Moving on to the facility uh use fee approval. Uh Director Dah and Coordinator Fern, are they both here? Evening, Chair White, members of the board. Uh at the last board meeting, I hope this will stay up. Uh we presented a fee increase of 5% across the board on facility use rentals. And so we're asking the board tonight to approve that recommendation. Is there a motion to accept the uh facility use uh changes in the charging? So second uh by Jessica and second by Mary. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. I. Motion carries. 70. Thank you. Did you say I or N? Say. All right. Moving down to activity and arts fees. Director Marshall. Oh, in your hisstead we have director Beth Fuller. Good evening uh director, directors and chair white. Uh I am here representing the activities office and everything was presented at the last meeting. So here to answer questions if needed. All right. Is there a motion to accept the uh arts and activity fees increases for next year. So director Johnson, second by director France. Discussion hearing. None. All in favor signify by saying I. I I I opposed. Motion carries. 70. Thank you. All right. Moving down to the proposed uh neighborhood closure and facility consolidation. Dr. Thomas. Thank you, Chair White, board of directors. Um, our team is here tonight u to respond to some of the conversation that we had a few weeks ago uh with the board and uh we have uh the original uh presentation for our community uh and the board to just kind of have a running record. Um so we've updated and revised the uh original slides uh basically the cover slide through slides uh 16 where it starts on appendix. Um and in the appendix is where we begin kind of the new conversation of some of the updates that we've shared or that we're going to share with you this evening. And I just wanna um so on slide 17 uh which is the comparison of facility transition matrix we we looked at a variety of different criteria to land on what our you know ultimate recommendation was to open up the conversation with the board. And so you can take a look on the left hand side and just as a refresher um some driving criteria for us is looking at ways that we can create um operational efficiencies and in this case our buildings minimize our remodeling needs um and then how we may be able to enhance or support future program programmatic growth and then also ways that we might be able to generate additional revenue. Um and so when you're looking when we looked at the three different scenarios um closing Westwood um was one that uh and then you know Loal and the DSSE just kind of stay where they're currently at. that was probably the least um uh feasible opportunity for us to look at because it really boxed us in and gave us no ability to address efficiencies, future growth um or address um revenue issues. Um so then when we take a look at Westwood and then move the DSC to Westwood, we could create building efficiencies. Um, Westwood, as you may recall, was designed really for large space classrooms, particularly the HVAC systems. Uh, would be very costly to to remodel. Um, and we would not have the opportunity to increase or enhance um the dual immersion program, which we see to have a demand both internally and externally from our from our district. And so to govern that more as a magnet program um within our um school portfolio is something that we would be stifled at doing. Um but we would be able to address some of the additional funds because we could potentially look at alternate space within Westwood as potential partner lease space etc. when we looked at clos the closure of Westwood and then moving um Loal to Westwood um and then u moving the DSC to Greenwood where Loal currently um resides that uh essentially checked all the boxes um in terms of a variety of different scenarios of the criteria that we are prioritizing. So that's what brought us to that um initial recommendation for discussion to the with the board a few weeks ago. And moving forward, we've got several other um conversations that uh our team is going to kind of uh tag team tonight to share some additional information based upon some of the questions andor discussion points that were raised at our previous um conversation. So, I'll go to um Executive Director Emily Herman um who will speak to um some of the uh uh elementary school closures. Thank you. Um Chair White, members of the board. Um so on this next slide, you'll see um as you might recall from the last presentation, the building leadership team along with executive director um Dan Edwards went through the building and identified all the instructional spaces that we have in our school. So didn't count bathroom spaces, hallways, all the other um spaces that might be on other reports. Specifically looking at actual classroom instructional spaces that are available and the defined what the capacity is within each of those schools. Um last um presentation we looked at what the average class sizes would be across the district if we closed one and then there was some additional questions on what might that look like if we closed two. So this slide is providing a a second comparison to show if we closed two school ele elementary schools. I apologize. Um what the total sections per grade level we would have, what our anticipated grade capacity would look like, which would then lead to what um our based off of the projected enrollment, what our district uh wide class size averages would look per grade. And as you can see, um, if we close two elementary schools, multiple of our grade levels would be above our current discussion cap. I mean, if you recall, we have a target, um, which is where we hope to be at, and then we have a discussion cap, which is where we're saying that's the largest it can be at before we have additional conversations about additional adult supports in those spaces. So, um this was just to address uh that um that additional question on what actual instructional spaces we had available um compared to what it looked like to close one elementary school versus the two. The other uh conversation point that was brought up was um does the uh DS where where could the DSC go? And I I also want to just clarify, you know, some of the comments in the discussion that we had a few weeks ago. Um how some of that was received by many of the staff here at the DSC was that uh DSSE could be bifrocated and just kind of put away where we might have extra space throughout the district um without taking into consideration I think the continuity of services, the customer service orientation and the necessary collaboration amongst departments. And so just want to reiterate the fact that you know like a school the staff here at the DSC have significant value and are the ones oftentimes behind the curtain that of the front stage performances that are happening in our classrooms every single day. And so we want to be mindful that, you know, we don't just move the DSC any old space where we might have, you know, uh, uh, excess space because some of the excess space that was discussed in terms of total square footage also included underneath the stairwell, receiving do uh, spaces, etc. So, it wasn't a true comparison of where we could actually house um, people or offices. And so, just want to break that down for the board so you understand. We do have about 56 staff members um in the DSC um that are supporting the schools on a daily basis. This building that we currently occupy is about 22,000 square ft. And that also includes this primary building that we're in this evening as well as across the parking lot where we have the garage storage for some of our maintenance vehicles as well as um data storage um for kind of paper um archive storage that we uh legally need to maintain. Um, I want to also acknowledge that within this current blueprint of this building, um, we do have about 1,500 square ft or so of hallways and vestibules that's included in that space. So, I'm mindful that, uh, you know, we wouldn't account for that in terms of occupancy um, in in terms of another building that we'd be looking for. So um and then also we will have to um address the garage storage of of that 600 square ft. Um so that that is something that uh we want to make sure that we address wherever we um potentially might go um depending on the action of the board. Um and again going back to the notion of distributing the DSSE uh across multiple sites uh it will be very inefficient uh in terms of our just our daily operations. The level of collaboration um that this team is doing um is significant and um to to travel you know 15 minutes from one side to the other side of the district if you're in opposite uh ends of the of the district would be highly inefficient. um as well as as a parent if you're going in to uh get support services here at the DSC, you you may be here for more than just one thing. And if we have to have parents going from building to building to building to get their needs met, again, I think it just breeds uh greater inefficiencies. Um and and so we want to make sure that as we consider the needs of the DSC, the space that we might need to occupy as well as balancing out optimizing um th those uh resources as well in terms of the occupancy space and uh customer service and I have a question Dr. Thomas that I think is um worthy of getting clarification from for myself and for others. So you had mentioned the capacity numbers and when we look at our financial reports and we look at like say for instance the high school has capacity of 35 3,400 students and the enrollment in 25 was 2,850. Is that not referring to actual audience? Yeah. So we're going to go through the next let us go ahead director Atinson and and answer that in the next slide on our secondary capacity for our middle and high school and I'll have Dr. Edward speak to some of that in terms of our availability of um what's being occupied for instruction and what would be available? Yeah, because I'm assuming that the 2008 um the 35 400 they wouldn't be having classrooms behind stairwells. It would be accounted for in the capacity numbers. So that's I'm just trying to understand when you said we'll get we'll get to that on the next slide. We'll speak to that right now on this next slide. Okay, perfect. Thank you. So at the last board meeting uh when we had this discussion uh it was asked of the capacity at the secondary buildings and at that point I had simply uh looked at the elementary buildings. So since that uh conversation I have uh I did engage with our each of our respective principles uh Dr. Biz at the high school and Mr. Kushek representing both middle schools and looking at ahead to next year with our projected uh enrollment as well as our projected staffing uh to identify those classrooms that are current currently projected and I'll