It's Thursday, June 12, 2025 at 6 p.m. We are at the District Service Center in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the land of the Midawakadan Dakota people. Midawakan means dwellers of the Spirit Lake. Our first item on the agenda is roll call. Dana Luis Hines here. Ryan Clark, hello. Sharon, here. Eric Chesmer is absent. Melinda Doss here. Katie Schwarz is absent. Sammy Pnik here. Uh, item 2.0, pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Next is 3.0 approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion to approve an amended agenda moving 4.2 activities update to be the last item on the agenda? Second. Moved by Sharon, seconded by Ryan. You're on my right side, so you won tonight. Um, all those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. 4.0 workshop items. First up tonight is 4.1, the alternative teacher professional pay system update. Introduced tonight by Kelly Jansen, assistant superintendent. Well, it is an honor to introduce the ATPPS annual report by Tim Bunnel, our ATPPS specialist. Um, Tim has been instrumental in leading our program for how many years, Tim? Maybe 17. 17. I know as long as I've been here. Um, as long as I've worked with Tim, he has an unwavering focus on students. Um, he is so dedicated to our teachers and our kids. He's able to na navigate complex challenges with direct, honest and truly kind approach. Um, you are deeply valued in our system and I'm saying all this because I believe it and Tim has announced that he is retiring. So this will be Tim's last ATPs report. Um, so congratulations on your retirement but you will be missed and you will be Bill. So congratulations Tim. Thank you and thank you board members and appreciate I said I can I can use my computer to guide me. You'll just keep me on track again. Tim, do we have to amend again? All right. Well, we had the report in there. So, report in there. Report is all in there. So, all right. So, anyways, um tonight what I'll do is I'll just go over some of the basic components of ATPS. I do that as a quick review every year and then highlight any changes or high successes for the past year, changes for next year. So, kind of keep you up to date where we are. Um so the four basic components of Q comp or ATPPS are site determined professional development, student achievement goals, formative peer observations and career advancement opportunities for teachers. Um addressing the first the site determined professional development, ATPPS really provides two types of professional development opportunities. We provide two days on the calendar that are for sightbased uh sight determined professional development and a flex plan for teachers. So I'll I'll briefly review both of those. For our site days this year, they were dedicated to the read. So we kind of sacrificed our normal process and procedures to help support the district's implementation of the readact. Two days were provided uh on the calendar for specifically for redact training and uh participation. Um next year we will return to our site driven activities. So one day will happen in September and one at the end of the year. content to be determined by sites. Um, one of the things we did this year on our final day was we provided a staff survey to all staff members to get input on their needs for professional development. So, currently Dana Larson put that together. She's gathering the information um going through it and she will be um providing that information to sites to help drive their planning. Am I too loud? I hear myself. All right. So uh the second type of PD we provide is the flex plan. Uh each teacher has opportunity to comp complete a individual plan for six hours of PD. Now for our probationary staff we designed that. It's the fourth day of new teacher academy. We provide teachers compensation for attending that day and they participate in predetermined staff development activities. For our continuing contract staff, they get to design their own. Um this year the biggest change was we backed up the start date from the first day of school back to early June. So now staff can participate in summer PD as a part of their upcoming year. Um that include chances last summer like conscious discipline uh AVID training uh uh book studies among groups and what we really focused in on was supporting in district professional development. Um, and I just happened to meet with Dana and it came up in our conversation. They seen a large increase in the number of participants in the district provided professional development over the summer and she said that's a big part in big due in a big part to the ability to be paid for that day. Now they choose that as their flex day. They participate in the PD and they receive compensation for one day's pay. So those are kind of the highlights of the professional development activities. Let's see what else I have here. Um next we have our student achievement uh goals which are part of their professional growth plans. Um really only one major change for next year. Um in the past staff have been given the option to develop either a social emotional learning goal for their classroom or an academic goal. Beginning in 2526 we're asking staff members to do both. We felt it was really important that they set both the academic goal and the social emotional learning goal for all of their students. So teachers beginning this year will have to do both of those goals as a part of their creation of their staff development plan. Our peer observation process is item number three. Um for our peer observations, we've made some slight shifts for the coming year. Um previously our mentors provided three observations for all first year staff. Secondyear staff participate in instructional coaching cycle with our instructional coaches and all remaining staff had the option of designing their own peer review by choosing peers to observe them. Beginning in 2526 um determining that there really was a need to give very specific feedback to our first year staff. The instructional coaches are going to provide those first year observations. So experts in instruction, instructional practice and coaching are going to get go in and provide those three observations. We'll continue to have mentors. Mentors will be there to support them throughout that first year, but we wanted to bump that up with some professional support from highly trained instructional coaches. Year two and three will look similar. They'll have the instructional coaches will support them with a cycle at least one of those two years. And staff will continue to have three observations provided by peer coaches other than instructional coaches, but they can choose to have instructional coach as well. We did add one new format this year as well. Um, beginning at 2526, staff can participate in a learning walk. Those of you who are familiar in the traditional process, a coach comes in, observes me, uh, takes notes, we follow up with a conference, the coach shares their observations, and we have a discussion reflecting on my lesson. For one of their three, they may choose a learning walk next year in which the person attempting to gain the learning goes out and watches another teacher teach and then meets with that teacher following the lesson to learn, you know, to get feedback. Why' this work? What' you do? How was the planning? So, it's kind of a reverse observation. So, for one of the three, they'll be able to participate in a learning work walk rather than a traditional peer observation. And finally, our career advancement opportunities for teachers. Those remain basically four types. We have our mentors who are chosen by assigned by our mentor coordinator in conjunction with principles at the building level. They provide input and they align mentors with new teachers. We have our ATPS coordinators who facilitate this whole process that we have of getting forms in and making sure people complete the things they need to do for ATPPS and our equity teacher leaders. But far and away our greatest budget item are instructional coaches. We continue to feel they impact schools. They're supporting schools. Um and they've had a huge impact on the system. This year, what we hope is to really refine their focus. We do have fewer numbers coming up in the in the upcoming year. And we hope to refine their focus in on that probationary induction process. If we get and help develop our young teachers, we'll be able to retain them and hopefully have better student outcomes in the long run. So, we're really kind of lasering the focus in on that induction process in our new that said, we um we didn't reduce the numbers of FTEES of our coaches because we wanted to. It was really done to adjust to budget conditions related to ATPPS in particular. So, over this past year, we met with the steering committee. We designed a budget that will allow ATPPS to continue to be funded for the next three to four years with without any unforeseen changes. Um ATPPS is unique. I think I mentioned last year it's a flat budget by cost increase. So we're always facing a little challenge of of keeping things in balance. Beginning in 2526, there will be um no general fund dollars involved in any of the ATPs processes. And we for we believe that the the funding will remain intact for hopefully the next three to four years without any major adjustments to the program. Many of you may have heard in the legislature this past year there was some talk about um funding continuing or not. When the final bill came out there is a line item providing funding for ATPPS for sure. Well 2526 is locked in. 26 27 27 28 also have it included. We do have to be aware that there may be some upcoming changes to the budget. There are still un undetermined cuts that may happen, but for right now, it looks like ATPs will be funded for at least for the next three years. And I believe our budget will remain balanced. Will remain in a good place for those three years. So with that, I'm open to questions. Does anyone have any qu Thank you, Tim. Does anyone have any questions? I I just have a comment because I'm one of the people who got to benefit from ATPPS. Um in particular, I wanted to comment on the the peer coaching. You know, we've all worked with people that, you know, they have an expertise in a certain area and to be able to go to a colleague and say, "I know you're an expert at that. Will you come and help me was just phenomenal and just a great benefit to teachers." Well, thank you, Louise. And again, again, it's one of the things we've really kept core to that that program because we hear that from a lot of teachers. They love that part of the program. They like like both bringing in people to observe and they love going out observing their colleagues. So, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I do have a couple questions. Um so one when you had come last year, you had talked about how the ATPs funding is um sort of set legislatively and so depending on how many districts take advantage of it, we end up sometimes getting a prrated version of what the funding is. So do you anticipate um at least given what the legislature has passed, they literally just passed it what, like yesterday, the day before yesterday, something like that. Um, do we think that we will end up having to prorrate some of these dollars or do we think we're for the next three years we'll still be in a good position? The proration they're they're not allowing any new districts in. So this districts that are in their set and so each district is growing and getting additional students. So so if our students are very similar to other districts, we're going to see a very small deduction in the area of a almost a $4 million budget or allocation from the state, we'll probably see like $30,000 decrease. Okay. So, it's a very minimal impact. It's just as we get more students. We don't We used to get 161, I believe, 169. It's probably like 167 right now. I might go to 166. So, it's very minimal in that that difference. Okay. So, it's just it's the effectively the same dollars, just more students we're trying to reach with the same dollars. Yes. Okay. Yes. Um and then the second question I had was you had mentioned that um teachers coming up this fall are going to have um both social emotional and academic goals for their um for their student achievement goals. Can you give me um an example of one of you know any given teacher in the district what they might choose to have? Sure. So, uh, a social emotional a very typical one is, um, teachers will give a survey in the fall about students perceptions of their acceptance in class or their connectedness with the teacher. Um, and then they'll repeat that same survey at the end of the year. So, they may say at the beginning of the year, 65% of the students will say they have a fellow peer that they're comfortable in confiding in and feel comfortable working with. By the end of the year, my goal is to have 85% of my students. And so they'll they'll repeat that survey from beginning to end. Um for an academic goal, many of them are tied to performance at the elementary level to the ERA and to testing there. So 85% of my students are currently at grade level. The goal would be 87% at the end of the year. All the goals are designed to be growth goals. So they are based on the existing level of the student and we want to make it better. And so, but many almost all of the have to do with either observational collection or um student survey. Anyone else? Any other questions? All right. Thank you so much, Tim. Thank you guys. Uh next up is 4.2 activities update was moved to the last item of the agenda. So, next up is information items 5.0. And we'll start with 5.1, the community education budget, presented tonight by Jake Winchell, director of community education. Thank you. