Happy Tuesday. >> Welcome to the um school board meeting. Um this is our regular meeting for ISD 622 November 18th. Um I'm just going to call this meeting to order. Um and then first up we have our pledge of allegiance. 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. >> Thank you. Um, so first up on our agenda is the approval of the agenda. Could I get a motion and a second? So move. >> Moved by Livingston, seconded by Swarore. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> And all oppose say nay. All right. The agenda is approved. Um so we have our public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to comment on items. Speakers shall register by completing the public comment signup sheet. They state their name and will have between two and 3 minutes depending on the number of speakers to speak on a topic. Uh the public comment section of the meeting shall last no longer than 30 minutes. We do have some um individuals signed up to to speak tonight. So I'm just going to read it based on the signature um order here. So first we have Peter Provost. >> Did I pronounce that right? >> Perfect. There we go. I have to have my cheaters on. Um, so good evening um, chair and members of the board. Um, my name is Peter Provos and I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and speak. I'd like to address something many families in district 622 are talking about. the growing influence of outside organizations, especially statewide political groups in what are supposed to be nonpartisan school board election races. No matter where a person falls on the political spectrum, most people agree that local elections um should be driven by local voices um not by highly funded or highly organized groups that may have interests far beyond our district. To be very clear, I'm not asking this board to regulate elections. I fully understand election laws handled very well by the state of Minnesota and the secretary of state. What I am asking is much simpler. We would like to see um the board establish a transparency policy so parents and residents can easily see who is funding political activity that affects our school board races. School boards adopt ethics and transparency policies all the time for finances or communications or vendors internal operations. I believe this is no different. When a small handful or group um provide the majority of campaign mailings or texts or digital ads or coordinated messaging, our families and our individuals um deserve to know who they are and what their interests are. Transparency strengthens trust and trust strengthens our school district. Thank you for your time and thank you all school board members for your service. Um, I know it's a thankless job sometimes and it's a very important job. Thanks. >> Thank you, Peter. Uh, next up I have Gary. Is it temporal? >> Very good. >> Good evening. My name is Gary Temple. And I would like to build on the comments made by Peter. Many parents in our district have expressed concerns about how school facilities are used by outside groups, especially during election seasons. I want to be absolutely clear and fair. None of us here tonight are claiming that the union has used district buildings for political purposes. We have not attended their meetings and we are not making any accusations. Our goal is simply to create clarity. Clarity that protects everyone under PRA unions have a right to use district facilities for labor related purposes such as contract discussions, employee matters and representation. We fully respect that right. It is an important part of how public sector labor works. But what is equally important is the ensuring that the district facilities are not used for campaign activity, including supporting or opposing schoolboard candidates, organizing around levies or referendums, political strategy, or partisan planning. These activities should never take place in taxpayer funded buildings, no matter what group is involved. So what we are asking the board to consider is simple, neutral, and fair. A clear written facility use policy specifying that outside groups, union or otherwise, may only use district property for their authorized purposes and may not use these buildings for political organizing or campaign related activities. This protects labor's rights. It protects community trust and it protects the nonpartisan integrity of the district. Thank you for considering this important safety. >> Thank you, Gary. Um, and then the last speaker is Carla Nelson. And would it be okay to leave this behind for each a copy for each of you? Okay, I'll just leave them here then. So, good evening. My name is Karen Nelson. I am a resident of Maplewood and I come with a concern um from our Christian community. I hear from many conservative parents, especially Christian families, that they feel dismissed or look down for their beliefs. For example, after this November 2025 election, the teachers union education Minnesota issued a press statement celebrating the defeat of what they called the mega education candidates and saying that the voters rejected the mega agenda. This union poured thousand into this local race and because of their financial influence has many conservatives very very concerned. Whether one agrees or disagrees politically, those words communicate something very powerful to families in our community. That if you hold a conservative viewpoint, your values are not welcome here. When unions that invest significant money and influence in our local elections speak that way about one portion of our community, it leaves many families feeling unheard, marginalized, or even attacked. It's not healthy for a district that's supposed to be nonpartisan and welcoming that that inclusion we talk about for all. And that includes our Christian community. We're not asking for anything complicated. We're asking for fairness, for neutrality, for the assurance that every family feels welcome in 622, including those with Christian and conservative viewpoints. We just ask for these three simple policies which I'll leave here. Thank you for your service to our um school community and we do value what you do and what you do is so important because this body should represent our entire community and please don't leave the Christian you point out. Thank you. >> Thank you. And that concludes our public comment section. Um we are moving on to our consent agenda. Um, 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. Would anyone like to pull anything out of the agenda to discuss? Can I move to approve A through H and also Yeah, A through H and then pull off the grant acceptance. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> Okay. So then could I get a motion and a second to approve A through H? >> Moved by Sar. >> Second by Livingston. Um all in favor say I. >> I. and all oppose say nay. All right. Um the consent agenda passes. Um and so next up we're going to discuss the grant acceptance. >> Yeah. I just wanted to pull this off because I thought it was really great news from the 62 Education Foundation and for these awardees. Um >> I can speak to that. Sure. Sure. >> You know uh I'm glad you brought this up for separate consideration. Um, so a few years ago, our 62 Education Foundation, which is a separate nonprofit, uh, that raises money, they just completed their light huge silent auction last week, which blew all their goals out of the water, which was great. Um, our education foundation, which by the way is coming to our school board um, collectively for a recognition later this spring, we've already got a date on the calendar with them, has done a lot to raise money for several different areas. One of which is our angel fund. At each of our schools, the social workers receive an allocation of funding from this nonprofit, our education foundation, to kind of help students in need, somebody who maybe needs boots or a jacket or eyeglasses, that kind of a thing. Um, they've also in recent years expanded their fundraising to include a huge awards ceremony for graduating seniors and they always do a raffle drawing at the end. Many of you have attended those, which um helps some kids with some seed money as they head off to their post-secary life. And then the third thing they've really been doing in recent years, this is kind of a newer thing with our education foundation, is raising funds for mini grants that teachers can apply for in the school district for all kinds of neat projects. um someone has a neat idea, they want to try something, they can apply for a mini grant, usually around $500 from the education foundation um to get some supplies to start um working on a project or um creating some kind of experience that is a little bit beyond what they normally have funding for. And so um this grant accept acceptance form here just lists all the teachers who received those awards from the Ed Foundation. and they do really thorough process of kind of working through all these and and confirming um you know looking into all the different opportunities and ideas that teachers have generated. So um we've been doing this for a couple years now but it's been growing thanks to their amazing fundraising activities. So um we're really really lucky to have such a strong education foundation connected to our school district and they do some really cool things for our not only our students but our staff as well. So that's what that grant acceptance form is about and I'm glad you took an opportunity to kind of take a closer look at that. >> Um I might have missed it but did you what's this the partnership with the friends of nature the nonprofit the partnership with 62 education foundation? >> Yeah. >> Oh just that's where this grant money came from is the education foundation. These are grants for teachers. >> Okay. >> Is that what you're referring to? Yes. >> There's a partnership now. >> Oh, yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That they got extra funds received from Yes. Okay. Gotcha. I'm sorry I didn't quite catch your question. Yeah. The Friends of the Maplewood Nature Center also has added some contributions to allow them to be able to give more grants to more teachers. >> Thank you. Uh any other questions? Okay. Um, seeing no questions, um, I'll take a motion and a second to, um, approve this, um, grant acceptance. All >> right. Moved by Yan, >> second by Natardi. Um, all in favor say I. >> I. >> And all oppose say n. >> All right. Um, that is accepted. Thank you. Um, and then now we have our reports from our student school board representatives. >> All right. Good evening. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Um, well, good evening everyone. It's lovely to see you once again before break. I am so excited to go on break to eat some good Thanksgiving food obviously and spend time with family. So, there's not much going on at Tardan. I mean, I feel like finals are coming up, so everyone's just like feeling the panic. Um, I know a lot of teachers don't want to like give assign finals on actual finals day. Um, so they want to be nice before break, but then they schedule them during this week. And a lot of students, like AP students, they're like all stressing out cuz they have like exams for every class if they're taking all AP. So, I'm like, I feel bad for them. Oh well, that's life. So, our adaptive soccer wrapped up their season undefeated and they went all the way to state. Um, I'm not sure about the score for that game. Um, but I saw the athletics Instagram page and I thought it was pretty great to see them like advance so far. And then DECA had their back to business event and that was a success. A lot of firstear um students uh have got the chance to step up and compete and some of them won awards. Student council is preparing two events. Um on November 21st they'll host a win time in the auditorium featuring a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie. And then on December 13th, they'll hold a fundraiser to support students in need before or or yeah, before I think I I have here before finals, but finals is next week, so I don't know what I was trying to say there. Um where students can just purchase hot cocoa and study with friends. I know that this started when I was a freshman in high school, and it's really great to see that like it's actually kept up throughout the years. A lot of my friends said that they really like it just because it's a sweet treat and then you're with friends and studying. So yeah, and then our AVID program is offering a volunteer opportunity this weekend for some students to um do some cub grocery bagging in our community to like fundraate. Um and then on next Wednesday um the juniors will me will go in on a non-school day to take a practice ACT. As you can see, I'm very excited. Uh but yeah, that's just like the ACT is starting to come around and a lot of my friends were all talking about about it and like um a lot of my friends they want to go to the West Coast and they're like I have I have to also take the SAT. I'm like you do that. You do what you need to do to get into college. And then um BPA announced that um uh whenever like students want to buy cookies and like they're all sold out, they can like sign like their name or like sign up to um to get a cookie in a specific hour and they'll have it made for them. Which I thought that was actually pretty neat because there was a lot of times last year where I was kind of hungry and I would purchase cookies and like there was like some days where like they didn't have the cookie that I wanted and they were all sold out. So, I think this is this is a pretty great perk. And then our Tardan Theater will be performing Elf Jr. December 5th through the 7th. The tickets went live on November 14th. And I've heard that there's like over 50 kids for this musical. I'm like, that's amazing. Like, and there's like a lot of talent, which I'm just like, wow. Like, I love to see that. I love to see like Tartan Theater like thrive and like it's expanding and I'm just like so happy for them. Um and then our dance team had a great um start to their season last weekend. Um they had a Brainer invite and then today they have their first jazz conference um of the season at Simley. It starts at 6:30, so it's about 12 minutes. I know some of my friends are in dance and like they're really excited. I I saw like some of my friends compete last year and like I don't know. I just like I love to see like everybody thrive like um whether it's like adaptive soccer and everything like I just love to see like Tartan like stand out like um when I saw the uh 622 when I saw you guys like um like coming to the schools and like talking about the levy like I just love that you guys were using social media as like a platform to like talk about the levy and like um I feel like social media it's like we can like talk about the good and the had like the pros and cons, but like at the end of the day, it's where all of us like at the end of the night, we're all just like on our phones like scrolling. So, it's nice to see that. Like when I saw that, I was like liking it. I was showing my sister. I was like, "This is so fun." Like, and I love the little chain that you guys wore. I will have to steal that. And then um like I said like finals are approaching and um my AVID class after our ACT exam, we're all talking about where we want to go to eat cuz it's going to be in the morning. So we're going to be there from like 8:00 a.m. to midday. So we're all talking about where where we want to go to lunch. So yeah, that's pretty much everything that's going on at Tardan. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, so like she said, this month has been pretty empty other than the fact that finals is coming up. Uh, right now student council is going to be having Coco and Cra. It's where on Thursday after school, uh, there's going to be tutors provided like some students volunteer or some teachers volunteer. usually BSU A and ASA volunteer and they just help you in any subjects you need help with being math, history or English or political science. Just anything you help and there's hot chocolate and cookies and I love cookies so see me there. And our musical was last week and the week before on the 7th, the 8th, the 14th, and 15th. and I didn't get to go because I was volunteering for my church event, but I heard it was very nice and I heard from a lot of people that they were excited to go. A lot of my friends are were a part of the musical either backstage or on stage and they said that they just felt alive in front of the spotlight and stuff or they just liked helping others. And our winter sports are like kicking off, I guess, their seasons um with tryyous and stuff. Our basketball team had tryyouts last week for girls and this week for boys. I have some friends that are trying out. And our swim team has our captains led practice today. I wish them the best and I hope they all them go to state or something like that because I won't be swimming with them this year. Um sorry guys. Uh, hockeyy's also starting up and some small updates would be a north choir will be having their concert on the 20th and student council held an election for the freshman rap and congratulations to Laney Yang. That's all. Thank you guys. Um I I um did get a chance to Tim and I got a chance to go to The Little Mermaid, the musical at North and um uh there was a student who had an injury uh at during tech rehearsal and so and he had a big role in the play. So he did the play in a wheelchair. Sebastian the Crab was in a wheelchair um singing, you know, and and had pushed around by another volunteer cast member. But then uh uh Christine, do you want to say what happened the following weekend? >> Yes. Because I last weekend, this past weekend, I went to The Little Mermaid at North, but the previous one I was at the one at Tarton. So I didn't see the first weekend, opening weekend at Tarton. I was at North this past Saturday when And Michelle, you were there with me, too. and you were the one who pointed out to me that so our our kiddo who was doing Sebastian who was in a wheelchair previously um ended up not being able to return and so another student between Tuesday and Friday learned the entire part of Sebastian the crab and that student is Matteo Alvarez who is the younger brother if you remember Manny Alvarez used to be our North High student board rep some years back it was his little brother and his mom was just so proud of him she's like he's never been in a play before. And he did this huge part. He learned it all, every word. And he did not trip up once. And he learned it all between Tuesday and Friday night's second weekend opening. It was pretty incredible. >> Yeah. So anyway, that just remarkable, that's for sure. >> Yes. You know, I I just was moved by that a lot. So that's cool. >> Thanks. Um, one thing I did I forgot to mention report was that like um our student council and our AVID program they're advert advertising holiday helping hands. So I do know that from my AVID class we've given actually like a good amount of money. So I think we adopted a family. I want to say like either it's a range from three to five kids. And um I my teacher was like who wants to shop? And I was like I Yeah. No. Um when whenever we get to the chance to like um talk about like holiday helping hands, like I think it's just like something to like give back to our community and like to students and kids who like really need it the most. So I think it's really neat that we do that. And um I I also like whenever they um they bring like the presents into school like I'm I always like wrapping the gifts cuz like it's always just a fun bonding moment. I forgot to mention that in my report until you was talking. >> It's pretty incredible. Our Oakdale Chamber of Commerce sponsors that holiday helping hands program and then they get names from our school social workers for families that might be in need this holiday season and they have a huge huge number of donations, but also our Tartan students do a lot of work wrapping and delivering and it's a really it's a really neat kind of community event, but and and our Oakdale Chamber of Commerce does a really great job kind of pulling that all together and organizing it. That's great. >> Yeah, I know. Like our student council, some people dress up as elves and um I had a blast like giving out like turkeys um to like the families who needed it for Thanksgiving and like food and everything. So, I think that like that perk of like giving gifts and like giving food to families who need it during like the holidays, I think that's like I it's something I'll never forget just because like I know like when I was little, my family used to struggle a lot. So I think giving back now that I can is just super important and we should keep that on in our school system. >> Yeah. >> Um I want to ask you about the cocoa and cram I think you said it was called. So several years ago I learned about credit recovery as one thing that students can do if they fail courses. And then recently I learned about um if students are at an F at the end of the semester, they can get some additional help for a couple weeks to try to help them with their grades. And so I'm curious about Coco and CRAM and the opportunity to bring up your grade. >> Okay. So, um, since I've been helping Planet, we reach out to teachers in like the core subjects like history, math, English, and science. And we ask if any of them can volunteer. And we get those volunteers to help tutor. And then after we get the student, after we get the teachers, we look for students that are, you know, excel in those subjects and we get them to help out if they can too. Usually they're from BSU or ASA or student council itself and you can go with your friends or by yourself and they give you like an hour and a half to study. Most people leave by the time the activity bus gets there but I stay there full time and a lot of people do actually show up. Me like 300 students, 200 students show up to help study. And I mean it helped me go from a D to an A last year. So I finished a lot of missing assignments. And this year I'm going to meet it more with AP say that I am a teacher. I'm glad that you improve your grade to an A, but I do not support people who cram because that means that the day after that exam, you're going to forget the content. So, um, cramming, studying to improve your grade is good, and I I'm glad that we have those opportunities in our schools, but I know that cramming, yeah, you're going to forget it the next day. So, >> just want to thank you both again. Um, I know you said it was kind of a a slow week, but it sounds like there's a lot of really awesome things happening at both North and Tartan. Um, and I love the, like you were saying, Scarlet, just seeing students find something that gets them really excited, be it theater or dance or um, adapted soccer or whatever um, they have. I think it's really nice to kind of build those communities within. Um, and I I also want to say that I think it's it is building a skill to have Coco and like find free food and get someone to help you with your homework. I didn't learn that until I junior year of college. and it would have come in handy a lot earlier. So, uh, thanks again. And I I assume that the the begging for, um, is that going to be at the one on 10th Street in Oakdale? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'll be there from 1 to 3 just cuz I have work at 4:00. But, um, yeah, feel free to come stop by, take some pictures with us. >> 1 to 3 on Saturday. >> Huh? >> 1 to 3 on Saturday. All right. I know where to do my Thanksgiving shop. >> Yeah. Okay. Perfect. >> All right. Thank you both. Yeah, thank you. >> I think that's all we have. Thank you so much for your reports. >> Um, the next report we have is our finance report. Okay. Well, good evening, Cherry Yang, directors of the board, superintendent Tuccio, and cabinet. Uh, tonight, I'd like to welcome Jackie Heaggle from LB Carlson to our meeting this evening. Okay. Well, good evening and thank you for having me tonight. Um, as Josh said, my name is Jackie Heagel from LB Carlson and I am the partner in charge of the district's audit and here to present the audit results for the year end June 30th, 2024. Um, you should have received in your packets the annual financial report as well as a special purpose report that summarizes the audit results. Um, there is a corrective action plan that's required to be submitted to the Department of Education as well as the federal government as part of the federal submission. Um and then lastly is a management report which is our internal report uh presenting the audit results both the compliance side of the audit as well as the financial portion of the audit. Um before I get started into the presentation I do just want to give a little background you know talking about the plan scope and timing of the audit. Um as I said I am here to present the audit results for the year ended June 30th 2024. um the audit was delayed and since that was delayed uh the district was unable to comply with the state and federal deadlines of meeting those submissions and you will see some of those comments that we'll talk through more as we move forward through this audit presentation. Starting with the first slide here just a little bit about u my role as an auditor. As an auditor, we are um there to issue an opinion on the financial statements over that district audit, noting that they are fairly stated. Um your district does receive more than 750,000 in federal funds. So there's a separate single audit, a separate audit of just those federal funds. Um that's that schedule of expenditures of federal awards that you do see in your audit report as part of our audit. Then we do review the internal controls and compliance over that financial statement audit as well as with the federal single audit. Um and then also with the Minnesota state laws and regulations. So each year the office of the state auditor releases what's known as that legal compliance manual with the specific statutes that as auditors were required to test for each year. For the audit results and over the district financial audit, we issued an unmodified or a clean opinion on that basic financial statement, noting that the numbers presented in that audit report are fairly stated. As you review through the internal controls and compliance portion of that financial statement audit, you're going to see we did have six material weaknesses over the internal controls with financial reporting uh that we did report. Um I will talk through each of these briefly here. If anyone has questions, you can stop me along the way. The first comment there relates with the segregation of duties. So just as part of our audit, we noted that the internal controls over several areas within that finance department were not properly segregated as part of that audit process. Some of that was caused by turnover in district staff from the 23 audit to the 24 audit. Um but we're recommending you know as a district you should review the in controls over that finance department and making sure all the different controls are being properly segregated and controls are being reviewed in that area. The second comment there relates with the timeliness and accuracy of reconciliations. Um, so as you read through that audit report, you note there were several areas, specifically the cash and investment transactions, the self- insurance area, some of the payroll liabilities, the reconciliations were not being performed in a timely manner, and then they were not accurate when you compared them to your district's general ledger. Um, so just making sure that that is one of the controls is monthly you should be doing your reconciliations of those cash and investment accounts as well as all your other general ledger balances and making sure those are being completed uh timely which mostly is monthly as well as accurately and tied into your general ledger moving forward. The third comment there relates with material audit adjustments. So as part of the audit process, we proposed several audit adjustments to the district uh that were material to the financial statements. So if they would not have been recorded, your financials would have been materially misstated. Um as part of an audit auditing standards, note that if there's identification of any m material misstatements in the financial statements, that's a weakness in the related controls in those areas. Um so that's why you're seeing this material audit adjustment comment. Uh once again, we just recommend that the district review the controls, you know, within the finance department and other areas, just making sure that all the district's activity is being recorded and accurately recorded uh to reflect in your general ledger, which is ultimately your financial statements. Next comment relates with internal controls over journal entries. As part of the audit process for 2024, there was various journal entries that the district recorded that were inaccurate or did not have proper supporting documentation retained on file. You know, some of those could have been accurate, they just didn't have the proper supporting documentation on file um which then did not have were not properly reviewed or did not have the proper approvals. Um, so this is an area part of the internal controls. The district should review the journal entry process. Anytime anyone is recording journal entries into that general ledger system, making sure that the supporting documentation is being retained on file as well as someone is outside of the person doing the journal entry should be reviewing and approving and signing off on those. Oops. Uh the next comment relates with the internal controls over the district budget. As part of the 2024 audit, we noted that the adopted and the amended budgeted amounts that were in the district general ledger did not properly match what the school board had approved. Um so just making sure that as you're entering those budgets that they're properly tying out to what's being approved. Um just throughout the year then as you're running budget reports, you know, they might not provide as meaningful of information. So recommend that as you continue to move forward um that there is a check on that and that somebody is reviewing the budgets that being properly entered into this district's general ledger um making sure it's entered timely and accurately. So it does provide all budget reports with meaningful information as you continue to move forward. And then the last comment in this area relates with the regulatory reporting deadlines. So as I mentioned with the scope and timing of the audit um that they did not meet all the deadlines. So for the 20 24 audit just the controls over all the financial reporting were not ade adequate to ensure that the financial information was being uh submitted timely to both the state and also to the federal government the submission of those audit processes. Um, as you do move forward, you are going to probably you will see this comment again for FY2025 as we're just wrapping up the 2024 audit. Uh, so this comment will you'll see again in 25. But we recommend that the district, you know, get the finances, making sure everything's being done monthly, then as you continue to move forward. So for the FY26 audit, you would be back on track to meet those reporting deadlines of both November 30th and December 31st. for the audit results over that Minnesota legal compliance audit opinion. You're seeing there's a few comments here to report. The first relates with the payment of invoices. Um, so as part of a local government paying invoices, you need to make sure you're paying any invoices within 35 days of either the invoice being received or the goods being received. Um, so make sure you're reviewing that area. uh just making sure those invoices are being timely, being paid timely as you continue to move forward. The second comment relates with broker certifications. Uh this is a Minnesota statute that you're required annually prior to completing any investment transactions with a broker. You got to get a signed it's called a broker certification form. So, your broker signs off on it annually, noting they're aware of the state statutes and how the local government's funds are being invested. Um, we had no concerns with any of the investments, but just you're required to obtain that form annually. Um, so making sure you're working with your brokers to get that signed off on and also just retained and kept on file. And then the third comment in that Minnesota legal compliance area relates once again just to the timely submission of the audited financial statements. you know, the state statute making sure that by November 30th each year, uh the audited fund balances, revenues, and expenditures of the district have to be submitted to the Department of Education and that online UFAR system by November 30th. Um and then also the actual audited financial statements are due to the Department of Education and the state auditor by December 31st for the audit results with related with that single audit of federal awards. Um, so like I said, we do a separate audit of just that SEIFA, that schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Uh, we noted there's a clean opinion on that SIFA, noting that it was fairly stated um, as part of all of our internal control and compliance testing of the actual grant itself. We didn't have any issues for the grants that we tested. Um, but you're also just going to see the federal reporting deadline here. Once again, just going with those submissions. Um, so since the audit wasn't done timely, you missed the federal reporting deadline. um which notes as a reportable non-compliance in your audit report. Um so that deadline is always 30 days from issuance of the audit report or within 9 months of year end. So from year end you're you would have been due by March 31st of 2025. Moving on then to some of the financial results of the audit. You're going to see some positive financial results here as we move through these next several slides. Um, starting specifically with the general fund financial position. Uh, this slide shows some trend analysis over the past 10 years of the unrestricted fund balance, the cash balance, and then that green line shows the expenditures, the activity of the general fund for the year. For the 2024 year, the general fund cash balance ended at about 40 million, which was an increase of about 8 million from the prior year. And then that total general fund fund balance at year ended at about 41.4 million, which was an increase of about 5 million from the prior year. And that was compared to the board had approved a budgeted decrease of about 1.2 million. This next slide then shows the components of that general fund financial position. The various components of fund balance starting with that non-spendable fund balance, the dollars that are restricted for specific resources and then dollars that are assigned and unassigned for the 2024 year. Um, as I mentioned, the total general fund fund balance was at 41.4 million. The dollars in non-spendable at the top line, that 1.2 2 million is anything that is prepaid at year end. So if you've prepaid it, it's considered non-spendable um into the future year. The restricted fund balance at year end was about 14.3 million. Some of the significant areas uh that relates to is district had has dollars for restricted for operating capital about 10.2 million at year end. Uh dollars that are restricted for medical assistance of about 1.8 8 million and dollars restricted for staff development of about 1.5 million. When you're looking at that assigned fund balance, that full 2.7 million represents dollars that are assigned for the subsequent year budget. Um so by year end, if you've approved a budget for the next fiscal year, you have to assign those dollars. If you're if you are approving a budget where you're spending down general fund funds, you got to set that aside in what's called an assigned fund balance category. And then that leaves the remaining funds in unassigned fund balance of about 23 million at year end which represents