e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e that's loud it is 700 p.m. on March 7 17th St Patrick's Day and I call to order this regular meeting of the Richfield School Board attending this board meetings board meeting live and in the boardroom our board members pole uh kendis Kirk Spencer is not live in the boardroom he is online with us remote and I believe published correct on some locations right and I'm board chair Eric Carter with us tonight we are joined by student represent representatives and need still down already Vanessa Rosa Miguel better getting there and Tania Breen Ridge almost perfect perfect also we have with us at the table superintendent Steve yuski and assistant to the superintendent Cassandra kwam other members of The District's leadership team are in attendance and may be participating throughout the meeting as well Richfield public school's mission statement is that we strive to inspire and Empower each of the individuals to learn grow and Excel and we will strive to keep that focus at the center of our discussions this evening thanks to all of you for joining us here live and in the boardroom we also want to thank those of you who are streaming the meeting or watching it after the fact via YouTube We Appreciate when people bear witness to our meetings where we conduct the necessary official business of the district our first item of business evening will be to approve the agenda before us as approve of the agenda is routine business I'll briefly pause there any comments or questions related to the agenda I just I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to look for you Kirk have a look over there the laptop to see it's super exciting typically don't have answers but the fun part about this tonight every vote will be done via roll call super excited about that and here no discussions is there a motion I move to approve the agenda at I'll second that we're going tonight we have a motion by director Cole and a a second by director Liss I'm assuming there's no discussion none other than the hotel lobby all uh can't say all in favor director Cole hi director LZ hi director Spencer Hi I love the delayed reaction and I the chair Carter vote I and the agenda is passed on fire T night tonight's normally a night for speakers we have no public speakers tonight unfortunately love to hear them um that said our next opportunity for public speaking is April 21st um instructions can be found on the Richfield Public Schools website under menu about Schoolboard public comments with that I hand it over to superintendent uneski for the superintendent updates all right two presentations tonight uh we have director of special education and soon to be Dr Jen Krueger um followed by um safe R to schools coordinator extraordinaire Tim bracket um with a safeer el schools presentation but let's turn it over to director Krueger for special education good evening board thanks for having me I'm Jennifer Krueger the director of special education and I have some information on our special education under duplicated child count this slide shows our unduplicated child count of all Richfield students um their resident students who receive special education services that's 832 students and this is an increase of 54 students in comparison to last year there are 753 students receiving special education services in Richfield this is an increase of 22 students in comparison to last year of the students being served in Richfield there are 110 non-resident students a decrease of 11 students from last year and there are 189 students who are being served out of District this is an increase of 21 students compared to last year so of those students being served out of District um 34 students are being served at intermediate District 287 and um of those 28 students were placed for services there and six students with IEPs are attending ALC programming with District 287 and compared to last year we have two more students being served by District 287 there are also 155 resident students receiving special education services who are open enrolled or attending private school outside of the district which was an increase of 19 students in comparison to last year um there continue to be higher percentages of students um identified as um qualifying for special education for students in three groups so Scholars who are black two or more races and American Indian these patterns are similar to previous school years although there's a slight increase for Scholars who identify as two or more races this pattern of increased special education identification for these groups is found Statewide and reinforces the importance of effective pre-referral interventions databased decision-making and accurate special education evaluation this slide shows a 5-year comparison of our district enrollment and the unduplicated child count the unduplicated special education child count has shown an increase over the past 5 years okay uh this slide compares the unduplicated child count across seven districts and remember the unduplicated child count is the count of special education students who are resident residents of each district it's not a measure of students being served by the district all districts have shown an increase in their unduplicated child count and last year six of the seven districts also showed an increase this slide shows demographic comparisons for several groups of students including students who uh identify as bipac uh English language Learners and students who qualify for free and reduced in comparison to last year the following changes were noted in these percentages for for special education students there was a very slight decrease for students who identify as bipac there was a decrease of about 2% for students who are English language Learners and there was a decrease of about 4% for students who qualify for free and reduced so overall um we see that students who receive special education services qualify for free and reduced at higher rates in comparison to the district overall this could be because of the increased supports they have more interaction with school team and they be may be more likely to fill out that application for educational benefits uh this slide Compares richfield's identification of students in special education eligibility categories in comparison with data from the state of Minnesota Richfield remains below the state average for the categories of emotional behavior disorders and other health disabilities the district remains above average for autism spectrum disorders and early childhood special educ or ecse although still above the state state average ecse did show a slight decrease of about 2% and you know early intervention is so important it can decrease a student need for services later on uh richfield's robust pre- programming and programs like voluntary prek and um free programming for early Learners also help us identify students earlier uh this slide shows the number of students who attend center-based programming within Richfield and there continues to be an increase in these numbers um and these are students who spend the majority of their day receiving special education services in the special education setting in the special ed classroom so the largest increase has been for our students who have um developmental cognitive disabilities and autism spectrum disorders and who have that higher level of need relative to their self-help or adaptive skills this is a pattern we're actually seeing across the State and we're really not sure why there's such an increase um these are students who tend to remain in programming and they require more intensive Services throughout their schooling uh there's a large number of these students who come to us through our early learning programs and again these our students that we anticipate will stay in this level of programming so we need to watch these numbers as we plan to meet these needs as the students go through their schooling with us um there are also a number of students who attend programming through outside agent gencies like the Minnesota Autism Center or other applied Behavior Analysis or ABA programs who could return back to us to receive programming through the district this slide shows how many Richfield students have been placed in setting 4 programming with intermediate District 287 so setting for programs are those separate school programs for students with very intensive needs starting this school year our small setting four program for emotional behavior disorders was replaced with programming through District 287 and even with transitioning that small group of students to to District 287 are setting for placements have remained stable so if we're going to look at kind of summarizing this child count data um it's important to note that we saw that 7% increase in our unduplicated child count of again that's Richfield resident students receiving special educations either within the district or out outside of the district um and there was an increase um of 3% of students receiving special education services within the district another pattern to note is that we continue to see that higher U percentage of students receiving ecse Services again that's an opportunity for Early Intervention which could de decrease the need for services later um the district we' we're seeing a real increase in students who require that center-based programming and um we are anticipating an increase in those numbers again next next year so that information again it's important for us as we plan for for future needs finally the number of Richfield students who are served through District 287 has remained stable um the analysis of our child count data also um looks at the percentages of students receiving special education services compared to their overall percentages of enrollment in the district it's expected that these percentages would be similar students who are Hispanic make up up the largest percentage of students in the district and also the largest percentage of students receiving special education services we did see a slight decrease in specific learning disabilities identification for Scholars who are Hispanic although the percentage is higher when compared to the overall enrollment of Scholars who are Hispanic although Richfield has a higher percentage of students who are black or African-American and two or more races who qualify for services for an emotional behavior disorder Richfield remains below the state average for both emotional behavior disorders identification and also for other health disabilities again we would expect these percentages to be similar and when we see patterns of increase we just need to ensure that we have general education interventions available we engage in that database decision- making and we complete accurate special education evaluations so the last slide here um shows some Focus areas for our special education department during this school year and they are in alignment with alignment with District priorities we have 48 special education teachers and leads who are taking part in our letters training um another Focus area has been database decision- making and including the utilization of fast bridge for Progress monitoring our special education leads are really a key for us in supporting our building teams in this area and our monthly uh lead meetings we've included data dialogues and really focused on fastbridge our teams also continue to use a database process when we're considering an increase in special education services um so that we're really um supporting our mission of uh serving students in that least restrictive environment thank you thank you for the update sure does I look around just do and Kirk up there in the background who would like to ask questions comments I have a couple of questions sure can you explain