of education, Monday, March 23rd, 2026, 7 p.m. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand to the flag of the United States, indivisible. Dependence, please. Move on to item five, approval of the agenda. Looking for a motion to approve the agenda. >> So moved. >> Moved by director Dolman. There second. >> Second. >> Second by director Donna. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. Next item six, approval of the consent agenda. Looking for a motion to approve the agenda. >> Moved by Director Domen. Is there a second? Second. Second by Director Peterson. Any discussion. >> Madam Chair, >> I'd request I'd like to request that we pull item F of the consent agenda for discussion, >> please. Um, so you're looking to you're looking to pull item 16F. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> Um, and consider that separately. Um, so with that consideration, um, we can approve the consent agenda and pull 16F and move that to item 11 E. Moving that to item E and pulling that. Um, is there any further discussion about the consent agenda? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Move to item seven, presentation and recognition. We're going to start with item A, which is recognition and discussion of the Zephr Learning Showcase. Duff, do you have any you want to lead us on that? Typically after we have a zephr learning showcase, you all have an opportunity to comment on what you learned, what you saw, um things that struck you. And so this is your opportunity to do that. Our Zephr learning showcase has um students and staff come in before our meeting and have and for the board and community members to learn more in a less formal setting than a board meeting. So that is why we do for learning showcase. We do it a few times a year and so we had one right before this meeting. This is Peterson. Okay. This one to me was the most indepth I learned the most. And one I want to highlight was um Barbara, I hear you say my student cabinet this or my student cabinet that, but I really didn't know what it was, who's on it, how old they are, if they have decision-making power. So, I was just peppering them with questions and I finally learned so much what it means when you say I meet with my student leadership cabinet and really enjoyed those two. >> I'd like to comment. I mean, they're always so great to get to see what's happening in the schools. One that stuck out in particular was the screening of the um documentary Screen Aers, which was all about, you know, our kids relationships with screens and phones and tablets and technology. Um pretty cool to see a MATE grant get utilized. So, May, thank you very much for funding those types of activities for the district. Um, and it it's really cool to see us um as a a school district kind of going above and beyond a traditional school day to do these types of events to help families understand how to use um the evolving technology landscape to our kids' benefits, right? And uh getting all of us as parents maybe on the same page on some best practices for helping kids use these tools. So that was pretty great. I'm just going to add on to your comment because I uh was over there at the same time that you were and I really appreciated the um introducing this to parents and then um also the conversations that followed about the ways that students are using technology and that there's a difference between active use of technology versus passive and kids being creators versus consumers. Um I also thought that the conversations around setting uh creating balance and setting limits for students was a good conversation. um and that um sometimes it's difficult for parents. And so one of our principles was talking about helping coach parents with um you know being able to do that at home but also really finding a time and place that because the world is full of technology that students will be using it but taking a break and getting outside. So it was a great conversation. There were a few of us over at the same time at that table. So I just wanted to call that out. And the other one I wanted to call out was I really appreciated the students that were um talking about their STEM project and First of all, the students were so well spoken. They were very positive, very confident. They um stood up in front of a group of adults and acted as though like that was their career. It was unbelievable the professionalism they had and how how much pride they had in their projects. Um and they really talked about that they were interested in STEM, that this is something that they had had to design a prototype. They had some failures in their prototype, had to figure out what to do when they failed and create new projects. So, I really appreciated those. Those were probably my favorite, but kind of hard to decide what are your favorite because all of them are really great. So, I love the um different I guess we saw a lot of different things in different grade levels. >> Anybody else? >> I really enjoyed seeing the students who presented on their uh self- evaluations for their uh conferences. I thought that was a great way for them to have take some ownership and have some reflection on the things they did well, the things that they want to work on, things they found challenging. Um, and so as the parent of another fifth grader, I really enjoyed the process of going to that conference and seeing that engagement and them develop some other skills and presentations and and build a slide deck as fifth graders. I think that's just uh I can't even imagine that when I was in fifth grade, but that's part of their everyday skill set that they're developing. and um those those communication skills when um so many so much content is being created digitally and automatically. It's great to have those extemporaneous and prepared in-person um skills being developed and have to be able to be challenged and um have the have the parents and the kids more engaged in those kinds of feedback sessions with the teachers. So, I thought I really enjoyed that and thought that was a lot uh really valuable for the students. Any other comments about the Zucker learning showcase? Appreciated our English learners coming and showing a project that they had worked on, a personal project and then also sharing um a little bit about the other students and where they are from and um and the the theme of their project was on friendship and they got who they had met since they had been here and how they had developed those friendships. And I also want to um thank uh director uh Syford for her opportunity with the internship, the communications interns. I think you've heard um before that she offers that opportunity for students and and often has them trying some things for us and um helping with various projects. But you got to see somebody who has really taken off with communications and Ellie Driscoll um just all the things that she can do as a result of that internship and all that she's learned and where it's taken her. Thank you director for providing that opportunity. I just like to add on to the multilingual presentation. The the um young lady that I met, she made her best friend through that program. You know, she transitioned here from a new school and it's her best friend. So, it's what a what a great help with kids um transitioning to a new school and that uh English is their second language, too. So, With that, I just want to thank everybody who helped make it a great event for us, the parents, the students, the teachers, the administrators, and directors. So, thanks everybody for a great Zucker Learning Showcase. And we'll move on to item 7B, and that is recognition of Chelsea Pette from MIA Middle School. Lead this recognition. I'm honored to be here tonight and recognize Chelsea in my tenure at the middle school. I've watched her grow into one of the strongest leaders in our building and I would say across the district. Uh Chelsea has a very unique role. Uh she is by trade a social worker and she exemplifies um in my opinion the skills and attributes that define social work um which is a mental health professional who bridges the gap between home school and community to support students academic and emotional success at the middle school. This is evident in her advocacy for students. She attends grade level meetings and offers insight and perspective to teachers who don't necessarily have the full picture of what life is like outside of school for many of our learners. Behind the scenes, Chelsea is having conversations with parents, coordinating the care closet and backpack meals and providing information about extended community services. In fact, this fall, Chelsea came to um a leadership meeting we are having at the middle school and said, "Hey, some of our students are likely going to lose their SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown." And after that, that kind of ignited a district-wide um food drive campaign that Chelsea collaborated with Alli Middlebrook and coordinated. Um Chelsea has a huge heart. She's always looking out for others. She is what I would say is the backbone of the climate and culture at the middle school. She will often say, "We need to do something fun or we need some positive energy." And Chelsea and I have had many brainstorming sessions together trying to create some fun. Um we have done things like set up photo booth for students to take pictures during lunch. um she initiated and had all kids um fill out positive adjectives and quotes about their counselors and then we gave those um quotes to the counselors on um recognition day. And then most recently, she helped coordinate a schoolwide bingo that we did that was um where students had to go up to staff members and find um a specific trait or characteristic and then have that staff member sign their bingo card. It was a huge hit um for us right before uh Thanksgiving. Chelsea knows students and staff need to feel safe and to have a sense of belonging to thrive academically and she is centered around her focus on the whole