Hey, Aurora. So, >> okay, we'll call tonight's meeting to order. Joan, roll call. >> Director Gersvich, >> here. >> Director Hawker, >> here. >> Director Kellenberg, >> here. >> Director Lowour, >> here. >> Director Parker >> here. >> Dr. Lander >> here. >> Chair Sherman >> here. You have a quorum. Thank you. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Next on the agenda is to approve tonight's agenda. And I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Theelander with a second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Agenda passes. We'll move on to the consent item tonight. Consent uh A through D is on the screen. Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent? >> I'll move to approve. >> Great. Director Hawker with the motion. Second. >> And Lowour with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say, "I." >> I. I >> opposed. Consent passes unanimously. Okay. Um our first item of business tonight is uh an action item and it's the summer 2026 multi-sight long-term facility maintenance improvement plan. So Mark and Heather, welcome. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Chair Sherman, members of the board, Superintendent Funk. Um tonight we're here to talk about the summer LTFM projects. On February uh 19th we opened up bids for the multi-sight program. Um there were 10 different work scopes that we opened. Um this is the last bids that we have for LTM LTFM projects. As you remember, we've been here a couple times to do different projects throughout the year. This is kind of the catchall. So just the projects that were left is here at Oak Park is replacing two exterior doors. You can see there's kind of random odds and ends things that we have to fix and replace throughout the district. It's painting the handrails and exterior light poles at Rutherford. Replacing the fire uh suppression piping in the auditorium at Stillwater Middle. At the high school, it's replacing the cooling towers and all the associated equipment with energy efficient chillers, as well as replacing the kitchen exhaust hood and kitchen lighting and ceilings. Um at Stonebridge, it's replacing the light fixtures in the kitchen, that upper hallway there by the by the kitchen and three of the classrooms, as well as some ADA um restroom upgrades. And then lastly at the bus garage, it's replacing the furnace and garage door sensors. So within those 10 work scopes, we had pretty good coverage. We did have one bid on one of them, but the rest of them had two to five um different bids per work scope. So we budgeted about 4.9 for this, and it came in just under at 4,883,59962. So with that, I will open up to any questions or comments that you have about the summer uh multi-sight. One thing I do want to add is most of these projects are be done through the summer. The one that is not is the cooling towers at the high school. There's a lot of programming through the summer with athletics as well as slice and some summer programming. So, we're going to wait until the cooling season's done. Basically, wait till the fall when you stop using the air conditioning. Replace the the cooling or the chillers over the winter and then be ready to go next spring, probably Aprilish next year, ready to go for the summer. So, that'll be the one project that we'll just delay until the cooling season's over. >> Great. Uh, is there a motion on the floor before we open it up for questions? >> I'll make a motion. >> Great. Sarah with the motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Okay. Director Theelander with the second. Questions or comments for Mark? Seeing none, all those in favor raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Motion passes. Thank you. And on to our next action, which is Bayport playground equipment and fall surf and yeah, fall surface. >> Yeah. So, I had the pleasure of working with um Chris Johnson from St. Croy Recre Fun Playgrounds and looking at both uh Bayport and Lake Elmo and so um we thankfully came under budget and I was able to work with district leadership as well as the building principles and then they in turn worked with some of the key stakeholders as well as student voice. So, they had an opportunity to weigh in on creating these really beautiful outdoor spaces for our kids. I do believe that there's a couple of pictures that we have included. This is the Bayport Elementary um rendering of the playground. And if you've ever had the opportunity to work with any playground companies, they really take a look at like how kids get on and how they get off and what kind of developmentally what's appropriate for them. And we do have some ADA equipment that's provided for kids um as well. >> And I don't know if we're going to move on to the Lake Elmo. We'll we'll actually stay on this one and I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. Director Lowour with the second. Any questions or comments for Heather? >> Yes. >> That surface is that that rubbery surface that uh >> Yeah, >> you could fall and not get hurt on it unless you really try. >> Right. >> And um how long does that stuff last? >> That I'm not 100% sure. I mean, I think there it's it's a relatively I think any of our um playgrounds that have been, you know, replaced that's been on there now. And so Rutherford, you know, it's been wearing really well, but it's it's it's too early to tell. Like it's just been, you know, this is the second year, but Mark might know a little bit more with >> grown eight to 10 years. >> Okay. Is the lifespan. >> Is that become an LTFM thing then too to replace surfaces? >> Oh, it will be. So this actually the this is called a false surface. So the rubberized false surface is actually a bond project back in 2015. So part of that before if you remember we had wood chips in all of our playgrounds and just that false surface and the wood chips and the each year you know putting new wood chips in and then under swings and area kind of got a lot of um wear and tear. So this is kind of to help with the wear and tear as well as have a more safe um system for our kids. So the system is actually there's the the the under um like the cement and the rock and all that and then the surface itself. So most of the cost of this when you fally set it up is getting the foundation set and then the surface comes on top. So what to replace these is it is an LTFM but the base is already there. You're just replacing the top surface once we get to that point. >> Right. Thanks. >> Did you Yes, director. >> Yeah. No, I think it's such a great change that's happening but you know I've been able to see that at Rutherford and some of the other schools that have it because it just makes playground uh equipment more accessible for all kids no matter what their types of uh um needs may be. And so that's just been a really cool uh opportunity to be able to see all the kids at the schools be able to participate. >> If you've ever fallen on wood chips, not super soft, too. >> Oh, they're horrible. Yeah. >> And also, um, just to point out that for both projects, Chris did a really nice job of incorporating the theme with the river and then the prairie. So, you'll kind of see that in some of the color pieces. >> That excellent. Any other questions for Heather? >> Yes. >> Why is the some projects bid out and this one doesn't seem like this was bid out? >> I mean, it was already decided when I joined this and so I think um in looking at some of the things that uh Tony put together, it is um the St. Corey Recreation Fund Playground Incorporation has awarded a contract by the Minnesota Office of State Recruitment. So it provides us some a discounted price. >> It so go ahead. >> So this is actually already bidded out. This is under state contract. So different um providers in in bunch of different areas. This just happens to be playgrounds. We get this in other areas too where we buy it offstate contract where they actually bid it out first for us and then we can go kind of pick and choose what type of equipment that we want, what goes together, what makes sense for each of the buildings and you kind of pick and choose to put a playground together versus going out and getting individual work scopes for different singular pieces of equipment. This allows us to work with a vendor that's already been been through the bidding process. So any anything over 175,000 needs to be through a public bid. And so since this is over 175,000, they went through the state contract to get the bidding process already done. Then we can work with them to get a playground that meets our needs. >> Thank you guys very much. >> Any other questions? Okay, there's a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor of approving Bayport Playground Equipment and Fall Surface, raise your hand and say I. >> I. Opposed. Passes unanimously. and we'll stay here for action item C which is the Lake Elmo Elementary playground equipment and fall surface. So, same process working with um you know Chris Johnson and the building principles and again they had an opportunity to include the student voice as well as some key stakeholders at the building level and um creating again another beautiful space for Lake Elmo students to play and have have a great time. And you'll see too from the renderings that they were able to incorporate looking at the um prairie scheme. So you'll be able to see that when Joan has a chance. Bring it up. >> And then also including the ADA um equipment and then having the medically complex um cluster program there. we were able to take a look at what were some of the current pieces that they already have and working with Shannon Jax just to like what are some pieces that we want to make sure that we carry over and so we were able to work with Katie on some of that too just to make sure that it's accessible for kids and there's opportunity for all of our kids to play. >> Great. Um is there a motion on the floor for move to >> approve? Director Hawker moves to approve. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. Director Theelander with the second. Um, questions for Heather on Lake Elmo Elementary. >> Sure. >> Oh, yeah. >> This one looks a lot bigger than the last one. Is that just because they have so many more kids at that new school? >> Yeah. >> All right. Thanks. >> Well, thank you very much for your work on this and I know the board really appreciates when we can hear that families and students and staff and that everyone is involved in kind of helping contribute to what this looks like and what they need. So, it's wonderful job. So, thank you and exciting to see these things come together. So, >> they're beautiful. >> Um, okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, raise your hand and say, "I." >> I. >> Opposed. >> Motion passes. Thank you guys very much. >> Um, next up is an action item to approve the achievement and integration plan. And while we have staff transitioning, you'll notice um board members that we have special guests today for we have four students. So, I just thought really quickly maybe Aurora if you want to introduce and just make introductions while we do the transition. >> Yeah, for sure. Okay. Actually, I'm just going to hand it over to them. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm Vivian. I'm a junior at Still Water. >> Um I'm Noah. I'm a junior at Still Water. >> And we just wanted to bring them in today just because just fun to go see the board, see what it's all about. And yeah, >> we love it. We love it. So, um I'm sure Aurora's probably told you, but if you >> The guy next to you. >> Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say it. Zack. >> And then Zach is back from swimsuit. >> Back from >> Yeah. How did it go? We saw some stuff online. So, yeah. So, they there was some posting some posting and stuff. >> Yes. Thank you. Yeah. >> Exactly. No, it was on the Still Water story. >> Yes. I'm glad to be back. >> Great. Well, it's good to have you back. So, you >> Great. Um and then just feel free to participate all of you. So great. Okay. And we're welcoming Jacqueline and Caitlyn. >> Good evening. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, uh, we are both here to present to you all for action the new three-year achievement and integration plan. Um, before I go into that, I just kind of want to like give a little foundational information and context. Um, you'll notice if if you as as you previewed this in advance that there's more in this than just the achievement and integration plan. So, it starts with our um comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan. We call that kacker. I sounds like you have a hairball. It's so weird. Um, but uh that plan is an annual plan. So, if you've if you've been around long enough, you'll you'll know that we had a world's best workforce committee and uh a world's best workforce plan. The legislators uh changed that to call to be called comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. So, it's a legislated plan. It's an annual plan with annual goals. Um, but I thought it was important to bring that forward as part as we're talking about achievement and integration because we've been working really really hard around our strategic plan, our pony plan, what our priorities are and alignment of all of the work that we're doing. So, I put this in front of our district curriculum advisory committee last week on Monday and had them really dig in to say, is this aligned? Here's our pony plan. Here's our kacker plan. and here's what we're going to be bringing forward as our achievement and integration plan and where do you see alignment with our strategic plan. Um, so before we we get into the ANI, I'm going to just give us a quick run through on our on our CACER goals because that is closely tied to our achievement integration. So these are the five areas that the state legislators say that we have to have goals in. They just kind of set broad strokes like you have to set a goal in each of these areas. is they don't necessarily tell us what that goal has to be. So, we do that work internally. Um, and then I bring that to the board. Last year, the previous year I brought it to you late late late spring, early summer. This uh coming next plan, I will bring you the new plan in the fall, early fall for the next school year. So our current goal for all students are ready for school is that we're going to increase the percentage of incoming K students meeting age appropriate literacy and numeracy benchmarks using that initial fastbridge screening. So you can see that we um set that goal in reading for 68 to 72 and in math from 84 to 85 and we have met that goal. So that's good news. um something that I think we um should celebrate because it's easy to look at this goal and say how much control do we have over that right we don't have control over all of the students coming into our kindergarten classes um but of all of the students that we serve in our prek programs here at Stillwater 99% of those students last year stayed on for kindergarten this school year so we have a really good retention rate when we have students attend prek with us and so we're able to partner really closely with our early childhood programming to control what we can control. Um we have a a goal in and you'll see alignment with achievement integration around closing those achievement gaps. So reducing those gaps. We wrote this goal um with the intention of continuing even though this is an annual plan, continuing this for three to five years um to really start to be able to measure and see change in that area. Here's the results so far. Um it's promising but not good enough. Right? So we're seeing some really um good indicators that we're doing the right work in literacy. We've put a lot of um attention and work and training and curricular resources into those foundational literacy skills and you're starting to see some gains there uh with us closing those gaps in that early kind of K1 K12ish area. uh we are still in the infancy of doing those professional developments and we're in year one of adopting that new curriculum for those later elementary grades. And so we are going to continue to work towards closing that achievement gap there. But again, I really look at this for the 2 through 12. I'm looking at this more like baseline data. Like this is where we're starting. And then for math, we don't see really any significant statistical change from and that doesn't surprise me. We are just starting our math work like we kicked it off last week with our beginning our K5 and 6 through 12 math committees and the new standards need to be implemented effective 2728. So, we're going to continue to work on this, but again, this is baseline data. Then, we have a area in college um and career ready. And so, we're defining this as students earning credits in advanced coursework um concurrent enrollment. MDE defines advanced coursework for us. And then we expanded it with some of our own opportunities that we have internally as well around workbased learning and internships and apprenticeships and those sort of things. So we are on track. Uh we have you know semester one data for us already. And if we just extrapolate that out another semester we have a 14% increase. And again with the shift um that we're looking to do with that block schedule and the increased opportunities it will bring for our high school students. I anticipate seeing that increase further. And this is our all students graduate. So we're