Well, I should have said George, are you ready? I assume he's ready. We're going. We'll take We'll take that as good. It is 7 o'clock still on May the 5th and I called to order this regular meeting of the Richfield School Board. Attending this evening's board meeting live and in the boardroom are board members Kendallis, Tim Palace, Revote, we have Kirk Spencer and I'm board chair Eric Carter. We're joined tonight by our student representatives Vanessa Rosa Miguel and Tia Brackenidge. Also at the table we have superintendent Stevenski and assistant to the superintendent Cassandra K. Don't know why I hesitated there. Other members of the district leadership are in attendance this evening and may be participating throughout the meeting as well. Richfield Public Schools 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. Little change in wording there. Uh thanks to all those all of you joining us live and in the boardroom. We also want to thank Check to see if there's anybody else joining us live in the boardroom. We also want to thank those who are uh 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 will be to approve the agenda before us. As approval of the agenda is routine and business item. I will briefly pause see if there are any comments or questions related to the agenda. Want to check and make sure we know anything we need to tweak unlike last time. Hearing and seeing none. Is anybody prepared to move the agenda? I'll move the agenda as presented. I'll second. It's gonna be a long show if it's YouTube moving and seconding. Uh, so we have a motion by director Paul and a second by director Liss and my favorite thing ever because Director Spencer is remote. Everything tonight will be handled via roll call. I will start this one to my right. Director Spencer I. Director Liss I. Director Paulus I. The chair votes I. And the agenda is approved. We now move on to information and proposals non- action item section of the agenda. Before moving to this topic this evening, just a reminder, the next opportunity for public comment will be at our board meeting on May 19th, 2025. Now over to superintendent. All right, two items in the superintendent report this evening. Prior to our scintillating presentation from director Michael Manning in nutrition services, we are going to get an update on the Richfield College experience program from Dr. Dr. Quesa will height and counselor Cassie Costakano, take it away. All right. Thank you. Um, schoolboard members, student representatives, uh, community members both here and at home. Um, I think this is probably our seventh year now of presenting. So, we are going a little bit deeper on some things that we started actually during COVID year as we have a little bit of data to present um, to you and we're going to kind of merge some technical and adaptive things that we do for students. Um, so as always we just like to highlight our fabulous team and this gives a really good representation of what we do on our first day of school with our teachers and also then on the next slide our students. Um, one is a grad from December and then two our hopefuls coming up here in June and then of course the fabulous Cassie and Pupper. Um we started the year with about 20 more students than we typically have. Um and we've been able to stay pretty steady throughout the year. Not too many drops and those that we have had to um unenroll have been able to reenroll as as Richfield members. So believe we started with about 85 students. As you can see, most of our students are 11th and 12th graders. We do have a little group of fifth year seniors and then two seven-year seniors. one of those seven-year seniors has been with us a couple of years, so we're all really supporting on having finish up this year. Um, and then some, uh, the other person was new to us this year. The majority of our students are from Richfield. Um, about 90 91% of our students identify as bipok. We have about uh 39% uh English learner population and 70 17% of our students also qualify for special education services. Uh we always start our year with a lot of community building and a lot of um some public service. So you can see this is in our first week students um just kind of trying to let down their guard and so one way to do that is through doing projects and they are making sandwiches for the Groveland food shelf. Um we do some trips to base camp. Again it's about community building and just taking down some of that armor and getting to know your classmates in a different way. Um and it provides a lot of laughs and getting out of the comfort zone. very much out of the comfort zone especially if you complete the high ropes course and I think that also allows students to feel pretty proud of their accomplishment teachers too um we like to keep uh students connected to what they might be interested in post-secary so there are quite a few um campus visits and you could see here from the Henipin Technical College and this was the nursing program uh the Raptor center comes out on site eight and that's always a hit for our students and again we have a lot of students that are interested in working with animals. So again it just is a nice way to sort of connect people with what might be possible after high school. And then our electives class this year we invested quite a bit in sewing machines which was a huge hit. Um and then also doing some planting and students finding out if they have a green thumb or not. um and maybe a love for plants that they didn't know they have had and then of course bringing out some of the artistic qualities. And one of our students performed at the second annual POW here in Ridgefield and she performed the women's traditional and then her bestie um they did the the game. Uh we also took this we like to take students to the theater again just something kind of different and at the same time it does connect to a lot of their social studies classes. So this year students went to the Oridway the Guthrie and the historical theater. Um one of the things that we were working on is getting those uh survey completion rates a bit higher this year. So you can see our goal was set at 10% for our parent guardian um completion rate and we made a plan. We did a lot of outreach and our families really came through for us and um and shared shared their thoughts around what we're doing well and also of course like always they also have some things about like hey here's one more thing that you could think about which is great and valid. Um and so we ended with 32% and then our BIPOC and again most of our our families are um identify in with BIPOC and then I have to say thank you to the REP staff. We had a 75% u completion rate and there's always a little bit of wondering when a small site about how anonymous can I really be. Um, so we did a lot of talking and trust building and staff came through also. Thank you. Great. Um, we wanted to talk about our progress monitoring um because so many of the schools that was a big focus this year on how that that works and of course our SEAP is always a little bit different and how we do things. But we do progress monitor um our students and this does connect to our kind of home visit highlight and Cassie will talk more about that. And this is more on the technical side. So our math teacher is a wizard with Google Sheets. Um we take attendance and we really focus on that work production that feeds into sort of a tiered progress monitoring form which you see here. And so everyone in the building has their role. If students are missing three to five days, that's really on the teachers and the adviserss to do the reach out to try and um have students reconnect in and have more uh work production and engagement. Um that tier 2 is when students are in that 6 to9 day category. That is typically when uh social worker counselor kind of step in as well as in that tier three which is the me missed 10 plus days. That's also in that tier three when I do quite a bit of reach out and Sonia our um admin assistant does a lot of reach out. We don't or I don't like to have students be dropped and not know. We're getting really close and as always our message is and if we get to that point we are always here. we'd love to reenroll you right the next day. Um that all those tiered uh forms also then feed into um what the what the team looks at or every week goes through and looks at where students are. You can see the graduation year uh how many credits and that is live. So it does tick down week by week. So we stay up to date on how many credits they still need and then in which categories. Cassie has done a great job with goal sheets. So keeping really a lot of track on a lot of moving parts. And then you can see in that right column, farthest right column, the team talks about here's a student. They're not connecting in. What do we do? How do we get them to re-engage? And that's where home a lot of the home visits pick up. Hello. For anyone I haven't met, I'm Cassie A Costa, the school counselor over at ARAP for quite some time now. Um, I'm going to go on about home visits. I think the last screen was just showing when those students hit a mark where we don't feel like they're engaged and we need to do something a little more, we Jill and I, Jill Carlton, our social worker, and I will head on out. We bring postcards with us and we just visit students. Uh students are aware that that might happen, especially if we haven't seen them before. They're aware from friends. They're aware from us telling them. Um usually upon enrollment, I'll explain, well, you know, we even we have a smaller site. We get to come and visit you if we're concerned about something and sometimes just for good reasons. Um I think it uh breaks the ice and students and families feel pretty safe and and okay with us doing that. Um, our goals for home visiting, as I said, is re-engaging students. And you can see on the screen, um, sometimes that's identifying obstacles or or addressing the obstacle and getting them extra resources. Um, and then who we visit. We have over the years developed and tweaked our C system. So, at some point in time, it was a little more word of mouth from adviserss or teachers. Oh, this one's struggling. That one's struggling. All of these forms that um well I guess Google Sheets that Jen Grall made have been unbelievably helpful. So we can see like Quesa said real time who is earning credit, who's not earning credit, how many days have they missed, um when was the last time they were in the building and that really helps us identify every week who we might see that week. So Jill and I meet on Monday morning. We go over the attendance uh document and then Wednesday mornings the whole staff meets and we talk about the students that you saw on that other screen. That portion of the screen is pulling out students we're thinking should be graduating this spring the 24 25 uh gsy or above. um the rest of the school year before like April when we're in super crunch time, we look at all our students um on Wednesday mornings. That's a picture from last year's graduation. Um and this is just a little bit about our visit outcomes. Uh we have now I think this is our second year of keeping track of when do they show up next. And show up might be they hopped online and they were getting some credit recovery done. It might be they're in their building or it could even mean they're reaching out to a teacher or staff member or or even a family is reaching back out to us. And we kept track I think it's on another side about that I'll get to in a minute. Um we also increased some student wraparound services. We have students who might not be leaving the house. We have students who maybe live in an area that can't get transportation at the time, have families, etc., etc. You know, the situations they might be facing. Um, and so we can come in and we can help them with schoolwork to get started up again. We can bring food, we can bring um, bus cards, we bring chargers, we bring, you know, so we're talking and and communicating and finding out what they need when we go. And we have seen an increase in engagement