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight, share with you some of the highlights of our past year and also um preview our budget as we head into the next school year. So, I'd just like to say as I'm wrapping up my first year in the district, it's been an absolute pleasure to join the team, not only in community education, but the SOASKO family in general. It's many wonderful things going on. There's been many highlights over the past year, and I'm excited to share those with us tonight. I'd like to first start just to kind of give you an overview of community education and and who we serve. As you know, we're a very wide ranging group um serving everybody from our babies in the district to the seniors in the senior center and everything in between. So, um just quickly running through community education, some of our program areas um and the leaders um starting with early learning that's led by Joyce Beard, who you met a few months ago, and she did an early learning update for you. She oversees early childhood family education, oftentimes referred to as just ECF, early childhood screening and school readiness, which is our preschool programs, community engagement, led by Cheryl Jogger. Um she does a lot of work with Skoolie. Um we have a wonderful partnership with Sashko Cares Education Foundation and Cheryl does a lot of great work connecting um our families with resources, connecting departments with resources within the district as well. kids club, our school age childcare led by Amy Bregman. It's a very big program, very successful, very neat program that they run there. Operations. Um, so that's led by Christine Lamberty. This is all of our facility use. Anytime there's somebody renting one of our gyms or auditoriums or our buildings, that goes through that department. They oversee middle school athletics, aquatics, youth enrichment, and all of our camps and clinics in the district as well. And our adult programs led by Susie Evans. Susie oversees our adults with disabilities. We're a member of a consortium there. our Great Rivers Adult Basic Education. We're the host of a consortium there with Hastings. We obviously run the senior center at the DPC. They offer trips and tours and adult enrichment as well. I did ask all of our leaders to provide us with a few updates from the year. A couple highlights um from each of our departments. Um in early learning, starting with early learning, they served um over 400 4,532 individuals in ECF. Um they're very proud of the work that they do in ECF. They did 317 home visits. They tr go out in the community and they train child carees um and child care staff um on best practices in early childhood. Um there were 757 students served in our preschool classes across 12 sites and they conducted over 1,400 screenings to date. Um and over 50% of them are at age three which has been a huge push statewide to screen kids as early as possible. And they absolutely just um crushed their goal over 50% at age three which is just amazing. on the other on the other end of our age spectrum um as our our adults. Um they had many great things to celebrate this year. They served over a thousand adults who spent over 36,000 hours working on their education. 30 adults earned their high school equivalency and we hosted two graduations over the course of the year. The work experience program at the DPC trained more than 20 adults in workplace skills at the Generations Cafe. You can see some of the pictures there. They also oversee adult enrichment and they were very busy. They had over 468 courses with over 3,200 reg registrations. We have 460 members in our senior center which connects the demographic to the school district that otherwise maybe are sometimes disconnected from the schools. They uh play games, they have social events, they have support groups and offer classes as well. And then the community bridge consortium which is adults with disabilities serves our adults um with disabilities where they had over 18 classes over the course of the year. They had over 224 unique participants and on average each participant enrolled in five classes or experiences in community engagement. Like I said, Cheryl does an excellent job providing our students, community, and department with resources and connecting the school district with the community. Some of our highlights include the AVID partnership um which you heard about earlier this year with kids club and the AVID program and so Cares uh they run some financial assistance fundraisers for us in community education outside of our early childhood programs. We granted over $75,000 worth of financial assistance last year. Um so Cheryl and her team worked hard to do some fundraising for us to help offset some of those fees. Nowhere near the $75,000 but every little bit helps and we're certainly grateful for that. They're also heavily involved in the food rescue program and the winter clothing drive. So, in our operations department here, you'll see some we'll see some major changes here in the next couple weeks. Actually, we've had three um longtime employees choose to retire here. Uh they've been incredibly dedicated um and done excellent work in this group. Um led they're led by Christine Lamberty, as I mentioned. She's retiring after 30 years in the district. Sue Mchuan actually retired last week and she's en enjoying her retirement. I think she's on vacation this week. She had led um youth enrichment for many many years and on top of that Mary Meyer spent 11 years doing a lot of the clerical work um in youth enrichment. So they did excellent work. Um we're certainly going to miss them. They're going to be hard to replace. They oversee all facility use with hundreds of users and thousands and tens of thousands of hours of rental time every single year. It's a very we have lots of facilities and they're used a lot and it's all run through that department. and youth enrichment. Like I said, this is Sue Mchuan's specialty and she had over 485 courses last year serving more than 5,500 participants. And then recreational programs, um gymnastics, middle school athletics, aquatics, camps and clinics, and these are some of the staples when a lot of people think about community education. Lastly, uh kids club, which is our school age childcare. They operate all of out of all of our elementary schools um during the school year and in the summertime and on non-school days they consolidate down to fewer sites. They're certified under DHS which leads to some tighter protocols but also allows us to accept um childcare assistance dollars for families that qualify. Um as you can see that they're very busy. They're a very big program. They had over 95,000 95 children enrolled last summer. Um and over 1600 children enrolled during the school year this year. And if you look at summer contact hours from last year, 352,000 contact hours with students, just a really good program. Really proud of it. And if you look at some of the key learning areas, some of the things that they do, you know, it's more than child care. They they focus on arts, STEM literacy, physical activity, life skills. It's it's just a really really neat program that they run. Um before I run into head into the proposed budget, are there any questions on community education on our setup, some of our highlights or our departments? Um, certainly you can ask questions at the end of the at the end of the presentation as well, but before I change subjects, I figured I'd offer Okay, I did have one. What is the difference between a an accredited site and a certified site? Yeah, accreditate certified sites is through DHS. Um, some more background checks, some things like that. Accreditation goes above and beyond. Um, doesn't have anything to do with childcare assistance or anything like that. It's an opt-in program that they chose to to make sure that they're offering the best possible program. What is the um like what is an example of what they have to do to be accredited? That's a that's a great question. Um it's it's newer to me. This is the first district I've been a part of. I don't know um all the details of it. Um I know it's been a phasing program. We had a few um sites get accredited this year as well and I can certainly um learn more about it and get back to you on that one. I was just curious. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, then I'll move into the budget uh portion of the presentation. So, moving into our 2526 proposed budget, um it's been a productive and collaborative effort, not only from the leaders in community education, but from the finance team as well. Chris Blackburn and Nikki Casle have been wonderful resources. So, thank you for always answering those emails and phone calls. I appreciate that. So, so coming into the budget process, we knew we needed to tighten things up a little bit. Community education. We were looking to trim expenses and increase fees and increase revenue where we could. Um, and when I mentioned it's been a collaborative effort. We've had some members of our of our team step up and take on some additional duties to help out um, as they've seen that need. So, before I get too far into the details, um, I want to share a little bit about where our revenues and expenses come from. So on this first slide here, you can see where our revenue comes from and you can see that we're mostly fee based with nearly well with 70% of our revenue coming from fees with a healthy amount coming from levy and aid as well. So when we're mostly feebased, we talk a lot about in community education want to make sure that we're um offering good customer service, that we're competitive with our fees, and obviously that we offer a great product. So those are all things that we keep in mind as we set fees, set our budget, things like that. Um, in our next slide here, you'll see by department where the revenues come from. And you can see the green portion there, a healthy percent comes from kids club and operations there. Those are almost strictly fee based right there. Those two programs with over 64% of our revenue coming from those two programs. Early learning at about 22%, adult programs at about 5 and a.5%. And C admin, which is essentially a levy and aid as well. Now moving into expenditures. Um this um this matches pretty closely by with revenues here as you can see here on this slide that the majority of our expenditures by category here are salaries and benefits. Salaries make up about 60% of all of our expenditures and benefits are at about 20%. So between those two a healthy amount of all our expenditures go to people. Um in addition to that if you look at the purchases ser purchase services there at 16% a lot of that is some of our contractors that we use. Um, we do use some contractors for like some auditorium work, but a lot of those purchase services are also like our vendors who run some of our classes. So, even though we bring in that revenue, we collect that fee, 75% of that goes back to the vendor and we keep 25% of it. So, even though it shows an expense here, it's a net positive for community education. And lastly, you see about 4% of the supply of materials. And one thing with that as well is going back to the purchase services of the 25% of the fee that we keep in community education if it's a camp or clinic and some of our other activities um certain activities half of that 25% so 12 and a half% that we put into a supply budget which ultimately goes back um into our programs to replace equipment um help buy new equipment replace you know make repairs to district facilities things like that. And here you can see expenditures by department uh matches pretty closely to revenues by department. You know, kids club if they're at about 42% of expenditures. That's about where they're at with revenue. Everybody matches pretty closely as far as our overall budget where our money is spent. That brings us here to our proposed budget. Um you can see it broken up by the department that we've talked about. Um, it's been an evolving budget process and as Chris Blackburn likes to say, this is a snapshot of where we believe we are today, right? It's an ongoing thing. We're making changes. Chris and I talked today that um this is our best assumption of where we're at today based on the information that we have. So, um, you'll see a few areas that are operating at a deficit, but when we stress in my team that we said, you know, overall we need to be net positive. And some of our programs here are more services, right? We run a senior center. you know, we can't we don't want seniors being on a fixed income. We don't want to charge really high membership fees. It's a service to the community. It connects that portion of our community to the school district. We think it's important. Early learning is the same way, right? There's certain mandates from the state that teachers need to be on the teacher contract. They need to be licensed. They get they get paid what they're worth. Um at the same time, we don't get that same level of funding that a K- through2 student gets. So, um we offset the money we do get with tuition. At the same time, we can't charge all kinds of tuition to families. They never signed up for our program. So, overall, we're focused on that bottom line there, which shows that we needed to get back in the net positive in community education. Um, and you can see that we accomplished that there. Um, so this whole process has led to some really good discussion within community education with executive cabinet, with our advisory council about what our priorities are, right? You could see in that last slide that some areas were spending a lot of money and maybe losing some money in some programs too. And we want to make sure in community ed we've discussed we want to do perhaps do a needs assessment of the community to make sure that we're putting our resources spending our money where the community really wants it. It's been a long time since we've done a needs assessment and we think that it'd be important. So proud of the work that we did to get back to that spot. It's going to be a multi-year process to get build back a fund balance in community education, but our team did a really good job getting to this point. So with that, I'm open to any questions. Thanks, Jake. Uh, does anyone have any questions? I just have one quick question. So, I know community ed really suffered a lot, you know, over CO um, you know, kids club and all the courses and everything. I'm just wondering at the point we're at where we're at right now, are we to the point where we were precoid or are we still having limited spots for like kids club? Yeah. So, that's a great question. Revenue-wise for per for kids club revenue wise we're about back to where we were. Total number of children we're not serving the same number of children we were pre-COVID. Overall revenue wise I think we're probably there but we've increased in fees. Some other things have changed but overall I think some of our programs still are working to build themselves back. Um the senior center their memberships this year were the highest they I think they've ever been. So some programs are really have built back and stronger than ever. Kids club like I said um I think there's still we're full. I don't think we're operating back to the full capacity we were pre-COVID though. For kids club, are we limited by hiring? Like I know previous in previous years kids club was as small as like coming out of co it was small because we couldn't we couldn't staff appropriately. Is that still an issue for us? No, we've been fully staffed this year and I think um based on conversations with our team that I this is for the first time in many years that they feel feel like they've been fully staffed. So I would say that we're limited by that. It's always a challenge, but I think we are fully staffed at this point. Okay. And then can you remind me like what or maybe Chris, you know this that is the actual fund balance in the community budget or I know what the target is, right? But what is the actual number? Sorry, I should have emailed you ahead of time. No, Simmy did tell me that she read the whole PDF of my attachment and the uh second to last page would have that information. And so now I'm a little doubtful, but um it's literally open on my iPad. Yeah. So we will show um continue I think revised budget we had a deficit of like $68,000 on the revised budget and we do show even with this um that we'll still have a slight deficit of $43,000 at this point anyway. Okay. And that's the 25,000 that we're ahead this year is what Okay. And then um do they pay the same like I remember in the in the um Wendy and Bobby Joe um chargebacks whenever they were here. Yeah. Chargebacks. Do you is it that it's the same percentage for