really looking to just maintain that graduation at the um high school. And then we are really focused on improving a fiveyear and seven-year graduation rates at our ALC's. And so you can see that we are moving in the right direction for those for the maintenance as well as for the five and the sevenyear. And then this was the the goal area they added when they changed this from world world's best workforce to comprehensive achievement and civic readiness which is students are prepared to be lifelong learners. And until and unless the Department of Ed tells me otherwise, um, we're really looking at this as if we are meeting early readiness, if we're closing the achievement gaps, if we're improving overall achievement in math and literacy, if we're expanding career and college opportunities um, across the high school, and our students are graduating on time, we're saying those are indicators that we are producing lifelong learners. And so really we're using each of those goals as our measurement for students being lifelong learners. And then this is just a reminder of, you know, our priority areas. And I think it's important as we go into talk about the achievement and integration, which is why we have Jacqueline here to just um remember that we're really focused on the the literacy and the school culture and equity and inclusion and social emotional learning and mental health. and you will see all of that show up in our achievement integration plan. So with that, I'm going to talk less and pass over the mic to our integration supervisor, Jacqueline Bailis. >> Hi everybody. It's good to be back. It's been a little bit. Um so A&I, as Caitlyn said, is a three-year plan. Um we have three goal areas that the state says we have to do. We have to um go over achievement disparity, integration, and teacher equity. Um, and then they're pretty stringent in terms of like what is and is not allowed within those three areas. Um, all of the funds have to be used to supplement. It cannot be to supplant. And then we will send in yearly monitoring every year to make sure that we're making progress towards meeting those goals. If goals are not met, then the next time we do this, we have to dedicate a certain percentage of our funding towards meeting those goals. So, as much as we get to rewrite this every three years, they really want us to be choosing goals that match with the strategic plan so that they're long-term goals and not things that we're just changing when we want to. Um, this plan's a little bit different from how we did it in the past. We I really did work with a lot of people throughout the district. like it's been months of work here to really talk to principles to students to staff to figure out where alignment needs to happen to best support our students, families, and staff. Um we have some really specific, measurable and focused goals that go straight back to our pony plan. And then we do have direct alignment with our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan. So the goal was not to have something separate and just isolated goals, but in order for us to make the most movement within the district to really start to set those up and align So then this slide is really about the revenue that achievement and integration brings us. Um so this is our estimate for the next school year um is about 1.2 you can see 1.2 70% of that is through state aid and 30% of that is through a non- voterapproved levy and then there are requirements within that budget about how much we can use for different things. So most of this budget needs to go towards direct student programs and a small portion can go towards professional development or administrative costs. Um I think the other thing that I want to highlight here is when I sent this plan to you last week via email, we were an optional achievement in integration district which meant we were choosing to participate in this opportunity because of the revenue it provided to us. We still all the same rules applied um and the areas that we have to have goals in and progress monitor. From the time I sent that to you, which I think was like on a Tuesday, by the end of the day Friday, we had moved from an optional district to a mandated district due to um Brookview Elementary being identified as a racially identifiable school. So that changed it at the 11th hour um for for all of us. And so you'll see at the end what that really means is we have a district-wide achievement and integration plan and then we have a plan specific to Brookview Elementary. >> So we're doing what's best for for kids. The Department of Education has been playing pingpong with our school district. Um two years ago we were had a racially identified school at Brookview. Last year we didn't. This year by one student we do. Okay. So, um we had a conversation with the department and we said, "Seriously, I mean, this is back and forth and they said, "We're going to keep you as uh mandated for three years, so we're not going to your your child count may adjust a little bit, but but it's not going to be from year to year to year. So, that's good news moving forward on it, but that's kind of how the bureaucracy works. So, I was I was pleased to know that we won't be yo-yoed throughout the next three years. So, a couple of definitions because um ANI does have some specific terminology. One of them is the racially identifiable school. What that means is that at Brookview there's a 20% higher um enrollment for our A&I protected class students than the other elementaryaries in the district. As Dr. Funk said it's one student, but this will remain for the next three years. ANI protected class students are going to be our students of color. Um, so have that there. MDE does define rigorous courses as basically anything that will allow a student to earn college credits while in school. So advanced placement, concurrent enrollment, or post-secary enrollment options. And then you'll also see free and reduced lunch. Yes, every student gets free lunch in school, but free and reduced lunch al that indicator comes with other benefits connected to the county. Um, two ways that families qualify is through direct certification. That's about 97% of our families and then also through the ED benefits application that goes out um like opens up in July and then goes through the fall. So, we have four achievement disparity goals and you're going to see that some of the goals are identical except we focus on different groups of students. MDE suggests doing this because if we group students together and then one student group doesn't meet that goal, then that entire goal is not met. Um, internally, this allows us to focus a little bit more to see where our strengths are in our areas for growth. So our first achievement disparity goal is about reducing the reading achievement gap um as measured by fastbridge between our ANI protected class students and our white students by at least five percentage points. So that is aligned to our kacker goal number two. Some things that we're doing is we have literacy uh PD and coaching. Um we do or we have strengthened all of our tier one instructional systems. We've adopted new curriculum through the ReadAct. You've heard Sky talk about that at length. Um, we've also started secondary reading intervention which is going to be really helpful for our middle schools and high schools. And then with our immersion language programs, a curriculum review process for that also. And I think the only other thing I'll highlight is as we're talking about our ANI protected class students in our previous plan, um I know some of you have emailed me about like where did it live and what was different, right? So in our previous plan, we called out individual race groups and in a district this size across multiple schools, when you're calling it out that way, you could be talking about one, two, three students that could make or break it at different sites. So what we did is there's no reason to to necessarily track our, you know, Latino, Hispanic student population in a way differently for the purposes of achievement integration differently than we would our African and black students. So all of them allows for us to have a better um ability to track progress and make adjustments where we need to. in addition to tracking progress. Um, if it's not in the goal, then this money can't be used on those students technically. So, that also allows us to be a little more fiscally responsible and efficient. Goal two is the exact same goal with the exact same strategies, but we're calling out our free and reduced lunch eligible students. So, again, we do that just in case, let's say, our free and reduced lunch students don't do as well as our A9 protected class students. internally. We know that and we can offer some additional supports that way. And then in terms of being able to meet our goals, if one group doesn't meet, then the whole goal is not considered a met goal. And then achievement disparity goals three and four. This is really going to be focused at the high school, but it's increasing the percentage of ANI protected class students who are earning credits in rigorous coursework. So again, those are um AP classes, concurrent enrollment, and PSO classes, and also work-based learning internships. And we're looking at 3% annually over the next three years, and that'll be measured through transcript data. So some things that have happened is there's been expanded pathways course offerings at the high school, which are really exciting. Um there's expanded concurrent enrollment offerings. Um AVID um advancement via individual determination is at the high school and then at the middle school sixth and seventh grade we have middle school success. Um there's also lots of job embedded professional development for teachers. When we say job embedded, those are the professional learning that we're offering throughout the school day or throughout the school year. So it could be instructional coaches going in to see other classrooms, things that we offer on district PD days. And then at the high school, the counselors made a very deliberate and intentional effort to meet one-on-one with every single student at the high school to talk about their plan for school, what classes they wanted to take, what made the most sense, what is it they want to do after high school. So every single student was met with at the high school with their counselor. And then goal four, it's our same exact goal, same strategies, but we are just going to be focusing on our free and reduced lunch eligible students. And then both of those align with kacker goal number three. Okay. And then our integration goal, you guys, there are six goals in here. I am sorry, but a couple of them were exactly the same. So our integration goal is we want to increase the amount of opportunities that students have to meet with other students and do some really cool fun things. Um so we're really looking at program integration um and just some of those opportunities. So we are going to aim to have at least 50% of 50% of all students K through 12 participate in at least one inter or intra district I will define those for you um collaborative learning experiences. Um, so we already do some of this, but we're going to be working with some of our neighboring districts to create some opportunities that way. Um, Brookview is racially identifiable, so there will be lots of collaboration with Brookview and some other elementary schools. We have engagement specialists. Um, we have seven of them currently. Um, so we'll continue with that. Uh, increase student leadership opportunities and then increasing our community partnerships. I will say Stillwater is not lacking in community partners who want to do things with our students. Um so I'm excited to see what that h looks like and that is separate from kacker. So inter and intrad district. Interd district is when we are connecting students with other school districts. So currently some things that we do is we do avid summer art which is for the high school and we partner with South Washington County, Roseville, Whitebear Lake and Inberg Grove Heights. Um during the summer we do summer storytelling camp with story arc. Uh previously that has been just middle school and high school and we've hosted it here because that helps with transportation costs. Um but that brings in Forest Lake, Roseville, White Bear Lake, um and a couple of other districts. This year, Story Arc received a grant outside of anything we do to also do one for elementary, which is very exciting. Um and then we also participate in the business innovation academy which is for seventh and eighth grade students that takes students brings them to the U of M the uh Carlson school of business. They get to work with professors. They get to learn about like realw world problem solving. They meet students from I think it's like 15 different school districts. So it's it's a really cool opportunity. And then intrad district is where we're getting our students in our district together with other students in our district. So we currently have partnerships with wild river conservancy. This year we talked about ice and water safety um in second grade and then watershed and invasive species at the secondary level. Every single grade four student did the student leadership lab with story arcs. So they learned about heroes. They learned about the traits of a hero. They made really cool comics that were then like published and put together in a giant anthology. at the middle school and high school. Uh we've done multilingual podcasting and put that together. At the high school with the AVID, we did my story, your story, our story. And that actually just completed here like a couple of weeks ago. And then we also have our partnership with Bellwin. And then we have our teacher equity goal. And this is also separate from KCE. In the past, the teacher equity goal was really focused on recruit recruiting and retaining teachers of color. It is really hard to do in Minnesota. I actually think it's really hard to do in a lot of states because there aren't people of color going into teacher prep programs. So, we wrote this goal to really focus on how can we best prepare the teachers that we have to work with any student in their classroom. And so we are going to measure this using our new educator evaluation rubric and increasing the percentage of teachers who are demonstrating developing or higher focusing specifically on competency C1 which is our culturally responsive pedigogy competency. And then we're looking at increasing that 5% every year. Some things that we're doing are tier one classroom walkthroughs at our building. This is already started. So we're just going to build upon this and then over the next three years focus on something very specific. So like year one will be collaborative structures which is just how do we have students talking to one another in different ways. Uh year two will be critical reading strategies. So what are those really good teaching strategies that teachers can do with any of their students to help them comprehend and just become better readers. And then year three is on inquiry. So, how are we teaching students to be curious, to ask questions, right? Just really getting all that curiosity going. We also through our Avid membership have um access to professional learning modules for free because it's just a part of our Avid membership. So, making sure that we're making some really good use of those and we can do that through our instructional coaches, through any of our AVID elective teachers. Again, you'll see the job embedded professional development. And then all of our building principles have been going through culturally responsive leadership professional development. This year, we've partnered with Bright Works. This is also free to the district. So, saving some money there. Um, but we've been doing monthly PD with our principles and then helping them create action plans so that they can bring those back to their buildings. >> Yeah. >> Quick question on the 5%. Will we be doing an initial measurement in 2026? And that's going to be the baseline. Okay. >> Yep. So this is year one. So we don't have a measurement yet. So next year will be our baseline and then from there we'll >> Great. Thanks. >> It's a brand new rubric. >> Yeah. >> Can I ask one question on the previous slide? Can you speak to and I know maybe will every principal do it different but the culturally responsive leadership where >> where principles are getting the actual training from this partner. Um and then how is that going to be delivered I guess to teachers. So that is individualized each um as they come and they participate in the PD, they have opportunities at the beginning and end of each PD at the beginning to reflect on what did they take from last month's PD and bring to their building and how did they deliver that and what were the outcomes kind of sharing out here's what I did, here's what worked, here's what didn't work with the idea that they're bringing small pieces of that PD back to their building and doing what we're calling like PD bites what's a 15 to 30 minute kind of quick PD you can do with your all staff at at a staff meeting. Um and so then they reflect on on that with each other and kind of learn and listen from each other. And then at the end and then there's content, right? And then at the end of that content, they have some