to me you said this already what does unduplicated mean sure so um this is the count of students who are um Richfield resident students and they're either receiving their services in Richfield or outside of Richfield I think unduplicated means is we aren't going to count them twice so they're all of the Richfield resident students who are identified under special education and it doesn't matter where they're receiving their services that's that that's that first overall unduplicated child count number okay my other thing is a comment on training um a lot of districts you you train your uh permanent your Premier subs for in CPI and stuff like that other districts don't do that oh so that's that's a good thing that's yeah and I think that Crisis Prevention Institute Training really um it teaches a lot of skills related to deescalation and intervening early so I think that's a great benefit well if you're gonna put a sub into that position they really need to have that yes I agree yes that's one of the things I like about great great okay hi thank you for this very detailed information um I have some questions about the identification process and the multi- services for students uh because every year we see this data I always come to the uh same increase of special eding among Latino students uh students of color English Learners so can you walk us through how the process from When the Children get identified like is there a referral and also a little bit about uh the learning disabilities identified and like in which language uh because I I I think and I'm not saying that we don't do that I just want the community to also hear it um a lot of people will say things well obviously if they just came from a different country and you give them a test in English and they don't know standardized testing or the language they're not going to do well uh and so and then the the second thing is like what are the things that your team is considering to address uh the over representation of uh black brown indigenous students sure yes so that pre-referral process is really important and I think just our focus on database decision- making and the implementation of um letters training and fast bridge is really um going to support this process so um students need to participate in at least two pre-referral interventions and um as part of that process so we have um our all of our teams have been trained in that Stat or Student Assistance team process and um you know teacher General teachers Implement those interventions and then we would only go into a special education evaluation if the General Ed supports were not effective so I believe that that fast Bridge um data is going to be very important for us in terms of really closely monitoring intervention and seeing when there's growth so that we don't move forward with a special education evaluation if it's not necessary so it's important to have good general education instruction good targeted intervention supports and not um refer students until we really have tried those interventions um part of our re pre-referral process for a student who is an English language learner would be a consideration of factors of um kind of their language background and that's part of what our stat te team would discuss and look at and bring in um their the El teacher as part of that conversation and just make sure we have really good accommodations and supports in place in general education our goal is to help our students be successful in general education before we would go into an evaluation um I have heard from our building teams that that fast bridge data has been really helpful and other data that they're keeping about students who are in intervention that they're able to use that information and say gosh we're we are definitely seeing growth here let's give that intervention a little bit more time um if we move into an evaluation for a student who has a second language then we do complete uh measures in other languages through the use of interpreters or in the case of Spanish we do have a staff member who completes uh academic testing in Spanish so we're very aware of um you know requirements to complete um you know accurate evaluations for students who have other language backgrounds and we try to support that again through the use of interpreters through the use of um our um speakers of other languages as as they're available so we we are aware of those issues what is the um guideline that is given to principles and teachers um about when is it time to start an intervention to start an intervention well you know I our building teams are um meeting to look at students growth academically and to look at um at look at patterns uh there may be a whole classro who's struggling with a certain piece of reading or a part of math instruction and so there might be a whole um kind of reteaching through for a large group of the classroom or the whole classroom and so then they would also um look for students who may be struggling um compared to their uh general education peers and move them into some more targeted instruction so um that's definitely something we're monitoring I would say you know maybe individual interventions would probably be done with maybe 10 15% of students in a in the classroom so you know as we kind of have a triangle where we have our general at intervention we might have some group intervention individual intervention as we kind of move through that process but our our goal is again to really support students through general education interventions when possible is did a threshold about reading proficiency uh for referrals or for an evaluation the reason I'm asking there's every year we we talk about the data from the MCAS I know that here we have fact Bridge which in my opinion is more useful because teachers can make instructional decisions and updates uh timely in a timely manner but we also know that the kids do come at a very lower percentage for whatever reason Reas mhm so what I'm wondering is a family where there's a child who's not able to read in either Language by third grade for example like are we reaching out to the families and saying like I think it's time for your child to do more um of an intervention or are we waiting for families to come and say why is my kid not reading um yeah say a gosh no we would not let a student go that long without with really struggling with reading I think the as we're learning through our fast Bridge training and reinforcing with our with our teams is that we do know that it's very important to intervene early so providing those inter general education interventions first grade second grade not getting to that third grade where then it is more difficult to intervene and support students families can always request an evaluation however um it may be that the F the student uh the family has a conversation about um working with the stat team with that intervention team to support the student first prior to a special education evaluation conferences are a great time to talk with families about student progress and again we do have teams that are working to look at our you know building level data to watch for students where we're seeing those patterns where there isn't the growth again so we can intervene and if those interventions aren't effective then there would be a referral to our Special Education team thank you and last one I promise that's okay it's just when you happen to I I I'm pretty quiet on some days when there's a lot of financial things happening and then the day that we talk about instruction then I am very caffinated for it what would do you keep track of um referals made by teachers like specific teachers like to find any patterns between I just have this fear that a lot of the discrepancies may be like are we being too permissive when a child who's white is struggling and not and not trying to not label them for example or not trying to make them true because there's got to be something beyond that is is causing this uh this issue of like why are there more kids of color and English Learners and I know there's a lot of the English Learners are the same from the Hispanic group so I know there's not like an additive from one of the other um but are you uh in your department you know tracking like where are these referrals coming from or who hasn't referred anybody because that would also be weird sure yes so like statistically strange yeah so every building has a special education lead and we have school psychologists in every building those are two of our team members that come to mind in terms of looking at patterns in our data at the building level and that's really something we focused on this year's both this year both with our school psychologist and our special education leads so making sure that they know how to access the data how to look for patterns in the data and then um kind of move forward with how you know kind of action but that is something that we do look at at the building level would be are we seeing patterns of referrals from you know certain classrooms certain teachers certain grade levels in certain areas and yes we would we would help support um the building team in terms of um you know maybe there's if there's a pattern do we need to do a training about our stat team and how we do referrals and interventions or do we need to again are we seeing patterns where there may be some reteaching of certain skills needed or I think we do like our school psychologists are a great team member who kind of bridge both the special education piece but also that pre-referral general education so that that is another great team member to to support that work thank you yeah um as a former teacher also uh parent of a child with special needs um I know that it's very hard as a teacher to bring that conversation to a family and I know that in Minnesota we like to be nice and and avoid conflict and so I I I think that that is another thing that makes me wonder like how we have afraid to go and talk to white families and say like there is a challenge with your child and I hope that we don't because I think as a parent every parent would like to know if there's something happening that needs a little bit more support um but I I I think at this point I've been here nine years like looking at the patterns and looking at those uh discrepancies and and gaps between like there's got to be something there and we need to find it so that we can train whomever needs to be trained so that we can make sure that we're using uniform systems uh fast bridge that I know we use has been a really great resource so I I'm um I'm excited to see it work uh and and also as he measure growth but like there is nothing uh that predisposes Comm ethnic communities to being behind and we know that at the conscious level so we need to find like what are the things in the system that are either uh making the conversation with families of color about your kid needs to go on this path versus not versus the opposite right like there's I I think we need to to to make sure that there are that we don't we're not having kids also falling through the tracks because teachers are not willing to have I mean not willing but like hesitant uh or is it sometimes I wonder like is there an expectation that the white child will get cut up later right as opposed to there there's a lot out there so I I think this is not a guidance for like the right now or tomorrow but it's something that I hope that when we have this meeting next year that we are able to have some answers and some uh theories or that we have been able to move uh closer to to more equity in in that regard sure yes I think that's definitely uh an issue across the country and in our state in special education and I think our seal work in building relationships with students and working as adult staff members on