Good evening. It is 6:32 and I'm going to call this meeting to order. The June 24th regular business meeting for the St. Louis Park School Board. Um, and this is our last one of the school year. Not our last one of the year, but the last one of the school year. And we take a short break until August. Um, so the next meeting in August after tonight, um, before we get started, I do want to read our land acknowledgement. We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojiway peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and Ojiway community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. St. Louis Park Public Schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasers of many indigenous people, including those on whose land the 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. Okay, with that said, the next thing on our agenda is public or is the approval of the agenda. And on the agenda tonight, we have public comment. We have a superintendence report. We have a number of discussion items including one related to our strategic plan. um and our superintendent. Sorry, we only have two things on it. I mean a superintendent evaluation summary report. Then we have our consent agenda. We have a number of action items including the Iowa authority. Um some things related to uh LTFM for both uh our school district and for intermediate school district 287 which we are part of. We have a um budget update. We have budget approval. and we have two policies. Uh third reading of policy 409 and second reading of policy 7:15. Then we'll have board member updates and um that is our agenda for tonight. Um it is recommended that the school board approve the agenda for June 24th, 2025 as presented. Do I have a motion to do so? So move. So moved by Virginia seconded by. All those in favor say I. Any oppose? Passes 5. Um, we do have two board members who are meeting tonight because of uh personal matters or that are missing tonight because of personal matters. All right, that brings us up to public comment. Um, it does not look like we have anybody here for public comment tonight. I don't see anybody. Nobody signed up. Just a reminder that there is the opportunity to participate in public comment as well as a number of ways to reach out to us including sending email to the school board, reaching out to us individually as school board members, um attending listening sessions when they happen. And also we we urge people that um if they have an issue to reach out to the reach out to the first person first, the teacher in that classroom, the principal uh or the the principal next, and then um moving up that ladder. it doesn't make sense. So anyways, that's it for public comment tonight. That brings us up to Superintendent Newport and Dr. Heights. Thank you, Chair Cox. Well, I am excited to um just share our updates for June and it's all about celebrating the end of the school year. Hey, so um this year as we approached our last day of school, um we talked we we wanted to just highlight how our elementary schools celebrated their last day of school. So our fifth graders had their final walks um through the hallways as they exited the building for their final days at their elementary sites. And as you can see, there was array of activities um fun activities where students were just celebrating their end of the year. Prior to the the prior to the last day of school was a bigger celebration as we culminated and celebrated the class of 2025. Um during this graduation, this was our first graduation offampus. Um, and I would I want to one thank the University of Minnesota Northrup for hosting us um on the University of Minnesota's campus and a kudos and thank you, thank you, thank you to the high school team for the coordination and facilitation of the graduation. Even though we were off campus, we still had the SLP feel and keeping our students centered and allowing and having having them feel the voice in their um graduation celebration and ceremony. We also um had an opportunity to really celebrate our staff too at our end of the year feelood finale. This is um an opportunity to really close out our year um in community with uh with all of our staff. Our staff really um shared that at the beginning of the year they enjoyed our kickoff because it allowed them to come together as one St. Louis Park which really ties into the roll out and of our strategic plan where one of our commitments is one St. Louis Park. So, in in the spirit of beginning to um get into the implementation mindset of our new strategic plan, we brought everybody together to celebrate. We did our core values award for this year. During our celebration, um we also had opportunities for teachers to put on that that hat of self-care. What does that look like? So, we had puppies to pet and hug and love on. We had chair massages for um that our local chiropractors had offered some services. We had trivia games where um we had some of our sponsors, so our vendors sponsored the event and they um gave away prizes for our trivia winners. And that's just we also had some yard games that we moved inside because there was a some some threat of rain, but so we wanted to be still still be able to have that opportunity for our staff to engage in yard games. So with the link, the link was a perfect place to um have that that shared space. And that as we move into the summer, one of the things I really want to just encourage each staff member to do is to take the time to really rest over the summer, relax, reflect so that they can be refreshed as we come together again in August. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Hines, for that report. Um that brings us up to our discussion items. And the first thing on our um on our agenda for tonight is strategic plan 202425 year end presentation of the strategic plan with priority updates by director Su I think should be it'll be director Loey and um assistant director Gail. She's stepping in for Dr. for director Suku in her assets and then and Dr. Becca Star and Becca Star, right? So if they want to come on down, you can do it. No. Yeah. No, I'm first. I just was Yeah, we'll all I didn't know where you fit in cuz I was expecting Ashley. I We'll be each other. We're just going to get on there. Welcome. Good evening. Thanks. We're We're excited to hear how in however way you guys choose to present as whoever. Yeah, I think mine's first. I was just confused because I was expecting Director Suku. Okay. Um, good evening, Chair Cox and board members and Superintendent Heines um and members of the cabinet. Um, I'm Dr. Becca Star. I'm the data scientist and title coordinator here at the district and I'll be talking about the priority work update um number one priority number one update. So I'll start with our mission statement. St. Louis Park School sees, inspires, and empowers each learner to live their brilliance in an environment that centers student voice and experience to create racially equitable learning that energizes and enhances the spirit of our community. So priority one for this uh past school year was culturally relevant literacy through the care team process. Um and for this we want to sustain and deepen culturally relevant literacy development through the collaborative action research for equity care team process. Um so just a little bit of background of um how we sometimes talk about culturally relevant literacy um based on Dr. Dr. Goldie Muhammad's five pursuits and I just have them listed here. These are measurement areas and I use this as kind of a tool to look through the care team data and information and documentation to see where there's kind of concrete evidence of culturally relevant literacy based on literacy based on this model. So I think we all know them but I'll go through them quickly. Um skills is the first one which is where students are demonstrating proficiency in reading. Identity is to allow students to discover who they are, who others say they are, and who they desire to be. The third one is intellectualism. So, citing textual evidence, how are students able to support their statements and their work with evidence? Um, writing and expression of ideas. Criticality, which um was where kind of the critical thinking comes in. Um, students understand power, humanity, inequities, and oppression, anti-exism and anti-racism. So, they're using what they're learning and their knowledge um to solve real world problems, sociopolitical problems that are happening around them. And then finally, Dr. Muhammad um kind of caps off these um pursuits with joy. Students should be um expressing happiness and a love for learning. And joy can show up in many different ways. um you know, being really engaged, um having fun, building relationships, things like that. Uh so, just kind of another a review over um what the care team process is in the um figure on the left there. You can see kind of the cycle that each care team works through. Um and ideally, they do this once a semester. So, they'll do like a fall cycle and then a spring cycle. And you can see at the top, they first sit down and they develop their vision for racial equity. And then they look at their data, their students data or whoever their kind of um focal students or the people that they work with are depending on what the team is. But they'll formulate researchable questions based on what the data looks like. So if they see certain patterns in their data, kind of try to help figure out what their students are needing and then they formulate a hypothesis or research question. Then they design some type of culturally relevant lesson or activity to implement in their classroom. Um they they implement that and they collect data. They analyze that data and then they reflect upon it. What did they learn? What are they learning specifically about their focal students and what they need and how they learn? Um and then ultimately that uh helps them improve their own instruction and their own practices. That's the the major goal of the care team process. And then in the other box on the right, you can see kind of the some of the things that also go along with this process. They're constantly getting feedback and having dialogue with their focal students of color. Most of the focal students are students of color. Um, and they're really kind of trying to figure out what do those students need, how do we meet them where they are, move them forward, and then whatever they're implementing to do that, um, ideally is also helping all the other students around them. A key part is reflection. Um as a team they'll reflect. They'll think about what they learned, what worked, what didn't. Peer observations um are part of the care cycles to get feedback that way. Sharing out. So lots of times the schools will or departments will have care shares where they have some slides and they kind of walk through the um process and share it out with the rest of their building so that they can all learn from each other. And then like I said, ultimately the idea is that they're changing their own teaching practices as they move forward. So this year I um tried to collect data, some information about what was going on in care teams um by I started out by trying to attend some of the care team meetings and I did attend some um but I kind of quickly found that that wasn't really fruitful. Lots of times when I kind of sat down with the teams, they were would be focused on like a detail or a part that I didn't really have the big picture. Um, and I decided that I would get more focused information