Calling the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. This is the board of directors regular school board meeting for Monday, August 25th, 2025. Welcome to all of our visitors, guests, and media. Uh we'll start tonight out with the uh board and administrative roll calls. Mr. Felt here. Mr. Burns >> here, but evidently late. >> He had a minute. >> Miss Danielson >> here. >> Miss Schultz >> here. >> Miss Gatsco >> here, but not late. >> This time there was a comment there to be made. >> Miss Nathan >> here. >> Mr. O'Neal >> here. >> Mr. Scheler >> here. >> Mr. Hennon >> here. >> Mr. Mr. Girtton >> here. >> Miss Okonnell >> here. >> Miss Payeyton >> here. >> Mr. Dalton >> here. >> Mr. View >> here. >> Mr. Samansky >> here. >> All right. 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. [Music] 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 move. >> I'll second. >> Motion made by Miss Nathan, seconded by Miss Danielson. Any further discussion on the agenda or addendums? All right, hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nate. >> Motion carries. Next up is the consent agenda which includes the school board minutes from the July 28th, 2025 meeting, the personnel consent agenda, and the business consent agenda. >> Move approval. >> Second. >> Have a motion made by Mr. Burn, seconded by Miss Schultz. Any further discussion on the consent agenda items? >> All those in favor say I. I. >> I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Moving right along. Number four, the recognitions. presentations and showcase. Uh, Miss Mant, floor is yours for the American Legion Auxiliary Girls State and American Legion Boys State recognitions. >> Hello everyone. I'm Amy Mant. I'm a teacher at the high school and one of my fun duties from coaching speech is uh I also help head up boys and girls state and what it how how it comes to be is we Mr. Dr. Hennon and I send out information to coaches and teachers and students are nominated and then from there there's a process. We look at their grades. They have to have a certain GPA and then from there we meet with the American Legion representatives and um the students are notified that they received this honor to be sent. Uh just so you know, our local American Legion post, the one in Watertown and in New Germany and the women's auxiliary pay for it and it's about $400 some dollars per student to go. And this year, Mr. Hannah and I had so many students that were nominated and interested, five boys and five girls, and those legions put up extra money to cover them to go, which is really quite an amazing thing. And um I will let you guys ask about the the their experience here, but I do want to note that Riley Delaney was a first alternate to Girls Nation, which is quite an accomplishment. uh she could not be here tonight. So, I'm going to call the students that are here up and then you'll be able to ask them all your burning questions. So, let's first start with Emily Hexel [Music] [Applause] over there and then we'll move to our boys. Griffin gets go stand by Emily Ben Hart, Drew Isacson, Matthew Isacson. Oh yeah, that was a funny email. The Isacson's got an email that said, "Your son is being nominated for Boy State." And they both sent back separately. Which one? I'm like, hey, funny. Both. And last, my favorite, William M. [Applause] You may ask them what you'd like. >> Oh, I've got some good routine people here. Yes. >> Nice job. You got it. >> Well played. Well played. >> Any questions for him? Which portion of which portion did you participate in? Did each of you >> um I did um county roles just like trying to like get people to go up to our who's going to be like our state people. So we got people from each county and I got to pick like who we're going to send up as like our governor nominee and all this. And then I went to our state meeting and then also tried to run for attorney general was like pretty fun. Um got to be on like a team to help our um like a director for who like our actual like governor nominee and all that for a state party. >> I was the mayor of Minneapolis. >> I just got to run after a while. >> So I ran for a bunch of positions. Didn't get any. I then up to like the governor's race, I was doing a bunch of the tech stuff behind the scenes. So, that was pretty fun. that I did a lot more of the county level stuff and eventually up to state level with my city's treasurer at >> I worked in my city's I think I was in treasury for a little bit and then I moved up to work on our city's planks county planks which is just for our political parties after that I moved on to our state house and proposed numerous bills >> um I was in a city position because the government was all really new to me kind of. So I was city reporter um and then I didn't run for anything after that. So I was a witness in a mock trial. >> Should any proposed legislation around education? >> I think a lot of the points that people were making was focusing around education. Why don't you just say yes? >> Is that called leading the way? >> I propose two bills, both expanding education for either K through 12 or K through six, both for general ed and specifically language development in early years. >> How did those bills go? >> They didn't even get brought up. >> Welcome to politics. Any other highlights from the week? Things that were takeaways you came back with that, uh, >> um, just, you know, getting to meet a lot of new people from surrounding areas and, you know, getting to make a lot of new friends. >> Yeah. Like my group chat that we had for our like city, a lot of them still talk, still talk to each other and snap each other, so it's fun to know them. They're all from different parts. So, >> yeah. >> Did it light a fire for any of you to participate in politics going forward? >> I don't think it brought me like closer or further away. I think maybe like like city board or something like that later on. Just like going on to on the boards would be cool. I don't know about leading it, but just brought me to know more too. No, I got our city sued. >> The only thing we managed to do really was build two casinos. So, >> we we almost got sued, but you know, we got we got good lawyers. I only really started paying a little closer attention to current politics and maybe got a little more interest in politics in general. >> Yeah. >> Just like a general understanding. >> Yeah. >> Um I guess I just like broadened my horizons on like respect for every like position. Sure. >> Awesome. Anything else for >> would you recommend it to anybody? >> Yeah. Oh, for sure. >> It's a great experience. >> Yeah. [Music] >> Um, and just a big thank you to Mrs. Man, too, who's has done a really nice job of promoting this program. I think, um, her getting the word out and really spreading the word in the high school has really helped. And then to have her son and some good friends, I'm sure helps, too. Don't tie this into our Legion program, uh, our Veterans Day program in November. So, it's a nice tiein to with that program. They also all helped in one way or another for the Memorial Day event too, which is not even a school day. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you everybody. [Applause] >> Unless you want to learn more about Thank you. Next up is the building and grounds director update by uh Mr. Leeman. Now you have your clicker. >> Now I get a clicker. Good evening board. Uh nice to be here for my first Watertown Mayor School District's facility report of the year. Hopefully this will be an annual thing every year. Learn how to run this. Uh we'll start off with just some of the little things that we have in the in the district. We started with the custodians and we have three building leads that we have. Um Wade Miller and we all know Wade. He's been there for many years. He's the high school middle school lead. Jim Engan is our CLC lead and Alan Anderson is our elementary school lead. Um the custodians that we have at the high school is uh Joe Berios, Matt Randenburg, Dean Ginsman. Uh the middle school we have Zack Boy, Ryan Guy, and Sophie Coley. These three are three of our students, our high school students that also work part-time for us, filling in some full-time positions. Um, we'll talk more about that in a little bit. Uh, the CLC, you have Noah Detloff, Brandon Brewald, and the elementary school, I have Ken Co, and Elijah Detloff. Now, Elijah is um another graduate who just graduated this year and applied for a full-time position with us, and he'll be working full-time with us. Uh in the custodial news, some of the things that we've changed along the way in the last year, we did lose a few members due to different jobs this past year. Uh one retired back in October, Jim or John Hyde. Um if you remember John, he was at the elementary school and then two of our custodians left to pursue different jobs. Dave Wickland uh moved on to a different position. Uh it was a different school district and one had left to pursue a different job also, Sky Marie. um the hiring of our school students, the ones that we just talked about to fill custodial position positions. Um we've had some trouble trying to to fill those spots and so we decided that we we talked about it and added the