local I got Bam. That's really close. It is 700 p.m. on June 23rd and I call to order this regular meeting of the Richfield Tool Board. I should have asked George, are we ready? And that seems really loud. Loud. It just is. Okay, we're gonna go like that. Hooray. Attending this board meeting live and in the boardroom are board members Tim Pollace, Kenless, Kirk Spencer, Polico, and I check to see who I am. And I'm board chair Eric Carter. We're joined, Well, we're not joined by student representatives. They are off for the summer. Lucky them. Also, we have in attendance at the table, uh, we have assistant superintendent Latana Davos. Daniels, I don't know why I said her name wrong. And I almost want to say superintendent, but of a different district. Uh, an assistant to the superintendent, Cassandra Crom. Other members of the district leadership team are uh in attendance and may be participating throughout the meeting as well. Richfield Public School's mission is to inspire, empower each individual to learn, grow, and excel, and we aim to keep that focus at the heart of our discussions this evening. Thank you to all of us joining 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 this evening is to approve the agenda before us. As approval of the agenda is a routine business item, I'll briefly pause to see if there are any comments or questions related to the agenda. Seeing and hearing none, is anyone prepared to move the agenda as presented? So moved. Second. I knew who it was, but that was loud. We have a motion by Director Spencer and a direct a second by Director Palace. I'm going to skip any final discussion. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Thank you. All post, please say nay. The chair votes I. And we have an approved agenda. We now move on to information proposals non- action item section of the agenda. This evening, we have an opportunity for public comment. Although no one has signed up tonight, uh I will ask you remember that we have public comment on the second meeting of each month which actually next month because we only have one meeting will be on uh July 14th along with our study session which will be exciting. Um instructions on how to sign up can be found in Richfield public schools website under menu about schoolboard public comments. Now over to assistant you assistant I want to say Yunoski assistant superintendent Daniels for the superintendent update. Thank you Director Carter. Now we're going to have Aubrey Yunker and Bethanne Larson. Are you co-presenting or just you're just well Aubrey will come and and um report out on our QCMP annual plan from the school year. Welcome Aubrey. Okay, there we go. That's exciting. Okay. Thank you members of the board and assistant superintendent Dr. Daniels for having us today. I'm Aubrey Yunker and I am the peerreview team lead and new teacher mentor. And then we also have Michelle Axel and Bethanne Larson who are on our steering committee as well. So tonight we're going to talk about what the purpose of Q comp is um the components of our program and how we implemented them and also the impact of them and then what we learned this year and recommendations we have for the future. So on the screen you can see our purpose statement from MDE and we know that the decisions that we make today as a steering committee benefit support and sustain generations to come. There will be many updates that we discussed today in this presentation, many of them coming from the decrease in funding for QC comp. The good news is while QC comp was originally on the governor's proposed cuts, it is still a part of the education bill that was recently passed and will be supported through at least the school year 2627. Our team has been really thoughtful in making the these decisions in order to support the objectives of UCMP and align with RPS's strategic plan to grow and empower staff which then impact and empower our students. UMP exists to support teacher growth and student achievement. There are four components that MDE has us um use as part of our UC comp plan. And today we're going to focus on the job embedded professional development and teacher development and evaluation. also called TDE, but we also touch on the other two as well um because they're all pretty intertwined in our programming. So, we'll start with our job embedded professional development which is mo mainly our PLC implementation and this year PLC's ran just as they have in the past where our goals our teams set goals at the beginning of the year and then reflect on them at the end of the year. um they are led by a trained facilitator and they the facilitators get a thousand dollar stipens for participating in training and then also facilitating the meetings. When we looked at our data from PLC's we found that 85% agree or strongly agree that PLC's are in fact impacting student achievement and this is similar to the data that we've seen in the past. Then we also asked since these are professional learning communities, how is this impacting the educators themselves? And we've also found that we had pretty similar results as we've had in the past that people are strongly agree or agree um that this is impacting them as educators. So they are learning from these professional learning communities. And then finally, we asked what is it um or how has it gone with having a trained PLC facilitator? And we're seeing that 83% feel like their quality of their PLC has improved having a trained PLC facilitator. This is basically the same of what we've seen in the past. And when we looked at written responses, we see that when they have a trained facilitator, they're seeing improved organization, consistency of expectations, and a framework for um productive discussion. And a lot of that's coming from the training that the facilitators have with protocols and how to collect data and how to be consistent across the district since all of these um facilitators had the same training. So for the future um in I'm sorry in summary we have most of our educators are reporting that it is a positive impact that PLC's are having both for student achievement and for their own professional development. Primarily this is due to the opportunities for collaboration, data analysis and goal setting. Future improvements noted from the survey data could focus on increasing the autonomy that the groups have, refining de collection methods for data and ensuring effective educator-led facilitation. In the future, we are planning on making some changes this next year directly related to making sure that we are sitting within our um budget means. So, our facilitators will now receive $500 stipens rather than the $1,000. We will only be providing stipens for PLC's that have more than two people. The training expectations will um for returning PLC facilitators will likely be revised partly because of that decrease in the stipend. And we will be learn limiting the PLC facilitators across the district to 65 where we currently have 80. So when we have 65 PLC facilitators at $500 that is fitting into our budget um and what that's one of the reasons we are making that change. So the next part and the component um we will talk about is teacher development and evaluation and we'll start with our peerreview process. So much of this process stayed the same this year with just one logistical change. We met with all of our newly tenured staff before the school year began to talk about what the peerreview process is. And this made the coaching cycles go so much smoother. People were able to get right into coaching rather than trying to figure out what is this peerreview process that I'm now a part of. Another benefit that stood out to us this year was um I had meetings with principles and staff leaders after we were done with their peerreview cycle at their school and we talked about trends that we were noticing. We remained confidential to specifics, but things like themes that we were seeing. For example, we saw a theme that sometimes instructional clarity could use a little beefing up to let our kids know what are they learning, how are they learning it, how will they be successful. And when we took that back to the um school leaders, they then at two schools in particular had Rachel Jensen come in and do a PD specifically on learning intentions. And so when we looked at the data walk or the learning data walk this spring, we noticed there was an improvement at those schools. So this was evidence that we are aligning across the district and that we are collaborating with the teachers, the peer reviewers and the district leadership in order to help students achieve. Uh so because of that we're going to continue having those meetings in the 2526 school year as well. And then when we look at the data of how people were receiving peer review, we see overall educators are highly satisfied with the peerreview process when it comes to student achievement. And a similar trend we see when we asked um about how they are improving as educators. So around 87% of staff felt like their peer reviewer positively impacted their development as an educator. And we continue to not have any strongly disagree in this category as well. Peer review is overwhelmingly seen as a positive support for educators. Um, it fosters reflection, provides new perspectives, and offers a safe space for growth through constructive feedback. The feedback and discussion with their peer reviewers has led to improved teaching strategies, better lesson planning and insight on student student engagement. They feel that this low stakes nature allows them to experiment and seek feedback without the fear of a negative assessment. While there was some perceived impact on student achievement that had some mixed results, educators value this coaching and insight from their colleagues. And then another part of teacher development and evaluation is our learningmies. These learningmies are an innovative program that we offer here in Richfield that gives opportunities for certified staff to have a choice in their professional development and this leads to greater engagement in our collective work. We work hard with these courses to offer classes that staff are interested in and that they support their work as professionals. And we continue to support our educators of color and new teachers to richfield in their professional journeys as well. And the impact of this overall we have a good response for learningmies around 96% of people feel that they are positively impacting their development as an educator. And so we see this as highly impactful driven by educators ability to choose their relevant courses that interest them. And then this leads to new knowledge and skills. And then also this is fostering collaboration across the district. We see lots of elementary school teachers taking classes together, secondary teachers um taking classes together and sometimes even mixed across the different um grade levels districtwide. And thesemmies are also valued for promoting self-care and building a sense of community. As you can see, here's the history of where we have been with learningmies in terms of courses that we've offered and the seats that people filled. So people may be in multiple courses, but you'll see that even with some of the changes that we've had to make, including the number of hours that we've had to limit for learningmies, we're still there's still highly received and many course people are taking courses. This year we actually had 72% of our staff take a learning academy compared to 66% last year. So the percentage of people taking courses is increasing. The exciting thing is that 46% of those people that are taking learningmies have actually gone above and beyond their 12 compensated hours. So they're choosing to take these out of interest. Um and we believe that this is a testament to the program that we have set up, its uniqueness and our staff's