Our board chair is not feeling well tonight, so I'm going to chair the meeting. First thing on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, can we get an approval of the agenda? So moved. Second. Moved by Livingston. Second by Katie. All in favor, say I. I. I. And all opposed, say nay. Okay, the first thing on the agenda then is the achievement awards. Andy's [snorts] going to introduce that. Chair, you and the members of the board and >> his anything up? Yep, I think so. Hi. Um, Chair, you and the members of the board, thanks for the opportunity to introduce um a special student athlete this this evening. I'm going to have uh activities coordinator Andy Navis from North High School come forward and uh with his student to introduce her. After you're recognized, we will want to take a photo, so don't disappear on us. We'll take a quick photo after we're done here. Good evening, everyone. This is uh Sydney Johnson. My name is Andy Navis and I serve as the assistant athletic director at North High School. Tonight, we are proud to recognize and celebrate Sydney Johnson, an outstanding student athlete athlete who has represented North High School and Polar Nation with excellence, dedication, and pride. Sydney is a two-time Minnesota State High School League State Gymnastics participant and had an incredible performance this season, becoming the 2025 Minnesota State champion in both the balance beam and the floor exercise. In addition to her two state titles, Sydney has also earned a third-place finish in the state all-around competition and was crowned the 2025 Section 4AA all-around champion. >> [applause] >> Beyond athletics, Sydney is also an active member of the North High School Black Student Union, continuing continuing to make positive impact in our school and community. Sydney's been a part of that for 4 years. Sorry, I'm just going to pull up her slide here. You can keep talking. I just want Beyond uh Sydney is an exceptional athlete and a dedicated student and a wonderful person, and we are incredibly proud of everything she has accomplished as a Polar. Please join us in congratulating Sydney Johnson for her outstanding achievements. VERY GOOD. >> [applause] >> WE HAVE A SPECIAL CERTIFICATE FOR YOU for being such an amazing athlete, and then we're going to actually have you come and stand right over here, and our school board members are going to come and take a photo with you as well. Congratulations, Sydney. Yeah. Sydney, are you playing next year? Are you going to play Are you playing next year? Are you competing next year? Okay. It's a big deal. Congratulations. And then Cuz your parents like these kind of things as well, so. All right. Here you go. Thank you. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> It's in this slide and the photo there. I'll put the other slide. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So again, I'm actually going to be showing this right now, either way. Let's go back to There we go. That's what we're doing. Okay. >> [laughter] >> All right, thank you and congratulations again, Sydney. Um next on the agenda, we have public comment. And public comment is an opportunity for speakers to comment on agenda items. You'll have 3 minutes. Um when you come to the podium, please state your name. That's it. So, the first I think we have four tonight, so the first one is Jenny Cook. Hello. Okay. Okay, [laughter] is this better? Um I'm Jenny Cook. I'm a para at JPE. >> [gasps and sighs] >> Um [laughter] on the morning of Wednesday, February 18th, my colleague and fellow paraeducator Eric and I walked together towards buses like we would on almost any other school day morning. Only this morning was different because the power was out and the backup generators had failed, which meant the only flushing toilets in our entire school building were the ones down by the gym. In roughly 3 minutes, nearly 800 elementary school students would be walking in. It was honestly a wild start to the morning and not even our biggest problem that day. It was as if the pow- It was [laughter] It wasn't just that the power was out. It was that the dryers weren't working. And if the dryers weren't working, how could we heat treat the clothes? And [laughter] if we can't heat treat the clothes, how do we prevent bed bugs from spreading within the school? [laughter] Eric ran to the office for the help of a higher paid brain. And his face said it all. The plan is that there is no plan. So, we did what we as paras always do, and that is work that is hard but important. And we decided that we'd bag the contaminated clothes and leave the bag outside of a building door for the rest of the day if we had nothing else. Lucky for us, we didn't have to do it because our [laughter] kiddos were absent that day. On Thursday, February 19th, power was restored and our kids had come to school. I pulled four live bed bugs off my friend that morning in the nurse's office bathroom and a fifth one from [laughter] their hair just before lunch. That afternoon, I watched my classroom teacher dart out of our room a few different times in hopes of catching an adminis- an administrator to talk to. Turns out they were busy every single time. On Friday, February 20th, Eric and I were in the nurse's office together again and emerged having pulled not one or five or even seven, but no less than 13 live bed bugs from our kiddos' clothes that morning. [laughter] Just before 10:00 a.m. that same morning, while I was on my first break, another para found a single live bed bug on the wall of our first-floor classroom. It was awful, but also a kind of relief because surely, whatever the threshold to action had [laughter] been up until now, we've reached it, right? Wrong. Not one letter or phone call went out that day. The following Monday was February 23rd. Not a single thing had been extra cleaned over the weekend, and I'd found a live one on the nurse's bathroom floor that