with those students. Um, those are examples of our postcards that we bring out. And this is the data. Um, so far 60 home visits. We're probably going to be hitting I mean 80 90 home visits for the year. This month gets a little bit busier with graduation around the corner. Um, we've had referrals connecting with families. Um, that number I said within 48 hours. We had 22 students that returned within 20 or 48 hours. Um, and others that then return a little bit later. We're kind of looking for that quick turnaround because we're going in between 6 and let's say 12 days they've missed and we don't want to hit that 15-day mark where then they're going to be dropped and we have to do a reenrollment. Um, and in particular a couple students who were with us from prior years but out of district, we really worked hard this year that we wouldn't drop them because then they'd have to look for another program. Um, we figured there's about eight drops prevented this year and we've worked with students uh commonly at libraries which was tough this year because Southdale closed and Auxburg was closed for a bit but we also use Auxboro. We've gone as far as a North Minneapolis library um for students who are in situations that they cannot get out and then we will do some credit recovery or school work with them there. Um to get them started up again, kind of like the jump start we need to keep going. Um and so we've had five grads through those visits where we go out and do the last few things they need to do. It's um remarkable. Sometimes a student really pauses at that last class and the last quiz and you're like one more we got to do it. Um and then uh often like a student won't be there. We are not calling ahead to every student and say we'll be there in 10. We're just dropping in but we're very friendly. We're very informal. We're not coming in with a clipboard or anything. But if nobody's home or occasionally it'll be an apartment complex we can't get in. We bring the postcards and we leave notes. um sometimes more in depth depending on what the student need is and other times just we miss you, we hope to see you soon, here's our number to remind you, you know, always a smiley face at the bottom. Um and then this is our last slide about home visits. And this these are three examples of students we've helped out. And I picked today the second one to just give you a little update on. Um, we have a senior who really didn't have a lot to finish but had a death in the family and we've been trying to make a home visit. So, there's a lot of texting back and forth. We use our Google Voice numbers and it's back and forth, back and forth and, "Oh, this didn't work. Oh, we're about to meet. Oh, nope. Now I don't have transportation." And so, last week, end of the week, I said, "Okay, that's fine. Don't worry. Let's see you get those last two quizzes done in algebra 2." And I checked this morning. The quizzes were done. So that much closer to graduation for this year. So when our technical and our adaptive supports come together and we've built those really strong relationships, when it works, students graduate. And this was from our our midyear graduation celebration. And as of April 21st, this is sort of where we're sitting. I think we have one more grad since then. So, and again, it's kind of fun because every day you might have a new grad, which is great. Um, but 13 have graduated. You can see um up to five credits, there are 15 students in that category. Uh, another 16 between that five and 10 credit mark. 10 to 15 credits, there are 10 students. Uh, 15 to 20 credits, there are three. And then there are some that are the 20 plus. And we never say never. So if you're wondering, can they do it? We always say nothing's impossible, but we are also realistic. It is a lot of work, but we've seen it done before. Um the last I just want to mention the seal of biiteracy. Um we do push that pretty hard at ARP. We push that hard even at the high school, but in particular at RSP um we try and track um really closely there because without having all the elective options, we need to get pretty creative. Um and again recognizing their bilingual abilities and skills and students who may have been in the DLI program but then transferred to us, again, they need to be recognized for those skills. And so currently right now between both sites there are 53 world certificates that have been earned or will be earned at graduation. Gold seal 29, platinum seals uh 15 and right now um because every school across the nation are sending in scores. So we have 11 that scores that are pending. Questions? Thank you for that. turn the boards who have questions. Yeah. I just want to say, you know, it's pretty neat that it's a to me it's it's a it's a it's a vote of confidence that a third of your people are not um Richfield residents that they come here as a draw. And the fact that you do home visits to these out, you know, to the those, you know, who come from away, so to speak, is pretty cool. That's good. I mean, I just think that's a feathering. So, thank you. Yeah, I I don't have questions, just great appreciation for for the effort of the team. Um, it's such an important program and it's been very successful. Right. If you look back at the counts, we've doubled in 10 years. and we've doubled while getting more of the students to stay with it and complete and it's so important um to put that effort in because the people are worth it. So, thank you. Um just one question from me if I may. Um curious just incredible growth in the last couple years and if you could just speak to the attri attribution of what that what may have caused that growth I would say well I mean it's probably a combination of things um one we have changed some systems and we worked very closely with the state department to make sure right that we are staying within alternative ed guidelines and most of our students are under credit recovery so We do things in a credit recovery way. Um we don't start kids over. So if you haven't passed a class, we don't start kids over back on square one. That's not really fair, nor does the state recommend that. Um you're you're lengthening the time. We do try and capture what students know, which has helped quite a bit. We do customize. Most a lot of alternative schools will customize courses or attempt to customize courses. So, for example, if Cassie is a new student, has already been through biology, maybe just didn't pass the summitive at the end and failed the course, doesn't mean she doesn't know or hasn't learned biology, but she didn't pass her course. So, then it's trying how do we capture what Cassie does know and then have her either finish that last little bit up or there is something called credit by assessment. So being able to take a kind of a cumulative assessment and essentially pass out of the course by it's kind of like a KPI test in a way when you go to some of the universities, right? Um I would say also we've gotten a little more creative with elective credits and how those are um earned. Again, looking at a lot of the experiences and the skills and the talents that students come in with. We don't have an electives teacher or teachers and so I think Richfield is it 16 16 elective 14 that's quite a few credits. So instead of taking 14 individual one credit courses again we do things like um the field trips going to the colleges um the electives course the sewing the I think last year we we looked at like students who were doing a lot of self-study courses the bar the barber um the barber the young woman who worked uh I don't remember was it it's one of the plant I'm not great with plants I think it was Bachman Bachman, sorry. And and she and she learned a lot about horiculture and flower arrangement. Um we had a student that graduated actually in December, but she had taken a a lot of courses on her own around cosmetology. And so again, just kind of meeting with our um our science teacher actually has an elective block and then she sits down and then goes through and is able to sort of document all the things that they do outside of just the more standard class. Sila by literacy and getting electives that way has really helped um get credits for students. And I think honestly just when students start to feel a little success when they haven't that success breeds success and you can start to see them over the year really want to just finish up and feel good about all the things that they accomplish. So, was it uh and was there an increase in referrals from RHS that increase that or was it like I feel like it's you guys holding on to make sure the kids finish or young adults? I guess at that point I I think it's probably a combination. I know kind of at the end of the year like this, we do kind of focus in on seniors that are referred over. um this start of the year it we what we said last year was you know in that last couple weeks or that last month that's not really the best time for juniors to start coming like it's a pretty big dis disruption so we usually say let's start them out strong as new juniors so this year we had a pretty large group of new juniors I would say that's why we had more students than usual and then yeah we double triple timed it to hold on to to people. I feel like we did a lot more um reaching out this year than some other years. Thank you. Okay. I had a question with the service that they do. Is it within the school itself or is it with like people around the community like the service or the service learning kinds of things? Yeah, actually um some of them work at the is it loaves and fishes? Um doing some of the food prep. Um we also used to take them to like Feed My Starving Children and doing some community service there. Um, sometimes there's some salting around the building in the wintertime. Um, we again we try and get kind of creative. There's a lot of um making tie blankets for some of the the Ronald McDonald House. Um, so kind of group service projects. Oh, okay. I was interested in that. Like just to see if they got out within the community. I don't know. I feel like service is like a really great way to show and like how much they've grown and how much they can like um come together with other people like they're able to show or reflect what they learned so far or you know how to be a good person overall. So I was just curious. Yeah, absolutely. Empathy and I think they made those little bags for patients and they designed them and they wrote a lot of their humor and their wit comes out. But yeah, those were fun. Yeah, I guess I've got one quick question. Um, when you talked about the survey participation, and maybe I missed this, how many total staff do you have? Um, well, if you count all of us that work there, there's a total of 10, including me bodies anyway. So, were you included in that 100% survey? No, I think when I asked I think it's actually eight like eight staff that are part of that. Yeah. So I was just kind of curious when you talk about like I mean we've had some discussions about the anonymity of the surveys and like you know people stress about it and so I just think it's interesting just almost like the learning walks and the whole thing of like we hear kind of feedback of like oh this stresses us out like so then surveys it's like oh stresses out because it's like you can figure out who I am and so it's trying to understand it's like is there a way to get more of our staff just to fill it out because they don't have to worry about us identifying who it is and going after them. So yeah, I mean I think we talk about those types of things a lot. Um you know Dr. Wilhigh and I actually had a conversation around that about you know how do you engage your staff in that conversation and just when you have the close-knit community with um transparent dialogue there's not a lot new that shows up on a survey and so it's helpful when they're reminded of that. I mean we had 91% one of the things the board asked for was really high level of percentage of support um and engagement and so our administrators and leaders went after that and and took it as personal challenges to see