love for learning. We just have a lot of people that want to continue to grow as in um as educators. So for those educators, the mentor program was highly positive. Specifically, they talked about aiding in their development when they needed some critical support and guidance or practical assistance. And this helped smooth their entry into teaching and build up their confidence. Mentees noticed that they now have a strong understanding of the Danielson framework and feel more connected to their broader community. About half of the mentees in our program participated in this survey. And one person did say that they strongly disagree that it positively impacted their development as an educator, but left no comment why. So, I'm not sure what we can do to adjust that at this time, but overall there was a strong sense of satisfaction. So, now our QC comp um program, we continue to make adjustments to our budget. And next year, our teacher development and evaluation component is going to be the one that sees the biggest adjustment. For a while, we had a reserve fund that we had built up because not everybody takes a learning academy. So, that money goes back into our reserve fund. So we started doing things like li unlimited learningmies and we paid the stipens for the PLC facilitators. Well, that did quickly defeat our fund balance and we ended up with a with a bit of a deficit. And so we adjusted the learning academy hours hoping that that would write the ship and it did help um some but not quite enough. And with funds decreasing, peerreview salaries and benefits increasing and the Q comp support or we're giving some Q comp support to the DIS districtwide directives. Um we needed to make some more adjustments to get back within our means. So, here are some of the changes that we have for next year. We're going to move from four peer reviewers to three peer reviewers and decrease the observation award for staff. Because there are fewer peer reviewers, we're not able to run the peerreview cycles like we have in the past. We're still working out the logistics of what that will mean, but possible but because we're decreasing the awards, we will also decrease the workload for the staff. Um, one possible solution may be that we would have our on cycle staff do one full peerreview cycle sequence one. We normally do two sequences and then a second full coaching and and then instead of a full coaching cycle sequence two, they'll just do a check-in meeting about how does how's the work going from that first peer review cycle? What do we need um to support that more or is there a new goal that you want to work towards? So we still get an opportunity to meet with them twice a year but it might just look a little bit different. Um so by limiting the number of learning we also will be limiting the number of learning to nine paid hours. That was what we were able to budget um in order to make sure that we can still have learningmies um but also make sure that everybody has the opportunity to take them. Um we want to we didn't want to limit or um just assume that people weren't going to take them. We wanted to make sure our budget was able to accommodate everybody taking learningmies and to do that we had to go to nine hours. So by limiting the number of learning and um making changes to the peer reviewers the observation process and the awards decreasing of the number of learning academy hours and decreasing the stipen for PLC facilitators we were able to get back into working within our means and also build back some of that deficit. So overall we have a um strong sense of satisfaction for the QC comp program. Uh many respond respondents expressed satisfaction in learningmies collaboration in PLC's and the reflective nature of the peer review process. There was an appreciation for the protected time and development and collaboration with their colleagues. There was also a noted portion of those that expressed dissatisfaction that stemmed from the perceived issue that PLC's were focused on compliance rather than growth and maybe some lack of autonomy around that as well. Our strategic plan calls for continuous improvement of culture and climate and QC comp's desire is to be a part of that improvement and listening and acting on teachers feedback is one way we can do that and that is what we do with the survey. questions. Thank you for the presentation. That was a lot of data. Yes, it is a lot of data. Trying to soak it all in process myself. Questions from the board. I got one. If you If you look at the data from the PLC's of the peer reviews, people are pretty satisfied with the peer reviews. Yet I noticed that the PLC dissatisfaction has gone up. I think that the my based on what I saw in like the the written feedback, my guess is that is having to do with like the autonomy and some of the um directives around goals. While we don't direct them to what the goal is specifically, there are parameters of um what the goals how the goals need to look in terms they need to be smart goals. Um, and then also there is some um some groups that are combined together for logistical reasons, but sometimes it's hard to find a common goal for them. So sometimes like our instructional coaches are across all buildings and it's sometimes harder to find a goal that really works for all of them. So those could be part of the um the reason, but I'm not entirely sure. Doesn't look like it's that bad. Yeah, that's just curious. Thank you. Mhm. I have a question. Um, when you say negative feedback, again, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. So good. Um, when you say that some of the negative feedback seems to suggest that or the comments suggest that there was a focus on compliance rather than growth, does that mean that the the offered courses and opportunities are kind of like checkboxes of saying we're going through the PLC or the courses or the other the other things instead of choosing topics that will allow that individual to grow? Is is is that their concern? Do I mean it's hard to say I doubt it was you who said it. Um it was a great question though. I with the learningmies that one's entirely optional. So the courses that they get to pick they can choose to take learningmies or not take learningmies. So my guess is that the feedback isn't around that. That feedback was specifically around PLC's around compliance piece and actually yes PLC's are a compliance thing. We do by state statute need to do PLC's. Um, so there is an element of that. Um, I know that teacher workload is just really hot heavy and this sometimes feels like another meeting, but that's part of the reason why we do the PLC facilitator training is to make the meetings valuable for everybody um, and help support them to see that value and see the value for our students. All right. Thank you. Excuse me. to the history of this Q comp program because I I understand pretty significant cuts from the state next year following year. Can you speak how long has this existed? Question. We've had it about 10 years. I was say at least 10 years. Had it about 10 years I think. Um my first year on the board I don't think we had it. I think we it was voted in second year around then. So I been a while and then the new um the new budget does include it going through school year 27. So there was potential that it would just be this year and then we'd use the remaining out those last awards and they did it so far as in the next two years budget. Okay, good. Thank you. Then I I do have one. I'm uh I'm just trying to clarify in my head what you just said there. So um because my my original question would be is part of the process part of the improvement process to go ahead and kind of sell market brand this a little bit differently because if you're getting survey data saying that people don't like it because it feels like man's keeping us down. That's what I'm hearing, right? is is if it's like it's a compliance thing and you're like well it's not a compliance thing but then I heard you say that it is a compliance thing. So is it still kind of spinning that it's like well it's compliance and it's also other good stuff. Yeah. So the way that Q comp is actually set up is it's taking it's allowing for those compliant pieces to be awarded with compensation. So things like observations, yearly observations and PLC's are a part of um the state statute. And the great thing about Q comp is we are able to compensate our teachers for that where there are districts that do not have QC comp programs and they still do those things and they are not compensated for them. Yes. Maybe that needs to be part of it is is how do we better market it to go ahead and explain what you just explained to to people? Yes. And we did a little bit more of that this year, especially when we saw it was on the chopping block um for the budget and so brought it up at union meetings quite often of this is that might be happening. This is some change. We know for sure some changes are going to happen next year based on just the budget reduction anyway. Um, and so that was something that I brought I'm I'm at all the um, education richfield meetings as well as the UC compresentative and brought that up as soon as we saw that it was part of the budget for the governor's proposal. So, thank you. Any more questions? Hearing none. Thank you for the presentation and that will move us to the next. Thank you, Aubrey. Now we will shift to vision cards. Um, this is the second of our two vision card presentations for the end of the year. At the last meeting, Superintendent Yunowski presented information around activities, business and operations and communications and marketing. And as you all know, we will be closing out um this strategic plan and start the planning for the next one next school year. So, I'm going to talk you all through what is a vision card. It is an opportunity to be transparent around the progress that we're making around um specific goals and strategies within our school um district. Is an opportunity to share our work and to act absolutely be accountable and transparent around the work that we're doing as a school district. What vision cards are there? We have five vision cards. Um one card is academics. Vision card two, activities. Three, business and operations. Vision card four is climate and culture. And vision card five is communications and marketing. There are parts to the vision card that help paint a comprehensive picture of the work that we're doing as a school district to attain our strategic goals. Um, page one of the vision card is an overview of our current status with each measurement, which we call our progress report. Page two is a list of our key actions, which is the work that we are doing towards attaining our goals. And page three includes the rubric for assessing progress on each measure. And if you would like a very detailed delineated um capture of the work that we're doing around the um vision card, you can see that in our board packet tonight. Understanding the progress report. So, as we walk through this this evening, you will see um red letters, and the red letters um denote the new evidence or information that we have to show progress towards said um goal. Some measures um we have in black because either that was reported out um at the midyear report or we have no new information regarding that goal. Baseline is um represented um by zero. And if you shift to the right to one, it is progressing. Two is vision. Negative one is high concern and negative -2 we intervene. All right. So vision card one progress report academics. This um vision card is simply about the educational debt that we owe to our marginalized um families, students within our school district. Um as you see there is a lot of red here. So there is a lot of information we have captured around the work that we've implemented um and new data that we have to share um our progress around this