child. Chelsea's other role at the middle school is a behavior specialist and access interventionist. We know that the ris root cause of misbehavior in class can stem from a lack of connection, a lack of skills, or perhaps a lack of motivation. Chelsea is just the person deter to determine which of these are the barriers for her students. She offers direct student support in academic skill development through daily interventions and academic advisement. While she will say classroom teaching is not her forte. I beg to differ. Uh through her instruction, relationship building and consistent presence, she is able to give kids what they need most. Confidence without fail. She can find strengths in students and show them how to capitalize on them. Now, it's not always sunny at the middle school and Chelsea is often called upon to assist with situations in which students are just not doing the things the way they should or to intervene if a student is in crisis. She is always willing to investigate, talk with students, complete a risk assessment or collaborate with. And she always does it with confidentiality and a way that preserves student dignity. Chelsea is a true testament to the adage that it takes a village to raise a child and we're very fortunate to have her on our team at the middle. So, thank you Chelsea for all that you do for the Mameidi community. >> Yes, you come up and we get we get to take a picture with you. But thank you, Chelsea. I know. I'll just say um Chelsea's the kind of person that a lot of a lot of people don't know because she's so behind the scenes, but she is a leader um in our district and she's she's led a number of us um uh when we needed to come together to support kids and families. And so this is a a great day to recognize you. Okay. Um, next we're going to move on to item eight, which is the report from student representative Matt. >> I figured I'd flip through statist 991. >> Hey Matt, can you put the mic talking to the mic, please? >> I apologize. Um 991 college credits earned resulting in 600,000 in tuition saving. Um, and that number just kind of blew me away. And I'm a student who enjoys the APNC opportunities and I appreciate, and I know other students do as well, um, the monetary value that they save when they're completing those. So, I would like to, we talked about in our superintendent cabinet about course offerings, and I'm glad to see it's a priority, and I hope it stays that way. Um, another personal thing I saw was um the Pioneer Press had um some a gentorial staff in the Pioneer Press on the front cover and it was talking just about the positive impact they have in the schools and I will say that's at the middle school but the high school as well. A lot of kids connect with the lunch staff and the janitorial staff. So, they're awesome. Um, some final winter sports updates. Um, I mentioned um several wrestlers that went to state. Aiden Carlson, who's a senior, placed third um at his weight class of 127 pounds, and his uh little sister, Elizabeth, who is a freshman, placed fifth at 100 pounds. Boys hockey placed third at the state tournament. There's some fun um family fun events coming up soon around the district. There's several. The spring piano, which is put on by SOC, will be on Friday, April 10th. There's bouncy castles, pizzas, and other fun activities. So, a big range of pages are allowed and you're encouraged to register beforehand. Um, Marai Middle School Youth Night is this Friday and there's snacks and games. There's a PTO spring fling that's on May 15th from 5:00 to 8. And there's once again carnival games, face painting, and food trucks. Lots of fun things to go to. Um we discussed two items at the last board meeting that I ended up going back to student leadership council and um asking them for feedback. Um the first one that I talked to students was um the possibility of buses coming back for spring sports with those um schools that are in a close vicinity to Midday. Um there was quite a few um it's not necessarily frustrations with this specific rule, but just um transportation not living up to their expectations. Um it was girls basketball said they had a conflict um where they ended up driving to Orino. Um and also um another student said that there was only three places all season long that transportation was provided. Um, not saying that's necessarily with um the policy, but just that transportation, and I've experienced it too, has kind of fallen short on people with not being there on time. Um, but there was overwhelming feedback that students want the buses to return was what I got. And then the other topic was um AI and how um they emphasized that it's different from class to class. So, they don't really want to see a um a coverall policy that eliminates their opportunities. Um, a lot of the students talked about how in English classes they're actually encouraged to use it. And I've had teachers who set up AI bots to help you with your essay writing. Um, another student messaged or um said that they want to see the policy extended to teachers as well. Sometimes it feels like maybe the students are just kind of on the receiving end of all of it, but um they would like to see the teachers a part of the discussion as well. And then the takeaway was responsible use was the priority. And then with that um I open to questions or just um anything you want me to go to the student body with and talk about and come back with feedback. I'm open to hearing about that as well. >> I appreciate you did that. I appreciate you went and got some feedback based on our meeting. So, thank thanks for reporting in. Any other questions for Matt? Thank you, Matt. That was great. Thank you. >> Um, next we're moving on to item nine. Superintendent reportend. So, did I do that or did you do that? Did I really do that? Okay, great. Um, so just an overview, I have some things been happening around the district. Um, some awards and noteworthy news and some upcoming events. You've got a nice picture of Ganon Haymon there who built the Gaga ball pit at Wildwood as part of his Eagle Scout project. I met with another Eagle Scout recently, so we have more more fun things on the way, but I won't I won't give it up yet. Um you we talked a little bit about this already, but just as a reminder on April 14th, we have a dessert and dialogue session scheduled with professionals whose um who use AI um integral to their work. We have some pretty amazing uh responses to this call for participants. And so I think it's going to be a really interesting conversation. um some diverse experiences with AI and um just the depth of the answers that we got to it. It's pretty motivating. So, I hope you can make it. I think it'll be really informative to our work as a district. >> Excuse me. >> Y is um I know that's from other ones we've done. Is this uh people up front presenting to an audience or is it small group table? >> It's once again the small group. So we've asked um prof people in our community who use AI in their work. We've asked them to come and inform us how it is they we'll have some some questions try and pull from them how it is AI is showing up in so similar to when we wrote our portrait um of a graduate we got a lot of feedback from the community um to help inform that it will be It was fun to see Matt fill out his annual report. These have landed in your mailboxes. You should see you would see this. Hopefully, you've seen this already. Um our annual report is a snapshot. It's some reporting from um last year. So, it's from the 24 25 school year, some stories and um some data. Um it's a great publication. And so, thanks again to the director for putting that together. And at the same I think that same weekend I got my community education um very thick very thick catalog of all the opportunities that are offered for the summer. Take a look. I know things are filling up quickly and many things have filled up already because uh I and in fact I ran into someone sitting in the hallway pressing refresh one day making sure they got in on time. Um, so the facilities task force or the facilities committee has heard some updates. We're continuing to update the facilities committee monthly about the work um regarding the the task forces the task force work that's happening right now. Some of those task forces have completed their work and we're moving on to some user groups and we keep uh the facilities committee up to date. So perhaps at the end we can get more of an update there. Did you and again you saw this in the Pioneer Press. Um it was a story about uh our head custodian at the middle school who once a week has conversations with students on various topics and they and sometimes they vote by throwing their silverware in whichever bin they want to vote. His question you ask questions, they get to vote that way. This is a picture of uh Mary Divine, I believe, uh from the Pioneer Press, their feedback. I hope you saw this too, how many students we had advanced to DECA Internationals. This was pretty impressive for us. Um, Miles Clarity finished first and then um when you finish in the top eight, you can also qualify for internationals and you see EMTT, Ellen, Anukica, and Grace all um qualified. So, I believe that is the most that we've had. Becca just keeps growing. We're at 110 students. We started with eight few years ago and now we're at 110, I believe. >> Where is Where's the international competition? Um, I want I was gonna I think I know, but I don't. Do you know? I would I would be basing it on memory. It's not great. So, curious. >> I would look that up. >> Is it? Yeah. See, my memory is not great. That's not what I was. Okay, good. I kept it to myself. Okay, so esports. Now, how about this? We also um have students who um won the all-around state championship. um our varsity esports team. So, we had first place in chess um and in Minecraft bedwars um as well. And so, our team won uh the all-around state championship. And then our math team was set to compete at the state tournament on the 16th, but the