right before our wide viewing audience. There we go. There we go. I would like to welcome you to the February 10th regular meeting of the Mountain View School Board. Good evening and welcome. Tonight we get to start with um an oath of office. Our newest school board member, Andre Cohen, is going to be sworn in tonight. So, Andre, I'd invite you to stand. And please stand and raise your right hand and repeat after me. I swear and affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States. I swear and affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of this state and of this state and that I will discharge faithfully and that I will discharge faithfully the duties of the office of school board member the office of duty of school board member of independent school district number 621 of independent school district number 621 to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability. Welcome. Yes, you can officially wear your name tape. And for those of you in the public tonight, um Andrea is joining our board after an appointment process that we've been through over the last couple of months after the resignation of a former board member. So, in December, we accepted applications. Um, we had 15 people that we interviewed and uh vote voted last month to uh appoint Andre to join our board. So, welcome Andre. Thank you so much. Welcome. Now, I would uh we're going to move on to the adoption of the agenda. I would entertain a motion. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Well, next we're going to uh move on to item 2.1, student representative reports. Tonight we have Kenna from Irondale and Carly from Mountains View High School uh ready to give us reports about what's been happening at the high schools in our district. Thanks so much for coming and joining us tonight. Thanks for having us. Hi. Okay, so hi, my name is Kenna and I'll be doing the Irondale January highlights. So to start us off, our speech team was able to kick off their first tournament of the year at Stillwater and nine people were able to make it to first place, three people second place, two people in third, six in fourth, one in fifth, two in sixth, and one in seventh. And this is just the varsity finals. So great job to our speech team. And then I was also named AP school honor role. So Arnondale High School has been named a silver member of the 2025 school year, which was one level higher than we did the year before. And during their four years of high school, class of 2025, more than half of their class was able to get at least one um well, yeah, half of the class of 2025 took at least one AP exam and 37% scored a three. So 37% passed or higher on at least one AP exam. and over 20% took five or more. And then for one of our clubs, Black Student Union, we are hosting our um annual Black History Month showcase this Thursday. So there will be singing, dancing, musicians, fashion show, and then there's a dinner at the end. So you all are welcome to attend. Um and in addition, this year there's a new initiative where we're going to be um honoring black student excellence at our school. So there will be an award segment this year and then the categories are recording, visual and musical artists, athletes, um academics, fashion and humor. And um our school has also started something called the night fund and for it's for students in need during I'm sure you all know this unprecedented time in our state. And so this is a coalition of all the student unions at our schools. So, the um Hispanic Student Union, Black Student Union, um Asian Student Union. And so, their goal is to ensure every student at Irondale has a safe uh a safe, stable home um and to provide emergency financial assistance for rent and utilities during times of need. And so, how this works is that people can donate so community members can contribute to a secure and private fund. And then families can request from these secure and private funds. And then there's also support where funds are paid directly for or towards the utility companies or landlords that are maintaining the housing stability. And then so for women in law, we also began our meetings this year. Um something new is that um in the first meeting I exposed students to being able to serve on city commission and the city reported that this year they've had the highest number of reported student applicants than years prior. And also, my commission leader told me to advertise this as much as possible, but I won't be seeking a third term. So, if anyone's interested serving on the New Brighton Public Safety Commission, there are two open seats now. So, just to put that out there. Um, okay. And then the Irondale's boys basketball team on February 24th is hosting their game against Mountains View High School. And for the third year, the Irondale's Boys Basketball Hoops Club and the Mount View Boys Basketball Boosters will be jointly hosting a food drive that benefits the local food shelf and the Ralph Reader, which is the Ralph Reader. And spectators are invited to bring a donation in support of the larger community. So, put this game on your calendar if you're free that day. And then last thing is that um NHS students were um volunteering at the Democratic caucus this past week or two. And so I students helped with setting up logistics um registration and guiding participants. And while we're on the topic, just congratulations to Jim. I heard you were running for House. Is that right? So, good luck on your campaign and all my friends are now avoiding age, especially the one in the picture. So, if you need help advertising to Pierce, you can feel free to connect with