no discussion unless some and throw you so then you can choose where to put it second again for all items that is the correct thing to do for people to tell you in advance I don't really need this right now well no you still have to have an amendment okay but um if you know in advance then you can prepare for it um and when you don't know in advance then you know so I just wait do this um say you know it's the I put the notes in my word document and you don't say anything on each and then wait 30 seconds or so do a motion in a second up here Y and then if somebody does p at the end you make a note and put it wherever you want in this one got it okay funny you're doing that smoothly now I'm hot go figure oh see you said it suppose we don't really need this do I coming back me slow more slowly yeah in the book there's little you know what I mean differences there's always my stupid a verification code all the time I was to ask they told me you have to have that last step it's part of their their little system annoying cuz like here I am I already turned my phone off now I got to go find my verification card I forgot my coffee at home so my daughter's G to my my yeah don't get too comfy you guys might be moving what's that you guys could be moving who knows don't get too comfy sometimes people switch I don't know you could be fine what but oh yeah yeah might not either I agree well probably not with my face and I don't know I'm never s over there but over here it gets really cold CU of that door it's not like you feel a draft or anything it's just colder I've sat up here and shivered before that's what you get when you have an old bowling alley 530 everywhere know that Dr Thomas oh really yeah but over there like I [Music] went did all these things welcome everyone to the 2025 organizational meeting of the board of education for Prior Lake Savage AR schools please stand for the pledge of allegiance ples to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all board members are present and uh first order on the agenda first item on the agenda is to have the ceremonial oath of office on newly elected and reelected board members um will recite the oath um by the Vice uh given by the Vice chair and the official oath and acceptance documents were already signed by all reelected and newly elected board members prior to this meeting so if you guys will follow me it is an honor that you were elected to guide the education of our community's children as you recite the oath of office you assume a tremendous responsibility as a director of our school district with the duties empowered by the Minnesota Legislature this power puts you and the other members of our school board in the position of being both morally and legally responsible for equ able quality education of every student in the district carrying out this responsibility you will be asked to fulfill the roles of vision structure accountability and advocacy in providing Vision the school board with extensive participation of the community envisions the community's educational future and then formulates the goals defines the outcomes and sets the course for the public schools to achieve this Vision the board establishes a structure and creates an environment designed to ensure all students the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework because as a board we must be accountable to the community we must ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of children of our children as board members we serve as education's key Advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision of our schools furthermore we must strive to work together and with the superintendent and staff to lead the district toward fulfilling the vision we have created fostering Excellence for every student in the areas of academical academic skills and knowledge citizenship and personal development having assigned the acceptance of office and oath of office I hereby ask you to public publicly affirm your commitment to the oath of office after me and raise your right hand where that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and of the state and of the state and that I will discharge faithfully and that I will discharge Faithfully the duties of the office of school board the duties of the office of school board member of Independent School District 718 M of scho district 7 the best of my judgment and ability to the of my judgment and [Applause] ability congrats okay um the next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda I need a motion and a second so move by director white second by director Johnson all in favor I I that passes 70 next item on the agenda is the election of chair um so I'm going to call for nomination so the first question is are there any nominations for the office of Schoolboard chair for 2025 I'd like to um nominate director white for chair are there any other nominations are there any other nominations uh director Dan White is the only candidate nominated for the office of chair for the school board for 2025 and I hereby declare him to be elected by acclamation and direct the acting clerk to record the minutes get it in a minute well thank you everyone I do appreciate that we will move on to the next uh election of the next two offices uh I will now um open up nominations for the office of Vice chair I nominate Amy buan the chair recognizes Amy boan has been being nominated for vice chair are there any other nominations for vice chair I nominate director Johnson the chair recognizes director Johnson has been nominated for vice chair are there any other nominations hearing none we'll close the nominations for vice chair this will require a roll call vote as we have two candidates so I will call on you individually starting on the enterer of the table and just indicate your preference for uh the position of Vice chair director olad uh director buen director Johnson myself director Mason director Johnson director bullion myself director France director bullan director ainson director Johnson I will vote for director bullan and and director bullan receiving four votes the who has been elected vice chair for 2025 next on the agenda is the nominations for treasurer the chair will now accept nominations for treasurer for 2025 are there any nominations for treasurer I nominate director Olstead the chair recognizes director Olstead is being nominated any other nominations for treasurer I would like to nominate director ainson chair recognizes director Atkinson is being nominated for treasurer are there any other nominations for treasurer hearing none I declare those nominations closed and we will follow the same uh protocol as previously indicate your preference