Good evening. The time is now 7:00. The Wisetta [clears throat] Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting for Monday, December 8th, 2025 will please come to order. Will the clerk please take the roll call? Heidi Kedar >> here. >> Sheila Prior here. >> Sarah Johansson >> here. >> Harris Bend >> here. >> Valentina Ays >> here. >> Dan Janestra >> here. >> Villain Sahony >> present. >> Chase Anderson >> here. Thank you. We have a quorum. Please rise to res recite the pledge of allegiance. 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. Okay. Tonight the audience will have two opportunities to address the board. The first will be during the public comment on truth in tax session. The second will be the regularly scheduled audience opportunity to address the school board. If you wish to speak during either or both, please fill out a form placed at the back of the room and hand it over to our district admin assistant Amy sitting to my right. I will elaborate more a little bit on each of them each of them when we reach that point at that item on the agenda. The [clears throat] 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 items are listed in the materials. The recommended action is to approve the agenda and the consent agenda items. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Will the clerk please take a roll call vote? >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. >> Dan Janestra, >> yes. >> Sarah Johansson, >> yes. >> Paris Bende, >> yes. >> Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Milan Sahony, >> yes. We have an agenda. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is a presentation on truth in taxation by executive director of finance and operations Trevor Peterson. Trevor Good evening, Chairperson Sahony, members of the board, Dr. Anderson. Uh, welcome to the a snowy evening out there. Um, tonight, um, as Mr. Sony said, we are here to present the truth and tax taxation presentation. I do have Jack Sterns, our director of finance with, um, to help me present it tonight. So, um, just a reminder that each year school districts are required um, by law to hold a tr a public hearing for truth and taxation. Um, I do acknowledge that this one is a little bit lengthier than we've seen in the past. I just think it's a good opportunity tonight to uh take a little bit of a deeper dive um than maybe we have in the past u just talk about a few things some of the the long-term things that we're we're planning as a school district um to help um frame that a little bit too and and add some context as to some of those discussions that we're having. So um also want to note that uh this presentation is not real easy to u present in a linear format. So uh we might be ping ponging around a little bit. So, I I would just suggest then that any questions you might have, just wait till the end cuz I'll probably get to it sooner or later throughout the presentation. So, with that, uh, we'll get rolling. Uh, Minnesota state law does require that we are to hold a public meeting, um, between November 25th and December 29th. Um, it must be held at 6 p.m. or later. And it may be part of a regular scheduled meeting. That is a new that is a change. Um I suppose it's been about 10 12 years now where it used to have to be at a separate meeting. Um that is now no longer the case. Um but we must allow for public comments during that meeting. Um and then we may adopt the final levy at the same meeting which we are planning to do so tonight and I think that has been a history of this district as well. Um it also needs to include a presentation of the current year budget. In this case that's a 2526 budget. Um and then we'll we'll dive into the proposed property tax levy for payable 2026. Uh for the agenda, uh we will start with looking at a background information on some property tax levies and school funding. Just kind of how it all fits together. Uh uh look at our district's budget. Um the proposed tax levy for payable 2026. Um and then allow public comments at the end. Starting with the background on property tax levies. So each owner of taxable property pays property taxes to various taxing jurisdictions. Um so that's the county, a city, township, school district or special districts in which the property is located. Each taxing jurisdiction sets their own levy often based on limits uh in state law. The county eventually sends the bills, collects taxes from the property owners, and then distributes funds back to those taxing jurisdictions. Um in the Minnesota Constitution, there is an article um section one that says uniform system of public schools. Um basically saying that the government um will make such provisions by taxation or otherwise to secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state. Um and part of that um really dedicates then some school funding. So public school districts are funded by the federal government, state government, local fees, and local taxpayers through property taxes. The largest of which is the state of Minnesota, the largest source of funding. State funding is highly regulated. Um the state does set formulas which determine the revenue. Um the tax policy for local schools, uh the maximum authority property tax levy. Um the dis districts may levy less but not more than the authorized maximum. Um then the state also does authorize school boards to submit referendums um for operating and capital needs to voters for approval. Uh the the levy system is very complex. So it's comprised of about 39 pages of levy calculations. Um it's calculated on two property bases, referendum market value and net tax capacity. Uh those terms we will hear plenty about during this presentation and the difference between the two. Um it contains four different funds. The general fund, community service fund, debt service fund, and then the OPED debt service fund. Uh the latter of which is only applicable to um not every district. Uh we do not have the OPED debt service fund um in our levy. [snorts] There are about 50 different revenue categories um either broken down by aid or levy. Um and it's calculated on five different bases. adjusted pupil units um otherwise known as enrollment um categorical expenditures district population tax rate and property tax abatements and again uh we'll get into that a little bit um I think despite the complexity of this um again I I don't want to use that as a reason to not dive into it I do think it's important to educate um provide some information on how some of these things are calculated and again we'll we'll do the best we can to not get too deep into that but also um leave here with a better understanding some of those calculations as a general overview. Uh for timeline for all district, the proposed levy is certified in September. Um and then the final levy is certified in December. This is true for all school districts in Minnesota. Um the payable 2026. So we'll hear that term a lot too. What that means is it's collected from the taxpayers in the calendar year of 2026. So the first half of that is due May 15th. Second half payment is due October 15, 2026. Uh this levy revenue for school district provides revenue for the fiscal year 2627 which does not start until July 2026 and runs through June 2027. A little bit of a a closer look as to how this levy timeline is maybe more specific to our district. Um so you can see on September 10th we did get the first um run of our levy from this from MDE. Um September 22nd is when we brought the preliminary levy to the school board for approval. Um and you will see a month later on October 22nd is when we actually got the final limit levy limit report from MDE. Um ideally you will not have any changes from when the board approves the preliminary levy to when uh we come forward in December with the final levy. Unfortunately, that was not the case this year, and I'll talk a little bit about that. But we did have some changes from our preliminary levy that was approved in September. Um, that is not unique. That is not um that does happen quite a bit. Um, it's just makes it a little bit harder uh to present, but uh we'll dive into what those changes are. November 11th to 24th, every property tax owner should have received their proposed property tax statement in the mail uh from the county. Uh that brings us to tonight. Uh we will have the public hearing on the proposed levy and also then ask the board to to approve the levy later on. Um in the spring of 2026, the county will mail those proposed the property tax statements to all tax property owners. Um and then u again with those uh payments due May 15th and October 15th. Uh the levy cycles are different um for school districts. So, I talked about um our uh fiscal year begins July 1st and runs through June 30th each year. So, the payable 2026 taxes provides revenue for our 2627 fiscal year. Um but for cities, counties, and townships, taxes payable in 2026 actually provide revenue for their calendar year budget for 20 so they're Jan or their January through December fiscal year of 2026. So, a little bit different. Here's what that looks like in a graph format. Uh so the black in this case would be the legislation from January through May. Um the state of Minnesota met to uh see if there would any be any funding uh changes to school district levies. Um all of that tax levy decision then occurs between August and December. Um and you can see the collection of the levy then for cities, counties, and count uh cities uh counties and townships is all in the calendar year of 2026. uh where we have a lag um in that budget year from July of June 26 27 um [clears throat] look we'll we'll start by when we dive into the property tax levy here there'll be four things we look at really the levy calculation some notable levy changes um we'll do some levy comparisons to our neighboring um and comparable districts um and then what that means as an impact on taxpayers again adding to that complexity of of not only property taxes but also school district taxes. Um there are really three key variables. Um when we start talking about property tax levies, one of them being the estimated market value of each property. Um the other being the property classification. So if it's residential homestead, is it commercial, is it agriculture? Um and then the total taxes levied by the taxing jurisdiction. So all of that kind of gets put into a blender. Um spits out what the property taxes do for each taxing jurisdiction. um and that's gets added to each property tax statement. There are six key steps in this process and I think it's important to note that the school board or school district only controls one of these steps. Uh so the first step is the the city or county assessor then determines the estimated market value u property classification for each parcel of property. Um for example um again I talked about residential homestead um really what is that um value estimated value for that property which is the main key driver to to all property taxes. Step two then is the legislature sets those formulas for tax capacity and school district levy limits. So when we talk about tax capacity um that varies by classification. I added a few on the notes over there. So, for example, residential and agriculture homestead, um, if you up to $500,000 of your market value, that's taxed. The tax capacity of that is 1%. Anything over that is 1.25. Uh, commercial or industrial is 1.5% for up to 150,000 and then 2%. Anything over that. Um, and again, there are 46 different property classifications. Um, we won't talk about all of them, but some of the others include like post-secondary housing, um, qualifying golf courses, private airports, bed and breakfasts. Um, there's a lot of them, and they all have their unique tax capacity calculations. Uh, step three then is the county auditor calculates the tax capacity for each property, each parcel of property, um, as well as the total tax capacity for the entire school district. Uh step four, Minnesota Department of Education calculates um those levy limits for each school district. [snorts] Um and these are have their own set of calculations too. A lot of them are based on a per pupil um basis, but some of them are a little bit different. For example, operating capital revenue [snorts] uh is based on age and square footage of district-owned buildings. Uh transportation sparity is based on the attendance area and number of square miles per resident student. um equity is based on the gap between the fifth and 95th percentile of a metro district per pupil revenue. So those are just a few examples of the complexity of this this calculation and and how everyone every funding category really has some different um calculation attached to it. Step five is the only one that the school board or school district has any control over. Um and that's adopting the proposed levy in September. Um, and then after the public hearing, the final levy in December, and then after that is done, uh, the county takes what the school district's total property tax levy is, um, and divvies that out to all of the property owners in the district. So, generally speaking, and again, generally speaking, we'll speak on a lot of averages or um each there are plenty of cases where there's circumstances that vary, but um I think it's pretty safe to say that if the district's total tax levy is about 25%, just as an example of what our total net tax capacity is, a property owner might expect to pay 25% of what their property tax capacity is. And again, that's just that's just a pretty basic rule of thumb. Um, it's not exact, but um, you could come pretty close to an estimate using that rationale. This is a sample of the spe the notice mailed between uh, mailed to every property owner between November 11th and November 24th. Um, it just does have a lot of contents on there. It talks about what your market value of the property is. Also, if you have any homestead exclusions, what your taxable market value is. Um, property classification, whether or not that property is subject to school building bond aid credits. Um, and then that's all based on a comparison of prior year. Uh, and then it indicates what the time and place of public meetings for each taxing taxing jurisdiction is. So, um, a couple things to note on this. Um the key thing to this again is not only the taxable market value or the estimated market value, but also the property classification. That is a huge driver in this. So um it's important for property owners to take a look at that to make sure that what they think their property is classified at truly is classified correctly. If they don't believe it is, um there is an appeal process. Uh this gets mailed out in March. Um and it it talks through uh what options there are. There really are two options um for a property tax owner to appeal not only their value but also their classification. Uh one of those would be to go to the um I don't even can't even the what does it say the boards of appeal and equalization um or also Minnesota tax court law. So those are your two options. Um they do depend on the time of year. So they might not both options might not be available uh at any time during the year. So, when a property owner gets this and they want to go through the appeal process, uh it's important for them to call the county assessor to get more information about how to go about that. Not the school district, the county assessor's office. Uh information on school funding. So, we'll dive into that a little bit. Um going back to 2002 2003, so about 23 years ago or so. Um I don't think it's any secret that uh this the general education re revenue formula for school districts has not kept up with inflation. Uh so for fiscal year 2425 we did have an increase of 2% or $143 per student. Um for this current year of 2526 there was another increase of 2.74% or $200 um which is equal now to $7,481 per pupil. Um, in order for that to have kept play