like to call to order the Shocki school board work session for April 14, 2025. Tiffany, can you please do the role? Sitic here. Valdez here. Peterson here. Smith here. Aldridge here. Johnson here. Brophie here. Michelle here. And Sha, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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. Always like to see you back room. And we get to start with the uh favorite part of our meeting is saber pride. And first up we have item 3.1 the ASBO certificate of excellence in financial reporting. ASBO is the association of school business officials international and uh Joe will present our recognition. like to congratulate both Nazi and his team for the fifth consecutive year of uh giving this certificate of excellence in financial reporting. Uh roughly 25 districts of the 331 Christie uh school districts in Minnesota received this uh certification and and basically just uh with the financials the clear accurate accurate accurate uh financial trans transparency and I know that and his team have been working really hard over the last several years for for the district uh to uh be able to get that like to be the board congratulate and also uh at at the same time our bond rating has increased to A1. Uh it's the third time it's been upgraded in the last four years. uh back in 21 it was uh BA A1 and it's been upgraded three times since then to A1. So again that's that's great news for the district if you have uh any kind of refinancing on these bonds that we'd be doing that would help with insurance rates and everything that just would end up saving taxpayers money. So again on behalf of the board congratulations to Bill and his team. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Next on our agenda is item 3.2, volunteer appreciation month spotlight. And here to present is uh Lisa Ron, our director of community education, and Melissa Sinsky, our district volunteer coordinator. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you, Chair Smith and school board members. We're very honored to be here again. My name is Lisa Ron. I'm the community education director and this is Melissa and she is our volunteer coordinator for the district. So, she takes care of volunteers districtwide. So, we're here today to honor the exceptional volunteers of Shak Public Schools. those that have gone above and beyond dedicating hundreds of hours to special projects and providing invaluable support. Our district is incredibly fortunate to have 2,342 dedicated volunteers who have collectively contributed 5700 hours. So that's a remarkable effort and that translates into an estimated value of roughly $190,000 for schools based on the national hourly rate for volunteer work that Scott County uses when they um quantify the impact of volunteers. So that's pretty incredible. And our volunteers um commitment and spirit are truly invaluable to the community. Our volunteers are driven by a genuine love for what they do. Their contributions are vast and vital, filling needs across many areas. You'll find them in work rooms assisting with tasks like cutting and laminating and organizing materials as well as accompanying students on field trips and providing support in reading and math. They're also integral to student well-being, helping with vision and hearing screenings and other checks across the district. Beyond direct student interaction, our volunteers are also dedicating their time to the PTO and various district committees. They organize events and enhance our school environments by beautifying the buildings and tending to the gardens. They ensure that our learning resources are wellmaintained by organizing book rooms and even building shelves and carts. Furthermore, they play a crucial role in supporting our educators by helping to prepare and organize new curriculum, which allows teachers to focus on what they do best, teach and build relationships. The impact of our volunteers extends far beyond their tasks. One volunteer fondly remembers being affectionately known for an entire grade. the entire five years that those kids were in the building, which is a testament and connection to the appreciation that they foster throughout the school, not just the staff, but the children as well. The dedication and care of our volunteers is deeply valued by both staff and students alike. We will now honor um our recipients of our above and award above and beyond award. These people have been nominated by their specific schools as people that have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their volunteering in their building and other buildings as well. And we would just like to give a shout out to all of them for helping so much in our district making it a better place. So volunteers, we will call your names as those are being read. Lisa will hand you your certificate and we'll have you line up here over kind of by the uh TV so that we can grab a picture when we're all done. All right, Rita Sens Sharon Anderson Nicole Wilson [Music] Christina Xander Uh, Marina Nazareno, thank you. Diane Bowen, Sonia Kelchin, uh, Kimberly Zitic, you can clap, Laura Gray, Sandy Boyce, Amanda Felins, Janet Johnson, Ray Burgerer, Gerilyn Ber, Misty Van Boost, Sue Holly, Laurel Dorne, Mid Hudson, Marla Hudson, Catherine Maya, Kelly Ree, Carrie Owens, Valerie Lewis, Aaron Halman, Kathy Clark, Brenda Kahani, and Donna Mahalo. Ironically enough, a lot of people couldn't come tonight because they're at PTO events and other fundraising events for the district. So, now we get the big cheer and then we'll take a photo. So, let's do the Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Congratulations. Next on our agenda is item four, the consideration of the agenda as presented. Second, a motion by Aldridge and a second by Broki. Discussion. See none. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is 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. 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 the evening's meeting. We will move on to the next item on the agenda. Next on our agenda is item 6.1, the city of Shocki latest news and developments. And uh we are pleased to have with us tonight Bill Reynolds, the Shocki city administrator. Welcome, Bill. Well, thank you all very much for having me. I sincerely appreciate it. I thought everybody was here. They'll be right back. Yeah. went out to get a drink or something. Um, so let me start off by saying thank you. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for the strong partnership that we have. Uh, it's really is good to have two strong pieces of the uh organization when you think of it from taxi bodies. We have the county, the city, and the school district. I'm going to talk briefly about what we do and where we are in that. Uh but I did want to say that at the very beginning uh you know we can't do what we do unless we have strong partners. You have consistently been a strong partner to the city and we sincerely appreciate all you do and everything that uh then benefits all of our residents, students and parents. So thank you very much. So uh let's talk good news. Matter of fact, this is all going to be good news. I'm sorry if you were looking to have something that you wanted to feel a little down about before you went home. That's not today. This is all good news. And uh you'll see uh why I said that as we continue to move through this uh uh presentation. First of all, we continue to be one of the lowest tax communities. Yes, you probably heard, if I give any public speech at all, I'm going to say this. We continue to be one of the lowest tax communities in the state. We are the seventh lowest tax out of the 60 cities with more than 20k and 11th lowest tax out of the 103 cities with 10k. That is 2023 information by the way. We are higher. Uh we just don't have the data to be able to prove it but uh that is the case as it stands today. Uh our uh tax capacity has continued to increase. Uh this year in 2025 is 5.5. You can see it's different than what we've had in the past. It's a little lower, but there are communities out there today that would kill that had a 5.5% growth. Uh, and it only looks low when it's compared to what we've done since 2021. And stable tax rates, which is a also another thing that we're very concerned about, and we continue to have either falling or stable tax rates tax rates now for eight straight years. We're pretty proud of that as well. Uh not only are we one of the lowest tax communities, when you look at our comparable cities in the state, we are the lowest when it comes to all of those things that uh residents may need for not just taxes, but uh water, sewer, etc. Uh and that's something else we're very proud of. And uh once again, that allows us the opportunity to do other things. Uh and frankly to be perfectly blunt, it allows you uh more room to do what you need to do. Uh which is certainly not a bad thing when you think about it. Uh our strong growth continues and you're not seeing this come down at all. Matter of fact, just today we had another big project come and hit the hit the drawing board. So uh I do not see it going down. Uh right now we have 700 part apartments, 1373 single family town homes and uh at the Eagle Point estates the the gravel pit is put together. We'll have a bunch more homes there too. The other ones everything but the Eagle Point estates those are on the ground or in process right now. So those are going to happen. uh the uh Eagle Point estates will depend upon whether or not the city council is willing to tiff that particular development. Uh if that does happen, it's going to be a big game changer for that whole side of the city. Commercial industrial, man, if you haven't been down to uh the Canterbury area in a while, you'll see all the stuff that we're doing there. Obviously, the amphitheater is the big uh other piece of our crown jewels as the Midwest number one entertainment destination. By the way, you can talk about that. It's okay. Uh we are a place where people want to come and play. Uh and the amphitheater is 19,900 seats. Uh it started out as a $35 million project. It is now a $65 million project, not because of inflation, because the individual building it saw something better and he wanted us to top it. So, uh we're excited about that and uh you know, you'll be hearing more obviously as it continues to move towards construction. uh Canterbury Crossing, that whole area is a $450 million investment. The city has $31 million in tiff invested into it. We've done all the infrastructure, all the stro roads, sewer, streets, streets, etc. Uh for that particular project uh and there's a lot more coming. Uh I think if you go down, you'll see down here you'll see uh bulldozers scraping stuff. That's because they're not doing it just to make things look nice. We got things in the hopper and more on that to come as well. Uh we have GN Resound. Uh they're coming into the old Shutterfly uh place. Shutterfly when it was fully operational had about 250 personnel that worked in there. GN is consolidating their North American headquarters. They are an international organization. They are Danish. Uh they do everything from hearing aids to cleaning headphones uh to other things dealing with sound. Uh and they are coming here uh and are in the process when they're done with rebuilding the interior of the old shutterly building. They'll have over 900 here and you know where Shutterflyy's wages were here. GMs will be here. Uh and and obviously if you just tour around the city you see new businesses opening up all over the place. Like I said, the future's bright. Uh we got a lot going on. We're we are estimated to be at over 50,000 this year in 2025. Uh with just the housing that we have in the pipeline that I talked about a little earlier, we're at 56 and a half for uh uh in population. um you know and then obviously we have all kinds of other things besides just uh population but uh uh you know some great parks we're building Jackson community regional park uh is being put together now as we speak among others the dog park is finally coming to the west side of the community which I know people have been curious about and that's uh in process forward as well that is what I have uh always feel free to reach out to me or any of my staff if you have any questions or concerns. I would like to say that uh uh I sincerely appreciate my my good partner Dr. Redmond and everything that we do. We don't always agree, but the interesting thing is is that we can normally find a way to work around that and find a solution that's best for the whole of the community. And I think that's very important with any leadership of any organization. So, uh I sincerely appreciate everything that Mike has done for us. uh and I can consider it an honor to be uh his co-c collaborator in crime if you will. I would echo that sentiment. No crime. [Laughter] Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Uh any questions before? So, kind of a two-part question. You referenced tax capacity. Yeah. Um if you could just distill that down to what what is included in that number? And then the followup question, growth is generally favorable, right? And we're seeing a lot of growth, correct? Do you feel the pace of growth is sustainable, that is, it's, you know, not too much too soon? Yeah. So, uh, when we talk about tax capacity, we're talking about the overall value of the community as a whole. And so then that becomes a big number. And then you can tax up to a portion of that. Uh but basically what we're talking about is your your tax base is growing and so that means your tax capacity both residential and commercial like all encompassing absolutely residential commercial agricultural shock is not growing. I don't know if you know but it's only an area that's not and our pace of growth is like it's a healthy pace or it is I I think uh when we were looking a couple years ago when we were at 19% growth we we were a little concerned to be upfront uh and so we took a step back and we started taking a look at things making sure we had the infrastructure in place to be able to support that. Uh but now that we have 5.5% this year and and you know we are in some unstable times uh we'll see what next year holds but I'm very comfortable with where we are today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well enjoy your meeting. Thank you very much. Thanks for all you do. Take care. Feel free to stay. We got a lot to talk about. My dog used to go I could use that one. Next on our agenda is item 6.2, the Southwest Metro Intermediate School District 288, latest news and update. And here to present is Jeff Horton, the Southwest Metro Superintendent. Welcome, Jeff. This your first time here since becoming superintendent, right? So, it is absolutely congratulations. Nice to have you very much. I'm kind of doing my tour going around meeting different boards and uh was the board uh student representatives. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. Uh just being here in the last nine months has been very exciting just to see the progress you've made in the last nine months which clearly you've been building upon and set the foundation four years before and we're seeing those outcomes academically. We're seeing that in terms of work you're doing community partnership with them. Um saw that your recent um operating levy recently your community support behind you as a school district. So congratulations and all your success and all the wonderful things that you have yet to come. Uh just want to give a quick introduction to myself and then our school district's been working on and then give you an opportunity to answer any questions or asking questions that I can answer. I heard that's something you've been saying all weekend trying to see. Um so Southwest Metro School. So uh this is our executive director team. Uh Melissa Canel is our executive director of teaching and learning. Nom Craig is our executive director of special services. Unfortunately, she did take a position. She's an amazing leader and she has a future opportunity. We're always excited to ser on amazing things. So, we'll be interviewing for that position soon, but she's a great partner and she's doing great things to help make sure that is handed off. Uh Dr. is our executive director of um of human resources and then Nicole Schmid has just joined us. Um she comes from Morrison Allen and she actually prior to us was overseeing school districts. So bringing her in she has a lot of traditional school experience which brings a perspective to and then right our director of communications. So what the heck is an intermediate school district? That's a that's something I've had when I get elder speech down. So my elder speech is I like to say it's a hybrid district. It's a hybrid of what traditional districts do but also campus agency. So we kind of live both worlds. Um it's actually defined in statute though. So if you take a look at statute uh there's a huge focus on both secondary and postsecary and adult learners and that's I think an area that is done. It's assessments that we can continue to grow. when I think about the amazing new work you're doing in your pathways and the programs that you're doing and how can we complement that work and support that and so we recently did a gap analysis which I'll talk a little bit about later to understand where you're at your visioning in your work and then how we can come in and be a partner to support that that um pathway for students as well as both of our needs. Um um so why do we have your needed school districts? There's four of them across all four Indies. We serve 20 30,000 students a year. Um our area spans around the south of the and then as far west as the over to Burnsville Burnsville area with our associate members and our regular members. But really it's way regional development. How work together as a region. How do we think outside our borders? How do we collaborate really off? how to be that collaborative partner for you uh to make things go that maybe would be really hard to do individually as a district or how can we enhance some of the other things that you're doing. Um so at the intermediates here 120 120 specialized different programs that we offer across the metro uh we have a lot of different services special as a big piece of them. So when students qualify for special education services can't get to their needs met in tradition district, we offer other settings