particular um goal. As you see, we are at goal um we're at progress level one for this particular goal. But again, it is about the educational debt that we owe to our marginalized students and families. Um for um progress report um for our vision card around um academics, the only goal that we have that we need to report on is number three. Um here we will increase course offerings to expand opportunities for students. Um you will see here that that um we have font here in red which means that we have some new work or some new information that we need to report out on and it is currently at a level negative -2 which means that we are intervention we're at the intervention level there. Now we get into more details. So um happily we are holding steady with our four-year graduation rate in comparison to our baseline year of 2020. Um, our baseline year we were at 86.3%. Last year we were at 85.8%. And we are holding pretty tight with our um, gap between our students of color as well as their white counterparts. We are celebrating the increases that we've made in our seven-year graduation rate. um we've almost increased our seven-year graduation rate by 10% and um we have decreased the gap by 1% for that particular um measure. Enrollment in college credit bearing classes we've seen um a dip. Um we have gone from 702 to 629 and we've also seen an increase in the gap um between our um bipok students and our um white students. And I would like to name here that perhaps we are seeing um a dip here because we have two um very popular teachers um who have shifted from teaching positions in the social studies department and they taught CIS courses etc and now they have shifted into leadership positions in our in our high school. So that could perhaps explain why we see such a significant drop in um the enrollment in our college credit bearing classes. Proficiency on the third grade MCA um reading assessment um we see a decrease from 33% to 30.2% and the gap remains pretty similar. Um for for proficiency on the fifth grade fast bridge CBM reading assessment um we see that the gap the proficiency is pretty similar 47 to 48%. However, we see a celebratory decrease in the gap moving from 16% to 9%. Academics continued for proficiency on our eighth grade MCA math assessment. We see an improvement from 26% to 28.2% and the gap remains pretty similar. Um 26% and 27% in comparison to our baseline year. Um again for proficiency on the eighth grade fastbridge um a reading assessment um we see similarities in um proficiency um 39% um during last year and 40% in the spring of 2425. The gap for BIPO students has remained pretty similar as well. Special ed referrals we have done some significant work getting our staff trained around the stat process. um significant work has been done across the district to um streamline and ensure that staff stat processes are pretty similar. So we are not over identifying students for special education. And um while the there is still um disproportionality of representation of students of color in special education, we do not have um a a gap in referrals for course offerings in semester 2 of 2425. the number of course offerings at RHS decreased to 161 um from 202. And what I would like to call out here is um as we continue to um refine our budgeting and scheduling process, we know that you know students choosing courses that drives you know the courses that we offer. And so we have um actually scheduled classes based upon students who are registering and it helps us maintain a more balanced budget in doing that. But that could perhaps explain the dip there in course. So summarizing within academics, we definitely have some high points to celebrate and we have some opportunities for improvement and now we will shift into climate and culture. So in climate of in culture we um are definitely seeing um prog seeing progress in attaining our vision around ensuring that students are seen, valued and heard in our school district and also we have attained vision in um our third goal area. We will support and celebrate diversity to provide a welcoming environment. We also continue to um do well in improving school pride to increase student enjoyment and dedication to their education where we have attained vision there and we will provide new opportunities for parent involvement. We um are at the baseline of zero, but we have done some work there. And we will provide new opportunities for community um involvement to strengthen connections between the Richfield community and school intervene there. Office referrals because of the work that um Dr. Clarkson and her team has done around minor data reporting. If you all knew how much we talked about minor data reporting and um um ensuring that that information is entered and we are tracking that information, you would understand why we've seen such a significant decrease in um our documented office referrals in comparison to our baseline year and where we are um right now. Um it has decreased significantly and we're seeing a similar gap between our students of color um and white students. um students reporting that we have a positive school school climate that is up from 68% to 81% and there is no gap between our bipox students and our white students and that information is coming from the student climate survey. Student and family groups supporting traditionally marginalized communities. We have seen an increase in um five groups to up to 17 groups. Students are reporting that um student voice is valued. Um so we're seeing an increase from 67% to 84%. Um the number of volunteers supporting RPS we see an increase from 212 to 260. Um percentage of student conferences completed. Um we continue to see high uh high percentage of parent participation at the elementary level and some challenges at the secondary level. And so we see a decrease um of 63 going from 63% to 40% um at our secondary level. And goal six student volunteerism hours we see a decrease in hours um going from 9,638 to 7,870. But we did hear anecdotally from the secondary administrative um team that students um did do more volunteer hours, but they just didn't want to put in the work to document those hours in a in a formal way. So with that, we'll again just underscore that this is the work that we've done around academics, culture, and climate here in Richville Public Schools this past school year. And next year, Superintendent Yunowski will be leading the work to begin drafting the next strategic plan that will drive goals and strategies for the next um four to five years. So with that, any questions? All the information that fun one questions from the board. I've got a couple questions. Um, one on the I guess on the plus side, we're seeing a lot more volunteer hours from parents members being involved and I'm curious if you've got any insights as to what worked well for that. Dr. Clarkson, do you have any um insights as to what is driving our increase in um parent volunteerism? I would say just off the just off the top of my head, I would say just the number of how we've grown parent groups in this district. So I think that that may have something to do with um driving that. Is it anything else Mary you can think of or Craig you can think of? Sorry. Um I don't have any specific reasons. We do have um Tim Brackett, our safe routes to schools coordinator, is doing some district-wide coordination around the volunteers. So, we probably have a better tracking of who's in our buildings, where they're at, um making sure that individuals are going. And so, there's a little bit more of a formalized process that's been de developed and continues to develop over the last three years. I'm hearing onboarding is easier. Onboarding and tracking and more verification of who's in which buildings, I think, is a component of it. Thank you, Craig. Um, and then the other question I had um was around vision card page one um progress report academics. As I look at the um different metrics that are being measured there and and even just counting the colors of red, green, yellow, not sure I agree with us being a positive one versus a zero, a rounding up um value there, but that feels positive. What I hear you saying um director Spencer is you feel like we're still more so at baseline versus at progressing to vision. Okay, thank you. I will denote that and share it with um and then the only other thing within that I'm curious about the enrollment in college credit bearing courses. Does that include PSO or is that just the inbuilding classes? It does not include PSO. Thank you. If I were to follow up on that, Mr. Spencer, you're not counting PSO. I' I've said before like as a some of these will vary by class size, right? If our class size were somehow twice as big, merely having, you know, having one and a half times as many college credit bearing courses wouldn't be enough. We we actually wouldn't be. So if we're actually counting courses or percent, you know, percent of students enrolled or some ratio that that would um track it on a per student level would be more meaningful than that. And if we and in related to that, if we had more students opting for PSO, we would be losing their onampus CIS and AP um courses and and then not counting their PSO. But that is certainly college credit bearing and should be something we support and encourage. So yeah and in a previous report we got number of credits attained which is different than classes enrolled. Um and we were and I did follow up and got the PSO numbers on that too. So I I appreciate the the the vision card and and the layout. I mean most of it is is at worst neutral except for there there are two glaring ones that are at minus two. So I suppose if we had to circle which things to address, it's pretty clear things that are in need of of some level of Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. More questions. Uh I've got a couple. I'm trying to get my head around. So Tim or Kirk or both of you. I mean the the looking at it says that it is uh said I thought I said students enrolled not courses the number of students enrolled in college credit bearing courses not the number of courses offered. I mean, I get what you're saying about the whole depending on how many courses are offered, that can impact how many students are actually getting credits. But if we're tracking credits and tracking students enrolled, doesn't that cover what we're want to track or did I miss your question? Well, no. Um, I mean, if we're tracking students enrolled, looking at it, I'm I'm not sure if we m I believe prior answer has been we mult we will count a student multiple times possibly. So if if if I am enrolled in CIS calculus and CIS statistics then I I count twice. That that's my belief. So there's so within that so it looks like we're just counting them and it doesn't necessarily you know again if we were had 10% fewer students that 10% decrease would actually be tracking on a per student basis. So it and that's okay like this is how the they were originally written and this is something for giving a you know looking ahead how we could do it better right I think um the other concern though is is if we are not tracking PSO credits than a student who who might take two or three college credit bearing courses on campus but now is taking five courses at Normandale or the U right we've gone from counting them three on campus to zero right? When they when it's act the actual number should go up to five or 10 if if we count both semesters. Right. So, right. We want to get credit for that. So, that's something you know for you know as as has been discussed the vision cards are tracking things that you know we wrote it at some point. These are improvement for us too. Right. I I do read it the same way you interpret it though that it's number of students. So maybe we just need clarification on whether the the 629 is number of students because 250 freshmen are taking a