pace with inflation, there would have been another $1,420 or 19% added onto that. Um, resulting in an allowance of $8,91. Um, and just to put that in a little context, too, um, that would result in roughly an additional $20.5 million in annual revenue for general education state aid for the district. [snorts] There is that in a graph format. So you can see that the the blue is the inflation rate. Um had they started at the same point in 2020 two 2002 2003 uh and the yellow or gold is actually what has happened with the general education formula. It's important to note um that there is a a correlation between levy and budget um but it's not always what you think. Um, so a percentage change in a tax levy does not always include or does not always indicate that there's going to be a change to the revenue budget. So if our tax um levy goes up 6% or revenue does not necessarily go up 6% um because some of these levy revenues are offset by a decrease in state aid um or some levy decreases are offset by increases in state aid too. So, um, important to note that it's not necessarily additional revenue, um, when we see a levy increase. Biggest reason for that is what's called equalization aid. Um, again, there's that term referendum market value. Um, equalization aid is based on a district's referendum market value per resident student. So generally what that means is the higher that number is um that indicates that you are a propertyrich district. Um and again MDE kind of sets the you know makes value judgment on who pays what. Um so these formulas are set that if you have a higher revenue market referendum market value per resident student, you are going to get less equalization aid and therefore have more burden put upon your local levy. Um and again this this leads to limited ability to receive equalization aid u when you are a property-rich district. So this graph again shows um what some of our neighboring andor comparable districts are. So we will do a lot of comparisons with Bloomington, Eastern Carver County, Eden Prairie, Edina, Minnotonka, Orno, AIO, St. Louis Park just so we can kind of get a flavor of how we compare to some of those districts. Um this is that referendum market value per resident student graph. Um weetta is in the blue. Um I took all the comparable averages in gold and state averages will be in the black bar. All of these will be consistent through the rest of the presentation. So you can kind of point um to what that looks like. This is the same information just um sorted highest to lowest. So you can see that Weisetta um is certainly calculates to be a property-rich district which then puts a lot of burden for equalization aid to be more on the local levy. Why that's important um is because there are certain aid categories then that make up what's called general education aid. Um so for general education aid um this would include not only the basic formula but things like gifted and talented um other aid that um really makes up that general education aid. So we sit at about $8,174 per student and this was from 200324 or 2023 24. So it's a little dated. Um that's just the most recent data that we have from the statewide averages because 2425 is not finalized yet um for every district. So this is that information then sorted highest lowest to highest. You can see that we are the second lowest we receive the second lowest state aid per student um of these districts that are listed here. Uh well below comparable average well below state average. [snorts] uh taking that general education aid and then adding in some of the other categorical state aids such as special education aid, liter literacy incentive aid, um pupil support, library aids for example, um we get what our total state aid per student is. Um and again that's sorted alphabetically. The second one is sorted lowest to highest. So of the total um state aid per student uh we are third lowest of this uh collection of districts and again well below comparable average and state weighted average. [snorts] So really what that means is of these five categories, so operating capital, local optional revenue, equity, transition, and referendum. Those are the five funding categories um that are subject to an aid levy split based on that referendum market value per resident student formula that I talked about earlier. So again, the higher number it is, the more levy you're going to have, the less it is. You're the more equalization aid you're going to have. So you can see of the roughly $45 million that we have in our levy for these five funding categories, we get less than a million dollars of that in the form of state aid and the rest of it is burdened upon our taxpayers and local levy. So that's about 2.1% of this uh revenue um is required to be paid through our levy. How that compares with other districts? Um you can see it's it's pretty consistent. is actually really um these districts are are all kind of in the same boat. Um but you can see how that compares to the state average which is about 9.1%. So again uh not only us but our neighbors um do find it that there's um heavy burden placed upon our taxpayers to cover these five funding categories that are based on that u calculation. All right, I will turn it over to Jack for a little bit. he can talk a little bit about our 2526 budget. >> Thank you, Trevor. School board, Dr. Anderson. Good evening. Let's talk some budget. [snorts] Uh before diving into the uh 2526 preliminary budget, which was approved in uh June of 2025. I just wanted to talk through the various funds that we have at our district. Uh first is the general fund. Um these are funds that are general uh for general operating costs such as uh teacher salaries, administrative uh costs, supplies, materials, um and general building maintenance. Uh next up is food service and the community service funds O2 and 04. Um all the costs um which are related to these funds are related to the program. So for food service, it's all the nutrition program um fees and um expenses for school lunches and things like that. Uh community service is the same for the various programs within community ed such as school readiness, adult basic education and school age care. Uh our next fund is the building construction fund. Um all the funds associated with this are for construction of buildings um and the sales of bonds. Uh fund seven is our debt service fund and this is where we pay our principal and interest payments on any of our outstanding debt. Uh next up is fund 20. Uh this is our internal service fund. Um, as you all know, Weisetta is a self-funded district for internal services. So, all of our self-insured health and dental insurance plan payments go through that fund. Um, and then finally is fund 45, which is our oped trust fund. Um, and these are funds used to pay for eligible pay uh post-employment benefit costs um for district employees. So, this slide is just showing the overall 2526 U board approved preliminary budget. Um, as you can see, it's broken out by fund for both revenue and expenditures. Um, one thing I want to note is that the uh there's a little asterisk for number one. That is for the LTFM adjustments um which are part of our budget. Um, so that's part of the reason why um the revenues are at 304 million. Um, so there are those LTFM adjustments in there. But overall, as you can see, this is our total funds um for all all of our various funds for our budget for revenue expenses. So our revenue expend our revenue budget is sitting at 304 just over 304 million um and then our expenditure budget is sitting at 310 million in total. This next uh slide is showing uh the fund balance. So the first two is the 7 the 71 2024 but uh fund balance. This was audited and approved. And then there's the 630 2525 fund balance which is um has been audited by LB Carlson our auditors. And then we have our projected fund balance for 630 2026. So next year um so this is just us showing where we landed at the end of 630 2025 our revenue expenditures for 20 our proposed re uh revenues for and expenditures for 2526 and then where we think we'll end up at the end of this next fiscal year. So 2526 fiscal year. So at the end of at by June 30th 2026, if everything goes as we planned with the budget, um we expect that our fund balance will be sitting at uh 110 million. So this first graph here is showing um all funds budgeted for revenue. Um so there's that $34 million again for the total budget. And this is just showing the breakout by fund and what percentage of our total revenue comes from each fund. Um general fund is sitting right around 75%. It's followed by our internal service fund at 7.62%. Um and then we have our food service, community service, debt service, and our oped fund. So this is just a graph to kind of show split up of all funds for our revenue budget. And then similar here, this is another budget. Um this is our expense budget um all funds which is also showing the split um on the piraphph there. Um general fund is still again at the 76% and then it goes out by the various different funds and their percentage of total expenditures for the year. This graph is showing just our general fund. So now we're just kind of honing in on just the general fund. Um our total revenue budget for uh 2526 for the per general fund was 231 million. Um so this is kind of showing where that revenue comes from. Um state aids is 62.68% of that budget with property taxes being 32.58%. And then we have our federal aid and our other revenue as well in there. But really the state aid and the property taxes are those largest pieces that we receive our our general our revenue from uh for the general fund. So this is the expenditures for this general fund. Um our general fund budget uh for expenses were 237 million. And as you can see uh salaries and wages, employee benefits are making up the two largest pieces of that pie. Um together they make up about 72% of our total expenditure budget. Uh following that would be our purchase services, our capital expenditures and then supplies, materials and then other expenditures are a very small percentage. And this is just looking at our general fund u budget for 2526 just a little bit differently. Instead of looking at it by object, we're now looking at it by uh program code. So where the where the expenses are actually being paid. Um so as you can see the largest portion is that elementary and secondary reg uh regular instruction um and then the various other areas such as special education instruction, instructional support services, pupil support, operations and maintenance um admin staff and then the the fiscal and other fiscal cost. So just a few uh highlights for our finance team which we're really proud of. Um is first we are AAA bond rating with Moody's since 2008. This is the best possible rating a school district can achieve. Um we are only one of three districts in the state that have this rating and then we are also only one of 101 districts in the nation that have this rating. So that's something to be really proud of. Next up is that we are this is our 40 well once the audit is complete in 2025 um it's f once that's finally approved that'll be another year but for now we are still at for 41 consecutive years of having the ASBO award which is is a certificate of excellence for our financial reporting here at Weisetta. And then third um after now that our 25 audit is wrapped up uh we did receive a clean audit opinion this year for our audit. Um, so that meant there was no deficiencies in our internal controls. Um, there's no instances of legal compliance or non-compliance um that is reported to the government auditing standing board and there was no findings based on um the testing of the district's compliance with Minnesota's laws and regulations. So, some really awesome highlights for our team and um I know everyone's been working really hard to make sure that we keep these things true and keep the wise at a standard high. So, um we're really proud of these things. Thanks, Jack. All right, [snorts and clears throat] hopping back into levy. Now, we'll start looking at all of those calculations. What does it really mean for our district? Uh, so we started with kind of a high overview. Um, and now I'll look at what that really means for Weisetta Public Schools. So, our proposed payable 2026 tax levy is an increase from payable 2025 of about 5.9 million. This does represent a 6.13% increase. Again, that is a little bit higher than what was per what we um showed in the um that's a September preliminary levy and we'll talk about that in a little bit um on the following slide. So, I I I think it's worth noting that um we do acknowledge that the 6.13 is uh definitely higher than it has been in recent years by a little bit um and also a little bit higher than what we have seen from neighboring districts. But um I I think it's important too to look at a multi-year string too um because there's a lot of prior year adjustments that kind of work their their way through. So um we also have experienced um significant enrollment growth and a lot of these funding categories are based on enrollment too. So um I I just want to take a few moments and and you'll see this later that um really how that 6.13 relates to um our other neighboring districts and statewide too. There's a lot of numbers here. I won't go through it, but this breaks down all of the levy funding categories. So, I mentioned earlier there's about 50 of them. Not all levy u funding categories are applicable to every district. We receive about half of them. Um so, these are broken out by the three funds that we talked about. The general fund, the community service fund, and then the debt service fund. Uh so, our general fund makes is about a 5.87% increase. You'll see about a 5.78% increase for community service fund and a 7.2 21% increase for debt service. Some of those adjustments that I talked about, we've had some um large adjustments in previous years for LTFM. So, um some of these levy funding categories, if you're if if you remember, are based on actual expenditures. Well, LTFM is one of those categories. Um so, we as a district um put in an LTFM budget what we expect to spend for long-term facilities maintenance. um should we overspend or underspend that targeted amount? Um a subsequent year levy is adjusted to account for that. Um so in this case um we did experience some significant LTFM adjustments from prior years. Most of this related to um the co years um mostly just because it got to a point where it was very difficult to find contractors that are were available to do work. A lot of projects just got delayed. Um so in this slide what I wanted to do is both for payable 25 as well as payable 26 um a significant portion of this increase from last year is because of this LTFM um adjustment. So had these LTFM adjustments not taken place or not been there last year in payable 2025 there was an LTFM adjustment uh negative adjustment of $8.8 million. This year there was a negative adjustment of only $4.2 2. So, right off the bat, you're looking at a $4.6 million increase just because of these adjustments for no other reason other than we just did not spend the money that was estimated based on a number of of things. So, for the general fund, taking out those LTFM adjustments, we actually would have experienced a 0.15% decrease on our levy for payable 2026. And if you look at all funds, um that 6.13% increase would have only been 1.28%. 