other opportunities to help be successful. Um some of our big ones are adult education. So we have a very strong adult education program. Uh we have a lot of classes right now in um for like new country folks. So learning EL2 and so as we see lots of growth uh in the community and we're seeing different groups come to Shak such a great place finding ways to meet their needs is one thing that we do. Um we continue to work on that development uh both with Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and with our with our member districts. Um we also have alternative learnings like ALC so we have Southwest Central High School. We have online school. Uh we have care and treatment for students who need day treatment and meet their mental health needs. Uh we have career and technical education courses and then we have special education classes as well. Um okay I see it's in a different order than I have. Okay. I had to do a brain switch. My order was different. Okay. This is what we call. Okay. Uh so in the adult education area uh we have courses in citizenship. We have English language courses. We have the GE prep program and we do a lot of family literacy courses mentioned. Um we have new beginnings which is a really cool program for um both moms and dads. Um if a student has a child while they're still in school with us both moms and dads enroll in this program with us. And so we have child care for their for them. We do classes with them as well as help them get their high school. So really welcome in that way. Uh like I said there were ALC and then credit recovery for students who need booster therapy. Um our online program that is a whole suite of courses you can jump into anything everything online through that lots of online learning. We also have an heavy emphasis on counselors and social work really not just courses but really kind of that whole child education piece and we do that through both synchronous and asynchronous courses depending on the student course in career technical education. So similar to the different pathways they do have we have a number of pathways uh based around Minnesota career cluster I do think that there's some gaps in there that we continue to look at when we look at the local industry here we see that between ages 18 and 30 people disappear they go places they don't have a local college they go to tech they go somewhere else right to get that education we have lots of jobs for people to be working right out of high school those trades uh positions in particular, we think about where they end their experience in the Chicago system and how can we continue that postsecondary piece with them. Those are areas we're continue to explore with the city, with your member districts. Uh special services, autism, that's ASD. Um cognitive disabilities, that's ECD and emotional behavioral disorder, that's EBD. Those are students who may qualify for additional services that can't be met in your school. mostly come to our days and they spend most of their day in special education there. There's a reason I said most services and then transition which is your 18 to 22. So after some students don't finish at 18 they continue on um additionally just some things that we're working on. Uh hiring in our in our space is challenging just like all um but because we have such a high number of uh students receiving special education services and different rules and different lensure requirements hiring for special ed can be very challenging. Um when I started July 1st over 30 some% of our positions were open district and we had to figure out a way to get that figured out pretty quickly to meet our meet our member district's needs and our students. So, um, one of those programs is ITRA. Um, and so we do have, uh, some onetime funding from the state and it looks like in the legislative package right now that funding is set to renew, which is kind of exciting. We'll see where it ends. But this is a program that helps us help someone get from a pair professional to a teacher through an apprenticeship program. We're the first registered apprenticeship program in the state. Some other organizations have been confused to think that they were first, but we're truly first. So um think of it as like if you're a carpenter or electrician you might go through an apprentichip program they haven't existed in our state for education they they and we're the first and so hopefully we'll get that influx of money from the state that program for five we just recognized um by city shock for this and our work with them in partnership and how we're coming together to help folks in certain income thresholds get into the workforce. So um your income can't be too high to qualify this program and then we find ways to wrap around those experiences job and help. So that's been a great partnership with the county. Um so that's a little bit about what our different programs are. This is where I've spent a lot of my time. Um coming into I've been a superintendent before assistant superintendent principal and the director of special education. or two has in my career. Uh but anytime you enter space, learning about the organization and listening is very important. Understand what is the current state. And so um the first thing I did in my 100 day plan is did over a thousand uh engagements with superintendent, board members of various districts, uh staff, students, our families, our community. Uh really just listen. I did a 321 activity. I sat down and gave everybody about 20 minutes just to figure out what's going on and just let them debrief, right? Uh there's always during a transition there's always a lot of thoughts and feelings. So we just have to clear that space. Then I asked them what are three opportunity or what are three great things about Southwest Metro? What are two opportunities for growth? And then um may not tell you this but they'll have a wand superintendent wand and make it happen for you. what goal can we accomplish this year? And so they laid that out. Um we took all that data, we crunched it together. We used generative AI tools and kind of step for us and then we shared that with our with our team and with our board members for some feedback and that kind of set some initial decision making what we were doing. Um opinions are wonderful and feedback is wonderful but we also need to drop that in research and best practices. So then we started doing our needs assessments. Uh we did uh teaching and learning. So we took apart our system and we drilled down and did real cause analysis using tools from current and implementation science to best use best practices to figure out how we can improve student outcomes. We then know with our member districts and superintendents who brought their teams which thank you very much for bringing the team here. It was great to have them there and they talked about across our whole member system what are the gaps that we have um in our learning what are the things that we're doing really well and so they had a chance to share things that are going really well. We also got a chance to say where could Southwest Metro help fill those gaps. Uh we put a lot of money into elementary literacy, right? That's where we put a lot of resources. Uh but when we get to middle school and high school there, you know, how are we how are we doing that? And so we found across our system, not specific, but across our system doesn't period. We need some further conversation and how we do some um safety and security using tools from uh from uh the National Safety Center. We did uh 1,00 to,200 questions depending on the site. Uh so a six-hour assessment of each site to understand our safety and security. Uh we did a facilities assessment. architects help with that with that piece. Understand the current traditional facilities where we need to go in the future. We all understand that costs are are challenging enough for all districts. We have to find a path forward that's cost effective and manageable that things for students. Uh we also did the states analysis of that make sure we're maximizing utilization and that our systems and buildings are set up properly to support students uh communications HR and uh finance or some other areas as well. Once we completed that working chain and we moved into our portrait of graduate campaign. So we simply asked our community what are the characteristics of a southwest metro graduate what are the skills they should have when they leave our system. Um throughout this whole process we had over 38,000 bucks slots exchanged. Um I don't know what it was the last time we did strategic planning but I think we were probably down around 200 or so. I don't have the exact number. So that's percentage wise that's pretty great grow. So, we're pretty excited about engagement we're getting right now um with our community and that's great. So, that is leading us into where we are now, which is our strategic planning process. Um our board is kind of getting towards the real work and kind of finalizing what goals and what their mission division is for Southwest Metro and uh my chair Peterson is helping to spearhead that effort effort. So thank you for that and that helps me uh understand the direction that our organizations want to go collectively and it gives me something to be held accountable too which is really important. You know this is what the voice of our community the research is saying that's what I should be up and that's what I should be held accountable as well as our leadership and staff. So excited to see where that lands. Um and then the final piece of that will be setting our budget which is a reflection of our priorities and that's coming up in the next couple months once we best understand that. Uh there's a lot of needs and a lot of work to do, but we've done a lot of uh I think we've created a lot of efficiencies throughout the year by listening to people better streamline our funds and to get that work done costs which will support our member districts to continue to do great work with all our students. That is a little bit about Southwest Metro is what we've been working on and I'm excited to see where we go next after our work helps us set that question. Um, one one thought I have you talked about a budget. I'm just curious because we're we're talking about budget here. We've got budget on our agenda tonight. How does budget for intermediate school district work? Great question. Hopefully that's too not too big a but I'm just curious how how other works compared to a a general school district. Um the largest budget in leadership was $160 million and we had a unreserved fun we had unreserved fun $100,000. So that's one. So across a system that size with 23 sites, we had to be pretty accurate, right? So I like to I like to think that I there's always room to grow, but I know a few things about there's always more to learn, but I know a few things success with that tuning intermediate when I first walked in. It it was a different ball team like it's it's doing it's a little bit different. So trying to understand how all this works and the way our organization had been kind of grown I guess over the last 10 years from a or even 15 years from a small ed district merging to bers and then intermediate expansion. It's interesting to see how this all works. So um we're actually developing new tools. We didn't have any tools um prior to to me being there. Um Dr. I'm sure you had a chance to kind of experience some of this too. So feel free to share if you want. Uh we're doing we're right now building a budget models that will be able to better tell our member districts what we can expect from cost. So not just here's our overall cost but then a breakdown and so you can see from year to year where your expenditures are how that's coming. Um and so it relates back to the member district. Um if you have decision for example you have 10 new students that have really high needs well then that might be some additional costs and those costs come from a variety of places some comes directly to us from the state some comes from shop to eat and then there's kind of some other ways that kind of plays out too. Um but what we really want to show is that given all programming costs students the same here's how that is changing over time so you better prepare your budgets. Um we can't figure out everything's projection and we do our It's the same but um we think we'll have some tools to help our superintendent and our board members better than successful question. Sounds more complicated to it's been interesting. Can I just add to one thing to that? Please do. Um I know that previously and I'm sure that you're doing the same thing. Um have worked very closely with all of the weather members district um business office uh managers. Um Bill I know has been very helpful and instrumental and and helping guide um I guess the finances from you know here's how things maybe should be looked at or things to be considered. Um and then as you said we look at the usage. Um Shak obviously is one of the bigger schools as a member district. Um and so we are the top user at least the last information I had. Um and so the costs are shared. To me I almost look at it as we are 111 of an owner of Southwest Metro District. We buy a building or whatever. We have 111 right now share in that facility. Um but from a cost perspective it's really all the costs are shared based on usage and is the biggest user right now of the services at Southwest Metro just because we are a bigger district. For example, Jordan is another member. Their usage is much lower but they have fewer kids. Um and so I don't know does everybody know who's all member at Southwest Member? connection with those number districts. I know you mentioned because of geography but it's shaky prior lake um eastern harbor county water mayor Buffalo Montros uh Jordan [Music] Triing I know we voted we approved the budget and the list is right somewhere in a board packet from some months back but but it's a speak to the complexity for like we're trying to do a budget based on the the member districts and in a sense utilization and all that I can absolutely appreciate the number of funding sources in that model. Um and then I have a follow question that I don't want. Go ahead. So, uh, you know, we would kind of refer to as open enrollment. You mentioned that non-dist non-member districts can also participate services. Is there the equivalent of like an open enrollment if those students leverage those services or is that funding that just somehow gets absorbed into the larger model? That's a that's a great question. The answer is it depends. Most great questions, right? Um the uh there and this is some of the things that we're unpacking and trying to evaluate how it's been done in the past and maybe how we can do that a little bit better moving forward. Um is it a program or is it a school? Those are some important questions to ask and so and some things they're referral based like special education 74 that's referral based program. parent that they have to work internal process and every district will go over the map of their processes every process. We see some that are they lack traditional team services prior to that. So there's sometimes back and forth there assess this is best for the student and have those conversations. Um other ones yes students can open and roll from and then we can accept uh non-member students. So you can do a structure where you want to have your member districts at the lowest cost point. But by bringing in non-members or associate members, the theory behind that is that you can bring in additional revenue to offset your member district cost. Right? So an example might be uh might be a might of another one might some structure like that. There's uh some we're impacting all the different ways that's been done in the past. make sure that it's clear because I think it's been legal in the past on how that works. We want to make sure that that's very clear. We have a cost system that supports me. So, so it depends a little bit. Yeah. Thank you. I just had one other comment. First, thank you for the transparency on the magic wand. I think we have to re-evaluate Dr. Veteran's goals and objectives now that we know he has one too. Heard that was hypothetical. otherwise I'm cheat I've been cheated for a long time [Music] and I'll just say thank you for everything that you've done. I mean, I've been able to see kind of firsthand what what's been happening at Southwest Metro um since you've joined the organization and um I really appreciate all the work and hard work that has gone into completing the the listening sessions to the needs assessments to get us to where we are today to really look at who is Southwest and where do we need to go as an organization to make sure that all of our students that we serve get what they need to be successful. And that's going to look different for every single program. But I do think that as we know that needs are continuing to grow in a lot of those programs and how do we adapt and how do we um how do we become more flexible to allow for those opportunities. I think one of the things that Southwest has really prided itself on over the years has been the weight list for students. If a student has a need that we've been able to bring them in that we've had the staffing and staffing is has began a lot different as well for a lot of those programs that you have to have so many uh staff members for a number of students. It is a much smaller number. So class sizes for some of the programs are much smaller. So staffing does become a bit of a challenge and we've had to look outside and think outside the box for international teachers um who've been brought on board the grow your own programs those sorts of things but anyway circling back to my where I was going with my thought was I just really appreciate everything that you're doing and I really like the direction of where we're going with Southwest forward. Thank you for that. And it's really been the voice of our community and as you've all modeled and done a great job with it's the voice of our community that research it was just went out and listen I am happy to announce that next year we know lists um we did do that space analysis program and that comes we do that we know that but there's a bigger vision we're trying to work towards students so there'll be no weight lists and little flexibility to adapt and take people in uh we're going to be more staff In fact, uh we're picking up our very last international teacher Thursday this week. We're celebrating partnership to help us bring in almost 50 international teachers and for next year we'll be the largest employer of international teachers in the state. Um and because of that work and with MBTA and with the community partners we had the housing agencies we had all the things we've done well heard from people and chef is making fire pizzas for so get I call them the allar board so you get first you have to get on this board then you get to be on the allar pizza so that should be fun celebration everybody Do the uh alternate board members get to show up just for the wood fire pizza tomorrow night? I think they can and I think uh superintendent could definitely honestly it's open to the public. So if you want to show up and have a slice of pizza, we'd love to have you cook 30 seconds. Um, so you show up, you go out at 5, 5:30 if you want. Photo at 5:30, 5:45 and get home for whatever. You were there before at a meeting, so technically you should probably come. Yeah. I mean, I raved to them, right? You get to chef twice because that's right. They cancel that one. So I cheed like a other day. We made kind of meals and so meatballs and potatoes. I think everything like three or four of those things. [Music] Thank you. Appreciate you for all the public service. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is item 6.3, the attendance engagement specialist Scott County partnership. And here to present is Maline Hill, our attendance engagement specialist. As well, Sheriff Smith, if I can have a moment to to introduce our speakers and just remind the members of the board, it's been 18 months since we had our joint school board meeting with Scott County. Um, you know, we talked a lot that evening about collaborations and things that we could work on together and the attendance engagement specialist position was one of the components that that came from that. Uh, this position is fully funded by Scott County. Um, they uh they are essentially giving us a grant uh to employ now been with us throughout the school year doing a fantastic job. Uh Meline does report directly today uh which is why they're here tonight to report on the programming they have in place and the progress that they're making to get our our students um into school. Uh this slide deck is a preview of tomorrow, tomorrow at noon. Uh this same group will be in front of the Scott County Board. They've requested that we along with other folks they contract with come and provide updates. So we'll be updating tomorrow at noon. Um, and then on Wednesday, uh, I was invited to, uh, MDE, uh, to sit on a panel to talk about the partnership that we have with Scott County and some of the steps that we're taking to improve student attendance here at Ch School. So, I will be spending Wednesday at NBE and speaking uh, in the afternoon. So, I want to thank Meline and Ray for their work on this and we'll turn it over to them uh, for this update and I can tell you it's been enjoyable to pull Meline in a few times this year and hear about her work and just all the good things going on before I've had a chance to work with durian that was new and you heard that phrase fine but we're fine and she's doing a great job. Um we um one time we had one of our check-ins um and she received a call from a parent and she asked when she answered the phone. Yes. And um to sit and listen to her talk to a parent you know about their child how to get back in school the trust and the relationship she built with that family and with it was awesome. just a short time. I mean, she's only been here a little bit and um and so she's been really rocking it. Um I know it's been appreciated with family that she work with that. Yeah, thanks for the intro and good to see you guys again. Um so yeah, let's jump right into it. Um so just like Jim said, um this role is a partnership uh with Scott County um and attendance specialist role is designed to work collab collaboratively with Scott County attendance and um I started here July 2024 and um uh said the position is 100% funded by Scott County office out of the family resource center and um I have focus on shop west middle school grades six through Um goals here are to improve students attendance. Um continue to enhance practices and procedures around attendance, develop direct connections, um to help improve um the attendance of students um and support their families. Um we're looking to create a positive and measurable impact for students and um we're also looking for a greater understanding across um all different district programs and um Scott County programs such as paths and path prevention. Um and a little later in the slide I'll I'll dive deeper into what path prevention is specifically. Um, but that's a quick review of our goals and uh, we shared this back in the fall, too. Um, I'd like to give you guys a snapshot of what my dayto day looks like. My main job here is I'm managing a case load of specific students who are considered concret. I get my uh, case load by attending the east and west attendance meetings. And once I have a student added to my case load, um, hold an attendance meeting with members from Scott County, uh the school and the family. So, an example of a Scott County member that has been to um several of my attendance meetings is a student's um youth youth mental health case worker. Um that's a worker that's super involved with the family and student. So, it's very appropriate that they're there. Um other members uh from the school that are invited to the meetings are going to be added representatives, school counselors, social workers, cultural liaison who's ever regularly a part of this student's um education is invited to this meeting. Um and then also the student is always invited. Um and then the family, the legal guardian is always there too. Throughout the year I've had attendance meetings at um people's homes um and that's just what worked better for their schedule and transportation. Um I actually had a family who I was going to their home on a buy and basis Thursdays at 1 p.m. Um I was meeting at their house. Um we also have had attendance meetings at the school and at the family resource center for meetings that um so in addition to um attendance meetings um I'm also checking checking in with my students on basis to see um how they're doing. make sure they have what they need to build relationships and to also review um their attendance progress. Um this year I've also worked with the middle middle school building admin team to define clear processes and um commission communication channels in regards to attendance for the whole building. Um, I've been working on developing data collection systems to um, accurately measure my students attendance progress. Um, and then another item that I worked on this year with the communications department here at the DO is a proactive messaging um, to students and families across the whole district. And the next slide here shows um, that proactive messaging that we out. Um this flyer was sent out to all families in the district. Again, as a proactive measure and um this document here, it explains why attendance is important. It explains how shop um tracks attendance. It lays out what is considered a verified and unverified excuse. Um so in other words it lays out how a parent can um make an account on infinite campus the program that the students have but their attendance their class schedule grades um and all that. So it shows parents how to make an account on there so they can track their students attendance and then it also uh demonstrates it also informs families on how they can call in about an absence that their students be gone. Um so again this is a proactive measure trying to you know um address attendance before becomes you know a recurring issue. Uh the next chart here, this chart shows uh a uh snapshot of the truency rates compared to last school year and this school year, grades six through eight. So the first the first column uh that shows the percentage of students who are attending school on a regular basis here at um East and West Middle School. The middle column shows the percentage of students that are um absent from school from 30 to 70% of the time, which is equivalent to a student a student missing 52 to 119 days by the end of the school year. And then the last column represents number of students who are missing more than 70% of the year which would be equivalent to missing more than 119 days in a year um by the end of the school year. Um the population of students that I'm working with is highlighted in the green column. So um um Shak's attendance expectation is that students are missing no more than 10% of the year. So if there are attendance concerns with any student in that first column, uh they're going to receive tier one attendance interventions from staff members like school counselor, cultural liaison, um school social worker. So anybody who's been acting 11% to 29% of the time, that's who's going to be supporting most students. Anyone missing 30 to 70% of the time is going to receive tier 2 intervention, which is provided by me. Um And last year there was about 31 students in this range. This year there's 26. And then any student in the middle schools who's missing more than 70% of the year or again more than 119 days by the end of the year, they're going to receive tier three attendance intervention support through um the county's programs, which is path prevention. Um and path prevention is composed of two local agencies that uh support students and families um who have students that are chronically absent. Um they have the catalaso group. That's who you work with first. If attendance improves with the catalaso group then that's awesome. Then we'll keep doing what they're doing. If attendance does not improve then it continues to be a concern with work at treehouse. If attendance uh increases, improves, they'll keep doing what they're doing. If it doesn't improve, then ultimately a truency will need to be reported. So, um, so again, this chart, um, it shows you the percentage of students, um, and the different absenteeism ranges and then, um, I just explain like who's supporting these students different sections. Um, so every student that is absent 30% of the year has some sort of intervention in place at Shock East and West Middle School. I just think that's a super powerful statement and super important to share and it just goes to show how hard shopping public schools specifically the middle schools is working to address attendance and make sure that um their kids flying under the radar and not getting what they need. So I just think that's really powerful and important to share. Um so uh this slide right here this represents the the demographic breakdown of the students that I worked with this year. Um when I made this slide I had worked with 22 students but I just got two added to my case load today. So I met 24 but this is based on the 22 up until then. So, um, as when it comes to race and ethnicity, the three largest populations that I've worked with so far this year have been students that are white, students are that are Hispanic, and students that are black. Um, 12 out of the 22 students have identified as female, 10 have identified as male. And then when it comes to the different grades, um, eighth grade has been the grade where I have the most students that are chronically absent. And then it kind of goes down from there. So like the higher grade, more students um with attendance concerns. This slide right here shows a visual of the partnership. middle schools and um Scott County's um uh shorty process. So again, we're working at east and west, grades 6 through 8. Um and then at the at the middle school, we're holding the attendance meetings. We're we're literally looking at every student to see how much school they've missed and where their absentism rate is. And any students who are missing um more than like % of the year they're getting assigned to somebody and um again the school counselor social worker um cultural leazison equity specialist they're getting students from that 11% to 29% and I'm getting the students that are absent 30 to 70%. Once I get a student added to my case load, I'm going to hold uh an attendance meeting, an inerson one where I'll invite family, student, and any other relevant team members. Um after that first meeting, we will schedule a second inerson followup meeting to review the success of the plan that we create in the first meeting. Um and I forgot to mention the point of our first meeting is to identify um the attendance barriers and create a plan to remove those barriers. So, at the second meeting, we review the progress towards um their attendance. If uh the original plan that we make is unsuccessful, we're going to make some adjustments and we're going to continue to on a regular basis until attendance improves until we come up with a plan that sticks and works with the students. If the original plan that we made in that first week is successful, we will another followup meeting um on a timeline that's determined by the team at the meeting and um I'll continue to monitor the students attendance to make sure that plan is um consistently working as the year goes on. Um ultimately if a student that I work with if they're attendance that is not approved it continues to be um a concern I will make referral to the path prevention program and then um the family will work with them. So that's how um that's how um my position has worked between the middle school county that's the bridge there. Um and then out of the the 22 students that I've worked with this year, nine students have improved their attendance at East and West Middle School. Um, and attendance improved attendance is determined by if the student has made significant progress or if they've met their attendance goal. So at that original meeting where we're identifying attendance barriers and creating a plan, we're also making a goal for that student to reach. So um, if they reach that goal, if they're making progress that improve attendance and um, I should say also like when they once they do reach their goal, we make another one. So there's always something that we're working towards, you know. Um, and then four students have been set up with an alternative school setting such as homeschooling, online school, and then I have one student return back to their home district. Um, I have five students where um I'm still developing the plan or seeing it through. So, I have like two families in there where I'm still trying to get the initial meeting scheduled. Um there's another family or another student where we're still needing to figure out a plan that works. And then there's a couple students who um not enough time has passed for me to determine if um if they're making enough progress or they met their attendance goal yet. That's um with those five students land for the students I worked with this year. I referred to PATH and then ultimately two of those did end up in filing. um after past prevention efforts um were exhausted. Um and then this slide right here um we this slide lists the factors that I personally observed that contribute to a student's absenteeism. And I would say the most three most common that I come across in a lot of my phone calls, my text, my emails, my meetings with families um is going to be um the top one for sure. So I have some families who are still operating under co messaging about if you feel sick to stay home. So um some families that are still operate operating under that messaging. Um and um definitely mental health concerns with the student and or the family that's not being properly addressed is definitely a major intense barrier that we are frequently having conversations about. And then also if a student is struggling academically, socially or behaviorally. if they're um struggling in one of those areas or all three or two of those areas um there seems to be um less motivation to get to school. Um so that's another barrier too. I would say I would say those three are the most common but these are all relevant for sure. um to address the attendance barriers that we uh um have come across this year. Um the middle schools offer a variety of supports. Um and again, I'm going to share the three most common ones implemented. Uh so the first one, changing the students class schedule or giving them an alternative spot to eat lunch um has helped. Um so um you know, adding a stud as an elective for a student who is feeling a little behind in their homework has been helpful. A student who I we changed with the school counselors um we change class schedule so that they're more of their friends so that because they're really motivated socially to get to school. Um so those are just a couple quick examples there. Um and then um connect therapy um has been a huge huge um support in the schools to help students who have like mental health concerns. Um and that and that removes barriers for the family of like trying to draw trying to get them set up with some sort of outside program trying to figure out a way to get them there. Um it's super helpful to address mental health and it's really helpful for the families too. So that's something I really um would be super helpful. And then also when a student uh is absent for a period of time um as you can imagine the missing work starts to pile up and um that on top of whatever barriers were already at play increases their anxiety and worries about coming back to school. So, um teachers have been super awesome about making helping me make um homework makeup plans for students so that we can take their missing assignment homework list from this and cutting it down to this so that it's more manageable and hopefully you know increases that motivation to come back to school. Um in addition to supports that are provided uh in the school um we've also utilized resources um within the county. So um something that I bring to all of my meetings is that business card that's on this slide. Um there's a QR code and um there's a list of different areas. So like if a family is struggling financially, if there's mental health concerns, if there's food um in security. They can click those different topics and it will jump down to the page that lists different resources in the area um that um um you know