back to like what is our what is our service mindset, how are we going to do service delivery, and how we're going to make sure that we have the people in place to be able to do a really good job um and set a high level of excellence and standard to our work. All that's being done with um just this mindset of fiscal stu stewardship and just trying to maximize that return on our community's investment in us and the technology levy and being able to deliver service, support, excellence, infrastructure, then our teaching and learning environment overall. Thank you for your time. [snorts] >> This is me here for student support services department. As you know, we have a transition our leadership in our student support services department and we in still wanted to provide a high level overview of tonight of a couple of key areas that are are in this department. There's five major areas that comprise the department. often you're thinking about special education and that is where the majority of the students staff and and resources are and there's also our multilingual services related services and our health services mental health as well as 504. So we have uh across our leadership team folks that are dedicated in each one of of these spaces. Right now we have a supervisor or uh kind of like an assistant director u that hold the director's license that are four of them that support our early learning school uh elementary middle high school and transition that are supporting us in in leading the work in in all of these places. Some of the priorities for the team this year uh that supervisor role that I just touched on was really around increasing the level of partnership. So to get to these three areas of our how are we having sustainable staffing models that provide the right level of service and get the right level level of um sustainability for us across all of our sites and all of our levels and the and the future of the department and district. um to get to that as well as to responsive behavioral systems and social emotional support as well as our professional learning and um collaboration that's targeted to what educators and what leaders need in real time is all rooted in in partnership. And the partnerships that we that we have across our supervisors working handinhand with our principles is really the key to a student support services um team functioning at a high level. So as we go through this this transition being based in partnership and having supervisors and principles and coordinators and school psyches and um evaluation specialists and our teachers and our paras operating already in toward higher levels of partnership and going through a pretty robust program review over the last 18 months or so uh and to be able to build on that moving forward. we're able to have this transition be smooth as well as be able to um actively write what that next chapter will look like through the partnerships that all come around together in in the student experience. >> All right, school. >> Good evening members of the board. uh equity and inclusion work is best described as adaptive and not as often technical. Uh there is a lot of nuance um to creating that authentic belonging um and then achievement for each and every student across the country. This is a challenge for school districts. gaps persist over and over and again. Um, and yet there is research to indicate what are some of the things that can be done. And that really is the adaptive piece that in the equity and inclusion department in deep partnership with colleagues here, especially with teaching and learning, but across all of our departments, start to examine how do we actually bring that research to life and into fruition to see those positive outcomes and those shifts occur for our students here in Weisetta. Um, so that when we say each and every, the results truly show excellence for each and every. And as you've seen up here, there's a couple of screenshots to speak to just reminders of kind of what we're grounding our work in that when we are seeking the work of equity and inclusion in Wisetta public schools, we are looking at those strategies that are going to effectively remove those gaps but create growth for every single one of our students. We want each and every student to excel here. And to do that, we have to look at our system. Uh there's you quotes out there that help us remember that systems are designed to get the results that they get. And in Weisetta, we get some really wonderful results and yet are still not getting excellence for each and every. So what do we have to examine in our systems? So, a lot of the work that I am involved in, that the equity and inclusion department um is involved in is about partnering um with folks across our system to examine what can we do differently um what do we hold on to as well to maintain the excellence that already exists. So, in our work this year in particular, we're really honing in um still on three key areas. classroom practices. What are the things that are going to really have our students thrive and excel? Uh I was excited to hear earlier one of the staff members um from Moisetta Kids talking about that after school experience, the independence, the thriving, um the choice making, the critical thinking. We want that to happen all day long. And that's a key part of some of the things that we can be doing more and more of in our classrooms to really help each and every student thrive. and Excel. Um, so those are some of the things that you'll get to hear more about this year that we're we're focusing in on family partnership. Um, how do we make sure that those who know our students best are partners with us in reaching that high achievement and belonging for each and every one of our students. And then the systemwide support um being available to the leaders across the system because this is not the work of one department. This is all of our work. this one department supports the system in being able to do that work. Now, that being said, how do you measure this? It is tricky to measure adaptive work. And we've been wrestling through that for a number of years. And so, some of the shifts that we're making in our approaches to those three prioritized areas this year are shifts to hopefully help us be able to hone in a little bit more like research to be able to examine with this laser focus. is this having the impact on the outcomes that we're seeking for each and every one of our students. So that's a key piece that you'll be hearing more about. To that end, all of this work very much aligns um with the framework uh that you were hearing about from Dr. Virgin earlier. Classroom practices are fundamentally grounded in our core purpose, student learning and experience. Family partnership is absolutely at the core of community trust, partnership, and belonging. And then systemwide support, how we're examining how we operate as a structure, um our coherence, connected autonomy, our stewardship, all of that is a part of that systemwide support. So excited for this this next year and aligning everything. And with that, I get to hand it off to my colleague Jenny Eert in community ed. So, >> good evening members of the board. Thank you for having me here tonight. Excited to share a little bit about some of the work that we're doing in community ed this coming year. I want to start by just reminding us of the purpose similar to what we heard from some of my colleagues here tonight. Um, our mission within community ed. Our our purpose is really to help our E12 plus students, families, and community thrive and be successful in life. And we do that in a wide variety of ways that are highlighted in the wheel there through hundreds of different opportunities for our community to engage and for us to be of service and to help people um really thrive and enjoy lifelong learning through community ed. We have two primary goals that we're focusing on this year. Um the first one is really all about investing in people and in our staff. It's thinking about how we are cultivating a high performing team, cultured driven and sustainable team in community ed. Our key strategies for doing that are listed there. And um there are a number of action items that support that work that we're doing in in that goal number one, but I wanted to highlight two in particular