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Regular School Board Meeting, Part I: June 24, 2025
North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale School DistrictTuesday, June 24, 2025
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Transcript
tonight everybody. Um got a new job and I'm still trying to figure out the commute so it's not great. But I want to call to order um the June 24th um business meeting um of ISD 622. Uh first up is the pledge of allegiance. Okay. So, we have to approve the agenda. Um, could I get a motion and a second? Second. All right. Move by Yenner, second by Anderson. Um, any questions or discussion? Awesome. Um, the agenda is approved. Um, so first up we have our achievement awards. Chair Yang, members of the board, and those that are listening from home, I'd like to invite Jed Hellwig and Jay Kelchure from North and Tartan High School who are going to talk a little bit about spring activities. Hello, Jed Hig, activities director at North High. And we're going to start out with the North High prom. It was hosted at the Landmark Center this year. This this year, uh over 450 students were involved. And of course, they danced the night away for an unforgettable prom uh experience. I'd like to have a shout out for John Cheetah and Courtney Johnson, two teachers at North High that are student council adviserss for a wellorganized event. We move on to uh catching some vibes with the Polar Drift. It's a pop ensemble. Uh it's they brought the house down with many different live performances, but one was at Max Diner right here in North St. Paul. Uh they also had another one at um the Dog House. Um and uh there's about 30 students that are involved with the pop ensemble at North High. And they had they represented us in Memphis at the National Convention for the Association of Popular Music Educators. Uh they left the day after graduation and headed to Memphis to perform there. So um just a great time for them. Next is our spring choir concert. By the way, Polar Drift is led by Aaron Hammerman, our music director at North High. The spring choir concert um is uh a celebration of voices, energy, and the spirit of the season. Uh this is directed by Amy Johnson. She's also our uh show choir director at North High School. And we'll move on to some athletics. Uh we have two state champions, Omala and Addison in PI doubles, the Minnesota State High School League adaptive bowling champions um in physical impairment physical impairment doubles champions. It's held at the Bol Bolero in Brooklyn Center. And um just like to congratulate them. We we move on to boys volleyball. Our boys volleyball team did make it to the state this year. They ended up fifth in state and a record of 26 and four. Uh our boys volleyball team is here. They shared the in this picture here. They shared a court and a moment of sportsmanship with Park Center. After uh North and Tart or North and Park Center played in one of the semi-final games, they were in the back hallway and they the boys knew each other and they said, "Hey, let's let's have a picture together." So that was that was a fun experience for both of them. The next day they played St. Paul Central in the consolation and in the back in the hallways by the locker rooms they decided to exchange baked goods with each other and so it was kind of fun uh to see some of the camaraderie around that. Right. Um that was held at the University of St. Thomas. This was the inaugural season uh of the sponsored um Minnesota State High School League state volleyball tournament. And I'd like to give a shout out to Michelle and Christine publicly because they were on the cutting edge of advocacy to add Minnesota State High School League boys volleyball uh for our student population and for uh students all across the state of Minnesota. So, thank you. Uh lastly, I'd like to have a shout out for the Metro East Conference softball champions. Uh the North Polers were had an outstanding 13 to1 record this year and so um just like to say congratulations to them. Now your turn, Jake. Hi everybody. I'm Jake Kelchure, the activities coordinator from Tartan. Um I'm going to start off with prom for us too. Um so back in May we had prom at the Mall of America. Um, I would like to say our kids danced the night away, but once it hit nine o'clock, they all hit the theme parks instead. Um, and so there was lots of screaming and shouting, but it was from uh rock the rock bottom plunge. Um, and a lot of the other rides that were available. Um, big shout out to our adviserss who ran it. Um, Beth Higgins and Jodie Fischer. uh they did a tremendous job navigating um MOA in the middle of the day and trying to shut it down and making sure that uh Tartan people were there, the only ones that were there, great supervisors, everything. Um the night went off without a hitch. Um and we had an awesome photo booth just so you can see some of the pictures too of the groups there too. Uh next, uh I'm going to take it to our spring theater. Uh so Tartan Theater students put on their spring performance of Mama Mia. Uh the performance set records in attendance and ticket sales for that weekend. Um and I had just emails being sent to me like crazy saying that it was the best performance that they they had seen. Um I wanted to make sure I shared that with our theater director Kyle Schwarz. So um big congratulations to him for the performance that was put on. Um along with this, a few of his theater students um competed in what is called the triple threat competition. The winners get an all expenses paid trip to New York City where they get to go see a whole bunch of Broadway shows. Um, and pretty much kind of get to see learn behind the scenes on, you know, acting from a bigger level. Um, Tartans Molly Law and Mackenzie Vang competed and Molly Law ended up winning this. Um, she was one of just 21 that were able to compete in it after the initial cuts. Um, and she has just returned, I think the last week, um, from her New York City Broadway trip. So, big congrats and a great achievement for her and the Tartan Theater performance and program. Um, lastly, our spring sports did not go the way that we wanted them to, but we competed very hard. Um, one person in particular, um, was tartan zone Jaylen Gordon. Uh, he punched his ticket to the state track and field meet for high jump this spring. Uh, he started off the beginning of the year too by tying the school record. Uh, so we all kind of assumed that he was going to go do big things this year. Uh he's only a sophomore, so we're really excited to see him uh compete. Um and no surprise, he's also a basketball player, too. So that's where he gets the hops from. Um so big congrats to Jaylen on this uh achievement. Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions? It's not a question, but I just wanted to uh congratulate everyone involved. Those are all really great accomplishments. And um I think at our last meeting, Nancy and I especially were just uh so excited. We saw MMA Mia. It was really good and Molly Law was Donna, so she's really really talented. Uh not to put you on the spot, but do you know what the next performances are going to be for North and Tit and Tartan? Because North also I saw Anastasia this winter and it was also a very good musical. Don't know that right now. That's fair. Happy summer to everyone and congratulations again. All right. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Nobody for public comment. May. Okay. Um All right. So, I'm going to move to the consent agenda. Um this the consent agenda consists of routine items that are acted on in a single consolidated motion without board discussion. Board members have the option of pulling items off the consent agenda if they wish to discuss them or consider them individually. Um, does anybody want to pull anything out? Um, yeah. Can I pull the grant awards? So, F and also Meals on Wheels H. Perfect. Um, do we um What is left first? Okay. So, um, can we get an can I get a motion and a second for the remaining items still left on the consent agenda? So moved. Moved by Anderson, seconded by Martins. Um, any additional discussion on those items. All right. All in favor say I. I. And all oppose say nay. All right. That passes. Um, and then do we talk about the stuff now? Yes. So, just really quick, I wanted to pull the grant award. I I just think it's always exciting to get these grants and I like to talk about them a little bit and especially I was curious about this school the waste reduction and recycling grant which is approximately 103,000 and I'd be curious to hear a little bit about the grant and what we're using it for. Sure. Um Chair Yang, members of the board, uh thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit about this grant. It very much ties into a lot of the green energy work that the district has been involved in. Specifically, there's some strategies um under this waste reduction related to containers. That's one factor um about standardizing containers around the district. Another piece is milk carton recycling of uh students that are um finishing their milk and or not finishing their milk and collecting that and and u that waste. and then also uh the recycling of the actual cartons. Um there's some things related to right sizing um and streamlining some operations to reduce costs. So they're looking at some volume analysis about how much trash they're collecting, looking at pickups and things like that. Um so that's part of the study as well. And then um a big piece is is organics um and collecting food waste that is generated in school systems across the country. And this is something that we're using this grant money to create the logistics and the uh ability to collect that organic waste and dispose of it in a in a green way. Great. Thank you. Um and then I also wanted to ask about the meals on wheels. Um I know that this is I mean the resolution here is that we're moving from serving meals on wheels to Merrick community service serving meals on wheels. I was hoping we could just talk a little bit about it because I know we have a lot of people engaged with that program in the in the district. Yes. Thank you. Um good evening, Chair Yang, school board members, and our cabinet members. Uh thank goodness it's cooled down a little bit for all of us, right? This was a long weekend. Uh so ISD62 has participated in delivering meals on wheels for almost 50 years. It's a long-standing relationship in the community. We're involved in a consortium that is recently renamed to Ramsey County Meals on Wheels programming. So, we have partners that we've been working with for for many many years to serve the Gladstone community and the larger Ramsey County community. Uh over the years, we've faced many challenges with funding. um our our clients needs have changed, our community has changed, the prices of meals, staffing the program, running it, it there's just a lot of variables and a lot of juggling that we've done to to make it work. So, as this stress has become larger uh financially on the program, we were looking for ways to partner, what could we do differently, um how were we getting our meals, the pricing of that, it's it's a business, right? So we as part of Ramsey County Meals on Wheels Consortium have a member district that is less than two miles away and that is Mayor Community Services and they've been involved in the community and serving the senior population with Meals on Wheels and other services as well for over a hundred years. So they're well known and very focused on serving the community. And with being only two miles away and us being the smallest program in our consortium, it just made sense as we started talking and they were looking to expand. They have capacity in terms of their building and space. They also have fundraising capacity to uh support programming needs again the meals on wheels as well as other services they can provide to seniors. Uh, so the quickly the conversation moved forward faster than we expected, but it just aligned with where we were