if I could like interview or survey them. So then I did end up doing a survey. Um, but as as I did in the prior year, I also requested all of the care team documentation. So they sent me um the building leaders would send me all the documentation that they had which included like the each care team's research question, how they implemented the activities, their like um reflection logs and things like that. Uh how they looked at data, what data they used um and then their learnings and I was able to survey uh 39 people for um in the survey and it just kind of tried to dig in more about like how did you come up with your research question? How did you use data? um how did you think about culturally relevant um pedagogy as you were designing your activities and then the results and reflections. So that's kind of what my um findings are based on all these different methods of collecting data. I just kind of wanted to start with like an overall noticings uh that I got from digging into this data. I think I saw a real growth in understanding and implementation of the care team process this year. I felt like I got um kind of more details in the documentation, not not in every case, but from some teams and some buildings. I got um a lot of information. It seemed to be at a little bit um deeper level and more reflection going on. So, I felt like there was an improvement. the early childhood um department really dug into identity this year which was which was um I felt like they really came a long way from last year. Uh the first cycle they focused on their own identities and how it affects their instruction and they really dug into that and in the second cycle they wanted to look at how to how to um how to help students and families learn about their own identity and bring their cultures and identities into the classroom. Elementary was similar in that it kept focus on literacy skills. Um, but there were some examples of like kind of bringing identity into that that I'll talk about in a little bit. Skills, identity, and joy were woven into the goals of the middle school care teams. They were really focused on student experiences in the classroom. So things like how students are interacting or group work, um, peer-to-peer conversations and relationships and how that impacts learning. And that was a like a overall focus of the whole school. And then at the high school, the care teams used the this opportunity to really think about culturally relevant literacy as they design unit learning goals and create course overviews. So each team was instructed to actually really kind of lay out step by step their learning units and a course overview. And I'll show some examples of that. Okay. Okay, so how I mentioned the early childhood really focused on identity. Um, so first on their own identities and how that affects their instruction and then on fostering identity of students and families. So the overarching goals cycle one through the lens of cultural competence, the cultural competence rubric that's part of the TDE rubric. Teachers will examine their racial identities and consider how these understandings shape their instruction, impact their relationships with students, and support culturally relevant instruction. In cycle two, the goal was that teachers will foster identity development for students and families through integrating culturally relevant literacy instruction. So what they did is for cycle one, care teams wrote research questions around their own self-reflection um of their own identities and how those um affect interactions with students and families. Um, so they did things like they listened to podcasts and they read some books and like as a group they really started looking at their own. Um, they took a implicit bias test to kind of try to understand what biases they might be coming in with. And here are some questions examples at ECF. How does my own racial and cultural identity as a white woman impact my capacity to build authentic connection with families of racial and cultural backgrounds that differ from my own? And for the three-year-olds class, those teachers did, how can I learn more about my students and families in order to mitigate my own biases and support their emerging selfidentity. So, they were really um digging into identity. Just some examples from cycle 2, still in early childhood. Again, this was uh more focused on the students and families for the infant toddler intervention team. What opportunities, resources, and strategies can we offer to families to help support the development of self-identity at home and in the classroom? ECF looked at how can I offer more opportunities for voice and choice in my classroom space so that children and families are given ample opportunities to explore and share their interests, experience, and identities. Um so yeah like I already mentioned some of the activities that they implemented during their cycles was like that self-reflection using an implicit bias test um taking reflective notes after classes. What did they notice? What did they see? How was identity um integrated into the classroom environment podcast and readings and I just wanted to share one of the reflections from early childhood. The infant and toddler intervention team focused on both race and disability when discussing identity within our own team and with families. During home visits, we worked hard to establish relationships and trust with families. We encouraged families to join the village parent group and the parent connection group for medically complex children. And we continue to have open conversations with families about identity and how we can best support families. So the next group is the elementary buildings, excuse me. And similar to last year, um most of the care teams or probably all the care teams actually in the elementary schools were really focused on the skills aspect. Um specifically mostly literacy based. They talked a lot about looking at the data, mostly the fast bridge data, some map reading. um really looking at the patterns in their students, which students or small groups of students needed different things and then implementing the curricula um like the core curriculum for literacy and then they have some other curriculums that they use for um the kids who need additional help or tier 2 help um and they really focused on that small group work and differentiation to try to meet each of the focal students where they are. Um there were some teams that focused on math or social emotional learning as well. So it wasn't all um reading. Aquilla H just to give an example Aquilla had an overall question that all the teams focused on and that is when tier one instruction is driven by student specific data and focused on meeting or exceeding standards how is each student's learning impacted um oh and I just wanted to give an example uh fifth grade at Peter Hobart they wanted to focus on increasing math fact fluency and their goal was to move focal students up like three levels in this um math fact lab that they used. And you can see so their goal was um 73% or more of fifth grade students of color who were at like this low level um in October would move up at least three levels by January. And when they went to reflect on the data in January, they found that 83% of their fifth grade students of color did in fact move up at least three levels. So they saw a lot of success um with their activities and this is how they did it. They analyzed the math fact lab data for each focal student at care team meetings. So they get together when during their collaboration time and they would kind of walk through like each focal student where are they at? Have they improved? You know what actions did you take with these children? Um and then develop the next actionable steps to take and just kind of continue to monitor each focal student. um they were really heavily focused on using the data to guide decisionmaking and again like I said 83% of their students of color met or exceeded their goals of moving up at least three levels on this math fact lab uh and I wanted to share another example this is aquilla first grade and so their question is based on literacy and skills but they also wanted to think about how identity affects lit literacy development. So they were digging into um African-American English. So a lot of their students speak African-American English and just kind of the whole idea of understanding that the differences that those children might come in in the way that they speak um they're not mistakes, right, as part of their culture. And so how do we they they really want to think about how do we allow them to keep their cultural identity while also moving them forward in literacy. So just an example um you know rather than correcting making a connection with cross-ling linguistic transfer. So if a kid needs to learn how to segment for example the word bath bath I don't know I'm not a literacy teacher versus bath and they want to teach them that but also honoring that saying the f is also correct. So they just wanted to like really take into account um differences in identity and not see that you know as a deficit or a mistake. uh the middle school uh they had an o again an overarching building goal was to focus on valuing student experience in instruction. Um so some of the research questions that came out of the middle school teams uh were how does centering student needs inform direct practice? How does studentto student talk impact student academic outcomes and increase joy? And how do structured dis discussion strategies amplify student voice and engagement? And some of the activities that the care teams implemented to try to increase like student engagement in the classroom were to create more opportunities for group work or small group discussions. They might provide prompts or sentence starters to get students talking to each other. the jigsaw approach where each student gathers one piece of the needed information and then they come together and share it as a group. Um, another method is like structured discussion protocols and encouraging peer-to-peer discussions. And here are some of the things that they found or reflected upon. Um, they found that most students do find joy in the group work but that it can reduce academic outcomes. So, how do you find the balance in that with allowing them to to um experience that joy or maybe a preferred way of working um but not to the extent that it's going to um reduce academic outcomes. They found that the jigsaw strategy can decrease the amount of work for each individual but gather the same amount of information overall. So, that can be a successful strategy. Group work was successful for some students but not for others. So they also really have to take into account each individual student and the way that they learn best and it's not the same for each student. They found that if students could share their lived experience uh that increases student engagement and these strategies are most successful when it was matched with individual skills and preferences. The high school um like I mentioned previously used care teams kind of differently this year. They used the collaborative opportunity to work on developing their unit goals and their course overviews while really thinking about culturally relevant pedagogy as they went through it. And they were actually given a template to help guide them through this. So the overall care team goal was to develop unit learning goals based on the five pursuits and then create a course overview. The