All right. Um, so I'm going to call the 2023 20 uh excuse me June 23rd, 2026 regular business meeting to session at 6:30. Uh before we start, we'll start with our land acknowledgement and vice chair Anderson's going to read it. >> Good evening, everyone. We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples. I ask you to join me in a acknowledging the Dakota and Ojibwe community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. Saint Louis Park schools also acknowledge that it was founded upon exclusions and erasures of many indigenous people, including those of whose land this school district is located. This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and the district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools. >> Great, thank you. So, uh we need to approve the agenda first. It is recommended that the school board approve the agenda for the June 23rd, 2026 as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Patrick. Do I have a second? Thank you, Taylor. So, let's have some discussion. Um this is a really dense uh agenda. So, I'm going to move that we take the strategic plan from off of the discussion item for the um June meeting and move it to the August meeting. Do I I'm going to make that motion. Do I have a second? Thank you, Colin. So, should we discuss the amendment or with the regular? >> It's um the August 12th. >> The August 12th meeting? Okay. It's just a little thick. The meeting. Tonight, it is a dense, so we don't have to stay until midnight. >> Yeah, my understanding would be that that would open up some more time to discuss that, and we have at this point nothing else on the agenda for that date, so this would give us a agenda topic and give us space to do it, so. >> Is that just for clarification, that's 6A? >> Yes. So, let's vote on the amendment. So, all those in favor say I. I. All opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. All right. Thanks. So, now we're going to begin with public comment. We have one public one person signed up for public comment. Uh to support open communications, the Saint Louis Park School District provides an opportunity for public address to the school board during business meetings. If you wish to speak, please complete the public comment sign-up form on our website before the meeting begins. Anyone indicating a desire to speak during public comment will be acknowledged by the board chair and allotted 3 minutes to present their topic. During this time, the board and the board and administration will listen to comments. Please note that disre- disrespectful comments or those of a personal nature directed at an individual, either by name or inference, will not be permitted. We have one public comment. Ms. Jackson? Um and Vice Chair Anderson will show you the time. >> Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Diane Jackson. I am a parent at Aquila. I'm here to give voice to all of us who are here in the gallery tonight. We are parents, guardians, students, former students, staff, and supporters of Aquila. Aquila needs stability. Aquila needs Maria Graver. At Aquila, we ask our students to make connections. I think we all know this one, yeah, parents? Between their learning and the world around them. We, too, make these connections. And here are the connections we have made with Maria Graver in the years we've known her. She is a leader. Maria is caring and kind. She is balanced and professional. Maria is present. She is consistent. And she is just. As a board, you are tasked with selecting district leaders who move us in the right direction. And keep our schools best interests first. As parents and teachers, we know the value of a good, trusted leader. We have that in Maria Graver. Committed administrators do not grow on trees. We are lucky to have her as our partner. I ask that the board, in its oversight role, ensure that leaders like Maria stay in St. Louis Park Public Schools. We hope it is clear. Maria is invested in Aquila's success. And has our kids' best interests at heart. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um so now moving on to our discussion items. The first discussion item is Where is your superintendent? Where did we lose it? Okay. I lost it. Uh the superintendent end of the year report. Dr. Hines. >> All righty. Uh Jasmine Okay. Are you advancing the slides? Okay. Okay. Or do I need to go up to the podium? Do you want to put it I I do it. You got a clip it. Okay. All right, let's go. Okay. All right, so I wanted to just go over our a year in review just to highlight some of the accomplishments, celebrations, our challenges, and the milestones that we experienced this past year. First, I want to give gratitude to our administrators, our staff, and our families, and our students for their dedication that they put into this school year despite all of the challenges that we experienced through in our city. Next slide. So, um go back one. As I highlight our impact, I just want to um give note to the number of individuals that we have impacted this school year. Um in the K-12 setting, we have impacted 4,370 And I just got some directions about the mic. Anyway, sorry. Um we have impacted 4,379 students in K through 12, 380 students in ECFE, and over 350 of our seniors in our community. I also want to acknowledge and celebrate the the great news that our high school students achieved our seniors in particular. We had 111 students receive more than $200,000 in order to pursue their pursue further furthering their education in post-secondary. I also want to acknowledge the achievement of both Amelia Beach and Ava Nieves in their accomplishments. Amelia received the Athens Award Athena Award where she basically it highlights a student that has participated in three or more sports, but is also present academically and giving back to her school community. Next slide, I want to acknowledge the academic achievement that some of our seniors have received. We had three students that were identified as National Merit Scholars Scholar Finalist and two students that received the US Presidential Scholars Award. Next, we will also acknowledge the work of the our students in the bird feeder program as the step program was pushing in and supporting our community and our families who felt it was unsafe to leave their homes. The bird bird feeder was able to raise $10,000 and that those funds were donated to step to continue helping out our community members. Next slide. Another area that was a area of a celebration this year, we hosted the first empowerment conference for our female athletes and the goal of this conference was to build our student our female students athletes confidence and build their self-empowerment. And lastly, this is just a capture of the our 2026 graduates during their graduation ceremony. And as we talk about and highlight our graduates, I do want to call attention to our 2025 graduation rate. Last year, our students we received 89.74 graduation rate. Next slide. So, we have been improving over the past 4 years in ensuring that our students are graduating within their 4 years. Another highlight is um our university and colleges that have the opportunity to continue um enriching our students and receiving the impact of our legacy as of St. Louis Park Public Schools. So, I will say that the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities has the privilege of hosting 21 of our students. And the next slide just highlights some other universities our students are will be attending. And thank you to the PEAK team for being able to to helping us capture this data um of our graduates as they are making their way to their next chapter of their lives. This slide will just highlight some um our fall to winter growth. And this is for grades 2, 3, 4, and 5. You will see the comparison over the year. Um and this is overall between all of our elementary sites. Where you will see that year after year we are making gains in second in both math and in ELA. This slide just highlights our community and school engagements. I want to thank our administrators for um participating in the spotlight for success when it came to our regular business meeting and showcasing a lot of the good things that are happening within our buildings. I also want to thank them for their time in um setting curriculum events for our families so that they can be more engaged. The next couple of slides will highlight our construction projects that we have had throughout the school year, our Aquila project has is complete. Our um kindergarten team was able to move into their new location after winter break. So, this is just a highlight of um showing the completion of those construction projects. The next group of slides, we are highlighting um our Let me go one more. Our I think my the most humblest um highlight for our construction was our opportunity to host our graduation ceremony for the 2026 graduates on back on our home field. And I want to thank our partners within St. Paul Public St. Paul St. Louis Park prof- PD. I've been in professional development all day. So, PD means So, PD, our police department, for their partnership in helping us um pull off a successful, safe, positive graduation ceremony on our home field. In our continual effort to be um good stewards of taxpayers' money, we continued our monthly budget managers meeting um watching our budgets, presenting to the board our monthly final finances so that the board can keep track of how our finances are are going. And we also started our process to go out to our community to ask them to pass a referendum, which will be on the August 11 ballot, which early voting starts on June 26. >> Right. >> We also continued our um building our muscle when it comes to safety and security and our infrastructures that we are putting in place. We have as we started our I love you guys are the standard response protocol for emergency responsiveness. This year we expanded that preparedness by running through some processes for the unification process. And this is not only for in times of a big crisis, but in case of an electrical outage or needing to move individuals from one site to another due to something happening in the building. We had to go through our the practice of our reunification process. So building leaders and staff members and auxiliary staff have also participated in partnership with law enforcement and the fire department. Next I'll highlight a lot of the awards that are in recognitions that our district received. We had Scott Peterson who received the the MASBO Rising Star Award. Our PTOs were received the St. Louis Park Human Rights Award issued by the city. I was identified by NESBR as a superintendent to watch. We have David Davison who was identified as the 2026 Minnesota Teacher of the Year. We have Dr. Silvia LaFayette who received the Richard Green Scholars Award and we have Ashley Sukhu who was identified as the emerging leader who received the emerging emerging leaders award. And lastly, I would like to thank all of our staff members because from our building engineers, our nutritional service staff, our administrative staff, our support staff, our teachers, our administrators, um our principals, we have been through a lot and we have made it to the end of this school year and I just want to again show my appreciation for always leaning in even when times are hard. Thank you. >> Um great. I just before we move on, um can I ask a couple of questions about 12 and 13? >> Sure. >> What are the the 2% 3% 4% the little numbers up at the top? >> So those are the grades. The >> Okay, I thought so but then there was the percentage and so I got confused. >> Yep. >> So the orange is second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. >> Correct. >> Got you. Awesome. Any other questions? Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Superintendent Hines. Um next on the board agenda, now I think I'm up to date, is our SIPs. So we're um going to hear from our principals now? I don't know who's first. I think it is actually Dr. Cooper. Okay. >> All right, thank you, Board Chairman Mancini, Superintendent Dr. Hines and Board. Um as we get started here and before we do a review of our continuous improvement plans, I just want to thank each site leader across this district for the hard work they put in this year. Especially my first year, the support has been absolutely fantastic. Um and also, as you're looking at their continuous improvement plans, is that also take notice of their intention that they put in each of the goals and the reflection that took place. And as you look and you see what goals are met and also what goals may not have been met, it might just be not yet as we continue to uh grow and continue to improve in our area. So, I'm going to pass it over to Principal Paddock here as we start off with high school and then we're going to make our way all the way down to early learning. >> All right. Excuse [clears throat] me. So, I'm just going to speak to each of these um kind of individually, but the progress across our four SIP goals really reflects the intersectionality between instruction, data use, literacy, and family engagement. And this was to build a more consistent and equitable student experience that aligns with um the portrait of a learner or ascend. So, goal number one uh was met um as care teams strengthened their understanding of DOK levels, which is the depths of knowledge, and profi- proficiency through collaboration in care teams, equity learning walks, and professional learning. Um this work supports the development of instructional guides, which is kind of the foundation to how we were unpacking standards, creating learning progressions, and essential learning targets. And then that um developmental work uh was transferred into the development of culturally inclusive backwards design units um that we will use as we transition to block. Um our summer uh curriculum writing and fall revisions will continue to refine these culturally relevant and responsive instructional practices as we come back in the fall. Goal number two was partially met as park leads and our built bolt uh teams established school wide data routines and engaged in department level analysis of implementation, planning, and student progress. Um however, we still need to work on more consistency school wide is how we look at data and how we analyze that data. So, that will be something that we will continue develop to develop and also how we communicate that with our families. Goal number three was also partially met as staff developed a shared understanding of literacy practices um with stronger implementation during one semester. So, we focused more on the second semester um and we will continue that work as we move into next year. Um some of the activities and that we worked on was professional learning was developed and led by our content area teachers and included included the shared um student work samples um to demonstrate [clears throat] how literacy can be supported across disciplines. And lastly, goal number four was met as family engagement increased through stronger communication systems including family engagement nights, positive contact routines, and then department level outreach. Um so, some things that we've learned is moving where to place our family engagement night. We have decided that we're going to place that closer to registration um so that families are getting a picture of what's happening in the classroom as their students are preparing to register. Um we also hosted this year and we will continue to host peak meetings where we had a content area focus. So, for instance, math would come in and just describe this is what's happening in the math classroom that your student is in. And we will also as an administrative team um create more affinity spaces. This year we had the privilege of hosting our Somali families and felt that that was very helpful in supporting um our relationship building, listening, and just really understanding the needs of our community and what their experiences are and how we can make sure that the learning experiences of their students are being met. So, looking ahead, um we're going to strengthen the alignment across the four goals through consistent data use, deeper integration of literacy strategies, and expanding our two-way family engagement and communication. And the focus will be really on deepening our understanding of Ascend and approach to the learner and making sure that that's visible in daily instruction, our student learning experiences, and the way we communicate those things. And then all of this work will be embedded in our culturally inclusive backwards design units of study. And I will turn it over. And then we have the two slides here that are just for reference from the fall. So, I will turn it over to Principal Kalanoski. >> I talked with her. I was just going to get up and say ditto. But, I think I did that before, so I need new new material. All right. Um So, we had similar goals. Um we work very collaboratively between the two sites, the secondary sites. And as you know from 2 weeks ago when we were here to share about our preparation for transitioning to the block, we did a lot of professional learning and had a lot of focus on preparing our teachers to be ready to implement strong instruction when we return in the fall in the block model. So, goal number one was really around our teachers completing two care cycles applying one of the shifts that we learned in professional learning to prepare for the block. Uh first semester, the majority of teachers chose a care cycle around implementing lessons with a variety of depths of knowledge lessons. And many of them continued with that for their second care cycle in the spring, but some also started to apply some of the other tools that we've been learning and preparing for the block. Um Because our big goal and one of our goals for next year, will be continued application and implementation of our learning. How are we applying what we're learning and not just saying, "Yep, we learned that, check." But, we want to actually see application and implementation into all classrooms um for our middle school students. Goal number two was a literacy uh based. We do not yet know whether we met this goal or not because the MCA changed for reading this year. We will not get preliminary scores until fall. Um but, we did do some focused uh professional learning this year around disciplinary literacy, which we can find in the academic standards for most of the core content on how to be literate in the discipline. Um so, we will wait and see. Uh we did not meet our third goal around increasing our ML students' average composite proficiency scores. Um the goal what it last year we were at 2.8. We wanted to increase that to three. Uh we were around 2.7. So, we we didn't make an increase, um but we are going to continue to have ML um increase proficiency as a goal moving forward, and we have a plan to actually tie that into literacy and really focusing on ensuring that in our block classrooms that students have opportunities to read, speak, listen, and write in every class period, which is what the ACCESS actually measures. And so, making sure that we're having many opportunities for our students to do that. And then, our fourth goal was around communication. Um we really leaned into Parent Square this year as a building. And we appreciated the opportunity with Parent Square as an opportunity to send uh direct messages to the school as a whole. Teachers could send it to a class. There's also a direct messaging feature um that could kind of serve as text messaging for that two-way communication. But what we also were trying and we wanted to communicate on a regular basis what parents could expect their students to be learning in class as well as anything major upcoming so that students could be prepared. Um and we also had a push during our advisory to do grade checks every week and if there were concerns to have that two-way communication and then to log that that the communication was there and that was part of our overall student port support system. So if we knew a student needed more support, we could go and see like what contact has been made with this family and what concerns have already been discussed instead of having to go back and kind of fill in those gaps. And so we'll be continuing to um improve our communication. I know sometimes parents with 10 different teachers could say, "It's a lot." We're still trying to find that balance. Um but yeah, I will turn it over to you, uh Ms. Tolson. >> Okay, good evening. Uh today I our goal number one for Aquilla is about the two care cycles um that each staff participated in. Our first care cycle was focused on literacy that was connected to goal number two around expressive communication and really ensuring that our um multilingual students who meet their English language proficiency target would increase from 44.9% to 47% and then that second care cycle um for goal number one was related to goal number three which was around um our math vocabulary, and that our students in grades 2 through 5 based off their map testing would grow from 49.9% to 53%. And then goal number four was a baseline goal around community engagement and communication. So, as we really focused in on what tier one looked like at Aquila for math instruction and literacy instruction and really talking about what does it mean to meet and exceed state standards and how do we do that and by scaffolding instruction for our multilingual learners as well. Um I wanted to share some updates on our goals. Goal number one, yes, we successfully met every other week to discuss student learning and really focus on lesson planning and state standards and what it means to meet and exceed those. Um goal number two around expressive communication, we do not yet have that data. It will be released at a later date later this summer. So, that's not yet done. Goal number three regarding our map growth goals, we knocked it out of the park. We went from 49.9% to 61.4% and I believe that that is really dedicated to our our teams collaborating and really focusing in on what it means to meet and exceed standards and how are the standards really um being delivered within our curriculum and within our lessons. So, nice job Aquila teachers and students I should say. And then goal number four, like I said, it was a baseline goal and it was around communication and we used Seesaw as our main primary communication tool. As you can see, um, the top of our graph is how many student posts we had. And so, we know that parents want to look at what the students are posting, what they're working on. Um, and so, students posted a lot of their work. They talked of what they were learning about, that what standards they were focused in on, and then demonstrated to their families what they were doing. And you can see that, um, we had a lot of student posts over this, school year each, by each month. And then the family engagement, we had 524 families log in. So, that's almost everybody at Aquila. Um, parent comments, 1,080 comments from families. And then messages back and forth, that two-way communication, which is really important between families and teachers, 15,226 messages. So, um, that goal, I would say, was met. All right, I'll pass it on to Gloria. >> Muy buenas tardes. Good evening, everyone. I'm Corey Maslowski, the proud principal of Park Spanish Immersion Elementary School. Uh, we also had four goals this year. Our first goal was related to, uh, collaborative action research for equity. Um, our second goal, uh, was related to increasing student proficiency in reading. Our third goal was increasing student proficiency in math on the MCAs. And our fourth goal was also, uh, participation in Seesaw, as well as family, uh, family commitment and communication. And so, we know definitively that we met goals one and four. We don't know about goals two and three yet, as we don't have that data, um, for reading and math is still embargoed. Um, having said that, uh, the some of the signs that we've seen from other data points indicate that we did make some good progress this year across the board. So, we did that through um, two focus areas of high-quality biliteracy instruction