can um pop out with an area that they're struggling in. So they can give you different um places for like food shelves or different um um places where you can just like therapy and whatnot. So it's a it's like a resource guide. is super helpful every meetings and um I should have taken a picture but I also have one that's in Spanish too which is really um Canadian too because I have a couple of Spanish families. Um two resources that I've had families utilize right from that community connections guide is the MVTA connect ride share which um provides discounted rides for um people in the county. So, um I can't remember how much the rides are off hand, but they are um discounted and they are way cheaper than an Uber or a lift. So, I had a family who they have a car now, which is awesome, but they didn't earlier in the year. They're utilizing that because that's a super helpful resource. And then I also had also had a family earlier in the year who um was really struggling with their their child's not sure who to turn to. Um didn't have anybody in their community that they could relate to. So, you know, they signed up for this parent support group. They went to um a handful of sessions where they were able to connect with other parents who whose child had similar mental health pieces going on. um you know the intent the goal and intention is that they learn from each other provide support and just you know create community so they don't feel alone and ultimately help the child. Um and then last slide here describes um how we see what what we want to happen with this position going into the summer and next year. So um uh In the spring here, I'm looking to connect with the attendance teams at the elementary level, learn about incoming sixth graders who had previous attendance concerns in elementary school. Um, going to meet with them towards the end of the school year so I can um, you know, have a staff member introduce me to them and their family and then work with them throughout the summer to start to prepare for that transition to middle school. and starting to build healthy habits. Um, help with attendance. Um, also, um, I'm going to help out with summer school this year in regards to attendance. Make sure any student that I was working with this year that signs up for summer school, which I have a couple of other strongly encouraging them to sign up. Um, making sure that they're getting there. And anyone else who has attendance concerns for summer school, um, I'll be supporting there. And then um we're looking to have you connect with other school districts in the area who are working to um improve students attendance so that um you know again we can learn from each other working in other districts. I can share what I learned they can share what they've learned. So um looking to connect with other districts that way and then um yeah last slide here is for questions. Thanks for listening. Hope too quick or anything or too long. Any questions here? Thank you very much. Yeah. Uh it's just it's great to have you uh in the district and see the great things you're already doing. Kind of curious how how does how does a student first come to your attention? You know, you've got 22 now 24. Um do you see like the records and it's last year, so they're already on your radar. Or are they referred to you directly or do you wait until they have like 10 absent days out of 30 and they suddenly pop up base? I'm just kind of curious how they Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, at the beginning of the year, I got the students on my case load um um by um by reviewing attendance from last year to see like who have had attendance concerns in the past at the middle schools. And then as the year goes on um again at the attendance meetings like we're tracking students students absency is a percentage. So, um, once any student has that has hit that 30% mark, but they've talked to 30% of the time, um, no matter if we're two months into the school year or if we were four months in or at this point, um, they're added to that case load. And then, um, throughout the year, like I had like nine students who their attendance have improved. Um, they've kind of been like taken off my case load, but they're still on my radar. Like, I'm still checking in every week to make sure that they're um, they're still attending on a regular basis. I check in with them but not as often as once a week as the students who are like offic Thank you. It sounds like yeah you're doing a lot of good work here. Clearly your job is like to work your way out of a job to some degree. Hopefully that is a problem. I imagine communication is a challenge working with sixth, seventh and eighth graders. you have to go through the parents for the most part at that level. And does that present a problem with something kids you're working with the parents aren't as cooperative as you'd like to have them be or is it an out? Um, you know, um, yeah, there's a couple times where um, you know, yeah, there's there's times where it takes me it takes me one phone call to get a hold of a parent. Sometimes it takes me three phone calls, two emails, five texts before I get a hold of them. And there's been a couple times where I've literally had to go to their house to get them to respond to me. So it it has I've had all of it sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Is there the ability to go to the high school, too, or is just that's kind of the source of when this becomes a big problem for students? Um, so we're looking at sixth and sixth through 8th grade right now. um address attendance concerns in that population so that we can change those habits before they go to high school so that these students who um you know attendance plays a crucial role to graduation. So we are trying to work with these students to increase their attendance in high school. There's not attendance concerns and there's not a risk of them like not graduating. Um but we have had conversations about how um my position could help work with the high school and I know for sure like students that are in eighth grade right now um like um we've had conversations about to support them in nth grade with that transition. I actually had I was super sweet girl on my case. All my students are wonderful, but she asked me, she's like, she's in eighth grade and she's like, "So, are you like be at the high school with me next year?" And I was like, "I will make sure that I am like I don't even worry. Like, I got you. Like, I will be there." So, um, couple of questions. Maybe this is more related for Jim and Mike. Um, thank you, Ray. Um, I know this is a joint partnership with the county. Um, has the county provided, and maybe this will be tomorrow at community, but has the county provided any feedback on the work that we're doing and how it might be impacting their work as a result of the positive things that are going on with this position. I think at this point Ray and Meline with Meline being based out of the family resource center, she sees county staff on a regular basis. Nikki Halberg in particular is counterpart of the county and um we will be getting more formal feedback tomorrow. I don't know Ray, have you heard anything from Nikki Hallber? Yes, in our discussion that we had Nikki almost that relationship and prior meetings of their patrol workers working and what they were doing from Scott County just the numbers number big and the case loads that they have are so huge you know having enough people to do some of the things that we're doing that's why we really narrow it down to sixth seventh eighth grade right um but I think she's she's doing a wonderful job um people that I tal to county, they really talked about it. It's it's hard. I mean, just because there's so many numbers, they can't reach every single kid that they have on a case. So, there's case loads that are too big for some of the people in the county right now. So, they're trying to work on how can they find more. I think you need to go deeper. Uh, Department of Education office as well because this job is so important to see those because I mean this is a grant that the county has received so grants don't typically last forever. So that's why I'm wondering what what the impact has been counting, you know, great results as a result of having this position, but since this is the county funded position, I just worry when it comes to grant what I don't know where the grant is coming from, but the source, but what impact that might have on some of the uncertainty that we have with grant dollars. My understand was the original contract. I don't I don't know beyond that. I don't know, you know, if there's any risk to the the funding source. I think what this does for the county and I think that Maline spoke to this well, you know, we're trying to find the best resource for each student. There are students who are social workers. This is essentially trying to have for students get back to school because the barriers or something back to school. We really do this as being like county social worker or officer. They typically run case of 15 plus or minus a couple. from the outset. [Music] I applaud you for all the work that you've been doing. It's I think you hit it right on the head. It's all about relationships. And if these students haven't been able to make that connection and establish relationships um in their school experience so far, they've been able to like girl in high school there. Um those are all import factors that get kids to school. It's it's that relationship building and it's not necessarily with their peers, but with staff. And so I I really appreciate you and and all the work that you've been doing to get our kids in school establishing those relationships because for some kids that might be the only adult relationship that they might have. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Our agenda is item 6.4 fiscal year 26 proposed budget. Presenting is building our director for finance bill. Thank you. I'm just going to grab this laptop. [Music] Yes. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity uh to present the fiscal 26 budget for review and discussion this evening. Uh what you have on your screen and on the TV screens here are 11 slides going over next year's budget. My goal because this is a school board discussion item is to get through those 11 slides and about 10 minutes here and then turn it back to you in terms of discussion or questions you may have for that. Uh before we dive into the details, uh thank you for recognizing our finance team at the beginning of the meeting for the ADO certificate of excellence in financial reporting and our credit rating upgrade. Um that means a lot to a group that is largely behind the scenes. So thank you for doing that. Uh agenda items for tonight. Uh much of this process is governed by statute and so we'll talk about our annual budget requirements and the commitment to our community in terms of our fiscal transparency in our process. Uh we'll then go into our fiscal 26 general fund budget assumptions that you are used to drive our revenue and expenditure projections. Next we'll talk about our guiding budget principles that we utilize every time we develop budgets. Uh we will then look at the next two bullet points which is really the meat and potatoes, our general fund revenue and expenditure summary and our general fund fund balance projection for next year. Uh we'll then talk about a timeline to a June 2025 recommendation for school board approval on next year's budget and then a time for questions or other discussion items that you should have. First starting with budget requirements. I mentioned that much of our process is governed by statute and it is statute 123b.77. It requires the school board to approve uh the annual budget prior to the start of the school year or the fiscal year on July 1st. So I will use the term uh 202526 or fiscal 26 and I would imagine Dr. Well, I know Dr. Redmond will do that. We've met several times on the topic. Uh he will use those terms as well. So just if we're toggling back and forth between those know that we're talking about the same year and it's next year from July through June. Uh our budget process, our budget process in Shock Schools is a continuous four-step process. And it's important to note that each step is important and it's important enough that it requires schoolboard approval and is open to public inspection and comment. If at any time the community wants to come in and inspect our documents or make comments on our process, we would welcome those comments or questions. Our process starts with our property tax levy and truth and taxation meeting. uh you approved the truth and taxation uh meeting last December, December of 2024, which set the tax levy for calendar 2025 and fiscal year 2026. So right now we know our projected tax levy revenue for next year, fiscal year 2026. Step two is what we're going through right now, our preliminary, also known as our adopted budget for next year. Um we will get approximately a little bit more than halfway through the fiscal year and then we will have typically brought a revised budget to you in January, February um with things that are just not known during the preliminary budget process. Things like contract settlements that may remain open, uh legislative summaries that we may not know as part of the preliminary budget holding process. And then finally, we'll close our books and have our annual financial report and fiscal audit. Uh typically that's reported to the school board for approval in November after the end of the close of the fiscal year. our guiding budget principles. First, uh we lead with fiscal transparency. We strive uh to provide transparency and clarity and and frankly consistency in our budget process and everything that we do financially. And then our main guiding principle from a policy standpoint is fund balance policy 714. We talked about that quite a bit. Uh strive to maintain an unassigned fund balance in the general fund between 8 and 12%. Um you'll recall that we have really targeted that 10% of the mid-range of our fund balance policy. Um next year our our budgeted expenditures that you will see in the general fund are 132.2 million. So obviously easy math 10% fund balance. The mid-range of the policy is 13.2 million. Um, and as you'll see in in the upcoming slides here, when we look at our revenue and expenditure summary and fund balance impact, we do project to be able to remain at 10% at the end of fiscal 26. Uh, so at June 30, 2026. Um, in order to do that, uh, we do we are going to recommend significant utilization of our restricted fund balances and some of our assigned fund balances to remain at that number. If that didn't make sense, I'll unpack that further when we get to the fund balance. Uh really school district budgets are nothing more than developing assumptions and then putting those into practice. And so uh major budget assumptions are shown here on this page. And uh they're an integral part of adopting a budget adopting a budget. Um we develop assumptions on the right hand side there in student enrollment, expenditures, and revenue. And you can see our major assumptions category. As we all know, we're in a period of natural decline in student enrollment. And that's reflected on our enrollment assumptions for next year. We're projecting an enrollment projection. This is students, so not pupil units. Right now, we're talking about students or average daily membership of 7,457 students. A decrease in enrollment of 82 students from this year's revised budget projection. So, we did this year's revised budget. Now looking at next year, we project to be down to 82 students year-over-year. And that's early childhood through grade 12. Expenditure assumptions. So obviously school districts are people intensive organizations. It's important to develop some assumptions around salary, wages, and employee benefits. And that's what you see here. Uh we have put estimates for contractual obligations that expire at the end of this year. So we know that the shock via education association contract expires at the end of this year as does our paraprofessional contract and we've developed assumptions for what we expect in terms of contractual obligations for next year for those contracts that expire. There are also contracts that are settled through June of 2026. So we know what those actual expenditures are and we've u added those to the budget as well. Uh we've added 3% for nonwage and benefit items, things like supplies and materials, um utilities, uh things of that nature, purchase services, things like that. And then we do have a different increase for district transportation, uh provided through Palmer bus service. And we've talked previously about our property insurance increase has has been a little bit more significant. That's here now. A little bit a lot more significant. Uh and so we've added that increase in the budget for next year as well. And then lastly, under our revenue assumptions, uh looking at the 2021 voter approved operating levy. So recall in 2021 when question one and two were approved, that was 1,266 per pupil unit. Uh that number is tied to inflation. And so here we are in calendar year 2025. Um that amount has increased to $1,371.84 per pupil. Um and also state aid. So state aid is uh indexed to inflation. Now the formula increase that that the state has sent us is 2.74%. Um so the state formula increase next year would be to $7,481 per pupil. It is important to know however that although our operating levy is tied to inflation and has increased from 1266 up to 1372 rounded and the state formula increase is indexed to inflation as well. It's both of those revenue categories are paid based off of your enrollment projection and so those inflationary increases are mitigated by our revenue or our enrollment decrease as well. Where does the money go? So, uh, looking at a pie chart of our general fund, uh, it's important to note that more than 65% of our general fund budget is spent on elementary and secondary regular instruction and special education instruction. So, the two large areas the graph highlighted there. It's even more so if you add our voca our vocational education instruction and then that 10% that we spend on instructional support services. Much of that is classroom expenditures as well. things like media center, um counseling and guidance support, things of that