ability to hire some high school students and it's been very very well. It's it's it's gone over good and um the kids love the work. They they're there 4 hours a day right after school and um they've also filled in some time during the weekends um when we've needed some help also too for for extra uh activities that are going on. And those three students that we talked about are still with us. They worked all summer with us and they're going to continue with us um throughout the school year until we do find a full-time position at the middle school. Uh we reallocated how we do some of our cleaning areas to make jobs more efficient. Um, we've done monthly audits on all the areas to maintain a high level of clean. We actually I actually go through all the rooms. On a monthly basis, we do it more often than that, but on a monthly basis, we actually fill out paperwork and let the guys know and the ladies know what things that are going really good and things that we need to work on a little bit. Um, we've added new cleaning equipment to replace old and worn out machines, condensed inventory, so we're using the same product throughout the district. Um, we've had too many uh too many issues where this custodian wants to use this product and this one wants to use that one and that school uses that and it was just it was just too much too much money sitting there. So, we decided that we're all going to use the same same chemicals, same cleaning for everything that we do and it's worked out very well so far. And then continual training with Hillyard and our resource training solutions to ensure that we're implementing the best and safest practices within our facility. Uh something we changed on the facility side is how we do building checks and boiler checks. Um we now do them on a weekly rotation and that person is also on the weekends. So before we had had uh could be three different guys doing doing building checks and all that on on each Saturday and Sunday and it was just getting to be too much on if we had an issue who to call. So now we've changed it so that we have one person that's on call for the weekend and that person's on on shouldn't say on call, but they do all the boiler checks and the building checks. And we've changed the kind of the times that we do them. We like to have them done between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. before they were just kind of doing willy-nilly. It'd be done 7:00 at night, 2:00 in the afternoon. And we just I didn't like how how we were just too spread out on that. It's a lot easier to have it done in the morning. Um when we do it all the time during the during the school year, we'll do it the same time on the weekends. And we added different areas in which we do checks to ensure that our building and the components are running at peak performance. Uh one of the projects that we're working on is the boiler project on the geothermal trying to get that up and running to to where it's supposed to be. Um our facilities committee is working hard on that to get that everything working like it should. Boiler 2 at the high school um needs a little attention right now. We have some parts that are coming in to fix that. And then we also have boilers that are all due for their tuneup kits, which in turn qualifies for rebates uh through Excel, which is kind of exciting. Uh beautifification at the high school. Um we've since the construction, you can see we've changed kind of the some of the areas. Some of these were started before I was there, but um they ended up pretty good. So I I'll take credit for that. Uh you can see door six there um on the on the top right picture. It changed quite a bit from what it used to look like. We got the parking lot there and then door seven and eight. Uh also we had added an outfield fence for the JV softball team. Um I was hoping someone whoever hit their first home run over the fence would save the ball. I don't know if that's happened or not, but but uh it look it looks very good. So, I'm hoping that sometime we can get uh, you know, netting on that outside fence, too. Couple scoreboards. We put a new video board in in the comp gym on one end and then just a regular board on the other end. Replace those. And the ones that uh we added also uh scoreboards in the middle school. And then we do have the the old boards that came out of there are for sale. So, if anybody needs something for their man cave, let me know. Uh, middle school. Um we redid the way we um on the parking lot here. Now last year um we noticed that there's a lot of cluster when people were pulling in and out all the time. So uh Principal Girk and I had sat down and tried to figure out the best way to to enable everybody with easy drop off and pickup. And as you can see everything is kind of in a counterclockwise way. They come in from Corey Avenue. They drive in the drop off arrows you can see there. And then everybody goes around in the same direction. Even when they're parked, they pull out the same direction. It's kind of a kind of a big oneway. And it's really helped in in the way things go um in the the flow of the traffic. District office. You can see the new new entrance there. I don't know what it looked like before, but it's pretty cool now. So, um and then uh where the cones are, that's also a walkway to to the um the stadium, and the kids use that all the time. the cones. At some time, I hope to take the cones out. So, we're still training people not to use that as a raceway and go all the way around, but sometimes we need to remind them not to go through there. So, community learning center. Um, that's the uh south entrance that's all been redone and along the new parking lot on that side. And also the uh east entrance um that we have done that's all been redone. And of course, we even that little old garage that we had, we had an issue with um our snow equipment wouldn't fit in there. So, we had um we remade the door and put a new garage door on there. So, now we can keep everything inside. Uh new baseball field that's done done up very well. Looks very nice. I I believe as you can see, it's added a new back stop and side fence. Um, on the third base side, as you can see, we do not have a fence that goes all the way down the third base line because we do have our sledding hill still there, and we don't want I don't want kids to run into that. So, there's our new new pickle ball court, basketball court, and along with uh, you know, the ever famous sliding hill that you see all the kids using all the time. So, >> uh, West Elementary, excuse me, uh, elementary school. We got the, uh, I'm trying to remember my directions there. Southside, the front entrance. Um, if you remember, this used to be prairie grasses all over there. And it just in time, we just we just felt that um, it just wasn't looking the best. So, we decided to cut the center part down, make it all grass, and I think it looks very very nice. Now, we still have the prairie grasses around the edges, but this changes the the way it looks, and I think it just it makes it add adds a lot to it when now you can see see the areas and and more grass area there. Some of the upcoming projects, we want to get the geothermal system running as it should be. Um, upgrade the building automation system, uh, fixing the hot water issues we had in the pool locker rooms, which just got completed last week. Evidently, we didn't have hot water in the showers for many years, and we finally figured out what was wrong. Things were plumbed in wrong, and now they're working. So, and to continue working to get the preventive predictive maintenance program up and running. Some of the goals for next year, uh, work with some of my goals for next year is work with the finance team on budgets and areas to save money. uh more training for myself and for my team on different aspects on saving time and money for the district. Continuing my education with on facilities management through mass and other organizations to better serve our district and to make Watertown Mayor School District a place where students and staff can be very proud to say they work in a clean, safe and well-maintained facility that they can be proud of. 98% this is something we are very proud of. So, the year- end parent survey, 98% said they highly agree or agree that the buildings are clean and well-maintained. And that's a huge thanks to our maintenance and custodial teams. They've done a great job. 98% is huge. I was hoping for 70 to 75. So, now my dad would say, "Well, why didn't you get 99%." So, that's what we'll strive for next year. So, [Music] so in conclusion, a couple things I always tell my my my team is you never get a second chance to make first impression and first impressions are lasting impressions. So, with those they that's why we're at a 98%. So, thanks to everyone for making my first year a very great year. So, I appreciate it. So, any questions? >> No. Fantastic. >> I guess from my perspective, you've been here a year. Yeah. Someone's got to ask a question. Um, >> have you been identifying kind of key areas that that to kind of focus on outside of your goals for like next year, two years? I mean, we've gone through a lot of the bond items. We know obviously