research question was, "How does writing unit learning goals utilizing the five pursuits impact student achievement?" So, here's just an example of like the template that or like the step-by-step guide they were giving to plan their um their unit plans. Um at the top, they talk about, you know, thinking about, you know, what does each student need to understand, know, and be able to do? and then kind of walk through like what the different five pursuits mean. So skills, what will your students know and be able to do? Identity, what will your students learn about themselves or others? Um, and so on like criticality, how will your students engage in thinking about the wider world? And how will they experience joy? So, it's really kind of scaffolding the teams to really integrate all of the five pursuits into their uh lesson planning. And here's just an example that they also got um a template to really lay out their um course descriptions. And here's just an example of unit planning uh for Black History Month. And you can just see how um they kind of learned up they kind of laid out like students will understand black experience and identity. They will learn about um you know whatever historical aspects they were teaching, cultural experiences, um be able to talk about different identity markers, share their history and so on. They just kind of had to like lay it out step by step and by the pursuits. So for example, intellectualism, students will be able to compare and contrast the identities of different black people living in America. um criticality. Students will be able to identify different action organizations in the community. They'll identify how white people took blues and jazz music and renamed it rock and roll, things like that. And here's just an example. I know you probably can't read it, um but just an example of how they filled in course overviews with their lessons and activities, instruction and materials, and so on. And you can see the academic standards at the bottom. I think it was just a way of just scaffolding this process to get clear lesson plans and clear course overviews that integrate um the culturally relevant pedagogy. So overall like the my takeaways from um the data that I reviewed and analyzed what's working well I asked them what's working well um in the survey they really appreciate the collaboration time and the teamwork and the chance to just work together and reflect on their students and their data. um appreciation of guidance from coaches and leadership, using data to inform instruction. Uh the process helps with aligning and developing curriculum and the focus on student engagement and voice. They also were asked about what challenges still remain in the care team process. They value collaborative time and they want even more of it, more time to plan and collaborate. They um some of them said they would like more clarity on expectations, support understanding and using the data uh more support from building and district admin and there was some frustration with time required for processes and workload. So all the documentation and things like that um and they could use more coaching support. That's it. Any questions? I tried to go fast. Dr. H. Uh, any questions on this part of the presentation? I think it um, it's helpful context as we've been talking a lot about care teams this year and I think I might finally understand care teams in a way that I haven't. Um, this had a lot of detail about how we're seeing at the school and we've seen it at the higher level as well too. So, just really appreciate getting a pretty comprehensive view. I think I even know what CARES stands for at this point. So, um which you know I'm getting there right with all the acronyms here. We have so many that we have to learn here. So, um it seems like we got most of what we need, but people can continue to answer questions as we move on to the next. I just appreciate the staff and I feel like I'm really lucky because I become a better teacher just sitting in this position. So, I appreciate everything that they do. I guess I had a quick question on like uh some of the challenges that uh they had noted um and asking for administration district support. What what kind of support are they looking for in that? Um so I think they always want to just improve. I think they want like clear like clearer expectations and guidance probably mostly from the building level and their principles because every building does it a little bit differently as you notice some buildings kind of prescribe one question that they all need to work and others have more freedom and I'm wondering if some of the ones who have more freedom might need a little more guidance and kind of zeroing in on it and um I think the process is kind of confusing if if you're newer And so they would probably need more guidance. Um, and I also think that we as admin could provide more help. I mean, we're we're constantly responding to requests um, you know, if they need help understanding data or the processes or whatever. Um, so that's always available. Uh, I'm but you know, they could ask more or we could go and like check in more often. I could try to go to more meetings or things like that might be helpful. Um, and then the coaching model and content leadable model is going to be changing next year. So, I'm curious about how that will work. Um, yeah, those are just some of the things that I heard. Thank you. I guess I just have a quick followup to that. Um, do you think from uh like from the perspective of being able to effectively learn from the outcomes of the care teams that it's more effective to have more than one group using the same measure, right? So that we can actually versus like you said some schools they all use the same, some schools they all use different. can see advantages and disadvantages, but I guess I just wonder from like a a data lens, you know, is it are you going to get better data if you have multiple groups? Yeah, I I I could totally see what you're saying. Like so for example at Aquilla they well at a lot of the elementary teams really focus in on like fastbridge data right as like uh early literacy um understanding exactly where the students are and then they might try different um implement different lessons or activities but they kind of all have a similar goal and I think that just helps in growing the understanding of how to use that data because everyone in everyone in their building is working on that and needs to understand that system and that data right but I also see examples of like like I at fifth grade Peter Hobart, they decided to really zone in on math and they just maybe didn't need as much scaffolding or help. They really kind of, you know, they wanted to try something different and really focus on this and I don't even know what math fact lab is, but it was like working on math fluency rather than reading fluency. And I think some of those teachers are, you know, maybe more experienced and have like gone through this more times. And I think that was what was right for them, right? like to really just be able to and have the skills to focus in on something different and they were very successful. Um, so I can see kind of both values of both depending on where where the teams are and what they're ready to do on their own. Sounds good. Thank you. actually had a quick followup that made me think about. Um, and I may be misremembering some previous meetings here. So, if I am like um, feel free to let me know, but I I believe some principles have in the past have said they might have like different strategies for sharing out the care team, how like what the outcomes were or what their findings were. Have we kind of landed on a best practice for how that information is shared out and how we implement it or are we still kind of working through that? Um, I don't know what kind of guidance they're getting from admin might know that, but what I've I've seen pretty similar types of shareouts where each team will have only one or two slides and so it's really an overview rather than kind of digging into the more nuances that I'm able to a little bit more when I gather all their documentation. Um, but that's what I've seen like each team will kind of have one or two slides and walk through just very high level like this was the question, this was the activities and this is what we learned from it. And even that has quite a range of detail or reflection that was done. Um, but I'm not sure if each building gives their own guidance on that or if it's coming from I think the good news is now that we have completed year four of the care cycle process, a lot of people are starting to understand the value of is professional development for our team of teachers based on focal students who were paying attention to right and so at the elementary it looks more like a share out across that's what I have seen at the secondary it looks more like um more like teams share. It's almost like a jigsaw at the I've seen it at the high school where different teachers who represent different departments go in and share their research questions, their findings, what they found um in terms of the activities that they've implemented as an intervention and then from there they're like seeing some commonalities about oh what's working over here you know um so the good news is now that I think we're becoming more solid in what the care cycle is and what the purpose is we're getting better at how do we best share it at YDA today there was a student who asked well how is the uh early learning team now then sharing with the high school team like are they you know uh are they cross-pollinating around activities that are working and impacting student learning and so that was a great suggestion and I said that's a great move for year five right because just getting our feet like clear on what the cycle process is now we can get clear on how do we share in a way that's going to have an impact on everyone's learning Um, so that is to come. Thank you. Yes. All right. All right. Then let's move on to the next priority update. Thank you. Good evening everyone. So we're going to talk about our work in um an update on the priority number two. So we'll let Gail go ahead and jump in and she'll start. Okay. So, we're going to review priority number two of the um strategic plan. And that was um how we retain uh strategy retain to I'm sorry, I'm going to start all over again. Develop a retention strategy that amplifies the voices, perspectives, needs of staff of color, leading to a safer, more empowered and fulfilling culture of belonging and focused on training racially conscious staff. So, what strategies have we employed to increase staff of color choosing to come to come and also stay at St. Louis Park? Also, what more can we do to move forward because uh this is the work that needs to be ongoing and continuous within the district. And uh oh, thanks Jason. Next, why does this matter? This matters because it's St. Louis Park's mission and strategic goal to see, inspire, and empower learners on a daily basis as we are all learners. To create an environment where gifts and talents of all learners are valued and to strive continuously to ensure our system, structures, and practices are more than words on paper, but our actionable movements towards racial equity and what and equity of all student learners. All right. So, I think you what we're going to do with this slide is review um where we're currently at. Um I think you guys have probably seen these numbers before, but