time to reflect and sit with, you know, a thought partner, a principal colleague that's maybe doing something similar and say, "What am I going to do with this information over the next month before our next professional development?" So that's kind of the flow of how that works right now and what that looks like. And then towards the end when we wrap up, we'll do a uh much more in-depth reflection on what are we going to take and how are we going to implement that even deeper next school year um with the intention of going deeper at the building level. >> Thank you. >> All of the principles did choose like a thought partner um and then I've met with almost all principles monthly to help them figure out like individually what makes the most sense for their schools. And so there's some really interesting things happening that way. >> Okay. Thank you. So here are some things that we are currently funding out of A and I and are looking to continue funding in this next um three years. So our Wild River Conservancy and Bellwin partnerships, our student and family engagement specialists. Um we worked really hard to do an audit of our Native American student count this year and we are now over 100 students which is really exciting. That also comes with the requirement that we need to hire an American Indian education coordinator. So that will be crossf funded between A and I and our American Indian education aid. Um our student leadership programs, multilingual podcasting, um and then our teacher and administrator professional development. This is certainly not an exhaustive list. Um but something that I want to just kind of highlight with regard to what you approve is the plan, the goals and the plan. And then what we do is once that plan is approved, we sit down and we build a budget around here are the programs, the student programs that are going to help us achieve those goal areas and we do that budget annually and submit that to MD. They give us a lot of feedback. So they'll come back and say we don't see how this, you know, fill in the blank, this student program is directly connected to your goals. Sometimes it's that we didn't go deep enough in our narratives and sometimes it's that we um have to talk with them more about what would make this an integration activi activity or experience. And so we're we're kind of going back and forth on that uh annually with with the state. So the budget itself isn't something you approve. You approve the the actual plan and then we work with the state to submit a budget with those funds. And not to be nitpicky, the budget can have like fine changes, but once that's approved, we can't write a whole new budget every year. Um, so there might be like small changes, but it's not an overhaul of that budget. It might be that we notice that maybe we didn't allocate enough in one area versus another. And so we make those changes that way, but it's not adding in or removing lots of other areas because they really do want it to be as sustainable over the next three years as possible. um Brookview. So, this was Friday at like 3:00 or 3:30 that we found out that we had to have a um a plan for Brookview. So, here we are. Um I worked very hard, lots of hours yesterday. Um the goals are are the same. We're not trying to create something totally separate. What is going to be different are the strategies. So, think of it as kind of like an extra scoop for Brookview um versus a totally different plan. So, we have our achievement goal, which is reducing the reading gap between our A and I protected class students and our free and reduced lunch students as compared to our white students. Those goals um are going to remain the same. Um we do have an engagement specialist at Brookview um Marian who's amazing. She does some really great work. So, she will she's still there. Um, we'll do continued literacy professional development and then work on strengthening our tier one instructional systems. Really for this goal, not much is going to be changed. Same with goal two. >> Can you help me understand what a engagement specialist is and does? >> Yeah. So, um, we have seven engagement specialists currently in our district. Um, and they're student, family, and community engagement specialists. So, they work with our students in the schools to create like a sense of confidence, sense of belonging. They really work close with our families to help them learn how to navigate the school system, which is complex. Um, they partner with counselors, social workers, um, and principles to meet the needs of individual students. And then they also help host all of our family engagement nights when we do those. And so there are they really are our strong bridges to our families to figure out what are the needs of our families and how can we best meet some of those needs. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> If I could add one thing to that, what um to me I think what's been really neat about these engagement coordinators is it's it um you know representation matters and so it can be really hard in a like a second ring suburb to attract teachers of color. it's just very difficult. And so it's great to have these specialists that uh uh students can maybe better relate to and you know from a language and um other aspects especially like in Brookview where there's you know so much more diversity. So uh which is great >> and I and yes and also it's really exciting when you see somebody walk into the building. I'm thinking about like the newest engagement specialist. walked into Oakland Middle School and the amount of kids that ran up to her because they were so excited to see her um was really exciting and also parents were like, "Oh my gosh, we need you here. We are so glad that you're here." Um so they really do and they help the staff too. So when we're also thinking about how we can best prepare our staff to work with anybody that's in their classroom, the expertise that they bring, not just in language and culture, but just a perspective that's different. I it's really top-notch. >> One one other thing and maybe this is a Dr. Fun question, I don't know, but the and maybe there's an intersection with the engagement specialist, but the achievement goals around free and reduced lunch students. We have a hard time finding them in in our current landscape with with free lunch just for everyone. It would seem to be more important even you know than just the revenue side to be able to identify those students so that we can bridge that gap. What else can we do? Can we can can the those engagement coordinators be involved in that process more? >> I think they could. >> Yeah, I think they could. I think it's uh it's encouraging families to fill out the paperwork and and you know they just don't receive free and reduced lunch. I mean they can get other benefits as well in the district and and uh the value of our our engagement specialist is really reaching out to different communities within the district and um people who may not even speak speak English and really um share with them some of the opportunities we have in the district. So absolutely that's that's one way we could do it. >> Yes, >> we have seven engagement specialists. We have seven elementaryaries, two little, one high school. Where where do they go? Who does not get one? >> They're in the south. >> I'm sorry. >> They're in the south. >> They're in the south. >> So, >> yeah. Where are more diverse student population? >> Oh, you go where the diversity is. Okay. I'm sorry. I mean, I get it. Yeah. Um, our integration goal, uh, we're it's going to be pretty much the same, but we're going to say at least 50% of our Brookview students will be able to participate in at least one inter or interd district. Um, our baseline, we're at about 38%, so it'll be a little bit of a jump. Um, increased community partnerships, increased opportunities to collaborate with other schools. That's where I see us having a lot of um growth potential is how can we get our students within our district to start to collaborate with each other a little bit more. We met, Jacqueline and I met yesterday with um our Bellwin partner and had really direct conversations about what would it look like and what would the feasibility be of bringing a second, third, fourth, fifth grade class from Brook View with a you know third grade class from Afton or a third grade class from Ruford or and so we're doing those um you know district partner interd district partnerships that way as well. So, um, lots of opportunities. We do have to think of this as a second scoop, though. So, whatever we're doing district-wide, we have to kind of just turn up the volume for Brookview. So, though we'll be I know Jacqueline is scheduled to meet with um, principal Brett Stringer later this week to talk about what are some additional things that he is thinking about with regard to um, engaging his families and the community at Brookview um, around family engagement and community partnerships. >> Yeah. I don't want to make the decisions for him. And we found out late Friday. So, this is like yes and once we talk, we'll figure out what else that could look like. Um, our teacher equity goal, um, same goal. One thing that we'll really focus on at Brookview is just the bite-size culturally responsive, um, PD that we give teachers. Um, so being perhaps a little more intentional as to like what that might look like for Brookview in terms of whether that's like case studies or just like the contents more specific to Brookview versus our district-wide focus because I haven't talked that long in a long time. >> Yeah. I just I had a question and I know obviously the racially identifiable school is Brookview. Is there anything I mean obviously when those students go to Oakland um it's Oakland's not racially identifiable but is there is there is I'm assuming PD going on there so that you know the next school that these students are going to that they feel welcome they have their teachers have that culturally responsive training and so that's all kind of being >> Yep. So, um, our teacher equity goal for the district also includes culturally responsive PD for the principles that they are then >> Okay, so that's also the secondary schools too. >> Yeah, participating in that for all of our schools. >> Perfect. >> Yes. Thanks. Um, you actually kind of answered one of my questions. Um, but I'm curious more of for um a district-wide level. You mentioned Brookview has that um the integration rate with the 50% where like 38% of kids participating. I'm curious districtwide. Do you have any idea where we are? >> Yes. Um, it's not totally accurate, right? Because we've never really counted this. So, it's just like my rough calculations is I think we're >> um, >> did I say 41? I think at about 41%. I think so. And this is the other thing is MDE will say write your goals so you can meet them and then if you pass them, great. >> Um, versus not meeting them. >> Right. So we're if my numbers are my rough numbers about 41%. >> And how do students get selected for those um opportunities? >> So this time it was really because we did some things by full grade levels like all second grade students did um like water safety with Wild River. All fourth grade did student leadership with um story arc. Um so that definitely helped with those and then we've looked at um bellwin right so that was second third fourth fifth right so when we are able to target and do things across the whole district that definitely helps some of the other things that have been for smaller groups has been like the business innovation academy and then those have been teacher recommendations student interest um some of those things that way or focusing on students who have been involved in AVID So then we look at what programs have had the most impact or have reached the most students and then trying to reach out to some of those for some additional recruitment. >> All right. Thanks. >> Um just one thing really quick next steps. So this if if this gets approved tonight, it goes to MDE for comment and then it starts kind of being refined between you and MDE as necessary. Does the board see that after or >> honestly I don't anticipate MDE will give us much because Jacqueline has been so closely working with our partner at MDE. She's received much of that feedback starting when you started in like August. I mean you started last year really but then real heavy in August. So I do not anticipate that we'll get any specific feedback related to the plan. Now, maybe as as we sit down and build out that budget and sub submit the budget, they may um give us give us some feedback. Nothing that's not workable. And that's certainly something that I could address through just like a board weekly update and put that achievement integration budget in. Here's what got approved. If there's any changes, I can let you know. >> Perfect. >> We could do it that way. >> That would be great. That would be great. >> MDE did already say yes, our goals are good to submit. So after that it's just how do we like our narrative within each of those do do those meet the requirements that they're looking for? >> Great. Did you have a comment? >> Yeah. Um so uh first of all thank you all. I really appreciate the work that you are doing with this and the thought and efforts that go into it. Um you know I think the disparities in academic performance is not just a Stillwater problem. I mean it's state and national uh issue. Um, you know, I think it probably could be said it's a the holy grail of schools of trying to close that achievement gap. Um, but you know what I appreciate, you know, being that this does require board oversight is, um, you know, the plan's realistic. It's measurable, um, and it's also aligned with our district priorities, which so I appreciate the intentional effort around that. Um, so thank you. Uh, one question I did have is um, correct me if I'm wrong. You know, ANI in the funding is one of the few state funded levers that um, for addressing disparities without drawing from the general fund. Is that correct? Because there's not a lot I would imagine. >> Yeah. Yes, that's accurate. Yes. >> Okay. And then um, I'll give a shout out to partnership plan and the work they do with the VinciFest. Yep. Would that be considered kind of the inter interd district and intradist and how can we maybe get greater participation in that? >> So that funding is separate. Um we definitely have goals or or program and opportunities where students have participated in like Da Vinci Fest and then we can add that in as evidence towards progress towards goals and then that funding doesn't come from ANI because it's through like the partnership plan or something like that. the the hope, right, the the goal moving forward is that any of those opportunities that students are participating in is that we're keeping track of those to get a better a more accurate understanding of what students are actually doing. We haven't tracked that for that integration goal before. Um it's a vastly different goal from how it was written previously. Um so we don't really have a true baseline and so that'll be part of this work is >> Yeah. But it's an important point because you know $1.2 million in the grand scheme of things is not a lot of money, right? And so with the alignment across this the achievement integration and our KAGER goals and our pony plan means that if we're doing it right, there are lots of opportunities that exist outside of what achievement and integration can offer that are going to help us meet all of those goals. And so it just becomes really important to progress monitor everything regardless of whether or not it falls under a bucket of this is funded through achievement and integration >> and I would say transparency making sure that all of our building principles know what the goals are that like that people know because if you don't know as a teacher right it's really easy to be started in the school year and you forget because we just get busy with the year. Mhm. >> Um, you led into it. I was that 1.2 million, is that because Brook all a sudden met that threshold? >> No. The 1.2 million we get by participating in achievement integration. So when we a week ago, like if we fast backwards a week, rewind a week, we were opting into achievement integration. >> You received the presentation before Brookview >> became a racial. So the >> became racialized. So we we were getting the money. We were getting the money because we were choosing to participate. We get We still get the money, but now we don't get to choose to participate. We're mandated to participate because of Brookview. We don't get any more money because they identify a school as racially identified. >> Okay. And that's a very precise number. Is that based on >> state aid you get per student peril >> per per our district population? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, so Brookview moving forward, I mean, do do we need to do something structurally to Brookview to remove the racially identifiable >> part of the boundary adjustment? >> Right. >> Part of we were looking at that. So, we have some new buildings going up that we are shifting to other places that >> we think that with the adjustment we made that we've achieved that will help us. We believe. Okay. >> Good. Any other questions? Okay. Um, I do not believe we have a motion yet on this one because we were listening to the presentation. So, I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Theelinger with the second. Any additional comments or questions before the vote? Okay. All those in favor of approving the district's ANIA plan, raise your hand and say, "I." >> I. >> I. opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you both for all your hard work. So, thank you. >> Okay, our next item here is health insurance renewal for the 2627 school year. And with that, we're going to invite Chris to come up. Good evening board members. Nice to see you all again. Um so tonight, as you know, we're here to talk about the health insurance renewal. Um and this evening, I have brought with me um Ashley Jang. She is our HR department supervisor. And in her role, she oversees all the benefits information, all the that's everything that's coming in, the carrier relationships, and all of the details that go with that. So, I thought I would bring her along to um help us um with our presentation. Um Ashley, >> so as part of the health insurance renewal, as you all know, we're a self-insured district. And what that means is um we are subject to the HIDA statute requirement. And what that means is at least every two years, we must go out and seek bids from at least three carriers, no less than 90 days from the expiration of our existing contract. That expiration date is June 30th, 2026. Um and this year we received four final proposals from four carriers. Um so throughout this this school year we've met monthly with our insurance committee. Um our most recent meetings were on February 11th and February 18th. Within those meetings we talked um at length in in regards to um the proposals, the final proposals, what that meant financially for the district. Um and then within that meeting uh the committee voted unanimously to recommend that we move forward with Bluec Cross Blue Shield, our incumbent carrier. So staying with Blue Cross Blue Shield meant that it minimized the disruption that would have been felt for our our staff and our retirees. Um as opposed to moving to another carrier. And just for some history, we've been with Blue Cross Blue Shield since 1996. So our staff are very familiar with Bluec Cross Blue Shield. Um, so again talking about the that disruption. Um, so sorry I'm distracted a little bit. Um, so again, because we're self-insured, um, the premiums um are not set by insurance carrier, they're set by um by us based on our claims and our projected costs. Um, so over the past year and you know, even in previous years, we continue to see our claims go up. Um we are doing um lots of work to try to mitigate that. Um but there are certainly more factors than just the usage of the of the benefits that drive those costs. Um so in order to um manage our risk and to maintain our um fund balance um we are recommending a 13% increase this year. Um so on our next slide we have um the rates. So you can see here that we started in with the 2526 rates um and then we added the 13% to the overall premium and then we applied our 6 and 1/2 six and a half split um and rounded up to the nearest dollar. So this is these are the rates that will go forward beginning July 1st although we will start um managing the deductions um earlier than that so that we can make sure everybody's caught up. Okay. So, um I do want to make sure that we that we give um thanks and our gratitude to our insurance committee. They are a very dedicated and well-informed um group of folks who, you know, this is a lot of people's eyes just glass over when you start talking about insurance, but they are extremely engaged and are paying very close attention. So, I want to thank them for their efforts and their time. >> Great. Well, thank you for and thanks to them and to you for the effort here. Um, is there a motion before we go to questions? >> Sure. >> Great. Director Kelzenberger with a motion to approve. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. Director Law with the second and then now questions. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, this is insurance for all the employee groups. >> Yes. >> And you had a committee. Did that I think you said it but I veged. Um was um did that involve teachers and members from all these different groups? >> Yeah, we have repres representation from every group. >> Okay. And they are good with this. >> They voted unanimously. Yes. To approve the renewal. >> Any other questions? Yes. >> Can you clarify what we're voting on? Are we voting on the rate? Are we voting on that you are going with Blue Cross Blue Shield? Are we voting on all of it? >> What is the motion that's in front of us? The motion is just to approve the renewal plan. The renewal of the plan. >> And aren't they going with Blue Cross as well? >> Yeah. >> Going with to approve Blue Cross as our continued carrier and to approve to increase it to 13%. >> Blue did have we had Blue Cross up to this point or is this a change? >> 1996 I think Ashley just said. >> Yep. We've had it for decades. Great. >> Any other questions? >> Just a comment. All right. I I want to note that this is the first time that we are asking our employees who are on the single coverage to bear the burden of the cost. Their monthly premium if they are in single coverage is going up to $60 where previously they had no payment. So I I think that's important to note. Um and insurance um as anybody who follows the insurance industry at all um numbers keep on going up and up and up. Um and so um you know nobody wants to see us have a have an increase to to the premium but we have to do what we have to do to stay solvent. So just a comment on that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, seeing none, um if uh you could raise your hand and say I if you're in favor of the motion, raise your hand, say I. >> I opposed. >> Motion passes unanimously. Thanks for coming, Ashley. It's nice to see you. >> All right, we are going to um move into our prioritybased budgeting discussion. Thank you, >> Chair. We have a few guests coming up. Um before we uh turn it over to staff, I just I want to acknowledge um a few things. One is like I've just had a pit in my stomach all day. These are not fun conversations to have. Um there these are really difficult choices and we do everything we do is for our students and for our staff to support our students and for families to have really wonderful experiences. We've had 7 millionish in cuts in the last two years maybe more um more and we are now embarking in our third year of cuts. And these cuts get harder every single time we're at this table. And so I just want everyone here to know that um I would ask for the community. I know people are going to probably have issues because everyone's going to have a personal impact. Every student's going to have a little bit of a personal impact, but I hope that we can um help the community understand the larger factors at play um that are driving our necessity in refining and adapting to the budget. because we're both cutting um we're trying to invest in certain experiences to grow and recapture revenue um and other strategies. So, I guess I just wanted to put it out here that the board itself, we had a work session two two weeks ago. We saw this we've had an opportunity to talk with staff, digest, ask questions, and so we're here today to kind of share where we're at with um our community. And so, with that, I'll turn it over Okay, I guess they're looking at me. All right, so so uh next slide. Um so real real brief for the for the public and uh the board. Um you know, we talk about funding cuts in Minnesota and we are having them and but this is also a national is issue and this is from a data from a few weeks ago. Um but nationwide we are seeing a decline in public enrollment. Um as you can see in 2022 we had almost 50 million um students nationwide in public education. Today we're almost at 48 million and we look like we're going to continue to decline into into the next six seven years on a national level. Next slide. So what what's going on? Fewer students. We're seeing a lower birth rates. be immigration um is being reduced and we have students who are looking for more options. Okay, whether they're brickandmortar schools such as we have a lot of competition in our community or else um now online is really starting to take off and and homeschooling both. And we'll we'll again dive into that. We've talked about it previously, but we'll we'll recap what's happening here in Stillwater regarding that. Next slide. Um half of the enrollment decline nationwide is due to alternative options and kids are looking for and their families are looking for different things that public schools are not necessarily providing. um virtual schools interesting there. Um you know there was a slight increase um prior to uh um co co there was a significant increase but then in Minnesota at least it kind of backed off for a little bit and now it's really starting to take off again and again it's more opportunities for families. Um it's flexibility for them and and their students. Next, um this is just a graph nationwide where where they're seeing school choices and you can see look at the look at the box on the right. So they said 64,000 um students were in school were enrolled in school choice programs um in 2223 and they're saying 1.5 million um nationwide now. So we have a lot of competition nationally and we do locally here as well. Are we talking sorry on the side specifically there about like voucher programs or are we talking just I'm choosing to go to a charter school we're talking about vouchers >> vouchers are a big part of this um and so and the the other piece of it and that's why you're seeing a lot of the the darker blue there um there are states that are saying we will now let you use your tax dollars you'll get a tax break if you send your kids to a school and you're paying tuition you can you can reduce what you owe in taxes for that. And so Minnesota has not signed off on that yet, but that is something that uh could potentially be coming here as well. >> Um, Superintendent Funk, I just want to make sure. Are you okay? Because this is kind of a work session topic. Raise hands, ask questions along the way. Okay. One question I had is um does this also capture PSO? >> No. >> Okay. That's >> that's unique to Minnesota. >> That's unique to Minnesota. >> Yep. Um here's a reduction in market share um that they're projecting out to 2030. So 76% uh um they're seeing a a reduction to 76% of of market share. Um currently it's at 79. Um but the flip side of it is our students that we do have in school are becoming more complex. Um and they have they have unique needs. In Still Water, one in five of our students is on a individual education plan, okay? An IEP. And and so um the needs of our students vary, but those who have the most complex needs cost about two and a half times more to educate than uh than other students. So we're nationally we're seeing less students in public schools, but we're seeing an increase in students who need who have special needs. And so that uh um is a makes the challenge more complex u because if if we're losing students, we're not receiving as much money and then but we're getting more students who who are have higher needs which are um costing the district more to support. So it's kind of a uh a really tough situation. Um so here's an overview. um districts are seeing enrollment declines and since like in Minnesota we're based on a per pupil unit we're seeing a revenue decline and then we're also seeing a shift in student comp composition and then we also have a number of fixed cost um including you know our facilities our contracts and and what we provide our students so most places have a limited ability to cut cost um and they're seeing less revenues coming in. So, at Stillwater, as uh we talked about last fall, we have these are our threats. We have post-secary education op options for students. We have online learning. We have homeschooling. And then we have um students who leave for other opportunities. Uh here's a recap of PSO numbers. This is statewide. You can see that the number is starting to go up and up. Um, I had an opportunity to testify on another issue at the legislature uh last week and before I spoke, they were talking about PSO and how wonderful it is for kids that they have this option. Um, and I was thinking, yes, this is wonderful, but there's also I I think a need to uh to rebalance um how we're funding it. there. One of the state senators at the meeting spoke about the school districts he represents in northern Minnesota or outstate Minnesota and he said because so many students in his district his districts are going to PSO um they're looking at going to a 4 day week because they can't afford um because they're losing that much revenue or or paying that much tuition to to students. So this is clearly a statewide issue. um homeschooling. Um again, you can see it was pretty flat for a number of years and then the pandemic hit and it took off and it it's starting to continue to go up uh again. And then the next slide talks about online learning. As I said, right after the pandemic, it it contracted about 5% and now we're seeing an annual 5% increase every single year. um our capture rate has been 71 72% for a number of years um in the district and again because we have a lot of competition um within our within our boundaries um real real quick here the top two are money we are losing elsewhere that we are like um paying out. So, for example, in 2425, we had almost 2,000 courses that our students took at colleges that the district paid tuition for. So, that was our that's the check we wrote for was $900,000. Um and in uh 24-25 we had a combination of we would lo either lose students completely to state aid. We'd lose all their state aid because they were um online someplace else or we would have some agreement where we would pay partial partial aid to uh online providers and that was a half million dollars. So those two numbers are 1.4 million u almost 1.5 themselves. And so, um, I think that's important to bear in mind when we're talking about making an adjustment at the high school and what the cost of that adjustment is for the for the new schedule. Um, and then you can see homeschooling. We lost 419 students to homeschooling. And then the big number, and this has been the historic one, is really the number of schools we have uh our students who go to school someplace else um in not here in Still Water or in our district. Um other headwinds right now, ice is impacting the state economy. You know, I know they had the fiscal forecast that came out on Friday. That was good news, but it's good news for next year. Two years out does not look so good. um that that state fiscal forecast is wi really what drives our general education formula in in the increases we receive. Um we have highly compensated employee agreements um here in Still Water. We have exorbitant transportation costs. Um we we're seeing a significant increase in special education cost and we have z minimal flexibility due to the fact we have a very uh small fund balance. So here again is the history of our fund balance and I just want to draw attention to the middle of the chart where it says 9.7%. um that number is uh kind of a outlier and the reason it's an outlier is the contract with our teachers was was not settled over that period of time. So the district didn't have to pay out as much money. When the district did pay out the money and they settled the teacher contract, you can see it dropped down to to to just under 4% uh the following year. So I would say for a number of years still water has been around 4% um until uh really postcoid here when we are at the at the 1% level where we've been tracking for the last three years. Um just couple things here. Uh we are not alone in this situation in Minnesota. Last year school districts um had to cut $280 million. This year we there was just a budget survey that went out. It's going to be released tomorrow. I can tell you that number is going to be over $200 million for this year. So, you know, we are u not in this alone. Um districtwide, metrowide, this is a very significant issue. Um, as the board chair spoke before the meeting, uh, we've cut, you know, seven million, I think, in the last two years, and we're we're going to be asking, um, to approve a budget here in a few months where we're going to be reducing spending by about another over five million. And and these are all impactful um things. You can you can maybe go a year and cut a couple million or or maybe go a year or two. when you start going three years, um we're getting to programming that is significant and near and dear to people and and we recognize that. But um folks, with a 1% bun fund balance, um we have to do what we can to best meet the the needs of the strategic um aim points of this district while keeping our uh um keeping our district afloat. With that, next slide. Um I don't know if you want to take this one. >> So some of the um unfunded mandates, these were some of the already in session for from the 2025 legislative session. So um for our fiscal year 27 um budget, that gened formula increase was recently released um at 2.69%. Um but with that came some other adjustments that we had to take off the top. Um that school library aid, there was an adjustment um that we had to make to our genad revenue. Uh that 53,000 um in addition to school support personnel aid um that