Oh, sorry. Calling the meeting to order at 6 o'lock p.m. This is the board of directors regular school board meeting for Monday, April 27th, 2026. Welcome to all of our visitors, our guests, and our media. As usual, we're going to start out tonight with the board administr board and administration roll calls. Mr. Felt >> here. Mr. Burns >> here. >> Miss Danielson >> here. >> Miss Schultz >> here. >> Miss Gatsco >> here. >> Miss Nathan >> here. >> Mr. Onell >> here. >> Mr. Scheler >> here. >> Mr. Hennon >> here. >> Mr. Girtton >> here. >> Miss Okonnell. >> Miss Payeyton >> here. >> Mr. Dalton >> here. >> Mr. V >> here. >> Mr. Samansky >> here. >> Please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. I aliance 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. >> Next up on the agenda is public comments, but there have been no public comments prior to the start of the meeting. So the first action item is a motion to approve the agenda and addendums. >> So moved. >> Second. Motion made by Miss Danielson, second by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. >> Motion carries. Moving on to item number three, which is the consent agenda, which includes the school board minutes for the regular school board meeting on March 23rd, 2026, the personnel consent agenda, and the business consent agenda. Move >> approval. I'll second. We have a motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Miss Gatskco. Any further discussion on the consent agenda items? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Moving right along to item number four, the recognitions, presentations, and showcase. Going to start out tonight with some state participation recognitions. Mr. Samansky, >> they're all here for you. >> Thank you for this opportunity to rep uh recognize our winter activities. That'll work even better. Uh participants that qualified for state and this year to start it off, we will go with BPA. >> All the BPA kids up this way. >> Come back behind me. Well, for those of you that don't know BPA, it's Business Professionals of America. It's a national career and tech student organization for students that are interested in business, IT, medical related careers. Uh there are 70 different things that kids can compete in. So, there's something for everybody. Um this year in BPA, we had 34 members. Um, of those 34, they competed, all of them at our regional competition in Weisetta in January. 25 of them went on to compete at state and now we have 11 that are going on to compete at nationals next week in Nashville. So, um, tonight we are recognizing those students that competed at state and the ones that are qualifying for nationals. All right, first up, Alana Alana Holmstrom. There you are. There you are. Anna Lammanski, not here. EMTT Burns, there you are. I know I saw you earlier. Lucy, Lucy Br. Maya Carlson, Riley, Delaney, not here tonight. Okay. Raymond, congratulations. Kade, Evan, Maline, there you are. >> Chloe, Bela, Paul, Millie, Linder, Braden, Luke, Amelia Muller, Audrey Newton, Lucas Pagor, McKenna Ranken, Eliza Rowan, Sophia Schlector, Kaitlin Stifter, Amber Strader, and Clara Wland. You guys, can you flank Miss Rocka on both sides so I can see you? >> I can see everyone. >> I appreciate that. >> Good. >> Congratulations. >> Can I ask one question? Yeah. So, while you're there, is it just business or do you guys get to do anything for pleasure? >> A little of both. >> Okay. >> Um, so we have students that are competing in parliamentary procedure team, presentation team, uh, computer modeling and, um, Python programming, desktop publishing. So, we have kids competing in a lot of different events, but when they're not competing, we find time to go and do some sightseeing. We're going to be doing a showboat. um cruise like on a river boat with like a musical show and a dinner thing. Um and they get to go to a place called Play Playground. It's like an arcade on steroids. We'll do a little bit of fun. Awesome. Good. >> Yay. Have fun. >> Congratulations, GUYS. Just go. All right. Hello. Um, my name is Sarah Sully. I'm the head mock trial coach. So, we'll talk about a couple quick mock trial things this season. First up was our mockt trial courtroom artist competition. For the first time ever, we had a courtroom artist from Watertown Mayor compete at the state level. Um, so she did it for the first time and qualified for state. One of eight competitors in the entire state who made it to state. And that was Amaya Wattney, who's not here tonight, but I wanted to give her a shout out specifically. Okay. Can I have my varsity members come on up? I'll make you stand over there. Not behind me. >> Keep going. Scooch, scooch, scooch, scooch. You're doing great. Okay, excellent. >> Okay, so for mock trial this year, these kids have actually been doing mock trial non-stop straight since June. Um, so we actually for the first time ever applied for and were granted admission to the Empire Invitational, which is a national level invitational run by a nonprofit organization called Empire Mock Trial. And so we were one of I think it was 32 teams approximately who were granted admission to the tournament in Philadelphia, which took place in October. These kids gave up their summer to do mock trial and prepare for mock trial and they took fifth place at the competition. We then immediately started with our regular season of mock trial. Um, they had a whole two weeks off. It was a great time. And then we started our invitational season in the fall where we competed at the University of Minnesota, took first place, competed at the Minneapolis Invitational in the state, took second place, and then our regular season started where we went undefeated all season long, made it to the state tournament all the way to the championship round for only the fourth time in school history and lost just at the last minute. But they are the uh second team in school history to be runners up at the state tournament. And of the last five years, we've qualified for that final round four times. So, we're really proud of these kids. So, we'll start with those who are here today. My sophomores, Kaylin Stifter, Lucy Brance, Millie Linder, uh junior Maline Johnson, Paul Lightner, and senior Will Mant. You have to walk. I'm so sorry. And I'll read the rest of the names just to recognize everyone. Avalon Libra, Sophie Schleer, Triton Frisbee, Anna Lammansky, Eliza Rowan, and Riley Delaney. And Maline Johnson and Riley Delaney were our all state attorney and our all state witness this year. So, we had a great season. Looking forward to the next one. Congrats. We forgot to mention that the BPA kids and the speech kids that are repeats >> had to go back and forth back and forth during state competition. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. >> The BPA kids both competed at state at the same time. >> The bus went back and forth and back and forth on Friday. Kudos to Britney and for figuring that. >> That's awesome. Are you guys feel like you should be bus driver of the year? >> Are you going to give up your summer again for more trail? >> They are as of a couple weeks ago for Empire. >> Well, best of luck to you. >> Trying to see if they're happy. >> Only a couple heads that work. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good. >> I know. >> Uh, I'm Amy Mant. I'm the speech coach. Um, and speech kids that are the four that went to state, please come on up here. I'll just quick open with just so you know this year we had 42 kids on our team which includes sixth grade and at some point when we start competing at state high school league events then they are no longer allowed to compete with us. So they're pretty much done. They are only with us for the month of January. But a lot of the older kids and specifically some of the kids you see up here today are really instrumental in mentoring them and that's what builds a strong team. Overall, we had 38 kids on our team and we you guys approved our overnight trip up to Duth and that was a really big deal for us. We did that during COVID and thought it was super cool and wanted to see if we could go up there and compete. And you should understand that Denfield High School has been hosting speech since before speech, I think, was even a state high school league event. So, it's they are just well known. It's like celebrity status. when you get to be there. You have to ask to be invited. And so we were allowed to go. And at the state tournament, that coach found Tessa and I and said, "Oh, Amy and Tessa, Watertown Mayor, I've been watching you all season long. Your team has done amazing." So again, we felt like we were so special. And uh so we're very uh I'm appreciative because it's not me, it's these guys that that make it off awesome. the Wright County Conference, we had most of these kids here and many other half of our team placed at in the conference um finals, which is awesome. And then for section 4A, which is the section we're in for speech, um it is the most difficult section. and all the teams uh most of the teams that were in the state finals this year came from 4A whether it was here um and then Melrose is 5A and we are always dueling with them but it goes to show that 4A has really strong competitors and these four are some of those very strong competitors. Uh, I would like to note that Paul, not only did he make it to state, but he is the section champion in section 4A in discussion. So, you know, if you guys ever want to run for your money, just have a little conversation with him. He'll school you, tell you how it goes. Uh, but so this year, uh, we had Amelia Mohler, who, uh, advanced to state in the humorous category. She's very funny. She does a piece about What is it about you? Tell us. >> It's like this girl that goes to summer camp and it's she's surrounded by >> and it's hilarious. She plays a whole bunch of different characters all wrapped into 10 minutes. Uh and then Amber Strader, she does extemporaneous reading. Quick, tell us what that is. >> Uh mine's pretty complicated, but 30 minutes before I'm supposed to I get to draw like an excerpt from the book that everyone uses and then I have to prepare that and have like an intro ready and then I get to read basically a story to my >> and then Millie she advanced to the state finals. So she is seventh in poetry in the state. And what do you want to tell us what your piece is about? >> Oh well my piece is about school shootings. So >> it's a very powerful >> a heavy topic >> powerful poetry piece >> and you don't read it you give it in a poetic cadence and it is meant to evoke a feeling about how we need to stop right >> it's very good and Paul who like I said is in the discussion category he is eighth in the state and what is discussion what was the topic this year >> um so this year's topic was uh meaning in a fragmented world. Basically what discussion is is you sit down with a group and you sort of are stepping into the binds of someone else. So you could be a school board and you sort of try to solve a geopolitical or socioeconomic issue um in that group in 60 minutes and you get five minutes of research and um it's it's a balance because you have to lead the conversation but you can't be too overbearing. >> Yeah, he's amazing. Uh, and then also just to note, I know Eliza's not here, but um, Minnesota speech coaches, we belong to an organization and we get to nominate kids who have attended state or have as seniors have had just a remarkable run during their time. And so she made the all state speech team. So these are our speeches. >> I do have a quick thing to say. So I'm on the Minnesota School Board Association as well and we have a new director Jill Lo up in Duth and and me and her were talking and she's like well what district? I said Watertown mayor. She goes >> you