I cut it before. Calling the meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. This is the board of directors regular school board meeting for Monday, June 23rd, 2025. Uh welcome to all of our visitors, guests, and media. Uh, as usual, starting tonight off with the board and administrative roll calls. Mr. Phelp here. Mr. Burns here. Miss Danielson here. Miss Schultz here. Miss Gatskco here. Miss Neon here. Mr. O'Neal here. Mr. Scheler here. Mr. Hennon here. Mr. Girtton here. Miss Okonnell here. Miss Payeyton here. Mr. View here. Mr. Samansky here. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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 were no public comments prior to the meeting. So, moving on. Um, do we have a motion to approve the agenda and addendums? So, moved. Second. Motion made by Miss Danielson, second by Miss Nton. Any further questions, comments on the agenda? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Item three, the consent agenda, which includes the school board minutes for the regular school board meeting on May 19th, 2025, the personnel consent agenda, and the business consent agenda. Um, I do want to call out specifically on the consent agenda, uh, there's a bunch of contracts that have been completed, uh, the district nurse activities director, uh, the teachers contract is also in there, as well as the community education director, uh, position. Um, however, that is also contingent on, um, Mr. Dton receiving the variance from the schoolboard administrators and completing the 125 hours of course work to get his license back up. Move for approval. Second have a motion made by uh Mr. O'Neal, seconded by Mr. Burns. Uh any further discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. And thank you uh to Mr. Scheler and then the personnel committee for all the work on the um contracts, especially the teachers. I believe we're one of the first districts actually, I think, to get it completed. So, congratulations and thank you. Yeah, big thanks to the teachers for all the help and support on that. I think this was a pretty smooth round this time and we really appreciate everybody's efforts in getting that done. So, thank you to the teachers for for your help there. I would echo that. It was a very very smooth process and we really appreciate the person. It's becoming old hat, right? All right. Item four, the recognitions, presentations, and showcase. Uh Mr. Samsky, uh the floor is yours. Good evening and thank you. With the completion of the spring sports, we have a couple of recognitions for our state qualifiers. This year in girls golf, we had one qualifier for the state meet, and that was Paige Ericson. [Applause] Hi, I just want your picture. Well done. She's only a ninth grader. How did you do in state? Good. Good. All right. That works. That works. Congratulations. [Applause] Hello. I'm here to represent uh Waterton Mirror Royals uh trap team. Who are you? What did I say? What's her name? Stacy Gets. I'm sorry. I should announce myself. I'm related to her. So, we have we have 50 kids out for trap. Um, not a lot of people know a lot about trap. Uh, roughly 12,000 kids participate in the league each year. It's about what we had. Uh, it's five-week season. We shoot 50 birds once a week. And to qualify for state like uh my three or our three uh royals did, they had to place in the top 100 overall or they had to place uh in the top 25 as a female. Um and and they did that. Uh they represented well. Mallerie, our our our female shooter or woman shooter now, uh she she play she placed uh number nine. Uh they which is exciting. Number nine in the state of Minnesota. Uh everybody that sees her shoot uh says she can go a long ways as a shooter. She's just naturally a really talented shooter. And uh uh the bummer is top eight places get a trophy and she was number nine. And uh I have a certificate for you Mallerie. [Applause] Well done, Mallerie. Maybe the Olympics. No. We'd love to see her come back as a coach someday. Um I I have two boys that qualified for state. Uh the uh to be one of the top 100, you had to have a 23.8 out of 25 uh broken clay pigeon average. uh extremely difficult for the the fiveweek season. We're battling rain, sleet, snow, wind. Uh we didn't have hail this year, did we? We didn't have hail this year. We had hail last year. Uh anyways, uh they represented amazingly. You remember where you placed in the end? 64. 64. And and Ryan was 35ish. Sure. They these these two guys over five weeks, Ryan and Eric uh tied at 23.8 average. They broke the same amount of birds. Uh Eric came from behind. He was fifth, then he was fourth, then he was third, then he was then he was tied with Ryan and he ended up uh taking Ryan by the time you figured out the reverse run and stuff like that. So he ended up being first in conference and uh uh 50 something in state, which uh congratulations. Uh and he's young. We have got many more years of seeing him shoot. Okay, thank you. Uh, come on up here. [Applause] Thank you. What about second for the whole team? Oh, the team did place second in conference this year. Um, we are just here. We are one of the we we are competing against teams that shoot a fall season and a spring season and they have a trial in the uh for the spring season and basically only we're we're we're we're battling against season teams that have 10th, 11th, and 12th graders only. And we're allowing sixth, seventh, and eighth graders shoot on our team. And to play second is a huge feat. Um uh uh the team we that beat us was Forest Lake, the longestablished program. Uh very big school and uh like I say, year round program tryyouts and upper classman only. So uh it's it's not a small uh accomplishment to place second. [Applause] picture of all of them. [Laughter] Grab the screen. Oh, there we go. And admin team, there's still spots in the front row. You're going to scare off all my coaches if you Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you again. Uh tonight, u our June meeting, we have our activities review. Uh very successful year as you can u tell by the recognitions that we've had. I think five of the nine months of the school year we had students here we recognized for either state accomplishments or something like that. So, it's a great credit to our our coaches. It's a great credit to our kids and our families. And I just like to say we we really appreciate this recognition. It's great that uh um there's some schools that have really no contact with the board. So, it's great that kids are able to come here and and be recognized. So, we really appreciate that. So, thank you very much. Uh, and with that, um, taking a look at the activities department. I was just waiting for, uh, Heather to hit the button, but she wasn't going to do that. Um, we have some of the goals for the activities department. First and foremost, it's about participation. We really, um, strive to increase our participation. We had an overall um, and we're just looking at the raw numbers. So, some of these athletes and participants are are counted twice. So if you're out for football, basketball, and that you're counted in this so multiple time, these aren't unduplicated numbers. But overall, compared to last year, we had 47 more participants in all of our activities compared to last year. So that's really a good thing. That's a very big positive. We also like to be competitive on the court, on the field, and and on the stage. And we were able to win three conference titles this year in girls soccer, their first conference title um as a program, gymnastics, uh wrestling, and we also had two individual titles in speech with Natalie Johnson and Trenton Frisbee. We have 104 conference titles, team titles in the Wright County Conference and I forget what the conference is that we belong to for a brief time many many many years ago, but that includes Minnesota River Conference as well, but 104 team um titles in school history. We also not only do we want to get a lot of kids out, we want to keep them out. And our goal is to have 80% of the um ninth graders that participated come back as 10th graders. and we achieved that this year with a 90% overall retaining of the freshman to their sophomore years. Um the next jump we like is keeping 60% from 10th grade to 11th grade and we were at 78.1%. Now there is a natural attrition. You typically have more freshmen out than you do seniors out. Um so it's just it's it's a natural thing. So um those numbers kind of fall right in line. Um we also promote uh the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and we took this from the student surveys that we um send out at the end of the seasons. But when he asked is the experience is the experience a positive one and again we're looking at 80% to say yes it was and we had 88.4 say that it was 89.3% of our participants believe their physical well-being improved and 92.4 four uh of our participants feel connected to their teammates, coaches, and program. And again, that's a credit to teammates. It's a credit to the kids, credit to the coaches, our adviserss, our directors, and and all of those folks involved in that. We also have high expectations when we have them out and keep them out. Um this year, our team GPA overall was 3.39. Um, one thing, if I had to complain one thing about my coaches and advisers, we don't do a great job of of announcing, hey, we got silver, we got gold, and we got this. So, the only one that reported back to me as far as the team, and these this is through this um coaches association awards, uh, robotics had silver. I know we've got a few more. I just don't know for sure. I think gymnastics um had one. And I don't know if they were gold or silver or not, but uh what'll happen, I'll be able to update that um sometime over the summer. I'll get an envelope with some uh placards and we'll get those up and then I'll update that. But right now, for sure, I know robotics did. Um 80% um our goal for participants to have the rules um clearly explained to them and their expectations. 