Call the regular school board meeting for Forest Lake Area Schools, Thursday, September 3rd, to order. Please join us while we recite the pledge of >> allegiance. I aliance 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. >> Member clerk, please take the roll call of attendance. >> Okay. Member Castle, >> here. Member Christensen >> here. >> Member Rebeline >> here. >> Member Tyson >> here. Member Antonsen is here. Sorry, I'm so distracted by my pen. And member Corkran >> here. Everybody's here. >> Great. I would entertain a motion to approve the meeting agenda as a presented. >> So move. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries and the agenda is adopted. Um, first item on the agenda is scheduled and unscheduled visitors. This evening in the listening session, we had members Corkran and member Tyson. Would you either like to provide a report? >> We had a very um one visitor and we just talked about a variety of topics like the busing um how that was going. We also talked about the new software and how that was working. And we also talked about um a second grade reading uh writing cursive edition was found in the office uh that the new superintendent found and uh we got to look at a what year was it from? >> 1946. >> 1946. >> So that was that's my report. >> It was very entertaining >> and it was very fun to read. It was Karen Morhead's husband, Pops. >> It was his writing. >> Second grade writing book. >> A >> that was found. >> Look at her. She's going to show the dusty shelves. >> So pretty cool. >> That's awesome. >> Yeah, it was fun to look at. He had really nice curse up, too. >> Did. >> Although Karen said hers is better. >> That was a good report. >> Scott, >> does anybody have any questions? I I do have one question on the the busing. I've seen I I've heard from some people that uh the the busing cards uh came a little later than expected. Was that part of the discussion or >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's something I can speak to in my report a little bit here. I >> It's already covered. Y >> wonderful. Thank you. >> Um all right. I do not believe I have any green cards for this evening, so we can move on from that and go to the Forest Lake Area Middle School report. Principal Miller, welcome. Thank you. >> Well, as Renee is getting that up, uh, Superintendent Jacobson, first time I get to say that. And members of the board, thank you so much for uh, allowing us to present here this evening. It's always exciting. We often as the middle school get to present at the beginning of the school year. Um, so it's fun for us to to be able to share um not only obviously the the main body of our presentation, but also just those highlights to the start of the school year. Uh, as always, we had just a really really wonderful start uh with our second year now with sixth graders in the building. It was it's just been an amazing an amazing week. Um, I'm here. This is Jenny Kibble uh who is one of our uh literacy interventionists at the middle school. And so tonight we're going to share a little bit just again like I said a quick update to the start of the year and then um share with you a little bit about our literacy and our math intervention work that we started last year. And so just sort of some uh how that process came together, an overview of the programming as well as uh some of the highlights and results from their work uh which is really exciting to see and and just also a little bit of kind of the the next steps as we transition to year number two with our with our intervention work. Um as I often do, I'm almost to the point where I feel like I could maybe quiz you to see if you could recite our learning statement. I think I say it every time I'm here. Um but again at the middle school you know we uh exist to inspire uh learning for our students. That's really why our teachers and our staff are there um each and every day. It's why we come in. We love middle school students. Uh we get there by these three pillars which again is something that I know I've mentioned on a number of occasions which are but I think they they definitely warrant um just to be able to reiterate that is again our collective efficacy. the collective work of our entire staff and our community that really allows us to be successful. It's the systems, how we personalize learning for kids that's also really critically important. And finally, it's the strong student connectedness that we develop amongst our students uh to to again be super successful. Just a few photos from the start of the year. We had I think almost 80 web leaders, eighth grade web leaders this year to welcome our sixth grade students. um of which we were adding sixth grade students to our to our registrations up until pretty much the start of the school year, even probably still today. Um and they did a wonderful job. It was it it was also really interesting to sort of compare this year to last year in terms of just the like the energy level and maybe if you could use the word some of the anxiousness that existed and then the difference to this year at open house when our sixth grade families and and and uh students were walking through the building uh as well as just on the first day. Uh it it was wonderful uh to see that back into place and then of course with the welcoming back of our seventh and our eighth graders on on Tuesday uh and just how that um has gone throughout the day and I'm I'm hoping that our students have gone home and shared some positive experiences from their first week and are looking forward to many more weeks uh to come. Uh as I shared, we also really prioritize how we personalize learning for our students at the middle school. And so if we can almost go back uh almost tw over 12 months to the conversation around bringing sixth graders into the middle school. Part of that work involved looking at how we're supporting students that are struggling in literacy and math. at the middle school for um well really since I've been in the district uh we haven't had we've tried different approaches to how we're addressing literacy in math for students who need that additional support whether it be um course replacement uh where they would have a course instead of maybe an elective an art class or other experiences to various different um uh programs and at times not even having those options really afforded to um program for our students. And this was a really this was a a significant priority for us as we transition to a 6A building to be able to create a really solid structure around this. Um so the conversations began with a program that again we always use acronyms in education and a little bit of jargon and we know that but the the the term we use is ADSIS or alternative delivery of specialized instructional services. So I want to take just a moment to describe what that is. Um but working closely with members of my staff as well as Katie Loren uh we approached this as a viable alternative to how we could provide support for our students um as well as additional supports. And again, the reason why we looked at that, um, these are two sort of key anecdotal insights, um, that really resonated, especially this summer in reflection with our staff, with our instructional leadership team, um, around why this work is so very critically important. Um, and I want to draw your attention to that that stat on the left, schools that have at least 60% of their of students exceeding 50% growth. Now, you might look at that number and think that 50% doesn't sound great. um in terms of the the way whether it be fastbridge or something like the NWA assessment we used to use many many many years ago um basically I would almost replace that language with expected growth. We expect our students to grow but when we have more of our students ex um exceeding their expected growth. So not just making their expected growth but exceeding their expected growth that's that acceleration. That's when we start to think of schools being in those top 25% nationally. And that really resonated with our staff when we started to think about why the work that we're doing around literacy interventions and math interventions um and others is so critically important for our overall success. And so what is Attsus? Well, ADSIS is really um and I and I don't need to read this slide for you, but Attsus is an early intervention um program and model. The idea behind ASIS is that um we intend to intervene early to provide the supports to students that need those supports um and also in a way to be able to find that least restrictive environment experience for our students um prior to maybe transitioning to a special education setting um and and trying to reduce those unnecessary referrals. Um, it seamlessly integrates, and again, I apologize for some of the jargon, but it integrates with our multi-tered systems of supports, our MCSS program, which is a really complicated way of just saying there's a broad umbrella of different programs we use at in the middle school and elementary schools and high school to provide those kinds of systemized supports and extensions and experiences. And it it comes with dedicated funding from the state that actually helps to supplement staffing and programming that we're able to use and leverage here within the district. There are three core areas that we provide support in. Uh we target uh obviously reading and literacy. Uh find those foundational skills around fluency, reading comprehension, uh phonics foundations, mathematics around math proficiency, essential skill building again for those areas where students need that additional support. And then also behavior and I don't when I use the term behavior, I don't necessarily refer to um maybe you might think well behavior in terms of students making maybe not the best choice. uh we think of academic behaviors. So it might might be time management, it might be staying organized, it might be around some of those executive functioning skills as well. Within the program, there are really a set of sort of a cycle or a set of essential components or um aspects within our access model. Um at the middle school um it begins with our universal screening uh program that we use here uh within the district. So all students at the foresick area middle school are assessed using our fastbridge assessments that you've I'm sure heard uh quite a bit about uh both in the fall, in the winter, and also in the spring. Those universal screeners and the resulting data is then used when we identify students that might benefit from this additional support. Once identified, there's additional assessment data that's gathered around the students. One of the critical aspects of effective intervention is to make sure that you have the right intervention matched with the student. Uh so if they need a fluency intervention but you're you don't have that correlated appropriately and you're and you're conducting intervention around um let's say comprehension, we're not going to see those results. So you need to sort of intervention match and that's what that data helps us do. Um and again we're leveraging those intervent those researchbased interventions to be able to do that. And again, we worked really closely last year with with Katie Loren um in her role and and and Jenny uh Kibble as well as Linda Fornell, I'll show you the names in a minute. Carl Holly as well as part of our intervention team. Um we monitor the progress of our students throughout and so that happens frequently. In the case of reading, those progress monitorings were weekly and then in the case of mathematics, they happen to be every other week and and kind of their structure. But that was our so we could track the students progress, the gains they were making, adjustments to programming that we might need. And then ultimately as a as an intervention team, we would meet periodically about every six weeks where we would take a deeper dive into the results of of the performance of our students in the program and make adjustments to their services. Um maybe it's increasing the frequency of interventions, maybe it's adjusting program, maybe it's moving a student out um of those interventions or at times maybe increasing support. And that cycle would continue throughout the year. So I'm going to hand it over a little bit so to to Jenny. She's going to share a little bit um of some of the highlights as well as just sort of some of the work that we did structurally at the middle school. Um Jenny of course longtime uh teacher at Forest View Elementary joined us in the transition uh to the 68 middle school along with Carl Holly uh who focuses on math. He was unfortunately not able to be here this evening. And then Linda Fornell. Linda Fernell was a math teacher at the middle school for many, many years and transitioned into sort of our MTSS um I'll use the term coordinator loose, but essentially facilitated a lot of that MTSS work as well as worked very closely with our intervention team to kind of help that build that program and get that moving. She is now in a new position in the district um supporting our math teams. So Jenny, okay. >> Yeah. So Carl and I um him doing math and myself doing the literacy piece. We meet with students two to three times a week in small groups. Um those are flexible. Sometimes we find out, oh this combination of kids doesn't work and flip things around a little bit. Um and that leads to that flexible scheduling. Um there are certain times when you can't help kids and so we would go into the um either English or math classrooms. Um and our the cool thing is our interventions are aligned to what the kids are doing. So, English, it's aligned to the benchmark curriculum, and we're using some of those intervention pieces and doing some repeated readings to help the kids have more background knowledge for what they're doing in their classrooms, which has been really, really great. Um, and then we've done some repeated reading as well. I do a little bit of that in my groups, but do you want to speak to that with the other >> Absolutely. And I think what also what's really important for us to highlight is that second bullet point around flexible scheduling. um working with Bright Works and some of the different and our research around u middle level intervention programming, there's a lot of evidence that um the traditional models of if you need support and literacy, we're going to have you in a class that meets every day and additional support and you're going to lose out on opportunities like industrial technology or our agriculture classes and others. So, it was really important for us to create a schedule that allowed this to be flexible. So, um, Jenny and Carl and Linda would work with students maybe a little bit, uh, at the tail end of this class, maybe pushing in over here, um, using our flex time, um, to its full advantage as well. >> And I would, can I add something to that? Because if a student had something going on in one of those special classes that maybe we were pulling them, we would make it flexible for them to be able to attend whatever important thing was to them. >> Yeah, I think it increased a ton of buyin with our students. It did. um and the repeated