about 12.5% of the expenditures of that fund. So within I believe your fund balance policy is that 8 to 10% goal. Um so you can see you ended the year at about 12.5%. This graph shows a summary of the ADM and the pupil units served by the district for the past 10 years. So the 2024 audit um was closed out with EDM of 10,465. You saw an increase of about 210 ADM or about 2% more than the prior year. And then that resulted in the pupil units increasing up to about 11,486. Next couple of graphs I have here specifically still with the general fund. This shows the general fund revenue um showing the current year actual compared to the prior year as well as includes the current year budget on there. The total general fund revenues were about 189 million for the year about 2.7 million over the final budget. When you look at that budget variance, most of that was in the state source area. As a district, you receive just more general education and special education funding than you had anticipated in your budget. Um, you also see the saw the federal sources coming in a little more than anticipated in the budget. Um, if you're comparing current year to prior year, you saw your general fund revenues increasing. Um, the largest variance you're seeing there is your state sources were up about 18 million. Um, most of that was just an improved funding in the special education and with basic skills funding for the 2024 year. Um, as I mentioned on the previous slide, you also saw about a 210 student ADM increase. So, you saw your increased enrollment. Um, and also the increase in that basic general education formula allowance uh resulting in that state sources to increase from the prior year. Property taxes were up just as approved through the levy process approved by the district. And then you're seeing your federal sources go down, which is consistent, you know, with all the other districts. Uh most of that is just the final spending of those COVID pandemic related entitlements that districts received. Um most of those had to be spent out by September 30th of 2024. So a lot was being spent in the 2024 year. Similar graph here then just showing the general fund expenditures by the various categories. Your total general fund expenditures were about 184 million. Uh they did come in about 3.5 million under the final budget. A couple budget variances you're seeing there mainly that employee benefits were under budget about 2 million. Most of that related with unemployment costs being less than anticipated as well as some of your health insurance costs coming in under budget. Supplies and materials you also saw come in under budget there. Most of that was just due to some sub subscription purchases that were delayed into 2025. So they were budgeted for in 24, but the activity will actually happen in 2025. When you're comparing current year to prior year, you saw your general fund expenditures increase about 4 million from the prior year. Most of that is in that salaries and benefits area. That's just due to contractual salary and benefit increases that are approved each year. You also saw some purchase service costs going up. Some of that is in that special education area, just some vacant positions resulting in some contractual services. Um, also a transportation costs were increasing in 20124. And then that was offset. You're seeing that capital expenditure area, a decrease in that area, mostly due to some leases that were issued in the prior year, not in the 2024 year, and just the timing of some of the long-term facility maintenance projects from year to year. This next slide here summarizes then the other governmental funds the other operating funds here of the food service special revenue fund and that community service special revenue fund. Um both have healthy fund balances at year end. That food service special revenue fund ended the year with about 4.5 million in fund balance. Sun increase of about 750,000 from the prior year. Um if you're looking in your financial report, you might see some budget variances in revenues and expenses in this area. But if you remember back to 24, it was just participation levels were just difficult uh to anticipate with all the programming changes that changed from 23 to 24. But overall ended the year, like I said, with 4.5 million in fund balance, which is about 52% of the operations of that fund. And then the community service fund ending the year with about 3.9 million in fund balance. Um, so sitting in a positive position there and that represented about 32% of the current year expenditures, just a slight decrease from the prior year fund balance levels. The last slide I have here then summarizes the district-wide statement of net position. Um, so if you're looking at your financial report, there's all the various funds of the district, um, which is what you're working on from a day-to-day basis. But then there's these entitywide financial statements in the front of that financial report. We call them the full acrual financial statements where it includes all the capital asset activity of the district as well as any long-term liabilities and gives a snapshot of that net position. Uh the top portion of this table starts with where your governmental funds are and then adds in all those different adjustments I just mentioned. Um the bottom portion then shows the components of those net positions. Um so overall the total net position the snapshot at year end was about uh increased about 21.8 million. Um if you're looking at the bottom portion of that you're seeing that net investment in capital assets increasing. Most of that's just due to the capital asset activity, the construction activity in the district, as well as, you know, as you're paying down bonds that were being used to finance those uh projects. And if you're looking in the unrestricted line, you're seeing that go up about 13.5 million. Most of that is just due to the changes in the district's proportionate share of those PER and TRA pension plans. So, as a local government, you're required to put your your share of the unfunded liability of PER and TRA on only on these entitywide financial statements. It doesn't change your fund reporting, your general fund. Um, but local governments see that swing from year to year based on the performance of those plans, the pension plans at the state level. So, with that, I can open it up if there's any questions. I have a general question and it's probably more to uh probably Christine than than you. Um so I'm putting you on the spot. Sorry. So, we know that the auditor is is a third party >> and uh they're uh helping with the school district and we know that uh with schoolboard members we get preview to these >> numbers ahead of time in a study session and we get to debate it and so that we don't end up >> so that I don't >> you're not hearing it for the first time here today. >> Yes, of course. Yes. Um so we do that in the study session. Uh but uh when I was uh during the levies I was seeing many community members that did not know our financial situation. >> So what do we do as is what do we do as a district to communicate this information and our need to the community? Uh and I know that we provide the board books to the community. So these members have had an opportunity to see it ahead of time before coming here. What do we do to educate our members so that when the levies come then they know to >> how what's going on with our school district finances and all of that. Yep. Well, for one thing, obviously our schoolboard meetings, that's why we unpack different parts of the budget every month throughout the year, especially as we get into budget planning season. Um, and we also have a citizens finance committee of which Katie's been sitting on. I I don't think any of the Katie's been your board rep on that. Um, >> Julia. >> And Julia, too. Exactly. Um, and so that's another opportunity that And Josh runs that meeting to kind of open the books and kind of answer questions people have. Um, and so a lot of it really is kind of outreach presentations. Um, questions when people call. We do get a lot of questions. for example, when people call when their property tax statements come out, the the proposed property tax and so um and then of course just the different community meetings and advisory groups, you know, we do kind of a overview for those along the way as well. People who are members of, you know, our community education advisory, our special education advisory, all these different advisory groups, early childhood advisory, we try to do kind of brief overview of kind of overall budget standing as well. Um, and so those are kind of the typical ways for the big picture. Like I said, the citizens finance group is an opportunity for people to kind of do the deeper dive who really want to kind of go in the weeds and understand more of the different funding streams that come in. So that's kind of those are the kind of the different ways. Can you anything else I'm missing, Josh? >> I think you covered it. >> Yeah, a lot of work too because we do have 2,000 employees. So, we really try when we do outreach with employee groups to kind of make sure people inside of the district are just having their questions answered and and being able to see that. That's where our um our updates that come out through the employee news as well. And um and those are just kind of some of the different ways we do our state of the district event um at least once a year where we invite community leaders, elected officials, and others, even realtors. We have that in we invite them in to kind of what do you want to know about our school district because obviously you're answering questions. Um, we do presentations to our local chambers of commerce. Um, Oakdale Chamber of Commerce, our North St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. Um, we do presentations at our Rotary Club. Um, anyone that wants to invite us in, we always are willing to go and talk about these things. So, and usually we kind of make the rounds every year with with, you know, the established groups, but then we also always take invitations from people who want to talk more as well. Thank you. I have just kind of a comment. Um, a few years ago I was the board chair and I would meet for the audit and I learned a little bit about the process and they said to me that as long as you don't have turnover in your finance office, as long as you don't have turnover in your finance office, you guys are in a good place, you know. But then I feel like what happened with this late audit, which is as far as I remember the first time we've had this >> um what happened with this late audit is that we did have turnover in our office and because our district runs a very lean administration. I think that that impacted us. Um >> and um Josh gave us a presentation at our um study session about this audit and I was so impressed by the detail that you guys provide and the way you comb through it. And I also thought it's kind of an amazing learning opportunity to you know pick through every little detail and provide that feedback. And I do think that this is a learn learning opportunity for us and I do think that we do have the p that Josh has the pieces in place moving forward and I appreciate the work that you guys have done on this audit. >> Thank you. >> Jackie and her team have spent a lot of time here. So, we're grateful for all of your help and leadership. >> Thank you. Uh I just also wanted to say thank you for the work. Um and and thank you for including some of these charts that you did. um I'm a relatively new schoolboard member and so learning all these things and um seeing it in in chart form and then breaking it out um is really helpful. So thank you for that. And I just wanted to um have you comment and kind of reiterate a point that there are a lot of different fund balances um and that the money can't move between them. Can you talk a little bit about like what how like are you auditing each of the funds separately and then kind of tying it all up together? >> Yeah. So are you talking the slide specifically or >> No, more like the we have like the 01 the general fund. >> Yeah. The capital fund like there's the capital fund balance there's the oped fund balance the different >> each fund is a separate fund. So the general fund fund balance stays within the general fund. It would have to have approval to move it to a different fund. There's the various components on this slide of that general fund. Food service stays within the food service, community service within community service. Uh you have a construction fund where you issue bonds um for construction activity that stays within that fund. And then the debt service fund you levy to pay your bonds that has to stay within the debt service fund as well. And then you do have that OPED trust where you issued bonds several years ago. Um, and that is in a separate fund as well that can only be used to pay post uh retirey employment benefits. >> Yeah. And I'm I'm glad to see that we ended up with that clean unmodified opinion. Um, and thank you also for providing the um corrective action plan. I think that really kind of broke things out into uh here's what was found. And again, nothing was um I don't know what the word is for it, but there are those different levels um like deficiencies and weaknesses and things. And so we're all um in such a position that we can see what needs to be improved. Um but that nothing was materially misstated, I think maybe is the the way to put that. Um, so I guess the the just want to question or sort of point out how um that relationship went when you're making these findings and writing up the report and um asking the district to address them. How how did that all go? >> Yeah, so as part of the audit process, we work with the finance team directly um making sure that you know all the financial balances are tied out at year end. Um any of the comments were addressed specifically, you know, with the finance department and superintendent working towards those corrective action plans, which you are required as a local government to submit those corrective action plans to the Department of Education as well as they do get submitted with your federal single audit submission. And then as part of the future audit, next year's audit, you know, as an auditor, we're required to follow up on any findings. So every year we'll follow up on any findings that were issued um making sure that the district is taking action and that there's you know controls being changed or controls in place you know to improve those areas. I will say Kea and I both are as our board cheriff had meeting met with Jackie and along the way is there anything you're noticing that we should be overly concerned of other than we had turnover and things got delayed and you know any um mal intent or you know illegal or unethical activity and she goes trust me I would have been in your office the second I would find something like that so no I was glad to hear that of course I mean always glad to hear that but you know it's an important question worth asking every Uh, thanks Jackie. That was uh very helpful and detailed. I appreciate your work on this and your team's work. Um, I was glad to see the um 12.5% um unassigned fund balance. Uh that's one that we work really hard to keep um above. You know, our policy is has to be 8 to 10% and it's 12.5. So I was glad to see that uh relieved to see that kind of and um so you know going forward um um I I'm just I'm just uh happy that we're able to tell uh taxpayers that we're um uh we're on track with their money and and um we're very transparent as if they have questions they can always call and um and get any information that they wish from uh from uh Josh and his team. So, >> thank you. >> Thank you. >> I think I'm the last person. So, in a parallel universe, >> I oversee financial things. Um and then the one year for the small nonprofit I worked in, uh we had a staff turnover and we were also late that year. Um, and so one of the things that I always tell my staff is um, an unmodified is the best possible uh, audit. So I'm really excited that our um, opinion came back unmodified. Um, I feel like it's a reassurance of the financial stability of the of of the district and I think um, for me that is what I'm looking for. Um, I want to thank Josh and his team, um, for, you know, pulling that, um, together, you know, throughout the last few months. And I want to thank, um, LB Carlson for your patience. I know accounting firms are in hot demand. You have very over overworked uh, portfolio. So, uh, thank you for sticking with us and, um, and getting this past the finish line. So, um, thank you. >> Thank you. I think that's it. >> Thank you, Jackie. >> All right. Uh the next report we have is uh from Equity and Communications. >> All right, let the fun begin. >> Good evening, Chair Yang, members of the board, Superintendent Tuchio Sorio, and fellow cabinet members. It's my pleasure to report to you an annual report of the ANI from 2024 2025. So tonight is a showcase of many talents and programs within our district. And it's not just only me standing here. Um I want to um acknowledge my colleagues and fellow directors and assistant superintendents and superintendent who has been involved deeply with um all the programs that fall under the ANI funding stream. So, the purpose of the funding stream is to address uh pursue pursue racial and economic integration, increase student achievement, and reduce disparities within our district. And we receive about $2.9 million every year or on a three-year cycle. And this is our third year. So, we will reapply for new funds in uh this March of 2026. So based on our strategic plan that we adopted in 2024, all of the ANI goals fall under each of these buckets. Academic achievement, graduation and post-secary, safety and security, social emotional learning, and equity and inclusion. So let's look at the progress of our goals. We have three major goals and within the goals there are different strategies. So goal number one is to reduce the proficiency