(gravel bangs) - I now call this meetingof the School Board of Independent SchoolDistrict 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the role? - Ellison?- Here. - Skaar?- Here. - Streiff Oji?- Here. - Thompson. - Absent. - Arcand.- Here. - Lloyd?- Here. Daniel's here. - All right, let's go ahead and get going. The first item on the- - Chair?- Yes Sir. - I would like to make amotion to revise the agenda. - Okay. - Agenda items D2 and E1require the opportunity for a public meeting. Unlike regular public meetings,which include a notice that the meetings are public. Work session noticesthat go out to the public don't include such a notice. This may explain why thepublic is confused sometimes with work sessions and public attendance. I know that I've received thatsince I've been on the board. These are importantmatters. These two matters. And the public should havethe ability to weigh in through the public forum before the board considers anything. Work sessions don't have a public forum. So I make a motion to moveagenda items D2 and E1 to the regular public meeting on June 8th, where we would benefitfrom more public attendance and a public forum. - Alright, so we have infront of us to move two items. Do we have a second? Do we have a second? Do we have a second? Okay. Motion failed. (gravel bangs) So we're gonna go ahead and keep moving. We're gonna start with discussion item B1, recognition of studentliaisons to the school board. Dr. Kazmierczak. - Thank you Chair. Okay members of the board,we have Lillian Johnson and Tom Reese here tonight,we have a gift for them. This is our last meetingand this is our tradition. We like to recognize ouroutgoing student liaison. So if you don't mind, we'll come out front and take a picture withthe board and here you go. (board members talking faintly) - [Secretary] Alright, one,two, and three (speaks faintly). I won't make you do a gobears, unless you'd like to. Would you like to do one? Here you go. (members laugh) All right, here we go,one, two, and three. - [Together] Go Bears! - [Secretary] Thank you. (audience applauds) - All right, we are gonnamove on to discussion item B2, Middle School Activitiesand Community Rec Update. Mr. Maurer? - [Tim] Yep. Thank you Dr.Arcand, members of the board, I'd like to introduce Matt Riebow, our coordinator of facility use and middle school athletics,as well as Ashlie Anzel, our youth rec sports specialist, to provide an update from winter, spring and some upcoming summer activities in terms of middle schoolathletics in youth rec sports. - [Scott] Welcome. - Thank you. Schoolboard members. Thank you. Ashlie's got a fun littlesticker with our new logo on it for small little token for you guys. - [Board Member] Thanks Ashlie. - If anybody needs more, we could probably finda couple more too, so. Anyways, yes. So my name is Matt Reibow. I oversee facilities andmiddle school athletics and this is actually AshlieAnzel, our new rec specialist, doing all of our recreational activities. Again, we just wanna say thank you for having us here tonightto show and talk about our awesome programsthat we have been running for the winter and springand upcoming summer. So just briefly to our maingoal for middle school athletics is kind of to create a schoolspirit and a good energy in the building and havestudents participate in multiple sports offeringsthroughout the school year. We also have a goal toconnect our middle school athletic programs to ourvarsity programs too. And we also do travel forcompetitions to Stillwater, Forest Lake, Centennial, Roseville, and a few other schools that will have us on certain activities, so. Dive in here. So this winter was our middleschool wrestling season. We had 45 wrestlers and wehosted practices and matches at the Field House, whichwas awesome to have. This photo right here is oneof our matches on court one. I had to go and see what wasgoing on with my own eyes because that right therewas pretty amazing. When I first started overseeingmiddle school athletics about 10 years ago, wehad about eight wrestlers And now we have 45. I mean, our shout out to ourhead coach for recruiting. It's pretty amazing goingfrom eight wrestlers and then 10 years later we have 45. So that is awesome. During the season our middleschool team does practice at the Field House Monday through Friday and they do work with thevarsity team on occasion and do workouts together too. So it's kind of fun to seethose groups bond together. The other winter activitythat we had this past winter was our new middle schoolbasketball program. This was year two of it. First year we had 23 girls participate. This last year, we moved up to nine girls. Two years ago we had 43 boys participate and we bumped up to 10. So we're just kind of gaining ground here. This was year two. We're still kind ofnavigating on how teams form and getting new jerseysnext year hopefully. 'Cause we didn't really know what participation numbers were, but as you can see things aremoving in the right direction. So that's pretty fun. Some other winter sports toothat middle school students have the opportunity toparticipate in is swimming and diving, gymnastics, NordicSki and cheerleading as well. 'Cause those are gradesseven through 12 activities. So just throwing that out there too. Our spring sports, so right now we are actually just winding down, this is our last week ofsome of these activities for our spring sports. Golf, we have 33 boys and 12 girls. The past handful of yearswe've been up at Jim Lake, which has been a great partnership to have because it's super hardto find a golf course to be at from four tofive o'clock in the spring and you know, early summertime. So we've had a really goodpartnership with Gem Lake. They accommodate us, theywelcome our students. It's pretty cool withwhat they do up there. Boys tennis, we do combinewith Central Mariner to create one team, we have 24 boys. There's our track numbers,52 boys, I mean almost a 100 participants as Centraland Mariner has 50 boys and 38 girl. On the bottom right cornerof the slides there. Our varsity track teamshosted our middle school teams at the new stadium a couple weeks ago. We got away from that about six years ago and I approached our activities department and said, "Hey, can we bring this back? Let's work on doing this together." They were all open for it. It's super cool to see ourvarsity athletes coaching and helping and cheering onour middle school athletics or our middle school track team. So that was an awesome event. I'm glad we got it in with weather. We were kind of dodging some lightning, but we did get it in. So hopefully movingforward we'll be out there with our middle school teamsevery year and our varsity boys and girls track athletes willbe helping with that too, so. And actually our middle school track teams have their conference finalstomorrow at Stillwater, so route them on for us. The other piece too that we offer is just kind of an intramurallike recreational opportunity at a low cost of $60 andwe offer boys volleyball, ultimate Frisbee and flagfootball and these programs meet a total of eight times. So ultimate Frisbee wouldmeet Monday and Wednesday, and then flag football wouldmeet Tuesday and Thursday. So these students can havethe opportunity to do both or if they wanna be on the track team and then be on the flag football team, there's some flexibility with that stuff. Ashlie can kind of dig inmore about the specifics on each of those activitiesso you take it away. - [Ashlie] Perfect. I'm Ashlie Anzel. I started this position in November, so still learning the ropes here, but it's been great tobe in the community. I live in the community. Ihave a second grader at Lincoln and a seventh grader at Central,so I know a lot of the kids that we're serving through these programs. So just fortunate to have the opportunity to work within the White Lake community. Like Matt said, boththe intramural sports, our boys volleyball programthis year had 21 kids. This is our second year offering it. There are currently not a lotof middle schools offering boys volleyball, so we're kind of justdoing internal scrimmages, getting them during those eight sessions. Just an opportunity for thoseboys to have a chance to play before they move into the high school where they can potentially join the club volleyball program there. So ultimate Frisbee, like Matt said, we have 27 kids and we doa spring and a fall session and numbers are pretty muchon par for both seasons. A couple of kids here and there, but ultimate Frisbee, we work really close with the high schoolultimate Frisbee coaches. So they provide a coach who comes down so they can really have that connection between the high schooland the middle school kids that they're have anopportunity for something to join when they get intothe high school program. They're a little more familiar with it. Flag football this year we're at 77 kids, this is year four of doing flag football. The biggest increase is wewent from about 22 girls last year I believe you had said. We're up to 62 girls in our middle school flag football program. So majority of thoseare girls in the program and it's going really, really well. We're playing games againstMaida, Columbia Academy, Hastings, they just went toa tournament last Saturday down in Anoka. So the girls are havinga really good experience and the boys are as well. We have to find teams for them to hopefully eventuallyplay as those programs continue to build. So the intermurals are going really well, gives kids a chance to try something new with a low commitment, low cost. So it's been great. Alright, so I'm gonna moveinto our youth rec sports, which is the main piecethat I'm overseeing. The youth sports, you know,opportunity to serve kids from, you know, pre-K all the way up through, we have some high schoolprograms as well, low cost, affordable options, lowtravel for families, just something to keepactive and providing a good program at the same time. Big thing is all our recreational leagues are driven by volunteer coaches. So we have hundreds of volunteer coaches serving our programs. So it kind of speaks to theconnection within our community. I think it has a big piece of that is getting everyone involvedand everyone playing a part in that, so we're verygrateful for all the coaches that we have that makethis possible to run. So in the winter, our mainrec programming is basketball, 775 participants last yearfrom our K through two clinic all the way up toour high school rec league. The K through two clinic wehave two sessions that run, one in November and December and another one in January, February. So we had 164 kids inthat, girls and boys. And then from there they transitioned into our third througheighth grade youth league, which we have very strong numbers there. We had 12 girls teams and38 boys teams last year in those grade levels. So it's pretty fun to see onSaturdays up at the field house and get kids playing up there and they're having a lot of fun with it. Numbers are very on par year to year. So strong numbers there. And then one of the unique things that we have is ourhigh school rec program. So we had 18 boys teamsthis year we combine and run our league withMahtomedi and Stillwater. So it's a pretty strong healthy league. Kids have a lot of fun with that. Probably our biggest challenge right now is we're trying to figureout ways that we can increase our girls' participation atthat high school rec program and mainly who we can play against. So we've been talked with communities about different options and maybe we go to a three on three modified type leagues that we can play more gamesbut not needing as many kids, but that's something that we're working on and hopefully next year we'regonna some good things going for that as well. Coming up here in the spring and summer we have our baseballsoftball and then our Tball and Little Sluggers leagues. So we just finished getting our baseball and softball teams finalized. They're all out practicing,games will start in early June. We have 12 baseball teams this year between first and second grade league and a third through fifth grade league. And then we have 18 girlsteams between our first through all the way upthrough high school. We have girls all the waythrough high school playing. So in our high school league we have five girls teams, which is great. So they have an opportunity,we can have a little league with them, working in withsome other communities and maybe try to bring some more girls high school league team. There's not a lot ofcommunities that offer that softball league at that age level. So it's great to see them playing, continue to grow it. Tball, little sluggers, thatregistration's still open, but right now our numbers are on par with what they've been. So keep providing those opportunities and we'll get that goingJune 8th, once summer hits. Youth rec offering of gymnastics. So this was a brandnew program in the fall and we had 202 registrantsin our fall programming and this spring we're at 303 registrants. So we've heard from a lot of parents, families that are veryhappy with a convenient, low cost option fortheir kids to participate in a gymnasts offering that's right here in their neighborhood. So it's been really, really good. We have our high school headgymnasts coach is leading that program, so it's buildinga really good connection with our high school and our youth and a lot of our instructors that work there are high school gymnasts. So it's been a really,really positive program. I'm really excited to see where that goes to here in the next year. The last thing I'm gonna touch on, is we do have our summer camp offerings. So we run a lot of sports camp offerings in partnership with ourhigh school coaches. So between basketball girls and boys, volleyball girls and boys, track, we work with them really closely. Newark skiing also hasa summer opportunity, so partnering with themto give kids opportunities to be around those high school coaches. And a lot of times theybring their players with the help out as well, which is great for great for our youth. We also work with our soccerand lacrosse associations and some other camps that we run as well in partnership with them. And then also we have teachersand smaller staff members who jump in and run some campsin our programming as well. So it's been very good forthe kids and very exciting. - [Matt] And before wehave time for questions, we also wanted to take theopportunity for a shameless plug. So if you're not doinganything on Friday, May 29th, we have our, I think be our fifth annual Bears Explore outdoors event. We are gonna host it atthe high school this year. So if you're busy or I'm sorryif you're free that night, come join us up at the highschool between 5:30 and 7:30 we'll have food available, entertainment by our senior ukulele bears and literally things to do for all ages. So we'll have our early childhood program providing some opportunities for interactive activities there. We worked with the Minnesota Recycler, which is a local nonprofitof retired gentlemen who take donated bikesthat parents or families don't need or want anymore. They refurbish them, getthem back to working order and they donate them out for free. So we'll be giving away,raffling off between 90 to a 100 bikes that nightfor people to take home. And then the Field House willbe filled with a collection of different vendor offerings,summer camp offerings, kind of an expo type situation for people that have some interactive activities. So come out and join us that night. We'd love to see you guys there. - [Scott] Yep. Thanks Tim. Any questions? Okay, Ms. Beloyed. - My favorite was likelittle sluggers, tball and I have very fond memoriesof both of my boys doing that. I was kind of wondering these kind of act like feeder programs intothe high school sports and I love that we have somany things for kids to try out because not every sportneeds to be competitive for every single kid, but I was wondering howmuch interaction do you have with the high school coaches? I know for basketball thegirls team was coming in and working with, you know, the seventh, eighth and ninth gradersand things like that. Is that still continuingwith the different sports? - Yep, absolutely. And we try to just grow on it every year. Again, with middle schoolsports, we try to connect that, make that connection as much as possible. It trickles down intoour youth rec leagues and our summer camps as well, so. And then also I know the varsity coaches try with the local associations too, sports specifics associations. So all those coaches aretrying to trickle down into the youth and parentsgetting their face out there, getting the word out there. We help with that. If any info's needed to beshared with with parents or whatever, we're thereto help with that too. So we always just try to create that bond and bridge to all the programs, so. - [Deborah] Yeah, I knowall the younger kids seem to be starstruckwith the varsity kids. - You're you're absolutely right. And I have a first grader right now too, and we're kind of in the midst of that, so I can see that with my own eyes, like, so it kind of gives me another like, you know, energy to makethis stuff happen, so. - [Deborah] Thank you. - We do need coaches for Little Sluggers if you want come back too, so. - [Deborah] I could do it. - Other questions or comments? Ms. Streiff Oji. - [Christina] I just wanna say thank you. The increased enrollment over time and seeing that more andmore people are joining and participating is great to see. And