reading groups. We also knew that, you know, Jenny and Carl are just two people and we have over 1300 students in our building and a number of them that need that support. And so we also tapped into our um our English teachers, for example, um both in uh I I'll share more in just a moment, but essentially tapping into their expertise to provide what's called a repeated reading strategy where you really increase reading for fluency and and breaking down tricky phrases and vocabulary to to increase comprehension as well. um that was really uh quite successful as well. Um in addition to that, Linda Fel who focused on behavior, she met with students individually and she met with them more frequently as a result and she leveraged a curriculum that we refer to as hops um which essentially is around an organizational curriculum um that she used within that program for her students. So, it's always fun to to to get to celebrate successes and so we wanted to share a few of those with you here. I'll have Jenny do the literacy in just a second. Um Carl uh shared with us again before we came just some of the highlights from last year. So Carl focused on working again these are uh pretty intensive interventions. So obviously not a significant number of students across the whole building. Um but worked with 34 students in sixth and seventh grade. Uh and as you can see those students when he would and again through that progress monitoring that he used through Fastbridge showed significant increases from where they were as a baseline of 39.2 if you think about that as sort of their growth rate to to 59.1. So really just over the course of that year really increased their rate of learning. Um he had 13 students successfully increase where their scores increased by more than 75%. Um, which again you you look at that and and again for those students, for those individual kids, they built such additional confidence to understand what they were learning in their math classes. Um, again enjoying that learning experience even more as a result of the support that they experienced over the the course of the school year >> and I worked with 49 students throughout the year. Um so 56.3% of our students who had ad um the absess literacy met their expected growth um and it was less obviously 51.9% for the entire building. So the students that we worked more intensively with had a little bit higher rate of um goal meeting their meeting their goal. >> So going back to that goal of we want to have students accelerate their learning. Um that's what we need for our students to do. So more of our students receiving the social support they grew at a more accelerated rate than again the population as a whole. >> Okay. And the same thing goes for the actual growth number then. So the students in the advers in the access literacy group grew 13 point excuse me that would be cool. Um 6.13 points um which is about double that of the other students. Um, and then 38 students who if we were to say, "Okay, it's a new school year. It's time to do our interventions." If we look at the scores at the end of the year, they would not qualify for our program because their scores, not that they're necessarily high, but their scores are high enough where they aren't our most students in most need. Um, and I don't know if this is an appropriate place to add, but I have been in sixth grade classrooms and seventh grade classrooms mostly this week. And for my seventh grade students, they're students I worked with last year. And so they know me and I just went in to check on them. For the sixth grade students, they did not know me. But it was really cool to go in. And for for many of them, there was kind of a relief knowing, okay, I'm going into sixth grade. School's no easier for me. And here I have somebody who's here to support me and will pick up where my elementaryis instructor left off. And there's just that little bit of comfort there knowing that there's a safety net for them >> which is really cool. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So and and when you see the common amount growth every student when they um take their assessments in fastbridge in math or in literacy are essentially dependent on where they score are assigned what would be an expected growth and that varies from kid to kid. And so we look at our students meeting their expected growth. And again, ideally, we want more and more students. As you saw in that first little diagram, we want more students. Uh nationally, typically you would expect 50% of your students to meet their expected growth. Our our long-term goal is to make sure we have over 60% of our students doing that above what that expected growth is. So that really accelerated learning. And then lastly, just this was again sort of outside of the direct work that Jenny did, but within our repeated reading um intervention. Uh the way this was structured last year is we had um this protocol being used by the entire sixth grade. So all of our sixth grade students experienced this um this protocol within their classrooms as a way for some pre-teaching and and kind of frontloading of content and skills and vocabulary. And you can see by on the left hand side there, our sixth grade students grew from fall to spring um more than either our seventh or our eighth grade students where the intervention looked a little different. We did it differently there just kind of targeted smaller groups within advisory. Um so that was really exciting to see the broader impact. And this year one of our changes or one of our um shifts is that we are we kind of call it repeated reading for all. And so that's an expectation that all students across all different content areas will be experiencing this uh researchbased intervention um just as a a formal way to kind of again build literacy skills for every student in the building. And then growth by participation, you can see again within seventh grade and in eighth grade um the seventh grade students experiencing that uh that intervention within that advisory grew at uh an average of 4.73 points. uh whereas the average student grew in seventh grade to 2.54. So again, you can see that the the impact of having that experience really helped to support and accelerate the learning and the literacy skills for the students that were participating in that program. Uh so something again that when we see that data, it really reaffirms the work and helps us to understand going into this year some of the things we want to make sure we put in place and broaden that scope for for more and more students. That's our our our bit of our brag. And uh and again, I think it's really a testament to the work of of Jenny and Carl and Linda. Um we would not be seeing these results if it wasn't for the three of them. They just absolutely uh crushed the work that they did last year with our students and we're super excited to continue that work this year. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Questions. >> I have a question. So this this pro two questions. So this program was new last year >> and then um what's the funding mechanism? How is is there >> Yeah. So ADSIS is a um if I can say grant program and maybe Katie I don't want to you can jump in because you helped uh fill the application out but it's a grant mechanism that uh and it's over a two-year cycle that districts can apply for and then receive those additional funds that then are used and leveraged towards staffing and programming. So this year for example or last year I should say and then of course this year how um like Jenny's position and Carl's position is funded through that as um covers most of the of the the staffing for those positions. Um and I know within the elementary there was some some coordination around that as well for the academic interventionists too. >> So we we might lose or >> if we don't you know are you able to reapply for the grant or if we don't have receive it or if we don't find funds somewhere else. You can continue to reapply year after year. Correct. >> Yeah. Just to to add to that, it's it's technically not a grant. It's uh state aid that you can apply for. The district needs to bring some resources, financial to uh the partnership, but uh we get essentially 70% of these these staff members paid for on additional state aid. Uh we um Mr. Miller is right. Katie Loren absolutely wrote the entire application several years ago and we were successful. We have every intent to reapply. Uh when it would reopen for us uh this upcoming January, February. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well, it just seems like it's very important work and we certainly want to be able to keep doing that with scores like you know. >> Yeah, absolutely. We're super excited just to see where it continues to go. Uh we learned a lot last year as our first year doing this work and and are excited to continue to develop the program. >> Yeah. >> Hi. Um thank you both uh for this. It's exciting to see the the numbers for sure. And >> you've got the math and the and the reading literacy stuff up there, but what about the um executive functioning? How do you measure those things and what does that look like for these kids? >> Yeah, absolutely. It's um it's it's uh we don't have the same mechanism to quantitatively assess that in ter you know if you think about we can look at a fall and a winter and a spring a reading or a math score from fastbridge um a lot of it you know as we talked to like for example Lyn Fernel just even sharing this morning >> and when we were reflecting on on the presentation sharing that you know for a lot of the students it's it's it's anecdotal it's subjective it's qualitative where they the confidence that they feel um to be able to um ask questions of their teachers because these are often students who >> if I'm disorganized. Um I struggle with time management. I also might find it hard to ask for the help I need or to raise my hand in class and ask a question. Um and building the confidence to do that and some of the feedback that she received from her families that she worked with was was really really positive. Um there are some other kind of mechanisms in terms of looking at academic performance and and grades that that we look at as well. you know, missing assignments and >> and tracking the progress that way, but it's not quite as >> um >> it's not quite as cut and dry. >> No, I I I suspected as much, but I mean I'm >> Yeah, it's great. >> It is it something that then Linda Fornell or whoever is going to be doing it now, um does is it integrated into the reading and the math or is it sort of a separate meetup with the student? Yeah, it's uh typically separate for when she would support those students. Now, there are a number of students who you might imagine qualify sometimes for both. >> Yeah. >> Um and maybe sometimes all three and so we do try to prioritize that. We use our guided study halls. Um and this year seeing the success of using the hops lessons. Um the plan is now to our guided study hall teachers is to use those same lessons. So having multiple people to be able to provide that same support because many of our students who require both math and reading, we prioritize those students in our guided study halls um to make sure that they have that space um also because it gives us an opportunity since they need support in two areas >> to not impact other academic areas when we have to pull them out or work with them individually. Yeah. Again, we're really trying to make sure that >> the support is given >> while minimizing any kind of negative impact in terms of their day. >> Absolutely. Um, that's really important to us. >> Yeah, I it's important to the kids too, I'm sure. I mean, >> 100%. >> It would be I'm sure the parents as well because you don't want your kids missing out on these >> alternative opportunities, but you really want them to kind of get it together so they can be successful. So, >> and you might have noticed that we you saw a lot of sixth and seventh grade. Some of that is um our ability to prioritize based on our the resources and staffing we have. Um, and also the goal is again intervening early. the more we can intervene early, the the the our sense would be that we would need less of that support later on as students become an eighth grader or transition to high school. >> Right. Well, I'm excited that you're you're doing this and have implemented it because I know >> several parents >> whose kids are now in high school. I might be one of them that would have loved to >> been able to have their kids do that. >> So, I'm glad you're doing it. Yes. Thank you. It's great. >> Yeah. Um, you said you have to qu kind of qualify by your test scores. So, is the additional students that would qualify, but we just don't have the staffing to accommodate them or h how does that work? I'm just curious. So, I'm sure the numbers might be higher than we can and it could you add staff? I mean, I don't I don't know the need. So, just curious about that. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Correct. There there could be >> again we had to sort of look at you know who are those students because you might imagine there's maybe a range of students is the you know and what you might do to provide the support for a student who is maybe on the uh closer end to being proficient to where we'd like them to be versus somebody who is more struggling is going to look different >> in intensity and frequency. >> And so we had to really work closely and think okay where where is this going to make most sense and really have the biggest impact for the most students that we can. um you know within the resources that we have. >> Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, do you feel like just do you feel like you have enough time for the students that you have? >> That's the thing. I mean, is it like is it more of a funding issue or just time and like or what? >> Well, >> could that be improved? >> One of the things is I we don't want to take the students out of their full period when we take them out and so we have to work pretty fast and pretty furiously in that short time. >> Um and I see students typically every other day. We're on an AB schedule. So, I'll see them um at the beginning or end of class every other day. Um I I feel like when they're with me and the work that we do together is really great for them. Could they use more? Of course they could. But also, if I gave them more that would be overwhelming for them and it really wouldn't do them good a good job in the long run. So, >> okay. getting >> and they had more students in my recruitment. So, additional >> test and and we have found too um I had one group last year that was it it was too many students. It wasn't a lot of students, but it just felt like too many and I felt like they were not getting what they needed. So, we dropped it down a couple of students and moved some things around and it was much more successful with two or three or four students in a group versus eight where the one group was. and and the students were happier, the students felt more successful and they were more successful in >> in the things we were doing in class, participated better. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> I I just wonder in that little snippet that you just talked about, do you think part of that is that they get when you have a smaller number, one teacher, one little group of people, short amount of time, everybody gets a little individualized attention that way and help. Yeah. And they feel more comfortable participating as well. >> Even I mean eight kids doesn't seem like a lot, but it isn't a lot to them except when they're doing something where they're very vulnerable. >> Yeah. >> And so those smaller groups really worked >> worked better, >> built confidence, which was cool across the board. >> Yeah. >> Even for students whose test scores maybe didn't increase as much, >> their confidence was much better. And and that's huge because that will serve them down the line as well. >> Absolutely. Thank you. So, I first want to talk about something you said um that you're their safety net. >> And I think that our middle school has really transitioned into having those components. We made the took out that seventh period. We made the my daughter's math class when she was there was 36 minutes because >> but it was just quick and she fell behind in math >> at the at the Century Junior High and then when she got to the high school she had a safety net and those things went up. So I'm so this is so vitally important to when they transition to the high school for that success to be already there and that confidence and all of that. And I love how you talked about the flexibility and respecting their school day because I used to do title one reading and math support at Scandia and there is stigma around kids getting taken out and what they're missing and >> you know just that leaving the room and know you know with a couple people. So I love that you build in that that piece to it. >> Yeah. >> But Mr. Miller. >> Yes. >> What is the acronym for hops? I'm just curious. Oh, do you know how to talk? >> I mean, it's not important, but >> homework organization. >> Okay, so all those >> planning. >> Yeah. >> Okay, that that's awesome. And then >> we love acronyms. >> I I'm really I'm just I'm just kept mulling it around in my brain. And then is it accurate to then we have 83 students total in both the math and the literacy >> cuz you said >> that were in Yes. that were in the formal ads. >> The formal ads like we said some of the pieces like our repeated reading that we did >> that hit every sixth grade student experienced that as well as >> um I wanted to say between seventh and eighth grade there were probably about a hundred students. >> Wow. So is that the top high end? How what is kind of our doable number? do 100 150 out of the 1300 students. >> I think in terms of that intensive access intervention um with with the capacity we have with Carl and with Jenny. Okay. You know, we're I think this year it will probably look a little bit different now that it's our second year. It took a lot for us to kind of get things how did we want to do this and spending a lot of time researching. >> Um that we'll see that number come up, but it's never going to be a >> um you know 300 students engaged in that in that particular work. kids um just because of the nature of how intense it is and and how you need to keep this group sizes relatively small to be able to be effective. >> Yeah. And I know that MTSS is a part of you know the science of reading and everybody has to have it. We've had it for a long time but do you think that it just strengthens it having these components together >> you know adds this and MTSS? >> I I I do and Jen you can speak up to that. We had our first as a as secondary our our first redact uh training uh that we did during workshop week and um as the staff went through that that process of being students again really um it was super reaffirming to see the work that we've done here show up in what the research is saying for example happening even for again for all students hence one of the examples I provided around repeated reading for all because we know that that has that's a high yield impact strategy um that again if used it can impact fluency of comprehension for for all kids regardless of level. Um and and really seeing that and seeing that in the read act and seeing that in the research. >> Yeah. And so the the um repeated reading >> there isn't any cost involved with that. Correct. So that's the beauty of that. >> Yep. >> Just do it. >> Yep. >> It's it's so awesome. >> Yeah. It's exciting. >> Um I think that's it. Um, I just think it's wonderful >> setting our students up for success when they transition to the high school and all of that. So, thanks for all that you do and >> nice to meet you tonight. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm I I have a couple comments, maybe even a question here, but uh I'm super excited that you decided to present on this tonight. Uh, it's this program, it's so vitally important. One of my frustrations with the the special education model, and I I say this with Dr. Wilson sitting back there now, is that there are really really defined parameters that you have to meet in order to qualify for for additional help. >> And you have to be so many standard deviations below the average. and and by that time the students have struggled for so long that that it's almost become a way of life for them >> and like you were talking about with their confidence it it really takes a hit and then they qualify for the additional services and it takes so much longer >> to get them to the point where they're they're performing at the level that they're capable of. Mhm. >> So when whenever we talked about the ad system, whenever I you know when I saw it first uh when we were applying for it and and trying to work it out and you know the state aid dollars, >> that is an incredible opportunity for our students when they they start to slip. We can get them caught up >> before they're at that point where they're almost at danger of living there for the rest of their lives. So this this program is just amazing and the results that you guys have achieved with it are incredible. >> Um so my my question and then of course every time you present to the board you present for everything and you don't remember an acronym or >> you get a weird question from a board member. Mine would be have we we're only a year in >> but have we seen this or do we anticipate this program uh removing some of the pressure from our special ed program? Yeah, again I would say it is only a year in, but that is that's that's in many ways the intent behind a program like ASIS um or any sort of early intervention model that you can create. Uh the the we want to find and we use this term least restrictive environment. We want our students to have those experiences and to um not be pulled into um a class and missing out on other opportunities. um programs like ADSIS that allow us and afford us the the resources to do that and to intervene early um based on again I would speak for maybe the results across say the state shows that it does to you maybe use your words relieve some of that pressure um you know which which is again we want to make sure students we had two students who went through this last year at least in terms of literacy that through the interventions and trying different things we were able to identify that more support was in in act indeed needed and ultimately did go through an evaluative process. >> Um but we felt like that that was warranted but it wasn't we had also as you saw 38 that >> had didn't need that additional support. >> In both cases though it's a win because you identified early that they needed additional supports. We were able to get them those supports and >> y >> to those two students that could be the the difference for them. >> That's I think why I use the term like just success. Success is for both >> in terms of that. Y they were getting what they needed. >> If I might >> please. >> Member Castle. >> So, uh, with the hops, um, would I that be that the coursework can be brought to the parents and they can assist in with with their students that they can move along with this at home too. in terms of the like the actual hops lessons and >> the materials and you know whether that you know for the reading is it a set list of items or do they get to choose something that they interests them that would >> be something that might speed them along with with that or >> and I do think that's part of the work of say Jenny and Carl and Lyn is is sometimes at times to tailor um what the maybe the reading would be or the experience would be um to the interests of the student. And then at other times um it was really tightly correlated for example in sixth grade to their benchmark curriculum. So at times they had a um what was it in the spring they had to oh I'm going to blank on what they were reading about. It was oh wood uh pellet fired um furnaces. It was a topic that they had to read about. Well most kids have no idea what that is. So what um Linda and Jenny and others did is they worked with the teachers to provide them sort of again a repeated reading strategy around that. Um and then the students were able to do that ahead of time, break through those tricky words, phrases, understand so that when they accessed the curriculum, it made more sense. Uh and so at times it's tied closely to that and other times it might be working saying Jenny thinking about here's the students that I know I know their interests and then working with them to find resources that are are going to peique their interest. >> And then is there an opportunity for volunteers? Do you have to be a licensed teacher to help out or >> Yes. community to be a Yeah. to be to be the ASIS educator to to provide those interventions you do. >> Okay. But could somebody assist >> uh >> you know just to come in and help out? >> I would say that's a possibility. Yeah. >> I would say to that they are highly trained in specific type repeated reading strategies. um are these math strategies and I would even go so far to say uh is that uh Miss Mrs. Kibble and Mr. Holly were particularly the data suggested when they were in sixth grade that they were having high success with boosting kids up which is one of the reasons why Mr. Miller reached out to them and said would you consider doing this? I'd point out for the board and for anybody watching is that we're talking about the ADSIs interventionists at the uh middle school which is new last year but this is coupled with 10 other ADSIS interventionists that we have spread across our elementary schools >> and um Chair Revline was was on point uh when he was referencing that ADSIS actually can preede uh not impede but preede and maybe even deter deter students from needing to go to a more I'm sorry a less flexible a less nimble intervention like special education or what like what we used to do is we would schedule students into a semester long >> additional reading course which means they don't get to take >> the woods class or the business class and this is a far more nimble agile uh intervention model that gives students just what they need just the right dose to get back on track and be able to access the curriculum I the example that Mr. Miller gave about uh reading something that is really outside of most kids schema >> uh of wood pellet furnace and no not many kids talk about that on the bus, right? But but what that does is it illustrates that through repeated reading and understanding the text that when you go into a chemistry class or a physics class or you know world history that content that might be fairly unfamiliar for you, you need to be able to read to learn. And with students that are showing that they're not yet there, we use tools like this and highly trained people like uh Mrs. Kibble to show them what do those what do good readers do in in in those cases. And so, uh, yeah, I think it is fantastic add to the middle school. It only, we had an MTSS program at the middle school before. >> Uh, this just adds more depth and layers to it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Can I add one quick thing talking about acronyms? >> U, I did have a parent message me after seeing that wonderful picture on Instagram. What does web stand for? >> Where everyone belongs. >> And I knew that, but I think a lot of people don't know what that means. And it's good to just sometimes not use acronyms. >> But anyway, I >> think there should be an acronym jar. >> Yes. >> And you could put a quarter in every time you >> But that was an impressive impressive picture. Wow. >> They look so proud. All their faces, too. So >> great leaders. >> Yes. Excellent. >> Well, thank you everybody. >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. >> Oh, I do have one last question. Is it who's writing the next grant proposal or do you know yet? This is just a lot of work. >> Okay. I figured since you were already successful, maybe it would be you. So, >> awesome. >> She has it down path now. >> Yeah. I think once you get it, >> you got it figured out. >> We've done it once. There's not changes necessarily to the model. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Great information. Been a great weekend. >> All right. The next item on the agenda is positive happenings. Does anybody have any additional positive happenings for this evening at Kersonen Center? >> Yeah. Well, it was the first week of school, so that's really exciting. And I was out at Scandia on Monday, so that was a lot of fun uh seeing all the kids being back. And Scandia um has a new playground, as does Columbus. And I'm I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I know their PTO and PTA was really instrumental in getting those um new playgrounds built, and they're really awesome. So, thank you to all the people that had something to do with that. I mean, that really was an incredible lift and uh wonderful money raised by our parents. You know, there's we get all these donations that we read >> uh every night. Well, there are donations pouring into our elementary schools and other schools that don't get read uh you know once a month on our sheet. So, um you know, just a huge shout out to the Scandia PTA, PTO and uh Columbus as well. And then also my daughter came home from school on Monday and I asked her how the cell phone band was working at the high school. She's a junior and she said, "Mom, you know, it's working." And um Dean Alm had collected seven phones >> in in um that my daughter had seen. So I'm excited about that. And um I hope just the momentum keeps going. And I know it's really difficult at the high school level, but I just think that is super important for our families and I hope um you know that that just continues to go well. Um also this wonderful mailer. I'm sure Renee over there in our closet had a lot to do with this. Everyone probably got this in your mailbox, but it's a beautiful, you know, full color uh talking about our school. So that was really fun to see um in in my mailbox. Um tonight is the first Ranger football game. There's a I just came from the volleyball game at the high school. There's a soccer uh meet going on on our on our field. So fall sports are in full swing and that's uh really exciting. So uh just lots of really wonderful and positive things happening around here. So that concludes my report. >> Thank you. Member Tyson, >> I can go next. Sure. And I have it here too. Um this is just a wonderful thing to get in the mail and you know when I went to the Y the retirement I mean my age, they love getting this and reading it and you know, Gail, that thing was really nice and I liked hearing about the budget and all the stuff in there. So, I think it's just a great way to reach everyone districtwide. Um, I went to the boys soccer opener last week with my friend Carla. There's a couple of boys that are junior and one's a senior that play that I know and it's just so fun to watch soccer in the big stadium. I just enjoy that so much. Um, I also stopped in to see the lights in the Wyoming media center and I got to see Principal Children. She was having a fabulous first week and the lighting is amazing. Um, it's just so much brighter and that's what you need in a library, right? So impressive work. Great job. So, um, and I just want to comment that the back to school and all staff opening was just really, really exciting and fun. And I think our new superintendent did a fabulous job um with have bringing the pep band in and spoofing us on that he's going to play the saxophone and you know it was just so fun and you know it felt like there was so much vibrant energy in the room from staff too and you know it was just heartwarming to hear your story about your family and how you grew up and all of that and you added some humor to that stuff. So, thank you for that. It was really a fun day. And that is all I have. So, thank you. >> Does anybody else have anything for positive happenings? >> Well, I'm sad. I'm going to echo the back to school day. That was great. Sorry. I wish I could have stayed longer and I had said I had to leave at 9 and Super Jacobson said 9:02 or whatever. 