college bearing course every year mandated and so that's more than a third of that number if it's if it's number of students. Yes, that that provides us a certain baseline of um and but it's really the the units are off. It's really student classes. Science when you multiply things that strangely don't go together, you could the units. So we have student classes is what we're really tracking. Uh so then maybe if we could get a follow up on that, that'd be great. Um I guess I think to your comment, Tim, I I kind of was jotting on the same comment. I mean, as I was looking um and we're talking about the college grading courses dropped as a whole and the gap increased for students of color, you know, for me, one of the things I reflect on is like why we have so many things bundled together under academic goal one and like I don't know, you know, is it is it goal by goal by goal seems a little bit too granular, but then this whole big lump here is like Yeah, it seems like a little bit too much because like that that's a big spread, right? I mean when you talk about um was was it 10% difference um and and then the question is why right it's like why are why is there such a gap and what can we do to improve the gap so I feel that it gets lost in the fact that that's that's pretty significant and we were plus one or plus two for this one so um that would be feedback I'd have and then also back to Kirk's comment about um or director Spencer sorry um the 26 60 community members. Um, what is what is that volunteer approval process? What is Craig? I know you guys are trying to stay away from this. That's okay. Um, so we've asked all the schools when they have individuals coming in who are interested in volunteering, um, or on our website we have posts around volunteering and they can sign up. um that puts them into a triage that asks them to um go through certain trainings or certain presentations depending on the type of role. And then we also depending on the role in the work that they're doing have um different levels of background checks or references. So if somebody's coming in in a supervised area all the time for kind of a short incident um there is no background check required immediately at the outset. If somebody's going to be working more independently or individually with a student in more of a safety sensitive situation, then they go through a background check as part of the process. So, we have a good tracking of who is volunteering in our schools in the different roles. Um, and then opportunities connected in with that. Surprising, I guess. I don't I'm not familiar with that. The reason why I'm so intrigued is that like when we think about our committees or we think about other volunteer opportunities like booster clubs or um PTO's are we so this sounds different. This is in the school versus correct. This is this is not involvement in committees or those um sorts of roles. These are going to be student interfacing kind of traditional um volunteerism in the school specific. Are we leveraging that group or that mailing list to say, "Hey, here's other opportunities like committees, like uh booster clubs, like other other outside volunteer opportunities other than just in their school." Um I have not individually done that. Um I don't know if the building principles are leveraging within their schools. Um we certainly could. Um I I would want to take a look and see exactly what data we have if it's more of just a transactional piece of data of who they are, what their address is, um what their interest in volunteering is. um we have not leveraged that to this point that I'm follow up on that that would be I think this may be a missed opportunity right it's like I I heard Kirk say and I I had missed it because I was looking at student volunteerism and I'm like parent I'm like if we're tracking that why aren't I mean or or maybe on the other side are we tracking the volunteers in the committees in the booster clubs right there's a lot of volunteer that goes on versus this and maybe it's different reasons but I don't know why we wouldn't track it say anecdotally At least at the elementary school level, my experience is the parents that are in the classroom volunteering are also the ones that are running the PTO. I think that changes as we get into secondary, but that's what I witnessed when I was at kids in the elementary schools. How about this? We're not seeing 260 volunteers, which is why I'm like there's feel like they're they're somehow funneling down. It's like is it missed opportunity? So, for sure. Awesome. All right, that moves on to accommodations. All right. RPS would like to commend the marketing and communications department, which was recently awarded the following honors by the National School Public Relations Association. Excellence in video working in RPS Support Staff with Captivate Media. Excellence in Social Media Employee Appreciation Series by Laura Har. Excellence in photography graduation celebration taken by Dan Iverson. Merit in writing. Once a Spartan, Always a Spartan, Alumni in Our Schools by Laura Har, Merit and Marketing, Enrollment Ad by Jennifer Smith, and honor honorable mention in a video series, Reasons to Love RMS with Captivate Media. Thank you to all of our partners who contributed to these entries and congratulations to our RPS team members on this recognition. The next item on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda which contains a collection of routine or fairly routine business items that we consent to pass in bulk without individual discussion. I'll pause for a moment to see if there any questions or requests before we proceeding. And seeing none, do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Second that. late. We have a motion by director Paul and you gota be quick. She's over there with a green and a second by director Cole. Any discussion? Bring it to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. All oppose, please say nay. The chair votes I. And the consent agenda is approved. That brings us to old business. The first item is policy 546, use of peace officers and/or crisis teams to remove students with IEPs from school grounds. Third read. It is. Yes, this is a third read. And again, this policy describes the appropriate use of peace officers and/or crisis teams to remove, if necessary, a student with an individualized education program from the school grounds when the health, safety, or property of a student, staff member, or the school are endangered. This policy is primarily governed by the state of um the Minnesota statute. Um, this policy has been reviewed by the special education department and suggested changes have been included that align with the MSBA model policy and adhere to our RPS branding style guidelines. So or motion I guess as always. I move that we accept the policy as presented. Second. No. Hey now. Hey now. They're there. You got to jump in on this one, buddy. I don't have my hearing. Okay, we have a motion by director Paulus and a second by Director Spencer. Is there any discussion on it or any any discussion hearing? None. I'll bring it to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All post, we say nay. The chair votes I. And we have an approved new policy. Brings us to policy 411, local and out of state travel. And this is a second read. Yes. This policy governs travel related to professional development for staff and board members. It indicates when travel is appropriate and the process for reimbursement for allowable expenses. It has been reviewed by the finance department and suggested changes are included. So, I'm sorry, let me turn let me turn off my mic. I I have one comment on the airline travel credit section six seems like a waste of human energy. Airlines for example when whoever buys whoever's the the the miles of credit for go with the seat the person in the seat. They they not go to a a corporate buyer necessarily. It's very difficult to set that up. And so it it's we're pretty much assigning everyone who happens to travel on behalf of the district to automatically set up an email that says whatever miles of credit I get on this flight are going to me, not the district because you you know you can't peel off the 823 miles you earn. So doesn't seem like a good waste a good spend of human energy and I don't think it's worth pursuing. um we as far as I know we don't we do not have a lot of travelers right in the course of a year right this is this is this this this is a strange amount of compliance to mandate for someone who's all but certain to miss it I I agree I had the same comment getting getting benefits or getting gifts you you it could be perceived as that. Um, we could just acknowledge that is there, right? Like I again there's almost no way to separate it. If you earn if you've traveled and you give them your account, you will earn the miles for it, right? And not, you know, unless you insist they get gifted back to something or some charity. In theory, they that is a benefit received that is taxable that is never pursued. Um, is that something that like we could follow up with the MSBA on just Yeah, I I would I would be interested to know if there's there's a a requirement, but otherwise it just seems it seems like a waste of typing for for whoever unfortunately apologies for whoever had to type it in the first place and for everyone who in the future who flies on behalf of the district to now send the automatic email that says I'm flying to Chicago for a conference and I'm going to get 687 miles padded to my Delta account or whatever. It's also interesting that it calls out airline miles but not hotel miles, credit card miles. As an aside, people who work for the federal government can keep their miles. And it's been that way since I was a recruit. So, I don't know if um we should state law and see if state employees are able to keep their miles, but we should follow the Wow. Reward. Yes. On but okay. um if they make a purchase with their own credit cards. I think every other credit card nowadays has a reward for groceries if you some and so I think we have to be consistent because you know those those miles and rewards become money not going to go after that then I don't think we should go after these go after you know what I'm saying like we cannot be saying one right I I guess I would I believe the expenses expected to be on the employees card or whatever is that is that but that's why I asked do we do reimbursements to to them it's because it's with their cards right well if it's I mean if they're required to use the the schoolisssued credit card but even still I mean my company issued credit card I spend $50 a year to turn it into a rewards generating one and suddenly now I get miles on my on my work purchases I paid I I did pay yes so anyway yeah Mr. Mr. Hi, if if an employee is flying, for example, do they have to use their PC card? Um, employees do not have to use their PE card because not everybody has access to those encourage individuals to use it. Um, most of the schools and programs have that. So, so to Miss Cole's idea that if we're not someone using a personal credit card that generates rewards and we don't seem to be bothered by that, why would we be bothered specifically about air travel miles? As as noted, not travel hotel stays. I was I was just going to say I think we can look at it. Um, I'm just looking at the schoolboard model policy and there is a statute travel credit specific to that. So, I think we would just take a look at how does that relate to school district's obligations for that notification? That's our policy or we're told to have that policy um in the school board. So, the school association has a model policy that incorporates all of the statutory requirements and makes recommendations around it. I'm just looking at the bottom of that policy. There's a reference to Minnesota statute 15.435 and a note about airline travel