28%. Um, and again, those things do even out over time. It can certainly go the other way at certain times, but I think it was important just to highlight this because this was definitely a more significant adjustment than you will normally see on any given year. Um, again with another overview of the proposed property tax levy. So, this first one in blue is by truth and taxation category. Those are actually the categories that property tax owners will ste on their property tax statement. It's voter approved levy and it's other local levies. Uh so the voter approved levies um and other local levy the voter approved levies increased 4.09%. Um one might say well how can that be? The voters didn't approve any changes. Um again, some of these some of those uh levy categories that were voter approved had to do with the um technology levy, which is based on the tax capacity of the district. As that increases, so does the levy. Uh so again, some of those things are set in statute that automatically increase or decrease based on other things. Uh the bottom one then is by tax base. So there's certain um funding categories that are based on a referendum market value and some that are based on net tax capacity. So you can see the split the difference there. Uh definitions on some valuation data. So market value is the property valuation that's established by the county through the assessment process. Um referendum market value is the tax base for operating referendum. Uh local optional equity and transition revenue. So those four funding categories are based on the referendum market value. And I'll explain why that's a difference in in the next slide or two. The net tax capacity then is a tax base for debt service, long-term facilities maintenance, OPED operating capital uh and many others. So of those 50 um levy categories or so, only four of them are based on referendum market value and the rest of them are based on net tax capacity. And then you have your adjusted net tax capacity, which is the calculation that includes a sales ratio. And I'll explain what that means, too. Lot of numbers here. I'm not going to go through them. Um but what this looks at is the market value referendum market value, net tax capacity and adjusted net tax capacity from two the year 2013 through 2024. And all this illustrates is really the property growth that we have experienced across the district. And you can see all of those really increase um at a at a similar rate. Um there's not going to be much variation. So, if your market value goes up um 20%, you're not going to see a 4% increase in your referendum market value. So, they're all going to be about the same here. That is in a different format, just a bar graph. And again, that illustrates what I just said, too. They all increase about the same. And that this is just looks at the last five years. So, digging into the referendum market value a little bit. So, why this is important? um you have some properties that are exempt from paying those taxes or those levies that are calculated on referendum market value. Qualifying agriculture um and qualifying um agriculture excludes house, garage and 1 acre. So when you hear of a house, garage and 1 acre, that is actually considered residential homestead even though it might be on an agricultural property. Um and most seasonal recreational properties. So those are the two big ones. um qualifying agricultural land and buildings and the and seasonal recreation. Those two property classifications are exempt from paying taxes on those four uh referendum market value funding categories that I talked about. Uh our district has much lower than average exempt properties. So qualifying agriculture and seasonal wreck, you can see makes up about 3% for agriculture and 1.4% 4% of our uh total district market value for seasonal recreation. So, um that allows us as a district to not have to worry about what kind of taxes are going to impact certain taxpayers and what aren't. Um so, um it it's actually helps us um gives us a little bit more options as to what we might have um when it comes time to talking about future long-term funding mechanisms. And then all other funding categories are spread on the net tax capacity. Uh talking a little bit about the egg to school building bond credit. So this was passed into the law uh June 2017. Um it was a phase in approach. So when it was first passed it was 40%, now it's up to 70%. Um so what that means is the qualifying agricultural properties receive a 70% credit from the state of Minnesota for all voter approved building bond referendums. So that at the time that was both existing as well as new. Um so this essentially says that if you are have qualifying agriculture and let's say you were due to pay $1,000 for example just um for your the debt service of the building bonds for our taxes. The state is actually going to pay $700 of that um and the the tax the property owner would only pay 300 of that. So that shows up on your property tax statement. The district then receives that in the form of state aid from the state to uh replace the levy that does not come from the county. Again, we don't have a lot. Um so that only equates to about $11,000 for our district. Not a big thing, but certainly um if you see some districts with a lot of agricultural land in southwest Minnesota, uh this is a big deal. [snorts] And and maybe just a little bit more context on that. The reason this was put into place is you were seeing in 165 15 1617 a lot of those districts that had a lot of seasonal agricultural property or qualifying agricultural property we're having a hard time passing referendums um because of the impact and how quickly um agricultural land and buildings were um increasing their property value. So this helped with that a little bit for voter approved levies. Um so this includes three levy categories. So, when you see that on your property tax statement, that includes all of those levies that were approved by the voters in the form of operating referendum, um debt service, otherwise known as building bonds, um or capital projects/technology referendums. For us, we call that our technology levy. Um it you can also call it a capital projects levy. They are one and the same. Uh it's just a matter of what you identify that you're going to use that revenue for. We use that as our technology levy. So you can see what our operating referendum is. Um again there is no increase to that other than what um our increase in enrollment is as well as the inflationary factor that we have on our operating referendum. Um and then we have a debt service of about $16 million. That's to pay the principal and interest payments of our existing debt. And then we have our technology levy that um equates to about $12.4 million. So, the voter approved levy, um, it makes up about 61.55% of our total levy and that increased 4.09% from the previous year. And then all of the other local levies, I said it was just that, it was everything else. So, there's that list. Um, this makes up 38.45 of% of our total levy. Um, and it was an increase of 9.57 U% most of that being to the with the LTFM adjustments from the previous year. Here is a summary of that based on those five different um calculations. So in the dark blue you have those funding categories that are based on adjusted pupil units or enrollment. Um in the dark gold you have those that are based on expenditures. Lighter blue is based on population of the district. Uh the lighter gold is based on district tax base. And then you have some miscellaneous adjustments in property tax abatement. So, I think what's important to look at for that top one, um the very top one you'll see our adjusted pupil units or our enrollment um is projected to increase about 3.2%. So, all of those dark blue funding categories are going to increase 3.2% at least um just based on the enrollment growth. I included a graph um that shows all of the available financing tools. I'm not going to go through this in in great length, but just know that um the school districts are do have the ability to look at different um funding sources depending on what the needs are. Um and all of them are calculated differently. Again, we we've talked at length about some of them on referendum market value, some next net net tax capacity, some of them require voter approval, some of them don't. Some of them require submitting a review and comment to the state, some don't. So, this is just kind of a summary of that. Uh this slide um looks at what our existing long-term debt is. So this would be in the form of our building bonds as well as what we have out there for lease purchase agreements um or long-term lease um agreements. So the top and the blue are all of our general oba uh general obligation building bonds. Um you can see we have about $181 million of outstanding principal. And then for our annual appropriation with our lease levy um for certificates of participation and some of our lease purchase agreements the last few years um we're at about 19 million. So we have about just over $200 million of total outstanding long-term debt. And this graph shows where that falls in each fiscal year. So we always get the the question like when is X building going to come off the tax roles for example. So when when tax levies are when new building bonds are um entered into um we work with our financial advisors to do the best we can to maybe help um not have those peaks and valleys. We try to even it out and get a consistent um you know principal and interest payments throughout the year. So, what you might see if you do have a building that's coming off the books in four years, for example, and you issue new debt, you might have the bond holders say, you know what, we're not going to we don't want you to pay a lot in the first four years, and then we're going to load it up after that. Um, so you can kind of keep that as level as you can. You can see here, um, in 2035, we do see a decrease in that dark blue, which is our debt service. Um, and it's important to note that some of these are based on assumptions. So that gray is our LTFM levy um and the gold is our capital projects or technology levy. So this graph would illustrate if those funding sources were to continue at the current rate. Um the the gray is a board approved thing. The gold is a voter approved thing. Um so we do come back to the voters to have that renewed every now and then. And why I bring this up is because I show you then what it might look like should there be new debt that is issued for the district. Um, so the new blue color then would um would be a potential model of what that might look like. Um, again, you can see how that that light blue graph varies from year to year. Some years it's less, some years it's more just to try to get that um, in this case it'd be about $60 million or so per year rather than having it 50 one year, 70 the next down to 50. Um, really eliminate those peaks and valleys the best you can. I talked a little bit about the tax base composition for each district and how that's important. So for us um again we do not have a lot of qualifying agriculture or seasonal recreation property. So what you will generally see um and I'm going to compare that first column which is the market value um to the far right column which is what the taxpayers actually pay for our levy. So, our residential homestead and our other residential, so that might be um apartments, those kind of things, um make up about 79 about or 80.4% of our market value. And then you can see on the far right, um those properties are subject to pay 75.6% of the taxes. Why that is is because you go back to one of the early slides, I talked about how commercial properties are taxed a little bit higher than residential. So you will see the commercial bump up a little bit. In this case, it goes from 17.9% of our market value to 23.6% um of the responsibility of the taxes payable in 2026. So, I would say I don't I don't want to call anybody or any district an average district, but I would think this would be pretty consistent as to what you might see for an average district um where your residential drops a little bit and your commercial bumps up a little bit. [snorts] However, looking at some other districts, just to illustrate that, if you look at Bloomington, so Bloomington uh has something called the Mall of America in their district um and other uh high-end commercial and industrial tax bases. So, you will see their residential homestead actually drops more. They go from 50.9% of market value responsible for paying 43.9% of their um the taxes payable where the commercial increased from 29.6 6 to 38.7. So the more commercial industrial property you have in your um district, the less the more you will see of a decrease to your residential homestead taxpayers. Uh Northland [clears throat] district, I don't know where that is. I don't know if anyone does, but um they are a district that has high seasonal recreational. Um and you can see what that does. it actually increases the residential homestead uh because you will have seasonal recreation that is exempt from paying some of those um taxes. Therefore, the residential homestead increased from 24.2 up to 26.4 where the seasonal wreck um decreased from 56.8 to 48.2 um as they did not have to pay taxes on those referendum market value funding categories. Uh, Fula um is a district that I identified as having a lot of qualifying agriculture. Um, so you can see what that does. Even more significantly, uh, only 7.7% of their tax of their market value is residential homestead. But those 7.7% are responsible for paying 19.7% of the pay the taxes while the qualifying agriculture drops from 87.1 down to 65.7. >> [snorts] >> And then lastly, um, one of our neighbors, Minnotonka, um, has a really, really high residential homestead, um, percentage. Um, so you will see they stayed pretty consistent where they I I don't know if it's the right term to use, but they don't get a lot of help from their commercial, um, industrial property tax levy. So, um, their residential homestead is actually pretty consistent to their, u taxes payable. So again, just illustrating that your tax composition, your tax base composition does make a big difference as to what you see for property tax payments as well. Um said we would look into some of the notable levy changes. Um so these are the changes from the 2025 levy. Uh we had our local optional revenue increase $332,000. This is a levy category that is based on enrollment. So that is uh simply due to our increased enrollment. Um referendum is the same thing. Referendum um revenue increased about $2.1 million. Not only is there a increase due to our enrollment growth, but also because of the inflationary factor that is on our referendum revenue. Uh our technology levy increases because that is one is actually based on our property tax base and as the district's property tax base increases so does the technology levy revenue. Uh we did have a decrease for our capital facilities bond. If you recall, the district sold um bonds recently uh for the uh construction of the at West Middle School to help with or to for the west the music suite at West Middle School. Um so that is actually decreasing our levy um because we are required to use a portion of our annual operating capital to pay for those bonds. I talked uh at length about those u prior year LTFM adjustments. So that was a significant change from 25. Um we did increase our uh school age care uh levy in the community service fund by $215,000. Uh this is one of those categories if you remember that is based on actual expenditures. So we do our best to guess what our expenditures are for our school age program. Um and where we come out. If we come in higher or lower than that, we'll be adjusted in a future year. So, we are starting to see the growth of that um really take off in that program, which leads to more expenditures. Therefore, um we are increasing the levy to account for that. And then all other categories for all funds is about a $891,000 decrease. Um we did have a couple changes that I talked about from our preliminary levy. So now we're looking at those that changed from the levy that was approved in September. Uh we were working with MDE on all of these. Um we knew that our lease payments from 2023 were not being entered correctly. We were trying to figure out why. Um so there was a $463,000 decrease um from