9:03 and he was right on the dock. You were very Yeah. So, >> I knew you needed to go. >> Well, that's why you heard. Yeah, I'm It was all about me leaving, but I had to get to work. But um but yeah, I loved the energy and the young staff. It's just every year I feel like they're getting younger and younger. I just like how old is everyone looks so much younger than I remember. But staff is it was very exciting to see everybody back. So I know it's always hard for them though. It's like trying to get back into the swing of things, you know, but high energy and the band that was that was great having them in. They've never done that before. >> Oh, that was so >> that was really exciting. And I really was hoping you'd be playing the saxophone. So, are we going to get that another time? >> Maybe next year. We'll see. >> Maybe next year. Take some lessons. Maybe. >> Okay. Thank you. That's it. >> I will make a note of that, Member Corkran, and we'll put that on the proposed agenda for our next meeting, >> but uh Superintendent Jacobson will play the saxophone to kick us off or maybe on the way out. That way, we can >> get people journ. Um, no, I'm I'm glad everybody brought up the uh the staff welcome back. I thought that was a great event. >> Uh, Superintendent Jacobson nailed his speech. Uh, did >> I spoke with a lot of staff members later that day that said uh, you know, that >> you know, they come into the school year and they're not not quite sure how to feel about it, but they felt energized after that that talk and they were ready to get back at it. And um, I haven't heard really anything negative about how the year's gone so far. It seems to be off to a good start and that's that's everything that you want. So, >> so thank you for putting that together and welcoming Miss Z back on such a high note. >> Does anybody else have anything for positive happenings? >> Well, I think the other side of the table covered everything fairly well. Um, >> yeah. >> Um, football and the welcome back. I I just want to say that I think it's just such a unique thing that you it just you being the one to do it and the band like you said. I thought that was amazing. I love marching bands, so I'm like super partial to them anyway, but um it just makes it so much personable, more personable. Um you know, I'm come from a healthcare you like, you know who the CEO is because the picture is on the whatever website, but you know, you are a person to all these the new teachers and all the new staff. I mean, all all the ones that have been here for a while probably know you. Um but I just think that's fairly unique for the size that we are. So, I just I really appreciate that. And I did make it to the last uh Arts in the Park. I was there. I don't remember the name of the band, but there were Johnny Cash tribute and that was super fun. There was just a ton of people there. And my son actually >> my son actually went out and sold a few of those football cards, which I took a video of because I don't think my husband There was a lot of football players there that night. >> In my neighborhood. >> So fun. So >> that's great. If anybody doesn't have anything else to add, we can move to workshops and conferences. >> Not seeing anything for that. Um, city of Forest Lake, member Christensen or member Tyson. >> I have a few things. >> Sure. >> Do you remember member Christensen? Go ahead. >> So I was just going to mentioned that Yep. Arts Arts in the Park ended with the grand finale, the corn feed, and it was a fun night. Very toasty and church of cash and all all those things. I saw me Morhead. She was covered with butter. >> She was >> I was like, "Don't give me a hug." >> But anyway, lots of volunteers from the parks department um to spearhead that um event, those events every Tuesday. So, um I also want to mention that the farmers market continues through October 31st at the city hall. So, that's nice to know. Goes for quite a while. Um, and they also had a nice schools back in session on their reminder on their website, which I appreciated as well. Um, and then just that the Eureka, we were talking about this at the listening session. The Eureka that runs around Clear Lake is going to be closing now and that's going to be a re big redo there with a new fishing pier, paved walking paths, benches. I'm just widening that road. I've been to some of those meetings in person as well as looked at listened to them online, but that's going to be a huge improvement along that road. But for us, both 97 and Eureka are closed. And so we were asking the superintendent how that impacts our busing and >> slowing us down. >> So hopefully people are patient with the buses and pickups and arrivals and all of that. So that concludes my report. >> Thank you, Member Tyson. Uh, member Christensen, do you have anything to add or Okay, we will move on then to community education. Uh, that's member Christensen or member Corkran. >> No meeting until >> Yeah, the next meeting is September 24th. We don't meet over the summer. Excuse me. So, nothing to report there. >> That makes that report easy. And we have MSBA member Tyson. >> Sorry, I caught you right on your drink. >> That's okay. Um, yeah. So, we had our Kids Rise event yesterday, which we've been planning for. Um, it's been a statewide initiative with a lot of collaboration between different people, MSBA, AMSD, and all of that. We gave out almost 3,000 of these because it was so hot. >> Um, the they the kids big and little, and all the families just loved it. >> Some of the other stats where we we um about 500 kids and adults and families visited the tent was down by the kitty rides. Um about 150 did drawings and said something about their public schools. Even the older students that came in, they would say, "I love the Tartans. Best school ever." You know, they just a lot of school pride going off up in all those messages. As well as I was saying that the little kids, a lot of the elementary kids already knew their teacher's name. I mean, you didn't have to ask them. My teacher's name is Miss Harrow. I'm in third grade. So, it was just fun to talk about school and teachers and have so much positivity and all those signs going up and um there was also dialogue and questions about the permanent school fund. I know member Corkran was saying she's hearing questions about that and you know just letting people know that it's no new taxes and that it was a fund trust set up in 1856 and now there's this balloon and the amendment is to adjust that percentage from roughly 2% to 4% and it's just a win-win for every school in the state tribal everything charters publiclix everybody so win-win and so I noticed well one thing I want point out is that this is changed. >> Yeah, >> they changed the name and kind of updated it to the board review instead of the journal. But if you're getting questions and you're not sure, there's just a great article in here about the permanent school fund. Um the other thing that's on page 15 is come on board, a whole new section about, you know, onboarding new members, about mentorship and training, clarifying roles and relationships, and then just a lot of good information about the permanent school fund. um in there as well. And then I know um Becky was so nice is to put chart to course bias. This is something new they're doing. So at a glance you can just because I know sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the emails and this just they've been working on condensing it down. So at a glance you can go okay that's when all the phase trainings are. Okay this is all the events on here. So I like that and I hope you guys will as well. So um that concludes my report. >> Wonderful. Lots of good work going on at MSBA. >> I have one thing to add. >> Yes. >> Just one one thing to add to member Tyson's report. There is an online tool where you can look up and see how much your school would get um from the um >> Thank you for mentioning that. I forgot that. >> Yeah. And I looked it up and Forest Lake would get just under $200,000 if the change was made. And people should also remember that um if you do not fill it out, that's a no. So >> yep. Any oval that's not filled in is a no >> counted as a no. >> I think you just have to keep >> member Christensen. Do you know what the number is right now? So is it we get a $100,000 from this fund right now every year and it would grow to two because it is doubling in the amount right about >> we can get that information. I'll tell you what I will >> I want to make sure that we're giving it accurate information so I can get that >> for you. The last estimates I've seen was um what what it would have been in the 2425 school year and I believe it would take us from this permanent school fund in the mid200,000s to maybe around 400,000 >> but I I want to make sure that I appreciate that. And I think if if our superintendent could I mean there's actual dollar amount last I heard it'd be $41 per student >> up from like 26. So if you could find out that dollar amount or I could find out but they're actually equating it to per student a dollar amount. >> I remember yeah Dr. Massie I think he gave a number roughly what it would be but anyway. Okay. Thank you. I think you just I think people have misinformation that it's a tax that's why I think people just need to really know it's not a tax increase. >> That is huge. I think misinformation's going around >> and that's the beauty of it, right? That there's it's increasing funding for schools with no taxes and tax effect. So >> and it's all off of land revenues, >> right? And a lot of that rand land is I don't know from what I read is I don't know if there's >> logging so much but mining is some of it or >> tech night and all that is kind of in there. >> So okay. >> Yeah. Thank you for bringing that to our attention Christensen. That was actually I was going to ask member Tyson um along those same lines. Do you know if MSBA is planning on doing any type of public awareness uh like videos or things that we can send voters to when they ask us this question or >> Yes, >> I can answer that question. Yeah, MSBA has helped school districts with some tools and some uh information that they can get out. Obviously, from a school district standpoint, we can't >> encourage one a vote one way or the other, but we do intend to do that as get closer to uh November 3rd, so people have that ready to go in their in their back pocket. They know what they're voting on. >> That's wonderful. I think people just want to educate themselves. I've heard a lot of questions on what is this, what does it mean, how does it work? Um, and those are types of things that would be great to rely on MSBA for that uh >> answer. There's more. Sorry, I'll just add this thing. >> Are there links on our website to their to those documents on the MSBA? >> Yes. Okay. Y >> and they keep pumping them out. I can send them out again if you kind of miss them when they send one out. But there has been a lot of uh influx of media talk. Axios put out an article on it. Um NPR's interviewed Kirkshidawin and they interviewed uh Mr. Hillman, the new president of MASA. So, you're going to start hearing more about it, more commercials maybe, and more public radio and media. >> And this money is not tied to any thing. It is just >> taxitional general fund money, isn't it? >> I think what member Antonson's asking is it's not categorical funds that have to be used on any given thing, right? >> It can be used in the general fund to help lower class sizes or purchase textbooks. Um, yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Member Tyson, to your point about the uh campaigns that they've been running, one of my colleagues in 916 last night mentioned that she'd even seen some advertisements on television >> talking about this already. So, they are starting to come out, which is good. >> That is good >> because a lot of people are asking. >> Yeah, that's good. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> All right. Do we have anything else on MSBA or should we move to Superintendent Jacobson's report? I think we will pivot to Superintendent Jacobson. >> Well, I'm going to continue on the topic of MSBA because in addition to the start of the school year, uh September represents MSBA's schoolboard appreciation month. So, uh, thank you to all of you for the, um, evenings that you go to for sports, even though you don't have a child on the team or the meetings that you come to here, the emails from me that you bear through and read, all the information you track to help lead our school district. So, that is fantastic. Um, in the same theme uh that member Tyson talked about, uh, the theme for this year is Minnesota school boards help Minnesota students rise. Um, member Tyson also mentioned forgot to mention that she did brought a t-shirt. It's uh, it's extra large, so a little larger than what I can fit into, but um, >> put it in the dryer. >> Yeah, thanks. I put it in the dryer. But um, thank you for all that each of you do as schoolboard members. It's very much appreciated. um as uh Gail Gilman shared with us last week, uh leadership trickles down from the top and and it's felt throughout our system. So, thank you for that. Um back to school. So, last week, as we talked about earlier, we welcome all staff back to school. Um just as a quick reminder teachers on that first day back on Monday started in their buildings uh doing all building related things leaning up learning about the updates within their schedule their school improvement plans staff development efforts on Tuesday they come to a district day. Uh thank you for everybody who came in and uh uh listened to the person give the district welcome. Everybody was gracious. Everybody uh by and large paid attention to that person. So, it was um fun to do. It really was fun to do. Like I said, uh I wouldn't have given over the the opportunity to do it to anybody else. And so um that was really a good time. And some of the things that I talked about is just sharing my personal journey. I think that's important that the people in our system know who um is working as superintendent and um for them to feel comfortable coming up to me. And so sometimes you have to use a little humor >> and you have to tell a personal story and even seem human in order for people to see you as one. >> Uh we talked about just how do we really add meaning to our district vision, excellence for every student. That was something that I really wanted to um spend some time on because I think it's important that we we our district vision isn't just words on a page. We talk about excellence for every student every day. Um and then as teachers, how do we protect our energy levels and so that we can come in and and and do our best every day when sometimes um students as we talked about earlier just need need more than we can give them and we we we we work as a team around that. >> And then the end of the the week as mention Mr. Miller alluded to um our secondary educators were doing their uh readout training around content area content area disciplinary literacy. So as we talk about is in the elementary school we want kids we want students learning to read but at the secondary level we still want students learning how to engage in text and content that might be complicated or outside of their current understanding. um reading a calculus text or a physics text or a programming text when that isn't something I have a lot of background on requires a certain level of reading strategies, reading skills. So we they they spent a lot of time on that. Uh this was the first time since 2017 that we started before Labor Day and uh by and large every community member noticed we we had all our students here. I'd like to point out for those of uh in our community who are wishing they were waiting till uh the following week, what this does allow us to do is to have our last day of school on June 3rd uh rather than the second week of June. And I think that that I think it it's going to be important at that time and and it just uh gives a lot of a lot of students who take these big important tests, some of those tests determine whether they're get they're going to receive or qualify for college credit on a test more time in the course in order to prepare for that test. So I think that that's that's worth noting. Um uh it's also worth stating again that uh we do the same thing next year. So, uh, um, the first day of school, um, or sorry, Labor Day was September 7th this year. Next year, it's September 6th. So, in early August, we passed a calendar that has us doing the same thing. Next year, we will do just as we talked about around this table uh, a month or so ago. Uh, at some point, survey families and staff on how they feel about that and what they would like out of their calendar going forward. uh enrollment uh uh uh as of September 1st was 5580. Um if you're tracking a year ago that was 5604 so uh 24 fewer students uh two years ago September the uh 4th 2024 5660 so about 80 fewer students so we are still declining slowly in enrollment. um but just not at the rate we were five or six years ago. And and again, I think that that is a little bit of a factor of the um just the demographics and birth rates that are happening in Minnesota uh these days. You know, families don't have 12 six kids at the rate that they want. And that's that's okay. That's just our current reality. Uh we budgeted at 5435. So we're still above that budgeted number. We predict that over the course of September and over the school year, we might see that number go down. So, we'll want to track that as a as a leadership team. Uh we are entering in now to the final stage or we've completed the final stage of our reboundering work. Now, we're now operating our elementary our elementary attendant zones within our new boundaries. Uh and if you recall, this work and those new boundaries was all done in the spring of 2025. in preparation for the fall of 2026 uh in order to rebalance our elementarymentaries. Uh and I would point out a year ago uh we had two elementaryaries over 400 students, one that was close to 500 and then we had another elementary that was about 260 students. We are far more similarly um um have similar enrollment across our district. Uh now going forward uh we fit into our elementarymentaries much better. Forests view is our biggest elementary. We've got um the largest number of students there, but now we're up over 300 students uh even at Scandia, which is really I think uh a good healthy and and way for us to more efficiently staff each of those schools uh with the right with the right class sizes and the right amount of teachers. Uh transportation has been a significant project this year in order to help families uh transport their children to to school. We have allowed all parents to interdistrict enroll their children in the same school they went to uh last year if their elementary attendance boundary changed. And we have attempted to accommodate transportation requests where we can. uh we aren't always able to do that if the their home is so far out of our um our route system that it would just make the the the drive and the commute way too long. So, we've been able to accommodate some but unfortunately not. >> Um we have also changed to a new routing software this year which has come with some glitches uh as we get used to uh the data transfer uh into the new system. uh as Chair Reveline had mentioned earlier, there were some some families that reported not getting their bus cards when they had when we had intended or hoped and and our community has been incredibly patient with us. And so all those families who um had to navigate some uncertainty at the beginning of the year, uh we thank them and appreciate their patience with us. Um, I don't anticipate this next year, uh, with now that we will at that point have been a year into our transportation system. Um, and as we've worked through those those kinks, but I think by by and large now we we've got those figured out. >> Um, I would also like to point out and and I this is I'm I'm running off the cuff because I'm only responding to some of the things that were sent said earlier. Uh I want to thank the generosity uh as member Christian talked about and we do have an incredibly generous community. Um each month the superintendent has the uh opportunity to write an article for the Forest Lake Times. Um member Christensen essentially just previewed my article. >> Yeah. And so I hope you have a chance to read that. Um, I had just mentioned uh to somebody here at the district office with the the football cards or those cards that people often buy from people who stop by their doors. If they could only put those on an app >> so that you know when you don't have the card and you're at the restaurant and you forgot the card at home. >> Well, guess what? They got they were they did that ahead of me. So, they do come up with a come with an app now uh that you can get you can even use the the the same coupon um that maybe was on the card and and even more than that. So, um, if you have the wherewithal and interest, I would encourage families to to say yes to those young athletes as they come to the door. >> And then lastly, uh, the cell phone, uh, change in cell phone policy at the high school. Um, it has gone pretty well. >> It has gone pretty well. I think families are agreeing by and large that this is a healthy thing for students. I think there is so much out there in research and literature that the amount of time and the type of use on technology is really something we need to monitor. >> Um there are times certainly where you're running a program or you're programming software there's that's an appropriate use. Uh we but other times the use is mind-numbing or or not overly stimulating or even harmful. And so lowering or having students really just be able to be kids at school and have personal conversations instead of um maybe going to their phone. Uh I think is a really healthy thing. And uh early report says at the high school that um some kids are appreciating it. Some are saying things like, "Oh, I can't wait to be able to use my phone at the end of the day." but they're they're but they're they're working with us and we really appreciate it. >> Uh and that concludes my report. >> Thank you. >> Does anybody have any questions, comments? >> Just have one for the superintendent. Um in talking to some teachers at opening day, um it was actually Principal Cruffle from Scandi. I said, "I noticed you changed the logo to Rangers." And she said that all of the elementaryaries did. Is that correct? >> I apologize. I should have spoken to this. >> I have my Scandia Elementary shirt. >> Thank you. >> Wow. There you want to do that. The new shirt that the PTO bought shirts for all the students >> and all the staff. So this is a love shirt. We need to get some gear. I need to order. >> So is that true that every of all of our elementarymentaries have changed their >> We're all rangers now. We're not stars, cougars. >> Yeah. Just as we talked about around this board table for a little over a year now, we're all Rangers. >> Long time. >> And so, um, >> yeah, we we had all of the elementary schools have updated their mascot mascots and then their PBIS matrices to reflect that we are in fact all rangers. >> Oh, that's been talked about for a long time. >> Years. >> Yeah. As you may have noticed, uh, member Tyson, when you went over to Wyoming to take a look at the media center, the the Wildcats not up anymore, and you're going to see more Forest Lake Ranger um uh imagery, uh, the colors are uh >> are maroon and gold. Perfect. >> Yeah. So we are really over time uh some of our other buildings are still their other colors but I think as we get through other >> summer projects over time you'll see more maroon and gold I should have spoken to that but yes that is something we have done for bringing that up >> and you know I think it's great to have that individual message in their buildings whatever you know goes along with cougars and stars and all that but I think in a district our side size it's just great to be unified with all rangers and you know, you come to Ranger Preschool and it's I just think it's very beneficial. >> So, >> yeah, member Tyson, thank you so much for calling attention to that because that was uh >> that was one of the things we spoke to a lot around the board table when we were doing the elementary school uh boundary adjustments and um as long as I've been on the board, it's been pretty much a unanimous >> uh thing that the board's wanted to do. So, I'm super excited that uh Superintendent Jacobson, you're making the first giant leap >> in that effort. >> Um, and I also support the idea of, you know, we don't have to rush and paint all the walls. We do that as the uh the natural refresh occurs and it's not costing the district extra funds and I think that's really responsible way to do it. Y >> um I was going to add one thing on the cell phone um the new cell phone policy or procedure that they have at the high school. I have tons of high school kids in my house. So, I got a lot of feedback on that starting on day one and really the the students for the most part supported as well. The only complaints that I've heard so far is the lunch run and that is going to be a balancing act that I'm sure administration's going to figure out at some point here. So, >> yeah. The the want or desire to use them during lunch. >> Yes. >> Yes. and then then you hear of a we'll call them the schemes to find a way to to get on and check it. But uh you know it it it can be a bit of a a shell shock and can create a different kind of anxiety to be unplugged for a while too. So that balance will figure it out and then there are students in the building that have a need for those devices be it uh you know their hearing or medical issues. So, um I I'm confident that that will sort itself out in time and uh the students will get used to it pretty quick. >> All right. Well, thank you everybody there. Um that brings us to the finance report. Uh Director Renberg finally >> board, thank you for having me here tonight to uh give an update on the um school finances. Perfect. I think we're not at the beginning of the Perfect. All right. Thank you very much. Perfect. Well, I'm excited to be here tonight um to just review kind of where we're at. Uh school districts, as a lot of uh students know, live in multiple school years. So, not only are we wrapping up last school year, we're living in this school year, and we're looking ahead to next school year um all the time in our budgeting and everything. So, tonight I'm just going to review where we're at with last school year in the audit. I'm going to talk about the preliminary budget approval uh for FY27 and then FY28 and beyond and then a little bit about the fund balance. Um so, we know we have that policy that was implemented over the summer. So, just talking again about that. Uh for the audit, uh we're about halfway through. So, they come in June, they come in August, and so we've completed those tasks. Those are mostly tasks um that have to do with internal controls. How does your process work? How do you make sure um segregation of duties, making sure that somebody can't do all the things to get somebody paid, that you have to have multiple people involved um to avoid fraud and things like that. Um also all of our um information on leases, software, all of the programs um that we do uh that we have to keep track of um in our process. uh state aids and taxes started to get tied out uh through the auditor and then they're going to come back here um in September and October and that's where we really get into those hard numbers. So that's where we really see where uh accounts payable and receivable ended up. So what's our federal how much federal dollars did we spend all the expenditures in but the revenue is not in yet. So kind of getting that ready to go and then um also self- insurance severance. Uh construction's a big one um to balance between our construction fund 06 and the general fund. Making sure that that all ties out correctly. Um and then also um our benefits to our employees. We have accounts uh for their medical expenditures. So making sure that that also uh is reflected accurately. So that's going to be uh we're still on target though for a November finance committee and December board meeting, which is again um a good timeline for that. but just still looking um to get those final