I don't think that we have a lot of room to cut cut spending I think that that the choice to me would be instead to raise taxes and that's that seemed to be problematic.

with cutting our enrollment which would drive that budget cut you a hundred students is a million dollars and with that you would most likely start with cutting staff 88% of our budget is based on staff and salaries so the first thing you're going to see when you cut in enrollment and we need to do budget cuts is you're going to see a cut in our staff before you see a cut in programs which then drives your class size numbers to be increased.

if we currently have an unallocated fund or a rainy day fund a surplus of twenty four point eight million dollars we're not looking at cutting any programs and this year my understanding is our budget is going to have a surplus of three million so I guess I don't believe that's gonna be happening anytime soon

reducing enrollment to a more sustainable level would not in any way require laying off any teachers teachers leave the district through natural attrition licensure for kindergarten teachers is not limited to a kindergarten endorsement or licensure only staff might have to be moved around but teachers would not be laid off.

if it really comes to it if I had to cut absolutely had to cut I would look at participation in cost of the different programs that we have but what we have to understand is that what make our districts so great so I would actually want community involvement on that decision -

the school district now has one hundred and thirty million dollars roughly of an annual budget but currently there's no tracking to say how much does each individual program cost which students use it as it used effectively or efficiently how are we funding it does it make sense to continue to do that so these are all good ideas but as I understand it currently be really difficult to even say where are we spending most of our a hundred and thirty million dollars outside of teacher salaries to make a really educated decision

Our greatest strength is our variety of programs and what was the other one the most concerning weakness is securing our financial success with the flattening enrollment and the state imposed levy cap

I think our greatest strength is our teachers we have amazing teachers and I think our greatest weakness right now is the lack of transparency and the community feel between parents and the board

I believe our largest concern is the culture of communication between the district leadership and the families in our schools and our residents it is not a culture that is transparent that is civil that is respectful of questions any parent who has questions needs to be heard with complete transparent respect and an affirming attitude of great concern for what their concerns are

I would love to see teachers but that's already been taken so I'm gonna go with the student choice our kids have so many choices here and can choose their own pathway our greatest weakness those same kids feel a lot of pressure

Our districts greatest strength is our students who rise to every single challenge that we present them with and take advantage of the varied opportunities that they have in front of them our greatest weakness is that only a few of those students are routinely celebrated every one of our students deserves to be celebrated regardless of their ability level regardless of what programs they participate in and should be proud of what they are able to accomplish in our district every one of them deserves recognition in that voice

it's the greatest strength of our kids they're the ones doing all this stuff not us they're the ones making all this happen and making all these things that we're so very proud of I think our greatest weaknesses are the culture and inability to be vulnerable and transparent about the things that we're not very good at

I think that open enrollment is a plus but I think that we need to remember that and I know this has already been talked about but in 2015 the district told us that we had reached full capacity and by 2017 with ten thousand five hundred and fifty students and we are five hundred and thirty five students over that so while I am for open enrollment I am for a cap on open enrollment and again we need to know how that's being determined and I think that's an answer parents or excuse me a question parents want the answer to

The current total enrollment of eight eleven thousand eighty four over one third of them living outside the district has now brought us overcrowded schools classrooms non instructional spaces important spaces in our school that are being repurposed to respond to this overcrowding our infrastructure cannot support what the district leadership has done with the amoment in the past ten years and our resources are overstretched further any improvements or additions we made to our facilities could then create a situation where we are then dependent upon these open enrollment numbers

open enrollment saved the district I know the naysayers are kind of rolling their eyes right now but it's true we can't offer what we do without the funding we wouldn't have navigators we wouldn't have immersion without the interest and the participation from open enrollment now that said we are reaching capacity but the district knows that we're already turning away families you know enrollments and art not a science we have to by law tell open enrollment families by February if they have a spot resident students don't have to tell us if they're staying or if they're moving in so we can only estimate now that said I think that we probably have miss Elson made and we might need to revisit how we're doing those estimations

it's fair to be confused as a parent when we're receiving communication from the district telling us that our schools have been at capacity and yet see more and more students come in I'll end with reading a statement from my son's second-grade teacher this year that came out the day before school started our class has a different schedule for specialists our class will break into six different groups and three to four students from our class will go to each of the other classes to join them for specialists this means that our class won't have the same specialists each day as a whole so it's important for you to keep the schedule for specialists to know what students will need those days that's a symptom of an overcrowded school

open enrollment is absolutely a plus for our district during my tenure on the board open enrollment has brought in over 200 million dollars to our schools and that has allowed us to bring in programs that meet all students where they're at regardless of their ability it's allowed us to do tremendous things as I've been mentioned we are getting to the target no one is expecting to continue to grow the district above and beyond where we're at the goal is actually to keep the enrollment approximately where it's at right now

