Acknowledging that I'm gonna try. Good afternoon and welcome to the September 22nd. Hey, everybody. This is not very loud, is it? It's pressed on. Can y'all hear me out there? I'm not sure if this is actually on. All right. If you can hear me clap once. mic. If you can hear me clap twice. If you can hear me clap 3 times. Looks like we're almost there. All right Hey, everyone. Good afternoon and welcome to the September 22, 2026 special meeting of the Board of Education The time is 5:32. We'll begin with, um, I apologize I'm looking at the wrong script. Yeah, as a reminder public comment will follow the approval of the main agenda, and there will be a 45 minute total time allotted for public comment. Members wishing to speak may visit the public comment section of the Board of Education website for more information or call our board secretary at 651-767-8149. Public comment sign in for this meeting ended at 5:30 p.m. We'll begin with a roll call provided by our board secretary. Maybe Uh, Director Henderson These mics I just tried to tell them, but they thought I was crazy. Oh, do none of our mics work? Oh, mine works the most. Ours are blinking green. And then Hours the 3 of ours work. The 3 of ours work technical difficulties and these are new too. Mhm. Oh, mine were Yep Oh, mine is too. We're back. OK. Are you Let's go. We can see her. It'll it'll work. OK, I'll get all of my ready. All right, you ready, Sarah? Let's go. Uh, Director Henderson here. Director Ward here Director Lowe here. Director Alan here. Director Carrillo here, and Director Franco here. Next, I move to approve the order of the main agenda. Is there a second? Second seconded by Director Henderson, comments for discussion Vote please. Director Henderson. Yes. Director Ward yes. Director Lowe, yes. Director Allen, yes. Director Carrillo, yes. And Director Franco, yes. Motion passes unanimously. Next item on the agenda is recognitions and I'll turn it over to Dr. Stanley. All right. Good evening, uh, Chair Warden, everyone. I am going to invite up Doctor Kirk Morris to um get us started with our recognitions for this evening. Testing Good evening. Chair Ward, Superintendent Stanley, members of the board. I'm excited and proud to introduce Christy McCoy, standing behind me here. Um, Como Park Senior High School's Christy McCoy was named the 2026 Minnesota Minnesota School Social Worker Association School Social Worker of the Year. Since 2002, Christie has served on the MSSWA's legislative Committee and in 2008 she became the organization's legislative chair Her passion and commitment to school social work are deeply rooted in advocacy, social justice, equity inclusivity, and empowerment. Christie's leadership and dedications have made a lasting impact on students families, schools, social workers, and communities across Minnesota. Please help me in welcoming Christy McCoy. Good evening, Chair Ward and, uh, members of the board and Superintendent Stanley. I'm deeply honored to be named School Social Worker of the Year, but to receive such a lovely recognition from the school district is so meaningful. I have proudly called Saint Paul Public Schools my home for over 30 years, of which 24 I have served as a school social worker, supporting students, family, staff, and the communities. For me, school social work is far more than a profession It's a lifelong calling. One of the best parts of this journey has been the profound connections, influential mentors, and bearing witness to the resiliency and the gifts of so many students over the years. I am grateful to represent Saint Paul Public Schools and feel truly blessed for the numerous friendships I have made along the way. Uh, I have received so much support from colleagues, district leaders, community partners with whom I've worked, and of course, family After earning my bachelor's degree, my career began to take shape due to the support and encouragement to explore the idea of working in education from my aunt, Mary Beth Cutting, which maybe some of you may know. Although Mary Beth has been retired for many years, she served as a music teacher, administrator and district leader for Saint Paul Public Schools Not long after, I also met Doctor Mary Kay Boyd, who at the time was principal of the Area Learning Center Doctor Boyd welcomed me to the Area Learning Center as a social work assistant in 1996 and continues to stand out today as one of the most influential and significant role models of my career. Those early years as a social work assistant were invaluable, and I realized that in order to be the best advocate and resource for the students and families with whom I was supporting, I needed to go back and earn my master's of social work. As a result, I, um, stand before you today because I was so inspired by many school social workers, both past and present. It is because of their courage, passion, and dedication. That I am here today They worked so diligently to ensure every child is treated with dignity, feels a sense of belonging, and has access to the resources they need to thrive. My passion has always been about how we can collectively pool our strengths to create safe, supportive, equitable caring school environments where every individual feels valued and empowered to flourish. School social work has a long history of being a bridge between schools, students, families, and communities. As an integral member of the educational team, school social workers provide critical mental health expertise, prevention and interventions using a unique strength-based approach Through our specialized training and knowledge and skill set, social workers are able to deliver a wide spectrum of services from building social skills to crisis intervention to working to remove barriers resulting from effects like housing instability, inadequate healthcare. Uh, food insecurity, and so much more We also provide intensive mental health and behavioral support to our students. We work in collaboration in leading efforts to promote safe, supportive school climates and service. A resource to our staff and administrators. What differentiates those school social workers from other helping professionals is that we are educated to understand the interplay of systems and the impact that those systems have on academic achievement. And as we think about school social workers it's important to recognize that there's so many working tirelessly every day uh to dismantle the barriers at all levels, impacting students, families, and community well-being. So, to be recognized is really a tribute to the over 1800 school social workers in Minnesota today. So, I'm truly humbled and extend my heartfelt appreciation to the Minnesota School Social Work Association St. Paul Public Schools, and the numerous students and families I have had the privilege to be a part of their journeys. Thank you for your time today, and and for recognizing this amazing, um, award. So, thank you so much. Alright, for recognition number 2, I'd like to call up Doctor Adams Kuntz. Chair ward, directors of the board, Doctor Stanley, uh, it is my pleasure to get to recognize science teacher from our online school, Sam Northey. Come on up, Sam. SPPS online school teacher Sam Northy has been named the Society of Science advocate. The Society Advocate program empowers educators to help students pursue original uh, research opportunities and participate in science competitions, helping them build confidence, strengthening critical thinking skills, and discover new pathways into science and engineering. Recently, Sam participated in the 2026 Lake Superior Shipboard Science Immersion a weeklong professional learning experience that brought Great Lakes educators aboard the US Environmental Protection Agency's research schedule Lake Guardian Held on July 7th to the 13th on Lake Superior, the program gave educators from every Great Lakes state firsthand experience with Great Lakes science. Participants worked alongside scientists to collect and analyze water and sediment samples. Sample organisms from deep water and take part in science and learning activities aboard the vessel and on shore. Let's give Sam a round of applause. Thank you, respected board and Doctor Stanley, that you're here. Um, and thank you for recognizing me. I'm very proud to say that being a lead advocate for Society for Science empowers me to work with people all around the country and work with my students in getting them to the point where they are actually competing nationally and internationally in science competitions. I had students win regional competitions here in Minnesota, um, in the last 3 years while I've been doing this. And so this year, I'm training others how to do it around the country as well. Um, the other thing I'm being recognized for is the, um, Sea Grant being out on Lake Superior for the. Week-long voyage I guess we'll call it. Um, I'm proud to say that there'll be a lot of opportunities I can bring from that to my students and um Bring it so they can see the opportunities in themselves to be part of real science. As members of the crew, as members of the thing, to see the different aspects of science for my students. So thank you again for recognizing me. Any questions, I'll be happy to feel those. Congrats Let's give uh both of them another round of applause. Um, that concludes our recognition program for this evening. Uh, the the recommendation is that the Board of Education recognizes the staff acknowledged and that for their contributions and outstanding work. Thank you. OK, thank you. Next item on the agenda is public comment, and I'll turn it over to Director Allen. Good evening. Public comment is one way community members can bring issues to the attention of the Board of Education. All speakers are asked to sign in on the sign-in log and complete a blue sign-in form on the table. You can sign in ahead of time by calling the board secretary or online at the board education website. Public comment sign-in will end at 5:30. We are past that moment. Individuals will be allotted 3 minutes tonight during our 45 minute public comment session this evening. Speakers will be called in the following order. Students. Speakers referencing an agenda-related item. And then others in the order of names received with a preference given to those who have not spoken in the past 3 months Those who have signed up prior to the meeting but did not check in at the table or before 5:30 will be called at the end of the list of speakers who signed in if there's time permitted. Each presentation will be timed, and the black box at the podium will beep and show an amber light when 1 minute is left and a red light will show when the time is up. Want me to repeat that? When time is up, speakers are asked to complete their statement. After that, the microphone will be muted. Written remarks may be left with Ms Payne and will be shared with board members. Speakers are advised that any complaint or issue related to personnel must be made in writing for your own legal protection and the legal rights of staff. Please do not include identifiers of Saint Paul Public School employees such as names, job titles, grades taught or work location. The board values this time to listen to the members of our community and encourages respectful engagement from speakers and audience members. In the absence of respectful engagement from a speaker I want y'all to think about what might happen. No I'm just playing. Their their their speaking time may be forfeited. In the absence of a of respectful engagement from the audience members, individuals may be asked to leave the room or the chair may call a recess. To make it easier for all to hear, we ask that all gathered here to remain quiet during the speaker's remarks. When the chair turned to speak Please begin by stating your name. No no additional information is necessary unless you went to Central The time is I ain't got eyes for all that. Uh, 5:48 8. And we'll have 45 minutes allocated for public comment. I'll be calling 5 speakers at a time, and when your name is called, please begin to make your way to the podium. And with that, I welcome Martin Horth. Peter Hendricks, Matt Mandel, Lisa McGuire and Shawna Nielsen, along with Shawna Nielsen's person Chair Ward, directors of the board, uh, Doctor Stanley Um, I'm Martin Herth, president of Ask Me Local 844 um, clerical technical workers here at the school district. I worked at Central for 10 years, so I don't know if that counts. Um Came here tonight to discuss the rising healthcare costs of employees of this district Um, we understand that this is a national trend. Um and there isn't a lower cost option than what you're gonna vote on tonight. But we still need to make something happen to make health care affordable in this district Um, single plans are increasing for us between $110 and $130 a month. All the plans, but the lowest will cost at least $150 per month. Single plus 1. The plans are rising between $245 and $295 per month. And all the plans, but the lowest will cost $600 per month And for family. It's it's rising between $285 and $340 per month. And all the plans with the lowest plan will cost at least $950 per month for for those employees. And the lowest plan simply gives you preventative care and seemingly catastrophic care as it comes with a $6000 deductible for individuals and a $12,000 deductible for families. And on top of this, The administration has redesigned these plans to raise deductibles and co-pays so that it will cost additional money to get healthcare um across the board. It's on top of trying to pay for food and energy with wages that have not kept pace with inflation. If we can't fix this, then it will be a breaking point. Your employees will be forced to choose between food and gas and necessary medical procedures if they haven't already been. Changes to the benefits Labor Management Committee procedures this year and the length of time it has taken to get this completed has left us with a lot of questions If this would have been completed in June as it has been for decades, we could have had a fuller conversation while you're still considering the budget for 26, 27 Um, we can't balance the budget on the backs of our employees here. This This problem isn't going away anytime soon, so we look, we will have to have even harder conversations now. We look forward to working with you to find a solution that works for all the employees in the district. Thank you. Oh My name is Matt Mandel. Dear school board members, this is not on the agenda. I was in one school within the SPPS district during last school year 2025-2026. And some classrooms had what seemed to be double the sound decibels from other rooms. This is important to inform you all as a primary source because I needed to close my ears, tragus, the little flap on the outside of the ears to manage the loudness from. Some of the classroom classroom bells alerts. I know that the air flow in rooms are monitored, but why not the decibel levels of the bell system? What is important for me is to voice my opinion, have an option to change