numbers in those last two September and October meeting with our auditor. Overall, enrollment was looking really good. So, um we had a good school year last year. Um as Superintendent Jacobson was talking about, uh we did start out the year, first day of school, uh last year at around that uh 5600 students. We know that throughout a school year though, you're going to go down. So, you know, there's kids that move out over the summer that don't tell us. There's kids that signed up to come here that end up going back to their original school or somewhere else. And so, we know that September uh is a big month um to see that enrollment drop um along with November and then we kind of start to, you know, level out. But overall, um, kind of the rule of thumb is you want to start a hundred kids up from your, um, budgeted amount in order to then average out throughout the year to be in that good spot. Last year on the bottom there, the revised budgeted enrollment was 5,5. So again, you can see by the end of the year in June there, we were below that number, but you get the average daily membership. So starting above and ending below, you get in the middle. And we were looking really good for that. Um I did just add again um those capacities uh onto the buildings um to be able to show that more important as we get to where we rebounded in the next couple slides. But again overall uh we see that little bit of declining enrollment going on though from year to year. So again that 5,55 um and then we'll talk about FY27 coming up here. This is kind of a visual representation though when we talk about declining enrollment. So the top chart again, ADM is going to be your actual students, your pupil units. That yellow is going to be when we multiply that secondary by the 1.2 that we get um per pupil. So again, we see that decline um from 2016 all the way through 2025. The bottom chart just shows that difference. You can see on the left hand side of that bottom chart is much larger than the decline that we're seeing today. Uh but the point is that besides 2022, FY22, we are a declining enrollment district. And so that really does matter. Uh as we look at budgeting, look what we're able to do. Um again, being able to um work on inflation, salaries, all of that cost of living. Um when you have less resources because you have less students, that becomes more and more challenging. Uh again, enrollment met the um revised budget amount, the year-to-year decline, and again creating those um salary increase issues. Special education, exciting news though there on the revenue. It uh typically is prated to between 97 and 98% on reports. Last year it was prated all the way through October. Uh this year they removed the pration in August. So, great news as we go to close the audit um that we'll be able to be confident in that more confident in that number. Uh again, expenditures um still in progress. Uh like I talked about in the audit, construction is a big one, chargebacks, all of that. likely uh we were expecting to spend down somewhere between um 500,000 and a million dollars based on those carry forward expenditures that we've always talked about that came from FY25 including some expenditures as we made the middle school ready for those sixth graders um and also the Columbus well and a few other um areas that we had equipment purchases that just didn't show up by June 30th and 25. Uh exciting news that the self- insurance uh fund balance will be positive for FY26. The goal was to have it positive by FY27. So, we're a year ahead. Um, which is really great and thanks to um our national insurance services um to our broker to be able to help us guide through that process and get us back into that positive realm. So, good thing for the school district in the FY27 budget. Um, as I presented that, um, back in June, we talked about that long-term facility maintenance. So, these are the exact same slides that were presented in June. I always start the conversation about FY27 there because I want to make sure that people understand you're going to see a budget that's not balanced. You're going to see that you have negative um more expenditures than you do revenue. And that's a planned thing that we've talked about now for three years. It's been in process for three years. And again, as we became that 1A or all facilities school district that can levy for additional dollars to make sure our schools are up and running well and we keep up on that maintenance side of things. Um, when we became that oursel, our LTFM fund was negative, which meant we needed to correct that. And so, working through the Department of Education and Ailers, uh, we corrected that through this process. So, again, we got overpaid two years ago. we held on to the money for two years and now they're going to take it back. So, we've talked about it a lot, but just knowing that that is the reason for the structural imbalance, not something that is going to be ongoing into the future overall. Then, fund balance at the end um of FY27 reaches that about seven, so six to seven million, no pun intended. Um the um 2627 again revenue of about 98 million, expenditures of about um 100.6 million and in our general fund overall the rest of the funds um pretty well balanced out. Reminder on construction, although the revenue and expenditures look that we had bonds that sold that we had not tapped into yet. So again, we'll just be using the fund balance in that to do it. and then also evaluating if we're going to sell additional bonds into the future year or we're going to wait a year to do that. So, we'll be doing that. Um enrollment, uh Superintendent Jacobson did talk about that. So, again, um we were a little bit on eggshells. Our budgeted enrollment um 54 35 uh 38 in between there. So, um that was what was anticipated. we were right there with you know only about 50 students above that or or less um as we were in the end of the school year August um and then into almost the first day of school but we bumped up and so that's really great to again start high so that we meet in the middle um so there might be a little bit of movement but the one thing that I would say is not on this slide because we got this data after the presentation was complete is again that first day of enrollment number and that's where we're going to be watching those real closely over the next couple weeks um because again it went down and usually we see that go up before the first day of school and then after the first week of school go down. So having it go down a little bit the um first day of school was a little bit different than in the past. The one thing that I will say um based on that transportation software so um one of the things that we did is automate a process. So it used to be that you'd have to enter data into our uh transportation system manually and then it would also be entered obviously into our student system. Now the student system feeds directly into that transportation system. Now one of the things that happens though is people who are enrolled locally amongst two buildings and want transportation. So maybe one of our charter schools, maybe St. Pete's and also enrolled in a Forest Lake area schools couldn't get transportation because you if they were on both sheets, it didn't work um because they weren't assigned to the right building in our software system to then route them to the correct bus. And so we were able to clear those out earlier than we ever have been because we didn't have to wait to drop them when they didn't show up. We knew they weren't showing up in our schools because they were maybe going somewhere else based on transportation. So that's a little anomaly in the system that could account for that little bit of decline on the first day of school. >> So and a nice automated process that again is not manual entry. So, we're really excited about the new transportation software um and feel like we have a much better handle on it now. Um again, 5 uh435 as that enrollment. So, again, looking good on that side. Overall, we had that LTFM adjustment come through. We always get the um inflation factor is huge that the legislature provided us in 2020 to at least understand that we're going to get at least 2%. that helps us in the out years be able to at least understand um what we would be able to get in that per pupil amount uh based on inflation goes up on that index. And so again the loss of um just about 70 students and we ended up overall netting around 600,000 um in that increased enrollment. We did reduce our compensatory um we knew directs were going away um the additional directs plus paper now it's only directs actually. So that ability to combine the two went away. So we did lose um a half million dollars in that process. Um and so they did try to get it equalized a little bit, but it didn't really help us very much. It helped districts that lost millions. And so that was um not very impactful on on Forest Lake specifically. Uh they did remove summer unemployment um for this year. So again, we're paying for a mandate that was put in in 2023 um that was funded for a couple years and now becomes part of the general fund and we have to account for that. Um interest revenue, we're going to have less of that um moving forward as that um $2.4 million in that LTFM adjustment goes out the door. We're going to just um not be earning interest on that that money. So it does matter um in a good interest rate time period. Overall, again, we did since you approved the budget uh MTSS grant, we did not get renewed for that. Um we were a bit surprised about that. We have requested um the evaluation rubric from the department of ed to just make sure if there was anything different we could have done um to continue that grant. Um again, part of the presentation tonight from the middle school and also reduction in title one. That one um isn't anything that we could have done about it. It was a local census that's done at the federal level. um dropped below a cutoff. So we were you know a percent above we became a percent below that cutoff which put us into a different funding tier. So nothing we could do in that aspect. Um overall on the expenditure side uh we knew that we were going to again um take out we didn't have the need for the equipment stuff that we rolled over so that got out of the budget. We increased um salary and benefits along with right sizing to net that out. uh reduction in severance expense. Again, we're uh down to our last teacher retired, so that was really um we're done with the pre87 retirement now. So, that's uh a good thing. Uh as we move forward, reduction in read training. Again, we did all elementary, now we're just doing small groups. Um reduction in equipment purchased. Uh we did some buildings and grounds purchases um that were much needed to make sure we can mow our lawns um and do the things and grounds that we need to do remove trees if they fall down, things like that. But again, just not having as big of a purchase this year. And then adding back social studies curriculum. So we know with the new standards, we're going to need that. There's high and low years in curriculum. Math, English language arts, and social studies are the ones that typically go above what's naturally budgeted in the budget. levy information. Uh so our second largest revenue category is the levy. So overall we start out at the top with our voter approved referendum. So our 987 per pupil. Uh next up is our other referendum market value levies. So, what that does is the ability um the state says, "Well, if you're a metro district and your um tax base is more commercial than property, we want to equalize you to make sure that you're not hitting residents harder um with the same amount of funding requests because your uh percentage of commercial is low. Also, uh metro versus outstate. So, there's an equalization in that, too. So, that's that second line item. Local optional revenue is 724 per student that the school boards authorize. All but I think two in the state authorized that. So very common in that area. Operating capital is again all of our equipment purchases. We know that as a school district we purchase a lot more than a million dollar worth of anything. One piece of equipment that's over $5,000 is that cutoff. And so again, just looking um at all of our when we put together our desks, tables, so all the you know kind of combined things, lunch tables, everything, all of our grounds equipment, all of you know, anything that we buy. So um that's just the funding we're able to get through the levy with the state, but as I said, we do far exceed that. Um ALT, uh teacher comp, Q comp, again, that's a way to enhance our teacher package. um and they are able to write goals around student achievement and then if they meet those goals get some additional dollars um through this that one specifically is also a levy and aid. So again we're putting in to get out um some money from the state on that one. Achievement and integration is a similar um situation where again we put in about 200,000 we get out about 600,000. So again, put in a little to get out a lot um in state aid side of things and you approve that plan uh on a three-year basis and then the budget on an annual basis. Um reemployment insurance again we do not have insurance for our unemployment. Uh we have to uh pay those claims as they come in and then we're able to levy for them. We did during the COVID years those numbers are uh negative big the fi the year before but then 26 wasn't because we had some credits that came through so that was a big deal. Uh safe schools levy again that is our school resource officers. A lot of that also goes over to 916 because we do levy in that area for our intermediate district. And career and tech um is all of our programming again our career wheel. you look at that and what we're able to offer our students um through all of our um industrial tech classes, fax classes, business classes, agricultural classes, all of those are under the umbrella of career and tech and you're able to get about 40% um of what you spend back via your levy. Long-term facility maintenance is those last uh the three items before the negative number. And again, uh, it's in yellow because we did adjust that as part of the adjustment that we've been talking about. Uh, so we have a negative number there. We do see debt service on the next slide go up. So, um, that is a big difference in just this year's levy that you won't see again. Overall adjustments go through in all those categories. You put in an enrollment two years before it happens and then they adjust whatever it is plus or minus. you put in estimates and then they sh it up on that last line item there. Other levy information, community education, uh or excuse me, community services gets about um the uh 1 million 1.2 million. And so overall, they pretty much majority half of it is in their school age childare to make sure that all students can access that program. And then beyond that um again basic community ed and also um early childhood services. So they do a great job of utilizing all the resources within their levying ability. Debt service again in that yellow is that offset to in the general fund and then