for you um that align with some of the themes that Dr. Virgin shared with us earlier. So really looking at those foundational literacy skills and foundational skills within our early learning program and really understanding the work that we're doing there and how that feeds into our K12 system and um pinpoint where we're seeing strengths in those things and where we're seeing where we might need to do things differently to make sure that we're um meeting those gaps where students aren't yet meeting academic benchmarks the way that we would like them to. The second one I really want to highlight is around professional learning and leadership development. We have a team of 350 people in community ed that takes a lot of leadership at a lot of different levels. And we know that doing service work is all about the people in the programs. And so thinking about all the unique and different ways we want to support our leaders through different opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other and use our insights training um and do book studies and a variety of other pieces to really think about how are we supporting our growing leaders throughout our community at department. Our second goal is similar to some of what we are hearing from Wade around that future planning. It's really looking at our different programs and how we're going to adapt to the growth that we're seeing, the growth in needs that we're seeing, the growth in our district, um the growth in need for services. And so that's through strategically expanding capacity, our community partnerships, and then impact through responsive programs and and data informed decision-making. Again, the strategies are listed there. there. I'm not going to read them for you, but I do want to highlight a couple of of of action items that we're going to be looking at. Again, there's I think two pages worth of action items that we're going to be uh focusing on for this year. But what we really want to highlight is thinking about growth management. Um I'm going to share in a future slide some of the numbers related to our programs. We're really seeing increased needs in a variety of our programs. And in order to meet that growth and um have highly successful and high quality programs, you really have to be thoughtful about the operation side of it as well. The second piece I want to highlight is around safety and security. In partnership with our great colleagues in variety of departments, we're building out a an out of school time. That's what OST stands for, an out of school time safety protocol and emergency preparedness plan for all of our sites. And then again in early learning, looking at as our community continues to grow and our needs for early learning grows and we're serving 30 to 35% of our incoming kindergarteners in our early learning program right now, what else is needed uh within our programs to serve more students who serve students differently and really looking at a full program review in that area. The last is targeted growth around the adults in our community. We had a wonderful survey that we did with Morris Leatherman last year um that I highlighted with you all. And part of that was some really good learning about who in our community might not be participating in community ed and what we might do to engage them and think about um what their needs are and how do we serve them in different ways as well. The last slide I want to share is around just um some program data for us. You heard from Trevor on our overall district enrollment and wanted to share some of the um front end and back end of those pieces. If you think of our wheel that I shared earlier, these are two of our wedges is early learning and the Wisetta kids program. So we have a variety of other programs that are happening to you, but these are our two biggest programs that I want to share here tonight and give you a little highlight of um total number of preschoolers at the different ages. We have a 515 total, two, three, and four year olds split between our partday and our full day preschool programs. We also have um a whole lot of families, 173 families in our year-long ECF and many more that are participating in one-time topic areas. So, really engaging our babies through our 5-year-olds and a variety of different ways through the early learning program. Um nearly a thousand folks that are connecting with us in those two programs alone. On the Weisetta Kids side, I share this graph because I I think it's important to see the growth that we're experiencing in Weisetta Kids. Um we've heard for years the demand and the needs that we have in childcare. We know that's an essential part of what our community needs. We heard about what a wonderful program it is here earlier tonight and want to share that we have over 500 more students in that program than we did three years ago. That's been intentional growth work that we've been doing. Um, we are focusing on not only the hiring and partnering with a talent recruitment agency, but also focusing on the training and staff support that happens by investing uh professional development learning days into our childare program and looking at all the different ways to support a a good high quality program. Um, we are about 95% hired similar to what we're seeing in Weisetta Cafes across our community team and we'll continue to work with our recruitment agency to fill that out. Um, we will also continue to work with them to take students off the weight list. As noted there, we have 224 students on the wait list. That's a number that I would love to see lower. I am grateful to see that it is about half the size that it was last year and the year before that. So, in addition to adding more kids, we have less on the wait list. So, we are going to continue to really focus on how do we do that really well and um meet that growing need of our community. With that, I will hand it off to Amy Parnell. Good evening, board members. I think it's very appropriate that communications and community engagement is last actually because we are here to serve and support all the departments and schools that you've heard tonight. There's really not much that our small but mighty team doesn't touch in some way from strategic advice, communications, um messaging, implementation, we really get involved with almost everything and all the different departments and schools. Um, so, um, I just wanted to give a little bit, um, of background on some of the tools that we use, but really our main purpose is to create meaningful connections through various communications vehicles that are clear, timely, accessible, and transparent. And it's really, you've heard this many times tonight, but it's really all about community trust. And to make sure that we um always um express our gratitude for that and take that very seriously, um we need to be continuously improving uh the way that we communicate with all of our audiences, which include the community, our families, and our staff. Our staff are very important ambassadors, and we need to make sure that they're getting all of that information in a timely way. And it's all about celebrating the exc excellence. We are so fortunate to be able to tell all the stories in this district, all the wonderful things happening to support each and every student. So we do that by um the various vehicles that are listed on the slide. Um, I'm going to go in a little bit more to our website, but we do have um a full website that is focused on being accessible and and it is created in plain language. We have WPS News, which is our oversized postcard that gets sent to all district residents three to four times a year depending on um the issues um that we are um prioritizing for the year. We have a very close relationship with our local media including the Sun Sailor and CCX Media and then the broader Twin Cities media as as um as is appropriate. Um Parent Square is something I'll go into a little more detail, but that is the two-way communication tool that we adopted. We're in our third year now, which has been a very helpful tool um to make sure that we're staying connected. um newsletters at both the district and the school level are something that we provide um through parent square. We also um do district social media and social media at uh many of our schools and many of our programs such as