speak uh of the middle school specifically at this time. Uh there are projected to be five classrooms vacant at Hidden Oaks and two classrooms vacant at Twin Oaks. Uh for a total of seven classrooms and just for uh comparative size uh perspective uh the average classroom is approximately 950 square ft. Um I didn't do per classroom but the classrooms that I was looking at uh in conversation with Mr. Kabushek are those classrooms that fit into that category. And so, uh, that is what our current projection is, taking into account the reductions in staff. Uh, as you recall at the middle school for next year, we have three FTE, fewer than we do this year. Um, and taking into account the usage of those spaces and defined that as any classroom that is used for uh two class periods or fewer per per day. So, we're on a sixth period day. So, if a classroom is utilized for more than two periods, i.e. three or more. Uh that is half uh used classroom and we would be able to merge a couple of classrooms but uh we we feel that the seven classrooms is what is available at this time at the middle school. Uh similarly at the high school uh as you recall we are moving back or moving the Minaps program into the high school which will take up a significant uh amount of space that's currently not occupied. Uh so we are uh taking the square footage that we are essentially losing by not having uh the Minaps program in Lakeville and moving that into the high school and that is going to occupy essentially uh wing plus uh at the high school and we therefore will have six classrooms that would meet that uh criteria uh projecting for next year. Um, additional to that and this I think uh should get to uh addressing your question Director Atkinson around how those spaces are utilized. Uh we as we know we have had uh increased need for uh services, specialized services programming uh where our numbers in our ASD program as well as our life skills program have grown significantly in recent years and those those uh spaces or those students and the uh supports and services that they require uh do require additional uh classroom space. So when we talk about uh every every student is not a student uh that equals all uh the same number or amount of square footage that they uh require. And so that is what's intended to be accounted for there in that description paragraph there you see around the specialized programming due to that changing enrollment and specialized supports. And then finally uh with this uh with the classrooms once again at the high school approximately 950 square feet typical classroom at the secondary level. And so you can see the amount of square footage that could be realized uh by utilizing those spaces at two different campuses, three buildings uh would be approximately 13 just under 13,000 square feet that would be available. So our our conclusion therefore is that there is in insufficient space to adequately meet the needs of the previous slide where we talked about the needs of the DSC staff. Any questions about that particular portion? Yes. Can someone please um Dr. Thomas, did you say that somebody it was it was requested or an idea was to have offices under stairwells or classrooms under stairwells? Uh, no. No, there was forgive me if that if if that was interpreted that way. No, I I was I was stating that when we were having discussions about available square footage across our campuses in the district based on enrollment calculations, um there the the square footage that was being um shared was total square footage and not necessarily instructional square footage. And so, so that's the distinction I want to be clear about because when you look at a map and you see the total square footage divided by how many kids and you can look in the budget book and if you do the math, you can say, "Oh, then they occupy x amount of square feet. We have this much extra space in the in the in that building." Well, if we're looking at total square footage, that includes bathroom space, you know, loading dock space under the uh stairwell, you know, the hallway spaces that maybe a kid will sit in there and read something, but it's not like a classroom space. We can't use it as square usable instructional square footage. And that's the distinction I was trying to convey. So, sorry if that was interpreted. No, thank you. I was just making sure. And on that note of utilizing space with some of our littles, one of the conversations that came up last week or a couple weeks ago was around the notion of Edgewood. And so um uh uh Joel Doll is going to come forward uh and talk a little bit about um Edgewood. And this is kind of a unique um occupancy because we have staggered usage. So similar to periods of the day at our secondary that Dr. Edwards is just referencing I know um a board director referenced being at that site and seeing that there was no nobody there and acknowledged the fact that there's an AM and PM and was likely there during the transition where there was nobody really there. So I'm going to I wanted to make sure that irrespective of those transition times how that space is utilized looks a little different than our more traditional school campuses in terms of uh uh percentage of occupancy. So, uh, Director D, if you want to walk through Edgewood. Certainly, Chair White, members of the board. On the slide on Edgewood, you can see so we currently have 24 what we consider um, classroom spaces that are available in Edgewood. Um, not all of those are used for classrooms. We have some that are actually used as office space. Um on there you can see we have about 91 staff that work out of Edgewood and uh we house like our birth to three staff have one of those spaces where it's broken into cubes. So not all of those are actual classroom spaces but you can see the breakdown uh in the box. We have eight preschool classrooms, six ECSE and so on. So that's how our spaces are used in there. And as Dr. Thomas mentioned um utilization of those classrooms varies not only by day but as as well as morning versus afternoon. Um average morning utilization is around 85%. Uh that's and I say average because Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings might look different than Tuesday, Thursday mornings just based on which classes we're offering, which ones are running etc. afternoon is around 60% and that's pretty typical in preschool where you still have uh young kids who nap in the afternoons. So our afternoon enrollments are generally or typically lower than our morning uh enrollments. Um so th that's what our actual utilization is. Uh again about 85% in the morning, 60% in the afternoons. There was a question about um I think in the budget book stating uh 73 students. As you can see at the top in the slide, we have 296 students that are currently enrolled in our preschool program. The 73 students, just to clarify, that's the ADM um not the number of students that we serve. ADM is only reported in early ed um for our ECSE students. uh are birth to five and those who are in VPK. So that doesn't include any of our general ed um preschool age students. Um another question was raised about um some of the staffing. So we currently we employ a 6 LSN at Edgewood. That position is shared um with other buildings, but we have some time available um for health needs of our students in Edgewood. that is covered under our sped program. We also have um or we don't have a media specialist but we pay for uh we purchased sometime essentially from the um Lola media specialist over the last year about year and a half to do some organization of the media center at Edgewood because we don't have a media specialist. There was some organization that needed to be done. we needed to review materials and so that was paid out of the '04 fund to have them come over and help kind of do a refresh of our media center. Um the all of the other staff outside of ECSE are all paid for and covered out of the ' 04 fund um in that building. I think that was the only questions that I received on that. But as you can see from the enrollment numbers um and again our utilization we're similar to what our elementarymentaries are as current utilization around that 85%. Other questions? Director Atinson. Sorry I have one question Director D about the preschool the circle of friends preschool 296 students. Aren't those housed in other schools though like Jeff Pond and um yes we have so we have two classes that are housed out of Jeff Pond. We have our naturebased preschool program. Um I believe that's around 40 students that are housed over at JP. So yeah. So I I think my question was I'm trying to get an understanding of that 73 number 73 capacity number that's in the annual report as well as the budget book. So that's where it's it's it's maybe not as straightforward as you think it is, but yeah. And again, the the 73 is for ADM. And because our students aren't full-time, they're only attending certain number of days for half day. We don't get a full ADM per student. And that ADM only includes uh ECSC students that are birth to five and our VPK or our voluntary preschool students. It doesn't include any of our general ed students who attend our preschool program. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions particular to what Director Doll just presented? Okay. Thank you. So, um, before we go into just I I know I made some of these points at the front side, but just to give some additional rationale, um, with Lola going to Westwood, um, we can actually double the potential expansion, um, to that program along with, um, looking at, um, additions of preK, um, um, Spanish immersion. So, and and just knowing that uh we've talked to some of our community partners and they've got waiting lists and their model is very contained to what they want to do. So, we have a demand that we could actually meet with prek in Spanish immersion. So, we've been having conversations with Richie and his team um about that. Um but that would allow us to grow um and and leverage um additional interest in that immersion. Um again, looking at Greenwood. So, Greenwood uh uh has the opportunity for it to become um a an academic program as well as central service kind of mixed hub um for a variety of things. And I just want to speak to that um as we're beginning to have some early conversations um to kind of vision out what we could utilize Greenwood for. So, aside from the the occupancy of DSC, and we'll speak to um some of the IT uh changes that we've made cuz that was initially um part of this conversation at Greenwood. That's no longer there. I'll let Marcus speak to that in a second. But aside from the DSC, uh we also are looking at ways that we can colllocate uh additional services within that building. Particularly our transitions program uh that are our students that get serviced up to 22 years of