ongoing adjustment there uh about 170,000. And then um the estimate for the reimbursement for special ed uh transportation um that goes from um a reduction of 5% to 10%. Um and you can see that number there is over 700,000. And then our Minnesota paid family leave um that uh 44% payroll tax. That's a full year now where it was a half year. Um that's 348,000. And then our substitute cost that estimate there um is anywhere between 4 and 800,000. And then um an anticipated reduction in our ads um just shy of 800,000. Um we're still uh waiting to hear on the compensatory um funds and what will be done there. I believe it's late June. We'll be hearing um what's happening there. >> Just one point of clarification here. So the anticipated reduction of special education has not happened yet. So we are moving forward funding our our interventionists who are paid for by access this year. We anticipate that to happen in 2728. U but that's that's coming. And then our our sub cost there for Minnesota paid family leave that is more people are going to be taking up to 12 to 20 weeks off. Um that's our exposure as a school district and we're estimating that at this point till we have a a better handle on the uh the picture. So I think the real takeaway for for me on this slide is we're thankful to the legislature for the 2.69% 69% increase. Um, but you can see the impact of some of the other decisions that uh the legislature has made on on our school district. >> And I would assume I think even in our 25 platform, even with the funding that was done to reduce cross subsidies in special education and EL services, they're still significant. And when we say cross subsidy, it's just for people watching at home, it's just what what we're required to do and then what we're reimbured for doing that. So, it's significantly falls onto the district's general fund to do that. Um, and the other thing I would just want to put in a plug on the Minnesota paid leave, which I think a lot of school districts are grappling with, is one, can you find subs for that period of time? Two, how does that impact student achievement when you have someone or a rotating sup teachers in a school or in your child's classroom for up to 20 weeks? So I mean I think those are some of the um there's financial obviously I mean this is a significant mandate um that is underfunded but there's also implications educationally I think so I just want to so what you'll see before you are enrollment projections. Um the top line is what we are budgeting in our not only for next year but also the forecasted numbers. So that is the finance side of the house for uh the budget. The numbers on the bottom line there are the operational numbers and that's what's planned uh for as we look at uh growth in developments in the community. uh planning for uh within the buildings as um expansions um and enrollment growth. So we are planning in the budget um those topline numbers but um and we will refine as we see growth. Um but again that the the divide there again is um when you're when you're planning for capacity there is a certain number that you have to plan for. But uh when you're seeing numbers come in um on your bottom line um and students in the seats, there's a number you have to plan for in your revenue. And so that brings us to the fiscal forecast that's been shown um before and um again that five and a half million uh that's projected for uh next uh fall and then um for the future um if we do nothing which we do have to have a balanced budget you'll see uh the next couple of years how that um that cumulative impact over that three-year period. So, this is a a tree map out of Excel. Um, and what I did here was just put this together in a different type of visual. Um, based on all of our expenditures from last school year and just visually, um, put them together. if you were to take every line in our budget in the salary and expenditure or salary and benefits um for all the actual expenditures in the general fund. Um those three larger boxes to the left um are the largest expenditures we have um in the general fund. in those categories. Um you'll see the object code uh 140 is uh teacher salaries. Uh the second largest is health insurance and you'll see those numbers on the left hand side. And then uh the other two added together um FICA and TRA those are benefits uh just almost $11 million. And then for those that have access or can see there's a lot of lot more categories, but we did this when we were uh budget planning and reviewing and assessing our budget. Just kind of looking back at actuals and and where we could focus some of our attention on what the district was spending and just doing an assessment overall through our priority based budgeting process. And so again, the same theme, but this was the non salary uh lines in our budget. And you can see the largest green box there um was our transportation category at uh $14.4 million um out of our general fund is spent um on transportation and all the other categories. So you can see how large that box is compared to all of the others uh that we spend on non salary items. And then the largest uh expenditures by program area. So uh for example uh program 203 is our elementary education program. Um that green box on the top left that is the elementary program. That's 19.6 6 million. And then right below it is our uh transportation again, which is program 760. And you can see that's just 14.1. So just comparing those two just kind of gives you a different visual or a different way to look at things in the districts when focusing on programs for priority based budgeting. So we just we did some analysis different way of again of looking at things in the district and how uh dollars are spent. >> Well, I think I get to take over at this point and I I just want to thank you, Chair Sherman, for the introduction you gave because this is a really hard thing to be up here talking to you about. Um in fact, I would rather be anywhere right now than sitting here having to go through the things that we're about to talk about. So, thank you for acknowledging that. Um, I do just want to say though, having been through budget cutting in this district far too many times in my 18 years here, I do appreciate the process that we use now. We really do look at our our strategic directions and what our goals are and that's our top priority and we avoid cutting things that are going to um impact those areas as much as possible wherever we can. And so as we started our our process and our conversations as a leadership team, we looked at this first and foremost and said, "Where do we need to put money to make sure that we are going to reach our goals and that we're focusing on literacy, school culture, equity, and inclusion and social emotional learning and mental health?" That was our first conversation um before we got into it. And in the past, we used to just say everybody has to cut 10% or everybody has to cut this and it kind of created all these holes in all these programs. But we were really intentional in this process. So, I do appreciate that and I want to make sure that the the public knows the the thought that goes into this and how we really do focus on our priorities. >> One thing I want to thanks for that, Carissa. One thing I want to um emphasize is the amount of uh time that our administrative team took. I I would say between the district level administrators and our building principles, um, we collectively probably met a dozen times, if not more, looking at different impacts and and trying to to a minimize impact on on our students and our families as much as possible. um b talk about strategic investment in the district and c really align what what we're doing with our focus areas. So this is not just something that uh you know we wrote down one day and said okay we're going to do this. We we had multiple multiple meetings and we had some I think one of our directors actually dressed up like Katniss Evergreen because it's like survivor, you know, I mean what we're going to what we're going to come and uh um protect and and uh but it was pretty some pretty intense conversations and uh but but our focus was really on how are we best meeting the needs of our students and structuring ourselves um for the future. So, I just want to get that out there. >> And to that end, we're going to talk about some of the things that didn't make the final list. And the intent behind this is to help people understand um how difficult these conversations are. And um we really looked at everything possible. And some of these have big dollar amounts. So, when you're trying to play that game of trying to add up to 5.1 million, there are things that have bigger dollar amounts that could make a bigger impact and save other things. But then you have to weigh like is that really worth it? What's the cost benefit? So, these are some of the things that didn't make the final list that we had a lot of really hard conversations about. Um, and there's some pretty pretty big, scary, dramatic things on this list. Um, and the fact that we haven't talked about them shows you just how how dire the straits are for us when we have to make cuts like this. Um, some of the bigger things on here that I think the community would really not feel good about is security. Like, we looked at getting rid of high school security. Um, that that was a big ticket item. We looked at actually removing one of the pony centers and having less support for students at the high school level. We looked at elementary band and music um orchestra um increasing class sizes. Um increasing the walk zone for our elementary students. Cutting back on reading interventionist. So there's a lot of things on this list that um we had a lot of discussion, a lot of debate about and ultimately found other things because these these were not places we were ready to go yet. But I think it's also important to realize as we looked at that forecast that these are things that could potentially come in the future. Um because we really we don't have much room to to make cuts. With that said, here are the things that are on the list. Um and this is kind of broken down by different areas. Another thing we were really intentional about is making sure that we weren't hitting any one area too hard. We didn't want to go after one level, elementary, middle school, high school. doing and districtwide, we really tried to balance it out and make sure that we were looking at all areas of the budget. So, at the district-wide level, um can I just say before we get into this, because I know this is like everybody's going to start honing in on the specifics. Can you say I mean we're not voting on anything tonight. We're um >> this will be in the budget that you have in June. in two weeks or three weeks because of the spring break, we will be bringing the board a list of uh staff reductions that are tied to this >> tied to this. >> Okay. Thank you. I just want to be clear for the community that it's not like this is this is for next year's budget. >> Um I'm assuming that because you are continuing to have these conversations that um it might not it's not necessarily set in stone, but this >> the final this is not the final product. >> Right. Exactly. So I just want to make that clear to people because but I know that you guys have been through a lot of back and forth and involving building principles and so >> great. Um the thing to note on this too is that there are some places where we have to make investments. Um some of them are strategic investments that we think are positive and then there's some such as the first one on this list which we talked about earlier. The sub costs um for Minnesota paid family medical leave. We know minimum we're thinking $400,000 that we're going to have to invest to cover that cost. So, that's not a reduction. That's actually money we'd have to put in. Um, we talked a lot about transportation costs. I'm going to give you an update after this, too, on kind of where we are with transportation, but we're looking at doing that different. That's one of our biggest cost drivers. So, we have to do something different there. Um, looking at reducing the district administrator. Um, eliminating a principal on special assignment. Reducing the health insurance costs by charging for single coverage, which Dr. Funk mentioned earlier is new, something we haven't had to do before. Reducing travel and conferences. um looking at all the different apps and subscriptions we have for softwares and and supplemental resources we're using in classrooms. Um the next one is a shift so it's not not actually a cut but just changing funding sources of a parah I believe at the high school moving that from the general fund to a technology levy um increasing what we charge back to our community ed and nutrition services programs. Can I also say um you know you have the red the substitute costs you could easily put the transportation cuts for next year for sped right like the 350 is it I mean that could be a red that's an example of how that mandate will hit >> okay >> um these are secondary so looking at middle school and high school um we're we're adjusting staffing at the SR Valley ALC um reducing some secondary general education paras moving from um bar coordinators at the middle school and the high school and just having kind of one secondary bar coordinator, increasing athletic fees and reorganizing how we um lead this building here to park between ALC and transitions. Specifically at the high school, we've talked a lot about the investment in the high school schedule and there was a cost to that, but we're also offsetting that cost with some other changes that we're making at the high school. Um we believe that schedule will help us. As we talked earlier, it's a strategic investment to try to keep kids in the school. Um maybe less going to PSO or online or some of those other options. We are looking at increasing the the staffing um model from 33 to 35 to one um and adjusting the amount of staffing we have um to kind of match that PSO enrollment. We're also looking to reduce our substitute costs by doing something where maybe we bring kids when there's not a teacher there, bring a couple of different classes together with one person supervising versus individual subs for each class. Reducing the number of summer extension days. Some of our teachers have extra days in the summer. Um, and so looking at reducing some of that. And there are some support positions at the high school that would be reduced as well at the middle school level. shifting middle school athletics and activities from the general fund to community ed. So, this is not a cutting of middle school sports. This is shifting to community ed. A lot of our neighbors do this. White Bear, South Washington County, among others have already made a switch like this. So, it's really just um being funded more through the the feebased community program rather than the district. >> So, the the shift is first of all, not we do not cover all sports the middle schools right now. We cover a number of them, but we do not cover all of them. The sports we do cover, we will still offer. It'll now be offered through community ed. Where the district savings is on this is um we will not be transporting students who are participating in these sports at and away events anymore. Okay, families that that'll be a it's a savings and transportation. Um as as Carissa just mentioned, White Bear Lake has been doing this for a number of years. South Washington County has been doing this for a number of years. So, this is not a cut in middle school sports. This is a shift in the model um that um Annette and her team have been working on u through community education. And so, that's that's the model we'll be moving with going forward. >> And they are doing a lot of work to present some different options of what it might cost or how it could be organized. So, I'm sure there'll be more we can share with you at a later time. Um, for AVID at the middle school, we offer a lot of the AVID strategies in our middle school success program. So, that's just kind of merging the AVID program with our summer or I'm sorry, our middle school success. And then adjusting the gate staffing as we are moving away from having the cluster gate program at the middle school level and having um classes offered at both Oakland and um, Stillwater Middle. We don't have to have that extra staffing that we had had previously. So I want to clarify that this is not a reduction in our our core gate program. This is a reduction specialist who would support gate at the middle school like science like like math um excuse me math like fied those music they had their own because we had an elementary program on a middle school campus. They would get different specialists to teach middle school which would cost us more money by moving gate to an elementary they will just get in fit into the rotation model in the elementary. So, it's it's the middle school staffing that we're adjusting. They will not be covering um for for the gate students anymore. >> Thank you. >> Um and then reducing some building support positions at the middle school level as well. >> Elementary, um there's an investment in custodial staff. We have two new buildings that are opening up and they're larger than our current buildings and therefore need more help to keep those clean and um keep everything looking great. So, we need some new