like to call to order the shock v school district school board regular business meeting for July 28, 2025. Um I will note that vice chair Peterson will be participating remotely and the school board will adhere to Minnesota statute 13D.02. Vice Chair Peterson will be engaged via Google Meet and included in the standard live stream. Schoolboard members will be able to both hear and view all members including Vice Chair Peterson during this meeting. Amber, can you please do the role? >> Zit >> here. >> Valdez >> here. Peterson >> here. >> Smith >> here. >> Aldrich >> here. >> Johnson >> here. >> Roofy >> here. >> Sha >> here. >> Brian >> here. I pledge algiance 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 right. Good evening everybody. Uh we will uh start our meeting as usual with the best part of our meeting, our saber pride. And um here to present a video is Amber Tinick, our communications coordinator. >> Thank you, Chair Smith. Good evening, everyone. Our Sabres packed a ton into the summer with energy, smiles, and a whole lot of learning. This highlight reel I'm about to share with you, created by our summer communications intern, Mattie Pitskott, captures the spirit, growth, and fun of all the great things happening around the district and a summer we won't forget. If we truly captured all of these moments, this video would be much longer. This is just a creative snippet of news that has been shared. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] Thank you. >> Thank you, Amber. [Music] Uh, next item on our agenda is the consideration of the agenda as presented. And I will note that um, since uh, Vice Chair Peterson is participating remotely, every vote we have tonight, uh, regardless of, uh, whether it's a normal just straight up voice vote or resolution will be a roll call vote. With that, I would entertain. I motion a motion to approve the agenda. >> Second. We have a motion by Aldridge and a second by Brophie. Any discussion? Seeing none, Tiff or Hammer, can you please do the role? >> Sitic, >> yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldridge, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Roofy, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Thank you. Uh, next in our agenda is uh, item five, public comment. This is the time where members of the public can participate in the meeting without being part of the meeting agenda. A member of the public may address the board on an agenda topic or on another topic pertaining to schoolboard business. We allocate a total of 15 minutes for public comment at this meeting. Each individual speaker may speak for up to 2.5 minutes. The sign up for public comment has been conducted online and in person prior to this evening's meeting. No one has signed up for public comment prior to this evening's meeting. We will move on to the next item on the agenda. Next in our agenda is item six, the consent agenda. And you see on the screen we have some personnel items, the minutes from our uh previous meeting, uh bills, wires, and a field trip request. I will make a motion to approve the consent item. We have a motion by Aldrich, second, and a second by Roie. Any discussion? Seeing none, Amber, can you please do the role? >> Yes. Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Broken, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Uh, next agenda is item seven, a resolution for donations approval. And see, we have several donations on the screen. I would like to make a motion to approve the donations. Second, >> we have a motion by Aldrich and the second by Johnson. Any discussion? Seeing none, Amber, can you please do the role? >> Z, >> yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Broy, >> yes. Resolution passes. Um, with that, I would like to take a moment to introduce our new director of finance, uh, who was, uh, uh, just approved by the board in the, uh, consent agenda, uh, David Draaskovich. Hope I said that right. >> So, welcome. Thank you. >> Looking forward to working with you. Any, uh, any introductory words? >> Uh, I get I really didn't think about this. >> Don't want to put you on the spot. >> Yeah, just excited to join Shock Savers. look forward to the future and a little time with Bill. Hopefully I can fill the shoes, you know, leaving. So hope I can provide that financial and operations knowledge that he has given the district over his five years, five years here. So thank you for everyone for having me here. >> Thank you, David. Welcome. Uh next agenda is item eight, legislative update, and we have Representative Ben Baker here to uh provide an update. Uh Ben represents district 54B which includes Prior Lake Jordan, several townships and a a portion of Shockby. Hopefully I didn't miss anything there. Welcome Ben. Thank you for for having me. Got to be honest having Peterson behind me. It feels like I'm having someone look over my shoulder. But yeah, it it's great to be here. It's a pleasure to to represent a portion of the the school district of Shaken and just really to you know, Superintendent Redmond told me I have about a half hour or so. So, no, but just to give a brief update um just about what happened and really what we can do and how we can continue to partner together moving forward. I just want to say thank you to to kick off. Um you know, a number of you are down at the capital. Um Miss Peterson is down quite a bit and um It really is a a a pleasure to work with you guys and be able to partner with CH schools to really do what's best for students and and when we have that um that perspective, I think it's regardless of political persuasion or perspective, that's where we should be at. So um so I serve on uh the labor and workforce committee and then I serve I'm the vice chair of the education finance committee within the house. So I asked their requested to be on labor and workforce really in large part because of the connection between education and workforce and workforce development. So I really enjoyed that. And so when we went into session um what some of our priorities included uh we wanted to to address waste fraud. That was a huge priority for our talk as we continue to see that. Um and and that really leads into a number of the other priorities around affordability uh public safety and then uh supporting education, you know, um increasing the the standards and uh reducing mandates. That was probably something we heard a lot about. The last thing is is really building for the future and and that's really around bonding. If you're familiar with the political process at all, that's probably the most controversial or can be um one of the more sticky things. And what where we as a caucus went into it is we want to focus on critical infrastructure. So, roads, bridges, water, that critical infrastructure for our uh that make our economy go. If you have driven to Jordan recently, uh I'll just lead by saying I'm sorry. the uh there's a significant amount of road construction, but uh that is going to be a fantastic addition uh and and really a safety piece for our community, for our county, and really the entire state as well. So, um I just wanted a couple highlights uh from the education bill that are going to impact you and um you know, your new finance director. I think we'll get to know each other a little bit more. And um but uh I just want to be very transparent. When the when the education bill left the house, uh I voted for the bill. I was supportive of the bill was not perfect. I'll just say that. When the bill came back, um and I was part of the the within the house that negotiated the bill. I voted against the bill. And and it's not because I don't support education. It's just I don't feel that that bill was doing what it what we needed to do to address the needs of our community. We throughout the entire session we we sought feedback talked to many of you kind of the overarching theme really centered around funding and flexibility mandate relief and local control and the bill did not do enough to address those issues. The biggest issue that I that I had with the bill is that we increased um or we cut money to schools in the next two years by about $71 million. And we increased uh we we increased the Department of Ed budget by $18 million. So we're cutting money going to schools and we're funding the department more. That's that's just unconscionable. I look at the districts that I represent. Uh you guys are in a very similar position in the future at Prior Lake uh and and in Jordan as well. We have got to get back to where we're supporting our local schools and and our our agencies have to face the same realities that are that you guys are facing as as a board. So that's just being very honest. That's why I'm voted against it. I also want to just prep you. And when I was speaking in Jordan, you know, they're in a contract negotiation cycle and just being very aware that we are part of the cut that was made was this blue ribbon commission and we have to identify committee that's part of this blue ribbon commission has to identify about $250 million in cuts to special education. Okay. I had a bill to help reduce uh some paperwork reduction and we couldn't even agree on that like simple uh paperwork reduction pieces. The um people with different perspectives came out of the woodwork and we couldn't agree on that. I am very very concerned to that we will be able to come up with 250 million in reductions. If we don't agree to that, it will come out of the cross subsidy which in essence means it's a genetic cut to all of you. So I I share that because I don't want to be back here next year and have you say man what in the world. Uh so I just want to be very transparent. Um a positive thing in the bill was the whole harmless compensatory. We have to have an honest conversation about compensatory revenue and is it meeting the needs? Is it doing what it was intended to do? Very simply, and I I literally I could talk a long time about that, but I'll just I'll leave that. You can give me a call. There were a number of provisions uh and and MSBA did a really good job this session. I felt about um with the tie in the House. So they had a Republican author of their priority bills and they had a Democrat author of their priority bills so that they could be shephered through the process and have an advocate from both side of the aisle. I thought that was very wise uh that they did that. So uh when I met uh with um with Superintendent Redmond and we you know they went through the priority pieces in the L of the local auction was a piece uh that was important to increase that. We did it in a different way within the the initial bill in something called basic supplemental aid, but basically it was a dollar for dollar into L because that's a dollar for dollar into the district. you put it on the formula, it gets, you know, it gets kind of a little bit. Probably the most frustrating part of session, I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here, but the most frustrating part of session is is Jim had worked really hard and we talked a lot about um the instructional hours for secondary kids. And and I said it on the floor during this discussion, but we've got to think differently about what we're doing with our kids and this whole idea of seat time. it. We have to think differently because if we don't as a public school system, kids will go elsewhere. They will do other things. Um so there was bipartisan support. Mary Francis Clardy um wonderful person. She carried the bill. I was a a co-author and um you know it it was included into the policy bill and then the department came the department of ed came after the bill had already been heard moved through the process was a part of the final policy bill and put a 4 million or four $40 million fiscal note on the bill and that's just a concept called death by fiscal note. You know, we talked a lot and that's frustrating because there was multiple times that that could have come through. There was bipartisan support for this bill that would allow you as a board to innovate and think, well, what do our shocks need? And the the department wanted no part of it. And then even more frustrating, they came back after it was amended out, we'll we'll we'll pull that fiscal next year. you just take care of that. That's true. And that's just that's just maddening. And frankly, it's unacceptable like that that an agency would do that. Um and I can