what they could do and that was that was the challenge at this site is you're really small so that's what we do. Awesome. Well, thank you. That's all I had and I don't think there's any more questions, comments, right? Well done and thank you for your great work at ARP. And so with that, we will transition and bring up uh director Michael Manning, head of nutrition services to talk about Yes. When he was here last time, did we talk about snacks and then he if he was going to come back, he had to bring snacks or not show up? Um I think he learned a couple of things. I believe we're we were talking about whether he was going to feel bad having to follow ARP and the Dr. Wilhy team because he he usually draws that. Although to be fair, he signed up for this particular meeting. Uh I think he did say a year ago he was going to bring things in, but uh you know that was a year ago and so just his wonderful presence will be enough for us today sharing about nutrition services. More questions. There are no snacks here. I sent the snacks to Kirk so they'll be here tomorrow. Right. Door Dash is sometimes kind of slow but you know I tried. Uh so yes uh again for everyone Michael Manning. I'm the director of food nutrition. Uh, I wanted to talk to you today about our nutrition services update. So, I want to start off with our mission. Our goal is to create a warm and welcoming environment for every student, every meal every day. Uh, first I thought I'd go over just the programs we offer. So, we offer breakfast in the classroom at all of our elementarymentaries. Uh, all of our secondary locations offer a kind of hybrid package where we do graband-go breakfast, a traditional breakfast, and a second chance breakfast. Uh and that kind of shows through in our participation numbers. Our elementary see as high as they average in around 70% participation and our secondary sees as high as 35% participation. Next up we have our fresh fruit and vegetable program. Uh we do a traditional lunch. We also offer satellite lunch at some of our locations and then after school snack and after school supper. Uh so talking about those programs offered. So, we have the CACFP, which is the child and adult care food programs. So, as you can see, we offer those at Centennial Elementary, Richfield Middle School. We do snack and supper. We partner with the Beacons program to provide those services there. And then Richfield STEM, Richfield Dual Language School, and Sheridan are snack only sites. Uh, and we partner with the Dreams Academy to provide those meals. And then Richfield High School, we offer a supper only site. and that is a partnership with Beacons as well. So, next up, just hitting on our school breakfast and school lunch programming. So, we offer school breakfast and school lunch at all of our six traditional sites. I also want to highlight that we offer food at REP, which might be why their numbers are so high. I'm not sure. Uh, also Central Education Center and Richfield Special Education SEC. So we partner with ISD287 to provide meals for our students there. Next up is our FFVP. So that is a grant-based program that we do and that provides a fresh fruit or vegetable for students every day. Uh to qualify for this program, they must be an elementary school. We must participate in the national school lunch program and have at least 50% free or reduced price eligible students. So this past year we offered it at Centennial Elementary as well as Richfield Dual Language School. Uh due to our free and reduced price uh or free and reduced price eligible students changing, we are only going to be able to offer it at Centennial Elementary next year. So all right. So my favorite slide, participation. So, if you see in 2324, our year-to- date snapshot in February, we were at 48.33% for breakfast. We're up to 49.06%. Uh, and now last time we were at 66.94 for lunch, and we're up to 71.2 this year. So, we've saw increases in both of them. Uh, the increase isn't as drastic on our breakfast program. A lot of that is because Richfield's been offering free breakfast for all students for a number of years. So Richfield was way ahead of the free meals push that came out. So we don't see as much of a jump as some of the other districts have in breakfast, but pretty solid numbers across the board. Our free reduced percentage, you'll see, went from 58.3% down to 53.37%. So even with that drop, our participation is still going up. So we're pretty proud of that. All right. So, school lunch heroes. So, I wanted to share some of my awesome team here. Uh just some pictures of them getting together having fun. Uh everything from they, you know, one of our schools has kind of this year gotten in the habit of making like custom shirts. So, they make custom shirts, kind of fun stuff to stay engaged with the students, uh have fun. Uh one of the one of their Paula, she's our newest manager at Richfield STEM School. She came to us in December and she's done an amazing job of really just kind of embracing having fun with food and having fun with kids. Everything from dressing up in a hot dog outfit and yelling mustard really loudly anytime we have hot dogs. So, it's quite fun to see. And these are just some of the new items that we've done this year. So, the top two pictures, uh, we did a sampling with Deeply Rooted. So, they came in and served samples of their new vegetarian pizza uh for all the students to try. We got a survey stance monitor out there for kids to record what they thought of the samples and kind of go with that. So, we had over 95% acceptance rate of that. The kids really loved it. So, it's now on our menus now every Monday. So, when we do flatbread pizzas, we always offer the vegetarian option, which is it's an Italian crumble pizza made of peas and spices. And it's actually really, really good. Uh, next up, I want to show we did a grilled cheese day. Uh, and the grilled cheese day was a huge hit for us. The kids seem to really like it. We had lots of comments. So, it's going to come around one more time this year, and then it should be on the rotation again next year. So, we also did some papooseas this year, which was fun for us to learn and kind of see how to pair, what to pair with them, how to serve them, things like that. It wasn't near as big of a hit as the grilled cheese day, but we'll keep trying. And then just some fun fruits that they put out this year. Uh partnerships. I just wanted to show off a couple of them. Uh the top left picture was MSNA Day at the Capitol. So, we got to go and speak to legislators about the cool things happening in school breakfast and school lunch. Uh next up, where I have that weird stuff wrapped around my head, they were wrapping like tickets around me. We were at the Feed Our Community Partners. We got to pack meals for students to take home on weekends students that have like food insecurities. Uh fill your bowls. We partner every year with them providing the food for that event. It always is an amazing time just seeing the community come in and kind of embrace it. And then the bottom I just want to show some more of our school lunch heroes and some Marvel superstars. I think ours are better, but you know, I'm a little biased. Uh grants I wanted to point out our school waste reduction and recycling grant is now completed. So we have share carts in all of our elementaryaries and we also have one up and running at the middle school. So they've gone over really well and it was really encouraging to see how quickly the kids kind of picked it up. Like it makes me think that we were the ones almost holding them back. Like we got the share carts there and they immediately kind of knew what to do. Put stuff there they didn't want, grab what they didn't. It didn't take a whole lot of work. though. Uh, and then our fresh fruit and vegetable program, again, that's a grant-based program and it'll be at Centennial next year. Summer plans, I won't go into too much detail. It's going to be the same basic setup we've had in the past where K through five will be served at Richfield STEM. Uh, middle school will be or 6 through8 will be served at our middle school and then high school credit recovery and ESY will be at the high school. One cool thing is we partnered with 287 this year to help them out. So we will be sending meals over to SEC and ISD 287 to provide meals there. So to give our students there and people in the community just another spot where meals can be picked up at. So next year our plans we're going to keep uh all of our models are going to stay the same. Uh breakfast in the classroom, the hybrid breakfast, the lunches, things like that. We just want to work on a greater nutrition promotion and education. So, kind of partnering with the with the communications department to kind of show off the things we're doing and try to have some fun events with the kids. So, uh vendor contract status. So, we're going to I won't spend too much time. Uh Upper Lakes, our main vendor, our milk vendor, bread vendor, and disposables vendor will be recommending renewal in our upcoming board agenda. We are currently out for an RFP on our produce vendor. So trying to solicit some some more contracts for that. And then local apples. So this is a fun one. We have an RFP underway. So in the past we partnered with a company about four years ago and it's been so successful that we've kind of identified that we're going to have to go out to bid on it because of how successful the program's been. So we serve about 50,000 local apples a year now. And they come from Farmington Brand Farms and it's been a cool partnership. So, it's kind of fun to go out to bid and All right, so negative balances. Our current negative student balances is about $20,000. Uh, seems like a lot, but that is a $4,000 drop from last year. So, it is we are chipping away at it slowly. Our current negative adult balances is866. That's about a $100 increase from last year. Uh, all while our sunshine balance has increased. So that's $8,800. That's up about $1,000 from last year. So we are kind of chipping away at it and our fund balance is still holding pretty well. So all right, I saved the the most fun for last. So we completed our administrative review this year. This is the first one in my tenure here. Uh it was completed on 410. Uh that's kind of our big fiveyear review where the department of ed comes around. They spend a lot of time with you looking through stuff. Uh we did have there were no major findings found. We did well. I just want to go over just a couple of the corrective action items. Uh we we're working on uh some clarification around our application for benefit approval process. Uh we're working on restricting access through our SIS to protect family confidentiality even more. Uh we're working on partnering with the Institute of Child Nutrition for better civil rights training. Uh we've posted a bunch of different offer versus serve signage for students to kind of let them know what constitutes a full meal, things like that. We did have to make a minor menu modification to our grab-and-go meals and we're working on updating our by American process. Uh we're seeing a lot of push around the biamerican clauses and stuff and how we kind of track all the products coming in. Uh and then we had to work on some FFVP grant claim clarification. So yeah, other than that, it was a really good review. We learned a lot and it was fun. So, and that's it. Thank you for that. Yeah, I'll open up the floor to questions. And, you know, I'm walking around. I've been to a couple of the schools and looked at your menus. You're pretty well ready to meet any dietary need, most any dietary need. So, I mean, you you stay halal as well as you can, right? And then that kind of branches off to the vegans and the vegetarians and stuff like that. Yeah. We try to offer as many options as we can for our students, whether it be dietary preferences, whether it be uh health related. So, partnering with the nurses in all the buildings and stuff if students do have a health concern or a health need and stuff and then working one-on-one to see what we can do to kind of fill that gap