me. And that's all I have for Irondale. So, thank you. All right. Hi everybody. I'm Carly. Um, for Mounds View Alpine Ski Team Section 5 meet, the boys placed eighth. The girls placed 11th and Larkin Bartell is statebound and he placed seventh place. Um, the Mountains View boys Nordic team also qualified for state which is awesome. Um the Nordic skier Claire Seckord qualified for a state as an individual after posting the fifth best state skiing time in the second leg of a 10 kilometer pursuit. Um winter spirit week is next week and we're looking forward to dress like a teacher and throwback Thursday. If you're asking me what this spirit week's for, I don't know, but it's just, you know, bringing up morale during this cold, dark time. Um, also the all one and cancer awareness night was held at the girls and boys basketball games. There were activities during both halftimes with raffles to help raise money for cancer um awareness. The MountU girls basketball team has established a special all one and fund to use the game of basketball in a way to give back and support our local community. Each season they raise money to assist a local family facing a serious health crisis such as cancer by helping ease the financial burden during this incredibly difficult time. Um the Mustang wrestlers are currently 17-1 and ranked fifth in 3A. Over the last four years, the senior class has ambassaded a dual meet record of 104 to five. And then Mounds use Shakespeare production of The Merry Wives of Windsor was great. Had an amazing turnout. Super amazing Shakespeare play. And then the student council hosted a winter movie night and we got a lot of Mount View students involved with a fun night of watching Home Alone and drinking hot cocoa. And it's been a good month so far. So kind of slow but fun. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much both of you for coming and for sharing all that's going on in the high schools. For anyone in our community who wants to know about any of these things in advance, follow Irondale and Mountains View activities on social media. I take a lot of screenshots and try to get things in my calendar. So, thanks so much too for all of that you guys do to get the word out. Thanks for coming tonight. Great. Well, we're going to move on to item 2.2, announcements. Jim, would you read the gifts for us tonight? Okay, thank you. Um, there were 60 gifts for schools and programs uh received this period for the total of $24,11133 cents. There are 21 gifts received for the Ralph Reader Food Shelf in this period for a total of $32,476. It is recommended the board accept the gifts and extend thanks to the donors. Great. Thanks so much, Jim. upcoming meeting dates. Um on Thursday, March 5th here at uh the district center, we have a work session starting at 5:00 pm and our next regular meeting of the school board is Tuesday, March 10th at 7 p.m. and we begin at 6:30 p.m. with comments to the board. So Shauna, do you want to share comments to the board today? Yeah, so the school board was available this evening at 6:30 to hear comments from the public. Again, this evening, uh, we did not have anyone in attendance. So, the next opportunity for us to hear comments to the board will be March 10th at 6:30. Great. Next, we'll move on to item 2.3, superintendent reports. Great. Yeah. Thank you so much. I actually have a few things uh this evening. Uh, first, two of our district teachers have been named as candidates for the 2026 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award. Uh they are Kate Berger and Molly Caswell, both from Turtle Lake Elementary. Now, for many of you, uh if you're not familiar, the teacher of the year award is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the state. That award is is presented annually. Uh it honors educators for their excellence in education. A panel of about 20 to 25 people review the portfolios of the candidates uh from across the state. They then select semi- finalists and eventually that group of educators will be narrowed to about 10 to 12 finalists uh from whom the teacher of the year is selected in early May. But tonight we just wanted to congratulate our Mountains View public school candidates and wish them well as they move forward in that competition. I also wanted to let the public know last Thursday the school board and members of the district leadership team were able to meet with the mayors and city managers from our local city governments. Uh this is a meeting that the school board holds annually to connect with uh our city partners. Uh we share uh information about what's happening in our schools, learn more about the priority work that's happening in the cities uh that we serve. And I want to thank all of the board members as well as the mayors and city managers who were able to attend that meeting last Thursday. Uh it's always informative and uh nice to be able to spend our time together to share about what's happening in our cities. Uh one very positive outcome of that meeting this year was the collective commitment of ongoing support to our families, students and community and the discuss discussion around how we might expand those partnerships and support uh each other uh during uh the next uh months and ongoing years. uh we certainly are looking to um additional work with our city partners and meeting with them again uh in the future. And then finally uh last Monday uh I had the opportunity to attend the Suburban East Conference music festival workshop and for those who may not be familiar the festival is held annually and recognizes the top musicians from across the conference. Uh our students were able