I guess me too. Uh, it is Oh, forgot the Gav. It is 7 PM on December 15, 2025, and I call to order this regular meeting of the Richfield School Board. Attending this meetings uh this board meeting live and in the boardroom are board members Rachel Banks Cupro Paula Cole Ken Liss Tim Pollus Kirk Spencer and on board chair Eric Carter. We're joined tonight by our student representative Vanessa Rosa Miguel. Also at the table we have superintendent Steve Yunowski and assistant to superintendent Cassandra Kwam, the important one. Other members of the district leadership team are in attendance and may be participating throughout the meeting as well. Richfield Public Schools mission is to inspire and empower each individual to learn, grow, and excel. And we aim to keep that focus at the heart of our discussions this evening. Thanks to all of us joining us live and in the boardroom. We also want to thank those of you streaming the meeting or watching it after the fact via YouTube. We appreciate where people bear witness to our meetings where we conduct the necessary official business of the district. Our first item of business this evening is to approve the agenda before us. As approved the agenda is routine business item. I will briefly pause to see if there are any comments, questions related to the agenda. >> I move to approve the agenda for this evening. >> That was quick. >> I will second. >> We have a motion by director Cole and a second by director Banks Cupro. Is there any discussion hearing? Seeing none, just bang bang like that. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All post say nay. Chair votes I. And the agenda is approved. We now move into the information and proposals non-action items section of the agenda. This evening we have an opportunity for public comment although no one has signed up tonight. I ask you remember we have public comment on the second meeting of each month which will be next on Tuesday not Monday Tuesday January 20th 2026 at 7 p.m. Uh instructions on how to sign up can be found on the Richfield Public Schools website under menu about school board and public comments. Now over to Superintendent Udowski for the superintendent update. >> All right, we have four items which I'll be introing as a group as uh Mr. Holi steps up to introduce our team from LB Carlson auditors. We also will have an academic report, the annual comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report along with our achievement and integration with director Rachel Jensen and director Alex Ward. Uh before we have a conversation as a board about reorg happening in January. So with that, I will turn it over for fun in finance. >> Very good. Thank you very much. We have Bill Lauer from LB Carlson here with us. Um you may recognize the auditor. The firm is a different name this time. Um it was MMKR before they've merged with LB Carlson. So Bill is here representing LB Carlson tonight. Um he and his team have spent many hours in Richfield schools um auditing our finances and is here to report on that today. >> Thank you. Good evening, superintendent, board chair, members of the board. Thank you for uh making time for me and your agenda this evening. I'm going to try and kind of cover three things this evening. Uh first of all, I'm going to uh go through some required communication just to make sure that you understand what our role is as auditor when it comes to your financial statements. Secondly, I will cover the audit process and the opinions that we issued as a result of that process. And finally, I'll spend a little bit of time going through some of the just high level financial results for the year under audit. Um, as I mentioned, the first thing is kind of a required thing I have to do every year is make sure that you as the body that oversees the district's financial reporting understand um that the financial statements you received in your board packet tonight, all of the data, the disclosures that go into putting those that document together uh is the responsibility of district management. we come out and perform our audit uh to provide an opinion as to whether that fairly presents the district's financial position for the end of the year as of June 30, 2025 uh and the activity for the year under audit. Also, you are required to report uh under government auditing standards. So, you'll find a separate opinion letter on your uh internal controls and compliance over financial reporting. Uh and finally, you're also subject to an audit of uh your compliance with Minnesota laws and regulations. There's an audit guide the state auditor's office puts out and updates each year that we audit to and you'll find a separate report letter uh with regard to that. Um one thing that I'm normally talking to you about uh at the same meeting, which is going to be delayed this year, is your single audit of your federal awards expenditures. the district earns or earns over $750,000 in federal awards each year. Um so you're subject to a separate compliance audit of your federal spending. Those dollars are included in the overall audit. Um but this is kind of a second audit that has to be performed on uh specifically on those federal dollars you spent. Uh there is a delay uh in issuing some of the federal guidance that we have to use to audit those programs this year. Um part of the uniform guidance that uh is the rules and how you have to spend those dollars um is updated annually in the uh OM compliance supplement and that is basically those federal agencies the grantor agencies opportunity um to review their grants each year and kind of um give auditors guidance on what they feel is important which uh things they want us to focus on. um that was uh originally put out in draft form in August and was finalized the day before Thanksgiving. Um so we did most of our testing, but as I mentioning to Craig, we've got about 35 single audits that we have to go back, circle back on, see what changed in that guidance, and then we'll be able to issue those. So, um the Department of Education here in Minnesota actually recognized uh that delay was most likely for most of their districts. Um you they did extend the deadline to submit those to March 31st, which is also the federal deadline for submitting them. So, we will be issuing that u probably shortly after the uh beginning of the new year, but um it's not in this packet normally is. Um, as far as the results of the audit, once again, [laughter] um, we issued an unmodified or a clean opinion on the district's financial statements. We had no issues with the reporting from the standpoint of internal controls or compliance. Um, one thing to point out to you this year, which is called out in our opinion, is uh, once again, this year you got to implement a new governmental accounting standards board statement. Um I think this is maybe the fourth of the last five years where there's been uh implementation of new guidance. Um the last several had to do kind of with your capital asset side of things. This one actually had to do um with some of your long-term liabilities for employee benefits in particular uh compensated absences. And what this guidance did is change how you account for some of those uh liabilities. Um, basically, um, the biggest change here had to do with accounting for sick leave, uh, long-term sick leave liability. Um, it was kind of the one type of leave that was being accounted for differently under the old guidance. And what this did is kind of chewed it up. Um so part of that change you um had to have that uh liability recalculated as of the beginning of the year and if it was material then we um showed that change as of the beginning of the June 302 fiscal year as a change to your beginning net position for you. That was about a $1.7 million increase in that liability which decreased your entity wide net position. Now, it didn't impact your fund financial statements at all. It only impacts the entity wide statements. And I'll kind of show you where that comes into play um at a at a uh later point in the presentation here. Um for a for your Minnesota legal compliance uh audit, we had one thing to report here, and that had to do with timely payment of claims. you are required uh to pay all claims within 35 days of the receipt of the goods or services or the invoice for goods or services. Um you had one dispersement that that was tested that was not paid uh within that time frame. Um one of the reasons I wanted to to make sure that this came up is because the reason it happened here is by far uh the most common reason that we're seeing in our clients. um and that is there's a lot more of these invoices that are getting received out at the various building sites. The reason this didn't get paid timely is because it didn't get over to the building to the um district office in a timely manner to your finance department. Everything that we tested that was given to the finance department in a timely manner got paid timely. This sat on somebody's desk for a while before it got over here. So, um, part of our recommendation is in in addition to the people that are actually processing the dispersements over here in the district office is making sure that anybody at those remote sites that's involved in the purchasing process understands there is a deadline and they need to get that approved and get it over to the district office to pay uh in a timely manner so you can comply with the statute. Um, that was everything I had from a report and and report letter standpoint. Questions on any of that before I move along to some of the financial information? Okay, seeing none, um, move on to this first graph here, which shows kind of a history of your general fund financial position over the last 10 years in terms of uh, your unrestricted fund balances at the end of the year, which is that blue bar. uh and the cash and investment balance at the end of the year year which is that yellow bar the green line you see there is your annual expenditures just to give you some context there the size of your um general fund operation uh cash and investments at the end of the 2025 fiscal year was just under $27 million about $4 million higher than your previous year end uh your total fund balances were about $22.4 $4 million. That went up about 3.8 million from the year before, which was about $3 million over what was projected in your final budget. This next table um shows a breakdown of your fund balance, the different components that it gets reported in. Um, you have non-spendable fund balances which for your uh general fund is mainly prepaid expenditures and give a little bit of uh about $24,000 worth of inventory in the general fund as well, but mainly prepaid expenditures. Um, still an asset to the district, but you can't spend it for something else. So, it gets um put into that non-spendable uh portion of your fund balance. Restricted fund balances are basically the state mandates that come along with some of your funding. Um, you've got about $5.7 million in that category. Um, the bulk of that uh is in capital related uh restrictions. You got about $3 million in uh restricted for operating capital, long-term facility maintenance and leftover levy from your capital projects levy. Um you've also got about $560,000 restricted um for scholarships and student activities. And I always call this out because those are funds that even though they're getting spent through your general fund, you can't really spend them uh even for general uh general general fund expenditures. Um therefore, your student activity accounts uh and you have a small scholarship program that you uh run through the general fund as well. Um, you've also got about $975,000 in restricted uh for medical assistance, which is special uh special education related purposes. Um, and then about $1.2 million in various other smaller restrictions that make up that $5.7 million. Um, assigned fund balances and unassigned fund balances. Essentially, those are controlled at the local level. Assigned are things that you've earmarked for a particular spending. um you had about $6.1 million in assignments at the end of 2025. You had quite a list of them. I was going to go through them all, but I will point out um that went up by about $860,000 compared to the prior year. The main thing there was uh the budget you adopted for fiscal 2026 had you utilizing $1.1 million of that fund balance. Um, so that automatically creates an assignment uh that has to be included in there. So that's the reason that went up. Uh, and then the unassigned uh fund balance of about $10.2 million was up a little over 2 million from the year before. Um, we kind of track a couple of categories there. As you can see from the the trends at the bottom there, the percentage uh of the unrestricted fund balances which is the assigned and unassigned together uh as a percent of your annual expenditures that was about 19 a.5% and then the unassigned fund balance as a percentage of your annual expenditures was about 12%. Uh you do have a fund balance policy that you uh want to maintain 4 to 10% of those annual expenditures in that unassigned category. So you're a little bit over that uh that minimum policy that you have because of the year you had in the general fund. Uh one of the things that drives a lot of the revenue formulas that you uh receive aid for and also affects your tax levy each year is the number of students that you serve. So, we always take a look at your uh average daily membership and pupils served for aid. Um for fiscal 2025, you served an average daily membership of about 4,022. Uh when the grade waitings are applied to that, it generated pupil units of just over 4,400. Um pretty flat compared to last year. You were down about 12 uh pupil units from the year before. So a very a change from the prior year of less than half of a percent. General fund revenues for the year were about $88 million, just a hair under that. >> Um you your revenues went up by about $6 million from the year before. Um two categories went up. Property taxes went up by about $4 million based on your levy. Uh, state aids went up about $4.9 million and that's mostly um two categories. General education aid uh you got a 2% increase on the general education formula. Uh and then your uh state aid for special education uh is the other big driver there. That's kind of based on the costs that you have yeartoear and special ed costs are going up everywhere. So we're seeing that that uh portion of state funding going up at most of our districts. Um, this was offset by your federal revenues going down by close to $3 million. Um, and this had to do with a lot of the, uh, COVID relief grants that you'd had since 2021. Um, this the period of performance for those grants are kind of coming to the end. So, you spent most of those down in fiscal uh, 2024. You just had a little bit tail end of some of that funding left this year. um to budget, your revenues were about a million dollars under budget, roughly 1.1% variance. Um the bulk of that was in property taxes. You