custodial staff there. Um, we're looking at a new elementary staffing model, which Caitlyn will talk about more in just a moment. Uh, we're also looking at some building support positions, reducing non-iteracy supports, and eliminating unlicensed administrator, and replacing with a district immersion coordinator. >> Can you clarify when you say noniteracy supports, what is that? What would that look like at a elementary? We certain we currently have people who do intervention who do intervention and other things that is not literacy. >> Okay. >> Okay. So I am here to talk about the uh proposed new elementary staffing model. So what um I'm going to start with what wouldn't change, right? So what would not change is that we will still continue to have fantastic elementary education teachers, you know, in charge of providing our students with rigorous academic instruction. We will still offer all of the same core curriculum and instructional minutes that we're currently offering. And we're going to continue to offer intervention mostly focused in that literacy area like we talked about and special education and um ML services will all remain in place. So none of that changes. What would change is as we are looking at our class sizes and we're setting our um sections, we are looking at numbers really closely. And so if we have class sizes that are on a high range where in previous years we may have said this number of students generates three sections. We're able to say we're going to keep to the high range or just over that high range and add a teaching assistant to the classroom and that will help with that adult to student ratio. Um and it'll allow us to control those those costs. Um it also I think is really important that we are focused very heavily on improving academic achievement for our students and we are adopt we have adopted a new curriculum in literacy and we have done years and are continuing to do training in the science of reading. Um and we're going into a curriculum and standards benchmarks review for math. That's a lot. And to do that well, we need to focus on teaching our kids one grade level at a time, right? And so last year, you remember at the 11th hour, we had um budget cuts that were not anticipated due to legislative action and our response was multi-grading. But that is not a sustainable in our current model. that's not sustainable and it's not going to really align as well with our strategic goals um around academic achievement. So, this is an alternative to doing that that will help us control the cost and keep us um close to or within range of those class ranges and when above then really try and target that 15 to 16 to one student to adult ratio. Um so the benefits of this is it does improve efficiency. So kind of what I what I already said around just financial sustainability. Um it also balances enrollment more effectively across the district. So, historically, we might have had a a smaller building that had class sizes, let's say, of a incoming K class of 40 and that would be two sections at 20, right? But in a larger building or a larger area, we would have had class sizes for an elementary that might have been sitting right at that upper range of 25, even 26. And so this allows us to kind of look more globally and try and balance that out across for the student experience. It also allows us to be um reactive and in a proactive way. So reactive to changes in enrollment but proactively. So, for example, I believe I'm not counting, but I believe um Brookview Principal Stringer navigated something like 10 incoming fifth graders after the school year started. And when we were in the when we're in the fiscal reality that we're in, we're already, you know, creating sections that are at the high range to be um efficient and fiscally responsible. and then you get an incoming even two three kids can tip at 10 and then trying to make those shifts mid year. What does that mean? Does that mean we're adding a section and moving kids and kids have had multiple teachers that year? I mean there's all kinds of different scenarios. Are we um overloading certain classes? Like what does that look like? So this would allow us to be reactive to those changes by adding a teaching assistant. we can that's that's a lever we can pull whether it's September October or February right and and so that should that will be helpful in us controlling that because what we want are more kids right enrollment is going to help us um financially so we need to be able to be responsive to that and as I already mentioned um with our focus on really improving the rigor in literacy and soon to be math uh we we really need to allow our teachers to remain focused on teaching one grade level at a time. >> Oh, sure. I think it's also really important that we're not we're not going to just do this and say good luck, right? There is really important professional development that we need to offer. So, um it's important to know that we're moving this direction early so that we can start building out those training and professional development plans. I envision um earmarking some professional development funds to do almost like a summer training with what does it mean to be a TA? What does it look like to help in the classroom? Um what does differentiation look like? How do you get uh receive work direction? Um some PD around the curriculum, some PD around the strategies, instructional strategies. And then similarly with teachers, if we can identify the teachers that will have teachers aids in their classrooms, we can do some targeted um professional development for them as well. >> Do you want to share you shared this concept with union leadership? >> I have. Yes. So we have sat down with our leaders um and shown shown them what this could look like. You know, it's definitely um preferable to multi-grading. I don't know that it's like I don't know that people are excited about it but I think that it is preferable to multi-grading and I think it keeps us in line with um our strategic directions around academics and academic achievement and this is just an example like what is this when you're thinking about this what does this look like? So in grade three the the upper range of our class size ratios is 29.5 students. So in this scenario, if you have 63 incoming students, in our old model, that would have been three sections and that would have cost us an estimated $426,000. In this new model, we can run two sections, one at 31 and one at 32, each with TAS, and you're looking at that 15 to 16ish adult to student ratio, and you've saved some money. Now, you scale that, right? So scale that AC across classrooms across seven elementaryaries and that gets you that to that 500,000 mark. >> Okay. Last area um for adjustments is special education. So we're looking at some case load ratio models changing um adjusting our related service provider case load model and adjusting some of the pair professional support that we have and also looking to change how we service non-public students. So we provide service to um the private schools here in the district in the community as well. And so changing that delivery model a little little bit. So all said and done, everything that we just talked about is um almost $5.2 million in reductions that um we are looking to make for the 2627 school year. Again, um we've worked really really hard to make these as um far away from the classroom as possible, but after two years of cuts, it's impossible to totally avoid that. um but this is what we have presented and um I think the next step as Dr. Funk said is for um some conversations to be had with individuals who are impacted by this um and then we'll be bringing some things to the board for action and ultimately this will be part of the proposed budget moving forward. So, so a couple couple pieces here and you're going to hear the board will hear in a few weeks um from the high school about some of their new programming that's occurring, but I can share this publicly at this point. You know, I showed you somewhere in the presentation a slide that we had 481 students that we paid, I think, you know, close to half million dollars to uh be educated um somewhere else because of online learning this past uh past school year. So, one of the things we're doing as part of the strategic investment in our high school is an online program where we're offering nine courses. And I can share with you that for first semester next year, we have 600 students signed up for online through our high school. And then for second semester next year, we have 600 students signed up. So that is a u huge indicator for us as a team to hear that we are there is a certainly a need out there that we are starting to to see and we are adapting to as a school district. So that that is a a good good news for us. Um, and part of our part of our challenge right here is as you've you've heard us in in the conversation is we are strategically investing to provide more opportunities such as associates degrees and and earn college credits here on our campus um for our students and our families um while at the same time we're we're having to go through some of these cuts and um but I I think we're purposeful in our approach to doing this and you So, um I I will also share with you this. Okay, Chris is going to talk transportation here in in a few minutes coming up. Uh but you know, we we talked about one potential area we're going to be looking for u cost savings and there was, you know, significant community churn on that. um we don't want to um we want to minimize impact on families as much as possible, but for us to to move forward, we're going to have to work together as a as a district and as a community. And these are hard things. And uh um we we understand some folks are going to be concerned. Uh but we need to work together if we're going to be successful as a school district and I can't emphasize that enough. So that's what we have. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you very much. um comments or questions? No. Students to say, >> how can I ask you guys a question? Um I know it's brand new and so word takes a little bit to kind of get out there, but obviously the online numbers are promising. Um that strategic investment, which I think you were here for. Um, so offering an AA degree but doing it in the high school, the online courses, the, you know, expanding the pathways, being able to have more freedom to choose some additional electives. Has that been, have you heard any kind of conversation amongst the students? Is it >> Did they help you? >> I guess I'll leave it open to you guys. for that >> because you guys are teachers. >> I mean, I've heard a lot of positive feedback about the associates degree. >> Okay. >> Especially in um I mean, I'm in AVID and we talked about it in our class and obviously us, we're seniors in our class, so we can't obviously participate in it. But a lot of the students in that class have younger siblings and they've talked about it to their families and their siblings and they've said the importance of it and they said that they want to try to convince their siblings to sign up for that and take that in person so they can get their associates degree in high school and I think it's an great opportunity. Great resources. >> Good. Thank you for sharing that. >> I mean yeah I've heard good things too about it but I mean our my grade like juniors can't do it. So, like all I've kind of heard is like, "Oh, I wish that like I could do that. It seems cool." Like, whatever. So, I've just heard positive things about it. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'd say I've only heard positive things about it. Obviously, I can't do it, but I think if I was a sophomore, freshman, or obviously younger, I would probably like participate in that. I think it's an awesome like thing that you guys are adding. >> Yeah. I and I think that a lot of families um don't understand the finance implications for the district. And so to be able to talk to families about if you stay here and earn your AA degree, you're actually also helping your public school stay, you know, fiscally responsible versus right now we just don't have an option. So if families want it, they they have no choice but to leave for another option. So ultimately we're providing a service I think for our students and families. So responding to that is is important. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. >> I have a question to understand the 600 online students. 600 is that a student that will not be coming to school physically at all. We'll be doing everything online or is this like a partial of their day? >> All the above. >> Okay. Yeah. And and I think the high school hasn't decided what that's going to look like yet because part of it is do we have a spot if we have all 600 online spread throughout the day. Do we have classrooms designated for where they would do their online work? So it's a work in progress what they're they're they're um looking at doing. But we have some students who I think who are going to be taking um more courses probably online than than not. We have others that okay, hey, this fits my schedule or fits what I want to do. I'll I'll do it in this manner. So, >> how do we know it's 600 then? If it's >> because they registered. >> So, they registered, but they haven't broken it down yet by how many are repeat like they've taken all their classes or not. Those are that information will be coming. We just don't have it yet. >> Director Parker, >> do we have a break? Uh, thanks. Uh, following up on that 600. Do we have a breakdown how much that is cannibalizing from our in-classroom versus how much we're converting back from off-campus? One of I don't have for you tonight, but I have uh Rob and his team coming in three weeks to talk to you about the online program. So, I think he will definitely be able to talk through you through that with you as well. >> Yes, director Theer. >> Yeah. No. Um well, first of all, I just want to thank uh Dr. Funk and your leadership team for the thoughtfulness and the comprehensive nature that this process has involved. Um and director, you know, chair Sherman, how you have so eloquently kind of shared um how difficult this is. I mean, it's just it's probably as a board director, one of the more difficult things that we have to do because there's people's livelihoods and programs that are being impacted. So, um I do appreciate all the work and and the efforts that are going into this. So, um, you know, one thing that that continues to, um, give me pause and thought and and it's hard to point out one particular thing just because of the fact that so many aspects of our district are being impacted by some of these tough decisions that need to happen. Um, you know, but, you know, kind of for me going back to some of the, you know, the middle school athletics and activities, you know, and how important, um, extracurriculars are. Um, and I think uh with director Solomon and community ed, I think you'll do a fantastic job. Um, and I have a lot of faith and confidence in the work that's being done. Um, but the hard part is obviously the transportation and especially talking about, you know, uh, ANI and trying to reduce some of those uh, disparities with different uh, student groups, especially from a socioeconomic status. And um so something I would, you know, would be interested in seeing is how that might impact uh the accessibility for some of these families. Um and again, I don't want to bring my own bias, but you know, just to be vulnerable, you know, that's something where I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for activities and athletics. Um you know, I was afforded the opportunity to play in college. I probably wouldn't have other gone to college otherwise. And so it was um something that uh is really impactful from a life skill standpoint. uh a resilience um a sense of community and belonging um and I think it just carries over into the classroom in so many ways. So I just would be saddened greatly if that does impact some of these students and inability to access some of these activities just because of the transportation aspect. So I just wanted to share that. But again, also with the caveat, I am very grateful for the work that's being done and the thoughtfulness because I know it's not easy and but I also know how much time and effort everyone has put into this. So, I just wanted to share that. And >> thank you. >> Yes, Director Hoger. Thank you. Um to shift away from the different points that are being made, um I'm really interested in speaking about the new elementary staffing model. Um, yep. Pass it over. That's your Yep. your baby. Um, so first of all, thank you so much for um looking at the elementary model in such a well creative way. I'm sure this there have been um successful models that you've tried in the past um and getting the feedback for the multiclassroom. I know that that was kind of a last minute ad and um we were hopeful that it would be a little more successful than I think it was and we did the best we can and we are so grateful for the teachers who stepped up and really um worked hard to make that model work. Um so um I appreciate the responsiveness to taking a new direction. Uh my curiosity is around that with this new TA model. Will there will the board be asked to revisit um class size caps at all or will that how will that kind of work within the