this is some of the steps that have taken to some of the progress that we've seen over the course of the last 10 years. So, just some numbers that I kind of want to highlight from this slide is looking at the percentage of new staff of color being hired each year. Over the course of the last 10 years, we've been able to increase the number of staff hired by 30% staff of color. Um, some of the percentages, the percentages of staff of color breakdown over the course of the last 10 years has increased by nearly 16%. And the total number of teachers of color that we have over the course of the last 10 years has grown by 35%. So when you think about the average number of teachers of color in the state of Minnesota and then you look at the 35% increase that we've seen over the course of the last 10 years, we've made some great great progress. Do we still have some work to do? Yes. Is this work going to live far beyond the strategic plan? Yes. Um because it's just it's in the fabric of who we are in St. Louis Park and we are very much committed to the work. So it is definitely going to continue to be a focus. Um some of the steps that we have done over the course of the last um 10 years but more so focused than the last five with this iteration of the strategic plan has been you know looking and the revamp of the um the the or excuse me the mission to call out racial equity was something that was done in 2020 that had a major impact on um helping kind of better and improve these numbers. And what I mean by that is if you go to our application page, one of the first things that hits you in the face is our mission, our vision, and our strategic plan outline and our core values. We want people to understand that when you're coming to St. Louis Park, you're not just coming here to collect a check. You're coming here to be something part of something bigger, something more. Um, so we want to stress the importance of that. Um we've worked with a number of different vendors that um advertise our jobs on different diversity websites. So we're able to attract um individuals across all the different racial breakdown or groups, excuse me. Um application. During the application process, all new hires are asked questions that call out what is your understanding both professionally and personally around racial equity. We have questions that ask them to reflect on the mission, the vision, and the core values to see. So, our hiring managers before they're even looking at the content of the application, they're seeing how does this individual align with what we believe should be who should be part of our organization. Um, interview questions. We're consistently making sure that we're looking at the interview questions to make sure that we're capturing questions around what is their understanding of equity, what is their understanding of racial equity and how it impacts our students. So, we're constantly, you know, having conversations with hiring managers to be reflective on those questions to make sure that they're being inclusive to everyone. Um, let's see. And then oh during the um during the onboarding process we're also even once again we're asking individuals to review the mission the vision the core values and the strategic plan just one more time for them to be re revisit that to make sure that hey this is what you're signing up for. This is in St. Louis Park. This is more than just words on the paper. this is who we are and we want to make sure that everyone's living. Um in the next slide we are going to look at the retention um by race. So over the course of or throughout all of the different racial breakdown groups and how we identify with federal races, you can see that our average retention rate is about 85% across all groups. Is that where we'd like it to be? No. Do we have some opportunity to improve that? Um, yes. But I think that we are making some great progress. Um, some of the steps that we're taking to better understand why staff are leaving. So over the course of the last year, we implemented an exit interview. And what we quickly realized is while we're trying to maintain confidentiality of the employees who are sharing their experience, we struggle to share that with managers in the way that we're collecting the data. So, we worked with Becca to really be to take a look at the answers that were provided and to try to make sure that we're capturing the questions and they align in a way that we can provide data to our hiring managers, to our leaders across the organization to understand why staff are leaving and what their experience has been as a staff member in our organization. So, we've been very um thoughtful about looking at how we're collecting that data. And my plan over the course of the next year is we're going to roll this out on July 1. And again, we're going to be able to share that data whether we share it quarterly, whether we share it twice a year as we're going around as cabinet members and having one-on- ones with principles and department heads. Um we'll be reviewing that data. So then they can actually be getting a picture of hey what is what is the staff saying that are leaving so they can understand where some of the opportunities are and how we as district leaders can support the sites in the journey to make sure that we're retaining all of our staff. Can I ask a quick question? Of course. So this particular slide for employee retention that's all employees across the or just teachers. So this is all employees all contracted employees. this. So, we have about 750 employees that are on contract and then there's probably about an extra give or take 300 or so that we pay that are temporary employees across the organization and the individuals that are temporary or not captured in all contracted. Yes. So, it includes Spark Pat. Yes. Gold. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Next slide. Okay. So, um in an effort to build authentic relationship with staff, um and following some of the themes that we've gathered, um this is some of the feedback that we've gotten from staff on some things that we can do to help guide the work in St. most part around uh retaining staff of color. So for example, authentic relationships uh listen, support, ensure competitive salaries. Uh 85% of our budget is is salary and benefit. So that's a reflection of how we value our staff. Uh training and allyship uh continue to support and train and educate colleagues allyships and engage in meaningful and purposeful ways. administrative and administrative practices and organizational organizational culture. Jason talked about uh revamping our exit interview tool. Uh creating a affinity groups uh healing and accountability. Uh create restorative practice circles. uh address systemic racism and hold staff accountable and training around uh systemic racism and amplify the um and value the voices of bipok and bip bipok individuals and their experiences and also to share the responsibility and request colleagues to support St. Louis Park's commitment to culturally equitable work and school environments as this is um a shared responsibility of all staff and uh just looking into the future some of the comments staff that actually feel comfortable and confident in speaking their actual truth and who can show up as their authentic selves at work. accountability for colleagues to do to do the um do the work of interrupting white supremacy and lean into and call out and disrupt that. And also uh staff feel safe and a sense of belonging when they arrive at work. And as I mentioned before, some of these kind of consolidating these themes here, authentic relationships and support. We can help with courageous conversations and in that training to help build authentic relationships, accountability and action, setting clear expectations and purposeful actions around that and supporting and growing our leaders and providing them um tools and resources. All right. So some of the actions taken um again kind of reiterating what I had mentioned before where you know I think that this work is going to live far beyond the strategic plan. I think we've also learned ways that we can improve in the way that we're approaching the work by making sure that we're being racially conscious but also making sure that we're being equitable across everyone. So that means whether you're racially diverse or you have a physical handicap or whether you have um you're a member of the LGBT community, we want individuals to feel seen, valued, and heard in St. Louis Park. And um I think that that is something that is going to live far beyond the strategic plan and far beyond all of us sitting here at this table, which I appreciate and I feel lucky to be part of that. um empowering our leaders to be leaders is going to be something that we are going to we have done and we are going to continue to do. We've done this by this year. Um, as uh, Patricia mentioned at one of the last board meetings, the operations and leadership team took part in the care cycle this year, which was very helpful in us understanding the work that individuals are doing at the site. And the amount of effort and thought that goes into that was very was very eye opening because it's like you know you we as operations keep hearing oh the care cycle this and it's like what is like okay now we actually got to relate that to our work. So that was huge and that really made us think of the work a little bit differently and related the work back to the sites which we really appreciated. The other aspect of empowering our leaders to be leaders um was some of the emotional intelligence training that we went through. I think managing people is hard. Um I say that often. Um and I think that understanding where our strengths are and understanding how we move as leaders has a huge impact and sets the tone for individuals. And I think that that has really helped. Those are some actions that we've taken that have really helped us understand who we are as a leadership team and how we can have an impact on this work. Um we have also the ability um I think we've made some great progress with some of our allyship groups but I think we still have some work to do there. Um, we want people to understand that this is a safe space. Sharing and expressing how what your experience has been and hearing the raw data, the the emotion that comes behind that is only going to allow us to understand our staff more. Um, it's going to give us the tools and resources and it's going to be it's hard work hearing some of the good things that we're doing and especially hard hearing some of the bad things that we're doing or the harmful things that we're doing that we don't even realize we're doing. So, as we continue to take action and deepen the relationships, build authentic connections with our staff. I think looking at this work, I'm excited about it and think that we've done a lot already and there's so much more that we can still do to continue to push the work and build back trust and relationships with our staff. Um, so yeah, that's where we're at. Do you guys have any questions? questions or comments. I guess I just wanted to say thank you. Uh I think that's really helpful and I'm really uh I'm I'm glad that you included some of those statistics in there. I think those are like really important data points to share because I think it's a a metric by which we can continue to hold ourselves accountable that we continue to see those metrics improving and that you know it does also suggest that we do have more work to do. Um, so thank you