credit specific to that. So I'm guessing that is where that language our board policy looking at that MSBA policy in that statute. But we can follow up with the MSBA and we can research it more and see what that requirement is or options are. Let them argue on our behalf, right? And and on top of the the the wasted typing, someone would have to validate it, right? and and so it's just it's not a good use of human time to track potentially 0.08.02 of a flight. Okay, more questions because we're clearly we need a followup on this one. So good. Brings us to new business. Not sure why you went sit down. back here because it looks like the 2025 2026 proposed budget. Had to get the rest of my stuff to be able to go through this. So, good evening. Thank you so much. Um I do have for your review and approval the um fiscal year 26 um proposed budget um that would become the adopted budget once you approve it. This budget is something that um well, our budget for fiscal year 26 does need to be approved prior to June 30th. Um and so if there are questions, we would hope to be able to respond to those or address those today. Um or schedule another meeting to follow through with that. Um you have details regarding that proposed budget um included in the packet. We're going to jump straight to the presentation which highlights most of the information in there. Um taking a look both at fiscal year 25 kind of a current year update. Again, a reminder, we include a year-to- date update in most of the monthly um or each month um in the board packet with the with the consent agenda. We're going to take a quick look at that um highlight some items and then talk about the revised budget fund balance projections and then look at the fiscal year next year proposed budget assumptions, fund balance projections and considerations around that. Um so, moving quickly through this, the fiscical year 25 budget. Um, my favorite arrows are helping direct some of your eyesight to to the um small numbers that are on these pages. Um, just a quick look, the adopted budget has $61 million in uh revenue projected current year projected end of or has adopted 61,100,000. Um, right now the modeling is projecting about 59,700 slightly below. Um we are seeing that our ADM growth that typically occurs during the year has not grown as much as it has in previous years, but we'll look and see how that um state revenue plays out here this year. Um overall the rest of it is relatively consistent. Um and then the overall up projected year-to- date is 87,387 out of the adopted budget 89 million. Again, this is modeling based on years of um years of analytics and looking at what are the trends for the previous years. So, it um a lot of variations occur in a number of these things. Um expenditure object series, you can see that our projected end of year for salaries and wages is slightly below what it is for the current year. Um again, that'll look at some trending, but the salaries, wages, and benefits are things that we tend to see on a similar payroll time schedule. Um so, those may be more consistent. And then the overall expenditures are set to be at $85,981,000. When we look at the other funds um in this budget, um we're looking at food service is up slightly in revenue and up slightly in expenditures. Um so those two compare. Looking at construction, uh the projected revenue for construction um is at 70 um million or 7 million, sorry. Um and the expenditures for the debt service are at 7.2. Lost track construction expenditures are at 1.7. So we're seeing similar trends there. Um we anticipate the um construction projects completing in fiscal year 26. Again, that $7 million was a bond issue that occurred last fall. Then internal service fund. um we tend to look at that specifically revenues are up slightly and expenditures are up both for the internal service fund which is our um self-funded insurance program. So overall, we are generally on track as of May 31 31st, 2025. Um looking at the general fund against state revenue, that change in enrollment that we're seeing as trending out this year um compared to what we were looking at with both the adopted and the revised budget. Salaries and benefits have been tred up more consistently. And then contracted services um are an area that we're seeing some changes in um with the current year as well. uh food service, construction fund, and the internal service fund are all areas that we highlighted in that area. Moving on to next year's fiscal year 26 budget considerations. Um we are including the 2.74% increase in the formula allowance that was approved as part of a past legislative session to automatically increase that. Um that amount came in at 2.74%. Um we have also made additional revenue adjustments based on legislative action and we'll highlight some of the other changes that have occurred since the proposed budget was approved earlier this spring. Um so specifically around legislative action um the compensatory fund was held harmless or compens compensatory funding was held harmless for this next fiscal year 26 but not for fiscal year 27. So we built in that revenue piece. There were also some reductions in student support services aid and library aid from what was projected to be coming in. Um so those legislative um changes in funding have also been included in here because of that trend down in our overall ADM for the current year compared to our October one numbers. We did um we are projecting a reduction of 131 students in our average daily membership to 3,895 for our prek through 12 program. Um, as we've looked at this, we've looked at that fund balance policy for an unassigned fund balance targeting between four and 10%. Um, we've also done quite a bit of cleanup in the staffing updates. Um, as we've been looking through this spring, earlier this year for the proposed budget and after, there have been a number of position reductions that have been occurring. And so, we've updated those with the proposed budget. Um, we've also included some larger curriculum purchases and other capital needs, including some school buses that are later on the agenda. um inflationary costs in other areas like health insurance and energy and things like that. Um looking at um accessing some information from some of our consultants and then aligned with some other um budget reductions that were occurred to get closer to our overall budget targets um some changes in programs as well. Uh looking overall, um the revenue, state revenue is projected to be at 61,588,000, which is about a $439,000 increase. Um that really is special education, larger increases in special education. It accounts for that inflationary increase in the formula um and also the reductions in enrollment. So those primary drivers in that state um revenue piece. Um in federal, it's pretty much just right sizing to those programs. So, not significant changes in any program specific. Um, property taxes really are clear from what the board had approved back in December as part of the le levy um issue for payable 25. Um, and so that uh property tax levy of 23,71,323 um is this about a $600,000 increase and then local fees at 2,64,000 which is about $100,000 reduction. Um that really is interest earnings for the district specific to our overall fund and the interest rates. Uh looking at expenditures, um not surprising, salaries and wages and employee benefits have the largest increases. Um we had a 10% increase in our health insurance um premiums. And so that you'll see is articulated in there. And both the salaries and wages and employee benefits um will be inclusive of any of the known settlements and projected settlements um as well as the benefits that are associated with that as well as staffing changes. uh purchase services. Um the biggest driver for that reduction is in some efficiencies around transportation, contracted transportation, um as well as tuition to other Minnesota schools that we're looking at a trend that would be downward in both of those areas um from what we have for our current revised budget for fiscal year 25. Supplies and equipment in supplies and equipment are fairly consistent. And then the other expenditures is really kind of an accounting for dues and memberships. Um we have funds that are available for carryover and dues and memberships and so those were reduced and then they get built back into the revised budget if individuals have um available funding for those areas. Specific uh looking at the programs and kind of the previous one was how is that money spent? What is it spent on as far as the objects or specific areas? This looks at the programs and the changes there. Uh you can see the reduction in district administration that has to do the with the reduction in the cabinet level position specifically um as well as other realignment of district administration and site administration. Uh you'll notice that regular instruction and special education instruction are the two areas that we have the largest increases. So while we've made a number of reductions um in the district, we've tried to hold the classrooms um consistent and have similar staffing in those areas as much as possible. Um the instructional support um includes reductions in both general instructional support um some technology purchases as well as reductions in staff development. Um in the pupil support services again that's going to be a large driving around transportation as well as reductions in programs for social workers guidance and guidance counselors and other support services in those areas. And then the um facilities is generally a reduction in the capital facilities budget for next year. Uh looking at the other funds again just kind of highlighting these areas you'll see that food service we saw the trend earlier um looking at increased revenue and expenditures for the current year. Um we're seeing increases and projecting increases for those budgets um next year for both the revenues and the expenditures. Um construction fund you'll see that that revenue area is relatively flat. Um but the expenditures um for construction are um $1.65 million which really spends down the bulk of our construction budget for next year. Um the internal service fund you can see is accounted here for an increase in the revenue um as well as increases and expenditures. So overall budget this is all of those funds included. Um, we have 115,824,932 projected for revenue for fiscal year 26, $118,748,628 of expenditures projected. So, a spending variance of just over $2.9 million. Um, and you can see those changes in revenues and expenditures year. The next question is, how does this impact our fund balance? Um, this is that fund balance budget overview. um that looks at what's the projected balance coming in, what are the revenues and expenditures um specifically articulating the specific areas as well as those restricted and assigned accounts in addition to the unassigned um what that projected fund balance is at the end of the year and the net increase or decrease um because I didn't want anybody's eyes to be squinting too much. I um broke that up into the next two pages which give a little bit better view but give that good overview of the general fund specifically. So unassigned fund balance is set to um come in. We have the revenues and expenditures that we talked about for unassigned is 68 million1 and just under $68 million. Um we transfer funds in and out um from some of the restricted pieces um to account for the areas that can't have restricted accounts. So projected fund balance there is $8.5 million which is a $920,000 reduction in the unassigned fund balance or um looking at 9.29% unassigned fund balance um within that 4 to 10% range um that's board approved. Uh the restricted accounts are all the specific areas that we're required to articulate differently. Um you'll notice here one of the things that we talked about I think in the proposed