evident by the pictures that you have on there, you know, kind of are you kind of putting together sort of what's that next step? >> Yeah, so some of some of the things are the roofs that are on the buildings. I know we need to we need to look at those. Those are getting kind of old. Um, and we also have we just replaced carpeting in uh three of the high school rooms that were that were in dire need of of of replacing. Um, we did have a bunch of attic stock that we used up for those three rooms. So, we, you know, started and hopefully in the next few years that we can just start doing three or four rooms each year. So, >> but >> awesome. Anything else? >> All right. Thank you very much. Great job. All right, moving on to the action items. Item A, acknowledgement of donation, contributions, and fundraising. Mr. Schuler. >> Yeah, Mr. Chair and board members, we have uh three donations to recognize uh for this month of August, the Wiretown Lions uh donation to the Spanish department, $2,000 to help pay for uh their student trip uh to Spain. um Russ and Katie Flom from a mayor prize here in Watertown uh donation to the district office for just about $300 for lunch for new teacher orientation and their mentors which happened last week. So the Russ has been doing that I think for the last five years. It's very nice. Um and Katie as well and also uh Nikki and Nathaniel McNeely um donation to the district office. Um, again, this was for lunch last week on our second day of the new teacher workshop. Um, as you probably recall, we do go on a bus tour of Watertown and Mayor. Um, and uh, we stop at lunch and have lunch in Mayor. Um, talk a little about that in my update, but um, the McNeelies for the last 5 years have donated a a lunch and uh, at the Mexican restaurant which is now called El Humidor. Say that right? >> I think so. >> All right. Very delicious lunch and very thoughtful of the family. So, thank you to all those donors. >> I make a motion to approve the donations and contributions. Second. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. And thank you again for everyone that has donated whether it's money or food. Um item B, the second and final read of district policies requiring review. Mr. Scheler. >> Mr. Mr. Chair and board members, we brought uh these last two um policies back to you. If you recall back in July, uh we approved uh a number of policies that were um up for some change due to uh statute changes. um overdose medication. We were holding on to get our district nurse back and she was able to weigh in and talk a little bit more and review the nlloxxone um requirements and and was comfortable moving forward with the recommendations as MSBA stated. Um also the literacy and the read act um Mr. Vao came back u for the summer and had an opportunity to take a little deeper dive. Um and again not much impact there. Um just some again language changes. Um there is a requirement that you have to do an annual screening of K3 students by February 15th each year. Um so just some some additional requirements a part of the read act. I think this will continue to evolve as the read act evolves. It's it's a huge piece of legislature and and um but we're moving forward. Uh the last policy you may not see though you do not see is student attendance. Um last week uh Mr. Girtton uh was tasked with kind of pulling together our admin assistants who work on attendance and our principles to kind of work through that policy and I think I know they they made some really nice headway. Um we just weren't comfortable bringing that forward at this point. We're going to wait uh till September to bring it back to you as we have some more time as a leadership team to kind of um take some time to look through that. And um a lot of it is just how we code things. Um we know we've talked a lot about our chronic attendance um goals and I think a lot of the fund a lot of the feedback we've been getting from admin and and our admin assistance is we have to revisit those codes. Uh it's our understanding the codes were were changed probably two or three superintendent ago even. Um, so it's just time to revisit that and see um how we can be a little bit more accommodating and and maybe not so structured on some of our codes in terms of attendance. So we'll we'll report back to you in September on that. So the school year will start with the current uh student attendance attendance policy in place. Obviously we'll have to make an a change once the school year starts, but I think that'll be okay. So anything else that I missed, Miss Hu? Okay. Will we be getting more information regarding the the coding just so we know like what we just >> Yes. Right. So once we get that feedback I just didn't know how like in depth we would get to know but okay >> yeah this policy meeting you back. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Is there a motion? >> I make a motion to approve the final reads. >> Second. >> Motion made by Miss Danielson. Second by Mr. Burns. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item D, 2025 2026, food service pricing. Mr. Scheler. >> Yes. Thanks, Mr. Chair. And, um, you're probably wondering why this is back on our agenda. Um, as I shared, I think my weekly update, uh, there was, um, little snafu. So, what you approved last, uh, month, uh, we came back quickly. Uh Lena Walters, to her credit, um was reviewing our board minutes and said, "Well, wait a minute. Uh that second um breakfast is is not correct." And um we thought it was 240. Uh all the information Heather had um was saying 240. Everything we used in our in our communication was 240. But at some point last year, we learned that that number changed and either through Miss Rder or our food service director, it never got communicated back. Although students were charged at the 285 rate last year as far as we know. So, uh for a full year they were charged at that rate, it just didn't get communicated. Um we apologize for that. So, what we're asking uh is to kind of uh amend what we approved last month in terms of the second meal, our second lunch or breakfast. Um and just raise it to the price it currently is at. Um so the students won't feel any change. Again, this is second, so the first one is still free. Um, but we're changing it to where it should have been originally for our mistake. So, move approval. >> I'll second. >> Motion made by Mr. Bird, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion on the food service price? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Item F, the 2526 superintendent goals. Mr. Schuler. Yeah. Uh again, thank you for the opportunity to share some of my goals. Um again, tonight um you can see kind of the high level um goals that I have placed in, uh to in front of you. And uh again, I know last month we had an opportunity to kind of uh talk through some of these in our in our close session. Um again uh four goals this year um focused around um financial stewardship and and kind of that transition of F SMS um making sure that we have some really good continuity of operations and transparency along the way there as goal number one. Goal number two is um working on increasing that collaboration between young Royals uh preschool and our kindergarten. Um, again, just to to work on that developmentally appropriate transition uh to kindergarten and making sure we we're encapsulating all those young royals and and getting them to our kindergarten classrooms. Um, that's under learner outcomes. And then um goal three, development of a social media strategic plan. Um, and Miss Euan and I will be working on that um putting that together. And again, the idea there of just focusing in our communications on really going tying back to our our strategic plan. And so trying to relate a lot of our post back to that is our overall goal there. And then um lastly is just again uh leading our leadership team through the problems of practice professional development um uh process and we started that back in early August and we'll continue that uh throughout the year and we've identified actually a problem already and we're starting to uh work through that and we we just learned this last week that we'll have a um kind of a consultant working with us from resource and training kind of helping us along uh with our process. So, she'll be joining us here in September or October to help us continue that process. And um it's a good start. Again, anytime you can have three days together as a group, um we got a lot a lot accomplished. So, any questions? >> Can you talk about measurements? Are you going to add them in here on how we're going to measure success? >> That was on the previous document that was shared previously. >> Yep. >> Okay. [Music] I'll read that. >> Excellent. >> I'll make a motion to approve the 2526 superintendent goals. >> I'll second. >> Did you read it, Lisa? >> I did read it. >> Okay. All right. >> Have a motion made by Mr. Felt, seconded by Miss Nathan. Uh, any further discussion on the goals for next year? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Item G, approval of the Watertown Mayor employee handbook. Mr. Schuler. >> Yes. Last uh year, about the same time in August, we brought forth our uh staff handbook. And if you recall, we have not had a handbook I think over 10 years. Um so uh with the help of our district office staff, um Cindy and Lisa Rder and Heather and myself, we uh were able to to put together a pretty comprehensive handbook. Um, year one was great, although we knew that there would be some tweaks. Um, what we did ask, um, of all of our employee groups is have the opportunity to weigh in, uh, throughout the year and give us some feedback. Um, so, uh, you can see the handbook, but you can also see some changes that we, uh, instituted as well. That's under the notes there. Um, so quite a bit of changes actually in terms of just things that were needed or brought to our attention or areas that we softened a little bit maybe that sounded a little bit little topheavy if you will um top down but um I think uh it was a really nice process. I do appreciate uh Ed Randelle from the teacher association too to give us some good feedback on on what staff was saying. Um you know could be some compromises if you will. Um, so any specific questions that you have? Um, otherwise our goal there is to get this approved tonight and roll this out to staff. We do ask staff to sign off on this in Smart ER, which is our management system. So they will go in, I think we're kind of setting a midepptember u sign off date so they at least have the opportunity to read it, at least say they've read it. Um, and then um, we'll we'll get that approved and and it'll move forward. But it it has provided a nice uh document uh for our admin team um to kind of fall back to as well when things may come up. Is there a motion? >> Approval. >> Second. >> Motion made by Mr. O'Neal, seconded by Miss Gets. Any further discussion on the employee handbook? >> No, I'll just make a comment. we've um as we're going through negotiations, there's certain pieces that we realize are covered here. So, we you know are that don't need to be part of contracts and so forth. So, it really has been a helpful document because oftentimes with those bargaining groups there's certain >> whether it's you know >> helps with the language and and >> Exactly. Exactly. So, this has been c certainly helpful >> as long as we don't remove it from the handbook. >> Correct. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. And that ends the action items of the evening. Um, next up for the review and information items, uh, the 2425 superintendent evaluation summary. Um, as we all know, we had a close session at the end of last meeting um, to go over Mr. Scheler's uh, performance review for the last year. Um, and I got a little statement to read and and then we can kind of move on. Um, the Watertown Mayor Board of Education along with Superintendent Schuler are continuing to develop a more robust evaluation process that we kind of review each year and we utilize, you know, applicable resources and, you know, try to create the most fair and equitable process we we can. Um for the 2024 2022 school year, Superintendent Schuler was evaluated based on the four goals which are approved at the August uh 2024 board meeting. The overall goals scored they range from a 3.0 to a 3.9 out of a possible 4.0 scale showing particular strength in the development of the Watertown mayor legislative platform design as well as continued development of the year 4 MTSS plan. The school board consensus and the overall evaluation was a score of 3.6 out of 4.0. Based on that rating, Superintendent Scheler continues to be effective in his leadership role and leading the district and that we, the Watertown Mayor Board of Education, continue to support Superintendent Scheler's development and the future of ISD 111. So there it is. Speak a lot. Sorry. >> Thank you. >> So congratulations Darren. Thank you again for all the hard work that you've put through from from the last year and you know obviously these goals that we approved just now to kind of >> help move the district forward. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> All right. With that being said, up to the admin reports starting off with Mr. Hennon. >> Uh good evening. Uh good first day with teachers back. I mean, although like I told a lot of them, I swear I've seen a lot of them for the last two weeks in the building anyway with, you know, activities. So, it's been pretty busy, but good to have everybody back. You know, we had a good workshop, a lot of training sessions. Um, had a different feel. We only had one new teacher, so it's a little bit different when you don't have a ton of new staff. Uh, that new teachers, um, I take I mean, Lauren Foley is technically new as a special teacher, but she was there all year last year. Spencer Rogan is our new CTE um teacher. We actually brought Tim Josh in at the end of July for two days of training for her and Nathan. Uh really beneficial. I think um both of them I think he was there for I want to say eight to nine hours each day with them and just going through all. So that was really beneficial and she's jumped right in. Going to be really good addition. Uh Becky Lars, our new admin assistant. She's been there again for a few months and really been a terrific addition. Wednesday night is our freshman uh orientation. Much like in the past, it'll be similar where there'll be a time where they get to tour the building. Student activity groups will be there. Um we'll meet with all of them. Then there's going to be again that 15 to 20 minutes where we send kids off on their own to kind of again be there without the parents hovering over them, opening lockers and going to rooms and everything just to get those first day jitters out. And it's always a a wellreceived I think night just to get to it's just different. Even though a lot of them are in the high school, it's just a different you know time for them. And then lastly, again, you hear a lot from me. One of our big things this year is we're going to focus a lot on our on our profile of a graduate implementation. Even though we've been talking about for years, we are going to make a conscious effort to get more data from our kids on what we are um implementing and and what they think are focused on because that is a I mean it's really what is a big deal to us and they leave our our building that they are ready for that next step. So that's going to be a really big focus for us. Um, and then the other one is just the six phase six period day transition, you know, and overall again it's it's been, you know, I really don't worry about the kids as much. I probably do about the adults, both teachers and parents. I mean, just with the change. Um, but again, it's it's we're prepared. You know, kids in some respects, you know, I think kids got 97% of their initial alternate requests. So, I mean, that didn't if anything that was more than ever in a block schedule. >> It's just going to be different. Um, and we know that and we've talked a lot that's going to be a part of our um, reflective practice team as well as just to keep talking about that and but again overall I mean I couldn't ask for it's been an overall really good transition. I was really worried that the kids weren't going to get what they wanted and to get 97% of what you want is I mean you can't get too much better than that. So >> any questions? >> No. My high school student was very pleased with her schedule. So >> yeah, like I said overall it turned out really good. >> Yeah, >> Mr. at least been at 98% early. So, I mean, it does get better than that. >> I can give you numbers, too, Jeff. I can say I got 99. You know, >> you wait till next year. Not 99.9 or something. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Girtton. >> Oh, good evening everybody. Uh, we'll start with the master schedule. Um for us we're going to ask for grace. Uh it will take time to help students, parents and staff work together on understanding you know the elective piece. Uh but the bottom line is it just it has created a lot of opportunity but not everybody gets everything they want and it's year one. Um, but just to give you an impression of what I mean by that, uh, we added strength training and condition courses, industrial tech courses, a medical detective STEM course, pure mentorship opportunities. We expanded on that, and CTE courses. We're also able to use some of our classroom teachers and shuffle them into intervention roles. We're now we're able to take the elementary model for intervention and really target fifth and sixth grade. So, a lot of opportunities on both sides um for kids. Uh we'll have to get used to logistics and we'll have to be more collaborative. We have 12 shared staff, which is over 30% of our middle school teaching staff. So, things have changed there, but the benefits outweigh um some of the the newnesses of of learning how to collaborate and work work together. So, lot of opportunity. Thank you. Um couple staffing updates. We fortunately uh maintain uh the majority of staff. We did hire a long-term sub, uh, Elizabeth Delaney to fill in for Vicky Tam Anderson. Uh, we continued to monitor her blog. I've chatted with her a little bit. She's in really good spirits and appreciates taking the year off to stay home, but at the same time, you know, acknowledges this feels so weird. >> Um, I'm so used