age oftent times are out in our community doing um work related uh skills-based training and life readiness training. And um that is something that we have an interest to explore of bringing that uh program back to our home district right now. That's currently um uh through a partnership with Southwest Metro. And um as much as we appreciate that, uh I I think from a cost standpoint, we have savings that we could realize bringing that program back under our roof. Um, I would also say that more importantly, our students are not then bust out to communities that aren't their home to do these skills-based training and life readiness skills trainings um with, you know, community based employers um that the likelihood that they'd be driving out to Chaza or Chanhassen to to work um with some of the things that they might have to uh manage through are might might not be that that feasible. So partnering with our local community uh within Prior Lake Savage and the surrounding, they have a better opportunity now to actually develop those skills where they actually live um and in close proximity to where they live. On top of that, um uh colllocating uh transitions programs in other adult related services centers is also another plus for them to be modeled around an adult work community. um not just necessarily a school classroom um context. Um many districts that I've been a part in, we've had our own standalone transition but colllocated adult um districtwide programming services for that very reason. Um I would also say that um we have an opportunity that we're considering some other of our our co our community ed programs. So community ed that currently resides there with a lot of administrative and some classroom space. Um but talking with uh Director Dull and his team, we are looking at um optional ways with partnering with other surrounding districts to host some other community-based programming that we are currently doing through another intermediate district and again saving resources on um contract fees for those um intermediate um uh partnership fees and bringing some of those services back um into our our space. and we have ample room um to do that at Greenwood as well. So I would envision Greenwood to be a communityed specialed and district services hub for you know PLSAS and really maximize the utility of that space and also save uh on funding um on an annual basis as well. um and potentially through community edition fund for revenue depending on you know the type of program and the demand for the program. So just wanted to add that additional rationale that I began to speak to um earlier as to why the moves kind of relegated to that one recommendation of um uh Greenwood versus Westwood. Several of you had some questions around real estate and I'm going to ask um that director P powers come forward to talk a little bit more on some of the conversations that he has had in the past and I think he explored a couple of questions that you had from our last conversation that were new um about some of the real estate data. Okay, let me start off uh Chair White and members of the board. Um, one of the questions that came up, um, was asking if we had gotten a second opinion on the valuations, um, that I had received from Saron Properties. I have reached out and I'm working with two other commercial wheelers, actually meeting with one of them yet this week um, so that we can talk more about um, potential valuations for the buildings as well as um, the potential if we were to lease those spaces. Um the challenge we run into with leasing a space like a school is the limited number of groups that would be interested in a space like that. We're still going to run into um specialty type schools, religious type schools, um other charter schools. Um and as I've mentioned before, I that would not be the direction I would recommend um just because we would have a a chance to lose our own enrollments for that type of a situation. But I did want to include those things in there that I am still researching. Um, excuse me. I just want to ask a quick question. Leasing also means that we as a district would be responsible for maintenance and and all that, right? Correct. Is I would assume that that's almost as large if not a bigger priority to not lease because of the resource constraints and the potential cost. Like if the HVAC system went, we would be still responsible for that. If the cost benefit wasn't high enough to make it worthwhile, I would never recommend leasing either to anyone else. So, it would have to it would have to meet that costbenefit threshold. Depends on the cost benefit analysis. Yeah. So, that is one of the things that I will be talking with them about on the realers to make sure that I can get that last I dotted and t crossed. Thank you. Just because that information had come up. Uh let's see. So, we talked a little bit about the the valuations themselves. Um that was me working with Saron Properties. their valuations actually came up to um basically the same number that the um the county has our properties valued at. So it was within a pretty close percentage point which was it's good to see that. So uh Dan, can I just a quick question? So then is it is it worth your time to get comparison quotes? I mean, every realtor, commercial or or or not, is going off the exact same comparables, the exact same sales numbers, and ultimately a building's only worth what somebody's going to pay for it anyway. Yeah. So, is it worth your time to even go down that road? Director, right? Members of the board, it's honestly, it's I don't think it hurts for me to talk with them. Um, they might have a different idea of how we could use the properties. Um, but I don't think there Sarah Properties looked at the sold properties that had happened everywhere in the metro area of this type of property so that they could get um valuations based on square footage um to show us. And those valuations, um, I've mentioned this before, they vary all over the place, but the maximum valuation, the maximum amount we can get for every location is to sell it to someone that's going to use it the same way we are. If if we wanted to put a limitation on that, we'd be looking at at most half of the value of that property to use it for some other thing. So, it's those are the numbers that they they couldn't get around those types of things when I was talking with them. One of the other things we really did talk a lot about was um time on market. Um something like the district office time on market, 6 to 12 months. That's a good average for a commercial property like this. One of the challenges that they were talking to me about was um selling a property that doesn't already have a tenant in it that's going to stay with that property makes it a little bit less valuable to them. Um so it may make it a little bit more challenging to sell. Uh for the schools um it really varies greatly. Um it depends on um Lakeville um went and purchased the uh the ALC downtown. They had a use for it. They've wanted that building for a long time. So, the sale of that went really pretty quickly. Um I mentioned um a while ago about um but the Burnsville schools, one of the challenges that we had was they had a restriction on theirs as well. They didn't want a school to be purchased from their property. Someone come in and run a school there. So, it took the sale of Metaf almost 5 years. They're still fighting the sale of Sue Trail. Um the city didn't approve the initial sale. So, this is 5 years down the road and they've sold one of the three properties, but there are other locations u Minneapolis more than willing to sell one of their locations to a competitor because they were just getting rid of the property. So, in those sales situations, it still took more than a year to get those things finalized. So, on average, it varies between a year and a half to five years for those things. And I'll verify those numbers again with the other companies that I'm going to be talking with, but it really does depend on I mean they say location is everything with properties. Five Hawks is a better location. Could it sell easier than some other place? Possibly. Um but those restrictions come in again if we don't want to sell it to another competing school type of operation. That brings that valuation way down. Were there any other questions about the real estate data? Did we have the valuations for Greenwood? I believe you mentioned we had them, but I don't think they've been shared. I did share the initial numbers and I can I can mention them and I can share the uh what I got from Saron Properties too. Oh, so Ola Delago. Um I'll get a little closer to the mic. Um honestly they were about the same between Lola Delago and Five Hawks um per square footage cost or per per square footage sale. Um and they averaged about 7 6 million for Grainwood and Five Hawks was 7.86. So they're really pretty similar for the differentiz buildings mostly because of where they're located. Sure. Sure. Thank you for that. So, some of the information that we are sharing with you is ongoing savings and some of its one-time cost savings. And so, Director Frederickson will um kind of delineate how some of that is breaking down. Thank you. Um now, this breakdown is assuming that our forecasted enrollment numbers will hold true. Um if enrollment changes over what we're forecasting, then obviously we'll have to recalculate these. But um the ongoing cost savings um by closing the building and then consolidating the programming, we're projecting depending again depending on the um border changes the um we could reduce between 22 and a half and 28 and a half FTEEs. So between 1.9 million and 2.7 million. Those would be ongoing. Um, again, assuming you're not going to gain the enrollment back, your those staff will be gone year over year. Um, the transportation savings, we would see some assume we're going to see some transportation savings and it'd be dependent on what those boundary changes look like. Um, utility savings. We won't have to have utilities at this building. So, and there would be some savings. Um, we're already heating and um, having utilities at Greenwood, so there should be some cost reductions. We don't know what that'll look like at this point, but we can certainly monitor it as we move over there. Um, the onetime savings and cost. Um, we would have to have moving and remodeling expenses, and we're predicting that's between $475,000 and $625,000. And then of course the sale of um this building would net us between 2.6 and $3.5 million. That would be one-time savings. Um other considerations that we can kind of keep monitoring is if we move Lola Delago over to Westwood to give them more space. Um it's possible that we could see some enrollment increases there which would increase our enrollment and obviously