gap between students of color and white students on reading MCAs from 22% in 2023 to 11%. And our progress from last year is that the gap between students of color and white students on the MCA reading went from 20.9% to 24.7% from last uh from 2024 to 2025. However, the percentage of students of color who were proficient on the MCA reading assessment maintained so at 30.2% in 2024 and 30.5% in 2025. I'm going to talk about some strategies within the goal that we are implementing within our district. So, there are three. The first is middle and high school pathways. We had a career um and connect day where we invite uh companies such as Ford, Anderson Windows, LBT Realy for with um a hundred students who attended and they hosted post-secondary panel series that focused on four-year institutions, two-year institutions, uh trade schools and apprenticeships. We also used youth science that um each of the students uh were able to identify interests and talents and staff members went and had one-on-one conversations to advise students in their career explorations and also uh experiential opportunities and course selection. We also supported student um plans using data. So um as you heard in the presentation for CACR, we uh talked about the wind time and the academic supports that are needed within the high schools and we actually increased from one day a week to two days a week at the high school level. The middle schools launched their uh launch and land PLC's and so they looked at student growth data and the middle school level focused on um tier one and tier 2 supports. You'll also learn more about the career pathways from director Luckner in the next CACR report. So the second strategy under the goal number one to reduce the proficiency gap is to um focus in on the AVID system. Currently we have four secondary sites that implement the AVID system that focus on tutorials, organizational support, and college tours. We serve 213 middle school students and 356 students in high school. And if you look on the top right hand picture there, the student in the jeans and the gray sweatshirt, I visited uh Sky View Middle School and she is a former student of mine when I was a principal. So, um Esther uh is an amazing student. back in the day, she was so shy and she would always come into my office and shut the door and then tell me all the tea, the gossip. >> Um, and so we really grew her as um a student who advocated and now she is a student at the U of M and she is majoring in accounting and I'm so proud of her. So we have um currently this year we have uh eight adult tutors and five of the tutors were former AVID scholars. So, it's it just shows like how um important the community is and I wish Scarlet wish Scarlet was here to hear all of this. And so, um we're just really really proud of of the system. And lastly, the third strategy under goal number one is Freedom Schools. We serviced 150 scholars, grades K through eight, and the focus was reducing uh summer learning loss. And we're happy to report that 96% of scholars tested experienced no summer learning loss at all. And 43% of students tested increased one level or higher. Okay. So, moving on to goal number two is the percent of racial racially diverse staff will increase from 18% in 2023 to 23% in 2026 to better reflect the demographics of our students. Our progress update is that the percent of racially diverse staff maintained at 21% from 24 to 25. Strategies under this goal is to increase the our BIPO staff. We welcomed nine Filipino teachers last year and I'd like to take the time to read a testimonial from one of our teachers. I'm Joe Claudet from Justice Allen and I was hired last year. I honestly feel like just yesterday when I stepped out of the plane, nervous, uncertain, but full of determination and hope for what was ahead. Every time I look back to that day I received my job offer via email, it still feels like a dream. One I never want to wake up from. Who would have thought that out of thousands, maybe even millions of dreamers who wish to be here someday, I was chosen to live that dream. This past year has been anything but easy. There were moments I felt like I started life all over again. Waking up to cold, rainy mornings and wondering, is this really happening or am I still dreaming? But as days passed, I realized that yes, this is my reality now. And what a beautiful reality it is. Adjusting to a new environment, culture, and lifestyle wasn't simple. There were doubts, fears, and countless can I really do this moments. But as the saying goes, change is scary, but fear also means face everything and rise. And that's exactly what I did. I am beyond grateful for the Filipino teachers I've met, people I used to know only through video calls, have now become my family away from home. They are my comfort. to ISD 622. Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity and for the never ending support from the very beginning until now. You've always been just one call away. A 27year-old woman who traveled 7,874 miles alone made it. Yes, and it was scary. But staying in my comfort zone was never my goal. I'm here to grow, to serve, and to keep dreaming bigger. Cheers to more years, more opportunities, and more reasons to be thankful. What an inspirational story. And thanks to Joe for sharing her genuine thoughts about what it feels like to be a newcomer from the Philippines. So, in addition to welcoming our Filipino teachers, um, District 62 created a professional development department that focused on retention of leaders in our district. So we got together the assistant principals, associate administrators and deans and we learned together in a cohort. On non- studentent contact days, we met and we talked about, for example, how we look at the cell phone policies at the secondary level. We had conversations about how we label behavior, record behavior, and assign consequences. The goal was to ensure that our current conditions were not contributing to the dis to the discipline disparities in our schools. Under goal number two is also the professional development focusing on restorative practices. We recognize how restorative practices seal and brain development intersect with each other and they are all important in our district. The adult focus on behavior and and alignment was extremely important and we prioritized that last year. We work towards building consistent systems across all schools with building principles. All building leaders have agreed to various components of restorative practices. So in terms of alignment, I just wanted to share with you the restorative practices triangle. I think a lot of times people turn to um resolving conflict and repairing harm with situations that are sometimes individualized. And I just wanted us to take a little bit step back and and think about the restorative practices as a whole and what it means. So if you look at the bottom tier, the dark blue, that's all about building relationships. Every single one of our elementary principles have um delivered the expectation to the teachers that every single day you're going to have a community building circle and you're going to build trust with one another and you're going to build a team together. And the reason for that is whenever conflict does arise, there's a really easy quick strategy to say circle up. All the kids know what that means. All the kids know that there's nothing in front of them in terms of distraction and they look at each other in a circle. And there's something very very powerful about that. And so I just wanted to share that that is the huge um uh progress that we have made as a district to really hone in on listening and trusting each other and building those trusting relationships by asking students how they feel and adults talking less, giving students the mic. The and the middle part of the um triangle really talks about the repairing harm. So we have um delivered professional development around restorative chats and how to have conversations between students and students and also students and adults. So we have uh we prep the adult and the student if they've have if they've had a conflict and we talk about all right when you go into this space this is what it means to try and repair the harm and to really take the time to understand the other person's perspective instead of trying to react all the time. And the top of the triangle is really personalized for situations such as um re-entries after a suspension. So having one-on-one uh conversations and plans for students. So the goal of restorative practices is for students and adult to feel a sense of belonging, safety, and a shared responsibility to the school community. All right. So our third strategy under goal number two to increase bipok staff is to um focus in on the customized support from our cultural leaison. We have 10 leaison who support in m somali korean and and Spanish speaking families in terms of um creating infinity groups helping with conferences cultural events and uh the feedback from our district staff is that they are highly coveted and there's a high level of satisfaction 4.4 out of five stars. So we'll take it. And the third and final goal is an actually requirement from the ANI funding stream. We need to partner with um a neighboring district and we have uh partnered with Monomidi for many many years. And so the uh the goal is for secondary students participating in our collaboration 622 and 832 will feel a strong sense of belonging. uh from the beginning of 2023 85% and we're happy to report the progress from last year is that a 100% of students who participated in these partnerships felt like they really belong and they felt more connected and I'm happy to say that we increased from one partnership in 2023 24 to six partnerships in 2425 American Indian education choir super fans French GS PSA and base and stand. So we have um members of our equity department who um really have taken this and and um built connections especially with our American Indian education department leads and um and found opportunities for the students to connect with each other. And lastly, I'd like to share with you the highlights video of our ANI funding stream. And um you know it just really shows how inclusive we are in our district and that I'm so happy to present a celebratory um funding stream that we have supported so many uh so many programs and staff members with just the 2.9 million Heat. Heat. N. Thank you. Heat. Heat. And with that, thank you for listening to the presentation. I'm ready for any questions or any comments that you all have. >> Um, thank you for the presentation. This is really good news and you guys are doing a wonderful work. I have a question about uh the Filipino uh teachers. I know that we talked about the the recent ones that came, but this is not the first cohort. We have another cohort that came. Um, my understanding is that they're coming with H1 visa because there's a shortage of teachers, especially in special education. Um, and my understanding is that they're only allowed to work three years. So what are we doing for uh retaining those teachers that maybe they came in cohort one and now know our system and working out and uh what are we doing to keep them in our district? >> Well, thank you for that. And um we just received a question from one of the teachers saying, "What is my pathway to citizenship?" And so we welcomed another 12 teachers this year. So, we have a total of 21 Filipino teachers and um with the no uh $100,000 H1B um application moving forward, like we're trying to figure um that out too. But we do have a partnership with um the Filipino Center of Minnesota and they are going to bring us in and we're actually have we have a meeting uh next week to talk about what a path the pathway to citizenship can look like. Um, but yes, they they will be here for 3 years and um we need to figure out how we can keep them on board. >> I'll add one thing to that as well, just I know we've talked about this a little bit before, but you know, we're kind of waiting to see there's new this new federal rule about $100,000 fee to accompany um an H-1B visa is really problematic for I mean >> nonprofits. Yeah. >> Yeah. But um in Minnesota, a number of school districts because there's such a shortage of licensed special education teachers and not enough teachers in the pipeline to be able to even meet our federal requirements for teaching special education rule, you know, special education services. Um that's there's a number of school districts in Minnesota that have hired international teachers where we have a shortage locally. And of course, you know that in order to hire internationally, you must post first for 60 days and show that you did not get a licensed candidate applying. So, there's a lot of rules around that. It's not displacing teachers here in Minnesota. It's where you simply have none and you can't find them. So, um there's a lot of conversation happening right now about what what's that going to look like? Um and again, this was only our second year hiring international teachers. There are some districts that have been doing it longer than we have and I think there's a lot of worry because districts can't afford a fee of that uh a fee that high for you know each visa that and so that will be cost prohibitive to us to even be able to continue that if that happens. And so there's there's a lot kicking around in the courts right now about that. But um for those that are already here um that H-1B visa is a pass a path at least to permanent residency for sure. Um, and we're going to have to navigate that because in these new rules, we're not quite sure what's going to happen to existing H-1B visa holders or um, and and certainly we have a lot of worry about the future of ever bringing any more H-1B visa holders. There is another option which is a J1 visa, but that's much more limited in how long people can be here and it does not allow people to bring their families with them, which the H-1B visas do allow. And so for those teachers that were able to come on that program, they their students are in our schools and their you know their spouses are with them for the most part. And so um it's been it's been amazing. And honestly, every single teacher that came the first year we did it, every single one of them was renewed because they did a phenomenal job. And and then like Lynn said, a second cohort came this year. Um, but the future of future programming is still up in the air as far as those federal changes to H-1B visa qualifi like rules around that. We're really anxious to see how that's going to play out. But for the for the moment, for the time being, obviously, we're continuing to work with the original group that have come with us and and working on next steps towards filing that paperwork. So, there's a lot of attorneys involved and just trying to see, you know, because the rules kind of keep changing all the time. So, we're trying to figure out where it's going to head next. Good question, though. >> And we have a meeting scheduled with uh the Fidley superintendent, and she spearheaded all of the um the work, uh Brenda Lewis, and so she's we're going to come together and we're going to try and problem solve together. Yeah. Thank you. >> I should add 916 also has international teachers, too, um from the Philippines, and so a number of us around here do. So, we're going to all we're all working together on that. Um, I just wanted to say thank you for this work and I'm glad to see that the Mameidi partnership seems to be growing and blossoming. That's great. >> Um, also you mentioned that this was our last year of funding. So what does that look like the application process? >> So we'll apply in March for the next three years of the funding stream. Yep. >> Are we likely to get it? >> Oh yeah. Yeah, we'll get it. It's automatic. Yep. Based on um based on our enrollment and demographics. >> Y >> from the state. >> Yes. >> Yep. It's from the state. >> Um so I know when I am included in things how it makes me feel. Um how what do we see because you talked about belonging quite a bit in your report. How do we see that show up in kids and our and the students in our schools like when we make those, you know, efforts to to have them feel included and >> Yeah. Yeah. I think the expectation around the community circles and um having community circle questions and SEAL curriculum like actual skills we're teaching students on um how to recognize uh when a friend needs help, how to recognize when they get angry, what are some coping mechanisms they can use, and how can they ask for help from an adult? those kinds of things um that we're teaching explicit skills to students um I think fosters a sense of belonging. The uh mere fact that we have the expectation every single day to have students circle up is a connecting point. You get to gauge on how the student um is feeling that morning based on what happened the night before. And so really to be able for the adult and the teacher in the classroom to check in with the students and to uh make sure that they're they're sharing their stories versus just getting straight to the academics and um and so we know that that that is important. Another thing that we focused in on at the beginning of the year um during welcome back week was the adult seal. So being able to make sure that our adults are prepared and okay given um you know our our current state and just to make sure that we acknowledge that starting fresh and understanding that there are things that happen in life um with adults as well and they might show up differently and also the kids follow suit. So we have to make sure that our adults are regulated and in a healthy space to be able to to guide our students. So I think that's the big piece around this sense of belonging and to really listen to their perspectives and that's part of the restorative chats conversations as well is to say how how would you like us to hear your perspective of what happened and what do you want to share that we don't know about like that's very different than you got into a fight