just to give kids inmiddle school an opportunity to try out things that ifthey have not been in it in elementary school andhaven't had those opportunities, you're providing them with opportunities that could lead them into things that can really affecttheir high school years And their sense of belonging. - [Matt] Absolutely. - [Christina] Thank you. - Ms. Ellison. - [Jessica] Yeah, also, thank you. I appreciate, you know, Iremember having this conversation with Dr. Kazmierczak a longtime ago about the fact that there weren't a lot of middle school athletic opportunities that if students wanted to participate, theyhad to do it in a club setting, which can be prohibitively expensive. And so I appreciate that we've added basketball and wrestling. Are there plans to addmore middle school sports? - We offer tons right now,we offer more opportunities than most schools inour area will say that. We're always looking to add on if we can, the issue is who will we play? So whether it's a boys volleyball club that scrimmages each other for, you know, eight sessions, so be it. And then in five years whoknows what that turns into. But yeah, we're always looking to open up and see what we can fit in there, so. - [Christina] Great. - [Board Member] What others did we add? We added soccer. - We added soccer in thefall. Boys and girls soccer. That's a big one. Those numbers areextremely good in the fall. And then so yeah, soccer and basketball and then we did those intramuralones just to kind of sample that stuff and who knows what happens in the next five years with those, so. - [Board Member] Great. - We're trying for sure. - [Christina] And I can see that, I mean this is just in the last, you know, seven, eight years,this is a huge improvement. So I appreciate that. - Yeah, absolutely. - [Scott] All right, Ms. Thompson. - I don't have questions.I guess just comments. One, maybe we'll get some moregirls to sign up for baseball and stuff as we now have Women's Professional Baseballleague coming back in for the first time sincewhat 1954 I believe. If I'm right. So that's exciting to seeand hopefully that'll bring some more participation there and really like watching theamount of sports be added on for our students tohave the ability to try. And sports are great forkids, it's good support for their academics and justthings to keep them busy. So it's really nice to see. And then on the event on the 29th, I recently had thepleasure of donating bikes to a family in need. And so if you have bikes andyou're willing to bring them and donate them, it's a great opportunity and the families that getthem are very appreciative. So thank you for that also. - [Matt] Just wanna specifywe're not accepting donations that night, we're giving them away. - Okay, so don't bringyour bikes that night. - But if you'd like to donate them. So the Minnesota recycler, they house out of thesmart Car building on, was it White Bear Parkway? And they have a donation areathere in the parking lot. So if you do have bikes you want to donate that you're not using at home anyway. Yeah. Drive out to the Smart Car building, you'll see a station forthem to donate bikes there. - Awesome.- Yep. - [Scott] Ms. Daniels. - Just wanna compliment you onall the additional activities that you've added over the last few years, as my colleagues have noted. And I just wondered about the rec t-shirts that have been so famous. Since the '80's and '90's andyou know, we used to have, I don't know where I was seeingit maybe on our own webpage where people were wearingthese rec t-shirts all over the world. Like they take their picture in Paris with their White Bear rect-shirt and you know, all over. And I just wondered, are those still accessibleto the community? - [Matt] They're still accessible, they're still more popular than ever. And if you think aboutit, that's what makes this kind of one of those piecesto this whole community. That's what makes this community awesome. Is just a t-shirt, like, 'cause it's three, four generations now. - [Matt] Yep, they're the same. The only thing that we've changed is this more breathablematerial for our athletes. - Well, I'll have to let my family know. My daughter who's 40 stillwears, it's in tatters, but she's got it. - I have 15 I can give you. - [Matt] There you go. - [Scott] And I believethey give it away for free. All you gotta do is volunteer to coach. - Oh, well there you go. - [Scott] Any other questions? Well, thank you for what you do. And as a former participant in the '70's, it meant a lot to me to beable to come and do things with different groups herethrough the rec department. So thank you very much. - [Matt] Thanks for your time. - [Ashlie] Thank you. - All right, we're gonna moveon to discussion item B3. Mariner Middle School, Dr. Pierre. - All right. Good eveningeveryone. I'm Christina Pierre. I'm the principal at Mariner Middle School and with me tonight is RyanBrown, our associate principal. So we're going to give you an update on what's been happening at Mariner. - [Ryan] We're sopleased to be here today. Thanks for having us. - So this is our mission statementat Mariner Middle School. We love our diversity,we want our community to feel like a family. We value our students' unique strengths, and we commit to thesuccess of every learner. This is at the center of everything we do. So please hold that thought. Also at the center of everything we do is delivering on the hopesand dreams of our students and their families. This past January atour Meet Mariner event for current fifth gradersand their families, we asked them, "What areyour hopes and dreams?" And so these are some ofthe things that they said. And what we were really excited to see was that the hopes and dreamsof our students and families fit really well withour mission statement. So on the left hand side of that slide, you can see our missionstatements and on the right are the hopes and dreams. Going even further, our missionand the hopes and dreams of our students and families. Really all of that work has what's led... Is helped us to becomea school of excellence. So last fall, we were notified by the Minnesota ElementaryPrincipals Association that we were being recognizedas a school of excellence. And what I wanna tell youabout tonight is the work that we've done that really got us there. And I hope you'll seehow it aligns really well back to our school's mission, which was developed inpartnership with students and families and staff members. And it also aligns really well to our work to realize thehopes and dreams of our students and their families. So becoming a School of Excellence actually goes back toour Sunrise Park days. So it was a multi-year effort and it really startedwith a self-assessment. So we looked at the expectationsfor a School of Excellence and we did a self-assessment and we identified where are our strengths, where are the areas thatwe need to improve on? And also how can we leverageour strengths, right? We're a strengths-based school and we do that with our students and we do that with ourselves as well. So how can we leverage ourstrengths to move forward and become a School of Excellence? And so these aren't the exact expectations from the ElementaryPrincipals Association. I put them in a littlebit more middle school friendly language. But we're just gonna sharesome examples with you of the things that we believemake Mariner excellent. - [Ryan] A family is aplace where you belong. And at Mariner, everyone'spart of the family Advisory is a time during theday when students in our space are known, seen, and connected. It provides students with the opportunity to build relationships withpeers and with trusted adults. Advisory classes areintentionally scheduled to have smaller class sizes to help facilitate stronger connections and more individualized support. During our daily advisory time, students participate inactivities to build connection, to work on important schoolwork, and sometimes just tosimply enjoy each other and have a bit of fun. Each student isthoughtfully hand scheduled into their advisory class. With a teacher that they already have at a different part of the school day. Helping strengthen the relationships and create a greater sense of belonging within our school community. Mariner offers more than20 clubs and activities, all supported by dedicateddistrict employees serving as advisors. We are continuallyadding new opportunities based on student interests andstaff passions and expertise. Whether a student is interested in Dungeons and Dragons, BakingClub, Creative Writing Club, or something entirely different,we believe there's a place for every student to connectand belong at Mariner. Each grade level at Marineris divided into two teams and students on each teamshare the same core teachers in language arts, math,social studies and science. This middle school model is long used to help larger schoolcommunities feel smaller, more connected, and more personal. And it truly works. Our teacher teams intentionallycreate opportunities to build community throughstudent recognition events, positive behavior incentives,community celebrations, and even the occasional student versus staff dodge ball game. - [Alison] Alright, we knowour students don't come to us as empty vessels. All of our students, everysingle one of them comes to us with talents and unique strengths. And it's our job tocontinue to nurture them and to leverage them to helpour students grow even more. So one of the things that wedo is our talent showcases. And so we've had severalof them this year. We invite our communityin to share and celebrate our students' talents. And our students have anopportunity to perform for each other and for our community. We're super proud. Sunrise Mariner is on its22nd year of sending students to nationals for History Day. If you're not familiar History Day, students who participate inthat do intensive research on a historical topic or person and they do a presentation, either something that theycan show or video documentary or they might act something out. And so this is a tremendouspoint of pride for our school to have sent studentsto the national level 22 years in a row, Mariner students arealso excelling in math. This year we sent ourseventh and eighth grade advanced math students to St. Cloud State for a statewide math contest. Our seventh grader, Chase Cortus, scored first place out of 281 students. We also had two studentsscore in the top 10% and our seventh grade team was number four out of 25 schools. - [Ryan] Tremendous teachersmake rigorous and relevant instruction possible bycombining high expectations, meaningful relationships,thoughtful instructional design, and the core belief thatevery student can learn. Carla Triggs is a incredible example of an educator at Mariner MiddleSchool that lives that out. She's a sixth grade language arts teacher and a reading interventionist. She was the 2025 WhiteBear Lake Area Schools Teacher of the Year and deservesthat honor in every way. But she is certainly not theonly educator in our building that's doing exceptional work. Over half of our staff was nominated for Teacher of the Year this year. These nominations come froma variety of stakeholders, including family,students, and colleagues. To me, it validates a long held belief that Mariner classrooms arefilled with incredible teachers and incredible peoplewho deeply care about White Bear Lake area students. AVID is an example of rigorousand relevant instruction happening at Mariner. AVID stands for AdvancementVia Individual Determination and it helps create pathways for students to access more rigorouscoursework and build the long term academic skillsto maintain that success. These photos highlightour AVID Family Night. Where students shared passion speeches, they talked about theirfuture hopes and dreams, and they displayed theirincredible academic artifacts of their learning around the building. The evening became a powerfulcelebration of our students, our families, and our school community. WICOR is a core component of AVID. It stands for Writing,Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. Each element of WICOR supportsand strengthens the others. While WICOR is afoundational AVID process, it's also become part of ourbroader instructional approach at Mariner. In fact this year, WICOR was a major focus of our professional development and we continue delivering onour commitment as we continue to delivering on our commitmentto engaging instruction for all students in our school building. - [Alison] So excellence is a journey. It's not a destination, right? Like we never really arrive at excellence. We are always striving to keep improving. And so what are some ofthe ways that we do that? One of them is Building Circle. And so Building Circle is a conversation that we engage our staff membersin when there is a problem that needs to be solved and we need lots ofperspectives to come together to be shared around that problem. So the goal of Building Circle, isn't necessarily to solve the problem. By the end, hopefully wecan generate or brainstorm some ideas to get there however. Everyone who's interestedit is invited to participate in Building Circle. That can include cafeteriastaff, it can include custodians, teachers, paras, clerical. And this is a picture fromthe one that we did this year. You can see the centerpiece. The topic was Chromebooks and we were recognized by MASSP, the Minnesota Associationof Secondary Principles with the Gold Star of Innovation for our use of Building Circle. Curriculum work, I'm notgoing to go into the details of this, but I just wannarecognize that the intense work that our staff are doing onan ongoing basis to make sure that we are engaging inthe very best practices, the most current practicesthat we are delivering the top curriculum to our students that are aligned to theMinnesota standards. And our teachers arealways working on improving our assessments that we useto check on student learning and the instructional strategiesthat we use day to day in the classroom. Professional development. This picture might look like chaos, but it's really teachers participating in a connecting activity. If we want our teachers to feel confident, bringing great strategiesto their students, we want them to experience them first. So this picture shows thisteacher's actually experiencing a strategy in action. So the professional developmentthat we do with our staff, we always wanna makesure that it's relevant to their work and that it'smodeling those best practices that we want them to be carrying out in their classrooms. and students, we recognizethat every student is not at grade level. And so we make it our jobto accelerate the learning of students who are below grade level. So we use data to find those students and to track their progress. We engage their families as our partners and we provide additionalinstruction and supports based on the needs of the students. Another way that we have engaged learners outside of White Bear Lakeis we hosted this year a statewide showcase forAVID district directors. So directors came fromthroughout the state, they visited Mariner. In this picture, you can seeour student and staff panel where they were able to ask us questions. I was really nervous as the principal. They didn't hardly ask me anything. They only wanted tohear from the students. And then our studentsbrought them on tours. They were able to visit classroom and see us using ourbest practices in action. So a tremendous honor forus to be able to help others from across the state to learn as well. - [Ryan] Our communityhas so many opportunities to offer our students. One exciting partnershipthat we've begun developing is with the MaplewoodArea Historical Society. This is their centerpiece,the Boontra Heritage Farm. A preserved farmstead datingback to the late 1800s. That is happens to bewithin walking distance of Mariner Middle School. We hosted our fall kickoff eventwith staff there this year, giving teachers theopportunity to dream together about what authenticlong-term partnerships and learning experiences couldlook like for our students. It sparked conversationsabout hands-on learning, local history, community connections, and how we can continue extending learning beyond the walls of our school building. Mariner has made somesignificant gains this year in helping students get to class on time. This work brought together awide range of stakeholders, including teachers,counselors, administrators, and families, all workingtogether towards a shared goal of increasing instructionaltime and student success. By shifting our practices andengaging families as partners, we saw tremendous results. We're very proud thatthis work was recognized with the 2026 MASSP GoldStar of Innovation Award. Another way we strengthened the connection between our school and our community was through partnershipswith local churches. Our Black Student Union hasdone the truly hard work of building and nurturingthose relationships. The impact has been undeniable. Through the generosity and support of our community partners,we're able to upcycle 500 ties as thoughtful staff appreciation gifts. We supported student quilting projects, we outfitted some studentperformers with sequined shirts during our BSU showcase and even launched a newReading Buddies program. It's been a powerful example of what can happen when students, schools and communities work togetherwith a shared purpose. - [Alison] Alright, sowe're done bragging. We're gonna remind youof our mission