the school bell sound. I asked at the school to change the bell sound and found only this body can change it. Probably just a different MP3 sound file at the CDC.gov website there is information that. Noises above 85 decibels can be harmful and this might. Cause in the ear ringing or tinnitus. OK. Good evening board members, uh, Doctor Stanley. Uh, my name is Peter Hendricks. I am speaking on agenda item. Uh, consent agenda under agreements, number 1, approval of the employment agreement between the district and the unrepresented plan, and I'm going to raise three issues and I ask that the board pull this item from the consent agenda to receive further clarification on these three points that I'm going to raise. First of all, on page 7 of this proposed contract, there's a length of service award. Uh, and it references beginning for years, for the 10th year and the beginning of the 15th year of regular service, there's a performance length of service award. But in the chart, there's year 5, year 10, and year 15. So is there really a performance length of service award for year 5 or not? Because there's a conflict between the words and the chart. On page 8. Under benefits for the business expense allowance it talks about members of the plan shall be reimbursed a monthly allowance for automobile use and general business expenses. Uh, does that mean, and then there's a chart with the amount, either $500 or $100. Is that maybe reimbursed up to that amount by providing receipts or is it a flat out reimbursement of $100 or $500 And then finally, on page 11 of the contract. Section 5 professional benefits. Um, each member of the plan receives up to $2750 for allowable expenses for professional um, conferences or materials, workshops. And then it talks about, um, if A member of the plan doesn't use it in one year, then they can carry that over to the second year, and that amount is then $5500 But the kicker is the last sentence in subdivision three which says a member of the plan may receive the total professional benefits amount including carryover which is the 5500 at the time of separation from employment with the district. So query question, why is the board approving a contract? Of professional benefits of up to $5500 when someone separates if they haven't used it for training, I would submit that that entire sentence should be stricken. An employee shall should not be paid out for benefits. Professional benefits that have been carried over. Thank you. Members of the Board of Education Superintendent Doctor Stacy Stanley. We are still Ali, Shawna, and Lisa, and we are members of SPFE's Immigration Defense Committee Today we are here to address 3 topics student mental health supports, school transportation safety, and a call to close our schools on election day. First issue, mental health supports. The beginning of a new school year brings with it a flurry of emotions and energy. A new school year is an invitation for staff and students alike to look at their world daily routines and hopes and dreams with fresh and enthused eyes, and the beginning of the school year also means something much more nuanced and heavy for many of our students. This school year it might mean bravely facing your first day of school without your father's kiss and blessing because he was detained, deported or disappeared to a faraway land last year. This school year, it might mean starting a brand new school because your family had to relocate and condense into your auntie's home across town due to financial hardships Your family finding work and rebuilding a life after sheltering at home for months is not an overnight venture. This school year it might mean coming to school with the wiggliest of bodies and a yearning heart, because as much as your mother and your friends' moms wanted you all to run and play in the parks and on playgrounds of our city this summer, it still did not feel quite safe enough. Neighbors and relatives were still being quietly snatched and disappeared so the hum of the fan, the glow of the TV, a beloved book, small adventures to church or Walmart. The tender voices of your family carried you through your summer vacation. Might take over sooner. And the beginning of the school year can also be a trigger. Welcome back to school. Remember us? Remember what happened here last school year? Remember how much you worried for your parents at their job site while you fidgeted at your desk? Remember your bestie Yasmine with her sparkly bracelets and toothy smile, the one who always had your back? She's gone now. First they took her mother, and eventually they all had to leave. Yasmine her sisters, her father, her little baby brother. Where are they? El Salvador, you think, but you don't know because you never got to say goodbye. Remember that you witnessed someone screaming, being pulled from their car by masked and armed agents while you watched helplessly from your school bus window. Yeah, OK, great Time to smile and learn. Thank you, Jill. Yes, our students are resilient and strong and brave and loving Yes, we believe they can conquer the world, but it is careless and unfeeling to ignore the impact these experiences have had on them and us. Thank you. Just because a new school year has started, it is reckless and ignorant to think these memories and ongoing hardships and heartaches won't affect our students' attendance rates or academic achievement. Our students have been traumatized. Our students have lived through their city being ravaged, their families being torn apart a sight that cannot be unseen. And when schools start up and act as if nothing happened, our students feel unseen. As advocates for children, it is our duty to ensure that students feel safe, heard, and empowered We must honor our students' experiences with intentional authentic, and healing measures. We have to be real Our students have been through a truly dark piece of American history. They have lost family and friends witnessed their neighbors and relatives brutalized by federal agents. They have witnessed two racist rallies against the Muslim and black communities in the Twin Cities led by anti-immigrant agitators, the most recent being last month, and the ongoing hate speech of their nation's leaders directed straight at them. No matter how many moments of hope and light and strength we find in each other throughout these heavy times, no one comes away from these experiences completely unscathed. We need to fully face our students' critical need for mental health supports now more than ever. To this day, some of our students feel that they are alone in facing these challenges. When it comes to our mental health partnerships, our students need culturally relevant mental health professionals When a child is processing fear, loss or stress, they need to be understood in their home language without the barrier of an interpreter refiltering their pain A culturally relevant therapist understands the nuance and lived experiences of our families. That is how we build genuine emotional safety. This district SPPS has already gutted our schools of EL teachers and school. Counselors, the very professionals who have been the bedrock for our most vulnerable students' emotional and educational well-being. So what are you going to do now? If we want our language access policies To be more than just promises on paper, we must put them into practice in our schools. That means actively partnering with culturally specific mental health agencies. We, the SPFE Immigration Defense Committee, call on the board to make sure mental health supports and counselors are fully funded and reinstated in every building at appropriate provider student levels, whether from outside agencies or SPPS employees Mhm Second issue, school transportation safety. Last year, community and SPPS leadership worked collaboratively to outline safety policies and procedures and organize patrols and carpools for students and staff to attend school and get to and from school building safely This year, we asked for a renewed commitment to student safety on school routes and at all of our student programming sites. To do that, we need the collective support of our school board and district leaders to update and communicate necessary policies and practices to schools for keeping students safe. Once again, clearly outlining procedures for staff to follow if when federal agents arrive on school property and staff and safety procedures for arrival and dismissal. It also requires a plan for students who take public transportation like the light rail and public buses to get to school and during their school day. This is something we did not have last year. Our immigrant and non-immigrant high school students alike have been reported being afraid of being stopped by federal agents when they ride public transportation. The unique needs of our staff and students in our school steps program and special education 18 to 20 year old transition programming were essentially completely left out of the conversation last year. These teams had to navigate the risks of riding public transportation and supervising students at communicate uh community-based job sites on their own. We know that there is a safety plan in place for school buildings should ICE attempt entry of school premises that starts with alerting admin. We know that there is a safety plan in place for school bus drivers that they have to follow in case of ICE sightings They can keep students on the bus until the danger has passed. This kind of plan is not in place for public transit or community-based educational programming What is the district doing to keep all of our students safe? Although the volume of Homeland Security agents is now not as visible as it was during Operation Metro surge in the spring, families continue to be targeted by federal agents, and the Twin Cities continues to attract anti-immigrant agitators. All students deserve to go to school and feel safe. We, the SPFE Immigration Defense Committee, asked the school board to pass a resolution that outlines a plan for SPPS students to be safe on public transportation. And while engaging in community-based educational programs. Can you state what your name was? I'm sorry. I'm Shawna. OK, thank you. And you were Lisa right before, correct? Ali thank you. I'm Lisa. And I did go to Central. I mean you said it, so, but I have something serious to say Um, our third issue is election day school safety This coming election on November 3rd means that hundreds of voters will show up at our school buildings and rec centers to cast their votes in the midterm election Threats from the federal government have been underway for months, which calls for federal agents patrolling polling sites to prevent fraudulent activity. And to stop illegal immigrants from casting their votes it is clear to us that these intimidation tactics aim to keep legal US citizens from voting. The threat of having federal agents circling our school buildings and rec centers while students are learning, playing at recess on our playgrounds, or loading and unloading from school buses feels more dangerous than this year than any other year. During normal election cycles gym classes are canceled and the hallways are barred but this year, the prospect of our children running into ICE agents is frightening. We, the SPFE Immigration Defense Committee asked that the school board consider closing school on November 3rd so elections can proceed without our SPPS students and staff potentially being put in harm's way. Thank you. OK, up next, Annie Polla Megan Yonick, Sarah Barker, Nancy Cameron. And Michelle Wall and Aaron Steves, you might as well come on up Hi, good evening. Um, my name's Annie Pizzala, and I'm a mom of twins of 2 7th graders at Hidden River Middle School here in Saint Paul. And I'm also a developmental psychologist and a college professor. And, um, what I wanted to talk about tonight was just, um, some of my thoughts about technology in our kids' schools Um, I study and I teach about young people's social cognitive and emotional development. So I come to this conversation wearing two hats as a mom and as a college educator, um, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how Our kids' brains are developing Um, and I want to start by saying something positive I think the technology experience at my boys' school has gotten a lot better this year. Um, last year, my boys told me that they were on their iPads all the time, in every class and for every assignment. They did not find this particularly fun or engaging, and they found the devices really distracting. This year they told me that they're using their iPads for just minutes a day with many more restrictions. Importantly no YouTube. And when I asked them what they thought about this change, their response was simply, it's so much better. Uh, I think that difference really matters. I am not anti-technology. Technology can absolutely be a useful tool for learning, but I hope we continue moving toward technology that is really purposeful, limited, and used when it genuinely adds something to the learning experience. At this age kids are still developing the executive functioning skills that allow them to manage attention, resist distractions, and stay focused on something that isn't immediately rewarding. Research on digital media suggests that multitasking and digital distractions can interfere with learning, particularly for our young kids whose attentional systems are still developing. So when we put iPads uh for kids for every class and every task, we're asking them essentially to exercise a skill that's still under construction while putting an incredibly powerful source of distraction directly in front of them. So what works, the research says active learning, discussion, collaboration, writing by hand, looking at other human beings, getting a little bored too, and maybe figuring out what to do with that boredom. So, my hope is that our schools continue to use technology as a tool rather than allowing it to become the exclusive environment in which learning happens. Uh, our kids are gonna have technology for the rest of their lives, right? They don't need more practice being entertained by a screen. They need practice paying attention, thinking deeply, talking to one another, creating things, and being present Thank you. Um, good evening, Doctor Stanley, Chair ward, members of the board. My name is Megan Yannik I've spoken with you before. Um, I am here on behalf of our larger group. We've coalesced under the name Intentional Technology Saint Paul. Um, we've been working for more than 1 year trying to build community uh, amongst, uh, families, students, educators, and community members, and we have over 300 people that are following our work or directly engaged in it. So this is gaining a lot of momentum and we want to say that we are here to continue partnering with you in whatever way would best. Serve all of our students um, as our previous speaker said, a lot of us have been talking with teachers and administrators, uh at the school level, at the teacher