stand and I can, you know, yell from the hilltops, but um we frankly we honestly need we need our our, you know, MSBA and the different agencies to stand up and just say that's wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. So, um yeah. So, uh, I can go into a lot of different things, but I really want to just open it up to to you guys your questions, and then I just want to end with just one little piece. [Music] >> Any questions? >> Yeah, thanks for coming. You've been very accessible to me. I know we've got to meet a couple times, and I appreciate that. And I also appreciate you dumbing down this politics a bit so that we can sort of understand it. Um, you mentioned the $250 million cut special education. What is what kind of bucket what kind of budget is there now? What percentage cut is that? Does that mean reasonably feasible? I mean, is it a billion dollars that's still in there now or any idea? >> I can't remember what it is off the the top of my head. Maybe our business managers are two of them over there. Maybe the exact number. I'm just curious if this is like even a doable. >> It's it is a significant cut. So um but we have to look the growth within spending. If we go back to um I think it was the December forecast talked about one of the higher growth areas was special education. And there are some things that we need to do um as as school officials. our role in you know when we're sitting in those IEP meetings is to to really look at okay um this is what the what is being advocated for the student but is it um is it you know faith free and appropriate public education is it appropriate and that's where the disagreement often times comes in about what is appropriate and you know we had I had a meeting today in my professional role where we'd all love to have one-on-one parents with kids, but often times when we do that, we're overservicing kids and we're not building that independence. So, we have to have those those honest conversations, but that's hard with parents as well because the parents job is to advocate for their their child. So, there's that um that dialogue back and forth. But I can get back to you the the total cost. Um to your point about about dumbing this down, I'm not sure that I completely understand this political process. [Music] Mr. Chair, I want to give Christie a chance. She has a question just because she's remote. Christy, did you have a question? >> No, I don't. I I guess I will just um say that I appreciate uh Representative Bberg everything that you're doing for education and our schools. Um, I know we've spent time together at the capital and seen each other in committee meetings and um, I know the session may not have ended the way that we all wanted it to end from an education standpoint, but appreciate you um, you know, putting a good foot forward with trying to do what's best for our schools. and um also appreciate the the support for this bill of allowing the remote participation um for board meetings um which has allowed me to participate tonight um otherwise I wouldn't have been able to. So that was that's been huge for some school districts. >> Absolutely. Again, thank you for uh being here tonight and certainly representing uh public education. Well, uh the question around funding um in terms of student enrollment being on a decline and that's uh for rates are down last 20 years and seeing you know the cost to run public education isn't getting any less anytime soon. Again, the revenues get capped at that dollar amount per student. We've also talked about caps on levying, not that local levies are the answer either, right? So, what is your vision just looking at that trajectory over the next 3 to 5 years? Uh what's going to happen with funding formulas? How are we going to sustain public education in the great state of Minnesota? to be completely transparent, if I knew the answer to that and I had a crystal ball to do that, I I would retire from the legislature and go make a lot more money. Um, but I think at at the core it gets down to there are some some core functions that we have to do. we have to provide um from the state level and then and then what do districts choose to do on top of that and um you know I think one of the pieces that we really have to have an honest conversation about is compensatory revenue and the um you know without getting too deep into the weeds there's there are districts that are operating buildings that are aren't anywhere near capacity and the only reason they maintain those buildings is because of the compensatory revenue coming. If they close down those buildings, they'll lose revenue. So, you know, there are lots of ideas um you know, looking at square footage, looking at different pieces, the square foot footage, you know, based off your enrollment. All of those things have to play in. But, but we have to have an honest conversation about the the revenue that we're having. Um and then we also have to look at the just the waste fraud abuse across the system across state government in general. Um you know one of the pieces that we had to to address the funding piece was and you know this is everyone has a different perspective but universal meals. Now within the the negotiation there's um there's 12 and a half cents that the state pays for a meal. this is getting way and right at the end six and a half six cents was put in to the basic paid now and and I share that because it opens the door for looking at universal meals. Um and you know my wife and I we can we can support paying for for my 12year-old's lunch. We can't hire another another math teacher or a third grade teacher to lower class sizes. So that that universal meals program has just grown in in costs and it is going to continue to eat up more and more and more of the state budget. When we were negotiating that bill, I I said exactly that. You know, right now it's 2%. What is it going to be? Uh and it is going to eat up the state budget. Andrew Myers is a representative from the Lake area and he had a bill that would have put $100 million into the local option revenue. Um It was families making a family of four making it was $160,000 or more paid for their kids meal. Everyone else was under I think we honestly missed an opportunity with meals. I mean there's not a person I think in Shak or Minnesota that wouldn't say let's make sure hungry kids are fed. That's just being a good human being. But there has to be some some conversation about is there a threshold that and then we redirect that money into our schools. So I think some of it is um is how we're spending our dollars as well. >> Thank you. I know complex question. >> Yeah. >> No, we're ready to wrap up if that's all right. I just want to, you know, Representative Bberg, you know, we appreciate uh working with you and uh very, you know, I I just I applaud your responsiveness. You're available. Uh we have a we have a lot of great conversations. Um think we've done some really good work. In fact, we were in our policy committee before this meeting talking about attendance and I think we've had a lot of partnership in Scott County and at the state level and we're doing some things that we just think, boy, it's it's been too long. we should have been doing this a while ago and we've got other people from across the state reaching out and so working in partnership like that and we also somehow veered from that in the policy committee and we were talking about seat time and Carnegie units as well. So that is one of those especially with themies of Shaka we're more we we've got to be more focused on the student learning rather than the time spent in the desk and and that ultimately uh and when we've got bipartisan support in doing that I agree that uh sometimes political things get stuck in the way and that's incredibly frustrating. But really appreciate your responsiveness whenever we reach out. uh you always return the call, return the text and uh you know just really really thank you for that and thanks for being here tonight too. >> If I could just thank you as well like Dr. Evans said at the end, there's never a call or text that goes unreturned. You're always available. It's greatly appreciated and it really supports the students of Scott County. So thank you. If I could just wrap up, um I think it's important to recognize what happened on June 14th when um speaker and her husband were were assassinated in their home. And I mean there is no place for political violence whatsoever. And you know, Senator Hoffman, thank goodness that he's doing well. And people have asked me a lot about like Ben, how do you feel about things? And um and I think the thing that in in that you saw the worst of society, but um you know also and and just a kudos to the Shaki school district. Um, you know, we Ashley Layman was just in a a tragic car accident and but just hearing how the Shaki school district, the shock community, community of Jordan, um, we, my wife, my family and I go to church with how the community rallies and and I think often times the noise of society and and these things and and social media, it amplif ifies the the worst of our society and I think you know we all have different perspectives on different topics and we have to get back to to leading in a manner that is we can have respectful dialogue but we don't need to attack people we don't need to we don't need to call names um and and I think that's what I want to say thank you to to you guys uh for your partnership and just it's a pleasure to to ser you and serve the Shaki community. And what I would say, that's what my commitment is moving forward, I would continue to to lead in a common sense way. Um, and if you ever disagree with me, pick up the phone and call. Um, I think my cell phone number is out there. My wife doesn't like that very much, but um, but yeah, I think we we we saw the worst of society. We're seeing the best of society rallying around a family that is struggling. And let's Let's continue to focus on what is what he agenda is an information item item 9.1 the annual crisis and safety steering committee highlights. And here to present is Jim McCaus, our assistant superintendent, and Ken Christensen, our district crisis and safety coordinator. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you, Chair Smith, members of the board. I know I feel like Vice Chair Peterson is staring at my bald spot from behind him, and I'll I'll live with that, but thank you for having us tonight for uh for our annual update. I'm super happy to have uh Canon here with me after his first year as our crisis and safety uh coordinator. We did a wonderful job. Um, just to kind of kick us off, you know, everything that we do does tie back, including crisis and safety, to our compelling vision. Um, we're we're constantly being vigilant. We're constantly planning. We're constantly asking questions about what if and listening to the experts and building plans that do support each and every one of our of our students. Uh, just a quick reminder, the way our team flows, Canon manages the day-to-day. He works directly with me. Um, we also have a crisis and safety team. We meet quarterly. Uh, that team then pushes information out into our buildings. Our building teams meet quarterly. And I would really stress with back to school, this red box down here, because we we spend a lot of time during the back to school period with our teachers, making sure that they're ready for any events that could take place, reviewing the crisis and safety manual, training, etc. and and Canon is going to talk a little bit here in a moment about some of the next steps that we have to take this even even further in the coming year. Uh some quick updates. We will have two new SRO's this year. Uh congratulations to officer Mike Santos who will now be an investigator in the Shakip community and also congratulations to Gary Kern who's moved on to the uh the DCA where he will be an investigator at the state level and traveling throughout Minnesota and doing his work. So, they've been replaced by Jeff Whiteoff, who was an SRO previously at West, and Keith Yankee, who will be servicing our high school. Uh, Captain Derek Nort, uh, will will now be supervising Sergeant Angela Angela Trund now, and she'll be my direct contact as I work with the Shak police on a fairly regular basis to make sure that uh, we have the right things in place and that communication is is ongoing. Just a quick