statement, and I hope some of the things that we shared with you tonight you're able to see the connectionsto our mission statement as well as our mission todeliver on the hopes and dreams of our students and their families. What questions do you have? - I don't have a question, but I have a comment on your history day and you say 22 years. I believe Mr. Wynn has been part of that for the last 22 years,it's not a coincidence. He works hard with those kids. He does a nice job. And so he's a big factor whythose kids are so engaged in that and we wannamake sure we thank him and give him the recognition he needs. So that's what I wanted to say. - Thank you. We'll pass that on. - [Scott] Okay, Mr. Skaar. - Oh, okay, thank youfor the presentation. Appreciate it. I wanted to kind of gaugeyour level of happiness with the facilities. How are the facilities working out? Have you guys thought about do we need any adjustments to make them better? - [Alison] So we're absolutely thrilled. We feel super lucky tohave the school that we do. It's beautiful and we'rereally proud to show it off and we're very grateful. - That's great. So, kinda what's your capacity there? Where are you at student wise? - Sure, yeah, and so wedesigned for a larger capacity than we have right now. We designed for 1,350, I believe. And we're at 950 right now. So we do have a littlebit more room to grow. We've already grown quite a bit from just in the two yearsthat we've been there, the first year we feltlike we had room to spare and oh sure, you can have a classroom and you can have a classroom. Well, now going into next year all of our classrooms are taken. - [Daniel] Thank you. - [Scott] Ms. Ellison? - Yeah, I wanted to also congratulate the History Day program. I think the context here is that Minnesota is one of the biggest and most competitive History Day Programs in the country. So the fact that these kidstook home first and second place in the same category is tremendous. And I don't believe thatthere's any other teacher in the state of Minnesota who had 22 years consecutivelygoing to nationals. And that's a huge accomplishment. So kudos to Mr. Wynn and the kids. And so I have a seventh grader at Mariner and my son who's a ninth grader right now, he went to Mariner and also Sunrise. And my son, who's a ninth grader, has struggled with a lotof things in school, ADHD and a number of other, youknow, executive functioning. He started high school,so ready, so ready. We were really nervous. We weren't sure. It's a high school's really big and the support that he got at Mariner, especially from thespecial education team. He has leaps and boundsgone beyond what we thought. So I just wanna say that asa Mariner Sunrise parent, I saw that transition for him. And so I'm incrediblygrateful for the work that you and your team do. - [Ryan] Thank you verymuch for sharing that. - [Scott] Mr. Streiff Oji. - I just wanna say thank you. The advanced mathematics,it's also very exciting and just also the MASSP recognition that you are receivingbecause of your leadership and how you're leading andhow you're involving voice from your community is veryadmirable, so thank you. - [Scott] Ms. Daniels? - Just wanna congratulateyou on all the awards, And being an AVID statewide showcase and the other Gold Star Innovation Awards, were there two of those, right? Two of those, yeah. And the other ones thateveryone has mentioned, just outta curiosity, when is advisory, is that the same every day,the same time every day? Is it morning like the oldhomeroom we used to have or is it rotate? - We offer it twodifferent times of the day, but it's every day forstudents at the same time. For them it's a 25 minute block of time. - [Kathleen] Okay, thanks. And all the clubs are after school? I take it before or after. Oh, before too. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Great presentation, thank you. - Thank you. - [Scott] Ms. Beloyed. - How many students aretaking part in AVID? - [Ryan] We have four sections next year. And so each section's about 25 students, so maybe a little over a 100. - I love the AVID program. I especially love it atthe middle school level because I think it does alot to prepare those students for high school,especially the note taking and I mean the whole thingis kind of note taking. But yeah, I think that's a wonderful thing to get as many kids who are interested and maybe some others couldpushed in that direction a little bit. But I think it's a greatprogram for those kids. So thank you. - We laugh too. - All right. And I just wanna say thankyou for keeping the legacy of Mariner alive and howyou've integrated into it and move forward. 'Cause you really did honorthe students of Mariner that came before and integrated it and the great workyou're doing, thank you. Alright, I'd like to goon to discussion item B4. Fiscal year '26/'27 preliminary budget. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson. Welcome. - Good evening Chair Arcand,members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak and ourstudent liaison, Mr. Reese. Tonight we have before you the fiscal year '26/'27 preliminary budgetand then projected budgets for '26/'27 and fiscal year '28/'29. This graphic represents the budget cycle for the school district. I think it indicates or shows the budgetingis a cyclical process with multiple touch pointsthroughout the year. At different times throughout the year, our team is working withthe previous year budget, the current year budgetprojecting out next year's budget and projecting outmultiple years beyond that. So a lot of budgetshappening throughout the year and the board is involvedthroughout the year. We have about five or six times during the year that we come to the board for different elements,discussions and decisions that the board makesthat impact the budget that we're presenting tonight. This graphic shows the formulaallowance from 2003 to 2027. If you follow the blue linefrom bottom left to top right, you can see what the formula would be if it had simply kept upwith inflation since 2003. The orange dash line shows where the actual formulaallowance landed in 2026, 2027, fiscal year 2027. When we look at that deltaon the right hand side, if the formula increase, it just kept pace with the rate of inflation since 2003, the per pupil funding fromthe state would be $9,157. The state allowance to forfiscal year '27 is $7,683. That's a shortfall of$1,474 on the state formula. And that is the core of our funding. Represents a 19% deficitin purchasing power over the last 20 yearsfor school districts across the state. To be fair, the last cyclewe saw better increases. For FY '26, a increaseof 2.74% on the formula. And for '27 we'll see another 2.7%. So while these are welcome increases, they do not close the compounding gap that you see on the righthand of that screen. And to be clear, we'retalking the student formula. With this gap that is representedon this screen represents is the shift in fundingfor education in Minnesota that has shifted from thestate taking responsibility for school funding to a greater reliance on local property taxes. So if you go back to 2003, school districts hadoperating levies on the books. It's not that they didn't exist in 2003, it's that those were for extra things that communities had decided, they voted in favor of 'causethey wanted to add something to the programming intheir school district. What has shifted and this gap explains it, is that that relianceon local property taxes now is a basic funding mechanism for public education in Minnesota. It's an important thing to keep in mind. It certainly is fundamentally shifted how we fund schools in Minnesota. Okay, moving on. We last presented this budgetto the board in February as our projected budget forthe '26/'27 fiscal year '27. We need a budget at thattime during the school year, because we're making decisionsthroughout the spring for the next year. We also identified thatas we prepared our budget for the next fiscal year we would need to reduce amillion dollars in expenditures. And so we've found thoseexpenditures made those decisions, there's a few things here. The majority of that $1million, $1,094,000 reduction, will come in the form ofstudent transportation. There won't be any reduction in services for student transportation. It'll actually be a resultof shifting high school start times up five minutes, middle school start times andthen times back 10 minutes. Several years ago, two years ago, we tightened up the gap between the tiers, start with elementary at7:30, followed by high school and then middle school. We tightened up the gap thinking that for by adding about threebuses to our system, we'd be able to make it work. And it just hasn't worked that way. The amount of time andtraffic that gets in the way of getting buses up to Hugoor out to Venice Heights and then back to the middle schools, just made it impossible to run the system. With just a few more buses,we've had to add more buses that's resulted in increased expenditures. So we're gonna make that adjustment back to where we were just a few years ago and that will make up mostof the reductions here. We also have three FTEreductions that's administrative or a district level administrator, the Assistant Directorof Educational Equity. And two FTEs at the Area Learning Center, which is an adjustment tothe same staffing level that they were intendedto be at this year. You've heard Mr. Reese fromthe high school talk to you about the programming they'redoing at the high school to help students not fall behind early in their high school careers. That's very effective andit's helped students stay at the high school fortheir four year experience, fewer students going tothe Area Learning Center. That's resulted in, you know, a more generous staffing level at the ALC than we anticipated for this year. But it's a good problem to have. And so we're just right sizing at the Area Learning Center. Okay, Andi, you'll walkus through the budget now. - [Andi] So as Tim said, in February the school board approvedthe FY '25/26 revised budget. And at that time we had the preview of the upcoming '26/ 27 projected budget. If you recall, this school year, we had a significant increasein the enrollment of students who require special education services, which led to the creationof several cluster programs throughout the school district. Those programs, along withincreased transportation needs in all areas reflectedin the revised budget you see on the screen. So today we're focusing on the2026/'27 preliminary budget, which is what you see inthe gray shaded column. You see that there's a $10million increase in revenue. Half of that is thespecial education revenue, which is in response tothe increased expenses that we have in this current year. And then the other increaseis related to the increase in English learner revenue beginning in fiscal '27 thatthe legislature had approved a couple of years ago. That brings in nearly $700,000of additional revenue. And the remainder of theincrease is normal property tax and state aid in inflationary increases. On the expenditure side. After the budget adjustmentsare incorporated, expenses are going up about 2.2%, which is based on knownsalary settlement increases and inflationary increaseswhere appropriate for utilities, transportation, and insurance estimates. And looking at the fund balances, you'll see several of thefund balances we estimate flat until actuals are known. We have a few small changesin the operating capital and capital project areas. The main fund balance that we focus is the highlighted one in blue. The unassigned fund balance. You see we're budgeted tocome in at a ending balance of $12,185,000, which puts us right at ourfund balance target of 8%. Looking forward at '27/'28,we're projected to be at 8.2% and then in FY '28/'29 back at 8%. This slide shows the total revenues of all of our operating funds. So as you know, the bulk of our operations flows through the general fund at 75%. Then we have the debt service fund at 17%. That's what accounts for all of our debt, which is like our mortgage payments. And then the community services fund and the nutrition servicesfund each at 4% a piece. Now we look at thegeneral fund specifically. Most of our revenue comes inthe form of state aid, 52%. Special education revenue isa form of state aid as well. So a total of about 73% oftotal state revenue for '26/'27. Then we have a smallamount of federal revenue, Which accounts for specialeducation, Title I, and then American Indian Education. Property taxes both general at 20%. And then long-term facility maintenance, make up the next largest source of revenue with a combined 20%. And then rounding out the general fund, we have a small amountof investment earnings and then others such asdonations, activity fees, and then gate receipts. We look at our expenditures inthe general fund in two ways. First by object area. So 80% of the districtspending goes towards salaries and benefits. Purchase services is the nextlargest portion of spending. That includes thecontracted transportation and then a large portion ofour LTFM expenses as well. And then finally just 4% of our spending goes towards supplies and thenthe last 3% towards capital and then other miscellaneous expenses. The other way that welook at our expenditures is by what we call program area. So starting on the rightwith regular instruction and then wrapping down and around. We have regularinstruction, vocational ed, or career and technical. Special education, instructionalsupport, pupil support, and then transportation. All of those are areasthat are directly involved with student contact each and every day. Those programs add up to83% of our total spending. And then we have our Buildingsand grounds department, which is responsible for sites and LTFM, which includes our custodialgrounds and maintenance. That totals about 9%of our total spending. We have 2% of just miscellaneous spending reflected in the other category. Administration includes allof our building principals and administrative assistants. And then the superintendentand school board, that's about 4% of our spending. And then finally,district support services, which is our districtcenter folks, at about 2% of the district's expenses. So then I wanted to take a lookat our general fund revenue and another way by breaking it out into three broad categories. So we have our restrictedor funded mandates, which accounts for about 15% our revenue. So these are funds that are available for a very specific use. And if the funding goes away, either the program needs to go away or these would be need befunded outta the general fund, most likely at the expenseof some other programming. And we have special education, which accounts for about20% of our revenue. This revenue is basedon prior year expenses, and then is currently fundedat about 80% of our expenses, which includes our both ourspecial education staffing and other related expensesand transportation costs. And then general revenue,which is about 65% of our total revenue, which is available forany school operations. So what do I mean by restrictedor funded mandate revenue? So the examples of this underproperty taxes is our LTFM, capital projects, operating capital and achievement integration. On the federal funds, for example, we have special ed, Title I, American Indian Ed, andthen previously COVID, which that funding is gone. And then on the state aid side, we have compensatory, thehourly worker unemployment aid, multi-language learner,paraprofessional training, student support personnel, school library, several miscellaneous competitive grants that we have currently andpreviously operating capital and a achievement integrationas well on the state side. As I said earlier, theseare really important funding streams to the school district. We're very, very pleasedthat we receive them, but if the funding goes away, we would need to find adifferent way to fund them, obviously at the expenseof other operations. This graph shows the correlation between special education revenue, the black line on the bottom, and special education expenses,the orange line on the top in a given year. As you can see, there's a significant gap. Some years the gap is quite large and some years the gap narrows. In FY 25 '26, for example,you see the large gap that I spoke to earlier thatcomes from unexpected growth in students requiring specialeducation programming. And then a narrowing of the gap in '26/'27 when the revenue catches up. This speaks to theimportance of maintaining a healthy fund balance so we can weather thosefunding fluctuations. So then on the general revenue side, examples that are truly available for just general schooldistrict operations. We have investment revenue, local revenue, which is donations, theactivities, athletic fees, and then concession sales. We have just propertytaxes, referendum, general, career and tech ed, safe schools. And then state aids. We have a general formulaallowance, ALC, staff development, learning development, gift and talented. And then transportation revenue. Enrollment trends. So because so much ofour funding is driven by student enrollment, to truly compare year to year funding, we can't just look atwhat was our enrollment or what was our revenue in one year and what was it in the previous year and what was that increase. We really need to break itdown on a per student basis. So these graphs show threeenrollment data points. So ADM, average daily membership, how many students did weenroll in a given