our preliminary levy. Um but then there was that was for our current year. And then for our prior year, in this case it was 2023. Um, for some reason all of our actual expenditures from our certificates of participation and lease purchase agreements from 2023 were not in MDE system which we caught after the uh levy was certified in September. So that did result in a $1.8 million increase which makes up the biggest difference from what we saw in September to now. Uh and then we did have a uh we received from our actuary company a revised um OPB eligible expenditure. So there was a decrease of about $47,000 there. Uh levy comparison. So this sheet um it was nice of the county to send um with your proposed property tax statement. They had a comparison of all um cities uh counties and school districts as to what the increases were which is really really interesting. As you can see a lot of the cities um exceeded our district 6.13% increase um where a lot of the school districts were less than that. So, that was an interesting um data point, I thought. And Henipin County did propose a 7.39% increase. I did include there on the bottom, not only our actual 6.13%, but going back to that slide where I talked about the LTFM adjustments. I just I added what it would have been without having those um at 1.28%. did make a couple notes there that Eastern Carver County and we'll look at some other comparisons with them. They did pass a um operating referendum in November, so theirs will increase. Um and Minnetonka did pass a bond referendum, $85 million in November, so those those will increase as well. So these numbers that you will see for those two districts do not include those because we don't have those final numbers yet. [clears throat] So despite our 6.13% increase, I went back and looked at what it was for the last five years for all of these neighboring and and comparable districts from 5 years ago. So comparing from payable 2021 to comp to payable 2026. Um here is how that looks like for each of those districts. We are at a 22.03% increase. Um this is sorted lowest to highest. So you can see that we're the second lowest, just a little bit higher than Orino, well below the comparable average of 33.88%, which is actually going to increase uh when those from Eastern Carver County and Minnotonka um become known. This graph then looks at what each district's enrollment change was. So either an increase or a decrease. Um it's well documented that we've experienced a lot of enrollment growth. In fact, from um fiscal year 20 to fiscal year 25, a 6.38% increase. Um sorting that from highest to lowest, we are by far um the highest. And why that's important is all the things that we've talked about before for all of those levy categories that are based on this. So what I did from there then is I kind of just came up with understanding that okay, a lot of this levy increase is going to be due to your enrollment increase. So, I took that 5-year levy increase and subtracted the 5-year enrollment increase to come up with a kind of a fictitious formula, I guess. But, um, for us, that turns out to be a 15.65% um, non-enrollment change. You know, there's there's a lot more to it than that, but again, I just took an easy formula uh, just to for comparison purposes. So, how that ranks, we are the lowest. So to me what that means is the non-enrollment growth in your levy um we have increased by far less than any other district and far less than the state and far less than the comparable average too. [snorts] So again that goes back to what we said too about we recognize 6.13 doesn't feel very good. Um but this helps illustrate to when you look at it more of a three or a fiveyear thing. Um I I'm not so sure what we could have done differently or better to to keep it as low as we could. [snorts] Uh moving on to adjusted net tax capacity. So we've talked a lot about our net tax capacity. So the tax capacity is the total tax capacity of all properties in the district. Um for us that's about $247 million in 2024. Um then we get applied what's called a sales ratio. So the sales ratio is for us is 95.7%. So what that means is properties sold um at a their estimated market value was 95.7% of what the sales price was. So properties are selling higher than what the estimated market value is. So what MDE does then it calculates okay your net tax capacity is really not $246 million. um it's going to be $257 million because we're going to take that sales ratio into consideration. This graph then shows um in the gold is what our net tax capacity is and what our levy is. Um so what you don't want to see or what you do want to see is you don't want to see your district levy totally match your the you don't want the blue line to match the gold line. That just means um you are having your levy increase as your net tax capacity is. Anytime you're able to keep it um at a different lower pace than that, that means you're you're basically not you're you're basically releasing some of that burden from your taxpayers because of the um property growth that you're seeing within the district. So on the left is our district, on the right is the state. Um and you can see both of them are pretty parallel until recent years. Um, and now this year we actually decreased or came closer narrowed the gap a little bit with our de district levy to our district net tax capacity. [snorts] Here's a percentage of that. So I think it's important to see that our high point in payable 2020 was at 49.6. Um, so that was our levy percentage as of our adjusted net tax capacity. Uh, that has steadily decreased and it's now at 39.6%. You can see how that compares to the state. So from 2020 down to 2026, we decreased from 49.6 to 39.6. So 10 percentage points. Uh where the state average decreased from 40.8 down to 33.2 or only 7.6%. So uh we are exceeding the um we're doing better than the state average as keeping our levy as a percentage of adjusted net tax capacity lower. Here [snorts] is that same figure based on our comparable and neighboring districts. We rank third. Um you will see a lot of the metro districts are higher than the state average. That's pretty normal. Um but we continue to be less than the comparable average in this percentage. [snorts] All right. Last we wonder what that means for our taxpayers. Um, and it's important to for this disclaimer that um, this these what you will see on this slide is is is really again an average. Each property owner might see something a little bit different one way or another, but it's going to be pretty close. Um, and a lot of these factors can vary from year to year of property to property. Um, so anytime you have a change in value of indiv individual property or a change in property classification, um, or in a change in the total prop value of all property within the district, you're going to see some of those factors, um, play themselves out. [snorts] To help illustrate this a little bit, I'm going to have a little math game for you. U,, so we have a blue and a yellow house, or gold, we'll call it gold. Um, both of these houses are valued at $250,000. And and yes, these are very um elementary numbers. Um they don't they're not realistic, but it helps illustrate um what what point we want to get across here, too. So, um the total school district levy in this case is $1,000. Both of them are valued at the same price. Therefore, they're each going to pay $500 of that levy. The next year, the blue house, the value increases 10%, so it goes up to 275,000. the gold value um increases 25% to 312500. Um the district levy stayed the same, so it's still at $1,000. And you'll see the blue house then is only responsible for $468. So even though their property value increased 10%, their property taxes decreased. same thing except in this case the total school district levy increased 10 or 5% up to,50 and even in this case the blue house despite increasing 10% in value and the school district levy increasing 5% they still pay less the second year um because of that property growth of the gold house in this case the blue house again is valued at 275 gold at 31250 The school district levy actually decreases 5% down to $950, but the gold house still has to pay more than the previous year. Now, to really mess it up, we had a new house built. It was red. Um, so you can see the total values of all those houses. The the district levy increased 10%, so it goes up to $1,100. You split that versus three houses now instead of two, you can see how they all pay a lot less than they were the year before. So, what this does, it it illustrates five important points. An increase in property value does not automatically result in an increase to school property taxes. The inverse of that would be true. A decrease in property value does not automatically result in a decrease to school property taxes. An increase in the district levy does not automatically result in an increase to school property taxes. The inverse of that is true. And first and foremost, and most importantly, property growth within the district lowers the school property tax for all taxpayers. Um, four, uh, how these property taxes then are applied to some of our properties in the district. Um, again, this is just estimates and they could vary or they could waver, um, on the final for final payable 2026 when everything else u all the dust settles. Um the four-year comparisons that we're going to look at um are based on two things. No change in property value and then a cumulative increase of 11.3% in property value. So that's been about the average uh increase in property value for a 4-year stretch. Here's in graph format of what you might see. So if you look at we'll just take the top one there. $400,000 residential homestead. Back in payable 2023, they were paying 1671 in school district taxes. In 2024, they dropped down to 1614. 2025, 1620. And then this year, 1664. Here's a bar graph showing what that would be for a $500,000 residential homestead property. So, again, going back four years ago, it's actually only increased $13 um from payable 2023. uh for $650,000 residential homestead. Pretty similar to the previous one. Commercial has actually decreased every year um for a $500,000 commercial industrial property. A million-doll apartment. Again, it's $7 less than what you saw in payable 2023. Oops. Now, this slide, we understand that the previous slides for a $650,000 home, there's not a $650,000 residential homestead in our property that was $650,000 3 years ago. So, this is where you take that 11.3% into consideration. So, back in payable 2023, that house that might have an estimated estimated market value of $650,000 this year uh had a market value of 584,200 um back in payable 23 and they were paying $24.95. Um this year they're paying 28.26. So again, the 11.3% property value increase result in a 13.3% property tax increase. Um, and when you uh figure factor in our enrollment growth and all that other stuff too, it's it's um pretty hard to imagine that that could be any less than that. [snorts] This is a breakdown of those taxes. So, the dark blue is the voter approved operating referendum. The dark gold then is the categorical levies um that are board approved. Uh the gray is voter approved building bonds and c and our technology levy. Uh the small light blue one is our debt um capital facilities or LTF LTFM bonds. Um and then the light gold at the top is pretty much everything else. Just an important um data point here. Our estimated average home value in the Weisetta School District is about $654,614. Uh we recently got something from Henipin County that said it might be more like $664,000, but um we're pretty close to that $650,000 range as to what our average home value is. Um in payable 2025, when we take that um $650,000 home, um our taxpayers were paying $2,748 of school district property taxes. when you take that same house. So, if you have a $650,000 house, you pick it up and you drop into any of these other school districts, you will see what you would have been paying in payable 2025 taxes. Um, and only two districts would you have seen a property tax decrease from what you pay in Wisetta Public Schools. Again, just information here for our medium family income. We're at about $189,000 for our district. Um, when you factor in what that what your school property taxes is based on your medium family in income, it's about 1.45%. And you can see how that re relates to our neighbors and our comparable districts. So, uh, considerably less than the average. Um, Minnesota property tax refunds and deferral. So, every taxpayer if you qualify is eligible to get some sort of tax refund and or deferral. Again, if you qualify, um there's the Minnesota Homestead property tax refund. I did put on there what you need to do to qualify for that. There's a special property tax refund program, a senior citizen property tax deferral. Um and then there's a few other taxpayer resources that are available um should you be one of these. [snorts] And what's important is if you need assistance with that, do not contact Trevor or your school board. you contact your tax professional or the Minnesota Department of Revenue to help with your uh tax refunds and deferrals. Next step, um we'll turn it over back over to you where, uh we'll accept any comments either from the board or the public. Um and then later on, we'll ask you to approve the tax levy. So, I apologize for the length of this and hopefully it was educational and you learned a little bit. That was my goal. We're a learning institution, right? So that's what it was all about. Thank you Trevor and thank you Jack. Boy that was a lot of information numbers. Um so colleagues there is no recommended action at this time but the board will be asked to approve the levy um administrative reports and recommendations later in the board meeting. Uh but for now if you have any questions or comments. >> Thank you. That was great. Um, lot of numbers, complex topic, but again very well articulated. So I have two questions. So given we are increasing the the referendum levy amount. I think last time when we looked at what would it mean to the taxpayers, I think we were looking at between 27 to $31. Um, do we know what that revise range would be for median $650,000 house? [clears throat] >> I don't remember the dollar amount, but I have had a couple people who have volunteered their um their own personal property tax statements. one of them might be sitting up at that table um close to the center um but and I don't remember the exact numbers but um again going back to how much our district continues to grow in property wealth um I I think rather than the 6.13% this person's um school district property taxes um increased far less than that maybe about half and again this is it it differs for every property tax but uh our property owner but that's that's pretty general as So, you might see I don't have the dollar amount, but that's just a percentage. Um, I know of some that have been less than that. I know some that have been more than that. Um, but I I think it's really important for everyone to focus in on making sure that what you see with your property tax value, um, and your classification, um, and make sure it makes sense. The other thing I want to point out, too, is um, we get a lot of questions about the two different line items on your property tax statement. um you'll see one of them sometimes goes up, one of them goes down. Um just and there's no total on there, which is a little confusing. So just make sure um as a property tax or a property owner that you add the two together. A lot of people just focus in on the first one and they say, "Oh, it went up 8% or whatever." I'm like, "Well, what'd your second one do?" "Oh, that went down 10." Okay, add them together then and let me know what you get. So, um we get that a lot. So, just make sure. But um just to answer your question too, I I I don't have specifics about that, but