were about $790,000 under budget. And what's happening there is you're seeing some very large abatements because of the amount of commercial property and retail property that you have in your tax base. you don't lose that revenue forever, but it doesn't come in the year that you levied. Um, you'll see levy adjustments coming back for those abatements, but it's usually most of the time about a 2-year um cycle before you see those adjustments and are collecting them and their current revenue for you. again. Um, state aids were also under budget by about $900,000 and that was mainly uh in general education aid because your people units went down a little bit. Um, your other category that you see up there which picks up your investment income um and various kind of non-recurring revenues um like some of your medical assistance uh reimbursements, fees, uh admissions, donations, things of that nature. uh we're about $810,000 over budget and that's an area where you typically budget pretty conservatively because they are unpredictable uh onetime revenues. The next graph shows the same information for your general fund expenditures were just which were just over $84 million for the year. Uh expenditures went up by about $3.3 million roughly 4%. um your salaries and benefits, which make up generally between 80 and 85% of of school district costs across the state. Um that went up by about 3 million of that 3.3 million. Um purchase services also went up by about $860,000. A lot of that was transportation. Uh and then your capital spending went down compared to last year by about $550,000. And that's due to timing of equipment purchases and some projects. Um to budget, uh your expenditures were $4.1 million under budget. Um salaries and benefits and purchase services were both under by about $1.5 million. Um the salaries and benefits were under because you didn't uh weren't able to fill all of the budgeted positions. Um and your purchase services uh are actually also under um kind of two areas there. The biggest one was transportation and also some of your special education uh purchase services were a little bit under as well. Um supplies were about $650,000 under budget. And again, that's something that can vary depending on um timing of purchase for supplies. And I'll move on to a couple of your other operating funds. Uh much smaller funds, uh but still important. Um pictured here are year-end fund balances for your food service special revenue fund, your community service special revenue fund. Um just to give you some idea, compared to spending 84 million in your general fund, uh your food service fund, you spent just under four million. Uh the community service fund, you spent about $2 million. Um fund balance went up in both of these funds. Um you ended the year at about $780,000 in fund balance in the food service fund. Uh about $67,000 higher than projected in your budget and that was mainly due to revenues coming in strong. Um and that represents about 19.8 19.9% of your annual expenditures. Um, community service ended the year um at $394,000 in fund balance, which was an increase of about 36 36,000, excuse me. Um, and that was about $100,000 better than budget. And here the variance was more on the expenditure side. Your expenditures uh were about $74,000 under budget and that was mainly salaries and benefits. Um, I'll briefly mention your two other governmental funds that I don't have pictured here. um you have a building construction fund essentially where you deposit um bond proceeds or certain levies where you're um doing larger construction projects. Um you issued a little over $2 million in bonds in 2024. Most of the spending for that bond issue took place in 2025. So your fund balance went down by about $1.7 million because of that construction activity. uh ended the year with about $2 and a half million dollars remaining in that fund uh to finish those projects up. Your debt service fund essentially is uh run by when you when you issue bonds, you've got uh a bond document that kind of dictates what your levies are and the future principal and interest payments that come out of that fund. Um your revenues and expenditures were both about $9.7 million uh for the year. your fund balance went down by about $172,000. And the only thing I want to highlight here for this fund, um, your main revenue source here is debt levies. That's also being impacted by the abatements we talked about in the general fund. So your u tax revenue was about $325,000 under budget in this fund as well. Uh, you do have about $2 million in fund balance in the debt service fund at the end of the year. And then the last table I was going to cover with you this evening is a very condensed snapshot of your district-wide statement and net position. If you're looking at your larger financial statement document, this is going to be the first uh financial schedule in that document. And this takes all of the fund information that we just talked about, converts it to a full acrruel basis. So, it's bringing in all the long-term assets, long-term liabilities that you don't report in those funds, and it kind of gives you a longer term view of your financial position uh and the change from year to year. So, um, just to briefly look at, uh, on the top left of this presentation there, you can see how we get from the total fund balances and the funds we just talked about, which were about $28 million, uh, to a net position, that's a deficit of about 4 million. Um, you see your capital assets of about $148,000. That's net of depreciation. You've got capital related debt, bonds, leases, finance, purchase debt. uh that you issued to construct or purchase those capital assets of about 128 million. Then the last uh three things on on that presentation are mainly related to long-term uh liabilities for benefits that you owe for your employees. uh the pension liabilities essentially is is primarily going to be your uh proportionate share of the state PER and TRA pension plans and that's really what's kind of causing the deficit that you see here. Um each year they do an actuarial study and every uh school district, charter school, other entity that has participants in that plan gets a portion a part of any underfunding based on what you contributed to that plan as a proportion of the statewide collections that they had. You really don't have any control over those plans other than the number of employees that you have. all of the contribution rates, investment decisions, benefit levels are all set by uh state legislature. Um other post-employment benefits and that is a internal um employee benefit plan there. And you do you do have one thing that isn't included in this because it's in a trust fund. You've got about $7 million um from bonds that you issued years ago to help finance that OPED liability. because it's in a trust, it doesn't get pulled into this presentation. So, just um little better than it actually looks here. Uh and then that other uh category there, you see the big increase. That's where um that uh change in compensated absences is coming through that uh $2 million increase in that liability from year to year. So, in total, your net position uh went up by $5.7 million from current year activity. Uh but then you had that $1.7 million decrease from that change in accounting principle. That's why you see that net change of about $4 million to the good there. So, numbers, numbers, numbers. That was typically uh what I cover. Questions on any of that? Thank you. That was a lot of data. Questions from the board. [clears throat] >> You No. Okay. [laughter] >> What are we going to do now when Tim's not here? [clears throat] >> I know. Well, and Tim started off the meeting by hinting that he might have a bunch of questions, so that's why I look his way. >> They were all answered. They're all answered. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> This is already clear >> uh in in in language that I can understand. So I appreciate that >> because if I am just looking at this, it can [clears throat] be daunting. But you always uh do such a great job at just walking us through it. So thank you. >> Thank you. In terms of looking through it, I will remind for the new board members coming that these books are actually very useful for the history of our enrollment and funding. >> Yeah. >> And so it's it's a good background just on what our sources of funding are and how they are affected by enrollment year over year over year. >> So some reading materials for the new folks. >> If that's an offer to leave your copy for the new folks. >> I'm happy to leave mine behind as well. [laughter] We thank you for your kindness. Any more questions? If not, thank you. That was a great presentation. There's a lot of information and uh I I agree with echo what Paul just said. So, thank you. >> And just a quick reminder that later on in the evening is a request to accept the audit report. So, that'll be coming up in the new business item. >> I just request a resolution. >> Resolution. That's correct. >> Favorite thing. >> All right. So, from a lot of information to a lot of information. Um, so we are going to invite up Rachel and Alex to talk about um what used to be world's best workforce is now known as comprehensive achievement and civic readiness cuz why not? And achievement and integration. So, take it away directors. >> Sounds great. Good evening, Chair Carter, Superintendent Yowski, members of the board and viewing public. I'm Rachel Jens, director of elementary education, joined by my colleague, Alex Ward, director of secondary education. And as Dr. Yowski alluded to, the purpose of our presentation tonight is to give you an update on our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness goals and work and our achievement and integration um goals as well. So, uh just a quick little history lesson here. Uh we know that in 2013, world's best workforce was passed um to ensure that Minnesota schools remained competitive in a global economy. Very recently in 2024 um this particular piece of legislation was rebranded and repassed um updated to become the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness act. So, this piece of legislation requires districts to develop comprehensive long-term strategic goals um that address five uh five major goals. All children are ready for school. Uh we're looking to close racial and economic achievement gaps between students, ensuring that our students are ready for career or college, whatever their futures hold for them. Um that our students are graduating from high school. and a new goal area, all students prepared to be lifelong learners. So, tonight we plan to report on our goals related to these first four areas. Um, the final uh area, lifelong learning, as I mentioned, is a new goal area. So, we're currently looking at what could be the best metrics to measure this that would be aligned with our strategic plan um and allow for um the most authentic view of what it means to be a lifelong learner and to be prepared for that. All right. So, we'll start with our first goal area. Um, all children ready for school. Um, we set a goal this past year that 85% of students who are participating in our four-year-old pre-K programs would demonstrate proficiency in early literacy and math skills. And we measure this using an assessment called the teaching strategies gold assessment. Um it's an assessment that uses a combination of observation and work sampling um to to assess and rate where students are at in terms of important early literacy and numeracy skills. So before we look at the results um of our goal, I want to talk a little bit about some of the strategies that we used to help us work towards and achieve this goal. Um, first of all, we really take a lot of pride in providing highquality four-year-old prek programming at multiple of our uh elementary sites as well as at central education centers. Uh, we currently offer half-day prek programs. Um, and last year we had about 170 students participate in those four-year-old prek stu um uh programs. We worked on implementing a play-based and developmentally appropriate curriculum called creative curriculum in all of those pre-K classrooms. And we supported that through intentional coaching for our early learning teachers and their participation in professional learning communities as well. We also made a very uh significant investment in training around early literacy practices. All of our early learning uh teachers went through letters for early childhood training um to make sure that they were familiar with evidence-based practices in literacy um and what formed the foundation for future uh reading achievement in elementary school. And then we're working with teachers on making sure that they're using that teaching strategies gold assessment not only as a summitative measure of students readiness for kindergarten but also more formatively throughout the year to monitor student progress and make adjustments to their instruction. So, um we can see of those u about 170 students that we had participating in our program last year in the fall um we had a a pretty low number about 10% of those students who were demonstrating kindergarten readiness skills. We saw a significant increase to about 75% of those students um demonstrating proficiency by the end of the year. Um similar we had great increases in proficiency from the fall to the spring in math achievement. Um but because we set that goal of having 85% proficiency uh we fell a little bit short of that. So 75% in literacy um and 60 a little over 60% 61% in math. So overall, um, before we move on to the next goal, um, we have lots of data that are suggesting that our prek programs do a fairly good job preparing students for the rigor of kindergarten, as you can see by the increases there. Um, we do want to consider uh continue considering that we want more students to be kindergarten ready. And so we plan to keep that bar high um at 85% and we'll be more intentional um in the future about working as hard in math proficiency as we worked in literacy so that we can get um higher levels of achievement in math. All right, moving on to our next goal related to closing achievement gaps. So, we set a goal uh this past year around um decreasing the gap um between the achievement in reading and math um of our BIPO students compared to our white students by 2%. We were committed to providing cultural competency and equity training to all of our new to Richfield teachers to help us achieve this goal. Um also working through our curriculum reviews to make sure that our curriculum is culturally responsive and evidence-based. Um also we have supported implementation of that curriculum with instructional coaching for all teachers um and continued participation in professional learning communities. Uh similar to early childhood, we invested quite a bit of time training staff in evidence-based literacy practices through the letters um training and we've monitored implementation of that letters learning through