oped and that's again just paying the bonds that we pay out to people. Overall last year was 2.43% increase in our levy. If you had a $350,000 house and your value stayed the same from year to year, you would have seen a slight decrease in your property taxes with that 2.43% increase uh because overall the tax base gained. So again, new housing developments, change in valuations, change in commercial properties, all that um flows into the levy to again make that go up. So you would have seen a decrease. So it's around 3 to 4% up tax base. We only took 2.43 43 of that. So really important that we again keep up with that and make sure that we're still getting our part of the pie when we have the city, the county, the watershed, all the other areas. They don't have to go to their voters to vote for their levy um and ask for the money like school districts do. So it's really important as we're able to do that that we keep our portion of the pie um because we do go to our voters and ask for additional funding. Contracted services is an area that we just wanted to touch on as we talk about uh our budget. And that is uh as we continue to see shortages in specialized areas, a lot of them in the special education area. Uh we last school year uh did about 10 um licensed staff, about four classified staff through um hiring organizations. Uh and then we also used um one of those organizations to fill some pair professional absences. So we know the importance of making sure that uh we have those contact minutes and the supervision that all the students need. So it does shift our resources however uh in the school budget uh from our object code 100s 200s or salary and benefits into that contracted services. So when I presented this budget in June uh we did see an additional million dollars um in that area of 300s uh contracted services. But when we look at it, that's not a new million dollars. That's shifting um some money from 100s to down into that contracted services area. So the net difference between what we already would have spent on staff and what we have to spend additionally because they're contracted is around that um third additional cost. So that would be around $300,000 is really what the additional was. So um we definitely heard um some questions around that. So we just wanted to spend a little time making sure um that again it's not new money that we're putting into our contracted services. We're just shifting the resources um from our internal staff to external staff. >> Really quick, we have an additional $300,000 in overhead and raw dollars, but we realize a savings on the benefits side of that as well. Did did you want to touch on that? Yeah, both of those they come from both the 100s and the 200s. And yes, they combined um would equal around 700,000. And then we do have uh we don't pay obviously the um PIA or TRA Pra um side of things. >> Just just important to look at that the big picture and all of that. >> Yep. Yes. So again, uh good news though as we move into the 26 27 school year, we've cut um that in half. So I think we have right now about four positions um for the permanent licensed staff. So that's great. We were able to hire um some amazing new staff members into those positions. also all of our agreements um you know it's really important for us to be nimble and so we keep our postings up for these positions even when we do the contracted services and we have a 30 day with most summer 45day drop so again if we get someone internally that comes in in October November has a lensure would like the position we're going to put them in the position give the notice to our contracted services and finish the year um with our own staff member so um we do have really short clauses. That's something that is unique um to Forest Lake because when the contracts come to us um it's usually 90 or 120 days um to be able to, you know, get out of that person. But um we reduce that down. Um Director Wilson is really good at that. So um making sure we have that nimleness to to make it our staff. Uh FY28 and beyond. Uh again, revenue increased per pupil funding based on inflation. um still the declining enrollment. So when we look ahead and say, okay, you know, we we joked about FY27 with the self insurance fund and the LTFM being gone and we've, you know, going to have a really clean nice budget. So the question is when's declining enrollment going to end, right? We see the housing coming up from the south. We see um other factors coming in um to play as people buy houses in our communities. And so again, looking at probably around that FY29 um year that that is hopeful where we're going to stabilize out and then be able So that's the 2829 school year. Hopefully be able to start um stabilizing for a couple years and then gaining. So that would be a huge thing. Again, we are not counting on ever getting summer unemployment revenue again. So that's just going to be something we're paying for. Also, not planning too much on having. We know our fund balance policy um is between that 6 to 10%. So not planning on having you know 12 14 million in the bank to get that as additional revenue just sticking in that middle number. Um cuts to special education though um is going to be a big one. And so we'll talk about that more um here in a little bit. But again um the legislature $250 uh million by the 28 bianiums. So just figuring out if that they're looking at ADIs, which we're so sad about because we just got back into that. Um and it's doing great things for our kids or transportation is the other one. And that is also a very big deal because as students um need accommodations that buses just can't do that. We have to contract out those services for students um for the rides that they need to school. And so if you don't fund that, that is just a gap that is going to be devastating um for a district that is geographically large. expenditure side, salary and benefits. So, just like uh in your home, you're spending more on your goods and services today than you did before. Um and so also on the salary side um for that cost of living to pay for those goods, we need those salaries to increase. So, that's a lot of pressure on the budget when you have declining enrollment. Minnesota paid family leave. um although the state pays for it which is really great um that everyone pays for it I should say through our payrolls but um they do have sub costs that go associated with that and so sometimes especially in the teacher world um depending on when breaks happen number of days other things it can still end up costing us although they're not getting paid we're paying a sub and it can end up end up costing us um similar or more than they actually were making um depending on their contracted days and what that looks like in the spread of that. So, um just again monitoring that and looking at that also the amount of time out of the classroom. So, that's just for our students. We want a regular teacher uh and staff in the classroom for consistency. It's just so important to kids. Readact training. We did um have local lane change credits associated with that. That's another thing. We know that we're uh below our peers to the south, especially um on our salary schedule. So, how can we, you know, give the things that we can? And the local lane change credit was one of those for the readact. And so, we know that also has tales going forward. So, again, just making sure that we're able to um get that into the budget, fund that good, and um move on when our redact dollars run out. So, we still have some of those in the bank um for a while now, but you know, as they go, we're going to have to be looking at that. And equipment purchased. again um just looking at what we're doing to refresh uh the systems that we have to make sure we're not having breakdowns. Um fund balance considerations again um we talked about the policy that we implemented. We have the non-spendable um is the first line item when we talk about our fund balance that again is your um inventory. So what you've already bought and is sitting there on the um in the classrooms you know all the supplies that we have. We have um also the um prepaid items. So you're going to a conference. This happens a lot for school districts because we go to things that are done in the summer so we don't miss out on on time with students. So again, paying for a conference in July or August and June. So that money's already spent. You can't spend it again. So that's the first line item. Second line item is restricted fund balances. We talk a lot about this um during the 2023 legislative session. that listing really nearly doubled in what the mandates were that they gave for the funding. So again, just looking at the restricted fund balance um and that means that it has to go for certain items. You can't just use it for anything. You have to um make sure that it meets the requirements of what it's restricted for. Overall, we don't carry much um we use the dollars we have. So we don't carry much in restricted fund balance areas. Uh fund balance unrestricted. So, uh, our, uh, thing is assigned. We, that was our board policy where we're now able to assign, um, in the unrestricted category fund balance. That's where it really would have been helpful at the end of FY25 if we had that policy to put that million dollars in to again not show it in the unrestricted general fund. Um, and so to really be more transparent about where the dollars are that we have in the bank for the times that we need them, unassigned fund balance. then again is anything that's left after those come out. So and the unassigned fund balance is what our fund balance policy is written on overall when we look at the last um several years. So um we ended in 25 here with about a 7.5% uh fund balance on assigned fund balance. So that was really great. Um and again we'll see that LTFM come out. So, we know that um that'll come out of the restricted fund balance line. So, that's also good. Um and then we'll be able to see the unassigned around um that $7 million mark. Uh so, ended at 7 million, 7.5%, FY26 will end down from that. We knew that spending that we said carried over and we were going to spend it down a little bit. Um but again, not an ongoing cost. um just the one time FY27 is a balanced budget besides the LTFM adjustment that's going to come through. So we imagine that it will be between that 6 and $7 million mark. And then uh FY28 is in budget currently looking um at the modeling packages for what we can do for our staff. With that, that's kind of the overall budget presentation for the school districts. So, um I know that um probably lots of questions, so I will leave it to you guys. >> Maybe not as many as you anticipate. So, I first of all, I'd like to thank you and your staff for putting this together. >> And I'd like to thank you for spending time with each of the board members. We did small groups. So, we met with you and >> um Superintendent Jacobson. we really had a lot of time to digest this, understand this, ask a lot of questions and then at least in my case about a week to really fully understand it before seeing the presentation here again uh this evening. So I I feel that I understand it extremely well and that's thanks to to you and Superintendent Jacobson and your staff. So I'd like to thank you for that. Um does anybody have any questions, comments? Member Tyson, >> I do. Um so would you please comment for those listening and watching? I get asked this often just quickly in a nutshell talk about alt facilities and how we became uh one >> Yep. So uh >> and how that's beneficial. >> Yep. One of your old facilities. We had been monitoring uh Larry Martini for several years um because we were getting close. It's based on your age of your building and your square footage. And so that's the original portion of it and also any additions uh that you put on or any new buildings that come into your system. And so with that, what you're able to do again is levy above the 380 per pupil. So we know that we had a huge in um 2015 had that huge bond and we talked a lot about how we're going to maintain our buildings and you know how did they get in disrepair where we needed that much dollars um to go into the buildings at one time. And so we made a commitment to really work on keeping them up and being able to do that. And all facilities allow school districts to do that. So there's only um 27 I think around that um depending I haven't heard the new numbers for this school year, but 27 to maybe 30 districts in the whole state that qualify based on again age and square footage. So it's also a consideration that we look at in everything that we do because losing that ability will put us back into the cycle. Um some of the surrounding districts are in that. Um so Chicago is a big one that is where it's really hard when you only get 380 per pupil to be able to do the projects in HVAC that we have done over the last couple years and we'll do at Forest View next summer. It's impossible. You would have to save up for three years just for that one project. Well, you still have other maintenance to be done. And so it's just like your home, you know, you have those big projects, the roof, the windows, the siding, all of that. We have the same things. And so saving up, you know, getting that big project done over time versus just a big bond issuance. And so that's what 1A allows us to do. And as I said, we do consider it in everything that we do when we were looking at closing Forest Lake Elementary and what would happen to that elementary school. We knew enrollment was coming up, but we also didn't want to lose that square footage um within our calculation. Uh also when we did the step building, so the um former uh Monasuri school uh area that we, you know, looked at, okay, what are we going to truly demolish and take off of our square footage and age calculation to make sure that we maintain that. >> And so we were in that boat um way back when when they did a gap analysis. We had drinking fountains that were broke. We had, you name it, stuff was just crumbling stairways. So it was really a big deal when we made it into that all facilities of 180. So >> again just instead of having that you know time where you have to do everything to do it over time and touch the buildings you know each building over time is it's a great gift. So >> could could you clarify how the percentage went up and down for title reading is and what that's based on? >> Yeah. So, um it it was part of how many um people that we have that qualify uh as poverty within the district. And so, Yep. Yep. It was income based. So, again, it was definitely uh just a hair above and it went a hair below. So, it wasn't a huge change, but unfortunately, it was a change that mattered to us. >> It does. You're correct. It really matters to us. And I just want to say that I'm so proud that we have that routing software because remember Atinson and Corkran and I went to the bus garage last year to celebrate all their hard work. Brought a cake, cucumbers they had, but we heard all about just this >> impossible task of getting all that handwritten routing in. So I can only imagine how wonderful this is. >> Yeah. >> For the staff that