year? ML funded ADM. Somulti-language learner ADM. How many students come to usrequiring additional support because they speak multiple languages. And then special education child count. How many students are weserving each year with an IEP who require specialized services? The scales on these twographs are the same. You'll see we had a slight dipin the ADM from '21 to '22. But since then, our enrollmenthas really stabilized and it's projected to growslightly over the next few years. But during that same time period, you see there's a significantincrease in students who require ML and specialeducation services. We proudly meet those needs. We provide the programming necessary to ensure each of thesestudents has what they need to be successful each and every day. But these programs come at a cost. And the state and the federal government has not fully funded these areas. So we're charged withproviding these services with the limited resourcesthat we have available in the general fund. So moving on, we havethe other operating funds that come before theschool board for approval. Nutrition services, community services, and the debt service fund. So nutrition services isbudgeting at a deficit of $220,000 this year, which is verysimilar to the current year, while maintaining a veryhealthy fund balance at '26.5%. Community servicesprogrammings really struggled through COVID, as you know, and families weren't able toparticipate in programming as they had historically been able to. So they've been working theirway out of their deficit and are proud to report thatthey're gonna come in the black probably this year, but very likely for sure next year. Projected fund balanceof just shy of $250,000. And then lastly, we haveour debt service fund, which is the fund thatrelates to our bond payments. So we report our bond schedule to the Minnesota Department of Education. They calculate our property tax levy based on that schedule with a 5% cushion to allow for delinquentproperty tax collections. And then this year we'llhave a fund balance just over $7 million or 20%. So with that, we'll open it upfor questions from the board. We'll come back for approvalat the June meeting. - [Tim] Do we have any questions? - Ms. Daniels? - [Kathleen] Did we get anincrease in the cross subsidy from the state? Like last year was it? - [Andi] It's in fiscal'27, from 44% to 50%. - Yeah. So that helps a little bit. Not, you know, not as muchas we'd like of course, but it makes a difference. - [Andi] It does, yeah. - Okay, thanks. - [Scott] Ms. Beloyed. - Can you describe what the formula is that the state is using? What is it? What does that mean? - [Andi] The GeneralEducation formula allowance? Sure, so we'll go back to that slide. So this is, as Tim has said,this is the largest portion of our district's funding. Pull the total amount here. - [Deb] we hear a lot of stuff and we read a lot of stuffabout the formula allowance, but I don't know thatpeople truly understand what that means. - Yeah. So for next school year, our total state revenue isprojected to be at 82 million. The total formula allowance, I don't remember the totalnumber off the top of my head. It's about 70 million. So it's the largest source of our money. And so when that doesn'tkeep up with inflation, it's a significant impact on our budget. - [Deb] But the allowanceis based on what? - It's based on statute asapproved by the legislature. - So there's different formulas for different parts of thebudget that fall in under? - [Andi] Correct.- The general fund. Can you gimme a couple of examples? - Yep, so as I had kind of mentioned some of those restricted things. So compensatory forexample, is a part of that. I had mentioned learning and development. Of course, I'm not gonna think of them off the top of my head. Professional development,the Area Learning Center, there's many differentparts according into it. - Can you think of any examples recently or say within the last 10 years of specifically state mandated things that the school had to door the school districts throughout Minnesota have todo besides special education? 'Cause we know about that one. Any other mandated programsthat we lost funding for? And then either had to quit the program or pull the money outtathe general revenue? - Yeah, one area that comes to mind is there was an increasein the school library aid in the last, I can't remember, 10 years. And then a corresponding decrease in it. It wasn't mandated, but that was an area where there was an increase and then a corresponding decrease. And so school districtshad to make the decision, were we gonna make reductionsthat we had previously, you know, added or keep that,you know, those positions or budget and then figure that out. Any other mandates that were away? - Well, school lunches wouldbe one that hasn't gone away. But a school lunch is asignificant revenue source for schools, but it also comeswith a matching expenditure. There's unemployment aid... Unemployment for hourly workers, a summer unemployment for hourly workers is a new revenue that districtsare, you know, paying out. And it comes withexpenses that go with it. And it actually compounds an issue because many of our employees choose not to work in the summer because they can accesssummer unemployment for hourly workers. - Yep, another one would be the paid Family Medical Leave Act. So that's the 0.44%, that's on, I mean, that's statewide, right? So that's a cost that we have to us, but then we also havethe related sub costs that we wouldn't otherwisehave for all of our teachers. Paras, you know, nutritionservices folks, all of, yeah. - So when you look at total revenue there is more revenue,there's more expenses. What is really important to look at is the formula allowance,because that tells the story of what purchasing powerschool districts have compared to total revenue, which is, they're really, it's not asrelevant in terms of identifying what services schooldistricts and programming are able to provide. - So to break it down. If the general educationformula doesn't meet each year what the school's expenditures are, and that can vary year to year. There's lots of schools making reductions, we're just reducing by a million. Where does that money come from? - Often local taxpayers, right? I mean, you'll see alot of school districts going out for an operatinglevy or, you know, we look at where can we tighten our belts. - So approximately whatwould our budget be without taxpayer dollars, property tax? - Well, we have 32 millionin local property taxes in the budget. - [Deb] So if we had to cut32 million from our budget, what would that look like? - Oh, I have no idea. I can't even. - [Deb] Could we? - Boy, it would be a differentenvironment for sure, yeah. - Alright. Thank you. Appreciate it. - [Scott] Thank you, Mr. Skaar? - Oh, thank you. First of all, Tim, thanks for addressing the general education inflation where we make up for it with levies. So that's helpful because ouroverall funding has kept up with inflation when youinclude our all in revenues over the five year CPI. So I appreciate the fact that you at least addressed it this time, also- - [Tim] Depends on if you'reusing the right CPI numbers. - Yeah, we can argue. - I'm not sure it's quite kept up, but when you take mandates out of it, it hasn't kept up, butthe revenue is there. You're correct it's just- - I'm talking about all- - Competing expenditures are- - Right Tim, I'm talkingabout all in funding. - Yeah, I've looked at the numbers- - And I would just sayit's an irresponsible way to refer to schoolfunding is all in funding. Because to say thatwhen a community decides they're gonna improve theirfacilities and then say, look, their revenue'sup, well that's true. The community supporting the facilities, but it doesn't tell the... It irresponsibly paints a picture. The district has more funds- - You could look at it expenses too. I think from a taxpayer's standpoint and from a person like myself, it's a very responsible way to look at it. So I don't think it'sirresponsible at all. But getting back at the numbers, you did a good job of providing insight on what's driving the numbers. However, the realityis we had a projection of 11,000 students, we builta 400 plus million dollar facilities upgrade based uponthat 11,000 enrollment number. And it's not there. It's 20% less. So it seems to me that weshould be looking at a flat to declining budget asopposed to increases. We shouldn't even haveinflationary increases. It should be flat. Imean am I wrong on that? - [Andi] Why should it be flat? - Because our enrollment's declining. - Our enrollment is not declining. - Compared to the 11,000,we built 400 million. - [Andi] Right. But we don't build the- - Those facilitiesrequire care and feeding. They require heatmaintenance and so forth. So what I'm just conveying my worry, my worry is, is that we'rein a false sense of security that this is gonna come backand, you know, be a surprise. That's what I'm concerned about. - Well, I'll point out one more thing. And that's, and you look at levy increases from municipalities,counties, school districts, you'll find that ourlevy increase was lower than every municipality. Lower than all three ofthe counties that we serve and lower than most of theschool districts around us. So that's reflected in the levy. - Thank you Tim forproviding that insight. We had a truth in taxationmeeting. When was that, March? - [Tim] December. - December, that's right. And we had eight people come up. People that were parents,community members, taxpayers that were outraged withthe increase, so there's... And I'm sensitive to thatand I'm sensitive to the fact that we have to deliver for our kids and student success and there's a balance. And I don't know whether weare striking that balance and if we're putting enougheffort into looking at, well how can we optimize ourbudget and cut our budget and get it so that it'smore flat to recognize that we have aninfrastructure that we built for 11,000 studentsand we don't have that. We may not get that for a long time. - Sure, so when I talk aboutenrollment projections, the first thing that I'll say is I can guarantee they're wrong. Right? They're always wrong. They're built on facts thatwe know, history that we know. And our very best guesswhen I build a budget, I base it on everything that I know. I've never once built a budgetbased on 11,000 students. If I did, I would agreethat we need to be doing a whole bunch of reductions. But the budget is builton last year's enrollment and all of the previous year's enrollment and what we know to becoming down the pipe. And so I think that this isa very responsible budget that we're presenting forward. - Okay. Thank you foryour opinion on that. However, the community wassold the bond referendum of 326 million plus the LTFM money, which makes it more than 400 million, based on the number one reason, enrollment's gonna grow to 11,000. - [Andi] I don't believethat was the only reason that they sold that. - That was the number one reason. - [Andi] Well, you just saidthat was the only reason. - That was the number. I'm sorry, it was a number one reason. Number one right off the bat. - [Andi] Because of it (indistinct) okay. - All I'm saying is are we aware of this? - [Andi] We're aware- And I'm concerned- - [Andi] And what I brought forward though is a budget based on current enrollment and there's no reason to reduce based on a number that was built almost, I dunno, eight years ago. A projection that was eight years old. A lot has changed in that time. We all know that, it is notrelevant to this budget. - I believe that it isrelevant to this budget. - Why would I reduce a budgetbased on 3,000 students? A 3,000 student reduction that's not relevant to this budget. - Four years ago we hadwhat, 8,500 students. Now we have like what, 8,100? - [Andi] 8,300. - Yeah, so why is thebudget continually going up? That's my question. All I'm saying is let's beaware at the sensitivities that we have thisinvestment that we've made that requires care and feedingbased upon 11,000 students. And we don't have that. - If we had 8,100 students andnow we have 8,300 students, why wouldn't the budget increase? Can you answer that? You just said that ifwe had 8,100 students a couple years ago, andI'm telling you right now, we have 8,300 students- - No, wee had like 8,500students and now we're declined. We can look at enrollment numbers. I don't want take time- - [Andi] Can we move on from this. - I don't want take the timefrom the other board members. (gravel bangs) - [Board Member] Yes sir. - And as I said, you know,throughout the entirety of this though, we have always staffed based on the number ofstudents that we have not on a projected number. You know, the only time thatwe're operating on a projection is looking at the following year. And we're responsive tothat as we move through it. And the dollars, you know, the preponderance of thedollars that we're spending because we are a serviceproviding organization is on the people as you lookat what that looks like. If we were staffed to support, you know, more students than we currently enroll, then it would be really problematic. And I would be worriedabout the future there. - Hey Scott, can I justrespond to that real quick? I'd like to get others a chance to respond 'cause they haven't gone. - Okay, Ms. Streiff Oji? - So I just wanna say thank you and I appreciate, you know, you said we proudly meet the needs of our students. We do so, I think that yourpresentation really helped provide clarity in the funding, clarity in the inflationary increases and the importance of the fund balance because we don't know whatstudent needs we're gonna have. We don't know what that's gonnacost. We've had a pandemic. The reality is, as far as I'm concerned, what you have presented hereand I appreciate that reality. - [Scott] Okay, Ms. Ellison? - Yeah, just a questionabout the recently completed Minnesota legislative session. Is there anything thathappened in that session that's going to have an impact on us that? - Yeah, small increases. The compensatory increasewould be about $30,000. So that's not factored into this. If the endowment thatwould go the permanent, I can't think of the,yeah, the permanent thing that's gonna go to the voters, that would mean approximately $200,000 if that were to be approved. But I believe that's in fiscal '28. And then the other change would be that utilities can now be charged to the operating capital fund, so- - [Christina] Were they before? - Just in the general fund. So, or it could be charged tothe operating capital funds, which is part of the general fund, but that could shake upoperations little bit, but. - Okay, and then do weexpect any additional or decreased federal funding as far as you're concerned? As far as you know? - [Andi] Not that we've heard. - Okay. I reallyappreciate your expertise. This is a lot of work. - [Scott] Yes, Ms. Thompson. - Well thank you for thepresentation as always. It's very informative and itis very well put together. And every year you havealways done an amazing job of getting us as close tothe actuals as you can get with the projections and the numbers. And it is amazing to me. SoI'll just start with that. When we did our truth in taxation Tim, you always do a great presentationthat discusses the prices of homes and how if you puta little bit into your house, your property taxes are gonna go up. And you always do a greatjob of the a $100 house to the a $100 house butthen in the next slide, the a $100 dollarshouse here stayed a 100, but this one may be addedon a couple hundred dollars. So their taxes went up. One of the presentersthat evening specifically noted how they had had significantwork done on their home, which would also causean increase to the taxes on their home. And another individual who was discussing how their taxes had also goneup then came up afterwards and had a discussion with us. And it had nothing to dowith the operating levies or anything that the school did. Their taxes went up based onthe value of their home alone. Not on school district expenses or levies or any of that stuff. So I just wanted to say that and then, yeah, just thank you for everything. And we built our schools becauseour community voted for us to be able to do that. They said, yes, we wantthis in our community. And I go so many places Iwas just at Solid Ground, is a great resource in our community. They do wonderful things for our families. They had a fundraiser event. I was there with a fellow graduate, I graduated from Mahtomedi but they were talking abouthow amazing our schools are and how they love our facilities and they love cominghere for sporting events and seeing what we have. And it makes them a little envious of what our community did for us. So thank you foreverything that you guys do to keep the budget as good as you can because it is a lot of hard work and I appreciate it. - I wanna make one comment.I still have you there. When we look at our facilities,I think it's important to remember that we'retrying to provide facilities for the ebb and flow that comes through. And so when we built ourfacilities, we thought of that. And sometimes when we talk about this, it makes it sound like we have whole wings that are sitting empty. We don't have empty wingsor empty classrooms, we don't have extra space. We are, you know, we have themset up and we are using them. And so it's not likethey've built so large that we're not using it, is that correct? - Yeah, sure, when youwalk through the buildings, you