athletics and last year was the first year that we had the inside podcast and I believe we had 27 podcasts. So I don't know if we'll beat that this year but it'll be close. I think they're off and running with four or five already. So that's been a really wonderful tool to go in more depth in uh many things that are happening throughout the district and really have it through more of the storytelling lens. So, in alignment with many of the priorities that you've heard tonight, um you know, building on the successful referendum, we really need to continue that momentum to keep that community trust by keeping our families, staff, and the broader community informed about the progress of all of our construction projects. We did give an update at the last board work session of all the tools that we will use. The main one being um our website where in real time our community can come and take a look at any of the construction projects that are underway and get a sense of of where that particular project is at. Uh we did launch a new website um which really is again focused on content that is accessible, accurate and upto-date. And we've created a governance document that's leading um staff throughout the district because that really is very much a collaborative effort um that our staff will provide training and support, but it really touches all of our schools and departments have a role in in keeping the website up to date. And then um to enhance parent square, parent square is a wonderful uh we move to it because it really is a two-way tool that um does translation, texting, newsletters, emergency communications, and a number of additional features that we are hoping to use more over time um to connect, engage, and respond. So we're always looking at ways to improve that as well. And then finally, we will continue to partner with our welcome center um colleagues to expand. Um we're really focusing on kindergarten enrollment and making sure that we um are connecting with all of our resident um families and students. um and really um to enhance what we're doing, we've moved our registration timeline back just to be um you know doing things in a way that really is enhancing that family experience and making it as easy as possible for families to get to know us and for us to get to know them and just to make that whole process move more smoothly. So with that, I will turn it back to Dr. Virgin. >> All right. Well, as you can see, I get to work every day with a pretty amazing team that helps put together uh unbelievable experiences for all of our staff and students. So, thank you to everybody for presenting tonight, for all the work you're doing, and thank you board for uh your contributions to what's been just an amazing start to the 2627 school year. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Wiggin. Um just open it up for comments, questions. No. Okay. >> I just have one very important comment for the person in the back. I would say it's always a math year every single year. [laughter] >> No, thank you all. You guys did a really nice job. >> Right. So, thank you Dr. Virgin. I think you have a fantastic, terrific team with you. So, we're looking forward to the great work that's going to happen this year and in the future. So, thank you all. Okay, moving on to the policy approvals. So, policy committee of the board chair Sheila Prior will share the development, adoption and implementation of three policies. Sheila, >> thank you. Chair Sahonyi, um before you is a recommended action, I believe for three policies. Do you want to read that first or >> Sure. Okay. >> Do you have any explanation comments or anything like that? >> Then you can do the recommendation. >> Sure. Um so there's three policies that yes the the policy committee reviewed recently. Um there were some MSBA policies that had some different wording and we changed the numbers. Um, these policies, we didn't change them too much from the MSBA policies, but we found there was some things we we actually had to combine one of them and try to figure out where there was repetition and where there wasn't. It wasn't like a onetoone. It was it was it was a challenge um to figure out again where we had it written and where MSBA had it written. But we think we um you know managed to get it so that we're not repeating ourselves and that we've incorporated everything we want to. And um yeah, if anybody has questions, I guess we'll have it in the discussion. >> Okay. Thank you, Sheila. So, the recommended action is to approve the three board policies all at the same time, right? As presented, not one by one, >> unless somebody doesn't want to. >> Okay. So, yes, um to approve the three board policies as presented. Um is there a motion? >> I so move and I would like to wave to second reading. >> Okay. Thank you. Any second? I'll second. >> Alicia seconds. Thank you. Any discussion, any comments, questions? Yes, Valentina. >> Uh when I looked at uh policies, uh what I noticed that in um I think at in uh 212, I mean um about public um being a for public being able to uh come and address. Um I would say thank you very much for bringing back um because as a parent when I came um to school board with frustration um I printed out policy and it was saying 3 to 5 minutes but when we started coming because there were some u frustrations and we were asking board to reconsider all of a sudden that policy was changed to Freeman. minutes. And this this time I would like to say thank you for bringing back the opportunity that uh community can have a chance to um address the board up to five minutes. Thank you. >> Let me double check something. Did we leave? >> I read I read three minutes, right? >> Yeah. I I actually don't think I think it is just three minutes now. So, just want to make sure you're aware of that. Where where did she see that? >> Do you do you have uh I have copies of the policies here. Let me just find it. And written policy say 3 to five. >> Let's say three to five. I will admit that the policy committee would had intended to make it three minutes. So, >> well, would somebody like to move an amendment? M >> I I think the if I'm remembering the policy committee discussion the the the range we thought was un unhelpful because it it presented kind of what you're describing Valentine is now we're making a judgment decision and that people should just have the number from the outset and as we looked at a few different spots we thought three was kind of the number but the part that's sticking out to me more was less the exact number and more get away from the range just pick a number and I think the conversation was at three. >> I would agree with that. It wasn't it could because we had been doing three and it three >> seems like enough time for most speakers um that we wanted to be very clear in the policy. So I guess I I would like to motion I will use my new form. >> I'm in the motion. Okay. >> Okay. So this is new and so I just want to make sure so bear with me please. Um I will just state in the amendment that change changed the range of three to five to three minutes and policy. >> Okay. >> Policy 212. >> Okay. >> I'm seeing it in policy 212 section 3 on procedures letter E. So then as it reads, just to be clear, it is a it would be three minutes and the school board retains the discretion to limit comments on any agenda item or topic to a reasonable period of time. So it's a max of three. Yeah. >> Is this still a discussion? May I ask question? Nobody has seconded it yet. >> Yeah, we have to move second the amendment and then discussion and then vote on the amendment. >> Okay. So I >> and if it fails then you come back to the Yeah. I move to change the wording in policy 212 section 3E to change the range of time for public speakers from 3 to 5 minutes and change it to 3 minutes. >> Okay. So you you are moving. Is there a second? >> I will second. >> We got motion and second. All right. Is there a discussion now? We can we can make a comment if you like. Um I as a parent which came to the board I would say it takes courage to come to school board. I never imagined to came and I I would say many of them uh would consider reconsider several times before coming. But if anything uh 3 minutes and it happened to be I happen to be old style Soviet printing out papers and I will have uh things that's why I have memory um but it's interesting enough when certain public started coming we felt being cut off and um if people can do in three minutes I can say yeah free minute why Not but that allows uh when a person is cut off and if you have some um some topics which are hot or trust me second person will come or grab a paper which we did and read it. I mean there is a way how to get around it but uh that for another person who came to that boiling point if you think it feels like um I'm not being heard uh these people are just cutting me off free till 5 minutes which obviously district had been by I mean at least this policy shows uh 2017 looks like at least I mean You can do math for several ages before COVID era came. Uh several years before COVID era came um district lived perfectly fine with it. So that's my that's my I would ask uh school board members to reconsider given what can happen. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, as part of the policy committee, that was the exact discussion we had about that range and how it had been maybe interpreted as being used to maybe cut some people off or not others. And it also had a lot to do with um I mean, I think in general we know that public comment has increased over the years. And so I think that's why we lend towards the three versus the five was that typically if we are going to have a topic that multiple people are speaking on. It felt diligent to just stay closer to that 3minut time frame not have a range so that it's not up to the discretion of whoever is in charge of time or what the topic is that evening. So know that that was a discussion that we had. That's why it's interesting you brought it up and I think we immediately were like oh we were under the impression that we had struck struck that and changed it. So clearly we just missed that. So I guess it's good we're having this conversation. >> So one of the things I have noticed in council meetings, other schoolboard meetings is they set a time aside for the total public participation. So typically it's 15 minutes total. They can't have 1 hour of audience opportunity to speak, right? So 15 minutes and like Alicia said over the years it has gone up quite a bit. So instead of five minutes per speaker which gives only three speakers time to speak, we now give five speakers time to speak. And so there has to be a trade-off. Uh and then somebody might just say, you know, even 5 minutes is not enough. I want to speak for 10 minutes. What do we do? >> That's why you put 3 to five or you can add uh the language that we encourage it to be free. But if a a person did not finish as I said that's what we did. We basically gave it to next person and the person continued reading but at the same time it felt that I am being cut off especially when it was happened before that 3 to5 was perfectly fine when all of a sudden parents had an issue all of a sudden that changed to free that's how it felt >> as far as I have been on the board as long as I've been on the board it's always been 3 minutes. I have not I have not heard a chair say 5 minutes ID. Have you? >> I haven't. And I I also think that second line that I read out loud in the middle of as as you were writing um the board has discretion to limit the time at in at any moment. So I think it's covered by policy. >> Yeah. And I I don't think I have cut anybody off if I have if I have done that. I mean I mean when they're speaking I don't cut them off mid-sentence. Okay. So >> Milan it's not about you as I said I just as I said it was for example it was co era and immediately when specific topic subside I literally sat down as a parent and listen when different topics came yes it was allowed 5 minutes so it felt very much so that depending on topic we were okay with another person finishing taking time five minutes. So that is not okay that it's all of a sudden um being left into discretion of another person. If I like this topic, I'll hear up to five later when we as parents were coming. We were cut off later when was it I mean different topic in summertime. I can I can find out if you'd like because I deliberately because I was given a fact I was cut off myself. I knew how much three minutes is and I pulled out several in summer time. They were top parents when they came they were perfectly fine using five minutes. So to be honest um at least as I said 3 to five allows to person to finish it mean person might be uh finishing in 4 minutes 3 and 1/2 minutes but it allows to finish whatever was written because in my case when I experienced it first time I literally sat with a timer I practice how I can speak out quickly because I already wrote otherwise It it was I had to be I had been forced to remove IDs I wanted to put into that's why um as I said looks like a district I mean it's you have it in your hand uh was in the past had that 3 till 5 didn't have any problems and as you said from being too long I would not want to sit too long either here but it allows uh you can put a limit if you see any you can put a limit so that eliminates of we are going to be here for too long. >> Yeah. So, so I think that 3 to 5 minutes is is is is the one that I think we have an issue with. What can be said is you can speak for no more than 3 minutes or no more than 5 minutes. 3 to 5 minutes is okay. Somebody wants to speak for three, somebody wants to speak for five. So when you say a maximum of five minutes, you can speak for four, you can speak for three. So that's so >> yeah I think getting rid of the range will eliminate exactly what you're talking about the that it it may have been implemented unfairly in the past and this way is in writing and it's not going to be changeable. So, it's just three minutes for everybody no matter what. And it's in writing so people can look online and see and know ahead of time exactly what it's going to be and not plan for five, but then it's actually only three one day. They'll just see that it's only three and plan for three. Um, I prefer three minutes over five minutes because like you said, Milan, it gives more people an opportunity to talk. Um, so I would like to leave it at three and not have a range. >> Okay. Well, I'll try to make it shorter. Um as I said when you as a board at a time when I was just as a parent said three minutes what happened is we were some parents were hold up to 3 minutes the moment it was in summertime I think at July of that year if I remember parents were speaking for five minutes they were not cut off >> that that should not happen I agree that should not happen you cannot be differentiating one from the other so that that point is well taken but but now that we we we are we are talking about whether it should be 3 minutes or 5 minutes 3 to 5 minutes is is not okay with me either say it's it's 3 minutes max or 5 minutes max so I think we should just go ahead and Dan you have any anything to say >> yes uh Mr. Mr. Chair, if I may. So, um the amendment um you know being uh put in front of me. So, proposed amendment language read for clarity for all to um you know hear um in policy 212 section 3. The proposed amendment um by director prior section E changed the range of uh time for public speakers from 3 to 5 minutes to 3 minutes. Um that means that under section three which is uh procedures uh >> it's right. >> Okay. So the yes comments by so the language will now read uh comments by individual speakers are normally limited to a maximum of three minutes. The school board retains the discretion pursuant to what uh uh director Kar said to limit comments on any agenda item or topic to a reasonable period of time. So colleagues with the um uh motion being moved and seconded Mr. Chair. >> Yeah. I have one question though. So now that is for one of the policies. The original motion was for all three policies. >> Exactly. Yes. Yes, Mr. Chair. So we will so with the language of this amendment um we have to vote on the amendment >> right >> and then we can vote on the three >> okay and so that will mean that we are voting on all three with the amendment voted yes or no >> there could be another motion to remove policy 212 >> okay >> we could also do >> after this amendment >> okay so let's start on the amendment and then >> so so would anybody like the amendment to be read again or is it is it there. Okay. Okay. All right. So, let's uh let's go ahead and vote on