[0:29] e [1:25] [Music] [2:02] good evening it is Thursday January 2nd 2025 at 6 PM we are at the district service center in Cottage Grove of [2:08] Minnesota we would like to acknowledge that the land on which We Gather is the land of the mawakan Dakota people [2:13] mawakan means dweller of Spirit Lake our first item on the agenda is roll call Dana Ryan Clark here Sharon vanir here [2:21] Eric Tesmer here Pat Driscoll is absent Melinda dols is absent simy pnic here [2:26] Katie Schwarz here uh 2.0 Allegiance please [2:32] stand Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for [2:39] it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for [2:48] all okay 3.0 is approval of the agenda can I get a motion to approve no move [2:55] second move by Sharon seconded by Eric any comments all those in [3:01] favor any opposed motion passes 4.0 election of officers at this time we [3:08] will elect Schoolboard officers for 2025 starting with nominations for chair Vice chair Clerk and Treasurer I would like [3:14] to make a motion for a slate of officers as follows Katie Schwarz as chair Simi [3:20] pnik as Vice chair Melinda does as Clerk and myself as Treasurer is there a [3:27] second second seconded by simy any discussion hearing none all those in [3:34] favor I I any opposed motion passes on to 5.0 and this is our [3:41] organizational items for 2025 these are similar to our [3:46] um consent item thank you Julie consent items um so we will just approve all [3:52] these by a single motion and I have not heard from anybody that they would like to discuss any of these so can I get a [3:58] motion to approve our organizational items don't move second motion by Shar [4:04] or Shar yeah Sharon seconded by Simmy um all those in favor I any [4:11] opposed passes okay that is it for our business [4:16] meeting we do will now adjourn the business meeting and we will start our Workshop meeting um a mediately after so [4:24] 7.0 is adjournment [4:37] okay so it is still Thursday January 2nd at 2025 it is now 6:04 p.m. we are still [4:46] at the district service center in Cottage Grove and we'll now start our Workshop meeting we do have to again do [4:51] roll call Pledge of Allegiance and approval of agenda so we will repeat all of those things so 1.0 approval of [4:58] agenda or roll call Dana Ryan Clark here Sharon Van here Eric Tesmer here patris Melinda [5:05] does are absent Sim Patak here Katie Schwarz here okay 2.0 please stand again [5:11] for the pledge aledge Al to the United States of [5:16] America to the for it stands Nation [5:22] indivisible and justice for all okay 3.0 approval of the agenda can [5:30] I get a motion to approve Mo second motion by Sharon seconded by [5:36] Simmy um all those in favor I any opposed motion passes and now we'll move [5:44] on to 4.0 our Workshop items 4.1 is teaching and learning report for Math [5:50] and it will be introduced by Kelly Kelly Jansen assistant superintendent I've been called worse [5:57] Katie uh good evening and happy New Year uh I'm here to introduce tonight's math report provided by members of our [6:02] teaching and learning services or TLS Department as you recall in December you heard about our progress toward the goal [6:08] set forth and our comprehensive achievement in Civic Readiness and AI achievement and integration plans and [6:14] tonight we are here to provide additional details on the strategies and supports employed in K12 mathematics [6:20] while we could probably make a case this aligns to each of the five strategic directions I think you'll notice [6:26] particular alignment tonight to student experience Mastery of learning and expectations and student Pathways and [6:31] systemic supports and with that I will turn it over to the department knowing they are going to introduce [6:37] themselves all right good evening I'm Arthur Williams I the director of teaching and learning for elementary [6:43] schools it's nice to um be here to report on K12 [6:51] math for tonight's teaching and learning report uh when you look at the screen you see we're going to talk about data [6:57] we're going to look at elementary and secondary teaching and learning we are going to look at our Circ process or [7:03] that is our standards and instruction review cycle and then we'll uh talk a little bit about elementary secondary [7:10] and then we will provide an opportunity for you to ask any questions that you [7:16] have good evening everybody uh my name is Mark mcwell director of secondary teaching and learning uh thank you for [7:22] your time this evening we are going to jump right in and start talking about some data and we're going to Anchor our [7:28] conversations in some performance measures uh we know that our teachers uh are collecting data on student [7:35] performance every single day in instruction uh and it extends Beyond these four uh basic measurements but we [7:41] also know that this is a really important accountability uh piece for our district so we'd like to take a look [7:47] at each one of these and what they mean uh first of all I'd like to focus on uh the definitions of criteria referenced [7:54] and adaptive there are different types of Assessments uh that [8:00] uh help us measure growth or help us me measure uh progress towards standards so [8:06] here's what adaptive means adaptive really means that if a student is taking an assessment and they get an incorrect [8:12] answer uh that next that next question really becomes a bit easier uh and it's [8:18] adjusted and that the test has the ability to do that if they get a correct answer that next question becomes more [8:25] rigorous until there's a steady level of performance um found and a rhythm and a [8:31] Cadence within that assessment a Criterion reference assessment is really measured against a standards [8:37] pre-established criteria so as we look at the four that we're going to talk about tonight we have the [8:43] MCA uh it would be a criteria reference assessment we have our map or our [8:49] nwea is what it's usually referred to as well uh our prea it's a CRA and then our [8:56] American college uh testing our Act at the 11th grade level uh so those are the [9:02] four different assessments that we're going to look at as in terms of performance measurements and we're going to take you through [9:08] K12 so we begin our data Journey with MCAS or the Minnesota comprehensive [9:14] assessment and on this screen you can see our overall districtwide