to that, you know, my lifestyle and it's changing. Uh, we also hired a new counselor, Elizabeth Langlo. she stepped in uh as our counselor and good timing on that because we have to learn how to navigate through um scheduling and be more flexible with kids and tailor those schedules. She'll have that background. Uh lastly, we secured Luke Herman a week ago to fill in for Ashley Wise. She uh is taking a maternity leave and then he'll go from that position into Hannah Isles maternity leave. And today I found out I'll have two more coming down the pike. We'll talk about those later. So, um, growing families, uh, with staff at Water Tower Middle School, but that's all good. Um, we, uh, started actually transitioning last week as far as bringing kids back in. We had a really good open house for fifth grade. Uh, and thanks to our web leaders, uh, for doing that. Our eighth graders continue to provide just really good mentorship. And it's just, it's a pleasure to be uh, in the hallways watching kids open lockers. Uh, they just, they have it. parents and kids feel really good about transitioning. So, we had a really good turnout. We'll do our 68 open house this Wednesday. So, things are moving along really well there. Uh leadership team met a couple weeks ago and set building goals. Our focus remains on connections, really relationships and culture. Uh that's number one. Uh the world's changing. Kids are getting their hands on technology. they're becoming very digital, but they need social emotional growth, and I think parents see that as well. So, really doubling down on that values piece. The other piece is we're just going to continue marching along as part of our strategic plan on our our reading and math competency. We've got to continue to close that gap. Um, kind of lastly, uh, just, uh, workshop today, very tech heavy, uh, for middle school staff. So, thank you to our district and our technology team. We're going to uh district- owned devices. They'll be easier to manage. Uh we'll have accurate results from kids with assessments. Um but the staff, their heads right now are in learning a lot of new technology, how to manage that, how to support that. So, um just really happy with the way things are rolling out. It's been a good first day. Any questions, comments from anybody? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Miss Okonnell. We're going to start with learner outcomes. Um, we had summer school this summer. We were originally supposed to have 73 students attending summer school, but there's a difference in time between when we register students and when the program starts. So, by the time we started, we had 64 who were still planning to attend. Parents changed their mind for various reasons. So, on any given day, we had about 80% attendance. So roughly 46 students on any given day. Um when they attended each day, we had hands-on learning. They learned about gardening and spent time outside in the garden. They rotated out there each day a class was out there. And then they built connections with peers and teachers who they maybe didn't know prior to summer school. So a huge thank you to Miss Hagen, Miss Fleming, Miss Narlock, Miss Thompson, and Miss Johnson for creating a highly engaging program. We heard positive praise from both the students and the parents who had students attending the program. In fact, one of the students in Miss Johnson's program heard that Miss Johnson has another job where she works at a restaurant in Waconia and said, "We have to go there." So, they turned out at the restaurant, the student, and his dad just to see her working there and talk about how amazing the program was, which is kind of a feat when you have kids working on math because they're behind in math for them to want to go see someone. um in partnerships and people. On July 22nd, we hosted our second freezies and fun event with our PTO out on the playground. The event provides an opportunity for kids and families to connect during the summer month. And it was great that we had freezies because it was a super hot evening, especially if you were standing on the asphalt just handing out the freezies. It was very hot standing there. It was well attended and we had positive feedback from that event as well. kids just like seeing each other and it was the day well the weekend before the SYT program so they were all excited to talk about who had what role and how practices were going. So it was a great connection and then today we kicked off our staff coming back with our new theme for the year. You know we like a good theme at the elementary school. So our theme is heroes of learning unleash your superpower. So at today's staff meeting we launched the theme with our hero reveal day. Our cafeteria was filled with all sorts of hero decorations which will be moved to the front lobby for kids as they return. We'll be celebrating the unique strengths. We did this today with staff members finding their superpowers such as creativity, resilience, problem solving, and kindness. We took time to recognize how strong we each are as individuals, then pulled together to find our superpowers together and talk about how strong we are when we work together. We also took time to discover our hero hero identities and alter egos, which set the tone for a year that's sure to be empowering for both our students and our staff. This theme will help us discover and develop our superpowers, especially those of being reading superheroes as we implement the new ELA standards and our new ELA curriculum. Um, when we talk about being reading superheroes, we will talk about specifically the superpowers of decoding, fluency, and comprehension. And when we welcomed everyone back today, we have just a few new staff members at the elementary. We have a new sped teacher, Amaya Matskco, a new second grade teacher, Andrea Stafford, and a long-term sub, Lyanna May. And you know, I like a good gimmick, so I brought you our new swag for this year. >> Nice. >> You can pass this around to find out your alter ego. Iron Thunder. >> Iron Thunder. >> I already know. And here are the name tags that go with it. If you want to pass those, John, >> because I'm a superhero. >> And then if you're a good um child in the '9s, um we also have snap bracelets, so don't hurt yourself when you throw them on. >> Love it. >> So funny. I had one for my uh daughter and she her roommate was like slapping it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Fun fun slide. >> I'm kind of curious about the alter egos. Well, yeah, it's coming around. So, you're going to find out who yours is. >> Baron's taking forever. So, >> based on your first name of the month of your birthday, >> Aqua Storm. Here, let me write it real quick. But you got to figure out yours first. >> Okay. >> Oh, and I forgot the masks. Here it came with them, but I didn't come out. That's the best part. Heather had hers on over her glasses today, and let me tell you, that was a look. >> I have a picture. Thank you. I do. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. It looks like I was one short. >> Gosh, I do have >> I'm so sorry. >> I do have a countdown. >> Oh, it's because you gave one to him. Don't give one to you tomorrow. >> No, that's fine. Yeah, give it to Mr. O'Neal. >> Steph needs it. >> I told you. >> Any questions? >> Do we have to say our names before you leave? >> Yeah, if you want to, that'd be great. >> Aqua Storm. >> Aqua Storm. Okay. >> Iron Justice. Dark Shield. >> Uh, well, I'm kind of slow, but I'm rock spider. >> Rock spider. Is that like rock monster? >> That's Rock Lobster. >> Rock Lobster. >> Katie Jones. >> I'm Captain Justice. >> Captain Justice. >> I have the Sharpie. >> I am Iron Justice. Iron Justice. >> I can't see. You are professor. >> Professor >> strike. >> Okay. >> Watch it. >> Strike. >> Yeah, that's about right. >> Dark justice. >> Dark justice. >> I'm going to save it for when I come in one day. >> Anytime you want. >> Darkness. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? >> No. >> Should I sign my emails? Go for it. However you want to, Hunter. Always welcome. >> No, elementary school sounds like fun. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Dalton. >> Thank you. My report is so complicated and detailed that you have to have cheap glasses on board. Shar, >> you might be able to see. >> I know. Here we go again. >> There we go. I like it. Good evening, chair, board members, Superintendent Scheler. Uh I'm excited to share a quick update from the Watertown uh Mayor Community Living Center as we begin our school year. Um our focus this fall is going to be on strengthening connections with families and expanding opportunities for leaders, learners of all ages. In alignment with the school district strategic plan, we are prioritizing community engagement, lifelong learning, and a few of those highlights uh include the following. Um we're thrilled to be uh up to uh full staff now. We uh we have two new staff. We have uh Mackenzie Bourrager is our early childhood coordinator and Valerie Curtis who's going to be starting on September 2nd. She's going to be our uh administrative assistant. Uh she comes to us from Minnotonka Community Education where she held a similar position. So we're very excited to get those people on duty on board. I've been telling staff that we're really three people down because I'm not much good just yet. So, we're excited to have have have those new people. McKenzie has really jumped in and and been a real a real treat so far. So, we're glad to have her. Um we talked about that early childhood. um working with McKenzie, she's expand to expand preschool and ECF outreach outreach um ensuring that families feel welcomed and supported to start the school year in their educational journey. Um that's one of the things we're going to look at is is u in in our district preschool tends to be the big the big beast in the in the early childhood world. In most districts, it's it's ECF. and we're going to be looking at that and say what do we what do we need to do to pump up the ECF to bring bring that up to to the the level of the other we've got great early childhood programs there just seems to be a little imbalance there that we want to look at. So um youth youth uh and adult enrichment we're preparing for the winter spring catalog uh that that that's uh January through May. uh that's be mailed in mid November and um we're we're going to have a lot of exciting enrichment classes, recreation classes. One of the things that we're looking at there um co when co came a lot of community ed classes really a lot of community edge kind of morphed towards online classes. Good stuff. There's a lot of good stuff there. But one of the emphasises that I'd like to see us is move towards live classes for our for our enrichment programs. Get those connections from people in the community teaching those classes. Get people in the seats and start and start that um interaction and community building. So, we're still going to have online classes. They're never going to go away, but um but we're going to focus on that. Um facilities and partnerships. We continue to enhance community access to district facilities and are developing new and local new local and regional partnerships. Um you might have seen we had the Drummond Bugle Corps in town um three weeks ago now. That that was an interesting piece for us to have a a group like that. Very well behaved. They stayed overnight in our facilities and um put on a performance for the community. I I don't know whether they're going to I don't think they follow the same path each year, but but they said they enjoyed the Watertown mayor experience and hopefully we can get them back in the future. Um, one of the things also in in facilities is we're looking at upgrading our facility use application and inter intake and reservation system. Right now it's kind of a paper thing or people call or people email. We're looking to move towards uh a a component of LEO that will make that more automated. It'll be it'll be an online application for facilities. Mainly a conduit where everything is coming through the same way. Right now they're they're coming all over the place and it's it's kind of hard to control that. So So that's what we're looking at and it'll make it'll make it easier for for the uh the users also and staff in in the district. Um I want to point out the problem of practice summit where the leadership team went there. Um we attended that to refine district goals. I'm proud to report that of the districts participating and I I can't I don't know was there 12 or 15 districts approximately participating. Everybody got up and reported what you know what what their goals were. Our district was the only one that did anything to do with early childhood. So I was I was very proud to see that and that shows a a real vision for learning in this community. So, um, and we also, you know, we kind of came up with that we're going to move, that's our emphasis is going to be literacy and we're we're talking about, uh, developing a prek to kindergarten literacy transition team so that we can get those kids that are coming up through our preschool and ECF programs ready for literacy at the level that they need to be at for for kindergarten. Staff empowerment. This is just something that I'm doing. I'm meeting with every staff member over at the CLC. I've met with probably half of them that have been around during the summer. Today we just had a whole bunch more that I started making appointments with and really what what the focus of those are is I want to get, you know, get to know those people and um try to empower each member of our staff so that they can thrive and grow professionally, be the best that that they can be. So um all these efforts connect back to the district strategic plan and I thank you for the support and look forward to the beginning of the school year. Any questions? >> When is the next book going to come out? >> The next book will come out in mid November. >> Okay. >> I knew that question was coming. >> It was always shared by your predecessor. So where we were in that process. >> One of the things we I will share one of the things we're looking at in the past the book the catalog I like to call it catalog >> catalog. >> The catalog would come out and there would be a waiting period before registration be >> I don't understand that. and we're probably going to look at moving away from that. Um, if you if you hand if you hand somebody a catalog and tell them, well, okay, here here's all the great stuff we're doing in our district, but you can't register for six weeks or four weeks or whatever, that catalog disappears and people forget about it. So, we're going to look and see if we can we can change that timeline so that people can register right away when they get that information. So, >> anything else? >> Oh, good. What if they don't get it? So, but I'm thinking like swimming lessons where there's always a wait list. >> Well, we're going to work so that there's not a wait list. >> Okay. Well, then he got me there. Okay. All right. All right. There we go. >> We We want We want to serve our our >> I agree. I just Yeah. timing of it. That's intriguing. So, >> especially if you don't live in town or Yep. >> Right. >> You live in mayor and it takes an extra. >> We'll say the mail is not always reliable. So, yeah. >> Yeah. You know, we we can look we can look at some little tweaks to make asking the question if it sells out, we can look at some tweaks to manage that a little bit differently, but >> but I kind of want I kind of want to open up the gates and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people involved. So, >> Yep. No, I like it. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. View. That would be Captain Silver Shield. >> Captain, well, you don't have a name tag on. I I couldn't >> Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Uh the uh areas I like to talk about are the uh learner outcomes and all means all. We'll talk a little bit about curriculum and some of our assessment uh information that's coming down the line uh for the upcoming year. Uh, as I've talked about before, the ELA standards are being fully implemented this year. So, as Miss Okonnell talked about, we've got some new curriculum K5, but we'll be implementing uh the standards uh K12. So, we'll be uh getting that implemented. Uh we'll also be looking at implementation and alignment more or less at the elementary level for social studies. And uh we're to start uh two years early with um our district math committee and start looking at the changes that are coming down in the area of math. There's uh according to the MDE math specialist, she would like to see just as much emphasis spent on math and redesigning math uh pedagogy as there was in reading. Obviously, they're not going to spend that kind of money, but uh there's that many changes coming down the pike uh for math and how to uh implement math. Uh I'm happy to report that some of our uh staff members went to some trainings this summer and um they've done some drinking of the Kool-Aid and they're kind of jump on board and they're really um excited about the opportunity to uh implement the new standards and how it's being implemented and how kids are getting engaged with math as opposed to the set and get kind of um uh format. So that's what we'll be looking at there. Um, on the assessment front, uh, the MCA proficiency rates, um, they're the highest that they were in math and reading since CO this last year. >> Awesome. >> That's fantastic. Fantastic news. Um, I can't give you the specifics yet because they're embargoed till Thursday. Uh, so I'll give you the specific information on that next next month for sure and we'll kind of go from there. Um, beginning in January when we do our winter screening this year for the first year, grades 4 through 12, if they're not reading at grade level, as determined by us as a local district, they have to take another diagnostic assessment. So, we're working on the implementation of that. Um, I've been working with our uh literacy lead. Uh so far we're thinking that the way we want to implement this the first year is if they were not proficient on their MCA reading and they were below the 45th percentile in two out of their last three fast scores. So it's going to kind of narrow the number down, keep it manageable for our staff, but then also this first go around