level, classroom level about our own observations about educational technology and how screen time affects our students and some of these conversations. have led to positive changes even before the board's more uh increased focus on this topic this year um as uh Annie said uh, we've noticed that iPads have been less used and even before this year some schools have uh taken those actions on their own. So we really appreciate the district's increased attention to this topic, um, with the opportunities for all of us to contribute our thoughts to how things should look in the future, and we hope this can continue as a genuine partnership focused on helping every student from thoughtful evidence-based practices across the entire district regardless of what school the student attends. Um, as we work, as we continue to move forward, I hope the board will continue asking basic questions like what outcomes do we want technology to help us achieve? If our goals are stronger reading and math proficiency or improved attendance, better mental health outcomes, a greater sense of belonging and stronger relationships. Between students and teachers, then those are the outcomes we should measure. Surveys about whether students or staff like a tool or information about how frequently a tool is used are useful, but they cannot tell us whether students are learning more or doing better with respect to the outcomes that we desire. I know the district has a lot of information and that you track many things and this is a great advantage as we move forward. I hope the board will continue to ask staff to connect this information with how particular technologies are being used, how they're benefiting students, how to student outcomes relate to the use of these tools. No single. Analysis is going to answer all of our questions, but these patterns can help us as we make better decisions moving forward. We also know how important and essential it is to talk to teachers who see the actual benefits and the drawbacks including student distraction, misuse of technology They know what's going on in their classrooms, and we really need to leverage that. Uh, this work is becoming more urgent as AI moves rapidly into education Decisions are already being made about this, and we need to be on the forefront of this, and I hope SPPS takes this opportunity to be a leader in this area We really value the district's willingness to engage on this issue. Uh, I hope our decisions are made by are, uh, led by outcomes we want for students, not simply availability or popularity of the tools. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sarah Barker. Uh, good evening In 2014, the Minnesota State High School League board opened up girls' sports to boys, thus effectively abolishing girls' sports and turning that category into mixed sex sports. Or if you prefer coed, inclusion of males in female sports and spaces and vice versa is a euphemism. By including both sexes, single-sex sports cease to exist. The girls category, like any category, is absolute. Either it's 100% female or it is mixed sex. There is no other option. There is no such thing as mostly girls' sports. The MSHSL prohibits single sex sports and enforces mixed sex sports locker rooms and bathrooms and has since 2014. Most people don't realize that because both the MSHSL and Saint Paul Public Schools are collecting sports fees, hiring coaches, apportioning budgets, selling tickets to events, and of course accepting Title IX money for girls' and boys' sports when they are in policy and in fact coed. For 12 years, Saint Paul Public Schools and the MSHSL have lied to. Students, parents, and the public, they offer only coed sports and changing spaces. Why not call them what they are? Saint Paul Public Schools and the MSHSL know that abolishing single sex sports violates girls' Title IX rights and disregards the mountains of evidence that underpin single sex sports. Everyone knows this. You all know that abolishing single sex sports is plain wrong, which is why you are still referring to girls' and boys' sports as if those things existed. That is not an oversight. It's intentional. This is fraud. Saint Paul public schools are complicit in this fraud. You need to accurately convey to students. Parents and the public that by mandating so-called inclusion you have eliminated girls' and boys' sports and are instead enforcing mixed sex sports locker rooms and bathrooms You can convey this by changing all references to girls' and boys' sports locker rooms and bathrooms to mixed sex. Or you can urge the MSHSL to adopt Make It Fair Minnesota's amendment to restore single-sex sports and spaces. Abolishing girls and boys' sports violates the human rights of all students. Lying about it is unconscionable. Thank you. My name is Michelle Wall. A former EL teacher, school health planner, and a parent and community member, on the day when light turns towards darkness, it's time to break the fourth wall with the fourth estate, our journalists and media For more than 4 decades we've had a campaign to transform reinvent, and reimagine education, but it's unclear to what end. Where have you, the media been and where are you now? Your role is to hold power to account with facts and evidence in support of our democracy but we've been kept in the dark. Since 2012, I've asked our education leaders questions about what and how education is provided to students in Saint Paul Public schools. Questions with answers that should be found in reports required by state law. District leaders have met every month in this room over these years, including current elected leaders chosen to hold district administrators accountable to all state laws and to the public. Yet many of my questions and requests for data have still not been answered with silence from the elected leaders here now when I've asked for help. I've also asked top state education leaders for help, and I'm still waiting for responses to many questions and data requests, which means that now I have even more questions and requests for data Do any journalists and media organizations share my interest in the what and how of how education is delivered in Minnesota? In 2012, I began asking why students in some schools weren't getting subjects required since 2003. 3 years ago, I asked why students across the district were not receiving the same access to all required courses and also asked state leaders for help with holding district leaders to account For two years I waited for a response until last year when state education leaders said that they neither had the authority nor the capacity to respond. I followed up with data requests, but I'm still waiting after 10 months. So who is holding district administration accountable for following state education laws? No one in this room. No one at the state. Our state legislature No, because they included requirements for policy and financial reporting, but they left implementation and accountability for following through on reporting to local leaders. That leaves the media and why I'm contacting journalists and media organizations about their interest in the data I've received and still I am expecting. Uh, this public comment is also posted on tiny URL under SPPS 922. After many years I need help from those. Who work to shed light on things hidden in the dark, please reach out. Thank you. Um I'm not sure if I called Nancy Cameron. No, and Aaron Stephs. No. Well, thank you all to who, uh, thank you all who spoke this evening. This concludes public comment. Community members can reach out to the board by email at SB.board@sb.members@spps.org. Contact information for individual board members can be found on the Board of Education website. I will return it back to Chair Ward. Thank you, Director Allen. Next is the approval of the order of the consent agenda. I move to approve the order of the consent agenda with no items pulled for separate consideration. Is there a second? Seconded by Director Franco, comments for discussion. But please Director Henderson, yes. Director Ward, yes. Director Lowe, yes. Director Alan, yes. Director Cadio, yes and Director Franco, yes, motion passes unanimously Next, I move to approve the minutes of these meetings Minutes of the regular meeting of the Board of Education August 18, 2026. Minutes of the special meeting of the Board of Education, August 18, 2026. Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Franco. Comments or discussion? Vote please. Director Henderson, yes Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan yes, Director Carrillo. Yes, yes, motion passes unanimously Next on the agenda is the committee report from the September 1, 2026 committee of the board meeting. Topics of the September 1st, 2026 committee of the board meeting included facilities portfolio task force update Suu Kyi real estate market study, redact update, policy update, board initiated goals, governance reporting calendar, full minutes of committee of the war meeting Found in the board book, on the Board of Education website, or the full audio can be found online. I move to accept the report on the September 1st, 2026 Committee of the board meeting and approve the recommended motions and minutes of that meeting as published. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Director Franco who's taken all the seconds today. Anyone else can jump in. Comments comments or discussion. Oh please Director Henderson, yes. Director Ward, yes. Director Lowe, yes. Director Alan, yes. Director Carillo, yes and Director Franco, motion passes unanimously. Next is the equity committee report from the September 10, 2026 meeting. The Equity Committee is a board approved committee by resolution and therefore a recap of the minutes will be read at the following regular meetings similar to the committee of the board. Topics of the September 10th, 2026 equity Committee meeting included grounding and introductions, operational outlook district strategic framework, working agreements, closing and next steps. Full minutes of the equity committee meeting can be found in the board book or on the board of education website. I move to accept the report on September 10, 2026 equity committee meeting and approve the recommended motions and minutes of that meeting is published. Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Henderson, comments or discussion. But please. Director Henderson, yes. Director Ward, yes Director Lowe, yes. Director Alan, yes. Director Cardio Yes. Director Franco. Yes, motion passes unanimously Next on the agenda is future meeting schedule. The future meeting schedule can be found on the Board of Education website or by calling our board secretary at 651-767-8149. Our next committee, the board meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, beginning at 4:30 p.m. The next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 beginning at 5:30 p.m Next we'll move on to our superintendent's announcements and I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Stanley. Thank you Chair Ward. Well, first of all, it's hard to believe that we are in the 3rd week of school already, but the school year has just started out really well. I've been out to many schools as well as my team has been going out to schools and being able to hear from folks that overall, the school has gone well and the school year has gone well and that feels really good. Um the other thing that I will say, I, I was going to announce, um. You know, our social worker of the year and so I'll just announce that one again. We're just super excited about that. And um we have some really Fun opportunities that are coming up for the community that I wanted to speak to tonight. So on Friday, September 25th, this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Washington Tech we have our SPPS Family Resource Fair. And so, um I encourage everyone in the room to talk to any families that you know and encourage them to come to the. Source fair, talk to your neighbors. If they have children there's just some great resources that are there, great information, and it's just a great way for families to network across our school district. And then the other thing that I want to bring up is that on Friday October 9th, I know it feels like it's far away, but it'll be here before you know it. Um, the St. Paul Cup, which was inspired by the former Mayer Cup, uh will occur, and the 2026 matchup between Washington Tech Senior High School and Johnson Senior High School will kick off with the boys' game at 5:30 and then the girls' match will be at 7:30 p.m. Gates will open at 4:30 p.m. You have to claim your tickets online Um, please be there. Um, I took my grandson last year Uh, we had an absolute blast. It was so much fun to be there and to see, um, the students and just the community overall. Um, those are my announcements for this evening. Does anyone have any questions or comments? Great. I do. Oh yeah, Director Allen. Did you say where that cup is gonna be held at? You're right, I did not. It is at Allianz Field. Uh Just an amazing stadium. I mean, I'm a little biased because I say, but I think it is an amazing stadium and again it's just fun, you know, you have families there, the whole community is there and really cheering on our students. So thank you for that, I missed that and it will be a great time. Yeah, well, for sure. Um any other questions or comments from board members Great. Next we'll move on to agenda items that require board action, beginning with the approval of the consent agenda. I move to approve all items within the consent agenda with no items pulled for separate consideration Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Henderson comments or discussion. But please. Director Henderson yes. Director Ward, yes. Director Lowe, yes. Director Alan, yes. Director Cadio, yes. And Director Franco Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Next, we'll move on to the 2027, 2028 school year preliminary property tax levy certification, and I'll turn it back over to you, Doctor Stanley. Thank you, Chair Ward. So I'm going to um ask uh senior executive officer Tom Sager to come up and go over our preliminary property tax, uh, levy certification. One thing that I will add is that yesterday we did have the, um, joint property tax advisory Committee, which is a partnership between the city, the county, and the school board, and, um Tom was able to share some of this information as well. Well, good evening, Chair Ward, other school board directors, and of course, Doctor Superintendent Stacy Stanley. Uh, tonight, we do, uh, have our annual uh, preliminary property tax certification report Uh, we, this is something that we do every year. It's required to certify this preliminary levy by September 30th. The board will discuss the levy then in December and the budget at the school board meeting on Tuesday December 1st at our truth and taxation meeting and is scheduled to adopt the final budget. Uh, later that month at the BOE meeting, uh, tonight, the recommendation is for the school board to set the pay 27 levy at the maximum