guys have like the best speech team. >> She said that to me too at the conference we went up there and we took a big trophy unknowing. I mean I know they're amazing but yeah >> and she's >> up there from a speech >> teacher perspective. I think she's at in the high school league hall of fame. >> Yes, she is. >> So for speech. So that's really high praise coming from her. So congratulations. >> That's awesome. >> And lastly, it's my pleasure to introduce our Athena Award recipient. The Athena Award is based on athletics and academics and leadership. And basically how our process works is we uh put the word out to our staff and the staff vote and when it came back it really was not a surprise. This young lady is involved in girls soccer, girls basketball and track. Uh also unified and many many other things in our school. Um it's going to be one of those things where graduation this year and she's not playing for us next year is really going to be noticeable. She fills in a lot of the gaps and does a lot of the things for us that we really need. A lot of the dirty work like we say in athletics that u nobody wants to do. She does it and she makes our team successful. So that being said, our Athena Award recipient this year is Ellie Leld. >> She's done this before. >> And uh next we actually are gonna have uh Mr. Dodge, Mayor Dodge, come on up. and then we'll excuse everybody if you don't want to sit for the rest of the meeting. >> You got full house for you. >> Yeah, right. Um, thank you, chair, uh, school board members. I'm Mike Dodge, the mayor for the city of mayor. So, I just want to welcome you to the community and, uh, holding your schoolboard meeting here. It's wonderful. Um, we're certainly hoping we can maybe turn this into an annual event. That would be great. Um, just to help kind of showcase both communities. Um, so with that, just real quick, a couple of little projects we've been working on here in the city for the last year. We, um, some of you may have noticed, we do have a disc golf course now in town. So, some of you kids, if you get out there and play it, um, we're getting a lot of good feedback on it. Uh, we have the splash pad. Um, of course, it opened >> last summer. >> Last June that opened. Um uh we a big project we have going on is our wastewater treatment uh plant. We have to expand, rehab it, do some infrastructure, get ready for more growth. Um it's about a $12 million project that we're working on. And um our financial, we're sitting pretty strong again this year. We are um we have good uh CPI framework in place now and we are proud to say that we held our budgets about even and we have the third lowest tax rate in Carver County. >> So we're pretty proud of that. So just a few things and again thank you welcome to everyone. Thank you everyone for coming today. Um we wish we had a little bit more room for people but um thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. If you all want to leave, feel free. Otherwise, we're going to get on to the meeting. So, the nuts and bolts of it. So, thank you guys for coming. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate you coming. >> Thanks for coming. >> Heather, did you get all your photos you needed? >> Right. got a little tunnel. Remove a few bodies. >> Yeah. >> That glare that is it the glare from you got some anticip. >> Hi guys. Come have a seat. >> You did a good job with the attendance out in the hall. But here. >> All right. Moving on to our action items. The first action item A is the acknowledgement of donation, contributions, and fundraising. Uh, Superintendent Scheler. >> Yes, Mr. Chair. We have a number of of outstanding donors today like to recognize. Um, first of all, uh, the Warttown Lions Club, a donation to gymnastics for $500 to up offset the, uh, cost of gymnastics going to state. Uh, Centralot Cooperative, a donation to FFA for $12,753, uh, donation to their activity fund. Watertown Vet Clinic to robotics for $500 for supplies. Cabinet Works, uh, to the egg program for supplies. And that is actually wood uh different types of wood to contribute to the wood shop projects. Um the Lion's Club uh again uh health services department for $2,000. This again will cover the CPR AED training certificates uh certification for the members of the district cardiac response teams. um Lions Club to BPA for $2,200 for to reduce the cost of attending the national uh leadership conference which we just heard about. Um also Lions Club a donation to robotics for uh $3,200 to uh for parts and supplies. Also, the Lions Club um health services uh for uh 12 uh $2,200, excuse me, uh towards the purchase of two uh new AEDs to replace the two old ones who are uh being discontinued. Uh the Legion Post in Watertown 121 Health Services uh donation for $1,100 towards the purchase of again two more uh AEDs to uh replace the ones being discontinued. uh George and Jean Bule uh robotics for $67.32 for parts and again the Lions Club uh to boy soccer for $2,100 for travel expenses and some jerseys. So again, many wonderful donations. Again, very appreciative of those. Thank you. >> Approval. I'll second. >> We have a motion made by Mr. O'Neal, seconded by Miss Danielson. Any further discussion on the donations, contributions, and fundraising? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. And thank you again for everybody for donating for the district. Item B, the second and final read of district policies requiring review. Superintendent Schuler. >> Yes. Uh Mr. Chair, we are bringing back two policies for the second and final reads. uh policy uh 615 which is the testing accommodations modifications and exemptions for IEPs 504 plans and LEP students. Uh again this policy needed another month of April to kind of just review uh ran it through the lens of um district um teaching and learning director Mr. you um and uh Miss Payeyton in terms of the IEPs and the 504 plans um and it it uh is ready to move forward. And then again uh the establishment and the adoption of the school district budget 701 also came back for a second read. Again, kind of ran this one through the lens of our SMS uh finance team and um we are ready to prepare this for a final approval. I'll make a motion to approve the second and final read of the 615 and 701. >> Second. >> Have a motion made by Mr. Felt, seconded by Miss Nateton. Any further discussion on those two policies? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> All oppose. Nate. Motion carries. Item C, resolution 26.15, Mr. Scheler. >> Um, yes. Each year in the spring we have to make some adjustments to our staffing. Uh resolution 2615 um related to the termination of nonrenewal of the teaching staff. Um both of these uh teachers are uh probationary teachers. Um but again we are asking the board at this point to uh by roll call vote um terminate um these two teaching positions. >> Approval. I'll second. Motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Felt. However, now we're going to do a roll call vote. >> Correct. >> Winter Phelps. >> Hi, >> Jim Burns. Hi, >> Erica Schultz. >> Hi, >> Katie Joe Danielson. >> Hi, >> Heidi Gets. >> Hi, >> Lisa Nathan. >> Hi, >> Jeff O'Neal. Hi. >> Resolution passes seven to nothing. Item D, the expansion of English language learner position for the school year 2627. Mr. Schuler. >> Uh, yes. Uh, board chair and and board members, this um we're just going to walk you through um actually three positions that we just want to give a little explanation for. Again, they're not really ads um because they're essentially costneutral for the most part. Um but just give me a little background. Um so the English language learner position is currently staffed by a staff member in the elementary school and a staff member in the high school. Um and uh while that has worked for us pretty successfully I think for a few years uh we are to a point uh where our administrative team is recommending moving forward with a uh full-time position in this role. Uh we do have a staff member who has been filling the role uh in a very uh small FTE in the elementary that has gone back to um to college to get her uh EL lensure. Um so uh we have someone that's potentially um ready to to meet this need of a full-time position. Uh our numbers have also expanded. Uh we have right now about 20 students in the district that receive EL services. um that is up and where we're starting to see uh our first increase is at the preschool level. Uh and in all honesty, we didn't probably do a very good job of servicing those students this year given the limited FTE that we had in this position. So, uh we feel like it's time to to move forward with a full-time role. Obviously, it'll be a posted position if you approve it. Um so, we would post it, do a complete interview process like we would for any other role. uh the two individuals who have the role now certainly are welcome to apply um but at this point we would open it up for you know any applicant um for a full-time role. So uh as she noted there the position will be fully funded through our state e funds and some of our compensatory dollars um starting in next school year. So, we have an opportunity to to supplement uh we don't get a full position with our current EL funds from the state, but the compensatory dollars would help supplement that at least for next year, and we'll kind of take it from there. But, um yeah, that's what we're we're asking for your >> This is a district-wide position. >> Yeah. So, it actually be prek through 12th grade. And so, uh we've revised the job description. we've expanded that to um include um a couple of different areas that we don't have support in currently. Um so um there's we're excited we're excited to see where this can go and really broaden this um position out a little bit and given to meet the needs of the students that we have currently needing that support. >> And Mr. Scheler with the compensatory uh hold harmless that's kind of up in the air at the legislative level if that were not hold harmless and our compensatory funding were to go down >> this next year. I mean is that something that we've budgeted for kind of a worst case scenario? >> Yeah. Um and talking to Todd Neski, I think this is an area that we have enough compensatory funds that do carry over from year to year at least in this next uh FY27 to hold this position firm. following year. We're going to see what the state does with the compensatory, but at least for one year, we can supplement it with with compensatory dollars. Um, given what we had for carryover and and uh we should be okay. Beyond that, again, depending on legislation, uh, we'll have to see, but for one year for sure. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. We have a motion made by Miss Nathan, seconded by Mr. Burns. Any further discussion on the ELLL position hearing? None. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item E, expansion of the district literacy lead position for the school year 2627. Mr. Schuler. >> Uh, yes. Again, uh, board uh, board chair, this is a position, uh, that we knew a little bit about. Um uh this is a position that was new this year at a 0.5. Um you had actually happened to hear Miss Kanzi speak to the board back in February or so. Um and we've just really seen the value of this position and the uh impact that it is making uh in terms of really working side by side with teachers and and committee members uh in the English language arts area specifically um and in terms of testing and just moving that whole literacy piece forward. um she's worked a lot aside uh Mr. View and especially with our reading adoption in the uh elementary and that'll now be uh 5'8 as you'll see here shortly with an approval hopefully of our next curriculum adoption uh she'll be play a big part in that as well. Um we are able to expand this due to the fact that our literacy incentive aid from the state uh covers the whole position. Um the first year we weren't sure how it was going to go, but this year uh the literacy uh position, the literacy aid, uh would fund it fully so we would not have to tap into the general fund um to to do this move. So um we're excited the admin team has really seen the value again in the work that Miss Kanzi has done um and again just that leaison between staff and administration and just working in classrooms making a difference. So, um, we're just asking again for a 0.5 ad to make this a full-time role. >> Now, would this extend down to preK also, or would this >> That is our hope. Yeah, that is our hope. And we actually um primarily used her in in um middle school and elementary, probably more elementary focus with that a reading adoption this year. Um, but we definitely see some support in the preschool level as well. It's a good question. Yeah. >> I make a motion to approve. district literacy. >> Second. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Mr. O'Neal. Any further discussion on the district literacy lead position? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Item F, the creation of the elementary intervention teaching position for school year 2627. Mr. Schuler. >> Yeah. So, this is where it kind of all comes together for another position in terms of interventions. Um, so how we're judging this basically is we're taking the part the the 0.5 position of the literacy lead which you just approved. So that part of her day was intervention. The other part of her day was the literacy lead. So we're taking that half plus the additional half of the time that our EL teachers um had in the intervention side and making that into a full intervention position. Again, we're not accessing the general fund. We're going to be using um title or excuse me our compensatory funding uh to help support this position um which again if you remember our buckets compensatory access are two of those buckets primarily used for students that are a little bit below grade level um and other supports in terms of behaviors as well. Um but again this position kind of backfills the two spots that we just approved of the teachers that are are moving into other roles. So, um, basically, again, it's not necessarily an ad. It's a more of a backfill of that position. Um, we looked at where we want to put this position. Uh, specifically, uh, Mr. Girtton, uh, Mr. View and, uh, Mr. Okonnell met to look at the data. So, they compared the data of where the needs are specifically right now. Um, and the needs really were evident to be at the elementary for this position. Um, and again, I know we've looked for more math support there. Uh it probably be a little bit of both. Um but u the idea there is um at least for a year uh that'll be an intervention position at the elementary building. So again, we've talked to looking at both buildings. Could you split it? We started looking at travel time and broken up days and and when the prime time is to meet with students to do your interventions. It just made more sense, at least for this year, to be at the elementary. Is there a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> We have a motion made by Miss Gets, seconded by Mr. Burns. Any further discussion on the elementary intervention teaching position? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose, nay. >> Motion carries. Item G, the girls soccer co-op with Mayor Lutheran. Mr. Samsky, >> good evening again. Uh, we are just looking for your permission to form a co-op in girls soccer with us and Mayor Lutheran. It would match our current co-op with the boys program. Right now, our boys program is with Mayor Lutheran. uh we would still remain in class A 44 athletes or 44 students below the cutoff for double A. So it's something that um I think would benefit both schools and to keep things a little bit more consistent as far as working with um Mayor Luther. >> Just have a question. I was looking at the number are are you is it the numbers of student or uh athletes? Were you saying there's only one from Mayor Lutheran right now? >> That's uh >> Yeah, if you scroll up a little bit there. >> Yep, sir. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, this is current team. Um they have a number of fifth and sixth grade participants that will be filling in the ranks here um in the next year. Obviously, the the sixth graders of the next year. I've had a number of of email communications with some parents from uh Mayor Lutheran expressing interest in wanting to attend or wanting to form this co-op. And so it's it's not an immediate impact, but it's a it's a future impact. And on the benefit side, it gives us another pool to draw athletes from or draw participants from. >> So I'm confused. Is the numbers the top the Royals or the current Watertown mayor team or the mayor Lutheran team >> in this? We are We are high school number one. Those are our numbers. >> Okay. >> So, mayor has one senior. >> Yeah. >> From this past year's team. >> From this past year. >> Yeah. >> And how long is the co-op good for? Is it >> when you form a co-op co-op? It's good for two years or it's required to stay for two years and then you can look at it >> um after that every year. >> Year to year. So, and by mutual consent, it can be dissolved. Um, or if it's a situation where one school wants to dissolve it, one school doesn't, then there's a a one-year probation is not the right word, but a one-year wait for that to happen. >> And I think you mentioned before doing this co-op does not affect our region, our class, nothing. >> Does not affect our class. No. >> Okay. >> Unless each school would get up to 44 more kids. Is that correct? Well, how they how they divide it up, uh, we're the we're the host school and we're the largest school. So, they in they count our entire enrollment, which is 470. That's the high school league number for us. And then every school after that, it's 50%. So, they were at 180, so it's 90 um of their students. So, um, you know, right now we're not necessarily looking for anybody else to join us. Um, so the chances of us growing that quickly that soon I don't think would happen. But that is one criteria that we would look at. If we would look and say all of a sudden in future now we're going to be above that line and we're double A, we definitely would take a look at continuing the co-op or not. So, one question with all the younger kids coming in from Mayor Lutheran. Um, obviously we only had a varsity and a JV team, so we didn't have a C team, so to speak, and there aren't really any junior or middle school teams anymore. >> Um, that's going to be a really big JV team. >> Well, it our goal is to have three levels. Our goal is to have a varsity, a JV, and this is where it kind of gets tricky. If you have a C squad, that's high school league, and you can only play other C squad teams. Or if we say, you know what, we're going to have a middle school team and leave it at middle school seventh and eighth graders, we can only play other middle school teams. So, we have a little bit of time right now to kind of take a look at the horizon and say, okay, what would benefit us more? Calling this our a middle school or calling it a C squad and where we can find adequate or or you know best competition that we can find. Any further questions for Mr. Samanski? >> Is there a motion? >> Second. We have a motion made by Miss Schultz, second by Miss Danielson. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> All oppose. Name. >> Motion passes. >> Item H, grades 6 to 8, language arts curriculum approval. Mr. View and Mr. Schuler. >> Thank you for the opportunity. Uh yeah, we've been talking about this at our uh curriculum advisory committee meetings here for about the last year. Um and we've had a new member join us uh for our last two meetings this uh this year. So that's been that's been wonderful. Um but basically what's what has taken place this year is we um some some of our health and needs were all taken care of by our title four funding this year. So we didn't have to tap into our uh curriculum budget. So, we were looking to expand um our arts and letters curriculum from K through five to K through eight. Um we've been doing some research and Becky Colonzi has been helpful in um doing fidelity checks and I'm sure that you've probably heard us talk about um how much engagement we see our kids having and how much uh they're involved with the text. Uh and so we thought we would work towards expanding that to six, seven, and eight. Um our six, seven, and eight teachers were at first a little bit trepidacious about, you know, is this curriculum going to be appropriate for that middle school level, that early teen. Um so our research kind of revolved around finding other schools around that were uh that were using this. So this is the first year at a actually it just started they kind of said here's unit one at the beginning of the year and then they kind of fed them throughout the year. Um but we reached out to St. James who's been using it and had some really good reviews there. We also reached out to Northfield and with Northfield we were able to bring our sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers along and have kind of a Zoom meeting and try to get all those questions answered about is this appropriate? What about these routines? How are we going to be able to keep kids engaged? and their um reaction was overwhelmingly yes positive. They had piloted over I think four different curricula. They had piloted a unit from each of them and said by far this one was the most rigorous, most engaging and the students liked it the most. So that's kind of our research that we went into this. Um we're excited about the fact that our fifth graders had this opportunity this year with some really really strong uh fifth grade uh instruction and to be able to continue that on into sixth grade should be very valuable. Uh and there's going to be a little probably a little bit of a learning curve for our seventh and eighth graders because it is a different model and a different set of routines. Uh but it's um extremely engaging and uh again kids are involved with text. They're not on their computer doing things online. That's not part of this curriculum at all, which is uh quite exciting. So, >> a lot more writing. >> And a lot more writing. Yes. The the rigor is really amped up with writing. Our our third grade staff has said our kids have done more rigorous writing than they've ever done before. So, you know, you up the expectations, you get should get better results, too. So, that's exciting. And this would just align K8 then the same. >> So this will align K8. Correct. Um there's a foundational piece of some morphology that is kind of embedded into this curriculum. So some of those uh foundational components are right in the curriculum. The the potential maybe disconnect is that the curriculum is designed for 60-minute lessons and we've only got about 54 minutes in our middle school. Um but we're going to work towards uh getting that into play and if things you know spill over. Um we're assured that through three modules we should be able to get through all of our standards rather than getting through all four of them. Um, the other thing that will come a little bit, not as a result of this, but we're also going to be able to provide some intervention support at seven and eighth grade levels next year, which u should be very very strong and again help boost some of those kids that need extra support. And and remind me, how frequently do we review like curriculum to bring in like this? >> Is is there like a regular cadence or is it >> Yes. Yes. So basically um the K through eight I think is on a uh sixy year or sevenyear cycle. Um this one will be on a fiveyear cycle. That's just when we've subscribed to the online components for teachers and then we'll review whether or not we want to continue that. The standards are reviewed every 10 years. So I kind of try to keep kind of close to that if I can. Um so that >> a year lag or something to >> so or a year lagging or in front of depending upon when implementation is etc. >> Awesome. I assume this class was budgeted. >> As as I mentioned we're my curriculum budget since we didn't have to dip into any of this for health and uh safety dollars because we put all that into title one. Um this will be um onto next year's phys this will be budgeted mostly into next year's fiscal >> fiscal year 27. FY20 let's go FY27. Okay. >> Um it'll be on FY27. Uh and then we'll be looking at math next year to go on FY28. >> Approval. I'll second. Have a motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion on the language arts curriculum? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Thank you. >> That ends the action items of the evening. Uh, moving on for our review and information items. Starting out with a the Watertown Mayor athletic and activity fee schedule 2627. Mr. Samansky, welcome back. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, tonight I'd just like to introduce a topic for your guys review regarding the potential adjustments in activity fees and ticket pricing. Um, this is strictlyformational. Nothing, you know, nothing will happen tonight or anything like that. Um, where this discussion started is with our new, um, platform bound that we're moving to. It's going to manage our schedules. to manage our student information and all that sort of stuff. And one of the features that they have is they will provide us ticket readers or uh card readers at our at um our venues. And we did use them last year. Um I think it was in the fall sometime. It was in the fall for football. Um the card readers that they provided for us worked very very slick and our ticket takers were happy. um it was run by the section and the section uses bound as their ticket management system. So it's one of those things that the discussion started around the conference. Okay, now what are we going to do with ticket prices? Because with that convenience, with that uh ability comes a fee to use the the card readers at at our events. So um that's where the discussion started. It's a 90 cent charge per transaction. Uh we currently charge five and seven for ticket prices. $5 for students, seven adults for adult. Seniors are are free. Um using this year's numbers, we would have paid $6,400 or $6,460 of our ticket revenue would have gone in those fees. So, it's, you know, not a huge chunk of money, but it's still a chunk of money that, you know, I would rather spend it on footballs or equipment or other things like that as opposed to sending it to a company for fees. Currently, we're kind of in the middle of the conference as far as our ticket pricing goes. Some are a little higher, some are a little bit lower. We're kind of right in the middle. Most districts are looking at the same thing right now as as far as um what are we going to do for next year? And we are still planning to offer a cash option uh because I know that's one thing that our community really likes and and they get a little excited when it's only credit cards or online ticketing only and that sort of stuff. So, we will have a cash option and we will have a card option this year. Um if um I were making the decision and I and I had a recommendation to make, I would recommend we move to a six and an eight for next year. But again, um you know, I'm bringing you the information so you guys can kind of take a look at and then and then we can talk about it next month so we can make a make a good decision. Um, with that I don't know Darren if you want to go to that other document. >> Can I ask do we want do we want to go to cards? Like my question is like you go a lot of places and I can still I pay cash because I don't have to pay that stupid fee, right? Yep. >> So would that be something we would consider or are we trying to go cashless in a sense? We're not trying to go cashless, >> but you know, just like you, there's a lot of folks that I don't carry cash. I want to use my card. Why can't I use my card? >> Um, >> but would we do a lower like So, I get the fee and I I understand that, but if I want to pay cash, would I get would we consider doing a lower cost, right? Because >> $5 a student for cash, $6 per card. >> So, that Okay, that's my question. >> Is that what you were asking? >> Yeah. Okay. Or does the system have the option to add the feed to purchas a lot of times if you make >> charitable donations somewhere they say hey will you cover the processing fee just right >> so it be >> 5.90 and 7 >> is that is that an option with this system >> um I think it might be I think one of the things that the the where this topic generated from is around the ads table what are you guys going to do I don't know what are you guys going to do where are you at what are we yet. >> This kind of gives you an idea um of where the conference is at as updated as all of us ads have updated it in this last week, but gives you an idea where we're at um kind of compared to others. It's really sort of difficult to compare, you know, one to the other because a lot of them um there's different nuances in every school district and um you know, everything for the most part can potentially be different, you know, whether it be ticket prices or your fees and that sort of stuff. The conference has a ticket recommendation currently of five and seven, but it's only a recommendation. You could do whatever you want. Some are lower than that, some are higher than that. Um, they do not have a recommendation on fees. You know, that's up to the school district to decide what we want to charge for for our fees. I'm still of the opinion that students pay too much and that's why we don't have great attendance because it's five and then if you want to charge them $6. I feel like >> when was a when was the last time that our ticket prices changed? >> Ticket prices probably went up about six years ago when we made the jump from four to six to five to seven. I just I mean, it seems like other schools are charging seniors to come in. I mean, I think it's great that we do a free, but I'd almost rather split the ticket price with seniors and say they pay two and you know, students pay two. I mean, if we're looking to keep the revenue coming in, >> how much revenue do you generate? >> That's a great question. >> Yeah. Student I think I think I have that data. So, student uh ticket revenue that we generated last year, and again, it's fall and winter sports, we don't collect for spring, >> was about 14,300. Does that sound right, Paul? >> Yep. >> That's what I have. Overall, um all ticket price, all adult and um student comes out to about $45,526. So, students, yeah, it's a it's a smaller portion obviously. >> 143 is students. Correct. Student only about 30 45 >> total. >> So adults are about 30,000. >> Correct. >> Yes. >> Then you throw in family passes and we we sold about 19 well we sold $19,280 in passes last year as well. >> That's student and family. >> Family, adult, and student passes. Yes. >> And I've got the breakdown for all three of those if you'd like. And then you throw in um the ticket prices for spring play and the fall musical. That was just over $7,000 last year for a grand total of gate receipts of $71,000. $71,05. Now, just using this past year's Oh, that's a different thing. But yes, $71,000 in in revenue generated from ticket sales. >> And right now, we use these ticket sales for you say equipment and like what's what is what do we use these dollars for? >> It goes into the general fund. >> Just the general fund. Okay. >> So, it doesn't get earmarked. Doesn't get marked like the musical stuff doesn't get nothing gets earked really. Yep. Is that typical? I mean, is that usually what most districts do? >> I think so. Most districts do a similar approach to that. >> Tickets go to the general. Do the activity fees also go to the general or do they go to the Everything goes to the >> correct? Now there was a natural question also when we started talking about and again this is just for information purposes so you guys can take a look at and um you know we started taking a look at activity fees as well. Now we have not had an increase in our activity fees in 12 years. Um I'll go on a limb here and say that everything has increased in the last 12 years. Um, and this year in fees, which is what we charge to participate in the program, was $134,000.95 and $134,95. And then we also waved a grand total of $5,000 in um fees. We waved those for students to participate. So I understand that hasn't gone up. Has the the cost to play the sport or the extracurricular what is that how much has that gone up? Right? So I want to pay to play and then the parents want to pay to watch. Like how much has that side gone up in the past five years? >> The paying to play. >> Yeah. >> It hasn't gone up in 12 years. >> So even to pay. So I want to go play basketball. My fee hasn't >> correct. >> Okay. >> Because when we asked about it, I know that in my time here and this is my ninth year. >> Yep. >> It's you know basically it's $200 to play an athletic event. >> Okay. Um, and talking to my my resident expert Deb, she couldn't remember when it had gone >> when there was an increase. >> Okay. >> So, what like what's the cost of athletics and activities? Like what's our cost compared to what we're collecting? I mean, what's the cost compared to our revenue? >> Like what are we are we even or >> I obviously not even we're under, but like by how much Yeah, and we can get that information for you. Absolutely. I don't have that in front of me tonight either, but it's a good question, but yeah, it's a significant difference obviously with coaches salaries, transportation officials, >> officials. >> If you take football is our biggest participant, if you take football as just the example, if you if you add up all of the fees, all of the ticket sales, it doesn't pay for football. Now, if we took a look at the fees again, and again, this is um these are just numbers. Um if we did a modest $15 increase to all of our fees across the board, that would roughly generate another $14,685 for the district. I mean, not a huge sum of money, but it's still a nice chunk of money. What would it I don't know that you knew like senior I mean do we count seniors that walk through the door? Are we counting how many seniors come through the door and aren't paying? >> We only count paid tickets paid attendance. >> So it would be really interesting to know like what revenue we're missing out on on seniors because I would like to see the five and seven stay but We have seniors also pay $5 >> also. Wasn't the seniors something recent that we because I thought they used to pay didn't we approve to that they went to zero just a few years ago. >> I thought that was a recent change. >> I think that's >> ever since I've been on school board it's been for years that we announced >> except for the fine arts. Correct. >> And except for tournament time, >> right? >> And we don't control. >> We have no control of that. >> Right. >> Well, I'd be interested if we can like if if there's a way to charge just the fee. Right. I mean, I think or you know, I'm saying if you're paying credit card, if we if we are able to do that on that portion of it, then the people who pay the card get to have the extra fee. If that functionality is >> we actually can and is it going to be I get it's probably another step. Do we'd want to do it, but I think we at least need to know that. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> And I guess my my opinion from a from a student and adult side, >> I think that's what 20ome years ago when I was in high school, that's what I had to pay to get into a football game. >> I got in for free. >> And we both went to schools. >> I went to Eden Perry. Yes. If you had your student ID, you got in for free. >> Well, I think I've said this before, the the where I grew up, what they do now is if you are >> a resident, you don't pay at all. And I get that's that's hard. I get But they also I will say they've seen a significant increase in fans coming to um participate in I'm sorry watch and what have you. They've seen a significant increase. >> And also too, one of the concerns that I that I have is supervision, >> right? >> Let's say football game. >> That's fair. >> Students get in for free. Now we're going to have to pay for more. I I get that and I don't think that students need to be free, but I do feel like increasing the $5 already is a burden on them. And I feel like we already have a significant lack of student participation watching. I mean, I just I go to games and I've seen the attendance. It's just not there like it should be or used to be. in the last few years. >> And we've talked a lot about that. I think that that topic of, you know, would more students come to games and events if you did not have a fee. And we're kind of feeling like it wouldn't change a whole lot because our kids are busy. You know, if they're not at >> event, they're probably at their own event somewhere else, right? >> And I think that is a key part about Watertown Mir is our kids are >> they're active and they're involved. So >> I I can't necessarily and I have no doubt on this. see that we'd see an increase in the student side at games. I think we all love to obviously, but I think maybe it's a little misnomer in the fact that kids are doing other things. It was busy, but again, I could be wrong. >> Personally for me, I I wouldn't be in favor of raising student ticket. I kind of like your idea of saying, okay, if we want to charge a credit card fee on top, >> whether we can charge the fee directly, great. I think that's the easiest thing. If you're going to pay with a credit card, you got to pay. >> Um, I personally agree on the student side of things that I don't think we should change it by any means. I would love to see it go down or go away. Right. >> Students and the activity fee side of things. I kind of feel the same way. I hate adding another barrier. I know it's we're talking $15, but I hate adding another barrier for students to participate in something cost. >> I know we have the opportunity for them to get a scholarship or grant to help pay for those fees. I just I personally think there's kids out there that aren't participating because they can't afford it >> and they're not willing to come forward and ask. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Could be an issue. >> I just I don't know how we fix that. Um $134,000 out of the budget. Yeah. We can't get rid of activities fees. There was a reason that we instituted them all those years ago when we were having budget issues. That's why they came about in the first place. So it isn't necessarily something that we can cut it entirely, but I think bringing in an extra 14 or 15 grand in the grand scheme of things. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense or not. That's my personal and you look at sort of the comparables up there for for the west we're probably on the higher end or we are on the higher end >> and it's been like that for 10 years. >> We're similar to an east school in many ways. how >> okay >> 10 years ago >> or whatever it was whenever these were updated the last >> we had to have been >> way much way an outlier for this >> I remember when this was all started there was a lot of pain back then this all came about >> yeah because even the increase in the 14,000 I mean what good does that do I mean with busing I mean like I just or what the costs are I mean in relation to the costs I'd like to know because I mean, if it's like half of what our costs are, like increasing by 14,000. Okay. >> Right. >> Maybe we could have a conversation about it, but five, six, seven coaches. >> Yeah. >> Roughly. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> What would you like uh for the next board meeting? What do you like Paul and our admin group to bring forward to you to make a decision? I guess >> I think a comment about can we charge the credit card fee only, you know, and I I think we would we wouldn't have an option. It was like if you're using a card that's a 90 fee, right? Like Right. >> So, so if I understand it right, right, if I'm going to use my card, I'm paying the fee. >> Correct. Correct. >> Cash is still going to be >> whatever the cash price is. >> Correct. >> If we can do that. Yeah. >> Okay. >> One thing too just to note and we've had this conversation too about handling cash in general, >> right? That's why >> that's just one less thing to worry about because when you're trusting ticket takers and we have very trustworthy ticket takers, don't get me wrong, but anytime you're moving, you know, that to a different location, there's a chance of that disappearing. And so that's one thing we've talked about too is when you do take away some of those cash options, there's less chance for theft or other things that could occur. >> That is one thing a few schools, you know, Howard Lake is card only. Um, New London is card only. I think New London is two or three years into it and you know aside from the you know theft potential and I'm not necessarily worried about the theft part of it. It would save time you know an hour or two out of Deb's day after a game >> is counting money recounting money and that sort of stuff. So >> is there ability to for like preurchasing tickets? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Does any school district use Venmo? >> Yeah, >> I mean there's >> I think >> but I think we're going to be using bound. We're kind of >> that's kind of the the >> conference decision. >> Okay, copy. Okay. >> Wait, do do they want to know more about just the costs? I think >> like you mean like the busing cost and what have you? Is that what you're asking? >> How upside down are we? >> Yeah, that would be I'd be curious. So would that 15 14K actually really >> like make a dent or not? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. So yeah, >> it's got to be something if he's going to bring >> something to us. We need to have it >> from an accounting perspective. Is that even broken out in such a way that you could say >> for activities >> total cost of all activities or total cost of all busing total cost? >> Yeah, we can dial that in pretty close. I think >> put SMS. We're going to be a little surprised at what that number actually is. >> Probably will. >> Might be good for us to know though. >> You know, >> I think I would feel better making a decision all the pieces. >> Okay. >> Is there um >> a senior thing too? I don't know how anybody >> Well, we wouldn't be able to if they don't count it. So, we wouldn't know. >> I know. I would really like to know that number. I mean, I know we can't do anything about it now, but >> would be to have a >> maybe this next year count. >> Yeah. >> You think so? >> Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. >> But that's also why they love us, too. >> Well, I mean, I get that. >> Yeah. And I haven't noticed, you know, sitting and looking in the gym, it still feels very similar as far as crowd size goes, >> even with um watching it on online. >> Oh, yeah. >> You know, that has had an impact. In fact, it's had such an impact. >> Um the sections are changing all of their policies and and if we want to watch a section game, they're not going to give us permission to do our section games. They're going to have you purchase from them, of course. So, >> we should charge for streaming and then let students in for free at the game. >> It's actually not a dumb idea. >> We don't we don't take care of the streaming. That's the boosters. >> Oh, okay. Copy. >> Got it. >> We can charge the boosters >> and then let >> paid for by our sponsorship. >> Clear as mud. >> I mean, that's how Paulie, did you expect this? >> You know, the whole goal >> I don't want to ever be in a position where all of a sudden financially something goes sideways and now we're looking at massive increases in things. >> Y, >> you know, if we're going to talk about increases, if we do slight increases, I think that's better. We don't and we don't have to do any increases at all. You know, our our booster club is tremendous. They help us out. They supplant a lot of the stuff that we do. The district is very good to us, very um um you know, good in our sense. When we need an extra coach, we get an extra coach. And so we're we're not in a bad situation. But >> this has all come about mostly because of busing costs or was there other costs that were increasing that we are trying >> Well, this kind of came about because of our our moving to bound. >> Got it. >> It started with the tickets. >> Got it. >> Yeah, it starts with the tickets. >> Got it. It's like right now we painted our walls in our house and now we got to get new cabinets. So it's it leads to the next thing and next thing and next thing. >> Good analogy. >> Yeah. >> But I'm just I'm asking I'm just curious too. Is it only busing costs? I mean because I know you >> referees referees are difficult because every year they give themselves a raise >> and >> you need referees to have competitions. Y >> coaches salaries obviously go up according to the contract. There's a percent raise there each year that we have to account for. So I mean everything's gone up like Paul's Paul's point. It's just what you're willing to take on you know addition here >> and equipment expenses are crazy. Uniform expenses are >> unbelievable. >> So I think what we're hearing is yes, we can come back with a kind of an overall athletic activities budget idea of where we're at. Um, I think the other thing that might help us in the next couple of weeks are some of these conference schools will make decisions and ahead of us. >> Some may even making decisions tonight at their own board meetings. So, we'll have a little bit of data to come back and share with you over the next couple of weeks before our next board meeting to see what people are doing and get a feel for it. I did see uh our friends to the the West Lester Prairie up their um fees, their um ticket fees uh just this last week at their board meeting. So it's again like Paul said, it's a conversation everybody's having because they moved to bound as well. That was another change for them in their conference. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Paul. >> Moving on to item B, the facilities handbook update with uh Mr. Dalton. >> Good evening, chair and board. Um, normally in April, I'm told we come and we go through our facilities handbook and there's some minor changes and and and and we do that. Um, the facility handbook, the structure really hasn't changed for many many years. Um, and we've taken a look at that and there's there's a lot of pieces that that really need a a major upgrade, a major revamp. Um, I'll just go through that list. Uh, you know, supervision of events has changed. joint scheduling. Mr. Sans Seamansky talked about the bound bound integrates with our software. It makes it different for the way people integrate with the facility use. Um the application process is different now. Those things are online. They're not a paper application process anymore. Billing and and invoicing processes have changed. Um priorities and allocation have changed. Um and one of the things we really want to emphasize is how to draw more of the large and lucrative weekend events that we that we use we get in our pack. Um those are really um those that they pay the top rates and they are lucrative for the district. So we we want to um encourage more of those. So, um, the other piece about it is the current the current policy is about 20 pages long and and and we'd really like to come back with one maybe half that half that big. In other words, kind of straighten those things out. Now, what you're all here to what you see what I what I shared um is the financial piece of that. That's just one piece of that. Again, I want I want to talk that there's a lot of things that that policy that that need to be looked at and upgraded. And that's why we want we want to not have it here this month. We plan a special facil special facilities youth meeting use meeting with our advisory council to go through this at at a at a more thorough level. Then come back probably next month, a future month for you to review it. The financial piece that we did talk that is there that I want to point out and it's probably something probably just never really looked at um um in terms of how how it how it's sorted out. The reality is facility use is a cost recovery. We it's a service that we do for the community. We want our community in our facilities. We we want our youth athletic associations using our facilities, but it it should probably be, you know, a better cost recovery than the 50% basically is what we're at. Um so we need we need to look at some of those things. Um, we've got a bunch of ideas that we're that we're going to present to to the advisory council to look at. How are we going to do that? Um, one of the important pieces are we understand we need to keep those costs low for those athletic associations. That's probably that's probably number one. Um, we want to get that more straightforward process. Um, and and establish some targets for cost recovery. What what what do we want to support that as a district? if you know in my mind I look at it and I say well essentially we're supporting it at about 50,000 a year now well that that's close to a teacher and is that is that what is that where the district wants to place their place their funds so so that's what we're that's we just wanted to put that in front of you that that we're going to come back with a some new ideas and a revised handbook and um one of the things I'd say about this is we're not going to fix this all in one year this is kind of going to be a staged pack um that we're going to look at. You know, maybe uh we look to get it to where it needs to be in three or four years or something on that order. So, that's >> we charge external like that dance thing or we charge them at a higher rate than we would like a local community. >> Much much higher rate. Yes. Yeah. Like three to four times as much. >> Good. >> So, >> okay. because I view a school as this is a public like we should very much be open to our community at a very low cost >> and that's what we want to bring more of those groups in to support >> to support and make that Yep. >> you know bring that a little closer. >> Okay. >> So, >> thank you. >> Any other questions? >> What's included in your cost figure? Because you know you're saying it's not including utilities. >> Um that would be >> mainly just staffing costs. >> Staffing costs. um the coordinator that that managed that. Some of my some of my time for for for uh supervising this and working on it. Um the custodians um also material costs when we have a tournament in there. We go through a lot of toilet paper and a lot of paper towels. It's a few thousand dollars a year. There's software costs. There's credit card costs. And and I we can break that out a little bit more than that. This was meant to just be kind of a snapshot to see that I I don't think anybody realized that we were really that that far out of whack with it and and we did this analysis and we said, you know what, we and and we did work work with SMS and they said, yeah, we we got to do better than this. So, we take a look at it. >> Is there a way to look at the fixed cost versus the variable costs on an event, maybe both community event and non community event? So when we have say the dance thing come into town, if we didn't have anything at the at the pack that day, this is what our base fixed costs are. But then by having it, we have toilet paper and paper towels and janitorial and all the other variable costs on top of it. That would help us to be able to understand. >> We can put some recovery versus the cost of the event, >> some estimates on that. That that's a tough >> Yeah. Obviously, we would, you know, there's not a price tag on every roll of toilet paper that go, you know, necessarily. based on a number of people, right? >> But yes, we can we can do some we and we will we'll have some comparisons for you and we'll also have some comparisons to what other communities are doing just like Paul had up there with the with the ticket prices and so forth. Um >> and so Mr. Dalton, with the that handbook update, it's it's the verbiage in there as well as a potential cost fee schedule. >> Correct. Correct. Yep. A lot of streamlining I think is what really what I would say. Again, we're looking we're looking to come back with about half a book about half the size of what it is. >> Okay. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> I just have a question on the advisory council. So, do are some of the local um sport clubs uh represented at that meeting? >> Some of the people are. Um we also and Mr. Samansky doesn't know this, but we plan to invite him to the to this to so he can help us take a look at that also. So, Well, thank you. >> Thank you guys, >> Mr. Schuler. >> Um, just real briefly on our our monthly strategic plan update. uh we are uh one of the areas that we're focusing in on uh this month of coming into May will be the people piece which is again building that culture where students families uh and community engagement and satisfaction are priority which leads us to our annual surveys that we do in the spring. So, uh, the week I believe of May 11th, uh, usually the second week of May, we, uh, roll out our surveys again to parents, um, to our staff and to, uh, our students in grades 3 through 11. So, uh, we'll be prepping for those and getting those out. Heather usually does a mass email, I believe, to to get those out to families to to get them to least participate. And then obviously we'll have some results for you u earlier this summer um with how we're doing. But again that's our annual way of just checking in to to see again for child uh parent satisfaction in terms of how we're doing and terms of staff and student um satisfaction. So that is all I had for strategic plan updates. Any questions on that? >> Thank you. Moving on to our admin reports. Mr. Hennon, >> good evening. Uh, three things for you guys. One, prom was this weekend went well. I think we had almost 200 people attending the prom or postp prom. Again, just from everything I've heard and all the kids had a lot of fun. So, that was great to for those guys. Um, number two, we are interviewing for the open chemistry position starting this week. So far, we have three qualified applicants. We're pretty excited about um I mean I know you may not think it's only three but and honestly in today's world at a high school level if I get any I'm pretty happy and I have three that have experience um and have the chemistry license which that's we're positive and again we're kind of acting pretty quick on that but just to move forward and and see if we can get somebody to fill that spot. Then lastly just we have a lot of big events coming up. Um this Wednesday we're doing something a little different. We're hosting our students of excellence banquet here. Um, we have eight seniors that are going to be honored that night at Leonardo's um, locally. And again, just to change it up a little bit, but we have so many qualified kids that St. Cloud would only usually allow us to take four up there. We just didn't feel like that was fair. We just keep having more and more kids who meet this criteria. Um, senior athletic banquet is May 6. There's a unified soccer event May 8th at 10 o'clock. Um, if you've never attended like one of these events, like I was just at the one down in Money, the basketball one, I'd highly encourage you to attend. It's just a really cool event. I mean, a lot of other schools come that day. Um, a lot of student body people are out there and we have multiple games going on at once. Um, it's just a really cool thing to see. Um, it kind of makes you feel good about seeing not just our kids, but other schools kids out there interacting and and you know, they're competing, but they're doing it the right way. So, that I would just encourage you on that May. Um, again, it's at 10 o'clock. Obviously, weather permitting that it'll be outside. Um, and you saw, you know, Sean sent you guys an email today. We have a lot of big things coming up that have come up in the last, you know, few days with the unified sports with, you know, one of our students get to host a commercial with Adam Thielen and the event this summer down in the city. So, I mean, that'll be pretty cool. And I know I get to participate with a two-day event down there as well. So, I just But again, if you can, that May 8th event is a really cool event to attend if you can. Um, senior board and scholarship night is May 13th. This year, we had 56 apply for scholarship through the foundation. So again, I mean another high amount and um that's always a cool night. Again, you're always welcome to attend just to see the different things our kids get recognized for. And then obviously graduation is May 22nd. >> So pray for good weather. If not, dress warm. >> No, I mean obviously more details will come out as we get a little closer to that. Um but again, that will what will come up and I will get more details out to you. But I mean it's it's coming quick. I think the seniors told me it's 19 days. >> 19 school days they said till graduation I think. So >> any questions? >> I have a question. What event are you participating in first? The special Olympics. >> I don't know if I really have to participate. I just have to be there as the admin. You know >> I thought he was competing at something. >> Well, if they want to win a goal, they should have me probably compete, but I don't know if that'd be unfair to the rest of the people. Probably >> to pull a hamstring or something. I don't know. >> It could. How's that feel today? Could very well happen, Darren. You never know. So, I really I don't know for sure, but I was asked to do and I said, "Sure. It's a great event for our kids and should be fun." >> Awesome. >> Thank you for doing >> Mr. Girtton. >> Good evening, everybody. Uh, well, this thing is movable. Uh, well, like Mr. Hen said, a lot going on in the month of May. Uh, we're excited to be wrapping up MCAs in early May. Uh, we can see the finish line there. Uh the other assessment uh is the fast bridge. We'll be taking that and those are what we use to take a look at our our data in terms of our academic goal for the building. Uh we have a student survey that'll be going out. It'll look just like what was sent out in the fall and I believe the district uses that information as well to align with our strategic planning pieces. So those are kind of the end of the year assessment pieces kids are taking. Um wanted to talk a little bit about staffing uh next year. really excited about that full-time literacy coordinators role. We will greatly benefit from that in the middle school as we adopt 68 literacy curriculum and that'll be the first time in many many years uh where we are looking at brand new curriculum. Um couple of other things uh electives