morning. It was also needed, meaning our black and brown families were in the building visiting. Tuesday, the 24th was parent-teacher conference night. Two live ones had been found that day, by the way. And nine the day after that. This is not a new issue, and it is not isolated. Thank you. All right, thank you, Jenny. Um the next speaker is Bob. Is it Matala? My name is George. Uh I Yeah, that's fine. [laughter] Thank you very much. Still got the funky reverb? Okay. Good evening. For three successive school years, paraeducators and sometimes classroom teachers have carried the responsibility of identifying, removing, and attempting to prevent the spread of bed bugs. Thanks. We spend mornings in the nurse's bathroom removing clothing, inspecting students' bodies, and searching for the bugs. We provide clean clothes. We arrange for heat treatment through uh washer and dryer. Um uh we return the items at the end of the day. In year one, we found nearly 30 bed bugs. In year two, only seven. This year, >> [laughter] >> over 60 and counting. The district's response has been inconsistent at [laughter] best. Year one, a classroom was heat treated. Year two, a letter was sent home late in the school year. Year three, staff are told to vacuum. Staff have repeatedly asked for families to be notified. Each time, we've been told no, citing privacy and dignity. In a meeting on March 5th, we were told that we couldn't even consider a problem. We couldn't even consider it a problem until the issue had spread to two or three or other families. So, this is not just an ongoing problem, it's a known problem with a consistent without a consistent response. Thank you for my time. All right, thank you, Frank. Um Bob. >> [laughter] >> Hi, my name is Eric. Um I want to be clear about what staff are being asked to do. We are not trained in this protocol. We have received no formal guidance, no materials, and no visual references. We have not been told how to protect our own homes. So, we've taken it upon ourselves to learn. We research, we train each other, we save specimens so others know what to look for. We bring in our own supplies. We know what a bed bug looks like. We know how quickly they reproduce. We know one single bug can start an infestation. We also know that heat treatment alone is not enough because bed bugs don't just live in clothing. They hide in hair. They fall onto floors. They travel on bus seats. They spread. What we don't know is why we are expected to handle this alone. All right, thank you, Eric. Um Is Bob here? Yeah. My name is Bob Madelon, I'm a sped teacher at Eagle Point. Uh this is a health issue. This is a workplace safety issue, and this is a community issue. And here's what we feel needs to happen. Clear district-wide protocols for bed bug response. Formal training for all affected staff. Adequate supplies and support. Timely and transparent communication with families and staff involved. Proactive action before spread, not after. And a good faith commitment from the district to work collaboratively with staff at the bargaining table to address ongoing health and safety concerns. Because right now, this system is reactive, inconsistent, and unsustainable. And the people carrying it cares, teachers, and our most vulnerable students deserve better than those conditions. Uh we are already doing the work. Uh all we're asking is that the district can meet with us so we can meet the responsibility together. Thank you for your time. Um thank you, and that was the last public comment, and thank you to all of you who came to share your concerns about this. As you know, we don't respond during public comment, the board doesn't respond, but Christine or the cabinet will follow up with you. Um thank you. Okay. Next on the agenda is the consent agenda. 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. So, today we have the minutes of February 27th business meeting, the minutes of the March 3rd work study session, routine personnel, bid award, bid calendar, change orders, disbursements, grant acceptance, and online enrollment or the 6-12 online enrollment parameters. Does anybody want to remove anything from the consent agenda? Okay. Katie is removing item I, which is the 6-12 online enrollment parameters. So, items A through H, can I get a motion and a second to approve those? So moved. Moved by Mrs. Anderson. Second. Seconded by Anderson. Um all in favor say aye. Aye. And all opposed say nay. So, items A through H are approved, and then discussion on item I, Katie. Yeah, thanks. Um so, I appreciate all of the work that's been done on the um 6-12 online enrollment standards. Um I admit when this first came to the board, I was really skeptical. Um I didn't want any opportunities taken away from our students. I didn't want there to be um kind of too too high a bar for um what we were doing, but I want to say that through the the discussions and further understanding and talking with um or having the presentation with um Stephanie Goken, the principal of both the Sand High School and online, um I I really am in favor of this now. I think that this is the way to really meet the students' needs, um and and to make sure that they're getting getting what they need um in a in a really supportive environment and kind of bringing that all together. So, I just wanted to um uh pull it off and say that this is not something that was sort of done uh lightly, um but with a lot of a lot of care and consideration, and I am in favor of it. Thanks. Thanks, Katie. Any other discussion on this item? Okay. So, can we get a motion and a second to approve item H? So moved. I. Okay. Second. Uh moved by Rosemark, seconded by Swor. All in favor say aye. Aye. And all opposed say nay. Okay, that is approved. Thank you. Uh next we have the reports, and we have the student school board representatives. Hi. Um Scarlett's not here, as you guys can tell. So, I'm going to be doing her report. Good evening.