for you. Another thing is an aside at Centennial, you have a pastry chef. You know that, right? Yeah. She makes the best the best cheesecakes ever. Yeah, I know. They are amazing. So, that's all. Yeah. I just have a couple comments. The vendor contract status. I I you know just remind ourselves as a board I can't wait to see the checkbox exercise that we've cleared them all as eligible for for federal grant or what whatever that that thing that we tripped up on a couple years ago. um on it's interesting you mentioned the school waste reduction and the students knowing exactly what to do like you know you'd said that the grown-ups in in the architecture around the system was the limiting factor right like we were constrained by the school lunch program said well if this kid doesn't want an apple we can't we can't be part of the process facilitating them giving it to the kid right next to them but if they leave it on that table then they have done it and it's it's really interesting how how we the the students are now empowered to control that whole thing. Yeah, it it took a lot of work like from just ordering the carts to getting the signage up to working with the department of health to make sure we had the the right parameters around the system to working with the administration in the building, the staff and then it was just so awesome to see like they they get to the building and the students just they just they just knew right away we were, you know, we were we were planning all these problems that would pop up and all these things that could happen and the kids just kind of got it and they enjoyed it. So it should make it a lot easier when they get to middle school, high school, stuff like that. So yeah, that's great. Yeah. And and and just it reduces waste, which is like that the thing that offends people a lot, right? Like you see all these say apples, for example, just like they just tossed them. Well, now they can put them there and someone who wants them will will have apples. Yeah. And you see kids that you see kids in these elementaryaries that like might really like apples. They can grab two or three. They can grab as many as they like. And it's, you know, really fun. It's awesome. And and I just want to thank you. I you I appreciate you following uh Dr. Wilhight. If if we only had the the safe roads to school tonight, we would have the triumvirate of the three people who seem to be so happy and affusive in their in their roles. So, thank you. Awesome. And and that's not a knock on anyone else who presents throughout the year. This is this is a different tier of excitement for the roles they have within our organization. So, thank you. I might just stop while you're ahead. Tim's going to come pick up some apples next week, I think. Um, thanks for the presentation. Really appreciate just the the passion around this. You mentioned this the student negative balance is going down. Is that due to the fact that those balances are aging out and therefore it's going down or are they being funded or paid for by families? Can you speak a little bit to how that balance is going down? Because I know that after a period of time, those kind of go away, right, for each family? So, at the end of the year, we work really hard contacting a lot of our seniors and stuff to uh seniors that are leaving the district that have a positive balance. We reach out to them seeing if uh to issue them refunds or see if they would be willing to donate their funds to the sun to our sunshine balance. and then working with students have negative balance, reach out with them trying to see if we can help them get payments in and if they can't make payments, paying it off with the Sunshine Balance. So, we've been really lucky that a lot of families in Richfield when they get ready to graduate have donated those funds back to the Sunshine Balance. So, that's why you see every year that balance the sen the overall debt is going down and the sunshine balance is staying whole because of the generosity of the families when they were leaving the district. So, we've been able to every year we take through just the seniors and we look at their balances and we've been able to pay them off almost every year with the other families donating their funds back. So, yeah. Great. Um, and then with um I think I noticed in one of our um policies we're looking through tonight um there's a policy around going back for seconds or additional lunch and that there's you can't do that if you have a negative fund balance. Can you speak to that a little bit about how that's implemented? And like if a a child wants to come up and get seconds or get additional um food at lunchtime and they've got a negative fund balance, what does that look like for that child? So in Ridgefield, our students are allowed to come back unlimited times for all the fruits and veggies they want to take with them. So they can, it doesn't matter if their account's negative 100 or positive, they can come back as many times as they would like. Uh we do not offer second entre at our elementary locations uh or our middle school just to kind of break that stigma of you know this student can this student cannot. So students can come back as much as they want for as many fruits and veggies as they want. And then at our high school the way we have it set up is if they want to purchase a second entree they can do so by going there. They come to the cashier they check their balance discreetly and then they can go up and get the meal they want. So, so once the student has selected a meal, we never take the meal away from them. If a student were to come up and grab a meal and we notice their account is negative, then that student still comes through with that meal. There's no time that we would ever take the meal away from a student. So, great. Thank you. More questions. How much is the second entree here at the high school? It's $2 and some change, I believe. Okay. Yeah. I was just wondering. And then I was going to say the grilled cheese was really good. I remember it being so good. All that's all we talked about at my lunch table. We're like, "Wow, they're really serving this to us." Like that's it's a a lot of the staff kept asking us for grilled like we we had served like soup and grilled cheese before and it it wasn't that big of a thing. We were looking for an event and we saw it was National Grilled Cheese Day. So, we're like, "Oh, we'll try And so we used, you know, we used like the the garlic toast and put like three different kinds of cheese in the middle of it. And man, the kids like the next day they were like they were like, "Are we going to have that again? That was the best thing you ever made." And I'm like, "Ah, we didn't, you know, it was just kind of on the fly. We we made it a week before, tested it out, tried a couple different things, and yeah." Yeah. It was very unique. I really liked it. It was delicious. And then the other thing was a starfruit. I thought that was so cool. Like my mom loves those. Every time we like if they happen to have at the grocery store, she gets them right away. So I was so surprised when they were serving it at the school. I'm like, "Wow, it's so so different." I really liked it. Yeah, that picture that picture is actually one I sent to my kids because my kids go to another district that will remain nameless. So, but I sent it to my kids because they like trying every time they go we go to like the Asian market, they'll always bring home some some fruit that I don't know what it is. And they're like, "Here, can we eat this?" And I'm like, "Sure." So, I was showing off to them like, "Hey, we have star fruit today." Yeah, it was really cool. That's it. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Then it looks like I've got questions because no snacks. So the um the the FFVP will change next year. Yes. Um and that's because change in grant. So, an additional negative side effect of free uh free lunch for all um is our poverty rate as measured has theoretically gone down. And so our schools which all qualified in the past for the fresh fruit and vegetable free grant. Uh we're now down to one school that qualifies uh because that 12point drop in free and reduced count across the district um puts us underneath the threshold to receive that. So now three of the four elementaryaries no longer qualify even though we don't believe there has been big economic change. So again, another unintended consequence. Uh free lunch. When we talk about that, like how so so the three remaining schools, how much how how much of a grant h how how many dollars would the we need in grant money to fund it for the other three schools? There we go. On average, it's around 20 to $30,000 per school is what the outlay is to provide that snack every day. And it varies based on attendance of the schools, but I would say it's about 25 to 30,000. And um do we do any of the schools um do we track the usage? Yes. And so of the schools, do we know which is like which uses it the most? I mean, is there a significant difference? Are they the same? Is that fair to ask? Pretty standard across across all of them. The way we off the way the program is offered is it's a it's a fresh fruit vegetable sent to the classroom uh with the idea of just getting the kids to try it. So, it's it's hard to really track a a total usage for each one because the the the point of the program is for the students to try it even if it's something they don't want. So, obviously, if it's a day where we're serving, you know, grapes or starf fruit or watermelon, yes, the numbers are through the roof. But on a day where we're serving something they're not as used to, we might see a lower number. But we still try to put those items on there to get them used to trying those products. everything from, you know, broccoli, cauliflower, things like that. Trying to show them like low low-fat dips we could send to make it more appealing. Uh, and across the across the across the schools that have had it, the participation is pretty flat across them. So, it's taken at about the same rate at all of them, and it's a pretty high rate. It's as close as you can get to 100% for the SNET program. So, and then uh with our share card that can't leave the building. It can it can it can it once a student grabs it, it's theirs to do whatever they wish with it. They can take it with them. They can Yeah. But the card itself can't leave. Correct. Yeah. I was just more wondering is like is that an opportunity to go ahead and share that across schools? It's the the point of the of the share card is solely for students to take what they want at the service. And we see a pretty good utilization through that. And I'm sorry if I've asked this in the past, but do do other schools do the sharecard? They do. I'm not sure. Oh, outside of Richfield. Yes. Yes. So, it's uh I don't know what the what the acceptance is across other districts, but I know it's it's gaining steam as it goes. So hopefully we'll see all schools on board in a little bit of time. That I think that was part of that grant was to try to get make it make the barrier of entry into it easier for districts just because of buying the signage, the carts, things like that. Okay. Did you have something? No. No. You're good. I appreciate that. It's uh any more questions from the board? Yeah, Cher Carter, you kind of were alluding to this with um if it costs 20 to $30,000 per school per year for the snack cart. I think the question there is the value of that because we might be losing the grant. Is there value for us as a district to fund something like that if we're taking that away from some of the other schools? Right. That's a tough one. Uh I mean possibly. I'm just not sure of the financials around it. So we've looked into in the past like when we because like like Mr. Yowski said we we've gone from four schools down to two back up to four schools down to two now down to one. So, we've looked in every way that we could fund it through the nutrition department. And unfortunately, there is no way for us to fund the program. Uh there's no way in our current uh meal patterns that