proficiency [9:19] 53.7% it also shows the proficiency by level so elementary middle school and [9:25] high school and below that you will see grades 3 4 5 6 7 8 and 11 um often times we are asked how we [9:33] compare to other districts other districts that we um like to include are Elk River they're at 62.1% Lakeville [9:42] 58.3% oio 43.8% and rodchester [9:48] 41.8% this next slide shows you our participation rate starting in the year [9:55] 2019 if you remember in 2020 there were no MCAS given due to the um pandemic and [10:01] in 2021 that's when we as a district were in our hybrid year um as you can [10:06] see for elementary our levels have um sustained back up to the 998th and 99th percentiles for participation rates as [10:13] well as the high 90s for middle school so I'm sure you see a dip in [10:20] participation at the high school level and I just wanted to address that and I can only lean into my own um experience [10:26] as a high school principal but I believe that was a at the time when you see this dip here it's very consistent with what [10:33] other school districts around the state were experiencing um just a couple of things remember like uh my colleague [10:39] Arthur said here we were in hybrid learning in 2021 um there was an increased awareness [10:45] and probably a very good thing increased awareness of uh students and families uh [10:51] knowing the opt out process better communication around that around the same time um to be upfront with you [10:57] student perception data in terms of students we have data um where we uh we [11:03] found that students wonder about the relevancy and do they see the connection to it when they know that requirement um [11:11] and then test fatigue is often talked about in terms of the numbers of standardized tests that students have [11:17] experienced by this point in their educational career and if you think about the other timing of act and sat um [11:24] and AP college uh testing it's uh it's a lot and so um by by no means are those [11:30] excuses but there may be some influences as to why we see lower numbers at at the [11:35] high school level and as we take a look at our elementary data for grades 3 four and [11:42] five you can see as grades 3 four and five they were just under 61% [11:47] proficiency but when you take a look at the individual grade levels we can see that there is a little dip with the [11:53] fifth grade math standards and as math scores excuse me and as we look at our [11:59] standards that's when the math standards become complex and the rigor of the state standards change uh so students [12:05] can be prepared for middle school and it's something that we in elementary TLs are really working with our fifth grade [12:12] teachers on by looking at the scope and sequence uh the planning and um our [12:18] resource and as you can see the proficiency rates at the secondary level uh are lower than than that of [12:24] Elementary um in my understanding not having been in this District at the time but 2018 we we adopted a core resources [12:32] of resource of bridges uh which was um um a rush to uh put in a core resource [12:40] that really supported students in teaching and learning differently and we're going to use and you'll see this [12:45] through my colleague Ian Bronson here momentarily the the adoption of the 2022 [12:51] math standards as a catalyst for adopting a core resource at the secondary level that we would fully [12:57] expect to see um a level of achievement increase on MCAS in the years to come so [13:03] we're excited at that opportunity and challenge at the same [13:17] time all right now we are going to move into our map our nwaa data um where it says [13:25] proficiency that should really say percentage Norms because when we look at our next next slide um we have grades [13:30] three four and five um percentage percentage Norms but when you look at this graph on the left hand side um you [13:38] that is the percentage of students and our map scores are in four Cate five categories excuse me we have our high [13:44] our high average our average our low average and our low um our high average [13:50] and high average and high category are those 61% and above average 41 41 to 60% [13:58] but when you take a look at 2024 if you add 26.6 and 27 you can see that [14:05] 53.6% of our students are scoring in the high and high average category and when [14:12] we look at our um MCA data that aligns well um with [14:21] our MCA data the students that score in the high and high average um typically do well on our MCAS [14:31] then we take a look specifically at grades three four and five on the next [14:36] slide um you can see the same thing for 2024 when you add them up we have 23 [14:43] excuse me 53.6 um percent of our third fourth and fifth graders are in the high and high [14:52] average uh category on the next slides slide we have our third fourth and fifth [14:58] grade fall to fall projected growth so what this means if in 2023 I was a third [15:03] grade student and I scored a 212 let's say that's the 99th percentile for my RIT score and I had a projected growth [15:10] of 12 as a fourth grader at the beginning of this year I take the um map and I score a 209 although [15:20] that's still in the 99th or excuse me 95th percentile it's still high I did not meet my growth so I would fall into [15:27] the does not meet and we see that some with our students that score really high [15:34] um so we want to make sure they're continuing to grow but I don't want you to be misled by that number of like oh [15:40] 42.7% of our kids aren't meeting growth it's because of the projected growth from the year before so we have some [15:46] kids that score so high they don't keep that so even if they score in the 998th [15:52] percentile the next year it still counts them as does not uh meet growth [16:02] okay Arthur did a nice job of explaining what each one of these tests uh uh are [16:07] or explaining uh the RIT score Etc our goal is to increase the percentage of [16:12] students that are in the high ey average uh and we're trending in the right direction here if you add up the high [16:17] and high average in 2022 we were 49.8% in 2023 we're at 52% and in 2024 [16:26] uh the math adds up to 53 . 