for that. Yeah, I think the data is just, you know, as hear Becca and Dr. Lafayette say all the time, the data is only one point. You've got the number of 85% retention rate that looks pretty good on paper, but then you also have the experiences of the employees that we're not always getting. So, we need to dig deeper into that and understand how we're doing that. I think I appreciate the next it, you know, strategic plan looking at how we do climate surveys. My uh my buddy back there, Dr. Robinson and I are going to work on digging into that, understanding how um how staff are perceiving the work and what we can do to better support them and just hear their experience more. All uh I also want to thank you my so my state union and my two national unions. The recruitment and retention of educators of color is a major priority in um among those um those three unions. and uh very there are not a lot of districts that partner with the state teachers union in order to work on this and it's and I I don't think it's going I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think this work will will achieve anything if we don't collaborate and if we don't work together. Um, so I'm terrifically proud of this district and what we're doing and how we can collaborate with um, the teachers union and the um, par professionals union. I also just, you know, as AMSD is also focused on this as well. And so I think that um, I am not privy to other districts other than just the two that I'm in, but this feels very um, unique uh, to me. And so I really appreciate the work that we're doing around this and there and I do appreciate the numbers too because I think that there's always this I like we want to do this and we think it's important that there's not a lot of um actionable things that that happen and that was really did not sound articulate but um I do appreciate like uh you digging into the data and having convers deep conversations about Thank you. Other comments, questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for sharing all this information. Good to get updates like this strategic plan. Uh which leads us into nicely into our next item, which is our superintendent evaluation summary report. hard to believe in some ways that it's only been a year and it's hard to believe that uh we're at this point here but um it has been a year and so we've done an evaluation and I'm going to turn over to vice chair manini excuse the great thank you um so the school board held a closed meeting yesterday on June 23rd um and the attendees were Dr. Hinds and every board member was present. Uh the board meeting met um to discuss the annual superintendent evaluation. Pursuant to Minnesota statute 13D05 subsection 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 notify the individual to be evaluated prior to the closing of a meeting. At its next open meeting, the public body shall summarize its conclusions regarding the evaluation. A meeting must be open at the request of the individual who is subject to the meeting. Dr. Hines did not request an open meeting, so the meeting was closed and all seven board members were in attendance. The purpose of this report is to summarize the evaluation. Uh the superintendent worked with the school board in the fall to establish four performance areas using the recommended goals and standardbased rubric from the Minnesota Schoolboard Association. I think it's important to note that the rubric has eight performance standards with five to six areas of evaluation like sort of like benchmarks under each standard. So the performance areas that um the board worked with Dr. Hines in focusing on this year was goals and strategic plan information for decision-m school district finances and relationships with community performance areas were evaluated on a scale of highly effective effective developing and ineffective. Uh so for the summary over the course of the year Dr. Hines drove diligently to get to know our students, staff, parents, and community members. At the same time, she addressed a $2 million budget shortfall. As a board, we felt that Dr. Hines was highly effective at listening to our community's hopes and dreams as well as concerns for our school system in order to develop short and long-term goals directly tied to the district strategic plan. She established the roles and responsibilities of the district governance team. When planning the budget, she was highly effective in working with stakeholders to balance long range information and data with community's concerns. The board was particularly impressed with Dr. Hines's efforts to build relationships with our whole community, which includes but is not limited to students, staff, parents, local officials, local businesses, and of course, our 50 and better overs. Overall, the board felt that Dr. Dr. Hines met her goals not only proficiently but in many cases with excellence. We look forward to working with Dr. Hines as she continues to build on this year's success and to continue to find ways to support her efforts as she enters her second year of work in our school. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hans. Um this is one of our responsibilities as a board. This approving some budgets and approving policy is to review our one and only employee which is our superintendent. This is our opportunity to work directly with her, talk with her, share our thoughts so that she can go out and lead us and we're hoping that she does it in a way that seems um like we are fully behind her, right? And so that's why a lot of times you see that is that we have charged her to do this work. um to lead our district. So, we really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Next item on our agenda is consent agenda. It is recommended that the school board approved the consent agenda with the following business and personnel items. And these are we have a the business item, the board report summary, accounts payable summary, electric funds transfers, bank check charges, investments. We have personal personnel um attachments which is um some things related to hiring and retirements and dismissals of employees. And then we have some minutes um from two board meetings, the May 13th special meeting and May 27th regular business meeting. Um so it has been recommended um do I have a motion so moved by Taylor. Do I have a second? Second by an all those in favor say I. Any oppose? Passes 5. Thank you. All right, the next item on our agenda is the Iowa Authority. This is an annual thing that we have to do. Um, and it uh you can explain it to people if people need it the explanation. Many of us here know what this is all about. Um, the um I will bring it forward and then we'll have discussion if we need it. Minnesota Department of Education, MDE, Professional Education Licensing Standard or PELs, and Office of Higher Education, OE, requiring annual designation of an identified official with authority, Iowa. Um, it's just so happens to be the state below us for each local educational agency that uses education identity and access management, which is a EDIM or is it EDUM? EDM EDM system. So, do we have a motion to bring this So moved moved uh by Virginia. Do we have a second? Seconded by um by Sarah. Okay. Now discussion. Anything here that we need to discuss? People are pretty familiar with this annual authority. Whenever we have a superintendent, we have to do this one. Okay. Then all those in favor say I. I. Any post passes 5 Z. Okay. Um next item is fiscal year 2027. What? Fiscal year 2027. That that No. Come on, we can't be talking about 2027. LTM NISD283. Um, it is recommended that the school board approve the fiscal year 2027 long-term facilities plan management 10-year plan for independent school 283 as presented. So, do we have a motion to bring this forward? I'll move it. Do we have a second? Second. Oh, Ty goes Yeah. Okay. All right. that with that decide. Um, Patricia, do you have some information you want to share to us? Yep. I'll just briefly Good evening, Chair Cox, Superintendent Hines, members of the board. I'll just briefly share that this is standard process. We do this every year. Every district um across the state does this. Long-term facilities maintenance is fairly new funding that um provides for deferred maintenance. Um so you can see our 10-year revenue and expenditure plan. The revenue is 99% um tax levy. We might get a little bit of equalized state aid this year because the equalization formula has been adjusted, but we'll know more about that. And Jerox, you are correct. We're talking about fiscal year 2027 right now. So, we're starting to build the tax levy for this fall for taxes payable in 2026. And these two items on the agenda are the first two parts. Yeah, it's just crazy. Like we've said it before, we'll say it again. And for those watching at home or watching later, for any potential school board candidates, this is how we operate. And we know that you're looking at fiscal year 2027, but you haven't even closed out. What's the last year you've closed out? Is it 24? Um, we have closed 24. 24. We have closed out 24, but you've already moved into 27. So, you're doing 25, 26, and 27. And you'll be in all three over the next four items here. Oh, okay. Then we can have a party after the Okay. Well deserved. All right. Um, so is there any further discussion? Any questions that anybody has about this? Okay. Then all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Passes 5. Okay. Similarly, it is recommended that the school board approve the fiscal year 2027 long-term facilities management tenure plan for the independent school district 287 as presented. Um, we have a motion to bring that forward. Yes. So, okay. But that second goes to Taylor. I promised him last time. Okay. Right. Taylor, thank you. All right. Um, Patricia, this is similar thing here, but this is 287. Yes. Yeah. Um we are a member one of 14 members of intermediate school district 287 and as an intermediate district 287 does not have tax levy authority but that is the mechanism that we get to LTFM so it's distributed among all 14 member districts and each member district must approve their participation we're about 5% um of the allocation that goes to 287 and you will see I believe director Casey sits on 287 board so as a party to the details of that conversation. It's about $86,000 for fiscal year 27 for our district. The allocation is based on um the size of our home districts and then our usage of 287. So it's I3 one and two the other. I can't remember which way it goes, but that's the So you'll see we're we're below the the middle. We're not I think we're maybe eighth in in the percentiles. They're we're pretty close to a couple others. right around that 45%. I think you you've said this essentially which was this is a collaborative district like you talked about before. This is where we have some extra support services for our students who have extra special needs. That's me just doing a very quick version of Yeah. And and if you don't know the intermediate district has four school sites um and so those schools just like ours need roofs and parking lots and all kinds of things like that. So those are the types of things that would be included in this. And if we didn't have it, we would be trying to do it here with our limited resources and limited spaces as well. So, all right. Any further discussion, questions about this. And all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? P. 5 Z. That brings us up to Oh, yeah. Fiscal year. Okay. Jeez. Sorry. Fiscal year 