nature. Much of our pupil support services, that 9% is our district transportation. Our contract with Palmer bus is in that category. That's not the entirety of it, but it's a large percentage of that. Sites and buildings, that's our custodial services as well as our operating capital and long-term facilities maintenance projects. Fiscal and other, that's largely our property insurance. and then obviously administration and district support services as well. Now getting to the meat and potatoes of the next two slides. So our adopted budget revenue and expenditure summary. Um as you can see we're we're looking at a period here where we're going to be heading into some budget headwinds. Um I'm sure everybody's heard about area school districts that are experiencing some of the same. We're not immune to that. And so you're going to see some of that on the next two slides. So, uh, reading from top to bottom and and left to right, you'll see under the general fund revenue. Uh, the way this reads is last year's actual general fund revenue. So, you can see last year we collected in revenue 100 just over 129 million. This year's revised budget is 126.2 million and then next year's budget highlighted in gray is 125 a.5 million. So obviously when you're looking at a 24-month period with over $3 million less in general fund revenue that provides some pretty significant budget challenges and much of that is derived from um the federal grants role where you see that that's decreased. A lot of that is is the expiration of our pandemic related revenue. Uh but a much of that is is from nominal increases uh from the state and also related to our student enrollment point as well. And then looking down below at the expenditures, um you can see that last year we we spent 120.4 million in expenditures. This year we're budgeted to spend just shy of 127 million and next year that increase is just under 4% uh up to 132 million based off of those assumptions that I talked about previously. So going to the next page, the real measure of our financial health is that unassigned fund balance as I and as I mentioned that we are projecting in the preliminary budget to remain at 10% as of June 30, 2026, which would be 13.184 million. In order to do that, um, well, first going up page, there are non-spendable fund balance. That's things like inventory and prepaid. So we don't project a change there. That's just based off of the um the balance and inventory prepaids at the end of the year. Long-term facility maintenance, that's a lot of our deferred maintenance, health and safety, and disabled accessibility projects. Um operating capital, so we've talked about um our school district curriculum adoption, and we've had a plan spend down in that operating capital fund balance, and that's shown here going from just north of 3 million at the end of this year to 1.2 million next year. That's a plan spend down related to those curriculum adoption expenditures. Um our our capital projects technology levy is projected to remain flat. And then as I mentioned at the beginning the next two rows uh in order to remain at 10% we are recommending to utilize a significant portion of our restricted fund balance and also our assigned fund balance. So assigned for district programming is a fund balance that we've built up in previous years in order to utilize that for um a projected budget need in a in a subsequent year. And that's what you see we're doing exactly that next year. Uh and our restricted fund balance is uh primarily derived from a fund balance that we've developed in compensatory and also in learning the development and we're recommending spending those uh fund balances down as well. Um, the good news is we have that available. Um, the other news is that that's a that's a onetime revenue source. So, it's it's onetime fund balance that we can use one time and we're looking at utilizing that in fiscal 26 in order to keep that fund balance at 10%. And then lastly, with a with regard to a timeline, uh, we really started this process back in February with the finance and facilities committee. We had another meeting in March with that committee and then again tonight uh the committee was generous to to add another meeting to talk about all of our projection information. We're talking about uh fiscal 26 at the school board meeting tonight. We'll continue the conversation at the next meeting in April before we bring in uh review of all funds which would include obviously our food service community debt service and our non- major funds. uh at the meeting in May. Uh we'll address any budget questions at our June 9th meeting before finally recommending the fiscal 26 budget for approval on June 23rd to be in compliance with extension. Well, that was not 10, that was 14 minutes. Uh but that is all that I have in terms of next year's budget. I realize that's a ton of information in a short period of time. Um this is going to be an agenda item here moving forward at future meeting or at future meetings. So u if you have any immediate questions I'll be happy to take that. Mr. Chair, just one follow question. Um you had mentioned like I lose the oper line and having to do more so with the curriculum in effect that's a one-time expense right associated with that purchase. So that's not necessarily a continuing expense in the future years. Is that a fair statement? That that is fair. Yeah. So, uh, we do have curriculum. I mean, there's expense. Yeah. Yes. But not not a significant spend down in a future year. Um, there have been years where we actually build that operating capital fund balance, but when our our curriculum purchases are much less than our revenue that we collect. Um, it's typical for that fund balance to go up and down based off of those curriculum purchases. And I I was just going to draw a correlation to it's yeah, it's a one time one time money, right? But it's also against a one time investment as opposed to sure if providing educational services over time. That's a continuous like trajectory and one time money is just that. Absolutely. Thank you. Stole my question. That was question. Thank you. Uh we addressed this in the meeting earlier and I missed it. I apologize. But I for clarity sakes on one of the the adopted budget revenue of expenditure summary page. The other local revenue is in 2324 was 6.5 and it's 2.3. What is that? Yeah, good question and we didn't address it and I probably should have so thank you for asking. Uh much of that is has to do with CFC central family center land sale last year. Um so the the decrease is significant. So, not all of that has to do with it, but a large chunk, I think about a million and a half has to do with the CFC land sale. So, that's where that landed to tie both points together. Um, the CFC land sale revenue is in operating capital revenue, but also categorized in other local revenue. So, not to muddy the waters too much, but that that's part of the decrease. Um, some of that is a conservative interest revenue estimate this year. If you recall, we had significant interest revenue last year and it's recorded under the other local revenues. This year, I backed off of that estimate a little bit. Um, not a little bit, significantly. Um, and I think we're coming in a little bit better than projection on interest revenue this year than than that budget. Um, and then we had some technology I looked at this. We had some technology sales, some miscellaneous um technology sales through Brian Gross, our tech director. That's where that revenue came in last year, and it's the more significant that I budgeted for this year. Yeah. When you add up those three main areas, that's the main cause of the decrease. more. I have one quick question. Um for the state aid and the revenue, um it looks like we've got um an increase there from what we added 2324 94 billion to some kind of local um 93735871. So that's about a2 and a half million increase is that the inflation the 2.74% or where is that increase in funding coming from? Yeah. So the the increase from this year's budget um I'm circling it on the screen here. 93.372 million about 400,000 that I'm budgeting for next year to 93.7 million. Got it. So that is the 2.74% mitigated by the enrollment loss. There are there are other factors there. Um special ed cross subsidy revenue is is in this area as well. But the main cause of the increase is is the 2.7. Thank you. Thank you. Next on agenda is item 6.5 financial planning model and bill will remain to present along with Dr. Yeah, thank you. Smith and board members. Um, we're going to Bill kind of to to help you bring it up. You talked primarily about next school year's budget, fiscal 26. We're going to extend out another year uh and then a little bit even beyond that and you know what typically Bill would refer to as you know long range financial planning model FPM which is why it has that title. If we go to the next slide, this is al not tonight but over the next you know weeks, couple of months uh there is ultimately some some pretty important decisions in terms of uh our you know plotting on planning our financial future uh in our school district. So what we're going to do this evening is really lay out what is as best we can kind of the context of the situation. was tricky over there. And so what I was just alluding to is, you know, we've got uh we have some financial challenges in fiscal 27. Uh and then also, you know, when you're working on that, you have to take a look then at fiscal 28 and beyond as well. Initiating that. And I think I used the word context already, but this really important word here is what we're trying to do is share what is as best we can. Looking for feedback, looking for questions. Got some real good ones at our finance and facilities committee meeting this evening, but trying to to give you our best sense of uh where our district stands and and how things will likely play out uh next year and the year that follows that and and then even a little bit beyond. This is, you know, Bill alluded to this too. Um, there are very I can't I don't know of many school districts in the state of Minnesota that aren't facing some form of financial challenge uh as we uh kind of we're in the midst of this current legislative year, but looking to plan, you know, kind of budgets in the future. This data is self-reported data. comes from other school districts through the Association of Metro School Districts. And yes, the the middle column there will have more numbers. They haven't been reported yet, but just to give a sense, these are our you know, there's a statewide challenge. Uh we've seen the news stories. And then there's uh you know, for us kind of that local context matters, too. But these are the the districts that we often compare ourselves to the other 11. Uh some of them made pretty significant budget cuts for this school year uh and have already set to work on making significant budget cuts for next school year. We've made adjustments um in the form of you know decreasing enrollment uh but we have not made formal budget cuts. So whether that's a zero or whether that's you know that number should be a little bit different in those columns uh still a lot less than those other numbers. This um is kind of a I don't know. We're going to an event. This is a spreadsheet and actually guess there's a couple more if anybody over there wants. This is to help anchor this kind of an anchor spreadsheet if you will. Uh all the work that Bill does, he can tie back in and out of the budget that he just showed you for fiscal 26. This is not that type of a spreadsheet. This is really meant to give feedback that people who look at school finance can follow. And so we've broken it down by the four pieces where people tend to have interest or ask questions. And everything doesn't necessarily tie back and forth on this particular spreadsheet, but it's it's an attempt to give trend data to help help explain the context of where we're situated financially. And so if you look at the, you know, the top section on the page, it talks about revenues. Then it shifts to student enrollment. And then the third section is about uh employment uh of teachers. And then we get into the expenditures uh by MDE by codes. And so as we talk about some of the pieces of this, we'll even refer back to the uh the rows. This would be rows 11 and 16 on on that uh you know anchor spreadsheet if you will but it talks about the impact of decreasing enrollment and feel the data is very good for this fiscal 21 through fiscal 26 and as we look at this um you know there's a cost when you have fewer students that that impacts your state education aid uh and you can see you know the amounts for fiscal 22, fiscal 23, fiscal 24, current school year, fiscal 25. Uh we feel that we we have a a very accurate projection of student enrollment for fiscal 26. And then one of the questions that was asked the finance committee and it's a great question. Fiscal 27 and fiscal 28, those numbers are still u they've been adjusted, but they haven't been further adjusted. And so we are trying to figure out we're between two major trends and I that's not the purpose of this evening. One is we're still seeing declines in kindergarten enrollment. You know, right now it's at about 424 students. We think it's close to bottoming out, but even though it's been going down, uh we're we're we're seeing some different trends. You know, you would expect that 424 to kind of metriculate through. Traditionally, when it did that, we really only saw a jump in students, you know, sometimes sixth grade into seventh grade and then a significant growth, you know, um, eighth grade into ninth grade. What we're seeing now are multiple grades, adding students that were not ever kindergarteners or sometimes, you know, didn't even come to the primary grade. So, we're trying to track that, figure out if that's a temporary change or a more permanent change. And so right now the numbers in fiscal 27 and 28 are very conservative. Um but it's still the the point of this is to I I don't think people fully understand the impact um of declining enrollment in terms of state aid and revenue makes sense on the surface. Fewer kids, less money, but some things, you know, you still need a finance department to do the accounting. you still need lots of things that whether you have 7,000 kids or 8,000 kids or 9,000 kids, you you kind of have the same level of of need. Other things we adjust, you know, based on enrollment. Um, this piece was, you know, people cut up how do you spend your money? And so if you look at uh the expenditures uh you know the the primary places where where we spend our resources uh regular instruction and whether you look at it you know the actuals fiscal 21 through 25 or projected through fiscal 28 um if we do the the projection fiscal 21 through 28 uh we expect our our expenditures on regular instruction to total 15.2 2 million. Um, an interesting side note, because of the decline in enrollment, we actually have fewer teachers this school year than we had in the 2021 school year. We expect to have fewer yet in the 2728 school year. So even though our number of teachers in that regular instruction category are fewer, that expenditure, you know, is increasing by a little bit over 5% per year. Special ed instruction, similar to that. We do not have a decrease in teachers there, but we do have an increase um a little over $10 million. We did receive uh special education state aid over the same period. Uh we expect that to to be 9.2 million. Um so for a little bit that that aid was was covering those additional increased costs and by the time we get to uh the 2728 school year uh the uh expenditures are projected to be greater than than that additional aid that has come our way recently. And then another category, people support transportation. Uh part of you know coming out of the operating levy in November of 21, we shortened the walking distances. Uh also just the cost of transporting students, fuel and those type of things has increased. So that's an expenditure there. And if you you go back to uh we go to the next slide, but the bottom of your anchor spreadsheet, you know, if you look at the expenditures and and these are, you know, what we would call the general kind of general fund expenditures are the things that people track uh through that. not all of the expenditures in our district, but when you look at these pieces there, you'll notice that the three that were just on the previous slide total roughly $30 million. Uh all of those, you know, all of those categories total about, you know, $35 million in terms of an increase uh from fiscal 21 to fiscal 28. And then just, you know, again, you've got the revenues pulled out there to track and and that's just to try to give give our board members and our community uh this information uh in a usable framework. And then if we go to the next slide, we're going to shift away from enrollment and expenditures and just focus a little bit on another part of our financial reality, which uh not only our individual financial reality, our families, but uh you know, a school district trying to operate and provide services. We're not immune from inflation. Uh we thought the table format it is the most I lose my voice in the middle of this meeting. I've never done that at a board meeting before. used to happen quite often coaching basketball. I haven't even yelled at anybody today, Joe. So, you just happen to be here at the table. But uh you'll see that you know kind of starting in April of uh 2020 or sorry 2021 uh inflation increase and uh we've got the monthly rates there and I think there just provides a little more source data or substance to the next slide uh which we see quite often and you'll notice for quite a quite an extended period of time the this this graph shows the orange dotted line is the actual amount of uh general education ation aid or per pupil aid that we receive, you know, our school district receives from the state or and all school districts do. The per pupil is the orange dotted line. The solid blue line uh is what that would be if it were adjusted over time for inflation. And you'll notice the gap between those two things is pretty constant as you come upon the year 2021. and that gap in in the year 2021. Uh the difference between the orange line and the blue line, the the line that we received and had that uh same revenue been adjusted for inflation was a difference of $569 per pupil. And