7% um as we move forward and look at the [16:33] projected growth for 6 seven and 8 uh we're trending in the right direction 2024 being the highest percentage of [16:40] students meeting their growth Target over the past three years and then we'd like to take a look [16:46] at the prea so going on to the next slide so these are this is an assessment [16:52] performance assessment for our 10th grade students uh our 10th grade students take this uh just before me [16:58] okay and we don't really have solid comparison data for other districts because not every District um requires [17:05] this or offers this to their students so it's a little bit more difficult to compare it to other districts but you [17:11] can see that we're trending in the right direction uh in this past year with a 9% increase over 23 24 scores of students [17:18] that are meeting their benchmarks moving ahead to uh act uh [17:25] this is a little bit lengthier uh explanation here um first of all I would point out that some would argue that the [17:31] math portion of the ACT is the most rigorous portion of the act in terms of [17:37] benchmarks um 22 is The Benchmark score um when we're talking about the rigor uh [17:44] we're really talking about freshman college level mathematics so we're talking about stem uh Majors Premed it [17:51] is rigorous um so we're slightly above State average uh over the past three [17:58] years years like we reported on the prea in 2022 we were 41% 2023 we were 40% and [18:06] in 2024 uh 42% we can't draw a direct line between [18:13] the cohort that took the preac as 10th graders and this 42% you're seeing here [18:20] because it also involves some TW 12th grade scores but the bulk of those 11th grade students would have been in that [18:27] 10th grade uh cohort that uh achieved at 32% meeting the benchmarks so while we [18:33] can't say that that whole cohort was the same group of students we can say that there is a high volume of those students [18:39] that showed and demonstrated growth from 32 to 42 uh [18:44] per. and you may be wondering similar to what Arthur said is how do we compare to other uh school districts um we uh [18:53] Lakeville uh in comparison to the class of 2024 uh they were for 43% met that [19:00] Benchmark Elk River their students 42% uh sashko we were 42% uh Anoka was [19:08] 31% and oio was 27% if you include all of the eight [19:14] districts that we've been uh referred to in terms of our size uh the last two years we've been third of eight [19:21] districts just to give you sort of a a broader [19:26] comparison now we are going to to take a look into elementary math or what [19:32] elementary math looks like into our CL at in our classrooms and to do that it is my honor to uh welcome and introduce [19:40] Laura lson she is our K5 TLS supervisor [19:45] um and prior to this role she served as instructional coach and teacher at Valley Crossing so Laura thank you uh [19:53] good evening I'm going to paint a picture for you of what elementary math looks like um in a synopsis and then [19:59] we've got some uh nice video clips for you to kind of see uh students in action so really with our elementary math as it [20:05] was referred to earlier we did have a a core resource adoption of bridges and that was in the 1819 school year for our [20:12] K2 students and teachers and then we know what happened with 35 in 1920 the [20:17] world sort of fell apart so our third through fifth grade teachers and students really had um a disjointed [20:24] implementation of this resource and so what we've done with that first bullet point we just really wanted to highlight [20:29] that in teaching and learning we've really been grounding ourselves in reorienting what the resource does and [20:34] how it aligns to our standards as well as everything that it offers all of our students so we've been working really [20:40] hard to make sure coming out of the pandemic that our teachers really feel equipped to use this resource uh with [20:45] our um standards uh the next part about our resource Bridges uh that's wonderful for our elementary students is there are [20:52] three components we have number Corner which focuses on uh the daily calendar [20:57] it allows students to um have uh collaboration um interpret patterns and [21:03] uh track skills across the year it's a spiraled approach uh so they'll often come back to some of those mathematical [21:09] Concepts throughout the year um and then we have our problems and investigations where students are this would be what [21:15] you'd probably consider the traditional lesson or the mathematical concept that is being taught for the day uh very [21:21] interactive students are able to collaborate with one another um Pro solve real world problems come together [21:27] to collaborate and and solve and then our third component is workplaces that leads us into the next bullet point that [21:33] is uh games activities anything to reinforce the mathematical Concepts that [21:38] were presented in those problems and investigations are there for students to play in a gamified way we also have a [21:45] supplemental resource called DreamBox it is a digital-based resource that is used in conjunction with our core resource [21:51] that really provides a personalized path it really adapts to the student and so wherever they are at it um kind of gears [21:58] up or gears down uh it is in uh does not depend the grade level it moves to where [22:04] the student is so it's a beautiful thing for both intervention but also enrichment for our students um and then [22:10] the final point for elementary math is we are back into looking very heavily at data and we've got a lot of things we [22:16] can look at um our map data for grades two through five is super helpful for us to set some goals at the beginning of [22:23] the year to help guide um the our instruction and ultimate um performance [22:29] on those MCAS and then our resource does have embedded assessments with pre- and post assessments and um several or other [22:36] sources of data but there's a nice snapshot I'll think I'll let Arthur take over here of what this looks like in [22:42] action so Laura did a beautiful job of explaining what elementary math looks [22:48] like she talked about the grounding the strong unit planning the solid core instruction and we have a two-minute [22:54] video clip um in this short video you are going to get a snippet or glance [23:00] into recent math lessons in a second grade classroom at newas ronas and fifth grade at Liberty Ridge it showcases [23:07] senora bradner and Mr hanslick and their students in small and whole group instruction and student engagement