review of of items we handled in the last school year. Uh on this on this particular slide, I would just have you note. Um you know, we do have a threat assessment checklist that we really worked hard on this year and made sure that everyone at our schools uh was aware of it. Basically, anytime we have a comment, a social media post, anything, no matter how small it might seem, we immediately walk through it with this threat assessment checklist and we involve local law enforcement if there's even a morsel of credit to it. So, uh, this this checklist is used on a regular basis and it's a it's just been a huge part of making sure that everyone is safe and being able to respond. Well, I heard this rumor. What did you do? This checklist is is where we go. And then the other piece I would just highlight, uh, you know, we just had Representative Bberg here. We were the first hearts safe school in Minnesota. Uh, hearts safe schools were were legislated this past year. Uh now in the state of Minnesota over the next uh next 12 to 18 months, every school is going to need to have a plan. We've already got one in place. It meets the letter of the law. We've already done our CPR training. And again, it's just it's a part of how we do business. And I think it speaks to the proactive nature of how we handle crisis and safety in our schools. So I'm going to turn it over to Canon uh who will talk a little bit about what's next. >> Thank you. So, I just wanted to touch base on some of the big things coming up that I'm going to be working on this year. One of the big ones is um on a problem we identified last year, which was our fire drills in the equipment weather. Right now, our policy with the Shock Fire Department is fire alarm goes off, we evacuate the building regardless of where the alarm is, regardless of the student age, regardless of the weather outside. If there's a level five twister coming through, we evacuate the building. So, I'm working closely with the local and state fire marshal and we're coming up with a plan to be approved by them to um find a place for our students inside the building should there be inclement weather outside. So, um right now the plan is at the state fire marshall level and hopefully within the next week or two it'll come back to me. will revise it with any changes that they see and then we'll we're starting with Sunpath get it out to the school start training their staff and come up with a plan in place then move on to the other schools from there. The other thing that we're we're we rolled out our multi-tered safety matrix last year. Again, this to refresh this matrix really emphasizes the hold and secure levels of the matrix where where it's business as usual inside the school. So, hold secure, we keep teaching, we keep learning. And then the bottom of the matrix with our lockdown, evacuate, and shelter um is the some of the more serious things. So we're able to move within that matrix and adjust based on the scenario and the situation that is implemented. New this year we added a little change down under lockdown. It now says run high fight and that's a change this year. And part of that change is we used to have Alice training and all of our staff members went through Alice training. All training is great training, but it's a national training that covers schools, it covers businesses, it covers every every public building out there. We wanted something that was more tailored to Shakape Shaki students in our community. So, we went with a run highlight model which essentially teaches all the same aspects of Alice, but is more tailored to Shakipi and our students and staff. So this year we're rolling out instead of Alice training they will be doing all of our staff will be doing training on a multi- the multi-tered safety matrix and part of that training is the run height fight. The biggest thing with that is allowing our staff to be empowered to make the decision in the critical incident of what is best for them, for their students, and for their space instead of just a generic do best. We're giving them the empowerment and the teaching and learning to be able to make the decision that works best for them. So that rolls out August 1st. All the teachers will get the new training. That training is a video um I believe it's about 9 minutes long that covers the whole safety matrix and everything in it and and what they can do with that. On the website, we still have the video that went up last year. This video is available to the public also that covers a little more um generic safety resources and stuff like that uh with reunification and some other stuff. So, that video is also still available. The next video that we hope to roll out later this year would be a video to staff or excuse me to families and students that advise them and teach them on the safety matrix. So, they can go into the schools a little more empowered with the knowledge to take care of themselves if necessary in a a critical incident. So, back to school. Our big thing, one of our big things is for me, one of my big goals is really offer up myself and the SRO's one-on-one engagement with all the teachers. We really want the teachers to reach out and say, "My space is different than every other space in this district. How do I act with my students in a critical incident?" And we're really we're looking for oneonone um to open up my schedule and go to their space and look at their space and say, "What's your best situation? Do you have a door right there? Do you not have a door available? Do you have students that are not able to run that you're going to have to care for? What's your situation and how do we deal with that?" I'm also going to meet with every SRO and principal. We're going to go through a whole safety checklist that we do, test all of our emergency buttons, check of all our door locks to make sure everything works, and then we're going to use Raptor to track all this to make sure all of our staff gets the training that they need and it's up to date and move forward from there. So, our focus, the individual staff engagement, of course, that's the biggest thing. um support for our crisis and safety plans, vulnerability assessments that we rolled out last year and then start working on those the stage fire drills and hopefully get those all in place by the end of the school year. Questions? >> I would just really quickly to thank communications for their work on the videos. uh Canon for starring in our videos. Uh and uh and also just can't say enough about you know all the first responders in Scott County shot police shot fire Scott County Sheriff's the partnership is just second to none. So uh you mentioned like that perfect storm like there's a fire alarm and then of course some of the weather events we've had as of late. uh but a topic that came up uh that I heard about recently outdoor spaces right uh and in extreme examples obviously there were some unfortunate events you know graduation you know I appreciate the the security that was put in place you know for shock graduation ceremony but is there part of this plan uh how is that evolving in terms of those outdoor space you know venues a crisis event. >> Yeah, we we have uh coming out hopefully this year uh it's in final production is a crisis manual for um events outside the school, football games, hockey games, everything like that. So all the way down to plays and play practice. So if something happens during play practice, whoever's running back can go to the crisis manual and say, "This is who I need to contact. This is what I need to do." So that that crisis manual will be available. Um because right now if you're doing a play practice at East Middle School and you get a tornado warning, there's no availability of where's our tornado shelters at 7:00 at night. Right. So, we want all those available online so whoever's working can pull those up immediately and get to those those maps and stuff. And that top uh bullet point about safety plans for activities is to your point and I know that with Lisa Ron last year with all the facility rentals to make sure that if you rent the facility, here's the link to what you need in the event something were to go wrong during your rental. You know, leading up to our graduation, you know, Canon did an amazing job with our PD, the Prairie PD, I know after that event that happened the evening before ours and Captain Nor was available available to me throughout the day on Saturday and and since then, we've already even talked about, you know, should we move graduation back to Shaka? like job number one is to get Canada to sit down with whoever Chief Ter designate to start to lay out a plan for that facility. So, it's a great question and something that we're very aware of as you guys are on top of it. So, we appreciate the work that you do. I'm just thinking about the the fire alarm thing. That seems like a pretty challenging training issue to to uh fight your instinct to leave when you hear that hear that alarm. >> I will say one of the things we're looking at is the fire department was real hesitant to say do anything other than what we train the kids to do. Right. So, one of the things we're that we're looking at is fire alarm goes off, evacuate the building. within 30 seconds of evacuate the building, admin can say, "No, it's bad outside. Move to staging locations." So, we're not taking away that muscle memory of getting out of the building and fire. But somewhere in that process of moving, saying, "Okay, let's move to the gym. Let's move to an office. Let's move to a safe location until we get established that we need to evacuate." >> Go ahead. Um question your last bull appointment with you was looking for funds. Is that funds that you're looking for from the county, the state or from the district itself? >> U mostly county, state. I'm just constantly out there searching looking for any safety grants that are available and trying to to utilize that with any of the plans that we have in place already and stuff that's coming up. >> Perfect. Mr. Christensen, thank you. And Canon, I got to call you Canon. have a name built for the job. Um, we had a few events of course last year. We'll probably have some next year and that's just why you're here and that's why you're going to put these protocols into place. Do you know up top you had any like holds and secures we had last year and did those go according to plan communication to parents and everything work out? >> Yeah, I think every incident has learning ability, right? We can learn from every incident. every incident afterwards we sit down and we say what went well, what did didn't go well. Um, every staffing I think of the what did we call it the plane landing or whatever it was called, >> right? They called a sec, they called us secure and then they questioned, should it have been in a hold? What should it have been? Well, we really sat down and looked and said, it's a matrix. You can move within that system, right? you went on a hold right away which froze the whole school and said just stay where you are for five minutes so we can re-evaluate okay we're okay inside the building let's go to a secure so to be able to look at those and say what went well what didn't work well so the rest of the schools can learn from that and that's part of our our buildings building meetings now is I go to every building meeting and say okay the high school did a hold this is why this is what worked this is what didn't work so all the other schools schools have learned from the other schools and what they're doing on their safety goals. >> And I would just say too holes are very common because we have a number of medically fragile students. Student has a seizure in the hallway. The last thing we want are for five other students to see it. So you know in a typical building we put the building on a hold at the high school it might be because of the size. Student needs to leave an ambulance for any number of reasons. Again we want to protect the dignity of the student. So hey we're going to go on a hold for five minutes. So those types of things are very very common because it's just better for everybody. Um you know the the other levels we we visit very subtly and um you know and then we to Canon's point we always follow up by meeting with that building's crisis team to brief to see what went well what we can do in the future questions. >> Thank you gentlemen. Thank