we can offer this snack to students. It could be done at a school level, but that would have to come from a different fund and we would have to go through different uh different approvals to get that done. So, because we've checked into is this something we could fund out of our fund balance? Is this something that we could continue to provide if we see it and there really isn't on our end. Yeah. No, totally understand that. And I I think the question there is the value that as as a district that we get and as our students get, families get from that. I think we just need to look at um what value does that present and um is there value for us to consider our holistic budget to fund something like that or is that a nice to have right uh I'll jump in quick yes I mean I think that that's where I was going trying to understand like I mean is 60 to 90,000 worthwhile it's like in what need are we is it strictly we're trying to get the kids to try more fruits and vegetables or is Is it also worth filling in a hunger gap? Right. And it's like then the question is is like if it's um then then the question I think is always I don't know if you said it out loud but it's like is it worth a headcome potentially as an example of like what's the tradeoff to go ahead and make that happen? So my you know so I'm not sure we have the funds within nutrition services to pay for it. Um so we would be talking about general fund and and as I think about this I want to just focus the board on a couple of things. Um and and of course the board has the power to make those types of decisions. Reminder that we serve everybody a free breakfast and that with lunch there is unlimited fruit and vegetable options. So we are not talking about filling a gap from a fruit and vegetable perspective. We're talking about filling gap in a window of time during the school day. And so the fresh fruit and vegetable gives them a taste of something additional. Um, and in a time window in between typically the two meals that occur. I don't think from an overall nutrition perspective it is needed in that way. I think I mean I I think of it as more than nice to have because it is is good and and it is healthy and it's a wonderful option and we're able to provide through our nutrition program as many fruits and vegetables connected to school lunch as kids would want or need. that. Thank you. That's all I have. And any more questions? Not. Thank you again. Always great to see you here. Thank you all for the time. All right. That brings us to commendations. All right. So, we are in the time of appreciation and we have multiples. So, we're we in our appreciation days for our team members. May 2nd was school lunch hero day, which u Mr. Manning got to talk about. So nutrition meals at school are obviously a big part of the day. So we appreciate our food and nutrition department for healthful and nutritious meals serving to our students and we have deep appreciation for those team members and we want to commend them for their good work on behalf of our students. Uh May 5th to 9th is teacher appreciation week. And so from morning greetings and classroom discussions to afterchool support and feedback, our teachers shine light on all of our students. They spark curiosity, kindness, and creativity. And we want to thank our teachers. May 7th coming up is National School Nurses Day. And so RPS celebrates and acknowledges acknowledges the accomplishments of our school nurses and our health parrofessionals to meet our students needs and to make sure that we have health care um and are serving and supporting our students. So we are grateful to them who contribute to our district helping us stay healthy, safe, and ready to learn. So, thank you to our school nurses and team members. Finally, May 9th is school communicators day. So, transparent and effective communication about our RPS programs and decisions uh to family, staff, and community members is extremely important. Marketing communications team works tirelessly to foster staff and community engagement through communication and works to elevate our brand and amplify our key messages to our audiences. So, we're proud of our communications team. We thank and congratulate and show our appreciations for the communication team, the nurses, the teachers, and our school lunch heroes. And just as a reminder, all staff um have different times of year uh where they are specifically acknowledged. And uh we acknowledge all of our staff also at a staff appreciation week. So, thank you to team members. I will say nice logos on the next page too for all of them. The next item for 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 just to see if there's any questions or requests before we proceed. Hearing and seeing none, I will now entertain a motion. I'll move the consent agenda as presented. I second it. We have a motion by director Paul and a second by director Liss to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion hearing and seeing none back to my favorite thing to do. We're going to continue on this path and we'll start with director Liss I. Director Paulus I. Director Spencer I. The chair votes I and the consent agenda is approved. Next we move on to old business. There are policies before us this evening for continued review. actually and pretty much action on all of them. Our first one is policy 612, curriculum development and administration guideline 612.1. It's our fourth read. It is our fourth read. So, just as a reminder, we had a language suggestion. We'll call it the polace edition to ensure that we um are doing the things that we intend and make sure that we document it. You'll note that on page two, uh we will uh look at uh letter E and the language has been sent to Mr. policies to double check strategies to ensure all curriculum choices feature evidence-based and pedagogically sound materials and methods. So, that was the one component we noted that was missing. Uh we want to make sure that that's in there and that is part of all of our curriculum choices and the curriculum review process. So, we did clean up that language. We did double check it and we have it tonight for hopeful and recommended passage. I I I appreciate that inclusion and and everyone's indulging me for for bringing it up so late. Is that a motion? I want to give others a chance to talk. Well, with that, I will move the the policy and administrative guideline as presented. I'll second that. We have a motion by Director Pace and a second by Director Liss. Why are we all looking around? What am I missing? It's the tapping of the keys that you can hear. It's a not sure where that's from. Uh, any discussion? Really si silent. So, I'll take that as no discussion and we're ready to bring it to a vote. Since we have to continue to shake this up now, you don't know where my randomness is going to come from. I'll start with director Paulus. I director Liss I. Director Spencer I. The chair votes I and policy 612 curriculum development and administrative guidelines 612.1 is approved. That's uh brings us to the next policy 502 resident and non-resident student enrollment and administrative guideline 502.1. Yes. and the attached appendix and forms which includes all of our updates been reviewed by enrollment team members marketing communication. Uh no major changes since our last meeting other than a couple of just quick language cleanups. Um and so we do have this um it does follow open enrollment law in the state of Minnesota and much of this is guided by um expected rule of law of our state. So with that I have this for you uh third read for again recommended passage this evening. I move that we pass accept policy 502 and all of its um related forms. Good job. I will second. You guys are on fire tonight. We have a motion by director Liss and a second by director Paulus. I'll pause for a brief moment for questions or comments. hearing none. I'll bring it to a vote. We will start with director Spencer I. Director Paulus I. Director Liss I. The chair votes I. And policy 502 is approved. Bringing us to our last policy in old business 404 drug and alcohol testing. Second read. Yes. In the countdown we went from a fourth read to a third read. Now to a second read. So, this is just us uh with the updates. And so, you'll notice uh since we passed that, this is the drug, alcohol, and cannabis testing. Um again, things updated from a state perspective. And so, this is talking about uh the required testing that occurs for those that operate a motor vehicle. Um this isn't just within Richfield, this is everywhere across the state. Um and so, you'll see updates um connected to the MSBA model policy and also updates that happened to statute. And so those are here for you to review um and just make sure that we are fully refamiliarizing yourselves and noticing the updates. Um again since cannabis law passage um and making sure that that's in there and so you'll see those and um again not recommending for passage just for reflection and comments either now or if there's anything to pass forward in the next couple weeks. But I do have a quick question because you just said something that caught my attention. So, so drug and alcohol does the title are you suggesting the policy title change as well? Uh, yes, the title change is in there because with the change of cannabis becoming legalized within the state. Um, it is now added as separate from drug. Um, and so it is has been added in in all of the state laws and also model policies. I think you're just throwing me off because of the old policy name was drug and alcohol testing and then the subject being not including it versus it actually being down below. Correct. So now it will be drug, alcohol, and cannabis testing. And you'll see that I think there's a red line in the policy policy. Yes. All vice is legal and illegal. Correct. Well, not all. Not all of them. Just the Yes. But I think my understanding of this is that because of the difference in federal and state law around cannabis, this specific policy has to follow federal law. Uh that is I I believe that's my understanding. Yes. And that um that's why we also have the other laws around cannabis that while while that might be legal in the state of Minnesota uh for schools or other organizations that receive any form of federal funding, uh federal law is is in place. Right. Yeah. Thank you. So one more quick dumb question, I guess. Um, and and I should have asked this before. I guess in general, we talk about cannabis versus THC. Does it need I mean the law says cannabis uh law says cannabis model policy says that we will double check um but I believe it says um uh if we look at as we review the wording it's cannabis and the related components. So it's THC and metabolites is what you said. Yeah. the chemicals that come from the plant. Um, and so those are those I believe are defined in the smaller text of the policy. Okay, no more questions. I'll stop asking questions, which brings us then to new business. Um, and we have several items tonight, a bunch of items tonight. Um, starting off with termination and non-renewal of probationary teacher contracts. We are bringing Mr. Holy up to the microphone. Thank you very much. Um, we do have for your approval tonight a resolution uh relating to the termination and non-renewal probationary teaching contracts. This is the next step in our staffing process. We've been here before in uh March and in April and now in May. So in March we did position reductions um and initiated placement of a teacher on unrequested leave of absence. Uh tonight we are um doing probationary non-renewals of teaching contracts. Uh we have 17 teachers that are being proposed for non-renewal. This does occur for a number of reasons for staffing changes. Um some of it may be related to performance. Uh we also have some individuals who have lenture um requirements that require us to probation on renew them while we go through a process of seeking new licenses. So um it is no sign for um public as far as how these individuals should be evaluated and things like that. Um but it is a part of our process here. Um and so we are requesting approval