increase revenue. There's any questions, I will try to answer them. Any questions on that first part of the presentation? Yes. Um, Director Frederickson, the transportation savings, too. Could there be a and and this is kind of hard to say too just because we're going out for an RFP for transportation about this earlier than when this would happen, but that could factor in. Do you see that as being significant? Um I again I'm I'm not sure what our what kind of bids we'll get when we send out the RFP process. I mean hopefully it will be a reduction of what we're seeing now. Um because um the school that we're proposing to close is kind of centrally located. We're thinking that there will be some transportation savings, but honestly until we get those boundary changes and kind of let everything settle, um I I don't even feel comfortable giving you a range yet. Um, it's just going to depend on where the kids end up. Yeah. Um, I have an open enrollment question. I'm not sure if this is the place to ask it or if you'd like me to wait. Can ask it. Okay. So, open enrollment. So, obviously, if this happens, you know, we go through boundary changes and uh, please forgive me. I don't want to be crass, but the the money follows the student, right? So, is there a plan? I did get a question from a community member about open enrollment. Are there any plans to cap anything or close anything or once you're a Laker always a Laker with boundary changes? I'm just trying to figure that out and I wasn't quite sure um how to answer that succinctly. So, Director Olstead, if I may, um so our students who are currently open enrolled with us, um they would be offered um to reconsider um a priority placement one and priority placement two, if you will. Um they would stay with us. They would they would have the option to stay with us. I think the other question that might be within your question is for any new families that aren't in our district. And again, until we understand the boundaries and what our true capacities would be, that would let us know how close are we to reaching capacity um in our schools and would that potentially govern any new open enrollment um based upon our ability to take take more students from outside of the district. But again, I think we'd have to look at what happens with the boundary changes um should this move forward in some form or fashion. But those who are with us, they would have an option to choose alternate schools to continue to stay open enrolled if we have that space in that school for them. Okay. Thank you. Just to follow on that, so just for the students like for example, if we are closing Westwood, those students would be given that option. Not everyone is that is correct. So, not every open enrollment uh student that's open enrolled would be something any any student um open enrollment student that's open enroll that would be impacted by that building closure, they would be able to have an option to um uh submit for another another open enrollment. Yeah. If I could go one step further, but even in boundary changes, every student, maybe not every student infected potentially. So if I'm if I if so if I'm uh so if this prop proposal moves forward and Westwood is the school that we choose to um uh re uh purpose in in a different way those students then would get options to go to another neighborhood school. Equally, if I'm a student who's being impacted because of boundary changes and my open enrollment school of choice was school A, but now I'm getting redistrict or rebounded to school B, but I wanted school A and I can't go into that school. I would have to say yes, I'll go into that school or I would open enroll to a different school if that makes sense. I would choose I would apply to open enroll to a different school if I did not want to go to um enrollment B. Okay. You know, new boundary school B. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, several of you had brought up some questions last time around, um, some of our IT costs and remodeling costs. And so, um, I have our team here, director Malazo and Powers to talk a little bit about, um, some of the changes that we are exploring, um, that I think were some valid points brought forward by, um, several board directors, um, around the IT closets and then also some of the remodeling components. Um, so Chair White, board directors, Dr. Thomas, good evening. Marcus Malazo, director of technology. Uh, in regards to the estimates for, uh, moving or remodeling, what's included in that 475,000 to 625,000, um, we have listed here 300,000 for updated security camera servers and integrated phone systems that have reached end of life. Both of those systems are um legacy units and um this is my 14th year in the district and the phone system was put in the year before I got here. Um we are having issues with our security server um with capacity and uh with hard drives failing. So that is what is making up that estimated cost. 500 or 50,000 to 100,000 for a large conference room AV equipment that includes spaces for professional development, schoolboard meetings, and more. The current AV equipment that we're all using here was put in in 2014. So um the microphones, the cameras, all the head-end equipment and that Liz is operating right now is over 11 years or is 11 years old and it's also end of life. Uh in regards to the IT moving setup and associated logistics 50,000 to 100,000 I know there's been lots of conversations around that picture. That's our main that's our headend. That's where all of our equipment is. And where do we put that equipment? And we will work with all of our vendors and contractors to determine a permanent solution so that we're not moving it two or three times. Right? We want to find a permanent solution where we know that that equipment and it's updated equipment as we life cycle equipment out isn't in a permanent location. So we're not double handling triple handling equipment and paying for that move over and over again. And then you outdoors, the remainder of that amount, um 75 to $125,000 is actually um the the creation of those office spaces in that in that school. Um some of that is going to be security doors. We would need to add security doors to make it as more similar like the district office is right now versus the school. There are going to be common areas where people are coming in and out that we still don't want them to have regular access to where the office staff would normally be. So, we'd be looking at between three and four different security doors. depending on where we would put um if we were to move and create the boardroom over there um one of the costs that we would be looking at at least in two of the areas that I considered we would actually have to add um emergency exits out of those spaces that don't have them right now because of the capacities and the distance to the doors. So if we were to use the current media center as an example, I would probably need to add two emergency exits from that space. If we were to use the um the cafeteria, um similar type of thing. I would need to make sure that there are two emergency exits out of that space or would be limited pretty greatly um by the fire marshall and how many people we could have in that space. And then some of the rest of that is going to be um like I mentioned upgrading the bathrooms. um littles. The toilet is about a foot little off the ground and uh I don't know many adults that can use those. So stuff like those things we would need to change out. Um the toilets wouldn't necessarily go away. That would be stuff we would keep in stock, but there are other changes. Um potentially adding some different walls, some removable walls of some type or um whatever. So there's a little bit of materials that we would need for that. And I've mentioned a few times that's that's my Bailey Wick. That's I was in construction for a long time. So I will be there with them design helping to design those spaces and build them. And that's the reason we can get away with uh our remodel costs being as low as they are. Um when we're talking about those things, uh I can't do the fire exits, but a good chunk of the rest of that we will be able to do in-house. And just to that point, uh, Director Powers, I liken some of the work that your crew could actually do versus contract out, similar to what we did with the, um, classroom vestibules at Five Hawks and we put up those partition walls and things of that nature that we augmented that space to align with the new fire code for those exits that we didn't install, but the interior we could manage. So, um, again, thank you to your team for being able to do carry some of that. Yeah. Um, Director Powers, are you certified in low voltage? I am not. Okay, we're not either. I know. Any other questions? Yes. How How did you get to these cost numbers? Estimates based on or at least for mine, it's estimates based on the spaces themselves. When I've converted other bathrooms, um, it would be, depending on how large the bathroom was, it could be between three and $5,000. The larger the bathroom, obviously, the more expensive. It could be as much as 10 or $15,000, but usually not. And I'm not expecting that in these cases. Um, if you're looking at an emergency exit, a regular security door between three and $5,000, an emergency exit coming out of there because of the slightly different design of those things is going to be closer to $5,000. So, those are the costs that we've typically run into. We would get firm estimates for all of those types of things that we can't do in-house. Um, and then have very specific material lists because of the dollar amounts we're talking. Those would be things that I would come to the board to show you where the costs were and exactly where we were going to be allocating those funds because it's going to be for every one of those things. Um, the total projects for each section is going to be well over $25,000. So when I'm looking to do that type of a spend, I would make sure and bring that to you so that you could see exactly where we're spending that money. And some of the other numbers are based off of current like snapshot and time codes that we've received from vendors. If if we were to purchase a system today, what would it cost? Um this is it's important to note too that all this is before possible at - rate um the rate program and some of this is considered category 2 others is not um but we would whatever products that we go out and receive our three quotes for get our bids um do an RFP depending on the pricing right where it falls um we would anything that would qualify either category 1 or category two fore we would submit to see if we can get some reimbursement for that as well. Um, one other question. All of this is going to happen before the sale of the building. So, am I am I correct