you. >> And Jim will stay put and present for the next item. Uh it's item 9.2, the leadership retreat highlights for 2025. >> Yeah, >> Jim, before you before you jump in. Sorry, >> Amry, are youware? We're still still flipping in and out >> and we're not sure who's wire or whether up where she's at or sorry looking at the back going >> it did just start during that last presentation. Appreciate that on his head. What's the problem? >> I can see you guys just fine. You're not going in and out on my end. >> And we can hear you. So So that's good. It's just the display on the television. >> She's just making faces. Yeah. >> It was comical for a sec because every time Amber would look, he would come back >> and she would look away and then the screen would go black. >> It was like bird would snuff up and she er [Music] so just want to take a few minutes tonight to talk about our leadership retreat which took place back in in the middle of June. intentionally have it in June so that as both building and department leaders plan for the year, they can can really be honed in on on what our focus is. So, uh, our goal each year at the at the leadership retreat tied to the compelling vision is to just make sure that we're we're building skills um and giving leaders tools so that we can all move forward as a school district um together. And we're constantly trying to support the compelling vision, constantly trying to support what we call our district priorities, whether it be a literacy implementation, a math implementation, um assessment for learning, etc., etc. Uh I I think the key to the leadership retreat is that last bullet point. We want people to feel like they're equipped to lead and take action with whatever it is the priorities are in their building, the priorities that we have um as a district. It's also a really rare time where we can get everybody together. If people aren't looking at their phones, they aren't running away to put out fires. Um, you know, we just we know that we can all be together. We can all be focused and we can all figure out how we're moving together in a very intentional and connected way. Um, you know, as a school system, uh, this year, I would say that upper left hand corner uh piece of building collective efficacy um was our absolute focus. Um, collective efficacy is really that core belief that you can take intentional steps as a leader to build where you you recognize that we as a group control our destiny. You know, we as a school have the ability to work with students in a way where we can improve achievement. We can we can shape uh the choices that the students are making. And we as leaders really, you know, we're not being kind of the way I like to say is we have the ability to shape the road. the road doesn't necessarily um shape us. And you know, one of the things that we started out with is you know, Mike likes to talk a lot about John Hattie's research and John Hattie's sort of the ultimate in education research. Uh he's done study after study that shows that there is nothing more central to a school success than collective efficacy. Again, that belief that we as we as leaders have the ability to control the output of it. And again, there are a number of intentional steps that leaders can take uh to build collective efficacy within their staff and within their direct reports. And we really spent a lot of time focusing on that um at Canterbury for day one and then back the district office for day two. And you can see uh we had a number of partners who supported us in this project and we asked people to really leave their you know thinking about how does this impact your site plan? How does this impact the way you work within our our district systems? Um, and just how do you focus going forward as you get ready for this 25 26 school year? These were some of our learning targets. And again, I would, you know, if you look at those learning targets, they all really go back to action. Um, you know, this isn't just sit and listen and think that was neat. This was sit and listen and then come up with, you know, what is your plan to actively move your building forward and how will you be engaging your staff, your students, and your community to to really build a better school and a better a better shot system. Uh we did definitely take time to to celebrate all of the work that we've done on on systemic structures and you know when you think about the past three years you know whether it be crisis and safety and how far that's come or pieces like welcome center or where we're at with teacher evaluation the work that we've done with attendance that you'll hear more about during the handbook uh you know piece we've really done a number of great things and we celebrated those pieces and then really pushed the question you know how do we connect these things, you know, how do we build a more connected system based on on the work that we've we've already done that we continue continue to do? And uh you know, this is something that you can take a peek at um you know, after the meeting, but over in the lower leftand corner, you know, we we really kick off by saying what is it that you care deeply about and what is it that you believe that you can do? When you when you look at the words on the screen, you know, you can see the student centered communitydriven language and and the really the belief that we do have the ability to just continue to grow and improve, you know, what's going on with within our our shop these schools. And you know, it what's most important always is what's next. Um, next Monday, uh, in this room, we will have that entire leadership group together where we'll start our official kickoff of of this coming school year. We'll be meeting with Nick Waltzburgger to get some legal updates. U, each of our leaders will be sharing systems updates about what's new with HR, business office, etc., etc., so that people have what they what they really need to go forward and leave their buildings. um you know, and it'll be an opportunity for us to to meet all of our new leaders and and start to get them to to be more ingrained in our system. And you'll be hearing throughout the year about our instructional leadership meetings, which I think we're going to go even deeper on this year, our continued systems meetings, and and one of the things I would really call out is our elementary and secondary leaders really have high functioning PLC's at this point. They're meeting on a regular basis. They're getting in classrooms. They're checking on our literacy implementation, our math implementation, AFL, and they're they're really, you know, more engaged in this work probably than any other time. And I I can't say enough about that. And uh you will all be having the opportunity to hear presentations from different building leaders about different district priorities that you've uh known about in the past and or voted on such again as the the literacy adoption of the new social studies curriculum and and all of those pieces. So, we're we're super excited about where we're at. Um, we think that we've given our leaders um some highly effective tools heading into this year and you know, we as a leadership team had to model what we what we expect from our from our principles. So, questions about leadership retreat or where we're going in the coming school year with any of our priorities. See no questions. The testament to your great presentation. I guess I'll put you all to sleep with me. >> Thank you, Jim. Yeah, you're going to stay put for for the next on our agenda is an action item, item 10.1, uh 2025 26 online handbooks. All right. And I I just want to kick this off by saying we move to the online handbook. I couldn't be happier that we got have that in the rearview mirror and that we have all of our information in one place. And you know, hopefully you've had a chance to review some of the changes. If you have questions, you can ask them. But just very quick, very high level. Uh the biggest shifts to the handbook this year are going to be what I would call universal shifts. Uh, one, uh, Tiffany and her team did a great job working with principles to put together, um, a a one-page document that will help parents with all of the different technology pieces um, that we have. I'm watching Chad nod his head as a parent. I'm guessing he's never sure which one to log into. We're hopeful that adding this to the handbook will be a guide to parents. You've heard us uh, talk about Stopfinder, which we will be kicking off. The whole backside is dedicated to that. Um, we also uh will be adding the uh attendance document which I believe you saw a year ago that was developed by our leadership team at our systems meetings. And I I really want to say that this this document is a testimony to the work that our leaders are doing. I was at an MDE workshop last year about attendance. And when I shared this document, the response I got from the folks at the department was every district should be moving forward this way. every district should be having this conversation, making sure the policy and actions align. So, we we started moving to this last year. Um, this year we will be more direct with it because it'll be in the handbook. We didn't feel like waiting six months was the right thing to do. So, those those four documents are universal. And I think as we as you've looked at the language, a lot of the language was elementary, middle school, high school, um making some tweaks to their handbook language that may not have aligned with this. So I'm not going to go into those line by line because again it just it does align to the um to the document that we did. And the other the other component that I really want to call out, and this was in the wrap a couple of weeks ago, we did finally add some language around AI. Um it's fairly general but general intentionally because it will give administrators and teachers the ability to um you know more directly handle some of the challenges that AI um you know brings to our classrooms and we're trying to encourage students to create their own content as opposed to use tools to create there's a time for the tool. We want to honor the time for the tool. We also want to make sure that when it's misapplied we have a way to a way to respond. Um, you know, just other things I want to make sure you're aware of in case you hear. Um, we are going to go to a formative passing time at the elementary with the additional five minutes being added to advisory. Um, we've worked with Dale and the SCA on this. The principles have worked with the teachers on it. Um, you know, there's a need for additional advisory time and four minutes is plenty of time for passing both east and west at this point in particular with students using backpacks to to carry their materials. Um, and then three things I would just take a moment to highlight at the high school level. Um, one, um, we, uh, we will be adding a a line that just says if a student retakes a class, which they have the right to do, um, the original grade will remain on the transcript. However, only the second grade or only the higher grade will count towards the GPA. So, we're not averaging them. We're just saying we're going to leave it on there because it did the first grade did happen. The second one is the one that counts. uh we amended to uh to recognize EPO uh because that is also a partnership that we've gone into. And then um the the final thing is the high school uh task force to address some of the ongoing parking lot challenges and try to make the parking lot more both student and user friendly. And so those are mentioned in here. So if I miss something, please ask. If there's clarification or greater depth on any of this, again, I'm more than willing to to sit for questions. Mr. Chair, you know, I hadn't even considered an AI policy and again shock could be taking the initiative to put something in in the handbook. Is this a conversation that's happening at maybe MSBA level um and maybe vice chair Peterson has a perspective on that as well because you know governance over use of AI I think needs to be part of that conversation. I won't answer for chair Peterson. I will say that Brian and his department drove this conversation. So this wasn't a group of principles just sort of making it up. This was what are the experts which would be the tech department who pulled together the the language and then made sure met the needs of the building. So I don't know Vice Chair Peterson is there any talk at the MSBA level? >> I'm not aware of any at this time. Um you know a lot of the model model policies from MSBA are legislative driven um and statute driven. So, I I believe that this would probably be one of those things that would fall into a category of local control because every district is going to utilize it differently. Um, but I don't have any knowledge of MSBA working on any sort of a policy at this time. >> Yeah, we we made it K12 um simply because whenever we leave a level out, it seems to creep into that level. So, we don't expect our elementarymentaries to actually, you know, need it at this time or hopefully anytime, but we figured we may as well just put it out there. >> Well, I trust there's kindergarters that are smarter. >> I asked more more so in again the governance piece. If we talk about student achievement and you find out after the fact that it was, you know, AI was skewing some of that, right? Um, it's just a new world and I don't know that we fully grasp likely what it can and can't I just want to say having all the information for the families on one page document really. [Music] >> Thank you. Again, I would commend our communications office or our principles for this. Um, any further questions or comments? Seeing none, uh, this is an action item. So, entertain a motion. >> So, move second. >> A motion by Brophy, a second by Aldrich. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Amber, can you please do the role? >> Zick. >> Yes. Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldridge, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Broy, >> yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next on our agenda is item 10.2. It's a resolution relating to determining the necessity of approving a new referendum, revenue authorizations, and calling a special election. That is a long subject. Um, and Dr. Redmond and Bill Manazi, our outgoing director of finance and operations. That's I don't know. We have to differentiate you. >> Absolutely. >> Welcome. Thank you, Dr. Redmond. Any We're both on this agenda item, I guess. Any introductory comments before I get just a couple brief comments? >> All you. >> Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Um before uh getting into this I just wanted to offer as was mentioned at the beginning of being my own individual congratulations to David and uh and welcome and I'm happy for David and and really excited for shock. I think you guys are going to be in great shape um and uh in real good hands moving forward. So congratulations. Uh as it relates to the agenda item um the first agenda item which is 10.2 two is a resolution calling for a new referendum revenue authorization. Really what this is is just the official documents for what the school board approved last month on June 23rd um when the when the action take place. Uh this is the formality or the legal part of the special election. So as it relates to the individual resolution, you can see that uh under letter A is question one. Um that is the $620 per pupil. the amount that is tax neutral on a $400,000 home that's outlined in and part A of the resolution. And then part B is the $310 uh question two and that number was updated to include the CPI which is the consumer price index or tax payable in 2026. So that's really the only number that we were waiting on. from last month in June with just that update from the state department on CPI. We now have that and you can see that that $310 is reflective of that update. [Music] >> Um so the $930 per student, how much revenue will that raise uh next year? 6.8 >> 7.5 >> 7.5 >> You're talking about the total >> 620 raises 5 million and 10,000 >> and the 310 raises 2.5 million >> based on current enrollment. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Based on 2526 enrollment or 2425 enrollment >> based on enrollment forecast for each of those years. So starting the the first year of the revenue would be fiscal 27. So based on our projection for fiscal 27 that will be the additional. Thank you. >> You mentioned it that puts us at the the cap. The second question puts us at the cap for the the money per based on >> correct. Yep. The the projected cap for tax payable in 2026 fiscal 27. Um is that's that would be the sum of both question one. While we're on that topic, Bill, that the cap I've seen it in a slide, but in the past and in future presentation, you see other communities have a greater per pupil total revenue that they can get from the cap on the levies. Is that just based on what the cap set at at the time that the levies passed? >> Yeah, there there are a few school districts in the metro that are above the levy cap. I I don't know exactly specifically. I don't Yeah, >> some of them were above the cap when that law got put in. So, they were allowed to continue to go at that level. So, they they were not sunseted completely, but they were allowed to continue on. >> Question. Question one fails. The vote on question two doesn't matter. Correct. So either question two passed 99% to one or the first question fails second question doesn't that both doesn't matter just that's what I figured I just wanted to the public to know another clarification question both questions fail or I guess if question fails will that be $800 that needs to be >> so the the way that um the way that the timing lays out for this so November for 2025 would be the the ballot. And so that would be taxes payable for the community in calendar 2026. And then school district revenue in fiscal year 2027. So our fiscal year runs July through June. So right now we're just starting fiscal year 2026. We started that on July 1st. So what we're talking about here is school district revenue for fiscal year 2027. So July 1st of 2026 through June 30 of 2027. So to answer your question directly, we would need to come up with budget adjustments >> for that approximate amount in this year. >> And has income projected for fiscal year >> for for 2027? Yes, we we have um 29 >> for 29 years. >> Uh no, I I did not carry our long range for planning model out that far. The one that we will update for this year would include 29 fiscal year 2029. The long range planning model that we did last winter included estimates for fiscal 25 at that point and then 2026 27 and 28. That's as far as we >> fix the new finance director's problem. I've just noticed with projections after about three years it gets very dicey of what you're saying because of just so much change with the legislation. Absolutely. Good point. Good. >> I would entertain a motion to >> I'll make a motion to approve as presented. >> A motion by Peterson second and a second by Johnson. Further discussion. This is a resolution. Um, >> Amber, can you please do the role? >> Sit, >> yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Broy, >> yes. Resolution passes. and uh Bill will again present on the next action item item 10.3 the notice of special election. >> Yes, thank you. Again, very similar information here. If you understand agenda item 10.2, then 10.3 is very, very similar. I would just like to call your attention to the tax tables for question one and question two, which is shown on page three and four of the special election notice. Um, you'll recall I referred to question one as tax neutral on an average priced home. You can see that under the residential homestead um heading uh on an estimated market value of a $400,000 residential homestead. Uh the the outgoing taxes from paying off our debt service levy is $29. Um, and then question one would would be an investment of $29 such that the impact the annual impact is tax neutral on a $400,000 home. And then flipping finally to page four, uh, the same tax schedule um, for question two. Now, with the $310 per pupil, you can see that again on that same $400,000 residential homestead, uh the investment would be $105 per year or $8.71 per month. So, a $400,000 home. Uh, question one with the expiring debt service levy uh amount. And question two, the sum would be $80.71 per month. Entertain motion. A motion by a second by Johnson. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Amber, can you please do the role? >> Zitic, >> yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Roofy, >> yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. >> Uh, next on our agenda is item 10.4, before uh meeting for the canvasing election results and Dr. Reb will present. >> Yeah. Very very straightforward. On the agenda item, you'll notice 104 um when when there is a an election on the ballot that we've called, we we need to canvas those results. as a school board taking the guidance from uh you know Scott County elections in terms of timing and some of those things that we've learned over the years. Uh we are suggesting that that meeting is at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 13th. >> I had to think, but I knew the 4th was a Tuesday. You curious how you got way more sophisticated. >> No, I didn't say I didn't. Okay. for them. Um, and again, we're open to suggestions, but that seems to, you know, kind of people seem to have preferred evening meetings when we've done that. Um, the other time we've done it is 7 a.m. on that same day. So, again, this would be an action item and the proposal would be for adding a schoolboard meeting for Kansas City election result 6 p.m. on November 13th. >> That has to be within 10 days of the election. Correct. >> Yes. >> I will A motion to approve the uh canine on November 13th at 6. >> Second. >> A motion by Aldridge and a second by Valdez. Any further discussion? >> Can you please do the role? >> Yes. >> Sit. >> Yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldridge, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Brophie, >> yes. Motion carries. Next in our agenda is another action item 10.5 addition of temporary committee constructive feedback and again Dr. will present. >> And this is, you know, we're presenting an idea. Can you make that a little bit larger screen, please, Amber? And it does say suggested committee members. We took some of the folks from when we've done this in the past. And this is an opportunity for the committee. We've named it constructive feedback. Uh there's a lot of, you know, one of the one of the requirements of a school district. there's a lot of legal requirements in terms of sharing information and doing that and really this committee becomes a sounding board for that like well wait a second not sure that says you know says it in a clear manner or all kinds of different things but uh there's you know we got kind of meeting dates set up uh and then suggested committee members which reminds me that I was going to catch you before the meeting apologize for that David welcome aboard your suggested committee member. Uh the others may change but you know some were carryovers from the past or the similar position or we like to rotate it around but have you know principal representation from different places but you know so you're not locked in here now if you say hey I'm good you know the board members here you'd be locked in but happy to answer questions otherwise what we're approving uh the action is to approve a temporary schoolboard committee uh that would really run from now or August August 5th through November 11th with the purpose of giving constructive feedback primarily on district communications and you know we've got a website up and running and all those kind of things to really be you know a voice for the community here you know make sure we're make sure we're connecting well make sure information is clear and then I would add there's also certainly room for a student school board member or two just let me Can we meet on November 11th? >> Great question. I did not set this up. Uh I probably move that one to November 12th because yeah, that's Veterans Day. [Music] >> Good catch. >> Very good catch. >> Dr. One quick question. Will this include talking points, you know, for purposes of to be consistent uh if the school board members ask questions, right? And obviously we stay neutral in terms of position, but in terms of that communication and consistency, is it fair to say that you have kind of a a one pager? >> Certainly, I think that's something our communications department has worked with with a number of folks to be able to to share answers. uh and and also I think in in uh concert with our community engagement, you know, our schoolboard group that's out in public and want to make sure that as always with anything that any type of school district business that we're doing that uh we're able to communicate well when ask questions or at a minimum direct people to really good sources of information. So yeah, similar to what we we had this committee last year for the you know the uh capital projects levy renewal and um I think it was very helpful. I think that's where we did some uh I think we we watched some folks practice elevator speeches if not not wrong on that. I actually remember yours [Music] was good. I don't know if that's good or not. >> No, it was good. It was good. I think I'm going to leave home with that hanging. No, that's why I don't get in elevators because of activity activity >> just in case. >> Just Okay. >> Well, this seems like a constructive conversation. So, I'll make a motion to approve a temporary constructive. I will have a motion by Brophy and a second by Aldrich. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Amber continic. >> Yes. >> Valdez, yes. Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Bro, >> yes. Motion carries. Uh, next on our agenda is item 10.6. This is a resolution for approving Mike Redmond as the OWA and that stands for identified official with authority. And so, if you look at the the document here, I read it earlier. Um, this basically identifies Dr. Redmond as the uh the principal point of contact for approving permissions for all things related to uh Minnesota Department of Education um website and systems. Um and and so they they recommend that one person in the district be that authority. And so and this is a just a continuation of something you've already been doing, right? >> It is. Yes. it and I and we've we've tried to do it in our organizational meeting in January and we did it there. What we run into is there's kind of conflicting language and it talks about hey you need one for the next school year. So rather than have the risk well we apply in January was that for the calendar year so I think in the future we're going to look to do this in June or July and probably remove it from the organization meeting. Uh but yes, I you know, typically the superintendent is the Iowa um you know, for a school district. We do have a a designate who's who does a ton of support work and Allison Johnson from our learning, teaching, and equity department who does a lot of the renewals and and this is we're really giving access to our employees to the MDE, uh all the different things that we do there in terms of approvals and legal requirements and budget approvals and everybody's different area. So, yep. This is, you know, uh right now the Iowa today and uh and like I said, that's how most school districts do it. >> Um I'll make a motion to approve uh Dr. Redmond as the uh Iowa for our school district. >> Second. >> So, motion by Smith and second by Aldrich. Any further discussion? Seeing none, this is a resolution. Amber, please. >> Senate. >> Yes. Valdez, >> yes. Peterson, [Music] >> yes. Thank you. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Yeah. Resolution passes. [Music] Uh, that concludes the action items for tonight. Uh, next is an information item. Item 11.1 seeking community direction and Dr. Re. >> You want me to try? >> Um, >> yeah, if you want. >> I can. Absolutely. >> I forget to tell you. So, that's all right. >> You're pretty darn good. um want to you know as we've as we've gone through this process looking uh at what has now resulted in in having u a two question operating levy on the nove November 4th ballot. We've shared a lot of information along the way. The board's asked a lot of questions. We we've worked through some things. This is kind of a a summary presentation of that work uh and where we are and how we're you know planning to move forward between now and and November 4th uh 2025 and then beyond in terms of our our budget shortfalls. Um sorry. Yeah, >> that was a long preamble. That's on me. But uh really what the school board and then you know by extension district leadership we're seeking direction you know from our community um in you know we've got budget shortfalls facing us for the 26 27 school year and the 2728 school year and on June 23rd and then again this evening in a in a more formal way in terms of the election itself and the ballot language. Uh the school board has is unanimously approved placing a two question operating levy on the November 4th ballot. Um if the levy is approved by the voters, the district will continue to provide similar levels of services moving forward. Uh if the levy is not approved by the voters, the school district will need to make budget cuts to programming, services, and staffing. Uh which will result, you know, in larger class sizes and just again trying to, you know, begin to to give details in terms of clarity. the why we've shared this uh many many times but the main reason why shockp like lots of other school districts across Minnesota are facing these budget shortfalls uh is the state's primary means of funding schools which is via the general education formula allowance or sometimes called the per pupil formula that has fallen short of the rate of inflation uh over the past four years especially and this diagram really shows the relationship between this type of funding the uh you know state funding via the general education formula allowance and what it would be uh if that you know formula allowance had kept pace with inflation. What we've been receiving is the orange dotted line and then above it is the blue line which had that formula kept pace with the rate of inflation we would be receiving. And if you notice uh the gap between the two lines was relatively consistent. And then you get to the last four years and you will notice that the blue line the rate of inflation is even further separated from that orange dotted line. In other words, the gap between those two things is widening. Uh and that gap when we talk about the growth of the gap not the entire gap itself that gap grew by $755 per pupil in annual funding you know that had state funding. This general allowance formula kept pace with the rate of inflation. Shockby public schools you know uh would have $755 per pupil uh more funding. the gap grew from $69 to $1,364. And then it uh you know on the bottom we take that gap just the growth in the gap not the entire gap but the growth in the gap over the last four years uh that $755 and we carry that out we would be receiving had had our general formula allowance just kept pace with the rate of inflation in the last four years um just the growth in the gap we would be receiving $6.3 million more in annual revenue uh in terms the state funding. And this chart we've seen, this shows, you know, this is, you know, shows you what that inflation was. And you can see, uh, where it really begins to, uh, take off. It's at 4.2% in April of 2021. And, and you can see what's happened over the past, you know, that's the inflation of the past four school years. The second why to carry this why out. Another reason why Shockby and again like many other school districts in Minnesota have these budget shortfalls uh is that state funding has decreased also due to declining student enrollments caused mainly by lower birth rates. And if we carry that out here, you can see in terms of uh funding from the state that decrease over the last, you know, from fiscal 21, the 2021 school year through the 2425 school year. You can see that decrease in state funding is 8.2 million. I do want to point out the note on the bottom. You know, our school ditch district has made staffing adjustments and other adjustments every year due to declining enrollment. our state's funding system and and we heard Representative Bakeberg, he wasn't talking about this specific part of it, but it's incredibly complex and there are different parts of it. It uh it does accommodate, you know, it's driven by enrollment. Um it doesn't work as well as it should when districts are facing declining enrollment. Uh works much better with increasing enrollment. uh but we have been doing some things to to adapt and adjust each and every year um over this period as well. key data. Not gonna not going to go deep into these. You I believe most of this we've seen just trying to put some of the data pieces. You've heard me talk about other districts in the state, other districts in our our area last year, uh this coming school year making significant budget cuts. Um and then comparing you know if we take uh additional revenue in the form of operating levy revenue and QC comp levy and compare that to the districts that we compare ourselves to uh for you know all kinds of things are our comparables uh these other 11 districts. You can see where when it comes to comp revenue and operating revenue where we are. We're in that light blue line and so you've got some data there and and we've obviously been been over that a number of times. Um this anchor spreadsheet a lot of information talks about the revenues we've been receiving over time revenue projections out over you know through 28 also the expenditure side uh and some you know so you want to take a look at where our revenue comes from how that is has you know uh progressed over time and then where we've been spending our money uh there's a lot of details there and then each of these slides We'll break those down further. [Music] And then, you know, question people ask, well, where do you spend your money? uh you know I know Bill Manazi has this this same graphic in in our you know annual budget um and you know budget projections but we're a service organization and at heart we we spend our money on people who serve you know our students but we also you know serve via community ed and other things really our our community from you know the beginning of life through the end of life. Uh but you know as a service organization we pay salary and benefits to people. Our teachers make up about 60% roughly of of that uh all general fund expenditures. People uh when you take the other folks make up about 80% and you know some of those are you know in addition we've got some contracted services and things but that's just in graphic design because that's a question that gets asked a lot. Where do you spend your money? We spend it on people who provide much in the way of services primarily to our students in our community. And then you know the title of this seeking community direction very purposeful um you know via that operating levy on November 4th. The voice of our community will be heard as a school district uh and very unlike other other levels of local government. We're the only one that uh has to go to the voters in the state of Minnesota. Um city government doesn't have to go to the voters with any form of operating levy. County governments, township governments, uh public school districts, we're were the only form of local government. uh that really our only viable option for increasing revenue is to go to the voters and ask them to approve uh an operating levy like we have on the ballot on November 4th. Uh and then there's really three options, you know, for us when our budget is imbalanced. Uh it's those three three numbers on the bottom, budget cuts, increased revenues, or a combination of both of those. And we're really looking at at path three. Uh, and I'll get into kind of the specifics of that in a little bit. Uh, we're projecting a $7 to9 million budget deficit for the 2627 school year. Uh, we've begun to do some work on that and even and I've shared this at past meetings, you know, there's there's some hiring that we were planning to do this year, but looking at the the financial projections for the future, it seemed prudent not to do that. There's some other things. And uh the other piece when we get into this, you know, the puzzle, the $79 million budget deficit, uh we're planning to make 3 million in permanent expenditure reductions. Uh like we always do, you know, if if enrollment's declining, uh we do some adjustments due to enrollment. And again, want to be really clear that we are not changing class size targets, but if you have fewer students, uh we do then have fewer people serving them. Reducing the total quantity of bus routes, again, not not shortening or lengthening walking distances, but if we have fewer students, we