you're suspended come back tomorrow and then we'll figure it out we're just going to separate you all right so it's really taking the time to understand from the student perspective how they're feeling and how they need to be helped and how and supported. >> Do you want to mention Tulin the surveying of students? >> Oh yeah, the school climate survey. >> Yep. And just for anyone who's not aware, SEAL is social emotional learning. >> Oh, thank you. Yes. So the school climate survey is administered uh twice a year and a part of the questions um the principles take the results of the survey like for example um I feel like what I say is important to adults. I feel like adults care about me. Uh building leaders take that data and they put that into their um goals into um engagement goals of uh their schools, their SIP plans and um I think that's really important and that's been um gosh Dr. Lner maybe sevenish years that we've had this like this is the best data that we have because it's the only data that has remained consistent. The other thing is that we also added um some questions related to mental health and um specifically around depression, anxiety and um having students being able to identify their needs and um and supports that might be needed. Before the data was um not identifiable and now it is so that we can provide additional supports for students who who need um an adult andor who need intervention. Um that reminded me of something that sounded really familiar when we were talking about attendance and some of the um challenges that um us and a lot of schools are having around attendance. Um, and it it seems like if we have that data, then it it it's kind of comprehensive, right, that it's not just um a a way to increase like a sense of belonging, but it also helps kids want to come to school. Maybe it also helps maybe the adults and the administrators um build more connections if if a student says they need it. Can you talk a little bit about that, Lynn, and how it wraps around to so many different areas of >> Yeah, and I think at the end of the day, you know, um, Superintendent Tutio has me said many times that students need to feel connected to something um, in a school. So whether that be an afterchool program, a sport, an activity or club, that's what's going to get them through the door in terms of attendant. It's not going to be um, their grades at that moment or it's going to be someone who they trust, an adult who they trust in the building. And so I think that's the piece that we really need to foster is who um every single student should have an adult that that they can go to and a a peer that they can go to if they need support. And we're hoping that if we can identify that for all students, then they will show up with their feet and and attend school, you know. And um I think that's the piece that um we it's not just the social workers and our counselors that are providing the mental health supports. It's everybody. It's a wraparound service. We provide mentors for our students to make sure that um they are supported academically and social emotionally. >> And it's also about making sure you know the quiet introverted student who maybe isn't speaking up or expressing their needs. It's a way to make sure we're checking with each and every student. You know, if you hold a focus group with students, you know how some kids are going to speak more than others, right? The extroverts are going to pop up and start talking. And so by having combinations of focus groups and surveys and all those kinds of things, it helps us make sure that we're paying attention to each and every student's need. Do you feel welcome here? Do you feel included here? And if ever that's not the case, um like I know initially they used to collect the data anonymously and then they really started to like no let's collect the email address with this student or the name of the student so that in when we know there's someone who isn't feeling connected we can know who we need to work to make sure gets those connections. And so we always talk about how does it look and feel for a really quiet introverted child to walk the halls of our schools. Do they feel seen and heard and valued in the same way that the extroverted kid who's the star of the basketball team or or you know who's, you know, doing really well academically or, you know, is more verbal. We want to it's about really making sure we've got systems to make sure each and every student feels welcome and included. And it's really cool to have some long-term data that we've been collecting that we can compare year-over-year. So, we're pretty excited about that. And and we do that all the way down to kindergarten, which is pretty neat. Uh, you do it all the way down to prek. I will say my son Yes. >> Yeah. My my son is four and I liked seeing the the calming areas because he came home talking about the sad and mad space that they have in the classroom and he and his dad are building a sad and mad space at home, which is awesome. It is so cool to see. Uh, so I do appreciate that and those skills that he's learning now as a four-year-old, I think they're going to really, you know, help going through. Um, I also wanted to shout out the collaboration with Madamea and the American Indian Ed staff. There was a really great um, uh, the really great events um, and it's nice having Mamemita being a sort of added to our program here and they hosted a really a really lovely one with really delicious fried bread um, last spring. So, >> they're going to do it again this year. >> That's right. They are. >> They sure are. >> Yeah. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you all. >> Of course. So, I'm going to move us from four-year-olds to middle-aged. >> Yes, let's do it. >> Which is me. Um, well, some some kids call me grandma, but you know, I don't consider myself a grandma. But, um, so about belonging, uh, we talked about we're focusing on the children. Obviously children belonging is uh critical to their um cognitive development even uh but belonging also uh works uh does teachers also need to belong in order to stay there and so do administrators and uh I just want to say for myself uh as far as um belonging uh somebody said earlier that uh you know Christian conservatives are not welcome. I am a Christian conservative and I feel welcome on this board. So, and I am I I'm not preaching Christian conservatism cuz my role on the board is different. But that's I feel like I belong on this board and you guys have accepted me for my queer my my everything quirkiness and everything and uh so I feel like I belong. But what do we do to make sure that administrators like yourself and Andy and Christine, how what do we do to make sure that we some of us that are at the leadership also feel like they belong? Because we cannot implement belongingness. We cannot impose it to the kids if we're not practicing ourselves in our also in our daily lives and and how we interact with our colleagues and everything. >> Right. We play pickle ball. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Uh, no actually I I think we have an amazing cabinet and Christine um has built a team where anytime we um are struggling with a conflict and or um a situation people step in and they say, "How can I help? What what what do you need?" And I have never felt that before before going coming to 622. And I think that that's part of um the testament of Christine's leadership in terms of um being able to rely on our colleagues and we try and support each other to the best of our abilities and as you notice like we'll go places together and to support each other in meetings and presentations and I think that's really important. Um, I do think that, you know, we also talk about work life balance and when you need to be out for your family, everyone else covers. And so, um, I think we're have pretty healthy ways of coping with stress. Um, and some days we're like, "Holy cow, like, yeah, we got to get into the room together to problem solve a situation and then we leave with action items." Yeah, you might have to, you know, process for a little bit, but at the same time, we always get to the point of what's next and and so I think that's really healthy. It's a really healthy organization. >> I'll add too that there's a lot of um focus groups with staff and affinity group meetings. Um and there's also a real we've worked a lot um I'll give you an example. One thing we talk a lot about in our school district is, you know, when when I go out and visit our schools, if it's bus dismissal time, our principles know if I see you and I stop by and you're at dismissal time, let me be crystal clear what I'm watching. I'm watching to see if you're greeting each bus driver by name because those drivers who go to all these different schools, they, you know, they're on their buses. They need to be part of the school community. and um you know that we really have to make sure especially for those you know if you're teaching on a team and you're a third grade teacher, you have a built-in colleial group of other third grade teachers at your school, right? You have a team, but there's a lot of jobs where people work a little bit more independently like bus drivers, you know, or others. Um and trying to make sure that everyone is connected or feels connected. Um you mentioned the Christian conservative. We have lots of lot we have 2,000 employees and there's lots and lots of employees who are very conservative and there is those who are very liberal and we're very very intentional about making sure everyone is welcomed and included here um and that all voices are always welcome and included and um respected differences are respected and I think that's incredibly important for helping people to feel connected. We have staff in this district that drive really far. Trisha drives from Shakipi every day for crying out loud, right? Um Josh was up in Chicago. We have a lot of people that drive. This is >> Amy Lee, right? >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. Amy Lee, who's not here tonight, you know, she drives from Albertville. We have people who drive from Northfield and they do it because they feel like they belong. They fit in here. Um I think I mentioned this recently, but you know, our our north um high school has this afterchool club that's um it's our Polar Drift, right? And it's a collaboration between our choir director and our band director. And so they get together and students get to basically practice being in a rock band. And at the Doghouse over in Maplewood, um, in fact, several of us, Nancy and Michelle, we were over there the a couple weeks ago on a Saturday watching this group and it was a packed house. I think the thing that impacted me the most that day, not only seeing our kids perform and all their families there, but that we had multiple tables full of school bus drivers. And in talking to them, I said, "Does anyone here, you know, any of you guys have kids up on the stage or in this group? Not a single one. They're there because they're connected to the students and their school." And I would argue that's a very special thing in 622 that I'm really proud of. And so, um, it's never perfect. I will never tell you it's perfect. You know, there'll always be examples where we have room to grow and improve, but it's definitely something we work hard at for sure. And I think the other piece to note also is that people cope differently with stress, right? So, we have to allow them different outlets, whether that be music, writing, singing, um just having silence. And so providing that time for our administrators is really important to give them choice on how you want to process through the school year or the trimester. >> Um, thanks. You know, this discussion reminds me of the documentary that Ken Burns is doing now, and it's on channel 2, the American Revolution, and and it it's just so interesting because um to give a really step back global view of this whole discussion, um America's a really unusual place in that we didn't we're it's founded on um ideas, a really rag tag group of of farmers and and you know blue collar workers and and who knows what uh defeated you know a monarchy and and we um were brought together because of uh and we didn't go in thinking that we were going to be independent from Britain. That's what the the comes out of this documentary. We ran in thinking we just want to uh have control over our uh our taxes so that we tax without without representation. But anyway, um we're America's a very unusual place, but clearly it's it's it's not a melting pot. It's more of a what do you call it? A quilt or and um and this district reflects that for sure. Um and um so anyway, your work is important and um uh it when when we give out our um diplomas to um in the spring um looking out over that uh group of students, you see the future there, right? And um and uh it's it's not a homogeneous future. It's a it's a very diverse future. Um, but we're um, so what we're doing here is very important and what you're doing is very important and thank you for your work. >> Thank you. >> I I'm sorry. I do have one more thing and that's on um the proficiency goal. I do want to note that um the the gap got bigger and I I think maybe Dr. Luckner will talk about this too, but like it got bigger because um not white students did better faster, I'll say. Um and that and that's why that gap widened, but we're still also seeing a very pervasive achievement gap and graduation rates and things like that. So um just going forward, I know that we have like the strategies laid out. Are we like at the beginning of those strategies and we think maybe we'll see some gains in the next couple years. Are there strategies that we need to maybe add in order to kind of get these gaps closing and and bringing everyone up? Like obviously we don't want the gap closed because the achievement goes down. >> Right. Right. And um I appreciate that comment and we you know have put in um reading screeners now at the high school level so that we can best meet the needs of students. Um I think the youth science also has changed. We used to administer that in April and students would take it on uh when they were at home and now we administer it in the fall on a school day. So all students are able to take it. So, I think that we're we're making steps towards um closing that opportunity gap, but um mainly it's it's really focusing in on um student support plans and and every individual child that that needs um reading support and also the wraparound services around that. It's not just academics, you know. So, I think that's a yes, we will add more strategies, any strategies that we can get and hone in. Um but it's particularly important to collect the data. >> Yeah. Thank you. Great. Thanks. >> Thank you, Lynn. >> Thank you so much. >> All right. Um, next report is um research evaluation assessment. >> All right. Good evening, Chair Yenner, members of the board, um, Superintendent Tusio Sorio and the cabinet. Um I'm grateful to be here tonight for our next presentation and this presentation is a review of our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report. Um so we as you may remember since it was just last week we did a full kind of comprehensive discussion of our uh what we call the CACR report um together last week. And so our purpose today is to come back and have a have a review of that but of course continue um any questions and conversations as well. And I think this is kind of a really um interesting segue because when we think about the work that director and her team and of course all of us do in our different roles for this district in building kind of the sense of belonging um and the kind of sense of safety that all of our all of the individuals in our district, our students, families and staff feel that is really foundational to this next work. Our work in the the CACR world is really about um building kind of both rigor and support so that we can meet our goals and students benefit from rigor and support when they have that sense of security and sense of belonging. And so that's kind of the foundational work that we do that we then leverage now to meet these goals of both, you'll see here, kind of graduation, career readiness, and um going out in the world and being lifelong learners. Um so what I'm going to do here today uh is talk a little bit about what the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness rep uh report is. um some of our enrollment data uh as well as our attendance data. We already talked a little bit about attendance as well. And then the five goals that the state of Minnesota asks us to review every year as part of the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan. Um, I do want to highlight that this is the plan that we're we're reporting on uh this past year, how we did last year, but the strategies we're talking about is what we continue to do to continue to build on this work for all of our students who are here with us um this year and moving forward. Do you have the new slides? Yeah, sorry. We'll just pause. I'll keep going if there's there's a new slide deck though if you if someone can pull that up. But um the part of what we want to share here is this connection between our previous plan which used to be called world's best workforce and the new plan which is the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. So, world's best workforce is what you might have used been used to hearing. Um, and now they've expanded this this state plan for all districts to include some more intentional goals around um civic readiness and lifelong learning. So, we'll talk about that here as well. So, as we get started, um I do want to kind of show you some enrollment data. I think this is a great way of remembering who we are as 622. And so, I will start here. Um, we're going to be talking about a lot of different numbers in this presentation. And so I think it's really important to start out by showing kind of the faces behind the numbers. So we remember that who we are talking about, who