model we already have? >> No, we're using the class size ranges as a starting point to establish the sections and then our lever to support and kind of equalize those across the district is that teaching assistant model. So, we're not looking at adjusting the class size ratios. We're using those as the addit like the initial decision-making framework. But then when you're just two, three, four kids over, instead of having that become a whole another section, which really does create those inequities across buildings and it also um is just not fiscally sustainable, then that's where we would look at adding the TA into those sections. But I I will also share with you, you know, I think we're one of the things we we talked about is we're already making an adjustment at the high school. Okay, it's it's going from 33 to 35. And so that will be an adjustment. But if we continue on this path of cutting, cutting, cutting, you are going to see significant changes to our class size ratios two, three years down the road. Okay. Um we will because we will not be able to maintain the number of staff we have in this district. Um if if the same is holds true with with what we're receiving from from funding sources elsewhere. Um so I would say at this point we're not with the exception of the high school we're not going to be moving forward with uh an ask but uh that is uh something that as you saw on the slide that was something that we did discuss as a team. Is this something we we go back to the board and and uh and ask and we said no at this point in time but um it may it may in the near future come back to that. >> Okay. Um, just a quick followup too for the TA classes, is there a specific number that you're like four or five or 10 more adding? Like is there like a range that you're kind of shooting for or a sweet spot for when it now becomes an extra section? >> It's not necessarily we looked at it um at each building. So there are some buildings that as of right now with the numbers the projections that they are they have no classrooms with TAS. There are other buildings with the projected enrollment numbers that have, you know, four to six classrooms in a building with TAS. So, it really depends on the total number of students at each grade level um and how that shakes out within those ranges that are established. And so, I think overall we're probably looking around a dozen classrooms to start the school year. And then again that as we grow our enrollment our mechanism to support students in those classrooms instead of adding a section would be to add TA support in sections. >> Okay. Staying on the um on this model change. How did the principles respond to that? Because I know they were actively involved in these conversations. >> They responded um favorably. I mean we are making difficult decisions in >> in difficult in a difficult climate right so I think ideally we would love to not be having these conversations but we are so if you within within the context of what we're having to do it was a favorable solution to finding a more sustainable and um adaptive way to support our students at the elementary level. >> Yes. Sarah, >> I apologize if I missed this earlier, but with this um staffing model, I mean, is this something you've seen done? >> Yes, it's done. Um, in fact, there are some there's some competitive districts uh near us do it using the same model and I was able to reach out to them and learn a little bit more about how they make decisions and kind of set their staffing. Um it is a model that is used in other places um that is not quite as close to us geographically for very similar reasons. It's more fiscally sustainable. You have kids move in mid year. How do you make those adjustments? Um so I have reached out to districts that are doing that and kind of heard what's what works, what doesn't, trying to learn from them and what we're doing um and how we plan and move forward. I'm also trying to curate what what are they doing as far as training and professional development for onboarding their teaching assistants and then what does onboarding look like after the school year started. Right? I have like a very crystallized clear view of how I can leverage some time and PD funds over the summer. But then what does it mean when that October rolls around and we need to add a TA and how what does onboarding look like? So those are all things that I'm going to continue to work on as as this progresses. Yes. >> Yeah. I would just say that I'm pretty jazzed about this model. I think it makes a lot of sense and to your point that I think there's a lot of districts that are doing this very well and for me it gives our elementary schools the ability to pivot as you know when not if when enrollment's growing to you know we don't have to shift kids different classrooms which is very disruptive and just having um you know additional essential teachers in the classroom that you know can build relationships with students and parents I think that just is a win u for everyone involved. So I I I'm excited for it. I think it'll be a good good model. >> Dr. I think it's important to note that we really listen to our staff and some of the challenges they had with the multi-grading and we've had teachers who are doing the multi-grading who've done it before and and we asked why is it more challenging right now that we're doing it and really it's we have a I mean this district is laser focused on literacy >> and you were asking us to adopt this new curriculum which we've had all this excellent training ing for which is really hard because a we're doing it for the first time and b we have students at maybe some of the younger grades who haven't been exposed to this curriculum. So, we're working with them to really bring them along. And now you want us to do it not only for say fourth grade, but now I've got a group of fifth graders in here and I've got two different sets of standards. And so it was we've got some awesome teachers, but it's been a really heavy lift for some of them. And this is a is a method that okay, we are now going to have you focus on agrade level and yep, you're going to have a few more kids in the classroom, but now we have an another adult to help you. And so, um, it it is more efficient. We're more agile as a district to be able to adapt or to adapt to the changing, uh, sizes of the classrooms. And, um, we think that, uh, it's going to be effective. I think one important note to make for for folks is teachers are will not be responsible for evaluating their their teaching assistant. Okay, that'll be the principal who's responsible. So the teachers have to worry about that. They can just okay, how can I have this other adult help me help me make the um best meet the needs of the students in our class. So I think maybe I think it's a great opportunity. >> I do too. I I like the sustainability, right? I feel like the multi-grading was reactive. Um, and this is while it is reactionary to our fiscal climate, it is sustainable for the long term so that as we we grow, we can meet the needs of the the district. K5. >> Director Kellerman. >> Um, yeah. So, um, we don't have TAs now currently. So this will be a new category. This they will not be paras. We saw >> they will be in they'll be in the parah unit but they may be there'll be a different training involved than for regular parah because they will have to be trained in somewhat uh some some specifics regarding the read act. >> Okay. Um and then uh I imagine I some of us are going to hear from teachers good and bad. It's it's an interesting proposal. Is this the first time they're hearing about it right now? um officially. Yes. >> Uh that with that said, you know, secrets are not really secret around here. It feels like sometimes. So, um I certainly have been in spaces and places where it's been like conjecture or I've heard um but yes, officially this is the first time that we are publicly talking about this model shift. >> But all the principles have heard about >> all the principles. No. and and of course we've briefed our um leadership on this as well. >> Good to know. Thanks. >> And I anticipate that like I'm going to have to like maybe lay low going to Pilates the next few weeks or something. I don't know how many teachers are going to stop me at the grocery store, but yes, I anticipate that I will get feedback as well. Well, that's why we're having this conversation now because now the feedback can come in and >> well, the the other piece, Pete, is the principles will all be having staff meetings tomorrow >> to go over this presentation. >> Okay. >> So, they will be formally hearing it tomorrow. >> And the intent of having this conversation is so that it's out there so we can start talking and working with people on how what does this look like as we move it forward. So, as I mentioned, you know, with the activities moving, that's something community ad's going to be working on and getting feedback and working through to build a model that will work. Same with this is having conversations with teachers about what are what are the things that they're seeing that we would need to work through >> and and one thing that's different is we're not making a decision now. So that's um it's starting the conversation is what I'm hearing. Okay. >> We're make we are staffing based upon this new model. So that's that's the decision you'll make is we'll ask you to cut in three weeks if whatever we need to to adjust to the new model. >> Okay. >> And it'll be part of the budget that we approve in June. And just so you explain to the staffing that's fixed when we have to start staffing. You're not just arbitrarily picking staffing a staffing time frame, right? That's all laid out in contracts and >> Yes. >> question. >> Oh yeah. Um, this isn't about the teaching assistant model, but I just had a question regarding I had a few teachers ask me about the with the new block schedule if they were worried about their connection with students throughout the year and they love how like they have like their students the whole year around and they're worried that they're going to lose connections and then halfway through the year they're going to have all new people or all new students in their room and they're not going to feel as engaged with their students. and they build that relationship with their students all year long and they're worried about just like how their connections are going to be going throughout the year with the new block schedule. I was just curious about anything about that. >> That is the old block schedule actually. >> Okay. Okay. >> So, the new schedule is a modified block. So, they will have >> it's going to be year round. It's going to be a year-long schedule. So, Okay. >> There may be some some semester courses may switch at mid mid but no. So, the new the new schedule is actually going to be um they'll meet throughout the year. So, so it's great question, but uh yeah, I think that's one of the reasons the high school staff was concerned about it and they adjusted from the pure block to the modified. So, the pure block, they would have had four classes in the fall, four different ones in the spring. Under the modified block, they have seven throughout the entire uh the entire year. >> Okay. Thank you so much for clarifying that. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Um, looks like about 2.8 million or 2.4 to 2.8 million is from the changes at the legislature or other changes are outside of our control to a point. Um, the other two and a half to three million is within our control. Um, where did that come from? Sort of first part of the question is what's driving that three million that getting us up to the five and a half delta. >> Yeah. I would say our biggest increase are uh salary and benefits and our insurance. >> Can I ask a follow-up question to that? >> Thank you. Um when we approved the the guidelines for negotiating >> Yeah. >> Um we did that assuming that there wouldn't have to be cuts associated with that. I assume >> um I don't know. We knew what the size of the cuts were going to have to be. Uh we I mean we didn't have a a real figure on on this year's budget moving forward until about January. >> Okay. I guess I would like us to think about what changes we can do for our forecasting going forward so that when we do have as a board are looking at the constraints that we're providing back to for teaching. It looks like I mean just from my quick math here it looks like the vast majority of that delta is the new contracts. Um and I think I would have probably personally I think I would have probably given different guidance on the >> sure >> contract approvals um if I would have known the downstream impacts. >> Understood. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? Um, one thing that I I want to echo is my and that we brought this up when we had our retreat, um, is, and I'm so confident that Annette and her team are going to come up with great solutions, and I know other districts do middle school activities and sports through this model. And also, I'm assuming that because there's a sliding fee scale built into our community programming that that will help families that are maybe needing that extra assistance on the socioeconomic side. Um because I know a big part of our strategic plan is keeping that inclusivity and that culture and that um student experience alive and well. And so, um, I just know it's different and so there'll be questions. Um, but I think that it's, um, something other districts are doing to remain competitive and it's something that I think that we're more than capable of adapting to it. So, um, but yeah, so I guess I want to just um, on behalf of the board and like others have said here, thank you. Um, these thank you to you, but then a lot of people that were in the room that aren't here tonight. Um, that's a lot of hours, a lot of meetings, a lot of really difficult conversations. And I understand the angst within the community when they see a list um, and have a personal impact. Um, and our job is to look at the system and to look at the sustainability um, for the entire district. I will say I've had a lot of good conversations with community members and our community is wonderful and they ask me, "What can we do?" um the really engaged community members. And I guess I would ask you what I've been saying is write your legislators. Um support our platform. It uh we have the 25 uh platform, the 26 legislative platform online. We have all of our contacts for the district. even if it's not your representative, email everyone um that is associated to our schools and talk about the importance of these um underfunded mandates and the impact that it is having uh on us on our fiscal um situation. But then also and and these are hard conversations to have, but I think that at some point we're gonna have to start having some operating levy discussions and I think the board would benefit um as would the community and just having knowing what those options might look like because I see that list of things you did not opt for and quite honestly it scares me um because the things on that list would be terrible. Um, and so I think that you struck a really good balance here, but I just want to I just want to hear the information. I don't know how the board feels about receiving that information, but it's an option I would like to at least have some more information on. >> What I would recommend is let's wait until the legislature, >> okay, >> finishes and and because I think the determination on a levies is really twofold. one, if we get local optional revenue approved, I think that changes the ask completely and it really changes the landscape for potential cuts in the down the road for us. You know, I think if we had local optional revenue, that's probably an extra$2 to3 million in in revenue for the district. Um, which would be board approved if we were able to do that. Um, maybe it's two million. Uh and but the other piece is um if we don't get that then I think for sure the conversation of okay we're going to have to to really come to the uh to taxpayers for more support at some point in the future. I think that becomes more of option one as we move forward. >> Is there anyone does everyone else on the board you know after the legislative session does that information that would benefit your thinking? Okay, >> I'll just say I I agree. I I would love to see that. I need to see that. I don't see a world where that doesn't happen, where we don't we where we're not exploring it. I mean, if we have a $14 million delta in three years, $2 million isn't going to like we're going to have to do this two more times anyways. >> We'll know the scope of it. I think that's the the scope of we what we can ask for basically. >> Thank you. >> Y >> one other thought on that. Um I'm really really curious to see how our investment efforts as well, especially at the high school kind of play out over the next year or so. Um and hopefully that will be an opportunity to recapture a little bit of revenue. So um I'm on board with waiting a little while, but as Director Parker is saying, I definitely think we are looking at a levy in the near future. >> And I think a lot of districts are I mean if it if this is the way that the legislative sessions are going to unfold. >> Yeah. I mean, if metro wide districts are cutting 400 million over 400 million plus over two years, >> right? >> Absolutely. And I