on those seal pieces as well to support our students kind of Works hand inand with our focus on literacy good literacy instruction and and good interventions and data based decision-making I think I'm hoping we'll all work together to really support student achievement for all of our students so we can reduce some of those disparities that we're seeing thank you appreciate y any questions from the background am I the background no no questions well I just saw that you blurred your background so you didn't get to see the lovely birds so uh so I I'll ask just a couple questions I guess I got a comment first I want to Echo what uh director list said about the being happy that we train our subs um you know I guess in the back of my head I've had that question about some of the other things like when we talk about um conscious discipline and right and how do our subs get trained uh and then also I guess the interesting question too is what about our part-time subs and how you know it's like how are we giving a consistent approach to our children just General I don't if you want to answer that or just throw there's a comment so it doesn't need an answer um I I will say it's like I'm and you probably answer this already there's a lot of data in here I didn't think there's a lot of data then I'm like well there's a lot of data um the the special ed as a percent of enrollment increasing across all districts and then your comment about um specifically the the continued increases are anticipated right uh it just more of a gutfield or is it I guess the thing I keep thinking is you know it's like like autism right it's like the fact that we've got diagnosis and it's like it's not that it didn't exist back in the day it did it's just we identify it better is it the same thing um so there's a couple things one we'll start the first was a question also so in terms of training our subs we do comprehensive and systemic training for our subs and try to train them all um there are intermittent subs or folks that we don't end up getting to um because of different schedules but we we really make effort to make sure that our subs are able to to carry on the same vision that we are doing as a district in terms of predictions going down to the Future and unfortunately if we look back to covid um developmentally that occurred at a time um that will have some best prediction is some residue into the future and so across um across the country um and across the world we are seeing students and kids growing up with some increased needs um and it really depends on the time that that hit and the developmental Milestones that kids were engaged in um and so our measures actually come from Early Childhood screening and early childhood special education where we are seeing numbers increased um as kids are coming up into our system and so we're expecting that and then that continues to expand as those kids get into Elementary and then the numbers continue to stay a little bit High uh that may go down in the future um but we have not yet seen that change in the data and so over the last couple of years there has been that increase um coming in I know that way not way back 15 years ago you basically had to find as a parent uh on your own but I've noticed that pediatric visit have changed a lot with knowing about uh all these in Spectrum disorders I can tell that in the questionnaire what is it that pediatricians are looking for that didn't uh that I did not see uh 15 years ago and so uh similarly um also important to say that a lot of the things that I was wondering were mostly related to learning disabilities because I know that uh for a lot of autism spectrum disorders these things happen hopefully during early intervention so that children are receiving those uh early uh services um and kids on the Spectrum can also be very Advanced academically uh some things as emotional behavior disorders they're also like kind of like harder to miss uh and there a usually lot of background with the social worker and the school psychologist and information but the the concern that and I I should have said that earlier is really with those learning disabilities right like because because those are those are things that are more they're not so obvious and they can only be noticed by by the scores really and the performance in classroom of course more [Music] questions thank you okay thank you thank you br to our next one yes we're going to slide in that transition well well done director Krueger and we will switch on to Safe routes to schools and Tim bracket and so as Tim approaches in this transition a large and wonderful conversation about special education and now a conversation around safe routes to schools good evening chrisville Board of Education and Community push into there you go one is fine good evening Richfield Board of Education and Community I was actually in the middle school last week and they turned my microphone off I was too loud so hopefully we're fine here tonight uh my name is Tim bracket I'm the district's safe rosted school coordinator and I'm very thankful for your time today I'm excited to be here tonight to present about our safe rosta school program tonight we're going to talk about what is safe frosta school who is the safe frosta School cordinator uh what has happened over the past year how does it impact the bigger picture um so what I'll do is I'll just introduce my myself I'll explain the program and go over some Milestones from the past year as well the main thing to know about the safe R the school program is that it aims to make it easier and safer and I always like to add in and more fun for students to walk and Bike to School Richfield public schools has a designated safe Rost school coordinator since 2019 of course that is me um that's fairly uncommon for school districts there are only six of us Statewide and two here in the suburbs in the metro area so my position is funded by by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and we are funded through June of 2027 I'm happy to report that these are all State dollars so regardless of what happens with federal grants we know that this position is funded through June of 2027 and that is secure so in my work I work on six strategies they're called the six e they are engagement Equity education encouragement engineering and evaluation so who is the safe Rost of school coordinator that's me Tim bracket I'm a year- round bike commuter I'm not someone who is doing it every day though in January and February I get in the car a lot more than I get on my bike I do commute from Northeast Minneapolis so that's part of the reason why but I do commute via bike year round um I'm a Minnesota Green cor Alum who served at bike and in the bicycle Alliance of Minnesota is where I learn the skills that uh helped me do the job I do today I'm also married in Northeast Minneapolis and parent of an 18-month-old the picture here is uh for those of you who don't know to ride in a child seat on a bike you have to be a year old so this is 2 days after Josephine's one-year birthday on her first ride to daycare so that's a picture of my my wife and daughter taking our child to daycare on a bicycle um for the rest of the evening we'll have slides look similar to this and I'll give you some highlights and Milestones that have happened since we met last January and we can go ahead and jump right into that so the good news is when I was here last time we had just applied for funding to renew the position for three more years me being here today indicates that we we got that funding and so the position again is renewed until 2027 three more years is a it's a great opportunity is really competitive we have a lot of uh Suburban communities are sort of getting onto the safe process School train and so there's stuff going on all over the uh the metro and the Suburban communities so the application process was very competitive I'm happy to announce we were the second highest scoring Grant application in the entire state so we excited about that this was all due to the hard work of Staff Craig H's leadership on the Grant application um just different support different staff building principles all the feedback we got we were able to compile a very strong application we actually swept the 2024 Grant application season so we went three for three and we kept our streak alive for Boost grants every year since the program has started we've won a boost Grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation so that was a total of 2024 of $300,000 in funding for the safe proess school program The Narrative of the Grant application is the uh that we want to develop sustainability we know that we may not get this grant again in 2027 so my task over the next three years is to build sustainability so that if the position goes away the safe routs work continues here in the district all right so education my favorite part of the job is bike education I love being on bikes I uh when I was teaching in the Middle School the other day or engaging with students in the Middle School school I was just telling Craig I was moving all around the classroom I can't sit still so when I'm on a bike and I'm teaching I'm in heaven because that's where I where I belong I there was a good year for us uh we worked with PE teachers date teachers other staff to educate approximately 2,000 students in 2024 we implemented the balance bike Fleet in the fall of 23 we also implemented our secondary education bike Fleet last spring so that was allows us to provide more bike education for middle and high school students and uh when we talk about our Balance Bike Fleet in summer programming we started pop-up traffic Gardens where we able to teach 40 students how to learn to ride a bicycle we start out on balancing skills and then the last day I surprised them I throw on pedals so when they show up they can choose continue trying to balance on the balance bike or try the pedals and we are happy to have a 95% success rate last summer and teaching uh students how to learn to ride grades K through three we also uh look to as a part of that sustainability piece train Parks and Rec staff on how to lead group rides how to lead learn to rides so that we're able to grow our program and build sustainability the more folks in the community to know about how to teach bike safety and skills to our students the more sustainable the program will be long term so happy to report this summer we actually have 16 different bicycle programming opportunities throughout the district we built in the new Grant extra time for summer programming and so that's what we're doing uh one last note on bike education we recently applied for and were granted funds to build an Adaptive bicycle and Equipment Library so the little background there is last year we were fortunate to be able to get equipment from bike and Men free to us but one bike only had one gear out of three that was working that student was not able to finish the group ride uh situations like that coming up we just felt like we needed our own Fleet our own Library uh so that when we do bike education in each school we can bring these bikes that are own equipment we can have them updated and ready to go so we just got that Grant we're excited about that that came from the Bloomington Public Health and we're looking forward to acquiring those bikes this summer and putting them out in the fall with engineering so we many of you are familiar with the demonstration project near Centennial Elementary the city did win a met counil infrastructure Grant to make that a permanent uh fixture there in front of Centennial along 73rd all the way from Bloomington to Cedar the project started with a menot grant to to install that demonstration project so we were able to test Concepts gather data and then go back to the to the Met Council and ask