then as you'll notice as you move from 2021 to 2025, that gap widens tremendously because inflation was very high during that time period. And so that gap in what a a school district is receiving in general education formula um grew from $569 per pupil to $1,364 per pupil. a difference or an increase in the gap of $795 per pupil. And I think the next natural question then goes, well, what does that mean for Shakipi? Well, that gap, that difference that grew between 21 and 25, fiscal 21 and fiscal 25 amounts to 6 million, $6.6 6 million in revenue that had our per pupil funding kept pace with the rate of inflation over that that time period, we would we would be receiving $6.6 million in additional state aid um if it had kept pace with the rate of inflation. And again sharing that to give a sense of the the very real impact of inflation on our school district and to be quite frank on nearly every or possibly every school district across the state of Minnesota. And then I'm going to shift back, give my voice a break. Uh we're going to get into the more detailed analysis and accounting which is Bill's area which is kind of to take some of this and then bring it back into a model similar to what he used for uh the preliminary budget for 26 but he's going to show the out years too. Okay, great. Thank you. Um and and so Mike's Mike's exactly right. If you understand uh or you have familiarity with the revenue and expenditure summary on the fiscal 26 budget, this is the exact same format that's shown with fiscal 27 and 28 with one very important um item to note. Uh what you see in fiscal 27 and 28 assumes that we would not do anything in what's known as the out years. And by anything uh it assumes that we would not make budget reductions. It assumes that we would not seek additional sources of revenue. That's the best way to show an applesto apples comparison with fiscal 25 26 27 and 28. Obviously, uh I I I wouldn't think that we would move forward in fiscal 28 with the deficit projection that you see there and not address that somehow. But the best way to show that is apples to apples. Um so that assumes that we would not do anything. Um so you you can see on the revenue row, our total general fund revenue as I previously mentioned next year is projected at 125.5 million. The year after that, fiscal 26 27, our general fund revenue would uh we project to increase by 300,000. So you can do the math on that. 300,000 as a percentage of 125 million is a very very very small increase. Um and then the year after that we're projecting another increase of about 400,000 again uh in terms of 126.2 million. a very very small increase. So, and then you go down to our expenditures. Um, important to note that the assumptions that I talked about for fiscal 26, I just simply carried those forward for fiscal 27 and 28 in terms of expected contractual obligations, uh, 3% increases on supplies and materials, and then just assumed increases for things like transportation and property insurance. And so you can see based off of that um I project our fiscal 27 budget to increase from 132 million in fiscal 26 up to 135 million in 27 and then up to 140.9 million in 28. And really uh the fiscal 27 number is partially offset if you look at capital and equipment. Um, we talked about curriculum adoption. So, our curriculum adoption expenditures are significant next year in fiscal 26. That decrease of 7 from 9.6 million to 7.6 million is partially offsetting that $3 million increase you see at the bottom. Right? So, just an important item of note as we look at the LER projection. Now I'll quickly go through I talked about uh this previously we talked about the fiscal 26 budget in order to remain at 10% utilizing a significant portion of our assigned and restricted fund balance. I previously talked about that and so I won't revisit that in great detail here during this presentation but we will spend time on the fiscal 27 and 28 budget. And so you can see when you look at our unassigned fund balance as of June 30, 2027, it's projected to drop from 10% down to 3.9%. And in order to remain at 3.9%, you'll notice down here under the assigned category, we are projecting utilizing the remaining 1.7 million in assigned fund balance in fiscal 27 in order to remain at that 3.9%. So obviously some pretty significant budget headwind starting in fiscal 27. And again, this assumes no changes on the expenditure line, meaning no budget, no no expenditure reductions and no increases in revenue as well. And so if you if you note the increase from fiscal 26 to 27, then looking at fiscal 28, you can see where that's significant as well. Um again doing nothing we would expect a decrease down to a negative 6.5% um at the end of fiscal 28. So obviously significant we would not do this. This would effectively put us in statuto operating debt which we wouldn't recommend and I wouldn't imagine that the board was but just to show that trajectory and how significant that is over the next few [Music] years. Awesome. And again, I want to reiterate before even the last couple slides here that uh what Bill's showing, we have zero expectation that that's what's going to happen. I remember a few years back, quite a few now when we had a local paper and I don't remember what the headline was when we did one of these, but it was like the district's going to be whatever millions, you know, in below zero. But it's like no we're not we're we're going we that's that's the decisions that need to be made you know in the coming weeks that uh what are we going to do to change that trajectory and you know whether it's on the expenditure side whether it's on the revenue side or whether it's a combination of both. So if we go to the next slide, wanted to to share information kind of the two-word summary if you talk about just kind of big impacts um especially you know when it comes to uh just finances in general uh the the impacts of inflation and decreasing enrollment. And then as always in this, you know, when we talk about managing a a public school district in Minnesota, uh when you do have what we what we are now projecting where we have that operating expenditure imbalance moving forward. Um in its very simplest terms, there really are only three options. you need to make budget cuts, you need to increase revenues, or a combination of of both of those uh in some way, shape, or form. Um, you know, just kind of as a discussion starter, we look at the 26 27 school year. Uh, it would appear that, uh, at least, you know, that, uh, we would need to make at least 3 million in permanent budget cuts. We're looking at that range of 7 to9 million. Um to do that, that that would seem to be the minimum. You'll notice there's an and with some question marks there. You know, whether you know additional budget cuts would be appropriate or not. That's ultimately, you know, as we move down this path. Uh ultimately determined by the school board. Uh there is one opportunity for increased revenues. uh and that opportunity exists in the form of uh what uh folks might call a tax neutral operating levy increase. We happen to have a situation where we are finalizing finishing off our community. Our taxpayers are finishing the payments on part of our bond debt. That happens in calendar year 26 where there will be $5.1 million less in taxes because those bonds will be paid off. It no longer exists. And and again, I think many, you know, I'm kind of you folks know what I'm getting at here. When we talk about bond debt and we talk about operating levies, we're talking about two different ways of calculating. One is net tax capacity, the other is referendum market value. way too deep for this evening. But to have an equivalent impact in terms of uh you know making it tax neutral in the different uh especially the residential category of taxpayers uh you could run an operating levy uh for $4.8 million and that would be in essence tax neutral. And you might go well they don't add up 5.1 and 4.8. Well, the difference is to make sure that especially the residential taxpayers uh would be, you know, their taxes would basically be a wash with the if they were to pass uh that operating levy for the future. And then this all begins the initiation, if you will, of the planning for fiscal 28 and beyond because what happens for fiscal 27 absolutely impacts fiscal 28 and beyond. Uh and we'll do the best to continue to to share information and give accurate information and really look forward to hearing feedback, questions. Uh happy to, you know, to do work. I know Bill and his team stand at the ready are, you know, our folks from PMA who help us out too as well. And not that I could talk much longer, but uh turn it over to you. Happy to answer questions or write questions down and bring answers back uh at future meetings. So, Bill, looking at the call sheet, but the the projections out. Um, did you include in your calculations for expenditures the potential impact of people? No, I did not. The assumptions that I included on the expenditure side are the ones that I showed. I did not change anything for. So there are some expenses that potentially could cause these numbers to be worse than what higher than what we see today. Yes. Uh generally speaking on both the revenue and expenditure side, I I tried to be fairly conservative, but that would be one area where I didn't include the assumption. Yeah, because I mean that's a big dollar amount as well as potential insurance fund running dry and then that's back on the school districts potentially. So that would be another expenditure that might not be in here. So that was one question that I had in regards to this. I mean, the other one is um it's not really a question, but more of a when we went through this um in 2020 um and put together a operating that failed um timing with CO and everything. Um and then 21 had passed, but the community knew that this was going to take us a ways into the 10year um renewal dates or the length of the operating I guess. But looking when I go back and look at some of the information in this presentation, um obviously at that point in time inflation was we couldn't predict the future, right? And the ES in costs have skyrocketed which would cause us to have a a deficit much sooner and that money wouldn't last as long as what we had hoped because of that as well as the enrollment information obviously is a big impact. So, um, it's going through that whole process a few years ago and now having to look at doing this again is not fun. I'm sure it's not. I mean, these are some pretty big big decisions again that the board will have to make as to what is the best steal from the last, what is the best path forward for our district. It's I I think it becomes even a more challenging time, you know, if asking the community for additional dollars, even though it would seem tax neutral when things are so uncertain out in the world right now, there's jobs and just with everything that's going on with the uncertainty. So, and we know the next couple years of the state don't look very favorable either and could also impact and cause these numbers to be even worse than what you're presenting based on the amount of money available education. So I think there are a lot of factors here that consider Mr. Chair if I can just Obviously, something's got to change because, you know, flashing back to 2020, that was unique to Shakabe. Um, the landscape we're looking at here, it seems, at least when our local uh school districts having the same or similar challenges or in some cases maybe even more so. Um, and unless something changes with the state funding formula, and I'm not saying it because that that's it doesn't seem like there's resources to do that. Um, you know, what are the alternatives? Is there a paradigm shift in terms of what that educational model looks like? Because we're looking at it in terms of effectively in moving forward with the same same strategy, same plan. And in no way am I suggesting like we're going to education in Minnesota. But you would see this in rural districts where you'd see consolidation when you know they would lose enrollment and you know because that made some districts get bigger and bring more students in or Dr. Red does bring out that magic wand and it's all the beginning. I I don't know what the other districts will do when he does that. Um revenue aside like um and unless there's a opportunity to increase revenue whether it's state or even local sales tax again I'm making it up um or a material reduction and overhead um I mean beyond even FY28 it doesn't look favorable. So I mean we're speculating at best and I I applaud the transparency. I applaud the fact that we're looking at it and strategic planning, being prepared to make some difficult decisions again. Um, but it just speaks volumes to the integrity of you and your team to at least bring it to life. knowing that if we look at the statewide financial challenges tab number five um show that the estimated budget cuts for fiscal year 27.79 million and since we haven't passed the budget yet for fiscal year 26 what we have at zero is it fiscally irresponsible not to make budget cuts in the next fiscal would you like me to speak to that from a timeline standpoint or do you want to No, I can. I I think um in a perfect world. I I think you want to act on information when you know it. Um I know that we you know and this is our first public uh time sharing this. I know we've already started to make some decisions for next year when we look at hiring and some of those things knowing that these financial headwinds uh are coming. Uh, I think to do budget cuts, and this will sound I I absolutely do not mean this to sound in any way negative or draconian, but to do budget cuts well, and there is a difference in doing budget cuts well and doing them halfhazardly or sloppily, to do them well, we want to have as high a quality of information as we can. Uh and I believe you know our timing in that regards has led us to this point. Um that magic wand that I don't have uh I think there there were so many things coming out of the 2023 uh legislature in terms of funding changes and how we calculate and what's ongoing what's one time what is this bedcross subsidy. We still haven't factored all of that in. We just talked about paid family medical leave. I think we're estimating that's roughly a quarter million dollars a year. We're looking at enrollment trends that uh are we're in the midst of kind of a shift that we're trying to interpret. So I think on a formal sense uh in terms of staffing and prepping for next school year uh we're we're really beyond the bulk of the the major staffing. That doesn't mean that we wouldn't, you know, that as we begin to look at next year and as we travel through next year that we wouldn't make reductions where it's appropriate. Um, but I think in terms of a formal process to lay it out. The other piece I think is really important is to give a community, you know, a voice, whether that's even speaking at board meetings or if it's through uh, you know, some type of a vote on an operating levy. So don't disagree with you that the best time to do it was like you know and I'm not talking about the 7 to9 million. I was basically you know one one and a half$2 million in this fiscal year just to uh you know use the cumulative effect of those cuts and then all at once in fiscal year 27 it's not as it's not as bad agree and I think we you know we didn't want to get into necessarily those specifics. I think we've already kind of started down that path and we we do with the decreasing enrollment we you know we have built-in adjustments for next year but again we don't tend to count that as budget cuts but certainly I think moving forward and you know where you know what is what does that mean where you're belt tightening along the way and we have and I don't want to get into the specific situations uh because I don't think we fully actualized it you know sometimes there people involved positions involved. But we do I I'm well aware we had one department where we talked about where we expect them to be in two or three years in terms of their size and scope and structure where they um they decided not to hire I believe and I'm going to look at Jim um two additional people for next year. So that it's something. Yeah, it is. And that you know and that's in the neighborhood then of you know probably a quarter million dollars off the top of my head. So agree with you in concept and I think even in practice and what we're doing and it's to be honest it was we did some of that last time um when we went through this I had to make budget cuts I think that's a that's an important piece of that. The other important piece which you know as we watch other districts and I think sometimes they struggle and it truly is if you're going to make budget cuts doing it well is important. There is when you're a service industry, 80 to 85% of what we spend money on is people. You cannot shrink the size of a school district without cutting people. And that is a a very hard cold truth, but it is, you know, that's that's what we're talking about when we're talking about budget cuts. So, just very quickly, two other albeit very minor areas that we're looking at for next year. Uh transportation at the high school. We're looking at possibly changing some of our models to be a little bit more efficient there. I'm not talking about walking zones or anything like that. I'm just talking about making sure we're fully utilizing our buses. Um how we route our buses at the high school. So maybe that could result in a little bit of savings. Any kind of efficiency that could be found in any aspects will help the bottom line going forward. I'm still hopeful that our work with school Mitchell in our nonwe and benefit areas been very it's been very minor so far. Uh but I'm hopeful that some of those areas can result in some points well taken. I think the other thing challenge with the decline in enrollment is that as these smaller classes progress through the district and they get into the high school. Um we also lose funding because there's an additional kicker for 1.2 versus the one. So there's additional funding and so when those kids where they are smaller classes, the funding is actually probably a little bit even more so less. Yes. Because of that, yeah, the the 7,481 that we're projecting next year in state 8, that's based on a 1 1.0 pupil. Uh 7 through 12 is a 1.2 