community ed? So differently. So um since food service is federally funded, right? So this u participation national school lunch program um comes into play there and so we're restricted in how we can do chargebacks there. So we charge back for lunch recess pairs as far as the half that they are in the lunchroom and then we also charge back an indirect cost rate with community ed since they're not restricted in that manner um other than a few programs such as adult basic ed. So we do a little different for kids club for example you may have noticed that on those slides they had non-school days and school days and so we do an allocation based on um like custodial cost and so we can in um utilities that we know their use of this total time available might be um a certain percentage and then we apply that rate and so we do a chargeback so it's significantly less in the community ed fund versus food service for the what we internally call the chargeback. Anyone else have any questions? All right. Thank you so much, Jake. Uh, next up is 5.2, my favorite. The 202526 budget presented by Chris Blackburn, director of business services. So, I don't think you can play favorite Simmyi. Um, but thank you everybody. This evening, I'm here to do our financial update um or my financial update this evening is 2526 preliminary budget presentation. So Jake again um appreciated his partnership with him and his team with our finance department on doing that budget and now I get to provide the whole picture. I know food service was in in May to present theirs as well. So tonight we'll talk about just some budget notes. Here's a brief agenda of the things we'll go through, where the money comes from, where do we spend it, some highlights, um some challenges that we're facing, and then the future just schedule of kind of next steps for us. So with that on the next slide, um our budget, the general fund, right? That's predominant what we'll focus on this evening. And it has more than 18,000 lines. And so we always um have talked in the 11 years I've been here, I think we just add codes every time. And so I get excited when we don't have to add a code. Um but knowing that our team if we did 300 hours um to do that budget, right? And so when you think about a finance staff of about seven um to compile at one minute per line, that takes a long time. And so again, that 300 hours to compile. So it's a lot of credit goes to Nikki Casle, Mary Beth Collins, Amber Shower and my team um particularly that do a lot of work on that budget. So many of the revenues we know are estimated that we again as Jake had indicated our very best um estimation on what we know today and we know that can change by tomorrow but we try our hard I joked um jokingly said we try to get as close without going over. Uh but it really is important and we try our best to have a conservative estimate. We've typically um has been our practice. So sometimes on original budget you'll notice that revised budget sometimes we come in a little better. we might have better um information at that time as well. And so we try to be conservative on original budget particularly for salary and benefit along those lines. Um not so much on a conservative uh aspect but that we do when we um were really low fund balance we felt the importance of budgeting by individual right we know that staff with 78% of our budget being on people salary and benefits. So we do line item every person in that um budget that we employ in South Washington County schools. So we have a budget model that um estimates if you're for a teacher maybe on this step in this lane here was your salary. We also estimate benefits based on that um particular individual. So we do that for every staff member including myself and Jake and everybody else in this table. Um and so schoolboard members you're on my budget model as well um that we utilize. And so out of caution because again we know the impact of maybe a a miss of did we get the right amount number FTE can be significant impact. The budget itself is just a guide to help us remain solvent. So again, as we look forward, we always want to make sure that we're being mindful of our and stewards of our taxpayer dollars. And so it helps us to make sure and um just kind of guide us as we make decisions as we look forward as well. The next slide, some terms that we frequently use um fund balance. We really focus on the unassigned fund balance, which is the amount that's really available for all operations. And so whether it's facilities cost, whether it's teachers in the classroom, um it just is a broad use category. period. So that unassigned is really important. Again, there it has the operations, so including transportation, maintenance, I didn't mention either. Um activities, so that I know that they'll be coming up next and I know that they're thrilled to be sitting here listening to budget this evening. So, um but it also includes district administration and school administration, the percentage. So, when we talk about that fund balance percentage, it's the fund balance dollar amount divided by the dollar amount of total expenditures. And so, that's really what we're looking at when we look at those percentages. In essence, our fund balance is the savings account. Um, so kind of what we have in reserves for those rainy days and to maybe weather some unanticipated or even anticipated challenges as we look forward. And we do know that by board policy the goal is 16.6% by 27. And we did reach that last year. Um, but we do even with this current year revised budget. Um, and as we look forward, you'll see that we do predict that to drop um, in the near term. Anyway, the unassigned F balance does not include restricted reserve. And so what does that mean? So by statute on the next slide has a variety of items that are not included in the general fund budget. The top um about five are actually in separate funds. So school nutrition. Jake was here with community ed um community service fund this evening. Debt service other post-employment benefits has its own fund as well. Construction. So I know we passed the big bond and again those dollars can only be used for that purpose and they are in a separate fund. The items following that are actually in general funds. to long-term facility maintenance, operating capital, capital projects levy, safe schools, student activity accounts, staff development. Um, so like when Tim was talking, even ATPPS, which is the bottom one tonight, those are all restricted and cannot be used for other purposes other than what they were intended for. So there, um, again, we can't just take those dollars and say, "Oh, we'd like to hire another third grade teacher, or we need a pair professional in this classroom." We can't do that. I can't say, "I need another finance person." And say, "Let's take some money from one of those." we can't um reallocate those dollars except by the intended statutory purpose. So again, the reason that's important because any spending whether we reduce it in those categories. So if HPS we said we're going to cut that spending in half, it doesn't actually impact our fund balance percentage when we talk about that. So um and the spending again is limited by those dollars. So we know that the state kind of sets here's what you can have for ATPPS as an example and we can't spend um beyond that. Um sometimes you can carry over dollars from year to year. So within that there might be some flexibility a little there if we would underspend in one year but we can't um generate additional dollars um or spend more than that otherwise. So this slide is tuition agreements. And so we know that um we do have students who choose living as close we do to Wisconsin in particular. We have some students who choose to attend South Washington County schools, which we're very appreciative of, um, but from out of state. And so tuition this year for, um, based on current projections, and I will say this was before special session, but the secondary students would be $13,35863 to attend our wonderful schools. And for elementary students, that number is 11,13219. And so, Student Information Services handles that. we provide the information to them and then they do um take care of um collecting those funds for students that enroll in that way. The next two bullets are actually with regard to students receiving special services. And so there's two instances and it all flows through the state special education aid formula as far as it's an adjustment to that formula. And so what it is is either students who the first bullet is students who reside in our dis um resident they're residents of other districts and they're receiving services here. So they come to our schools again, they make that choice, they open enroll to South Washington County schools and so we service those students. We are able to bill back any 80% of any um cost perhaps associated with the special servicing and so that has just flowed through our state aid as an adjustment positive adjustment. The second is if we have any resident students who are serving attending schools elsewhere similarly we see a decrease. So we pay out to that resident um that serving district 80% of the cost as well. Again, both of those are administered by the state. So, MDE, it just flows through that state aid. So, this slide is slightly out of date because I'm pleased to announce that as of Tuesday, we actually have special session that passed. Um, and the legislature did complete their work via that special session. They did not, however, um, weren't done at May. And so, last week as I was doing the presentation, we still weren't quite sure. Um, and so we were monitoring at that point and now we're assessing, I would say, instead. the budget does reflect an anticipated 95% um reduction in the reimbursement for special education transportation aid and that was already reflected in here and that did indeed pass and so I'm um again kind of conservative we certainly try to address and monitor and put things in there that we think are very likely to happen and so that was reflected in ours and did indeed become um memorialized in statute. The budget may be adjusted as well. Just to note that as we continue to assess the special session, the outcome that there may be some um items kind of some increases and some decreases as we looked at legislation, there weren't any significant ones. And I would say on a net um I'm not anticipating any large changes, but we may shift um just to really reflect appropriately education funding in Minnesota. And so sometimes we get asked like where does your money come from? And so state aids we know we get, but where does the state get their funds? is income tax and sales tax and some fees. So largely income and sales tax are the two big drivers. So when you go to the um I won't say clothing store because in Minnesota that's sales taxree but perhaps the grocery store or uh you buy a hat or you pay your income taxes that comes back to us in the form of state aids. Our current budget is 70% state aid driven and so 247 just over a million dollars. The other most significant component is our local levies and that is really our property taxes. And so again, we've know that we've been um extraordinarily fortunate from our having a real supportive community of our levy in 2021 as well as our operating capital levy or um capital projects levy, excuse me. And so all told, it's $90 million, just a little over. Our federal aids, which we frequently talk about being a very small portion of our budget, um just under 1.5% this year. And so we just had a slight decline um to just over $5.1 million in federal aids. And then last source is other revenues. And again, the federal aids comes when you pay your federal income tax. So, um, other revenues, local participation fees and, um, admission fees are the two and then interest are the kind of three that drive that number. And we're anticipating about $7.6 million, about two, just over 2% of our budget for a total general fund of 350,561,962. That's a really big number. Um I did look and all told we uh with construction particular so I'll kind of asterisk that but we are um over half a billion dollars in total budget we called community service construction um the OPED and the food service on the next slide then is just a recap of the 2024 actual because we know that's done audited um the board approved that in June or in June in January excuse me or um was presented with that information in March we approved the revised budget for this current year of 25 and that had a total revenue of $340 million and then 26 for our preliminary budget this evening we're at $350.5 million and so again it does show those changes um just by category and again that largest change being in state aids about $7.9 million and that really is 5.6 of that is the basic formula. So the increase in basic formula um from the state um along with our slight increase in enrollment projected that that's where that driving factor is the local levy piece. So we know that the referendum dollars in 2021 and the capital projects levy both um have inflation factors in them. So the 2021 automatically had in or when we passed it again the voters were supportive of us including inflation in that and so that in um is indicative of there and then as we do have pupils increasing a little bit then that um capital projects levy also increases because that is per pupil. We also had lease levy and so as you know we u purchased a building to utilize for our um students the 18 to 22 year olds in our transition um receiving special services in that program. Um, and so as we transition them from kind of being in school to, you know, hopefully getting out to um, jobs or otherwise after and just having really wonderful, I know Julie's commented on being at the Next Step graduation, which is always fun. And so that levy piece because we did choose to lease levy was our financing for that purchase of that building um, and the remodel. And so that is the increase in that portion of the levy. All right. Dollars. Sometimes percentages look big and dollars aren't always. um student count drives the budget. So, we continually talk about enrollment. The five bars um in red are historical and so that's already happened. The blue is our current revised budget. And so, again, 191 18133, I'm going to get that wrong because I'm going to say that wrong. Um this is what happens when you get to the end of the day and your contacts get a little dry. But 19212 is our um enrollment predicted for 2526. So, a slight increase. the gray bars. That's okay, Sean. The gray bars, I can talk real fast about those. So, it does just know that this predicted enrollment does have some estimation of potential impact of MSA enrollment. So, we know that in 27 MSA, Math and Science Academy is going to be expanding. We know there's some other factors too um districtwide and within our boundaries that may impact those numbers as well. Right now, this is our best estimation as of today what that might look like. And so, again, very subject to change, but we do anticipate, you'll notice the decline. And so at this point we're anticipating um lose a loss of students um particularly with regard to math and science opening up. So something that will continue and I think will pose some