um [23:13] the first part opens in Spanish and there's a question I have it translated here so you can um know what these [23:21] students are answering for their teacher [23:32] okay [23:50] [Music] so so these are all [23:56] on we don't [Music] [24:08] fore [24:34] visualize eight basketballs in the center of a court go with me split them in half split the half in [24:44] half that's a quarter of the eight basketball so sometimes just visualizing that inside your mind can simplify [24:51] things because I'm not going or I don't want to go higher I want to go lower so this is the thing that Mr Rooney and I [24:58] been talking about all the time if we multiply a number by one the number stays the same if we multiply by [25:03] something over one it gets bigger if you multiply by something smaller than one it gets and that's really what we're [25:09] dealing with sometimes if you're given a problem like this some kids find it easier to think in [25:15] fractions some kids don't so it's okay either way is okay school is about [25:21] understanding your own mind and what works for you right so going [25:27] forward so so as you can see that was just a very short snippet of what happens or things that can take place in [25:34] the elementary classro and what's nice about our resource and what we know about good math instruction is it's a [25:40] good balance of both whole group discussion uh working with small groups and then individualized instructions so [25:46] it's a really nice balance throughout the day of what it looks like and all of our Elementary classrooms have math 60 [25:51] to 80 minutes a day so if you were to able to watch the entire video of say let's Mr hanset class the kids were up [25:58] moving uh later on as the lesson went on but wanted to provide you with just a snapshot of some of the things that take [26:06] place so now we're going to get a chance to look at secondary math uh it's my pleasure to introduce our secondary TLS [26:12] supervisor Ian Bronson uh who oversees their Circ process with our teams uh Ian [26:18] you may or may not know uh was a teacher instructional coach principal and he brings those skills into his work with [26:24] our teachers so um thank you Ian for taking us through secondary math [26:30] all right thanks Mark and uh thanks for Jo having us come in and talk to you about math we're really at an exciting [26:35] place in secondary math you saw Elementary is a little ahead they have a core resource um and secondary is at [26:42] that spot where as Mark alluded to we just are adopting now in Minnesota the 2022 math standards and so 're we're [26:51] really looking at really three aspects to think about here uh one we have incredibly great work going on in a lot [26:57] of our math classrooms throughout our district um and that's teachers are using a variety of approaches they're [27:04] differentiating for their students they're trying to meet their students where they're at uh we also recognize [27:09] that it's since 2007 that's about a 15 or 18e Gap since we've had an [27:14] opportunity to re-engage in what the math standards are in Minnesota for perspective most of our seniors were [27:21] babies right and so if you think about it's their entire lifetime since we've had an opportunity to do that so that's really uh interesting third point to [27:28] bring up is we have a lot of teachers that are already jumping in and looking at the 2022 math standards and we've [27:34] seen that in our classrooms where they're approaching the new math standards uh already even though we're [27:40] still testing on the MCAS on the 2007 standards they're engaged in that new [27:45] work of what are the new math standards saying and we're seeing that as we go through Mark mentioned the Circ process [27:51] which is the standards and instructional review cycle and so we're really working with our teachers in that process right [27:56] now we'll jump to that next one so the minat math standards um just [28:03] as a refresher right it's it's really a long process it's a couple years for the Minnesota Department of Education to [28:08] develop those with experts in the field they passed the Baton off to us which is where we're at right now and we say hey [28:15] what do the new standards say how do we want to engage in instructional practices uh and that takes uh it gives [28:22] us an opportunity for a couple years to figure out how are we going to implement those standards and that's where we're at right now with with our teachers [28:29] preparing for great math instruction with our students uh one of the key focuses that [28:34] is explicitly called out in these 2022 math standards are is this idea of mathematical rigor uh we know that we're [28:41] um still recovering and we're amping up rigor and what's nice to see in these standards it's really called out with an [28:47] equal intensity of those three legs on the stool so mathematical mathematical rigor is really made up of real world [28:54] application conceptual understanding and procedural skills influency and we've done a really great job with procedural [28:59] skills and fluency with memorization uh with rot memorization and we're really uh beefing up that conceptual [29:05] understanding which is really just a strong grasp of a concept and the ability to transfer it across different [29:11] areas within mathematics and so um it's a key uh Point Within These new standards that with our Circ team we've [29:17] been focusing heavily this year on on what does it look like to ask um deep questions and think uh with [29:26] rigor just understanding the shifts and Laura alluded to this a little bit you saw that in the video with students up [29:32] at whiteboards working uh the idea is we're moving from acquiring math [29:37] knowledge it's more of a memorization for example what is the slope line intercept form it's y equals MX or MX [29:44] plus b right and then and we're actually moving towards mathematical understanding which gives us a chance to [29:49] look at more real life programs right real life problems for example the [29:55] number of spokes on a bicycle how can we graph that to know how many spokes on the next spoke so that we understand the [30:02] rotations of the pedals to rotations of the wheel that's actually a slop line intercept form but allows students to [30:09] think of mathematical practices or excuse me mathematical thinking that then they can transfer knowledge to other