for money to make that permanent my favorite aspect of the project you see in the picture here of people smiling but what I see a lot is kids are smiling and running and um we know they're safe because they're having a good time they're not worried about traffic they're not worried about their parents uh calling them back to the curb they have that safe space to run and play and and go to school in a good mood so I really enjoy that this project is due was originally scheduled to be completed in 2026 that will be now completed this summer so they moved that up a year uh quick note with that project that came from a sustained effort from Centennial staff year over year they just kept pushing for for more safe infrastructure along 73rd there so that is something that was just an example of persistence paying off and when we talk about persistence paying off we can move to the RDL and stem campus where efforts to update that parking lot and ways to get to and from this the campus via walking and biking and been going on for a long time I know that during the 2021 school year we received a men a men. safe process School Grant to fund an engineering study and I love to tell people when they say what does a safe Rost the school coordinator do well my about six weeks into the job I found this 186 page report in my desk and so I read that for about 3 hours ate lunch and then I went to stem and I taught Kids kindergarten through third grade how to ride balance bikes so I I love uh explaining that as how I do my job but that INF that engineering study we've we've been able to implement a lot of the things from that study and this summer we're going to implement a permanent upgrade of the demonstration project we've seen there last fall and so that was a safe R School infrastructure Grant we're awarded and that project will again will also be going on this summer it's going to be a fun fall Bal balance uh both campuses and going back and forth and trying to educate folks on how to use the new infrastructure but we'll make it work and we're going to make it a lot safer for students to walk and bike to school at Centennial stem and rdls so when we talk about engagement the big project I've been working on this year we won a grant from menot to this was the Boost Grant we won last year to keep our streak alive to implement a trauma informed approach to the safe process school program so we know and Dr rowski touched on this in the previous presentation that every student at at Richville public schools for the next decade will have experienced the trauma of uh pandemic we know that many of our students experience trauma through the prevalence of social media there's bullying racism generational poverty to name a few we just know that there's a trauma within our student body and we wanted to look at that when we looked at uh physical versus psychological fears from while walking and biking to school and make sure that we are acknowledging the trauma in the community as we work to build our program so what we've done is we hired someone to write a curriculum on how to engage with students and the and Stu and parents and caregivers we trained on the curriculum last November it was exciting we only advertised this to social workers um but we had so we had 15 social workers we had 30 total people the other 15 just saw it on the list and came without even uh being nudged from us so there's obviously interest here in the school uh District to learn more about the trauma informed approach and the intent of the the whole project was that the curriculum would be used internally through with every program as needed but also that we'll share that externally to other safe Rost school programs throughout the state so we're accomplishing that goal by training staff here in in the district and I know that mot folks are just champing at the bit for me to finish this project so they can get the curriculum and start using that with their programs as well so we are finished the the curriculum writing we've done the training I started doing engaging we engag with high school students from the green Club at a recent listening session panel and again last week I spent the entire day at uh Richfield Middle School I did uh 180 engag with 180 students I put on my teacher hat and I did the four minute turn time between classes and and uh it was fun I loved it I love middle schoolers so we had a good time and then we're currently developing new ways to engage parents and caregivers on this project and then after we do that we're going to move into the evaluation phase and that's where we're going to use what we've learned to help grow the program but making sure that we keep trauma in mind when we're when we're trying to convince folks to walk her bike to school but also removing barriers for folks who have to when that's not a choice and that's where one tangible benefit of this project this winter we are able to hand out gloves and neck Gators Richfield branded neck Gators with the Richfield R to students who already are walking and biking and maybe there's some tardiness issues or absentees because it was cold and also to students who have just said hey I'd love to Walker bike but I don't have cold weather gear so we've been able to provide that with funding from this grant last thing I like to talk about with the six EAS encouragement days we host three walking and bicycling events every year one in October one in February and one in May uh these are so fun I love doing them every school does something different I know rdls on winter walk to school today we'll just walk around the block the entire student body so it's a lot of fun love doing it we love also when board members come and join us so look for an email from me about bike the school day I'll send that out in April I wanted to update you on when we originally got the first bike Fleet it was pitched as an idea as a community resource and so we've definitely been using that as a community resource now that we have three fleets at our disposal we've partnered with Richfield police department on bike with a cop we've had a fun time with uh so that last summer there were 40 Spanish speaking Rich fielders there that we were able to get on bicycles we've also provided the community fleets for summer events for Community Ed and for Richfield parks and wreck part of that 16 uh programming events this Summer that I mentioned earlier we also had a real good chance to use that new bike Fleet the bike Fleet for secondary education also works for adults and so we were able to use that for men Do's active Transportation Department for their recent active Transportation Summit we biked the day after that most recent blizzard and to richfield's credit they had all the bike paths plowed and so we had a successful ride with about 15 of us so it was really fun we've used it for the association of pedestrian and bicycle professionals conference and we've also used it for a tour for the Richfield uh henpen County active living professionals came to Richfield and we did a bike tour so we're able to use that as a community Resource as intended the bike park Taff bike park it's been up here for about two years now but I wanted to give you an update on that because uh this summer for those of you who don't know it's a bike course that targets kids age 4 to 10 helps it gives them a safe space to try riding on all kinds of obstacles and have a lot of fun last summer I helped teach students on the track and the first jump I did I wrecked and so that was a fun time to show kids what happens when you're when you do the jump in correctly so we uh but we use our elementary bike Fleet and we use our Balance Bike Fleet to teach kids bike skills on the TA B uh the Taft bike park then we partner with Public Works to work on infrastructure so we partnered on them with the infrastructure Grant in front of stem and Centennial we partnered with them on the Met Council Grant in front of Centennial I'm sorry stem and rdls and then Centennial as well and we've recently applied for a grant to fill existing site walk gaps and Mak intersection safety improvements around Sheridan Hills we will know by the end of April if we've received that Grant we will also work with Public Works henan County and the City of Richfield as they redesign Penn Avenue in 2028 and 29 we are trying to coordinate right now engagement events at Sheridan Hills and Richfield Middle School here in the next this summer to engage with our student body and and make sure that Penn Avenue represents what they want from pen Avenue lastly I just want to say you know we've we got a lot of trust from menot because we've effectively Steed their their grant money and we also been invited by them to assist on a number of adjacent projects um they're really interested in that trauma informed curriculum as I mentioned and they really look to our staff members to go out throughout the state and provide the training on that curriculum so they're really looking to Richfield right now for a number of different reasons they see us as a leader in the safe rout to school workor they uh in fact so it it was supposed to come out today but it may come out later this week star tribun is going to put out a story on safe Ros at school and they called men do safe rots team and said what do we need to know and they said the first thing you need to do know is call Richfield because they're doing a good job there so they called me and JV jumped in on the call with me and we did an interview with Star Tribune that should be published shortly so look for that so menot definitely is looking to Richfield as a leader when it comes to Safe R to school and I like to Clos and last year I Clos with numbers and I know my predecessor always did but this year I really am excited to close with these numbers last year I reported that we had secured more than $1.58 million in Grants in the community of Richfield for safe hous School initiatives over the past 14 months that has uh gone up nearly a million dollars and now we're at $ 2.56 million that between Richfield public schools and the City of Richfield we've secured and safe R the school funding since 2019 we we look at it this way Richfield when we do our Grant application for the local coordinator role we say we're going to give a certain amount of dollars in kind and so we estimate that to be $80,000 per year that's Craig's time overseeing me and the grant that is uh Dan cringer in transportation PE teachers staff time from public work the community together spends $80,000 a year for safe Rost to school and we've brought back 2.56 million since they started doing that that's a five-fold return and so I think that anytime you're offered an investment with a five-fold return you jump at that so we're really excited I think it speaks volumes to the community's commitment to the program and the successful collaboration between Richfield Public Schools local government officials and the the community as a whole you know as they say hash1 Richfield so that's all for me I'm happy to answer any questions now there a lot and it's always exciting to have you and sa for us school I guess team uh here presenting so with that I'll hand it over to the board want to say uh share here how much I enjoy being part of the group uh and share something that that we didn't that you didn't mention that I think is also very important is just how inclusive of uh districts and city of richfields leadership uh as you make uh all of these decisions the amount of input that you that you are able to hear and incorporate and and I think that's in big part the big trust uh that that the community has for for the for the program um I know at my house we look forward to bike to school day uh because then the grown-ups get to bike [Music] too and so uh I have one question and if you know if you don't