95% of our kids said yes. Are the expectations rules are clear I can't talk but clearly explained. Uh we also had 86.2 of our participants um say that our rules were applied consistently to all. So that's another feather in the cap of our coaches and kids. Some of our other yearly recognitions, our Royal Triple Crown, these are the kids that were in three different sports through the seasons. We had 38 this year. We're down a little bit. Um we had a small senior class um this year as far as our our Triple Crown award. So, I don't know if 38 is still a good healthy number. We're usually in the mid-30s. Uh we were, I think, uh 41 last year, but I'm not sure. Our Royal High Five numbers are growing. We had 40 this year that participated in five of the 17 activities. And I think if you take a look at the picture of those kids, they're doing that. They're involved in all these activities and they're maintaining their grades and they're, you know, doing all this other kind of stuff as well and other volunteer work. So, it's it's really remarkable. um some of the updates from the high school league and the Wright County Conference. Right now, the Wright County Conference is as stable as we know it. There really isn't anything out there right now publicly as far as teams wanting to join or teams wanting to leave. So, for the most part, we're status quo. Um nine schools in the west, six schools in the east. Uh high school league, we've talked about this a little bit before, the nth grade governance will start July 1st. So, if you were an eighth grader this year, as of July 1st, the way the high school league will look at you as of July 1st is you are now a ninth grader. And moving forward, um an eighth grader as soon as they complete their eighth grade um schooling, they will become a ninth grader at that time. So, that'll be way back in in June from now on. The ninth grade governance really doesn't affect us very much. We've operated as if that was the case the entire time. There may be a few things that we'll have to do a little bit differently, but overall and for the most part, it'll be seamless and and you really won't notice anything. Current co-curricular coaching opportunities, we are searching for a JV girl soccer, a seventh grade football coach, and a seventh grade volleyball coach. We have leads on all of them. It's we're in the process of trying to finalize some things and and get that taken care of. Currently, we have no winter or no spring coaching openings and no activities or fine arts openings at this time as well. 48 days until August 11th and it all starts all over again. Currently, SWAT's going on. Uh we have 117 participants in SWAT this year. That's our highest SWAT numbers in eight years. Uh most of the youth camps, not all of the youth camps have been completed in the first couple weeks after the school after the school year. Uh we've also got high school camps that are going on throughout the summer and there's always open gyms and all sorts of stuff. And before we know it, August 4th, there'll be captain's practice and that kind of fun stuff. So, um as fun and successful and exciting as a year as it was, we're already gearing up towards August 11th and the start of a new year. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, moving on to our action items. The first action item is the acknowledgement of donations, contributions, and fundraising. Mr. Schuler. Uh, Mr. Chair, tonight I'd like to recognize three um donors um to our district. Uh the first is Watertown Lions Club to our summer youth theater for $3,500 for programming. also the American Legion Post 121 uh summer youth theater for $1,000 for again summer support of their program and uh Super Mileage uh donation to I think we have flipped those I bet uh Rita Quast uh donating to Super Mileage for supplies and again for the use of their Super Mileage car. So thank you to those donors. Very very generous. Again, I'll make a motion to approve the donation contributions and fundraising. I'll second. Motion made by Mr. Felt, seconded by Miss Danielson. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Item B, the second and final reads of district policies requiring review. Mr. Schuler. Mr. Chair and board, at the last meeting in May, we we kept these two policies on for a second read. Uh, as you may recall, the these two policies are not uh Minnesota schoolboard policies, our own local policies. Uh, so our our um had to do a little bit more uh research. Uh, Mr. Samansky was doing some work on the unmanned aerial uh drones, vehicle and drones uh just to stay in alignment with the Minnesota State High School League. And it sounds like uh we are uh in alignment with what they require and that's kind of where this was generated generated from originally. Um state high school league um using drones to for footage and other things. Um the policy committee said that looked good and are moving forward. And then finally uh the non-public and homeschool policy. And again just getting some clarification from Mr. Hen and Mr. Samansky in terms of um how these uh students can participate potentially in sports um and what that might look like. So um again, ready to move forward uh with a final read and approval. Move approval. I'll second. Motion made by Miss Schultz, seconded by Miss Gatskco. Any further discussion? Thank you policy committee for reviewing these two in its second form. Um, all right. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item C, Southwest Metro Long-Term Facilities Maintenance Resolution. Mr. Scheler. Yes. This is the first of two resolutions, an annual resolution in which uh our district is a member district of Southwest Metro uh intermediate school district 288. um we do pay a portion of their um long-term facility maintenance plan. And you can see to the bottom if you scroll all the way down what our proportionate amount is. I'll kind of get that a little bit larger. There you go. Um our usage is a little over 3%. So we're a pretty small user uh in terms of uh the services there, but certainly very valuable. Um but you can see our portion of the levy that we're uh contributing back to them. Um as you know, intermediate districts cannot um do their own levy. So they uh rely on their member districts to um help them uh fund that levy opportunities for LTFM and safe schools. So you'll see that next. Move approval. Second. Motion made by Mr. Burn, second by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion on the Southwest Metro LTFM resolution? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item D, the Southwest Metro Safe Schools resolution. Mr. Schuler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, uh the next resolution is the safe schools uh levy through Southwest Metro. And again, you can see our proportionate share there. um and that dollar amount that we contribute back to their safe schools levy. And I I know u Mr. Horton is here tonight. Thank you for coming. Just a real quick question. Um Dr. Horton, the safe schools levy, I know you do have a resource officer. I'm imagining that is part of where those dollars go to. Am I correct on that or um I can tell you that they go to one of the multiple statuto options we have, which I think are nine. Um top of my head, I do know some dollars do go towards the SRO officers. I just don't know what percentage of those dollars do go, but um yes, that would be correct to say that some of them officers. Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve the Southwest Metro Safe Schools resolution. Second. Who was that? Doesn't matter. All right. Ty goes to the runner. Uh motion made by Mr. Felt seconded by Mr. Onell. Uh, any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item E, the fiscal year 25 revised budget. Ms. Rder. Enjoy it. We're really slow. Um, I'm here to present the um Oh, I know. I got to get the right thing up. Sorry. I should close. I want to be talking about something that I'm not supposed to be talking about. Okay. The 25 2425 revises budget and the 2526 appro um proposed budget for next year. Um I'm just going to discuss the funds that we use in the school district. One is the general fund. Two is the food service. I've got two things going on here. I can do it for way too. Let me let me do it. Sounds good. All right. Uh fund two is the food service fund. Fund four is community education fund. Fund six is the construction fund. And fund seven is debt service. So I will go over that. Um I'll compare um the approved budget, the revised budget and then next year's budget and talk the changes. Okay. The next slide. Um, oh yeah. Yep. General fund. It's the largest fund. Uh, it's the primary fund. All the educ um K12 educational activities go through fund uh one and all financial resources are accounted in fund one. There are four different revenue components of fund one. the state which enrollment is a very large um part of this enrollment. The state revenue, the levy which is our tax payments, federal which is basically special ed and title and then our local which are our activity fees, our donations, interest and other miscellaneous items. As I said, enrollment impacts our state um revenue. For our 2425 proposed budget, we estimated the ADM to be,478.73. Uh the most recent ADM report, which was June 9th, reported us at 1,434.77. So, I did revise um the ADM for the revised budget and I used the number of 1446.99, which is a decrease of 31.74 from our approved budget back in a year ago. Um we're pretty close with 1434 and 1446. That's pretty close. We still have up until October 15th to do um submissions for our enrollment. So, I'm pretty confident we're going to get pretty close. 426. Um, I use the figure or we use the figure of 1428.70, which is a slight decrease of one slight a decrease of 18.29. Mainly, that's our leaving seniors and our smaller incoming kindergarten. The next slide just shows a progression or a yearly from 2015 to what we think 2026 is going to come up. You can see we had a little up and down and of course co we dropped and a little bit up and it's consistently going down and it's that bigger senior class leaving and only getting 90 if cross our fingers of kindergarten. So, we will watch it, of course, closely and monitor that and adjust funding as well. So, we're going to talk about revenue now. Um, the approved budget was 20.6 million of revenue. We're revising it at 21.7. Now, you're going to say, "Well, you just said that your enrollment went down. Why are you increasing the revenue?" There's um quite a few things. Special ed revenue. Last year was the first year that um they had cross subsidy increase. So I was a little um conservative, but I'm feeling confident that we're actually going to get it. So that was a large part of that um one point a little over a million increase. MA billing, she's going wild as uh Randy knows. She's collecting lots of money for us. So that um is an increase. Our interest did very well. Uh we did do uh our LED project which we didn't know we were going to do when we approved the budget. So there were uh a significant amount of rebates that we received. Student activities were very active. Um I budgeted quite low and the revenues were higher. And then the read literacy uh we knew we were getting some money when we approved the budget but we didn't know what it was. And so that's about about 120,000 of revenue that we're