systems part of what the new [30:16] standards do is they develop math practices and benchmarks context and that all those are the lenses at which [30:22] we look at the new standards and we'll talk a little bit about those as we move forward [30:28] and some other shifts we've been looking at with our leadership team this year is just the idea that our strand structure [30:34] has changed pretty dramatically from four strands down to three so uh number and operation and algebra is sort of [30:40] snuck into that patterns and relationship strand you can find a lot of those ideas and concept conceptual [30:45] understanding within that strand um you'll see that geometry and measurement is not called out explicitly anymore [30:51] it's more within spatial reasoning so we're doing very similar math isn't changed it's just um phrased differently [30:58] grouped differently to be integrated more easily into uh how students think and work uh one key point is that data [31:05] and probability strand uh was not found in our kindergarten through second grade standards in the the last iteration it [31:11] now goes all the way down to kindergarten which is really exciting we know that our society in general is just [31:17] moving in a data Rich Society so we are really looking at equipping kids from early on in understanding how to use [31:23] data how to collect data and how to read it um another key Point are those seven in standards that come out in the 2022 [31:29] standards uh the last time around they were grade dependent um this time around they're k12 and then the number of [31:36] benchmarks I'll let you see that but Elementary we've got our work cut out for us because we have a lot more with [31:41] that addition of data and probability so our teachers are busily learning all those uh new additions that are going to [31:48] help guide us all right so the next three slides what we're really looking at is just an [31:54] Exemplar of the different strands and so this is the data probability Strand and we just have an examplar of of what that [32:00] might look like so our teachers look at that and then use this as they begin to look at what are the specific learning [32:07] targets what are the I can statements for our students you'll notice uh when we look at the benchmarks which is [32:12] really where teachers go for what they need to teach in the classroom you'll see it called out that MP3 which is a [32:18] mathematical practice 3 um and that mathematical practice 3 is going to be the uh excuse me let me look down here [32:26] uh construct construct variable arguments um and then also you'll see [32:32] symbols there and those call out specific benchmark context Minnesota tribal Nations context uh financial [32:38] literacy context computer science um and real world real world context is that [32:44] little star or sun picture there so we'll just jump through the next couple slides the next one just looks at [32:49] spatial reasoning again there there's you know several hundred 300 and so standards excuse me benchmarks and so [32:55] those these are just a couple examples of what we're talking about when we talk about the standards and benchmarks and then the next anchor next anchor [33:02] standard or strand is going to be patterns and relationships those just a couple examplars so we can look at what [33:08] we're talking about there and finally this is looking at the implementation timeline so Elementary [33:14] has a a jump ahead of us they're already looking at their core resource uh we look at if if uh you looked at Mark and [33:21] Arthur's slid they were talking about the MCA 3s the MCA 4S are coming which [33:27] is what we want to prepare for so we backwards map when we need to implement new uh core resources and standards in [33:34] our school and so we're right at that 2425 where we're going through that standards and instruction review cycle [33:40] so we'll be ready to implement beginning next year and Elementary is in the same spot [33:47] we're also working on the same timeline of um pulling that team together and we'll be right on track with um [33:53] secondary we just have the advantage of having a resource that we have been able to use um up until this [33:59] point all right we'll take you through the elementary cir process and what this actually looks like in in practice um [34:06] last spring there was an all call for teachers uh who were interested in being a part of this um this team it was open [34:13] to teachers of any kind administrators of any kind anyone's welcome to join in [34:18] fact the the more voices and representation is better um so we established that team last spring we [34:24] started meeting this fall uh we really start at the beginning of these meetings grounding oursel in what are the shifts [34:30] in the standards what is the state asking us to look at and so that's where we went through that mathematical rigor [34:35] uh looking at the eight mathematical practices and Benchmark context that the state calls out for us in those new [34:40] standards um studied the shifts in the and some of our grade level standards and where things have moved around with [34:46] the emphasis in elementary of that data uh um standard moving down and then that [34:52] last step um that we've moved through with the last uh meeting that we just worked through was [34:58] um moving from that Benchmark so those examples we just showed you teachers take those benchmarks and look closely [35:04] at the language especially uh the verbs um that are called out in that language to what is it really asking us as [35:11] teachers to be able to bring to our students um and make sure that they understand so those ultimately result in [35:18] um I can statements that are student friendly so students know what it is that they are learning for that [35:25] day uh next steps for Elementary we have two more full day meetings this year that we'll be going through uh we will [35:32] be looking at our prioritized benchmarks so that's looking at those benchmarks that we uh want to make sure show up on [35:38] progress reports that progress reports excuse me so that families are informed about what it is that we are doing in [35:44] mathematics uh continuing to look at our data to look at our resources our core resource is one that we will be using as [35:50] we go through our evaluation rubric um when we are looking at different resources for mathematics and then we [35:56] will