our learning walks and informal observations. And then uh we have really ramped up the work that we're doing around our multi-tered system of support for students specifically reviewing our universal screening data which is um the assessment um that we do in the fall, winter and spring for all students and then progress monitoring assessments to make sure that we are matching students with interventions um that are targeted to their specific needs. So, we can see that overall for all of our students in Richfield public schools, reading achievement increased. Um, while we saw a slight decline at the state level last year, um, math proficiency declined slightly both within Richfield public schools as well as at the state level. When we compare um the achievement of our students of color to our white students, uh we see that our students of color did make increases in both reading proficiency and math proficiency. However, the rate of improvement for those students was not sufficient to close um our achievement gaps. >> All right. In the area of all students are ready for a career in college, we have a goal around 14% of all juniors who take the ACT. We'll meet all four college readiness benchmarks. Some of the strategies we use to achieve this goal are our college and career readiness center shares ACT prep information and resources on a regular basis. We have 11th grade teachers include ACT type questions in their content areas throughout the year. And uh the high school has wind time once a week on Wednesdays where students can choose um to go to a place where they may may need more support. That may be going to a class to retake a test or for 11th grade students, it's opportunity to go do some ACT prep during win time. Um this graph is always a lot to digest, so I'll do my best here. Um, often when we think of the ACT, we think of 36 because that's the highest score you can get. But what's less known is that each area of the ACT has what's called a college readiness indicator. So, it's a score where ACT has shown that there's a likelihood of a student passing a similar course in their first year of college. And so, of course, to make things easy, every assessment has a different ACT, college readiness score. Um, the English assessment is an 18. Math is a 22, reading is a 22, and science is a 23. And so what this graph shows is what percentage of our students are hitting that college readiness marker in that assessment or above. And so for the English assessment, 34% of our students are scoring an 18 or higher on the ACT in that area. In math, 17% of students are scoring a 22 or higher. in reading um 22 sorry 30% of students are meeting that college readiness score of 22 or higher and in science 24% are meeting that ACT score of 23 or higher and then obviously our goal is to have well-rounded students who are good in all things and so the um percent of our students who are meeting that readiness score in each of the four areas is at 13%. And so, um, a couple things. While this is always kind of a like discouraging graph in some ways, there's also some positive signs here. We have some of our highest scores over the last four years in English, reading, and science. Um, and this report is pretty intense. It's pretty lengthy, but when I look deeper at the report, in um all of the areas, we have five, six, 8% of kids who are one or two points below that college readiness score. And so, for instance, in the reading assessment, there were 8% of students who scored a 21 instead of a 22. And so, um we continue to improve and and get better, but that's um there's positivity in in some areas here. [snorts] And then uh in the area of all students graduate from high school, we have a goal of 90% of all students will graduate within four years from Richville public schools. Some strategies we incorporate with this goal are we have student engagement specialists who check in and support students on a daily basis for various reasons. Um grade level teams meet weekly to discuss and find ways to support students to be successful in school. back. We have that what I need time again on Wednesdays for students who may need to relearn or retake an assessment. Um our counseling team leads lessons um on a regular basis to talk about being successful in high school and beyond. Um this year we're really focused on ninth grade credit attainment, right? Studies have shown how important a nth grade year is and being successful in high school. And then we offer some credit recovery opportunities during the day for students who need to make up credits and after school as well. And so in this table you'll kind of see our trends over time. Um and you will notice when oh and by the way when this report >> [snorts] >> um this is always about a year behind. So this is the 23 24 school year. Graduation reports are quite quite delayed. And so, um, you'll notice we had a slight dip at RHS, um, to 86.2% graduation rate and RSIP at 73.5 for a [snorts] Ritual Public School, um, total of 85.8. Couple of um, main reasons why we saw a slight dip is during the COVID time, we we literally had students just kind of disappear on us. And if we don't if they don't fill out the proper paperwork, if we don't know where they went, they go against us on the graduation rate. And then we also have just um REP can have pockets of students who have significant credit deficiency and there just are times where um you know you have five or six kids at REP who just need a little more time to graduate and that can put a significant decrease in that number. Um both of those things we do not see being um issues moving forward and we hope to get back up closer to our more normal rate of that high 88 89 90 plus% graduation rate. U sorry this is another chart just to show the same information I just went over. Um again, one other positive here is despite what we consider uh decrease, we're still above um the state as far as our graduation goes, [snorts] but we did not meet our goal of 90% of students graduating in 2324. We'll pause maybe for questions about the comprehensive achievement civic readiness uh report before we move on to achievement and integration. I have a question um related to the comparison between reading and math. something that I've been wondering with last year being the first year of readact implementation and how so much focus has gone to train teachers in in letters. Do you what has been the experience as you know perhaps taking you know time from coaching in math to meet this very urgent you know year phase one need uh how how does that feel at the at the school level that is 100% accurate to what the experience has been in order to meet um the many requirements of readact a lot of our professional development time has had to be devoted exclusively to reading. Um, and because the training requirements are so extensive, it isn't leading leaving a lot of time for professional development in other areas, specifically math, right? And so, um, while we want our teachers to be able to provide equal focus in both areas, um, they're they're really at capacity with the amount of learning that they've been doing around literacy. And so as we conclude the required letters training, right, we know that that time to continue working on math and providing more professional development to target that area, um we'll get some of that time back for sure. >> And you do have uh I believe over 160 hours required for letters training for uh teachers in phase one, right? Like the early literacy and special ed, >> correct? Yeah, we are on track to finish the training for the majority of our our teachers by the end of this school year. Um, we have a couple staff members who may need to have an extension, especially if they're new to Richfield this year. Um, but the majority of our staff are on track to finish by the end of the school year, which I want to say that's above and beyond our neighbors. Uh, which is a great thing to celebrate here. Uh, thank you. Thank you. >> I was curious about the um the cultural competency training to new teachers um and based upon the nominal [clears throat] reduction in the disparities for BIPAC students. Do you see that that training being very effective >> um for our new teachers? It is uh delivered by Dr. Dr. Natalie Rasmusson, we contract with her. She's a professor at the uh at Minnesota State University. Okay. >> It is probably about an hour and a half, four times a year. So, it isn't as much training as we would like to offer. We do have two of our schools, um, Richfield STEM School and the high school, who are going through a little bit more extensive training with all staff in cultural competency and racial equity work this year. Um because yeah, you know, four 4 hours, 6 hours a year u may not be sufficient to get the results that we're hoping for. >> I'm glad to hear that there's all staff being trained too, not just new teachers. So, okay. Thank you. >> Um I've got a question about the um kindergarten readiness. Um, and not necessarily expecting you to have the data today, but I'm curious um, if we've done any log longitudinal studies on the kids that have gone through prek in Richfield and how that they compare in like second or third grade to their peers that maybe didn't go through RPS preK. >> Yeah, I won't be able to provide that data for you at this moment, but happy to do that. We have done work to look at our outcomes in the spring of prek to then how students are doing in kindergarten on our universal uh screening measures, our fastbridge measures. We are finding pretty similar um results there. Right? The students that we are identifying as yep they have met those kindergarten readiness benchmarks are showing up then in the fall um as not having you know risk indicators on those other assessments. But um yeah, longitudinally we could definitely pull some of that data to to see what impact our specific preschool programs have had on the success of our second graders or third graders on up. >> Yeah, that'd be good. >> Okay, >> that up >> more questions. >> Okay, then I'll ask a couple. I don't think you answered this. Maybe I did. I could have zoned out on it. Um, but it's similar what she had just asked if the um if we look at the literacy numbers and saying what I thought I heard you guys say was saying looking at the literacy and what we were doing around the literacy training um not training sorry for the students and prepping them. So um are the children ready for school? If we said we thought we were doing it right in literacy. I guess my question is is if the goal wasn't meant in literacy, how are you trying to take that and apply it to math? >> So I would say right we we had 75% of our students meeting those kindergarten readiness benchmarks. We set that bar pretty high at having 85% of students ready. So um we did not hit our goal but we still saw a pretty significant increase in where students came in in their skills at the beginning of the year to where they ended the year as well. So um and I I would say a lot of that is due to the training that we got um for teachers and their implementation of those strategies in their instruction. So again when that training is now over this next year um we can offer more professional development related to math practices to try to accelerate achievement in that area. Um, do we look at uh do do we compare our goals to other districts? And so when we say like what I heard, maybe I misheard it or maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, is 85% was high, right? We pushed ourselves super hard. We didn't get there. Great. And is 85% high compared to other districts or on par with other districts? So, when I've looked at other districts uh goal areas in this, not everyone sets a goal related to TS Gold achievement. So, it's a little bit hard to always compare. Some of our neighboring districts, for example, will set goals around um having preschool students attend a kindergarten kickoff type event and they will use that as their metric for determining readiness. Um, I think looking at actual student achievement, um, in preparation for the things that they're going to learn is probably a more robust goal than setting a goal around participation in events. So, it is a little bit hard to compare to surrounding districts if they're not using the same metric that we are. >> I would just add I also received communication from the state that they're really impressed with the progress that we are making. And so, if you look at our messaging, we aren't meeting the goals that we have set for set for ourselves. Um we set high goals uh we expect to attain them. Uh when we don't uh we redouble our efforts and continue to work harder. Um at the same time from a statewide perspective uh we are being recognized for people who are making progress um just not the level of progress that we as a group and our team as a group expects. Are >> are we able to influence what the state gathers for metrics? um there's some local decision- making in regard to what they value um and what we value or identify as our areas. Um and so for us, TS Gold is our assessment in preK. A different district might have a different assessment at that point. And so we do have a a pretty reasonable amount of of choice in that process as to what we use. >> Yeah. Statewide districts are just required to set their own goals related to those those five areas, right? Um, but what districts choose to measure lifelong learning or to measure kindergarten readiness, uh, that's really a local decision. >> Since you said it, I may seem to be bouncing around, but so the the lifelong learning, you had four different slides. Lifelong learning wasn't a slide on its own. So, was it then integrated into the rest of them or >> No. So, I mentioned at the beginning, I'll I'll reiterate. So we did not uh develop a goal around lifelong learning because that is a new area out of the four. So what we're doing currently is we're looking at what are the best metrics that we can use to determine what it means to be prepared for lifelong learning and how how we would measure that for our graduating students. >> Okay. I just wasn't sure since you just mentioned it like it was in part of the first slide and then I like did I miss it or >> Yep. Um so then the next one is um all students racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed. So uh how are we tracking the economic because you're talking about racial but I don't see economic in there. >> Yeah. Do you want to answer? Okay. Feel like I'm talking a lot. We um have chosen to set our metrics around this primarily um around racial achievement gaps because those seem to be our most persistent. if it's something that the board would like to have reported on or to have us set specific goals around economic gaps, that's something we certainly could do in the future. >> So, it's a state metric and we're focusing on the racial aspect of it. >> Correct. >> Uh I'm more curious how even if there's a way to track from an economic perspective, right? It just it