then typically uh we have fewer bus routes. And you know, and then some other pieces of that that we're really looking in terms of where where is our district, how are we aligned uh in terms of state funding uh in terms of the services and where have we made kind of automatic adjustments if with if you will over the last four years. And where have those adjustments not not been done? Not because they're not automatic. and that we need to do some some work there in terms of aligning our our revenues and expenditure better. Um, you know, if we Oh, no. Yeah. If you talk about increased revenues, which would be part of that picture, if we make 3 million in budget cuts, we have an opportunity uh via the the operating levy for a tax neutral operating levy. Uh we have five, you know, we have a $5.6 6 million tax decrease, which occurs in calendar year 26 due to construction debt being paid in full in calendar year 25. So, at the end of the the calendar year 25, uh the 5.6 million would come off the taxpayer roles, if you will, for calendar year 26. If question one of an operating levy were to be approved by the voters this November, it would generate 5 million in new revenue by shifting the community taxes from paying for the construction debt that it was paying for or that people were paying for in 2025 to now paying for operating expenditures uh in 2026. And then looking at the same shift in the form of taxes from 25 calendar year 25 to calendar year 26. Um trying to say it a couple different ways. In calendar year 2025, Shockby public schools will be paying 5.16 million in taxes to pay off part of our district's construction debt. If approved by the voters, question one of the operating levy will provide five million, you know, a little over five million in new revenue in 2026 to the district, which is also paid for by the taxpayers. Stated another way, taxes paid in 25 for construction that equal 5.16 million. and they're being replaced by if the voters approve question one on the operating levy taxes paid for that additional operating levy in 2026 of just a shade over 5 million. And you'll notice the note on the bottom of this you'll go well why are the numbers different the 5.16 million and the you know basically 5 million. Well there two different forms of taxation. Construction debt is paid via something called net tax capacity. Operating levies are paid via referendum market value. Uh those charge different tax rates uh for different property types. And so the replacement is not exactly one one and that's why the amount coming off is actually you know about 160,000 more than the amount that would be shifted or added on in 2026. This is a graph we've looked at. This shows our, you know, our debt schedule for our construction debt in our school district. Uh, and shows that uh construction debt coming off. It's also now, and I applaud Bill Manazi and our finance department, done a lot of work to uh give us a a you know, an easily understandable schedule. But also over the last few years, just like a lot of homeowners have done, we've we've uh what do we call that word? it's a reword. Refinanced our uh schools construction debt um and got lower interest rates and and said that again the district didn't get any you know we didn't get any direct money. We didn't get any money at all from doing that. But what you know over $8 million then in taxpayer savings due to the refinancing of our construction loans or our construction debt. And also we have a a very wellorganized debt schedule now which did not exist seven years ago. The debt schedule exists. It was just horribly organized seven years ago to be clear. Um this going into detail uh you know this was on the uh the the resolutions approved earlier this evening but going through that showing the different categories of of tax you know residential homestead commercial industrial apartments agricultural uh homestead you know that uh you get the question one you get the expiring debt and then compared to the the new uh voter approved debt for question one and you You can see that sum total um and almost all of those numbers in that far right column are negative. I think it's important to say you know because of the shift from net tax capacity to referendum market value. You'll notice that uh all the numbers for commercial industrial and agricultural homestead are are negative meaning less taxes um you know with the operating levy than with the previous construction debt. And then if we go to the what if, going back to that diagram of additional revenue comparison between uh the 11 other school districts that we compare ourselves to, we've added the $620 per pupil or the five slightly over 5 million uh in operating levy revenue onto this this diagram. And you can see where that that puts us in comparison to those districts. certainly improves our standing um in terms of the the difference between us and some of the other districts at the top and moves us up a little bit one more notch from the bottom. And then if question two, separating that out, that's the $310 per pupil. Uh the, you know, kind of the way this is explained would be going to the cap. There's a maximum in the state of Minnesota for public school districts that a school district can ask of its voters in terms of operating levy revenues. This would be moving shakapi to that maximum. Uh to Joe's question earlier, question two can only be approved by the voters if question one is approved. So if question one is not approved by the voters, the vote totals on question two do not matter. Question two is absolutely contingent on question one being passed before question two can be considered for approval. Um and it's asking question two uh is asking for an additional $310 per pupil uh in operating levy on top of question one. Uh and that would bring Shockby public schools to the cap. It would provide an additional 2.5 million in annual operating revenue. And then here are the tax tables uh for question two. If question two were approved by the voters going to the cap, uh I think Bill mentioned, you know, that would add an additional $8.71 per month uh onto the taxes for the owner of a $400,000 home. Uh, one of the things we we talk about a lot of numbers when we do this and a lot of times people we talk about it $310 per pupil and sometimes people go well that that's my taxes. No, your t that is not. That is the per pupil amount for, you know, uh, for the operating levy. Um, your taxes the $400,000 house would be $15 annually or $8.71 per month. And so you'll see that diagram that we've used in the past to help help explain that, you know, illuminates the question too. Um, a an owner of a $400,000 home would pay $8.71 more per month. The district, the total that would be generated would be $2.5 million annually for, you know, operating expenses. And then we do another what if um you know with uh with those comparable districts as the only one not receiving you know revenue from UC count. Um you know and again on these diagrams to make it an applesto apples comparison. We've given each of the 12 school districts the exact same student enrollment as Shaki public schools. Um so that you know we could you know we're only comparing really one item and that's that additional revenue and we're not don't have to calculate enrollment differences in our head or on paper. So that's just for comparison purposes. And then you get to this total diagram. If you bring that all together on the right side, you know, you've got question one, you've got construction debt dropping off. You've got a shift to paying operating levy cost. Question two, you've got additional operating levy cost. And then you can see that total net taxpayer result uh monthly or uh in the column right where if you add that together and that is where you will see uh and this is one bill I just noticed this today there was a carryover at the $400,000 house on question one that it had to have been somewhere less than 12 cents a year and the math when we carried it out to the sense place added a penny per month so it's 872 per month for that $100,000 home. First time I noticed that was late this afternoon going through this again. I've been through it multiple times. Went I would have sworn that was all zeros when I looked at it earlier. >> That guy is probably between six. >> That was that was what I did this afternoon. Joe, that frightens me a little. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. This is uh the financial summary put out by PMA who does this kind of work for us. just kind of get some tax rate stuff on top, but it's the same data that that we've shown in previous slides. And then ultimately, again, seeking community direction uh with the, you know, via the uh the community voting on the two question operating levy on November 4th. Um, and I thought I actually thought of this slide, Shauna, when you were asking your question earlier because this this is meant to be sort of a timeline or moving, you know, left to right here. You know, what what is happening because this, you know, all of a sudden there's numbers, there's question one, there's tax again. And if we look at it, we're our plan is to make 3 million in in permanent budget cuts for the 2627 school year. Uh and then you've got an arrow and now there's a now there's a choice and this would be that you know part of that community direction forward. Uh either we have to make an additional 5 million in budget cuts for the 2627 school year. So 3 million plus 5 million a total of 8 million or uh you know if the operating levy is approved by the voters we would receive 5 million in in new revenue. And so then it would be the three billion in budget cuts, but we would have five million in new revenue. And then you've got an arrow moving on to the 2728 school year. Our projection again is for decreases in enrollment. Uh we expect to make those enrollment type uh you know cuts of about half million dollars that year. And then you know you've got question two which again is that either or uh type choice where it's either another you know the 2.5 million in budget cuts or we question two would generate 2.5 million in operating levy revenue and then this is what I just said uh but kind of maybe a little bit more detail but trying to get the the idea that uh you know there's some pieces. There's some things that that happen no matter what. The three million in budget cuts, we've got to, you know, our enrollment projections are correct. We've got to make the budget balance in the 26 27 school year. Again, need to to do some of that 2728 school year. And then it's the choice of, you know, is it 5 million more in budget cuts in the 26 27 school year and 2 and a.5 million more in the 2728 school year. uh or you know the voters approved the operating levy for both questions then we would have $7.5 million in operating revenue and then we go back to that same flowchart on the next slide just trying to kind of give the detail and come back to it and then we got some forums uh coming up uh public you know community forums uh September 16th and October 23rd starting at 6:00 in the uh I believe we're on the thrust stage of the high school. So yeah, wanted to go into some of those details that we've been through again kind of grounding moving forward really beginning to uh share information that that's important um you know in terms of our partnership with our community and also in terms of seeking their direction. Um so happy to answer any questions. >> Mr. Chair, Dr. just for clarification purposes, you mentioned the referendum market value and the tax statements that were presented but that's data as a current state. Correct. So conceptually that referendum market value increase over time just based on the projected. In other words, the prupal amount would be divided by a bigger denominator presuming referendum market value increases. Is that a fair statement? >> It is. And you know when we do this uh in terms of public schools and operating levies and financial projections, we use a fixed set of statistics. And so we treat in our district our referendum market value based on what it is in our in our community even though that is that has typically grown over time and I think it's a reasonable expectation the referendum market value might increase you know over the next you know whatever number of years we don't get to project that out and go well the referendum market value in fiscal 