ultimately start start looking at next year and begin planning what does that look like once we've um chosen a [36:02] resource that fits our best need for these new standards um how can we build that out for teachers uh for easy [36:10] implementation all right so now we're jumping back over to the secondary side and really this mirrors what elementary [36:16] does right I mean we're really in the same boat of what's going to be the best instructional opportunity for our [36:21] students in our classrooms and so we really want to provide that opportunity for teachers to wrestle through what the [36:27] standard are how do they compare to what we have been teaching and so that's what we're doing here we're looking for what [36:33] stays the same and what what shifts do we move towards um so that we can best [36:39] teach our students jump to the next slide um one of the things we have teachers do is really ask like what do [36:46] you see the hurdles are going to be as we Implement new standards and what are the benefits and then we go back and [36:53] answer those questions with our colleagues to really provide that opportunity to say how do we l leverage the great things we are already doing in [36:59] our classrooms and we have a lot of great things that are going on there and then how do we address potential barriers that might exist for either our [37:06] students or for our teachers as we think about teaching to the new [37:12] benchmarks um then what we do is so we move from the standards and we start looking at instructional practices and [37:18] we say uh we develop the um teaching and learning Services rubric which really [37:24] looks at how do we want to evaluate uh any potential resource that will support what we want to do in the classroom uh [37:30] we develop priorities for what those interactional practices will be and that's that I in Circ standards and [37:37] instruction so what I want to do instruction um and then we begin to think about what do we want to do in our classrooms and what resource might be [37:45] available for th to support that work in the classroom and this is other work that we [37:52] have done uh we want to include the voices of all of our Math teachers and so we provide a survey for them to [37:57] Kickback information for our cir team to say hey what do we need to do in our classrooms uh we also follow what Laura [38:05] was saying in elementary which is uh looking at unpacking the benchmarks and writing [38:11] those I can statements that are specifically used for what we want to teach students in the [38:19] classroom and then finally the work that we are going to have uh in the secondary uh because we're cognizant of Subs in [38:25] the building we do half days instead of full days and so we have a couple half days coming up uh and then that will [38:31] result at the end of saying what resource we want to put in front of our students uh that will best meet the [38:37] needs of our students and really we start to look at what are interventions what are extensions there and how can we [38:42] do that currently right now in our middle schools we're trying a couple things uh we have Math 180 there which [38:49] you might have heard re 180 it's a similar program that really looks at adapting to where the students are at [38:54] and so that's part of that process now of saying that's a resource that we use now as an [38:59] intervention and will that be something that we want to carry forward as we move uh move along and all of this will be [39:05] put through the lens of our criteria based on a rubric so we're making really informed decisions about what potential [39:11] curriculum we want to put in front of our students there we go I think we move to questions [39:18] next thank you very much [39:26] questions I have a [39:33] question one of the questions I had when you talked about high school the number of high school students dropping out of [39:39] testing for the NC do we know who is dropping out like demographically [39:47] or do they have any characteristics in common yeah so I have not done that that [39:53] t research to break that number down um sorry [39:58] that is a curiosity that I have as we look at that number to break that number down I have not done that um that [40:06] breakdown but I can certainly follow up with because it because I'm curious about it as [40:11] well know and for the acts um is that just based off of [40:19] that April [40:26] test actually it's actually the most recent test yeah yeah that's a good question does [40:32] everybody understand that piece is it's 11th graders and 12th graders and if you take it um three times it's your most [40:37] recent that goes into our score yeah okay and do we do we use [40:43] other like I know in Elementary's that that [40:49] teachers like Benchmark right do we use do we have anything like that for the [40:55] high for the sorry for Ma there are other sort of like the math is once a [41:00] year right or and then the MCA is once a year but is there sort of like these [41:05] like a unit test yeah or like is that it just the unit test yeah our core resource [41:12] bridges does include pre tests and post tests and a lot of checkpoints in [41:17] between and so there's a whole lot of data that elementary teachers are able to collect um along the way do we know [41:24] and the answer can be know how students [41:30] um how ready students are or how bench if they're meeting benchmarks according [41:35] to those how many students are hitting benchmarks according to those types of tests as opposed to the MCAS or [41:50] theud above grade level when theca said it was closer to 50% so is there [41:55] something similar for Ma map I would say so we have we we also [42:02] have Middle School map data um we don't have we don't have map NWA map data for high school but the Middle School map [42:08] data would be the internal assessment that we've chosen to use as that fall [42:13] winter spring kind of barometer so I don't know that we test all students in the winter but we test some I think [42:20] winter at all um and then one question I did have about the m High average or sorry high [42:28] high average average low average L right is the average then is that [42:41] [Music] considered how can I contextualize each [42:47] of of the measur yeah so uh for the high and high [42:53] average those are one of the things I failed to mention uh when going through this these are how our students