allowable amount, uh, to accommodate for flexibility and any adjustments that might occur before the final levy is certified in December. Based on the data in the preliminary levy, school district's property tax is increasing, planned to increase by 6.89% for the pay 27 levy. So with that, we'll go into the slide deck and then we'll have that uh recommendation at the end. So tonight we'll do 3 things. We'll go through the 26 page 27 background. Uh, we'll adopt or it'll be recommended for adoption the maximum allowable by formula and law, uh, and set this truth in taxation date and then provide you with a levy update and levy schedule. So the levy is established by law. This particular levy will be for the 27, 28 school year and in any given year, local property taxes account for 20 to 23% or so percent of the SPPS budget. So it's very important. So who determines the levy? How does that happen? Really three main parts the state legislature, I mentioned legislation, and they take into account lots of different policy and classes and Um, local governments, the taxing jurisdictions themselves, which we are one of them, the school district the city and the county, and then finally the county assessor who determines the market value and assigns the property class, all those things kind of come together and to define what the levy should be. Uh the major impact, uh, factors impacting property taxes um, and this is true pretty much anywhere, uh, any property taxes for city, county, uh, and school district uh, Doctor Stanley referenced just yesterday, we're all together with our, um, colleagues, partners with the city of Saint Paul and Ramsey County. Any additional money available to reduce, uh, local tax burden such as credit aids, abatements, things like that. The home's market value that's a key driver in what that property tax will be on any given year as compared to other types of property. The increases in the tax base that are not a result of any inflationary or deflationary changes, you know, things like new construction property going into the exempt to taxable, and then decertifying tax increment financing districts, legislative changes, those are all things that impact property taxes. Specifically for school districts, the key drivers include changes in the tax base and of course the number of students that we serve. So that formula that generates what the what the levy is going to be is based on what we anticipate we have for student students we serve inflationary increases to referendums Any pension contribution changes, severance, unemployment and of course, uh, capital bonding and refunding of bonds, abatements, long term maintenance, health and safety projects, all of that, that's what really drives school district levies. Where do we use that? Well there's about 4 categories where we use these general operations, you know, and that includes a referendum um, achievement integration. Operating career tech uh, pension, OPEB, contractual, any type of retiree health insurance, unemployment, things of that nature and of course our facilities, that's another main area where we use parts of our levy, and that's in our debt service, operating capital, long-term facility maintenance, places like that, and finally our community service, which includes community ed, ECFE, adult handicapped, disabled. Now, the levery report actually looks like this. Um, they have it, um, uh, broken into those four categories. You have your general which is the largest, of course, and then community service, which is really our community education. Uh levy and then debt service and then finally OPEB debt service of which we don't have that, but um it's still part of a levy uh report and you can see there, uh moving from last year into this year, the increase overall was about that $17.5 million and that equates to the 6.98% for um the SPPS levy. Key drivers for us this year, there's really 21 was there was a significant adjustment in the OPEB levy amount from last year into this year. What happened was last year it was actually under levied, and then this year MDE reconciled that and put Some levy amounts back in for us to have this year. So that change was kind of a key driver in the overall, overall increase. And then of course continued investment into our SPPS builds initiative as outlined by the board. We talked about this last summer in July. We always like to show how we compare to other school districts real quickly where we are now this data comes from the most recent data where we have these comparables is 2025, but you can see here where we, where we were. Some of this has changed of course, because we put on an operating referendum but then some of these others, they also put on different referendums. So, uh, but as you can see here. This is total property taxes per student. Saint Paul's pretty much right in the middle there. Um, similarly as a percent of budget, uh, we were kind of pretty much right in the middle, a little bit toward the lower end. Uh, as a percent of general fund, same there, right in the middle, a little bit lower. On the lower side and then the debt service revenue per student, you can see there again, um, right in the middle, a little bit trending a little bit toward the higher end. So that's kind of how we compared um it with our neighbors. Some of that will change the next time we get these comparative reports out and I'll bring those back. But, um, for now, that that's what we know and that's what our kind of our baseline was. Uh, the calculations presented here today may be slightly different, um, as MDE works through, um, some final adjustments. We just received one this morning that we had to get into the slide deck. Um, so they, they're really tweaking these. And they want to get it right. So, um, but if there's any adjustments, you know, in prior levee cycles, uh we prepare for the audit with our career and technical and adjustments, any adjustments submitted, uh, for these purposes by Ramsey County. Here's our calendar You can see where we were. We started this process back in August. Uh, we had the preliminary run from MDE in early September. As mentioned, we had JIPTC yesterday. Today, we're on the 22nd. Uh, we're gonna recommend authorizing the Page 27 levy. And then what we'll do is submit the data to Ramsey County and MDE uh, by the 30th of September. Probably do it this week. Um, and then what we have here, the big dates are December 1, we have a proposed date for the Truth and Taxation meeting, and then on the 15th at the BOE, um, we'll recommend certification of the P 27 levy. And we'll give all our information to the Ramsey County by the end of that month, probably the next day. Recommended action is to set the date for the truth in taxation and approve the maximum amount authorized by MDE for the 26 page 27 levy. And again, that'll provide the district with the most flexibility as MDE does make any adjustments ahead of the final certification in December. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from board members? Right, Director Henderson Just a couple, um, one, because I know folks are often coming to this process from different areas of understanding Can you share why we typically select the to opt for the max levy versus something lower, right? Particularly when we're talking about property taxes. Yeah, uh through the chair, thank you, uh, Director Henderson The reason we, uh, um, We and most districts will certify the maximum allowed and that the allowed amount is. Uh, defined by, um, legislation and the formula allowances and what it does do for us is it does give the districts as mentioned just some flexibility if there are any changes. The most notable to that, by the way, is something that occurred last year where we certified the maximum amount and. In September and when we passed an operating levy for a number bigger than what we actually certified. If we had not done that, then we would have been stuck with that smaller number and wouldn't have been able to garner the additional revenue from an operating referendum So that's, it's probably the best example of why districts will do, um, certify that maximum. Appreciate that And then just, um, because I might have missed it but did you share when we should expect to see where we fall in terms of, um, scale with the additional information related to the levy? I haven't uh through the chair, uh, Director Henderson. I, I didn't share that because those comparables aren't available yet So once they are, and it should be soon, like within the next couple of months. I'll bring that back, uh because what happens is while ours went up, there's a, a good chance that others went up also. So our relative position, we'll find out when we get those comparables. Sometimes the relative position really doesn't change much. But the expectation is we would receive that information prior likely to truth and taxation. Or some sort of a framework and I think just being able to have maybe a clearer picture of where we stand would be helpful, um, through the chair uh, you know, Director Henderson, we will put together the information that we have at the time where we glean that information is once school districts all submit their audits from last year. By the end of December, so the audits are still in process. Ours is progressing nicely and it's on time and everything like that. Districts submit that later in the fall that's not uploaded in the MDE and then it's after that when we get uh get our hands on those comparables Understood and happy to hear that our audit is progressing nicely. Thank you. OK. Any other questions or comments from board members? Great. Thank you. Thank you. I move that the Board of Education certify the maximum allowable levy for taxes payable in the 2027 as presented and to set the required annual Truth and Taxation hearing date for Tuesday, December 1st. 2026 at 6 p.m. Is there a second? Seconded by director Alan Comments or discussion? Vote please. Director Henderson Yes, Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan, yes, Director Cadio, yes, and Director Franco yes, motion passes unanimously. Next we'll move on to project labor agreements, and I'll turn it back over to Dr. Stanley. Thank you Chair Ward. So as Kathy Wallace comes up, you know, we continue to have many projects going on um in our buildings across the district and she is here to share about those uh labor agreements Good evening. Good evening, uh, Chair Ward, Brintendent Stanley, members of the board. I'd just like to start first by reminding us all that, um, project labor agreements are pre-hier collective bargaining agreements between one or more labor organizations, um, and the district that established the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project And what we do is there was an agreement between Saint Paul Schools and the Saint Paul Buildings and Trades Council in 2009, and since then, what we've had is that contractors signed letters of assent to stick to that agreement. And what the project labor agreement does, first, it establishes the amount or the, or the pay. Rates which fit very well with our policies related to pay and also those agreements um ensure no work stoppages, strikes, sympathy actions, picketing slowdowns, or other disruptive activities. So that's that's really the um The intro and Saint Paul has been using PLAs for quite some time, since 2005, I believe. As you know, we provide recommendations to you of which projects that are coming up we believe should, well, we have a general policy which is any project over $200,000 in cost would be considered for a project labor agreement. And we have put in front of you, um, a number that we believe should have them and a couple specifically to playground projects that we do not believe um need a project labor agreement. And I think because you have them in front of you rather than going through them, I will ask you if you have any questions about any of those recommendations. Right. Any board members have questions or comments? Was that like a throat clear for, for the beginning of? Well, it was me getting ready. To ask questions sooner than I expect because I know typically we go through a presentation um regarding each of the project labor agreements so I'm just if you could just, uh, I'll be ready to ask the question in just a second. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions or comments? I can take a little longer I will, uh, let me go over a couple of things, um that I didn't cover initially. The question. Oh, you're ready, yeah, I, I got, I just had to get to the right pages. So, um, unless if we wanted to, OK, we'll just ask the question. So I noticed and I appreciate you calling attention to the, the two project labor agreements uh, are the two projects that are not recommending a project labor agreement are two playground projects Um, rationale, uh, being consistency with previous project precedent, short duration, and flexible schedule limited number of trades, um, and then limited scale of the project. Um, can you just give us a little bit more insight into what, you know, what that kind of means in, in, in relation to why we would select one or not, um, just in, in, in saying that knowing that like there is another. The project, like, you know, the duration of time in the project being in some of the ones that are being approved being like 1 to up to 6 months, um, some projects having comparable costs. So just a little bit of, uh, additional clarity around why they're less recommended and those two projects would be helpful. Thank you, Chair Ward, Director uh, Director Franco. The The playground replacement projects are quite simple in the sense that they typically have one contractor rather one contractor that does playgrounds rather than contractors that do electrical mechanical, carpentry, and so on. So, they're quite simple, not very, you know, low number of trades on the project. They often can be done in a matter of weeks rather than taking an entire summer. So, the risk, um, of not, of running out of time during the summer is less than we have for many of our other projects. In addition, While it would be unfortunate at the start of school, if a playground wasn't available it would not be this, it would not be as. There would be other there would be other opportunities for outdoor play for students and so we don't consider it to be as high risk as if a building space like classrooms were not available. So the construction schedule, the construction schedule constraints are much lower, the risk. And because those all end up being in the low category, we don't see, uh, we, we typically recommend that it not have a project labor agreement. Thank you for that, uh, clarity, um. I think, um, well, actually I'll also just mention I do appreciate um the updates that have gone into the project labor agreement, um For this recommendation. I know, um, in the past there's maybe some additional general general um statements on why we would maybe select one or another. Um, and I guess I will be remain curious on what the protocols around selection of some of the, um, projects where we're not, um, going with the project labor agreement I know we have a bidding protocol and all, as all of our projects do, but I think additional information on how Um, that process works, um, and really looking at ways to, um, if we're not supporting a project labor agreement, really are supporting, um, local uh, local businesses that are local to Saint Paul um, smaller businesses that are local to Saint Paul minority owned businesses, etc. I, I would be really interested in, um, learning some more about that, so Any other questions or comments from board members All right. Then I move to approve the recommendation that a project labor agreement is used for these projects FY 27 flooring replacement program, multiple sites pool H AHU replacement, fiscal year 27 instructional AV. Harding Senior High athletics Improvements, Nacomas North ventilation upgrades, Belvedere Early Learning site repairs and improvements, Expo lead and water remediation, crossroads elementary roof and chiller replacement. Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Henderson. Comments or discussion. Vote please Director Henderson, yes. Director Ward, yes. Director Lowe, yes. Director Alan, yes. Director Carrillo, yes and Director Franco, yes, motion passes unanimously I move to approve the recommendation that a project labor agreement is not used for these projects. The Trois du Nord playground replacement and the Heights playground replacement. Is there a second? Second seconded by Director Carrillo, comments discussion Vote please. Director Henderson, yes, Director Ward yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan, yes, Director Cadio, yes, and Director Franco, no. All right. Motion passes. See, it's 5 to 1. Next, we'll move into. Wait a second. Yeah. Let's move into the policy update and I'll turn it back over to Doctor Stanley. OK, I'm going to invite Becky Schmidt, director of health and wellness, Stacy Coppin, director of nutrition services, and Kathy Wallace, interim director of facilities to all come up and be prepared to go over their policies and we are going to start with 3rd reading of policy 518. Good evening, Chair Ward, members of the board Superintendent Stan Lee. I'm here for the 3rd reading of the do not do not resuscitate, do not intubate policy proposal. Uh, as a reminder, we do not have an existing DNR DNI policy, so this would be the first of its kind. And the intent is so that the district can provide guidance to families, um, when they are uh, requesting a DNR DNI order be honored at school um, because we have not had one previously. So because our primary mission is education, um, our proposal is that we would not accept to honor requests for DNR DNI policies in the school setting. Uh, we would not convey these orders to emergency personnel and that, uh, we would continue to provide any reasonable emergency care in the school setting during any school events or activities. School district staff would uh, activate EMS and 911 as soon as any student was undergoing the emergency, um, medical event during the school day. Parents or guardians would also be notified of those emergency events, and, um, nothing would change in terms of IEPs or 504s and any accommodations that would be necessary for students during their school day. Um, so if parents did come forward with a request for a DNR DNI order, we would give them a copy of this policy and explain, uh, what our procedures would be. Any questions? Questions or comments from board members? Then I move that the Board of Education approved the proposed policy 518.00. Do not resuscitate do not intubate at the September 22nd, today, 2026 Board of Education meeting and that this be considered the third and final reading of the three reading process Is there a second? Seconded by Director Alan. Comments or discussion. Vote please. Director Henderson, yes Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan yes, Director Carrillo, yes, and Director Franco, yes motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Ward, Superintendent Stanley, members of the board. I am here for the 3rd reading of the Policy 719 Food Service, which was first introduced at the August 5th Committee of the Board meeting and was presented at the August 18th, uh, Board of Education meeting. And there have not been any changes since the August 18th Board of Education meeting. The policy purpose and the, uh, general statement were added to follow the new format and to illustrate that this policy is intended to, um, communicate and articulate that the district does participate in meal programs for students and that we follow all the applicable laws, rules and regulations. There was a um revision in 2008, and so some of the old language has also been modified. Um, so the revisions are here in red And we, um, have basically established that the the district will operate a food and nutrition services program that is designed to support our students' um, health, well-being, and nutrition, as well as to ensure that there is access to all of our students We did add a um item here to um identify that with implementation, the district will participate as feasible in the programs that we are eligible to participate in at the federal level. And that does include uh breakfast and lunch programs as well as other programs for which we are eligible. And then we did revise um item C so that we have identified that the superintendent or her designee shall establish and implement the administrative rules and regulations as well as our procedures, um, to ensure that our operations are in compliance. And then, uh, we did also in uh our process of updates, uh, revise the statement so that we can ensure that There is confidentiality that is maintained for our students and that we are administering our program equitably without discrimination on any level. The legal references have also been revised so that we have the most current legal references um pertaining to this policy. And I will open up for questions. At this time Right. Questions or comments from board members? Seeing none, I move the Board of Education approve the proposed revisions to Policy 719.00 food service at the September 22, 2026, uh not committee, Board of Education meeting and that this be considered the third and final reading of the three reading process. Is there a second? Second seconded by Director Henderson. Comments or discussion Vote please. Director Henderson, yes, Director Ward yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan, yes, Director Cadillo, yes, and Director Franco, yes, motion passes unanimously. Chair Ward, Superintendent Stanley, members of the board. I am here for the third reading of the policy 802.02 petitions for consent for rezoning and what this policy really is about is um how the district responds when approached by um cities planning, well by a landowner to Uh, approve or to comment on their proposals to change land use. Near our sites. This is the 3rd reading. Uh, was presented first at the committee of the board on the 5th and presented on the 18th to the board of Education. There haven't been any changes since then. So, I'll just quickly go through what has been modified from the original from the 2008 version of the policy. Um, it's been reformatted and the policy purpose and general statement um, added. I think what's significant, um, in the general statement of policy is the addition of the criteria that we look at in evaluating whether a, uh proposed change in land use will have a potential impact on our schools. Getting down to what we do the implementation, um, with petitions for consent the change is just minor changes to indicate board or designee reviewing the proposed rezoning. We have under petitioner responsibility, we've added a sentence that we would like them to provide us detailed site plan and traffic impact study so that we have the information that we need to evaluate. And on the um the two responses that we typically take. These are there's a continuation of what has been the policy and just a little bit of clarification um and also addition of in red. Some practices I think we had but are just stated. So, neutral consent is our response if we determine that there is no adverse effect and we, the signature to a neutral consent would include a disclaimer that we provide the consent for the purposes of application process only and neither support nor disapprove the proposed rezoning. And then in a, if we Determined that there is an impact. There um is a statement that we decline to sign and then This policy change um adds what has been our practice, which is that the border designee may contact the city of Saint Paul to or the or another entity to state the reasons for declining to to sign the petition for consent. Finally, a 3rd, uh, a 3rd response has been added, and that is Basically reserving the right to provide written or oral testimony at city council or planning commission hearings regarding any proposed change. Finally, there are definitions added. What we mean by adverse impact, consent of adjoining property land use zoning, and school sites, and then we've added the titles to the legal references. So those are the changes. Um, at this point, I will turn over to you for any questions. Questions or comments from board members. Seeing none, I move to the board of it. Oh, yeah, go ahead. So. I have a comment, but it's not necessarily pertaining to this particularly but I know that we have some of our um current staff members that are listening from home and in the crowd uh, because they're obtaining their admin license and they're here specifically to learn about policy and How we do policy and it seemed really dry. And so I just wanted to reiterate that this is the 3rd reading and before this point, um, often these policies are brought to us in a committee of the board meeting um, with the expertise of all of the administration And then it's usually sometimes picked apart. People give their 2 cents or sometimes 5 cents or 10 cents depending on the policy itself from the board and then it gets reconstructed again and brought back again. And so by this point in the 3rd reading, we have kind of cleaned it all up, um, publicly and so we're just all making sure that the administration has heard the voice of the board and everybody. And so at this point we're just making sure that our language and wording is in there and approving it. So it's not always this dry, come to a committee of the board meeting. Yeah. And I, I will also note on that we do have 5 2nd readings later in the meeting. So I can't, I can't, I can't promise fireworks, but it might be slightly more interesting. Concerned. All right, I move the Board of Education to approve the proposed revisions to policy 802.02 petitions for consent for rezoning at the September 22, 2026 Committee Board of Education meeting and that this be considered the third and final reading of the three reading process Is there a second? Second, seconded by Director Carrillo Comments or discussion. Vote please. Director Henderson yes, Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan, yes, Director Carrillo, yes, and Director Franco Yes. That motion passes unanimously. We're gonna take a break. Are you OK with 10? No, 5. You ain't making that mistake. All right, I see some 10s. Um, we're gonna go ahead and take a break until 7-Eleven. Oh We're gonna go ahead and reconvene. Yeah, that's true I was in a meeting and it's like. Great. All right we are going to go ahead and reconvene. Next is informational agenda items beginning with the board initiated goals governance report and I'll turn it over to Doctor Stanley. Thank you, chair. So just because this is starting off the school year, I just want to say it's a reminder that the board has set several board initiated governance goals and per the direction I've been given we need to report the progress on at least one student outcome or programmatic goal at each board meeting and this evening, I'm going to invite a senior executive officer. Sager to come up and he's going to report on the big regarding the arts. And that goal specifically states that the amount of district funds dedicated to music and arts will increase from $243 per student in 2025 to $284 per student in 2029. Thank you. Good evening again, Chair Ward, other members of the board Doctor Stanley. Yes, tonight we will report on the amount of district funds dedicated to art and music um, and we're, uh, comparing the increase from $243 from FY 25 with the goal of $284 per pupil per student in by FY 29. The parameters, uh, we use is we use our school district budget and the allocations therein and the metric, of course, is we look at our student numbers and we, um, tabulate the per pupil amount from the FY27 budgeted areas. The way we do that, we use um our UFA's accounting system. Uh, our music and art have their own uh unique uh dimensions. Art is dimension 212. Music is dimension 258, and that's really easy for us to keep track of the amount of of, of allocations that are, are, um, going towards these two areas. And then we use the estimated enrollment for the FY 27 year, um, and we look at those art art classes as well, obviously for the 25, 26. So here's where we are. This is, these are the results. This is the update. Um, this year we allocated the $8,957,000 to music and art. And we had uh um 30,719 students and that comes out to $292 per student allocated in the FY 27 budget. That's $14 per student from last year and 4 20% points from when we first started doing this. Here's the main takeaway. The goal is now achieved and actually exceeds your target of $284 per student by FY 29 by $8 per pupil. So you've met the target two years early and you've exceeded it by $8 per student This slide we added last year really not um part of your big goal, but we added this as kind of broader context to show the types of, in addition to elementary art and music, uh, we have the 6 arts magnet schools 39 courses in middle schools, 86 courses in the high schools, and the academic in summertime extended day And then we have, you know, the districtwide celebration of the arts, and that's pre-K through 12. If you would like to have more information on this, there are resources in the slide deck, our adopted budget, budget archive by year, and then of course our most current uh SPPS district course catalog. Thank you. And congratulations Yeah. We don't normally get applause at meetings. That's pretty nice. Uh, thank you. Um, does anyone have any questions or comments, Director Henderson? I do have questions, um, and some are for you, Chief Sager, but also I think some for the board to consider. Um, I think this is now the 2nd or 3rd goal that we are either right at, um, the point of meeting or have met, and I think the wondering I have is. We developed the goals to be able to obviously change them, move them forward, etc. depending on the need, but I'm still curious about how, whether or not increasing the dollar is actually, what that actually means, right Like