in that? I suppose depends on how fast it sells. Okay. All right. G given that um what what fund is it coming out of? That's that's a good question and I've looked at a couple of different ways we can do this. I haven't shared this conversation with many people yet, but one of the things that we can look at for the building, this building, is actually moving people over at a different rate. We can wait until this building sells to do the majority of the remodeling over there. The the sale is going to take a number of months. So, when we get to that point where it's we're going to have the sale, it's going to be coming through. We're scheduling it for three months down the road. We have to go through all the closing different things for closings. That will give us a percentage of time that we need to finalize everything over at the other school. There will be a lot of different things though. There are some there are some capital funds that are available for us to use. And there actually that's one of the beauties of this is the sale of this building we can't use in our normal 01 funds. We can use it for other capital things. so it can be reimbursed back into that account once we've spent that money in that type of a remodel. So it's there again we're aiming for making sure that it's it's not hitting our budget and we're going to be we'll have to push that money around a little bit but it I suspect if we delay the actual remodel over there until we absolutely need to um it'll lower that impact. It would be capital for it as well. Yeah. Any other questions? I think it's important to remember that no matter what we do with this with the staff that's here, it's going to cost us something no matter where they end up. And I think is similar to the IT box picture I see here. I think we should be um looking toward a goal of as permanent a space for the DSC as possible. Now, nothing might be. We thought this place was permanent. That's not the case. But I think that should be the goal to create a space that um can be the most permanent setup possible. So if there are changes in the future that that doesn't get affected again, we're right back here figuring out what we're going to do. So um to me right now it looks like that's that's Greenwood, but um I think that's that should be the goal because we don't want to spend this money again. Director Atinson. Yeah. I just have a quick question. Um, with the talk of what you just said, moving it to Greenwood, but then we have to wait until we actually make all the moves to remodel. It almost feels like the DP decision is we're putting the the cart before the horse on this when ultimately the DSC seems like it has to be the last decision because all the other decisions need to come first. Am I not understanding that correctly or I mean you can't move you can't move anybody into Greenwood until Greenwood is moved to Westwood which is kind of a whole year out. Correct. Director Atkins and members of the board that definitely nothing's going to happen for at least a year. Um that's Westwood and Grahamwood are both going to be open as their current existence um through this next year. So best case scenario um best case when we look at closing um if we agree to close the school and move forward with Lola Delago moving into Westwood we would look at the first part of next year in the summertime moving out the people that are in Westwood wherever they're going if they're wherever those resources are being rem reallocated to if they are once that's complete then yes then we would move the folks from Grainwood over to Westwood. The time frame for that, middle of the summer to the end of the summer. The soonest we would look at possibly getting the DSSE move happening is going to be after we're done moving all of the Greenwood or the Lola Lago people. So, from what I understand and what's been explained to us at study sessions of all those board meetings about the time frame is that first we need to vote to close the school because we need to notify. We need to notify. Okay. but we can't move anyways because we need that year advance notification. So that's been in every single meeting. So of course we have to wait a year and then once we notify them we're closing a school, we have to do it the following year. We don't we can't just leave it open indefinitely. So there's your if we notify the state we're closing a school and we tell them a time frame, we have to be out. So and we want to get this property on the market as soon as possible. at least notify realators, notify people because it's going to take that time. Uh the sooner we do that, the better, particularly given the economy that we're looking at that they they have that option and we want to be able to have people at least get something on contract um when they know about it, knowing we may put conditions on it or not, but we can't move legally prior to a year. So, and we can't stay after we tell the state we're closing an elementary school from what I understand. Yeah, we have a um a time frame of when we have to notify the state that we are closing a building, right? I don't know that they say you're going to have to move immediately, but they'll it kind of is implied because they eliminate that cost center for that building because it's no longer in existence. So, um, essentially, yes, but I guess technically we'd have a little bit of time. Well, if we notified them, we're going to close it for the following for the 26 27th school year. We have to close it for the 2627 school year. Correct. And that's what we would want to do. Correct. Okay. Yes. And and I mentioned when I was mentioning the time frames, members of the board, it's that's for the moves. You are correct. Once we decide that we're going to close a school, um we and possibly sell and move the DSC, we would notify the realators so that they could start their work. Um because we know that's not going to happen right away and we want to let people know as soon as we can. Um we've all we know the actually the people that are trying to sell the property right next door are the people I'm meeting with yet this week. So, um they will be excited to have that conversation and then we can start that process and then like I say once everything is sold and moved then we can worry about all the rest of that stuff too. But we have to start the process um of even selling the DSC now as soon as we make this decision. I mean, if I may, I I I the piece I'm still struggling with is is moving DSSE staff into a bigger building and paying to retrofit doing so, right? And so, we're really, you know, our net savings based on the sale and then the cost of retrofitting. Um, it just it doesn't get us there, right? And so that's where I'm really struggling just to think long term and and NY asked about the valuations of a building. So I I mean I I fully appreciate you know the moving of or closure of Westwood and um proposing to move Greenwood Lola Dagago into Westwood. But then can we take more time to talk about what building we're selling whether it's DSC or Greenwood? Um, again, I know you mentioned like the transition program and other ideas we might have to put people in and students bodies into that space also and utilize it, but um I don't know that we've done a lot of research on like costs on that like Southwest Metro. The reason districts use that 12 13 districts is because it's more costefficient. These are very specialized programs, right? Um, so I mean it sounds amazing to bring that here, but what is that cost? I don't know. or, you know, do we have contractual commitments to Southwest Metro? We've done some early runs and we would actually end up um realizing cost savings um for that program to come back and we're we're still looking at some of those numbers. So I don't want to share but um director Chuka and I looked at um the forecast and what she is anticipating and um there there's a there's a decent return for us. Um and and like I said in the larger scope of things um I think it's how we're supporting our students first and foremost in our home in their home district would be my selfish bias. You know, I I'll just I'll own that. Um And then I would say the unintended uh positive consequence is that we would probably net savings in doing that as well. I think it would be helpful to get, you know, some of that information at some point too. But um yeah, I mean that that's the piece I'm struggling with and knowing that this is our largest class that just graduated, our numbers are going downhill from here, right? until we we have more space every year and um I don't know like how are we going to get there numbers wise because like I said we might net 2 million for for the sale of this building and to retrofit a larger building for for the staff and then what where are we getting the rest of our money every year um so that's what I'm where I'm really struggling I think yeah and we'll we'll in a couple of slides we'll talk about some other future conversations that the board may consider as well, you know, to to address that question. I just wonder if we're, you know, are we not smarter looking at selling grainwood, for example, for 7.6 or what? It may take longer, yes, but then it gets us a couple years or I don't know. I'm just um that's the piece I I I just really struggle with. I think one final thing, Director Mazo, will you have a final location for us when it comes time? answer is yes. Um, two possibilities. Uh, could be the high school. Um, the other one could be potentially Twin Oaks, which is where our secondary equipment is as well. It already has an area that is climate controlled HVAC. And so we have primary and secondary. That secondary is at Twin Oaks. So those are two of the permanent locations we're looking at. So again, it really depends on our fiber provider, New Vera, how many strands they have running from their central office to these sites. So I am working with them to get a um dialed in on the cost for what if that's a change order in our agreement, what does that cost look like? But those are the two that we as a team have discussed and and and also received feedback from others as well. But those are the two locations that we're currently thinking of and we're open to suggestions. But um high school, it's our only high school, right? So, uh Twin Oaks because we have our secondary equipment there and it's in what we affectionately call the fish house because it is kind of looks like one and it's climate controlled. That could potentially be another location to move and make that the primary. is is the primary demark Twin Oaks for the entire campus. It's here because I thought it was um I thought our I thought when when we did the construction on the middle schools uh that shut down the internet for the entire campus. It's here. It's here. Okay. Yep. All All