know, there's a lotof kids in the buildings and they feel like they'rebeing used fully and they are. And yet we have capacityto add more students and use them more fully. - Yeah, but at this pointwe're using every bit of the public money they gave us and we built on and they're being used and they're being used a lotnot just for the schools, but the public is coming in and using it. And so we have to remember that. I just wanna say there'snothing sitting empty. So that's important to rememberthat we just don't have, you know, big sections thatare just nothing in them. Okay. I'm sorry Mr. Skaar,I know you were waiting. - Oh no, thank you very much. And thanks for that comment, Scott. I was just going to say, you know, to address Matt's comment there, it's like when you buy too much car, you know it's a $1,000 a month, right? It's too much car and it eats up expenses, you know, groceries,utilities, things like that. That's what I'm trying to convey. That's my concern with the facilities. That's why I asked aboutcapacity with Mariner at what was it, 1350, we're at 950. So there's a lot of room,there's a lot of extra capacity there and that costs money. That's all I make, theother just quick comment is, you know, when you look atyour property tax statement, anywhere between 40 to thisis what I've heard from folks between 40 and 45% isto the school district. So when people look at that, they take notice right? - Point of clarification. - [Scott] Yes? - Is that? I don't, is that somewherewhere we can see that that going up 40%? Is that? - No, I didn't say that. - What are you saying? - I said if you look atyour property tax statement, anywhere between 40 to 45% goes to school. So if it's $10,000, 4200, $4,500 goes to the school district.That's all I'm saying. - And that's true of anyschool district in the state and any county, any municipality, school districts willalways be the largest share. And we're conscious of thatand we were aware of it. We hear we're propertytax payers ourselves. And so we see that And so we're aware of thatwhen we make decisions that impact property taxes, we kept our levy lower than, you know, than our municipalities and our counties for that very reason. - [Daniel] Thank you Tim. - Alright, - [Scott] One more comment,we gotta get going. - Just that, I just rememberwhen we were going around talking about passing the building bond, the referendum and howreally one of the main things was getting our highschools into one building. Our two high schools so wecould have nine through 12 and that was a 40 year separation and that was gonna be temporary. And we finally, and kudosto the community passed it. And you have now thisbeautiful high school. In addition to that, we had many buildings that were built in the'50s and then the '60's, and they needed upgrading. And so the community againsupported all those things. And it wasn't just about theprojection of the students, it was about so much more. It was about the buildings,the athletics, the facilities you know, and pride that thiscommunity has in its schools. So while you know, we can say yes we had hoped that wewould have more building and more families. And we've talked about that many times about why some of thosereasons are that we don't have as many students, birth rate and people staying in their homes longer and slow down of building homes. So we know there are reasons for it, but that was not the mainreason that we passed it. It was so much more than that. So thank you very much for your hard work and your great presentation. - [Scott] Alright, thankyou, we're ready to move on. Okay, I would like to thank you and I think you're hangingout here, are you not staying? - [Tim] Yes. - We're gonna move onto operational items C1, action on the resolutionto sell the property. - Yeah. Thank you Chair Arcand. We had a discussion just a week ago about the property at 4871 Bald Eagle and in the board packettonight is a resolution that includes a change thatthe board requested regarding, identifying the parameters of the sale. Lemme just grab my notes on that. On page two, item numbertwo in that resolution, language was added that says must exceed, or indicating that thepurchase price must exceed the total net funds expendedby the school district for the acquisition andbetterment of the property. And so that now theparameter that you requested is now in that resolution. Other elements in theresolution are unchanged. And so the recommendation isthat administration recommends the adoption of the resolutionto allow the district to sell the property locatedat 4871 Bald Eagle Avenue as outlined in the enclosed resolution. - You've heard the recommendation. Can I get a motion to accept? - [Angela] So moved. - So moved by Thompson. Can I get a second?- [Deb] Second - Second by Beloyed. Any further discussion? - Mr Skaar? - Yes, I guess this goes back to the point I made at the previous meetingwhen we were discussing this and you know, I'm gonnavote against this primarily because it's... I believe that the boardshould approve and execute and deliver the purchase agreement as opposed to the board chair and clerk. I just think it's a board decision. It's cleaner, you know, we know it's not that there'sa trust issue or anything. I just think that there's aresponsibility for the board to review these and approvethem and not delegate it to two members of the board. But the full board should do it. - [Scott] Okay. Thank you.- Thank you. - Any other questions? - Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - I would like to say I don'tbelieve there's a trust issue. We added the language at therequest of a chair member Skaar to include the informationthat it would actually, we would not lose money on the property. So I'm not quite sure why thatwould create a trust issue, but I think this shouldtake care of whatever issues that could come up and that's it. - I'm gonna correct thisbecause I heard you say you didn't feel it was a trust issue. - [Daniel] No, it was not. - That's what I heard. So I just wanted to clarify- - [Daniel] it's not a trust issue. And you know who we got as a realtor. You know, we don't know. I mean, what if we pickeda realtor? I didn't know. - [Deb] We know the realtor. - I know, but what if theperson's related to me or something? I don't want that. So anyways, but Deb also. Deb, it was really your idea. So you should take credit for the idea. I just raised it, but you clarified it. - Is there any otherdiscussion for this moving on. Okay, I'm gonna go aheadand call a question because it sounds like discussion is done. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - [Kathleen] Ellison.- [Jessica] Aye. - [Kathleen] Skaar.- [Daniel] No. - [Kathleen] Streiff Oji.- [Christina] Aye. - [Kathleen] Thompson.- [Angela] Aye. - [Kathleen] Arcand- Aye. - [Kathleen] Beloyed.- [Deb] Aye. - [Kathleen] Daniels, aye. - Okay. Motion carries six one. - All right, we're gonna moveon to operational item C2, actions on the resolution addressing the status of boardmembers for the purpose of the Minnesota GovernmentData Practices Act. Are we getting any help on that or does? Can we invite Nickkinda help us with this? You're the expert. - Good evening. Members of the board. So before you as aresolution, just clarifying that board members areindeed elected officials for purposes of theGovernment Data Practices Act. The purpose of this kind of resolution is to promote transparency. If you are elected officialsas opposed to employees, more data on you are public. And that's the short of it. - All right, so we've heardthe recommended action to approve the resolution addressing status of the boardmembers for the purpose of the Minnesota GovernanceDate of Practice Act. Can I get a motion to accept? Okay by Ms. Daniels. Can I get a second? - [Jessica] Second.- By Ms. Ellison. Any discussion? Yes, Mr. Skaar? - Yeah, I was curious as tothe timing of this resolution. And by the way, there's a board action in the closed session D2 that I requested that that item be in the public session. So I did make that request. However, with respect to this resolution, it almost appears that thereis some bootstrapping this before potential actionagainst a board member and taking away rightsthat that board member would otherwise have. And I would say, can wedefer this to June 8th? Otherwise it just looksa little odd to me. - [Scott] Okay. Thank you.Thank you. Any other comments? - Can I get a point of clarification? What does bootstrapping mean? - Well, it means you'reabout to take an action against someone. - [Deb] And what action arewe taking against someone? - I don't know. I don'tknow. It's in here. - In this motion, chairwhat action are we taking against someone in this motion? - Nothing in this motion. This is just for the purposes of the Minnesota GovernmentData Practices Act. - I do have a question for... How does this affect,and I cannot remember, what the name of the statuteor law that was passed after the murders of theState House officials where you could limit someof your private information. How does this affect that? - Yes, this resolution wouldnot have an impact on that. This is solely for purposesof saying are you an employee or not an employee underthe Data Practices Act? You would still have the same protections that apply to all publicelected officials, including things, for example, like your social security number, different kinds of identifying numbers, driver's license numbers, other protections youcould otherwise invoke through the Secretary of State's office. You know, in the event thatyou had concerns or fears, none of that is impacted. This is simply to clarifythat you're not employees for purposes of the Data Practices Act. And I do think it's wise at any time. And certainly if you have a situation where there are allegationsagainst a board member, it is certainly somethingthat makes a lot of sense because then it eliminatesany kind of question about whether or not therecan be free discussion relative to the allegationsagainst the board member. - [Deb] Okay, Thank you. - Anybody? Can you just hold. I gotta give everybody somebody else. Anybody else? Any questions? Okay, Mr. Skaar. - I would just say the timing looks odd giving the rest of theagenda and you know, if it's probably legal, butto me it looks a little, you know, a little possibly underhanded. I don't know what the term to use, but can we defer this to June 8th? - [Scott] That's not part of the... We're talking the hear and are you trying to make an amendment? - I'm making an amendmentthat we would move this matter to June 8th at the open meeting. - Is there a second? Is there a second? Is there a second? It fails. Okay. We still have the regularmotion on the board. Any other furtherdiscussion? Yes, Ms. Ellison? - Just a comment that this is something that we've talked about in the past, the fact board members are not employees and that's come up inconversation in board meetings. And so this is just confirming that. And I would also just clarify that all of our meetings, ourwork study and our meetings are open to the public. They're not public meetings. There are meetings that arealways open to the public and can be accessed also by livestream. So I feel like we are open to the public and we are choosing to passthis or choosing to bring this to the table during a meeting that's open. - Right further discussion, any? Okay, I'm gonna bring it to a vote. This will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll. - [Kathleen] Ellison.- [Jessica] Aye. - [Kathleen] Skaar.- [Daniel] No. - [Kathleen] Streiff Oji.- [Christina] Aye. - [Kathleen] Thompson.- [Angela] Aye. - [Kathleen] Arcand- [Scott] Aye. - [Kathleen] Beloyed.- [Deb] Aye. - [Kathleen] Daniels, aye. - Motion carries six one. Okay, we are gonna go on to D1. Do we have negotiations? Wehave to go into closed session. Okay, so negotiation. This portion of the meeting may be closed to consider strategiesfor labor negotiations including negotiatingstrategies or developments or discussion and review oflabor negotiation proposals conduct to pursuant Minnesotastatute 17980.01 to 178.25. Are we gonna stay in there? Also while we could stay in there to preliminaryconsideration of allegations against an individual subjectto the board's authority. This portion of themeeting may be closed if- - [Daniel] I requested it to be open. - Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I covered my grounds. - [Daniel] Thank you. - So what I'm gonna ask then, can I get a motion togo into closed session? - [Deb] So moved. - By Beloyed, can I get a second? - Second. This will be a voice vote.All in favor say aye. - [Board Members] Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Okay, seven nil. So we're gonna go to closed session, then we will come back outand have a couple of items and we'll finish the meeting. We're back in open session. We're gonna go on to operational item E1. Potential actions followingthe session we talked about. - Can you turn your mic on? - Yeah, sorry. Ah, I can say it. We're back in open session. We're on E1, potential board actionfollowing information. And so this is for therecord, Mr. Skaar is requested we do this in open session and so then I'm gonna turn it over to Mick and you can lead us through. - Good evening chair. And members of the boardwe're here for a preliminary consideration of allegationsagainst an individual subject to the board's authority. And that individual is Dan Skaar. So Mr. Skaar has exercised hisright to have the discussion take place in open session. The issue that we're dealingwith here involves a complaint that an employee filed against Mr. Skaar, and we had an investigationthat was completed and we have an investigationreport and we have findings. And now the questionis what action if any, does the board intend to take? I want to give that kind of overview first because one of the things that's going to be a little bit cumbersome is that you may freely discussmatters related to Mr. Skaar, but with respect to theemployee in question who made the complaint. And that will become obvious very quickly. We are to discuss in public session only that those data on theemployee that are necessary to be discussed in public session. So we don't have quite that same leeway to discuss anything we wantabout the employee in question, the employee in questionwho filed the complaint is Dr. Kazmierczak. And again, I have to disclose that in order for us to have a discussion of what has occurred here. So with that I'd like tojust give a little bit of background timing of events. First of all, the complaintwas filed on March 3rd, 2026. And I think it's safeto say that following a general training presentation that I did for the school boardthat I've done annually for a number of years, Dr. Kazmierczak had concernsabout whether or not some violations had occurred. He filed the complaint, youcontacted me as you know, and I immediately recommended and you immediatelyauthorized an investigation, took us some time toidentify an investigator who had the availability and capacity. My firm, for example, we are at capacity almost all the time now. And so it's very difficultto take on outside work. We're able to secure an attorney from the Pemberton Law Firmto conduct the investigation, happens to be a law firm that'sa competitor of my law firm. So we don't have any standingrelationship by any means. But the investigator camedown, conducted interviews of the relevant folks soughtto interview Mr. Skaar. There's correspondence inthe investigation report about Mr. Skaar declining to participate in that interview process. And by doing so, himwaiving his rights then per the information that theinvestigator provided to him. And Mr. Skaar did provide his statement for the record on that. But that is the bottom line interms of what the outcome is. So as I said earlier, reallythe purpose for here today is to talk about thefindings of the report as they relate to Mr. Skaar to have a robust discussionof what if anything, the board thinks should bedone relative to the findings in the report and then, you know, to implement that actionif an action is chosen. So the main gist of thefindings here against Mr. Skaar are that he made statements publicly about the superintendent thatwere evaluative in nature. He reported facts thatwould relate to data that are maintained by the district relative to the superintendent. He made statements thatcertainly could be perceived as allegations against the superintendent. And I'm not gonna review allof them at this point in time, obviously because of theprivacy of the superintendent. But the statements wereundeniably critical. Evaluative and again accusatoryin the sense of allegations. And that raises some concerns. It raises some concernsunder some policy language that the board has adopted. It raises concerns under the MinnesotaGovernment Data Practices Act. And it raises concernsunder the open meeting law. And I'm just gonna touch brieflyon the legal pieces of it through your policy soyou can look at those just as well as I can. But in terms of the MinnesotaGovernment Data Practices Act, the law states that datathat a governmental entity maintains on an employee,including the superintendent, are classified as private unless there's a statutoryexception that applies and none would apply to the issues here. And we know from the case lawand in particular the case of Navarra versus South Washington County, that it doesn't take muchto constitute a violation in terms of what issaid about an employee. And in that case, as youmay