snow rescheduled that. So, they are going to be competing on the 30th. Um and we are uh right now we're in the top 10 and so we're headed to state um 30th. We'll have more to come. You've heard this um our hockey team uh finished third in third place. And uh I will say one thing that was fun for me. I was at the boys um the boys basketball game and uh somebody came running in next to me and he said, "I don't have my ticket, but I'm a I'm a super fan, so I needed to be here." And he had his medal around his neck. He came running from his game to make sure he could be a super fan at our um boys basketball game and we won the game. So, it was great that he made it just in time. Um some upcoming events uh that you the middle school career day. I know a lot of people really enjoy that. So that's on the 26th and if you are interested, please let Leslie know and we'll make sure that um you can join and and see what's happening there. It's a great event that the middle school has has arranged and they run it. They it's it's very wellrun and we have a lot of participants from our community come out and volunteer their time. So um it's it's very much worth it. And I'll just point out that the Zephr uh gala is coming up on April 10th. >> Sure. >> Questions. Director Donna, >> what is Gaga ball? >> Gaga pit. The >> pit. >> Oh, should we play sometime? We do a little retreat. Um, there's a there's a I don't know. It's a It's an octagon. I was going to call it circular, but there's an octagon. Oh, okay. That's important. I don't know. Anyway, and uh you're you hit the ball. There's a certain way you have to hit the ball. It's it's and I think you can have as many kids as possible. And do you want to explain? >> The goal is to not get hit. >> You're deflecting it and trying to get >> Okay. >> But you always have to hit underhand. So it's great like >> we we had a bit when I was in >> it's like it's like you know how everyone always used to love dodgeball. Yeah. And as a middle school principal I hated dodgeball day that it's like you know taking away their birthday if you stop dodgeball. But now they do it they do underhands much. >> Thank you. >> That's my version. Any other questions? teach you some time here. >> Um, move to item 10, discussion information items. Uh, letter A is board member calendar of events. Questions or call outs do you have about the upcoming calendar for March, April, and May we have in front of us? Okay. Hearing none, I have one. Um, and that is this Friday, March 27th, we have a city leaders meeting. Um, Director Witson, just want to check in with you to make sure that that works for you because I have that day. See if that works. >> Yes, that does work. >> And so, um, I just want to make sure somebody was there in attendance. It's a great meeting and, uh, sad to miss it. Any other call outs of any events on the calendar? Maybe is the academic banquet dessert thing always at the JX? I just don't see a venue. It is. I believe >> it's okay. Okay. It's not on here. April 22nd. All right. Looks to be a busy next couple of months. So, um, hearing nothing else on the We'll move to item 11, which is our action items. Let's start with letter A. The approval of donations and grants for February 2026 totaling $11,6323. There a motion to approve >> by director Donna. Is there a second by director Domen? Any discussion? Can I ask for Dennis? And you know when the hats go around at Frozen, is that all the money they made there where it says drama donations to get the new speakers? It would not. Okay. Any other discussion? All donations and grants are greatly appreciated. The use of these funds will be to further the mission of the school district and are used towards the wishes of the donor. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. Next up we have the approval of achievement and integration plan. Dr. Riel. >> Right. Good evening. Thanks for having me here to talk about our achievement and integration plan. I've um on an annual basis I share with you how we're making progress toward our achievement and integration plan. And once every three years I need to come to you to share with you what our next three-year plan is and ask for your approval so that we can submit this to the state. So tonight I'm going to do a little bit of an overview about what is achievement and integration, what is the schoolboard role in achievement and integration, a little bit of the history of our participation, and then I'll walk through a few of the things that have happened in the last three years because of the program that we're part of. And then I will um wrap up that context piece with what does the state require in an ANI plan. and then I will share with you what our current plan or our intended plan for the 27 to 29 school years are. All right. So, as a reminder for those of you who were here three years ago, um achievement and integration is a program that is intended to support public school districts. There is state funding and the intention is to close academic and opportunity gaps. As of the last MDE tally, there were 171 districts across the state participating in achievement and integration. The purpose, as is stated on the state website, is um to pursue racial and economic integration, increase student achievement, create equitable educational opportunities, and reduce academic disparities based on students diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds in Minnesota public schools. When we think about achievement and integration, there are four different ways that a school district could be eligible to participate. The first way to be eligible is to have a district that's racially isolated. And what that means is that a group of protected class students, you would have 20 or 20% or more than an adjoining district. Um the second way that you can be eligible is to be an adjoining district and that's us. We are adjoined or next to district 622 which is North St. Paul Maplewood Oakdale and they are racially isolated. So their population of some student demographic groups are 20% higher or more than our district demographics. there are schools that can be eligible based on the student groups at their site. And then the fourth way to be eligible is to voluntarily participate. And it's essential um as we'll see in a couple of slides that in order to participate in achievement and integration, you need to be in partnership with another district, at least one other district. So, what your role in achievement and integration is is you're supposed to understand that we're eligible. Um, in order to access this supplemental funding, we need to have um a plan and you need to approve that plan. Um just so that you know the ANI plan is um written and approved by the school board every three years and then annually I come uh prior to a schoolboard meeting and share with you the data that aligns with our what used to be world's best workforce but is now comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. And as I present that, one of the expectations from the department of ed is that achievement and integration goals and progress is also um part of that presentation. And then understand that the ANI plan is intended to align with the district strategic plan. We don't want something separate, but we want to use this plan and the supplemental funding to help support the work that we are already intending to do in our district. We have participated in achievement and integration with our partner district North St. Paul Maplewood Oakdale since 2009 and prior to that we were a member of uh EMID the east me east metro integration district with nine other districts. So we were doing a achievement and integration like um program because achievement and integration wasn't a thing at that point. So between those two programs, we have participated in integration programming for more than 20 years. And as a reflection back because of our 2023 to 2026 plan, here are a few of the things that we've been able to do. So our elementary teachers were supported with decodable books from these dollars in addition to those that came from the math fund. Um OA the middle school and the high school um had uh people who supported behavior attendance and academic performance in um the role that Jackie talked about tonight that Chelsea is in. Part of her role is paid for out of achievement and integration. the AVID elective classes that are new to our district. The tutors that are used in those classes two days a week are supported by achievement and integration. In the um early part of this uh past three-year plan, we were able to allocate dollars to send staff to the AVID summer institute in Minneapolis. So over the course of uh a few years, we were able to send more than 20 staff using these dollars. Ani funds also supported our first instructional coach. So, we have a literacy coach and part of her role is supported by these dollars and um achievement and integration support a portion of our reading intervention teacher um at Wildwood for our youngest students who need reading support. Y >> you can go ahead and stop anytime. Do the dollars fund just the kids who are racially and economically behind in reading or does this money cover every student in the district? >> Every student. Wherever we have a person, they do not have a designated case load of children. So the reading interventionist, the part of her that's funded by ANI, she serves any kid whose data suggests they need reading intervention. Great question. So you we don't have to prove back to MDE this money is going into a racially or economic reading program. >> Correct. We need to show data that reading intervention helps all of our students and helps the subset of students that we identify in the plan. We just get the money because of our relationship with North St. Paul. Correct. And then we can use it how we want. >> Yep. Yeah. The goals that when um you know so when Yep. that when Jen talked at the beginning, there are certain goals we have to have fun. >> Yep. And that's where we are now. So, uh