that. Uh uh Dan, if you can just let's do let's do a voice vote. Okay. Any everybody in favor of of the amended motion say I >> I >> I >> oppose. Nay. The motion passes. The second amendment. >> You didn't wait. >> Valentino was going to vote nay. So >> Oh, I I'm sorry. I did not hear nay. Okay. Motion still passes. Um and the amendment carries. So now we have to go back to the original motion and amend that one, right? Because that original motion was for all three. >> Yes. I would I would like I would like to motion to remove policy 212 from the approvals. >> Okay. And then we vote for on for that one again on >> you didn't approve the policy. You voted on a language change. >> Yes. >> Yep. >> I I understand. >> So the original motion was to approve all three policies. So now I'm doing another motion to say we should vote on the pol policies separately. >> Each one separately. >> I believe that. >> All right. That might be a better >> considering that there's may maybe some >> okay >> somebody who doesn't want to vote yes on all the policies. >> Okay. But we still have to move. >> So we are we are amending the original motion then >> I believe. Yes. >> So the amendment is to vote on individual policies separately >> or the >> right. >> So there's three policies. So, we can vote on um >> vote on policies 208 and what was the other one? >> Yeah. >> So, my I move to vote on policies 208 and 213 and not policy 212. >> Okay. So the recommended action is to is to approve policy 208 and 213 as presented. Correct. >> Correct. >> Is there is there a motion? >> I just moved. >> Moved. Okay. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Moved and seconded. Any discussion on those? >> Are we voting tonight on 212 or are we voting on Okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. If there is no discussion, we'll just go ahead with a with a roll call on those. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. Um, uh, Director Ays, >> yes. >> Director Janestra, Director Janestra votes yes. Director Little, >> yes. >> Director Bendy, Director Bendy is absent. Director Prior, >> yes. >> Director Kedar, >> yes. >> Director Zahony, >> yes. Thank you. The motion carries. All right. And next recommendation is to approve policy 212 as presented. >> I move. >> So move >> and I wave the second reading >> as amended. >> I will second. >> Okay. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on that one? >> Hearing none. Roll call vote on that one as well. Dan. >> All right. Heidi Kater. >> Yes. >> Valentine. No. >> Danestra. Danestra votes yes. Alicia Little. >> Yes. >> Paris Bendy. Paris Bendy is absent. Sheila Prior. >> Yes. >> Melan Sahonyi. >> Yes. Thank you. The motion carries. Okay. So, we are done with the policies, right? All three. Thank you. I want to thank uh the committee, Alicia, Dan, and and Sheila. Okay. Okay. So, there are no teaching and learning reports this evening. And moving on to the finance and operations report presented by executive director Trevor Peterson. Trevor will present the combined financial report for the month ended July 31st, 2026. Trevor, hello again. I spent a good five minutes trying to find a way to make this one exciting, but it was hard to do. So, um, not a lot of activity month of July. Um, pretty typical. So, you can see we're only at about 2/10 of a of 1% in the the revenue uh received um outside of some interest earnings and then um the start of some um activity fees being paid for by our families. That's really the the bulk of what you see for our revenue in the month of July. Um, of of course there is some within the community service fund as their year- round programming. Um, and similarly with uh expenditures, there's a little bit more about 3% in the general fund spent in in July which is consistent from previous years. Um, that is mostly because we do have year- round staff that that get paid and um expenditures don't stop. So, uh, again, I I'd like to report on a little bit more than that, but it there's really not much going on in the month of July. Um the last page when you look at our cash balances, I I did for the the sake of um comparison look back to the the last and there's a couple months we take off with these reports just while we're in the the midst of year end and all of the audit adjustments. But um curious what our interest um um rates are each month. I went back to um the April combined financial report. Um and that top line that's currently at 3.55% um was 3.59%. U but you can see we have a pretty minimal balance in there and that's on purpose because all of the other ones have have a higher interest rate than that. So um otherwise those two um next ones were both 3.51 and 3.60 in that month as well. So, uh, there has been kind of a downward trend, but it's been very, very slow, and I don't think that's, um, a surprise to anybody, but, um, for the most part, it's keeping really consistent, which is good. Um, so we're continue to to have some interest earnings there. So, again, um, that there's no action, but, um, if you have any questions, I'll entertain those. >> Okay. Thank you, Trevor. Any questions? I have a couple. >> Okay. I'll kind of up the easy ones first. So if you go back to the first slide the revenues [sighs] so almost all of the revenues again in my mind is that this is a clarification question in my mind all the revenues are kind of attached to the school being in session. If that is the case why is the debt service fund not having any revenues? It does it have anything to do with the school being in session? >> Uh not necessarily. No, because we will see some state aids that start in August. U typically though, June is when school districts receive the majority of their their their final or I guess not their final but their May levy payments trickle in through May and June. So the state with their state aid payments try to match up their um metered payments to reflect that. Um, so we don't see a lot of state aid payments in June or July, nor do we see a lot of them in November and December um when you receive the other um levy payments. So, um yeah, that that's that's why there's nothing for state aids and there's nothing for property taxes. Um the only debt service revenue um would be the interest revenue that he gets allocated to that fund. >> Okay. And then going to the the expense slide, the next one. You want to slide it down, Amy? >> One slide. >> There you go. Thank you. Um, are the actuals for are those monthly numbers? >> Yes. >> Okay. Y that makes sense. I was not sure if it was monthly or for the whole quarter or to date. >> No. Yeah. So, that is Yeah, it's just the month which turns out to be just one month worth. >> And then the last slide. Mhm. >> I I saw today that the Treasury yields are at 5% now and apparently that's not a good sign. And what how is it going to affect our yields, do you think? Do you have any insight into >> Yeah, I I I don't I'm not much of a that I'm not much into the financial advising kind of thing and nor do I want to try to be cuz I don't have a crystal ball. But um yeah, I think we can read the newspaper and listen to the news to know um what we might expect. um some of those interest rates to do. So >> maybe the maybe the mislap guys will probably have a better idea of this. >> Yeah. Yeah. So and and we're trying to utilize some of our um opportunities to do a little bit more um long range um whether it be CDs, those kind of things to to lock in some higher interest rates. So we continue to have those discussions and even though it's not a huge difference between 3.55 and 3.6, it's more than zero. So that makes a difference in our world and um we're working hard to make sure that we don't have a lot um wrapped up into the into the you know the money market the 3.55 when we can have it into 3.60. >> Okay. All right. That's all I have. Any other any comments questions? No. >> Thank you Trevor. Okay. >> May I make comment? >> Oh sorry. >> This is the department we don't we don't want to have excitement. If anything, we would like to have an excitement about AAA. [laughter] >> True. Good point. Glad I could advise. >> All right. Uh there are no HR reports this evening. And then the final item for discussion today is the other board action. So bear with me. This is going to be a little long. So please listen, hear me out. So there are