like to congratulate both Nazi and his team for the fifth consecutive year of uh giving this certificate of excellence in financial reporting. Uh roughly 25 districts of the 331 Christie uh school districts in Minnesota received this uh certification.

our bond rating has increased to A1. Uh it's the third time it's been upgraded in the last four years. uh back in 21 it was uh BA A1 and it's been upgraded three times since then to A1. So again that's that's great news for the district if you have uh any kind of refinancing on these bonds that we'd be doing that would help with insurance rates and everything that just would end up saving taxpayers money.

Our district is incredibly fortunate to have 2,342 dedicated volunteers who have collectively contributed 5700 hours. So that's a remarkable effort and that translates into an estimated value of roughly $190,000 for schools based on the national hourly rate for volunteer work that Scott County uses when they um quantify the impact of volunteers.

I heard from people and chef is making fire pizzas for so get I call them the allar board so you get first you have to get on this board then you get to be on the allar pizza so that should be fun celebration everybody

Our strong growth continues and you're not seeing this come down at all. Matter of fact, just today we had another big project come and hit the hit the drawing board. So uh I do not see it going down. Uh right now we have 700 part apartments, 1373 single family town homes

GN is consolidating their North American headquarters. They are an international organization. They are Danish. Uh they do everything from hearing aids to cleaning headphones uh to other things dealing with sound. Uh and they are coming here uh and are in the process when they're done with rebuilding the interior of the old shutterly building. They'll have over 900 here and you know where Shutterflyy's wages were here. GMs will be here.

it's a hybrid of what traditional districts do but also campus agency. So we kind of live both worlds. Um it's actually defined in statute though. So if you take a look at statute uh there's a huge focus on both secondary and postsecary and adult learners and that's I think an area that is done.

This is where I've spent a lot of my time. Um coming into I've been a superintendent before assistant superintendent principal and the director of special education. or two has in my career. Uh but anytime you enter space, learning about the organization and listening is very important. Understand what is the current state.

I am happy to announce that next year we know lists um we did do that space analysis program and that comes we do that we know that but there's a bigger vision we're trying to work towards students so there'll be no weight lists and little flexibility to adapt and take people in uh we're going to be more staff

My main job here is I'm managing a case load of specific students who are considered concret. I get my uh, case load by attending the east and west attendance meetings. And once I have a student added to my case load, um, hold an attendance meeting with members from Scott County, uh the school and the family.

every student that is absent 30% of the year has some sort of intervention in place at Shock East and West Middle School. I just think that's a super powerful statement and super important to share and it just goes to show how hard shopping public schools specifically the middle schools is working to address attendance and make sure that um their kids flying under the radar and not getting what they need.

And I would say the most three most common that I come across in a lot of my phone calls, my text, my emails, my meetings with families um is going to be um the top one for sure. So I have some families who are still operating under co messaging about if you feel sick to stay home. So um some families that are still operate operating under that messaging. Um and um definitely mental health concerns with the student and or the family that's not being properly addressed is definitely a major intense barrier that we are frequently having conversations about. And then also if a student is struggling academically, socially or behaviorally.

we do project to be able to remain at 10% at the end of fiscal 26. Uh, so at June 30, 2026. Um, in order to do that, uh, we do we are going to recommend significant utilization of our restricted fund balances and some of our assigned fund balances to remain at that number.

looking at a 24-month period with over $3 million less in general fund revenue that provides some pretty significant budget challenges and much of that is derived from um the federal grants role where you see that that's decreased. A lot of that is is the expiration of our pandemic related revenue. Uh but a much of that is is from nominal increases uh from the state and also related to our student enrollment point as well.

there are very I can't I don't know of many school districts in the state of Minnesota that aren't facing some form of financial challenge uh as we uh kind of we're in the midst of this current legislative year, but looking to plan, you know, kind of budgets in the future.

that gap, that difference that grew between 21 and 25, fiscal 21 and fiscal 25 amounts to 6 million, $6.6 6 million in revenue that had our per pupil funding kept pace with the rate of inflation over that that time period, we would we would be receiving $6.6 million in additional state aid

what you see in fiscal 27 and 28 assumes that we would not do anything in what's known as the out years. And by anything uh it assumes that we would not make budget reductions. It assumes that we would not seek additional sources of revenue. That's the best way to show an applesto apples comparison with fiscal 25 26 27 and 28. Obviously, uh I I I wouldn't think that we would move forward in fiscal 28 with the deficit projection that you see there and not address that somehow.

If you're going to make budget cuts doing it well is important. There is when you're a service industry, 80 to 85% of what we spend money on is people. You cannot shrink the size of a school district without cutting people. And that is a a very hard cold truth, but it is, you know, that's that's what we're talking about when we're talking about budget cuts.

If we wait till next year to do it's a tax increase. There's just there's just no good time to do it. But all those variables it's it's definitely worth conversation um sooner rather than later because it would have to go on the ballot this fall if we did it right.