we're working with is for these people right here. So I'm going go ahead and start that here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. want to talk for a minute. >> Perfect. >> I can either way um I can keep going. So I think one of the things I just want to point out here as we transition here um is that the one of the best things about this video is at the end you'll see our next step students and those are ours our transition students right who are like 19 to 21 22 years old and then the next um next slide is is our Beaver Lake which is our some of our some of our youngest students back to back and so that's kind of I think one of our privileges working here in in this district or any school district is being able to to support learning in in all kind of at levels. So, we're going to kind of maybe have a a quick um I can also just keep going with the goals or >> you want if you need time, we can jump to a different topic. >> I I'll have it in 10 seconds. >> Okay. So, one of the things that you're about to see, this is very like building suspense. Thank you. Um is our our enrollment data from last year. Um thank you so much. Excellent. So what we have here and I I'll come back to this slide here. Uh was I just noticing uh referencing here is one of the things we always start with is our enrollment data and we have um this is just a breakdown of our um the race and ethnicity groups of our students. Um since you have seen these slides before I'll probably go pretty quickly but but please pause pause me for any uh questions or clarifications. Um but this is the comparison of our district and then also um the state of Minnesota. Um this is kind of the the change in our demographics over time which I think is a useful um comparison. Um each line represents a different race or ethnicity student group. And you can see that this is kind of over the past 10 years. This is the percent um of each group over the past 10 years. And you can see um some of the changes here. So in 2025, again this is last school year, we had about 30% of students who identified as Asian, about 24% who identified as white, and then you can see kind of the other um groups there as well. We also uh in terms of looking at our enrollment, look at our enrollment in terms of program participation. And so this includes the percent of our students who are eligible for um being an English learner or receiving English learner services. The dark blue bars are us as a district and the light blue bars are the state average. So we have about 20% of our students who are English learners, about 21% who um receive special education services, and about 64% who are eligible for free and reduced lunch, and about 2% who um are eligible for homeless um services. And here's the change in those programs or services across time. Um the the highest blue bar that you'll see there is for the percent of students receiving free and reduced priced meals. And then you see some um growth as well in terms of the orange percent of students receiving uh special education services the percent of students who are identified as English learners. Um as well that dip in the middle there that's COVID uh when there was less reporting of free and reduced lunch. This is kind of another another thing that helps us give the context to our our students. This is the top 10 home languages. So last school year we had um 72 different languages that families reported speaking at home. English is our most predominant and then our kind of top languages from there. Mong Spanish, Somali, and other languages as well. So, I'm going to pop back here and just kind of give an overview of kind of what we talk about tonight and how that fits in with a lot of the um data as uh a lot of the information you're going to be hearing about as we move throughout the year. Uh so, this uh CACR report is part of kind of a larger series of uh reports or information that you get as a board and community uh throughout the year. We started in October um at the work study session reviewing our um MCA data as well as the Northstar or accountability report. So that was kind of the beginning of it. Um tonight we're going to talk about the CACR report and data. And then we have our um our administrators and different people from from different levels and buildings come and share about work that they're doing throughout the year. And so you'll get to kind of get a sense of well what does this mean for middle school? What is going on in these different areas? So, this is part of kind of an ongoing um series of opportunities to to hear about what's going on in our schools. So, one of the things that goes on in our school that we paid a lot of attention to is as it's been already referenced is school attendance. And this has been kind of a primary goal um that our schools have been focusing on with their their school improvement planning um especially for the last three years. um as we recovered from COVID, we found that um attendance did not recover as as quickly as we had hoped. And so there's been some intentional efforts around that. And so you you can see you can see the specific intentional efforts that each building has been engaging in in the sit plans that are linked at the end for each building. Um but you'll see here that the um we've made some progress. So what we have been tracking is a percent chronic uh chronically absent. Chronically absent is when students miss 10% or more of school days. And that's be that's a metric we use because that tends to be most predictive of then also losing learning because of absenteeism. And so you can see here the first three bars are for all of our students. And we're seeing the overall number of students who have been chronically absent has gone down the past three years. Um and we also then look at percentages as well. And so that translates to a decreased percent. Uh and still though an area we're working on, right? We really want our all of our students to be able to benefit from the from what we can provide in terms of learning and they need to be here to do that. This is the breakdown by um grade level. And one of the things that I think surprised us when we started this real intentional work, um, our buildings always worked on attendance, but as we really started this concerted effort, um, it was that kindergarten was one of the grade levels that showed actually some of the highest chronic absenteeism. And so we did a lot of work around education there. And you can see that that really has helped, um, with our kindergarten families. And then here's middle school. Um, and we saw some improvement there. um we saw an kind of initial increase in chronic absentism. So they they changed some of their approaches last year um and really worked on me a uh kind of mentors um for students in the building and and saw some uh decrease again in in again in chronic absenteeism. And then in high school there's been a lot of intentional work as well. Um and 12th grade is the other end of where we see them the highest um rates of absenteeism and we've seen that go down as well over the past couple years. So still more work to do obviously that we continue um to make sure that we can engage our students so they can benefit not only from the learning but from the social emotional supports and also from some of the career things we'll talk about as well. So, one of the first goals we have is that um all that the the state wants all districts to work on, of course, is that all children are ready for school. And we look at that by looking at what kind of readiness do are our um uh students showing us when they come to school. Our goals for this this past year were that 60% of entering kindergartens would show um proficient early reading skills and 73% would show proficient early math skills. And we look at that by we we give um an academic screener for all of our kindergarten students and we entering kindergarten students in the fall. And so we look at that as an indicator of their readiness to learn. And again our goal is that as many as possible are ready to learn. And what we saw last year or coming into this year is that we increased from 47% the prior year showing ready to learn readiness to learn in reading to 50% this year showing readiness to learn in reading. And this is the the breakdown from the past two years of different race ethnicity groups. So we saw some um improvement across all groups again in the percent of students who are showing readiness to learn. We also looked that for early math then that's that includes things like numeracy counting early um numeracy skills and we saw again here looking at the yellow bars that we saw an increase from 66% of students being ready to learn uh in math to this past year 69%. So we're seeing that kind of a gradual increase of students skills um coming into kindergarten. This is the breakdown by race ethnicity group for math. Here we saw a little bit more variation um by race ethnicity group. So our goal coming into this year that was that we would have 60% of of in entering kindergarten students ready to be ready to read and 73% of students ready to learn math. And we did see some progress. we went up by about 3 percentage points in both areas, but we're still working towards that goal of 60% and 73%. So, we're continuing that work this year um in our early learning programming and um our learning early learning pro programming um has been doing some great work this year already um starting last year and into this year. One of the things that they'd like me to highlight for you is that they have adopted a new curriculum. You may even remember hearing about how we have new kind of science of reading based curriculum in our elementary schools and in our um middle schools and high schools. And this year they started um uh the version of that for prek. And so they're um really excited about that and we'll start seeing some of that impact hopefully this coming year. The next um goal I think that's kind of already been referenced in some of the work we just talked about is that all racial and economic achievement gaps between students would be closed. And our goal is that we're always closing this gap um as you heard about in the achievement integration report by 5 percentage points or more. We're going to decrease that gap, close that gap. And so there's a couple different ways that we um look at this. uh we primarily look at it using our MCA um results. Um MCA is the the state assessment that is given to grades 3 through eight and once in high school. And so you can see here's kind of just the general breakdown between student groups. You have that here both for our district as well as for the state average. Um and then we also the the part of this goal is also looking at economic differences. So, we measure that by looking at our students who are eligible for free and reduced um priced meals and students who are not and looking at the differences there. And the next slide will show you kind of more um specifically the differences between the groups. And so, this has a lot of numbers on it, so bear with me for a minute. Um what we're looking at here is the line primarily the line that says difference where you see kind of the highlighted boxes. What we want is that we want that difference to decrease, right? That is our goal. It's a goal that um director FM alluded to in the achievement integration report as well. We want that difference to decrease across time. And so the uh what you'll see is that we do have the kind of three years of data here. So if you look at the difference line for our district, what we saw is the difference between students of color um and our highest achieving group, which in this case is our white students, was kind of pretty stable. with about 21% difference percentage point difference in 23 21 percentage point difference in 24 and then that gap as as director F alluded to then increased um to 25% difference. It increased though as you can see because our white students went up um and students of color that percentage stayed about the same. So that's kind of one area we continue to work on uh where we want all students to continue to increase. We then also looked at our difference for um again between economic groups. And here you can see if you look at that difference line that about 26% of students in um 23 and then 24% again this is the difference between the two groups percentage point difference and then down to about 22 percentage point difference. So, we're starting to see that decrease a little bit um in in the direction that we're that we are aiming for. This is specific for reading. Um on the right hand side is just the state comparison for your reference. And so another way you can see that if you're more of a visual person is is um you can see it here in these this line graph. Um, and so you'll see that the each line represents a different uh race or ethnicity group across the past couple years and the percent that were proficient in reading. And then here is a graph graphic representation of the difference for economic groups. The um green lines are our district and the gray lines are the state. And then for our district in the green lines, the solid green line are students who um are eligible for free and reduced lunch and the dashed green line are the students who are are not eligible for free and reduced lunch. And this is looking at the percent proficient. So you can see um that the dashed green lines are is higher in terms of the percent proficient and we're trying to close that gap between the dashed line and the solid line. Okay, I hope that all made sense. So, we're going to talk about math now. Um, I know you've seen this before, so I'm kind of going um pretty quickly. The again, we're seeing the same type of data, but now we're looking at math. So, for math, the main line we want to look at is the difference line um in the first section, which is our district. And we saw that the difference went up slightly over the past 3 years by about 0.4 percentage points. So, you could interpret that to say it stayed about the same or it went up very slightly. Our goal is that it's going to that the difference is going to decrease. So that's what we're working towards. What we did see for the difference between our economic groups is we did see it decrease by about 2 percentage points over the past 3 years. Um so that's going in in the direction that we are aiming for. We'd like to decrease it even more of course and you can see kind of some of the decrease here. Um, again, the uh each line is a different student race or ethnicity group. And what is great here is that we're seeing all the lines go up. That's great. But what we'd like to do is see the the gap the gap continue to um decrease as well. And then here are the the lines. Again, this is for math for our um free and reduced lunch groups. And what we have here is that um what we're looking for is that gap between the solid green line and the dashed green line. And we want that to continue to increase by the the solid green line to continue to accelerate. So we see a little bit of it, but we would like to continue to to work on that. So we are we are have not met our goal of decreasing the um proficiency gaps by 5 percentage points or more. That will continue to be our goal as well. We did see some decrease in the proficiency gaps for um for economic gaps, but we haven't quite seen the decreases yet for racial gaps. So, there's some really intentional work that we're doing around this, I'm just going to highlight kind of a couple key pieces given our time. Um but I again with that theme of like rigor and support. What we're really what we've been working on the past couple years that you've heard about is increasing the rigor of our curriculum, right? We've been doing that both in terms of our uh reading curriculum, making sure that following our um science of reading as one example, but then we've also been really kind of intentionally working on our support. And in this case, one example is we've been expanding our reading intervention supports for students. Uh and so we've been able to expand it this year. Um we now have it through um kindergarten through um high school. And so that's kind of really working on supporting our students in increasing that achievement in reading. Our next goal area is all students graduating from high school. Um and you've seen some our graduation data um a number of times, but just as a reminder, our graduation data, the official data from the state um comes out about nine months after graduation. And so this is actually 2024 graduation data. And our goal was that we would um increase to 84%. And we saw an increase um this this past year of reported data from 23 to 24. We moved from 81.4% for our four-year graduation rate to 82.8%. So we're encouraged by that move in the the right direction. Um, and we want to continue to to accelerate that that move as well. We also look very much at the seven-year graduation rate as well. Um, because there are a lot of reasons why students would um intentionally continue in school to benefit from programming. So, this would include our students who are at the next step, right? They they are eligible for and and we hope they continue for programming beyond their four years because they would really benefit that in terms of work readiness and so forth. Um, also students who are multilingual learners can stay on and and or have IEPs stay on for additional programming to continue to build their skills to enter the workforce or additional schooling. So, you'll see that the the top two rows are our um seven-year graduation rates. The light blue line is ours and the the dashed gray line is the state um there. So, we continue to outperform the state um for the SE seven-year graduation rate. Um it dropped a little bit this in 2024 because 2024 was the first year that they actually now allow students to continue programming all the way up until their second 22nd birthday, I think. Um and but that means they're technically in an eighth year of school sometimes. Um but they don't report eight eight