receiving. And then title again, we thought we were only going to get 70. They increased it and we got about 130. So there was quite a bit of an increase there. Now, you'll notice that most of those have reasons how you can spend it. So it's not like we were given a million dollars. Oh, you have an extra million dollars just to pay for the lights to turn on. That's not the case. So for 26, um, we're proposing 21.5 million. That is a decrease of 131,000 from our uh revised budget. Um it's really not much to talk about because it's only you and it's a very small increase or a decrease. So not much to say there. The next one I always like to show that we're still in line with the previous year. You'll see the 25 revised budget revenue. It's pretty comparable to the 26 proposed. um a little bit more state aid and a little less um local fees because we had the um LED rebates. So that got shifted to um stating. So the next one we'll talk Oh, anybody have any questions about revenues for fund one? Nope. We're going to jump into our expenditures. This is just a summary of how the state requires us to record our expenditures. It's a 17digit number and it's quite um specific when it's all put together and it shows exactly where the funds are going to. Not going to go through that. Any questions, you can always contact me. Um this again is talking about the objects and that's really what the expense is for. For the expenditures, when we approved the budget a year ago, it was 21.1 million. We are increasing that um by 962,000. Remember I said that we increased the revenue by a million. So the expenses are increasing about a million as well and it's for the same reasons um the MA billing the LED uh lighting project and then title expenses to name a couple of them. For the 26 proposed expenditures were um coming in at about 21.6. That's a decrease of 430,000 of um last uh the revised budget. Uh again, uh two graphs that compare the 25 spending to the 26 spending. Again, very similar. Um you'll see I think the biggest change really isn't much. It's very, very similar. So, a couple percents here and there. Boring is good. Yes, I I totally agree with that. So, that's our fund one in a nutshell. I will be talking about our fund balance at the end after I go through all the other things so you can see where we might land in uh the revised in 25 and 26. So, now we'll go to food service. um slight increase of revenues about 13,000 from the approved and that's just balancing out what we actually got um for next year about the same well an increase of about $80,000 just hoping that participation continues to increase expenditures um a slight increase of 153 361 from the um approved budget. The main reason for that increase is because we do have a large fund balance because of COVID. Um, and we've been purchasing some equipment. So, that is we didn't think we were going to do it or we did more from when we approved again in 2026. We are buying equipment, but we still have a little bit of a fund balance that we need to spend down. So, um I've proposed that about 46 I'm increasing 46,000 and that's due to um equipment. Just to let you know that the state does monitor fund two's fund balance um during COVID because of all of the federal money that we received. They did extend it to six months of um you could have six months of expenses in the fund balance and it's normally only three months. So, they gave us a couple years to spend that down. And I do believe 26 it goes back to three months. So, you'll just have to make sure you watch that. So, um equipment does get purchased cuz they don't like when you don't do that. Uh any questions on fund two? Okay. Fund four is community education. Uh within community education, there's different fund balances. Um there's the general, there's early childhood, there's school readiness, adult basic ed, and then the non-public aid and preschool screening which is in their um general uh fund balance. Um community ed um we had an approved budget of about 2.2 million. I'm revising it to about 2.4. It's an increase of 146 uh,000 and that's just due to the activity that happened and a proposed budget um for next year of 64,000. It is a decrease, call me conservative. Um the expenditures the approved um the revised expenditures are increased about 145 which is about how much the revenue remember it's fee based. So what they make they spend or they should. Um then for the proposed expenditures it's a small increase of 2.4 million. Fund six is our construction and hopefully by 2026 it will be gone. That's the goal. So we had um a revised I mean a proposed budget of 120,000. we revising it to the actual interest we did get which was it's about 43,000 next year because the money shrinking um I'm budgeted 30,000 for the interest the expenses um I had 5.5 million in there we only spent 4.5 so I did res um revise that and then for next year 1.6 six. And that is the end of the bond funds. Yay. That was um how long have we been doing this? Five years. Yeah, five years. So, it'll be six years. It'll be nice to get that to zero. Our debt service, you all should know that that is our principal and our interest of our bonds. We currently have five bonds. It displays when they're going to be paid off. One thing I do want to um remind you of is the abatement bond that we did in 2023. Um the interest for that first three years before we made a principal payment does get paid from the construction fund. So that is not in the um the debt service. The revenues they were at 4.8 million. uh there was no need to change it because every it was a good number. In 26 we have about 4.8 million. Again, consistency is boring. Um but that just follows our debt schedule. Expenditure is 4.9 million. There's no need to make a um a change. And then next year's um bond principle and interest is 4.6. Here I'm going to talk a little about fund balance. Um there are different types of fund balances that the state says that you can have. They're listed there and the different funds can have different fund balances. Um there's also in fund balances there's restricted fund balances. Fund um one and fund four do have restricted fund balances. Fund one is there's a list of the possible fund balances that a district can have and we don't have all of them. We do have some of them. And then in fund four, those are the four restricted fund balances that community ed can have. Unassigned fund balance is the funds that are left from your expenses and your revenue and they carry over every year. Um it's a good thing to have a fund balance. Um there's no real regulation on what a fund balance should be. Um our fund balance was just um tweaked a little bit this year and it says that we have to have a minimum of 10% of uh fund balance of our operating expenses. Uh the next slide shows a graph of what the fund balances and potential fund balances will be. Um, we did take that dip in 23 and that was because of the abatement bonds, but we came back up and we're going to hover around the same amount hopefully. Um, this I am going to take a small amount of time just to show you the first one, the revised budget fund summary overview. And this just shows first one. First one or second one? The first one. This is this year on where if you can see our total revenues are the 21.7 and our expenses are 22.1 that is deficit spending or are you at the bottom? Nope. Fund one up right. Just going to look right here. Oops. Up a little bit. Right there. This line right there. So 21.7 is our our revenue. 22.1 is our expenses. So that is expensing more than we're taking in of 383,000. If you go to the side, go up a little bit, Darren, please. Our unassigned fund balance, we're I'm expecting that it's going to go down by 116,000. So we will be deficit spending in our unassigned. I lied. That's an increase. It's not a negative. So, we will be increasing our unassigned fund balance, but we will be deficit spending our restricted funds by your LTFM, your medical uh MA, all of those numbers there. So, when you see that we're deficit spending 383, it's not really the um unassigned, it's our restricted funds in totality. In totality. Yes. So then if you want to just peek at the go out and peek at the 26, it looks about the same 80. I'm expecting 89,000 of an increase for the um assigned of the unassigned fund. It'll put our unassigned at 15.4% 4% and then a small amount of deficit spending with the restricted. So, and really 89,000 that's pretty even. So, um hopefully that can be obtained. Any questions? I don't. Okay. Anybody else? Y'all still awake? Yeah, I know. I'm I tend to be boring. Sorry. Um then I would ask the uh board to approve the revised budget uh for 2425 school year and the 2526. And you covered you covered both E and F which is E is the revised budget, F is the proposed budget. I did at the same in the same deck. So we just need one for each of the revised and uh one for the proposed. I make a motion to approve the uh FY25 revised budget. I'll second. Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion on the uh FY25 revised budget? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Moving on to item F, which is the FY26 proposed budget. Move approval. Second. Motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Miss Nathan. Any further discussion on the proposed budget? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Moving on to item G, the LTFM plan. Miss Rder, Mr. Scheler, keep it going. I'm going to take this one. Uh, you guys can continue sleeping. Um, this is an annual thing we have to do. Uh, the first three pages are revenue and it's driven all by formulas. Um, if you want to just go to the bottom of page three, that's what our amounts the state says on that last 62 line. It's a little over 600,000 each year. And then the next slide is and that just kind of ballparks ideas of where we might use that LTFM money, but we're not beholden to it. This is just revenue. Oh, that's revenue. Okay. This is just revenue and it's all figured by the state. So there's nothing that I did except to put 011 in our as our school district. So the next one I did have to um enter some stuff. This is what you were saying Hunter is it goes the top part is used to be the health and safety co codes in category one and then in category five is what we think we will do with our LTFM money. So you see a lot of things in red. There's legislation out there that we can put roofing on LTFM. So therefore, we're a if they're over $100,000, we can levy for them. So maybe when we have our large um roofing project, we'll be able to use what we have in the coffers and possibly do this and we wouldn't have to go out for voter approval. So that's a good thing. I didn't put anything in there because I don't know when we're going to go out, but that nothing on this will restrict what you can do with your money. This is just telling the state what you think you So, if you come down here and notice I don't have the big roofing project in there because I don't know what year you're going to do it, so I didn't put it in. So you can see the beginning fund balance, the revenue from the last sheet, and then the um expenditures from this sheet. And it carries all the way through. And if you did exactly what I told you to, you'd have um like 2.1 in uh I don't know what year that is, like 30 31, but you won't suspend it. Yeah, this is the state makes you do it. So I do need you to approve that those two documents. so we can send them into the state. Do you have any questions? No, I think I appreciate you mentioning the the bill that passed this legislative session. That's a big deal uh for districts and obviously we know roofs are one of the largest costs that uh you come up from time to time and I think we've got a really good plan with our roofs. Uh but this certainly is a potential vehicle to help make those a little bit more palatable in terms of the cost. So that's that's good news for doing the last little bit. Yeah. Move approval. I'll second. Motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Miss Danielson. Any further discussion on the LTFM plan before it gets sent to NDE? All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Nate. Motion carries. Item H, the insurance contract or renewal which is missed in the worker comp contract. Miss Rder. And this is the last time you're going to hear me speak at this meeting. Um the mist we had our renewal and the first page talks about the increase which is about a 9% in oh I lied 11.04 04 increase. So it's it's Wait a minute. No, it's not nine. I was right. What's this? It's a 9%. Now part of that now if you why I wanted property and casualty right there. Yes, it's 9%. Why I wanted to talk about this is I wanted to remind you all if you go to page 13 about how our insurance is structured. It is not like a normal insurance company. Um we are in uh we have 29 other districts that are in NIST and it's 13. Um how our coverage works is our first layer is the yellow and that's the individual school district's um deductible. It's either anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 depending on the size, what the districts have, all that misdetermines what each district's um deductible is. Ours is 25,000. Um and then it goes into the next layer, the green layer, which is $250,000 per occurrence, which comes from the pool. So out of our premium, we pay what we pay into them. We pay premiums and then we pay into the pool and they do increase that each year. And this is the amount where everybody pays the amount that they are told to pay that if we have a low claim year missed, we are able to get those that pool back. And there is one year and I can't remember what year it was, but there's like a million dollars left and they will distribute to the district once everything's all settled. So that's what's sort of nice about this is you have the option of possibly getting some funds back and then after the green then it goes into actual insurance. So and then of course we have an excess property um with travelers So, it's um it's good. So, I would highly recommend staying in for the long haul because being in it, we can wave the awful um increases. So, in our premium, our um did want to bring up the reason why it's nine is our loss fund did go up. We paid 86,000 last year and we we're contributing 97 806 this year. So that's part of the increase of it. It's not just the um insurance rates. Some of those member schools too are part of it as well. We have big we have little um our co-op is in there. Southwest Metro I think it's 29. Am I right on that number? Looks about right. I think I'm right. So that's any have anybody have any questions with miss? I I just have a So um it's kind of like a consortium more or less sort of like a sort of self-funded. Um so is this so school districts that aren't in this do they have their a different consortium or are they are they going out for bid individually about out for bid individual? That's and how often do we take it out to bid individually just to see if it's comparable? We have a board on the mist and every year they look at our renewals and they do go out for us. So they're constantly going out. I think um I can send you if you'd like the whole package of who they went to all the results. I I don't think it's in here. I think this is just the final. But they do heavily bid this and um and we have a very good cyber uh insurance which we were miss was ahead of the game on that and they actually did um offer more coverage two options for more coverage but I talked to our insurance rep and Dustin and at this point we're pretty good but every year they'll always mention it so we can always jump on if we want to. So, any other questions? Okay. And while we're talking increases, let's go to work comp. Work comp is pretty significant increase this year. Um, I think I'll tell you what page it's on, but our loss fund is on page seven. So there's a mod history and the mod history is what um they rate us, the insurance company rate us and we used to have in 2000 a very very low mod rate. Now we have a 1.16. So our premiums are going to go up because we have work comp claims. So one is average just FYI. Typically one is yeah we were under one for a long time so we did not see a lot of increases with our um insurance but we are going from 48,000 to 81,000 next year. So, um I did ask him to go cuz usually he'll come back with a bid and I'll say go and try to get something and they said they couldn't because of our our mod and and also um they do take into account the increase in payroll because it's based on payroll numbers and we do have an increase in payroll as well. So, so then fortunately hopefully it will um stay that way for 5 years and then they can increase but it's just the way it goes. So, right I guess you could make a motion on them hopefully. Move for approval on the mist and wood contracts. Second. Thank you. Motion made by Mr. O'Neal, seconded by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion on NIST for workers comp? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item I, food service contract. Mr. Schuler. Yes. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, as you know, we went out for a second bid on our food service proposal as MDE threw out the first round of bids or one specific bid u from a company. Um, so we did rebid that. Um, June 12th, we opened up the bids and uh, Mr. Felt, myself, and Lisa all did uh, the bid calculator looking at three different proposals from three companies. This time we actually had one additional uh company. Um through that process um it was determined that uh Taher was the low bid and uh we move forward with completing the um information that needs to go back to MDE for final approval. They did so uh got back to Lisa late on Friday. Uh luckily we got this on the agenda but um Taher again will be our food service management company um for the next year and it can renew for four years. Yes, thank you for not doing that. I I I just have one question actually that so I noticed that it said um child care. Do we not provide meals? Yes, we do. But we do a a vended meal. Um, Taher never wanted to pick it up because it's year round and they don't have staff in the summer. Oh. So, we get it through premier. Oh, it was on the business consent agenda. Premiere was on. So, we have to go out every five years or as well as that. Okay. And they're just for the CLC. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I that's that was my question. I just saw that it wasn't marked on the contract and I thought Yep. No. And the the three vendors that we got uh received bids on, two of the three were were different than the first bid. So the other one of the other um vendors from the first bid decided not to rebid. So that is where we were at. Um is there a motion to approve the food service contract? So move. I will second. Motion made by Mr. Burns, seconded by Mr. Felt. Any further discussion on the food service contract hearing? None. All those in favor say I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item J, District Official with authority, the Iowa, Mr. Scheler. Uh, Mr. Chair and board, each year there's a couple of items we have to take care of a yearly piece. And one of them is identifying who the uh Iowa person is in the district. And uh for the last few years we've had Heather Huan is our identified official with authority. Sounds so impressive. Um well she does have a lot. She is impressive. She does. Yes. So um she has said yes to this uh assignment and uh we're looking for a approval of Miss Huan to be our Iowa for next school year. So moved. I'll second. Motion made by Miss Nathan, seconded by Miss Gatskco. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose? Nay. Motion carries. And uh Miss Huan is the official with authority. Um moving on to item K, the MSHSL resolution. Mr. Schuler. Again, uh this is another resolution that we do annually um for the state high school league and um basically acknowledging that we are a member of the state high school league. Um this year um and Mr. Mr. Samansy can maybe correct me. There's we've traditionally watched a video um about why we play. Um I don't didn't see that this year. They dropped it. They did drop it. So you get the year off. Um I'm sure it'll come back again, but um there's no um no homework on your end as board members, but we are looking for uh approval to continue us uh in the Minnesota State High School League. I'll make a motion to approve uh the resolution 2527 for the MSHSL. We'll second. Okay. Yes. Hearing is not what it used to be. U motion made by Mr. Felt, seconded by Miss Danielson. Um any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Moving right along. Item L 2526, parent student handbooks. Mr. Scheler and the admin team. Uh yes, Mr. Chair. This um is another annual uh rights of passage where we approve the student uh parent handbooks. Uh what we've asked the principles to do is share some of the changes uh in their handbook. So the board is aware of that and uh again we'll be looking for your approval. We'll start with Miss Okonnell um sharing the elementary handbook uh changes. Good evening. Evening. Since we had a complete overhaul of handbooks last year, there are very minimal changes. Um you'll notice that we're just changing the date on the cover to update the new school year. Um we've had some changes to volunteers. also noted on page six, we're changing the guidance to reflect the guidance of our new background that we'll be doing for our new background checks. And then um adding in that there's a confidentiality agreement. I've included there the language so you can see what that language will be. And then on page 10, there's a change for student transportation including the guidance around ebikes and then adding in there our policies. We didn't have our specific district policies linked there, so I've included theirs those there as well. Now, those are the only changes that we're making in the handbook for the upcoming school year. Any questions? Boring is good. Yeah, keep it consistent. Exactly. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gertton. All right. I am going to really echo what Katie just said. Um the only noticeable change for students is on ebikes just to support the legislation. Uh other things are pretty logistical just around going from quarters to trimesters because of the master schedule change. So that's it. Any questions? Thank you. Mr. Hen, it's going to take you guys longer to walk up here than it is to go over. Unfortunately, I got a few more, but it won't take me long. Uh, a few things. One, just with the parent volunteer, we just had the link for the volunteer background check protocols was included. Um, the second one was the honor roll. We never really had a specific thing stated in how many classes you had to be entered in to qualify for the honor roll. So, for example, since we had a few kids, if they're only taking one class here, the rest of PSO and they get an A in the class, you know, should they make the A honor roll? Yeah. So, we we added something that they had to be in at least three courses at Watertown graded on the A throughF um grading scale to qualify. Just to clarify that um academic lettering system, again, we just had to change it. It was always in semesters. Now, we had to change over to trimesters. That was a pretty consistent thing to change quarters and semesters to trimesters. Um the fourth one was academic resource information. That's students who qualify for free blocks. The change with that was basically juniors now qualify and they could get up to three in a year. So again, just changing some language to make it um meet the change in the schedules. Um high school graduation ceremony. Again, a big thing there just we really emphasize it's a privilege on a right. And then we did add the part about if they have any outstanding fees, school property, things like that that they will they could be denied the right to participate in graduation exercises. Again, not something that any of us are ever going to want to do if we don't have to. But at the same time, it does give us a little bit of teeth to collect some of our fees that we struggle with with some of our students and families. And then lastly, for under the suicide prevention, it said that was on the back of the student ID and then the company we use doesn't print those that information on the back of the student ID. So, we just took that line out and just said these are information available. So, those are our changes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I make a motion to approve the changes to the three parent student handbooks. Second. Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Miss Nton. Any further discussion on the updates to the parent student handbooks? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item M. Recommendation for tenure. Mr. Scheler. Uh, Mr. chair. Uh each year we recommend uh the teachers that we're bringing forth for tenure status in the district. Uh we're kind of getting back on track. We got off track a a couple of years in terms of um the timing of this, but we always figure feel that the June meeting is a perfect opportunity to to share this. Um so at the elementary school, uh Miss Okonnell is bringing forth Leah Jacel and at the high school, uh Mr. Hennon is recommending Logan Spitzer. So again, uh these two teachers have completed three years and are being offered a fourth contract. And so very exciting and um again uh congratulations to both uh Miss Jacel and Mr. Spitzer for uh achieving tenure status. I'll move for approval for the recommended tenure changes. I'll second. Motion made by Miss Gets, seconded by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion on the tenure status hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. And we made it through that part of the agenda. Um, moving on to our review and information items. Uh, tonight we have uh Dr. Jeff Horton who's a superintendent of Southwest Metro. Um, were you going to come up and do your presentation? Come on up. Floor is yours. Mr. Chair, members of the board, Mr. Superintendent. Thank you very much for having me tonight. I'm Jeff Wharton. I'm the superintendent at Southwest Metro. Uh we have a great partnership with you. I've appreciated the leadership both of your board members and superintendent in navigating our system. Uh you are only a 3% user, but I would say for that 3% that's how we meet the individual needs of all of our students. And when we have some students that maybe have some needs that can't be met in a traditional system, we try to think about how we can be innovative, creative to go about meeting their needs and do that in a cost-effective way. We know that budgets are tight. We know things in the legislature are going to be a little tough the next few years. So, we continually look to explore how we can do that. Uh, and thanks to feedback from uh board members, superintendent, and um our community, we went through a process this last year where uh we did a thousand engagements around in the first 100 days. It was my first 100 days as superintendent at Southwest Metro. um followed that by six different comprehensive needs assessments analyzing safety, security, facilities, teaching and learning, communications, business services, HR functions, and other types of services. Um we move that into our portrait of graduate campaign. What are what are we looking for our graduates to leave Southwest Metro with? And then eventually our new strategic plan. Uh through that process, we had a 3,700% increase in communication and engagement in our system um from the prior process, which was pretty exciting. I think the biggest thing we learned is that all folks have voices. We just have to sometimes learn how to ask and listen. And so that was pretty exciting and uh you were very much a part of that process and very instrumental in determining where we go forward and how we can do that while containing costs. You know, that's very important. We can't just always be asking people for more money. We have to have we have to be able to show results. We have to be able to get it done, but we also have do that cost effectively. So, um thank you for all of your support in that process and I'm very excited with where we're going. Um, and thank you again and I would be happy to take any questions or I'll let you get on with the meeting, too. Well, thank you for sticking around. Absolutely. For for the most part. You know, you're at the end of like the longest meeting that we have. So, you know what? I actually enjoy board meetings. That's it's interesting. Everybody does them a little bit differently. So, I get to go out and see 19 different school board meetings, but you take little things away like I really like how they did that. So, I um I jokingly say that we have the all-star board. So once you get through prelims and get elected here, then you get to get to go to the All-Star board. So, but we get we get 11 different member districts coming together and we get all those ideas coming to one place. We have 11 amazing superintendents who come together. So, there's a place we're going to like solve some of education's biggest issues. We're a place where things like that are going to happen, I think. So, uh we're just really excited about all of you and and I'm learning here today just listening to you and I appreciate that. It gives me more context to learn about what great things are happening here and how we can be supportive in that process. So, I really thank you for providing me the opportunity to be here. I do like the uh appreciate the email newsletters and those are really nice just to highlight kind of what you're doing. So, that was good just to see some of the graduation GED. So, excellent. Well, thank you very much. That actually came my very first couple days. People were saying we need to just talk about more of what we're doing and so that really came from our board members and our superintendents who were my first meetings and said we just have to we need to just educate people on what's happening. So, thank you for acknowledging that, noticing that. I'm glad to hear that that's going okay. We actually have a 97% open rate on our internal communications and we're at Oh, wow. 60 was what what did right say it's six low 60% for our external one that goes out to like 6,000 people. Okay. So, we're people are opening it. So, whatever we're putting in there, people seem to be looking at a little bit. So, yeah. Nice. Thank you for that. No, I I I would echo, you know, Katie Joe's comment on that, too. It's one of those things where, you know, sitting at our table, we don't understand what Southwest really does and how it affects not just our students, but students across, you know, the Southwest Metro. Um, you know, we get an update from from Erica and and it's great, but yeah, that communication is good. It just helps reinforce the message of why we're here and why you're there as well. So, just the betterment of the students. So, definitely appreciate that. Thank you. One great thing and and Dr. Horton has done a fabulous job in his first year and I think Eric has summed it up best. He's always moving. He's always active and he's uh you've been you've tackled a lot in your first year. I still wonder if you sleep ever. But you know, the one thing I think maybe just to address uh Dr. Orton is just the fact that uh staffing has really come through last couple of years um when we were in some pretty dire straits in terms of the um Southwest Metro and and getting proper staffing for your program. So, if you could just give an update on that. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Um, some of the first things I heard were we have students that needs and we can't send them to you. Um, and the staff at Southwest Metro were sometimes saying when we do get our students, we're already at capacity. It's just creating unsafe situations for some of our programs. So, uh, last July over one-third of our positions were open in the district. And these are often hard to fill positions like special education setting for. So, uh, we pivoted. We said, where are the folks? and we looked across the state and we're short 167,000 workers in the state of Minnesota. So they're just not here. So we said we got to look national, we got to look international and uh we set up our program and as of now every classroom position has been filled in our system. We'll open the we also reorganized some of our facilities to now accommodate because some of our rooms were too small to do that. We've shifted our model and moved to more of a co-eing model because I can find staff to fill a model like that. And what that did was um it's going to eliminate all of our weight lists. It's going to allow us to uh move more effectively and and yeah, we're fully staffed which will be safer for students and staff. So that was quite the lift by our team and they did an amazing job. Our superintendents were great at giving us feedback. And we said, "What do you think about this crazy idea? You want to try this?" And like let's let's do it. And um we even took a look at our our turnover rates. And so we did a little a little overhiring knowing that we're going to get some summer turnover. So, by the time that happens, uh, doing an international hire is about a four-month process. If things go well, it can take even longer. So, we're like, "All right, well, we got to be in front of this because, uh, if someone resigns in August, it's January before we get them." So, uh, thanks to the superintendents and the board for entrusting me with that and so far, it's looking okay. That's great. You've made a lot of strides with facilities, too. Can you give a little facilities update for us? Uh we're still kind of going in the process with that, but yes, we um part of our needs assessment was, you know, no needs assessment lives in isolation. We need to think about how that interplays with everything else, which is why we did the six different needs assessments. We asked our staff and community what they wanted. But what we did is we really tried to evaluate, you know, thinking 30 years out, 50 years out, how are we programming and how are we doing that cost effectively. So that means moving some programs around. And um I think we all agreed that one we weren't using the capacity that we had to the maximum extent to support student learning and to be as efficient economically as maybe we could be. So uh this first phase is we did move some programs to some different buildings for the start of this next year and and that can be tough to do but I think people also understand when going through a process look at the longer term vision and we do have some facility needs. Um we're looking at some different concepts to try to get some things even closer here uh in this area to help control those transportation costs. We saw the 5% reduction at the state level. Um so we really are setting up a 10-year plan and we're doing that in a way where we're not coming to you and asking you to bond for more money. We're working within our means. just uh I've been a superintendent, assistant superintendent, special director, principal in greater Minnesota, urban, suburban settings and and I understand what it means to live in a budget and this is what we get from the state and so we can't just keep asking folks for money, right? So, how do we get that done? And we tried modeling it and what we learned is, hey, there is a path forward here. Uh we didn't know if it was there at first. We studied it and that's what we're currently working right now. So, we have our initial move right now, but then we'll have some phased approaches. You know, you can't just get it all done in one year. So, we're going to phase it in over multiple years and and uh make sure those facilities are safe for students. They're conducive to learning, but also working within uh the structures and limitations we have within our budget. So, I think we can get that done. At least that's what the projections are telling me. I'll let you know next year where we're at, but right now it's looking good. But, thank you. Anything else for Dr. Horton? No, just appreciate you coming out. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And feel free to stick around for the rest of the meeting, too. You know, I'm I'm actually going to. So, all right. I'm excited. Appreciate that. All right. Moving on to item B, strategic plan update. Mr. Scheler. Yeah. Tonight, I'd like to just outline uh as part of our strategic plan uh annual survey. So, um you'll see some results here. I think we have on screen. There we go. Um, I've just again we we we kind of revised our questions if if you recall a couple months ago when we brought this to you. Um, and I just want to share some results. So, the parent survey I think had five questions. Um, the first question and we had 193 responses which is up from from last year I think almost double. Uh, but the communication I received from the district is relevant, timely and effective. Um basically 93% agree or strongly agree um that that communication is relevant, timely and effective. Um district facilities are clean and well-maintained. Um again almost 95% uh agree or strongly agree that the uh facilities are clean and wellmaintained. So kudos to Mr. uh Lisman and his staff. Um, moving on, the district is fiscally responsible. Um, again, um, some really good results there as well. Um, kudos to the board and and Miss Raider for that. Again, as of 92% agree or strongly agree on that. Um, and there's our our parent survey. Um, the staff survey again. Um, little bit uh, five or six questions as well. Our district provides effective academic supports for all students. Again, um just about 93% of folks say that um we do we provide those uh supports for all students. Uh in terms of um communication from school and district leadership is clear, timely and relevant. Um again about 95% feel that uh they agree or strongly agree that that is the case. uh district supports my professional development and growth from a teacher standpoint. Um again, about uh 86 uh% of staff say um yeah, that that certainly uh fits the bill. So, we're we're meeting their needs there. And then lastly, uh I have a clear understanding of the district's mission and goals. Um and I think that's this exciting. This is about 97% of staff have a understanding of our mission and goals, which I think is is a great testament. Hopefully, we're getting that word out pretty clearly that we're all swimming in the right direction and rowing in the same direction. Not to steal from PJ Fleck, but um the boat is uh rowing the right way. So, um again, that's a that's great. And I think too it just reflects back on kind of, you know, from our strategic plan down to our school improvement plans at the building level right down to the teachers um um professional growth plans. It all kind of coming together to to really um meet student needs and following that mission and goal statement um and building opportunities and connections. So uh I'll certainly share those out on our website um here uh soon and folks can see that too. But little simplified this year, but I think we've got some really good feedback and some good numbers. Did we have a comment section on those? Um, this we did not. This year we did not do comments. So, okay. Can I make one suggestion? Absolutely. So, I'm sure we use the red and blue because it's royals colors, but I think if people don't read the key, they're going to look at the red and think that's negative. I'm guessing there was some discussion about this. Flip that. Yes, please. Yeah, probably probably still fix that before we put it out there. Yeah, I just People don't always read the key like they should and I'd hate for the green strongly incident. Yeah, I'd like this to show that we're doing great stuff. Absolutely. Were there comments last year, comment boxes last year? I believe so. Yeah. Y might be a consideration again for next year. You know, it sure it's a lot to sit through it. It it it's more the you want to know why somebody disagreed or strongly disagreed. You know, that that to me that that's where what what can we fix? What can be the focus? You know, if they say, "Hey, you're you know, you provide great academic support for all students." Okay. But if you're saying you don't or you disagree, well, tell us why. What what can be that fix? you know, and it can be it's anonymous, so hopefully they can, you know, feel comfortable expressing themselves that way. But that's how you get better. Well, in that specific question, I think that's a good point where there's 25%, you know, that are strongly agree, but there is a portion of disagreeing. So, why are they disagreeing? We need to dig a little deeper on on what's their why there. So, the staff, the development stuff, I'd be curious to know why. Yep. Why they feel that way? If they feel that way, what can we do? But again, I think the results are good. You know, I'm glad to see that people are rowing the boat. Um, you know, moving in that same direction and and you know, that that's exciting even though we're having a declining enrollment, but that's exciting that people are um buying into what we have here and that they're participating in the survey too that the numbers are increasing. Hopefully, those continue. Yeah. Yeah. And I know principles too did a really nice job at least with the staff of trying to get that in staff meeting where just take a few minutes to please complete this and get them in a spot like that where they they do it. It's it's it's appreciate it. So yeah. Anything else from Mr. Schuler? Thank you. Uh moving on to item C, the superintendent evaluation process. Um you should have seen a couple emails this week. Uh, one was from Mr. Schuler with his um the year- end goal summary and then an email from me with the uh uh survey. Please try to have that done by the by the 3. You know, I know it's a busy week with the fourth coming up. That's why I didn't put it on the 4th. Um, so just try to have that done, you know, as close to the third as you can. I'm going to work on getting the results July, so next month we'll have a close session after the meeting. Uh, and also as a reminder, I don't think the admin is here, so it should be uh quicker on that aspect um since they get the month off on that. So, we'll have a closed meeting there um and and discuss sort of the potential goals for for next year for Mr. Scheler um and then by the August meeting, we'll uh present the uh summary and then we'll approve his goals per the contract. So, um just wanted to give you guys the update on that. So again, please have uh the survey done as soon as possible. Um I linked