director olad myself director Johnson director ainson director Mason director a son Vice chair bullion director olad director France director olad director Atkinson myself the chair votes for director ainson and director ainon receiving the majority of the votes is elected treasurer for the 2025 calendar year at this time I would suggest a real short um recess so that people can switch places and and Martha can do what needs to be done for us so we are in recess I think if we can get back here by Martha is Quarter Two good enough should take that one all right we'll Rec convene at 545 we will Begin Again moving on to the consent agenda these are routine in nature and our tradition at the organizational meetings so the consent agenda tonight will consist of designation of depositories for school district funds uh authorizing the use of faximile signatures for payroll and voucher checks designating the official School District legal posting site naming the School's district financial consultants and legal counsel uh the district auditing firm the assistant board clerk uh the authorization of persons to lease and purchase and contract for goods and services that are within our budget uh designating the school's special education director um District Lea and data practices compliance officer delegating the authority to make electronic transfers uh directing Administration to post notifications and designation of the uh identified official with authority for the mde external user access recertification system I would entertain a motion at this time to approve the consent agenda as presented so ma by director bullion is there a second second by director Olstead is there any discussion um I would like to pull I would like to pull H from the consensus agenda for further discussion and H is okay we'll be pulling H and I'll put that back in right before number eight if that's okay with everybody so then I can I have a motion to approve the amended consent agenda made by director ainson director olad any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I opposed that motion carries 70 and then we'll just go right in back into letter H the authorization of persons to lease purchase and contract for goods and services with in the budget is there discussion um yes thank you for um pulling that item up um the reason that I I wanted to bring this up is because um particularly last year we've been challenged to bring um a balanced budget to our community in fact we overspent our budget by $7 million and I feel that um as a board I think we need to do a better job of putting guardrails in place in order to ensure that we are um operating within our means and so I think you know I don't know if it is changing the language within this authorization or if it's the dollar amount or what it may be but I think we need to do um I think we I would just like to open up to for discussion um as far as if anything needs to change because what we've been doing currently is not is not working I mean this to me seems um I have heard from both board members and some Administration that maybe this might need some tweaking maybe a slightly different approach to How We Do It um I would suggest if we want to discuss this because this could be pretty involved and how it would would be um would end up um would be to bring it to a study session sometime to discuss uh whether or not we want to change anything the whole thing parts of it uh I think that would probably be the way to go because that could be a pretty involved discussion that's going to need we're going any information from director FR Frederickson and others to to probably do this right so um would I be mistaken in saying that we could approve h tonight and then modify it at a later date is that I would suggest we do a thumbs up at this at the next study session um and um and then schedule it for that study session uh whatever one is in order based upon the preparation for direct from director Frederickson for the discussion okay that seems like as reasonable all right so then I will uh entertain a motion to approve H uh um uh so Me by director olad second by director Mason any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 70 moving on to number eight 2025 board compensation is a recommendation of the chair to uh have the board compensation for 2025 remain unchanged from 2024 for and I'll entertain a motion to approve compensation as listed so made by director ainson second second by director Johnson any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I post that motion carries 70 and you just received the board committee assignments for 2025 there was one slight change uh that was um that will be brought forward to you on the teaching and learning committee we will be uh if it's the will of the boore replacing Lisa ainson with Jess Olstead there was obviously some question as who is going to end up where and this way we are all at least serving on on the one committee so I'll entertain a motion to accept the committee assignments for 2025 so made by director Brans second second by director buan any further discussion I just had a question sure the uh districtwide advisory Council uh committees I just want to make sure I don't I'm not assigned to any and I just that's okay I just wanted to make sure that that was how it's intended no no that was the change that he just stated Sor page The Advisory committees yeah and I would say I'm not on any external agent genes either you the external Early Learning you're on early learning oh except for the bottom ones I'm not on the external agencies okay director olad um do you would you agree to accept this and then discuss it with the chair at a later time totally fine yes I just wanted to make make sure yeah there's any questions regarding any of the committee assignments um moving forward feel free just to reach out and we'll we we'll work it out no problem um director wait I have a question um is is now a time to propose um additional committees that we could recommend um as being part of our work to support the work of our board um or would it be better to have that brought up at a study session um I would think if there are you talking like an ad hoc type of committee correct okay I would say that if it's the W of board we could also put that on a a future study session as long as it's not time sensitive to you know something has to be done by the end of January anything if we have some time um that would be a reasonable discussion for the board to have if we feel like there's maybe a committee for instance negotiations or whatever would be right um I would think the smart thing would be bring it before a study session at a study session then meet that