do this and for you. And I mean it's huge. Yeah, there's always a learning curve and we as uh Superintendent Jacobson said, it is a huge uh thanks and of the graciousness of our community as we worked through it and those postcards being later than we wanted as we align the things with foresight printing and all of that uh taking an extra couple days. So, um you know, you have a file and it's like the file that you've presented in the past, but it doesn't work in the template that we have. So working through those things um they they happen and we did that and the app was a huge benefit um because we did not have that in the past where you could see your bus information. So we had sent out three emails um to families letting them know um that that was the way that in in not having the postcard that they could still have their bus information. And I just last thing I just want to add is that we know that the legislators have kind of strapped us with with unfunded mandates. And so there's a lot of talk with AMSD. They sent out a survey with MSBA how we can rally to get resolutions out there and get down to the capital and get some of these things repealed or get that financial backing that is really going to strap a district like ours. >> Yep. So Forest Lake has been heavily involved in lobbying uh over the last decade around our transportation bill. So we're very very known at the capital um to go down and do that. So uh I know that Superintendent Jacobson will continue that work to um put our platform in front of the legislature. >> Right. >> They sure will. >> Y questions, comments? >> No. >> You know, I just want to say that Chrissy Renberg, uh Director Renberg does a fantastic job. She talks about living in three years. They really live in more years than that because we're thinking about projects two, three, four years out and making sure that we we we we know that something's still in good use, but it's going to need maintenance here. And we we don't just carelessly spend dollars uh and put ourselves in a position that uh something down the road can't be fixed. And sometimes things surprise us, something breaks and we need to be prepared, which is the reason why having a fund balance is so important. So, I mean, I think that uh she and her team just do a marvelous job at making sure that we we're careful. Yeah, we know that we need to educate kids and we needed a good job there, but we're also careful of the district funds and so um yeah, I think we're in really good hands here. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> All right, we are at the consent agenda now. Does anybody have any items 7.1 through 7.5 that they'd like to pull from the consent agenda? All right, seeing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve as presented. >> To approve. Second. >> Okay, we have a motion, a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Those opposed. Okay, that motion carries. Consent agenda is approved. Bringing us to 8.1 donations. Member Castle. This is a little light today. Um, we have uh $135.94 from Jamie Papa to the Forest Lake Area Schools Community Education Athletic Program and $6,000 from Landmark Student Transportation to the staff welcome picnic for a total of $6,135.94. Do we have a motion to approve as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion to second. Any discussion? >> That's a that's a large sum for a >> picnic. >> Picnic. I think that is very generous of Landmark Student Transportation. So, thank you for that. >> Y absolutely. Um, it is resolution. So, I'll ask uh member clerk to please take the roll call. >> All right. Member Tyson. >> Hi. Member Rebeline >> I. >> Member Castle >> I. >> Member Antonson votes I. Member Christensen >> I. >> And member Corkran >> I. The eyes have it. >> All right. Uh 8.2 staff retirement notices. Member Castle. >> Okay. So we have submitted retirements from Loren Waldron, bus driver at the transportation building effective 81726 following 16 years of service. Charles Elmer, bus driver at the transportation building, effective 8/1926 following six years of service. Administration recommends approval of the staff retirements. All right. Like to thank those individuals for their time here at Forest Lake Area Schools. With that, I'll move to approve as presented. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Second. >> Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Sad to see the bus drivers retiring, but Mhm. Uh >> you'll miss them. >> Well, and and congratulations to them. But yeah, >> and I've seen new hires in the bus garage as well. So, >> yeah, they're they're moving along, but yes, it's hard to fill them and um you never have enough, right? >> So, congratulations to both. >> Right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I those opposed. Okay, that motion carries. Bringing us to 8.3 and this is something new for the board this year with uh Superintendent Jacobson's new contract. In accordance with the superintendent's contract, the superintendent and the board chair collaborate on the development of goals for 2026 2027 academic school year that needs to seek or that needs to obtain board approval prior to September 15th. The board must review and approve these goals and Superintendent Jacobson's review. Um, at some point, I'd have to go back to the contract to know exactly which date uh for next year will be based on these goals. Um, with that, I'll turn it over to Superintendent Jacobson. He can speak through the goals. >> Yeah. So, as mentioned, uh, Chair Revelan and I work together on these goals. Um, uh, what you'll see there are four different goal areas. I'll just touch on the broad areas and uh the public can take a look at board book if they'd like to see uh a full description of some of the the ways that I think that we'll go about doing these things. But I uh in goal area one, I just think it's really important that the people of this school district uh know their superintendent and the superintendent uh puts considerable effort into uh being accessible, available, visible, and and being able to speak to um the people who work within the system, uh the people who count on the system and the people who um through tax dollars uh contribute uh to our system. And so I I have a goal in here around building trust and establishing leadership credibility within our school district. Uh and again, not with just within our schools or just with with our students, but the people um who might not have students in the system. I think that that's really still important. They're they have uh they should have a voice in our schools as well. Um and and again you can see online or you can see in front of you there some of the things I think that I would go about doing this and some of this you'll see as also reflected in my superintendent entry plan. Uh I also we talked about um you know that really the main um objective or outcomes for school systems is to grow and educate students much like we heard through our student presentation from the middle school uh today. So my responsibility and the things that I'll be working on this year to help lead the learning within our school district uh a bit in part regards to our strategic plan and bringing before this uh committee this group this board uh a process for outlining a strategic plan and again you'll see some of the other ideas there. Uh I really also want to work as a team member with this group and helping uh position each one of you to make informed decisions around the management and the business of the school district. Whatever that takes on my part, uh I intend to do that and coming together and working together as a post cohesive team. um if there are ideas or ways I can go about doing that uh again I'm interested in in doing that and what you'll see there are some of the things uh that I would be working on uh in and contributing to uh this group as a a non- voting member of the board and helping um us function as a team as we lead the school district forward and then if it's okay I'll mention that one of the things that we talked about uh chairline and I is around just continuing to grow uh the superintendent in this district, me uh as an individual in my skills as a superintendent. I'm a I think it's everybody knows I'm a first year superintendent and I want to I have my own learning curve into the position and um I want a steep learning curve. I want to learn quickly. So whatever that takes in terms of um connecting with more veteran superintendents in the state uh learning uh alongside my first year superintendent colleagues um their superintendents really benefit from a collaborative collegial group uh called MASA uh and MSBA quite honestly has opportunities for onboarding new superintendents and certainly doing all of those different parts would be something that would I do and and be interested in again outline there. I borrowed from the superintendent evaluation rubric that uh Gail Gilman presented to us uh well just last week on the rubrics and how um we might measure as a or you might measure not me uh my effectiveness or otherwise in each of these areas and I think what I would end up doing to answer your question would be doing a midyear report sometime in December or January on my progress towards some of these meetings and then um and then the the board having uh I guess a closed door closed session in June of next year >> to review these my performance against these goals. >> Yeah. Thank you, Superintendent, for that uh leadin and that background information on that. Since I was the one that collaborated with Superintendent Jacobson to craft these goals, I only feel it's appropriate that I make the motion to approve them. So, I move to approve and I would entertain a second. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion, a second. Is there any discussion on this item? >> Tyson. >> Um, so underneath your growth growth superintendent leadership profile. I wonder if you'd want to add does AMSD have opportunities as well for colle. >> Um, I will find that out. Yes, I've attended most of their things so far. Um >> maybe not. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um whether we want to add that, we certainly can. Um >> is >> and I then I think what we would do is we would just make a motion to amend. >> Yeah. Just a motion to amend would be appropriate. And in any case with motions to amend it, >> this is kind of a unique um item. So I'd ask that Superintendent Jacobson weigh in. Um >> you don't have to amend it. You can just think about it. >> Yeah. The other thing you and I talked about was uh something around financial sustainability and we talked about how that would most likely be included in the strategic plan somewhere and I think that's we'll the community and we'll all be writing the strategic plan together. So that's >> yes I'm glad you mentioned that member Tyson that was the way our discussions developed as well when we got into the the financial side of things is that would be tied to the strategic alignment piece. Okay, perfect. >> Any other discussion on this? >> I just respect the fact that you are going to be you're very busy, man. I mean, especially right now because it's your first year and you know, if you're doing MSBA and MASA and and and did I see something in here about some other kind of um what you were just saying about a collaboration or or some sort of conference type thing with superintendent is that through ma massa masa? >> Uh so yes. So, MASA, Minnesota Association of School Administrators, >> uh, which is a superintendent organization. They run um a year-long cohort series with first year superintendents. Um, >> I think they're 22 of us statewide. >> Uh, and 19 >> uh are participating in this. >> Good. >> Uh, so I am one of the 19. And so, yeah, certainly would be doing would be doing that throughout the year. MAS, MSBA, uh, AMSD, either way. Um, certainly I think that's a really good one. But that also um I I also didn't want to I'm going to look for other things, too. >> Well, I just don't want you to, >> you know, you did just talk like a week ago about scheduling the vacations and taking time for yourself and making sure you've got all this stuff. You know, >> I that's what I'm saying. I I mean, I don't know how busy this thing is for you. Is it once a, you know, just >> anyway, I'm respecting the fact that you have a lot of >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, and and I would clarify for the the board and the public here that the evidence of performance, these are simply examples like member Tyson pointed out. there's other opportunities. There's other organizations that we can uh >> the superintendent can engage with to to meet these goals. >> And when it comes time to measure them in in June, that will be a very collaborative discussion, I'm sure. And there may be other metrics that are evaluated as evidence of performance. It doesn't necessarily have to be the items that are bulleted. Those are spec just examples of how that work can get done. >> Okay. Yeah, >> member member Tyson. >> Sorry, I just wanted to add one thing around goal two, drive strategic alignment and instructional excellence. Um, I have a lot of confidence in that goal. You have were the director of teaching and learning in our district that kind of resurrected it after it was cut to the core and you've just done excellent work in that area and so a lot of confidence in that goal. Um I think you're 13 years or 11 as director of teaching and learning. Correct. >> Uh 11 in the district. Okay. Um last five as the director of teaching and learning. Yeah. >> Last five. Yeah. So that's just going to be wonderful to have your eyes on that and I'm happy to see that goal as well. >> Sure. Any any other discussion on this? >> I just want to note there's been a lot of things already happening in this first week. Mhm. >> that you've already accomplished. So, that's awesome. >> Yeah, that was that was certainly exciting as we were putting these goals together to almost put check marks next to some of these that that the work is never done. Mhm. >> It will continue and the uh the evidence of the performance will just continue to grow and you know as the year goes on um the the goals themselves the the meaning or the original intent might change just due to circumstances and um it'll be exciting to get into the review process. >> It will be fun. >> All right. If there's no other discussion, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> Those opposed. Okay. That motion carries and the goals are approved. I see no new business on the agenda. Um, and reviewing upcoming calendar dates. Um, our next board meeting is on the 17th and we we will resume committee meetings on that night. So, if you are a committee member, uh, be prepared at 5:00 p.m. to come in uh, to meet for your committee. With that, I would entertain a motion to close the meeting as permitted by Minnesota Statute Section 13D.03, 03 subdivision 1B to discuss labor negotiation strategies for classified staff. >> So move >> motion and a second. Is there any discussion on that? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. >> All right, we are in close session. Thank you everybody.