have the answer that's okay because it's kind of out of the blue when I saw the picture of at 73rd Street that was my old neighborhood and I know that s manual itself has a sidewalk beginning at the parking lot level but then where there's no sidewalk is all of the houses so I'm wondering what makes a city decide like yeah we are going to do this but we're not going to just build a sidewalk like is said a cting so for this specific project yeah projects like that like I think well they could have made like an actual sidewalk but they instead did the paint and and by I mean also Community helped a lot but that's just like something that I'm that I'm wondering like what will and if you don't know that's okay we can check back uh via email no that's so that's part of safe route's best practices is to provide biking facilities that are separate from walking uh cars and buses and so that's part of that multi-use path CU that's a separate area for bicyclist and Walkers to be able to get to school okay uh where the separated from traffic and if it was just a sidewalk it would be too narrow and it would only be for pedestrians that's a great yeah so for both yeah and I and I can see that like how that path makes it more intuitive that bikes are okay as opposed to sidewalks because people are not supposed to be on the sidewalks and uh so so yeah that that was good thank you for for that it was just something that occurred to me when I saw the photo yeah you're welcome what's as far as that right it'll be similar width and it's going to be all the way from Bloomington to Cedar correct it'll be so it'll be curbs instead of white ballards it'll be curb protected so that curb line will extend out to where those white ballards are nice good that was that was one of my questions about safety you know to keep a car from going into the into the walking area but a mistake but you know yay Richfield we're a leaders this is you know it's good to see us in the news on a on a high note exactly but I was at Centennial when you first started doing this last year yeah and um just this is a comment what you know you you set up a you you set up a a an environment that was very inclusive very friendly to the kids and it was really interesting to see how supportive these kids were of their non-bike riding classmates and I remember in one hour you know there was this one kid who had never been on a bicycle before and by the time that hour was I can't remember what great it was that kid won't be you know riding the tour to France anytime soon but they were able to get from point A to point B balanced and on pedals yeah that's one cool that's one of my favorite things because I as much as I love teaching kids how to ride bikes I love it more when kids teach kids how to ride bikes that's was happening and I want to say too we owe a lot of that inclusivity there to Mr Chris he did a really good job the PE teacher there was setting that up as well but uh yeah I love it when kids start to support their fellow classmates and and they're doing the teaching so I'm glad that you noticed yeah okay well one comment I have is I love how passionate you are about biking and your job I really appreciate that I think it's good to have someone that's passionate about what they're doing and how they're teaching others um we actually had a conversation not too long ago with yes yeah um I was going to say do they like take roundabouts or like busy streets whenever they like your groups like when they meet up do they ever like cross like really busy areas we a little bit of roundabouts at the high school level um Middle School well one there's not a lot of roundabouts near the middle school there will be soon so we'll we'll visit them that but generally roundabouts that's something we're not going to take elementary kids through that's at their age level they're just not ready for that okay sounds good that's it yeah hi well go U Tim thanks so much for the update um really appreciate uh and kind of echo director Cole's thoughts on the collaboration with the city I know that this is one of those spaces that we um we kind of have to collaborate and we do a really good job of collaborating with the city um this past fall some new signage went up on um the 35W over the overpass over 35W on 76 then I'm seeing results of cars not Crossing there um so it's great to see that got a couple of questions for you um I believe that the city was trying to get a grant for the 74th Street um pedestrian Crossing to replace that are you familiar with that Grant and if that's going to be moving forward to make that more I think ADA Compliant and not a a stair setep I am familiar and last grant that they applied for was denied so we have not received funding for that okay that's all I had thank you you're welcome more questions no I've got got a couple in comments um I led hearing about the Branded Richfield gear sounds super cool um not that it's a plug that we want to get it but it maybe a plug that I need to join in and try to make sure that I'm showing up for the board event um also great job with grants and uh is May 17th the correct date for the bik to school I believe so it looked like a Saturday I was just curious if it happened to coincide with the board meeting it's since it was later in the month so I thought I check sorry didn't mean to ask a trick question you can give back to this yeah let me get back to it that I apologize um so you you made that com about um the elementary kids being too young to teach about the roundabouts at what point do you teach them about roundabouts or don't you we do so the comment was in the context of I'm not going to take a group ride through a roundabout at the elementary level got um and so a lot of that some of that is the the stress of you know 25 30 kids and trying to navigate roundabout I the the only guidance I would give they say to stay on the sidewalk until you're 10 years old and after that you can move to some of the other infrastructure but uh as far as group rides we're not going to go through a roundabout until middle school okay I I just it um you Jarred a memory of like my kid gotten hit in roundabout uh on a bike so and going to school and so it's was like it just like huh that's a good point we should be potentially teaching about that we we also provide Maps especially to the the elementary schools walking and biking routes and they include safer calmer streets that are not or you're not using a roundabout as well uh thank you and then the last one um so gu another followup question um so the the curve line will be extended so I'm just thinking like the we were showing the picture that had the kind of the red I don't know what you call it but the the kind of the pylons if you want to go back um up to the Centennial one yeah that one so so I guess I'm trying to follow so just the curb itself the the whole thing will be extended do you know yeah so where you see the white lines and then the ballards the vertical element that's where the curb will be got it and then the red is where the actual mixed use path will be so will it be just a kind of a curb and then a dip down or will it be the curb kind of sidewalk extended it's sidewalk extended sidewalk okay and then well keep ask questions and then I guess the reason i m that too is and so do you know if the city will plan on plowing it or clearing it yes yeah got it awesome thank you yeah more questions if not it's a pleasure to see you again thank you for coming in for your presentation you're welcome thank you everyone alrighty the next item on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda which contains a collection of routine or failure routine business items that we consent to pass in bulk without individual discussion I'll pause for a moment to see if there's any questions or requests before we proceed hearing none is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented is there a second second we have a motion to approve the consent agenda by director director and a second by director list again we every time we're going to do this for roll call vote we're going to start to my right this time director list I director Spencer I director Cole I and I vote I that's how was funny and the resol motion passes this is going to be a lot of work uh the consent agenda is approved which brings us to Old business oh we're just moving right along uh I got this the policy for 412 public and private Personnel data form and 4121 correct uh policy 412 public and private Personnel data and 4121 uh the form this is our third read um and just so pointing out some of the larger updates within the general statement of policy making sure that aligned to our legislative platform we will take care to avoid collecting data that might be sensitive unless there is a specific requirement since uh we do not know what the government would want we want to make sure that we are only collecting the things that are absolutely required also clarifying what protected health information is and making sure that that clarifies uh there have been no major changes um just um a small amount of updates since our last uh meeting and so with that um nothing substantial we are hoping for passage tonight I move that we pass policy 412 and 412. one I second look at that we have a motion to approve policy 412 by director Liss and a second by director Spencer say that was so quick I'm assuming we have no discussion we'll move right on to a roll call vote and I'll start with director Spencer Hi I did director Cole hi dor L hi and the chair of V I and the policy 412 is approved bring us to policy 582 staff notification of violent Behavior by students and administrative guideline 5821 second read all right and so this is based on State Statute um you'll see changes in here in regard to specific formatting um and then a couple of clarifications on the second page um really clarifying incidents of violence U making sure that it's clear that um this would not be made made is a decision just by Administration uh but Administration in collaboration with the superintendent uh making sure that things rise to that level um and then would be appropriate to communicate and again just making sure that we uh have our practices that align to the policy we also did review this with our administrators to make sure that we are um following through and this is something that is actually extremely rare um and so uh something for us to keep in mind and again this is a second read um and so we have this for you just for review any questions or comments hearing none that's going to move us to new business all right bringing up Mr Holi um for a presentation in regard to insurance medical and Dental um and so there is data in the packet and then also a presentation for Mr Hy so take it away for Craig time very good thank you very much um included in the packet are two recommendations for renewals of our medical and dental uh policies as well as rates that are being sent with that um just a reminder our medical and dental programs are both what we call self-funded programs so we pay administrative costs and we have certain insurances for our program but we fund the claims as part of our program uh um as part of our work we do have a group of employee bargaining group Representatives as well as District Representatives that provide oversight on that um those medical and dental plans are different benefit programs um we meet monthly from about September until here um March or April um taking a look at the insurance program taking a look at what's our utilization so that we're watching that um looking at different benefit options that we can potentially add into that program um and just making sure that we have that fiscal respon ibility of that program uh since we started a self-funded program um I think it was about 13 years ago or 14 years ago um