25. Okay. Final budget update. There's not a motion on this one. You're going to be doing it and you're going to be doing fiscal year 2027 budget approval. That will be the item that will have a motion here. I thought we had a resolution on this one. Yeah, there should be a motion and approval on both of them. Do I Is it Do you mean to add it? The resolution's inside the packet. Okay. So, it is not in the packet. It's not in the thing here. We can make it up on the fly here. The resolution is there. It's in the packet. Oh, which one? Which is the attachment? The budget resolution back. Do I need to write this in the minutes? [Music] Somebody wants to read read it. I can't find it. The memo. Which one is it? That one. I opened that one. It doesn't have the It's the second resolution or the second item in the in 8 to Colin. Should do I need to write this into the minutes? Okay. So, do we have to say it's recommended that the school board of IS283 resolves to adopt the updated revenue and expenditures for fiscal year 2025 as follows? Does that work for people? Okay. So, do we have a motion? It is recommended. Okay, there we go. I got I got the Yeah, just to keep it consistent. Um, so that's been the recommendation. With that, do we have a um motion to bring it forward? I'll move it. Second. Okay, there we go. All right. Okay. Over to you. So, now we're back to the current fiscal year. And as we foreshadowed at our study session two weeks ago, we have a few cleanup items that we want to be sure to include in our fiscal year 2025 budget as we enter the end of the fiscal year. They're items that we know about and we always end up explaining variances to budget for these items. So, we just thought we'd get them into the budget with board approval so that our auditors, it makes the audit process a little less clumsy. So, the purpose of this presentation, we're going to hit both years, but I'll take a pause in the middle and we can close off 25 and move on to 26. Again, we're at the bottom of a a year-long budget timeline up to the approval process. So, here's our final budget adjustment. It's in three areas. I don't Okay, it's in three areas. We're adding a revenue budget and an offsetting expenditure budget of of $200,000 in the general fund. every year. Um, school districts who have staff who participate in the teachers retirement association and public employee retirement association because of a Gazsby governmental accounting standard board um pension statement, we must reflect on our books our portion of the of the unfunded liability future liability for PRA and TRA. So we get an actuarial study every summer from get from TRA and PRA and we book that as an expense and then we turn around and book a revenue in the state aid category for the exact same amount because as a nonmp employer participant in the plan the state of Minnesota you might may or may not be aware makes an adjustment to general ed aid as TRA and per rates increase. I did get some indication that they might be done increasing the pension because it was increased one more time this year um because of TRA and so we hope that that will continue so that it continues to be a complete offset. So, it's just a recognition that we have to do. It has no impact on fund balance, but we want you we would like to have this included in the budget and we did include it in fiscal 26's budget as a best practice because we kind of know the the the value of um of the journal entry. We won't know exactly until this summer. The second item is in the community service fund. So non-public pupil aid by state rules has to run through is booked through the community service fund. It's really not managed by the community ed advisory council. It's managed through the business office along with our friend um Dr. Robinson and the student services department. So, we wanted to be sure now that we know what the non-public pupil aid expenses will be, we wanted to match those so we don't throw off the conversation in community ed budget because of this little line item. And then we added this year um I know I've discussed we should start to budget our um funds 20 and 21 um our self-funded medical and dental programs. Um so so for this year we're placing a a revenue and expenditure budget and you can see the two line items there and have done the same now for for next year's budget. Um so this is what the new revenues and expenditures budget would look like. General fund increasing on both sides revenues and expenses. No change to school nutrition at this point. Community service, we only increased expenses in the non-public pupil aid line item. um no change to debt service and we are creating these new budgets now in the internal service fund. Can I ask a quick question? What I guess what does it functionally mean when you create a new budget? Oh, it first of all it has to be approved by the school board and then we load it into our finance system. So when auditors pull up and try to to ask us what's going on with your budget variances, we can say, well, we have to make explanations. And so functionally, that's really it doesn't roll up to the state of Minnesota, but it's an auditor's way to go, do you guys know what you're doing here? Can you explain these budget variances? And every year we go, well, we just don't budget that. Sure. So functionally, it's just a way for us to show that we do we do have some idea what these expenses are. It's not something that's like pulled out of the general fund and no some category. It was already something completely separate fund. We just didn't have a budget. We just never budget for it. Sort of it when it started when we started the um around 2020, the self-funded medical program, which is the bulk of this. We started out not really knowing what it would look like and just never caught up with our budgeting practices. So, we're feeling calm this year and we were able to do get some things done to look at my face. Sorry. Oh, no. It's always flashing its eyes at me, I think. But we see a lot of eyes blinking at us. Okay. Um, we're talking about these cameras that we use here in this room. I was not laughing at you. I Someday we will be moving into more permanent space. This continues to be a temporary space. Um, I asked this question during the study session. I'm asking again say what nonpublic people or nonpublic people ages. Yep. um in the state of Minnesota um non-public programs like um uh parochial schools, private um non-public schools and um homeschooled students have access to certain services um nursing services, counseling ser counseling guidance services and um textbooks and we have to go through a process of working with them all in the at the beginning of the year and throughout the year and a close out at the end of the year and the aid passes is through cuz not so much different than 287 they have no mechanism to receive state aid directly so it flows through public schools and then you said unless it's in the community service because in a way they've said like well this isn't for your schools this is for the community so that's how they sort of assigned yeah assigned it so that makes sense to me so yeah so you what you've done here too is you've created another way that you have to track this money here which is again as we just said there's so many layers to this. I think we're so grateful that you have you track this that you put mechanisms in here so that it is easier for auditors. I think we've heard some directors say, you know, here at the table say board members say like, why does our audit keep coming back with these same comments? Why aren't we changing our practices? Here's evidence that you guys are changing practices. Um and and again, I think it makes it somewhat easier and harder. And so I understand and appreciate that that we're you know making changes because it does help with some of the stuff that we're doing. So um any other comments questions about fiscal year 2025? Again we had a big more extensive discussion and presentation of this at a study session which is what those study sessions are intended for. Deeper dives into it. We've had good conversations had an opportunity. This is so that the public can see our work and understand it and we can make up and we did not vote at that time. We're going to vote now. So any further questions, comments, thoughts? All right, with that then um all those in favor uh to these adjustments say I. I. Any opposed? Passes by zero. Okay. Um next thing is going to be is recommended that the school board approve the fiscal year 2026 budget as presented. Um do we have a motion to do that? Moved by Taylor. I'll second. Oh, and can second it. And um this is again uh we're like we said operating in so many years but this is an important maybe like one of the most important things that we do to close out um our work here this short so thank you again um this is next year's budget starting on July 1 we'll be living in this budget year this is an overview so what I want you to see what you're looking at here is the general fund where we expect to end this current year with those adjustments that the board just approved what for anticipating revenues to be within each of these funds that we budget within what we expect expenses to be and then where we expect to end in that entire fund um at the end of fiscal year 2026. Um director Williams pointed out in a a question that we had discussed um on the internal service fund you will see that that is a fund balance that's um declining. We know that um you can see that we have revenues from employee and employer premiums for health insurance and costs associated associated with our plans that are higher. That is one of the things that I um have continued to um congratulate this board for implementing this self-funded plan because we were able to build up a reserve where we have not had to react um with really high premium changes. we can gradually increase premiums and then use a little bit of fund balance. We have a very active insurance committee with representatives from all of our bargaining units who make the recommendations around premium rates and they are well aware of this. So I just wanted to um to point that out um because the internal service fund hasn't been on our budget radar before. Um, also Director Williams had asked last time about the debt service fund and how how long our debt has left. And if you look at the budget book that was loaded, you will see in theformational section in the back, you'll see our actual debt service schedules. We have about 18 years left. Um, as I said last time, we have debt that basically wraps around so that we try to plan for the tax levy not to sway back and forth. So we might um put some upfront interest payments rather than principal payments so that as other debt drops off the principal then starts on the next debt. There's only three bond issues outstanding. One is the 2018 bond issue 100 million or so. There was $20 million for the long-term facility maintenance bond issue and the most recent 2022 bond issue of 136 million. So we're down to those three. There is a little drop off as time goes on over the next 18 years, but that debt's in place um for a while and you might want to consider future bond issues for things like deferred maintenance or other issues um and concerns might come up and there are opportunities to rack debt again to keep that tax levy intact if that's a desire of the community and board. So other than that, I'll talk we talked through the other three in in fairly great detail last