what is the context? What does that mean over are we staying at the same amount of courses? Has there been a shift? Has there been any additional resources that we're putting in and then what's the next step? Um, because the intention of the goal was to make sure that our students have access to arts and music throughout their time and SPPS and that it's robust and that it's consistent. And so how are the, how are the ways in which we can measure that in future years and in future opportunities? And if it's not a dollar amount, since we've met that, what does that dollar amount actually tell us? And so maybe it's not a direct question for you and maybe it's just a conversation for us to start and consider. George Korea. Yeah, I was actually thinking a similar thing and I think it. It's not that I'm asking for a follow-up uh, presentation as, as much because our goal is really truly monetary, and that's what we asked to measure and we got the measurement and the result that we asked for. But Maybe my, my thinking is more on our goal setting. What do we need to ask in future goals that maybe connects the investment to what the result is aiming for. And it, and it's I think it's maybe it's just like, you know, we're maturing our thinking around, around our goals and we're starting to think like, well, similar to what um some of our parents are asking, which is like, yeah, we have technology but how we connect that, the the measurement of the use of technology with actual results. Like, is the technology helping our students or is it actually an obstacle or is it simply a tool that we're like limiting its, it's use to make it more effective? Uh for our students learning. And so, I think in similar veins, I'm, I'm trying to understand like, well, um More than effectiveness, it's, it's impact. It's like how How many programs do we have here, but specifically like, how many students are accessing arts and music and how many minutes a day are they experiencing, and are those experiences, uh, meaningful to, to those students and their learning environment? Um, are they being able to progress in further arts and music exploration that connects them to, um, not just, um, Outcomes or avenues of, of developing, whether it be skills or artistic abilities, but also, um, you know, connecting with their, um, You know, cultural background connecting with um with community. Um, connecting with, uh, mental health services through arts and music. And so, I'm I'm just curious to know a little bit more about that and I think that's not a question that we really asked So, it is something that makes me think in, in future iterations of, of our goal setting to really start thinking about like, what are, what are some goals that we can do. Rather than just say, yeah, we completed it, let's just drop it. Um, let's actually say we completed it, let's develop it. Maybe we need to say we'll up the ante on the target, but more than that we wanna see a connection to something tangible that our students are experiencing. Yeah. Any other board members have questions or comments? I have a um a related one. And I was gonna ask, I think something something that um director, um, Directors Henderson and Korea were getting at. Uh, well, first of all I just want to say like, I thank you so much for working with us on this and helping us to get to this point We set a goal and we met it, which is always really exciting. Um, I think we, like, you know, people have a common refrain, right, is, is a budget is a statement of values, right? And, you know, we as a as a board and as a district. Made the commitment to to value uh music and arts in this district because it's something that our community told us that they also valued um and so so that is really exciting um the sort of like general question I have which um I don't. Expect a full answer because I didn't ask this this ahead of time, but like how is this showing up in our in our schools right now? Is that something that people can share anecdotes about or or thoughts about, um, otherwise that is something that like everyone else is saying we need to look into more as we decide what the next iteration of this is. Um, and, uh, we have not, obviously like our, our, our governance models still pretty young and we have not gone through the process of taking a completed goal and then turning it into the next step, which I am super excited to get into what that that process looks like. I think that'll be a lot of fun, um, but, um, but yeah, is that something that that anyone can speak to now and if not, then that is, that is a discussion that we will have later Through the chair. Uh, well, thank you so much for the question, uh, Director Ward, and, um, uh, I think that the, what I'm thinking is This is all, it's very exciting and we look at the data and you can see how many courses and I think the, the important thing would be to actually compare year over year and that's something that we could pull together for you and I could even just send you a written report on that as well, uh, because I think that we'd want, I think that's what you're looking for, like not just the impact of the dollars but the impact to students, right Yes, absolutely. A written report. I think it would be great. And then if uh if it could be sent out to all of our, our board members, and then if anyone wants to bring that up for, uh, raise that for an agenda item, you can just like let let me know and then we can bring it to exec. But I think a written report would be great. Yeah, because what I'd like to do is I'd like to connect with the folks over in teaching and learning to really get that information from them because I think it's the year over year that would be really interesting. Yeah, absolutely Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions or comments? Great. Um, then I will again say thank you and just, uh, flag that, uh, we do need to have a conversation about like what it looks like to, to move forward and I'll probably include on my, um, as a suggested agenda item later in the meeting, like having a discussion about what comes next after this and, and working through that process. Um, but it's so, it's so exciting that we're in a, in a place where we get to have that conversation. And so, again, very grateful for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Next is K-12 summer learning, and I'll turn it over to Dr. Stanley. All right, thank you. Well, this summer there was just robust experiences for students that Really worked to what we call um closing opportunity gaps and so tonight we have Doctor Adam Koontz and we have Tony Walker here to talk about uh the programs that were offered and student experiences. Good evening uh, Chair Ward, uh, director of the board, Doctor Stanley, uh, really excited for the opportunity to share about summer learning with you all. Um, So, uh this summer we served, uh, almost 12,000 students and, uh, as you're looking at that number, you might think to yourself, I think that's a little bit lower than I've seen in years past and it is. And, uh, one of the metrics that I'm gonna try to share to you tonight why is why that's a good thing in many regards So for our K-8 programming, we serve slightly more students, but almost the entire decrease is from our credit recovery program. So later on in the presentation I'm gonna try to explain why. Um, this is a great picture from our Capital City Youth Cup, which is a soccer tournament for all of our 4th grade students uh, at El Rio, um, Recreation Center on the west side It's a great partnership with the city where they all get to have a, a wonderful day and even the loon comes from the Minnesota Loons to celebrate. So just a great photo I wanted to highlight. Um, I really want to spend time highlighting kind of some of the things that are, are new and different this year because one of the things that we're doing that's creating some positive change is the consistency. But one of the things that we are doing that's really cool is the 3M STEA showcase at the Bell Museum. And that is a partnership with the Minnesota Academy of Science and Bell Couture Diagnostics Corporation. They're judges, so students spend time at school researching and designing, uh, and then they get to also be judges and work with these corporations and adults, uh, and this is a wonderful picture that our very own, uh Erica took, and it just is so exciting for the students to get to spend time there working with adults. Um we have, uh, programming across the city, K458, many different opportunities. That's consistent. We move schools to make sure that we make space for all of the exciting projects that are happening with construction but the programming is consistent. Our program at uh we call Quest was at Highland this year. Uh, again what I would like to highlight are the things that are new and different. We shifted our math to away from a digital platform into a curriculum that was developed by SPPS teachers for SPPS kids and that was a really positive move. Our transitions course this year included uh college and career exploration So our transition course is for the students that are entering 6th grade and entering 9th grade. And then we uh developed something in partnership with community ed that we call SideQuest. After listening to our students say I want more choices, I want more opportunity, and it's like doubling the amount of uh Uh, elective courses. And so I'm gonna take a minute and pause and let Tony talk about SideQuest. Thank you, um, board chair, Superintendent, uh, Stanley uh, board directors. Yeah, I mean, this is essentially listening to our youth. Uh, last year, we, uh, had a partnership like last year, we were had staff and some community partners inside our summer quest program and we really focused on connecting with the youth in that program. What are the youth experiences like during summer school? How can we improve that process And so we went back working with the ED. Team and our great colleagues at here and said here's what things that we can provide through our department that we can provide resources to actually encourage those experiences to become wholer and truthful and more impactful and so Side Quest was kind of born and developed out of that concept of what a youth want and how can we bring that into an existing program that is built for success already and so it meets a grant goal of ours and it actually meets a grant goal for what the students experiences, which is a beautiful relationship and that's a great partnership that we've developed over the years. And some great photos of the students out there doing the side quest This is a trip to the fire department which is, was really popular because many of our photos were from that day. So really cool. Thank you, Tony. Um, I want to talk about our literacy work this summer. We're really proud and excited of seeing this improve over time. Um, so this first two bullets are about our tier one instruction and how we're ensuring that, that tier one work that's happening in summer mirrors what's happening during the school year, right? So that's for everybody all the time. Those same structures exist during the summer that exist during the school year. So like you've heard of UFly, we're doing UFly during the summer. That 3rd bullet for win, SIPs and on-track, that's our tier two. So our intervention work that we're doing during the summer, and I want to take a moment and talk about how uh we're improving that every summer. And so, Um, these are, this is the intervention work that we're doing for students that need that extra scoop. Uh, we've been doing this for several years, and the improvement this year is using Spring SIPS, excuse me, Spring fast data and having that intervention ready to go on the very first day of summer. Uh, and you can see all of the different interventions over on that graphic that we're doing for students. That data that you see there is, is very, very impressive because what we did is we focused on that highest area of need. We weren't trying to improve every aspect of reading, we were trying to focus on that most needed area of growth. So you've heard uh Assistant Director Sue Braithwaite talk about Scarborough's reading rope up here. What we did is we focused on that band of the rope that needed the most support and really dumped our energy into that and it worked over the course of the summer. For math I'm gonna talk about that 58 math. That's the math that we focused uh away from that, um. Digital platform and we're seeing some really nice growth as students are working on that SAVI inspired so we're using those SAVI grade level readiness assessments for students we're seeing that increased uh work happening for our students in math. Switching to our work in high school, just a couple of reminders about credit recovery Credit recovery is for students that have not found success in a course and are working to make up that credit. We had multiple programs happening at Como Park High School this year. I really wanna focus on our experiential program. You've heard me talk about the experiential program a few times. Uh, the experiential program this year was about, was for our 9th graders You know how critical that 9th grade year is, and if you need a lot of support after 9th grade, right Like you didn't pass a lot of those courses, we wanted to give you that extra support. And so I give a lot of credit to uh Prince. Principal Jamil Payton, he was our, uh, administrator for that. You could see that art down there. A culminating event for that experiential program was called the Identity Project where students get to mix art and writing and multiple modes of learning to express themselves as kind of a culminating event for that learning experience. And it was, it was really a nice, uh, a way to sort of culminate that experience for those 9th graders. We had 300 9th graders in that, um, program. A few of you are at summer graduation. We had 145 students graduate. I have a long quote there from one of our student speakers. I'm just going to read just a moment of that. Uh, you're gonna set your heart ablaze and dry your eyes. What a great speech we heard that night So excited for all of those graduates getting that opportunity. Wonderful speech. Uh, this year we had 807, 8,771 credits earned during summer learning. That is fewer credits than you've seen before, and again that's not a bad thing. This graph over on the left the blue lines are the percentage of students by demographic in summer learning as compared to the green line, which are our SPPS enrollments. All right. So I'm gonna try to explain why that decrease in enrollment is a good thing. This is our school year success rates over year. So that diagonal line is the school year passing rate from last school year. And you can see that it's higher than the year before for every grade If you go horizontal on that line, the passing rate has increased each year for that grade. Over the past year before. If you look vertical, like at the 9th grade line, every year, our 9th grade is passing at a