we've had a commitment toward a sustainability of that model so building up a reserve and then being able to use that reserve on times on years where there are high claims um that are outside of normal um we had a lot of success over a number of years without actually having to increase premiums um more recently since Co we've had um a couple years where we've had to increase premiums um and that trend is continuing as well medical inflation in runs between about 8 and 12% um depending on the year so you'd expect that amount of um increase in cost on a regular basis um and we've kind of beat that over the Long Haul but have had to um kind of operate a little bit more um fiscally responsible and or had to take on some premium increases as well as make some adjustments to our plan more recently so um with this I wanted to take a look at some of the information we look at when we um look at our claims on an monthly basis and then the information that the insurance advisory committee looked at when we did our health insurance transparen transparency act uh RFP this year so every two years school districts have to go out and seek um requests for proposals from the various insurance companies to look at different administrators or different carriers um so this year was one of those deeper dive years um and we have a two-year plan or proposal that has been built into this um proposal as well so with that I'm going to turn and um just step you through the information that we looked at um both what we look at monthly as well as what we looked at with this renewal and then we'll get to the details of what those recommendations are uh so the first page with the um if we can move on to the next slide so this medical plan performance this is something we take a look at on a monthly basis with the insurance advisory committee um you can see lots of bars and graphs here um and lots of lines on the left hand side we're looking at how are we funding our program so every month we put into our internal service fund what the premium contributions would be for either a single or um a dependent family coverage plan into that internal service fund and then we pay our claims and pay our administrative costs out of that fund so we're funding that program at a rate um the green line on that side is where our expected claims would be so the annual projected expected costs actually and then there is is a purple line which is the projected funding so you can see this year we were projected to be funding above those expected claims or expected costs and then the orange line is the accumulative projected maximum costs so one of the things we do is we buy insurance that limits our overall maximum liability as a district for those insurances and then there's a Gray Line in there that goes all the way through January that has what our um actual accumulated costs were um and so you can see that lines up pretty much with where our projected where our funding is and where those maximum costs are um one of the things I will just note that GRE line is um slightly deflated um because when we did our last renewal we had um projected um when Health Partners bid our um business they had projected lower expected claims than what we were projecting as a district and so we funded at a higher rate um but we were able to maximize or to utilize their expected claims costs to limit our liability on what's called aggregate funding um long story short on this one you can see that right now we're funding basically at where our costs are on a regular basis and so not seeing any increased Reserve um on the right hand side you'll see that our Reserve is actually spending down a little bit this year um in where those claims are so the Blue Line there is where our projected Reserve um at expected would be so if we were following those green expected costs um you would see that our projected Reserve would be increasing um again that was slightly offset with lower expected claims uh the yellow Mark there is where we started the year with our reserves so we had $5.2 million in reserves in our internal service fund and then you can see the Red Bar we're actually slightly below that 5,255 at 5, 23,000 so pretty flat in there um but see some slight decline here as we are moving into the years so spending down a little bit of a fund balance that dotted line at about uh $3 million is where 40% of our total cost would be so that is our Target Fund balance so we do have some latitude there with where our current fund Balan is or our Reserve is in that internal service fund um but what we know just like um our own budget here in the district is if we spend too much Reserve then we actually have to double that reserve the next year um and so we don't want to kind of spend all of that at one time and use that more for incidental costs um moving on to the next one this is another look at kind of that medical plan performance year-to date um the green is that expected cost the yellow bars are where our um actual year-to-date costs are and then that red is that maximum accumulative claims um we have insurance at 15% is called aggregate Insurance 15% of our total claims um we have limit on a a two-year basis and so you can see we're spending pretty much where those maximum costs are right now um for our current year to date um so what we know is our claims are higher than what they were last year um and so we're watching that specifically uh one of the other things we do as an insurance advisory committee is we look at our high claims so this is what impacts our specific stop loss um traditionally um when we started moving into self-funded we um funded um specific stop loss or took that out at claims for any individual above $100,000 a few years ago we increased that to $150,000 um and now we're looking at increasing that to 175,000 as part of this renewal um this takes a look at um the blue bars here are our um current 12-month paid so if we look back 12 months these are individuals you can see that we have one individual who has almost $300,000 in claims over the last 12 months and those orange buyers are in this place plan year so as of July 1 um you can see that there are a number of individuals um the oranges um the blues that have had claims over the last 12 months but then we see lower projections moving forward um the biggest piece here is the gray bars and this software system allows us to predict based on those claims historically what they were for and the current status um where their claims likely will be in the next 12 months uh so you can see here that there's actually only one individual um who is projected in the next 12 months to hit that specific stop loss of $150,000 um so some projections that are lower which allows us some confidence to increase to $175,000 in that specific stop loss uh the next slide um takes a look at our self-funded medical renewal um we work with George vadner wheat and one digital um to do a lot of the anal um analytics and then they also facilitate our RFP process for us um the nice thing that we have is each one of the plans when they submit an RFP they project our claims and they give us their administrative costs and their reinsurance programs and then one digital uses um their own methodology especially on our claims utilization to predict where our claims will be moving forward um lots of numbers here um the insurance advisory committee took a deep dive here um but really what you'll see is um we had number number of providers that submitted um rfps so Health Partners Blue Cross Blue Shield um United Health and um peep all submitted bids um for RFP um the only um local firm that didn't was medicia so they declined to bid um it got down to Health Partners In Blue Cross Blue Shield when we looked at um the expected claims and um their administrative costs in the top connection there where it says current enrollment down to the first blue bar that is information that drives our annual reinsurance premiums so I mentioned those High claims utilizations um so we um have limits of our liability to that $150,000 per individual or $175,000 proposed um so you'll see the total enrollment we have 363 single plans 174 family plans total of 537 plans and 970 members um there are fixed costs which are connected in with that specific stop loss so that's for individuals you can see that reinsurance premium um currently is $868,000 and then if you look all the way to the right to the last two columns um Blue Cross Blue Shield has reinsurance premium of $93,000 and one digital has reinsurance premium of $871,000 so very close in that area um and then the aggregate premium is the premium that is paid um that limits our overall plan so not just individuals that 15% um you can see that Health Partners has a separate aggregate um Blue Cross Blue Shield includes that in their specific stoploss so when we look at the annual reinsurance between Blue Cross Blue Shield and Health Partners um it really is very close 93,000 for Blue Cross 896 th000 for Health Partners um moving down then the next section is our overall administrative costs um so you can see here one digital or blue Blue Cross Blue Shield on that second column from the right their administrative costs are $474 per plan um per month and then for Health Partners it is $53.70 um you can see there are a number of different programs that we integrate with those administrative costs that are ID identified underneath it um so one of the things that we would take a look at is Health Partners is slightly above that for the administrative costs but one of the things that we're able to do with our current plan is we have a carve out pharmaceutical benefit manager so that allows us more transparency um on our Pharmacy utilization it also allows us to integrate some additional plans um so one of the plans we have is um well first of all we're able to realize the rebates and we know what those rebates are with our current maxor PBM uh we also have a plan that looks for um additional Financial supports for some of our High um claim or high expense Pharmaceuticals Specialty Pharmacy drugs and things like that where the pharmaceutical companies will actually fund um provide funding to help pay for those costs and so this program helps manage that and then one of the things we're also looking at is a um system for accessing um some of our high-cost Pharmaceuticals through International resources as well um where those are lower costs and so that's something that we're looking at integrating in this coming year specifically um so long story short health partners program allows us to do that carve out allows us to integrate um some of those additional Pharmacy programs and um we believe that those will save resources for the district um versus having a pharmaceutical benefit manager that just operates through Blue Cross Blue Shield where there's less transparency and less opportunity to kind of integrate that um one of the things we know is the one of the higher um increases in medical is really coming in pharmacies you turn on TV and you can't miss a ad or commercial for some drug company while somebody's paying for that we're paying for that and we're trying to mitigate those costs while offering similar programs and similar access to those drugs so long story short you can see that overall those are coming very close and then the next page looks at our claims utilization um you can see um the right to is looking at what are the claims that um one digital is um identifying as our likely claims utilization looking at a history of 3 years um you can see Health Partners and Blue Cross Blue Shields somehow have about a $500,000 swing um between where they think our claims will actually be um one of the things when um insurance companies or thirdparty administrators bid programs um they will give us their assumption but really we assume the