recall from trainings that we've gone through,a jury initially found a damages award in the amount of $500,000 against the district. It was later settled ata lower amount than that. But that's what a jury came back at saying what the damages were andthe statements in that case, I won't go into them in detail here, but certainly were a lot less significant than the statements in the case that we're dealing with here. So that certainly raises a concern from a liability perspective as your outside school district counsel about the conduct that occurred. The open meeting law, justlike we had here today, requires that there bepreliminary consideration of all allegations against an individual subject to the board's authority, including any employee, including the superintendentin closed session. Unless that person says,I want it an open session as Mr. Skaar did here today. And why is that significant? Because when a boardmember makes allegations against any employee,including the superintendent, that has to happen in a closed session at least for the boardto decide whether action is going to be taken or not. When it's not, it violates the employee'sdata of privacy rights, violates the open meeting law. Similarly, the open meetinglaw says that the evaluation of an employee may takeplace in closed session. That's for the board as a body to decide, not for an individual to decide. And the concern here are that there were evaluative statements that were made about the superintendent, including calls for thesuperintendent's resignation that circumvented the board's ability to have that discussion in closed session and thereby violated theopen meeting law as well. So that's the nature of the concern board members have received the report, the public does not receive the report 'cause it contains ampleprivate personnel data on the superintendent. But those are the basics of the issues that we're dealing with. There also are a number ofallegations that were made that I think are fair tosay are false and unfounded, that don't have a factual basis. Suggestions of wrongdoingby the superintendent with no legitimate factualbasis in support of it. Speculation, opinion perhaps, but no legitimate factual basis. And that also raises concernsfrom a liability perspective because we have another casefrom South Washington County where a parent was suedfor making false statements against a coach. That's not so much ofa concern of liability for the board in my opinion, but that does raise some level of concern, certainly for Mr. Skaar. So those are the general findings. Does the board have questionsfor me on the general findings before we talk about options and what actions the board means? - [Scott] I have a quick question. Mr. Skaar was given his Tennyson rights? - He was given his Tennyson rights. - And so after that'sdone and after he chose not to participate, doesthat mean we won't discuss, there's no defense to the findings. We can't say this isn't true.That's not true. Is that? - That's correct. He's this opportunity to be heard in front of a neutral investigator. He chose not to. He has the opportunity though to certainly have a robust discussion with the board in termsof what action if any he thinks is appropriate. If he thinks no action is appropriate for a variety of reasons,he's free to articulate that. But now is not the time for him to state, hey, I never did this, I didn't do that and I suspect he probablywouldn't do that anyway because most of it'sdocumented in either videos or Facebook posts or otherthings that he's made. So it'd be hard to dispute theactual core facts themselves. But he has the right to say, I disagree if you wanna take this action. I disagree as to whetherthat's appropriate or not. - Thank you. I just had that question. Ididn't how we move forward. Mr. Skaar, you have a comment or question? - Well, yeah, I was just gonna say. Yeah, I would like to respond to this and I should have theability to respond to this. - [Scott] Correct. I plan on responding to it. - You have the right Mr. Skaar to respond, as I just said, to whataction if any the board takes. You had the right, thedistrict hired an outside neutral investigator, gaveyou full and fair opportunity to respond and you electednot to take advantage of that opportunity. The investigator notified you in writing that by taking that approachyou would be waiving your right to challenge the findingsat a later point in time. And you persisted in takingthat approach nonetheless. You demanded that the investigator provide a list of questions in advance. The investigator explained to you that that is not how it works. It's a free flowing, factgathering conversation. She doesn't script herquestions in advance and nor does any goodinvestigator do that. They go with the information. The investigator also, I'm gonna turn to the pagehere that has that statement that was provided to you. In terms of, you demanded data. She did share the complaint with you, which is more than she'sarguably obligated to do. She shared video links with you, evidence, but she's certainly not obligated to share the full reams of evidence or statements that other people made with you. And nor did she do that. And again my professional opinion, nor would a professionalinvestigator do that either. - [Scott] Thank you. - Just a couple of things,things that you characterize me, I probably wouldn'tcharacterize it that way, but I did see the complaint. The complaint was extremely vague. I asked specificallyto tell me what details and how the content violated data privacy and I got no answer. Therefore I said I wasunable to provide an accurate and effective interview if Idon't know what I'm accused of. And there was nothing there. So that's what I told the investigator. - [Mick] Okay, so firstof all, if I may respond. - [Scott] Yes sir. - When somebody does an investigation, it's not their job to apply the facts and say how a violation oflaw has or has not occurred. Their job is to gather the facts. You knew that the allegationwas that you had violated data privacy rights, how you've done that. All she's asking you arethe facts. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did youdo that? You can answer. You know those, those are facts, you know, whether youdid it or you didn't. She had Facebook posts, she had videos, she had other things toask you questions about. Her role is not to determinewhether that then rises to the level of a violationof policy law or otherwise. My role is to advise the board in terms of whetherthat rises to the level of a violation of law. And it's the board's role to determine based on its own policies, whether your conduct risesto a violation of policy. - Thank you. Am I recognized? I'd liketo make one comment more. I was an investigator for 20years under federal authority. So I did provide those types of details. I didn't go on fishing trips. I provided details as towhat the allegation was. And that was not done here. Also as an auditor, I have it. It's a fishing trip. Thank you. - Alright, Ms. Daniels, you have? - I just had a question. May we ask Mr. Skaarquestions during this time or? - [Mick] Yes.- Yes. - [Scott] Alright. Ms. Thompson? - [Angela] Did you have a question? Yes I have a question. Can I ask? - [Scott] Yeah, go ahead. - Okay, Mr. Skaar, did you participate in the formal evaluationof the superintendent that we do annually last summer when we were filled outa form and evaluated him and then had a discussionafterwards with him present? Did you participate in that? - No, as I stated, and I don't know ifyou're trying to trap me, but as I stated, I was notavailable during that time and no one provided me. Usually if you're out oftown and not available, you're provided some kindof an evaluation form to complete and discuss. - There was an evaluation form form that we all had time to fill out. It was sent to you as itwas sent to the whole board. We filled that outindividually from our homes and then we discussed it together. So maybe the day we discussed it together, perhaps you had a conflict, but you could have filled it out. - I don't recall gettingthat, so I apologize for that. - Maybe we can check on- - You know what I don't like Google email and I'm just trying tounderstand how to work it, so. - [Scott] Alright, Ms. Thompson. - First I'm not an attorney, but I do work for the state of Minnesota as an independent investigatorin child protection cases. And I bring in theindependent piece of the case and present that to all theparties so that the court and the judge and the lawyers and everyone can make a determinationon whether or not the facts in the petition are true or not. I'm not the only one whobrings forward evidence and things of that nature, but yes, we would never, Iwould never go to a parent and tell them specific,like, you sit down, you have a conversation,you interview them, you ask them questions,you gather the information that they get, and you takethat and you use that to decide is this true or is this not true? And then it's not even my jobto necessarily, like you say, determine whether it is or not. It's my job to bring forwardthe information I gather to the parties who then do determine whether these are trueor not, such as the judge or in our case, the attorney who we have that works for the district. So yeah, independent investigators, you don't go with a listsaying this is all the thing because then you just givethem the ability to maybe say things that they thinkthey want you to hear. Rather than actually getting real evidence on the investigationthat you're looking into. I just wanted to appreciateto put that in there. - So yes, Ms. Streiff Oji? - Will we be talking atall here as we're focusing on this investigation about the violation of the open meeting laws that Mr. Skaar has been sending emails,inviting us and making motions via email? Is that a part of thisor separate from this? - That is also part of this. After we are done that partson the investigation report, I will address that. And of course the fullboard is aware of that. Members of the public mightnot be aware of the fact that on April 15th, 2026,Mr. Skaar sent an email to the full school board andin the email he made a motion to authorize an operational audit that included an investigationof the enrollment incident and review of the district'senrollment procedures. And in the same email he stated that he would welcome asecond and an email vote. And that is, in my legal opinion, a clear violation of the open meeting law. - And there have been multiple times that we have been emailed as a full board and that is also aviolation and it continues. I've asked for it to stop. So as long as we can include that in what we're talking abouthere is great, thanks. - I'd like to respond to that. Because I'll just tellyou exactly what I said and I sent this to Chair Arcand. This is the email to all of the board. Below is a statement Iwould've made at the meeting before I was cut off by Member Ellison, techniques and policiesto silence dialogue with public or other boardmembers regardless of their legal or within Robert Rules arenot in public interest. Below is the second call for the board to take action on operationalaudit of this district. I would welcome a second andan email vote if possible, or a discussion at the next meeting. I sent a response to... Because the Chair Arcand said, hey, you violated the open meeting law. I said, no, I didn't. I said, it's the chairwho determines the agenda and how things are setand voted on, not me. I gave him the option. I said, if possible,that is a moot nonsense. It's nonsense. - [Scott] Ms. Thompson? - When did we have our training with you? Where you go over the rulesand what we're allowed to do and not allowed to do? And that happened before thisemail was sent to all of us asking us to vote. - We have the training,we've had it annually and we had it in this case I believe it was on or about March 2nd. And I specifically addressedthose types of issues. I'm also aware that ChairArcand had sent a reminder email to board members aboutnot sending out reply all, not sending emails to the full board and to say that I welcomea vote if possible and then claim if possibleexcuses your conduct. It didn't say I'd welcomeit if legal for one, but two, when you'resaying I'd welcome it, you are soliciting the boardto engage in a violation of the open meeting law with Mr. Skaar. And I am sorry, but there'sno way I can conclude that that is not a violationof the open meeting law. Or that it's not a meansof circumventing the fact that you twice brought amotion in public session were twice unable to geta second on that motion. Then try to bring thatbehind closed doors. Promoting secrecy versus transparency. That is a violation of open meeting law. - I have always beenpromoting transparency. That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. (gravel bangs) - [Scott] One at a time, please. - So yes, we certainly canaddress that issue as well. So that takes us thento what action if any, the board would like to take. I don't want to get into amore detailed description of the findings relativeto Dr. Kazmierczak, because I want to honor his privacy rights to the greatest extent possible. I did send the board members a list of what I thought werepotentially relevant provisions of policy. I have stated, and I'lljust be very clear about it, that I do believe the conduct in question violated the MinnesotaGovernment Data Practices Act and violated the open meeting law. I'm talking specifically the comments relative to the superintendent. That's a separate violationI believe that occurred with respect to the email, thevote and soliciting a vote. So those are the legal piecesthat I can help you with. That's my legal opinion thatthose violations occurred. It's for you, as I said before to walk through the policy provisions and say yes or no for one and for two then to decide what do you wanna do? And I want to just be clear in reviewing what I think the options are. You could take no action. You know, this discussion in itself may have a fair deterrent effect that can be considered to be appropriate. You could verbally reprimand,meaning you just say to Mr. Skaar during this meeting, hey, I don't like what youdid, don't do it again. You can adopt a resolutioncensoring Mr. Skaar. That's a public action. You can adopt a resolutiondisavowing his conduct, which means that inthe event of a lawsuit, you're saying, hey, you're on your own. We're not defending you andwe're not indemnifying you in the event of a damagesaward, you know from anybody who brings a lawsuit out of this. You could remove Mr.Skaar from committees. You could implement a one-time reduction in his compensation as a board member. You could warn him about future violations and you could seek to remove him. I am going to share, andyou haven't asked for it, but I'm gonna share itanyway my legal opinion that I don't believe this conductrises to level of removal. I would not encourage youto consider that option. I think that if it occurredagain in the future, then you would be lookingat a different scenario. I don't believe you'reat that spot right now. I also would not professionally,it doesn't mean you can't, the board is a self-policing body, but I would not recommendimplementing a one-time reduction in compensation or removingMr. Skaar from committees. I don't think that thathelps nor is it tightly or directly related to thenature of the infraction at hand. So those are not thingsthat I would recommend that you consider. The other things I thinkare all open and fair game if the board wants toconsider any of them, I do think it may be wise forthe board to disavow conduct amongst other actions ifit wants to take others. But disavowing the conduct. Of course I'm a liability guy, right? I'm here thinking aboutwhat are the concerns from the district froma liability standpoint. I think that's a wise andprudent course of action for the board to take. So with that, I turn itback to the board now. Feel free to ask me questions about any of the policyprovisions or anything else that I've stated and thento, I think the board, it's just your opportunitynow as a self-policing body to determine the course of action that you would like to take, if any. - [Scott] Okay. Ms. Beloyed? - I would say that givenMr. Skaar's reaction so far, I don't think you understand what you did. Therefore, I'm wondering if that behavior is going to continue in the future and I'm not interested in subjecting the district to liability. So I would like to proposethe resolution to disavow Mr. Skaar's conduct. - [Daniel] Chair, couldI have an opportunity to make a statement before you guys take action, because- - I'd like to add one morething before we do that. There's an awful lot of talkabout financial transparency. A lot of the actions thatyou do require time and money to be spent by the district. Backing up things. Answeringthings, which is fine. But when we have to consult attorneys, when we have to bring in auditors, when we have to bring in all this stuff, because you think these are important, yet the board speaks asa board, not one person. You think it's okay to do what you do because you don't believethat your circumventing the open meeting law, butyou've been told numerous times that you are so therefore it feels to me like you're not learning. You haven't taken the time to learn. You've gone through two of the sessions. I don't know what else we can do because you're not working with us. - Well, first of all, I appreciate your perspective. Counselor. I