wise we're increasing elective sections. Uh we'll be adding extra STEM sections, lifetime sports, strength and conditioning, a lot of activity based courses kids want. As far as staffing goes, uh long-term sub next year we'll be bringing Luke Kerman back in. He is a long-term sub right now for Paige Ozerich in science and he'll be filling in for Emma M. She'll be going out on a maternity leave, so she won't be back in the fall. Luke will step in and teach eighth grade algebra. Uh the other long-term subbing piece is Elizabeth Delaney. She is right now our music teacher. Uh Vicky Tam Anderson has decided to take another year. She'll extend that medical leave for one more year. And Elizabeth um has gotten to know kids, works well with the department. So she'll continue on in that role. Uh last thing as far as staffing goes, just adding intervention support. Seventh and eighth grade students that need targeted intervention uh will be able to start receiving that. So our reading intervention model will be a 58 model with researchbased interventions, trained interventionists. So looking forward to that piece as far as the literacy goals we have are concerned. Uh a ton of events going on just like in the high school. We have a spring dance Friday. It starts at 7 o'clock instead of 6 because of a track meet. Uh we have four band concerts. Parents know the feel what this feels like, right? Uh our fourth graders are coming over to see us next week. They're going to visit and then everybody suddenly wants to take field trips at the end of the year uh including the eighth grade valley fair field trip and we'll have an eighth grade celebration hosted by our PTO. So just a lot of really fun things going on. But you are drug through May. It just goes very quickly ready or not. And then we'll wrap up the year with a couple of PD days. Um really kind of focused on the literacy upgrades that we're making in the school. So with that, any questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Miss Okonnell. >> Hello. >> Um, just like Nick said, our students just finished taking the MCAs and they worked really hard on it. So, we're hoping that shows in their efforts, especially with the new reading one, um, since we've been working so hard on that this year. Uh, last week we celebrated administrative professional days. So, I'd be remiss if I didn't say what a big part of our staff Kayla Johnson and Nikki Hunkkins are. They really keep our school running smoothly. This week, we'll be celebrating school bus drivers tomorrow. And then on Friday, school lunch heroes. They're also a huge part of our staff. They keep our students um getting to school safely and having healthy, nutritious meals while they're at school so that they can fully engage in learning. And then on Saturday, this Saturday, we'll have our strides for students event from 9 to noon. um that our PTO organizes. It's lots of fun. Always getting up to this event. On Friday, we'll have our school assembly. We do not know yet what the teacher torture and principal punishment will be for this year. But we're sure to meet the goal because the goal again was $25,000 and as of tonight, we are already at $21,000. So, we're sure to blow it away again. This year, we're having the Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders and llamas attending. And I hear that the llamas are dressed in clothes. So it should be I don't think they're pajamas, but it should be super fun. So >> cheerleaders bring the llamas or >> No, they're two separate things. >> They might interact. Who knows? So it's sure to be a fun time. So come on out and >> I'm sure that we'll have on social media whatever sort of fun thing is in store for me and the teachers who are selected. So stay tuned. Any questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Dalton. Good evening again. Um, one of the big things is our summer red our catalog hit the streets, our summer registration to open up April 1st. One thing that I really want to know is we went to a uh a priority system for residents for our swimming lessons programs. Often those would fill up and people couldn't get in. Amazingly, we got compliments on that. I was anticipating that with the phone with Reagan, people would not be happy with that, but we we got compliments more than one from people in the community said, "You know what? We're glad you're doing that. We're glad you're prioritizing Watertown Mayor residents because we had a hard time getting in swim lessons before." So, that that's a positive thing. And I just wanted to share that that again when the phone rings, you don't always think it's going to be, you know, sunshine or rainbows. So, uh that one was early learning. Um just we have our our uh coordinator McKenzie uh Bontra Bron Bour Trager is out on maternity leave. One of our uh early learning teachers Katie Pew is filling in for that. Uh McKenzie went out a couple days early. So um I'm meeting with Katie to keep her up to speed. Um she's kind of there to to make sure everything everything goes goes well. We've done a lot of the planning for the fall already, but um she'll be there as a resource for the staff in that time. And we talked about facility use. We've got that special meeting coming up with our advisory commit council. Um one thing I want to mention u with community programming is we we've established a coffee talk series in collaboration with the city's commission on aging. Um that we we've been doing that. It's been kind of volunteers. Uh Mr. Schuler did the last one. And then the city offers a a grant, a recreation grant. Often it's applied for and we apply for for youth things. We applied for a grant to um support that program. And we did. We got a $2,000 grant to help support that coffee talk series. It might become coffee. And now that we have a little money, it might become coffee and pie instead of just coffee. uh might be give us some money to to do better job of of promoting that. Um maybe bring in some speakers that that cost some cost a little money, need an honorarium. Um so we're excited about that. Um you'll be we'll be sending out our partner letters very soon for the fall catalog, believe it or not. Um we put that out and you know people that want ads, they want to do classes with us, we'll be uh we'll be we'll be emailing those out this week. And we are um looking looking at some upgrading of signage and maps. One of the areas that we're looking at in particular is at the at the elementary school, the soccer fields. Right now, you you don't really know what soccer field you're on when you're on those soccer fields. So, we're going to look to upgrade that signage so that people will know where they are. And there's even an option for us to have a QR code so people can see the schedule so that when you're on there and you don't know what field you're on, it you can you can hit it with your camera and be able to find out where you're at. managing facility use that in an unmanned in an unmanned situation is a challenge as you can imagine. So that we hope that would help us out with that. So that's what I have for you tonight. >> Thank you. >> Mr. View, >> uh good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. >> Yes. just as you know you get a couple emails from here. You know all these sales people they're always going after you for something or another. Uh about two months ago I got an email from this company called LinkedIn which is a data warehousing company and they put together a nice presentation. So it's absolutely unbiased by me in one in any way shape or form. Um but it really highlights a lot of the wonderful things that have been going on here over the last five years. So, I thought I'd take a little bit of an opportunity to um to present this to you and give it to you uh and to our public. Um I've got the link into the actual document right there, but I copied and pasted uh just several of the real what I thought were the highlight uh slides. But what linked uh linked it link it did was they just compared us to the 326 traditional local area education districts. So they're traditional um public schools. In other words, they're not the charters. They said they kind of kind of weeded those out. And then they uh put that together to come up with this uh uh graphic for us. So as we take a look at this, so here's our reading achievement percentile as we go across the state. So this is our proficiency rating compared to other schools. Not our proficiency rate, but our proficiency rating compared to other schools over the last five years. So you've got grade three, four, and five across the bottom. And then an aggregate of all three of those put together. You can see all of the nice upward trends at each of those grade levels. And then when you combine them together, it's a very nice upward trend uh during the last five years. Uh trend continues through six, seven, and eight. So I put those together, you know, the trend continues moving up into that 90th and 95th percentile as an aggregate. you know, that's quite impressive. Uh, our high school, right, we got a lot of fluctuation with our high school, uh, for a variety of reasons. U, but when you look at this overall, when we combine all of our MCA scores, that just creates a wonderful map for where we're sitting across the state, right? We're in the top 10% of our reading scores across the state. It's a pretty great place to be for the last two years. And then we take a look at the math scores and they're basically paint painting the same picture. So you take a look at these, all right, you look at fifth grade and you go, "Holy smokes, right?" And that whole aggregate score when we combine them together again and we're at in that 90th percentile. Um, six, seven, and eight, we continue to see the same trend. So again, it paints a really nice story of all the efforts, the hard work that our teachers have put in, the hard work that our students have put in over the last five years, um, uh, putting that together with our with our high school. And again, we've got in the 93rd percentile across the state of Minnesota for our math, 92nd percentile for the last two years in reading. Uh, you know, we're top 10% school folks and that's just nothing to sneeze at. It's a great place to be. Uh, and again, this is just showing all the hard work that our staff and students have done over the last several years. >> Questions? >> That's really good. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, >> Miss Payeyton. >> Good news. >> What good news do you have now? >> I do have some good news. >> Oh, that's why I'm waiting. >> Um, all right. Um, just to we start off, um, we are pleased to share that our district has been approved to participate in the teacher apprenticeship program. This is a three-year pathway designed to support PAR professionals in becoming licensed special education teachers. This program is funded through a grant from the Minnesota Department of Education in partnership with Education Minnesota that's covering associated costs and we are one of 14 um districts to have this opportunity. So we are earn that this um initiative is especially important given the special education staffing shortages in special education. It provides an opportunity to grow our own staff um by investing individuals who are already committed to our students and community and a lot of these pairs are just really into the school district and just such valued employees at this time. Um we have one pair of professional who will be enrolling in the apprenticeship program. In addition, we have two other pair professionals are currently enrolled in the teacher pipeline um grant program. Um hiring efforts are progressing well. We are currently working to fill a special education paraprofessional position at the middle school as well as a one-on-one nurse um for one of our medically fragile students. We have a long-term sub um teaching position at the high school. Um and then a.5 special education teacher at the high school. Um we are in the process of finally ESY plans. We have approximately 27 students um have registered to receive services. ESY around the month of July Monday through Thursday um 8:30 to 11:30 and students qualify based on self-sufficiency needs regression and unique needs and staff are responsible for the data um and reviewing and collecting that to make sure that um they support eligibility requirements. Um the Minnesota Department of Education will begin a progress monitoring audit in May. This will be a two to threeyear process focused on evaluating the quality of our progress reporting and our ability to demonstrate student growth on IEP goals. So, we will be very busy the next couple years documenting that. So, thank you for your continued support of special education and if there are any questions. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Schuler. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mine's going to be really a facility focused uh update today. Um you as you remember from last time and we've been keeping our facilities committee uh pretty busy here the last couple of months but uh >> they were missing it >> some some longer meetings uh to work through some of this work but appreciate their help and and their guidance. Um first of all the roofing project through our LTFM plus um funding um bond is is looking at uh moving forward. uh Miss Huan today uh actually submitted the advertisement to the paper for the bid advertising um to contractors. So that will go out uh in this week's uh Herald journal as well as the following week. So our twoe posting for that. Um we will have a mandatory pre-bid meeting for those contractors on May 7th. Uh and the bids do be due on the 21st of May. uh we will come back to you in the June board meeting on the 22nd for board approval of that contractor and moving forward with that project. Uh that will hopefully spur uh if you remember we can't start before July 1st on the roofing project per uh state guidelines uh with the funding source but um we will hopefully get started in the fall uh maybe late summer early fall uh with substantial completion uh next summer at the end of next summer so end of 27. So that is moving along nicely and again thank you to the facilities committee for their help in that process. Um also on the tap for the facilities group has been the w uh facilities audit and and study. Uh that is now back and complete. So we've had an opportunity to start looking through that and identifying areas and again they focused on uh the physical programming uh physical pieces of the condition of the buildings. Uh deficiencies uh again across district facilities. We looked at the physical site, uh the exteriors, the interiors, the electrical, the mechanical, and the accessibility needs of all of our buildings and I think it was about 140 page long uh document at the end. So, um I think it's it started with um a really broad conversation. Now, we've kind of for the short term um really focused in on those IAQ, those indoor air quality projects that we've talked about. um really trying to get a read on where we're at with our geothermal uh system both at the high school middle school complex and the elementary complex and just getting a a deeper professional understanding and that's what W is going to help us with with a contractor um to start looking at that and giving us a report and just collecting data on the functionality of that system. Um so we'll be looking forward to getting more information on that as well as well as some just general HVAC um you know conditions in the high school middle school. As you know the middle school especially is a 30-year-old building. Those are the original uh HVAC air quality systems in those buildings. Uh we know we know those need to be addressed and we're we're working with W to figure out our priority list. Uh again these could be included in a in a bond. uh LTFM plus project. So, we're looking at again really specifying what that could look like and using their expertise and knowledge. Um, also ongoing is a uh RFP that's going out. Um, we call it a best value RFP for our lighting system in the PAC, the pack. Um, as we've talked about there, that's a 20-year-old system that is getting kind of a total overhaul. If we look at our pack, um between the sound, the technology, and the lighting, um it's going to look brand new, uh at the end of this project. So, um we are working right now, um on getting that out for bit as well. Um, it's kind of a unique process with this best value RFP process and that um, you really drill down on a screening process and a and a process where you're you're rating each of the individuals who companies that are bidding on these projects is really specified. Theater lighting is a we call kind of a niche type item. So, we're we're working through that with um Chris Rearer, who is our consultant on that project, along with Dustin Stzman, uh our tech coordinator, has been really valuable in getting that going as well. Um and then lastly, uh a couple last things. Legislative update. Uh you've probably heard, um committee work is done at the legislature. Now, it goes back kind of to the leadership side of things. And right now in education, uh we're not hearing a lot. And uh the Senate has the omnimous bill that I think uh is looking for a partner in the house. The house does not have anything. So, uh the Senate omnibus bill is is about 20 uh items long of educational type related items, some of which are good, some maybe not so good, but um uh I don't think it's going to gain any steam because the house doesn't have to uh complement that with so uh just not a lot of steam. In terms of school safety, I know we've had a lot of conversations about is there any support with the SRO officer. Um, again, not a lot is happening. Um, some of the initial runs, if they do approve it, um, could be an expert. We're talking like $60,000 to our district specifically if the runs that they're sharing on and the finance side come true. So, uh, so there could be some support there. Obviously, we've got another few weeks here till they come to the end of session to uh hear whether or not that's going to happen. I was really hoping, as I've shared, uh to come to you in May with a recommendation for a yay or a nay on a uh SRO position. I don't know if that's going to make it to that meeting just because of the timelines that we're looking at. Um so again, uh more conversation to be had there. And I appreciated someone mention it is bus driver appreciation uh day tomorrow. Uh Miss Huan is kind enough to be delivering donuts and coffee to our drivers for all their hard work and uh we appreciate them. So >> thank you. Thank you for that. >> You talking? >> I will not be there. >> So you're offering in board members to come in negative. >> You may help me. You don't want to see me then. >> That's all I have. Any questions? Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Schuler. Any other board member reports from the last month? >> Not from the last month, but we have a marketing and communication committee meeting Wednesday. >> Southwest met on Tuesday. Great meeting. Um just like tonight how we had um all those students and we recognized them. We actually had uh staff awards, seven of them. They've never done that before. And it was just so nice to hear how everyone is just amazing. We just have a lot of staff. So it was nice to recognize seven of them. And then um earlier I think it was in March uh Dr. was recognized and got was a recipient of superintendent of the year and he said, "Well, you know, this award is great, but I wish I could share it with everyone." And they said, "You know what? Why don't you tell us more about it? What are you thinking?" And so he said, "I think it'd be nice to kind of share with everyone that's helped me, you know, give everyone a coin." I picked one. There's five different ones. This one says uh community for your dedication to our students and then it has the southwest. So there's uh five different courses and so he gave us all we got to pick which one we wanted. So that was the one I picked but there's education one success focuses and readiness and then he also wrote every single person a little letter which I his handwriting is terrible but Don't tell him that. But so it it actually has uh the Southwest Metro the mission and the vision and he wrote something and he was actually doing that for every staff member. >> That's cool. >> I thought that was pretty cool. Kind of a great meeting just like this one, you know. So that's what we did. And then he actually does have we do have two uh his evaluations coming up. One of the winners lives in my neighborhood so I reached out to her to congratulate her. >> I was just going to say our very own resident Sarah Thomas who's got students here award. >> Yeah. No. So great bright evening. >> Anybody else? >> Plant sale is Saturday, May 9th, >> 9:00 a.m. to noon at the greenhouse. Be sure to get in line early to get your best selection. Greenhouse is pretty full right now. Looks great. >> My daughter's been in there a lot. >> There's a lot of buzz. Everybody's been asking about on social media. There's been quite a few. So, >> it's been good. >> What was the update from FA State Convention? I think they had a really good experience and enjoyed enjoyed the my daughter was there for the first time so enjoyed that. >> Yeah, >> kind of exciting. >> The only thing that I have to bring up um kind of piggybacking off of Superintendent Scheler's legislative update is what's called the Minnesota Permanent School Fund. I think Mr. Schuler put that in his update last week. >> Um it's that the leaders are considering putting on the ballot. It's a constitutional amendment to the it's an amendment to the Minnesota state constitution um for how to change how certain dollars are presented back to public schools. Right now that fund is $2.3 billion and the constitution states that only interest and dividends can be paid out. So, the principal keeps growing, growing, growing. Um, right now, I think we get about $68 per student. For us, it's about $90,000 a year. What they're wanting to do is change the verbiage on the constitution and and kind of using a like an endowment type model. So, you do tap into some of that principle, but it's still having it over the long term because that fund will just keep growing and it'll never be touched right now. And if that passes, it'll roughly double that $68. So now we're instead of looking at about 90,000 a year, it'd be about 180 for the district, just us alone. The big thing there is it's going to be on the ballot in November if it goes passes the house, which means the Minnesota voters need to approve it. And yeah, and and there's going to be a if if it gets to that point and if it's going to be on the ballot, there's going to be a lot more marketing to it, both from an MSBA uh perspective. It it's actually a push from MSBA. Um there's going to be a a marketing from that as well as um more communication to districts on how they can present that out, how they can talk to the >> to the constituents, the people in their communities about what it means. So, there's more to come on that, but uh that I just wanted to at least bring that up and say in November that might be on the ballot. Depends if it gets out of the legislative. So, >> thank you. >> That is what I have. So, with that, >> make a motion to second. >> We have a motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Miss Nathan. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose, nay. Motion is adjourned at 7:48 p.m.