um of the non-renewal of the probationary teaching contracts of the 17 individuals on the attached resolution. Thank you Mr. Hold. You I think you answered one one of my questions and one of them was that if someone happens to if someone is teaching and is probationary is out of their is out of license area we are required. Y so and it gets to the overarching theme that none of this specifically should be indicated as performance related. It's there are a lot of compelling we should not make assumptions because somebody's name is on the list that it's directly a probationary or u performance related aspect. Right. I think I think for the our our our dozens watching at home, the um you know, this this is an annual event, it's it's no comfort to the 17 folks on the list, the whether this is a high number, a low number, or or right on average. Um you know, anything we say is is really it doesn't remove their name from the list and that probably always stings as a human. Uh but it really it you know we have I have such great respect for the people who start this career and it's so critical that people get into education and it is a very difficult career to start and launch and get through this wave that is ongoing at pretty much every district that is not growing gang busters and doesn't have the benefit of future budget to count on um where where you have to make hard choices with on good people. So that's all I have. If there are no other comments, I will move the resolution as presented. Thank you, sir. I I'll second that. Appreciate that. Since you're already talking to me, take that over. Uh we have a motion by director Paul and a second by Director Liss, any questions, comments, [Music] discussion? This is a resolution, so this is going to be a roll call vote. Sorry, I try to make light of some of these things. Um so I will start with director Liss I. Director Spencer I would just um echo the comments from director Palace. This is um never easy and just looking at this list we all know them. We're a small district um and as hard as it is. I Dr. Paulus I. The chair votes I and the resolution relating to the determination and non-renewal predationary teaching contracts is approved. Brings us 2025 2026 prel pre preliminary budget and advance expenditure authorization which are hard. Exactly. Very good. Thank you very much. Uh we I do have for your um approval tonight a uh preliminary budget and also a request to um authorize the finance department to expend up to 30% of that of all funds within the budget prior to the final budget approval and adoption. Um so we are starting the process of ordering um items making commitments for next year. As part of that process, um we are reviewing this preliminary budget that is submitted for you today and then authorizing the finance department to start to initiate those contracts for next year specifically. Um couple key pieces of information in this preliminary budget and we will continue to revise this based on changes in state statute um as well as additional reviews of our expenditures. Um but the preliminary budget includes 88,737,872 in the general fund revenue um along with $92,24,692 of expenditure in that general fund um expenditure program. Um primarily the increases in expenditures are around salaries and benefits and within the elementary and special education programming. Um within the revenue you can see it is relatively flat. Um but we have some at the state for example we saw an increase in special education funding but then a reduction in the compensatory fund. So those kind of um balanced each other out for about a $537,000 reduction. Um we do have increases in property taxes um which the board approved at the December meeting for that levy authorization. Um when we look at the other funds um those are included on page two um and just are consistently reviewing looking at the revenues and expenditures in those areas. Um no major surprises in those areas but they will continue to be revised as we move forward and propose that final adopted budget for you to approve in June of this year. Um overall uh we have $114,831,000 um in revenue across all funds in the district, $115,784,000 of expenditures across all funds. And then when we look at the fund balance sheet, uh you'll notice that this preliminary budget has a uh proposed unassigned fund balance of about 7.26% which is $6.7 million. Um there is a proposed overall general fund balance when we also factor in the restricted and the unassigned funds of 17.3% or $15.9 million um in overall projected fund balance at the end of next year. That is a $3.4 million reduction in our overall assigned fund balance. Um we are continuing to watch um what's happening at the state specifically around the compensatory funding option and we are hopeful um but that is not clear as far as where that's going to be playing out. So we have factored in that reduction in compensatory funds along with the other revenue increases. So the revenue really is what we know right now as well as the expenditures have um accounted for some of the adjustments and position reductions that we've been doing this spring. Um, but we will continue to revise that prior to that final board meeting in June when we will come to you asking you for final approval of that adopted budget and hopefully we'll have more information from the state legislature at the time with what that may look like. So, if there are any questions, I will um respond to those. Otherwise, um we'd seek your approval for that um preliminary budget approval and the authorization to expend up to 30% of the fund budgets based on that preliminary budget. Thank you for that questions, comments. I I'll just note that that Mr. Hold, you alluded to it. We're starting with a healthy fund balance already, but we systematically built that up, right? We had some some funding streams that came in and as a board we had chosen not to spend it all at once knowing that as time moves forward and inflation impacts us um you know if you spend it all in the first year you will be behind immediately and that that momentary good news generates ill will and bad news almost immediately and so we've been thoughtful about doing that and and I appreciate the the care with which we're taking it and we note that we are spending a you know planning to spend a significant portion of the the existing fund balance down long term. That is of course not a sustainable path. Um and so we are you know hope is not a strategy but we're we're expecting some you know we've assumed a cautious amount of funding from the state given the negotiations that are ongoing. I think that's that's fair to say and so we we hope to be able to peel back from this a little. Yes. So we and and I will say it also in a similar note the board's guidance was to retain some money in fund balance as we worked our way through co so we could slowly wind things down um with extra supports and services and so that is the plan. I want to acknowledge that the 3.4 million sitting here um is a little more that of fund balance than we would like to spend in one year. Um, and the reason we are doing this is because, um, we have some choices. There is currently $1.9 million in compensatory education. I think we've talked about this at almost every meeting. Um, that is in the governor's bill to return to Richfield schools. There is $1.9 million in compensatory education in the Senate bill that would come to Richfield schools. There is not that funding in the House bill. So, we have a choice. We decided to build the budget without those dollars and utilize fund balance. We could build a budget with those dollars, but that wouldn't be transparent about what could happen. Um, and then the other option would be to make another $1.9 million in reductions. Um, and so as we analyze that, it did not make sense um to frankly overcut by the $1.9 million. The reason you have a fund balance is there are times like this where you have the capacity to take on a little extra risk. So I want the board to hear we're taking on a little extra risk. We are spending or planning if nothing changes to spend a little over three million in fund balance and that means um that if things don't change that is not a sustainable path. There will be some very challenging decisions as we move ourselves forward. Um so just want us to be aware of that. I appreciate the explanation and further detail from both of you and I think it's good to hear and it's like and I hope it's in a strategy. So, right. I mean, on on the heels, right, on the heels of we've we've looked at position reductions and we've looked at other things like we we are we are already affected by hard decisions and and the extent to which we impose more of them with this uncertainty at the state and other things is is you know, we're taking a a measured amount of risk knowing what's what what's going on at the capital. um even in the face of hard decisions and some restructuring and and position cuts and things like that. So, we're not as dire as some other districts. That's that's a small trophy. Small trophy. So, questions, comments? Yeah, a couple couple questions from me if I may. Um so, I know um Mr. told you we've we've spoken before about the purchase services um line last year or I should say this calendar year we went significantly over what we had approved last summer and that's funds that are um I believe the overages has to do with transportation that's refunded by the state and I'm curious um just maybe not curious I don't think you need to answer this now but I just want to make sure that as we go into the next calendar year that we're watching that much closer closer than we have in the past um to ensure that those um that that line item is not something that gets ahead of us. Um yeah, so we have initiated an audit of our um special education and homeless highly mobile transportation. Um we are also anticipating that we'll be going for an RFP for some of those services again here this year as well. Um just to kind of be tracking that. Um districts across across the state are seeing increases in that special transportation. Um one of the board one of the um governor's proposals is to reduce that um reimbursement in the following year from 100% to 95%. Um so that is kind of showcasing how it's not just a local area but it's also a statewide issue of looking at special education transportation specifically. Um but we are kind of reviewing those contracts. We are looking at options around those and kind of tracking to see why it is whether it's routing or what the schedules are and um how that's impacted. um it does account for some of that projected increase in our special education revenue for next year because we are um receive that in the following year. So we have to cover it first year but then we receive it for the following year. Um so that is also um seen in the speciala special education revenue increase for next year. Good. Thank you for that. And then um as we look at the restricted funds for next year, it looks like our um tech levy is going to have a lot more revenue than expenditure. Can you just speak to that a bit on on is there some planned spend or is it like the cycle of replacing laptops for students that were earning revenue this year but have to spend it next year? Yeah. So, um, that's one of the areas where we haven't done the deep dive on exactly what's going to be coming out of that, um, tech levy fund. Um, so we did, um, request approval from the Department of Education, the commissioners. So, that tech levy can also not now cover things like some of our curriculum expenses. Um, so those right now are sitting in capital, but likely might be an opportunity um, to be funding that in those areas as well. Um, I um, haven't had a specific conversation with Justin exactly on what is in that budget. Um, but we will be doing that between now and the final adopted budget in June. Right. Okay. And I'm looking at you like you're here in the room because I'm looking at the TV just checking myself on that. I'm watching you on on YouTube, but it's like 20 seconds delayed. So, I'll assume