liability for claims above that amount unless it's significantly deflated so um we're looking at one digitals and it's um more conservative in that approach but we think it's more realistic and they generally have had some good assumptions for us moving in the past um so a lot of data there and then if you go down to that last green bar this is just kind of what I point out so we have expected grand total cost current claims funding what it is and um just above that green bar um where it says maximum grand total costs you can see some increases um of additional funding that's needed to current funding um you can see the Blue Cross Blue Shield would need just under $800,000 of additional funding and Health Partners would need just um about $938,000 of additional funding for those two programs um but you can see as a percentage of our overall cost of the program it's 9.81% to 11.55% um again we also feel like I said um the pharmacy programs will realize and um reduce that gap between those two programs um but with this there's a recommend ation to um move to the health partn remain with health partners program um and fund that with those administrative program costs so in kind of a quick summary Health Partners um allows for continuation of our Curr current Pharmacy benefit mat um manager maxor and specialty drug program called paid Health um in keeping health partners with maxor it also allows us to access that International drug sourcing program um that the insurance advisory committee is recommending that we look at for next year um it would be an optional program so not an um mandatory but an optional program for members as a way to realize savings for the plan and for those individuals as well um overall fixed costs are very similar to the others um and also increasing the plan's individual stop- loss from 150,000 to 175,000 um one of the things just to note is because claims go up every year one of the things we want to keep doing is kind of indexing that specific stop loss on a regular basis and so we think this is a good year to do it given our current claims history any questions on any of that information regarding the medical plan before I move on to the dental plan yeah I have a few questions if I may yep um so I'm I'm curious if you've done any sort of comparisons to cost per employee to like neighboring districts either larger smaller or the same size um I looked at we haven't looked at the individual programs um Education Minnesota does a survey um every year and then msba is also collecting information on that um there's so many variables based on the age of the demographics of those different employee groups and things like that that that um actual claim to claim is a little bit different and then also plan design to plan design um also shows significant differences so so we haven't done the analytics on um the cost of the overall plan um we've looked more at what are the district contributions to those insurance premiums um on a um District to District basis okay thanks um and when you self fund is there a required fund balance that you need to have to cover the insurance is is there either by Statute or by the insurance company requiring us to have a certain fund balance um I would need to check on a statutory requirement um I don't believe there's a statutory requirement regarding it but I can verify that um it really is the tolerance of the district ultimately the school district is responsible for that and so um we do not want to run without a fund balance um our fund balance since we moved into the program really has been how do we sustain that program so we don't have one year of real high claims and one year of real low claims um you'll see when we get to the proposal we're recommending spending down a little bit of our fund balance so if we're projecting a need for an 11.55% increase um we're actually recommending an increase that's closer to 9 and a half% um to our premiums for the medical for this year um and then last question I have I know we've got the stop loss at what you're proposing $175,000 per individual do we have an overall stop loss or reinsurance policy policy yep so that would be the aggregate plan um which on that um first page um the aggregate stop loss is um for us with Health Partners covers Us at claims over 15% of what the expected costs are um on a two-year basis so um one of the reasons we moved to Health Partners last round of the hitter process was their expected claims came in lower that even if they maxed out with that aggregate stoploss um we were still saving compared to the other programs um but yeah we we do have a limit and so when we look at the maximum cost in those programs that is the maximum claim along with the administrative costs got so that's one with the yellow bars and the dotted red line as the max yep so um on that uh first page yeah so the accumulated Mac projected maximum cost was the orange bar and then the funding was the purple bar so you can see that this year we're funding basically at that maximum and that's where accumulated costs are coming in current year okay thanks yep any other questions on the medical plan I have a simple one okay um just making sure I was following early on um is there a risk of losing the reserve if we change providers or it preserve something preserve preserve something that we keep for ourselves um Reserve is maintained in our own internal service fund so it shows up on our books in the audit it's um fund 20 I believe it is is our fund 20 is our Medical Reserve and fund 21 is our Dental Reserve okay thank you so yeah so it's the claims are our cost so that $5 million is sitting in a fund we as a district can't use it for General operating funds it can only be used for the insurance plan so the nice thing is we have a very active Insurance advisory committee that really likes looking at this stuff and the information that's there um and then we've also implemented a number of programs as we move on to dental insurance it's a little bit simpler um it's a much smaller program uh you can see kind of in here the green bar is the accumulated funding actual accumulated funding year to date the gray bar is the cost so we really are just kind of funding that at a balance um our current plan year Reserve increased $4,895 estimated prior year Reserve was 96,000 a total reserve of 100,000 which is 2.36 months of annual I spend what we really want to have is 3 to four months of annualized spend in that Reserve so it is running a little bit lower um we did increase this um I believe last year the premiums for dental insurance on the family um and we are recommending an increase again this year um you can see on the right hand side of this the seasonality um we have a lot of claims in July and a lot of claims in in January as a school district we know people are more likely to go to the dentist um on during the summer and over winter break and stuff like that um and so that's where we see those kind claims falling in line specifically on the seasonality um the next side um is one digital did this work taking a look at our renewal from Delta Dental um our administrative costs really are consistent at $5 a month um the claims are one of the things that we're looking at of needing some additional funding or recommended of 6.34% increase in funding coming from one digital um and so you'll see that we're recommending an increase to our um Dental premiums as well um one of the things we do in Richfield schools is we have a composite so on this side you can see if we had single Insurance Delta's recommendation is our single insurance would be $39.11 a month and the family insurance would be $98 um right now um we fund all programs um and then anything above the funding is what goes on to the insurance and so we actually as a district pay usually $59 or $65 um towards the insurance plan for anybody whether they're on single or family so we're we're funding those at that $59 or $65 amount based on the um based on the collective bargaining group that they're in and then the Family Insurance is not paying the $98 but is only paying um the recommendation is going to be to increase that to $79 this year so um because we fund single insurance at a higher contribution our family insurance premiums are um not as high as they would be on a traditional family insurance program um any questions about dental insurance Insurance um this program has stayed relatively stable with very few increases as well so moving on we have uh two proposals I'll take them separately the first is renewal of the group medical coverage um I've given you kind of that history the um recommended that the Board of Education approve the recommendation of the district Insurance advisory committee to contract with Health Partners to provide thirdparty administrative Services as well as specific stop-loss insurance for the district's medical benefits plan and continue with maxor as the pharmacy benefit manager it's also recommended that the um increase of specific stop loss deductible to $175,000 per individual for the plan um and then we are also recommending um an increase in the monthly rates for the plans that are established as below um they are running approximately 99.5% but we rounded the numbers just so they're um even dollar amount so um here plan a the current rate you can see is 960 and 23 45 for the plan a we're recommending $1,052 and $2,568 and then for Plan B um increasing those to $860 for single and $297 for family um I think I shared most of the background information about who had submitted bids this was a part of a formal hit a proposal um and again in making the recommendation the committee considered the pricing information from the respondents access to the carot Pharmacy benefit manager and separate pharmaceutical programs and the maximum exposure to the plan based on plan limits as well as the provider servicing and support we've been very happy with um and our employees have been very happy with the service that Health Partners has provided and that was a comment that a number of the employees that are on that insurance advisory committee um identified as well so with that we would ask for your approval of that um renewal with Health Partners as proposed the increase of to 175 ,000 and setting the rates has identified and for board members who are considering this uh Mr palus was on the insurance advisory he said it was um uh something that he had monitored closely um that 7 to 10% increases are what is happening industrywide at this point and he felt very comfortable with the recommendation um and just wanted to share that with the board I mean he's really missing out tonight he is missing out tonight on something that would excite him like insurance insurance and more Insurance um and he also was comfortable with as I said um the recommendation was the 11.55% increase using some of that Reserve to um bring that down to 99.5% or approximately 99.5% um was also supported by um board member PA well then I move that we renew the group medical coverage working with Health Partners second we have a motion by director list and a second by director Cole to approve the medical insurance renewal any questions or comments hearing none a roll call vote Dr Cole hi director Spencer Hi see you guys are paying attention director Liz hi the chair votes I and the medical insurance is approved which would then just bring us to a potential motion for the second component thank you very much um we do have that recommendation to renew with Delta and set the rates um maintaining the current single rate at $59 and setting the family insurance rate increasing that from $75 a month to $79 right move to approve the second portion I'll second that we have a motion by director Co and a second by director Liss to approve the dental insurance renewal with our fun roll call I will go I'm