pretty substantial fiscal challenges for us that we'll um certainly meet headon and adapt and see if we can't um find good solutions for on the next slide then the revenue notes. Um so again enrollment right now we're predicting an increase of 79 students. the basic formula um set by state statute again we talk about that minimum and maximum and it is 2.74%. So per student we receive 7481 in basic formula and again that's the most unrestricted aid we can receive and can be utilized in any manner. I always like to point out because special education for us is a major source of state aid and so we receive about $63.6 $6 million in special education aid. The cross subsidy reduction aid um which was new a few years ago is was really intended to help reduce that gap. We used to receive about 55 cents um towards the um that gap kind of in funding um and then now it's about 80 80 cents on the dollar is what we receive. The asterisk to this is in um they have a blue ribbon commission as part of the special session. So I want to point that out because why that's important. the blue ribbon commission on special education they are tasked specifically with a reduction of $250 million in 27 and 20 excuse me 28 and 29 bianium at the state so we know I will sit here tonight and not that I can very often predict the future but this is one area that we will see a reduction they are tasked with not only finding that if they don't this specific aid will be reduced that's exactly what it says and so we know that we are we will see a reduction We just don't know what that will look like or how exactly that will come to be. We also know the federal government originally with they passed um legislation said we will fund it and they haven't funded they promised 40% and we've not even seen into anything above about 78% is typically what we've seen in the state of Minnesota. The last revenue note then is the operating levy. Again, very appreciative of our uh supportive community on this and that they approved in 2021. And right now, it provides about $2,66 per student. And again, it does increase with inflation each year. Part of the driving factor of that increase in local levies. We know that we're about $225ish below the cap currently. Um but we have tried to commit to not um you know, we passed that. we said we really are going to work hard to not go back out um in those 10 years when we pass that revoke renew. So on this slide then is just a summary of the revenues and expenditures both for the 2526. And so if you take nothing else from this slide, the very bottom line in that corner is the $ 1.9 million deficit. So once again, we are predicting and they'll say conservative. Um Julie did ask me if conservative or ultra-conservative and I said conservative because I don't want to say ultra-conservative. Um but it does have 24 um actual the 25 revised and it does have the original budget and the real challenge that we face is those expenditures kind of outpacing um that increase in revenue. So despite our little bit of growth in enrollment and the growth in the formula from the state, our expenditures are outpacing that predominantly. I know percentage- wise it looks like oh gosh, what's going on on that slide? but it really comes from the salaries and benefit increases. And so as we've seen some of those increases um staffing needs particular with special education, but also even just we know again the last round we made some very mindful investments in staff and I think we're continuing to see the tailing effect of that. So the budget highlights as promised on the agenda revenues increased by 2.84% 84% um again slightly outpaced by the expenditure increase of 3.74% resulting in a net reduction of fund balance anticipated of 1.9 million. I call them student centered expenses. So sometimes we talk about classroom instruction or regular instruction or special education, vocational education. And so I looked at those really because those are the dollars that really impact students and are in the classrooms. And so we have an increase of 5.6% in those areas. instructional support which is um professional development. So kind of what Tim was talking about even earlier this evening. We also know assistant principles are in that line item along with media and that is a decrease overall of 9% and I know Tim commented about the instructional coach decrease of which would also have impacted that decrease here. Sites and buildings we're anticipating an increase in expenditures of 4.2% right now. administration and district support expenses, which would include um myself, uh the I'll call them kind of the supporting departments behind the scenes. So, technology, human resources, um payroll, finance, uh communications, I'll look at Sean, and also my peers here, 7.7% decrease. So, um I know that we've always been really mindful of how and try to really um keep that area as low as we can. I'll say how low as we can, but really to be mindful of that spending and keep it as close to students as we can. Our expenses by program then I call this the like kind of where are we spending it? um administration, district support, and I'll point out on this slide the regular instruction, the vocational instruction, special instruction, community services, and I'll tell you what that is in a moment, and the pupil support services, which includes transportation, um counselors, social workers, um and the like. Those categories is what I counted the student centered um community services. I know it seems a little odd because I know Jake just got done presenting his budget this evening as well. And so what that number is is the voluntary prek program. And so that's state funded and we receive ADM funding instead. So that's one of the few that we actually do receive on a per student basis as opposed to a feebased program. And so that does um by necessity then is supposed to be tracked in the general fund instead. We know that we're seeing an increase in seats and thus you'll see the increase in spending in that category. It's just a little unusual one to see here. So again on there that's the next slide then is really that um colorful representation of our I'll say our infamous dollar perhaps maybe um but it really does just try to illustrate that we spend um how much of our budget we spend on students right so that classroom instruction special education student support if you take those first three the blue the green and that kind of yellow if you take those dollars that is direct on students facilities is that gray category that instructional support is also student with that little purple category. Um, and then you'll see administration in red and that district support in yellow. So again, we really try hard to make sure that our dollars are going into our students in the classroom, the unassigned fund balance slide. And so this one always makes me just slightly sad just to see it going down, but um, we worked very hard to get it up and I know that sometimes as our dollars, so that's why I also included those in the green bars. That is our dollars of fund balance. And so again, the recognition of that hard work to really um raise those while knowing that as our expenditures increase um that this just isn't quite keeping pace with that increase in expenditures. So again, you can see that um we started back in 2016 at 1.2 was kind of our low point and we did this past year get to 17.2 and we have dropped um and again with revised budget and then we are projecting to have a drop again on this original budget. So we'll be at 13.9%. And I'll just remind the board too that our part of our rationale for that increase in dollars was so that we could kind of weather some of those whether anticipated or unanticipated. I know two of the drivers in legislation this year were um that decrease to special ed transportation. You know that was almost an $800,000 um we know paid family medical leave which I'll talk about on this slide. We know that that's going to be a significant about $500,000 roughly just in this year um in the payroll tax side. So the factors that we're going to monitor and that really can impact our enrollment. So if we see um improved enrollment greater than what we've projected that will positively or if we see the opposite that will negatively impact contract negotiations. We know that our teachers particularly our biggest bargaining group are um we've just had two sessions so far um with them and so along with principles and our office professionals and our bus drivers are under negotiations right now. Staffing we know that as students come in maybe with additional needs or as families come in with additional needs sometimes we may have to add staff. We also the impacts of earn safe and sick. We're continuing to see um we've kind of seen it stabilize a little bit this year with um absences but we've seen a just really uptick in the absences and thus the impact is the um contracted subs as well paid family medical leave. This is effective January 1st of 2026. And so starting January there will be um it'll be very administered similar to unemployment. So it's administered by the state the program is. And so other than collecting a payroll tax, um it's half employee, half um employer, that that'll be our portion. And then it's kind of the balancing of because there all sorts of nuances on how they can use it and the length of time. I know Abby and her team are working really diligently to be ready to um do that. I saw some data today is um Jane Burbank particular was looking at some of the leave data just so we can kind of predict what that might look like for us even just on leaves um and what that impact may have between terms um is the summer unemployment and we're continuing to see some impact there. I know I did have a nice conversation this evening. Um, and it sounds like kids club is wonderfully staffed again this summer. So, that's exciting. But we do continue to see for bus drivers, some pair of professionals and office professionals particularly and nutrition service workers that they can participate in that program during the summer term when they're otherwise not um regularly employed by the district. Another factor is utilities. We know that a warm winter or cold winter and all sorts of, you know, spring, summer, or otherwise can impact what we spend on whether it's electric and gas, much less snow plowing. And then lastly, inflation and tariffs. And so we know that inflation has continued to kind of stabilize some, I would say, but it really does depend on the um commodity itself. And then tariffs. I jokingly said that we did have our first tariff and it was 42 cents was the first one I saw. Um but it had like indicated what country it came from and things and that was just a very small bill at a small dollar amount. What we know as we look at some of the construction particularly, but to general fund side even we saw um actually on a musical instrument there was like almost a $600 tariff um as a result of tariffs anyway. And so we're seeing that more and more especially technology we're a little bit nervous about what that impact might look. So next steps the board will present for and request approval um at the next board meeting on June 26 for the 2526 preliminary budget. We'll continue to monitor enrollment and those other factors as well as um audit of 24 25 starts. They'll come in July for the first then they come back I believe it's in August and then um final field work is really our big they come for about two weeks um and that's in October typically. Levy work starts in September. So you'll see me back here in September and then for the preliminary levy presentation and in December we'll ask for approval of the final levies. audit will be presented to school board that's typically done in January um in part because that December board meeting we only have one meeting and it gets pretty pretty busy and pretty thick and so we've usually presented the audit in January but we'll bring that 2425 audit and then we'll start working right away. We'll flip the year again and present the audit and start working on 25 or 26 27 budget and so again we know I always joke that we have two cycles budget and audit and that's kind of reflective on this slide. So with that any questions? Thank you so much, Chris. Does anyone have any questions? I can't believe it. Okay. Um I just had a couple. So, one you talked about um the earn sick and safe time and paid family medical leave and unemployment. So, with the um in our contracts now, we do provide or do we provide some sort of time off? And so, what is the impact? So if we're if the state now does is what we provide in our contracts like an acceptable substitute from the for the from the viewpoint of the state and if it is not then are we double paying for a benefit. So I'll say no as far as our so earn safe and sick. So the um we made some decisions last year on our sick time, not the for those um bargaining groups that have vacation time. It didn't impact that, but the sick time that one of the allowable uses is earn safe and sick time and underneath that has statutoily allowable uses. So um and they're fairly broad and to who which family members and who counts constitutes a family member are quite broad and so our existing sick time right encompass that earn safe and sick. So there wasn't necessarily an additional benefit. It just expanded uses. Paid value medical will um be a little more nuanced in that like you said it's a little more like unemployment. So there'll be a payroll tax. They'll administer it. There's up to 20 weeks. And I would say we I would I'll not speak for Abby, but loosely that we anticipate more than 12 weeks, but it can um again just the broader uses maybe on what that can and when the qualifications can happen. Um, and so we anticipate maybe an increase potentially because they don't aren't required that is funded by the state. So they can receive I think it's 23 pay uh a portion you receive a portion based on your income. So it's on a sliding scale and so lower income workers will receive a higher percentage of earnings. And so, um, the interesting thing that will be to work through is that an employee can apply for paid app for paid family leave and not use any of their sick time. Um, but then they could use their sick time to supplement that other portion. And so there's some logistics behind the scenes that we'll need to work out. Um but that could lead to increased absenteeism because you do not need to use your sick time that is offered through the contract and you can be um paid out by the state for your earnings for your leave. Okay. And so so to the employee it's administered like unemployment, right? I know that we when we pay unemployment at least thus far we have just um paid like the actual bill right back to the state and like I you know I know I have a business and so I pay a percentage of my um payroll every year to the state and then I don't have to pay anything else right so will we have to adjust so when we pay out this paid family leave are we anticipating that we will also pay pay it out as like what the actual acrual is. Nope. So, this one is actually a little different. It's more like TR or PRA or FICA tax. So, there's actually a payroll tax8% and we know that it's 50/50 um up to employer