that you're watching me. Um the last one that I had on the restricted funds was the um English learner and that um um that particular line item 439 is much higher than the the expenditures are much higher than the revenue. Can you speak to that as well? Yep. So um English learners have never been fully funded by the state. Um the state um has proposed in some subsidy for the ELLL programming uh that I believe comes into place in fiscal year 27. Um if you look at um it's not in this piece specifically, but one of the things um that used to come under fully under basic skills um specifically and so we had to break that out into its own specific restricted account for next year. So we do spend more revenue than what we receive for English learners. um we do need to categorize all of those expenditures into that restricted budget code because then the state uses that to determine in the future how much additional revenue we will be receiving for that subsidization of the ELLL program. So we started the year negative and we're ending the year more negative. Is there at some point that we I'll double that into a regular budget? Um, I'll I'll find out a little bit more about what that negative Again, this is a newer restricted account, so it's just being built in. Um, I'll talk to the director of finance and just get a little bit more information about that, where that base um, projected fund balance for fiscal year 25 is coming from um, and how that plays out. Um, but again, it's more of an accounting to highlight how much money is truly being spent for ELLL programming. Um and then um when that cross subsidy aid comes in, I don't know exactly how that's going to be accounted for um in the balance moving forward. Um I'm just looking here. Another example you can see is and this is you can see on the line right above it with gift gifted talented. So we received $57,000 for gifted talented revenue, but we spent 559,000 in gifted talented programming. Um what we end up doing in those situations is we transfer money to um pay for that out of the unassigned fund balance into that restricted account. Um I have to track and find out how that will be playing out with the English learner programming because um they are going to be using that information for future funding. So I'll have to look and see exactly why that is. Okay, great. And it sounds like if I'm not mistaken there's no other questions. So, I will move that we authorize the finance board to expend up to 30% of all fund budgets prior to the final budget approval. I'll second. Thank you for the motion and the second. Director Spencer, Director Paulus, respectively. More questions around the preliminary budget hearing. None. Looks like we'll do a roll call vote on this. I think uh director Paul I Dr. Spencer I Dr. Liss I. The chair votes I and the preliminary budget and advance expenditure authorization is approved. Brings us to another fun one. The agreement with the city of Richfield for the school board election administration in 2025 and 2027. All right. And so this is a contract with the city we wanted to bring to the board. Um and so what began with estimates of over $100,000, we have um worked down to the detail which you can see in the attachment. Um so to cover the costs of 2025 and 2027 elections, just a reminder, those will be three-year terms. Um would be an amount up to 88,000 of actual costs in the first year and up to 95,000 um in the second year in 2027. We did uh double check with similar districts. Uh these are not significantly high. Um these are within the window of what other districts are paying to have sole elections run. Um and we did go through that um very rigorously. Um we have been again I want to remind the board it cannot go above that. Um it certainly can go below and so we have uh talked about a process of monitoring very closely the hours and the supports and the efforts that are put in uh to make sure that we continue to do that in partnership. Um, and so we have this before you today. And then just a quick uh foreshadowing, two weeks from now, we'll also have the board composition policy to come back. Um, because it currently says every term is four years. And so we'll be bringing back a policy just to basically enact in our language what we are doing and we already made the motion in 2025 and 2027, but this is finalizing and and formalizing that agreement with the city. And then last piece before I stop, uh, in 2028, we have been told that it will be negligible to almost no costs um for schoolboard elections that would now be aligned um with the city. And so we would not expect to see um a similar contract ever again um after this point in time. That that's very helpful. Did so go back two years to we were paying where we were paying for the operations some a figure. I think the yeah the typical approximate has been about 30,000 for a significant period of time. With CO there were a couple of things including uh ballot uh ballot security that required two people to be present at all times. And so when that appeared um they then needed to begin hiring extra staff and have them on for the entire absentee balloting. And so just to put it in context, if you look down at the spreadsheet, the day where we have multiples, five, six, eight, 10 election judges at eight sites across the city costs almost the same amount if not a little less than the couple of people that are there all day every day for the absentee balloting. Um, and so that is something that is hugely changed. Um, and rather than have that be able to be facilitated by the driver's license bureau at city hall, um, this is now completely different employees who have to be specific to this because of the change in how this has occurred. Thank you for clarifi clarifying that. No, I appreciate that the the detail provided. I appreciate that the cities bringing it to us in the negotiations as they came and looking forward to to some future where as you noted superintendent that it would be a negligible um uh what's the what's the economics term the uh for the one delta more incremental you know the incremental charge for for the future to add us on to the general elections will be you know trivial at best so I I'll move that we accept the the proposal was presented. I'll second that. Think of that. I was distracted in your incremental question by the uh Well, it's it's okay. I'm more just think about like marginal marginal cost. There it is. I was thinking I've forgotten so many things about college. Young young people remember this. Ignore him. Uh, and yet I was I was just thinking about the whole fact that it's like the three-year term concept coming up and that a person of your tenure would just enjoy being the have the opportunity to have a three-year term. But we'll just save that discussion for later. Any more questions on this? It's easy just to go ahead and get those in there [Laughter] again. Good times. So, uh, hearing more or no more questions or discussion. I think also just for those watching, it's like we we did go back and forth with the city on this. We went through this with a lot of detail with them and we appreciate their patience and uh, listening to our questions and concerns. So, we feel good about the numbers. Bring it to a vote and I'll start with so many choices. Director Paulus I. Director Liss I. Director Spencer I. Chair votes I. and we have an agreement approved with the city for the school board elections for 2025 2027 brings us to schoolboard meeting dates. All right. So, uh we have um a first read of the schedule which we can actually act on today or we can bring back in two weeks. Uh because of the uniqueness of the election and because of the uniqueness of how the calendar works, we're providing two options. I am going to suggest one of them. Um but essentially it is the first and third Mondays of every month. Um there is the one meeting in July. Um and then there is the spread pushing things a little bit later on to June 22nd. Um and then the couple of Tuesday meetings. The interesting question then comes into the October November window. Um as a reminder, we are required to have a meeting on Monday, November 10th to certify the election. Um, in the past we have tried to avoid a November 3rd meeting because somebody might be out campaigning. Um, the closest to traditional remaining on the 1st would be the first four dates, October 6th, October 20th, then going to November 3rd and November 10th. That would put two meetings back to back. Um, November 3rd, November 10th. The other option would be to go to October 6th, same time, pushing that the next one back to October 27th. So, there's a 3-week window, which happens quite frequently anyways. Then, we go two weeks to November 10th and have only one meeting um in the month of November, but we also have a meeting right back on December 1st. And so, the board hears we also did look at agendas and length of meetings. The meetings in the October uh November window don't tend to be our longer meetings. Um those tend to be shorter anyways. So, collapsing one meeting out of that window. We don't anticipate giving this calendar um would be challenging for board agenda or staying here till all hours of the 10 o'clock 11 o'clock in the evening. So um the more traditional method would be the first one. Um the keeping a nice cadence while maintaining that November 10th would be that second choice. And so we either have that for board perspective today um or for an action. Thank you for this. I'll I guess I'll just Oh, go ahead. I don't know if I heard your recommendation there. I thought that see Yes. So, I think it makes the most sense to do October 6th, October 27th, and November 10th. Okay. Um but um and collapse that one meeting. But it it's really what what the board would prefer in the end. Um, and I come up with that because there had been concerns and and not knowing um the hard campaign that I think Mr. Carter was suggesting Mr. Pace might be running um that November 3rd evening uh that November 3rd evening um could be could be an event for our candidates no matter who they are. I look at this and I mean it just the second one does seem just more natural. I mean since we have to do we're stuck on a tough date for a meeting. It seems weird to go back to back. I don't know even in my dinner if it's like we've ever had so much content that we need week after week at that time of year, right? Yeah. Like if it were August or September, we have a lot of things as we open the doors for for the new year um staffing and and authorizations. We could probably get away with it. And we do we're required to have the November 10th meeting. outside of a special meeting in the aftermath of the election. So I I know you you we we we didn't pursue a November 24th or or a 17th and and things like that that which is all fine. I suspect would be fine. Yeah. I also appreciate that we've um planned the public comment on the November 10th. So we're not we're not missing that month for public comment. Right. Right. So would would would that be considered option two within the or if yeah if you look at the or um August, September and December and on are all the same. Um and then the two options we laid out as Mr. Paul shared we could certainly lay out different options November 10th and 24th. Um but that would leave a oneweek window to December 1st. So it's very similar also. Um correct. Yes. and and and if we changed our mind in the future, we could add extra meetings. I mean, we have that we have the opportunity with proper notice and posting. So, you know, and then November 24th, you're already getting the buildup to Thanksgiving, too. That might make it a little difficult also. That could So, I'll move that we accept the calendar with the October 6th, October 27th, and November 10th options for the October, November part of the schedule. I will second that. We have a motion by director Paulson. Second by director Spencer. Too late there. You I saw you getting ready to move but I just I was going to agree that's all. That's all right. Patient to it. All right. Any more discussion on this? I think this is a pretty