start looking and saying the other names you got to really pay attention director Liss I director Cole I director Spencer I and the chair votes I and the dental insurance is approved it's your show apparently so then we let you take over okay very good thank you um next up I have um for you a resolution uh discontinuing positions for 20252 26 um as I mentioned at the last board meeting we have begun um looking at building our program and our budget for next year um as we've looked at that um every year in March we need to take a look at are there position reductions that need to be occurring um especially in the licensed teaching position um one of the reasons why we're having to do this at this time um in addition well we have to do this as we look at the budget for next year there are a number of factors that are impacting this including enrollment including program offering screens um including overall budget um allocations and projected Revenue um we are projecting Revenue decline next year specifically tied in with the compensatory funds and we know our annual costs go up um for Staffing and other inflationary increases as part of that so it's starting to build that out for a number of reasons um so this is looking at um a resolution which eliminates certified positions within specific license areas as recommended to achieve the necessary Staffing for 25 26 um again again we're needing to do this in March because there are certain employee rights under um unrequested leaves of absence that are initiated at this stage so that we have a chance to kind of make sure that the right people are being reduced if that's needing to happen um this resolution includes a reduction of 14.37 FTE and certified positions that are projected to be eliminated again in order to adjust Staffing to the projected student enrollment and Associated Revenue in the formula allowance um in addition Staffing also addresses changes in fluctuations in grade levels or programs being offered in course registrations uh the 2526 Staffing will maintain current class current average class sizes so we are aren't projecting um reductions or increases in our average class size Targets in the buildings and Staffing may be increased later this spring once additional revenue and student registration information is available uh there is a resolution that's included that identifies those specific license areas as well as the FTE that's connected in with those specific um lures so with that we would ask for um your review and approval of that resolution discontinuing positions questions comments that we approve the resolution requesting the personal changes I'll second that is that a sufficient that works yeah absolutely and again from Mr paus um just his comments on email were you know it's obviously challenging um reductions in finances mean um reductions in Staffing um and so these are always hard times and a reminder that anybody displaced um would be eligible to apply for additional positions or be placed into additional positions um and um this is challenging at this time of year um Mr paus also recalled that it was frequently 20 to 25 um positions or FTE on a regular basis and then some of those do end up getting returned or replaced over the course of the spring but a decision that needed to that needs to occur in this time window okay we have a motion see that I'm paying attention by director call a second my director list uh to approve the resolution discontinuing position for the year 20125 2026 any discussion any more discussion don't think we do back to our favorite rooll call vote director Spencer Hi director Cole hi director Liss I the chair votes I and the resolution discontinuing propositions for 2025 2026 is approved thank you um our next process here as I indicated there are certain individuals that with those reductions um may be eligible for unrequested leave of absence a number of those positions um may actually be reduced based on attrition or individuals leaving those positions we also have probationary employees um that are in some of those positions but we do have one continuing contract teacher um that we are requesting to um have the board take action of a notice of a resolution proposing to continue the teaching contract and to place the teacher on an unrequested leave of absence um so there's one individual who's A continuing contract teacher who we've identified um based on their um continuing contract rights and the FTE that they have the rights to um is requiring that proposal to place him on un requested leave of absence this really initiates a communication with that individual um I say this when we go through this process it's going to feel like the never ending process because you will be proposing to place the individual on unrequested leave of absence at this meeting and then if that is sustained and if it's the right individual and it still needs to be the person still needs to be placed on unrequested leave of absence then we bring that back in April actually placing that teacher on unrequested leave of absence um and then from a staffing standpoint our next process is probationary non-renewals that we typically bring to the board in May so um we do have one individual here who we are requesting um to have the board's approval of that resolution proposing to discontinue the teaching contract of that individual thank you for that and this is never a fun time of the year we get to go through and do this questions comments motion I don't want to move this one okay I move that we I move that the res resolution proposing to discontinue the teaching contract be approved have seconds we have a motion by director list and a second by director Cole any discussion I'll just add one more comment again this is strictly because of Staffing it has no indication of performance or anything like that it is um just a matter of those Staffing decisions that are required um and individuals with lower seniority or without a position based on that information thank you for their clarification any more discussion or comments hearing none bring it to our roll call vote director Cole I director Liss I director Spencer I the chair votes I and the resolution proposing to discontinu teaching contract in place teacher on unrequested leave absence is approved thank you brings us to policy 610 selection and re evaluation of instructural resources and administrative guidelin 6110.1 all right so this is a first read um this is just a description of the way that uh textbooks and instructional materials are chosen or considered and then are reconsidered um and then as is required by law we have a guideline which comes up with the procedures and the specific procedures in regard to how we walk through any of those processes including uh getting rid of materials that are no longer in use and so this is just going to just a first read uh to help people get re familiarized as we walk our way through the revision process doesn't look like there's any comments or questions so we'll move on to policy 612 curriculum development and administrative guidelin 62.1 all right and so similarly um this is the policy describing the way we make sure that we have appropriate curriculum in place and our review process um the policy itself uh it talks about how we specifically go about uh the curriculum process and the guideline spells it out um in further detail and so again a first read and comments and questions are available over the next couple of reads um and again just to ref familiarize ourselves looking around for questions comments hearing sing none brings us to Advanced planning uh which always begins with legislative update all right so we did have msba masasa day at the capl um where board members Cole and Liss attended meeting with all of our legislative Representatives um we will be having next week amsd day at the capitl where Mr Carter and I um will also be meeting with Representatives um really we have moved compensatory education up to the top priority list there's multiple Bills currently in action both in the Ed policy and Ed Finance committees um and just as an FYI between policy and finance April 4th and April 11th I believe are the dates um those are the weeks that bills need to already be in and moved on uh to remain under consideration and there are I think no less than five compensatory education bills that are up for conversation um most of which support us a little bit more than what is currently sitting there um and so we will keep an eye in it and keep in in those those conversations I don't have anything else to add other than we may have some exciting stuff after next next week uh any other questions comments on that one hearing none information and questions from the board moving right along suggested inor future agenda items I just a reminder to the board our staff and Community surveys occurred over these past couple weeks um the board had pushed for significant additional voice um we allocated a large amount of Outreach or so Outreach Social Work secretarial and admin time to this project uh coming in with um alltime highs in community participation and also staff participation over 1300 sta uh over 1300 community members uh 68% were community members of color and over 600 staff members um and so that is a couple 00 more staff than typical and uh nearly 800 more than last year in terms of community members and about 400 more than we ever have had um and so just as an FYI the level of effort put into that meant that we shut down most other Outreach components over those two weeks um and so one of the things we will be talking about or at least asking the board to reflect on not at this time um but in relation to that overall conversation is yes it is a priority to have voice um but then the level to which the priority voice of we'll say extreme survey efforts um because those efforts do end up superseding about two weeks of typical job roles and responsibilities for our Outreach team and those who are in communication um and so just sort of reflecting on the level of priority um which obviously it is um and it is overwhelming all of those other things so I'm excited to hear about the results when we see them in two weeks absolutely for three [Music] weeks any other suggested or future agenda items brings us to Future meeting dates our next meeting will be on April 7th followed by our next opportunity for Community or Community public feedback on April 21st and of course the meeting dates can be found online on Richfield Public Schools about Schoolboard uh that brings us to our final agenda item of business is to adjourn a meeting since we have a closed session tonight for labor negotiations we will consider motion to move into close session as law by Minnesota State Statute 13 d03 for labor negotiation strategies never thought I would have that [Music] memorized so move I second it we have a motion by director Cole second by director Liss there's no discussion except to remind as maintain Quorum we will be grabbing the computer containing the presence of Mr Spencer um and we will bring be bringing him along to the Clos session and then we will return the computer with the presence of Mr Spencer back to the room so that we may appropriately adjourn so be prepared for an awkward carrying Mr Spencer thank you for putting out our procedural steps there uh so to go into close session we need to vote still we uh director Liss hi director Spencer Hi Dr Cole I the chair votes I and we move into Clos session as Steve just said we will have a well I didn't say we'll have a brief recess as we get to bring Kirk into the Next Room uh to go ahead and start our close session at the end we will go ahead and wrap things up and adjourn the meeting so there will be nothing else on our live streaming session and this will officially end it thank you for participating