paid. And so, um I think the statute is worded such that it a minimum of 50% has to be paid by the employer. So, right now we're anticipating it'll be a 50/50 split largely, but we know that potentially could be a negotiation topic um for bargaining groups as well. Okay. And then for the unemployment, especially the summer unemployment, the state, I know we had talked asking the state to allow us to levy for that directly or to make some sort of non um make some sort of adjustments that wouldn't hit our general fund as hard. Did anything come of that? So the positive part on special session they did one of the um areas that they did cover they did provide additional state aid to continue to cover that for some time yet. So um again depending how long that aid will last you and the last time they thought it would last three years and it went about two and a half I think until they kind of ran short or were projected to run short on aid and so at this point they are predicting again for this next bianium anyway to fund that with state aid. Okay. And then last question. I don't know if you've actually done the math on this, but I remember um we have a $2 million deficit roughly. And so under last year's basic formula, that's 168 stu correct 84 per million. Do you know what it is this year? I was I was all set to say it's 0.55% of our budget. Um I'll have to do the student math, but I will get back to you. And so if we go back to that tuition slide kind of and think that through roughly that 11,313 kind of that elementary if we use that as the base a little bit knowing that we get funded um you know 1.9 million divide by 11,000 you know if I even do 10 that's 190 so it's not it's not a big number but it's 0.55% of our overall budget. Okay. All right. That's all the questions I had. Does anyone else have any questions? Right. Thanks so much Chris. Thank you. Uh, next up is 5.3, first reading of proposed policy changes presented tonight by Superintendent Julie Nielson. Thank you, Simmyi. Um, this evening I am bringing forward five uh 600 series policies starting with 611 homeschooling. Um, in that policy, there were no proposed changes. Um, I also want to note as I go through that as I looked at when these were last reviewed. Many of them were reviewed this past year. Um, two of them um with homeschooling being reviewed in 2023. And then finally 624 um was our most quote outto-date policy and that was done in 2022. So I feel like when I look at our policies we're definitely on pace with reviewing policies. So 611 no proposed changes. 612.1 uh the development of parental involvement policies for title one programs. There were no changes. Um 615 testing accommodations modifications exemptions for IEPs in section 504 plans. Um there are updates to names and programs. Um 620 was the credit for learning um and that came forward last November uh with the legislative change. So no other proposed changes with the exception of change um per the statute. And then 624 online learning options. There were no proposed changes. And again that policy um was reviewed in 2022. And so this evening I'm bringing these forward as a first reading for any questions um from board members. Anyone have any questions? Um Julie, I forgot to ask this the other day. Um with the policy 6 uh 620 credit for learning, um is for students who do umpty, how does that come in? Because if you're taking like calc 3 at the U, which is beyond what we offer, how does that work? Yep. So when when students take courses through UPDMP, the University of Minnesota already waits the grade and so we just take the grade they send us. Um Dana, did we have anyone signed up to speak about today's policies? All right. Thanks so much. And now we are at uh 4.2 our activities update to be introduced by Assistant Superintendent Christine Schaefer. All right. Good evening. I Jod must have just stepped out for a second. Oh, bathroom. Okay. Tonight, we're excited to share highlights from the 2425 school year, showcasing a wide range of athletics and activities offered to our students across the district. We're fortunate to have our three high school activities directors with us. Each of them will provide a brief presentation highlighting accomplishments, participation, and memorable moments from their respective school communities. I'm trying to talk slow till Jody gets back. We have Sarah Platuk from Eastridge, Jod Llan Leer from Woodbury, and Phil from Park. And thank you for amending the agenda. as Sarah and Phil were coming in hot from the West Metro from some lacrosse games. So, they'll talk a little bit about that. Welcome now. We're done. Push. Right. Thank you all. Um, yes, Phil and I were over on the west side. I was at Chesca High School, Phil was at Ian Prairie High School. Girls across, boys across are in the state uh tournament. So, we both won our first, so this was semis and unfortunately we both lost. our teams will be playing for third place on Saturday, which is still an amazing accomplishment for that. So, we so appreciate your time tonight and accommodating and moving things around um for us so that we could be there with our programs and and support them that way as well. So, thank you very much. We look forward to celebrating all of the wonderful hard work that we do within our departments and our kids and our programs and coaches and families and giving you an update tonight with that. So there we go. I know that we uh the we continue to stay true to our mission and our vision and the purpose that we have that we provide throughout our school. And at Eastidge the M The mission of East High School schools activity department is to provide multiple opportunities for our students that help develop character community and a sense of belonging. And that is truly truly the core of what we do about belonging, opportunities, and engagement. And then individually, I choose to lead students to be people of empathy who serve other who serve others while developing skills as a student, teammate, and person of character. enrollment numbers. As far as activities, this is Minnesota State High School League activities that we track numbers with. Um, not necessarily all of our clubs as we have over a hundred now clubs at Eastridge. It's just incredible what our students can do. We did see an uptrend in both male and female and total overall numbers for participation and also our three sport athletes. Those numbers did in increase as well. Uh, another category with numbers is our participation in dances that I don't have on there, but our homecoming dance, we had 1,161 students or tickets sold for our homecoming dance was I mean over a thousand kids in our gym. It's it's so cool. It's a fun fun event. And then winter formal we had 596 and then prom we had 765. So um on the slide presentation if you click the club link it opens up to all over 100. They're all alphabetized their list in there. U but some to highlight our bad men had over 50 kids. I mean when they can get gym time and get down there for that. Pickle ball. We had a community uh uh group of students that worked with a community church where our advisor went off campus and would go supervise that. Better tomorrow is another new club. Um they collect supplies um food and bring to our homeless shelters. our science uh computer science club, crypto marketing club uh for this year also among dance club and letters for love is a a really big club that we have. It uh they write letters and it provides emotional support to children in the hospital and they deliver uh letters to them. Our Raptor report is new this year. We moved away from a digital newspaper and or a print newspaper and went to a raptor report video broadcasting which was really cool. And then another uh uh one that has grown a lot this year is med uh women in medical research. So the kids get HOSA is really big in our school that's um health professionals organization as well and this group of girls have worked on researching and writing research papers and trying to getting them published for that. So, uh, fall, uh, I feel like I'm going to be talking about a lot of our girls programs. For some reason this year, our girls just dominated all year long from winter from fall, winter, and spring. Uh, for starting with highlights here with girls swim and dive, we have an individual, Logan Hoverman, who is a two-time state champ this last fall and broke a state record in the 200 IM. The IM is where you swim all four races, uh, front stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. And she broke the state record this year in that. And she is only a sophomore. So, and then also she's a state champ in the breaststroke. And then you can see uh several of our other students uh swimmers uh were on the podium as well. And then volleyball were SEC champs and section champs and placed third and state. We had two students that were on the all, Adora and Alexis that were on the all tournament team. For football, Luke Ryerson, um, our superstar, he actually graduated early in January, headed to the U of M early. He will be kicking and also playing baseball for the University of Minnesota, but he made a school record. He beat his brother's record in um, kicking a field goal 56 yards. And that's I think that I think that's tied with the state record for that. Uh, girls soccer upset White Bear Lake and placed third in the state tournament, which was odd. They tied, so both teams got third place at the state in the state. They don't break the tie. Cross country, Lydia's been running for uh with us for she's a senior this year, graduating. She was our section champ. And then Brandon Payne also was a participant. Girls tennis also section champs participated in team um with that. adaptive soccer made it in all three of their sports this year. And then um we do love to celebrate our students, our academic student athletes. So we had girls swim and dive, girls tennis, uh cross country, and girls soccer that were in the gold category and then other teams in in the um silver category. Our eight students for NLI, which is uh national letter intent, which the NCAA is actually taking away. Uh but these eight students will be playing either division one or division two um their sport in college. Alexis Opland at Satan Hall for volleyball. El Wildman University of Iowa girls soccer. Kate Murphy University of Sou Falls soccer. Kylie Thresh Grand Canyon University a diver. Uh Bella Horta is Colorado State um for softball. Luke Ryerson U of M for kicking football and baseball. Oliver Stalsburg is Mville University uh for lacrosse and Lydia Franen James Town in North Dakota for uh track cross country winter girls basketball super cool. They went 17-1. They were 16-0 coming into that or yeah into that last game and ended up losing to Still Water, but they won the conference um championship. Uh swim and dive. Aiden is Logan's older brother. Uh he made the podium at the state tournament. And one of the things that we often don't necessarily like to see in our email is uh from the high school league, a high school league report. It's typically stating that either a coach violated something or a student athlete did something. Well, I get it from the state tournament for boys swimming. I'm like, boy swimming are swimmers. They're like great stu they're just great kids. they would never do anything wrong. Well, a official took the time to write a report on Aiden about his incredible sportsmanship and cheering on others and his presence on the pool deck and he went out of his way to write this long like four paragraph about how amazing Aiden was. So, that was a very awesome letter to get on this on him and he is headed also to Gus Davis to swim gymnastics. We're section champs, seventh at state. Laney Schwelenbacher is our junior. She'll be coming back for her senior year and outdo each year uh her placements in individual events. Wrestling Jake Murkerwitz and then um Danica Fueling is an eighth grader going to be a ninth grader in two years with the girls state tournament for wrestling. She's been on the podium twice. Um we had two uh students signed for football. Kyle Front will be heading to Wyoming to play football for the Cowboys. I think is their for that. Um and then third place uh for our adaptive floor hockey team and uh boys swimming and diving, gymnastics and girls basketball were gold for academics. Spring sports. Um Lydia actually I just got a text from the coach. She finished the 1600 in the rain. She placed 13th uh for that, but she was the section champ in the 3200 and then 16 took second. Nick Ghart, if and I don't we can't I don't know how we but if you would click on Nick's name, I have the video of his section championship pull vault. He cleared 14 feet. So, it was a personal best and he placed ninth at state. Anub um qualified in the long jump. Our girls golf team also were section section conference and section champs. They in the section tournament they outscored uh second place by over 47 strokes. So they they dominated in that. Uh had a tough first first day at the state tournament. Ended up fifth though um which is their best finish uh for them as well. And then adaptive softball also participated in state boys. lacrosse section three champs. They upset uh St. Thomas. Uh this was their first appearance at the state tournament and had uh they upset then also Benild in the quarterfinals. We are the six seed. Benild St. Margaret was the three seed. We went to overtime and we won. So they're having a fun tournament. This was our biggest spring collegiate celebration. We had 29 students. So the spring celebration is kids that hadn't made a decision yet. and then um all of our division 3 athletes. So we transitioned and had it in the loft stage and the whole stage was packed with kids in celebration. It was really fun. Our academic awards then also for uh girls golf, boys tennis and softball. Just checking to make sure I didn't miss anything. Our fine arts program again continues to just dominate as well. They're so fun. The performances for our fall musical, Alice by Heart, and they can qualify for um awards, the spotlight awards, and our high honors went for set design, um costume, and then our technicians. And um I'm not sure how many of you have opportunities to get out to our musicals over the last I mean last year the costumes were just amazing. So I feel like every year our set design and our costumes are just so so amazing. One act play uh girls in the boat um made it to finals. That's the first time in many years that they've advanced at least the finals. And then our spring play Romeo and Juliet was very interesting. it. But just the fact that they can memorize the lines and the language and just the depth of knowledge that those students have to have to perform that it's just amazing. Truly amazing. Um fine arts festival uh the students that perform in that we have many allconerence students and high honors for that. And then um or for the SEC music festival um our band was selected for the MMEA winter clinic which is like their state tournament and um several of us went I know our were out there to perform. Uh Sage who was performing on the saxophone he was one by Middleton students. solo. I remember him when he was second grade and to see the talent and for him to perform a solo was really