find out what that information is giving us and how valuable that's going to be. and then maybe we can look at how or what that should look like uh in in the following years. So, we're going to kind of monitor that as as we get more information and um our staff becomes more um efficient and effective at what the data is actually going to be telling us. Um so, that's what we're looking at there. And um that it's called the Read Basics from a company called CAPI. uh and it's supposed to be more sensitive uh and better at diagnosing in those upper grade levels four through 12 than the fast bridge scores. So that's part of the reason uh and it's u promoted by the state. So those are the couple things I wanted to mention. Any questions? >> Look forward to next month. >> Thank you. You bet. >> Thank you, Miss Payton. Good evening. It's hard to follow up with Katie O'Connell, but I'm the invisible master, so moving forward tonight. Um um anyways, I hope you had a wonderful summer. We have some exciting updates to share with you. Um these updates reflect our work in alignment with our strategic um commitments. All means all. Our extended school year program was accessed for both students and staff. We had 22 students attend that had a wide range of needs and um our staff kept them safe and we had learning and they looked after their well-being at the center of everything they did. Um learner outcomes we see received our formal um letter from MDE stating that we are 100% compliant with all of our due process. I'm super proud of our staff and it just really reflects their dedication to our students and the work that they do. Um people, we are um extremely pleased to report we're completely staffed. Um and we did not need to do any contracted employees this year. Um our theme for this year for hiring was really like grow your own. Um we welcome back a former Watertown mayor graduate as an SLP. Um we added a um early childhood SLP. We have six special education pair professionals that many live within the community and so in all the interviewing they said they really just wanted to give back. So I thought that was really neat. We have an evaluation coordinator, a school psychologist and three special education teachers. two of whom which are Watertown mayor graduates, two are also um teachers, but they have decided to pursue special education as their career. Um and so we were also able to get them the pipeline grant um that was offered through the state. So that grant will help pay for their education and they'll earn their master's degree which is exciting for them. So really excited about our team partnership. Joe Value and I met with our non-public principles to review the child find process. We discussed what we do uh with multi-ter support system what we do at Watertown mayor because we're really proud of it and um how we can and then we also streamline the process for the child fine procedures and also really wanted to strengthen our partnership together. um just wanted to thank you for this opportunity um to continue serving in leadership role um with such a talented staff and a supportive district. So just want to thank you um I look forward to everything we can accomplish this year. So any questions or concerns? Congratulations on being fully staffed. I know that's always really hard especially uh >> with what you do with the special ed. So that's >> we got some really hard positions to that were filled like school psychologists are really tough. >> Yeah. >> Oh, they're all tough, but >> we're lucky. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> To that point when Miss Payeyton mentioned that I'm glad she mentioned the school psych. Um and for the last few years we've outsourced through an outside company for that and a lot of that time was remote. So he's assessing students remotely and coming on site I think one day a week. Um, but now having a an on on-site person who's also going to help us on our MTSS work, um, is is really exciting. We haven't had that for a few years, so it's I'm excited to see the difference that will make to have her here. >> So, >> great, Mr. Samansky. >> Good evening everyone. We have been off and running for the last two weeks. Uh initial initial participation numbers, we have 296 participants so far this fall registered, 17 more than last year and our highest total in eight years. So that's very exciting. Numbers are pretty consistent with other schools in the conference. Boys and girls soccer and volleyball started competitions last week um both home and on the road. Uh we hosted our uh football scrimmage on Saturday with four other schools. Thank you to the football parents for feeding the players, coaches, and uh definitely with cleanup after the game uh prior to the soccer match. All high school teams will have competed by the end of this week. And thank you to the Royal Boosters for feeding our athletes and parents at our fall cap meeting back on August 11th. It was a good turnout and it was uh much appreciated to have that little meal and and it was a good night. Any questions? I think a point too uh Mr. Samansky brought up was on Saturday you heard he had four teams here for the football scrimmage and then a boys and a girls soccer game just goes to show the use of that multi-purpose field. I mean we can I mean we never could have done that on a grass field in terms of having that much activity going on on that field and it just shows what a great facility that we have now be able to do that and and uh we kind of remarked about that last week going into that. It's pretty neat. So, >> did we fill that last sponsorship on the scoreboard? >> Yes. Um, filled it and it is up as of last week thanks to Jeff. >> So, >> thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Scheler. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, just a few items. We had new teachers in like uh some of the principles have mentioned last week. Uh, 10 new staff members. Uh a big thank you to Joe um and Britney Muraka for and helping uh coordinate that along with Miss Huan in terms of getting them in uh interviewing them. Uh hopefully you've seen some of the social media posts on Facebook that highlights a little bit of their background and what excites them to be here in Watertown mayor. So a really good group. Also a thank you to uh Kyle Jarvis from the chamber who assisted this year on the tour. uh he gave a nice overview of the Watertown area uh to our our on our tour and then uh Mr. Phelp and Miss McNeely uh joined us uh to give the mayor tour. So uh it was very nice of both of them to to assist. Um as we've mentioned it is uh professional development week this week and um teachers are back in the buildings today. Um a lot of tech training today and along with their staff meetings um we have 122 new interactive new line boards. um which are was quite a task this summer uh from our tech team and Dustin and and uh Britney and John Weber um along with uh two high school students that helped install um all summer long. So um pretty neat. Um I heard one teacher say in the middle school this morning uh these boards are a gamecher. Uh our previous boards were starting to age out I think five years and we're starting to have some issues. the compatibility with some of our Google platform software was just not was just not working anymore and um teachers were getting frustrated. So, uh the term game changer was was pretty neat. And as as Nick said, um you know, every middle schooler now has a Chromebook that we're supplying along with the software to protect in areas they can't be in. Um and giving the teachers um some hand in what students can have access to is going to be pretty neat too with our Line Wise uh software. Um, also I mentioned to um last week we hosted a homeschool uh event and um I think I've shared with you the the purpose of that was just to get homeschool parents in to have a conversation about what we can do to support their work and um likewise and vice versa. And um we had five parents uh attend. Um they had a more of a high school middle school focus primarily. So I did grab Mr. Girtton, Mr. Hennon and Mr. Samansky to kind of sit in and listen in. Um, three of the parents are active homeschool parents currently and two were um, kind of looking into homeschooling and and what that could mean for for their families. Um, but again, great opportunity to talk. I think was a very cordial conversation. Um, I think we all walked away with some really good takeaways, some feedback. Um, I know a couple of them are already accessing um, some courses at the high school. Um, they were curious about some of the middle school offerings that Mr. Girtton shared earlier about, you know, the weightlifting, the uh some of the STEM courses, the CTE courses, um maybe even foreign language. You know, some of those things are are starting to come up and and getting in and certainly some are participating in extracurriculars already as well. Um the the nice takeaway though, I'm very complimentary towards Mr. Hennon, I think, in terms of just saying he he's been very helpful when they've gone in through the process and said, "Hey, we're interested in that class. Can we enroll?" And Bob's done a really nice job with