to perform with their peers from the other high schools or high schools in the SEC conference. Uh we had an allconerence honors concert which happens every year that was held Sunday evening as always. It was incredible. Just fantastic concert. Uh choir, orchestra, and band all performed fantastic music. Uh this year's event was hosted at Monzio High School. And then on Monday, I was able to spend some time over there when students from across all of the conference schools came to Mountains View, work with our clinicians. I had a chance to talk with students, the directors. Uh just always a wonderful, wonderful day. So, I want to take a moment to publicly thank our our high school staff for all the time, energy, and effort that goes into planning uh an event like that. Not every conference provides uh their students with this type of opportunity and I want our staff to know just how much we appreciate their their efforts. So again, thank you and congratulations to the students who were able to participate in this very special event. And that's my update this evening. All right, we will move on to item 3.0, approval of the consent agenda. I would entertain a move a motion. So moved. Second been moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. We will move on to item 4.1 20272028 school calendar. And Julie Coffee, executive director of human resources, will come and present that for us tonight. Good evening. Um so the joint policy committee which is comprised of teachers um board members and district staff met on January 29th to review options for the 20 2728 school calendar. As you know Mound View sets calendars two years in advance to allow staff and families the ability to plan ahead. Several factors are considered in calendar calendar planning including um the inclusion of holidays that fall during the school week. Full weeks of instruction, not having as many back-to-back partial weeks um and then creating trying to create as many equal days as we can in each semester. For the 2027 2028 calendar, we were able to recognize um the holidays including Yam Kapur, Indigenous People's Day, Diwali, and the Lunar New Year in addition to Martin Luther King Day and other federal holidays. um in 2027 28 Rashashana and Eid are recognized on the weekends um and so those were not part of the calendar. I'm happy to answer any other questions otherwise we're looking for approval tonight of the 2027 2028 school calendar. Mark and I were able to be at that meeting as representatives from the board and um I've been on that committee for quite a few years and just appreciate um working with representatives um from our staff from our teachers union and other groups to have a conversation of what's what's best for our staff as well as what's best for our students and our families. And um I thought it was a great conversation and like Julie said, we were really able to meet a lot of um those holidays that that our constituents um participate in. And um I also greatly appreciate it when I was a parent in the district and now planning ahead two years and knowing when those days off um and and knowing what accommodations we have for students in community ed and and other opportunities for students on those days off when parents are still working. Any other questions for Julie about the calendar? Great. Well, I would entertain a motion to approve the 2728 academic year calendar. So moved. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Great. It has been approved and now we can post that and everyone in the community can know when those days off are. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Next, we're going to move on to item 4.2. And there's, look at this, there's a little bit of musical chairs going on here. Um, Superintendent Lennox is going to present next on our DOP which is our district operational plan goal and the update of this um, DOP goal is on enrollment and facilities. So, take it away. Wonderful. Thank you. Yes, I I wanted to come to this side of the table as this is a DOT goal and uh, I want to present on behalf of our team uh, with many of our DOT goals. We have a lot of people working on them. So, um I'm I'm representative tonight, but there is a lot of folks behind the scenes working um on this. So, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to present. Uh what I want to do tonight for the public is walk them through how overall enrollment is related to our non-resident enrollment and ultimately is related to our facility capacity. We want to make sure we're in alignment with all of those things. Uh these are really important concepts as u some of you as board members and maybe in the public people will ask questions about well why or how many non-resident students might we be enrolling in MSU public schools. So I want to make sure we cover that and people understand the relationship between enrollment non-residents and our facilities. So here goes. Uh for our purposes tonight uh I am going to use the October one enrollment numbers. Now, uh many of you know that every year the state looks at enrollment uh at schools uh across all districts and they have us submit our October one numbers. Uh those numbers can change daily, weekly throughout the year, but the state uses a snapshot annually at October 1. Uh you can see these are our numbers for October 1st, 2025 uh which we had 11,360 students accounted for across grades K12. Uh what is sometimes missed though uh when you look at this data is the differences that take place between specific grade levels. So you'll notice that in grades 9 through 12 uh we have a four-year average if you take those four years