neat. Really neat. Clubs and activities. Again, speech and debate are part of Minnesota State High School League, but our programs are are at the national level. We have students that qualify every year and they're still going right now. um speech. Uh Sophia placed third in storytelling and then at the national tournament with debate we had students that performed and placed t and topped rankings as well. Um trap team had 10 qualify for nationals which is another uh extracurricular like our ultimate frisbee as well or robotics that have other programs that they do. Uh this year our participation for trap uh they had over 45 students and we're seeing more and more females also participate in our trap program. Um our comp cheer program took third. Our varsity competitive group took third at nationals and then our robotics qualified for worlds. So they were down in Houston, Texas uh competing against programs from all over the world. student award winners. Um Angie and Adrian are Excel and that's the leadership award. Those are for juniors at Excel in um leadership qualities and also participate in Minnesota State High School League activities. Angie was also uh an Excel winner at the section level or state level. So she was able to go or was um acknowledged at the girls basketball state tournament. They have all the top state level uh students come to that. Also, Angie uh is an incredible mathematician. Just an incredible mathematician. She this fall was at a competition at Harvard and made finals and she was the only female on the stage that made finals. Uh she gives back. She tutors. She's just an incredible young lady. AAA award winners. Uh Kale will be heading to the University of Indiana um majoring in engineering. And then Ann Benjamin also she won the section and was uh made it to the state level for uh arts academics and uh athletics with that. Ann is also on our two-time state participant for uh she's on our tennis team and our golf team. And then she is one of our high performers in our our choir. and she's going to the University of Iowa in going into nursing. Elle Wildman is our Athena Award winner for our top outstanding female athlete and is going to Iowa. She'll be a Hawkeye as well and will be playing soccer for them and her major is exercise science for that. Some favorite memories. Um, up on the top there, that's Nah and Caroline. And they started our fine print club, which is a like a magazine for fine arts design. They went out to they raised funds by working concessions and doing fundraisers at school and went out to New York to the national conference and won best in show for the first time for their first publication of their magazine. Um down on the bottom is our Key Club bingo night where they raised money for Filter of Hope. Again, it's our programs that are giving back to our community constantly. It's just the students are amazing. We had our very first Special Olympic Polar Plunge where we raised over was it $15,000 for Special Olympics and we had the big Polar Plunge in the back of the school and uh Principal Smoker and Booth and Gan, we got them to jump in as well. Giving back to our community, our student athletes get out to our elementary schools as often as we can. They do a I love to read partnership with Red Rock and then our student athletes um leadership and development. That's the Minnesota State High School League. That's a a fun event that I enjoy to see our students go and connect with other schools and share experiences and talk about how we can continue to be inclusive and um welcoming in all of our programs and bring ideas back to our school. questions for me. Thank you. Actually, I don't have a question, but I just have a comment. there after it's going to be weird after what 14 14 years of having students in your high school and it's just I'm going to continue to go to events but it's just I'm always just in awe at the talent of the students and obviously I go to you switch things more than the other two schools because I've had kids there but it I'm you know congratulations to all these kids and to all the work you all three do to help these students yeah also uh Sarah I read when you sent out the when the Excel Award came in this district newsletter and I read about Angie. Yeah. And as a as a parent of a child who is the same age as Angie, I have never like I'm like, "Oh, look at look at you." I mean, it's just but like she just was like I mean I was just like I didn't know that 16 year old be this amazing and she just seems so great and mature and just kind and giving and she'll go out of her way to tutor anyone that wants help and support and Yes. Yeah. She's really please tell her we're all super impressed. Absolutely. Wonderful. Thank you so much for the time tonight. We do appreciate it. um you know a couple things I'll try not to repeat a lot of things that Sarah said that kind of relate to all three schools but when we talk about purpose and education based activities you know that's really at the heart of what we do and so um you know our department purpose statement is there and then um my individual purpose statement is there and we have each one of our coaches and directors also create their own purpose statement and again it's very important when we you know when you look back at why are we doing what we're doing and sometimes you have great days and sometimes you have not so great days and on those not so great days, it's great to come back to that purpose statement to kind of help focus them. And so we use that a lot in everything that we do to to kind of remind us we're educational based activities. Yes, we want to win on the scoreboard. We all three of us do, but there's other things that are more important than that and that purpose helps kind of guide that. Uh participation numbers are there compared to last year. Um obviously a rise um in in some of those which is great. Um, also, you know, we're always trying to create new opportunities for kids and some years some clubs kind of come and go. We used to have a My Little Pony club. Those kids are no longer at Park High School anymore. So, you know, that's kind of faded. But each year you add these new clubs and some of our new club, we did actually have a My Little Pony club. Um, some of the new clubs there at Commission Club, Girls Flake Football, I'll talk about that a little bit later. um you know similar to some of Sarah's with the literature paper magic the gathering pickle ball um and spoken poetry society so just creating new opportunities for kids to get connected in the school um jumping ahead to our fall highlights again Sarah talked about that um some of our district programs we take turns we don't take turns we manage different district programs so Sarah manages all three um adapted uh teams for all three seasons I have alpine skiing Jod has Nordic skiing but Um, you know, the Thunderbolts, I know we talk about them every year, but just just there's absolutely nothing better when whether they're winning by 10 or losing by 10, the smiles on their faces. So, and then add on to that that we do have a very very successful program and to see them go to the state tournament every single season is pretty amazing. So, state participants for soccer. Um, talking about those team uh academic team awards, again, the gold is for if your total varsity team GPA is 3 75. Thank you. 3.75 and above, which is pretty amazing that your entire team, the average GPA is 3.75. The silver award is if you're from 3.5 to 3.74. So, still pretty amazing. So, again, teams that earned academic team awards, boys and girls cross country, girls soccer and girls tennis got the gold. Boys soccer, girls volleyball with the silver. Also, and I know it's great to hear names and hear about students, but try to condense space and time. I didn't write down all the names, but kids that are getting academic all state, you know, we we obviously when they earn the athletic allstate awards, that's a huge accomplishment, but you know, equally as impressive is these kids that are student athletes that are getting the academic all state as well, too. We did have our kicker from football earn the uh special teams player of the year for our district. We had 10 pictures down there below. We had 10 pictures in the fall, 10 students in the fall sign a national letter of intent to play D1 or D2 athletics. Um, some of our coaches received some uh accomplishments. Obviously, this is a result of them having good seasons, not always on the scoreboard, but just, you know, doing so many other positive things. Our girls volleyball team had a very good season this year. Um, it happens in a lot of sports, but when you're in a section that's a very tough section and has Eastridge in it and has Egan in it and you think, we had a great year. Oh, great. We get the three seed and which means you have to go through two really, really strong programs like their volleyball team to get there, but a great season for girls volleyball and Amy Johnson was the section coach of the year. And then we have co-head coaches for our cross country team. They coach both the boys and the girls teams. Uh Brad Narson and Jesse Nelson were named section coach of the year. And then again kind of echoing our our great girls season that we had for uh girls volleyball is our assistant coach um earned the uh section coach of the year as well too. Going ahead to the winter uh again Thunderbolts third place at state for floor hockey. Incredible. Um our one act play uh again this has been one of the programs that over time has been has been just one of our strongest programs. They were section champions this year. They went to the state festival. Um I think I've explained this before, but the state festival when it gets to that level is actually not a true competition. You don't you can't win state in one act play. What happens is when the double A schools go, there's eight double A schools that go when they win their section and then they still have judges at the state festival and the judges give what they think the best performances of the day, a starred performance. So um I don't remember the exact number of plays that received a star performance for double A. I think we're one of three schools that received that. So, still one of the best plays in the state, but there is no quote unquote state champion for one act play. Uh, girls hockey again on the academic side, team awards, girls hockey, gymnastics getting the gold, girls hockey were the section champions for academics, and then girls basketball and silver. We did have a swimmer uh make the uh state meet, Parker Jesuits, in the 100 meter fly and the backstroke. A gymnast Ashley Davis made it in allaround. And in wrestling, we had four athletes make it to the state meet. Zack Carr, Joey Chilton, Kyler Jubinal, Gunnar Mullen, and Gunnar uh finished fifth in state, earning him all state honors. Again, we had four students earn that academic all state. Bowling. Bowling is one of those um club sports, for lack of a better term. They don't fall underneath the Minnesota State High School League, but they're club sport that we run through our school. They represent Park High School when they bowl. There's two seasons for bowling. one is co-ed and then there's a um a female season in the spring and our bowling team actually I had their picture oh no their picture's up there um bowling team ended up being the state champions in the co-ed uh winter season in the winter in February we had five students uh sign the national letter of intent as well too spring spring um you just take a deep breath and you just plow through it I think for all three of us the last two weeks just been that um and and again today's just indicative for us but Jody's had those days too of driving to Eden Prairie and while we're in Eden Prairie or Chaza our track athletes are in St. Mech Albertville. Our golfers are at Bunker Hills and we obviously can't be everywhere, but we try. But it's been a great spring at Park. Again, want to recognize the Thunderbolts. Uh then spring, they took fourth in the softball state tournament. Uh robotics made it to state this year. Um they were state participants. Girls lacrosse, uh tremendous season. I'll probably save them a little bit more for the last slide, but girls lacrosse won the conference. This is their third year in a row winning the conference, so back to back to back. Pretty cool. They were the section champions. Um again won their first state game on Tuesday and then lost. Um this it was tied and Stillwater scored with 10 seconds left in the game to win today's game. Um so just one of those really really tough ones. Boys volleyball. Uh again we've had club teams. This was the first year that the Minnesota State High School League made boys volleyball an officially sanctioned sport. Um that was tremendous. The other neat thing with that is we got to play as a conference and we so we played our other conference teams throughout the season. Then of course the regular section tournaments like we have in all of our other sports and the state tournaments going on right now still going on for boys volleyball. Um if you I if you saw uh Governor Walls's son plays for C St. Paul Central and that was in the paper uh yesterday. But just so exciting for those boys that are playing in their first ever state tournament. really neat. Uh, girls flake football. Uh, I'll try to give the abbreviated version of this one. The Minnesota Vikings are really trying to push the sport of girls flake football. And you could write a grant to the high to the Vikings to receive money to help help run a girls flake football program. So, I had a coach who was interested. We had girls that were interested. We had a girls flake football team. It was great. I'll save their information on the last slide, but just it was really, really fun to watch. uh academic team award. Uh again, boys golf, girls lacrosse softball with gold, boys tennis with silver, all state. Um our our lacrosse team had a tremendous season. Uh Mandy Brinkman earned all state honors. Josie Leonard earned all state as also Mandy Brinkman earned all American honors, which is pretty rare. And then Josie earned it in academics, and I had to put that on there as well, too, for just doing tremendous things all American. We had eight student athletes get academic all state and then some state meet participants like we talked about a lot of times we're at the team ones we try to get to the other ones. The state track and field meet is uh was Tuesday and then going on right now in St. Michael Albertville. Uh Raina Jameson on Tuesday took second in the high jump. Uh tremendous there. And then those other three the last time I checked are still competing. O'Neal and are competing in the high jump. They moved that inside because St. Michael has the same weather we have here. So, they're competing inside for that. And Aiden Baki is throwing the the discus. But all three of those participating today and Raina taking second. Uh we had a a golfer uh participate in the state golf. Tyler Bonn, he was up in uh Bunker Hills the last couple days. Uh Matty Brinkman's a Miss Lacrosse finalist. Uh Max Kaplan from baseball is playing in the senior all-star game. uh state coach of the year, Scott Leonard and girls lacrosse. Again, I'm going