do [43:01] compare nationally to with other students that take the math um map [43:08] because a 212 is a 212 it doesn't matter when a student earns that score um yeah [43:17] that does that help it's not a measure against an academic standard that is what I so that is the measure of where [43:24] we fall within all of those that take the map math so it's not a measure of [43:29] like the MCA is a measure of the Minnesota standards this is a measure of math standards compared but they're not [43:36] the Minnesota standards this isde correct [43:50] yeah right for for one of the grades right and so when this says high high [43:58] that is the equivalent so you know you can be a second or third gr get follow fourth grer and so that is that is yes [44:07] so like as a second grader I could get 212 and that might be high but if I'm a [44:13] sixth grader and I get 212 that would put me maybe in the low average category [44:18] because as Kelly said that's you know 212 is a 212 and it's comparing against [44:24] uh everyone in the nation taking the map um and then with the you also mentioned [44:32] in elementary kids are doing 60 to 80 minutes of ma day is that in one [44:39] session some classrooms have it broken up because as Laura explained the different components of bridges so you [44:44] have number Corner we have whole group instruction we have workplaces I know there are some like when I was at Middleton for example some of our grade [44:51] level teams would have number corner be part of morning meeting um so they would [44:56] that would be about about 15 minutes of the math time and then they would move into during their math time that's when [45:01] they would have the whole group or small group so teachers do have the flexibility especially with like number [45:07] corner or workplaces to incorporate that at any part throughout the [45:12] day okay um and then in terms of um [45:18] adopting the 2022 I realiz my notes are kind of all over the place sorry uh in terms of adopting the 2022 standards um [45:26] are there any big items that have shifted from 2007 and you know either [45:32] being added or being being taken out of the [45:39] standards so that's a great question and um the simple answer is it's it's very [45:46] similar right really it's more about the approach that we use to teach Ma so [45:51] instead of teaching math in isolated facts where I'm going to ask you to memorize a bunch of facts next week [45:57] we're going to do a test and you're just going to spit those facts back and then we're going to move on to something new right now it's like I want to teach you [46:04] how to Think Through ma like a mathematical literacy and so that's [46:09] where those those uh Benchmark contexts come into place that's where the mathematical practice come comes into [46:15] place so the standards aren't calling out specifically geometry at the anchor [46:22] standards it'll end up being more in like the benchmarks here and there but it's more of a holistic approach if we [46:27] want A Narrative Approach to math collaborative approach to math uh instead of just that memorization so [46:34] that's that's I think the biggest shift that has occurred and that'll be a shift for some of our teachers also in how to [46:39] approach teaching and then again at the elementary level that focus on data all the way down to kinderart is a b sh to [46:46] it's not that we haven't looked at data and had kids collect data they've been doing that for years it's just how are [46:52] we using it within the context of the math classroom to connect to other things that they might be doing in their da science or social studies how does [46:58] that all connect I wonder s if you're asking it based in I think the last time we had a shift in math it was algebra's [47:05] moving down to e8th grade type of yeah like is a requirement of graduation moving to a different grade [47:12] level so the graduation requirements haven't changed we still need to go through Algebra 2 Algebra 1 is still in [47:18] e8th grade those are still the same okay um yeah um it's your I have to read an [47:24] article today about grade um algebra in Minnesota uh it popped up in my Facebook [47:31] I wish I could say was intellectual looked for it but they talked about how students were um Statewide it hasn't led [47:39] to more students ending up taking calculus versus when the standards were were added right and um one of the [47:47] things they talked about is that by moving into eth grade we've seen some students get into high school and then struggle mathematically because they [47:54] were not developmentally ready for um for algebra one in eth grade so what are [48:00] we doing to um ensure that those kids [48:05] are part of the they don't they're not left behind or left out as part of these [48:11] new standards as we're designing our that's a it's a really good question [48:17] and one of the to be transparent one of the struggles we have is most of the nation doesn't have e or Algebra 1 in [48:23] e8th grade they have Algebra 1 in ninth grade where a lot of researchers would say students are cognitively more ready [48:30] for that abstract thinking when they hit nth grade they're just a little too young sometimes in eth grade I think you [48:36] know there's a lot of good for people saying we need to expose our kids to things early so they adap you know adopt to that adapt um but it is a challenge [48:44] when we look at curriculum also that supports our learning and so really we are leaning into and really the mtss [48:52] approach is saying we want to prioritize a specific standard and then ask our PLC [48:59] teams to look at how do we best address those students who are not meeting that year and so I would say that the [49:06] structure we have in place right now is going to benefit our Math teachers also so that they have a a structure in their [49:12] professional learning communities with their fellow colleagues to say how do we figure that out some of the work we're [49:18] doing in Circ is also some of that we see that the standards this The Benchmark says this we know that some of [49:25] our students are going to struggle with learning and absorbing that and so how do we build classroom practice that [49:32] naturally helps those students what I would say between the bells right instead of you have to come in after school but how do we do it right now in [49:39] the classroom and then there are students