I'd just like to add I think going back to the beginning of this presentation about enrollment really does impact a lot of the projections that highlighting one of the larger pieces of why some of that impact is over the three years is the projection and that being more conservative on our end um in those projections and seeing where that growth ends up for our district, too. So, I'm just putting that caution out there, but we have to be more conservative due to our fund balance. So, >> absolutely. >> Which drives adding that >> which drives the >> the cost or the the reductions. And I should say the other thing I tell community members in addition to um emailing legislators is just sharing what our schools do well for you with your neighbors, with people that are new to the neighborhood. Um kind of that testimonial. And certainly every single meeting we have, we have students at the table that demonstrate and live that amazing testimonial of how well we teach and mentor our young community members. So, just to continue to share those really positive stories and um and let people like Cararissa know what is going on, what is, you know, what you love about our schools because it's some something we want to hear and learn more about. And um thank you to our students here today who were you guys were really it's always nice having you contribute to the conversation. So, >> great. >> All right. Um thank you again for that information. Our um next brief update here is regarding transportation. >> Well, I get to stay up here. So, good evening again, Chair Sherman, Superintendent Funkin, members of the board. Um tonight, I'm here to just provide a very brief update on transportation planning for next year. As you know, at our last meeting, I sat here with our transportation supervisor, Tom Rley, and talked about some of the changes we're looking to make for next year. And um I wanted to say what we rolled out in February was really an initial concept, and we've gotten a lot of feedback on that. We also have an amazing team at central services. If you walk in and see our transportation team, we've got maps everywhere. We've got a big screen with maps up. They are really really looking at the very best ways that we can be more efficient in how we route. And I'll be honest, it's actually changed since we were here last time. The the philosophy and kind of the idea behind where we want to go with um the model for next year is looking a little bit different. And part of that is in response to what we've heard from our community, too. um we are committed to protecting the secondary start times that you um made such an important decision to change to two years ago and so we are very committed to making sure that our transportation model matches that. We're also um obviously focused on trying to find something that's efficient and reliable and sustainable moving forward. So um we have been intentional about being open and transparent about the changes we're looking to make and part of the problem with doing that is we don't have a fully baked plan yet. So, I just appreciate people's patience and um flexibility as we continue to work through things. Um we are looking at building a route now that's a little bit different from the preliminary concept and really it's about taking the secondary students off of those elementary routes. So, we were kind of looking at trying to combine everybody all at once and now we're thinking maybe more of a two-tier where we have elementary and then we have the middle school and high school. >> It might not be pure >> possibly. So, it's not So, what we're looking at is trying to be more so of getting those high school kids off of the elementary. Um, so we're going to keep playing with that and keep seeing what we can come up with. But I do want to just stress the fact that our high school routes will operate within the same overall pickup times that we have currently. So, um, that means we will not have them starting any earlier than they're currently starting. Um, age level groupings will remain as consistent as possible. There will be some places where maybe that isn't exactly how it looks now, but again, we're trying to get a model that that keeps that a little more consistent. Um, and we are continuing to build this plan. We will have an update again to you shortly, but I did just want to let the community know that because we have gotten a lot of feedback, especially about how does that high school work with the hour different and all of that. Um, and so that is something we've been responsive to. The team is continually to work on. I'm actually kind of excited about the direction we're going in now. I think it meets all of the goals we have to be efficient while still keeping our focus on that secondary start time. So, um, without giving too much away until we know exactly how this is going to work, I just wanted to give that update and we will bring, um, Tom back at some point when we have a a more fully baked plan to share that. Um, but do want you to know that we are committed to saving money and trying to minimize that impact on our families and continue to to support the goals that you have as a school board. >> I think it's important to note it is still we are still integrating St. Troy prep into our into our routes rather than adding a third tier. >> So there will be, you know, I think you heard Carissa say, okay, we're going to maybe not have as many kids who are, you know, K12 on routes anymore. Um, however, we still may have some crossover because of the nature of serving, you know, >> um, different schools. So um but the uh the uh team has been working hard. We gave an update to the bus garage on on Friday on it and uh um so we will the intent of providing that information two weeks ago was to prepare the community that things are going to look different. >> Yep. >> And that's that's why we did it and um we did not have the 100% solution. We don't have the 100% solution today, but um we are having to cut hundreds of thousand dollars in transportation costs and so we're going to be doing things differently. So, >> and that that is transportation is one of the most significant factors in our budget situation. I mean, it's been all of everything that went on with transportation. That is a hard cost to account for in our annual budgets. So, um I I know that we need to make the cuts and the board is requiring that we have some efficiency in that. Um but it it is going to mean change. It's going to mean it looks different. So, we appreciate the patience that the community has as we work through all these um different possibilities, I guess. So, but um it was eye opening your chart when you look at all of ele 19 million something and transport >> teachers. Yeah. and transportation is 14. I mean we cannot continue to sustain that. So um all the efficiency exploration is appreciated. >> The other um update I will give too is that this is the week that we're going to ask parents to start opting in for transportation for next year and that's what's really going to help drive that finalizing of the routes knowing where the kids are and how we can get them on buses. So it's really important for people when they get that email to please opt in for next year's transportation. Um, the other thing I will say is there will be some people who will get be getting noticed that they are in a walk zone that maybe have been getting transportation before. We've looked really closely at those walk areas. Um, it's a half mile for elementary and two miles for secondary schools. And what we noticed is in the past um some of them were routed more like how a car would drive without taking advantage of the walking trails and paths that a lot of our communities have. And so there are some schools where um we have quite a few kids that will be um walking instead of riding a bus um to the tune of in one neighborhood it was like 111 kids which is more than two bus loads um at $85,000 a bus. That's some considerable cost savings. So recognizing for families this is not easy. You've had a bus you could just send your kid off each morning and now you're going to have to find a different way to get to school. Um but but knowing that this is again part of that efficiency and also being consistent in how we implement those those zones. Um you know if we're asking some kids to walk and then had different expectations for others. I think we're really now approaching this as a let's truly map a kid's experience and draw it out on a map and see exactly how far it would be and if it's within that half mile and there's a trail available then we're going to make that a consistent practice districtwide. >> Great. Yes. >> Of course. um knowing that we're going to have this conversation and I was thinking on the way in you had a graphic last time where a few years ago we were at 11 million and now we're up to 14 million and the maybe is the answer then what is responsible for such a large growth in the in the cost special ed um some price something's gone up to make it go from that to that >> yes I think part of it is just contract obviously expenses increase every year when you are um looking at gas prices and what we're what we're in with our contracts. So I think that's part of it. Transportation for special ed is definitely increased. Um so it's a multiple factors I believe. Um I thought you say something. So >> no I I think you have you're paying a Cadillac model for our because nobody else would come here. >> Yeah. >> So we have a provider that said we'll come but you're going to pay us what we want and we are. and we're in that contract. That contract was for six years, >> three for six years. We're in the fourth year of it. >> Um, >> and they're a great provider. >> We have to pay top dollar. >> They do good service. >> So, one of the things that we are doing is we with with our new transportation supervisor. >> The benefit to having Tom in the district is Tom has seen this for 30 years. And so he's able to identify a lot of these efficiencies that um that we did not have somebody necessarily in house who knew knew what to look for. And so that's where we're starting to see even the half mile discussion. Okay. Yeah, it's a half mile when you drive the bus, right? >> Okay. But you're within a half mile of where your house is and there's a trail out your backyard. Um, so I mean that that's in in the example she just gave that's you know two to three routes that's 170 200 and some thousand dollars right there um we would be saving. So part of it is um I think there's been turnover consistently for years and years in this district in a lot of different areas. So, we're putting teams in place who are understanding the lay of the land and we're able to make decisions that uh um are going to benefit us long term, but we're still, you know, cleaning up from a lot of that. >> And a little followup to that is, you know, we had the presentation previously and we've all gotten lots of input from people uh with their concerns and and whatever. And it sounds like you've taken a lot of that in. So, I want to say thank you for taking that input and keeping it uh working. The other thing I don't I wish I had an answer for this, but I've witnessed there's a lot of people that are signed up for routes that don't use them. I I'm sure they opt in because they might need it that day that the car breaks down or mom has to go to work early. >> Um, but I'm thinking there's some efficiency there because there's five names on the list at that stop, but one person gets on or none. and the kids will say, "Oh, that person never rides." >> Um, >> yeah, we've had those conversations. I think part of the way we're addressing that is what we talked about last time. We have we have had alternate addresses where people can kind of say, I'm going to daycare here on Tuesdays and over here on Thursdays and I'm at mom's on Mondays and grandma's on Friday. So, we've had that happening in the past and now we're really switching to a you get one pickup and one drop off. So, that helps with that to some extent. We've also even this year been working with the vendor to do some headc counts on buses and find out where we really are having extra spaces and we've made some adjustments. We made significant adjustments at St. Croy Prep this year, cut numerous buses because of that exact reason. We we thought we had more kids than we did and we were able to eliminate several buses even just at St. Corey Prep alone. And we've so that is something we're constantly looking at and re-evaluating. And I think part of it is too, and I remember this from I don't know if it was last year, but it's educating parents that if you don't need the bus, you don't have to sign up because if you need it, you can call and it doesn't take that long to get put on a bus. So, I know some people use it as a unknowingly use it as a safety net for their family, but not understanding the significant financial impact to the district. And I think the more that we can be sharing that to families that I don't know how many days it takes to get on a route, >> two to three. >> Two to three. I mean, if you know two to three days in advance, we can get you on a route and you don't need to sign up. So, don't sign up if you only need it, you know, in an emergency situation if the if XYZ happens. So, and where that really we see it happen is kids that are in sports and things like that. Like you might be in a sport during the winter but not in the springers. So sometimes it's nice if people decide, you know, I'm not going to need it for this first half of the year, but I do need it for the second half, then they could add later. But I do want to caution because this has actually happened. You can't just pick it up for a day or two and then not take I mean we we're not a Uber service either because we have had that like I just need a bus for Tuesday and then I'm good. I'm like that doesn't work. But um yes, you can >> it just doesn't take that long to I think people are surprised that the processing time if a if a life change happens, right, that you can get on relatively quickly and not sign up, you know, when you don't really need it because we do there are those dead spaces and it does cost actual money and when you're looking at our budgets and all the history with our transportation, lots of reasons why we are where we are, but we just have to find these common sense efficiencies. >> Correct. The only exception is right before school starts. Um obviously there's kind of a backlog of people who are coming in at the last second. So sometimes um those first couple weeks right before school or the first week or two of school, it takes a little longer, but during the year it's two or three days. >> Um so with the the new adjustments that you're creating in response to the feedback from community, um where do the elementary start times factor in? We in during the presentation you had mentioned that there was a possibility of pushing them back. >> We're still looking at all that. So we will have more details. Yep. >> Okay. Is that off the table or is that >> not off? Nothing's off the table. We're still looking at things. That's still our goal is to try to keep it to eight, but we're um we'll have more info when we >> Have you been hearing much feedback, positive feedback about that? >> Actually, not a lot about that part. Okay. Um more of the feedback has been on the secondary is this the concerns about the secondary pickup times and um the kind of multi-age on buses. >> Got it. >> Which is fascinating. >> Yeah, that interesting. We have daily we transport hundreds of students in in this district who are K12 on buses. They just don't go to our schools. They go to St. Croy Prep. >> Okay. So, our bus drivers have years and years of experience transporting K12 students um on buses together. >> So, that's just an interesting um observation. >> Yeah. Question. >> Yes. I just want to say thanks for your creativity on this and thanks for responsiveness to the community and and bringing things that are in progress. It's nice to be able to see the evolution of the of the program. So, thank you. >> Well, I appreciate that. It is messy and I appreciate the grace that everyone gives us as we're trying to work this out because we are it's incredibly complex the moving pieces and all the things especially when we don't have actual counts of kids and know who's going to be on the buses. So again, just that pitch to fill out that opt-in form for us so that we can um move this along and come back with final answers for you sooner rather than later. >> Great. Thank you so much for this update. >> Thanks. >> All right. Um we're going to have our last agenda item, which is to move to close session. So the next item on the agenda is a close session. Pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.03B, 03B. The governing body of a public employer may by a majority vote in a public meeting decide to hold a closed meeting to consider strategy for labor negotiations, including negotiation strategies or developments or discussion and review of labor negotiation proposals conducted pursuant to sections 179A.01 to 179A.25. I will go ahead and make a motion to move to close session. Can I get a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Thelander with the second. All those in favor of moving to close session raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. We will move to close session.