for each and every child, as well as family engagement. We had targeted professional development this year on biliteracy programming as we're continuing to ensure that all of our kids are getting what they need K-5 in both English and Spanish, regardless of their first language. We We continue to work focus on data-based decision-making. This year for the first time ever we did the MAP test in K and 1 in Spanish for all kids. And so, we now have that longitudinal data to um additionally uh we are we focused on, you know, what does that data mean, right? Um and how do we use it to make quality instructions for kids. As far as implementation, we We're in our second year of our instructional pacing guides for uh Benchmark literacy curriculum, as well as our math curriculum. We met all of our goals and every student had access um to the to each of the units, which indicates uh which are also aligned to our standards. Um so, very excited about that for the second year in a row. Um additionally, we continue to take a look at Benchmark because a cool part about our literacy curriculum is that it's centered around both science and social studies. So, how can we leverage the the uh that content that's being taught there um and leveraging it with our science and social studies. So, um all that to say um grateful for our work in St. Louis Park community on all of the data points that we have and um grateful for our community for showing up at all of our events, um including our welcome nights, literacy nights, math nights, Somos Uno, um our um Latino family engagement um at Carnival and so many other events. So, thankful to all of you for the work that you do and thankful to our teachers and amazing staff and of course our incredible students. I look forward to continuing the work in the fall. Gracias. And I have the privilege of turning it over to Aaron Munson, principal of >> Uh good evening everyone. Aaron Munson, principal of Peter Hobart Elementary. Um I'm going to walk through our four goals as well. Um we also, just like the other sites, are focused on care cycles, um two cycles, one in the fall and one in the spring. Um those care cycles were focused on how we can utilize WIN to support student literacy growth. Um we were really um I feel really fortunate that our staff was willing to jump into a what I need model. Um we had we tried the model on for the first time this year, um which is a 30-minute block, um that's focused on pushing in and flooding a grade level with more adult support and then breaking um students by data of what they need for literacy and having smaller group instruction during that time. Um Learned a lot during that time. Um we did meet the goal of the care cycles, um but as you can see it in goal two, um that's related to literacy, unfortunately we did not meet that goal. Um what I did want to point out though is last uh last year when I stood in front of you, we regressed in our data, whereas this year, even though we didn't make our goal, we made progress towards that goal um in both our closing of the achievement gap between BIPOC students and white students um and then also uh increase in our overall building-wide proficiency um across all racial groups, which to me is really important so that we're not lowering the bar for students to close the gap, but we're really pushing everyone towards um academic success. In goal three, um we had the same goal except for related to math. Um we did not meet this goal because it is two-pronged. Um you're going to notice that in the blue at the bottom, um we increased our overall site proficiency to well past the 56.4% to 61.7 across all racial groups. Unfortunately, we did create a larger gap. So, that is something we need to look at as a site what specific racial groups that impacted the most. As this board also knows, Peter Hobart is identified through ESSA and math is our target area. So, that is something we need to look at in the next 2 years to exit that identification process. Finally, teachers also similar to Aquila, we were using Seesaw to communicate learning experiences in classrooms to families and we met that goal. Teachers did use Seesaw and that will be baseline data that we will use for the following school year. Thank you and I will turn it over to Principal Bain. >> Hello. It's good to see you all again. All right. So, coming to the end of a first year in St. Louis Park has been an adventure and there are crossing there's markings strike throughs on our part of our goals as a result because when I first was a part of the team creating these goals, I was just getting to know the school, the community and our needs. And so, I was working with my team to create goals based on numbers, based on words on paper and not really knowing where the school was at and what we really needed. And one of the things that I really value about our district leadership is that we recognize that as we learn, we should make change and we should make adjustments based on what we know our students need. And so, we did that over the course of the year and I'm super proud to say that we were able to meet each one of our goals this year. Our first goal was around CARES work. The adjustment that we made was over the course of the year initially, we thought we would just focus on literacy work, right? Like there was I understood one of the five things we were working on this year was literacy, so we were going to focus on literacy. Um and it was really clear that there was a need for us to work on and focus on and give some attention to students' social emotional needs at the site this year, especially with what was happening in our community. Um and so during our second cycle of CARES work, we expanded what that might look like. One of our goal areas um with our SIP plan was also focused on social emotional learning, so we expanded our goal um for CARES alignment to include that your CARES work could also be focused on social emotional learning. So, 100% of our CARES work was aligned with our SIP goals, but we expanded it to be either connected to one of our reading goals or to our social emotional goal. So, all of our teams were able to achieve that goal. Um our second goal, our academic goal around reading, was growth for all. One of the things that my team uh of teachers is super passionate about is really focusing on making sure that each student, regardless of where they're starting, is making progress, and that's something that I'm passionate about, too. Um we recognized some really important opportunities as we dug into our data. And one of the things that we noticed is that the initial data point that we had selected as how we might measure our students doesn't tell the full story. And so initially, we thought we're going to use FAST data. We're going to pick this one measurement point and say, "We want to meet or exceed the national average and see how what percent of our students are able to accomplish that." And the thing about just choosing that one data point is that our students, in some cases, were already far beyond that reading rate. And then reading even faster meant nothing. And in other cases, our students might be twice exceptional and they might have processing needs and and again, that score didn't really tell their full story. And so we started triangulating our data and gave teachers opportunities to look at how might we measure every student and determine if they're making a year's worth of growth. Um we did find opportunities where in some cases, we weren't able to answer that question and that's going to help guide where we're going next um because in some cases, we're not comfortable with the answer to that question and so that's really important. And yet, I'm really proud to say that 75.2% of our students made a year's worth of growth this year. Um goal three was focused on some of our discrepancy data. Um we recognized that our Latinx students were not achieving at the same rate as the rest of our um students. And so when we break down our data based on our fast results, we were able to close that achievement gap by 29.5% and so now we have our students um that are identified as Latinx, um our reading their reading growth increased to hitting that 61.5% and finally our last goal was connected to social emotional learning um which then helps us reduce the number of incidents. So that was our kind of way of measuring how are we doing with um the social emotional learning that we're teaching. So part of the work was do we have a system? How do we respond and support students when they're demonstrating a social emotional need and how do we respond then as a team? And so we went from not really having a plan to now we have a really clearly defined system of what do you do next when a student needs help, needs more support. Um and we went from in this fall, so in September we were receiving 16 referrals a day. That's a lot. Um and by the end of the year because we were able to respond differently and get students the supports they needed, teach them the skills that they needed, um we were able to reduce that to two referrals to a day or eight phone calls to the office a day to give those students the supports that we need. We know we still have work to do in this area, um but again a lot of progress is has been made and it's something that we're super proud of. Um we do have a couple of of slides kind of showing some of that growth that we can reference um with some more details, but with that I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to community education. >> Good evening, board. I will just wrap this up with a nice little bow here. Um so our four goals, goal number one, we've met all of our goals, which is amazing cuz we have a wonderful staff and wonderful students um in early learning. But goal number one, teachers will elicit evidence through observation and excuse me, analysis of student work using TS Gold as an assessment system. It was new to us this year, so many of our goals are wrapped around [clears throat] learning that system, utilizing that system from cycle one to cycle two, having our our staff enter information and documentation for our students so that we can look at what is needed to support our students best. Goal number four That's sorry, goal number two and goal number three were also met. Goal number four, so during the school year we were excuse me, looking at in family engagement and how we're getting the word out and what the students are learning in each classroom. Um Parent Square was a new platform for us as well in this district, so looking at the analytics on what parent and family engagement looks like through the lens of a families utilizing that new tool as well as looking at information through Seesaw, which is the primary platform that our families start to use when communicating with teachers or also teacher emails. So, as a focus area using the TS Gold as a system, excuse me, 100% of our staff were able to utilize it as we're learning the system. So, this is just year one. It will continue to learn we will continue to learn going into next year as well because we have used it as a new tool. We were looking at for cycle one social emotional, cycle two literacy. So, moving into next year adding additional components to our learning. As an update, the collection showed student work for the current developmental levels and how we can then use that learning for next year and beyond for our students. Our second focus area being to strengthen or excuse me, family engagement and understanding what students are learning. We were able to showcase pictures with descriptions on what students are learning throughout the hallways. So, some families aren't able don't make it up to the second floor to see what some of our forest classrooms are learning. So, so that everybody is getting the same information and can see the progression as their students learn with us in early learning what that looks like across the board. And then just as a reference, some key strategies that we were looking at learning again the system of TS Gold or Teaching Strategies Gold, our Seeds language comprehension framework that was new this year as well. We will be continuing that moving into next year and also looking at our care team goals or excuse me, care team logs and other communication analytics. And with that, I will turn it back over to Dr. Cooper. >> All right. Thank you all for once again for those updates. And as you look at that data and that information that even though some was met or not met, it does not mean that it's the end goal. We're going to continue to work on them going further and increasing and continuing on those goals as we're looking at our professional learning next year to really focus in on those areas and continue to grow in those areas. And also, those numbers tell a story, but it doesn't tell everything. So, if you want us to see that qualitative data, too, I'd encourage you to come in, see a learning walk, and see all the great things that are happening in the classrooms. So, just thank you, leaders, for sharing, and at this time, if you have any questions. >> Do we have any questions? I don't know if that's a thought bubble above Suzy's head or Okay. Um I do just have a really quick question. Are you using both MAP and FastBridge? So, FastBridge has a reading and a math. So, are you using MAP and FastBridge? >> Yes, well, we're using MAP, and we're also using FAST, but when it comes to the goals that the sites are using, some have used MAP, and I believe Susan you all use FAST. >> Well, and I would add we're not using that part of FAST. >> Right. >> Got it. >> using early reading >> Yeah. >> and CDMR in FastBridge. We're not using early math. >> Okay. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming in. I hope you have a really nice summer, and we'll see you, probably, I'm going to guess, early in the fall with the next round of goals. Yeah. Um all right. And now, uh 6C is the superintendent's evaluation, so I'll turn it over to the vice chair, Anderson. >> I want to say I don't like these mics, but um Okay. So, the board met in a closed meeting on June 11th to discuss the annual superintendent evaluation. All board members and Dr. Hines were in attendance. The meeting is pursuant to the Minnesota Statute 13D.05 subdivision 3A. A public body may close a meeting to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority. The public body shall identify the individual to be evaluated prior to closing a meeting. It is next it of at its next open meeting the public body shall summarize its conclusion regarding the evaluation. A meeting must be open at the request of the individual who is the subject of the meeting. Superintendent Hines did not request for the meeting to be open, so the meeting was closed. This is the next open meeting of the of the board and the process or and the purpose of this report is to summarize the evaluation. The board and the super and Superintendent Hines agreed to focus on four key performance areas from MSBA's standard base rubric. The four focus areas are priorities and or strategic planning, information for decision making, budget development and maintenance, relationships with the community. Performance areas were evaluated on a scale of ineffective, developing, effective, and highly effective. We appreciate Dr. Hines focus on gathering stakeholders input, conducting superintendent listening sessions with staff, students, and families to inform the district short and long-term priorities and ensure strategic goals reflect our communities needs. Dr. Hines facilitated cross-functional planning meetings to align school level initiatives and instructional strategies with district priorities and measurable outcomes. Dr. Hines ensured the board receive accurate information ahead of key decisions. Dr. Hines effectively aligned compensation, staffing, and revenue generation with current organization priorities and community needs. The board is pleased with her ability to build and sustain productive relationships with local law enforcement, city officials, community partners, and lawmakers as an effective or as an active advocate for our district to support district initiatives and student safety. The board also reflected with Dr. Hines on opportunity for continued growth for which she continues to proactively address. Board members are confident in Dr. Hines' ability to lead and will support the continuance of her strategic direction and vision to support the needs and academic achievement for each student in the district. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Anderson. And now we have um our last Nope, our second to last, penultimate discussion item, which is the Transition Plus, and Dr. Robinson is going to present. >> Good evening, Chair Massini, board members, Superintendent Hines. My name is Constance Robinson, executive director of student services. Um I have the privilege of inviting uh Keisha Anderson to um share updates. She's been in the district for 20-plus years. She's going to give a little history, but also um just try to keep it up under 10 minutes because we We've been working on this knowing that she has been through all the different trenches for Transition Plus. So, without further ado, Keisha Anderson. >> You just poked me. Well, I need to move on. Just a little tap. So, what I do here? How do I make this go? Go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Hi there. My name is Keisha Anderson, and I am a teacher with the Transition Plus program. I've been with the district for 26 years, and um this is really an honor to to able to be up in front of you and you and to just talk about something I'm really passionate about and have put a lot of time into. Um some of you may or may not know what Transition Plus is. Transition Plus is a special education program that provides um our students with the opportunity to develop skills that allow them to become as independent as possible when they are entering into the their adult life. Um any student with an IEP and needs in the areas of transition can elect to come to Transition Plus after they finish their 12th grade year. Um we have a very very broad umbrella of students that we provide services to. So, it could be a student who has significant needs and needs a lot of support to be successful in in any environment to um a student who might need help in just a a little area. And then um then Oh, I'm sorry. But as So, a student I'm sorry. Back it up. But uh So, our students are very diverse. I guess my my thing that I'm trying to say is our student body is very diverse. Um So, how do we program for that at Transition Plus? Well, over the years that we've realized that we have um essentially three groups of students. And we have our our center group, the students with the highest level of needs. And they might require more staffing. They uh are attending like 5 days a week usually. Um then we have our a next level of students who are more independent in their adult life. They will probably maybe need some supports to live, but um definitely edging into becoming more independent. And then that you see up there that we have the more independent pathway, where you have students who will probably own homes, drive cars, be part of our community. All of our students are part of our community, but at differing levels. Should I hit this one here? >> This one right here. >> Okay. All right. If you look at the numbers and you've seen this before today and you've taken a look at the things um this is the 25-26 data. Um we have a shift upcoming here. So, it's going to look very different next year when we just have the St. Louis Park students in our transition program. But, I think the important piece that I I just want to touch on is some of the courses that we that we have that we teach at Transition Plus. Transition Plus is made up of licensed teacher, like myself. We have a work coordinator. We have a a school social worker that comes in. Um and we have our a very good staff of paraprofessionals and job coaches. So, one of the most important parts of transition is the employment skills, having students develop these employment skills. And they do that through work-based learning experiences. Another important piece of what we do is have students explore what they want to do for post-secondary options. So, post-secondary might look different for our students that we saw earlier today about students going off to the various colleges and things like that. Um our students it might look a little bit different for them. So, we have students that currently attend Hennepin Technical College through the uh 287 Pathways program. That's part of our programming. They can explore a variety of different classes and skills out there. In-house though, we also have a lot of classes that are oriented towards independent living. So, we do a lot of our instruction in the community, so the students are out and about and experiencing life with some supports there to help them through it. But, we work on independent living, self-advocacy, financial literacy, various components of healthy living. Um I mentioned the career and tech ed. I think when we look at what did our students achieve this year, there's numbers, but I think um I think one thing that we we look at most is is their independence, that they're continuing to become more and more independent. Um we have students who are that have paid employment, they've had paid employment for a couple of years, like Five Below, we've got a student there. I see students that are working at Target, that are working at Cub. Our community is wonderful as far as helping our students find experiences of where to work. Another component of our program is we partner with VRS, Vocational Rehabilitative Services, and that is a state program that should actually start right around age 14 when the students are still when the students are in high school. A VRS counselor will come and meet with the students, get to know that student. Once the student is done with [clears throat] the the K through transition experience, VRS is there as a lifelong service for them. So, what the what VRS does is they may they may attend our IEP meetings, they will meet with the students right at the school, they come out to the school and will meet with students. They develop a an employment plan that can follow a student from where they are with us now into their adult life and it can change depending on how the student changes and what they learn and what they want how they want to grow. I mean, I mentioned it earlier but I said an integral part of our program really is is our vocational training experiences. Um I think that I'm going to highlight two here today to talk about a little bit. Um the first is Matter. Matter is a is in our St. Louis Park community. It's a large a large building. It's like a almost like it's a warehouse. And they provide our students with the opportunity to use teamwork, to use problem-solving, to uh learn how to develop their job skills all while helping others and they know that the help that they're providing is reaching different countries. Uh Matter has uh a bunch of um health care supplies that may have been donated that will go to get packaged up and they'll go to different countries. Our students help prepare that stuff so it can so it can move on. Um another great partner that we've had for at least two decades here in St. Louis Park is Nordic Ware. Nordic Ware is our paid workplace site. And I can't say enough about Nordic Ware and the fact that they are willing to open up their workplace and have our students there learning with a job coach so they're not like out on the line with the other employees but they still get paid minimum wage just like any other worker who would despite not necessarily always doing the the piece the the work to the level that the other employees do it. So they still give our students that opportunity. We have roughly um 20 shifts that we could have students at throughout the week. So, that would be like four a day. So, that'd be 20. So, my my point in this is that we really need to continue to maintain and nurture these relationships that we have with our community partners. And we have, as you can see on the slide, we have our more