the fiber strands run back here. Okay. Thank you. Any any other questions for me? Uh Director Atinson, your hand is up. Oh, I have a general question. So, I'll let if anybody else has for director for director. No, go ahead. Yeah. So, I have a question. I think director Mason brings up a good point. You know, graduating the largest class. Um, is it possible to see some projections of enrollment for the high school and the middle school particularly? um knowing that this we're going to be looking at enrollment projections with for really the two years because this this wouldn't happen for two years of moving the DSC it sounds like. So is it possible? I mean I I've done I've done some checking and Hastings or I'm sorry Farmington has their DSC their admin in the high school. Um Hastings has it in their middle school. East Carver County has it in their ALC building. So it's not women for admin to be in the building. So I I just I personally would like to further explore that and I honestly think it would actually be advantageous for us to look at that to putting our admin in the current building because then you could sell the DSA DSC faster and then you wouldn't have to wait to move with kids the edge kids. All right. Thank you. I think the enrollment numbers, the projections have been asked for several times and provided several times if I'm not mistaken. Um, and we have reviewed that today about potentially moving the DSSE into the high school. So, Aston, um, I don't think we've seen them by though, Jess. The enrollment by building. I'm sorry, unless I'm missing something. The forecasted enrollment by the building, we have it by total number. We have it by grade um and it's projected out for multiple years and it keeps getting added to um each year with the projection. Okay, I I I hear you. I we hear you. Sorry, one more quick question. Yes. Yeah. One more quick question. Dr. Edwards. Um, in as far as the high school, the six classrooms that are open. I'm just curious in like a particular wing or um pod on a level. How many classrooms are in each like pod area? Is that what you call them? I'm trying to picture it and I I'm just curious. I don't have the map with me. I have it back in my office. Uh I I don't have that number off the top of my head. Sorry. Just curious. But thank you. Moving on. So the uh last couple of slides uh or next couple of slides are around um how we're uh updating our communications with our community as the iterative changes go along and I'll turn it over to uh um Christy who will talk a little bit about the dedicated web site. Good evening Chair White, members of the board, Dr. Thomas. U just like to briefly go over the communication rollout. Um, as you know, I did create um Liz and I created a site consolidation um page for the public to um keep up to date with the process. Um we house information there that will change as we go through this process. Um we have communicated with our staff and our families to date. Um and also we tried to reach the rider um stakeholder audience through Laker Connections which is mailed to all residents in our district. Um, most people should have got that in their mailboxes this past weekend. Um, we also communicated with the Prior Lake News Compass to try to reach again that um, audience behind our staff and families. Um, throughout the communications we did um, also promote um, our input plas.org email address so that people could send uh, questions um, and comments. Um, all of those um, were monitored daily and replied to. We had about 50 total. Um, another um, point of doing that is to kind of gather um, th those kinds of questions so that we could create a question and answer page. Um, and there were quite a few that if you know at your leisure you can take a look at those, but we did include those on that site consolidation page. Um, just for purpose of going through this briefly, um, there were probably about four questions that rose to the top that I um, saw. Um, one, why was Westwood chosen as the potential neighborhood school to close? Um, and then can the DSC staff be reloc relocated to various sites throughout the district? Um, I won't answer those here since we've already covered that, but those were two common questions. Um, another one was why not uh change or close the immersion program? Um, that one we you know responded that that has been um a highly soughtafter program that has been growing. Um so really we want to ret retain um and attract families um and with the potential to expand that. And then another one um that popped up quite a few times was where would the fifth grade SAGE students go for the 26 27 school year. Um I think there was just some misunderstanding there um and the concern is um about separating those families and we we are committed to keeping that fifth grade cohort together in their final year of Sage. um not sure on the exact location yet, but um we will keep them um together as a cohort. So again, we did respond to all um 50 um emails. We continue to monitor it as um questions trickle in um and then we will update the site consolidation page um as needed um as we go forward. So any questions of me? Anyone? All right. Thank you. So, another question um that has been coming up from our community, I think you all I've seen some of the emails coming into the board as well is around the conversation of, you know, is there a possibility of going um for another levy and I wanted to talk a little bit about that tonight as to what are some pathways for a future conversation. Um again, not promoting or advocating at this time, just really stating a matter of fact of of options um for the conversation. Um but before I do that um Dr. Zumbush uh will speak to some of our um previous uh levy uh survey that we conducted and again if you recall we did not elect to do the 30 plus thousand with Morris Leatherman. Um we uh took his findings that he said were applicable across the metro area and then did our own um survey very similar to what uh they would do. But you know, we just did our biggest outreach and that is to our um direct email serves plus any QR codes that were distributed out and people are passing it on. We encourage folks to share the link etc. So I'll let the doctors bush talk a little bit about what we um learned from that um post levy survey as well. Good evening Chair White, members of the board, Dr. Thomas. Um I just have two highle slides to go over the postreerendum survey that um director Musman and I conducted. Uh this spring, uh we received uh 1,558 verified respondents that live within the PLSAS voting area. Uh we did verify every respondent um and then dduplicated anybody um that had multiple responses. Um that's our final number of respondents that were confirmed um to be living in the PLSAS boundary area. Um the first three bullets are just the breakdown of what the demographics were of the survey respondents. Um as you can see um the biggest chunk of respondents were um parents or guardians of current PLSAS students. uh given our communication plan um and how we um connect with individuals in the voting area, I think that makes some kind of sense that the vast majority of our respondents would be um parents or guardians of current students. Um we did have the vast majority of um the survey respondents said that they um those that voted on the referendum said that they did vote yes. So 81% of our respondents were vote yes um respondents. Um obviously that was not the outcome of the referendum. So um the breakdown of our survey respondents um were largely the ones that had voted yes on the item um this past fall. Uh I did a breakdown of the um parents that um currently have students in the district. 93% of current parents or guardians um who did vote on the referendum item uh voted yes and then 50% of non-current parents or guardians uh voted yes. Um we did do a geographic analysis to see whether there was any major differences. Um we've often heard there might be some prior lake or savage differences. Uh we did not find that in our survey respondents. um those that voted yes or no were very uh geographically evenly distributed across our district. Um we did the uh thematic analysis of we asked each person uh if they voted yes, why they voted yes, and if they voted no, why they voted no. Um you can see uh those who gave uh qualitative responses. there was 1,143 um individuals who responded with a reason why they voted yes um and then 272 who um explained why they voted no. And uh these are the major themes and they are in descending order of uh most frequent to least frequent within each of the categories. Um any questions about that? Anyone? Okay. So, I just wanted to share uh with the board um and I know I've talked to a couple of you um during our one-on- ones about this too um about what is the the timeline um for possible levy conversations with our community. And if you take a look on the first column, um if we uh one option is uh to go this fall in November of 25 um to the community for um some type of ask, that's an option for the board. Um if that is something that is of interest to the board, uh you can see then the following uh box, you have to give a resolution by July of of 2025. um wording all that and then by August 20 uh August 12th you'd have to notify the county and then August 22nd we'd notify MDE and then should that you know be something that gets supported by the community those funds would be available in July of 26. So I won't read every single column but I just wanted you all to understand the flow of the logic in each of these columns. So then obviously the next um kind of traditional would be November 3rd of 26, the fall of 26. I'll come back to the May 12th. Um just keep in mind that fall will be a very noisy election. We're going to have multiple board seats on the ballot plus a governor's race and a host of others. So I think there will be a very a loud noise in that in that ballot box that that year. So that's just given that um there's another option that you could look at going early so that you could um run on its own and that would be an early spring on May 12th. Um but the consequence unintended consequence of that is that uh there's no cost share for that levy. So we would carry that but you would likely have a cleaner less noisy levy. Um conversation with the community, not so many other competing distractions. Um then if none of these options are options that you would want to entertain and or um entertained and did not get the support, um the board with new statute could do a non-election one-time renewal of the current levy that exists um on the books, which is the 300 something dollars per student with no tie to inflation. Um you would not have to go to the voters. we would have the ability to extend that for another 10 years um without voter approval. So that is um