multiplied by that number. in further and I would even I I would add on to that when we talk about the conservative nature of making projections that's that part of the enrollment piece that we're starting to see some different things I think traditionally you know we had a lot of kids spend all 13 years start in kindergarten go through grade 12 in chakrapy we're now seeing and whether it's a you know a one year or twoear uptick but We're seeing students join our school district in greater numbers at grades other than kindergarten. You know, in other words, families moving in with maybe a sixth grader and an eighth grader. And that that's kind of a not that it didn't happen before. It absolutely did, but we're seeing more in the way of numbers. And again, we're always hesitant to go is that we don't know what that is. We know it's starting to happen. Is it a shortterm thing or is it the beginning of a different trend? You know, and I spent I mean I spent a long time in Madameida, very different community kind of landlock number, but there there literally wasn't housing stock and it was really routine where the elementary school without open enrollment would have been about half the size of their, you know, secondary population because families would often move in with kids, you know, in secondary schools. um they just there wasn't enough housing available and what was available was very expensive especially you know for most families with really young kids. So, I don't know, you know, what we're seeing. We we continue to see growth. We continue to see great things happening in our city. We saw some of that earlier. Um, you know, we kind of talk about, yeah, people are are moving in, but the one constant and I studied them again. Birth rates are still uh they they have not that curve has not started to bounce back within Scott County. I looked at the data, 24 data is coming. I looked at 20, you know, through the year 2023. Um that isn't that isn't moving back. People are people are having fewer children. Well, with all the houses being built, maybe everybody with triplet, do you know? No, I don't. But maybe you know, hundreds of houses being built. There's there's always the chance that the enrollment numbers are not as bad as as projected. You just you don't know who's moving in. You don't know uh if they're would be going to school in this district if they have students. Um it's just the unknown is unfortunately too unknown for for all the housing developments. And you know for for us we're dependent on one revenue stream really and we can't raise our prices to get more revenue and we can't sell more product to get more revenue. It's it's a fixed amount of money that we get to work with and unfortunately we can't control how much gas goes up and does that get to pay X because we only have so much money. Um that's the unfortunate thing about school finance versus a business. I guess I would add to that though, you know, I I think our our product of chak is really good right now. I mean I I you know you I it would really be great to get input. I don't think it's survey of people coming in why they're coming in because I think we got a great thing here and we like to think that people are attracted to the cap model and and the great things we have going on in chak and then just piggy back on that to earlier comments about you know in the in the middle of hoping to attract people into the great thing we got going we want to make cuts prematurely and make make ourselves less attractive um you Very good point. When we're when we're trying to get people to to move in and possibly open enroll, but I mean, there's no good no good time to do it to make to make the cuts and then and then, you know, pivoting from that over the the uh you know, the neutral levy possibility for this. There's just no good time to do that. Um, you know, just thinking back to 2020, that was a terrible time to put it on the ballot just with everything going on then. But we kind of had to do it um with, you know, knowing and and it almost passed despite all the headwinds against it. Um but if it had, that would have been the optimal time to do it. Um the impact to the taxpayers would have been less if it had passed because we ended up having if it went on the ballot next year, the following year, that cost taxpayers more um just because of what had changed in the in the year in the interim. So just thinking that now a tax neutral levy now the timing is terrible but having to do one later it's going to be worse. It's going to be harder going to be harder to mark it because now it's a tax increase no matter how else you say it. If we wait till next year to do it's a tax increase. There's just there's just no good time to do it. But all those variables it's it's definitely worth conversation um sooner rather than later because it would have to go on the ballot this fall if we did it right. So it's a lot of things in additional revenue that that would bring to make it tax. Is that even enough to rescue us? I guess so. So I think that's illustrated very well in Dr. slide. [Music] Um where we talk about right now based on our current assumptions uh projecting between a seven and and $9 million shortfall in fiscal 27. So to answer your question, the tax neutral operating levy would generate on the revenue side uh 4.8 million in additional revenue. So it it would not cover the expected shortfall entirely. Obviously that's just for one year. I mean that's one fiscal year I'm thinking because that would potentially be 10 years if that's what we did. And so how I mean if that isn't even going to be enough to cover in year one. Can I I just want to make sure we're clear on that slide. The and I think you are. I just Yeah. Um we're talking when we say budget cuts on the left side of that it's the at least three million in permanent budget cuts and adjustments based on declining enrollment and the operating levy which together would be 7.8 8 million roughly in the middle of that range and I think that's that part of projecting you know to try to predict what would happen in 2728 um there is likely still some more to do not at that same nowhere near that same magnitude at this point I think we again we spent most of our time really focused on 26 27 um I know sometimes people go well why why is it a range give us an exact dollar number well we could But we'd probably pick right in the middle of that range. And the truth is there is a range with the sub we've already mentioned with enrollment and with paid family medical even a lot of other things that we can't predict. The following year we think there'd be you know if we still had declining enrollment we would have to make those adjustments which we always do. um and you know somewhere probably in the one to5 million dollar range but that is a really loose projection but not of the you know the magnitude of the seven to nine but that's that's all part of our work here the next couple months. Yeah I mean I just think about you know the last we had was to take us a long ways into that 10 years we're at year five four five when this would kick in if it was approved. So and looking at okay 8 million, even three million in permanent budget cuts. To me, that doesn't take us too far past that school year and then we're in the same position again. Unless something changes where school funding is has a new way to be schools are the way to be funded and better. But I just real quick on that. Yeah. If you look at the 2728, it's 140 million expenses, 126 million, that's $14 million. This is this is eight. And I know that it'd be three million and 10 million in cuts for for 27 28, but it if anything it's a it's a bandaid that doesn't fix anything much going forward beyond 11 years this year. You go back to the AMSD one and I think that's really No, sorry the graph. there were two that I mean this is that part of that picture of you know we're a service industry we pay people they live in the real world you know they strongly desire that their salary and benefits keeps pace with inflation our main funding source doesn't keep pace with inflation that is at the crux of the challenge for every school district in the state and I think yeah and That's why, and to Joe's point, excuse me, um that slide that had, you know, budget cuts on one side and the operating levy on the other, it says at least 3 million. I think that to I again, we're not making that decision today, but trying, you know, from our perspective looking at that bill and I that's the floor for what we do for 26 27 And if there's no operating levy before is you add 3 million plus 4.8 billion up to at least 7.8 million in budget cuts. But that that was meant to be that's a reasonable swing at it. But it doesn't as we just talked about doesn't solve you know it initiates something for the future and more to kind of Joe's point as we dial this in the more you do in that first year it counts every year out. But I think our, you know, our challenge, I think this graph really shows, you know, just the kind of the overall funding flow of, you know, people live in the real world. And, you know, we we've been we we did what we said we would do at that last operating levy. I think in terms of trying to predict the economic future, I don't think anybody saw an inflation jump like that over a sustained period of time. And uh you know for us I I don't think we saw it that you know we were one of the first districts to discover the declining birth rates. I still remember going to my my superintendent for peers and going hey you know there's declining birth rates. What are you talking about? And you know so and that our our funding system in the state of Minnesota if you're growing it's advantageous for a school district. If you're declining, it's really challenging because you know it you you can't offset that that decrease in funding very easily. Well, I also think kudos to Bill and everybody at the time in administration like you and Dave Wowski when cos came in that we utilize those funds appropriately and accordingly that would hurt us in the future and not every school district has done that and that that actually has helped us I think significantly because I know your school districts quite often say you know, we ran out of the ess, you know, we didn't go and add 50 teachers with our ess to to support our students, but we didn't go crazy because we knew it wasn't sustainable. We knew the money was going to be gone at some point. We used one time revenue as one time expense. It is the right thing to do. One of the things that we talked about in the meeting is Even if some of these variables end up being more positive than what even we're projecting, then there's a need for revenue down the road, right? Like if enrollment improves, some of the positivity that we've seen from the city, the growth of our our town, something's going to have to change down the road here. So to that point of, you know, considering a million and asking the taxpayers to pay again, you know, part of that responsibility is we haven't had to build anything and bonds are dropping off. So that's some degree of credit to the investment that was made earlier in the years that we're here that might be more tolerable for people to handle versus budget cuts. We just throw that around a lot in here, you know, as a tool to manage what we have to here. But that is teachers, that is classroom sizes, those are the things that none of us want, right? So if you're going to have me go out and ask community to do one of those two things that might be maybe if we have some positive trend and we have a little more revenue resource um to me is an early you know early indication of yeah I don't want to but it might be the best choice. Um it's obviously things we have to talk about and consider but um the other thing is this is not a shocking problem. You know, we've talked about this all day. This is the whole states feeling this and the more the more docs park and the, you know, the more drama it creates at the Senate and the state. So hopefully this is a big enough crisis for everybody that maybe there's other positivities down the road that will have that not this year unfortunately, but we we have to consider all circumstances, right? the worst case scenarios. I'd hate to be crashing cuts that things that result in good people years later because as well both sides that one thing I'd like one thing I'd like to point out is just the transparency of all this. We have a the budget looking for fiscal year 26 we're still at 10%. you could have just pushed this off for a year and not worried about it, but instead we're looking at tackling a problem that's going to come up in a couple years now instead of waiting till the last minute. And I I think that's just that's kind of a bold move. Uh but it's it's the correct can't keep taking money out of savings, putting our check either, you know. So that's also very that's next year. I I was just comment there was a statement made a few speakers back about the unpredictability of all this and it's easy to look at the out years and say you know doing this now will necessarily help us in the out years but the reality is who would have predicted 6 to 8% inflation who would have predicted esser funds I mean you think about all of the the components that have come up over the last five years and who knows what the next five years entails which is why you know for me the focus is on what do we need to do now continue to keep this district moving in the right direction knowing that we we can't predict the future and you know Bill working on out years has to be one of the worst jobs in America because there's there's absolutely no idea what's around the water. Yeah. Nobody ever like gives him a lot of applause for that. Well, you did a great job. He's like awarded but even you know I I smile when I said that but that's part of the inherent flaws in school funding. We talk about the math doesn't matter. And when you carry that out, it, you know, if you're, you know, if you're not keeping pace with the rate of inflation, it it's really tough to run anything successfully. Yeah. So, I guess a question to Bill and Mike and anybody who's done this for a long time, have you ever done one of these outyear long-term projections and said, "Oh, everything's great. We're gonna have 10% more revenue in in four years projected. Has that ever been true? Not for me. No. I've never been in a district where the enrollment's grown that fast. That that's the one place where if you're growing fast enough, you know, as long as you have the building space and the capacity to house students because that's part of it, too. Well, that's if we continue to lose 180 students every year, we'd be talking about losing a school. I mean, in all reality, If you project that out far enough, you know, we can't continue that trend. Although, and we've we've talked about this in years past too, is that closing a school really does not save you a lot of money, unfortunately. So, well, and even I know I think Tim Brophy was up community study. One of the first tasks assigned to me by the board and I started on October 30th, I think, of 2018 was, hey, how are we doing with capacity and are we going to need to build another school? We did that study and when we shared that I can't remember it was the summer of 2019 we said hey we feel really good for five years I don't know 6 to 10 you know because we were based on trends and and population growth and things and that really kind of predates where people went wait a second there is something happening and again not just a shakipy thing with birth rates declining that is across the state it's across across the nation. It's actually somewhat worldwide. And so, you know, because that was even part of when we, you know, I think it was December of 21, we hired Hazel Reinhardt to do another, you know, study, enrollment study. And that wasn't because we were, you know, we saw some blips and we thought it was CO and whatever. It was again to fill out that picture. And she came back with some data and what what the heck's going on? And then she redid part of it. And then we really dug in and and talked with county health officials and state health officials and went, "Oh my gosh, we're seeing declines in birth rates and they look like a a much longer trend than COVID related, if you will." And I, like I said earlier, I still remember talking to other superintendents who looked at me, you know, like I was crazy, which happens occasionally anyhow, but I I go, "No, this is real." and they went back and checked with their, you know, other counties and stuff and went, "Oh my gosh, our birth rates are declining, too." And that's also part of, you know, kind of exacerbating that problem. I still I think that the big problem with birth rates. Um, I think when, you know, when my wife and I had had kids 24 years ago, uh, I think I was 29, she was 26, I think. People are starting to have kids now at 39 and 46 for the first time a year. Be very interesting to see the average age of people having their first kid and all once. There's that 10year gap where there's just not that many people having kids just because this generation generation X having kids 28, Millennials having kids at 33s. These aren't, you know, maybe that'll be 38. So there's going to be a huge gap and that's where we're having this issue right now. I I do think though that we have to continue to look to the future um and the modeling that you're doing um because a previous board had hair on fire because they didn't do that and it caused a lot of stress and turmoil in our district. And I don't think any I mean Joe and I came on board and how much did we have a million dollars in the in the funds fund balance and it might have been it might have actually at the end of school year 19 been close to two two and a half but at one point before that it was 600,000 600,000 right and so we just need to remember that we have have to look to the future and make sure that we are doing what we can to support our students and as painful as it as it can be and all those models are always deficit looking but I I think that if we didn't do that we would be doing ourselves a disservice to our community but not um not Um to me this is being a you know a good steward of taxpayer dollar because if we don't if we just constantly look one or two years out that's going to hurt us and we're all sudden fire and more people