appreciateyour perspective as well. And I'd like to make a statement, but I would like to find peace. And if you bring me inside of the tent, I think it would be much easier. Please, I'm talking aboutthe way I view things. I don't feel like I am inside the tent. - None of us talk to each other. That's part of the open meeting call. - Could I make my statement? Well, we're not exparte though, counselor. There's no ex parte rulescorrect that apply to us? - Two board members may freelycommunicate with each other. Yeah, as I discussed in training, you can't have serial communication. - No, I understand. But exparte rules don't apply to us. I just wanna make my statement. You know, there's a funny thing. You know, funny thingabout accountability. Everybody says that they want it right up until somebody actually starts asking for it like me. And this really isn't aboutme. It's about suppression. I'm just the messengerdelivering the mail to the public and doing the job I was elected to do. You don't have to agree with me. I'm not asking for agreement. That's fine. But nobody has a right to silence me and prevent the public fromhearing what I have to say if they choose to listen,that's suppression. So let me save everyone some time here. I didn't violate anybody's rights. I didn't break any laws, period. I exercised my right to be heard and followed theinstructions provided to me by Chair Arcand. What's happening now. - [Scott] Just a point of order. Wait, is arguing the findings? - No, I'm not. I'm making a statement. Let me make a statement. That's fair. - [Mick] I'd allow him to respond to whether he thinks specifically, whether he thinks action should be taken. And if so, what action. - No, I would like to finishmy statement. Thank you. - [Scott] Okay, so there again, you had an opportunity- - Statement. - He's the chair. - So I'm gonna ask anotherpoint of what a question. You had an opportunityduring the investigation and chose not to. So now what we're talking about is what type of action are we gonna take? If you wanna discussthat, you say no action or verbal reprimand or youknow, what do you want? We will entertain that, but we're not gonnaentertain the investigation. - I will only talk about theinvestigation to the extent that I've already communicatedthat to the investigator. But what's happening nowis retaliation against a board member who refused to sit quietly while those in charge operate the district like their own private club. The complaint againstme contain no specifics. I already said that.No facts and no merit. As a former investigator and an auditor, I refuse to participatein a taxpayer funded (gravel bangs) - I can't hear wheneverybody's talking, so. - [Daniel] I should be allowedto finish my statement. - Okay, so what is your statement or what actions do you believe should- - I'll get to that at the end. - Okay, go ahead. Talk about what I said. I'm looking for peace. Okay? I'm looking for peace. So the timing is also interesting. You know, the complaintarrived less than four hours after I asked why the annual audit? (board member speaking softy) (gravel bangs). - Again, speak to whataction should be taken. - So I got notice four hours. That's not transparent. So it's not transparency,it's suppression. For more than a year,this district and board have hidden behind policies,investigations, lawyers, and bureaucratic theaterdesigned for one purpose, suppression, not discussion. - Point of order. And its harassment and intimidation. And yes, even an anonymousdeath threat at me. - This is about Mr. Skaarcharacterizing himself as a victim. - What terrible offenses have I done? Yes, I've critical to this school board and the superintendent. He's the CEO of our district.According to our policy. CEOs and boards get criticism. - You know, I wasn'tgonna (speaks faintly). - Alright, just can Ijust get a point of order? As a school board, we have one employee and that is the superintendent. And so as our employee, we cannot violate his data privacy. We can't go out there andmake comments about him because he is our employee. Just like the superintendent can't go out and make a comment abouta teacher into the public. So that's I think thatwhat we're looking at. - Not making a comment, I'mjust saying he's our CO. - So you've seen the results and you had a chance to talkto them, and you chose not to. You had your Tennyson warning and you were told thatyou had to, you know, you had that chance then. We're not gonna rehash that now. - I'm not rehashing it. - I would really like toknow if you have an action you think the board should take. - Can I finish my statement? - As long as she's talking about the action the board should take. - Chair Arcand? - Yes, sir? - May I speak on the matter?- Yes. - I don't want there to bethis inaccurate impression out there because thestatement that was just made is utterly false. The suggestion that this came four hours after he took action X, Yor Z is absolutely false. We have verifiable demonstrableuncontestable evidence that the superintendentmakes a written complaint on March 3. You and I have aconversation the next day. I'm sending out emails to potential firms for investigations thefollowing weeks after. The fact that he makes a statement. The 20th or whatever thedate was I can't remember, is of no moment. It tells us nothing. And you know this, sir,this all comes weeks after the superintendentmakes his complaint. No, I'm not done. (gravel bangs) To suggest that we havefabricated that is utterly false. And I want the record to reflect that. - Okay, so if you have... All I really want to hear then from you is what action do you thinkthe board should take? - Well, I'd still liketo make my statement. - Okay, on what action youwant the board to take? - No on, I'd like to make my statement and then state the what action. What action I think thatthe board should take is take it up a level here. Stop suppressing because it fixed nothing. - [Board Member] Chair Arcand? (gravel bangs) So what we should do,I'm making a suggestion. We should have a townhall with the public. (gravel bangs) Irrelevant right now. - [Daniel] All of these issues- - We are discussing whataction the board should take. And so unless you're gonna speak to that, I think you have nothing to say. - May I introduce an action? - No, I have other peoplewaiting, Streiff Oji. - All right, there havebeen a 77 page report presented to us. Evaluative statements were made in public. The report's extensive. It is not vague in any way, shape or form. There are specific quotes. There are Facebook quotes,videos, everything is in there. The false and unfoundedaccusations continue even tonight, right in front of us with that accusation. But also that you never receiveda superintendent evaluation that we all received weeks before with weeks of time to do it. So it just continues. I agree with Ms. Beloyedthat there is no learning, there is no intention ofworking together as a board. And I would like to, Imake a motion that we, I don't know how we do this. If we can combine but centerdisavow and provide a warning for Mr. Skaar about future behavior. - [Scott] I would referthat to our counsel. - Can I just- - [Scott] She's making aquestion. Can we do all three? - [Mick] Yes you can.- Okay. - And you would do that by a resolution. And I do have very roughdrafts of a resolution that would have to be tailored to fit whatever you would want. And I have a computer here to do that. - [Scott] Okay. - [Daniel] Can I justmake a clarification? - [Scott] I got others that are still-. - Well, he just said thatI misrepresented something, but counselor, I- (gravel bangs) - You are not recognized. - I received the complaint. - [Scott] You were not recognized. - I received the complaint. You were not recognized, sir. I'll give you an opportunity, but we have others thatwould like to talk. - Thank you. Alright.- Okay, Ms. Thompson. - Well I guess I mean Ihad a lot of questions, but Mick, you had mentioned before that not one board memberis allowed to decide that we do this in public and that if an otherboard members wanted us to go into closed session tofinish that, we can do that. - That was in terms of theevaluation of the superintendent. But not for Mr. Skaar hehas the right to decide that 'cause he's the subject of it. That's to say that he made comments that were statementspublicly that were evaluative of the superintendent and all evaluations of the superintendent. That's a board determination,whether that's to declare in close session or open session. And historically yourdistrict has to my knowledge, never done it in open session before. - Okay. I just wanted, Ithought there was a point where we could go into So I mean I don't evenwanna ask a question, but I would just say if wewanna talk about accountability, we have full accountability for everything we do up here as a board and in this district. Every meeting is an open meeting. We sit here and we talk about everything in front of everybody all the time. And it is unfortunate that sometimes people don't always come to the meeting to get the informationthat they want answered in other areas. And then they don't comeand they don't listen to the actual information being presented in a board meeting. If we talk about accountability, I am accountable to everysingle community member, student, staff member,everyone that makes up the White Bear Lake area School district. I am accountable to when I was elected, whether they voted forme or didn't vote for me. I represent every singlecommunity member and student in this district. And that is my job and thatis who I'm accountable to. I'm not accountable to acertain group of people who decide and determine whatI am and what I do up here? And my action is that we disavow and I didn't wanna censure you, but you have not learned anything. So I feel like we need to disavow, censure and do the result of what will happen if there's future violations. - Okay, thank you. Okay. Ipromised I would give you time. - Thank you. - So there you go Mr. Skaar. So keep it to the, oh wait. Okay. Sorry, okay what do you have? - Well, I would like tosay that he has violated policy 215, 209, I'd like togive him a verbal reprimand. Also disavow Mr. Skaar'sbehavior and warn him that further violationswould result in removal from the board. And I believe that Mr.Skaar characterizes himself as a victim and someone whohas been censored and silenced. And really, he tries tocircumvent the will of the board every time we vote on somethingthat he doesn't agree with, he goes out in the public and tries to, you know, make a casefor why that was wrong. Instead of after wevote, we should be done. And then we're supportive.We act as a unit. We are a group thatafter the vote is taken, that is how we move forward. We don't go out individually and say, I didn't win this time, or I didn't agree with what happened, so I'm gonna build a case. And they're not listening to me. 'Cause I disagreed with them, but they're still not listening to me. So I just wanna say, you're not a victim, you're not following the policies that we have on ourbehavior as board members. And I wasn't going to haveintroduce a resolution about censoring, but thisis sort of an example of like not telling he'snot telling the truth. He's acting. (gravel bangs) - [Scott] I will give you- - [Daniel] That is just not- - [Scott] I will give you an option. - And again, you know, tryingto characterize himself as this victim and he'strying to be the hero for whoever he thinks he'sspeaking for instead of following the will of the board andthe policies of the board. - [Scott] Okay. You done?- Thank you. - I apologize I didn'tmean to cut you off. - Well, I'd like to be ahero of all of our students and parents, but I would justlike to correct counselor here on March 20th at 2:18 PMis when I sent an email out regarding the audit and transparency. And then Friday, thatsame Friday at six o'clock is when I received your complaint. Now tee other stuff that you talked about, you may have had that complaint, but when I received it, it wasfour hours after that email. That's all I'm saying. - And you received that email from me and I would've had no way of knowing that you even made that request- - [Dan] Perhaps. - And my point to you isthat the complaint was made on the third. The conversation occurredwith the board chair I believe on the fourth. The investigation wasimmediately authorized. I had emails showingthat I was reaching out to multiple firms and individuals to see if they were availableto conduct an investigation long before that ever occurred. And so to suggest thatthere is a temporal nexus between the two is absolutely false. - So it was in somebody'sholster ready to go. That's what I'm talking about. It just looks suspicious to me. - I can say that youdidn't put something out and we said we're gonna do this. It was in the works from whenwe received the complaint and then it was an ongoing process. It's not something I pulledout or anybody pulled out at the last second, it was in process. And I authorized to moveforward just because I needed to make sure that everybody's, we had an investigation tomake sure for the safety of all to know, you know, what was going on. So I can tell you thatwe had it in process and it wasn't because ofone email that was sent. I'm sorry you feel likethat was a retaliation, But it wasn't. - No. Okay, well youprovide an explanation. Nobody provided me an explanation. However, I would say this, I mean, we're spending a lot ofmoney on this investigation. We could have spent iton an operational audit to really drive efficiencies, so. - Okay, so Ms. Streiff Oji,she has a quick comment. - We do have someone that hasbeen violated in this room and that is the superintendent. And so this is not the victim. There is someone else, it's someone's breakinglaws and going after. So I just wanna acknowledge that. And it just continues. The untruths continue. The manufactured lies continue. So I wanna go on record an say that, and that is why I wouldlike to move to take action. - [Scott] Okay, Yes? - I have a question for you Mick. Is anything that's saidin open session today, can that be used against usas a board in any lawsuit? - Certainly, you know,there's always a public record that can be, and you know, I think that that's part ofthe disavowing the conduct too. You know? - So repeating things that are defamatory opens us up once again. - [Mick] Well, or-- Continues to. - Or again, it may, dependingon the action you take, it may just open up, makethe statement to action, so. - Okay, so then my questionis, I believe that, I mean heard from everybody. I think we are all resolvedto do this resolution. How do we move this forward then? - Yep. I have heard different things. I've been taking some notes and starting to type some things here. So I heard a resolution to disavow. I heard a resolution censure disavow, resolution censure disavowand provide a warning. I heard another, disavow censure warning. I heard verbal reprimand and disavow warning and maybe censure resolution. I heard bring me under the tent. And I think that that's the sum of it. And chair, I don't thinkI've heard from you. - I would go ahead withthe censure, the warning and the disavow the conduct. I'm gonna interrupt you right here we are. Our end time is at seven. It's 7:54. End time is at eight o'clock. Can I get a motion to extend the meeting? - So moved. - Okay, so, okay, the second. - [Kathleen] Point of clarification. Can we add a time limit to this case? I was gonna extend the meeting- - [Kathleen] In 15 minute increments. - Do you I was gonna go,let's extend it till 8:30. - I would not support that. I would 15 minute increments. - [Scott] Okay, so we're gonna... What I'm hearing is can I get a motion to extend the meeting to 8:15? - [Board Member] So moved. - [Scott] Okay. Is there a second? - Second. - Second. Alright, canI get any questions? All in favor say aye. - [Board Members] Aye All opposed? Same sign. Okay, we have extended our meeting now. I'm sorry. We can get back to business. - [Mick] So chair? - Yeah, just a second.I'm gonna ask a question. So now can we ask you, dowe have to make a motion and you can tell us how it was gonna go if somebody makes that motion. - So if that is theconsensus of the board, I'm just quickly typinghere I'm almost there. If you do a resolution, youdon't have to do it this way or a censure, you don't have to. But the recommended way to do a censure is to have a resolutionthat includes findings, that includes conclusions,includes conclusions, and that then takes the specific action. And so I'm very close to having that done that would be the disavowcensure warning language. And I would either need to print that off or I could read it, if that's sufficient. - [Angela] Point of clarification. - [Scott] Okay. What? - Censuring can you justexplain what censuring will, I wanna make sure that I'mfully aware of what that means. - Yeah, a censure is nothing more than a formal public reprimand. Instead of just ainformal verbal reprimand coming from individual board members, it's an action by thebody to formally reprimand the individual andcreate a record of that. And the US Supreme Court hasstated that that is something that boards have an absolute right to do. And it is not violativeof first amendment rights. So that action, again, that is a safe course ofaction if the board elects to take it. The disavowing, that's justsaying we don't approve and we're not gonna be liable for it. That's also within your purview to do. And a warning is nothing more than that. It's just that a warningjust says basically, you know, we're placing you on notice. If you engage in the same orsimilar conduct in the future, there may be moresignificant consequences. - [Scott] Okay. - Just on the censurepart, what does that, I mean, it's like yousaid, it's a warning, but Mr. Skaar can stillparticipate in the meetings and still ask questionsand do all the things any board member would do? - Absolutely, I'm notrecommending that you strip him of any rights or participationor anything like that. I don't think that that'scommensurate with the offense. I think at this point in time, the disavowment is very specificto the liability concern, A censure is to say, okay, we're giving you this opportunity. You want to come into the tent. Is was the description, I don't know. You want to show us thatyou can comply with the law, that's great. But if you don't in thefuture, here's the consequence. - [Scott] So I'm just gonna ask if you want to get that written up, can we just put it up on the screens so you don't have to print it out? You could send it and get it put up. - Yep.