um generally you you will see that a property tax um increase for our owners um is less than what the the district's levy increase is. For sure. >> Um true because we I think saw that in the last presentation as well because even though it was you know 5 some% was actually like 1.2 2 or 1.3 that actually translates to the dollar amount. So I was trying to understand now we have about $6 million more. What does that mean? But um I get your point. The other question I have is when you showed that modeling of the new debt over next, you know, 25, 30, 40 years, what does that do to our bond rating? Would we would our AAA rating be impacted in any shape or form or would it stay the same? Yeah, I I can't answer what it would do after that. Um but I will answer um what it will do before that. Um so anytime you issue new debt, you are required to have a online meeting with Moody's um who's our credit rating um agency. And um just to make sure that they'll take our AAA, our current AAA rating, they'll ask about any changes. They'll ask, you know, where where our current budget is, what our incur enrollment is, what our tax base is, all of these questions. Um so should in this case should they maintain our AAA bond rating which I don't under I don't know why we would ever not be um considering where these trajectories are going >> um that will affect what we see at bond sale as far as an interest rate. >> So I don't know what it'll do. It's too it doesn't really impact what happens after that but it happens it certainly affects what leads up to that. Okay. Um and anytime you see a um impact uh we we have it has been proven that we get far greater lower interest rates on our bonds because of that it is a big deal. Um I don't think we celebrate that enough that it is a really really big deal. Um and that it does not affect the school district because that debt service is paid 100% by our taxpayers. So that AAA bonding is a celebration for all of our taxpayers uh more so than it really is the district. Yeah. Thank you. [snorts] >> Uh would you be able to explain a little bit more please how it used to be on September 1 4.99% and right now we're asking 6 uh.13. How did it ended up that number? >> Yeah, that was those lease payments from 2023 um that we were working with MDE. We were working uh with them during September when we were trying to figure out, but it's it's pretty busy for them. So, um we knew that something was not entered correctly on their site. Um every August we are required as a school district to enter all of our information into the um to the levy input site and um we we met as a team and like something is not right here. These 2023 lease numbers are not correct. Um and then we found out after the fact that they were not entered at all. So there was zero amounts. So when we put in our actual So therefore we were actually getting a 1.8% levy adjustment, a negative adjustment, which was bringing our levy down. Um so once those 2023 actual payments got in, it eliminated that $1.8 8 million negative adjustment and made that zero, which is what the the difference was between September and now. So help me understand the act to school building bond credits. I think the the number was 70% or something like that. So the state gives us that money. [snorts] So that should not affect our revenue at all. Right. Or does >> correct? Nope. That's that's just the benefit to the qualifying agricultural property. >> Correct. Okay. I was making sure of that. Okay. >> And then uh the existing long-term debt. You showed a couple of slides. One of them showed that we have no long-term debt. That blue bar at the bottom in 2037 it just goes away. Now, is that is that because we have not included our upcoming referendum? >> Correct. >> Eventually that that will be in there, right? >> Yep. Yep. >> If we were to if we were to not issue any new debt between now and when that last dark blue bond or blue bar >> um was on that would all the blue bars would then go away. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> That's all the questions I have. So, just walk us through the rest of the presentations, I guess. So we have oh I'm sorry before that we have public comments on the truth on taxation. Uh this section of the agenda provides an opportunity for members of the audience to address the school board regarding the truth in taxation presentation. Speakers will be allotted approximately 3 minutes. The regular audience opportunity to address the board will be available for topics not relating to truth in taxation after the school spotlight presentation later this evening. Please note that this time is provided for citizens to address the board. This is not an appropriate venue for a discussion or debate. If the speaker would like a follow-up contact from the board of education, they may leave their contact information with the administrative assistant. Do we have any request any? Okay, I I suppose we can then go to the next item on the agenda and that would be the reports from organizations and I believe Rachel Yian is here. Rachel, good evening, Superintendent Anderson, members of the board, and everybody else gathered here tonight. My name is Rachel Yen and I am the Wisetta High School student body president, vice president, and here is December's monthly report. Over the past few weeks, Wisetta students have been busy building community, showcasing talent, and competing at the highest levels. Here are some highlights. Student council recently wrapped up our adopt a family fundraiser where members eagerly raised funds to support the IOC food bank and the Minnesota Children's Hospital. Students hosted class competitions to see who can raise the most money. And we've hosted seven diff seven different restaurant fundraisers at Panera, Nules & Company, Nautical Bo, and more. Our fall musical officially closed to outstanding crowds. About 3,000 people attended over the run of the show. Students shine on stage, backstage, and in the pit. And the strong turnout from families and community members show how much support there is for the arts within our high school. and our district. Wisetta hosted the student council Henipin Division fall meeting, welcoming 360 student leaders from eight different schools to network and discuss hot topics like mental health and fundraising. Our president, Scott Loda, delivered an amazing speech on the power of intent and action. On November 20th, our National Honor Society hosted Wisetta Idol, a student talent showcase featuring 10 performing groups. Congratulations to this year's winners, Cedric Marilo and Lily Meyers. From music to performance to art, students filled the stage with creativity and confidence. Uh lastly, our dance team hosted our home meet, bringing energy, precision, and a lot of school pride to the floor. The weather might be getting colder and colder, but students are still burning to build community and demonstrate church pride. Hope you all have a great evening and see you all next month. I'm now open to any questions that you may have. >> Thank you, Rachel. Comments, questions. I see that there are none. Thank you so much. And we'll see we'll see you in January, right? >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is recognitions and I will join Dr. Anderson at the podium. >> Good evening everybody and welcome to our school board meeting tonight. My name is Chase Anderson. I'm the superintendent for the school district and it's always my pleasure to convene the uh recognitions part of the program and we have uh three such recognitions tonight and the first is for our girls cross country state champions and I know we have our coach here tonight and some of our athletes. I'm going to invite anybody who's here with the cross country team to please come up and uh join us over here. Thank you for being here. Sorry we're a few minutes late, but I'm sure you made use of the time to run three or four miles in the meantime before we got started here. So, you're all warmed up now. Um, it is really an honor for us to recognize this group tonight. And I want to just share a little bit before I turn it over to uh Kelsey Beach, the coach here with the team tonight and uh share a little bit about this historic for Pete of our girls cross country program. So, I'd like to share the following. We are delighted to report on the exceptional performance of the Weisetta cross country program at the 2025 Minnesota State High School League class AAA state meet held on Saturday, November 1st of 2025. The Weisetta girls cross country team made history by capturing their fourth consecutive class AAA state championship. Congrats on that. Officially achieving a monumental four Pete, the team displayed an overwhelming dominance, scoring an astoundingly low team total of just 27 points, a testament to their depth and commitment. The victory was secured by a phenomenal team effort with four runners placing in the top 10 overall. Senior Mattie Golixson culminated her impressive high school career by winning the individual class AAA state championship, her first cross country title. Gullixson finished the 5K course at Les Bullstad Golf Course, achieving her season goal of breaking the 17-minute barrier. Nike cross nationals. In addition to the impressive state championship, the Weisetta girls cross country team ended their historic season as an undisputed champions of the country, winning the Nike cross nationals on December 6, just a few days ago. a competition that brings together the top high school teams in the United States. The team was officially crowned the national champion, winning with 142 points and narrowly beating the second place team by just five points. This is the program's second national title in this event, confirming that Weisetta is one of the elite high school cross country programs in the nation. Congratulations. Wow, that's a lot. [applause] Well done. this time I'll turn it over to Kelsey and you can share a little bit about our team. Great. >> Thank you. Well, thank you. That was that was wonderful and a lot. Um yes, thank you for recognizing this amazing amazing group. Uh it really is an incredible team and like you just heard a state champion team and then qualifying at our regional meet in early November for the national meet that yes they won in Portland over the weekend on a muddy challenging course. So it was pretty pretty cool. So truly you have the fastest girls cross country team in the nation here amongst you. Uh but really it was a super special season that started back in the summer when this group started laying the foundation and putting the work and the miles in. Really started talking about their potential, believing in it and taking care of one another. Uh as the season progressed, you could see that they really were going to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. uh they did all the little things right to help themselves and just really kind of kept on on building that way and building this team of inclusivity, this team of quiet confidence. Uh one of my favorite things was talking to the seniors about this squad and having them say there's no clicks, there's no separation by ability, by grade. We are all in this together. And that type of support, whether you're the top runner or you're new to the sport, uh that you can feel that as a team, you can feel that support of the whole squad, which was really cool. And I think we really saw it in action at that state meet. Uh this group had an incredible way of getting out super smart in all of their races and trusting each other as their anchors, knowing this person's going to help me get out right. I'm going to queue off of this teammate and then kind of building from there throughout every race, taking the middle of the race and getting gritty and helping each other. If you watched them, you could see these kind of silent signs of support they would give each other. Uh maybe it was sometimes slapping the legs. Sort of this let's go, let's go build in this part of the race together and get after it. And all of them doing that and ultimately always finishing their races very fast uh and finding those gear shifts. I loved watching them at state. We had kind of a go spot about 800 meters to the finish and literally seeing each of them speed up those hands and find that next gear that yes ultimately ended up giving them the win at state. Uh and that absolutely incredible historic one. That is the lowest team score total from a girls state meet with that 27 points. And so that's pretty darn cool. Um we had yep Mattie Gullixson leading the way in that 1654 and winning her state championship title. We had then let's see who's we had Jasine Malhara Goario who is in fifth place. And then we had Llaya Golem who unfortunately is not here tonight in eighth place, Miley Clark in ninth place and Alyssa Leman in 14th place that all earned all state honors which was really neat. We had then Addison Neitz and Khloe Kistle rounding out our top seven. This team earned academic gold in the process as well. Um so they're also really smart which is pretty cool. Uh they're not here tonight but Sienna Bloomberg and Rachel Tong were our alternates and just a really integral part of the fingerprints on this squad. So um yeah I think my last piece when you listen to these girls in any of their post-RA interviews uh they talked about each other. They each had reasons to boast about themselves individually and that would have been totally acceptable, but they never did. It was always about the we and the us and the big things that they believed in and accomplished together. So, super proud of this squad and really grateful for the recognition tonight. Thank you. [applause] Again, [applause] congratulations and thank you so much for being here tonight. Our next uh recognition for this evening is for our West Middle School employee of the month. And I would like to invite Anna Prolo uh to please come forward and be recognized tonight. Congratulations. I'm going to read a script that was prepared on her behalf and then give uh Anna an opportunity to share a few thoughts if you'd like to do so. Looks like you're all queued up and ready to roll with that. I'd like to share the following. Weisetta West Middle School is proud to recognize Anna Prostrolo as the December employee of the month. Anna has taught middle school science in Weisetta for 10 years, bringing learner centered expertise, innovation, and enthusiasm to her classroom every day. Anna has served as the building professional learning lead and a member of the instructional leadership team, helping set school goals and leading efforts to achieve them. She has been instrumental in implementing learner centered instructional practices across the building and consistently keep students at the heart of her work. Anna also inspires her colleagues. She has been central to West's use of the Ignite Chunk Chew Review framework, facilitating professional learning that meets staff where they are and supporting both new and veteran teachers. Her leadership has strengthened instructional practices and contributed to a positive growthoriented culture. Anna leads with positivity, a solution focused mindset, and strong collaboration. She plans engaging lessons with her PLC teammate and took the lead on the sixth grade Eagle Bluff extended day field trip and sixth grade winter ski field trip. She works daily to build a community among students and colleagues. West colleague Dan Narison shared, "Anna exemplifies true dedication. She is committed to her students, colleagues, and our community, ensuring every student feels they belong and designing instruction for all learners. Her leadership and professional development work strengthen our building. We are incredibly fortunate to have her at West. Anna models lifelong learning, a team first approach, and a calm, supportive presence that benefits everyone around her. Congratulations, Anna, for being named