recommendation um get the um thumbs up or whatever for the board and then place it on the appropriate meeting perfect um thank you I'll make sure I'll make a note of that and make sure that that happens in the near future all right we have a motion in a second on the table for committee assignments all in favor sign by by saying I I opposed motion carries 70 and then uh number 10 discussion of meeting and procedures format uh is there any discussion that any board member has around the format or uh way we do business on the agenda moving forward for 2025 um well I think that I think personally um the discussion of our meeting and procedures format is is much more um could be a much more robust um conversation and I think it leads to a conversation of like how do we look at developing a board handbook is something that comes to mind and within that board handbook it's the 200 series policies it's our communication protocols um perhaps How We Do Laker Pride within our meetings um one thing that I'd like to talk about and again I think this becomes more of a bigger broader board conversation is how we do our study sessions because I've heard a lot of conversation about that people can't hear us um we sit to the you know we sit to the back of the audience um and so I think that if it's possible to have a more robust conversation around that about around that I would like to see if it's a Retreat or whatever it might be well I do know that when it comes to the actual agenda and I had I asked this question tonight if for instance there's a a top heavy agenda that would prevent liquor Pride from happening early on in the evening we have the authority to to move that around as we see fit if it makes sense so that we don't have students waiting you know for an hour out there to to come and get their certificate so that part I think we can just I would suggest just working meeting to meeting on that um um I'll work with Dr Thomas to make sure that that it's efficient in that way but your broader Point again we can discuss uh a number of things at an upcoming study session that that might make sense just so we're all on the same page moving forward and I I would have no problem with that if that's fine with the board this study session that's appropriate place to bring up this okay perfect anything else regarding the procedures all right and then kind of to your point Point director Acton uh number 11 is the inservice discussion I have had uh conversations with all of you regarding my desire that we Cobble together some kind of a retreat um earlier in the year as opposed to later um with the intent to go over our 200 operating policies um and uh kind of make sure that we clean up everything that's maybe slightly outdated um agree on you know what what these policies say and mean and then and then commit to adhering to them um moving forward that in my mind does lead to something like us discussing some kind of a board handbook that we could develop um moving forward Dr Thomas and I have talked about that possibility as well so um for that particular um Retreat for lack of a better word my my uh um my thought is and in the past it's I founded it works the best if we can find a Saturday morning to to do this your fresher in the morning um I know that you board members with with with athletes that are younger weekends have been spoken for many months in advance I remember the days but uh my desire would be by the end of February if we could if you guys could just look at your calendars and see if there's a possibility that we could do an 8 to new 9 to oneish type thing I don't think it should take 11 and a half hours to do this I think we should be able to to to get through this and at least um move forward with the possibility of something like a handbook and get us all on the same page uh moving forward so other than that if there any other discussion around uh inservice for the year the only thing that I would ask is that um the handbook that does exist with all that information in there be handed out to the current board members of as well as the policies so they can say what's going to change in advance absolutely yeah so okay uh director white we tell me if I might be might have missed this but I'd like to propose maybe adding in um oh my gosh Dr Thomas you have um oh sorry I just remembered the name apologize um a couple Town Halls maybe one a quarter for the school board to go out into the public and to engage with the public instead of only having our open Forum here um throughout the year if we can either put that in a study session to talk about it maybe put it bring it into the the uh the thing you were talking about the retreat um at some point I think that would be a good idea to go out to the community a little more is that in addition to the current Financial Town Halls that do exist with Dr Thomas meeting with members of the public that would be the school board the school board du a town hall correct okay okay sorry thank you for the clarification absolutely I think based on our strategic plan and um based on community engagement I I support that idea I think it's um a great way to we we had a lot of success during our strategic planning process meeting with our community and since we don't have something like that on the calendar this year I think it's a great way to engage with our community and what the format looks like I guess we can talk about that as we go forward whether it's at that board retreat or whatever but I would be supportive of that I would certainly write it down and we can begin to move in that direction if that's the will of the board um starting with coming up with some dates or maybe I'll together with Dr Thomas and and the rest of you and uh see how that might look how often we might want to do it um where all those kinds of things so that's again a discussion that's probably more in depth than we can go through tonight but it's on the list and I will pledge to not forget it anything else regarding inservice okay we've reached the end of the agenda I will now entertain a motion to adjourn the we need to vote on the in service oh we do need to vote on that you're right sorry it's okay uh I will entertain a motion then so made by director France second by director Olstead any further discussion hear none all in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries 70 now I will entertain a motion to adjourn the organizational meeting so made by director France second by director Johnson all in favor I meeting's adjourned can we take you want to wait until we go into the regular board meeting I was going to say can we take another five and we'll get back here at 606 that sound good sounds great [Applause]