budget was the capital projects tech levy. Um there is an increase in that projected fund balance um that's set. We are looking at other ways that we can use some of those funds specifically and anticipate some of those changes coming to next year in the revised budget. Um couple pieces specifically is we have some staffing that could be accounted for there that can help offset our overall programming. Um but also we have started to use some of that those funds for curriculum which was approved in the last capital projects referendum. So both technology but also our curriculum purchases um which we are really kind of working hard to improve the integrity of the curriculum that we're offering in the district make sure it's aligned with best practices and research based instruction. Um so the letters programming and we also are anticipating um secondary English language arts coming forth in the next year and then future projects for um math pro math curriculum and science curriculum in the future years as well. um operating capital. You can see that that is set with a projected fund balance of 76,000 which is um a little bit tighter than what we would like it to be for a projected fund balance in that capital piece. It is a reduction of 221,000. Um one of the things that is coming to you later on the meeting is a request request to look at lease financing for the school buses. So that target fund balance or that fund balance specifically in the areas is one of the things that we're looking to be able to maintain um in the event that some of our programming is needed specifically um area learning center. You can see that there's a a reduction in that um projected fund balance specifically there. That's one of the areas that we've been using COVID funds to support our area learning program early area learning center and our targeted services programming. Um, so you can see we're right sizing that and more of those funds now are coming out of that ALC. So we'll be taking a look at that specifically and how that impacts our overall programming in the future. But as we've kind of tried to build some sustainability to that, we look like having another year to do that um before we kind of fully assess our overall programming. Uh teacher Q comp is a new um restricted account um for this coming year or for this current year. Um so as Aubrey was mentioning earlier you can see that they have been deficit spending in that area a little specifically. Um in essence they had built up that fund balance. Um and so they opened up more opportunities around learning academy and some other areas. Um and then they made some adjustments for the current year um by reducing some of the learning academy opportunities but it did not adjust. We found that they found that the participation once people are involved they were excited about those programs. So more people were participating than there were previous to kind of that broadening opening up of the learning academy. Um and then the other area that I just want to point out here is the English learner restricted code um fund balance 439 and the basic skills. You look like they're offsetting. We've got this um English learner um program that is increasing and overexpending the revenues. Um and you can see some changes in that when we look at previous years with the basic skills. Um so English learner programming used to come out of basic skills. We now need to articulate or had English learner specific programming and then also basic skills programming. Um with the new EL cross subsidy aid coming in in fiscal year 27. Um we need to articulate that as a separate restricted account so they can track how much we are spending on English language learning programming so that they can determine how much cross subsidy aid we should be receiving. Um and so you can see we are deficit spending in English English learner programming but not fully spending our basic skills. Essentially we're looking at those two numbers coordinated so that they generally support each other in that program. And then the next page here um just looking at the assigned accounts. Um, so you can, as the board knows, we've been putting some of our COVID funds aside to create some sustainability. We're projecting to spend $1 million of that um, assigned fund balance for next year to maintain our unassigned fund balance specifically in that transparency around we had built up some funds for sustainability. So, we need to kind of be aware of not just of how we're spending that down and knowing that um, at the end of this year, we'll be projected to only have $1.3 million of our CO funding remaining. And then because we are projected to be deficit spending for next year, we need to put that deficit spending amount in an assigned fund balance for that subsequent year budget. Um so you can see that overall our general fund is projected to decline by 1.119 1,119,399 um with a total general fund balance of $18,3,27. Uh when we look at other funds, again just kind of highlighting, um you can see the food service is relatively flat in the overall change. Um community education is relatively sustainable with some decline here this coming year in that fund balance. Um and then looking at the construction fund, you can see that we're set to have a fund balance there of 67,000. So really completing the bulk of our construction projects here in fiscal year 26 before the end of next summer. um the irrevocable trust, the OPED, um is being reduced by about 290,000. So that also has had some sustainability from when that was originally implemented in kind of uh I think it was 2008 when we um issued that irrevocable trust. Um so overall uh total all funds, you can see the revenues and expenditures that we previously talked about. um net fund balance including those other funds like um the internal service funds and the OPED funds of $32,775,847 which is a $2.9 million reduction in that overall fund balance and again the bulk of that is really the general fund of the 1.1 million the total construction fund of 1.6 million and then that oped trust much of what um was generally predictable. So overall, these are just the numbers on a sheet that I've said multiple times. Projected fund balance, projected overall revenue of $115,824,930 or 89,700,000 of general fund. Projected overall expenditures of 118,748,000 or 90 million 90,800,000 of general fund. total general fund balance decrease of 1.119 million to 18 million million300,000 um with an unassigned fund balance um decrease of 920,000 to 8.5 million or 9.39 9.39%. Um and then that overall district fund balance of 32 million which is a decrease of 2.9 million. I will pause and respond to any questions or comments. Otherwise, we would seek your approval tonight for that fiscal year 26 budget. Got one question. Is the increase in the special ed funding so that pretty sure we heard about this in the negotiations, but so that they can have extra time to do all their required paperwork and all that kind of stuff. Um the increase in special education funding is driven by formula from the state. So there's actually three different calculations based on how they determine how much money we get. Um we generally don't find out until we won't find out until next spring actually how much money we get for fiscal year 26. Um so what we're seeing is there's um increase in expenditures of staffing. Um the special education transportation um homeless highly mobile transportation is one that we've seen some increases significant increases. So we're working to cost contain that for next year. Um but the funding for next year is really based on our expend expenditures for this year. Um we also have leveraged special education funding with our tuition. So, we're using federal funds to pay for tuition, which allows us to get some additional revenue um for um our operations and the revenue that we um previously weren't getting because of how we were paying for tuition. So, I'm realizing some efficiencies and better strategies for um using our special education funding between state between state and federal programs. So to really answer your K question, Ken kind of, but there are a lot of other factors beyond that specific piece about additional time. Does 287 play into this? Uh 287 is one of the districts that we pay tuition towards um and um definitely impact some of the areas, but it's really based on our operations and our participation in 287 programming um that would drive our revenues and expenditures that are connected in with it. Um 287 revenue um really is a separate formula from what Richfield's special ed revenue is. More questions, comments, last week. I I do not have questions. I app um just like uh you had said previously I apprec I appreciate all the detail and directing our eyes to the areas of significant change. Perfect. Then I'm probably the last one and I've got a simple question just there's so much information here. You know we've been talking for the last couple meetings about kind of a targeting a $3 million deficit depending on what the state does. State makes a move. They say yep we're going to reimburse you right? And so then we're looking at a 1.5 million, but then back here the numbers look like three million. So just high level does that. Yep. So the $3 million that we were talking about was general fund specific. So the general fund specific that reduction is just over one 1.1 million. Um overall when we factor in the construction that's the 2.9 million. So um those are all things that would have been planned. So in reality, if the um compensatory hold harmless did not hold true, all of this would have been increased by about $1.9 million. As far as the re sorry, would have been further reduced or deficit spending of $1.9 million. Correct. That that's and would have been in the general fund specifically. Um the $ 1.9 million additional would have impacted the general fund. So that $1 million would have gone to the 2.9 or $3 million and the $2.9 million at the end would would have gone to 34.8. Perfect. Thank you for explaining that. All righty. If there are no more questions and does somebody want to I'll move the budget as presented. I'll second that. Motion by director Paul and a second by director Liss. Got enough questions asked already. Don't hear any more. Bring it to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All post, please say nay. The chair votes I. And we have an approved budget. In case you're curious why I hesitated, I had to double check that that was not a resolution. Uh, next we have RPS LTFM budget 2025 2026. Maybe you can jam in some more acronyms. That'd be great. Very good. Thank you. Um so because looking just at the fiscal year 26 um budget is not um looking in advance enough, we're taking a look at fiscal year 27 already looking at projected revenue for long-term facilities maintenance as well as the expenditures associated with that. So, every summer by July 31st, we have to submit a long-term facilities maintenance plan that looks at a 10-year expenditure projection. Um, and then also looks at the revenue. Um, and this then drives information that goes into the um levy certification process that starts in se well starts now, but um we start to get take action in September and the board approves in December. um that again funds the payable for fis for calendar year 26 that individuals pay taxes on but it funds the 2627 school year. Uh so at the last meeting the board took actions um supporting the district 287 long-term facilities maintenance. There were some changes at the legislature in L LTFM or long-term facilities maintenance funding where um boards were now given authority to um raise revenue specifically for roofing projects. Um we did not include those legislative changes at this time just because we've not had sufficient time to fully analyze what that would look like. Um, we do have the opportunity later on this summer