uh Mr. Scheler's goal summary document a couple different places in there. So use that as the reference and use our strategic plan as a reference for coming up with goals. So questions, comments, concerns, complaints. We'll leave them in the email. Sounds about right. All right. Well, then we can move on to the admin reports. Uh, starting it off with, uh, Mr. Henning. Just a few things. Uh, summer school, we only have 10 kids participating in the summer school credit recovery, but that's actually a good sign because it means most of our kids are on track. So, that's positive. Um, staffing wise, um, terrific spot. I mean, we have arts and a long-term ELA to fill, but that's just um I mean, art will be filled July 1st when we can formally hire Emily Victory. And then we do have a replacement for the long-term English language arts for Miss Teeman. And then our new high school admin assistant, Becky Lau, started this p last Monday. So, it's been great to actually have her train with Crystal for a week or two before before Crystal transitions to the district office. Um, graduation was a huge success. I think we figured out we had about 1150 people there and I think all but two high school staff members were there. So just really cool. It turned out obviously being weather was obviously much better which made it nicer. But uh uh kids were obviously pretty happy. I mean it was a really good night and and just a great way to celebrate this class. Then lastly just working on finalizing some scheduling issues for next year. But otherwise like I said with with staffing I mean knock on wood in a spot right now. It's been it's a nice we're in a nice spot for the next school year. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Girtton. The birthday boy. Birthday guy. Should we sing? Should have worn the hot dog costume. Yeah. All right. I'm losing losing a bet here with Bob Hannon. Uh I'll make this brief. Um we have a couple staffing vacancies to fill. Uh our social worker, Emma Springer, just resigned. uh she was offered a really unique job. Uh has done a wonderful job, but she'll be she'll be leaving us. So, we recently posted for that. Uh we're still looking for a long-term fifth grade uh classroom teacher to fill in for Ashley Wise on her maternity leave. Uh we did just fill our long-term sub band teaching position uh with a college graduate, Elizabeth Delaney. So, she'll be coming in for a year to step in for Vicky Tam Anderson. So, those things are in the works. Uh, we're working on our schedule just like the high school. Uh, putting together that student schedule. Uh, and, um, we have teachers working on, uh, curriculum writing, a variety of teachers that have taken summer writing time for that. Um, couple other tidbits just really quick. I know I'm going to lose I'll lose this bet. Um, but I want to just talk real quickly about the end of the year. Some highlights. Um, super super proud of the leadership in our building coming from kids. We had 24 students this year participating as web leaders mentoring uh fifth graders, 22 student council members, 54 unified club students, 32 yearbook club students, 23 in our youth eco solutions club, and 22 peer mentors. So, lots of kids in the middle school. We've we're building that capacity. Kudos to our kids and our teachers. So, I'm just really proud of that. Just reflecting on that. Couple of other things. We had a great end of the year. Um our PTO uh supported coordinated another eighth grade celebration. Kids were outside. It was wonderful. Uh our American Legion uh John Wines came out and again uh gave an Americanism award to Adriana Gets. And then we had two eighth grade students of the year, one of our boys and girls, uh Martin Last and Lydia Holler that we celebrated. So just a lot to be really proud of. I know we're almost ending June here, but um didn't get a chance to share these things with you guys last time around. Um, last thing is, you know, um, we're in this cycle. Uh, we're already looking at, you know, come next month or come August, uh, we'll be back meeting with leadership teams and starting to work into our strategic planning or building goals. So, uh, wrapping up a positive school year and getting ready for the next one. Um, I'll miss you guys at the next board meeting, but I will see you in August. Any questions? Battle. Let's Let's hope so. Thank you. I just want to say the seventh grade wax museum was amazing. So if you ever get a chance, I hope you guys do it again next year. Yep. Go. Cuz it was really, really cool. Thank you for pointing that out. Such an amazing job. Ryan Jetma and Abby Pettit put together a project. Uh it's hard to really explain it, but very impressive. Kids worked extremely hard on this. It was very different. Um very positive feedback. We had lots of parents coming out, grandparents coming out. Kids were very enthusiastic about their work. So, it was super cool. Kudos to them. The pictures I thought it was great. It was so good. Yeah. Super creative. Mhm. Miss Okonnell, similar to Nick, I'm going to start by wrapping up the end of the year. So, since the last time I saw you, we had our celebration of learning evening on Thursday, May 22nd, which was a culminating event for students to showcase their growth over the course of the school year with their families. At this event, we unveiled the mural that we made with our artists and residents, which is now a permanent installation in our school. And we also highlighted our students achievements throughout the year um with a music video to our theme song for the year, which was The Champion by Carrie Underwood. and we had over 684 people in attendance during the course of that evening. So, it was a great night. And on May 28th, we had our field day, which looked a little different this year because we had a ninja warrior course for field day, which was met with rave reviews from students, parents, and of course, Coach Julie because it made the workload a lot easier for field day. Students loved it. Many said it was the best day ever and asked if they could do it again next year, which the PTO has set aside funds to do. So, we're looking to do that again next school year. Um, it can grow with each grade level. So, it was able to rise and shrink with every grade level that came out. So, it worked for fourth graders and it shrunk all the way down for itty bitties in kindergarten. So, everybody was able to have success with it. So, it was a really fun day. Um, on June 11th, our elementary teachers participated in a full day of professional development around our new literacy resource, Arts and Letters, to get an overview of how to use this curriculum in advance of launching it this fall. So, teams worked through frameworks to understand how to plan for a module and prepare for each lesson in advance of using it. And then we are looking to have our growing Royal Summer School program which will begin on July 7th. Unlike Bob, we are going to have the largest group that we've had in recent years. So, we will have 73 incoming kindergarteners through fourth graders, but we're looking at that as a great opportunity to protect the gra the gains that kids have made over the course of this academic school year and keep them from having learning loss over the course of the summer. So, we've really protected and invited anyone who is in tier 2 or tier three to come for this program. So, it runs for three hours a day. We've got five teachers that will be there teaching it. Miss Hagen, Miss Fleming, Miss Narlock, Miss Thompson, and Miss Johnson. So, we've got some preschoolers who are coming up for it and then all the way up through our third graders. So, it should be a great time. Any questions? All right. Thank you. I would just add one thing. Mrs. Okonnell didn't recognize herself, but uh she as of Wednesday afternoon, I had the privilege of of of going down to the University of Minnesota and being a part of her action research um project um which uh part of the Minnesota principles academy and Miss Okonnell's been a 2year member of that academy. It's a really neat opportunity to develop our young principles across the state and she was one of those and and a really cool cohort of of folks I got to meet as well uh that were part of that program. But um again just a really neat opportunity for her to share some of the results that she's seen as a principal and a leader in her building. Uh her presentation was on the science of reading in kindergarten specifically on the shift and how the change of that mindset of of staff and teachers uh and the results coming forward with the changes the with the science of reading. And so um she had an opportunity to share a 20 minute or so presentation which was really good and uh cool to share some of the great things that are happening. I think there was some w some wow moments from the the audience and probably 20 25 people in the audience that were like wow um really changing the dynamic there. So congratulations that was very thank you for being such a great representative of our school. Thank you. Well and thank you for allowing me and affording me that opportunity because I know it was a big ask to be out of the building for two years twice a month to be participating in that program down with at the U. So, thank you for supporting me in that. It was very helpful and I learned a lot. Thank you everybody. Thank you. And just to continue on, um I'd like to introduce our new community ed director. Um Amy Dimler was on here, but we're going to substitute tonight. Uh Tim Dalton. And Tim, if you'd come up and just uh introduce yourself if you would to the board and and welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Chair, board members. I am Tim Dalton. I am going to be the new community education director here and I'm very excited to be here. Um the opportunity um that this affords me is wonderful and we're going to do some great things here. Um I've worked in community education for quite a while in four different school districts. Um so I am wellversed um some close, some far and uh I'm excited to be here. I will say the couple things that really attracted me to your district was the the quality and breadth of the community education programs, the umbrella of programs that you had. Um very very well done um very good programs and I'm looking to build on that success that they've already had that they have and um you have a nice healthy budget which is all which is also attractive um for the community education program. So I'm excited to be here. I look forward to working with y'all. keep growing that budget and then we I'll do my best. Well, welcome. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yep. All right, Mr. View with all goodness. Bright presentation, bright shirt. I I'm all for it. Darn right. Here we go. Um, just wanted to share a couple of the highlights. Uh, basically representing FASTH for this year. So, um, you have this. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Nah, that's fine. Um, but again, as Miss Okonnell just spoke to and spoke about, it was another exceptional year uh in in terms of what we got from our kids out of FAST. Uh, eight out of the nine grades had higher than expected growth in math. That's 17 out of 18 grades over the last two years. All nine grades in reading had higher than expected growth in reading. Again, that's 16 out of 18 in the last two years. So what you'll see here is the last two years we've really last year was probably our exception. We made a huge jump last year. So we're continuing to move in that direction. Uh go ahead and change the shape slides. But um uh so it's really exciting. The highest growth rates since the pandemic in eighth uh seventh and eighth grade reading and in third grade math. So again, so in the last four or five years, we had the highest growth rates in those. U so it's excellent. Um, in a reading, more than half of the grades had more than 90% of the kids in the top two categories of ontrack uh or low risk. 67% overall when you averaged it out in all of the grades. Again, I'm comparing it to last year. We were so close. We were within a half a point of beating last year's um record-breaking um rate. So, very exciting. In math, five of the nine grades had more than 80% in those top two categories. And every grade was above 70%. With the overall K through8 math scores being 80 over 80% in those top two categories. So again, you know, if you've been listening to flipping the triangle when we got here two and three years ago, all of a sudden, I shouldn't say all of a sudden, with a lot of hard work, we're starting to move that so that we can uh provide the supports we need to the kids who need it and everybody else is getting a good base of education. So, super job there. Um, when we get the kids and we have the kids in those top two categories, we want to keep them there. So we had 93% of them maintained their spot in reading and 95% maintained that top category in math. So again once we get them there we want to keep them there. So very exciting overall kind of went up a couple things places here went down a couple places there but it's very similar to last year's record-breaking results in reading. Uh and then in math again the same thing. overperformed some places, underperformed a little bit with the exception of that on track and low uh risk rate in math. Um that was like way way high if you pardon my grammar. Um so I think that was all the slides that I had on that for a fast. Um I can't share any information with you on MCAs because that's embargoed until right after our board meeting in August. But I think we have some fun things to share with you when it's available. So nice. And are we gonna have some gifts in that presentation? Some sparkly presentations. I had gifts in this one. I know you did. I know. It was really cool. If you would like gifts, I can certainly find some gifts. One or two is probably okay. Okay. Seven or eight. You might be going away. But they're good. Yeah. No, you know, this is this is great information and and you know, this is stuff to be proud of, you know, not only from a board, but from an admin and and teacher side and kids, you know, it's very good information. It's very, like I said, great numbers. And so some of those areas that we dipped a little bit in, are those going to be focus areas kind of for next year or not so much? It's so hard to say because it's, you know, that's just more or less the fluctuation I think, you know, because it was if you want to say it was in within the margin of error it, you know, so I'm not terribly concerned about I'm just more excited about the trend that we've got going and and keep moving in that direction. Sounds good. Anything else for Mr. View? I would just say those last two slides where you said underperform first versus where you outperform, I'd flip that around, too. for people. It's what people see first. And I mean, there's a lot of great stuff happening and yes, there's always going to be work to be done, but let's talk about the good stuff first. Can do. Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Schuler. Well, Mr. Chair and board, my report is very short tonight. Um, I would just like to take a minute to uh recognize uh Miss Rder uh for 15 years. in the district. She didn't know this was coming, but uh again uh how fortunate we've been to have her uh in this role uh as finance director in the district for for 15 years. And I know uh has put the district in a really good financial position. I know not many people realize probably where this has come and you can kind of see that unassigned fund balance over the years at least grow and become really stable. And I think much of that is owed to her and the work that she's done with certainly a couple of superintendents before me, but uh certainly uh I have certainly valued her work in the last five years that I've been here and feel very fortunate. So we will be missed. She will be missed. Um but again, just want to take that uh moment to thank her because I know she doesn't like that, but it's well welld deserved. And again, thank you. And and I also want to echo what Mr. Schuler said and and you know, thank you for helping us out on the board. You know, we all get elected to these positions not really knowing what school finance is. You know, seven years ago, I knew finance. I didn't know school finance. Now, you know, kind of learning from you, you being able to talk to us and put it in in terms that we can all understand is very helpful. And I know that that's going to be missed. I'm going to miss that. um asking her all those dumb questions and then having her go, you guys can do what you want. Well, how is this going toffect how is this going to affect our, you know, unassigned fence? You're fine. You know, I'm going to miss those kind of conversations, but thank you for all your help for not only me, but everybody else on the board and the boards that came before us. So, thank you again. So, yes, don't be a stranger. Please come back and visit us. Come to a board meeting next perhaps. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. More importantly, enjoy enjoy your retirement. Well, you have some fun travels planned. And yes, very welcome. And if you need a travel agent, we might know somebody. And if you're ever, you know, want to come back and hang out with the the personnel committee, we happy to have you here. Right. Right. Ed done yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you uh didn't see the invite, uh Monday uh at noon we're going to celebrate uh have a 11. Thank you. 11 o'clock uh uh gorilla grill out. So airport is welcome and Mr. Scheler's grilling. So don't I don't I don't know if that's going to he's not going to be there till noon. Yeah, there till noon. Okay. All right. Own flipper, my own apron. We're all good. Well, thank you again, Mr. for everything the last learned a lot and it's been fun working with all of the board members fast and present. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, moving on to the board member reports. Anybody have anything? Not at this time. No. Southwest. Of course, we met on Tuesday and uh another great meeting. We uh Dr. Horton went through our strategic plan and um really went through all the work that everyone has done um with the pillars and really how we're going to get there with the steps and and just to make sure that we get that going which I think was really uh great presentation. It was supposed to be 30 minutes but we we did go a little bit over on that speaking. Yeah. And funny too because one of the board members had a little timer or two going for him. So we we gave him a hard time. Um other uh nice things too, we were able to have um as you mentioned Katie Joe, some of our uh graduates that were actually getting uh their GED. So they stopped by during uh during the meeting which I thought was super nice. and they got to uh tell us, you know, how important it was and uh really the background and how Southwest really helped them uh get to that day. So, that was really nice. Uh we also will be going through the contracts for the paras and the teachers which I'll be part of for the first time. We didn't do that too much before. Um, so we're getting a little bit more boards involved on that. And then, uh, we also next month will be going through his superintendent evaluation, which we hadn't done one before. So, uh, he'll be our first guinea pig, too, but I'm sure he's up for the challenge because he's done some amazing work. So, thanks again, too, for coming tonight. I think it's been nice to actually I'm sure for all the board members to put a face to all the good things happening with Southwest. So, thanks. That's it. Well, I guess the only other thing we had a finance committee meeting the other week to kind of in in prep for tonight's uh revised budget and and proposed budget. Um, I know we'll probably have one here, I would say, within the next month or so as well, uh, to meet and greet with, uh, the the new folks, SMS, that's going to be kind of helping out the finance. Uh, just so the finance committee gets familiar with them. Um, that is that's all that I have. There's been Do we get one person assigned to our district or is it kind of There's I think we have two. Okay. um right now one kind of a a business manager and then what was the other? It's sort of a a junior accountant account it's called but it is mainly one one person assigned to to Watertown Mayor but they might also be in two or three other districts as well. Um that is kind of that that process there. Uh nothing on the MSBA side. We haven't had any meetings or anything like that yet. Um I think summer's kind of quiet from the state school board side. So anything else anybody has? Personnel committee. We've got food service and custodians on the 25th and pair professionals on the 26. That's those are progressing. Are those the last couple or there are other other bargaining groups? That's it for this. Okay. That's plenty of plenty. I get it. Yeah. Thanks for Is there a strong feeling that you'll be done those two dates or you never know. I guess we'll see. To be determined. To be determined. All right. Like it. I make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second. Motion made by Miss Danny, second by Miss Schultz. All those in favor say I. I. Uh. All those opposed. Yep. Meeting is adjourned at 7:40 p.m.