of about 919 students per grade. So that's an average of the last four years uh as we've gone through um at the high schools in grades K through three. those four years uh we have a four-year average of about 815 students. Now why is this important? Because that condition of more upper classmen than incoming students creates something uh demographers call a natural decline. So when you graduate more students than you bring in at kindergarten, you tend to see a downward trend in your enrollment. um in Mountains View public schools. You can see this is projected then over the next four years we could anticipate uh that happening uh where the uh upper class or senior average about 919. If we assume the trend of incoming kindergarteners matches what's been over the last four years about 850 students that means we should be down about 104 kids around 100 students a year. Now, a lot of factors uh go into that. Um our our purpose, our goal is to maintain our enrollment. And the reason I point that out is that if we want to maintain our enrollment, there would be some capacity for us as a district to add non-resident students to fill that difference. specifically at the elementary level. And for those that have been following along at home, over the last couple years, we have opened non-resident enrollment at our elementary schools on a space available basis. Uh as we move forward, that will continue to be our re recommendation, but I'll continue to walk through how that's been impacted over the years, what's currently happening, and the impact that will have on our our facilities moving forward. So we do monitor our non-resident enrollment very closely. Uh this slide shows multiple years of non-resident enrollment and I wanted to go back so that people could see what was happening some time ago. There are many who believe well we have more non-resident kids in the district now than we ever have. That is not accurate. Um we are open. There were a number of years where we were closed, but we have had more students, non-resident students in this district uh in the past. And if you notice on the left side of this graph, the blue bars represent our resident students. The yellow or gold bars represent non-residents. And we had a peak of non-residents in the 2015 16 school year. Now at that point as our enrollment our resident enrollment was increasing the district made the choice to close to non-resident students because we were seeing a significant upward trend and working with state demographer former state demographer Hazel Reinhardt. Uh we were actually projected that we were heading towards 12,000 students in the district. Uh as you can see in about 1920 we reached our peak and then 2021 we kind of started plateauing and leveling off. A lot of factors um were part of that change not the least of which was the pandemic right kids and families were making some different choices. But I also uh need people to understand that um we're looking at birth rates all the time uh in Minnesota in Ramsey County and birth rates are down. So there are actually fewer students, resident students to choose from because people just aren't having as many babies as they once did. And so that's a factor as well. Now you'll notice that our current strategy if you look from like 1920 across to 20 uh 24 25 we're trying to maintain our enrollment. A lot of people have asked well you're accepting a bunch of non-resident students. Are you just trying to grow the enrollment of the district? No is the answer. We really want to maintain. The reason we want to maintain is we want to maintain the staff we have. We want to maintain the programs and services that we've been able to offer. So when we uh allow non-resident enrollment. We're doing that strategically on a case-bycase basis. Where do we have room? What schools? What grade levels? So, that's how that translates into uh the work we're doing with facilities. So, I'm going to give you two examples. These are going to be two examples of capacity graphs. And we we kind of mapped out that same uh range of years. Uh and here's an example where the capacity and the enrollment are a little bit closer. So if you assume that the blue bars are enrollment, that would kind of vary year after year, little up, little down. Uh the green line that you see there is actually the average of all those years. So in this school, you'd expect about 750 students annually roughly. Um now we could adjust that using different years might give you a slightly different average, but generally a trend would be this school we think is going to have about 750 students. When you look at the red line, that would be the capacity. So, this school, example, has a capacity of 875 students. Well, we're starting to get close. We don't want to hit 875 and be at or over capacity. That means we wouldn't have space in the schools for some of the other things we want to do. Back when we did our facility study, we were at or over capacity and we had things uh uh courses or support happening in hallways in uh different areas in common spaces and that's not what we were looking for. We want to make sure we keep our capacity at a place where teachers have spots where they can do their preparation where uh specialists and other uh support staff have areas that they can work with students as well. So we would watch our capacity and our enrollment very closely in a school like this and be selective about whether we had room and at which grade levels we may or may not uh enroll additional students. So the second example is a school where that gap's a little bit bigger. And you'll see here again the the blue actual