in order to submit our plan to the Department of Ed, we need to have goals in at least three or in these three areas. And we can have more than one goal in each of those areas if we want. We need to increase racial and economic integration. There are often questions with this one. I want to be clear. The intent is not that we are sending Mamemidi students to go attend school in North St. Paul, Maplewood, Oakdale, and in return we are receiving um students from 622. it is we need to um have activities where students from our district and 622 come together in a meaningful way. That's the integration. We need to reduce achievement disparities and we want to increase or we are required to have a goal around increasing access to effective and diverse teachers. As part of the plan, we need to write goals. We need to have outlined strategies of what are our action plans to make progress toward those goals. We have to identify what are those key indicators of progress. We need to submit a budget and we do that annually. Um, and what is um, I think what most school districts appreciate about that is that we can look from year to year and say this was a good investment of our dollars and we want to do that again or we're not making the gains in this area so we're going to pivot. So long as our goals remain the same, we can reallocate funds and then we need to have school board approval. >> How much is the budget? Um just over $400,000 >> per year for three years. >> Correct. >> So here is our plan. We will have in the 27 to 29 three-year plan four goals. And um as a piece of context for this, I work with our district and school leadership leaders and we really look at where do our principles and where do our directors feel like we have the greatest gaps, the greatest areas of growth to make and that in alignment with some of the work in our strategic plan is how we figure out what goals we want to go after in the next three years. So our first goal is to reduce the disproportionality of out out of school suspensions by 30%. Goal two, we want to increase the percentage of students who demonstrate grade level proficiency in reading and math. Goal three is about increasing the number of historically marginalized students participating in AP or college in the schools um courses at the high school. And then goal four is a lot longer because this is our partnership goal and we just took what 622 wrote and made it ours because we need to have the same goal. Um and Drew um I appreciate the feedback that you gave as I did the fall presentation about um the the CACR. We have adjusted this goal because of that feedback. So >> sorry what was my what was my feedback? >> Yeah. So part of our feedback or part of our goal in the last iteration was that by participating in these um integration activities, we were going to help students increase their sense of belonging in our school. And that seemed to be a disconnect. Sure. >> And so the way that we've rewarded that is that students participating in those um partnerships will report that the experience was meaningful and beneficial to their academic or personal growth. So not belonging but academic or personal growth. So thank you for that feedback. Are these threeear goals or one year goals? Those are threeear goals. If you don't have them asked ahead of time, could you pull up our goals from three years ago about those we have five strategies. So like I said, we have to have goals and then we have to have strategies that help us make progress toward those goals. And we can use a strategy and connect it to more than one goal. And in many cases, we do. So our first strategy, and in the next several slides, I'll give more details about these strategies. Our first strategy is about supporting behaviors for students, behavior support. Strategy two is about academic support for students. Strategy three is all about professional learning for teachers. Strategy four is about expanding access to high quality AVID elective courses and the consistent use of strategies because we know that not all students are going to be enrolled in the elective but all students can benefit from AVID strategies. And then that fifth strategy is the interactive um those partnerships with 622. And to your question earlier, strategies are designed and implemented to benefit all students regardless of their racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic background. >> Abid simple. >> Advancement via individual determination. It is a course and parallel strategies that are really intended to support students in um increasing their ownership of their academic progress, deepening and enhancing their learning. And that AVID elective is sort of a a higher level wraparound support for potentially first generation college students or students who would benefit from some additional skill building or confidence building to help them see that college is indeed an avenue they can choose to pursue. Y >> so strategy one when we talk about behavior support for students what that looks like in action is with our behavior support people and we have a number of them who are funded with several different funding sources. We expect that those folks are going to have clear expectations with consistent consequences paired with intentional skill building which will ensure students are held accountable while we're also developing the capacity to make better decisions to reduce repeated behavior and the need for exclusionary discipline. I know that one of the areas of concern that has been addressed by the school board is making sure that students are held accountable for those actions and behavior support doesn't mean withholding any sort of consequences. It's that partnership of yes, there are consequences and we need to help students understand what led to that consequence and how might they do things differently in order to avoid that in the future. So when we think about our expected outcomes, these are those key indicators of progress that we need to monitor on an annual basis. We want to ensure that the percent of out of school suspensions for students of color and students with disabilities is proportional to their enrollment at the um three of our schools, OA, the middle school, and the high school. As we look at our data right now and um this goal was um informed by some work that we're doing in our special ed services, we've got some uh feedback from MDE that this is an area that we need to address in our school system at large. So, it made sense to pair that work with another place that we're doing that work. When we look at our suspensions, we see in a couple of our buildings that we have um really high demographics of students either students of color or students who are receiving special ed services who are um having out of school suspensions and it's much higher than the group the demographic group at that school. So again, it's not about we're not going to do this anymore. It's about how do we build skills so that um out of school suspension isn't the one and only. We're also having conversations about what additional support can those roles do that might keep students in school and learning and potentially out of their regular classes, but we're keeping them on site to do some academic work and some skill building. That's still a work in progress though. Any questions about this one? comments you just made. So um on an annual basis maybe it's every three years we are expected to submit our data like lots and lots of data about academics about behavior and there's some monitoring of where do schools have data that suggests there is um some learning that the district needs to do. And this is one of those areas for us that they saw a a significant significantly higher number of students of color and students receiving special ed services who are receiving those out of school suspensions and it's not comparable to the demographic group. So it it's part of our annual data sharing with the department of ed. >> Can you give me an example of how we do that? How how do we support student or student who um might be has has been suspended multiple times. How do we help support that student to meet these goals in which we want them in the stu we want them in the classroom. How do we help and support with tax strategies? I just need a real world example. >> Yeah. So, I would um I'm going to do my best. Yes. Because I'm not working in those behavior support roles. That's why we have people with expertise like Chelsea in those roles. Who >> I thought Jackie was still here. >> Yeah. Um, but I would say if we take a look at one of our students at the middle school, for example, and we see that there's a student who receives special ed services and they're having some behaviors in class, oftentimes behaviors can arise because they feel like the content is too challenging. And so, in order to mask that it's hard to do this academic work, I'm going to show you behaviors so I can get out of it. And so part of what we can do in order to support that particular student is with their special ed services, we can build in some skill development and we can practice what are some things that you can do when you're feeling uncomfortable in class so that you don't have to have behavior. And so we might practice that in a small group. We might practice that in the special ed um room and then monitor that implementation in the classroom in hopes that there's that or with the intent that there's that transferable skill to keep them on campus. >> That's helpful. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. All right. So, our next strategy is all about academic support for students. And so, um, one of the things that we're doing right now is we have a fairly large cohort of folks who are going through what's called an MTSS, multi-tiered system of support learning experience. And we are creating um andor revising because we have some really good things in place to make sure that we understand what are our systems protocols to help kids as they um need increasing levels of support. We're going to have we're working on that plan to refine it so that it's systems wide as opposed to buildingwide. Pairing that with the folks who are in our intervention classrooms, our reading intervention teachers and our math intervention teachers that they are consistently using data, which they already do, so that students can receive timely, targeted support that strengthens their performance in class and increases the number of students who meet grade level expectations. One of the things that we've done over the past year um especially in our elementary grades is we have um looked at both who are the students who need um intervention support especially in the area of literacy that happens outside of the classroom. and also how can our teachers provide some support for students who don't have that significant of a need and we can take care of that in the classroom um during that win time. So we've we've gotten a lot better at using our data and planning interventions for students. So as a result of that strategy in action, we are intending to decrease the numbers of D's and Fs at the secondary level and increase the percentage of students who meet those grade level expectations on early reading, A reading, early math, and a math. All four of those are assessments are FastBridge assessments. Um, and we know, um, I've talked to you about the levels of data and so FastBridge gives us that information three times a year and so we're able to do pivoting a lot better than waiting until end of year MCA test results. questions about academic support for students >> back too. >> Are the counselors um at the school just brought this up for me? Are they more academic support and what class should I take? I'm having a hard time in this class. Or are the counselors actually digging into behavior, social and emotional stuff? >> Yes to all of that. Y our counselors wear many hats depending on the season of the year and the needs that are being presented by students. Um when we do registration time, counselors are very involved with um helping students understand what's next in their fouryear or six, sevenyear plan um making their way toward graduation. And then at other times they're really helping students with all sorts of areas of growth whether that's academic or social emotional behavioral. They wear all the hat >> is a step after meeting you're just counselor for your grade then you would meet the pet is she >> uh it's a different I would say parallel not a step up. One more time, what does MTSS stand for? >> Multi-tiered systems of support. So identifying here's what we expect all students are able to demonstrate and if they're not, then how are we going to respond to a smaller group and then we might have some of those students who need even more support. And so it's it's sort of that identification of what can the classroom teacher do, what can a reading intervention teacher do, and when do we potentially need to look at special ed services because the needs are greater than what those supports can offer. Strategy three is all about professional learning. That's growing our teachers. So what that looks like is sustained meaningful professional learning supported by coaching at the elementary level. Um content specific collaboration to enhance educator expertise and consistency. Um which will lead to stronger instruction, improve student outcomes across literacy and other core content areas. So our outcomes um we are able to sustain our literacy coach next year through a couple of different funding sources. um that are not general fund dollars. And um as a result of that, we are going to get even more formal about the literacy coaching cycle that our elementary teachers will participate in. We have a pretty great partnership with Kerry, which is the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement. They've done a ton of research and they have a model that we're going to follow for literacy coaching. We are going to increase the number of secondary educators participating in content specific professional learning. You have heard so much about the read act and it's been focused um primarily up till this point on our elementary teachers. Next year we begin phase two which is where our secondary teachers are participating in um science of reading learning. It is not as intense as letters. letters was a 2year pretty intense um experience. For our secondary educators, it will be a one-year experience. And then for those teachers, and for example, I would say our math teachers um they won't be doing the science of reading. So, we're going to bring in some content specific, so math content specific professional learning. And we want to make sure as a result of this professional learning that we're increasing elementary foundational literacy skills observation data scores. We have a protocol that we have learned um in concert with the department of ed and carry that um we are refining as we go into classrooms. We're observing um seven or eight different pieces of evidence and then looking at data holistically. So it's not an individual teacher evaluation, but where do we need to focus our efforts to improve instruction um instructional practices? Any questions about this bill? >> Does ANI pay for the woman that was here that does the English as a second language? Does that pay for >> No, that's a different funding source. All right. Strategy 4 is all about expanding access to AVID strategies. So, what that looks like is we want we intend to offer additional AVID elective classes. Um, we did recruitment for the high school and I'm not quite sure where we are for sections there. Um, and next year we are planning to add an eighth grade AVID elective for students who choose to um apply. And we want to increase access to those high impact instructional strategies which have been part of the professional learning that we've continued to offer staff at no cost because we have teachers who have gone through some training that allow them to deliver 90minute sessions. And we will continue to um have people go to some path trainings which aren't as robust or they're not three days like summer institute. They're two days um and they really compact that content but it's content specific. So math teachers learn math things and science teachers learn science things. And the intention of AVID strategies, both the elective and across the system strategies, is really to increase participation and success in rigorous coursework like AP and college in the schools. So we intend to see growth across the board in AP and college in the schools. And um in order to really highlight a particular group, we're looking at those historically marginalized. So that's one of the pieces that of data that we'll watch. But again, like I mentioned earlier, this is to the benefit of all students in our system. Questions about this one? >> How do you define historically marginal? >> Typically, it's students of color, students who are eligible for educational benefits that used to be the free and reduced price lunch, and um potentially students who are receiving special ed services. Similar to strategy one but with a bigger net. >> Yes. Yep. So not and it's not behavior. It's more academic. Yeah. >> And then strategy five is that partnership with our neighboring district, North St. Paul Maplewood Oakdale. Um so what this looks like is we have some um structured partnership experiences which create meaningful opportunities for collaboration. We want students to do some shared learning. We want to help them strengthen their confidence and sense of readiness to succeed in academic settings. So those are the two questions that we will have in pre and post surveys for students who participate. The way that we have operated with these partnerships is we look for authentic ways where our teachers are doing common things. So we have worked with a French teacher here and a French teacher in 622 who were both planning a college in the schools field trip and it made sense to partner them up. I know that Annie Doll and DECA um connects with the DECA advisor um in 622 and do some partnership there. So we're not trying to create artificial experiences. So, we're trying to build on experiences that are already in place and make sure that we're connecting them in meaningful ways. Um, one of the things that I think is really helpful for you all to know is that as we think about those dollars that I mentioned before, um, there's been some pretty significant effort put in to braid funding sources. And what I mean by that is we'll use some achievement and integration and some adsis dollars or some special ed dollars, student support. Um each of those buckets of money have some different requirements, if you will, and some are much more structured. So the combining of those funding sources often allows us to have some flexibility in ways that we wouldn't have if we just had this pays for this and this has to pay for this other here. So when we think about the roles that we've had in the past, our this um new plan will sustain reading and math intervention at Wildwood O in the middle school. It will sustain our behavior support at Wildwood O in the middle school. Um we are evolving our role at the high school from more of a restorative practices to something I think we're still workshopping the name but a student success coach. So more working directly with students um who may need attendance, behavior, academic support um well-rounded. We will continue to fund AVID tutors and literacy coaching at the elementary schools. So, our next steps um after board approval um should you hopefully choose to approve us, we will submit the application to the department of ed. And then I will continue to meet with our team and um meet with individual school principles to monitor progress toward our goals. We have a dashboard that we use to say, well, here's what we said we were going to do. How are we making progress toward those? We've got some charts for the principles so they can see um where