higher rate, right? The class of 2026 when they were in 9th grade was 77%. The 9th grade class last year was 82%. Each quarter We, uh, I'm gonna make sure I get my notes right on this. Each quarter, there are about 36,000 core marks every term. If we move this 1%, and we have 1% fewer fails, we're having 1400 fewer marks that we need to make up during summer learning. So every time we move that by 1%, there are thousands of students that don't need summer learning This is a powerful metric that makes it why that enrollment going down is a really good thing. The last thing I want to show is some of that 9th grade data over time. You can see from 2022 to last year, uh, 9th grade passing rates have increased dramatically. You can see us working to close that gap uh for many of our different demographic groups. This matters because when students finish the 9th grade on track, they're 3.5 times more likely to graduate from school on time What about the students that aren't making it, aren't passing, and aren't, uh, ending summer school with the graduation or ending on track, we still have supports for them. We have our re-engagement process that's happening in school all throughout the year. Unknowns and dropouts is an encode process that comes from MDE. We have support from our counseling teams that's one on one. And next year, well, starting right now we have a half-time counselor that works with the Department of Alternative Education to support re-engagement in school. That's half of his FTE. Lastly, I don't want to leave our students with IEPs out of the uh work. We have ESY at all of our sites during the summer but we also have our specialized sites. Uh, this year they were at Obama, Bridgeview focused beyond River East and Journeys, and there's a day class in action there. Right. Thank you, Doctor Koons. I'll, uh, take over the community portion of it. Um, so just a quick little highlight, once again, thanks for allowing community education to be a part of summer school Doctor Koons, and then of course serving our community and our families. So summer session, we were first day available right away to the last day available June 20, uh, June 15th through. August 28th, we offered over 700 courses, camps, classes for young people uh, this summer, and over 80 community partners participated in our summer learning program. Those are, um, great partnerships that we have with our community members our youth workers, our youth development specialists to come into our programs and provide lifelong learning opportunities. for our students and families. So really proud of that. Um, a little quick background here of what communication looks like in the summer. We have adult basic education, uh, 9 weeks of programming serving just over 2100 students. We have our community programs, which is our youth and adult courses, um serving over. Looks like 2800 or 5800 students, youth and adults, which is amazing. Our Discovery Club is our school aged care program, which had just over 860 participants at four locations. Our ECFE program focus a lot on nature, uh,-based programming, and then they do a lot of outreach, and those numbers aren't in our data for outreach, but they attended over 19 events in the community, letting people in the community know about commu uh community. Education ECFE and Saint Paul Public Schools as well. Trying to get students registered and pumped up about our families and our community, about what's happening in our program here. Of course, Adam has talked a little bit about our flip side program and our partnership with uh SideQuest. Uh, and then, of course, our, our highlight program, Freedom School as well, which I know many of you participate as well. Overall, around 10,544 students participate in the summer opportunities uh, which is amazing. It's one of our largest summer programs since I've been here. Uh, youth and adult programs, I'll just highlight a little bit of this area, um. They started the first day, went to the last day, lots of camps, lots of programs. I'm gonna highlight two programs that really come into a little bit of my heart. During, um, during, um, some ARP dollars, we started a program in communication called Impact programming where we wanted to, uh, provide programs and opportunities for maybe communities that don't participate as much in community education offer free-based programs. Uh, we partner with some. School over at Frost Lake and over at Riverview to provide after-school programs after the summer school day with transportation. So we continued that, uh, during ARP we've made a commitment that from communication to programming that in the summer and we've shown a lot of success with that with 90% of those students who register for that program attend after school and attend summer school. So 95% attendance rate at those schools, which is amazing. They're showing up to those programs. for summer school and they wanna be there and they want those engagement opportunities so that's really cool as well. The other program I'll highlight is our, uh, youth with special needs, our uh, SE programs. We're programming at Bridgeview and Focus Beyond programming as well. Once again, free-based programming for students with special needs really designed with community partnerships and students' interests in mind to provide those right, uh, enrichment-based programs for students who have those. Needs as well So really cool programs that we're offering free of charge to community education this summer as well And then of course our, our highlight program in cahoots it's a remedial, uh, reading and math program. A lot of students who don't attend summer school do that but it's a district-wide kind of pen pal packet where we have writing and literacy components of it. So as we're talking about less iPads, more stuff like that, it's more the writing, more that connection between, uh, staff and, and, uh, students and parents as well. We do offer that through community education and I'll work with, uh. Our team here to make sure every student gets that packet moving forward as well cause it is a, I think it's a unique program that we offer as well. Of course, our aquatic summer gymnastics programs are a highlight as well. Uh, we did do programming over at JJ Hills, uh, School, which is our, our communication center over there. It was a little hot, but we made it work. Um, really, really fun opportunities there It was nice to be in a space where we could provide sunup to sundown programming as well in the evenings Uh, I'll talk about our flagship program, and many of you know this program. I want to say thank you to all the members here who participate in the read-alongs and things of that nature, our CDF Freedom School We have Doctor Hill in attendance here as well, highlighting the great programs that happen here as well. 559 students served, 28 are community read-along guests, Health and Wellness Fair, Community Science Day. All this happens with the support of the community over at our Rondo location, uh, this past summer. Um, Hundreds and hundreds of staff come in through that program hundreds of volunteers, really amazing opportunity It's a partnership with EDL communication and of course our school district. So, and, and Children's Defense Fund. So I really want to highlight that program and thank you for all the work that all of you have done to support that program as well, uh, taking your time as well. Um, Adam talked a little bit about this, this uh, flip side with Quest, just to talk a little bit about that. Don't want to recreate that wheel, but it was a partnership that we developed this year through our, um, our, um, ACLG grant, uh, afterschool Community Learning grant that we, uh, had some funds available and we wanted to partner with summer school to make it more impactful as well. Um, and of course, Parks and Recs is a huge partner in that as well. Um, at ABE we do a huge program this summer over at our hub center, Adult Basic Education Center, nine-week program Um, you can see the demographics there of who we serve and how we're serving them. It really is a great kickstart for us to stay engaged with the summer and then get people back for the fall as well. And so it's a unique opportunity to have staff who mainly work summer as well, um, take that extra additional time, extended time to work the summer, and then of course, make those commitments in our community to engage our community and our adult learners. Um, Discovery Club, we had 4 locations for our school-aged care program. That's a 6:30 a.m. till 6 p.m. childcare, uh, center. Their their, um, playlist was soundtrack to summer. I had a couple of little puns, uh, but I'm a little older now. I guess I can't go in the, the break dance and stuff that they had to do there as well. But that said, we were trying to, uh, I'm, I'm not gonna say it. So, um, we're, the break dancing was really cool Just let's put it that way. So we had lots of cool Field trips and then we also brought a lot of field trips into our buildings as well. So once again, it's not always about going out, it's about bringing resources into our community, into our schools as well, seeing those great opportunities there as well. So lots of students serve through that program as well. And of course, the family results are always positive, uh with the, with our program of how much, uh, they enjoy the classes, they have a safe environment and students feel safe and heard in our program. Um, we're with them. Over 8 hours a day, uh, in those settings and settings and, uh, caregiving opportunities. So it's really important that we have those great youth connections uh, in adult relationships. ECFE, like I talked about we had 19 outreach events. We did 2 infant classes for birth to 12 months once again to try to get new families into our school district, mixed age groups as well, and we focused on our classes around that nature pre-K opportunities to highlight our nature pre-K programs to get them ready to register and, uh make impact in our nature pre-K program. We had about 100, um, people enrolled over the summer and drop in play dates in our garden. So if you ever get a chance, wanna come over to JJ Hill and see our garden lots of, uh, good stuff. Um, I'm not probably gonna do this justice. Um, our amazing, uh, new food nutrition services director, uh, and our team provided a ton of opportunities and meals this summer for our community 50 locations across Saint Paul, 36 parks, 14 learning community learning centers, 6 food truck stops. Look at that participation. 221, we have 313,000 people in our city. 221,000 people participate or had a meal or a snack through that program. That's pretty crazy and impressive. So I know a lot of our students were engaged in that program as well. Daily participation over 2500, 360 average food truck participants each day, and you can see even the benefits of providing extra uh support for grocery bills, things of that nature. So, our food service, uh, rocked it this summer as well. I'm really glad they're a part of our team here too. And with that, I, we stand for any questions you have or any highlights you wanna talk about, right Questions or comments from board members. Yep, Director Lowe. Well thank you. I have a couple of commendations and then a data request. So, I just wanna say like how you are utilizing fast bridge data as you are moving into summer programming with the Steam program that is, that's phenomenal. I think that that is a a level of innovation that we don't always see, um so I just want to commend that and I would think that if we could You know, look at the success of that and potentially extend that into some of the other opportunities, um, I think that could just be a phenomenal way to impact students over the long haul of summer um. You know, I also would like to commend the reduction in failure rate that's keeping students out of credit recovery for the summer. I would assume that that's in part because of the work that you all have done regarding um grading for equity and so again, just commend teachers that are invested in that, commend the work that's being done. And then I wonder, um this is about, uh, summer programming in general, but our McKinney Vento families, I, I'd just be interested to know, um, how many students are, you know, accessing summer programming, um, you know, as a, as a support as a connection to community, as a sense of, uh, Uh increased belonging in our system. So that would be a data request that I, that I would appreciate. Other questions or comments from board members? No, OK, great Thank you all so much. Next is the fabled policy update and I'll turn it over to Doctor Stanley. All right thank you. Well, we had just a ton of students here from McAllister and I'm sorry that they had to leave and they didn't get to experience the second readings but um Yeah, maybe someone said they probably aren't I don't know. I think it's exciting. All right. So we have several 2nd readings of policies, and so I'm going to invite I'm just going to read off the names and then you can come up just in succession. We won't return to call names. So senior executive officer Pat Pratt Cook, senior executive officer Erica Wacker Director of health and wellness, Becky Schmidt, and Laurie Olson, director of security and emergency management and then finally, Director Franco will take us through the final policy. Any OK Good evening, Superintendent Stanley, Director ward, members of the board. Um, I'm here to actually do the second reading of the Minnesota paid leave policy. Um, just a reminder for the audience that um this policy was adopted on an emergency basis back in November of 25 and so we're now going through the three reading process so that this policy will be considered to be officially implemented. Um, the changes that have been made to this policy really um is around clarification of actual practice um that exists, um, and throughout the course of our implementation and it really was to provide clarification for our employees so that they have a consistent source document to provide them with this information. Um, so, um under the section 5 that talks about applying, um for, um, MPL benefits, there's really basically just a clarification about the importance of people making sure that they submit their short-term disability claims to the STD carrier or administrator. Under section 8, it really talks about while people are um, going through the process of requesting their leave and if they're planning on using top-off hours we're really encouraging them to go to the district website, um, to actually use that calculator to help them really, um, assess the number of hours that they might actually need for top-off. And also reinforcing the fact that once sick leave has actually been used that the district will not be restoring um balances for any sick leave or vacation hours that um might have been used, and that there, if there's any overpayment and this really is a state law, that people will have to pay back any overpayment that's been made because the intent of the law is that