bars going up and down, but the average of about 670 students then running across. The capacity though is 900. Well, now we've got some room to work with and we could at that school potentially allow a few more non-resident students in depending on the grade level, depending on the the space and or we also look for places where we can put district-wide programming. So, special education is an example of that where students from a variety of schools uh come to one location to get served. We can be more efficient with our staff, with our transportation when we do that. But by moving them, we want to make sure we can sustain those programs. The last thing we want to do is have students, parents, staff be moving every couple of years to different buildings throughout the district. So, if we were to move a district-wide program into this example, then we may look I'll slide back something more like this. and we would maybe limit the number of residents or excuse me non-residents that we would want to uh include beyond that additional programming. So I want uh the board and the public to know we're watching this closely. We're watching our overall enrollment. We're then coupling that with non-resident. What space do we have and how many more students could we would we uh let in? Again, our target is at elementary. By the way, I would mention those students age through our system, right? So once they're in, they're likely going to stay with us into middle school, into high school, uh, as we watch those numbers uh, over the years. And then, of course, we're tying that back to our facilities and what spaces we have, what spaces we need. All of this as part of our DOT goal is being put together. And you will have actuals for each of our schools. These are just examples tonight, but we will take each one of our schools and give you the data for enrollment, non-residents, capacity, where we are for each of them. So, we have a full and comprehensive u enrollment and facility study provided to you by end of year. So, with that, I will certainly be happy to answer any questions board members might have or take any comments uh as well. Uh I have two questions actually. Um so there's a common perception or perhaps a misconception uh that uh by allowing non-resident enrollment it is draining our taxpayers money and or taking away resources from students who live in the district. Can you speak to that? Sure. Absolutely. That's a that's a pretty common misconception. Uh unfortunately, uh I've tried to describe it to people I've talked to about this. If you think about it, just try to simplify the math. If you were a school district of a thousand kids, the state is going to send you money for those thousand students. If you then had those students move out into neighboring districts, you wouldn't be able to keep all of the money that came with the students, but have no students because they've moved to other districts. The money follows the students. So um that happens if if students from other districts come to us that money comes with them to our school district. And then my second question is the state requires us to have a certain amount of open enrollment. Is that accurate? That is absolutely correct. We are required to have 1% every school district in the state must have at least 1% non-resident enrollment. Uh over the years we've been able to accomplish that by either accommodating staff students uh that are coming with their parents who might work for us or siblings of students already enrolled who may be uh coming with us. So we were always able to uh accommodate that 1%. Obviously that's going up a little bit now especially at the elementary because we've been able to open we've had capacity to add some additional students uh into that non-resident account. Perfect. Thank you. Absolutely. Anyone else on the board have questions? This data all seems so familiar. I was on the facilities task force back in 201617 I think and um that was a committee of 40 people residents um as well as staff from across the district when we really dug into packets of grids of numbers and enrollment and birth rates and all sorts of things and capacity. and at that point in time realized that some of our buildings didn't have the capacity as we saw in that one chart with the growth in our um and went out for a bond and that our that our constituents passed and were able to add on to a number of our buildings. So, um it always brings me back to that time, but it's great to see that we're continually looking at those numbers, right? Because they're continually changing. um that the birth rates around us are changing and um I know we had ADAPT goal a couple years ago to um continually engage with um families who are having children in our district. Um so that's great to see as well and great to see that we're meeting the needs of some people who live outside our district and we have space for. So absolutely. Yep. Great. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Thank you. Great. Will we are going to move on to item 5.1 and welcome up Carl Brown, director of community education to take us through adult and summer programs. Doesn't feel like we can talk about summer programs yet, but that's good. Good evening everyone. Thanks for having me tonight. Uh tonight I am here with a preview of uh some of our summer academic and enrichment programs that are coming up and a few um couple of spring events as well. Uh starting out with academic uh programs, we um big items for us are we start with our academic summer school, which this year will be July 7th through July 30th. So four weeks uh starting right after the 4th of July week, we have our kindergarten summer school program that will be at Pike Lake. We have our extended uh or elementary targeted services programs at uh almost all of our elementary schools this year. Uh Turtle Lake will also host Pinewood due to some uh construction projects. All three middle schools will have summer programs and then high school credit recovery and some other high school programs will be at Irondale High School this year and our area area learning center will also host um a summer program for them. With adult education, uh we have summer school at our Silverview location. We will have um English language classes, career pathways including technology pareducator uh CNA classes as well as our GED diploma programs. And then we're also a Pearson testing center that will run all summer for not only just uh adult ed students, but really anyone in our community that may need a certification um that is offered through Pearson. Um we also have extended school year uh special education programs at multiple sites throughout the district. And some of those programs, I think we're fine-tuning the actual locations, but we'll have a lot of opportunities uh across those on the academic front for our families with our enrichment programs. A lot of these are running through community education. Um we have enrichment classes, camps and clinics, um different things that are typically showing up in our summer catalog. Our registration for summer programs opens on March 16th of this year. And we will also have cataloges that will be mailed to all households in our district. Um and all the information will be online. I always encourage people also just to once they have the information uh look at our website because sometimes we'll add additional programs as the spring progresses um that are available for registration as well. In early childhood uh we're working with our parent group to just arrange some informal playdates. We've done a lot of those at uh area parks and other things which are fun. Um not exactly summer but this Saturday we have our Valentine's dance that will be at Pike Lake. Uh that is always a great event if you're uh in the area from 10 to 12. this Saturday. It's fun to come see. And we also have our annual touch a truck event in April. Um that will also be at Pike Lake this year. Uh summer day camp. Um this is I forget how many years. It's probably five years that we've been doing this. A uh traditional uh summer camp experience for students. Uh four days a week. Uh we have AM and PM blocks at Turtle Lake Elementary. Um, we also have Friday field trips and really families can pick and choose a variety of different classes for those AM and PM options or make it a full day with a lunch option, a supervised lunch option that runs from 8 in the morning until 5 at night. Um, that is most of the summer that we have there. Um, we're also into year three of our middle school day camps, which uh are very similar format. We try to make them middle school appropriate and appealing to middle school kids. But some great content areas that for the last few years uh middle schoolers have had fun and felt like uh it's a middle school experience rather than a elementary skill experience for middle schoolers. Uh high school programs uh big ones over the summer. We're finding uh drivers at classes will have some options for in-person classes. The state moved over to an online option a couple years ago. So that's a very popular piece. behind the wheel is still actually behind the wheel, but um as students complete those, there's a number of different opportunities for them in our district. Um as always, we have sports camps and clinics will be operating out of both high schools. Uh some of them are developmental camps and then we have a lot of teams that just do informal activities for strength and conditioning throughout the summer. Plus, both both weight rooms are open for a variety of sports, plus general times that kids can get in there and uh keep themselves in shape for the upcoming seasons. Another big program um that will follow our same summer school schedule of July 7th uh through the 30th is our beginning music programs with beginning band and orchestra. Those will be throughout our district at a number of different sites. Uh right now in the elementary schools that whole um introduction of the programs is happening. Uh students are finding out about instrument rentals and how they can do that and then have four weeks of summer programs for that. Um both band and orchestra have concerts at the end end of the season which is that final week in July and then uh band will continue with a trip to Valley Fair that they've done a number of years and orchestra program is working on their twins game that they'll go play at in uh early September. So a lot of lot of different things that are happening um across the district. In terms of school age uh child care, we also have that at four schools this summer. Sunnyside, Belair, Valentine Hills, and Island Lake. um that is through the YMCA. Registration is now open. Um that is a traditional uh school age care program that's available five days a week, but the YMCA has some flexible options uh for families uh that want to do that. And I also just want to add that we have many other options in our communities offered through our local city parks and recck programs. Uh different community partners. Um if people are looking things for things, they can always call any of us. We do a lot of referrals in our community education office just trying to help families find something that fits within their schedules and needs. Um, but