the December employee of the month. And now it's your turn. [applause] >> I am of the age that speaks from a phone. So, thank you. It's an honor. Um, I've been lucky to spend my entire teaching career in Wisetta Public Schools, and I could not be more thankful for the opportunities that this district has provided for me. Um, I'm here today though because of all the educators that came before me and who have made the teacher that I am today. Um, most importantly, my father, my lifelong educator, uh, and, uh, inspiration to also become a middle school science teacher. Um, so I wanted to say thank you to him. Um, I also wanted to say that I've done the tour day, as I like to call it. I've been in all three middle school buildings and taught all three middle school grades. Um, and we truly have amazing educators in this district, and I feel very privileged to continue to learn from all of them. Um, thank you to Ryan and Carly and to Dan um, for your kind words and for creating the space for me to be the educator that I am today. So, thank you. >> THANKS. [applause] Congratulations again, Anna, and uh to the west team that are here to uh support here tonight. We have only one other recognition uh this evening, and uh each uh month, it's our tradition to announce those who have indicated their intent to retire uh since the last meeting that we had. And we have only one tonight. Um, Barbara Hill, who's been a paraprofessional at Central Middle School for 22 years. I haven't spotted Barbara in the crowd, but if you're here, come on down. Probably watching on TV instead of coming out in the snow tonight, I would imagine. But congratulations to her, and we'll give her a round of applause, please, to thank you. [applause] And that concludes our recognitions portion of tonight's program. And thank you so much for being here for that. And uh we'll move on to our uh next part of our our meeting. Thank you. >> Congratulations to the honores and thank you Dr. Anderson. Okay. Now we have the highlight of our regular meetings, the school spotlight presentation. And tonight we we have West Middle School presenting and principal Ryan Carlson will do the honors. Thank you. >> Ryan, you're on. >> You wanted to stand? >> Yeah, I'll stand. >> Awkward. This is thanks for having me everyone. Um, and I will keep my remarks fairly brief um, because we have a bunch of students here that want to tell the story and can tell it far better than I can. Um, so just a little bit about West Middle School just for some grounding. We have around 880 students this year, which is an increase. I think a few years ago, we were probably around 650 students. So, we're we are growing. Um, with sixth and seventh grade around 300 or just above 300 uh and eighth grade being around 275. We do have an alternating block schedule, which is our second year of running that schedule. Um, just a few things about West. Um, one of the things that we really focus our professional learning around is our vision card which is connected to the WPS strategic roadmap. But just a few key points to that like we strive for exceptional learning experiences and relationships for each and every student. So every single time we gather as a staff we talk about that piece. Um, we talk about how through their experiences at West, students will explore their passions, build their independence as learners, and grow and develop academically, socially, and emotionally. And those aren't just words for us. Those are things we take very seriously. We know that we have to be intentional to try to create those experiences and develop those skills over their three years with us. So what we're here to really talk about tonight is the idea of exploration and student agency in middle school. So according to the association for middle level education, the general approach to the entire curriculum at the middle level should be one of exploration and exploratory courses really are a fundamental part of any successful middle school. like we want our students to be people who are passionate in exploring what their interests are. And as we went through our middle level review process a few years back, it really became clear that we wanted our middle schools to be places that invited students to be adventuresome, curious explorers. And our previous schedule was limited in terms of our exploratory options and those opportunities for students. So, here is just an example of one of our registration sheets. So, as as we kind of look at this, I just I think it's fun to think back uh I think back to Shockby Junior High in the mid '9s. Um I didn't have these opportunities. So, I I look at like a sheet like this. I'm like, "Okay, which course would you choose?" If you had in seventh grade, we've got a couple options. In eighth grade, we've got a couple more. as you look through all the different options, whether it's art of cooking and strength training and Shark Tank and things like that, which catches your interest? Like for me, I get super excited as an educator to have these opportunities for our students and think about my myself as a young adolescent 12 to 14 years old and how excited I would have been to have some of these opportunities to explore my interest and passions. [snorts] So, one of the key reasons that the AMLE recommends a block schedule for middle school students is the exploratory options that it allows our students. Our new middle school schedule has a number of elected opportunities that give students agency and the opportunity to explore passion areas. We're going to highlight some of those opportunities today from our students and hear ex really from them about their experiences and how it's impacted their school journey. So, here's just uh what we are running this year at West Middle School. Um each middle school offers the same elective opportunities depending upon enrollment. It looks a little bit different in each building, but here's what we have running at West this year. A ton of different options for kids. and we're gonna get into it and let the students tell you about their experiences in these courses. So, I'm going to have students kind of come up one at a time. So, we'll start with Art of Cooking and students will just share a little bit about that class and we'll kind of move on to the next slide and then at the end we'll take any questions that people might have. >> Hello, I'm Ashelina and I'm an eighth grade student at Wisetta West Middle School. And art of cooking is basically when we get to, you know, try new recipes, take notes, and how to use utensils properly. And we learn how to clean up after ourselves, too. Um, and some skills that I've learned are basically we just learn how to use utensils properly cuz you don't want to like poke yourself with a knife. And then, um, we learn how to clean up after ourselves. We, um, share responsibilities, so we take turns like doing dishes. Um, we sweep the floors and we clean the countertops. And this is like really useful for like um the future right now. And it's just like uh it helps us be dependent and not like um rely on other people to do it for us. And electives have impacted our day a lot. So like um when I was in sixth grade, I didn't really have um electives. And now that I do have electives, I'm like really grateful and it's something I really look forward to because it's super fun to like talk with my friends and cook. And it's also with like um seventh graders as well. So we get to like talk and meet with new people and we get to like um cook with new people and it's just like a really fun experience. And we get to have projects too where we get to create our own recipes and stuff. And it's like bakery projects and the food we make is like really delicious. And especially cuz for me it's at the end of the day so it's like something I really look forward to. And um I heard from Mr. Carlson that he didn't really have electives um when he was in school. So, I'm like really grateful to have Art of Cooking and a bunch of other electives. >> Thank you. >> Way back in the mid '9s, it was not not quite what we have now. [laughter] >> Oh, yes, it was. >> Hello, I'm Ha Patel and I am in interior design and fashion class. We get to embroider stuff and we get to learn how to make clothes on a mannequin. And currently we are learning how to make design houses using the elements of design and we get to learn how much a house costs in different states and why they are priced that way. Um, we learned how to embroider, how much a house costs, and electives, in my opinion, are needed because they make school more fun. And it expands our knowledge in that area. And electives are needed because they expand our skill sets and they like make us they can help us make new friends with people we never thought we could have friends with. Um, thank you for having me. Um, hello, my name is Charlie and I'll be sharing about the elective competitive sports. Um, first something that was fun in this class was that all all the things we did, we didn't do in normal PE. So they did they did sports that like weren't popular known and so it gave students like a choice or like a different view of like what other people play. And something that I learned was how to lead a class with different types of people and how to make strategies with them in game play. Cuz my teacher, Miss Kennedy, gave me the choice to lead a unit and I led the rugby unit. And the first like third of the class, I taught them like how to play and like strategies and stuff. And then the second bit of class I got to play with them but they all had like they were different groups of people so they had different ability levels so it was kind of difficult. Now I realize what how teachers feel and then um in like since I knew all that it was kind of easier playing with them. Um, competitive sports gave me something to like look forward in the day and like motivates me to go to school. And it also gave me a new perspective on things such as leading a class and having like a whole block of it cuz normal PE is like a half block. So, it's a crunch together and kind of stressful, but this is like you have time to debrief what you're doing and a warm up and then more time for gameplay. And then overall, I think electives make the whole middle school experience better because it like helps develop balance between like stressful and like hard thinking classes. And then this like gives you a break to have fun. And not every class is your favorite and like goes the way you want it. And that's just how life goes. And so this kind of prepares you for that. And yeah. Hi, I'm McKenna Wilhoy. In seventh grade, I did unify PE in elementary and loved it. I love building connections with our partners, meeting new people, and forming new relationships in this class. It is so much fun make to make memories with new friends. I always have so much fun and unified with our partners. Hi, I'm Morgan. I'm also a seventh grader. I love how inclusive everyone is in this class and how I get to learn from my partners that now I get to call my friends. I've learned how to work with new people. Unified PE has impacted me by being able to have many new connections and being able to work with people. Unified PE is a class elective where we have students with with and without disabilities come together through different PE activities while working together and forming new connections with each other. and our student uh that was here to talk about strength training. Uh they had to to go the the truth and taxation. Um it was riveting to him. [laughter] He was engaged in it, but they had to take off. So, uh we'll move on to 3D art. Hi, my name is Bie and I'm going to be talking about my experience with 3D art. Um, something I really enjoyed in 3D art is the many projects we got to do and es especially like like using clay. Um, being able to work with clay has had many impacts on me considering the fact that I like never worked with clay outside of this class. As of right now, we're working on clay bust, which is like basically sculpting a face, which is potentially your face. And it this has taught me like many things about the human face and like pro proportions. Through this class, I've learned patience because it takes a lot of patience when working with art. Um, I've learned that not everything goes as planned and it you have to like trust that eventually it will work out even though it doesn't look right at the moment. And 3D art has given me the opportunity to explore things outside of my comfort zone because I've never really thought myself as like the artsy person. Um, but 3D art has given me a whole new perspective on of art. 3D art is like one of my favorite classes and I really enjoy it. It has helped me own my learning because it's like really fun to do work and it which makes it like easy to do the work. Overall, 3D art is like fun and amazing class to have and I really look look forward to it in the day. Thank you. Um, hi, my name is Avery Raina and um I am from um print pay and draw. Um, so what made this class fun is we get to express ourselves um using passion bound art and wonderful creativity. Um, I learned a lot from this class. Um, such as artistic vocabulary like stipling or foreground. Um, at first I never knew what these were, but now I do. Having choices for electives allows me to um me, my friends, and all students to explore our passions. Choices also let us excel at what we like to do most. It makes learning exciting and in fun like a big f like a big journey. um what that will make me ma many amazing memories to come. These classes help us achieve bold. We um B we can make friends and build community. Um O we can own our learning and excel at stuff. And L we have chances to lead and gain um life skills. Finally D we can develop amazing life skills that will help us with our educational career. Thank you. We've got a couple, two, one. >> I chose dance as my elective because I really like dancing with friends and it's my favorite sport. Also, my favorite unit was gymnastics or dance. >> Um, I chose dance as an elective because I wanted to learn more about my favorite sport and I wanted to have a space where I could just like >> not worry about what other people want. >> I really like how in dance I can experiment with many different styles and learn from many different people around me as well as finding like my own unique style. And my favorite unit was dancing through the decades. Um I chose dance because my sister does dance and it looks really fun. And also um I feel like I really get to be creative and dance and I love to tumble and like do light jumps and stuff like that. I chose dance because I've never really danced before. So it was something new I I wanted to try this and I love how dance like lets me be free and get creative with styles and stuff. Hi, my name is Vivian. This is my second year of theater and I like having theater as a full block more than a half block because it gives us longer time. It gives us longer periods of time to work on our um hi, my name is Josiah Bradley and I love theater because theater helps me improve in some of my work and acting and stuff like that cuz that's what I want to do in the future. And Miss Prickie is great. >> Yeah. One thing I liked about this year's theater more than last year's theater was probably that this year we get a lot more time to work and learn more things about theater um and get to communicate with friends. >> All right, a couple other electives um that we didn't have. We kind of juggling. We've got a choir concert going on tonight. there's a little bit of snow, so there were some students that couldn't make it. Um, but, uh, Shark Tank is another popular elective that we have. You see some pictures there of some of the amazing things kids produced in that class along with some quotes about their experiences. Um, and then we have world art as well. we weren't able to get any pictures of that, but