to talk a little bit more about him on our last slide. Uh we had our 27th annual uh athletic awards ceremony a couple weeks ago. We've been doing that uh obviously well before my time at Park High School. Our guest speaker was Damonte Farley, class of 2012 from Park High School. Um just a tremendous story. But the my favorite part about him is Damonte was a division one track athlete first at North Dakota and then UNCC. and he's just finishing up med school and he'll become a doctor and he's doing his residency in Chicago uh in ER coming up here. So, for him to tell his message to our student athletes about how much he loves sports and sports got him where he is today, but he also knew there was way more beyond sports and he's going to be a doctor which is pretty cool. Um, fine arts again tremendous fine arts performances throughout the year. Our fall play was a Midsummer's Night Dream. I talked about our one act play in their starred performance. Uh our music musical was Emma. And again, I know it's probably hard to read that when I'm putting the spotlight awards on there, but numerous spotlight awards. Um again, just great to see the talent that we have um in the fine arts and just the kids that are able to do what they do on stage and do it with so much confidence. Um singing, acting, dancing, all those things. Our award winners from Park High School again, Excel for that excellence in community education and leadership, Gabby and Eli. Our AAA award winners were Jordan and Gavin. I'll talk about Gavin in a little bit. Uh we do a couple other awards at our athletic awards. We have honor athletes were Holland Thompson and Sam Pollson. Our Athena award winner was Josie. Uh we also do an Apollo award for outstanding male athlete. That was Orin Corkish. We had um a total of 31 three sport letter winners. Some of them I think are in the upper corner and then 14 of them were seniors. Um, one of my highlights was similar to Sarah. Um, when kids get a chance to be recognized at the state level. So Gavin was the region 3A winner. He was obviously parks winner. He was a threeA winner and so he's basically one of 32 statewide winners. Um, again similar to the XL, you get to go to a banquet. They recognized them at the boys basketball state tournament. And honestly, uh, similar to what Simmy was saying earlier, again, Gavin's tremendous, but I sat at that banquet and listened to stories of 32 and I of phenomenal student athletes from from high schools from around the state and I and and I wish I remembered her name, the female award winner from Irondale. I I mean like knocked my socks off. you really can't believe like how many hours do they have in their day that they can do all those things. So again, really great to be able to recognize Gavin and see him recognized at a state level award, but to sit there and listen to the stories of the other ones and I know your winner wasn't able to be there cuz I think it was during spring break. She was at a choir national right again another example that they're so busy she couldn't even be at the banquet recognizing her. But just just a really neat honor there. my favorite moment um always just you know one of them is always our super fans and just the neat energy and excitement they're able to bring to our school and our events. Um Sarah mentioned this also but you know I wouldn't necessarily call it a requirement but it's strongly recommended the idea that we want to teach our kids about the importance of giving back and it's not all about you and what can you do to give back to the community. One of my favorite stories. Um, and, uh, I know they, um, I think Sean and Communications did a little blurb about it in one of their weekly ones. Our boys soccer team, um, goes to North Square here in Cottage Grove and plays bingo on Sundays. And they used to do it one Sunday and then it wasn't because North Square, I mean, North Square loves it, but we had more boys that wanted to do it. And then they added two Sundays and then three Sundays throughout the season that our boys soccer team is going and doing that which is just you know those are the stories to me that is truly why we do what we do. Um then going back to the end of the school year um something new this year we communicated with so cares and put on um the Cottage Grove Police Department and the played against the Cottage Grove fire department in a basketball game. Um thankfully we had members of our boys basketball team join them because I don't think they would have lasted the entire game without having those subs. Um we had people there and just just a way to try to raise some money for for so watch cares and the food shelf as well too was really neat. Uh Sarah mentioned this also new this year and these are pictures were on the previous slides. We did a conference leadership for each season. So in the fall we brought our captains together from all 10 schools and brought in a leadership speaker and worked on leadership skills with them. same thing in the winter, same thing in the spring. And then she also mentioned the high school league also does one they call it together we make a difference where we can bring our leaders from our school and they work with student leaders from around the entire state metro area and work on their leadership skills making you know our high schools a better place. So that's always a highlight. I mentioned the AAA award winner. Then the last thing I want to leave you with I talked about girls flag football and girls lacrosse a little bit. Um the fact that girls flag football is a club sport. It's not a high school league sport. So they don't fall, they don't really have the all of the rules that the high school league has, meaning they could play on Sundays. That was one of the only ways I feel like we were able to truly have a girls flag football team, meaning girls that were spring athletes, softball, track, and lacrosse could also play um play football. Uh we talked about success that our girls lacrosse team had. Uh girls lacrosse undefeated regular season and so they won their three section games. They went 16-0 on the regular season, made it to state. Our girls flag football team, undefeated regular season, 8-0. They won their two playoff games. So, we had um and actually it's the same coach. So, Scott Leonard, who I might have forgotten this one, he was the state coach of the year. And I might I think I just found that out like two days ago. So, Scott Leonard is our girls lacrosse coach. Scott Leonard is also our flag football coach. We have four girls that play both. So they're on our lacrosse team and they're on our flag football team. So when I did the math, I think for their regular season, they went 26 and0. They didn't lose a game in lacrosse or lose a game in flag football. Um it was quite the quite the schedule. Um uh this week especially, the state tournament for flag football was on Friday. So they played three games on Friday. They played a section well first Sunday night was a senior all night party and then they played three flag football games on Monday. Then they played a section or sorry a state tournament game for girls lacrosse on Tuesday. Graduation Tuesday night come back and play today. So those girls and coaches have had quite the busy uh week and couple weeks. But again just to see uh the the level of success and then the other thing I'll leave you with is girls flag football for me two things stood out. Number one is you know we talk about um the Thunderbolts and just how they always have a smile on their faces. That was us for girls flag football. After the first game, uh, Jod and Woodbury hosted and in between games, the girls came over with the biggest smile on their face and they just said, "I am having so much fun. They're playing a sport that they probably never thought they'd be able to play organized like this." Um, and and just having a blast. And then number two, the amazing athleticism that is shown. I think we all have, you know, powderpuff football at homecoming and the girls really get into it. But from the first week of the season to the end of the season, you know, the first week of the season, the girls can throw the ball and they're making catches. By the end of the season, they're making what a lot of people and a lot of our our CGAA and high school football coaches and participants came and watched them and they were amazed at the catches they were making like over their shoulders, diving on the ground, like you know, the the level of play was truly amazing and just so neat to see a new sport like that um give girls an opportunity to to play, like I said, a sport they probably never thought they'd play before. So, um, again, uh, Flake Football did lose in the state tournament in the semi-finals. They lost to Mamina. Mameinai ended up winning the championship, state championship, but again, a tremendous season for them, tremendous season for girls lacrosse. And girls lacrosse will have one more game on Saturday for a chance to play for third in the States. So, um, that's it. Questions? Thank you. Well, thanks everyone for having us here. I will uh talk about Woodbury today. My name is Jod and I've been at Woodbury for five years. Uh with that being said, at all of our parent meetings, I always talk about the fact that our high school educationbased athletics is sandwiched between a billion-dollar youth sports industry and a billion-dollar college sports industry. So, we really talk about what is our purpose and our purpose is to develop your student athletes to be the best possible person that they can be. Um I share my um purpose of of why I do what I do and I lead to develop competitive and inclusive leaders who learn successful teamwork and skills, life skills through activities. Um I also feel like I get to bring joy to a lot of people and and you guys are able to hear all those things which makes days go by um pretty good most of the time. Um because I've been here for five years, I've been able to track our numbers uh each of the years like like I have and I really like numbers and they're fun to look at and um gives us something to do uh with with all those fun information pieces we get. Um the picture that I have in the top left corner is of uh our cross country coaches. Uh the one on the right and the in the middle uh Jeff and Emily are teachers in our building and Jeff Burkhard is our uh cross country and our one of our track coaches as well. and just want to say our participation numbers are what they are because of the great adults that we have working with all of our student athletes and the teachers that we get to have in our buildings um are are really they make a huge difference with having the number of students that we have and trying to attract and encourage and motivate and bring people in. Um when we look at our participation numbers just in our boys soccer program alone, we don't make cuts. Um which sometimes I look at, well I think we need to make cuts. you can't have 25 kids on a soccer team at the JV level, even if they're all good enough to be at that level. Um, but it just really shows you the testament of the the will that the coaches put in and the time and energy for our um our student athletes. Um, in regards to our clubs, we have about 45 uh student student clubs. They change every year. Some are I mean there's scary movies, there's the cooking club. Um, it really varies as to what our students um are interested in, what they want to be involved with. So, it's it's fun to have those uh change over the year. We have a large activities fair that the students uh have in the beginning of the year to help encourage and uh bring new ideas forward. Some of our fall highlights. Um we've had an amazing diving coach for the last x number of years. uh he's he was uh recognized in our Hall of Fame this year and Rick Light is is retiring as our coach and he's brought and had divers um that have been state uh for the last five years I've been there and and all throughout the history of Woodbury High School. Um Nina Falner finished in ninth place and Halley Lynn in 12. Um we'll miss him as a coach and um he uh has had a great impact looking at our cross country state qualifiers. uh we had two one one male and one female and and with that um our girls cross country team has uh been pretty dominant the last two years and we didn't make it to state and it was really an eye openener for some of the girls and it it brought some adversity to their to their program and it was fun to see them work really hard this track season. Our boys soccer team uh won the conference outright and they hadn't done that the they had they hadn't won the conference the last two years and where they have been to state the the two previous years. It was fun to see him go to state for a third year in a row. Um, this year they uh lost in the quarterfinals to Egan in overtime who ended up winning the state championship. So, it was uh it's just been fun to watch that program become extremely successful and and have a ton of confidence. Uh we lose a lot of our seniors that have been part of those three three state tournament runs. Um in debate, we had Amaya Ambbody. She was a section 4 Senate Congressional Debate Champion. Um she's an amazing individual and was a candidate that was uh one of our real strong candidates for our trip AAA award not win it and just you know students being involved in many different items. We had seven individuals sign national letters of intent to participate in division one or two um athletics and our girls swim and dive team won the gold academic and football with the silver. Uh when we look at those academic awards, they don't take the whole team but they take a good percentage of the team to help with it. So, um it's nice that they're able to to work with that. From our winter highlights, um our boys swim and dive team. Uh we again won conference. Uh we were won section uh true team. We were se section champions and we finished ninth at state. And I just want to say two years ago the team did not win any conference meets. And so we had the same coach the all those years. Um, however, it's just an impact of um, when you have kids who participate in club and want to participate in the high school environment and the fun that that brings, that really helps change a program around. And so, uh, with that being said, we've just been it's been great to see them and it's been great to see the history of of um, Woodbury High School and then our two different programs. I'll talk a little bit about the pool closure at the end here. Um, our wrestlers, uh, Brad Little is, uh, the middle one in the in the middle, uh, wrestling photo. He is a two-time state runnerup. Um, and he's been state six times and has just been extremely, um, has had a ton of success in wrestling. He'll go on and participate at St. Cloud State. Um, and then Mitch and Nick were other two uh, participants that were involved with wrestling this year. Uh in gymnastics we have in the top left corner Sam Tredder who's a phenomenal athlete. She went to as a ninth grader she went to uh the state track and field meet and the triple jump never having having jumped before um except for that year if she went in gymnastics this year and she went in the long jump and track this year. Uh so it's fun to see what