facilitating that. and they were very appreciative. Um, five shoes showed up. I didn't expect any. So, I think that was a great start. Then we also talked about when can we do this next year and the clear point from the parents was do it like February because you know before you get out your or right when you get your registration booklet out in the high school and the middle school. Uh, we'd love to take a look at that and start looking at ways that we could have more access to your courses. So, great conversation. They also said, "Hey, we're going to tell our friends this was really good. We're going to bring some more folks next year. So, >> awesome. >> It was a great start. I think again it's another way to to just have good great conversations and and again with the goal of helping them and maybe boosting some enrollment in the future. So, um thank you for that. I don't have a clear update on uh enrollment. I wanted to provide something but until uh we get through next Thursday when the elementary starts butts and seats. We're not quite there yet, but we're estimating around that 1410. So about uh 1,410 students roughly is kind of where we had budgeted. Uh we'll see where we come in after that. Um and lastly too, I just I Mr. Delton mentioned the problems of practice retreat we went on. Uh just a shout out to our leadership team. Um as you mentioned, there wasn't a single other district of 12 or 15 districts that had their whole leadership team there. Um you know, including uh superintendent and and principles. Um it was pretty neat and the folks up at resource and training were pretty impressed by that too. So thank you for uh our leadership team for taking three days out of their summer driving up to St. Cloud for 3 days. Uh for some of them it was shorter drive I think but um but you know it was a great opportunity and again um very impressive that everybody could take the time to show up and put the time in. So thank you for that. >> Any questions? >> No. Thank you. Uh, moving on to board member reports. Anybody? Buler. Buler. >> Um, policy committee will meet when we have policies to go over which is >> every month. >> Yeah, that'll be a couple weeks. >> Weather could be longer. >> Careful what you wish for, huh? >> Yeah. And I'm sure September will be meeting for >> November. Got it. And marketing and communication will be next month. We'll be meeting. [Music] >> Anybody else? Erica. >> Yeah. Southwest. We met Tuesday. Uh our guest actually was our own superintendent. So that was really nice. Um we uh also went through the superintendent goals and uh with our strategic plan there are five pillars. So you know instead of three to four goals of course he's like well I should have five because one for each pillar. So um we they're they're pretty detailed and uh we really maybe are a little concerned because it's just really intimidating. But uh you know he's up for the challenge and we'll make sure he uh succeeds and he is an overachiever and I don't think he sleeps much. So we'll we'll see what happens. Uh nice thing as well uh we actually were able to approve the uh teacher contract and also uh par profofessional maintenance. So that was really nice because um everything went really smoothly. um the groups were actually really appreciative. We had some board members that were there for those and uh they feel like they were really heard and um you know everyone was really happy. So um I think that says a lot about the new leadership. So I think that's that's it. Oh, and then we also do have uh we're working on maybe having an annual uh meeting or pretty much um a summary of what's going on for the whole year past year. So that's something we've never done. So >> state of the state kind of thing. >> So we'll kind of see what happens with that. So um but you know a lot of new things. I mean, we went through policy reviews, which never had that before. So, our policy team over there did um a lot of heavy lifting. So, kudos to all of them. But yeah, it's overall really good meeting. >> Great. >> Anybody else? >> The foundation is meeting right now. So, >> yeah. When is their when is the gayla? Is that before our next board meeting? >> September 27th. casino night. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah, Royal Night for Education. So, it will be a casino night again. Um, and still I know Mr. Scheler has his tickets along, but we've got our the raffle going on also for the side by side. So, yeah, >> hopefully the sales are going good on that. >> Little slower, I think, >> which is good in my favor. >> Buy your tickets. Yes, tickets are on sale. I do have them with me if you are interested. >> From Mrs. Barrett, >> um, from an MSBA side, uh, hopefully you all checked your email. You got an email from me from MSBA. Uh, >> I didn't write it. >> Yeah, I'm just kidding. >> You're probably not the only one. >> No. Um, Sunday the 17th, we met virtually for a board meeting. Um, the focus and and Mr. Scheler was nice enough to print this out. I hadn't seen this yet. Um the focus from the board meeting was for the advocacy piece, the legislative piece. Um and kind of what's coming up on that and one of the key uh things that we talked about and and was t what we talked about was being a delegate >> at the delegate assembly. It's a two-year uh commitment um coming up here next month. You can self-nominate or nominate a fellow board member for those positions. Again, it's a overnight in Bloomington. um you read through all the resolutions like we did last year and and you kind of as a school board member, you get your say, you can go up and speak and everything like that. Say why you're in for it, why you're against it. It just helps set the legislative priorities um in the direction of the association really. And that is on December 5th and 6th. Um there's a COBA which is our consortium of state schoolboard associations. It's our federal group. Uh we have four or five uh MSBA board members that are going out to DC to meet with our legislators out there. Uh really just focusing on the Minnesota specific issues and and sort of what that they can push at that national level. Uh we have a board retreat coming up from a MSBA side on the 26th to 28th of September. So I will not be at the gayla. Um I'll be tuning in live maybe to see if I win the side by side or not. Um and really just to kind of go over team building, strategic plan and and kind of just becoming what what can we do as a group. Uh one of the things that is coming up and it's never too early to start thinking is the MSBA conference which is on January 15th and 16th at the convention center. Uh so please attend if you can make it. That would be great. Um I think for the past few years it's just been me. I think Mr. truly you joined me for one day a couple years ago and I think of smattering in in the past. Um if you want to nominate an allstate school board member uh that due date is October 13th um for presentations for the uh MSBA conference that has to be in by September 29th and this is for everybody in the room as well. Um, so if you have a presentation you want to showcase this year at MSBA, uh, September 29th or uh, school showcase uh, is October 31st due date as well as a band and choir. We're looking for kind of beginning of the conference and end of the conference. Uh, band and choir and that due date for uh, submitting is September 29th. Um shameless plug obviously looking at these uh superpower um ones is if you have not completed your phase one through four please it doesn't take a lot of time it's 3 hours you can do it virtually you don't have to go to St. cloud. You don't have to go anywhere. You can just do it virtually. Um, I can guarantee you'll learn something new. And last but not least on that is for the MASA, which is the superintendent association or administrative association. If you want to nominate a person for superintendent of the year, that deadline is o August 31st. >> So, it's coming up. It is coming up on that one. So that is what I had from the MSBA side. Questions, comments, nothing. >> Do they still recommend doing the phases in order or does that not matter if you've done them once like second round? >> The second round it's it's sort of whatever would fit your schedule. Yeah. And and sort of where your interest is. If you feel like, you know, phase two, I don't remember really what that one was. >> Sure. >> You just you can take two again. You don't need to take them in order or anything like that. >> Okay. >> Um with me and I'll register you. >> Yes. >> Easy, right? >> Miss Hugh would love to register you. >> I know. She is always so good about that. >> But again, you know, it's it's one of those things that it's it's good to at least get those basics down from the one through four if you haven't. Yeah. >> Um, and I don't know who has >> probably is >> helpful, but two, three, and four would be again. >> All right. And with that said, is there >> I make a motion to adjourn. >> Let me get it out of my mouth first. Okay. >> I'll second. >> Have a motion made by Miss Danielson, second by Miss Schultz. All those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose, nay. Motion carries. Meeting is adjourned at 7:21 p.m. Record time.