doesn't seem possible. >> Economic would be in regard to free and reduced count, >> right? Um and the challenges of that obviously as we know and the accuracy of that data and so it then becomes hard. Um but we certainly do have methodologies if we chose to look at the gap between students qualifying for free and reduced and those who are not qualifying for free and reduced. >> Uh looking ahead at our policy discussion tonight, right? That's been something that we were talking about the athletic committee about the fact that that data is very confidential and very tight tightly held. And so that's why I was curious as to even if that's something that we could track here through this group since it's not available to to my understanding outside of >> No, but if you think about >> there's a lot of data that we're not collecting because of the the the challenges of getting some families to fill out >> also that >> right if we were to let's for just a second just push aside what we know about free and reduced count and its inaccuracies. uh MCAs are are um published by racial groups, by special ed, by um homelessness, even um migrant status and free and reduced count. Uh you get that same groupings in terms of graduation rate. So it would be an area that we could absolutely choose to look at. Uh given that we are and as we look at our racial equity policy later, um that is a major focus for us. Um and so the other thing I would share is we do also look at that um in different times and on different reports. And so one of the things as we go through these cycles is there is the CACR previously world's best workforce. We're about to see some different goals with achievement and integration. You're going to get some different goals based on what are my goals. We're going to see some different goals all along with our strategic plan and our vision cards. And so we have basically measures across the entire year. Um, and we pretty much cover them all or pretty much most things. Um, and we don't actually you all do a great job of identifying, hey, I'd like data and information on this and we show back up with that. Also, I've got more. Um, so then on page 29, bring that up. Um, so this is still on the uh racial and economic achievement gaps. Um just I'm trying to understand the numbers. Uh a second. So the >> Yep. The orange bars are those are still relative to the previous slide. Right. So the are they showing that the uh >> so on this slide so the orange bars if you go on the left right students >> Yep. um in MCA reading proficiency, white students went from 64.5% of them proficient to 65.9 1.4% gain. So our white students tested higher um in 2425 than they had in 23 24 of color went from Yes. >> Okay. So because my question primarily was here, so our white students are above the state average, [clears throat] >> right? If I go to the previous state is Oh, sure. Yep. >> Right. Significant. >> That is an all Yeah. Yeah. That is all students. >> All students, >> but it's not disagregated by race. >> Got it. Okay. So, and does the state do by race? >> They do. Yes. >> Got it. So, I think that would be interesting. I would like to see that from uh right if we're doing kind of comparison to bring it down to understand where our students rank from a state perspective, right? or because the way it looked or the reason why I'm asking the question is I was like, oh my gosh, like are white students like overperforming and are students of color underperforming? Like that's even worse, right? It's if we're talking about worrying about trying to close the gap, >> that' be useful information to know. >> Um then the the goal of 14% of uh all juniors taking the ACT >> and maybe I miss you say it. Why was it 14%. >> That'd be 14% meeting all four categories. So being uh meeting the ACT college readiness benchmark in English, math, reading, and science. Uh the goal was to get that to 14%. Um up from 13%. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. Um when you make comments, then I'm going to ask more questions. So on the next slide for talking about 90% uh all students will graduate within four years. Something we've been targeting or talking about for a while. I guess I don't like hearing 88, 89, 90. That's great. That's still all below, right? So, if our goal is 90, then we want 90. We don't want to be close. We want to beat it, right? >> Absolutely. >> I'm just throwing that out there. Um, and then we got the lifelong learner. So, that was all my questions. >> Any any other questions from the board? Um I [clears throat] had one question with um okay so with the political state right that we're in right now how would that affect the like the new graduation rate let's say like a student >> like does have the qualifications for graduating but um you know maybe they won't attend the ceremony so later on like does that affect our numbers? >> So attending the ceremony doesn't affect our numbers. So the first thing to know is graduation rate is produced a year behind. Um and so this current year we're going to announce in February or March the graduation rate for this past year. Um and so if we think about this current year in the political climate we're in the challenge we're having um is we have some students who are currently struggling to attend school. Um and so we're trying to figure out creative ways to make sure that our students remain um connected to school and um are able to get the work done. Um and so we're trying to this team is actually working on some creative ways to perhaps bring bring work to students or figuring out ways to bring students to school. Um but we're going to have to monitor really closely um the impact of this current year and what's happening right now um in regard to our graduation rate of the current class, the class that you were in, the graduating class of the spring of 2026. Uh there are some extra challenges to this group that that we're really worrying about. >> Oh, okay. Got it. No, I was just wanting to see if that affected the data. Okay, good to know. Thank you. The goal would just be to make sure that students earn the required credits. So, yeah, like Dr. Enoski said, participation in the ceremony doesn't matter. We just want to make sure that they earn the required credits. So, looking at alternative ways for them to do that if they're not able to attend inance in person. >> Oh, okay. >> And if a student um left the country um and we had no reporting information, they would even if they were not, they would be considered a dropout and would be considered um not graduating, would count against us as a district. Um, and so we're really working to support our students to the greatest extent possible. >> And and that loops back to your the comment earlier about the COVID year when if if students have left us and haven't given us good information about where they went, they count as having been here and not graduated. Even if where they went, they did then graduate. We we we just lose them. >> Oh, okay. Good to know. Thank you. >> So, I've got one more question. Sorry, just u going out that one. It's like since these are all looking at last year's data. >> Mhm. >> And since we didn't like uh we didn't meet any. So then the question is is are we looking are we looking at where we're at today to understand if we're better placed for next year. >> Yeah. We have options to either u when we don't meet the goals to set the same goal and work towards that. So that's uh what we've done for this current year with um with our prek our our kindergarten readiness is we still want to go after that 85% goal. So we are keeping that um goal the same. At other times we are able to adjust our metric and our goal based on our our baseline from the year before. >> And a good example of what that looks like actually is going to show up in our achievement integration yeah report which is coming next. Um, we do have the ability to adjust from year to year, but um, as you make small gains, you don't want to just leave that same target. You want to, if we were looking for two-point gains and we made a half point, we want to go up two from the half point. We don't want to just say, well, now we just want to make the one and a half. Um, but we're going to continue to set aggressive goals. Um, we would rather not meet goals and strive for high levels of growth. Um, and have a culture and climate of our kids can do it, we can do it, this is possible. Um because the consequences for us not meeting goals are us trying harder. Um and so we're going to keep pushing. >> Maybe I'll ask our question differently. So I was not trying to say do we reevaluate the goal. I was trying to say do we re reevaluate what we're doing to meet the goal? >> Yes, we do re-evaluate our strategies. Absolutely. >> Yeah. So, an example of that would be right, we started um to to Rachel's comment where we had um professional development and cultural competency strategies for our new teachers, saw that that's an area that we needed to spend more time and attention on and now have the full staff at two of our schools, right, who are participating in more extensive training. Got it. And then as we assume and hope that that's going to go well in the way we designed it, one of the way uh then we would anticipate that expanding to all of our sites. >> So continuing to use that strategy and when the strategy succeeds, taking it to scale. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> You know, if you keep setting your goals high, then you always have a goal to reach and that's actually a good way to do it. You know, it's like being on a diet. you know, you're working on setting a low goal, but you're working towards a goal. So, keeping the high standards, whether you're going to make them or not, is what you're trying to reach. So, it just it makes sense. >> Yeah. I think the key to be able to do that is to have a culture and climate that says if you strive, you work hard, and you're doing your best, that's what we're really asking for. There are places where seeing a sign that says goal not met requires consequences and punishment. There have been times where that's what the state has done. That's not the culture and climate we want in Richfield schools. We want people trying, striving, and going for their best. >> Keep roll. >> All right, we'll move on to achievement and integration. So um purpose of the achievement and integration program in Minnesota is to pursue uh both racial and economic integration, increase student achievement, um create equitable educational opportunities for students and reduce academic disparities that are based on students diverse racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds. And so in this area um we are required to set goals in three areas. The first is around reducing achievement disparities. The second is about increasing opportunities for racial and economic integration. And then the third goal area is around increasing access to effective and diverse teachers. Um we're going to talk more about the achievement of our goals tonight because many of the strategies that we use uh to work towards our CACR goals are the same kinds of strategies that we use to work towards our achievement and integration goals. So our goal around reducing achievement disparities is related to our graduation rate. Um we're looking for an overall increase. Um our plan was written three years ago. So from what our graduation rate was at that time to looking at um increasing to an overall 92.3% and then also increasing graduation rates for each of those demographic groups. So you can see that um our goal was not met. We have made some substantial increases in graduation rates um from 2021 to 2023. And then from 2023 to 2024, we did see a decrease in um the graduation rate across those different demographic groups. Um in all in all of those groups, the numbers that you're seeing along the bottom there is the overall mean change. um knowing that some years we had uh a more significant increase. For example, when you look at our our increase from 2022 to 2023 for our indigenous students. Um but then knowing that we've got ju just different levels of changes in either the increases or the decreases made. All right. And in this area, we have a goal of increasing the percentage of representation of students of color in rigorous courses at Richfield High School from 59% to 65%. Um, a couple of things we've done in this goal is we continue to encourage students to challenge themselves um and push themselves and and try and attempt rigorous courses. We're also finding ways to increase our course offerings and include courses that um interest all types of learners. For instance, this year we have a new course, college in the schools um creative problem solving and over 80% of that um class is students of color. And so we continue to seek um other courses and other offerings that will engage all of our learners. When it comes to this goal, um, we did meet this goal. We went from we've kind of gone we've kind of bounced around a little bit, but our goal was to go from 59% to 65%. And that's ex exactly where we landed last year. And then we have a goal around increasing um student access to highquality staff and instruction as measured by Richard Public Schools practice profile and equity policy and guidelines. the percentage observes classrooms that meet expected practice for the indicators that align to three main areas. One, um, social emotional learning, um, instructional clarity and assessment and feedback will all increase by 10% from our baseline data over the next three years. And you will see here our baseline was the 2022 23 school year. And so the first area we'll talk about is the social emotional learning or classroom environment. These are indicators where we can walk into a room and often see these things no matter when we walk into a room. Um, one is having the behavior matrix posted that we are kind, we are safe, we are responsible, making sure that's up in the room and and for um staff and students to see. We also have safe spaces in our rooms, places where students can separate themselves but still remain in the classroom. There are fidgets, there are breathing icons, there are things they can do to um get calm and get ready back into learning. And then more importantly is these things are being used, right? So like are we ref are we referencing the behavior ma matrix? Are is all of this work creating an environment of respect and rapport? And you'll see um at the end of last year, we made significant gains in all four of those areas. I'll call out the number two behavior matrix referenced that had the least amount of gains. But actually that one's kind of bounced up and down because as the behavior is um just getting much better in our classrooms. We're actually referring to the behavior matrix less which has been kind of a place of learning for us is how do we use the behavior matrix now to support positive um behavior like hey I appreciate how we all safely walked in right instead of stop doing