your kind of last attempt to do that on your own um for an affirmative support for levy resources. The last column that's not pictured here is to let what we have completely expire and do absolutely nothing. And I didn't put that on on this um at this point. So, um, but that's what you have to consider as a board, um, should that be something, um, you want to entertain, gives you a sense of that, as well as our community. Um, and then lastly, our proposed next steps is um, you know, there's iterative conversations that we're having with you all. um whether it's with me and our one-on- ones or whether you're talking with some of our staff, um feel free to reach out, request times to sit down um with kind of content experts in in each portion of the of the proposal that you heard um this evening. Um but our our next uh conversation with the board would to provide any um updates to the July 14th school board meeting um which would be um an area where we would be requesting action of the school board. Um and then everything else kind of holds true from our original um conversation with you a couple weeks ago. So that is our update. uh Chair White and board directors and I would strongly encourage uh and it was very helpful. Uh Director Powers gave me a quite a bit of his time uh last week and I found it very helpful uh to get some real specifics um around the wise of what we were presented and that kind of thing. So um if you can take the time to to sit down, I know it's it was very helpful to me. If there is nothing else, we will move on to the next item on the agenda. We have an approval of a resolution um regarding Southwest Metro, Director uh Frederickson and Director Powers. Thank you, Chair White. Board members, this is the same resolution that we ask you to approve every year. Uh we are a member of the Southwest Metro Intermediate School District and as such statutoily uh we are responsible for sharing with them a proportional um amount of our LTFM levy and our safe schools levy. So they have sent um the amounts that they are calculating for our portion and these are the two resolutions that we have for you tonight to approve. So I'll entertain a motion on the first resolution uh by director William, second by director Johnson. Any discussion? This does require a roll call. Director Olstead. I director Johnson. I director Bullian I director France I Dr. Mason I director Atinson I that carries 70. Next resolution is tied to safe school revenue. uh the same explanation. We as a member of the southwest metro, we are statutoily required to pay our portion of our safe schools levy to them and this is the resolution with that amount. Is there a motion to accept this resolution? So made by director Bullan, second by director France. Discussion. Again, this requires a roll call. Director Olad. I. Director Johnson. I. Director Bullian. I. Director France. I. Director Mason. Hi. Director Atinson I and I that carries 70 and resolutions for allocation report for LTFM Director Powers. You should know better than that. Chair White, members of the board, uh this is the LTFM um 10-year plan that I showed you. I think it was 6 weeks ago, maybe two months ago. Um there's no changes to that one. Um as you can see on the the bottom, the the amounts um do vary year to year, and that's so that we can make sure that we're being as trying to use up that that balance that's there um as effectively as we can and pull forward those jobs that are that we're able to. And as you're looking down uh I think it's year eight, I don't have it right in front of me. You'll see that there's almost zero carryover and we're back to uh where we should be. Okay. And this will take action on the 14th. Is that correct? Right. All right. Moving down to policy. We have a second and final reading of policy 203.5 regarding meeting agendas. Either Director Johnson or Bull want to speak to any portion of what were presented tonight. This is a second reading and we will be taking action. I think we got everyone's changes in here. That's that's the only thing I I had to say in here. Yeah. The only change that I had was to F to break it into two sentences. Um, I didn't say how. Sorry. I had sent in something a while ago on F to break it into two sentences now that we revised it after our last study session. It's just a really long one. Put a period somewhere. Yeah. Uh, on F. you want to per you suggest a I see a a word that it should follow. Well, the first thing that I have is do we need prepared or distributed by or at the direction of the school board or its employees and distributed to the or to or available to all schoolboard members. And then do we need that piece and shall be available in the meeting room for inspection by the public? Because we already covered that the electronic version is available to school board members one week in advance. Um so if we take the multiple prepositions out and and the repetition I'm not quite sure if we're leaving something out we legally have to say. Yeah. So sorry. Um that is an open meeting law. this sentence, all of this, it I copied and pasted it directly from our open meeting policy that we just approved. Okay. So, if it's already in there, do we need to repeat all of it here? Because the purpose of this is just to say that the for our board meeting a agenda um pieces that we're going to leave a copy out there, a hard copy out there available for the public and the electronic copy will also be available. Do we have to say um the um you know meetings prepared or distributed by or at the direction of the schoolboard or its employees and distributed to or available to all schoolboard members because we're saying the same thing earlier and we're also saying the same thing in other policies. We are saying the same thing in other policies. So you can so we could try to scratch from what are you suggesting Mary? Take out uh so including electronic communications related to the agenda items of the meeting. Takeout prepared or distributed by or at the direction of the school board or its employees distributed to or available all school board members. Cut that out and just put shall be available in the meeting room for inspection by the public because it I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Said in any open meeting a copy of any printed materials including electronic communications relating to the agenda. up to the word shall. Agenda items of the meeting shall be available in the meeting room for inspection by the public while the school board considers her subject matter. Fair enough. I lost my breath reading that out loud. It is. It is long. Yes. Oh, okay. Um I will now entertain a motion to accept policy 203.5. with that quick revision. Is there a motion? So made by Director Johnson. Second. Second by Director Mason. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Say I. I'm sorry. Lisa, did you say I? I. Yeah. Okay. Carry 70. All right. Administrative reports. Are there any from any of you? Director Frederickson. Uh, good evening. As you are aware, I have decided to retire at the end of this month. So, this will be my last board meeting at Prior Lake Savage Area Schools. I want to thank Dr. Thomas and the senior leadership team for the opportunity to serve this district over the past three years. I have deep respect for Dr. Thomas's leadership, and I'm very grateful to have been a part of a committed executive team that has led through some complex challenges with integrity, collaboration, and perseverance. I'm also incredibly proud of the business office team and all the dedicated staff across our schools and district center. Their professionalism and heart for students have made this work deeply meaningful. I will always value the friendships and partnerships I've built during my time here. After 32 years in public education, I remain passionate about this work. However, I've reached a personal and professional crossroads. I I have valued my time at Prior Lake Savage Area Schools. I've also had to reflect on the environment in which I do my best work. At times, the climate within this boardroom has posed challenges that have made it increasingly difficult to sustain the collaborative spirit that effective leadership requires. I encourage the board to reflect on the power it holds to foster a culture of trust, mutual respect, and shared purpose with the administration. These attributes are critical for any organization to thrive and when those elements begin to erode, it becomes difficult to do the work effectively and sustainably. I leave this role with gratitude for the experience I have gained and confidence in the talented staff who continue to support the students of Prior Lake Savage Area Schools and I wish cons continued success in the future for all of those who remain dedicated to its students and mission. Thank you. [Applause] Are there any other admin reports? No board reports. Anything to report? Starting to my right. Yes. Um I just want to say thank you to Director Frederickson. Um your your smarts on school finance are unmatched. um your intelligence knows no bounds and I appreciate you and you uh have a way of explaining things as well which is really great and I will miss you um and I am so happy for you um in this next phase of your life. So thank you. Um I just wanted to I lost my place one moment. um final teaching and learning a few weeks ago uh committee uh we will be looking at vacancies uh for that committee. Um so more to come there. Um Southwest Metro we approved our strategic plan um which is great and has a lot more has a lot of meat to it which is really great. Um and it's a really good really good direction for Southwest Metro. Um, and uh, wanted to congratulate again uh, and reiterate Dr. Thomas's congratulations to our seniors, um, our kindergarten graduates, our fifth grade graduates, and our eighth grade graduates. Um, moving on to bigger and better schools and wonderfulness. So, uh, congratulations. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Um, I'd like to echo the same thing, uh, Director Olstead said. Uh to all Okay, to all three of you. All right, thanks for giving me that nod there. Um it's been a short time, but I appreciate everything. Uh we're going to look at policy committee here shortly to add some some people hopefully. And uh to all the seniors out there, you know, congratulations and best of luck to you. And to, you know, to the eighth graders moving in the ninth grade, welcome to the being the little guy again. And then, you know, fifth graders and and everyone else, you know, enjoy your summer and, uh, we look forward to seeing you next year. All right. Thank you, Amy. H, there is so much that's happened since our last regular meeting. Um, I could touch on a ton of things. Policy advisory committee. Um I really want to mention uh the Bridges graduation. Um the that is a highlight every year. Um graduation in and of itself is fantastic how how it is run, how we go through it really streamlined. I'm I'm just always blown away by by how uh graduation is. But the the Bridges graduation is really special. Um, and I just want to give that a a special shout out. Um, what else? Um, Tammy, I thank you so much. I feel like in the last few years, the foundation, you have filled in cracks of the foundation of uh, this district in in the whole finance department. Your depth of knowledge and your bre bread breth I don't know if I'm saying that word right is incredible to me. I always have met you uh met you saying Tammy I need you to hold my hand. I need you to hold my hand because I will never pretend to understand all of the ins and outs of school finance and you do so well at holding my hand through that, helping me understand um and giving me the confidence I need to make the decisions at this space. So, I I can't thank you enough. It has been such a pleasure working with you. Um, and I wish you all the best and tons of book reading in your retirement. Um, so thank you for all that you've done. Um, and I too uh I don't know if you two are speaking tonight about um your time ending on with Prior Lake Savage Area Schools. But to to Dr. Dr. Edwards and Director Herman. Um it has been such a privilege uh working with you. Uh Dr. Edwards, we've known each other for a long time. Um just having kids the same age and um your ex your time with the district has been 31 years. It's a long time. Um I just want to I just want to um express my deep gratitude for you both. your professionalism, um what you've brought to me when I have questions and and more handholding, you know, um you've helped me um you've helped equip me to make decisions in this space and so for that I am thankful. That's all. Thank you, Mary. Okay. So, I'll start with um a couple of updates and then finish with my also my gratitude also for the staff. Uh ALC graduation bridges, this was my 10th year going to that and my ninth year as a school board member. Um it's just gotten better and better. um the transformation of the kids, the the involvement of the of the staff and the way the graduation has not the graduation but the actual uh um appreciation and final uh dinner and celebration um is it just gets it just gets better all the time. Um and the success of those students is amazing. to have that many students graduate this year was probably the largest I've ever seen. And um many of them graduated um with jobs already in hand. They graduated with futures um that are that are really really impressive. Um, and I I credit that to the staff at Bridges and the care that they put into it and also the district leadership for allowing that to flourish and actually flourish somewhat unabated and and and ungoverned and trust the teachers there to do what's right. Um, which is really heartwarming. Uh, hope to go to many more. Um, and uh, be just as equally if not more impressed with each one. Um I scale had a couple of meetings. Uh one was the executive meeting as well as the regular meeting. Of course the regular meeting this is our last time talking about um um waste management and I learned more about anorobic digestion than I ever think I ever wanted to know. Uh but what the message is is that it's really cheaper to recycle. um and that without um better policies and also the impact of the lack of federal funding uh for those sites now um we are going to see tax increases just for garbage which is insane. And so they've asked that if if everyone to please recycle as much as possible. Um, it will do us all a benefit both from an uh a climate benefit but also from a tax and for a land usability benefit. And by the way, I realize what biochar was in the process and everything else. So uh kudos to them for um that. Um, as far as um um myself and saying goodbye to the administration staff that's here, I I have been in this role for now 9 years and I can tell you that the the administration that sits in front of me right now is the best that is ever been. Uh, and particularly Dr. Frederickson or Director Frederickson, I just promoted you by the way. Um, your integrity and patience is unmatched. Um, we went from fighting to get any financial information to someone who has spilled it out out of their ears in ways that I didn't even know was possible to combine in order to help both the community and uh and the board understand the finances. Um I I am so impressed. Uh and I also want to reiterate that um the the award that was received is truly phenomenal and the work that went into that and the elevation that it gave our district uh was was beyond comparison to previous years. Uh all I can say is that uh when you took this role and I started to see the results almost immediately, I immediately uh and unconditionally trusted those numbers because they made sense and there there's nothing hidden. Everything's out there. It is combined 10 ways to Sunday uh and broken down even more. Um so I I just want to say thank you for the hard work and I know that that work was not a nineto-ive job. Um it was a 247 365 job and um and hopefully um you can now rest 365 24 by7. Um, but I do I appreciate that. And director Herman, I can say in my nine years that since you took over uh not only uh negotiations and the contracts and started reviewing things and started going over the policies with a fine tooth comb that our relationship, I think overall with the admin with between the administration and our various bargaining units and staff improved tremendously um in ways that I didn't even think were possible. I I I believe that um there's no one that can doubt your knowledge as well as um your integrity in that space also. Um matter of fact, I've likened you to data from Star Trek once in a while um just because you have stuff from statutes to to histories to whatever on the tip of your tongue and uh you remain unbiased and unemotional as you're delivering that information which is critical for the role. Uh, so I know that wherever your career takes you, it it will always be successful. And Dr. Edwards, I've of course known you for the nine years that I've been here, starting off as a um as a uh middle school principal and then uh moving up. Um, I've seen a lot of changes and I've appreciated the relationship that we have built and I appreciate the work that you have done and how your caring for the students has just been um impress impressive uh to say the least. It's it's been understated I think and how it comes out. I I see you work every day and I am I'm more in awe of your ability to relate not only to kids but also to staff. So, thank you very very much. Thank you, Mary Jessica. Um, yeah, a lot been on the last month, but I feel like the the big things I want to raise um we had our last seek meeting um in May, so that was great. We have a growing group and um look forward to next year and growing that group more. Um and then I just wanted to also comment on graduation and congrats to the class of 2025. Um it was the first graduation I've been to and I was so impressed with um with the whole thing. It was a perfect night. Um thank you to the staff and I can't imagine how many volunteers put that together and um just really overall the the behavior of the students was perfect and um you know just a really great event. So um congratulations to that class. Um yeah and also want to say thank you to the three of you. um been here just a few short months it feels like but um I really appreciate the time that you've spent to explain things and to just bearing with us with probably some dumb questions at times but um as as I'm learning here so thank you for that and I wish you all well director Atinson do you have anything to share um yeah I don't have the last meeting I was out of town for for ECF so I apologize for that it's been a crazy couple months here um um graduation obviously It was a highlight. It's so great to see all those smiles. I mean, it totally makes what we do on a daily basis um for every every hour, every minute that we spend at this board table. Um knowing that those decisions um impacts on a daily basis. Um congratulations to the admin. Um when one door closes, one door opens. I'm excited to see where you guys go and what your future holds. And um um for Tammy um gosh, I'm sure you're looking forward to spending time um in retirement and um it's something that we can all aspire to is a little bit more time off um relax resting, relaxing, and spending time with our families. So, thank you. Um okay, Chair White, yes. I'm very sorry. I didn't realize that this was their last time. May I have 20 seconds? Can have 30 if you want. Thank you. Um, I I do apologize. I didn't realize it was your last meetings as well. Um, Dr. Edwards, thank you for everything. Um, you have a what? Do it again. We have the 16th, but Okay. Just Tammy will Tammy's last name. It's your um these two are coming back and it's Yes, but it's the last board meeting. Okay. Understood. Understood. Yes. I heard it. So, you're stuck with us for one more week. Okay, got it. But, um, I just wanted to be on record here, Dr. Edwards. You have such a heart for kids. Um, and it's evident every day. Um, in my dealings with you, I have had conversations with you on a personal level that I've appreciated. Um, and I just you have such a heart and you are going to soar in your next role and I'm so confident in that for you and I'm so happy for you. Um, Emily, sorry, Doc. Uh, director Herman, um, you have you put the human and human resources and that is not something that a lot of human resources people can do. Um, and no offense to any HR people out there. Uh I I I but I truly mean it. You have you have a heart for kids and this staff and that's not easily done. It's not something you can teach. It's not something you learn in school. It's just inherent and you have it and I'm so happy for you. Um yeah, those doors wide open for the three of you and I'm I'm so grateful. Thank you for your service to our district. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you for letting me do that. No, not a problem. I'm just going to echo everything everybody said and I look forward to sitting down with all three of you privately before you head out the door um to have a chat. I'm looking forward to that and to say thank you in in in that way. So, if there is nothing else to come before the board, you have future events uh listed below. Most importantly, the study session next Monday. And at this time I will entertain a motion to uh enter into a closed session for the purposes of discussing negotiation strategy. Is there a motion by director Johnson? Second. Second by director Mason. All in favor signify by saying I. I carry 70. Let's take 5 minutes to let everybody get organized.