27 will be this. We take it as it currently is and base our projections on that and that basically the moment one new house is built. I mean one house is good but yeah it it might decrease you know fractions of a pay >> well that's the tax basis in general right including businesses and anything else that comes in be increased >> in fact we did this four years ago did the don't want to speak out of turn but the impact to the taxpayers from the last levy is now less than was projected here >> for multiple reasons. Yeah, I was gonna say Go ahead. Sorry. >> Go ahead. >> Less students, more more uh property >> because we base that levy on student enrollment and then Yeah. >> And our refer our total referendum mark value as a school district community has increased over that time. So assuming that you know your value of your home stayed exactly constant comparison to all the other values. Yes, your your portion of that would be less than we would have stated it was going to be when we did the previous levy. And in fact we've had the city come in and give us quite a few proposals over the time frame here showing that our city is planning to grow pretty substantially. Maybe not so much single family homes add into our enrollment issues, but definitely helping in this >> market value. >> Exactly. In this tax basis that spread this house. >> And the one thing that helps a market value, a strong school district. Bill, since this is one of your last meetings, what's my favorite thing about America? >> Options. >> That's right. And people have the options to go I've asked him so many times. I just wanted one more chance. Um, you know, people have options to go to any school district or live in any any city around here that work around here. And if you have a strong school district, that means that people are going to want to live here and that means property values are going to increase. So my elevator speech is right there. I'd rather pay a little bit more property taxes so that the value of my house keeps increasing. >> Any other questions for each other or me? I hate to be the I hate to be the guy that that has to say that something that you said is misleading, >> but yeah. Uh when you say that the See if I can find the the I think it's this one where you said that the uh refinancing has saved taxpayers over $8 million since 2021. It's $8 million from 2021 to 2035. >> Yes. >> Yes. It's not since 2021. It's between 2021 and 20 20. >> I don't think I said since 21. >> I just read it here. It says 21. >> But in the refinancing process over the life of the loans. Yes. >> A total of somewhere about 8.5 million. >> And one one one more. >> Y not so inflation versus the increase in spending per year. Inflation's like 5.3% a year for the last four years spending 5.67%. We're not out of line with inflation. If anybody thinks, well, you're just spending a ton of money, more than you should be. I mean, that's an argument, but I'm not going to make it. But based on inflation, it's it's reasonable. >> Thank you, Dr. Uh next on our agenda is uh item 12 committee reports and other information. Um I will start by um just bringing up the uh the superintendent evaluation. Um we still have one outstanding and we will not name anybody because it's anonymous so we don't know exactly who it is anyway but we have one outstanding. One person has not done theirs. So, this is a friendly reminder to please do your superintendent evaluation and uh if you have any questions, uh let me know and we'll we'll put you in touch with uh with Keith who's running that. Um that's that's all I have um with summer. This is my first time back in a while, so I you know, school district involvement for for a little bit here. Um Christy, we'll go to you next because we can't see you and I don't right now and I don't want to forget about you. So, uh we'll we'll go to you next. Um hopefully, uh you can hear us and we can hear you. >> Yep, I can hear you just fine. I can see you guys, too. Um I don't have a whole lot. Um I'm actually at a Minnesota State High School League uh meeting uh which is why I could not be in attendance tonight in person. Um and we have a board meeting tomorrow morning. So that kind of is the kickoff for our new year with uh new board members coming on etc. So it's um doing a lot of planning for the upcoming school year in regards to our uh sports and activities through the state high school league. We have um negotiations uh starting again tomorrow afternoon. We had a southwest metro um board meeting on July 15th. we where we approved handbooks for our staff as well and then also uh we completed our superintendent evaluation for Dr. important which was um very satisfactory by the board. And then on June 26th and 27th, which seems like an eternity ago, I uh had the opportunity to attend the Kazba school safety symposium. And I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about that. I think um I'll share more at our um upcoming um board retreat or um development that we have here in a couple weeks. But it was very very good. Um, a lot of heavy topics, but I'll share a few more things um, at that time just to keep my remarks short tonight. >> All right. Thank you, Christie. Um, go with Nick next. Well, thank you. Like you, I haven't had a lot since, was it June 28th? They know we had a we had our policy meeting beforehand here and got some pretty good healthy conversations going on some of our policies and um I guess one thing that um I was just going to ask and we don't this need to be answered at all at all today but I remember in a previous meeting we're talking about the survey that was sent out and we got the statistical results but not any of the actual information on some action items that were coming up. or is that still something we were going to address at one of the future meetings or is that something that's done at like the retreat you guys just did? >> You're talking the community conversation exchange that's on the board development for August 11th. >> So that's on Yeah, that's those reports of community engagement next Monday. >> Absolutely not. Thanks, Chad. >> Yeah, pretty quick for me, too. We have policy today. Um, so that'll be coming through soon. Um, just regular policy reviews. Again, obviously everyone's reading them for themselves, but there's not there's no major changes. Um, yeah. And then it looks like I'm likely going to miss community engagement next Monday. finishing up. So, I might I'll be listening in later. Thank you, Tim. Uh, also policy committee. Uh, Nick and I are going to rewrite the absence. Uh, maybe that's assembly conversation just in terms of how the current policy is written versus our new reality. A little bit of levity, but we we did have a really good conversation specifically about attendance and absences and how we track those. Um, and then of course, uh, it'd be remiss if I didn't mention another amazing shock malt bike season has commenced. Uh, it would be great if mother nature would turn the temperature down just a little bit. I think I'm losing weight every time I go to practice. Not necessarily a bad thing, but uh, it's looking forward to a great season. Uh, we had five consecutive races in a row just how the schedule worked out this year. So, This is my first board meeting. I will have to say I miss and it was good. >> Anything to report from DC that you want to put out? >> DC was absolutely amazing. Yeah, I so like results wise I ended up coming six um globally which is obviously that's >> the sad thing sad thing is because of all the funding that history is going through right now in the past they would have awards for all top 10 finalists um but this year [Music] but Minnesota [Music] program sponsorship [Music] professors and their research my pitching research yeah cool I have a cool job at the start public health department right now um so seeing parallels with how almost their bureaucracy and work is going It's going to expire [Music] six global. That's really cool. >> Sixth in my neighborhood. It's it's technically very much you have the most representation from the US obviously like for example my academy we have two kids from Minnesota and then two kids from every state in the US but then like the kids that beat me they were from China was from Sweden and this documentary was the best thing I've ever seen in my life. So yeah, >> Brian, first of all, welcome. Welcome. >> Thank you. Um, I don't really have much to say right now, but this whole meeting was a really good educational experience for me. Um, since this was my first meeting, just to see how a meeting usually goes and what usually comes before it. And I'm excited to see how this journey will take me. And yeah, awesome. Happy to have you here. >> Amber, anything? >> Nothing else for me tonight, >> Jim? Yeah, we're we're rolling. Uh, a lot of things coming up, big ones. Uh, we actually have our annual meeting with Scott County on attendance. Uh, they bring social services, they bring, uh, their legal team, and we make sure that we're aligned, that our actions are what they want. uh just a lot of great uh mutual support between the two agencies and I know Meline, our attendance specialist, will be speaking at a state conference uh later this week um talking about some of the work that we're doing around attendance and then uh we kick off AMSD this Friday morning at 7:30 at home. Looking forward to that and some folks from Good Travel that we've worked with Sha will be the guest speakers and so I'll um start start my year there and it'll be nice to see uh to see Julian again. So, >> thank you. >> Yeah. Um, want to share something that, uh, Tiffany and I are coordinating on behalf of, uh, the board and really the board agenda walkth through with, uh, Chair Smith and Vice Chair Peterson. We've talked a number of times about that schoolboard self assessment and Christie did a lot of the leg work. It's one of those where, you know, this will be a little bit of how quickly time flies. Um, we think the last time it was done was 2020. I would have sworn it was done after that. Uh, but whether whether it was or not, we found the 2020 MSBA one. >> I feel like we did one. >> I feel like we did something too. And I don't know if it was the same, but we we're going to recreate. We've actually put it into Google um Google responses, Google forms for the board members. Uh Tiffany and I will send that out to you tomorrow. It is the exact same questions uh that we we actually had somebody from MSDA come in and do it in 2020 and I think there's like 32 questions for some reason on the data we had and the questions that were done. It's missing like question 12 and 13. So I don't know if we elected not to do those. So you will notice that that is it we just we replicated the exact questions and skipped the two that uh we did not have data previously from. But it' be a good discussion item if uh we're going to send that out tomorrow. Want you to hopefully turn that around by Friday. Give uh you know time to compile that, put it into form so that it can be a discussion on on August 11th. I think it's a pretty quick you know pretty quick survey. I know it's the end of a month. >> Um, but thought that that would would help us in terms of uh in addition to the performance measures that are part of superintendent schoolboard evaluation and I have the schoolboard specific and it it really looks like there's a lot of good questions for discussion. So, uh, you'll be getting an email from either Tiffany or I tomorrow with a link to that. Uh, Ryan, you're off the hook for a year. Sha, we're going to bring you into I think you got perspective on that. Um and so we'll get feedback from a folks use that as part of our discussion on the 11. Next our agenda is item 13 upcoming meetings and important dates. Um so if you want to bring those up I don't know if there's anything specific you want to call attention to on the list here. Otherwise, we can, you know, there's several links there you can follow to look for upcoming things. August 5th, 199. [Music] >> Wait for it. [Music] >> With that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. >> So move. >> Motion by Brophy, >> second and a second by Johnson. Uh, any further discussion? Seeing none, uh, Amber, can you please do the role? >> Yes. >> Valdez, >> yes. >> Peterson, >> yes. >> Smith, >> yes. >> Aldrich, >> yes. >> Johnson, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you.