there's a lot of great things happening in our community. Um, and we will also be back. Uh, typically we come back in August and this is our preview and in August we'll come back and share kind of an update of all the things that happened and some highlights from the summer. Any questions or I just want to say wow that's a lot. That's amazing. and they're so robust programs. My kids have participated in um several of those things. My daughter now works for some school age care um in the summer and it's just really incredible the things that we do in the summer. So, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, we are busy in the summer. It just kind of shifts gears, but a lot is happening, right? Thanks so much, Carl. All right. Um we are going to move on to item 6-1 superintendent's midyear evaluation. Gonna ask Shauna Bach to give a summary of um that process and uh the resulting evaluation. Yeah. So uh we um evaluate the superintendent is our one employee of the district and we evaluate him um midyear and then again at the end of the school year. So, we just completed our midyear evaluation. Um, and the midyear superintendent evaluation for the 2526 school year reflects strong confidence in leadership and overall performance. The board noted meaningful progress on district priorities, including expanding career pathway opportunities for students, development of outdoor and environmental learning spaces, and improvements to data systems and staff support, and effective financial stewardship. Key accomplishments highlighted include successful successful capital levies project uh thoughtful long-term planning and enrollments and facility studies, early resolution of several labor agreements, clear and transparent communication with staff in the community. Throughout the review period, the superintendent was recognized for professionalism, sound decisionmaking, and steady leadership during complex and challenging times. Overall, this appraisal affirms continued momentum toward district goals and a strong foundation for the remainder of the school year. And on behalf of the board, we just want to say thank you for the work that you do every day. Great. Thanks so much, Shauna. And thank you. Uh we'll move on to item 6.2 with updates. Jim, can you give us an AMSD and legislative update? Yeah, we had our um annual AMSD legislative preview and we had about 300 um school board and superintendent attend and we um received presentations from legislative leaders both Democrat and Republican um uh discussing everything from formulas to special ed to uh uh some other um important uh issues like school safety and things like that. So we had a vigorous discussion uh with the attendance was excellent. Um the session starts in about uh about a week and uh we look forward to at AMSD getting up there and advocating for students in schools. So thank you. Great. Thanks Jim for the report. Um all the schoolboard members get reports as well from AMSD which is great to keep us all informed but we appreciate your work representing us there as well as um your leadership as part of that board as well. Well, it's fun to be the chair. And Shauna, have you had a Northeast 916 Metro meeting since our last board meeting? Uh, yes, we met last week. So, Northeast Metro 916 is an intermediate school district made up of 13 member districts, uh, of which Mountains View is one. Um, so we met uh, we meet the first Wednesday of the month. So, we met last Wednesday. It might have been our shortest uh board meeting in the history of 916 board meetings. It was very short. Um I'll just give you a few highlights. So February is career and technical education month. Uh so one of the things that we uh partner with 916 on is for students to have those career and technical education experiences. So they can um they can uh be a Mounzu student and participate in uh CTE programming at 9:16. Um and then the only other thing we did in the meeting was um talk about our legislative platform. We approved the intermediate school districts. There are four of them in the state. they get together um and draft their 2026 legislative priorities. Um and so we approved those legislative priorities for this upcoming session. Um and that was it. We'll meet again the first Wednesday of March. All right, moving on. Item 6.3, school board member reports. Any school board members have anything else they'd like to share tonight? I just wanted to highlight that uh you might remember a few meetings ago um superintendent highlighted that our eighth grade band from Edgewood was invited to participate in the um state music festival and unfortunately that got cancelled. Um so they are trying to make it up to the kids because that was a really big deal for them. Um, so the eighth grade band will perform Thursday, February 26th at Irondale High School starting at 6:20. Um, and this will just kind of be their what they were going to perform at the state music festival. Um, so if you are able uh to join us on the 26th at 6:20, uh it would mean a lot to Mr. the band director as well as the students. Great reminder. Um I've been in a number of our schools lately and just want to give a shout out to a couple different programs I've been able to attend. I was able to go to the Suburban East um music festival along with Chris um and Andre was there as well at the um the allconerence um concert. It's always a highlight. It's just amazing musicians um who have been working all weekend on some really challenging music with clinicians. Um, and I know one of our Malu High School students had a saxophone solo during the during the the band song, too. So, that's