years. And I MD told me they were not going to report eight years. So this is the data we have. Uh here's the breakdown of our um graduation rate for different race and ethnicity groups um both for us for the district and for the state on average. And then the other thing that we really like to look at here is our percent of dropouts. Right? As we just talked about, there are reasons why students would continue in school um to continue to benefit from education. Um, so what we really are looking at ultimately is decreasing our number of students who drop out. The solid blue line is us as a district. The dashed line is the state on average. And again, this is dropout. So we want to be as low as possible. And so we saw last in the last year of data that we have, which is 2024. Our dropout rate was 4.1%. Um, which is slightly lower than the state. And so our our buildings are continue to do intentional work around um that as well. Here's the breakdown of dropout rate uh for our district in different student groups and for the state. Um and so we are seeing some pro improvement in our graduation rate. Um we hope to continue to work towards the next step which will be 84% and then of course building from there. uh for students who are graduating in four years. Our our buildings have really been doing a lot of work on this and um I think kind of a highlight I just wanted to make is that really they've been doing a lot of intentional work the past year and year or two in in increasing kind of the credit um recovery opportunities. And so they're working on um making sure that students have every opportunity to get those credits to earn graduation. And this is that's especially important because prior to that we were seeing a pattern where students would get so far behind that they didn't they almost didn't see an opportunity. Um and so by having some more creative ways to to get credits to get them sooner then students continue to be able to stay in school. I knew that as well. A lot of other things going on but for uh that's just one highlight for tonight. Um the next area is that all students are ready for college and career. Right. Right? We we'd let them we graduation is a great start. Having a a degree is a great start, but then there's the what comes next. And what we want to do is make sure that we are preparing our students for college and um career career and college readiness. And so our goal is that 97% of our graduating seniors um will meet one of our uh career and college readiness criteria. And what we came up with, we have a 62 advisory group. Um, some of you in the past may have been on that. And what we did as an advisory group is we came up with what are the criteria that we think um would indicate or give us some evidence that a student is showing some career and college readiness. And so we have um kind of a couple of different ways because we know there's a lot of different ways to show this uh readiness. And so we look at the percent of students who graduate in four years, but then also are showing um some career and college readiness by either gaining some college credit um either through PSO or articulated credit, earning some industry credentials through 916 courses, completing a work experience course, um getting credit in an advanced placement course, earning a bilingual seal, um having a GPA of 3.0 or higher, which is often what sometimes post-secary institutions look at as a marker. Um, and or earning an ACT composite of 221 or higher. And so this for the past three years, here's our data. This is the percent of students who um graduated and then also showed at least one of the career and college readiness criteria. And we did see a kind of a decrease from overall we're still over over 94% of students showing at least one indicator. Most students who show one usually show several. Um though we did see a slight increase from the prior year. This is the breakdown by different race ethnicity groups over the past three years. And our goal of course is that all student groups um are benefiting from our from opportunities to to gain career and college readiness in our district. Uh so our goal is that we would continue to work towards 97% of graduating seniors meeting career and college readiness um with all student groups meet reaching at least 95%. There's a couple things that we are working on um towards that that you've been hearing about in different areas. Um one of the things two things that are kind of uh new this year that we're excited about. One is that we we do have an aptitude inventory called youth science that our students complete. Um and we've shifted that and provide some more intentional work around that so that students can use the results more intentionally to um inform their own career and and college exploration. Um we also um have started some peer tutoring opportunities which has kind of like the multiple benefits right because it's not only giving career and and perhaps college experience for this the students who are volunteering to be the tutors but it's also giving of course the needed support we talked about rigor and supports the support for other students for their peers. So there's some work there as going on there as well. The last area is that all this is kind of a new area for the um CACR from um guidelines from the state is that all students are prepared to be lifelong learners. And the way that we're looking at that in our district is that students are lifelong learners when they've successfully attained all of our other CACR goals. And so we'll have met this goal when we've also prepared them to be in kindergarten. Um we've we've reduced the achievement gaps. um we've um prepare we've gotten them to grad graduate high school. We prepare them to be ready for career in college. Then we've also prepared them for lifelong learners. So we'll have met this goal when we've met our other goals as well. So we're still working towards that as well. So here's kind of a summary of our goals for this year uh related to the um comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan for our district. Um the how we're going to meet these goals, right? There's a lot of work. You've heard about some of the work already tonight. We hear about in a lot of other contexts is really um through not only our district-wide work, but also through our SIP plans. So each of our buildings has their own individual school improvement plans. They work very hard throughout the summer to um analyze their data and plan for the year and then those plans are guide them through the out the year. And so how we operationalize this, how we enact our work to make these goals is through the SI school improvement plans. Our school improvement plans, each area has kind of two key focuses, FOSI as it were. Um the student access to learning, that's where we look at attendance, making sure we engage our students in school, and then academic outcomes. And so they're all linked here for your reference. Um so each program has their their own um school improvement plan for this year and they're already well underway obviously since we're close to they had to try one. So those are kind of kind of a very quick um but maybe not quick enough I don't know a very quick overview again of our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan. Um what the we layered on the tonight also is this the SIP plans um and kind of kind of how you'll continue to hear about our progress in these related areas as we move forward um with different presentations to the board coming up. >> Thank you. I was just going to add one more thing as a reminder to our board. >> Um this presentation right now looks back at last year. Um going forward beginning next month we start to bring in our different groups. So we bring in our high school principles to talk about what's going on this year with regard to all these plans and then the middle school and then so on and so forth. So you'll hear from different departments and different school leaders along the way to kind of hear from them directly how this is playing out in classrooms and in schools um during the current school year there. Sorry that took me a while but there's the slide. So next coming up will be middle school in December. So that'll be pretty quick around the corner. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm back. Um, so I don't know if I'm going to be able to formulate my question. Well, uh maybe we we can even take it uh outside this but I so attendance improved, right? This is a question about maybe correlation and causation. >> Yeah. uh attendance improved in all in every everyone we improved overall right but uh the proficiency gaps increased so I'm wondering about the strategies that we're using >> whether uh the strategies so this this is a con based on the data that you provided I I kept I was thinking to myself okay So, uh, overall the white children, uh, proficiency improved, but the students of color, uh, the gaps are still there. So does that mean that uh and then also you had data about uh social economic status >> and um so then I am wondering if um there is if maybe the the poor children are doing better maybe than they're the ones that are increasing that proficiency the the low so economic make white students are >> No, you're asking a really important question is that how do all these things go together, >> right? Because this is kind of taking different pieces of it and looking at them kind of separately, but of course it all interrelates and when you start putting layering it on top um we we do see kind of the different things moving. The other layer that we often look at to that we're starting to see is we see differences by different grade levels too and that wasn't shown here because that this was very you know kind of um high level. Um the the important thing that our buildings do is that they break it down a little bit more micro and so that they're looking at not just like what is the trend for all you know 10,000 kids in our district but then what are the trends for the students in my school and then they're able to say okay these are the students who showed us that they um were close to they were they're they're getting very close to proficiency. What do we need to do to make sure that they are getting there? What do we need to do to these are the students who are accelerating. What do we need to do to make sure that they continue to accelerate these are the students in in my school who are not struggling. What do we do to make sure that they're catching up so they kind of are able to take it more into a micro level and when they're looking at the actual action planning in terms though of the >> No, I was just going to add an example. >> Yeah. >> No, you finished. I was going to say an example of what you were just saying is that Jeff Cavitt, our middle, one of our middle school principles, was just telling us last week that when they cross dug deep into their data, they found that there was between white and black students, for example, absolutely no difference in academic achievement when among students with high attendance. What they found was the a much much much greater prediction of achievement was attendance. So if the averages weren't up, they didn't go up for everyone in attendance. And so I mean and we know obviously we aren't talking about eugenics here. We know that you know race in and of itself is not a predictor. But um that was an example I just wanted to mention because he just was talking about that last week how they did a deep dive in all their data at Sky View for example and they said when they separated out by student attendance white and black students both achieved literally exactly as well among those with 90% attendance. But where they found the differentiation happened more was among attendance and we know that um some of our higher poverty students have poorer attendance and so there's some other layers but I sorry I just want to throw an example because he just gave that last week to us. Well, I but I think in general your point is very well stated in the sense that this is one this is complicated and there are multiple factors and what we this was a very kind of surface almost like very beginning level of like here's generally how things are but what we work on then is we dig deeper um at the school level at you know in some more of the deeper analysis for the district as well to figure out kind of where are the leverages that we can pull to to really create effective change because that's what this is all about. Um, and there's there's a certain Anyway, we talk a lot about it, but but you're but very well stated and I think that that is some of the additional work that we continue to do. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Luckner. Um, I didn't I don't have a question, but more of a comment. Um, I appreciate that this um the the kakar is so comprehensive because I have three kids who are all so different from each other. Um, and if we use just the MCAs to um determine like the level of success for my my kids personally, it would be it it would vary, right? Um, but I like that this encompasses all the different facets of of what makes a a student successful. And I think um our district does a really good job of ensuring that there's um different pieces that are available to help support um our students to be prepared to be lifelong learners. And so um yeah, so I just I just want I just want to say I appreciate how this is laid out. So, >> well, and I think it's a really important point because I think we've even been learning um we've been digging deeper also into the career and college readiness data because, you know, that was our our collective um creation of what we thought were the key indicators. But as we've been digging deeper, we see really opportunities for growth for us, you know, and so and at the end of the day, what what are we here what are we here for, you know, these kids and making sure they can be lifelong learners. So that's what we work on. >> Yeah. And I think a good indicator of that too is that we have I mean our MCA scores aren't great, but we have such high graduation rates which um which shows that you know students aren't um aren't always here on MCA days and some kids are just bad test takers and so you know there's just so many like pieces to it. So yeah, for sure. Uh-huh. Did you have something? >> And nobody asks you as an adult what your MCA scores are. Um I uh I'm very happy that our district is uh utilizing the science of reading um and uh I personally seen um in my so currently I'm I'm not in the classroom um but in the um private religious uh preschool where I work uh the science of reading has been very very um effective and I've noticed a huge difference uh the years before we had it compared to now. Um so I I'm just excited to see how that's going to help to get our our especially our young kids um really prepared for uh elementary school. Um and uh then I also um I just want to say that um I'm I I think it's very valuable that we're looking at the data to see how our different groups in our district are doing. um because we do want to educate every student and equip them. Um and um uh it it it doesn't matter really um what group um a student is from. If we see that that there is a group of kids that have certain things in common that are really struggling, u we're going to want to help them. And um a long time ago, back in in 2006, I was um on the Minnesota State College and University's board of trustees. And uh it uh um it was during Governor Palente's administration um and uh our our board um we were mostly fellow Palente appointees. Um but um our uh office of diversity for Minnesota State Colleges and University's board of trustees um they um they they were looking at the data just like this back then u maybe not quite as indepth but um and when we found that there was a group um or a subset of students in the system across the state that were struggling we try to find ways to uh help equip those students. Um and uh I remember one of the one of the groups that we discovered was needing assistance at the time. Um it was uh rural um uh economically disadvantaged white males. And uh we once we discovered that we started putting certain resources in because it is a lot more efficient if you can um reach out uh or if you can train teachers on how to uh better reach students um than um to have one-on-one uh time. I mean one-on-one time is the best, but we only have so much of that. But um but I'm just glad that that um you and your team are are doing all this work and I do think that it's going to be really helpful for 622 for the kids and the community. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So our last report of the night is uh Superintendent Tigosio with referendum next steps. Did we do the calendar? >> Oh, we're not yet. So, one thing. Oh, thank you. I'm all turned around. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair and directors of the board. Um, just a couple quick announcements I wanted to share this evening. I know there's been questions about um what's happening with regard to, you know, with the failed referenda and when will we know how deep our budget cuts will be. And so, um, I just wanted to get that out there that, um, and as I shared with you last week at our study session, um, we will have our initial, um, budget model from our financial adviserss, ers, um, ideally by mid December, and we're plugging in as we're settling contracts for all our different labor groups, those are getting plugged into that formula to be able to then enter in projected revenues and expenditures at the the same time our team is working on developing those budget assumptions. So like Sarah and her operations team is working on identifying the trends for um what we predict energy costs will look like next year, fuel costs, bus contracts, those kinds of things. And so there it's a little too early to put numbers down to what those cuts will look like. Um we'll have a lot more information by early January to begin digging into that. Um and so right now we're just wrapping up our budget assumptions, trying to finish wrapping up contract settlements with all of our bargaining groups. We've got quite a few done. Um still going for the remaining ones and then we'll have a lot more data that we can plug in. Um one thing we do have that's a little bit less of a yo-yo experience this year is that it's not a funding year at the legislature. It's more of a policy year because our our legislature funds um our statewide budget every two years, every bianium. And so when they do that, we already know heading into this school year what their what their funding forecast is for 2627 school year. So that's helpful. Although it doesn't mean it can't change. That does happen in in these other off years. But um those assumptions are coming together along with our enrollment projections. We always look at our enrollment data month over month to just kind of make sure those trends are heading where we predicted they were were and if we need to make any adjustments. And our financial adviserss also help with that. So, um, it's a little too early to have those specific numbers, but we will we're working on those and typically those, you know, come out early January. We start to really develop the staffing models from there. So, we'll have a lot more along the way. In another, you know, 6 weeks or so, we'll start having more data to share with you. And that's really the main thing I wanted to just share um, in terms of that. And, um, we'll keep you posted. >> Thank you. Um we're going to move on to our action items for the evening. Uh first up is um Director Natardi with our acknowledgement of contributions. >> Minnesota statute uh Minnesota statute 123B.02 02 permits school boards to receive for the benefit of the district, request donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated. In that behalf, the board may act as a trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and the benefit of the pupils thereof. So, here are the donations uh we received uh from Kim Facil uh baby blankets and clothes to support families in need in early childhood special education. Todd Libra donated $2,000 for North High Black Student Union Club. Scooters Coffee donated $333.32 to support Beaver Lake. Uh, North High North Third Girls Basketball Booster Club donated $500 for North High School Black Union Club. MS Minnesota Educational Facility Management Professionals donated $500 for operation equipment. North Turn High Northturn Girls Basketball Booster Club donated $100 for North High School Latinx club. And North Turn Girls Basketball Booster Club donated $150 to North High School Asian Student Association Club. Uh North St. Paul History Cruise, Inc. donated 1,800 to for the Webster holiday gift and food. Polar Pride donated uh pillows, shoes, hygiene item for uh the 622 for families in need. Halfpriced Books donated 2500, no $25 gift card to uh purpose for the English classroom at North High School. And last but not least, 3M donated window film covering to help uh with uh morning sunlight at Eagle Point. Um, therefore, the director of finance recommend the following resolution. Be it resolved by the school board of independent school district number 622 that the school board accept with appreciation the following contribution and permits their use as designated by the donors. And uh so >> sorry I jumped. >> I jumped. >> Could I get him? >> The total for the 2025 to 2026 monetary contribution is $23,000 852.32. So then the motion. >> Could I get a motion in a second? >> Second. Moved by Swar, seconded by um Anderson. Any discussion? All right. All in favor say I. I. >> And all oppose say nay. >> All right. Um so that uh passes. Um next up we have um the resolution of um or the acceptance of the um audit report. Um so representatives of LB Carlson will be present to discuss and answer questions regarding the 2324 financial statements and related reports. Therefore, the director of finance um be it resolved by the school board of independent school district number 622 that the audit reports for the fiscal year ending in June 30th, 2024 as presented by LB Carson be accepted. Could I get a motion and a second? >> So move. >> Moved by Anderson, seconded by Yenner. Um any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. and all oppose say nay. All right. Um so that is accepted. Thank you. Um All right. Next up is the ratification of the 2527 nutrition services agreement. >> Great. J. Thank you. I am pinching for director Yang tonight. Um so a tenative 2-year agreement has been reached with the nutrition services employee group for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2027. The association membership voted to ratify the agreement. A wage increases. There was a market analysis completed. Uh mind you that nutrition services is funded out of a completely different fund out of fund 2. So this has not come out of our general fund. Uh there was an 8% increase of the wage schedule effective December 1st, 2025. A 4.5% increase effective with the 202 uh 627 school year. The wage schedule was reduced from seven steps to four steps beginning in year two to increase competitiveness. The district viva high deductible contributions were increasing for both years. Uh their sick and personal leave will be combined into a single PTO model and additional contract language updated to align with current and best practices. >> All right. be resolved by the school board of independent school district number 622 that the 2025 2027 North St. Paul Mwood Oakdale Association for Nutrition Services agreement be approved. Could I get a motion and a second moved by Sweden by um any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> And all oppose say nay. All right. Um that is approved. Um now we have oh the the adoption of the um school calendars for 26 27 and 2728. All right madam chair, directors of the board. I'm just going to give you a quick reminder. We talked about this at our study session last week and I'm filling in for Heidi Lee, our director of teaching and learning um who chaired this committee. Um, one thing I want to mention is that normally in Minnesota, the state does not allow school districts to begin school before Labor Day unless it's due to a construction exemption, which you can file with the state if you have construction that need you to start early. However, next year our um Labor Day is so late that the state actually passed legislation that allows school districts to begin school before Labor Day in actually both 2627 and 2728. So, our calendar committee spent some time digging into this and and in talking to other school districts, it sounds like the vast majority of folks around us are also going with before Labor Day start for next school year. The caveat to that is that we must start after August 1st. I mean September 1st, sorry. August 1st, of course. So um the the committee which is also um co-led by union members did a lot of work in surveying of of staff and kind of weighing options and drafted multiple versions and got feedback on multiple versions. And um as you heard last week, they finally came forward with two recommendations that they're very pleased with. Um the first is the they decided to do a 2-year adoption like we did previously 2 years ago. And the first is a 2627 calendar and the 2728. Now, when looking at the dates about where you end later in the school year, if you start before Labor Day, they felt that the second year 2728 calendar, um it didn't make that much of a difference to be able to start before Labor Day because starting after the first would have been a starting on a Wednesday of that welcome back week when we do our teacher training and it didn't actually make a huge difference at the end of the year that where we landed. So, the recommendation, there's two calendars here for you um to vote on this evening. the 2627 calendar, which does have a start before Labor Day next year. Um, and then the 2728 school calendar, which does not have a start before Labor Day. And again, much of the calendar is really dictated by contract language, specifically teacher contract language and the number of hours and the number of days. And so, um, a lot of people go into the calendar committee with ideas about mixing the whole thing up. And you find that there's a lot of rules and regulations that don't allow you to shift things around quite as much as you might think. So, it's always a little bit of an exercise in shifting the deck chairs around, but it really details a lot with our professional development calendar on those days that we do professional development with our staff. And so, um, with that, our committee, um, very clearly came together with two front runners and those are presented for you to vote on this evening. >> Thank you. Um, so be it resolved by the school board of independent school district number 622 that the attached calendars be approved and adopted for the 20 26 2027 and 2027 2028 school years pursuant to Minnesota statute 645.44 subdivision 5. Could I get a motion and a second? >> Moved by Yenna. >> Second. Seconded by Anderson. Any discussion on these. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> And all oppose say nay. >> All right. Um that is approved. Thank you. Um and then proposed policy revisions. >> Favorite thing of the night, isn't it? Good evening, Chair Yang, Superintendent Tutrios, and directors of the board. Um tonight you'll be asked to take action on proposed revisions to five of our policies. Just as a reminder, when we are um recommending revisions, we do three readings of those uh proposed revisions. We did our first review and reading in the October study session, our second during the October business meeting, and tonight will be the final reading that we have. Um, as I previously have done, I will go through and just do a quick uh summary of each of the uh policies that are proposed for some revisions. Summarizing briefly what those uh proposed revisions are. First one is policy 534 unpaid meal change or charges and the changes here would add provisions for students who may be electing to purchase a second breakfast and or lunch. Second policy is policy 707 transportation of public school students. Um this was a simple change in terms of language changing the words from a disability to disabilities. Policy 709 student transportation safety policy updates were included to remove and/or update training date deadlines throughout the policy. Policy 802, disposition of obsolete equipment and materials. The changes or revisions here were adding provision allowing for additional ways to dispose of surplus books. And lastly, policy 806, crisis management updates were included to remove language that was specific to active shooter drills as well as procedures. Thank you. All right. So, the resolution um be it resolved that the school board of independent school district number 622 hereby revise the policies as presented. Um could I get a motion and a second? >> Moved by Swar, >> second by Yenner. Um any discussion? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> And all post say nay. All right. Um those pass. Um the last thing is um so the the date and time of the work study session is set. We just need to set the location and the agenda. So I recommend that the December 9th, 2025 work study session begin at 6:00 p.m. and contain the following agenda items. Policy revisions, superintendent check-in, um board officer committee discussion, and then board check-in. Um, could I get a motion and a second? >> So, move I mean second. >> Moved by Yander, second by Anderson. Any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say nay. >> All right. Um, so that is set. Uh, we also set the January 13th um special session. Um, I recommend that a special meeting be held on January 13th, 2026 here in the boardroom of the district 622 education office uh, education center at 6 p.m. with the following agenda items. Um, call to order. Oath of office, election of officers and organizational resolutions. Could I get a motion and a second? Moved by Sween by Yenner. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose say nay. All right. Um so that meeting is or that special session is set. Um and then the last one is we have to set the um date I mean the the agenda time location agenda for the work study session. So, I recommend the January 13th, 2026 work study session begin immediately following the January 13th um a special meeting approximate time at 6:15 in the conference room 202 of the district um education center um and contain the following items. American Indian presentation, superintendent check-in, budget planning and board check-in. Could I get a motion and a second? >> All right. Moved by Yer, seconded by Sw. Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> All oppose say nay. All right. So that's set. Um and then we just have to do board communication. Um so Julia's not here anymore. Her last day was last week. Uh last week. Um she served um a one year with us to um Phil um director. Yeah. Danel Peltzman's um term and then um Sam got elected so he'll be here next session. Yep. Christine. Okay. So she um is a little shy um and as sensitive is what she told me. So she asked me to read um what she wanted to say. She called it her swan song. Um she said, "Thank you for the honor and privilege to serve the 622 students, staff, and community member alongside my fellow board members. I was fortunate enough to be a part of several initiatives over the past 5 years, and it has proven to show that we as a district strive for creativity, opportunities, and experiences for both our students and staff. This role has stretched me, inspired me, and connected me with so many wonderful people who are passionate about doing what's best for our kids. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve. So, and that was with Julia Martin. So, um, so we're doing board um, communication. Do you have anything, Nancy? Um, I just wanted to say in case uh Julia um sees this that um I'm really grateful for um the the years that she gave to us um and after her first term agreeing to stick around um to uh uh I mean that was that was just really um a good act of service. Um, and I was always really appreciative of how involved she was with some of the committees in the district. Um, she became really knowledgeable so fast. Um, and uh, she also was always really good about staying really connected at um, her kids school. Um and um I I also really think that her um professional uh e expertise, experience um was valuable to the board and the district. Um she had a lot of really good um insights um from her leadership with with the work that she does. Um so I I just want to say thank you Julia for for everything you did for us. I also want to thank Julia for her years of service on the board. Um, it was great getting to know her over the years and thank you for all the work that you did over the years, Julia, if you are listening. And really, >> I was thinking like maybe later on YouTube or something like that. But anyway, uh, thank you for everything you've done for the board. Thank you for staying on the extra year. And I know that you were looking to get more involved in the district in different ways and I hope you're able to achieve that. Um, and take care. Oh, hi Julia. >> Well, now that Julia is watching, I have to say something nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's been nice getting to know Julia. She's been fun to have to be around the the young energy that u um that we needed on this board. She brought that on and uh I I I'm really uh thankful that she gave us another year of her time uh just so we can uh put a transition person in place. So, thank you Julia for doing that. Um, as far as uh other announcements, I'm looking forward to going to the delegate assignment. Can you show the book that the textbook that we have to read? Resolution. >> We have to read them and go through them one by one by one. And that's going to be the first uh weekend in December. Yeah. Katie and I are are gearing up to uh fight for our uh position and resolution. And we wonder, you know, maybe some of you will be reading those policies come next year, the policies that get approved. So, yeah, we look forward to uh contributing in that capacity at the delegate assembly. That's it. >> I echo what everyone said. Thank you, Julia. Thanks for bringing the fun and thanks for showing me what it means to to be a good serving board member. Um, and yes, I'm thrilled to have been elected to the delegate assembly and get to go through this with uh fellow board members from across the state. Move on. We'll report back. Um, I also echo um I have enjoyed getting to know Julia. Um, and so and like um Caleb said, she brought a lot of good perspective based on her um her um job. Um, but it was also nice. I was I was also just thinking about how the the makeup of the geographic, you know, we have like, you know, a few people from Oakdale, people from North, few people from Maplewood. So, she brought Yeah. And Woodbury and so she brought a really good, um, um, Oakdale perspective to our board. So, um, really appreciate everything she's done. Um, and so looking forward to her continuing to be connected to the district. So, um, communication wise, I did go see Little Mermaid. It was pretty amazing. Um, and so that was really good. I went to, um, like a a personal event on Saturday and I ran into a few, um, families from 62 and they were talking about how sad they were that the levy didn't pass. Um, but how they continue to really love our district. And so, I just think that's u a really good way for us to continue to think about how our families really support us. um how um students um really are are gaining so much by being part of our district. So um but yeah, that's all I had. Um future board meeting dates December 9th, 2025 as our work study session um and December 16th for the start of business meeting um here in the boardroom. So um could I get a motion second to adjurnn? Second. >> All right. Um all in favor say I. All >> say. All right. Thank you.