might they need additional focus and then we will continue to enhance and refine the details of those activity partnerships with 622. >> What additional questions do you have for me about our ANI plan? >> Madam Chair, um Dr. Reg just has has the state do you know if the state if you submit this and colleagues across the state submit these does the state ever come back and said Dr. regular. This is nuts. This Okay. >> Yeah. They um this is one where almost like clockwork. Every three years we submit and then get a we need you to refine this. Here's where you need to shore things up. Have you done this? They really do look at the applications. There are other things where they don't look at things with a fine tooth comb. This is one that where they're very particular to make sure that we're addressing the needs. Um and then another question. So I love the term braid and I I was watching a presentation regarding compensatory revenue and one of the metrics for compensatory revenue from what I understand is we receive we receive compensatory revenue to support kids in similar situations from what I understand right and it's based on free and reduced lunch. How are these programs different? >> Do you want to take that one? >> Sorry, I was a little distracted, but can you leave that door open? We have to keep it at the meeting. I'm sorry. >> So, the difference between compensatory revenue that we re we receive and this revenue we receive. To me, it seems like like there's an overlap. I think there's an overlap in the if the compensatory revenue is generated students who it's not and there are certain ways we can use it but it's not it's not >> okay so it's generated and then we can go after the additional revenue through this program. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you >> Dr. Peterson. Um the slide about sustain sustain sustain. Uh yep. So that will if you submit it, we get the yes. Great. That is what the money will continue to do. Off the top of your head, could you just list one or two ways you've seen positive growth or outcomes, not just sustaining? Um great question and tough to answer. And here's why. We have had many of these positions in our district for such a long time that it would be hard to think about what did it look like before these people these roles were in place and how has that changed until now. I would say um the intervention teachers and the behavior support, the role in student success similar to that, all of those things were here before I came into the district. And so our data will show that we are sustaining and improving slightly, but without it, I'm not sure what that would look like. >> If I could also just I think when when Dr. I think that's an important part of this. So she talks about in the fall she'll do our >> that report where she talks about some of the data that is related to this but there are other sources. Couldn't there be this is what I'm I'll just make it simple. One of the goals is to have more students of color take AP classes. If you counted this year how many students of color took AP next year counted >> Yeah. >> That's what I mean. >> Yep. We can Yeah, that is a that's a improvement. >> And some of these positions that are up here and things that are there weren't there even three years ago as well. So like some of the work around AVID or the student success coach and and what you're talking to about right some of those things aren't just a sustained like they've been here for a long time. There's also new positions and new opportunities that didn't exist the last time even when we >> we didn't have literacy coaching correct and I would I suggest again that a lot of these are related to the evolution of our and had in our strategic plan before. So even though like kind of the buckets the way we're we're doing it a little different will we see the revisions on this and the feedback from the state and have to approve this again or >> um that is not an expectation from the state. Once you give approval um We won't it will be um cleanup. It won't be an overhaul. If there's an overhaul, I would come back to the board and say they said no to our goals. We had to rewrite completely. Usually, it's some refinement that needs to happen. Director Dolman, >> does Minnesota Department of Education track outcomes against the goals? >> Yes. So we so annually when I do that CACR presentation, I'm required to submit a report to the state on both our five what used to be world's best workforce goals and our achievement and integration goals. So the department that oversees achievement and integration looks at all of the goals and the data from the 171 districts across the state to make sure that we're making progress toward our goals. And if we don't make progress against the goals, is it safe to assume that the funding is potentially revoked or what what happens? No, they will tell um so part of what happens every three years if you don't um make enough progress toward your goal, then they um have you say, "Here's where we're allocating our dollars to really focus on improving in those goal areas that we had in the last three-year plan." Um so we can't every three years do something brand new. They have to see that we are sticking with some of those goals unless we can help them understand that based on our context those goals needed to be adjusted. >> So I guess what I'm asking or wondering is if you back up maybe one or two slides I just want yeah they'll ask me just increase their self-confidence. How do you track how is that? It's a that'll be a perception survey with students just asking them do you feel like your student your confidence has been improved because of this activity. And so the short answer to your question is the funding will not be revoked. We just have to allocate those funds in a way that meets MDE's needs or expectations based on the last uh application. For example, could it be that they would say we need you to put more of your Yes, >> if if it exists, I'm not asking you to do anything, but if it exists, I would love to see historical information from Minnesota Department of Education around um how the achievement and integration plan has helped close the achievement gap over the years, >> specifically at MB actually even more impactful Yeah, take a look. Any other questions for me tonight? >> Thank you, Dr. Riel, for a very thorough presentation. With that, I'm looking for a motion to approve the achievement and integration plan. >> So, move >> by director Donna. Is there a second? >> Second by director Dolman. Any additional discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Motion carries. >> Um, next we are moving on to 11 C. 11 C is the approval of the budget assumptions for the fiscal year 27 by Mr. Ericson. >> Good evening. So, uh, tonight what we'd like to do is get approval on the following budget assumptions and I'll walk through those. And that what that's going to do is allow us to move forward with uh the 26 27 budget planning process and then also move on to to our multi-year projections. So I'll run through these and then you can go ahead and ask questions. >> I'm just going to intro this but say that you this is something we do every year and um as part of the process and um the finance committee had conversation. >> Yeah. Thank you. Well, the uh the first assumption uh of course is is one that drives a lot of our revenue and that's enrollment. And so we use a few different things to arrive at where we project enrollment. Uh one of the things is using a forecast that uses a four-year average. And then we'll look at cohorts. So if we look at uh the advancing those grades and looking at those numbers and seeing if there are any big differences, we might make some additional adjustments. We'll also be looking at as we go go forward with the open enrollment windows uh what's happening there as well and then we'll develop and finalize that enrollment adjustment uh for the 2627 preliminary budget that you'll approve in June. When we look at aid and levy revenue, those are based on existing law and um there's there are some different proposals and you've probably seen some of those of that proposed legislation at the state level that may change some of that funding u but probably not in any major way for 2627. Uh there's a blue ribbon commission uh they're continuing their work and that uh and that we'll we'll see. I guess that's one where we'll wait and see what happens. Uh the basic education formula that accounts for about 49% of our revenue. So just uh just under half and it's dependent on the consumer price index. This is one number we do know that's locked in and that's which which is helpful because it's a fairly big number and so we are increasing 2.69%. And the the uh the state law in place right now is we can go no higher than 3%. But no lower than two. So we're at the 269. So again based on the CPI and that's driving about $26 million of revenue. Now the other part is there are other revenues that we have but they are not tied to inflation. Some of those numbers have been we go back into these different formulas they have. Some of those numbers have been in place for a number of years and haven't That's a challenge for us. Uh the voter approved uh operating referendum uh that's put in place that shows up in the 2627 budget. So that's about $2 million and that uh has resulted in in us having a balanced budget for the first time in a number of years. So that was very good news. Uh class sizes and programs again tied to that operating referendum. uh making sure we're keeping our class sizes in line and then also having programs that will would will remain in place as we promised. second page. When we look at wages and benefits, they comprise about 78% of our general fund expenditures. And like any other service business, you know, people, kids are what we who we serve. And you would expect to see a lot, you know, you'd expect to see a number that high. But that also means that 20 22% of our expenses uh are left to help make budget adjustments