fun to see. And then I was able to participate a little bit on Monday um and hear the Irondale and the Mounds View Band Choir and Orchestras um perform their songs. So, just a shout out to Jim Galvin and Rob Reets and their whole teams that were able to pull that event off. And also to all of the music educators that go to the high schools. It's just always amazing to see. Um, I was able to go about a week and a half ago now and judge um some um presentations at the Edgewood History Fair. Um our social studies teachers there at Edgewood, the eighth grade team does an amazing job of preparing these students. Um uh they get to pick their own topic to dig deeper into and learn more about and then present um on a history topic. And I always walk away wanting to read up on about five different things that I didn't know about. So the students do an amazing job. um they do boards that you think of like a science fair. I also was able to see documentaries this year and had one whole hour where I um later on and toured some different websites. So um great to see that. Hi H High View is doing theirs on Thursday. So I'm judging that for a couple hours this week. Um and then last Friday I got to go to Sunnyside and interview the fifth graders again from Biztown. And um they just always um they are just so fun to see. I think they there's a lot of nerves about having speaking with an adult that they don't know and uh they just do an amazing job. So just it's so fun to get in the schools and see the ways in which our staff is going above and beyond and right it just be easy to just lecture the students about history and not let them um find ways to experiment with that and learn on their own. And I just um am so grateful for those educators that take those opportunities to do those kind of special projects with our kids. to tag along with that. Um I was recently at Valentine Hills and they do a lot for kids, but they also do things for their staff and they just recently had um the best week ever and they had a whole thing and Orange won. So orange is the winner for best week ever. And I think it's really important to have those fun times for adults because um it it increases your oxytocin in your brain. Did you have something to share? Yeah. Um yeah, I usually go over how I've been to the hockey game. When I was, it was great. But you know, I want to acknowledge that this has been an exceptionally challenging year for our school leaders, our educators, students, families, and the community we serve. We've uh witnessed political violence this summer. A shooting at Annunciation School. Federal immigration enforcement has um seriously impacted our students, schools, and communities. It's more important than ever that we all work together to be sure our students are safe, they have the support they need to learn and succeed. I'm very proud of our district. We have um offered a lot to our students, a lot to our families, and very proud of our staff and our community for really rallying at this difficult juncture and uh helping their neighbors. So, thank you. That's great, Jim. And I was going to tag along, too. Chris had talked at the beginning of the meeting about our meeting with the mayors and managers. And I was grateful that you started out that pres that meeting, Chris, sharing with our communities, how we're helping students um as a district um academically and um with other support and and make and maintaining safety as well. And I would just anybody who is listening out there, um if there's a family, if your student needs extra support, reach out to whoever um your student feels most comfortable with, whether that's their classroom teacher, their dean, um a leazison in the building, an equity specialist, whoever that person is. Um and also we have a great um facility like Jim was talking about when Ral Freder and a number of our students were highlighting it as well. um that can help with food, can help with um lots of um referrals to other um things in our district and outside our district. And um help is there and I know sometimes it's hard to make that first step. So we encourage anybody to just find who that person is that you feel most comfortable with and they will help point you to the resources that can help you out in this time that our community needs. So and I just love seeing the students highlighting and supporting each other and sharing that with us. So that that was really encouraging to me as well that when those students come in and share their time with us, you know, it's probably the last thing they want to do on a Tuesday night. So we're grateful when they come. And anything else? Yeah. Andre and I and I just want to say uh to our community members uh we know that the schools do not is do not operate in isolation and uh I really appreciate how uh our community has uh surrounded our schools, surrounded our students, supported our staff um not just in this moment but u in previous moments as well but more importantly at this moment. Um, and so, uh, I I really do see that our schools are an extension of, uh, of community and of family and of, uh, of relationships. Uh, and I see it in the actions of, uh, a volunteer stepping up, uh, above and beyond to make sure that whatever blockages there are um to a child's education that we remove those barriers and that that students feel safe to come to school. So, uh, to our community members, I want to say thank you so much for surrounding our schools with, uh, with love, attention, and, uh, with purpose. Is there anything else to come before the board tonight? We are ajourned. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you,