in our community upset with us than all of a sudden having excess revenue. I mean that's just from a even just a business standpoint of running a business. You have to look out to the future and what potentially could happen. I I just think about my company right now and the tariffs as an international global company that we are facing and we don't plan for that but we have to continue forward figure out how we can adapt and to the school district is is no different. continue to look good because my company can raise our prices. So, Mr. No, I I agree wholeheartedly with that and I I'll forget the years, but I know Jim and I we went back and Hazel Reinhardt did a Roman study in 2003 and then I think I'm kind of looking at Jim the other one was 2013 13 I was on that community task force and then we hired 21 and got a report in 22. It's also why, you know, I just mentioned we're digging into birth rates and looking, you know, when they're floating that data in in the county and the state and even, you know, Bill Reynolds presenting earlier, we need, you know, really consistently with Michael Kersky and his team at the city and trying to, you know, even what type what type of construction is happening, where is it happening, and work closely. So, uh, I, you know, we're never going to be perfect at it. Uh, but I think we're putting the time and energy and effort into, you know, trying to figure out what what may happen next and have at least an educated, you know, kind of a path forward with that and we'll obviously continue to do that. But we've worked really really hard on that ends and uh it's certainly, you know, information at one time can change quickly as you just alluded to. that that's become part of I'd argue that's become part of our DNA as a leadership team that you know you know we're going to have to do the absolute best we can I think this is just another example of how do we prepare our students for the future absolutely because the kids in our buildings are our future they are our future workforce so how do we best make sure that our school district is providing them with the opportunity to set them up to be successful and looking to the future and from a financial standpoint of our district. It's in China's best interest and her siblings and everyone else that's sitting in our building to those points. We're looking towards the future that we have question like how quickly will we know anymore on enrollment things like that? Would you have any updated numbers that we can feel good about by September? I mean, if we're even talking about potentially a levy in November, what what are the steps that we need to take from now until that point in time? How much time do we need to live to that question that determined by the end of July? Because it Yeah, it be the middle of July, which probably for us is the July the June. And so what what other information between now and July are we going to be able to come up with that we can all reality projections? Yeah. Well, since you raised the question at the finance committee, I've been digging. I've got notes all over on some of the enrollment. Where did it come from? I can explain where those numbers came from. And it was really looking one year out. And that's partly why we have a range on those numbers because it even this year we're running what 32 kids better than we projected. It's a lot better than running 32 kids worse than project. However, and then we're looking and we're digging into those and trying to find trends and and where we do that, making adjustments and how we staff. But that's even why we were looking at birth rates. We've worked um we've got a lot of work to do still with the county as a partner. I think things are going really well with the attendance. The other area that we've said we want to work with them is let us know, you know, they they have they have greater access to knowing where every child between birth and age five is than we do. And so trying to find ways we've done some of that, but we've got more work to do because the sooner we, you know, that's all part of, you know, who's showing up in kindergarten. We do track that and we've got different things and we meet monthly and so there's a lot of work going on that way. Okay. And we weren't going to make the decision on everything this evening. So we're going to bring more expect more information at every board meeting, you know, from now through quite a lot. That seems like a good place to to move on unless uh anybody else has comments. Uh great discussion. Thank you. Uh next on our agenda is item 6.6, the 2025 community conversation plan. Here to present is Tiffany Olsen, our director of communications and strategic development. And uh take a minute to get set up while Dr. I am going to addition and members of the board. But if I too efficient, please ask additional questions. Um would you like me to wait for No, no. Let's let's move. Okay. So the point of this presentation here is simplyformational to let you know of our plan. There'll be a timeline at the end. I will go through some of these slides quickly and mainly some on the you know what we're doing and the timeline components. There's pieces that will be continue to be included in revenue so that you're fully aware. Um but as you know as a district once we got through COVID and some communication challenges we have been working to be consistent on an annual basis to engage our community um just to get that anonymous unbiased measurable feedback. have longitudinal feedback as a district for quite some time now um that we want to make sure year over year especially with the board priorities that we have insight into uh this community conversation and we call it that if you recall because of the method that we use we're not using a survey monkey and we're also not doing a statistically sound tax tolerance sort of phone call through a big certility where you're getting very specific questions on demographics is one of many engagement opportunities. It is not the only one. Uh but we are at that time where we want to make sure we are still hearing from members of the community um and that we continue to have that trusting environment and this is one of the ways that we do that. So generally when we do these we have a very specific target audience meaning um it's actually I should be counter with that it's the greater school community. Um it's not staff. It's not just for students. It's not just for a particular grade. And that's very important that we want all our taxpayers. We want those that are engaged with us. Doesn't mean that those that I referenced don't participate, but this is for the entire school community to be able to provide their feedback. What you see on the screen here is a pretty standard participation behavior, if you will, where when you're looking at those that have students in our school district, generally we get more engagement on these surveys from the E through five than we do at the secondary level. So, it's always a goal to increase that. And again, we have many staff members that also serve in the role as parent and guardian that would obviously receive this. The slide here give you a snapshot of things you've seen before as far as those that have participated. We have some soft goals and what you really want to see here is we're trying to find realistic uh projections that we want increased engagement. We want to increase diversity. Um and we really just want to ensure that when folks are engaging with this opportunity, they're providing as much feedback and not falling off in the process. If you recall the structure of our community conversation, because it is through thought exchange, there is an open-ended question that serves almost like a social forum, if you will, where you're able to check back and rank comments of those that are provided. And then there are your closeended survey questions. Uh, generally depending on where we've been each year, there's been a few questions that don't impact the longitudinal ones where we adjust out based on where we're at. So, if you recall last year, that was capital project safety and security. So, there's an opportunity for district financial planning to be included uh in this year as well. It's just a general feedback opportunity. Open-ended question is listed here. I'm not going to read it for everyone. We did a little word smithing. Again, we're looking for clarity, looking at things from our last thought exchange on how we can get um the most feedback and you know the most clear question for those that are participating. Um I won't go over this at all uh or I won't go over this in depth. There are various ways that we wish to promote this back on that target audience slide. We do want to be greater with our student engagement on this. So we'll obviously lean into a lot of folks mainly at the secondary levels, middle and high school. There's some great opportunities and advisory for middle school and obviously we have engaged student school board members that can give us some tips and others to see if we can get student participation in this as well. And then what we're doing with the data, I think you're all pretty familiar. We dive into this deep. We have development sessions where we look at this. leadership team is looking at it. Again, it's only one of many different data points, but you'll be seeing this in the future. And this is the last piece. This is the timeline. So, I'm here today to be able to give you that precursor. The goal is that for the month of May, relatively speaking, between those dates, that is our engagement period. That's where we're trying to get as many in our feedback as possible. Um, and then we review those results in June. uh and then have a formal presentation at the June 9th uh meeting to be able to share that with the public. So it's a fairly targeted timeline and I'm happy to answer any questions on this but again there's additional detail in the presentation that I high level question are we going to have any questions um in regards to the previous topic that we just discussed we have two questions where it is the opportunity to be very similar what we the capital project. So we guess that so we'll have that before we have to make a decision just you put a ton of effort into this and just to see it evolve and I think it's really insightful. So, thank you for your absolutely if anyone from the website wants to see the back end is so cool what we can analyze and do and it's AI driven as far as how we analyze it. So, we get really excited with that. Thank you. [Music] Next on our agenda is item seven, policy second reading and Um so we just had the first reading not ago three weeks ago. Um as you know there's no changes since then. So I guess this is kind of these are the things that are changing. Um I uh encourage everybody to um read everything especially the title N changes. Um I guess questions or discussion for tonight. Any questions for Chad? policy is one of the most important things we do. Uh but it's really hard to get the get excited around, you know, just get everyone jumping up and down and dancing. But but it is so it's such a critical role for for what the purpose of of the school board. Um you know, it's kind of one of the key meat and potatoes of things we do. Um so we definitely need to take it seriously, but So yeah, I don't know the the origin of like why this is referred to as a first reading, a second reading because uh it's really not practical to actually read them. Um I it's probably not um fair for me to summarize them for you editorializing. So it's this is the announcement of what's being changed. used to have to do it with paper copies before and after I inherited a purple the framework that it's in lends itself to doing that and I don't want to steal back but there's actually statute why you have to do a first second try to approve it it's Well, you know, you could come to Southwest 900 in one school year. So, as long as there woodf fire pizza, come on over because I'm sure Dr. [Music] Any uh questions for chat or further discussion? Thank you, CH. Next up is item eight, committee reports and other information. Let's start with Nick. Oh, sweet. Okay. Finance and facilities meeting right before this. Um, what's been about three weeks? We had the AMSD council webinar Friday morning with some interesting things in it that is my pay grade for sure on some of the future pension fund challenges down the road that I it's been brought up a couple times in that meetings and had a couple legislators on there too that are part of the education committee given a little quick overview of what's going on at the capital. Um Dr. Rman and I have gone to a few different schools now and he graciously took me to Eagle Creek two weeks ago before spring break we went I think which has been fun. I really enjoyed that. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to walk around with you. We get to talk to some teachers and see some kids live in action and ask us who the heck are these two guys standing in our room, you know. So, it's been something glad you joined. That's great. And uh we have literacy. I'm going to go to literacy day at the capital next Thursday, reach out to a couple of our um folks in the in the house there to see if I can maybe try to bring a meeting or two afterwards if it lines up. probably for the day. But other than that, we have an engagement next week. [Music] Thank you, Christie. um personnel meeting tonight as one attended um and last week uh can't remember what day it was anymore but I went to the APAC um meeting that they had at high school and that was really interesting um learn a lot more about a lot more detail about the American Indian education in our district and the different and how to go about planning events and the incorporation of curriculum and um learned a lot about how they put the budget together for the year. Um yeah, so it was it was a really good event. I encourage everybody to to sign up to go to one. Um it's a committee of 12 uh 12 adults and two students. So um yeah, it was was good. um southwest meeting tomorrow which we talked about and then Friday I have a scale um spectral meeting as well. So I'll be attending the next uh APAC May uh meeting on the uh the 23rd. So I'm looking forward to that. Glad you enjoyed that. um finance and personnel today uh interviews um this week and then um my wife and I attended a neversh event on Friday um which is not directly school district related but you know involves the McN who are uh you know members of the the district Crystal who used to uh you know work for Dr. Um yeah, it's just a second annual event was a was a great event uh finance and facilities. We basically went over the proposed budget and the uh planning model. So we we got an hour of that for an hour here. So it's been a long fiscal day. Uh Friday I attended a graduation picata. They had five graduates. Um just absolutely love their ceremony. Um I know they'll have a larger one I think a day or two before graduation here. I 6th or 7th of of June. And if you can make it uh please attend. And as this is uh volunteer appreciation month, I was speaking with the head of the uh graduation party committee a couple weeks ago and there's only five people on the committee that that do um that have been helping and none of them have any students in the uh in the school district anymore. And she was like, we might do it one more year, but they they are uh they just want volunteers. And I just if you know people who are graduate graduating eighth graders, ninth graders that that that want uh to help out with the graduation to have them get uh involved with it or the graduation party uh come a couple years from now. This might go away. So, please uh if you have uh students in high school or middle school, please consider joining that uh graduation party. Uh for me, yeah, nothing much to report for community engagement. Um the aspiring teachers uh signing day, two of them that's coming up, I see. Um so that's exciting. Um oh, and then the work meeting is on Wednesday. I've got a Pearson advisory council meeting later this month. I also snuck into the graduation as well and I echo exactly what my colleague done. It's so great to see the the connection that's made between the students and educators there. Just magic happens. Um and I was looking there as an important date that I don't see listed here, but Thursday, May 1st at 7 p.m. there's a virtual meeting for I think the Shock Mountain flight team uh for certainly student athletes, but volunteerism perspective. If you know how to ride a bike, come be a coach. They'll train you. So, Jim, yeah, just a lot of things looking ahead of next year right now. Kindergarten roundup starts tomorrow night um at two of our sites, Creek and Riddle. I would point out that we already have 256 kindergarters enrolled, which I think is a sign that the welcome center is working. getting students a little earlier. Doesn't necessarily mean there'll be more, but I would assume we are losing fewer to um other districts and charter schools because of the aggressive more aggressive tactics we're taking to get kids in following student middle school. We'll have passports middle school um I believe. So, we're we're definitely starting to to you know get new students in and prepare ourselves for the fall. today. I I have a lot of stuff that I'll share in the wrap and save you for today, but there's a lot of great stuff going on. So, we'll do our best to try and keep you updated. And there's also a lot of good system and structure conversations going on with our leadership group to make sure we're already looking ahead to August, September, and all of those other things, too. So, we're kind of following suit with you folks of trying to get 12 months ahead and as much as we can. Dr. I've spoken more than enough. Thank you everybody. Next on our agenda is item nine, upcoming meetings and important dates. Um everybody's alluded to a few of these. Uh there any others here we should bring attention to in particular attention to? No, I think uh Jim did a good summary. Lots with middle school and kindergarten this week. And I also know there's some fun uh concerts and things going on at our elementary school. So with that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. We have a motion by Peterson, second by Aldrich. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? I opposed. be challenged.