local ones, but I think I just wanted to highlight those two for you. This one, as I'm as I'm listening to the teachers from the the principal speaking about their buildings and things, I'm realizing that maybe we've been on a little bit of an island for kind of a long time here. But, um one thing that we are working on at Transition Plus is developing some new data tracking and progress monitoring. It's a somebody said the word muscle today. They're exercising their different muscles, and I think I'm finding a new muscle to exercise a little bit better with a data tracking and progress monitoring. Um it's pretty fascinating to listen to this collectively to see what is happening throughout our district, and I'm sure for some of you to see what Transition Plus has been doing. But, I like the You see up there the NordicWear 25 26 evaluation form? That is one of my favorite things that came out of this this year. And it's something that I hope that we can instill in the classrooms too for the students as we want to track data better. Um it's a system where it's literally every student who's out at one of the job sites, their job coach could key into a what the little QR code, key into the little QR code, and then the students' goals would pop up, and then they can be measured right there at the job site by using uh uh staff using their cell phone or using iPad or whatever they might have. So, I think data tracking is it's going to be interesting and I'm excited about the process and how we can make it efficient and effective at Transition Plus. Um this this slide I want you to focus on the group of people that you you see there. It was an activity um through Unified Sports through Special Olympics. And we have such a diverse group of our students there. From students who have the super super high needs, who need someone with them all the time, to students who are actually one in there has had a job for a couple years, one works over at is a Hopkins High School employee. Um we've got a diverse group of students and the students that you see in that picture are with their similar age peers who are attending college. So, that's what the Unified Program does. It brings us together. And I think that's something that is huge as far as our program, our transition program goes, and how we interact with the high school program. But, I think the the key is inclusivity within our community, within our St. Louis Park Schools community, but also having our students be included in the community at that the larger sense of the community. And then, the other the other word is I thought I keyed in on here is independent. And I think Transition Plus is an opportunity for our students to learn skills, to develop adult life skills that will lead them to live in the least restrictive environment possible. That is what we want for us. That is what we want for our children. This is what we want for our elderly people. But, to continue to build these skills so that our students can experience that. Um [snorts] looking ahead to 2026-2027, we're kind of a blank slate um, right now in in my mind. I'm sure there's other things that are going on, but I'll hear about those as it goes on here. But, um, there are things that despite the split with Hopkins, there are some things that we are going to be able to do to to with Hopkins to continue to give our students the opportunity to be with their peers and to take advantage of the work that has been put forth in getting the the great work sites that we have for our students. So, what we're going to do is we're we will continue to share some of the job sites that we have and we will continue to nurture our partnerships within our community. And our students, the most important part, is that they will continue to engage in community activities together. When students leave 12th grade, uh, your typical peers when they leave 12th grade, they move on, they go to colleges and things, they get they the world gets a little bit bigger. For I think for some of our kids, it seems like the world gets a little bit smaller. So, if we can foster those relationships and continue to build across the community even though our programs aren't still together, I think it's super important. And then, in terms of where we are going, I I find this to be an exciting time. Um, I've I've always had a little teeny dream in my head of what it would look like to have a St. Louis Park Transition Program, just St. Louis Park. It's I've been with Minnetonka, I've been with Hopkins, St. Louis Park, all of us together. I'm excited about this. I think we need to continue to strengthen and develop new new partnerships locally and across the metro area so we can reach more students, more students have a more diverse experience that way. Um, we need to be able to reach into St. Louis Park to the high school. Maybe we're missing some students that should be coming to Transition Plus, even if for something small, but as long as they have an IEP and we can make this language normalized and and talk about Transition Plus like, "Hey, it's a great place to go. It's you're going to get this help." I think that's an important piece. And then like um many of the uh principals said up here um we need to build stronger connections with our families. One thing that I recognize as a person who's worked in transition for many years is we are we are a link to adult services for our students. But we have to help educate the families. So providing opportunities for our families to get assistance, to maybe complete some of those forms that are so daunting and difficult to understand that this process needs to start sooner, but be able to to build that relationship with our parents so that they have a better chance at launching once they're done with Transition Plus when they turn 22 years old. I'm going to go back real quick. If you look at the board oversight opportunities up there, um this is such a unique opportunity for me to be able to be up in front of you and to speak to you. And I with that I would like to invite you to have more conversations about what Transition is and then next year when you're when we're up and running, come and take a look. Come do the equity walks. Come and visit us. I would love for you to get to know Transition a little bit more. >> Awesome. The um are we allowed to ask questions? Sure. Okay, if we have any. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. Director Cox. >> Thank you. I think I have the um joy of being on this board for such a long time and like things like this were like when you first sign a board you're like, "Transition Plus, adult options, all these things coming at you. And and and you're trying to learn the basics. And one of the things that I've enjoyed now being at this point is that I'm kind of later in my career on the board, and I understand most of that stuff, but I don't understand transition plus enough. And so this has been really valuable for me. I've been over Linux, seen the students coming and going. And I want And I'm like, "What are they doing?" You know, I see them coming and going. And so just really appreciate that. And I do That is one of the things that I would I would like to focus on next year is trying to see where it's appropriate for me to to kind of come over there and see more of that and participate in that just because I think this is um I was trying to think of ways to describe this, and I was like, "Fringe doesn't seem right." But like there's, you know, I just went to the adult options graduation and some of those things. And those are some of the most really special kind of moments too for me, just to see when people persevere, when people have, you know, all of our students have challenges and stuff, but just to see that some of the challenge like we have a lot of things that are set up to help people who are who can fit into a a neat box. But when people have more individualized needs, and I've seen those kids coming and going, and I know what you're talking about in terms of the needs, you know. Um and um just the individual needs or the the sort of things that they've had to overcome, whatever those challenges are in their lives. So this is just really uplifting. I'm glad that this was part of a uh presentation. I think it's the first time that I felt like I know and understand what this program is. And again, I've been on the board. This is I'm going in I'm in like the middle of my seventh year. So >> Okay. All right. >> appreciate um all this information tonight. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And this is exciting. You guys, this is really super exciting. I think that we're going to be able to at some point, hopefully, maybe have you come and see us in a bigger sense, or have some of our students come here and talk about some of the things that they do. But it it is a really a unique time. Like this is this is something fresh, starting over, clean, and we can build it into whatever we want. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, okay. I just want to make a quick I just want to say a quick comment which is that I attended the T plus graduation and I really just appreciated the um like care and like personal attention that you every teacher shared about each student and it is just your your devotion to every student and meeting their needs and getting to know them is is was really obvious and it was really wonderful to hear from the students about some of the challenges they've overcome. Some of them were quite extreme and and just like hearing the diversity as you said about like where they're working, what they're doing, where they're living and so I just I can't wait to hear more. So thank you. >> And thank you for coming to graduation. >> No. Do you Do you have any others? I guess I just have one comment. You know, professionally I'm a teacher so we have a similar program where I work but also personally I've had I've been impacted my own personal family has been impacted by with programs like transition plus and I I just value the work and it does also highlights for me one of the reasons why public education is so important and how it's really the heart of our community. Public education is always the heart of our community and I think that um sometimes people get the impression that it's only K-12 but it's so much more and we do so much and so I'm very thankful and I did not get to chance to go to graduation because it was the last day of school for me and my boss was like, "Oh no, you're not leaving on the last day of school." >> [laughter] >> Um well, if I can, I will definitely make it. Thank you so much for presenting. >> much. >> All right. Um and so now we are on to MDE positive review and comment and I'm guessing I'm not entirely sure who is here. Josiah? Okay. >> Do this. >> Excuse me, I did not know this was going to be up here. >> You got this. >> Is it a presentation or just a review and comment itself? >> It's just a summary report. >> It's just a summary. >> Okay. I guess not. So, essentially MDE provided us with a positive review and comment for our referendum. And the letter should be posted on our website, so anyone can go out there and see and review what it says. Yeah. If you have any questions, I wish it was up here, but it's not. If you have any questions, I am happy to answer. >> It's pretty It's It's posted in BoardBook and it was pretty easy to understand. So. >> This is just a legal process that says that somebody you can't just be going out and be putting something on a ballot and just saying like it's We're doing this for whatever. It's saying somebody's put their eyes on it at MDE and said this is legit. The things that they're talking about, the numbers that they put in here. This should instill confidence in our community. Not like our community isn't already supportive of many things we do, but this is just another way for them to be assured that that what we put forth makes sense and it's meaningful and everything, right? >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Thank you for the explanation. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. >> I've done a few of these, so I know what they're kind of like. So. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Again, that bubble you're fine. Okay, great. So, moving on to our action items and we'll start with the consent agenda. It is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda with the following business and personnel items for June 23rd, 2026 school board meeting as presented. Do I have a motion? >> I move. >> Thank you. I think it was Colin. I'm going to have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Celia. Uh, there's really not a lot of discussion, so >> No discussion. >> No discussion. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. And now we have a long list of other things to approve. Um, so the first is the Is it >> Iowa. >> Iowa Authority? So the um Am I on the right one? Actually 908. Okay. Uh, the Minnesota Department of Education Professional Educator Licensing Standard um Standards Board, which is PELSB, in the Office of Higher Education require annual designation of the identified official with authority um for each local education agency that uses the education identity and access management system. Do we have a presenter in this? Or do we just make a motion? >> We just make a >> Okay. Can I Okay. Right. So Dr. Hines is the designee. Do I have a motion? I'll move it. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Thank you, Susie. Um All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. Now we have the budget approval. Um, it is recommended that the school board approve the fiscal year 2027 budget as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Taylor. Do I have a second? Thank you, Patrick. Um, this was presented to us at the study session. So um I don't think there's any further discussion. All right. No changes since our study session. So all those in favor say I. I. All opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. We're smoking. Smoking, you guys. This is awesome. All right. Um, terms and conditions of employment for the supervisor management manager employee group. Um, it is recommended Now, we have Director Louie. Knew that was going to happen. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 supervisor manager employee group terms and conditions of employment as presented. Do I have a motion? >> I'll move it. >> Thank you, Patrick. I will second it and now it's Director Louie. >> Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Hines. Um, bringing you a number of employee agreements for this evening. Starting off with the supervisor manager group. This group is made up of different managers, supervisors, directors across the district representing about 22 different employees and about 22 FTE. Um, we worked closely with the business office just to make sure that the economic offerings of this package were aligned with the district's two-year projections. Um, we increased wages in both years one and year two 2% across steps one through 11. And we did go ahead and increase the 403b contribution match to 3.25% from 3% to 3.25%. We made some increases in health insurance and one thing I do want to make sure that I outline is that the increases on healthy contributions are a little higher in this in these groups because the cycle Whoop. Excuse me, sorry. The we're on a different cycle for the contract. So, we're going to take these numbers into consideration and look at them as we move into the next you know, of negotiations for our unionized groups. So, just take that into consideration when looking at the um, proposal here. Um, as far as the non-economic um, um, information, we increase or excuse me, we made some adjustments. Um we made some modifications to the professional development development language with our principal group. So, we kind of mirrored that language. We removed the dollar amounts out of the contract because the budget is varying from year to year, but as a district we have a strong um interest in ensuring that our employees are getting professional development, and we also broadened the language in the contracts to allow for not only conferences, but if they're interested in maybe taking a class or reading a book or doing different maybe public speaking event or attending different public speaking events or things like that. We provided a little bit some some more flexibility in the language and how they're using those funds. We're also going to go ahead because a lot of these positions are similar to our executive director contract, and these positions require them to drive from building to building quite frequently. So, with that we did go ahead and increase the mileage similar to what our administrators get. So, it went from 1,800 to 2,400. And then we just added the Minnesota paid leave language. We updated job titles and positions, and we added some language around probationary period for this group. >> Okay. Does anyone have any questions? Okay. Um >> Can you explain you said remove from mileage in the metro only? >> Yes. >> So, it used to be you couldn't >> So, what ended up happening was there was some confusion around this, and so the amount that individuals were driving, there was question around it's intended for the mileage throughout the year. And because we do not require employees to document the number of miles that they're driving from location to location, we're providing it as a flat amount. It's treated more so as salary. And there was some confusion around whether that should be included for if a person's going outside of the metro. And most people we found were on average using some of the mileage, but weren't using all of it. So, we just removed the language saying that if people are also driving outside of the metro. Now, if someone is exceeding the number of miles and feels that they are using more than this, then we can have that conversation and look to see and evaluate their miles each month and have that conversation with the supervisor to see if we need to move them to a different level or compensate them for additional miles that they're driving. >> Okay. So, where are we ready to vote? No other questions? All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say no. Motion carries six zero. Um so, now we are to the terms and conditions of employment for professional employee group. Did I get that right? Okay. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 professional employee group terms and conditions of employment as presented. Do I have a motion? Uh Colin, thank you. And second? I will second it. Um okay, Director Louie again. >> All right, I'm not going to outline all of the information that I just went through before. These contracts are very similar. They're just different in the employees that they're covering. The professional group is basically um employees that are non-supervisory, but they're still professional-level positions. So, you have like a payroll coordinator, our human resources staff, our accountant, um program managers, like our um program um coordinators, and like Kids Place, things like that. All the professional-level positions that are um non-exempt um or excuse me, they are exempt from overtime. This represents about 34 employees representing about 33 FTEs across the entire district. Again, very similar package, increased salaries 2% over each year, increased the deferred comp match, and similar contributions to health insurance. We did not make any changes to the mileage for this group. >> Thank you. Any questions? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. Opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. Um the next one, terms and conditions of employment for administration administrators of um Did I skip ahead? Sorry. Terms and conditions of employment for technical employee group. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-28 technical employee group terms and conditions of employment as presented. I'll move it. have a second? Thank you, Taylor. Uh do we need to if it's the same? >> It is a little bit relatively the same. It is a little bit different in the fact that these are hourly employees. We did go ahead and we aligned this similar to our other hourly unionized groups where we removed the career increment. We um we added some language around the retention stipend to make that so it isn't part of their hourly rate and it's a flat amount that they're getting. And we went ahead and cut off um steps one through four making step five the new step one to increase that starting rate of pay. Otherwise, most of the other things are pretty similar to what we did with >> Right. And I'm And if I'm remembering correctly, we did that so that we can recruit >> recruit and just have a higher higher starting rate of pay to align with the market when looking at some of these positions. >> Awesome. Any questions? Great. All those in favor say I. I, opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. Now, we are on to the terms and conditions of employment for operations supervisors employee group. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 operations supervisors employee group terms and conditions of employment as presented. Thank you, Celia. Second? Thank you, Patrick. >> Again, pretty much all of the same information. This is operations supervisors. These are um individuals that are operating and supervising in our facilities and maintenance department, school nutrition, and our secondary front offices. It represents about six employees with six FTE. And again, relatively similar. We increased the salaries by 2%, made some changes to deferred comp, very similar to what we've done with all the rest of the groups. >> Thank you. Any questions? All those in favor say I. Opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. Um and now we are on to the terms and conditions of employment for administrators employee group. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2027, excuse me, 2026-2028 administrators employee group terms and conditions of employment as presented. Do I have a motion? >> I'll move it. >> Thank you, Colin. Second? Uh thank you, Celia. This one is a little bit different. >> Yes. This one is a little bit different. We made a number of changes here um to this contract. Now, we have the overarching um compensation package, which is what is sitting before you this evening. Um and then we have the individual contracts for each executive director as each of us are on, including myself, are on a two-year term. So, what I'll do is I'll talk about the compensation piece, and then I'll talk about some of the language adjustments that we made to each of the individual contracts that you will vote on after this. Um so, in the administrator employee group, we did it does cover eight individuals throughout the district. Um, all the executive directors and the assistant superintendent. Um, we did go ahead and we increased salaries by 2% across steps 1 through 11 for years 1 and year 2. We did go ahead and increase the tax sheltered annuity for individuals that have completed 3 years to from $3,000 to $5,000 per year. We went ahead and made similar, um, um, increased contributions to the health and, um, dental benefits. So, all of our groups are consistently aligned if they're on the odd number of years and the even number of years. All of them are consistently aligned whether you're a director or, uh, you are a a custodian, our our numbers are are the district's contribution portion is relatively, um, the same. Um, and we went ahead and we added some language around the Minnesota paid leave. We, um, adjusted some information around the VEBA deposit that we do each year. And we updated the titles and salary ranges for all of the positions. Now, on each of the individual contracts that you're about to review and vote on, there was a couple of changes. So, Dr. Heinz and I worked with our legal counsel to kind of make sure that we were positioning the district in, um, the best place to make sure that we're able to take care of our employees and support our executive directors. So, some changes that we made to the contracts that you're going to vote on here in a minute, um, is the new contract for the executive directors