to bring that back to the board if we do decide looking at our levy for fiscal year for 25 payable 26. Um, look at potential funding in those areas, but we need to get this in prior to July 31st. And so we wanted to have at least what was baselined in there. Um, but we are looking at some roofing projects because we do have significant needs in that area as well. Long story short, what we're bringing to you um is a request to approve Independent School District 280's long-term facilities maintenance program budget and 10-year plan as um well as authorizing inclusion of that long-term facilities maintenance levy for the 25 payable 26 in the amount of $4,226,529 which includes $1,596,551 in general fund levy and $100,750 51 for Intermediate District 28 287's levy. Um total projected expenditures for Richfield's fiscal year 26 projects are set at 1,671 446,000 for fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27 1,740,773. And if you are Tim and doing quick math and saying 1.5 million plus 100,000 does not add up. Um there is um the general fund levy is our activeear levy. The difference between the 4.2 and those other two amounts together is the debt service component of it um for HVAC systems and other mechanicals that were previously approved. I saw you flinch so I thought I'd clarify that quickly. Um so th those are standing items generally. Um but those two items are the ones that tend to change a little bit more specifically. Uh you can see and uh Dan Kretzinger I think presented at the last meeting a lot of the construction projects. So this just highlights what those were. Um some of the big ones about doors and skylight replacement tuck pointing um really looking at ceiling of our buildings um both in the walls as well as that roofs that we the roofs that we talked about um and some stadium fence and gym floor replacement at Centennial. And then for the 26 27 year more tuck pointing um looking at some roofing replacements um paving projects, sewer line replacement and exterior door replacements as some of the larger projects in this area. So with that we ask for your approval of that budget um with the revenues articulated and authorizing that to be included in the levy. There any questions? I will do my best. Sounds great. Of course, if there are no questions, we will always entertain budget for 526 school. I'll second. I have a motion by director Cole and a second by director Paulus to approve the RPS LTFM. or questions, comments into a motion to give you guys a quick second. Hearing none, seeing none, bring to vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All post, please say nay. The chair votes I. And we have an approved RPS LTFM budget 42526. brings us on to administrative guideline 709.1 development and maintenance of an inventory of fixed assets and fixed asset accounting systems first and final read. Craig, are you going to discuss that one? Craig, um I I didn't have it specifically to discuss uh but I I can share information. So this is a request to make that um change to the administrative guidelines. it is looking at increasing what the capitalization amount is um to something that's more in line with current standards. Um and I don't have front of me unfortunately but um that's the purpose of this is just increasing that capitalization amount so that um smaller purchases um no longer have to have the appreciation associated with depreciation depreciation associated with that um and not necessarily be placed on that f fixed asset inventory. recommendation is that it's approved with the first week because it is a guideline and it will reappear when we approve the policy in its typical cycle. First, we're going to ask when is that policy up for review again? Other questions, comments since it's a first and final Now just a a comment I guess that this seems to simplify smaller item purchases. So therefore I will move that we pass this as written as presented. Second that. It's like Jedi mind trick over here. We have a motion by director Spencer and a second by director Liss to approve the policy as presented. Any more discussion? Hearing and seeing none. All in favor please say I. I. All post please say nay. Chair votes I. And we have approved administrative guidelines 709.1. Bring us to policy 710 pettash and administrative guidelines 710.1. First read. Okay, this is a first read of um policy 710. This policy governs the use of petty cash funds in order to reduce the volume of checks request checks requested for transactions under $100. Any questions on our first read? shaking heads. We'll move on to the next item. Authorization for lease purchase financing buses. I think I missed some words there. Very good. Thank you very much. Um, so yeah, we do have a request that the board authorize the administration to enter into an agreement for lease purchase financing for three school buses with an estimated financing amount of $652,96.76 with American Capital. Uh the district um the administration did solicit proposals for financing in the amount of 652,000. Um one is 183 passenger school bus um with air conditioning and then two 90 passenger school buses. The 83 passenger school bus was actually authorized for purchase in May of 2024 and the two 90 passenger school buses were authorized for purchase um in February of 25. Um so the 24 ones are now just arriving. Um, two actually already arrived and this is a third one um that they're having to install some air conditioning on. Um, and then the other two are set to be arriving in I think August or September for that acquisition. Um, as we've talked about the last two years, we have kind of been assessing whether or not we continue to do um purchases outright or to do lease purchase financing. The last time we um did the lease purchase financing was in 2018 um when we had a larger capital um operating capital fund balance and it made sense to start to make some of those purchases that way. Um in more recent areas we've started to see within our operating capital specifically increased needs around those curriculum purchases. Um we also are seeing some more uncertainty exactly of where the state funding will be for school districts. So um we had the hold harmless for compensatory this coming year. um there is no guarantee of any similar funding for fiscal year 27. And so looking at that as well as some other changes state. Um in talking with our municipal adviserss as well, they said not only that, but um there's not a lot of um confidence that the um future projections that the state has to drive off of their budget um will be any better in the future as well. So um looking at more limits in state funding moving forward is our concern. Um, so this just gets us a little bit of flexibility in the next couple years with the curriculum purchases and some of those higher needs coming in those areas and gives us some time to kind of plan forward for that sustainability coming out of COVID funds and some of those other areas. So, uh, with this um, this was reviewed by fiscal planning advisory committee and I've talked with a number of our colleagues and consultants in municipal advising and other budget um, areas as well. um we are in a situation where we don't have to because we obviously have um funds in that general fund for the expenditures, but given some of those uncertainties and some of the short-term expenses in the capital um it's our recommendation that we move forward with that um at this point. Um we do have the option um working with American Capital to purchase that to um early terminate that and complete that um lease financing earlier. Um, so we aren't obligated for a seven-year um in that specific piece. Um, and also when we look at the offset between what the interest rate that we the financing charge would be and what our current interest rates are, it's relatively small. So, American Capital offered an interest rate of financing rate of 4.575%. Um, the others came in higher at that with 6.5 to over 9% financing. So this really is specific to American Capital is what our recommendation would be. Um currently we are earning interest on our investments of just over 4% so 4.1%. So the differential currently that we would be paying is only about a half a percent differential for that flexibility specifically um in that area. Um we don't necessarily think that the interest earnings will stay at that same rate but we can continue to evaluate that year-over-year. Um, even with those rates dropping to the low the low 3% of our interest, that's only a 1.5 1.5% differential in that earnings versus what our expenses are. So, relatively low cost. Um, this is just this year um recommendation. We're not saying this is the way it's going to be every year for the next series of years. Um it just is looking at this specifically seems to be a um time that we would want to do this to help mitigate that and provide some sustainability in our in other programming as needed. Um if there are other questions I will do my best to respond to those at this time. Um otherwise we would seek your authorization for the administration to that agreement. Um, as I'm just talking, I will say one other thing we are working, so because it's a lease purchase financing, we have to work with legal counsel to make sure that lease purchase is set up correctly for school districts. Um, American Capital is actually the company that we um did our most recent financing with in 2018. So, they are ones that we have experience with as well. Um, our legal council, Zach Cronin from Squares, Waldsburg, and May said that they tend to be one of the larger ones that work with school districts. So, it's not uncommon for districts to be doing lease purchase financing like this. Um, but Zach Cronin will be working on our behalf to make sure that everything is put together correctly. Questions, comments? I I have a few. The If you could just clarify, this is for three large buses. Our total fleet is how many? I want to say 24, but um 24 large buses and then additional vehicle and and I believe on prior presentations the lifespan is approximately 10 years. Uh our vehicles we tend to have for 10 to 12 years depending on kind of the wear and tear and what happens. So okay. So thank you for for clarifying that. I mean, I the way you laid it out, I'm okay with it with with the limited scope that you suggested. Like, I don't years ago when we brought this up, one of the things we we pointed out is if you continue to do this, eventually in year six or year seven or whatever, you're paying for the buses anyway on a pay as you go basis. Now, you've just acred interest. Um, and so if you have the funds, you really it you would be better off just paying for them outright and and and and living with it. The there are limited circumstances in which I would support it and some of them are what Mr. Holy outlined, right? Like we have uncertainty of funding for the compensatory formula and we have uncertainty or or large sort of not routine purchases of curriculum coming up in the next year or two. But I I would say like this is not something I would support year over year over year. And I would recommend the board agree with that as a principle because again then we're all we're doing is eventually locking ourselves into you know we have a couple years of flexibility and then we're just paying more than we should for three for the three buses a year on a going forward basis. So by financing cars. Yes. Idea. Correct. I mean and so there are some budgetary uncertainties that we're facing here. Um and and I would just say well once we get more certainty on them, the cost's the cost and we just have to eat it even if it's bad news and we should be able to budget for it going forward, right? And just build that into our projections on a going forward basis. But for this year, I'm okay with it. Um, we haven't done it in a while, the flexibility seems to be something that would