no employee would get paid more than what their normal um salary would actually be. Under section 8 of the benefits, again, during MPL, um, we're clarifying that if someone goes into an unpaid status, and typically if someone is on MPL they're actually gonna be on a, being fully paid by the state, or they're gonna be paying, um, most of their salary would be paid by the state and they might have some top off hours from the district or If they're an FMLA, um, unpaid status, um, they're automatically going to be referred to our, uh, COBRA administrator and the district will continue to contribute our portion of the, um, employees' insurance premium, and they will continue to pay at the active rate, except that they will be paying our third-party COBRA administrator um, during that time frame. And as long as they're um continue to be on a leave in a leave status, um the employee will continue to be eligible for that district contribution. Once that leave, whether it's MPL or it's FMLA um is over, um, then the The district will no longer the employee will no longer be eligible for that district sponsored contribution, and it's also just a reminder that if the payment to the third party administrator is not paid within a 30 day time frame, that the insurance coverage will actually be terminated. Those are the um changes to the policy There have been no additional changes made to the policy since the um first reading. Through the chair Director Carrillo. Yeah, more than a question, it's just a statement for people who are seeing this, uh presentation. I think in pages, um, 56, and 7 out of the presentation. Uh, the title says Policy 416 drug and alcohol testing for all employees on the on the top header. And I just wanted to clarify that is incorrect. Um, it's, it should be 4:20, but, but I don't think it really changes the nature of the changes. And in fact, the, uh, in the, in our presentation board books, um, we have the, um, the actual documents and I, I can attest that it reads 4:20 and that it's correct. So it's, it's, yeah, it's not a big thing I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware that that was there in case somebody then was like wait, what, what policy are we talking about. That's it. Although 420 would be a good number for a drug testing policy. Yep, exactly. Are there any other Are there any other questions or comments from board members? See, the college students missed that. That would have been, anyway, any other questions or comments about this policy? None for me. OK, great. We're good to move forward. Is the board recommending then that this goes forward then to the 3rd reading? Yes, OK thank you. With that, I will turn it over to SEO Wacker Thank you, Chairward, members of the board, Superintendent Stanley. Um, we are to the 2nd reading of Policy 718 currently called Branding, supplies and Stationery Um, the, the policy is really just an update to modernize the language, supplies and stationery are not the only thing that we may put our district or school logos on in. Current times. Um, it has not been updated since 2008, so the changes are bringing it up to the format, current format as well as current practices Um, so the policy purpose being added is that the purpose of the policy is to establish standards for the use and development of school and district logos and other branding standards, which may include Colors fonts, um, layout, branding guidelines. Within the general statement of policy, there is just an A and B, um, an A just adding that this applies not only to the district logo, but also to the school logos Every school has their own logo. And then in B again um, modernizing the terminology used to not be just about stationary and letterhead, but to apply to all applications of our branding. Um, all logos must have been approved in order to be published anywhere and we no longer have a graphic services department. We have a print copy mail center, um, but often these things are Created not just through that service, but other places too, depending on what people are ordering and putting logos on. And then just adding two cross references. So policy 716, which was updated a couple of years ago, that's the district advertising and name or local use policy, and then policy 801.01, which will be coming into the rereading process. Within the next month, I believe. That is the other cross reference. So there were not any changes since the first reading, so this should all be familiar. Any questions? Questions or comments from board members All right, everyone good to move forward to the 3rd reading. All right, we're good. Thank you. Great, thank you. And Becky and Laurie, directors are up next. Good evening again. We're here for the 2nd reading of the um proposed changes to our school emergency management policy, and the changes are primarily based around the new statutory language for um. Uh, cardiac emergency response plans, which states that in the 26, 27 school year, a school district or charter school must develop a cardiac emergency response plan consistent with the model plan. Um, and the statute is linked here There are 7 requirements of this statute. Uh, the first is that the school cardiac emergency response team must be established and a plan of activation during the event of a sudden cardiac arrest, arrest on school grounds. Uh, the second requirement is that we must provide for placement of AEDs on school grounds following the nationally recognized cardiovascular care organization guidelines. What that means is that the general response time should be ideally less than 3 minutes from identifying a potential cardiac arrest to, um, beginning CPR and activating AED. Uh, the 3rd is to provide for routine maintenance of AEDs The 4th is to provide a distribution of the plan on school grounds and in coordination with local emergency medical service providers. Um, that is incorporated into our school emergency operation plans. The 5th is to provide for annual cardiac emergency response plan drills for school staff and students. And I am very excited to announce that that begins tomorrow at our first schools. Um, so if any board members are interested in knowing what that schedule is, I'd be happy to share that with you. They will be occurring before school and after school, um, throughout the rest of the school year. Um, the 6th is to require the school board to annually review and evaluate the effectiveness of the plan, and 7th is to address how school staff must respond to cardiac emergencies at school-sponsored activities, including athletic events on or off school grounds. Uh, so, because we were making changes to this school emergency management policy, um, there were also some other language changes we thought we would incorporate at the same time, so I'll pass this over to Director Olson. Thank you, um again, these are just very Um, minor changes. We just wanted to make sure the language, uh, aligned with our current SRPs, our standard response protocols as part of our I Love You Guys Foundation language So, um, it's very minimum, just adding emergency operations instead of response, um, and reviewed and updated by each school administrator annually, and then it's also reviewed and updated, um, by district some staff as well. Um, under my direction or my designee. Um do you want to. This language is just incorporating that we will have at least one cardiac emergency drill at school every year as part of this policy. Again just emergency operations plan versus management plan And then just adding in the legal reference of the new statute. Any questions? Questions or comments Everyone get to move forward. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. You I wasn't serious so. Alright we're back and we're gonna make this quick. Alright here we go. Second reading, uh, for our student voice and decision making policy. Um, what we've done is updated this to align with our updated policy format with where we've added our general statement of policy This hasn't been revised since 2016 and we did perform uh, a bit of just language cleanup to make the, um policy read a little cleaner. Ah, so here we've added the word policy that was the only change there. General statement of policy really just um Making sure that uh we're committed as a district and a board particularly um to engage and keep students involved in decision making process, particularly around critical issues that impact students because all of the work that we do. Directly impacts students. Um, our policy, uh previously was just one kind of paragraph that included all of the language or the language here in, um, black writing. Um, and so what we've done is really broken that down into, um, 3 parts, 4 parts, um. That just helps it read a little bit better. So, um, first we just uh titled, are we removed the valuing Student Perspectives, not because we don't value student perspectives that is now read in our general statement of policy The, uh, establishment, um, that language has not changed. We just added the header to that, um, to that section. The role of the committee, um, we have not shifted, um, anything but language here, um, switching the word role for purpose, um, adding the word established uh, for the committee, um. And then, uh, included a may, uh, may include all of the functions below as opposed to requiring. Uh, each of those functions to be happening, um, within the designated committee Just language, um, clean up there within the rest of that paragraph, uh, recruitment and selection language did not change outside of adding the header of recruitment and selection to provide clarity and then finally um, our operations section, um, switched Will to shall um, that's just how I was feeling, um, nothing specific on that, but then. Um, the, the rest of this was intentional um, previously read, uh, that the committee will be allocated resources to effectively operate and what we know is that language was very, um, subjective and so, um, we have shifted the language to align better with our, um, annual budgeting process and stating that, um, the committee shall be allocated an annual budget to support the operations. And with that, um, just a couple of cross references that, um are present now. And, um, finally, I will entertain any questions. From my colleagues. Does anyone have any questions or comments? Thanks everyone good to move forward. Sounds like we're good to move forward on that one too. Um So that one will be moving, um this was again just to reiterate the second reading we'll be moving to the 3rd. Reading, wait, no. Yeah the 3rd reading, um, October 20th. And our final policy of the evening, updating policy 301, uh, board and superintendent relationship. So again, this one has been updated to reflect our current policy format of adding a purpose in a general statement of policy Uh, this policy hadn't been revised since 2008 and um. What we also, uh, what you'll also see in here is, um, just aligning our policy, uh, for long term success based on our conversation at our 2026 board retreat, um, and putting some of our practice pieces into some, uh, loose policy to guide further iterations of our board. Uh, policy purpose, uh, very, very, uh basic in terms of, um, Just establishing that there will be a relationship between the superintendent and um And the board General statement of policy going a little further into um. Really kind of defining in a way, a board role as opposed to superintendent role as the board, uh, really delegating the responsibility of serving as an ex officio, um, and really ensuring implementation, um, and adherence to board policy through the implementation. Um Our policy, uh, previously again, only read as the language in, uh, black writing here. Um, and what was added is just number 8. I am going to just read it out loud, but again, it, uh based on our conversations at our committee of the board meeting, really aligned with, um, Putting action to our um. Our annual retreat. So the Board of Education and the superintendent are committed to maintaining open, transparent, and effective communication. Together they shall establish and maintain communication strategies and, and mutually agreed upon protocols that ensure board members receive timely, accurate, and relevant information while supporting efficient operations informed decision making, and a strong governance partnership. With that, we added cross reference of superintendent selection, which will be coming before us soon, and then legal references of um superintendent And with that, I entertain any questions. Questions or comments from board members. Good to move forward All right, we're good. Great, we're good to move forward So this will have served now as the 2nd reading, final reading taking place October 20th at the Board of Education meeting. OK. Next on the agenda is information requests and responses as well as any items for future agendas, and I'll open it up to board members. I have the just the one I mentioned earlier, um, I, I think that we need to have an agenda item at some point to talk about how to, um, take the next step for the goals that we've already met, um, whether that is developing a new process for review review or just having that be a topic at a meeting where we get into the weeds about. Um, what having met a goal means and then, uh, whether we want to continue amend sunset um, how we think is most effective to move it forward um, and so we'll, we'll figure that out and bring it forward. Anyone have anything else? Yes, Director Crillo, just really quickly to piggyback on that, I think, um, included in that we should also talk about um. Almost having again an ongoing, uh, kind of like bucket of ideas for goals and, and continuously prioritizing them because I think as we go through the year, there may be goals that kind of rise to the top based on circumstances and it would be important to be able to actively talk about that instead of just like at one point during the year and so I don't know, it's just a suggestion, but I think it's, it's worth a discussion during that time. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else? Oh, Director Low, yeah, and just to reiterate the previous requests about McKinney Vento support through summer school. Right. Anyone else? In that case, next on the agenda is Board of Education Committees and work group reports. Um, I'll open up to board members to provide any reports on their committees who want to. Uh, written report was already provided in the board book. Next is the Board of Education reports and communications. I'll open it up to board members. All right, people are ready to get out of here. Next is adjournment, and I motion to adjourn Is there a second? Oh, seconded by everyone, but I think I gotta pick someone for the record. Director Henderson. All right, Director Henderson, uh, comments or discussion, but please. Director Henderson, yes Director Ward, yes, Director Lowe, yes, Director Alan yes, Director Cadio, yes, and Director Franco, yes that motion passes unanimously. The time is. 8:07 and we're adjourned. Wow.