spells out that the, um, if the contract is not if there's not a new signed contract in place, um, you it becomes an at-will employment from month to month until a new agreement is put into place. Um, so, this just provides a little bit more flexibility because in the existing um, executive director contract, it states that the district has to notify or it has a strict March 1st deadline that it has to notify the employees if it intends not to renew its contract or giving it a 120-day notice. So we wanted to make sure that the district has a little bit more flexibility when we're trying to plan, look at budgets, and make sure that we're um, planning accordingly. Um, we also added some language in the new contract that grants the district broader discretion to terminate employment for organizational or financial reasons. Again, before the only way that the district could terminate the executive director contracts was um, if they notified them by March 1st. Otherwise, the contract then went month-to-month and had to be notified of 120 days. Now there's a little bit more flexibility for the district should there be financial reasons or reorganization purposes that the district would like to make that decision. Um, it also removed the possibility of the executive director um, grieving um, being subject to the grievance process under PELRA. Um, the previous contract again stated that it had to be notified by March 1st and it allowed that to be um, grievable under PELRA. Um, the other piece that we made some adjustments, some of our executive director positions are required to have a license. And when the position is required to have a license under Minnesota state statute 122.4A, um, an individual then has continuing contract rights regardless of what the district you have to go through the process to non-renew them should the position require a license. So um, it was recommended by our legal counsel that we put a waiver of tenure into the executive director contracts because again, those are a little bit different than a principal or a teacher in the sense of how we function throughout our roles. Um the other last thing that we did was um we added some language in the contract around outside employment. We want to make sure that we understand um meaning Dr. Hines, myself, we understand what each executive director is doing should they decide to have outside employment so that way we can be aware of that. So any outside employment that individuals being paid more than $100 we're requesting that they just notify um Dr. Hines, human resources of any intent to be employed so we're aware just because of the nature of the job being on call and just making sure that we are readily available should something happen or the district need us. >> Okay. Um that was a lot. Does anybody have any questions? I guess I have a question [clears throat] for the the new language around termination. You said reorganization or budget. So reorganization meaning like or reorganizing roles within the district? Is that what that means? What does reorganization mean? >> Reorganization is like if the if the district made the decision that maybe a position wasn't needed and they were going to move those duties under a different director's umbrella. Maybe they might make some shifts. If there was a need for a budget reduction in a certain area, they could look to maybe say, "Okay, we're not going to have an executive director but maybe we're going to have that person fall under teaching and learning or you know um learning and instruction and maybe you know kind of elevate one of the managers to then kind of take on some of those roles. So it gives the district some flexibility in how they want to how we'd like to staff different departments. >> Okay. Okay. Celia. So the lang- the language around um if they have additional employment, you mentioned that if it's a I'm assuming that's $100 a month or like bi-weekly, what is that? >> Exceeding $100 without prior approval. So, um I guess ultimately it doesn't really we didn't specify that, but we can mirror the language similar to the superintendent's contract in the sense that if an individual is being paid more than $100 for any type of activity, we just want to be aware of it. >> Okay, and then you also mentioned that because they're on call so to speak. Um so, why aren't we evaluating it based on the hours they're putting into the other job? >> Um I think our intent was that like a lot of time individuals that are in these roles are also individuals who are seeked out to do some consulting. So, that is our primary focus. If an individual has a part-time job working at, you know, Shields or something for the benefits or we're we're not so concerned about that. It's like how are individuals that might be doing some consulting work and being paid um could potentially also be using some of the resources that are available to the district. So, we just want to make sure that we're aware of that so there's not a conflict of interest between any of those things. >> Okay, thank you for clarifying. >> Yeah, no problem. >> Okay. Um seeing no other questions, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Motion carries 6-0. So, now we take each individual executive director. >> There's executive directors and then there is a couple of mixed in there the executive assistant to the superintendent, that one's on a two-year contract and then there's an individual contract for the aquatics supervisor. >> All right. All right, here we go. Everybody buckle up. Um it is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 assistant superintendent contract as presented. Do you have a motion? Taylor and a second to Patrick. I think Director Louie you've pretty much explained things and then there's the summary of each one but is so I'll just sort of kind of move through this without too much discussion. All those in favor say I. I oppose. Motion carries 6-0. Executive Director of Business Services it is recommended that the school board approve the three-month Executive Director of Business Services contract as presented. I will move that second by Celia. Any questions discussions? Great. All those in favor say I. I oppose say no. Motion carries and we're grateful that Director Magnuson is willing to do that to lose some time with grand babies. All right. 8J it is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Assistant to the Superintendent contract as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you Colin. Thank you Patrick. >> [laughter] >> I don't know you. All those in favor say I. Opposed. Motion carries 6-0. The Executive Director of Human Resource contract it is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Director of Human Resource contract as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you Susie second. Celia. All those in favor say I. Opposed. Motion carries 6-0. Executive Director of Community Education contract for Director Howard. It is recommended the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Director of Community Education contract as presented. I will move that. Do I have a second? Thank you, Susie. Um I just want to say that I just am always in awe of Director Howard and I just still cannot get over the budget. So, well done. Um and actually and I've attended so many of your programs that I just really appreciate that work. All right. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed, say no. Motion carries 6-0. Woo. Here we go. Executive Director of um Assessment Research and Evaluation contract. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Director of Assessment Research and Evaluation contract as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Susie. Thank you, Taylor. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed, motion carries 6-0. Executive Director of Information Services contract. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Director of Information Services contract as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Celia. Thank you, Colin. All those in favor say I. Opposed, motion carries 6-0. Um Executive Director of Communications contract. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Executive Director of Communication as presented. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Colin. A second? Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed, say no. Motion carries 5-1. Um Aquatic Supervisor. It is recommended that the school board approve the 2026-2028 Aquatics Supervisor contract as presented. Do I have a second? Or excuse me, do I have a motion first? Thank you, Taylor. I'll second it. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. We made it. We made it all the way through. Awesome. So, now we are to board member updates. Um as we discussed way back in February, the chair will give a quick summary of our um study session that we had um earlier in June on June 9th. Um we had a great discussion about the block schedule. We had um both superin- or excuse me, both Principal Paddock and Principal Kalanosky presented the different um ways the block schedule will work and some of the um learning that they had made over the year. We also had a robust discussion about um our SRO contract and noticing where we need to get some new gather some data. Um and I think that's all that we did. That took a lot of time. So, um and then as far as all of the my own updates, I have lost track of all of the activities that I have done, but I will say as um as chair, the graduation ceremony was beautiful, well done as always. Um it was my first opportunity to go to the adult options graduation. I think I cried. Dr. Cooper saw me. I cried like six or seven times. Um it was maybe I'm just was emotional that day, but I was just so moved by the families that were there and the stories that the um they presented up as each graduate walked across the stage. So, it was um really emotional. So, I really appreciated that. Um I went to a lot of end-of-the-year celebrations. I've again lost track a little bit, but Woo! It was a year. So, that is my member or that is my um board update. I'm just Whoever This one? Do you want Do you have an update? Okay, you think. Okay, we can start with Director Coffin, yeah. Um, so yes, I it's been a end of the year, so I've also attended lots of things. I just um the most interesting thing that I did in the past few months is that I attended a courageous leaders a conference in Atlanta with educators from all over the country, um like government leaders from all over the country, a lot of Teach for America people. And it was just There was a lot of um talk about data and AI and um like budgeting and it was really fascinating to hear from what different schools have experienced. Um a lot of different states like some schools in Texas and school boards which have much different oversight from their state governments than we do. Um so it was just an interesting perspective. I learned a lot and I'm happy to talk to anyone about it later if they have any questions. >> Thank you. Um just want to echo the appreciation for graduation and and some people might know that like I my a member of my family had a bit of an emergency at this situation at the graduation and was well attended to and I appreciate that. Um and I want to echo the adult options graduation was wonderful. We had the first time I've ever been there where we had somebody who's who said they were looking forward to retirement because it was somebody who was in their in their later years who got their GED and I again that speaks to the the amazing aspect of that program and just the the diversity of the people that are there. Um so I really appreciate that. Um I've been contacted I ended liaison to the early learning community and they've reached out to me about some concerns that they have with some facilities stuff. Um I was also able to attend the Bring It Home event at Peter Hobart and it was great. It was wonderful. They were uh we had pizza. We got to um talk they I I a lot about some of the different um uh people that were there, the students, um what brought them there, what they appreciated the most, and um over the