that be safe. We talked about this at DACK. Just know this is for secondary. >> Oh yes, thank you. >> Yeah, not for elementary. >> Thank you. Yes, this goes around um our 6 through 12 classrooms. >> And then another area for effective teaching is the next slide is instructional clarity. Making sure it's very clear when students walk into the classroom like what are we doing today? How are we going to go about doing it? How are we going to know that you've learned it? And then why is this important? you know what is the purpose or relevance of what we're doing today either in the grander scheme of life or even just within the unit itself like what we're doing today is going to help us learn um this larger thing that we are working on and again you'll see from our baseline in 2022 23 we've made you know 40 50% gains in making sure that instructional clarity is happening in all of our classrooms. Um and it's it's been quite powerful to see the last couple of years. So, and then lastly, um how do we provide feedback and let students know where they are in their learning throughout the lesson? And so, um there's three main indicators we look for here is are teachers gathering individual student progress? Are we providing explicit feedback? And then our students able to reflect on their learning like here's where I was earlier in the lesson or earlier in this unit and here's where I am now. And again um you know 50 35 53% increases from our baseline data. And so sorry in that case our goal was a 10% increase and we had um over 10% increase in all those areas. So we met that goal. Thank you for that question. >> Yeah. On the um social emotional learning um is it trauma informed? Do you know is that metric trauma informed? Can you say more to make sure I want to make sure I understand what you're saying? >> Well, because when you're talking about what is essentially like behaviors in the classroom, often times that's just >> um secondary to like what's actually like happening, which is usually like trauma based like behaviors, right? Or can be. Um and too often um that gets treated in a punitive manner like and what this is shifting towards is more of a um uh is a different approach. >> Yes. Yes. I think we continue to um teach our staff how to be more traumainformed um teachers and how to treat the behaviors in the classroom differently. So, >> cuz I mean in in many like um bipok like histories like there's trauma. I mean we have it encoded on our DNA. So like we just don't you know get a pass on anything [laughter] as far as you know how we present. It's just >> a lot of these you know younger people too don't know how to necessarily articulate it let alone like manage it. So um it's important that people understand that history and approach young people with that knowledge. >> Yeah, I'll add on that um our our major strategy around um managing behavior and discipline is conscious discipline which is an adult first trauma-informed approach, right? it um it's built on the idea that as an adult I need to be regulated first so then I can co-regulate with my students to get at that root cause that it's not just um it's not that I don't want to or I don't want to comply with the teacher but there's something that's triggering me here so let's utilize that safe space allow myself to get regulated and then have a conversation with the teacher to get at the root cause related to that >> cool thank Um couple questions. Um the first one in the increasing racial and economic integration goal, um it talks about um rigorous courses including career ready. Can you talk to me about what what are the career ready courses? >> Um we have college and I mean career and technical um courses that students can take. >> Yeah, that's what I thought. And so then um the graph on the next slide includes those career ready classes. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Um I asked several questions of the high school when they came and presented on like all of these rigorous courses um and kind of challenged them in um or I asked them some questions around the success of um having the AP course for all ninth graders. And that the goal of that was to expose kids and give them the opportunity to see that they can in fact succeed in that class. Um and in fact I probably would have benefited from that had I had that in nth grade as well. Um and so as we look at the goal around um those students it's almost like we're getting 25% free because all nth graders have to take an AP course. And I what I'd really like to see is what is our goal for kids in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade that now that they've been exposed to an AP class, are they continuing to take those rigorous courses? >> Yes. And those are those are things that we look at and um that's one reason why we had that slight dip in the previous year is we just had less nth graders in 10th grade take these courses. So >> yeah, we usually get right around now or a month from now, we get it's called a CIS, college in the school's value statement. Um, which shares with us the number of credits our students are earning in CIS. Um, if you look back historically, and this aligned the transition of our schools in 20 2015 from the sixth period to the seventh period day, um, we looked back at the data, there was 30% students of color in our college and the schools classes earning about 600 credits per year. Um, and there are now typically give or take a hundred either direction 2,000 credits a year earned by our students in CIS classes. Um, and typically about 60 to 65% students of color. >> Yeah, that's a great metric. CIS can't be taken till 10th grade. Right. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Correct. >> Great. Thank you. >> More questions. I think I've just got one. Um it was a followup on what Ken had asked. Um for I guess for the increased racial and economic integration, you had the social uh emotional learning, the instructional clarity and assessment feedback. Those were all at the secondary. >> Yes. Yep. So twice a year we do learning walks where building admin and district personnel will walk into all classrooms at the middle school and the high school and we have look fors or indicators we look for in all those areas and then we mark if they are present or not >> and there's learning walks at the elementary also and they're looking at a different set of rubrics and a different set of components. >> Yes, I was going to say some of the components are similar. For example, we are looking for indicators of instructional clarity as well. It just happens that when this plan was written three years ago, it was written with a specific focus on those metrics at the secondary level. >> Okay. So, the achievement and integration is really all secondary. >> Our current plan is really focused on secondary. Yes. >> And then as we look to the future, will it expand? >> It certainly can. Yeah, we would look for guidance on that. >> I'm seeing guidance. So we'll we'll talk later. I like well this is all cool stuff right it's like when we talk about GS like why wouldn't we look >> well so that >> unless it doesn't apply I mean I guess that would be the >> it applies the thing I'll keep coming back to is you know as we discuss it and what should be in each of these reports and each of our um focal points um we present throughout the course of the year we try to cover everything um and so we don't want every single thing in every single report because then we would do things repeatedly uh we do want to make sure um that we do have things like learning walks and the focal point of our instructional improvement at some point in our measures over the course of the year that is reported publicly um and so we can take a look at the holistic picture and see if this is the place for that. >> Yes. I'm just wondering it's like I get what you're saying and maybe it's uh just like we have a schedule for um the schedule for policy review. Maybe it's that same thing of like what's our schedule for reports. I mean, not that we necessarily want the high school to always come back, you know, in the February meeting, but >> we kind of get in that rhythm anyways. And then it's also then that's where our reporting comes in. Just food for thought, right? >> Agreed. Yeah. >> We'll be writing a new uh a new achievement and integration plan this spring. And so absolutely we can revisit that and see if these are the same metrics that we want to measure or if we want to expand that or go in a different route. [snorts] >> Thank you. All right. So thanks to our directors for leading that academic work and for their presentations. Absolutely. >> I will jump into commendations. Um and so >> wait wait wait >> reminder about board. >> Oh sorry I'm jumping right ahead of number four. I was so excited for commendations and [laughter] all the excitement that I almost missed um the board reorg. Um and so as a reminder um we will have a reorganization. That's what the first meeting in January always is. We have two new board members, Cali Dennis and Haley Tomkins will be seated. Um the board will have an opportunity to um elect new officers to hold leadership positions in 2026. And so currently, um, we have historically maintained often some of these spots for a couple of years. Currently, Eric Carter has completed his first, uh, year as our chair. Uh, he is about to begin a new three-year term. Um, and so, not guaranteed, but the pattern has been that person has often been willing to go twice, but I'm going to leave that all to you all to discuss. Uh, vice chair Kirk Spencer completed one year as vice chair. Similarly, he is two years in with two years remaining and often that person has continued on as vice chair for another year. Uh clerk um with Rachel Banks Cupcho leaving the board. We would need somebody to step forward and be the clerk. Um and then uh treasurer uh Kenless has two years in and he has been the treasurer. Um and so what we'll be looking for amongst you all is to see if um people want to stay on in their roles or change. Um, and then if somebody is willing or interested or excited to be the clerk, I think Jim, it's like busting at the seams to say something or not. >> No. Um, yeah, I guess I'd just add it's most helpful if someone knows that they are not interested in continuing in that in the role that they're currently in. You know, it's been our pattern for a while to have the the chair go two years and the vice chair go two years. And that gives them some time to get used to the role and learn. And then, you know, you're not bound to to follow on that. Of course, it's not a sentence. U but it's helpful to the board if we keep that if we keep the continuity and you keep the the momentum that you've and the knowledge that you've gained. Uh so if you know, Mr. Carter, are you interested in continuing? I mean, I I'll just ask, have you I'll word it differently. Are you intent on leaving the role? >> Wow. I I am not intent leaving the role. >> Well, that's helpful for for those who are continuing. Um, and that doesn't prevent anyone else from stepping forward and saying they would like to be chair also. It it's it's okay if we have other people interested or changing how we've done it. Miss and and I guess I'd ask uh Mr. Spencer if he's interested in continuing in his role. >> No intention on >> No intention changing >> changing. No. >> All right. Mr. Liss, >> he wants to declare an act. >> Well, no. I I I mean, I'm not saying you have to declare and there's no permanence to it. It's it's just helpful for people for planning for the next four weeks. >> I want to be president of the United States. I mean, I could probably do a good job. No, I think clerk would um >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> It's it's just helpful for when you guys come back in January to have an idea that that who's and and and Miss Cole could >> she she's had a year in the sun and and perhaps could could but but also the new people could could could step forward into a role too knowing clerk or treasurer might suit their their skills. So >> just throw out there on [laughter] the last meeting right Tim from the corner like helping cast roles for next year. Thank you for that Tim >> Empire building. >> Yes. >> I haven't been clerk >> in the 10. >> I was I was going to ask which one maybe you hadn't. >> So it doesn't have to be next year but maybe then you know I'd like to wrap up my >> my four >> complete the circuit with all the name plates. Yeah, that that would be that's a goal. >> Yeah. All the name plates. Yeah. >> I mean >> Oh yeah. The name the name plates go with me. >> What's that? >> I said I vote for it in advance. [clears throat] I'll nominate now. >> So So just for some background, a long time ago when I was first on the board, this we did not have this discussion openly. And so then we would arrive at that first meeting in January and it was just sort of like >> awkward. It was awkward >> and and and and side conversations would take place, but then you start realizing that's not thorough enough and that's not open enough. uh you know and so it's important that we you have this discussion sometime in December and and really what you might know you don't have to say that you're you're definitely doing it but usually if you definitely know you're not you know today and not it wouldn't surp you know so that it's just courtesy to to let it be known as soon as you know >> well and it is I think helpful for our new board members to not be put in a hot seat right away in their first year so >> unless they want to >> unless they want they want. >> Yes. [laughter] >> And we could ask that question. >> I did generally ask during orientation. Neither of them were chomping and just running forward to grab to be [laughter] one of the positions. Um but um I'm sure if needed they could certainly be called upon, but it did sound like uh there might be an offline conversation between Director Cole and Director Liss about who would be the treasur and who would be the clerk. >> I think we just had it. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. Gotcha. >> It was an online conversation, >> right? >> Yes. Fair enough. >> It was on camera but not on mic. >> Right. >> Got it. >> And was the camera did the camera? >> Yes. >> Not if you didn't speak that he wouldn't go like >> right. >> Perfect. >> Well, that is what we wanted to walk through which will be an official action that would happen at our next meeting >> like very first action. >> Yes. Right away. So with that I will transition into commendations. >> Commendations. Yeah. All right. So, something happened that's never happened before that was kind of neat. Um, I didn't even know that they did this, but we received notes from the Department of Ed that they collected at the state fair shoutout booth. Um, and we had a set to RPS educators. Uh, so we had some great notes. I'm just going to read the names of our folks that were acknowledged at the fair. And so, this means somebody at the fair took their time at the education booth uh to show to to share positive really nice things. What? >> This is great. >> Why not read the whole thing? >> All right. Eric wants me to read the quotes and thus I shall read the quotes. To Andrea Emanuel, you listen and help without judgment or impatience. To Madam Steel, you care so very much for your kids. To Amy Frank, you are cool. To Betsy Seymour, thank you Betsy for your continued support for being a team player. We'll have a great year. To Jessica Wolfgram, you are so kind and help everyone stay on the same page. To Kayla Vo, hope you are doing well. Still my favorite teacher. I'm going back to school to be a teacher because of you. >> Right there is worth it. >> And to Stacy Collins, you rock. [laughter] >> Thank you for all that you do for the students. So, we want to thank all who submitted a note and we want to thank you to our educators who are recognized. We are proud of the work that you do. Thanks for having me read that, Chair Carter. That was >> that was fun. >> That was good. >> That was great. Uh then um as we do in people's final year of service, we want to commend board members Rachel Banks Cupcho and Tim Palace for their exemplary service to the board. Rachel Banks Cupcho has served on the board since 2022 in roles of director and clerk. She's been a tireless advocate for our students and our families during her time on the board. She served as the board liazison to Friends of Woodlake, the Richfield Human Rights Commission, safe and supportive schools, and many other areas. We appreciate you. We appreciate your voice and you will be missed. And then Tim Palace has served on the board since 2014 in the roles of director, treasurer, clerk, vice chair, and chair. Uh his board leadership and tenure have brought stability as well as progressive vision to the overall board. Tim served on the insurance advisory committee, board leazison of the Minnesota State High School League, Richfield Spartan Foundation on the work advisory committee, and others. Richfield Public Schools has deep gratitude for the contributions in time and talents given by Rachel and Tim. So, we wish them both well in their future endeavors and hope that they will come back to visit RPS and our schoolboard meeting either in person or streaming online. >> But we appreciate you all and thank you. >> Tim, you can now be a full-time sub. >> That's wonderful. Thank you. >> What a teacher. He can go to >> bus driver whatever occupation you want to fill [clears throat] in. >> Lot of opportunity. >> A lot of opportunity >> with that. Yes. So we did as is our habit um have a beautiful cookie cake to celebrate um the time given. Um Paola uh also thought because of Tim's really a whole lot of years that we also needed extra cookies to celebrate and so she brought some of those also. um might be a wonderful time depending on the board to take a short recess and enjoy and celebrate our board members in their final meeting. >> I'm dangerously low on sugar. [laughter] >> So take that as a yes. That's a motion to >> It's up to the chair. >> Well, you know what, Tim? Since you like Robert's rules of order so much, I will now entertain a motion to go into recess. >> So moved. I'll second. >> So, we have a motion by director Paul and a second by director Cole to take a brief recess so that we can go >> celebrate our retiring board members. And eat a cookie. Thank you. Uh all in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All post, we say nay. >> Chair votes I. And we will take a brief moment. We'll also pause video so nobody needs to see us eat the cookies while we celebrate our retiring board members. Thank you. [applause] [laughter] I did it. >> All right. So, the next item is approval of the consent agenda, which contain uh contains a collection of routine or fairly routine business items that we consent to pass in bulk without individual discussion. I'll pause for a moment while we just to see if there are any questions or requests before we proceed hearing. And seeing none, >> I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. >> I'll second. [laughter] >> Uh motion by director banks copro and a second by director Cole. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, please say I. I. I. >> All post, please say nay. The chair votes I. And the consent agenda is approved. Uh, this brings us to old business. There are policies before us this evening for continued review and possible action. First item for old business is policy 116, equity and administrative guidelines 116.1. Third read. All right. Looking at a third read for recommended passage by all of our high school seniors at our Mach school board meeting. We also had uh feedback given from management team RMS REP students groups and safe and supportive schools committee. So you will see um as we have gone along we've continued to integrate those updates uh clarifying components um like hate speech to clarif uh clarifying building leader responsibilities clarifying our language and making sure all of this is accurate and upto-date. Also based on the feedback as you remember um putting in that we want to be making sure that we are teaching about comprehensive history that's accurate and also make sure that in addition to m multiple perspectives is very clear in showcasing the positive contributions of diverse cultural groups um and examining the impact of significant historical events on marginalized communities. So continuing to upgrade and finalize um with our language. So with that, I have it before you for recommended final passage. Any discussion, questions or motion? I'll just say that at the at the safe and supportive meetings, there were very few for equity, there were very few corrections made. The kids were really impressed by it. At least at RSP where I was. Um, we didn't do we didn't do this at for the adults. >> So, it's a it's a newer newer policy. M. My question was, are we unique in having an equity policy? >> Um, no. There are a large number of districts or a reasonable number of districts in the state of Minnesota that do have them. Um, and each district has its own wording. Um, so our wording is unique to our community having had input from from all of the groups across Richfield. >> Okay. Well, then I move that we accept the equity policy number 116 for passage. >> I'll second. Uh, >> thank you for the nudge. And we have a motion by director and a second by director Paulus. Any more discussion hearing? None. We'll bring it to a vote. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> All post, please say nay. The chair votes I. And the equity policy and administrative guidelines 116.1 are approved. Brings us to policy 651, athletics and activity program and administrative guidelines 651.1 and 651.2. Second read. >> All right. So, second read, which means it does have our update. So clarifying what extracurriculars are. Activities for student enjoyment managed under the guidance of a school coach or adviser not offered for credit and conducted primarily outside of school hours. Uh there's a number of clarifications and updates um providing exposure to activities um trying to help those become part of students future endeavors. uh clarifying wording throughout um making sure that um our coaches and activity advisors are clear on the expectations um and also clarifying how we um ensure that we have representative voice in moving these forward. And so we have this for you for a second read with a number of um clarifications, updates, and branding highlights. I I had a comment um on the language added under mission uh the the bit about extracurricular activities or activities for student enjoyment managed under the guidance of school coach or adviser not offered for credit or conducted outside of school hours. Um so like going way back this was a question that came up in my first years on the board actually was often why can't students we we had a heavier than state average requirement for FIED and someone had you know someone's student uh was was a three sport participant and then still had to carve out time for to to meet the FID requirement and and at the time that there may have been more pressure on them doing so because we had the sixth period day and and so to give you know the the multiple classes to fied was was was sacrificing more when there's only when the inventory was was more scarce. Um but since then I I my worry really with this with this wording is there there have been scenarios where um someone misses a class like gets drawn out of class for to to attend a a sport or a doctor's appointment or something else and there and and and for a fed class and sometimes the out of school the the makeup assignment would be something like you know document that you exercise for 30 minutes and so that request was made of someone who was say on the cross country team and that person on the cross country team went and warmed up for 20 minutes and then raced for 20 to 25 minutes and then cooled down for 10 to 20 minutes and that would not count. They could not use any of those minutes towards the 30 minute require assignment because the teacher was hung up on the wording that you cannot use this for credit. Oh, >> and so that student then had to go home after however many hours because you don't just go home as soon as you're done and then somehow had to manage to find 30 minutes for light exercise outside to earn the credit that they for the activity they missed in their fed class. And so I would caution against this wording um for you could get someone who's overly stubborn and hung up on it in the future and say, "Well, we can't give school credit for this." whereas they could if if I went for a doctor's uh appointment and then whatever or if if someone was swimming on the girls swim team and then in the winter was swimming for the piranha's club team or something like that it the piranhas would count for credit but this the school wouldn't even though it's the exact same minutes of exercise and so I just caution us uh about this like we we wouldn't you we seem clear in not giving academic credit like you can't get a whole course >> for your fet >> you could probably say something like not offered for credit but can be determined but eligible for case basis. >> Yeah, >> that that that would be welcome wording and and and that perhaps at the next iteration of this >> different eyes look at it and see something there. >> Mr. Pace had reminded me of something that was so far in the rearview mirror I honestly had forgotten another reason why in two years Mr. Pollace maybe should run for board again but um we will make sure to go back and clarify the language. I think the intention of extracurriculars is you cannot supplant a semester credit or a high school graduation credit for it. But from a day makeup perspective or a daily credit uh that certainly is an acceptable usage um and certainly is used to supplant that um in those cases. So >> even a student who doesn't for example >> play in a game, say it's a game situation, but they warm up and they do go through all the exercising and stretching and everything else before, during, after, >> they they've worked out to a degree, right? >> Agreed. >> A weightlifting club. >> So we will work to clarify that. All right. Um, this came up when we were when we made the change of of two required viad classes versus one for graduation requirement. And [clears throat] one of the um some of the conversation was if you know a student is a multisport athlete that's doing a lot of the same things that the state would say is the requirement of what they're looking for in FIAD. Um, but it the the coaches don't have to be licensed teachers. >> Correct. >> And so that was the that was that loophole or the way that we could explain that is that it's that it's not a class. And so it even makes me wonder if >> we even need that language in here at all to say that it can't be a credit because it >> it can't be. Well, I think that >> I think it's fair to leave it in as a breadcrumb for someone in the future, right? It also doesn't align with the semester that we're in, even though >> the activity probably has more time in a day than a regular class does. of it. >> Although it it leaving it in there is fine as as >> as a as a block and a reminder that no, we're not giving whole course credit. >> Yep. >> For participation in this, but could you receive daily credit for it here and there? Sure. >> I I would think >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And it sounds because I've I've heard that as well. that we might need to be explicit in that like you can it can be used to supplant ABC >> right because a daily credit makeup activity is not actually under the supervision of a licensed teacher in the same way an entire class is they're saying if they're saying half an hour of physical activity makes up for missing the class then we should be clear that this could do it >> if one is participating in this >> does walking home constitute 30 minutes of moderate activity >> I would assume that it Yeah. Yeah. >> Um the uh I I had a question unless there was something else on this particular nugget. Um when we get into the um the cost of the activity fees, um I know we've got a a policy that says uh you know essentially buy two get one free that the third one is is [snorts] complimentary for students. Um, and I think I'd like to hear that maybe some background on that because I'd almost >> rather see if it's if it's about a break even or something along those lines for cost that we reduce all the costs >> across the board rather than giving a third free. >> Okay. I have no idea of the background, but we will gather. might be a really good reason to do that. I just can't think of it. >> So, I'm going to reiterate just make sure I'm clear. So like if if I've got three students in my family, >> it's in I believe the way I read it is if an individual student does three sports, fall, winter, spring, the spring one is free, >> which I think also if you've got two kids and is the third one free or is are we better off reducing the cost across the board by a certain percentage? >> That is a great question. Well, as it turns out, we're skipping a meeting, right? Because >> we are. So, we have plenty of time to gather because we won't bring these back um until the 20th so that they can go back competitive activities advisory prior to returning. I believe >> uh I don't think we have a meeting before then. I was more thinking you give us a followup at the next board meeting. We don't have to go through the policy, but we can get an update on it. >> I do have a question, too. Um just a a picky item. Okay. the on the fee exceptions. So students who qualify at educational benefits will receive reduced participation fee. The reduced fee will automatically be applied when the students register using the online system. >> Does that constrain us? I mean do we actually need to stay online system? Right. Does it why does it matter how it gets tracked? Right. It just say just saying the students who qualify educational benefits will get a reduced participation fee period and distract the rest. >> Yeah. I think that's partially in there because we are not necessarily sharing that private data about whether the student would qualify with the person that's registering them, right? So, it automatically applies in the online system because the online system knows, but the people might not know. >> Well, and that gets to the next I'm jumping ahead because it gets to 978 and some of our discussions that we had offline in our committee about the fees and how those get applied for that exact reason. So just food for thought if it needs needs. >> Okay, got it. We can probably soften the language to not require them to use online but share that online ensures the privacy of said >> confidential data. We can we can work our way through that language. >> I just want to make sure we don't need to bring this policy up more or less than five years if we don't have to. >> Correct. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. >> Any more questions about 651? If not, that brings us to policy 978. Passes to athletic contest and other school activities. Second read. >> All right. So, second read for passes. You'll see um passes available at no charge. We did some reordering. Uh we actually moved our students first. We thought that is in line with the philosophy of who we are. Um sharing that students having a clear ID will be admitted free to home athletic events. middle and high school students with a current ID will be um uh middle school students with a paying adult and one supervisor or one adult may not supervise more than four non-family members making sure that we do have good supervision. Then we moved on to staff as being the second group. Um and this was feedback about reordering staff district employees with a school or with a photo ID admitted to all home athletic events. Um moving from there to um parents, guardians, retirees, schoolboard members, senior residents. Um just sort of clarifying that out. Um and then clarifying uh the differences in pass pricing um based on free and reduced lunch status and just clarifying that um parents of varsity uh level athletes qualifying for benefits may purchase season passes at a reduced price. first two uh reduced by 50% and any additional reduced by 25% and this came through the uh competitive activities advisory um and then looking at trying to do this in a way that helps everybody participate. I'll share a couple quick items from that meeting. Um the intent for the last thing Steve said, item C, parents and guardians will receive qualify for two two 50% uh passes per school year. The first two passes per school year. We have to talk about the wording because that's intended to be like when we talked about in the committee the um since it's not year-long passes, they're seasonal passes. So that is per season was the intent. It wasn't just the only the first two. So if my child's in soccer, basketball, track, I don't know if we have something for spring, but but you get two two each of the seasons, but not for the full year. >> Okay. >> Okay. Um the other thing that we did talk about is I know that we had some discussion here about board members receiving it. Mhm. >> Um and the committee felt that board members should still if they wanted to receive that. So like director Paulus, if you wanted to go ahead and get a free pass because you wanted to come back so much and watch all of our athletics versus contributing. >> Well, and to be clear, a you have to request the pass, right, >> in person. >> And you don't have to use the pass and you could pay. So you can use the pass if you want or you can pay or you can do both. You can do whatever you like. you can make a donation and >> also true and then show up right on the donations chart and say things about Steve. >> Uh they also thought that it was valuable for the senior residents to have it. >> Uh and what was interesting and I don't know how we communicate it. Um but the discussion was is that there was kind of an influx of time where senior residents were coming in and the kind of like word in the street was there's these free passes and so everybody came in and then it kind of lulled off again. >> Um but again I think it's great having community members in attendance of our athletic activities or [snorts] our activities in general. So it was just some other feedback and then also the we talked we just talked about all of them right staff getting it, retirees getting it and I thought all that was beneficial and the the recommendation was to not take anything out >> and we can look at how we advertise and make sure that we share that um so that people are aware of what they have access to. >> Um I have not been to a basketball game yet this year but understand that the team is >> rocking >> rocking it. Um, and the game that I went to last year was pretty full. >> And I'm wondering if they continue to >> rock it. Um, if there's a concern of overselling and then students can't attend because they show up five or 10 minutes late or >> certainly possible. Um it is I mean I I have not had that experience and um it is likely that it becomes more and more popular our basketball team as the season goes on. So something we'll have to keep an eye on. >> Send our our students to the other side fill up the house. It's a good problem to have. >> Yeah, for sure. Other questions or comments or we'll see this again Jan January 20th? >> January 20th. >> Um I do have one other question related to the discount because the the wording confused me a little bit just because it's kind of complicated in that is it each student can have two passes [clears throat] at a discount for their parents or guardians? Is it each family? Is it you know what I'm saying here? So I'll I'll communicate the intent to the committee. So the intent was is each parent andor guardian could get to and I I had to say I just want to make sure I say it right. Then so keep me honest here, >> right? For like we're able to tell if a family um if a student has >> I'm not sure the right wording, but if the if the parents are divorced, for example, >> right? They're able to were able to tell so that you could have two and two, right? Because we don't want in case we don't want to put anybody in hardship. So we want to make sure that that's the case. So it's not necessarily intended to be four but it's for for the parent and guardians if they're one unit that they get two and if they were separate they get two and two and then that's why we also said then um any additional will be reduced by 25% as well. So if I wanted like I'm married by my spouse, we could get two and then for the grandparents, right, for example, or other people, they could go ahead and they could get extras. >> Grandparents will probably be senior. >> That's a good point. >> Well, could be could be >> could be. >> Yes. >> So we're trying to again uh increase participation in activities to make sure that we're not leaving anybody out. That's a big thing, right? It's not intended to be a money maker. It is intended to cover costs of event staff. Um but also try to make sure that we're allowing all of our families to attend the the events. >> Did I say that? I mean, right? I mean, >> yeah, there's a lot of words. >> There's a lot of words. There's a lot of complexity. We'll do it and saying every student athlete gets up to four at 50% off. >> Well, we did talk about that actually, too. And so we had talked about everyone gets just two but we said you know what we said two at 50% and then 25% afterwards but then the question is is what about parents >> if you have multiple parents beyond two then that >> right >> so we'll we'll look at the wording and see if we can simplify or clarify it um making it a little bit tighter. >> Um there's a lot of free passes like >> for for these events. I'd be curious how how many like what percent of attendees are paying >> I um I think you'd have to track it at the athletic office and I don't know I mean and kind of in our discussion there wasn't a lot of passes that were being signed out. >> Yeah. >> Right. I mean you know when director Paulus goes in that would be one you know it's because I was actually curious about how many board members too have taken up on it. It's like I don't know if there been been any board members. I think it's more students attending free and adults paying for tickets. >> Um there's not as many passes sold as you would think for seasons. >> Yeah. >> Any more questions on that for will bring us to policy 407 leaves of absence. >> All right. So we are reviewing this. This is done annually, but uh with the new Minnesota paid leave program starting on January 1st, there is some additional complexity. Um and so just want to make the board aware that um we are working through the tales of the 2023 legislative session um which has a lot of things being implemented on January 1st of this year. Um and so as far as leave of absence, um clarifying um what is a leave and how do they work? Um clarifying um that we um we have decision um must be used in increments of a half day or a full day which aligns to our current practice except for and this is a new intermittent leave taken in according with FMLA um and clarifying that according to state statute language um to the extent uh allowable by law. any other requests for changes to leave will be considered on a case-byase basis. And this for us is really just clarifying um in policy um how we will comply with the new new leave requirements of the state of Minnesota. Um and so this is read two um and then we will have this set um right in time on January 5th to be implemented with the return to school um and some of those new updates that are happening um within labor laws that that were passed in 2023. questions, comments? [cough] Sounds like we're good with that one. We'll move on to uh draft RPS legislative platform 2026. Second read. >> All right, read number two. And so you're going to see, and I'm just going to focus on the first sheet. Um things that are not highlighted on the legislative platform now are the carryovers from last year. Uh we have three suggestions. Um we've talked about one of them. Uh we want to also make sure we are talking about the other two. Um and so things like provide permanent funding for comp ad revenue uh left in jeopardy due to universal free meals. We've had that before. Um so we're not going to review that at this time. We talked about at the last meeting uh protecting the ads funding system to support students uh struggling academically and that's because that is funded through special education and that is one of the areas targeted for possible reduction. Um if you see in regard to mandates and local control protecting districts ability to choose their own insurance plans and so we are self-insured. Um we have been able to have insurance rates for our employees below many of the other increases that have occurred. Um there is some political push to go to a statewide plan. Um and that um we don't know what the impact of that is. Um those who are pushing the statewide plan suggest insurance rates would go down everywhere. Uh that is hard for us to imagine um because when we have had quotes from that it would look like our insurance rates would go up. Um and so we would love to maintain local control of our insurance plan. Um and we would like our our team to push uh for that local control. Um and then we also received a um request that we look at um something around school safety and gun control. Um there is a push um and we received an email from Mia Olsen who is a representative. What's it >> Maya? >> Maya Olsen. Uh a representative of one of our state legislators office. Um, so there are some loopholes in regard to guns on property that would theoretically allow school leadership to permit guns. Um, there is also some things with concealment carry that allow people to have guns in cars. Um, and so as we look at um, a first let's clarify we would not allow guns on our property either way. So we are very clear about that as a district. Um, but they are trying to close some of those legislative loopholes um, based on um, increasing school safety. So, we looked at some wording that matches ourselves, which is increasing the restrictions and closing loopholes related to the presence or storage of guns on school grounds. And so, that would make sure that guns then could not be allowed in cars if there was a legislative change. Um, they would have to be stored properly. Um, it would also close any other loopholes that might uh lead to the presence of weaponry on on school grounds. Um there is still um capacity for police officers or those acting in an official legal governmental capacity to carry. We are not having the power to restrict that. Uh but we would actually um under the current legislative bill uh have [snorts] the power to restrict that if the board wants to put that into our legislative platform also. So with that we have draft two. um a couple of new things for people to look at and think about including um the restrictions and loopholes being closed in regard to guns. Um and then also insurance plan uh local control. So we have that take feedback now or at our next meeting when we will push our legislative platform forward. >> Um I do have a question about the insurance plan. Um, is there currently an option through the state that schools can opt into some state insurance program? >> Yes. Uh, the acronym for it is PEEP. It's a statewide PEEP plan and um there is um we are required um to take a bid from PEEP each time we go out and do our insurance bids. Um, historically the bids for PEEP have been um either much higher priced than our current insurance or lower coverage than our current insurance or a combination of lower insurance at a higher price um than our self-insured. And so the theory of statewide PEEP is that um with everybody in it, it would bring the cost down and the coverage up. Um yet we have not had that experience locally at this point to see that that's the case. >> Okay. So the the push is really to mandate >> everybody mandating everybody in and the theory is if everybody was mandated in >> it would go down in price and coverage would improve >> like the ACA mandate. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Correct. >> Right. It's it's it's a fully insured program. We're self-insured. Right. So if there's a >> you know we we are in the in theory taking the risk that if there is higher claims than expected it somehow cost us. Now we have protections in place for all of that. >> But the fully insured right you're transferring the risk. Do they add, you know, it's it's it's as the superintendent said, it based on each time we've received quotes for it, it was not a competitive price compared to what our max cost would be for the funding we wanted do to manage our self-funded plan. >> Okay. >> So, it was not a good match for us. >> Yeah. >> For a lot of reasons. >> More questions or comments? hearing none. That will bring us to new business. And the first item for new business is the resolution accepting 2024 2025 audit report. >> And [clears throat] there are many pages coming up that Mr. Holgi is going to introduce. We go from the current page all the way through 275. Um, and so Mr. Holy is going to synthesize and summarize that down. that we already had our presentation into a very short conversation. >> Yeah. And I was just going to focus on the first two pages actually because you heard a presentation from Bill Lauer um that kind of summarized the information that's in the packets. Everybody does have at their um desk right now kind of the full report that's included and that's what's available online as well. Um but our policy does ask that we have formal acceptance of that by resolution by the board um on an annual basis. And so we'll bring that [clears throat] forward for your um recommend for your approval um via resolution tonight that acceptance of the auditor's report. >> Questions, comments? [snorts] Motion. >> I'll move that we accept the auditor's report as presented. I will second. >> We have a motion by director Paulson and a second by Director Banks Cupro. Any discussion? >> Um just the the recommendation that came with the audit around if a um claim or bill comes to one of the individual. >> Yes. So we are working on here's the challenge. Um we work really hard with our vendors to make sure that they invoice the district office and our finance team. Um the complexity is if they decide or accidentally, let's use an example of Sheridan Hills, which doesn't typically offer summer school. Um if they send a bill straight to Sheridan Hills, um the mail is not collected for approximately a six week window. Um and so we could pass the time or the 30 days from the time they send the bill uh to the time we even receive the mail at this point. And so we're we're trying to work our way through that. Uh figure out some method for dealing with it. Um but that that's the complexity we're trying to work. >> I mean in the report he mentioned that it's a very common problem and I recall this being listed last year in the audit as well. Um and so and if it happened once >> right it was to be fair it was within the the report it was out of 40 sample bills one of them. >> Yeah. >> And so it hardly counts as pervasive but it is something to be better at. >> Yeah. It it's it's [clears throat] almost un unfortunate unfortunately ownorous on the school district to have to do that when we're so rigorous with our vendors to make sure that they're sending it to the district office and on top of that we're mandated to address them in a very short period of time. So, so I mean we we jumped in and when we identified that this was the invoices were addressed to the buildings. It's just that we have communicated in the past. I think this was a finding a couple years ago. I don't think it was in last year's, but it's been it's a common one that we have that other districts have that's been reported. So, in this one where it showed up with the summer piece, then that clearly was a piece of communicating there. We found out that many of the schools are um holding their mail during the summer because they just don't have the mail delivery people to be able to get into the offices to deliver it. >> Um so, we will be working on figuring out an alternative way to do that. um whether it's collecting the mail kind of in a central office area or just kind of making sure that we have some way of tracking that. >> Well, you could always get it forwarded to the district. >> Yeah. I mean, you know, those are the things that when [snorts] something like this pops up, you understand where the issue is and that's why we jump in, investigate and figure out an alternative way to manage that process. It's [clears throat] almost worse than that it's rare because it's hard to set up a system for something that's rare and remind people that [laughter] oh yeah there was one piece of mail [snorts] that we missed >> and now you all have to have standard work posted on the wall for you know how to handle this correctly right. >> Yep. Yep. Y >> so we are on it. >> Yeah. >> More discussions or questions? [snorts] Sounds like we don't which will bring us to a vote. And now roll call. >> Director Paul >> I. >> Director Bcho >> I. >> Director Liss >> I. >> Director Spencer >> I. >> Director Cole >> I. >> The chair votes I. And the resolution is approved. Brings us to the next item. The management team handbook 2025 2027. >> All right. Just as a reminder, handbooks are not um collectively bargained, but are analyzed in the exact same way that our other contracts are. We look at um market comparisons. Um compare for all of our positions. Um we are looking at a base salary increase of 2% in both the first and second year um with a small 2% market adjustment for directors. Uh that was a specific position that was found to be out of line um and below um both mean and median. Uh then um the group also is being offered and you'll see the same thing in classified management um an increase um in health insurance um towards family coverage. Same thing that teachers and other units had and then also viva increase of 250 in the second year um which similarly is um what was offered to other teams. Um then we're also clarifying similar to other contracts uh leapyear language. Um, we clarified language in regard to retirement benefits that were sunsetted to make sure that that is clear for all of our team members and then also added similar to um other units a small $2,000 bilingual stipen for district identified positions or those who are uh specifically utilized in a bilingual way. Uh the other component um is the uh we've talked about this a few different times is the restructure of cabinet um and the upper level management leadership. Um and so this year um with Dr. Daniels in a position that we did not um did not refill um Mr. Holy and Dr. Clarkson have taken on a significant amount of extra work. [clears throat] We've also added um a set of um both um Miss Chens and Miss Gonzalez with some cabinet level responsibilities and so there's a stipen this year for that. Um and then as we look to the restructure for next year, one of the things we've learned um through this is we need to do a better job spreading um leadership out. Um a threeperson upper level management um isn't the most effective or efficient way of doing that. And so looking at expanding that cabinet out um and then replacing the assistant superintendent's position with Dr. Clarkson retiring. Um and so we'll be looking to do that restructure and that is reflected on the back page of the handbook. And so with that um we have this in front of you um for recommended passage today. Questions, comments? I move that we uh approve the management team handbook 20 2025 to 2027 as presented. >> I'll second getting our motions in. We have a motion by director banks and a second by director Paulus. Uh I'll ask a question. Um so you made a comment about um not a collective bargaining unit also go through our normal kind of paces within checking market. Do we create the table for kind of the um the management handbook and the classified management handbook? >> We do. We create a similar set of data and information that we gather. We gather it for superintendent contract. We gather it for these. Uh we gather it for teachers. Um the complexity of some of these or the definitions of some of our jobs are all very different. Um and each people's upper level management is different. So we do the best that we can um working with all that same data. Absolutely. More questions then we'll bring it to a vote. All in favor please say I. >> I. >> All post please say name. >> Chair votes I. And the management handbook management team handbook for 2025 2027 is approved. Brings us to the classified management team handbook 2025 2027. >> All right. And so you're going to see a number of similar things. So you have 2% in the first year 2% in the second year. Health insurance similar with family viva um increase uh leap year language also clarified bilingual stipen added to classified management uh couple level of additional things um market adjustment for certain positions what that actually means is similar to management team there's a 2% in most of the positions that um needed to be adjusted uh there were actually two that uh completed a job study um one is been um doing finance. Um sort of the third person in our finance leadership positions. Um that that was seen as undermarket and so that received a market adjustment and title change to finance administrator. Uh and then payroll manager. Uh we have um in our payroll we have a staggered system of oversight and our payroll manager position was also out of market and so that received a job study also and received an adjustment into what the salary was. Uh the other thing that you will notice um and that this is this happened on a slightly unanticipated timeline. There are now positions added um in terms of title for facilities manager um and also transportation supervisor. Um and I failed to mention that the second year for management team contract you no longer see director of buildings grounds transportation uh because with the transition of leadership staff that position uh next year no longer exists. Um it's still in the contract for this year because it began the year um and would needed to be there for the audit. Um and facilities manager and transportation supervisor are now in the classified management handbooks. Um and so clarifying all those pieces of information. So we have that also in front of you for recommended passage. Thank you for that. Questions, comments or a motion? I'll move the handbook as presented. >> I'll second. >> Guys are on fire. We have a motion by director Paulson and a second by Director Bankrol. Any questions. There's a lot of smiles in the room tonight. I'm like, which is great. And >> well, Mr. Hollis and Miss Banks Cup are getting their names in the record book with some motions and seconds for their final happy day. >> Knocking them up. Sugarfield >> Sugarfield [laughter] hearing. [snorts] No more question hearing. Silence. All in favor please say I. I. I. >> All post please say. Chair votes I. And the classified management team handbook for 2025 to 2027 is approved. Brings us to polling places for 2026. >> All right. So this one is a resolution. And so it is our requirement to uh move forward school-wise, even though we do not have a school election anticipated in any way, shape or form for 2026. Um these are the city polling places and if there was Richfield schools in addition to that, these would also be, I believe, our sites. And so we have this in front of you, uh looking for a resolution to pass the polling places for 2026. >> Okay. I don't know if this is a Cassandra thing or a Steve thing, but you stuck the resolution in here. on me, right? You just slid under the radar because it's not on the agenda. >> Well played. >> What? >> It doesn't read it in the agenda title. It says it below. >> That is true. It says the board approved the resolution designating polling places. >> Shenanigans. >> Questions or comments about it? >> Got to throw curve balls to the chair. >> I move that we approve the polling places for 2026 as presented. I'll second. [laughter] We have a motion by director makes banks come true and a second by director Paul. >> I'm the only ones who came today. >> Right. Everybody else is just doing a good cookie sleep. >> Letting them have it. >> I'm barely getting my eye in with the button. Appreciate that. [laughter] [snorts] >> Any discussion? And not really much we can change on this one. Then we will start our roll call to my left. Director Cole. >> I. >> Director Spencer. >> I. >> Director Liss. >> I. Dr. Banks kept >> I. >> Director Ballis >> I. >> The chair votes I and the resolution approving the poll places for 2026 is approved. >> Brings us to the last item is donations. >> Recommending that the board accept the following donations with gratitude. Richfield Dual Language received a donation of $5353 cents from the RDLS PTSO for field trips. Thank you RDLS PTSO. Sheran Hills Elementary receives $23 from Boxtops for Education, 6220 for American Online Giving Foundation, and 60 from the Black Bowed Giving Fund. Thank you for your generosity to Sheron Hills. RHS softball teams and baseball teams were received a donation of $2,119.98 from the Spartan Foundation for new batting cages. Thank you, Spartan Foundation, who also donated to the RHS art department, a donation of $984.98 for easels and art supplies. Thank you, Spartan Foundation. The RMS fax department received a donation from the refrigerator valued at $999 from Best Buy Co. Inc. of Richfield. Thank you, Best Buy. RPS Nordic Ski Team received a donation of $500 from Mr. and Mrs. Ball of Minneapolis. The RHS music department received a donation of $250 from Mr. and Mrs. Ball of Minneapolis. And the RHS theater department received a donation of $250 from Mr. and Mrs. Ball of Minneapolis. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Ball, for your generous donations. Thank you for all the donations. >> I move we accept these donations with much much gratitude. >> I will second. >> That's quick. I couldn't even ask for it. We have a motion by Director Banks Cupro to approve these donations with much much gratitude. So you're trying to challenge me on this. And a second by director Paulus. >> All in favor, please say I. I. >> I. All post, please say nay. The chair votes I and we accept these donation donations with much much gratitude. Brings us to advanced planning. Uh legislative update. Uh not a whole lot. We hope to finalize the platform on the 5th with our uh meeting with legislators study session, the first meeting in February. We need to We're hoping to finalize it on the 5th and then meet with them on the 5th, right? >> Is that right? >> No, January 5th is the next board meeting. We finalize the platform then on February 5th. >> Oh, is it February 5th? Okay. >> I was just making sure cuz you said the fifth and I was like we're approving the platform. >> February 5th. >> I don't think it is. >> I think it's February 2nd, but uh >> I had my >> February 2nd. >> Second. Okay. Sorry. That's why I was confusing. Yes. January 5th, we approved the platform. We're just trying to drag out the last couple of minutes because we don't want to part. >> Wait, we want to keep you guys as long as possible. >> That's it. >> That's update information or question for the board. [laughter] >> Hearing nothing. Suggestion future agenda items. >> I could stuff some ideas. [laughter] >> We're This is the time for you guys to hold it. And that brings us to future meeting dates. Uh January 5th, 2026 again. And then um Tuesday, January 20th is our regular meeting with public comment. Which then brings us down to adjourning. As the item doesn't require final approval from the board, I'll officially join the meeting at 9:23. [laughter]