- [Scott] Is that okay? - I need just a minute to. And like I said, it was a very rough But I can have it in short order. - [Scott] Mr. Skaar, Iknow you were waiting. - [Daniel] Oh sure. Thank you. - [Scott] Did you wanna speak while he's putting that together? - Sure, I would just say that, you know, I'm very, very disappointedthat you deprived me of making a full statement,that's number one. Number two, I haven'tsaid anything defamatory. Sometimes the truth hurts, you know, if you can't take the heat,get out of the kitchen. The next thing is, hey, can I finish? I have not lied ormischaracterized anything. If you believe that Ihave a code of ethics. (gravel bangs)Tell me what I've done. - Findings have already been made chair. You're not allowed by law at this point. - So everybody just justwants to gang up by me. - In the findings andyou talking and talking. - Thank you. Okay. - Chair Arcand? Could I make a? So just so Mr. Skaar knowsthat he's not the only one who's ever had an investigation done to ensure that things are... We have all sat through aninvestigation process before in relations to things thatwere being done in the district where we all had to go andsit down with an investigator and do an interview. And we all did it because we had no reason not to do the interview. Because there was nothingthat I needed to hide and nothing any other boardmember needed to hide. So the investigator contacted us all, we all went we all did interviews because we had no reasonnot to do the interview. - Can you make sure youspeak to the topic of this. - I resent insinuation thatI had something to hide. I don't have anything tohide. I'm an open book. - Great. So we're good with that. And then we are gonna wait and we're gonna put the resolution up. - It's a 100% ridiculous. - I know, but can you watch your comments? - Okay. - And so when this goes upthen it's for the board to say strike things, add things to it. Should I just email itto someone and then? - [Assistant] Yes, that'd be great. - To you. - Yes, that's perfectly fine. Absolutely. - And I apologize ifit's kind of in a rough, I was doing it very quickly here. There you go. 'Cause theseare just the frameworks. - Chair, I would just like tosay the offer still stands. Bring me inside the tent to help. You guys can all laughbut I really mean it. I'm dedicated to this district. - We've already offeredthat to you Mr. Skaar. - No, you have never. (gravel bangs) - I don't know if this is productive. - It's not productive. - It's not. - So at this point I'mgonna ask that we stop. (board members speaking faintly) - No one won my ownhere, it does say went. - I'm hot. I guess now that you mentioned it. - I make sure I went through Oh should I do this? - Yeah, do that. Or you just respond to that email? - Yeah, but I have to attach it somehow. Let's see. (Mick speaking faintly) So I can just attach it then to that. - [Assistant] There we go. I just got it. - You got it? Okay. - It's the bloody sugar. It's from the snack I gave you. - It's coming your way.- It's from the snack. - Are they printing it too?- Yes. - Thank you sir. - I thought we could getstarted this way though, if we can get it up. Whichever is faster.Yep, I know it's warm. - When was that evaluationsent? Do you recall? I'm looking for it now. - July. It was in the summer. - Yeah. - June or July. You have to ask Rachel. - I'm just looking tosee if I could find it. Who was it sent from? - Rachel. - I do believe there werealso multiple reminders sent. - I just don't know whether I sent it in. Just say I didn't have enough experience with the superintendentto complete the evaluation because I had only been on theboard for what, a few months, but I can't recall. If I recall that areyou gonna retract that? - [Assistant] Marissa? Did you get it? - Retract what? That I saidyou didn't fill it out. - Yeah. 'Cause I may havesaid I can't fill it out. I asked you if you filled it out. - Yeah, I don't-- So I do not retract. So you didn't say you didn't recall, you said you didn't get it. - I don't, I just don't remember. So I'm gonna look for it.And I'll get back to you. - Well you can get back to everyone. It was a question more for general. - No, don't get back to everyone. No, but verbally he could. Yes, that's right. - Don't get back to everyone. But it was a question whetheryou filled it out or not. And you said didn't. That's just not, it's not meto not follow up on something. So, yeah. Well I can'tanswer that for you. I don't know what you did You're pretty busy atthat time of the year sending emails about allkinds of other stuff. - Alright, you have the resolution here. Introduces the following resolution and moves for adoption. The resolution censuringa school board member and disavowing the board member's conduct. Whereas the school board hasretained outside law firm to conduct an investigationinto allegations that were made againstboard member Dan Skaar. And whereas the school boardhas carefully considered the allegations against Skaar, and the findings from the investigation. Therefore the school boardmakes the following findings a fact, the superintendent is an employee of the school district andthe district maintains private personal data on the superintendent. - Personnel. - Personnel, yeah, sorry.It's a long ways for me. Skaar has publicly maderecorded statements about the superintendentthat derive from data that reflect actions thesuperintendent has taken and data that has maintainedbecause the superintendent is an employee of the district. For example, Skaar has publicly criticized the superintendent'sperformance and decisions. Skaar is also publicly andfalsely stated or implied the superintendent isthe source of distrust that students do not feel safe at school because the superintendentand that the superintendent has not shown leadership and the district needs new leadership. Skaar has publicly calledfor the resignation of the superintendent. The outside investigationmade the following findings based on their substance tone and content, Skaar's public socialmedia statements appear to be more than a generaldiscussion of publicly reported facts and related to the superintendent and tend to be evaluative in nature. Although some of thecontent has been removed from Skaar's Facebook page. Skaar's statements. - [Mick] Chair Arcand, canI read the rest for you? - Yes. It's getting lowerand they keep moving it. - The public, that's the newsarticle. Skaar's signature made available resultingin ongoing availability. The publicly accessiblecritical statements by Skaar, an electedofficial have increased the superintendent'svisibility and exposure to negative public reaction. And that contributed tolegitimate safety concerns within the current socialand political climate. Skaar's post and statementsabout the superintendent had potentially harmed thesuperintendent's reputation. Skaar's statements did not reflect a view of the school board. On April 15th, 2026,Mr. Skaar sent an email to the whole school board. In that email, Skaar madea motion to authorize an operational audit thatincludes an investigation of the, actually (speaks faintly). Yeah, one change to bemade is District 624. (Mick speaks faintly) So 624, you can cross thatout into written materials. In the same email, Mr. Skaarstated that he would welcome a second and email vote. Now therefore, the school board of independent school district number 623 makes the following conclusions. - [Board Member] 624. - [Mick] 624, Geez Louise, how many times can I make a mistake? Excuse me. Now therefore, the school board of Independent School district number 624 makes the following conclusion. Minnesota statutes, misspelled. Section 13.43 subdivision1 defines personality and the government dataon individuals to maintain because the individualis or was an employee of a government agency or entity. Minnesota statute section13.43 subdivision 4 classifies personnel data asprivate data on individuals unless an exception applies. Skaar's public commentsabout the superintendent violated the MinnesotaGovernment Data Practices Act and specifically section 13.43. Based on training isreceived as a board member. Skaar knew or should haveknown that he was not permitted to publicly make evaluativestatements about any employee including the superintendent. Minnesota statute Section 13D.05. Subdivision 2b requires theboard to go into closed session for preliminaryconsideration of allegations against an individual subjectto the board's authority. Skaar violated this provisionby publicly making allegations against the superintendent. Under Minnesota statuteSection 13D.5 that should say the school board decides whetherto go into closed session to evaluate the performance of an employee based on the training asreceived as a board member Skaar knew or should have knownthat the unlawful disclosure of private personnel datamay result in litigation. Skaar has violated theprovisions of policy 215 Code of conduct for school board members, the following of potentiallyapplicable provisions. You'll have to strikethose when we're done. If you think none apply. Paragraph nine. Skaar violated theprovisions of policy 209, which is the code ofethics to board members following our applicable provisions. You can strike any that youthink apply or don't apply. Paragraph 10. In the amenable lawsuit by theSuperintendent against Skaar, the board concludes thatSkaar was not acting in the performance of hisposition when he disclosed private personnel dataon the superintendent. And in the view of the boardwas acting in bad faith. Board members that is thestanding by way for that. Defending and identifying employee. Board members are expectedto serve as role models and must adhere to all legaland ethical requirements. Skaar failed to fulfill this expectation. After weighing the competing interest, the board has determinedthat this resolution is in the best interestof the school district. Skaar's email of April 15th, 2025 violated the open meeting law. Paragraph 14. From trainings that Skaar hasreceived as a board member, Skaar knew or should haveknown that all motions were required to bemade in an open meeting. By soliciting a vote by email. Skaar asked other board members to join him in violatingthe open meeting law. Skaar's conduct promotes unlawfulsecrecy not transparency. Now therefore be itresolved by the School Board of Independent School Districtnumber 624 as follows, number one, the schoolboard hereby censures Skaar for the conduct describedin this resolution. Number two, the schoolboard hereby places Skaar on notice that if he engages in the same or any similar conduct in the future, the board may initiate actionto remove him from the board. Paragraph three, the schoolboard hereby disavows Skaar's conduct and willnot defend or identify him in the event of a lawsuit against him for the conduct describedin this resolution. - [Scott] All right, Ijust need a quick motion to extend the meeting till 8:30. - So moved. Just in case we needit, is there a second? - Second. - All in favor say aye. - [Board Member] Aye. - Opposed? Save sign. We can keep going. - So now at this point in time, a member could move the motion as it is without further reading. A member could move to strike or add to the policy provisions and then move the resolutionwith those changes. The floor is yours as a board to decide which actions youwant to take and what changes if any you wanna make to the resolution. - Mr. Skaar? - Yeah, in paragraph two, you know, I take issue with Skaar haspublicly and falsely stated or implied that the superintendentis a source of distrust. I never said that andI never implied that, that students do not feel safe at school because the superintendent,I never said that. I mean, I don't know where you get that. - On your page. Read the report. - Read the report it's right there. - As to superintendent leadership. And when I said it need newleadership and the resignation, I said, Hey, I'm just one person. It's not up to me. It'sup to the community. - That's not. - Okay, I'm sure there's otherthings in this resolution that I will have issues with, but. - Those comments are takendirectly from social media posts that you made that are in the report. - I'll have to take a look at them. - Did you read the report? - You have the report? - Well no- - Mean I stayed up tomake sure I got it read 'cause I had other things- - I remember- Make sure I read through the report. - I remember the video but- - That's enough, everybodytalks. Nobody hears. Are there any other changes? - I just don't think that that's correct. - Changes, additions,subtractions that you have. - You said in eight, thosethree things were ones that we could, I mean not thatI don't know if I'm going to, but those were ones youhad said we could change. - Certainly, I mean you canchange any part of this, but paragraph eight andparagraph nine, the- - The subsections- - I just listed, thepotentially relevant ones. And it's for you to decidewhich of those apply or not. And then you would say thefollowing are applicable. - Chair, I'd just liketo make one question. I mean, why are we doing this? Like it's almost June, this happened like inOctober of last year. If there were issues, why weren't they percolated before that? Why'd you wait untilnow? That's my question. - Okay, I'm not sure becauseI know that the complaint came in January sometime. - No, I can state that the- - Why not in November, December? - The complaint came inthe day after training. The training that we provided. And my understanding is that'swhat brought it to light. - Okay. That's convenient. Thank you. - Other things? And for the record, you get to read out the paperfor (indistinct) county. - Okay. - I don't have anyproblems with 8, A, B or C. And I think leaves those in there. Anybody else? - There's a D two. - Oh, sorry.- On the next page. - And then you do wannastrike the word potentially. So it says the followingare applicable provisions if you want to keep them all. - I'd be in favor of that.- Striking potentially? Do we have to vote onthat or how do we do that? - Well you can make a motionto adopt the resolution without further reading, but with the changes,the following changes. One, correcting the clericalerror of 833 to 624. And striking the word potentially. And then striking anyother ones that you want. 'Cause paragraph nine, youcan also strike any of those if you see fit to do so. - I mean I really care about any. They come say whatever they want about me. I don't really care. - I mean, I don't really know about D, 9D, I don't know about ifthere's been criticisms of other employees. I mean is that only regardingother employees or is it? - But we only have one employee. - Yeah, so it will bepresenting criticisms of the superintendent. - To the superintendent, okay ,all right. Then you can leave it. - Well, just for the record, I can't find that evaluation email. - It's June 25th. Thatwas sent to you by Wayne. Wayne sends it to us every year. - Oh, Wayne. - Because he also sendsa letter with an update and then you get the evaluation. - Oh right, he gets a lot of June 25th. - Okay. I hear a lot of chatter. So can I get a Can I get arecommendation or a motion if somebody like to make a motion? - I'll make a motion to adoptthe following resolution with the changes that we talked about. - So the change is clerical error. - Clerical errors andthe potential the word- - And striking the wordpotentially from paragraph eight. - Yep. - And then also Minnesotastatute section 13D.0 right? - That's correct another clerical. - All right. So we have a motion. Do we have a second? - Second. - Second by Thompson, any discussion? Can we have we havediscussion here? I don't know. - Yes. - Okay, any other discussionpertinent to this resolution? Hearing none. This willbe a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Into my screen here. Okay. Ellison. Oh, she's not here. Sorry. Skaar.- No. - Streiff Oji? - Yes. - Thompson.- [Angela] Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Beloyed.- Aye. - [Kathleen] Daniels, aye. - Motion carries. Five one. We now in the part can Iget a motion to adjourn? - Do we not need to make do action on the other part of the closed meeting? - No, it was just.- Oh, that's (indistinct). - So who made the motion? Did Thompson. - Thompson, is there a second.- Second. - All in favor say aye.- [Board Members] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign.Hearing now adjourned.