if we need to. Uh so things like transportation, that's a big line item budget, but it's it's somewhat of a fixed cost. Utilities, again, somewhat of a fixed cost. We can do different things. We'll have some energy savings, I would imagine, in this building with our new HVAC upgrades. And going forward with the building bond project, we'll have HVAC upgrades at the high school, too, which we I would anticipate we'll see some decent energy savings there. Um, we have federal revenues and those are held level. There was a lot of talk at the federal level about them being cut drastically. That really didn't happen. But, um, again, when you look at federal revenues for Mameida, we generate it's about 1.3% of our total revenue budget. So, it's a very small amount, but they're hel we're holding those flat and they've been they've been pretty much flat for the past few years. Investment earnings were looking at it. That's anybody's guess as to where interest rates are going to head with all the different variables out there right now. So, uh we're usually normally pretty conservative on those. We don't want to overestimate. Uh and then summer unemployment aid. Uh that funding is expected to decrease going forward as that fund runs out of money. Uh but we'll see. Uh the legislature could renew it. They could just just discontinue the program. Maybe they fund it, you know, partially. There's any any any number of things that they could do. Uh this is our first projection. Uh and again, it's balanced. We have a modest surplus of $128,000. And then um little note down at the bottom, the projections require a lot of assumptions right now and as such they are going to change as as we go forward and I think you've all kind of witnessed that how we update update our plan and try to have have as accurate the numbers as we can. So any questions right now on the assumption? Okay. So, a very very high level you can see here what our numbers are looking like. So, the actual numbers 2425 those are where we wound up um in line with what you saw in the audit presentation back in I keep getting mixed up. It was January. It was February I believe the auditor was here to talk through that. So, those numbers haven't changed. we had that slight about $300,000 uh revenues that were under expenditures and then the fund balance was 8.9 8.9% was the unassigned fund balance that's the one tied to policy and then for 2526 those numbers are the revised numbers that you approved at our revised at our budget revision last month and so we've got a about 800 a little over $800,000 deficit planned in for that and that would leave the percent unassigned at 8.6%. And then when we look at 2627 again that middle under that line of revenue over under expenditures it's actually over uh for the first time in a long time like I said and that fund balance when you look at uh the the unassigned fund balance that percentage is 9.2. So, it's planned to go up a little bit. And one of the things uh you'll also be approving tonight is we we reddrafted a plan for a reserve for operating capital deficit. And you'll see that that line with non-spendable, restricted, and assigned fund balance. That one's dropped. So, it went from 3.9 actual and 2425 and that's projected to be at 2.7 for 2627. So, we still have it. And what that's going to cover what that's doing and why it's dropping is because we're making transfers over from the from that assigned fund balance to cover the reserve property capital deficit. And then 2627, that deficit needs to be zero or we need to have a surplus. And you'll see that again in that next agenda item. Any questions on what I just covered? Okay. Thank you for the presentation. I just want to say thank you to the voters for passing that operating referendum and uh we might be in a very different place and a different conversation. So uh thank you. >> All right. Uh with that looking for approval to um for a motion to approve the budget assumptions for fiscal year 27. >> Moved by Director Domen. Second by director Peterson. Any further discussion? >> Sorry, >> director Domen. >> Just one quick thing. Tim, I just wanted to say congrats. Good job. It was great to see the the budget balanced and the fund balance within board parameters. So, thank you. >> You bet. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to the voters, too. It was incredible support in this district. It's really, really nice to see. I was just going to add that finance committee met ahead of the meeting here and went through this in greater detail and um and so we're very pleased with those results as well. So >> any other discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I motion carries. Um stay there because uh item 11D is approval of the transfer to reduce the deficit in reserve for operating capital. Mr. Eric again, >> as Dr. Reichel mentioned, the state does look at some of their report some of the reports, probably all of them. Uh this this was one uh they reached out if you remember we had uh in 23 24 we had a large purchase of smartboard technology for classrooms and um we did run our uh we were a were able to get a state approval to run the reserve for operating capital into a deficit and so that's what we requested. They granted that request and now they've come back and said hey can you look at your plan rework it and then have the board approve the transfers. So, that's what we're doing tonight is just having you take a look at um get on the same page. I'm having a little trouble seeing that distance. So, first we I'm going to I'm going to cover the letter. >> Oh, okay. Okay. So, there there is a letter and Okay, you got it. Okay, great. And so you'll see just what I was talking about uh that very the the paragraph down the fourth paragraph down you can see where the state one thing bit of information the state didn't have is that we've set aside this revenue. What we couldn't do is make the transfer until the board approved it. So again that part is the the one you're approving. But I just asked the state we'll just have the board approve the whole plan and we'll have all of our bases covered. And they said yeah that should be good. So, so we'll be transferring uh that $700,000 at the end of this year and then we'll transfer another 620 and that'll bring that to that that unassigned or that assigned fund balance down to that number that you saw in the budget. Okay. And just go down to my next page here. Okay. And kind of more of the same just in a in a chart form laid out for the state so they can see how that goes. So, one one item to note when we're looking at our expenditures um even even for 2526, we're anticipating our expenditures to be more than the revenue coming in. That revenue is fairly flat. You'll see it's the same number pretty much going all the way across. As far as the revenue, it's about $800,000. Um, so when we look at expenses, we're we're at 950 estimated for this year and we'll be at about 9 just just at 892. So just under 92627 and then we're going to write it uh we will have expenditures and revenue equal to each other there on out for the next two years. So that uh and and further past the next two years, we'll be we'll be making sure that we're not running that in the deficit unless of course we had plan we have a plan to do that. You know, I would I would never say we'd never go back and do this because it did help. It did help us. So any questions on that? >> No questions. Um at this point looking for a motion to approve the plan transfer to reduce the deficit and reserve for operating capital. Is there a motion? >> Director Peterson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> By director Donna. Any further discussion? >> Those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thank you. Um, next we have the addition of item 11E, the approval of W architects and engineers agreement. >> I'm not sure who's taking that one. maybe >> really I just given madam chair and board just given the magnitude of the scope and the fee I thought it would be appropriate just to have a little bit if um Tim could provide some perspective on the fee. Um I certainly have no issues with W um serving as ar as our architect, but um I guess I don't would just love some perspective on the fee given your experience with and probably diligence surrounding their their proposal. >> Yeah. So what you know and I I think I probably would start just first with the contract. So, what what we've done with this is we wanted to get to a some certain amount that we knew uh we were going to be paying for architectural fees. And so, that uh that's $1.7 million. And that locks in essentially locks in everything that that Wald is going to provide under the basic services of the contract. If we elect to do something more, we will of course h have to pay for that. But at this point, I think everything we've got listed in basic in the basic services are going to cover that and we're not going to have to worry about being over budget there. So that that was the first thing we wanted to do. W made a number of concessions as far as uh liability shifting uh from from the district to W. So we had our attorney looked at this and reviewed it and that was another big thing. They were very amendable to doing that. And uh when and I did look um you know in my experience a six we're at 6.23% of construction cost and that I felt was right in line to actually under where we would probably see these especially for a project that is a lot of renovation. It's got a little we have you know about 10,000 square feet we're adding which isn't much. Um, but when you're when you're doing renovation, you just you're just going to run into things that are unanticipated and it is going to put more pressure and more work on the architects and the engineers to go through that. So, I was saying, you know, some of the costs I might see in a project um in our projects about mediumsiz. It would be kind of judges medium size. So, we'd be looking at probably 8 and a half to nine and a half% was kind of the range that