two resolutions we are we are seeking cons consensus on from the board tonight. Uh before we discuss these resolutions, I want to briefly clarify what I'm asking of the board tonight. You each have a printed copy of the two resolutions in front of you. These resolutions are being proposed for consideration through the MSBA delegate assembly process in December. A couple of years ago, resolutions could be submitted to MSBA by board members without approval from their boards. Now, the school board has to approve them. I'm not asking the board to adopt either resolution as an MSBA's position tonight. Rather, I am seeking board consensus to submit these resolutions to MSBA for consideration. If we move for move them forward, the process would generally be step one, MSBH government affairs will review and research the resolutions. Step two, the MSBA board will consider which submitted resolutions should advance to the delegate assembly. Step three, any resolutions that advance will be considered and voted on by delegates at the December delegate assembly. Step four, if adopted by the delegate assembly, a resolution becomes the first step in developing an official MSBA position and potentially informing MSBA's advocacy. I believe that also is is AMSD MSD's advocacy, right? Typically, yeah. Uh Dan, Heidi, and I are Visetta's representatives to the delegate assembly this year. If these resolutions advance through the MSBA board approval process, we would have the opportunity to consider and vote on them at the D delegate assembly in December. And although I serve on the MSBA board, I should probably disclose that I cannot guarantee that these resolutions will pass muster with the MSBA board in November. There are 13 or 14 other board members voting with along with me. So I don't assume that because I'm on the board or we have passed the resolutions, they will go through the delegate assembly eventually. So tonight's question is really quite narrow. Does the Wisetta school board want these issues to enter the statewide MSBA process for consideration? With that in mind, I would encourage us to look at these resolutions from a high level perspective tonight. I certainly welcome questions or concerns about the substance and if there are significant issues we should discuss them but I don't think we need to determine tonight whether every word or detail is exactly where it needs to be. There will be opportunities for further review refinement and discussion as the resolutions move through the MSBA process. The important question for us tonight is whether we believe the underlying issues and the basic proposals are important enough to put forward for statewide consideration. Let me briefly identify the two resolutions. The first resolution is brought forward by Dan and me. It addresses establishing statewide K- through2 environmental sustainability learning expectations while integrating sustainability into existing academic standards. We'll give you a brief overview of what we are proposing and why we think it merits consideration at the statewide level. The second resolution was brought forward by Heidi. It addresses an effort to support comprehensive school safety funding and plans and require updated information on safe secure firearm storage to be easily accessible and shared with families through school district at least once a year. Heidi will bring Heidi will give us a brief over view of her proposal as well. After that, we'll open it up for discussion and seek consensus on whether to move the resolutions forward to MSBA. So before I hand it over to Dan, is there is there any question that anybody has about the process itself? >> I do. Um I going to discuss I mean are we going to be considering them separately since these are separate? >> Yes, we will separate. We will have them separately just after after Dan because you know I I always feel that if we introduce them together if one if the board member wants to say yes to one and no to the other then what do they do right it's difficult to to separate them so Dan if you could uh >> I have a quick question um just for future reference I know the the deadline for submission is September and so yeah >> uh and that's every year um and just So board colleagues, I think any of the board board colleagues and I could submit something next year if we got it in in time just as a reminder to everyone. >> Absolutely. Thank you for Thank you for bringing that up. The deadline for submission to MSBA is September 23rd and because it has to be approved, you know, at the board table. This is our last opportunity, right? I mean, maybe you could do it on the 21st, but I would rather do it at the board table in a board meeting. So, all right, Dan, go ahead and uh read the proposal. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Well, colleagues, it's been a very productive evening. >> In front of you is a resolution to promote age appropriate environmental literacy for elementary, middle, and high school students. If approved by the Weisetta School Board, this resolution would go before the Minnesota School Boards Association delegate assembly in December for discussion and consideration. From there, it m it may be incorporated into the advocacy platform of MSBA in the upcoming legislative session in January. Milan and I believe this resolution is important for two reasons. First, students should have guidance on how to be good stewards of their environment and community. They are not the first individuals to go through the Weisetta public school system, nor will they be the last. We able to always serve that they prepare to confront a society that is constantly adapting. For this reason, there is a second component of why this resolution is important. Jobs pertaining to environmental research, conservation, and education are among the fastest growing in our country. We believe environmental literacy will equip students to be qualified candidates for future employment in these sectors. Therefore, we ask you to support this resolution so may receive the full consideration of public schools representatives at the December delegate assembly. Environmental literacy is an important part of a community well-being and career readiness respectfully submitted. Milan Sahonyi Dan Janestra. >> Thank you, Dan. All right. So, now we'll open it up for discussion then we'll go around and see how everybody feels about it. We'll take the temperature. I don't have to say that I support the resolution though. [laughter] >> Um, having been to the delegate assembly before, it is a a really amazing experience to see school board members from across the state come together um and review these proposals. Um, and also the MSBA um board also reviews them. It's a very it's a good way to start discussions and also get feedback and to really you know I I I guess I support putting this out there. I think it is a good topic of discussion and um yeah I'm I look forward to hearing all about what gets said about it at the delegates assembly or whether it even makes it that far. Some of them don't even make it that far. they they come in a big book and they're either you know recommended for you know the assembly and some are not recommended. So it's really it's this is just a very first minor step and I do support it. >> So since you since you said recommended or not recommended I forgot to mention one more thing. There are I think four or five different options in front of the board that the government affairs office presents. One is they do not recommend or not recommend you know government office a government affairs office at MSBA then it leaves it up to the board MSBA board entirely that's one option they strongly do not recommend that's the second option and then the MSBA board can in spite of their non-recommendation can still go ahead and recommend so that also a possibility the third thing is that the office will come and say well something like this has been existing in our vault where they have all the previous resolutions from many many years ago. [clears throat] And so they will basically say okay this has already been done said and has you know passed mustered at at the board level so we will we will won't be able to do anything with this. And then the fourth one is uh we recommend this with a caveat with these additions or with these changes uh that that the board should pro you know in incorporate. So those are the four different options. Best option is to have them recommend and then the board usually does not challenge them. So yeah, >> I'm in support of moving it forward. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm not hearing any anymore. >> I would like others. Um I mean my understanding you you are checking the temperatures. Um I felt like I had been talking quite a bit already. I would like to hear other people's opinion. >> You would like to do what now? >> Our board members opinions. >> Sure. Yeah, >> I will take that. Um no, I'm in support of this. I think it's a unique idea. Um, I think it's a worthwhile idea. So, I'm new to this whole process. I've been doing a little research and been speaking to other colleagues um, who've been informing me about this and I think it's a really cool opportunity I hope to have in the future. I I have to admit with this one I had been torn. Uh because on one part um as a person who came from a country where to be honest like recycling is not set up and all and seeing what happened with all this plastic and uh I am actually I suspect um recycling more than majority of uh Americans do because I truly uh appre I mean I'm hoping that uh it goes where it's supposed to go but at the same time uh being a literacy tutor computer as a with a miracle short version seeing the texts from different um uh when it comes to environment what I found [snorts] um for some reason the facts were coming only one-sided that is my big concern that um I'll bring easily one of them is a wind turbine bine in many um reading it's it gives only positive sides But it completely does not include like um what kind of chunk of a concrete would go to the soil that the um um blades are not recyclable. They are being buried in the ground that parts are not. So I feel like our children are not are being how to say to one-sided idea without actually weighing down that that part if anything I'm questioning to what degree it is environmentally friendly. That's why since I don't know to what deg where it's going to go as I said I am personally very much so about recycling and uh I mean do as much as I I mean and came from a background when you use materials what you have so to speak with and try not to buy new ones if you can at the same time seeing in in in education how stories are coming are one-sided. We are not they're not given both sides. I feel like we are failing our students because we are not training them to have critical thinking. That's why since I don't I don't know where this topic is gonna go um to to to what side this one >> well even I nobody knows here where it will go in the MSBA >> scheme of things right but at this point we have to decide as a board whether we we feel comfortable pushing this promoting this to the MSBAs >> and one more thing for me is um how much are we going to put on our teachers again uh our teachers had been doing redact uh trust me I mean I'm leaving it still and now we are putting uh can we leave teachers to do teaching because if I mean look at some teachers podcast they are telling they are saying to us they already burn um being burned out by how much society is putting on their shoulders that is my big thing >> so So just just so everybody's aware these things are being actually implemented in some school districts. There are school districts that cannot afford this curriculum. So kids cannot do them. So this is also a question about equity right we are pro trying to provide the opportunity for districts and students that are not able to afford this curriculum for example. So that is one of the one of the um you know proposals in this to have it available district uh statewide and then leave it up to local control whether they want to adapt it or not. So all right so what are you leaning to towards Valentina? I'm not still sure. I think that I I personally since I I I prefer to know all uh facts uh before I um >> Okay, >> that's my >> You're not certain then? Okay. >> I'm not certain about this one as I said because as I said I'm very big on uh environmental factors but >> I've seen that what's happening in education. >> Thank you for being very candid. I appreciate it. So I believe the rest of us are leaning towards a yes. Uh so I'm going to say that there is general consensus that we will we will move this proposal uh to MSBA uh by the 23rd. >> One more thing I just appreciate that even though you understand that I did not support your idea you do not give [laughter] me um you're totally fine as a human being just hearing that another perspective. I really appreciate it. >> I'm not doing your favor. I'm not doing anything. [laughter] >> I understand but it's um I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And so next is Heidi. Please uh present your proposal. >> Thank you. I'll go ahead and and read this again. Uh this will come no surprise to anybody that this is coming from me. Um I'm approaching this not from a passion point of view, but really from a health and well-being standpoint. Um, so my request is in an effort to support comprehensive school safety funding and plans, require updated information on safe and secure firearm storage to be easily accessible and shared with families through districts at least once a year. Districts would maintain local control on how to implement. Um, so just a little bit of background on this, teen and young adult firearm violence continue to be a serious and burdensome problem in the state of Minnesota. In 2023, firearms were the fourth leading cause of death in kids aged 1 to 17 in Minnesota. Additionally, the gun death rates in Minnesota have increased 35% over the past decade. This is according to the CDC. These statistics include unintentional shootings, school shootings, and suicides. Both firearm homicide and suicide rates have increased over the past decade. That's just a little bit of background. There's so much more that I can go into, but in the effort of time, um, I understand fully with my, uh, background in public health that safe and secure storage is not the only preventative strategy needed to limit the avoidable harms of firearm injury and death. However, [snorts] it's been named in every single respectable risk mitigation strategy. There are several organizations including our very own Children's Hospital of Minnesota that has recommended this. And so again, in an effort to create scaffolding to have safe communities, um this is a simple request to just make sure that our schools and our districts are the ones who are putting forward information on how to safely and securely score um store your firearms. School districts are charged with creating safe and secure spaces for students, teachers, staff, and visitors on a daily basis. Our budgets include dedicated resourcing to ensure safety and security. However, these dollar amounts are not nearly enough to cover the full risk mitigation strategies that are needed. Educating communities on issues of safety is a proven evidence-based pre prevention strategy to reduce risk factors. in this case, the unauthorized access to firearms. Providing resources and information on the harms of leaving firearms unsecured along with how to safely and securely store firearms will lead to productive, positive, and proactive community actions and ongoing prevention conversations. Board colleagues, I just request that we are able to move this forward through the MSBA process. >> Thank you, Heidi. >> Same process again for this resolution. if anybody wants to make a comment and then hopefully express your approval. >> I'm I'm in support of moving it forward. >> Okay. >> I think the statistics um provided by our colleagues speak for themselves. Um this will be a a life-saving measure to have enacted and I look forward to its next steps. I appreciate Heidi for bringing this to our attention. >> Um if I'm not mistaken, this is almost free of cost, right? Well, there's there's always cost with implementation. It's time and resources. Um, but it is it's I believe it really is. Yep. >> Thank you. >> Uh, I am also in support and yeah, I think first that came to mind for me is just that a lot of times movements like this, you know, the first thing that I thought of was, you know, my kids coming home and reminding me to make a fire safety plan at home. And