time. the general fund, school nutrition and community service. Um, I just wanted to look at the the difference between revenues and expenses. Again, here's what you're looking at for all of the funds. Starting on the left, it's fiscal year 2026 revenue budget. This current um fiscal year 2025's June update of the budget and the change. So, in the general fund, the biggest difference is um special education state aid. That's the the main thing that's driving our revenue up. That's in reflection of cost increases because there's a lot of salary and benefits for the most part in that area. Um the school nutrition fund we are holding flat for now because we don't have enough data to build anything other than that. The community education fund has is showing a slight increase mainly in the area of um local fees. Um the debt service fund is basically flat um by design and we've already passed the levy that is the bulk of that revenue and the internal service fund is going up by about 6% on the revenue side and you can see a couple years of history to see how we've trended in those funds. On the expenditure side, the general fund's only going up by 2.23%. Keeping in mind that we cut $2 million to get to this place where we're only rising by that much in the general fund. school nutrition um reflects um anticipated increases mostly in the in food costs and salary costs. The community service fund is actually driving downward um so that we can continue to keep that fund intact and the community service fund supports the general fund in a lot of ways. Um the debt service fund again it reflects the revenue we levy for what we need and the internal service fund is going up by about six% in our next year's budget. And again you can see the history of those funds. So our next steps after we approve this um final budget tonight will be meeting monthly throughout fiscal 2026 with budget managers and really honing in on their responsible areas. And Dr. Dr. Hines and I had a nice discussion today about how we anticipate working with budget managers in that way. Um, we'll have the levy in September, the preliminary levy, and one of the things you'll recognize is the LTFM items that we just approved tonight and then all the other items that create revenue for fiscal 2027. In October, we'll know more about our fall enrollment so we can start to see if we're going to hit this budget on the revenue side for the current year and if we need to um expend more. Um we'll have our audit for last year in November. We've started the auditors were out last week. Um and then we'll do the final levy that the process that got started in September will be finally approved in December and then we'll be back again to update next year's budget with more information. um questions. I I I'll share that I think both Taylor and I got updates on the audit and they do ask us as board members any any things that you have questions about any concerns, things like that. That's an opportunity for us to outside of Patricia and what we hear from our superintendent to ask those questions if we feel like there's some something that we, you know, have concerns about. So for people to understand at home that this is this is another way that like it's not just you and auditers looking at this but as board members they ask us um you know to for our department. So we appreciate um other any comments questions from anybody about this. We've seen a lot of these numbers so far have a lot of experience going through these numbers. You've taken us a lot of the way here through several presentations to getting us to this point to prove this. So, we have pretty good awareness. I I just wanted to say I'm glad you pointed out and I think Lee pointed out that we have that, you know, 2.23 cost 2.23% cost increase and that's after the $2 million in cuts and uh I think, you know, I was looking at where we were at since FY23 and it looks like the costs have increased 12% since that time. And that's I think after we've done three rounds of cuts in the last four years. So like those that is hard work to get to that point. And I think you've done a great job of of getting us there. And also thank you for the work you did. And um uh with the $2 million cut um but it's it has real impact. Um and the the costs continue to rise and that's just the reality. We're capped by how much we can bring in revenue. It's also a nice way of saying, and I said it before, the state, we need more money from the state. Until we get more money from the state, this is going to continue to be the conundrum we're in. Um they're making they've done some things that have been nice and um there, but there are still some issues with that based on costs that they're looking to do and cuts in costs what cuts that they're looking to make potentially. We don't blend that out what it looks like. But we'll continue to be challenged by this until we get more from the state. It's pure and simple at this point. There's got to be some other change. Yeah, I 100% agree. And I think the other thing that is really important to understand and I think Patricia has done a great job of explaining that our the cost of doing business has gone up. So when state legislators, some of them have said, well, you know, districts need to be able to operate within the money that we give them. Like what are they wasting? We're not we're not wasting anything. Um it is it's just like I mean it's so different from your home budget except for the fact that the expenses I feel the expenses in my own um personal budget I see that they're the expenses are going up. It's it's more it costs more to do business. Um so yeah I you know when community members come they don't understand that we're always asking for more money and a part of it is because um there is a declining enrollment and I understand that and a lot of school districts are facing that but there's also it's also our increase in cost of doing business and being able to maintain quality programming and do um provide the things that we want to provide to our students. And frankly, one of those is like being able to play on a nice field and run around a nice track and um that's important part of going to school. So, and settle fair contracts, right? And that I think we saw in the presentation from um from the HR team earlier, right? Like having fair contracts and fair pay is a really important part of recruiting and retaining great staff and benefits. Yes. and having good health care and um dental care. Yeah. And I just want to clarify when we say we're going back to the to the community that's we have it's we were saying we have few levers to do that and sometimes it's for things and we don't want to pull out the general fund like our facilities and where we can't ask the community but there's a lot we can ask the community for and that's really feeding into that general fund that is our best resource and that's again where the state money so important. It's comes with fewer strings. all the things that we needed to be and that's that's been a challenge with that money there. Then we have problems and you guys are doing a great job of saying what about this? How can we move staff and use that technology levy and some of those other things to do that so then we can focus more on what's in the classroom. So that's really appreciated. I think I think we just keep going that you guys are doing some uh really great work behind the scenes and we'll we'll just keep saying that but um but we were just so appreciative of that. Thank you. Anything else here then? Um, okay. Then with that, um, all those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Passes. Okay. I I apologize. I missed who made the motion in the second. I stay there. Okay. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good summer. I know you'll be working here, but we have a July free of board meetings. Um, okay. Okay, that brings us up to two policy development items. Third, reading of policy 409, employee publications, instructional materials, interventions, and creations. It's recommended that the school board approved policy 409, employee I thought that was somebody saying woohoo. Um, it's our owl speaking to us again. Is recommended the school board approve policy 409, employee publication, construction materials, interventions, and creation as presented. Do we have a motion to do that? I'll move it. Moved in by Sarah. Second. Second. Second by Ann. Okay. discussion here. This is our third time hearing this. We delayed voting on it because we wanted to be very transparent um with our community um including our staff about this change, this new policy. Haven't heard from anybody, invited comment multiple times. So, um I think at this point we put a lot of time into looking at this and just recommending we take action on it today. Just note that I've not heard from anybody. I don't think I don't want to see anybody search from anybody. And as I mentioned before, we can always reopen a policy when we need to, but this is to get it done and done and have some clarity for things moving forward. Any questions, comments, feedback at this point. All right. Then all those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposes 5. Okay. This brings us up to BG policy development second reading policy 715 uniform grant guidance regarding federal revenue sources. It is recommended that the school board approve policy 715 uniform grant guidance regarding federal revenue sources as presented. Do we have a motion to do that? I'll move it. Do we have a second? Second. Second. Second by Sarah. Okay. I'll pass this over to Carla. Hopefully folks took a look at the This was sent out to us in advance. Hopefully folks also looked at the memo which provides a lot of background. But if there's anything else you want to add. So um from the first reading there hasn't been any changes. So, um, the language stays as stand. Does anybody have any questions about this? This is this is one of those fun fun policies to review. Uh, but it's it's business policy. We have to, you know, people understand there's lots of policies that we have to do and some of them are really detailed about what's going on in our buildings in some ways and some are these things that we have to do that are more about how we're doing business requirements. We're thankful for our folks at MSBA for giving us a lot of that sort of base stuff so that we don't have to create all this. All right. Uh with that then unless there's any questions um all those in favor say I. Any oppose? Passes 5. Okay. That brings us up to board member updates. Our final board member updates before summer break. Anybody? Um I attended the uh uh Peter Hobart IB exhibitions. Um and it was a fantastic event. Uh there were a lot of impressive uh projects that had been that were on exhibit uh including um stuff around racism, uh anti-bullying, climate change. There was even a project on space pollution that I found uh extremely intriguing and interesting. Um so that was a great great event. Uh really well attended. Uh the halls were packed. Um and then I also attended uh the GED uh adult options graduation um last week. Yes. Um and that was um really inspiring um to see you know those those students work through all the adversity that they that they've worked through and and get up there and get their their GED. It was it was awesome. Great event. Um, I went to I also went to GED graduation and Peter Hobart. Those were Taylor and I see each other a lot recently. Um, and in addition to those, we Taylor and Celia and I were