she'll be able to do in the future. Uh and then Bennett Levander uh advanced in Alpine uh who's a five-time state participant, went twice as a team and um our science Olympia team uh met was fourth at the state meet and Dr. Sonata who's led the helm for a really long time will be retiring this year and we'll miss her a ton. In our spring, uh today was the state finals for track and field at St. Michael Albertville. I was at the track meet on Tuesday in prelims and we have a like amazing numbers involved with our boys and girls track and field program. We have 114 boys, 102 girls. Um our boys this year went in all realized the 4x1, 4x2, 4x4, 4x8 and then we advanced uh individuals in the one two four and eight um 800 meter dash. Today we placed third in the 4x1 and fifth in the 4x two. Um we had a number of kids who had PRs and and you don't make if you don't make it to finals, you don't make it to finals, right? Um our girls uh for by 100 advanced in uh to state and they did not advance to finals and uh nor did Sam Treader for a long jump, but just an amazing athlete. We had one student athlete advance for girls golf uh Mattie Fee. She placed fifth at sections and our uh boys tennis and softball teams won academic awards. Um, I want to share a little bit about our boys volleyball team. Um, we didn't win a ton of games, but I just want to say if you had a chance to watch any of them, it is like the most joyful thing. None of our programs here won a ton of games. Um, but they were just happy and there was no pressure on them to compete uh and and and and do amazingly well. Yes, our coaches put it on them, but it was really fun to see high school kids um play and and one of the the one things I'll remember about them is in the beginning of the year, the boys didn't really know how to celebrate a a point being one. And the girls come together in the middle and the the boys were like, "Oh, are we going to do that?" And they didn't do it. And then our boys started doing this thing like this and then they had a noise and it was really fun to see them become comfortable with with celebrating success. Um, Phil talked a lot about flag football, but I just want to share with you while flag football took place, there was actually four games going on because they divided the field up into four different um, games and so you actually had chance to see all the other uh, teams play at the same time and it was it was like I mean you could have had concessions and music played. It was a gigantic event. It was fun. Um, and then we had 15 spring signing for division three sports this year in our fine arts. Um, we had a musical that was hard to say. It was called You're in Town, but it was a satire on, um, it was a satire and a spoof on politics. And what it really talked about was, uh, you had to pay to go to the bathroom. And so, uh, it was funny and the singing was good, but the name was really hard and it was hard to sometimes have it shown all over. Um, uh, our one-act play is, if you've not ever seen a one-act play, you should. It's a 35 minute quick uh play and they do really phenomenal uh tragic dramacked topics. Ours was about uh uranium being in uh a manufacturing company and all these women licked it and then they all ended up getting uranium poisoning in the 1930s and and passing away. Um but really sad and ours uh went on to participate in our section finals but we did not because Park did. Um, and then our spring play rumors was was just it was a funny uh and fun event. Uh, with that, I will share that our speech uh participants uh we have a a real strong speech program that continues to participate in nationals. They are going uh they're leaving tomorrow and they'll be gone for eight days in De Moine, Iowa. Um, it just show shows with you the amount of commitment that these students are putting into their work. Um, but we've had three students advance and Mio Iraq Olsen, she finished seventh at state this year and she was a senior that was extremely involved in drama and fine arts and and she'll be sorely missed as somebody who was great at the sound board as well. Our award winners are listed here. Um, our AAA award winners, Elizabeth Powell is going to Mano State, wants to be a special educator and um, Eli Falner is going to Purdue and wants to be an engineer. Uh our next two, if you look at our Excel award winners, we have um we have a son of somebody sitting at the table and uh Jay's a fabulous individual who is always involved with different things at school, committed and involved in both athletics and music and I had a chance to get to know him a lot better on our our marching band trip this year. So, congratulations to me. Um and then Angie was our uh our our female Excel award winner. Sarah Vasi is our Athena award winner. She's a runner. Uh she has led the cross country and track team on the girls side for the last five years that she's been involved in those programs. And uh we'll be very missed in the leadership that she has brought to our our school. Um we had a number of section assistant coaches, our boys soccer coach, Cphus Dean, um uh Dan Shabbecker, and uh uh Chris Brown for track and field. Our section head coaches of the year, girls hockey Scott Waldo and uh boys swim and dive Connor Ross. Um, Coach Bolan, who has been coaching and teaching at Woodbury for a long time. He's in his 40th year of 40 plusish year of teaching. He was inducted in the boys hockey hall of fame. He's been uh received a number of awards the last few years and is a fabulous uh individual and and really exemplifies uh the purpose of why we play and that's to to improve our students to be better people. So, uh we've had 50 years of the Woodbury High School pool. Uh when that announcement was shared that we were just decommissioning the pool last year, um it was a hard message to to share and a lot of community members have been involved with with many of you probably um asking why and and and the different reasons for it. Um our coaches have been extremely supportive and finding ways to commemorate all the memories that were there. And when we take a look uh back at the programs that we've had, they've been extremely successful. Um, with that, I just want to say the picture on the top right of the three, that's our girls having the last meet there. Uh, they turned the lights down. They could put like commemorative little um, votives in the pool that lit up and it and it sort of looked like it was a funeral for the pool. Um, and the boys last meet, the middle circle picture was really a fun night. Um, it was an alumni night and we everyone knew that the pool would host the last meet. We had people come down from Duth. We had alumni from all over. They took pictures with the record board. Um they stuck around forever. Um and so we had everybody come down to the pool deck and we had the the picture a picture of everybody that was there plus the team. Um and then the smaller circle pitcher was our boys last practice in the pool and so that was the last time that they would have a official safety practice there. We really at our hall of fame this year um we had a number of individuals that were all involved with the pool of divers and swimmers um to help bring that that back. Um while there have been a lot of trophies over the years uh that have been accumulated by our swimmers and divers uh most importantly were the lessons learned, the work ethic that was honed and the millions of memories and smiles that will live on in our royals. Today they um took down an exterior wall from top to bottom in the pool so you could actually see it from outside. My favorite memories uh this year uh surround our 50th anniversary. Uh we had a a beautiful uh front cover to our yearbook. Um and our marching band went to uh Disney this year. I was able to accompany them on the trip. They had a song from the the 50s, 60s, 70s, or it was sorry, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, uh, and today of different Disney songs that they played and performed to. Um, the man in the top middle, his name is Alan Gregory. Uh, with some of our affinity groups and the heritage nights that they celebrated, I challenged them and I asked, "How can we celebrate our 50th?" Um, with Woodbury and our Black Student Union, we were trying to figure out what to do. And then we said, "Well, how can we um who was our first student of color? Um do can we look through that for the yearbook?" So, uh the lead one of the uh the presidents of BSU and I were looking through our first yearbooks and we didn't find anybody in yearbook one. We didn't find anybody in yearbook two. we found somebody in your book three and um lo and behold I uh didn't know who he was but I was able to recognize him on different Facebook pages that I had and so we connected um and um I confirmed and Alan Gregory was said yes I was the first uh African-American student to graduate from Woodbury we had him come and speak to our BSU in January and it was a really special event um he told stories our students told stories and then we recognized Allan at our our black history uh heritage night in February and he was given a um a BSU scroll and uh just a it was a great event and he was extremely appreciative and thankful for the opportunity. Uh we also had for our Asian-American uh affinity or heritage night they celebrated 50 years of of Asian immigration and told the stories as they did the different events through that event. Um the two other pictures I'm going to share is our girls hockey. uh we were uh unde we went undefeated in the conference and it was just really great to see uh pro this program do well in the past seven years they've had five coaches um and so they've had a ton of hardships and uh they are going strong and they had a fabulous season they're ranked in the top 10 all year and and we have some really amazing players coming back and they should be fun to watch. Uh the other picture I have is just of our student leadership group. Phil and Sarah had had mentioned that we had um do different leadership items. I meet with my leadership group uh monthly. One thing that I thought was a lot of fun this year is we had a speaker come and talk with all our suburban east conference uh leaders and Rick Razer has extremely act active fun uh activities for for them to uh work through and become better leaders. That was fun. So those are the different pieces that we have. Thank you for listening to us and helping uh help letting us share an hour worth of good stuff. We say it's we always when we talk to Miss Schaefer, it's it's really hard to narrow down a year of great activities in all three high schools to one night. We appreciate the time to do that and we know it takes some time, but we appreciate the time that you guys give and again we appreciate the support. We say this all the time. All those great things you saw wouldn't be possible if without all the support we have. Obviously, we have great support at the building level from our principles and admin teams. We have great support at the district level and obviously from the schoolboard level. So, none of that would happen with all the great support we have in the community as well, too. So, thank you very much for that. Does anyone have any questions or anything? Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for coming. I do want to say I appreciate I know a bunch of us go to like concerts and the plays and um some of us are not so great about going to athletic events but you know I mean but it's just every time but I would say that like every time I know Melinda and I we have like a stock response every time we show up which is like oh my gosh our kids are so talented and I I just can't thank you enough both I think as parents and then also as board members for what you guys do for the kids because it's just a really Um it it really shows when when you show up on, you know, a random Saturday night to watch You're in town, which was delightful. Thank you all. Um next up is um 6.0 reports and comments. Uh we'll start with Superintendent Nielsen. Thank you. As they're walking away, I hopefully they'll hear the words they said. But as we think about this season of celebration from knock my socks off, phenomenal, confident, tremendous, great, champion, strong, fabulous, absolutely nothing better, joyful, above and beyond, talented, exceptional, amazing, incredible, and awesome. All of that and so much more. As I think about our last month of of watching our students in school, um all of the opportunities we have to recognize our students, to celebrate with them, and then of course the conclusion this past week with graduation. um from next step in pathways to online to our alternative high school to our Eastridge in Woodbury on Monday evening and Park High School on Tuesday evening. Just an incredible celebration of all of our kids. I think uh the biggest thing is for all of our kids to know that there's a spot that they all fit in. Whether it's a club, whether it's a sport, an activity, whether it's the theater, but that they all matter and in some way the words that were shared tonight are said about all of our kids in some setting because that's what we believe as public educators. So, thank you to our athletic and activity directors tonight. Um but just to highlight uh that season of celebration uh with our graduations just concluding I believe Myuchi said um Park rounded out at number 34. I think they were the 34th graduation at Miuchi and that was the last one. The little security lady that watched our room. She said she was done. She said this is the last one. No more securing our room. Um just a couple other things to mention. Um, and I think Jake did a nice job of talking about it, but we're in full motion in many of our schools while construction is going on and fences are being put up. I couldn't get into Crest View today because there's a fence there now because they're starting the um entrance into Park High School. There are there's a lot of programming going on. Uh, we started Kids Club, Camp Invention. We had a number of camps and clinics that started this week along with our swimming program. So, our schools are still as busy as they can be and utilizing that space. And finally, just to point out to the board in the community, we also do something um in a number of our school communities with schooly, and that's our summer schooly family fun nights from 5 to 6:30. Um and for any parents and families watching, the schools that host those evenings are Pullman, Newport, Royal Oaks, Armstrong. Yep, I think it's just those four four schools host. And they host June 16th through August 14th. And so if people are interested, check the website. there just a couple of times over the Fourth of July and one day in June. But just again, another wonderful community event to come and grab some uh dinner and then allow your kids to play. So, just wanted to highlight a couple of things still happening yet this summer. Thank you. Do any board members have any updates? Anything coming up soon? Okay, great. Uh next up, 7.0 future meeting dates. Uh, our next meeting will be June 26, 2025, a schoolboard business meeting here at the DSC at 6 PM. Followed by July 17, 2025, another schoolboard business meeting at the DSC at 6 p.m. And with that, we are at 8.0 and adjourned.