years um and uh it was just a great thing, and I haven't done anything like that since about when I just started the board, and so it was just great to have that experience again and connect to just another part of our community um directly. Um uh I am also the uh liaison to the athletic advisory committee. We had our last meeting of the school year, and it was an opportunity to talk about some different things, and um really hearty discussion about some things in terms of like student involvement, and what what are the sort of like appropriate ages for people to be doing things, and whether we want to sort of look at that in terms of middle school students, and whether you know, do you enhance the middle school programs? Do you allow more of those people to move up? What are other schools doing? It was a like I stayed for like an extra hour. I felt bad. My aunt was here for graduation, and I and I did not spend that hour with her because I was really intrigued by the conversation. Um Uh and um I'm appreciative that we have this advisory committee set up like we do now because of conversations like that. Um Uh I checked in with Andy, and he told me that we have seven we had last year we had really good involvement again. We had 759 student athletes in high school sports. Um so, that's counting just like a student once, right? So, really great and encouraging numbers, and I know that people do other activities besides that, but just wanted to call that out. The last thing that I'll call out is that as some of you may know, I'm a member of the MSBA Delegate Assembly. And what that is is um another opportunity to help kind of influence what the discussion is at the legislature next year. And we have a um assembly in December where people can bring forward forward um sort of uh things that they want the delegate to approve as being sort of important things that are discussed. It may not make it to the MSBA agenda, but it's sort of a discussion tool, I think. And in order for us to do that as a board, we have to make some votes and do that formally. So, I don't know that we'll want to do that next fall, but if we want to, we can explore that. There's some information. I'll send a link. I can share some information about the delegate assembly if you want to. Otherwise, it was just an opportunity last year for me to hear what the things were. And a lot of them were the issues that we've been talking about and hearing the discussion and a few things that were really interesting in terms of people just bringing forward ideas just to see is there community support for this? Is there larger support? And again, these are issues that are more of a statewide need and stuff. And so, I'm willing to talk to more people about that and and just share what it is, but it's been sort of an exploration and I appreciate that I was encouraged to participate and assisted in that application process last year. So, I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. >> Dr. Baldwin. >> Yeah. Um, I'm going to echo just like Director Kaufman said, it has been certainly an end of year. Uh, it's been very busy. Uh, like everyone, I have to mention graduation and thank everyone for their efforts for making that a special night for everyone, not least the weather. I don't know who was in charge of that. That was great. >> Good. >> [laughter] >> No, I know there was a lot more than that. Um, and I want that acknowledged. Uh, the information sessions for the referendum. >> That's right. >> Thank you all for being parts of those and being prepared. I've been there to help and listen and I think um, they've been well received. So, thanks for that. And I want to thank uh, Director Howard and the staff for the um, senior resource fair, putting all that together. It was a very cool event. I witnessed a bunch of that, too. Um and I've run out of things to say. >> Uh Echo has been a long year, so I don't remember all I've done, but I'll highlight two things that are on top of my memory here. Um one is I did a a few courses with MSBA. Um one being the superintendent evaluation. helpful to what we just did the superintendent evaluation and learning a little more about that. Um seeing how only I went through one of those cycles. Uh also the district-wide Black History Month celebration. Um our community is still raving about it. They enjoyed the line dancing and having a meal together. Um and then our graduation, right? Who can forget that? That was wonderful. Um the community showed up. I appreciate SLPPD for just being extra support for us in that time. >> [clears throat] >> And I'll wrap it up. Yeah, thank you. >> Um yeah, I'll just uh second what everybody said on the graduation. Uh great night. Um really appreciated that. Um let's see. Uh this last weekend uh I had the chance to to parade uh with Director Cox and Chairman Cini and a special shout-out to Chairman Cini for doing all the the running around behind Colin and I as we carried [laughter] the banner. We We were there. We >> [laughter] >> Chairman Cini was not only running around, but she was having conversations with people and >> I did. >> I really appreciate that. >> It was a It was a I ran a 5K and walked a 5K at the same time. >> [laughter] >> Um also uh unfortunately I missed the Bring It Home event because I was um uh volunteering for the the Scholastic Book Fair that was happening at Peter Hobart at the same time. And I had a chance to volunteer with the the parent who was kind of organizing the whole thing and and I got to say I was blown away and so impressed by how much organization and work goes into those book fairs. And so I just wanted to shout out to our PTOs who hold those very like more than once throughout the year. And it's worth it to see the the smiles on on the the students' faces as they're going around looking at different books and and getting excited by reading. So that's really cool and I'm glad our PTOs are are are doing all that work for us. So thank you. >> This one. Um for me uh >> Maybe lean it down a little bit more. There we go. Perfect. >> Um for me I started my internship yesterday and I also last week on Monday um the student school board we all had a retreat and it was really fun. We did um game shows and we won. >> [laughter] >> So yeah and then also um I was going to bring this up but like students they've been doing like drivers ed this summer and I'm doing it too. They've been also doing like things like camps like what else? I'm trying to remember like summer jobs summer internships the YDA internship. Do you guys know about that one? Yeah. >> Is that your internship that you're doing? >> No. >> Okay. What's your internship? >> Step up. Do you know that one in Minneapolis? >> No. >> It's in Minneapolis. Like this it's like this um uh I don't I don't know how to explain it but it's like this like um place that like they match you with internships that you like. Like they'll ask you a bunch of questions and then they'll match you with them in Minneapolis and it's for like kids that live in Minneapolis or like go to Minneapolis schools. >> Nice. >> Yeah. >> Well, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. As we wrap up the school year, I do have to give, um, a big shout-out and thanks to Dr. Lafayette and acknowledge her involvement and support of our school board our student school board reps. Um, the time and the intention that she puts into, um, building the leadership skills with our students and preparing them to come to our board meetings and not just sit here as a presence, but to truly engage. Um, I appreciate the work that you pour into our students, not just our student school board reps, but our YDA students and always looking for internship opportunities within the things that we can have we can open up pathways for because I'm excited and she is super excited and we have a student that is participating in a um, sports analysis internship which I which I, um, I can't wait for him to produce his data and his research because it's going to support my vision as I move forward into, uh, cook my theme of belonging for next year. And so when we talk about the, um, athletic advisory and the number of athletes that have been participating and I'm loving the conversation of scaling that to the middle school, but also how are we looking for opportunities to um for students to be involved in other enriched opportunities after school that align to their passion. So, highlighting our theater, highlighting our instrumental and bands, and um ensemble opportunities, highlighting our orchestras, and other ways that students can find a sense of community and belonging and connection to the school. Because the research says that when students feel a part a sense of belonging and a part of the community, their academics improve. So, I'm looking forward to what is to come for next year, and thank you to my cabinet team for all that you all have supported, um initiated, and endured this school year. I appreciate your partnership. I appreciate your leadership, and I look forward to another healthy year next year. >> I uh just want to reiterate, yes, absolutely. Thank you for all of the things that you have done for us to support the board in making the right decision. So, I really appreciate that. I think we all appreciate that. I do also want to cuz Dr. Hines and I have already talked about belonging next year. And one of the things that um research has also told us is that um when kids start at a young age, they're they're more likely to carry on with that sport and or that activity. And one of the things that I have heard, both anecdotally and I've read about, is that there are a lot of students that get to high school and they're like, well, it's too late. I can't start this. And you know, one of the reasons why flag football and ultimate frisbee have been so popular is because you don't have to have had started at 3 years old playing hockey that you can join these sports and it's um really great. I just also want to highlight a couple other things that we have a lot of really cool community events coming up in the summertime. Some of my most favorite things um our district has always partnered um closely with STEP. So, many of us um attended the STEP Gala, but I on August 8th and maybe some of the other board members and a celebrity scooper at the STEP Uh that was Children First. STEP was the Gala. Children First um so, please uh you were everybody I think was invited. So, please volunteer for that. And I know um Director Howard is doing the reading um the that'll be fun. Um and then the last thing well, I did attend the LINX and I just want to reiterate what I had said about um Transition Plus. Um public education is so much more than just K-12 and just you know, kids going and taking MCAs and taking MAP. Although, those are important things. Um >> [clears throat] >> and attending the LINX uh was so heartwarming one because I attended the first LINX resource fair and it was small. It was just in the the gymnasium that year. And this year the the hallways were packed. The gymnasium was packed. It was um both inside and outside ring and then the hallways were packed. So, just to see that growth. And last but absolutely not least, please remember that early voting uh for the August 11th primary starts on Friday June 26th. Please um visit our website for more information about our referendum and the question that we're asking um and mark your calendar for August 11th. >> And that's there is a vote, yes, group that I understand that's formed in the committee, so there's information out there. Yeah, it's It's There's information out there that people may want to explore there, too. >> was like running up and down the street at that point. Oh, and we need to congratulate the girls flag football who made it all the way to the state championship. Um they played in um TCF Bank Stadium, right? So, that was really cool. Once again, I was really hoping to go to that and I had to work. So, someday I'm going to be able to make it. But, um with all of that said, I'm going to adjourn this uh June 23rd meeting AT 8:22. >> TAYLOR. >> ALL RIGHT, YOU GOT ME. >> [laughter]