able to tour the new building um, a couple of weeks ago with director Marval and it was fantastic. So, um, I hope that the wrong name who didn't who didn't do it will have an opportunity at some point. the um technology graveyard was absolutely the highlight um with the old Apple computers that I remembered from elementary school. So that was fantastic. Um and just really grateful for the uh I guess flexibility of our IT staff as they've been moving over there and getting everything set up and it looks it looks awesome. So grateful for that. Um, I got to Oh, the senior resource event. I think I I mentioned it at our last um at our last board meeting um happened a couple weeks ago. Um I'll say this, I was I got to hold the door open for everyone and and count people with a little clicker. And when um Katie, the senior resource manager, came out and and said, "Um, how many people have come through?" And I said, "What would make you happy?" She said, "125." I I showed her and we were like 150 and then actually it was more like 175 by the end of the day. So it really exceeded the numbers that they've receive of years. And as I was at the door I got to hear the the vendors and the um attendees as they were coming out saying this was really great. So um super uh again grateful to the all of the staff over at Lox for putting that together and for all the vendors and folks who came and of course the attendees. That was the best part. lots of good swag. Um, and last just um I also got to I got to attend the feelood finale. It felt good. And I do want to give a little shout out to our um songstress Dr. Robinson who who like completely stole the show. She has I don't know if that was a hidden talent if it was hidden from other people, but I didn't know that she was that talented. Um so thank you Dr. Robinson for helping us feel good. That was a great night. Great afternoon. Um, yeah, I feel like it's uh it's only been a few weeks into summer and already it's like hard to remember all the things, but um had an opportunity to get out to some end of school year events which was really great and just grateful to see um the joyful sendoffs that we had for our students and families and staff. Um I just want to congratulate Dr. times. Uh an excellent first year school year here. Um and I know Virginia talked about it earlier, so I won't belabor the point, but we're lucky to have you. Glad to be going into our next school year with stability and your leadership in the role. Um and then I just wanted to um wish everyone a happy Pride Month. Um, Virginia got one of the shirts. It seems like they're sold out, so probably I might not be able to get one, but maybe I will. Um, I have I think I have last year's. So, um, but I also just want to acknowledge it continues to be um a challenging time to exist in this world um for many people of many identities. But it's Pride Month and I'm in this moment thinking about um our community members who identify with the LGBTQ plus community particularly in light of a a recent Supreme Court decision which um you know from such an important institution um in our society really undermines the identity um and goes against the values of our district. And so, you know, I'm grateful to live in a state where we have um different protections in our constitution and to live in a community where we see and value um our LGBTQ students, um staff and families. Um but I just want to I want to name that it's it's pride and it's celebratory, but it's also been a challenging time. Um, and so for those who are struggling, um, I'm here as a resource. Please reach out. Um, and I, you know, I I am committed and I know this board is committed to continuing to seeing and valuing all of our students, families, and staff for their full identities. So, I figured you would do the AMSD update. So, well, which one? there either. I've got like a list of six things, so why don't you No, that's Well, no, that's okay. You go. Oh, okay. Well, then I'll add. Okay. Um I was just going to say that CO couldn't be here tonight. She had some things that she was wanted to be shared. She's disappointed that she can't be here tonight with us and um I wanted the community to know that and us. Um, I think I'll just cut to some of the this last paragraph of what she shared with me might be the best. Some of the decisions that we've had to make have been tough to make, but I'm proud of our work and collective decisions and look forward to SLP um the example. So, I think that does a nice job of summarizing some of the things that we continue to say and some of the hard work that we we've had to do this year. So, appreciative of those comments from Celia. Um, there was the AMSD update yesterday where we learned a little bit more about again what is happening, what the legislature did. We learned all this update. Yes, it's two hours. Um, everything from calendar updates to open meeting uh or some other things in terms of how we can do some have some flexibility with our meetings um in terms of having people offsite when we need to, which was a barrier for us. But St. Louis Park got a shout out because of um Chair Cox's efforts um as well as the rest of us to get the the start time changed to before Labor Day. So to mention that and just thank you all for the advocacy down at the legislature because I know that just started around here as a like we're just going to do it. I think it was and I think it was director Zoey who's like hey this is coming up did you know this and I think other people did but we said this was really important to us and it felt like a small thing that we could really focus on that would make a really big impact for us and our community because of the hard work of Loey and and other people who have said we need to think about our community and what's valuable for our community and how can we work within this rule that was created several years ago for the sake of commerce, not for the sake of education. Yes. For the sake of commerce. But I I think it's also important to point out why this was important. And part of the reason why it was important um to this board, at least this was the information that I shared with our legislature is that we are trying to be culturally responsive to our community. We have a large community of Jewish students as well as a large community of Muslim students. And in order to recognize um religious holidays at the same time as providing highquality instructional time um we needed we needed that week. Um but it's also it's not just about students. It's also about professional development for educators to give them I mean I think that um Dr. Star's updates on the on the priority one or yeah priority one with the care teams speaks to this like teachers need more time to do things and um the calendar restraints that we had were really frustrating because we couldn't do the work we wanted to do and so yeah I you know I I think that we need to definitely shout out to Representative Yuim because she really pushed it um and we are thankful for all of her efforts um in maintaining the and maintaining the index um inflationary index for school funding for pupil funding which was critical to to the survival of so many districts because the outcome would be so much worse if it wasn't continued to index and the Senate decided the initial one the Senate decided not to and so it was important that the resolution and then there was a whole bunch of so you don't want to do the amb [Music] I want out some other shout out to director Magnus for some of her work and some of that impact that that's had on our legislature for a number of people in our legislature for the hard work that they've done. Um you know just really appreciative of all of that. Um so and then just some other funding things as we were saying some really essential funding things and there's a lot of things that happened this year. Some things that will impact us some won't but just really a lot of hard work that went into it with that that it got to the finish line. Um, speaking of finish lines, I too was at GED graduation. It's my second favorite thing to do. Um, besides um the regular the high school graduation um and really appreciate both of those experiences. That was great. as we talked about um I was going to say that um we've uh we've had a number of student athletes that have had some ex great years and the ones that were just coming to mind right now um a volleyball team that we a co-op volleyball team that we did that went to state this year um our first ever flag football team that did extremely well this year um and then there was a track team some people that went to state um for that and some hard work there I'm not going to call out anybody in um but just some hard work that people have there. Um and and I know that Andy is working on an athletic advisory committee. So just highlighting that for people just as a reminder. Um I wanted to what was this last what was this one thing here for school board? Um oh um I I'll finish with that or whatever. Um, I want to thank all the people who attended all of our meetings this year and were here to support us in many ways. The people that sit over here on our left side. Um, for people who came and participated too and shared their thoughts and gave us some feedback. Sometimes it was really helpful. Other times it was, you know, informative. Um, and we just appreciate people investing here too with that. And also the people who watch it at home. Um, one of the key people for supporting network is Jasmine. I want to give a shout out to Jasmine and all of her hard work that she does. I don't think people see it. We notice it when it's not here, but we appreciate so much of that work that you do. It is it is an un un invisible support that we try to make sure that we call out, but we don't have a time for you to come up here and do to celebrate that word. So, we're really appreciative of that. I like it that way. I like it that way. Okay. Um, we'll work on on some other ways to get you up. No. Um, uh, and maybe Dr. Robinson can show off her singing skills, too. Um, uh, just a a reminder to, um, to people that the school board, um, filing dates will open up while we're on hiatus, too. I know some people have come forward to us. You're welcome to come forward to individuals. There's information on the website. I think there's some information about how to connect with other people. encourage people to do that. We have one board member who says she's not coming back and and then and I think another and then still someclarity. But regardless, there's three listings. Um there there'll be three openings here this fall, three spots up for election. And really do encourage people to consider that. Come forward, ask us. And even if it's like, oh, not for me right now, we have great things that we can tell you about some other ways to be involved with us and things that you can support that do that have really important roles. Um, I think lastly, it just it just honored me too. I'm thankful for the the people um who do come up here and put their you know this is tough work and we're highly visible and we're targets too and we we saw that happen in our state recently and it was tragic to see that happening and it's um difficult sometimes to do this work and we know that and I'm just appreciative of the people around this table appreciative of everybody who who takes on that and does that hard work and um so just really appreci appreciative With that, I will call this meeting returned and we'll see you in August. [Music]