it made us kind of think about, oh, do we have ladders? Do we know what windows they would go to? This is just a really powerful, in my way, in my opinion, very simple way for students to get involved and to push the needle into the right direction for safety at home for themselves and their friends. So, >> um, so I I believe that this this resolution actually does not say at all that we should people should not own guns, right? It it it protects the second amendment. And I support it totally because it basically says, you know, if if you own a gun, you have to know how to handle it safely, right? Dealing with guns, uh, firearms and, you know, any kind of weapon actually you with that comes responsibility. And this is what it's tell it's telling you. You have to do it responsibly. And also make sure because you hear about so many accidents, right? small children shooting their siblings or small children doing things that they accidentally do because the guns were left not protected. They were not put in a safe box. And so I so I really I really believe that this is necessary in our school districts. >> Uh help me to understand is it going to be like paperwork being passed through students? How does it look like? It could be a multitude of things, right? It could be flyers that are sent home um that are created by organizations that are really good at doing this. There are many really good organizations that already exist that have toolboxes and and um pamphlets that are created. Um it could be an agreement between the school district and their city on how to get information out to um to their public. It could be in, you know, the flyers that we send out every month. It could be a training um through community ed. It could be trainings that are offered at PTA meetings. I mean, there's just a multitude of ways. And again, the way that I wrote it in particular was that districts would maintain local control on how to implement so they could make the decision on how that would look. >> Website is also one of the options. >> Absolutely. Um my feeling is that as I said I as I stated about another uh one is uh we our scores are not where they used to be. Uh let's leave teachers to do their jobs. We just had finished uh redact training. Let teachers to teach. uh they don't need to take another burden another uh another what they uh think what they supposed to do and another issue I have with this one is legal gun owners is um they are most law abiding citizens what happening is mostly let's be honest even with statistics uh 1 to 17 um it's about gang members I had a training as a teacher and it stated I actually took notes that this year common myths about um uh in this case it is active asalent events and also uh about guns. it is uh that what is not making public there are nine times more incidents deaths happening on the parking lots and school driveways. So uh we're going to be also sending flyers about how safely cross the streets, how safely um exit, uh I mean the basic things. Uh another one is um 20 45% of them are 35% of homicides on um school property related to personal disputes like fights. 25% youth gang activity. I'm not going to Minneapolis for certain reason. It's gang activity. We are not bringing that uh that issues for some reason. And um another one is from my training of this year as a teacher. Most assault weapons do not involve guns. So I am going to be pleading uh why not for example also send flyers about alcohol usage because quite a bit of deaths are happening because of that. Why not uh send flyers about speeding? I mean what are we making our teachers to do? >> It's never end. I am at school. It feels like we have right nowadays never ending tasks. Uh and I would like to ask uh let's talk about what actually can help our teachers at schools. It's about chronic absentism. Even though I was very excited to see that um policy last year, I think it last year was included that schools can um if students are absent for certain days that schools can send that information to Henipin County and I was thinking oh yay excited what I'm hearing from school including my school what is happening our schools our teachers are gathering that data which takes time and then counties are doing nothing about it. Which means once you send as a teacher, second time you send, third time you will not mark it. And what's happening is on a paper it is marked there are not that many complaints. Well, there are not complaints because people stop sending teachers stop sending because they're overwhelmed. Uh second one which which can help uh teachers uh let's talk about discipline giving teachers authority finally authority in the classroom that they can do something about behaviors. When you have 25 kids sitting in a classroom and one of them is um be u um disruptive we're talking I'm hearing about empathy. But we are being empathetic for one student. What about 24 students? I've seen personally how within years in the same classroom who had that experience then they will carry that trauma for several years. >> Okay. >> That what can help >> Valentina um we are we are moving away from the topic but do you have any any you had anything to say Heidi? Uh I just have one thing to clarify that I am genuinely coming at this from a public health point of view. Um and that this is not intended to be a polarizing issue. This is genuinely about educating our communities, bringing the conversation to the forefront about how we keep our kids and our families safe. and it is to help our teachers and to help our staff by creating an underlying scaffolding that is an expectation within communities of how to manage firearms. I actually really wanted to add to this and have information go out on how to securely store any prescription drugs and alcohol, but I thought one step at a time because that is overwhelming. and our district has done. We had a 10-year grant that um partnered with surrounding areas that did an immense amount of work and had incredible outcomes on educating our community on drug and alcohol use. We had that. And so this proposal um is is in an effort to support our schools. That's all I have to say. >> And it's not correct me if I'm wrong, Heidi. this is not an addition to the curriculum or teachers teaching about or anything right because >> because I that's what I kept hearing fromina it's not it's not a burden on teachers I think >> additional burden because teachers are not going to teach safety firearm safety in class because it's not a part of the curriculum this is just flyers website letters to to the parents at home news you know the post big postcard that Amy Parnell talked about, you know, something that that that is shared with the families. So there is no no question of the teachers being burdened or that them having to work extra this as far as I know. >> Right. >> Flyers do not solve that problem. We have gang problem. We have uh teenagers attacking. >> I'm going to have to say I don't think that the um the statistics support that. Even the most recent support uh statistics don't support that. And I will say that research on firearm violence um the funding is has been severely impacted in recent years. And so I think it's really difficult and dangerous for us to take the conversation down that path. >> I think I think we we have unless Sheila you had a comment. Okay. >> Seems like we kind of got a feel for how everyone's feeling about it. Yeah. Right. I I I think I heard yes from this side and ID of course because you are the you you made a reservation. So >> So thank you all. I'll be submitting it to MSBA and I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. >> Okay. So this this this is also approved by the board and we'll go move forward. Okay. I think that was the last and item on the agenda. Uh let's see. Let me check. Okay. Yes. So, this concludes the Wisetta Public Schools Board of Education meeting. Uh, the next work session will be on Monday, September 28th at 4 p.m. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> I so move. >> Second. >> Move. >> Second. >> Okay. [laughter] >> It looks like you don't want to go home, right? All in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Oppos? Nay. The motion carries. The Wisetta Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting for Monday, September 14, 2026 is adjourned.