straightforward one. You know, I think we'll do a roll call vote. Uh Director Liss I. Director Palace. Hi. Director Spencer and the chair votes eye. And we have a calendar for board meetings approved for 2025 2026 bringing us to policy 115 title 9. All right. So title N we're actually going to suggest we do this on a two read basis. Um what we have in front of you is our current Title 9 policy. Um but there are changes in federal regulations that have essentially required us to make this change on the as soon as feasible or as soon as possible methodologies. Um and so this would have us um moving back to our 2021 policy um that was reviewed and passed by this board. Um and so we want to have that before you um and so that you can see both our current policy and the change to our 2021 since all federal rules and regulations ref uh retracted back re thank you reverted back to the previous law. Uh so again we're not asking for action tonight. Um but this is a policy with not significant updating because it's essentially the retraction back to the 2021 law. So, we can certainly take questions or we'll have this for you again um in two weeks and there's no red line version. uh there is no red line because it is literally the 2021 policy that had already been updated and it is a a retraction a takeback essentially the law has changed go back to your previous policy um is generally the expectation I'm curious to the reason why I'm ask about the redline policy is the way we see it um uh I guess the question is do we have a choice and then the other question um is in the policy like we've as we've gone through and updated policies a lot of times we're making policy changes for consistency purposes. So even though we're going back, so if we're truly going straight back, do we need to go back and look for those consistency changes because those are within our purview, right? Right. We can definitely double check and make sure um and that's what we would do between one and two. Uh branding and updates um have all occurred in the 2021 window. Um and all of the we'll say qualifying of the updates um has previously occurred. Um, we will do a double check read um, if you'd like us to produce something that shows the difference, but it is literally a pretty overhauled policy with a pretty significant set of changes. Um, so it's more honestly read policy one, read read the previous policy and and note the differences. Um, and we could certainly do three reads if that's helpful to you. So that the policy I'm noting the existing policy was we voted on September 2024. So if you look at September 2024 packet and then se the first meeting in September would have been the second read which would have been chock full of the the red lines and you could see uh highlight of things that unless it was a whole overhaul which sometimes happens too. So so it's not it's not in the way back machine. We can probably look at it pretty quickly, but I I understand you're like it is helpful to see the red lines to see what are we actually doing without having to read the whole document. My attention span only gets me so far. Agreed. Well, and we can, as you point out, MissWam can gather the red line version in the change and send that out to board members. That'd be appreciated. Sure. Awesome. Well, that more questions or comments on that because that's awesome. Uh, policy 112, wellness and administrative guidelines 1121 and 112. All right. And so this is just the refamiliarization. And so this is the wellness administrative guidelines 112 and 112. Talks about um physical education, talks about food offerings, talks about our commitment to food and physical activity. Um, also talks about meal charges. And so some of those things you'll notice we'll have updates and changes over the next um couple of reads. And so this is just to again refamiliarize ourselves and we will come back to it with some updates. Just just as a comment, this is one that when it comes up and and the the policy lists, you know, for example, um celebrations within a classroom and things that food that might a classroom might consume in in the course of some celebration of some other kind. And we we we do aspire to have policy match practice. Yes. And so I don't know the extent to which you know like someone has a small celebration in a classroom and it involves food and what sort of downside is there in that um you know obviously we want to avoid for example we have cake every day. Yep. Uh we want you know for a lot of reasons. So I I just that that's that's the concern I have knowing that our that our goal is we want good policy and we want it to match realistic practice. So it is very rare at this point that people are bringing in treats for celebrations and birthday celebrations. It's actually a requirement and expectation of USDA rules and regulations that for us to be allowed to participate in the federal school free lunch program um that we are restricting access or sharing of things that do not meet that policy guideline. It is more rigorous than a family would have. It's more rigorous than my family has in in our eating, but it is what is required in terms of what we are sharing. So, so that is helpful background because I think for again for for for the dozens online um the the belief right the outside perception for people who remember some bygone era where where celebrations perhaps were more common and that that that we are somehow stomping on fun or a nice thing. Um but we are required we we are also required because of the USDA funding correct to be able to feed the kids in the way that we feed them. we are not allowed to have those food-based treats as part of a celebration in a classroom. So, one of the criticisms we receive is not bringing in cupcakes for a birthday or things like that. Um, and that is that is that alignment to USDA practice and and we defend against that by saying we have a lot of other nice things because of that prohibition. Correct. Thank you. questions, comments on that other than Tim's, which is fair because all I have envisioned is like a parent walking with cupcakes and getting a slap to their hands. It's there's pretty direct communication that goes out from our elementary schools and much like our nutrition services, I'm guessing we don't do a lot of hand slamping or cupcake slapping. Okay, that is not a common supported practice. Appreciate that. That's good practice in school. All right, then that brings us to donation. Yes. In the RMS music department, received donations of a trombone valued at $175 from Jesse Mouser of Golden Valley and a trombone valued at $125 from Will Eper of Minneapolis. So, thank you to Jesse and Will. And then the RPS athletics department received a donation of $8,000 from the Minnesota Vikings for the intramural girls flag football program. So, thank you to the Minnesota Vikings. Fantastic. I have a question. I mean, it's just more of a logistical thing. How do we find out about these donations? Does this do the schools have to tell us? Uh, yes. There is a reporting procedure for when things come in and are brought in and it gets reported to MissWam, but they also then come in through our finance department um or other methodologies. And so we have systems of documentation of each of those components. Okay. So it's up to the school to tell us that they got something. Um it is but there are monetary thing. Correct. And there are trainings and there are communications and feedback to make sure that we are catching as many of those things as humanly possible. Okay. Right. There there are some donations that don't that don't make the list because they are not going to be part of say the district's finances. Right. like these these funds and gifts become district property and go out. Um for example, if you gave you know money to a social worker at the school and said you know please if a student needs a coat could you buy one right? But that does not make this list. Say someone wills their whole library their whole personal library to the high school. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm just like asking for a friend or I I believe I believe that would show up as a donation. If we accepted that it would be appropriate for that to show up on this list. Yes. Can I guarantee nothing has ever slipped through? No. Um but that is much like policy procedure. That is our goal. Um and we have a lot of systems in place to try to communicate that and make sure it happens. Okay. Right. That that such a gift would be a lot like the district would be taking ownership of property, right? with an with the belief of the donor that it's something accessible and findable by others. Whereas whereas the coat donation example I gave is that was hypothetical. Yeah. Yeah. You you expect that to the coat to be taken care of when in quick order. Yeah. So I'll move that we accept these donations with gratitude. I second it. We have a motion by director Paul and a second by director Liss to accept the donations with gratitude. I'm assuming there's no discussion and I will go right away to our a roll call vote I think. Uh and I will bring it to Director Spencer I. Director Liss I. Director Paulus I. The chair votes I and we accept these donations with gratitude. Next we move on to advanced planning section of the agenda which is always begins with a legislative update. And I turn to Steve. I mean we are in the countdown. So technically by statute May 19th, 2 weeks from today is the end of the session. Um we can't get a good gauge on what's going to happen. There are loads of things up in the air. Q comp a year out in the budget. There is uh as we talk about compad, there are wide range of things that are currently in negotiations. What we know is that there are not a lot of new dollars coming in. Um and so what we are just hoping to do is continue advocating to retain the dollars we already have. And every time I'm on a microphone talking about it, comped, the unanticipated consequence of free meals within Richfield public schools means 1.9 million fewer dollars um to serve kids academically um and those same students. And so it is just an ongoing disappointment um how that's played out and and on a small scale possibly some of our elementary buildings missing out on the the the correct we have also had three of our buildings below the 50 who no longer qualify for fresh fruit that that's building by building I believe. Yes. Yes. But it is similar data similar consequence. So we are hoping for the best and our strategy is hope and advocacy. Any more questions or comments on the legislative update? Uh, information or question from the board? Plural from the board or singular questions I guess. Hearing none of that suggested or future agenda items. Rolling. Now on to future meeting dates. We our next board meeting like I said is May 19th which will be public comment and then following that will be June 2nd. What you looking at for No, I exciting. No, I was just thinking about the close session and grabbing the computer because uh Mr. Spencer will of course be joining us uh for the close session. So I was Would you jump ahead, Mr. Carter? jumping ahead, which brings us to our next final item of business on the agenda is to adjourn. But tonight, we have a close session because we love them so much. Uh, and as such, we'll now consider a motion to move into close section. Close session as allowed by Minnesota State Statute 13 DO3. I don't know why I read this because I know it by heart. For labor negotiation strategy. Uh, do we have a motion? So moved. And a second. Second. We have a motion by director Spencer and second by Director Palace to go into close session. We'll start with director Liss I. Director Spencer I. Director Palace I. Chair votes I. And we will now be moving to close session. Uh after a brief recess we'll be close session in a private room. We'll return to this meeting to officially adjourn. But upon completion of the closed session, but there will be no further business other than to adjourn. For those listening following on the live stream, this will be the end of our session. Thank you for watching.