I was getting. And so we're I'm very comfortable with where the fee is. I think it's I I think we're getting a you know I think we're getting a very good rate on that and uh they've been they've been great to work with. They have gone above and beyond. They they've really helped us out as we've been going through things. I don't have any other questions. >> No, that's helpful for me. Thank you. >> Other questions that looking U motion to approve W architects and the engineer agreement. Is there a motion? >> So move >> by Director Donna. Is there a second by Director Peterson? Any additional discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I motion carries. >> Thank you. Um item 12, schoolboard committee reports. We'll start with AMSD director. Um so I was not able to attend the meeting but I did go back and review some of the material. So there there was a presentation on compensatory revenue um which the f the fiscal 27 per pupil is $6,936 which is an increase of of about $400. Um there's another presentation by uh educator identification clearing house. Essentially what that does is it's a database that uh the district can access. It provides immediate alert uh on actions against a professional educator uh license. So it helps us be better informed with firing practices. And then thirdly, there was a presentation by Pellsby, which is the professional educators licensing and standards board. Um, and I can't do it justice of the, you know, the work that they're doing, the presentation that was made, but, um, suffice to say that, um, what I took away was they're a couple things that they're work certainly working on is streamlining licenses, com trying to combine and, um, perhaps rightsize with the needs across the state, uh, and dealing with additional licensing requirements. ments for I believe it's computer science and ethnic studies. So that's it. >> Next we're going to move on to 12B which is May Director Witson. >> Um May actually is meeting tomorrow. So I don't have any updates until until then. >> Okay. Item C is MSBA director Peterson. Okay. I warned you I was coming with stuff tonight. Um bear with me. This is very interesting. And if I read off a bill you're interested in, you can go on the MSBA website. They reworked this all for this legislative session and just type in the number I say and it'll drop down and give you all the language. I'm just going to sum up a few that pertain to Mameidi or I found interesting. Um, what I really, this is the first year I've really gotten into this. Last year it was very overwhelming. Um, I didn't realize how simple and it takes five minutes to handw write a letter really quickly to your any legislator at the capital and drop it in the mail. And we want them to get stacks of letters that say help or don't do this either way. Um, a few I want to highlight are House File 3593. It's called the permanent school fund. And Barb, I know we were going to talk about this at a study session. have Tim explain it sometime. I can't do it. Just listen you guys. Did anyone here have any idea the DNR owns all this land in the state then they sell it to the state board of investments who puts it in stocks and bonds and then they take the capital from that and then MDE distributes it to school districts. I had no idea land generates money which generates capital which is given to school districts. Anyone did you know that? Okay. So this is the big this is the big bill at the capital this year for education. There is a bill on the floor to not just distribute distribute interest in dividends which is all we get now from these stocks and bonds. There is a bill to use four to 5% fixed education funding every year. So we don't have to wonder if it's 2% 2 and a half we want four. Um we'll get three. It's it's 2.1. It would be a fixed somewhere between four and 5% every single year for budgeting. We just plan on that. We know we're getting it. It's not this waiting game. It's not all the disappointment. Um it grows 8% a year, but school districts are only given about 2.5% of that in interest in dividends and there's so much more sitting there. So, this is a very bipartisan bill on the floor. It's already passed 21 to three to move on to the next hearing. Um, and MSBA said to thank a Democrat for that because they came across the aisle and voted for this. Um, and uh, yeah. So, we want that. Write a letter that says, "Please support House File 3593. It would give us permanent fixed funding every year." Uh, another one that's a few months late for us, there is a bill called 3614. It would take the wording off a referendum for school districts that say this will increase your property taxes. A vote yes. So they are finding that language is just um kind of lean having people lean towards a no vote because in a lot of cases your property taxes won't go up with a levy or they'll go down. So it's misleading to say a vote yes will increase your property taxes. So that language would be off um bonds and levies for school districts. Ryan, I'd like you to dig into Senate File 3606. Um, Mameita Mameidi, uh, I think we'd be very interested in this. There is a Minnesota State High School League bill on the floor that would take uh, 1.2 millions in sales and the Minnesota State High School League Foundation would then distribute that to school districts. And the money can only be used for a few specific things. But get this, Matt, it can be used for transportation assistance. So, uh, we could certainly dip into that for, um, athletic busing. And the other thing it can be used for is activity fee reduction. So, we would really like Senate File 366 to pass and, uh, dip into that Minnesota State High School League money they have. And another one that pertains to us every year right here, House File 3790, that is where school districts can call their graduation venue an instructional use, um, educational instructional use. Right now, we cannot use a certain fund to pay for Aldridge every year. But if this bill passes, we can write off Aldridge as an instructional use, if that makes sense. There's money to rent Aldridge that's out there. If this bill passes, yes, thank you. It's called the lease levy funds. Give me one second. Oh, there's big problems with special ed funding, but I'll get to that as that rolls on, but it's not good. I'll just say that. Not good. Um, those were the ones pertaining to Mameidi. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That was exciting. Um, all right. Next, uh, item D, Northeast Metro 916, and Director Stout is not here, so I'm not sure if we have an update or if it was sent last week. Okay. But in our email, so maybe I should check my email from last week is what you're saying. All right. I got you logged in, so now you can check yours. Um, other reports. I'll start with facilities. We met last Friday, the um March 20th, and anyone who else was there and director Domen, we got to see and hear about um sort of the couple different phases of the facilities work and some of the stuff that's going to start taking place this summer and then a year from now. um some of the things around safety and security, some of the work around the task force for facilities with the new weight room and what's going to be done with the existing weight room, the commons or sorry the locker space area like the innovation hub or zone or whatever it might be. So we got to see some um some I guess some drawings, some renderings. We got to we also had an opportunity to see some of the samples of seating and things that are going to go in at Shepakwa. Um and lots and lots of updates and lots of feedback and different people involved in giving feedback around that. So that's my high level. I don't know if two of you have anything else you want to add to that. >> Bring it up. I kind of forgot about it, but it's not because it wasn't extremely exciting. >> Thank you. >> It was incredibly exciting. Um, no. It it was a Zoom meeting at like 7:30 in the morning and I don't think >> I was looking for more enthusiasm that maybe was maybe >> but I I will just comment like it's cool to see the progress starting to take shape and and get to see visuals of what it's going to look like and um just I hope this students that are going to get to participate in these new facilities appreciate how fortunate they are. going to be really good. >> We'll be meeting monthly now, so we'll have monthly updates about that. Anything else for that that we missed? >> We learned a lot about semi porous surfaces and those all those uh watershed requirements and we're exploring all that as well. >> Any other reports? Yes, Peterson. May I go back to our legislative discussion for one thing? Barb and I talked about If you really feel like writing a letter to the capital from Adamedi would be there is a bill on the floor Senate file 4023 to repeal the K3 suspension that anyone kindergarten through third grade cannot be suspended and that's very expensive to our district when a student does need to leave and we can't send them home for the day. We need staff and time and the class is disrupted and an NOA Henipin school board did a um they presented at the state capital on this and the disruption to the class and the other students witnessing this child that needs to go home is it was just very heartfelt that they gave the emotional side of it. Um so that is another letter that would uh help from us. Thank you. Any last uh reports? Okay. So, um at this point we are going to move to a close session and after we return from close session we will simply adjourn. So um yes right so there's no reason to stay all >> have a great evening. Thanks for a great meeting and uh we will be moving to close session here momentarily. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm looking for a motion to move to close session. Uh moved by Director Domen. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second by Director Donna. Any other discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Thanks, Matt. >> We move to close session. >> Ready at 8:42 p.m.