um really it's been just uh as a principal just super exciting to see kids have a chance to explore their passions um and kind of just dive into these new classes and get amazing experiences from those classes and develop a new sets of skills that they didn't have access to before. So, um from my lens, it's been an amazing win for our building. Um and hearing it from students, I think is much more powerful than just hearing it from from school administration sometimes. So I'm happy to take any questions and I I'll just defer a lot of those questions to any kids. Um so >> thank you principal Carlson and thank you all of you for your presentations. Um I knew there would be one victim of truth in taxation and that did that student leave. Did they come and then they left after? >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Too too much Trevor. Too much too much to absorb. I know. Um >> everyone's got busy things going on. I know. I'm just kidding. Uh, are there donuts from the cooking class here? Did you bring the donuts? >> No. >> No, there's no donuts, but we have sugar. >> Okay. It's my favorite thing is when there's a lab going on that the sometimes a middle school hallway doesn't smell amazing, [laughter] >> but when there's cookies or caramel roast cooking, it definitely has amazing stuff. >> Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, though. Thank you. Um, any questions? Comments? I have one quick question and again I know most of the middle schoolers they just love all the electives. Um one thing what we have seen including with our daughter and her friends sometimes they don't get the elective that they offer. So what has been the experience? Are there like top three or five that everybody shoots for and then really that's 8020 kind of rule and then you have to drop or what what has been the experience? Are we trying to expand more of these electives? >> Yeah, I would say that this past year was far far better in that regard. We switched to a new scheduling tool called Timely that in Skyward it was just a little bit more difficult for that system to like pick the top electives for the students. This year it was dramatically down. almost every student got if they had if they listed their top five choices, they always got two classes from those top five, for example. Um, so much much better with Timely. Um, and that leads to just a much better student experience because kids are getting the class they're interested in. Um, teachers are having kids that are super excited about that class rather than being kind of just put into it. So, with Timely, that's been a a huge help um in getting students to classes that they really have an interest in. >> Great. Thank you. I'm just curious. I heard that Wisat High School has some sort of club uh for crocheting do um girls at West Middle School also crochet. >> We we actually have a crochet club that that meets during our my time and has been featured on some of the local news stations. Okay. And and this year we >> we used to do it once a week. Um, but the the demand was so high that we moved it to twice a week because there was like 45 or 50 students that wanted to be part of it and we couldn't do that in one day. So, we moved it to two days. >> It's kind of amazing for me to be honest. I uh my teacher taught me how to crochet too and uh I just from one lesson I learned a lot and it's amazing to see that I felt like it's longforgotten uh hobby and all of a sudden girls like doing it >> and that's that's to me like the just the beauty of middle school is that opportunity to find what your passion is. You might not even know that it's your passion yet and when you try it um just having more opportunities like that for kids is really powerful. Can I just a quick followup. Is it open to all students? >> Yes. Yep. Any any student during my time can can open into it and talk to our teacher that runs it. >> Thank you. >> Oh yeah. Thank you all of you for coming and sharing your experiences with the board. Um, it's been nice to hear, you know, I know this is our second year, you know, with this this program or the, you know, the the block schedule and there were some growing pains, but it sounds like, you know, it's been a huge success. And I'm just so I'm grateful for all our students that they have this opportunity to learn about themselves and maybe discover interests they didn't know they had. And we heard recently in a teaching and learning committee about our CTE classes at the high school and that there's been, you know, there we're trying to align the middle school classes with what's going on in the high school. So hopefully all of the students are figuring out what kinds of things they might want to continue with at the high school. And um all of that has just been it's been really nice to see all of that. So all three of my kids went to West and um be bold [laughter] Well, I have a question for the students and whoever wants to answer answer this one. Um, it seems like as you're talking through all of this, you're taking you're learning a lot of new skills. Do you think that your electives are also helping some of your other classes and your um your academics in those classes? people. >> That's really great. >> I also feel like it's classy and sometimes to like other skills besides learning like other just like on that stuff like that. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming out on a snowy night, too. >> I also want to say thank you for coming out on a snowy night. And some of you were privileged to listen to get a little economics lesson along the way. So, you're welcome. That wasn't that >> right. Rest the absolute best way to spend a Monday night. So, thank you for that. Um, I actually had three things to say and they were all sort of asked by my board colleagues, but students didn't answer any of them. So, I'm going to ask you all the same questions. The first question is, it feels like the the we figured out a little bit like the short blocks versus the long blocks and how to do that and that this just feels a little bit better in your schedule. Students, does do electives for those of you that are eighth graders that did this last year? How is it feeling this year versus last year? This year it's just like I guess um there would be like path blocks too, but like with art of cooking and stuff, I prefer like food blocks because then we get like more time to cook and clean up and we also get like this family eating time kind of thing where we like sit together as a table and we eat our food and if we want we could take it home. So um we prefer Roblox for art. >> Awesome. That's so cool. And then my second question is a lot of people when they come to Yisetta, especially when they're little, talk about the great big high school and what do you do with the great big high school and the great big course catalog and all the other things. Do you feel like your experience with electives in middle school maybe gives you some ideas of what you might want to do at the high school or or makes you feel more confident in that experience of picking choices of classes that are good fits for you? >> Yeah, kind of helps me to from high school like I'm taking classes to take a lot of different >> Yeah. Awesome. I'm taking theater class and um it's really just like teaching me a lot about theater and it helps me like because I I was kind of thinking about maybe doing some plays in high school, but uh like just theater class it just encourages me to do some plays or take more theater classes or just do more artistic things like that. >> That's super awesome. Thank you. >> I just wanted to share one quick story. So, in my uh middle school days, back when we called them junior high schools, we didn't have a lot of electives, but I know I took an art class because to this day, trust me, when I was in seventh grade, that was a long time ago. Um, but to this day, in my home office on my desk, I have two pieces of clay art that I made in Mr. Bradberry's seventh grade art class. And when I made them, I don't think I really knew what they were. And I scratched in some little designs on the side and thought that was really uh an artistic moment for me. And uh many many years later, I still have those on my desk. And think back to um you know, having those opportunities to do different things when you're in middle school or even in high school. And a few years back, this is sort of the punchline that I'm leading up to. I actually knocked one over and it broke into five or six pieces. I glued it together and now it even looks less artistic than it did before it broke. But those uh creations that you have then uh it's interesting what you hold on to and what still has meaning and and things that you can reflect back on. So I really appreciate that you're all here tonight and shared your experiences. So thanks for coming out on this cold snowy night. >> Okay, there are no more questions. Thank you, Principal Carlson, and thank you to all the students that came and participated in this. Thank you for sharing your the information and what you have learned and what you have achieved. Thank you so much. [applause] >> [clears throat] >> Okay. So, next is the audience opportunity to address the board. And I see that there is one request and 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 administrative assistant Amy sitting to the table at the table on my right. And please note that you will need to complete a request form to be included on the on the speaker request list. When you are invited to this podium, please identify the subject and or agenda items to which you which your comments pertain. Priority will be given to students and families with the 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. All right. So, I'm going to invite um one speaker tonight and that's Sally Digenbach and the topic she will address the board on is soliciting teacher feedback. Sally, >> good evening. I'm Sally Denbach and I teach at East Middle School. I'm here to connect tonight to convey one clear message. Our administration needs to start listening to our teachers and trusting their professional judgment. Morale is low amongst many teachers in our district right now, and much of it stems from being ignored when we try to tell administrators what it is that we need. For example, teachers at my school were never asked for feedback on what types or frequency of meetings and professional learning would be most beneficial for both our students and our teachers. As a result of the 70 days from September to December, we have a required 30 minute morning meeting. That's from the beginning of our contract time to the minute students show up on uh 48 of those 70 days with 11 optional meetings on the other days. Um my job is not to attend meetings. Honestly, even people whose jobs center around meetings don't always have that many required meetings. Um, my job is to teach children, and that's what I should be working on. As a result of this overzealous meeting schedule, teachers have significantly less time to prepare their classrooms for their daily lessons, to grade and give feedback on student work, to communicate with parents, to plan tier 1 and tier 2 interventions, the things that make difference. Why isn't admin asking teachers for their input? Why aren't they listening to us when we tell them that these types of decisions are hindering our teaching instead of improving it? The district should also be soliciting teacher feedback when deciding school policies. Last week, we had a required PD session and our teachers were asked to look at their student data and use it to evaluate our instruction. However, we were told um that if we have several students coming to class late, we should evaluate our own instruction um and think about why it is that our instruction is not making students want to come to class on time. Um basically, we were blamed for any student tardies. Um, I would think that from a teacher's perspective, a much more logical conclusion would be that excess tardies are more likely due to a lack of consequences for students who do not come to class on time. Under our tardy policy, which teachers were not consulted on, students can be tardy up to four times per class per quarter before they would face any consequences from administration. Since students have roughly nine classes, that means theoretically they could be coming tardy to class 144 times per year without any consequence um from building administration. We need to start including teachers in these decisions. Our district is also out of compliance with state law that requires them to invite teacher feedback. According to state statute, all public employees are required to meet with employees once every four months to meet and confer about matters related to services being provided to the public. However, our last meet and confer meeting was held on February 26th. We do not even have a meeting scheduled so far for this school year. >> Thank you, Sally. I time is up. Thank you. Thank you for coming. >> Okay, moving on to administrative reports and recommendations. Um, first district admin administrative assistant Amy G, who also doubles up as the election clerk will present the combined polling places. Amy, >> thank you, Chair Sahony. Yes, I'm here as the election clerk for this particular matter. Uh, Minnesota's statute requires that we establish combined polling locations every year by December 31st, whether we have a planned election for that upcoming year or not. Um given the referendum that is on the books for April, um we are establishing the same five polling locations that we have used uh as the last couple years as well as the same ab absentee location. So the district service center will still serve as our absentee location. Uh we'll be using the Weisetta Creekide building, Hamill Community Center, Plymouth Community Center, and Weisetta City Hall and Fourth Baptist Church. Again, uh we do need to establish those. I will note and I will continue to remind voters that Minnetonka does not have an election scheduled for April. So, our five precincts that are located in Minnotonka will be folded into our current combined locations. So, I'm sending uh two of them to Wisetta City Hall, three of them to fourth Baptist. Um the voters of Minnotonka in those precincts will be getting a postcard from us at the beginning of the school year. You Amy. Uh so board colleagues, the recommended action is to adopt the resolution establishing combined polling places for the calendar year 2026 and school district elections not held on the same day as a statewide election and designating hours during which the polling places will remain open. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Yes, ma'am. >> I would like to say thank you so much for the fantastic presentation to the community relations committee. Um, receiving the maps and how these uh new details are be communicated to the community is very helpful and so I appreciate the dedication. Thank you. >> Yes, thank you Amy. And I think uh in that committee meeting I noticed uh Dan who loves to play with maps. He he had a good time there. Thank you Dan. Um any other questions, comments? If not, we will uh I will read the recommended action again. adopt a resolution establishing combined polling places for the calendar year 2026 and school district elections not held on the same day as a statewide election and designating hours during which the polling places will remain open. This is a roll call vote. >> Sarah Johansson, >> yes. >> Paris Bende, >> yes. >> Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. Dan Janestra, >> yes. >> Milan Sahonyi, >> yes. The motion carries. Thank you, Sheila. All right. There is no teaching and learning report tonight. And next, we have executive director of finance and operations, Terra Peterson, presenting the combined statements ending October 31st. Over to you, Peter. Trevor, rather. >> Yeah, I'll uh actually have Jack approach table. he's stuck around to to doing the next two items. So, um he'll take care of that. Hello again. Big night for me. So, I'll be presenting the uh October financial statements. Um this is four months of the fiscal year for 2526. Um first we'll be looking at the statement of revenues for October 31st 25. Um on the topic of property taxes, we have started receiving our property tax payments. Um we receive a big payment in October and then another one in November. So that as you'll see um we are starting to be in line with the budget there for 2526 and we are consistent with previous fiscal years. Um similar with state aids. State aids are metered and we are right where I project or we kind of projected us to be at this time of the year. Um I expect in 2026 that we'll obviously that revenue will start coming in more. Um federal aids um we haven't made any draws for 2526 expenditures yet which is why there is zero actuals showing up for the budget there. Um you will notice that in 2425 we had 15% um budget to actual at this point in the year and that was just because of the remaining asser funds that we had um in 2425 because we had to do one final draw for those um to spend them all down. So that's why there's that 15% in 2425 but other than that we are right where we kind of expected to be for 2526 and similar for the miscellaneous local revenues. Um, for food service, you'll notice we're down a little bit, and this is just based again on the federal draws. Um, I've been expecting that we'll be right sized in November when those those that money comes in. Um, and then community service and that service are right where we project them to be and they're also similar with previous fiscal years. Moving on to the expenditures for um October. Uh all all all the all the general fund expenditures are coming in right where we expect them to be for October. Um salaries are down just a little bit compared to previous years. And this was just due to us budgeting for the teacher retro, the teacher salary increase on their contract before um you know we haven't the retro didn't take effect until November. So there's a little dip there, but in November that will right size when that retro goes through and we get aligned with our budget. Um benefits is also right in line with previous fiscal years. And then when it comes to items such as purchase, services, uh supplies, capital expenditures, these all fluctuate year-to-year. Um but we are right in line with previous years for this as you can see. And the total general fund expenditures are right around 20 to 21% year-over-year. Um similar for the food service, community service, and debt service, these are also all in line um for four fiscal months of the fiscal year. And just finally here, um as I kind of mentioned on the revenue side, we have received those property tax payments, the first one at in October. So that's why our cash is higher at this point. Um and that's just because of those that money hitting our bank account. Um I would like to point out that um our yield did go down this month um for our mis mizlaf liquid and max class accounts. Um they were sitting at 4.1 and 4.19 uh last month and we did drop down.1% um from the previous month. So we'll kind of monitor this with our yields on these accounts. Um there's not a lot we can do but we can monitor them and see how the it kind of fluctuates month over month. So I can open up to questions. >> Thank you Jack. Any questions, comments? No, I have a couple of questions. Um, going to the revenue side, when do we realize the federal funds? You know, that 3 million plus. I know they're in line with what we had before, but when are they typically realized? When do we get those? >> Yeah. So, every school district does them a little bit differently. Um, Wisetta is um we have a pretty good cash flow within our bank accounts. So we some school districts rely a little bit more on doing monthly or quarterly draws. Um but we are in a situation where we can do either semi or annual federal draws. Um so for us at the district what we've been doing is we do one draw at the end of the year and we receive all the revenue as one one payment. >> How does that affect our interest? Right? I mean we if we are not getting the money we are not getting any interest on that. Um, that's a good question and it's something I can definitely look into on what the interest would be on the total of the three million. Okay. >> Obviously, it would be around the 4%. Um, but yeah, to your point, it would be more cash in the bank, which would mean, right, >> we would be earning a little bit of interest on it. >> And the second question, second question I have is with the regard to the mislab fund decrease in the yield. Is that from the federal rate cuts typically, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. That's when we noticed them kind starting to go down. They were staying pretty steady for a few months there and then we finally started noticing. Um I did check the other day and they haven't dropped below four yet. Um because I can kind of check on our on our account balance to see where the yield's sitting and it hasn't dropped below four yet but we are monitoring it and just keeping watch. >> Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you Jack. Um there is no action on this one. Um, next we will seek approval on of the fiscal year 2425 audit report. Is Jack going to be presenting that as well? >> Yeah, I'll just make a couple comments first to just reminder to the board that um our audit firm LB Carlson did present this at the last board meeting um in pretty great length. So, um I I think with that I I want to make sure that I once again I know what I did then, I want to do it again, but that um report was extremely favorable both in terms of finances of the school district as well as procedurally. So, um that can't happen without great work from the finance team, Jack especially, Jen Wal is here too, and the rest of the finance team. Um great work and and it extends all the way every every uh employee in the school district has a say in that. So, it's uh we couldn't be more proud of that and we talked a little bit about that in the truth and takes truth and taxation presentation too. But it's uh it does not go unnoticed and it's it it should be celebrated accordingly. So, I just wanted to point that out first and um I I think we wouldn't have any other further comment um about the audit itself. Um the three reports were included in your packet. Um [snorts] but Jack could certainly answer any questions that might have come up between last meeting and this meeting. Otherwise, we would just seek the recommended action on the agenda. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to read the recommended action now. Then is to approve the audited financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. Further approved the June 30th, 2025 assigned fund balance in the amount of 11 11,294,000845 and 20 I believe to be used for the specific purposes noted in the agenda packet. Is there a motion? >> I so move >> second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. This is a roll call vote again. You want to say something? >> Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. >> Dan Janestra, >> yes. >> Sarah Johansson, >> yes. >> Harris Bend, >> yes. >> Sheila Prior, yes. Milan Sahony, >> yes. The motion carries. Thank you. Uh, the next item will be the annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. number three certification. That's a sub component of what we just approved. >> Oh, okay. I don't have the recommendation. >> I did not see that. >> We have we have the recommendation. Um I I can have Can you read the recommendation for that certification, please? >> Oh, sure. Yep. Um and of course I have nothing more to say. I I spent plenty of time earlier talking about it, but if anything has come up between now and then, I certainly would entertain any more questions about the uh the levy. Otherwise, at this time, um we do recommend um that the board certify the maximum allowable levy amount of,228,554.20. 20 cents um and authorize the board clerk to sign the final payable 26 levy limitation certification report. >> Uh is there a motion? >> I move. I second. >> Moved and seconded. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. I did find the recommendation on my notes here by the way. So if necessary, I could have read that again. Uh this is a roll call vote. Dan Janestra, >> yes. >> Sarah Johansson, >> yes. >> Paris Bende, >> yes. >> Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, >> yes. >> Valentina Ays, >> yes. >> Milan Sahony, >> yes. The motion carries. Thank you, Sheila. Okay, so now we go to the comprehensive financials, right, Trevor? Is that the next one? >> No, we're all done. >> All done. >> I don't know where I got all this from. Yeah. Okay. >> The notes must have mixed up from previous meetings. So, sorry about that. >> Okay. >> All right. So, there are no human resources services report tonight. Uh no other board action. And then the f final item on the agenda is board reports. This section of the agenda provides an opportunity for for board members to update school board members on schoolboard related work or to make announcements of interest to the public. This evening, Director Janestra, who represents Weisetta on the District 287 board, will present a year in review for District 287 there. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, as Mullen mentioned, I've had the honor of being Weisetta's representative to the Intermediate District 287 School Board for the last two years. It's been an incredible opportunity. I wanted to bring to all of you um my second year in review. So, we've been really busy the last year. Um the bulk of our work has been around goal setting towards student achievement as well as bringing more uh teachers uh into the education profession. As a district, we found promise in these goals which affirm student success while emphasizing long-term planning. Our mission statement, which is read off at every board meeting, is to be the premier provider of innovative specialized services to ensure that each member district can meet the unique learning needs of its students. Our goals have been to ensure that each student has an academic goal and to ensure parents will be informed of student progress. I'm happy to say that 99% of students have an academic goal with growth being demonstrated in the data going forward. 287 will continue consistent progress monitoring as well as looking for where student growth can be communicated. Another goal was that 80% of tier 2, elementary, middle, and academy school students will develop their own social, emotional learning goals. We have encouraged students to reflect on their learning and talk to educators should they need help. We are proud to say that we have exceeded this goal with 90% of students developing their own social and emotional learning targets. This success affirms the merits of social emotional learning. Last year, I spoke to each of you about another goal. that District 287 had set, which was to confront many of the barriers individuals might face in becoming teachers. With communities across the nation facing shortages of educators, District 287 sought an innovative approach to bring teaching opportunities to graduating seniors by creating the 2025 extended school year internship. This opportunity provided a pathway to becoming an educator while giving an immersive experience. For example, interns joined current extended school year staff during orientation. Interns were trained in deescalation and receive the same hourly rate of pay as education support professionals in the new year. I'm excited for 287's potential as the district strengthens the consistency and student goal monitoring and providing additional support to schools. Thank you, Intermediate District 287 and Weisetta Public Schools. I'm grateful for your collaboration in providing specialized services to students. You play a remarkable role in educating and improving the well-being of each and every family member and community member. While special service are experiencing headwinds like shortfalls and funding, please know your work does not go unseen and we are very grateful for your service. >> Thank you, Dan. Any comments, questions? Thank you for your participation. and thank you for the good work that 287 does and thank you for everything that everybody does on that board. >> Okay, >> I have one other >> item of note. Yes, >> that's very important tonight. >> Yes, >> today is Sarah Johansson's. >> Can I read a little bit statement on that? >> Sure. >> You not interrupt Heidi. We'll let her keep speaking. Okay, go ahead. >> So, it is Sarah's last meeting tonight. Um, it's last regular meeting. We don't know if something else could come up, right? Um, but I just wanted to take some time and to say thank you, Sarah. So, over you've you've been here for 12 years. I've only had the opportunity to experience you for four. Um, but over the past four years, I've gotten to know you pretty well, and I'm very grateful to the way that you led, whether it was you as treasure, you as chair, you, you know, out at at Hoko with a football, you led consistently with consistency, you led with kindness, you led with generosity, you led with intelligence and a strong voice. And I'm grateful that you have maintained that strong female voice on this board. I'm very grateful for that. Um, you might have taken your last vote here tonight, but you are still going to be around and I'm very excited for that. I'm excited for our kids to graduate together and um to continue seeing you in our community and I know you're going to continue giving just in a very different way. So, thank you for being who you are and thank you for all of your service to this district. You are absolutely a leader that is befitting to Wisetta. Thank you. >> Well, thank you, Heidi. Um, thank you for for the kind words and um, thank you to our administrators. Um, and Dr. Anderson. I I can't imag I it's been fun to be reflecting on on the number of stories and things that have happened along this way. Um I think I started our our journey um on some cold days. So the first day that I was on the school board and nobody was in school, which my husband won't let me live down. Um but it's just been an honor. And so, um, 12 years through changes of start times and the pandemic and every, um, thing that we do with students every day. No first grader gets another day in first grade on on whatever day and moving forward. And, um, I would like to thank the, um, district for allowing me. This has been the best job that I've had. Um, and thank you to our community for trusting me um, and my colleagues in the work that we do. I'm honored to be a Wisea parent. Um I'm honored to be a Wisetta graduate and um you're right, I'm not going anywhere and uh I uh I just look forward to the next chapter. So thank you. >> Statement I was going to read. So So Director Johansson will not be continuing as a board member in the next term. We recognize and appreciate her 12 years of service to this board, including four years as board chair. Board service requires a great deal of dedication, preparation, and pres perseverance, and we thank her for the time and effort she has invested in supporting the district and its students throughout her tenure. Thank you, Sarah. is tomorrow, December 9th. Weather cooperating. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but it's tomorrow, December 9th, at 5:30 p.m. This concludes the Visetta Public Schools regular board meeting. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> I so move. >> I second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. The time is now 9:25. The Visetta Public Schools Board of Education regular meeting for Monday, December 8th, 2025 is adjourned.