I heard open enrollment save the district and open enrollment allowed tremendous things to happen I I struggle with those two things I because I don't see evidence of either those two things being true and I don't see evidence of a parent seeing that it's true I think open enrollment is great to a point particularly if it creates diversity for our school district I don't know that it does I think it's particularly great if it helps us share our great wealth I don't know that it does I was told that we mark it two out of we mark it to others to people outside the district you through playbill magazine and Lake Minnetonka magazine I don't think that's creating diversity what I would say is I've lived in five districts and in five different states and I've never once heard someone a realtor or anyone else say that being massive was a positive characteristic of a district Minnetonka is massive

I work currently in a middle school and I know that our teachers are and our administrators we're all in the front line we spend a lot of time with our children in schools and mental health and wellness is something that is at the forefront of all of our minds every single day every interaction with a child it's not all academics it's how are you doing and many days kids aren't doing that great and I believe that there's a lot of growth that could happen in our districts

I do believe we need to enhance the resources available to our school counselors psychologists and social workers is they support and advocate for this social emotional well-being and mental health of our students to help determine to determine exactly how these resources would be enhanced I would seek input from our districts staff along with our teachers and support staff who work directly with their students students we need to continue pursuing mental health grants to develop and strengthen our partnership with relate and put together with Nami canvas help the Living Foundation and so forth

my seven-year-old came me at home the other day and she said mom I feel anxious I was like wow that's amazing I don't know when I feel anxious parents are saying though that they need more support but what would be helpful to them like we can't gas tell the district what else do you need so three things we could do right now we need to recognize all the students not just the high achievers except that success looks different for everyone and make that a culture in the community and this is hard to hear but let's be upfront that there are drug and alcohol issues in the schools

I think we need to take both a proactive and reactive approach making sure that every student is tied to somebody on campus whether it's their teacher or another staff member so that nobody falls through the cracks continue looking at current research such as around homework policy some schools in districts where they see similar trends have enacted night where nobody's allowed to assign homework to give students night of mental break and a chance for families just to spend family time so maybe looking at some of those different research things that are current right now

I do think that looking at technology and how it's become so engrained in even our kindergarten classrooms with media carts that get rolled around and iPads put in front of kindergarteners should be looked at more closely to understand how much screen time each kid is having throughout their public education classroom and school sizes have a direct impact on this there have been many academic studies that show the connectedness of students is significantly hurt by large schools and large classroom sizes and so we need to think about how that plays into the mental health of students

I can tell you we have buried in the bottom of our website a statistic that says twenty three point four percent of Minnetonka seniors had contemplated suicide at one time or another in the same graph it says that 20 or 30 percent of students who surveyed said they felt hopeless in the weeks two weeks prior to taking the the student survey we have we have disciplinary measures that are four times the rate of the rest of the state when it comes to substance abuse we had to have kare 11 come in and tell us on television that we had one of the very worst student counselor ratios in the state and far worse than the national at national average so I would say to this board talk is cheap this is your number one goal and what have you done

Minnesota school board members take a note that in part indicates that board members vow to faster excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills and knowledge citizenship and personal development it also states that being morally and legally responsible for equitable quality education for every student in the district there is an issue in our nation's schools that persist the academic achievement gap between white Asian American students and those of color persists

Minnetonka has a very low achievement gap and non-white students in Minnetonka outperform Minnesota and nationwide results for all students comparatively all white and non-white students I think the district should continue doing what we're doing our teachers and curriculum are working there are somebody had asked earlier they weren't sure if open enrollment has contributed to racial diversity in our district it has I looked up the numbers without it we would be 8% we're currently 18% which is actually more diverse than Minnesota is in general

when it comes to the achievement gap I think that the district needs to be honest with ourselves and compare our students of color to white students in Minnetonka not to Minnesota or the national average and acknowledged that there is still a very real achievement gap that Minnetonka schools we have to acknowledge the deficiencies and put a plan in place to take care of them

a couple of specific ideas that seem to have worked elsewhere as ensuring that there's a heavy focus on math and science in grades one to three that's shown to have real positive results later on education ensuring that there's very active parent involvement so encouraging the teachers to push even beyond what they normally would to ensure that parents get involved in all topics some districts are doing a cultural consciousness training for teachers to help them think about the right way to educate and very were to interact with students so that they're all being taught to in the right way

I have a hard time understanding where the gaps are there's nothing that compares class sizes there's nothing that talks about the Deaf just developmentally disabled there's nothing about demographics there is a section that Trevor mentioned that compares Minnetonka students to the nation when asked when I asked dr. Peterson he said yes there is a gap as Mark alluded to and it's significant I think the secret is is that the district needs to be transparent none of this information is public one of the great strengths so I said we had kids nobody said us we as parents we live here for a reason and if we were more transparent about the information and again the places where we're not strong I'm certain the community would rise to the occasion and fix it

racial equity means that every child needs to have full and complete access to the curriculum and they that they have their full potential realized regardless of their skin color regardless of their orientation every single child needs full access and how do we get to that we need to utilize the experts in our buildings we need to make sure that there is no academic language gap for children and that we we take care of every child and give them what they need also important is that we have cultural and linguistic responsive teaching strategy is available to teachers so that every student can see themselves reflected in the curriculum see them see themselves reflected in what is taught and feel honored and a part of the community