be welcome to the administration. Um, so especially with the the lack of penalty for early payoff if we somehow get better than expected news, we could get out of it and whatever. But the the the caution I offer is that for whoever is is is sitting in these chairs in the future, like if you do this every year, all you're really doing is you you you have a few years of lower cost, but ultimately you're paying the cost and the interest for your three buses and now you've baked yourself into it and overpaying. I don't think we would want to do so. I could do it once. I raised some similar concerns in the fiscal advisory um committee. I think the the other piece that helped me be more okay with this was the spread between our investment accounts and the interest rate on these buses. um looking at the I think it was six and a half percent for the other loans was like we're not doing that. That's a that's a three-point spread, right? Doesn't make sense. This four and a half is pretty close to the investment. But then also looking at two years from now if our investment investments are only getting 2%. I think we need to re-evaluate this and pay off the loan. Dumb questions. Uh buses were previously authorized for purchase in May 2024 and February 2025. So, we did not purchase them at the time and now we're looking going, "Hey, we haven't purchased them yet." So, instead of paying cash, we're going to put them on hold because they didn't have them. So, so we we ordered them at that time. So, they were ordered last May and then they were ordered again in February. We knew that the delay in it's not like going to the car dealership and picking out a car there. It's it's ordering a special car. Um so, they were both ordered. they've been um all of them were purchased on joint powers agreements um or collective um purchasing agreements. Um so that rate was fixed according to that piece. We're specifically seeking the authorization to do the lease purchase financing with those vehicles versus the outright purchase of them. Pay upon receipt of the vehicle. Yeah. Check. questions of any type or of course we'll entertain a I'll move that we authorize uh the lease purchase for the three vehicles. I'll second by director Paul and a second by director Cole. Done with questions. Bring it to a vote. All in favor please say I. I. All post please say nay. The chair votes I. and you have authorization for lease purchase financing options. Bringing us to the last item on the new business agenda, donations. Yes, we are so pleased to share with the community that Richfield Dual Language School received a donation of $1,000 from Manny Floring LLC of Minneapolis for field trips. The Richfield High School boys soccer team received a donation of soccer balls valued at $1,020 from the Richfield Spartan Foundation. And the Richfield High School boys volleyball team received a donation of volleyball equipment valued at $1,723.78. Also from the Richfield Spartan Foundation, we are grateful for the generosity of our community and the Spartan Foundation. accept these donations with gratitude. I will move that we accept these donations with gratitude. I'll second by a motion by director Spencer and a director by second by director Paulus to accept these donations with gratitude. All in favor, please say I. I. I'll post an A. The chair votes I and I love saying the word gratitude because we accept these donations. Well, the donations the motion to accept the donations with gratitude are approved. Lot of words. That brings us on to advanced planning and uh we have a lengthy legislative update. Yes. So, you've heard um Mr. Holy say all throughout his presentation around how compensatory re revenue was held harmless for this upcoming um school year. This is for one year only. Um there are no changes to um pupil formula funding. Um there will be some reductions in funding. Um they are not eliminated but they were just reduced in order to balance the budget. And those things will be around special education, transportation, student support, personnel aid, library aid, and school meal reimbursement. You just heard um Mr. Hoji talk about LTFM for roof repair. Um there are some new requirements that um Minnesota paid leave will continue as planned and it will start January 1st, 2026. Um we need to have a cardiac emergency response plan for the 2627 school year. Directory information for parents can no longer be included or requested um with um public data requests. That information will no longer be accessible. Some new opportunities. Short call substitute first pilot program um has been made permanent. You all now can participate um in um schoolboard meetings remotely. We do not need the 3-day notice in advance. Your address does not need to be made public, etc. Um, but all board members must still be able to see and hear each other. The reason for the remote participation must be stated in the minutes. And when there is a virtual participant, all board votes must be taken by roll call. And at least one board director needs to be in the boardroom. Um, candidate filing for running for school board that um has been moved up two weeks than what it had previously been. Um, we've discussed this also as a as a board that um for the 26 27 and 2728 school school year, districts may opt to begin their school year before Labor Day or on and after September 1st. And they've increased the flexibility with um literacy aid, which was literacy incentive aid to support the literacy programming at the um local level. So at the district within our district. So those are a highle del those things are a high level delineation of the many things that happened during this session one that is whoever crafted it questions comments about that I I think we will learn to appreciate the um remote participation I know some of us are are willing but unable that you know something pops up and we happen to be absent and that flexibility to participate from hearts unknown you know just just because you could not send the the address in on Friday to to have it posted plus for us caveat to me is figuring out how we talk about being able to u right I mean we've done it before and as I look to my tonight and I don't see our podium with her locked up and said, you know, how do we make that magic happen? And right, I think yeah, in the future we just have to be at the ready just in case. Sorry, Cassandra and George. Any other comments or questions about the legislative update? respond to information and questions from the board which puts me up um because of the fact that we had um our close session I forget the policy number is right here in front of me 13D5 not 03 for close session for superintendent evaluation so I will provide a summary of how that discussion went uh on Monday June 2nd the board met with superintendent and closed session to discuss and finalize the superintendent's evaluation for the year. We considered data and results from the staff community surveys, yearly goals, district performance, and feedback from the district reports and board members. Sorry, from the feedback from direct reports and board members. All board members evaluate the superintendent as meeting or exceeding goals in each of the areas of performance. Specific areas of strong performance included board relations, overall management, planning, and response to unanticipated challenges. Areas that should be included in future goals and focus are human resource structures and professional development, oversight of extended nondist nondirect report area uh reports say that and educational program and systems as well. We saw many areas with the excellent outcomes. Some of the student outcome areas this year did not fully represent what we'd like to see in our data over the summer. We'd like the superintendent to conduct a deep analysis of all areas of student achievement performance to ensure that all future results match efforts invested by our teams. For those who are unaware, the upcoming 2025 26 school year marks the final year of Superintendent Yunowski's contract. The superintendent has indicated an interest and desire to continue his leadership role in Richfield Public Schools. Given our overall positive evaluation of the superintendent, I want to confirm with our board members their interest and support for Vice Chair Spencer and I to begin negotiations on July 1st with Superintendent Yinoski on a future three-year contract for the school years beginning July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. This is not a motion, but it's more of a discussion for us to make sure that we're all on the same page that we start that head nodding. Yeah. Yeah. All head nods for those who can't hear or see. We are general I don't know if I'd take consensus, but looks like agreement that that is something that we should move forward. Perfect. Thank you. Any other comments in the information and questions from the board? I mean, I think I might take this opportunity since I'm not sure just item, but I'm going to say we're going to miss you, Dr. D. Right. Someone's got to say it. I'll do it. Uh, you've been a great asset here uh at Richville Public Schools, and we're going to miss you. And I think we might have something that uh I don't know if I can say it on camera, but we might be eating cake later. So, just saw that. I mean, just saw that. What I'm told there's always time for cake uh from a revered member of the board. So, or cookie or cookie or cookie cake or cookie cake. I you know what a treat to celebrate you. So, thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. appreciate each one of you um individually as well as collectively because you all played a role in my development and growth as a leader in Richville public schools to prepare me for the next step in District 1. Thank you all so so much. You all have been a blessing to me. Thank you so much. All clap for you. Uh suggested future agenda items ran along. Future meeting dates uh July 14th we'll have director list will be leading our study session on becoming a board member and then we'll have an opportunity for public comment. We're going to have a busy night that night. Uh then the next meeting after that is 84 which will be in regular board meeting. Uh I I just want to clarif clarify for director Lissa's benefit there there exists there is already an existing PowerPoint and presentation. Okay. Just want to make sure I have a I have a a pre-study session study session coming up. I I I just want to make sure that you you don't you don't feel as though we we're just wishing you luck, right? We'll be there to support you. Do you have the meeting before the meeting? Perfect. I have a meeting before the meeting. Thank you. And so to reiterate, any interested school board candidates should attend. Wisdom of those in attendance primarily answered by director list. Correct. Direct. Yeah, direct. You're right. So that the pattern is that that someone in the off cycle would who whose seat is not up in in that fall would would facilitate that discussion um and serve as the main is primary receiver of questions from from members of the public who attend. Now, if I I believe we we went through a few meet a couple meetings ago that director list might be the only member of that cohort of seats. So, if questions come to you, you know, it's not all on you to answer them. We can. It's just those whose seats would be up in the fall. You should be measured in their answers so they're not accused of steering uh towards or away. Right. But we'll we'll give Director Liss all all the full reign to questions. Questions. Yes. All right. Uh that brings us I'm always I got nervous here with director with director Axel here but that brings us the uh final item of business which is to adjourn as this item doesn't require a full board vote. I officially adjourn this meeting at 8:50. Guess I this has a session. Thank you and have a good night.