who take out six and seventh grade as [49:44] well how are those is that determined from their math scores orc scores we have a really detailed math [49:52] placement process for fifth grade that involves um our talent velopment Department there's um data review then [50:00] there's teacher recommendation and then there's also opportunities for parents to say I think you've misplaced my child [50:06] can we please take a look at this again so um it's all of those things that happen in that fifth grade process that [50:12] go into where they go in sixth grade and I think we've also done a good job of saying because you're here in sixth [50:18] grade you're not going to end up here as a junior you know we've worked on developing those onramps and off-ramps [50:24] for students for acceleration of math so that if they're one year accelerated or two years accelerated and they're not [50:30] being successful we have a safety net that can catch them and it's not just you know you're going to get seas and [50:36] math for the rest of you know your high school career because you're on this path and you got to stay on this path so [50:41] I think we've worked hard on that in terms of making sure kids are ready and then you know there are very few cases [50:47] where parents say I I want them there anyway and then we have lots of conversations like okay and here's what [50:55] you can expect and generally we are pretty right on where on placement and um so I [51:04] think that that over the last three years has become really important to make that decision based on data versus [51:10] emotion and but they won't get to a certain place and so just trying to dispel those you know rumors that they [51:17] can't reach Calculus if they're not in algebra in seventh grade okay um and [51:23] then I think this is my last question um the secondary so secondary standards for [51:30] Minnesota will end with algebra 2 correct there's no there's no benchmarks for trade or um calculus or anything [51:36] like that right so I know that when you get to the high schools there are you know you can take algebra 3 you can [51:43] take so those classes all exist outside of these math standards so will those [51:49] classes or how will those classes be affected by the standards in many ways they shouldn't be [51:56] right because students will still progress through their their math progression at the same rate um and then [52:01] they will still have that opportunity to take whatever further math class they want to um after they complete Algebra 2 [52:09] so that that really shouldn't change the dynamic there [52:14] okay any other questions okay um thank you all I do mly [52:20] comment is I would have um that was a lot of great information I would have [52:25] loved to a little bit more like when you talked about number corner and some doing a morning meeting maybe some of [52:31] the differences in some videos of how it's being taught in different ways so [52:37] that we can really see what is going on in those classrooms thank you thank you thank you [52:44] thank you thanks team okay on to 5.0 and that will be [52:50] information item we do have one no we have two this evening 5.1 is audit for [52:57] 2023 24 fiscal year that will be introduced by Chris Blackburn director [53:02] of business so good evening everybody um I always tell people that um to be an [53:07] accountant you just have to add subtract multiply divide but I'm telling you that after hearing about the math really glad [53:13] that I do accounting and not just straight math teaching because I don't think I would be very good at it so um [53:18] with me this evening is Erin neelsen uh please introduce him with our audit firm of mmkr he's a principal there and in [53:25] charge of our audit every year and he's here to present information relating to the annual audit of the district for our [53:30] fiscal year ended June 30th of 24 and so again received an unmodified or clean [53:35] opinion and full sets are out online on the PDFs as well um simy yes you may have a hard copy um if any other board [53:43] member would like one please let us know um and again we did apply for the certificate certificate of excellence [53:49] program again um this year award and that will if a um we received our 18th [53:55] consecutive award last last year so exciting always for us to receive that and then at next board meeting we'll put [54:01] forth for board acceptance of the auto reports I will also qualify by the way that I apologize for my sound effects [54:07] this evening I did receive a wonderful holiday gift of a cold and I think Erin is a little one too but he is not [54:14] coughing like I am so I do have one more cough drop left um but with that I will turn it over to [54:21] Aon great well thank you very much I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening and a good start to the [54:27] year actually when you see your audit results so it's nice to get to have a presentation like this to start off and [54:34] I'd love to say they're all going to go this smoothly and uh have the same results but uh that can't always be the [54:39] case but um we're pleased to report we did complete the auto process as you know it's a very long and rigorous [54:46] process for um completing that and getting through that uh Chris has [54:51] mentioned a lot of the details with regard to the ACT for that comprehensive or annual comprehensive financial report [54:58] and so I put together the PowerPoint so not to surprise anybody but it's just some of the graphs we've taken out of [55:04] the management report tring to keep us on the same page if there's anything you want to address in the reports I'm happy [55:11] to try to answer them at the end so with that uh I will start right away with the [55:16] first uh slide we presented so our audit results for this past year we've issued [55:22] what is known as an unmodified opinion on the basic Financial State statements or a clean opinion on the basic [55:29] financial statements um as I'm sure Chris and her staff are getting very accustomed to every year it seems like [55:35] we're adding a new audit St a change with regard to the requirements so we do [55:40] have again an emphasis of a matter paragraph on just changes in it was Capital asset accounting this year and [55:47] groups of similar assets they made together exceed the capitalization threshold but individually would not and [55:54] now they're saying they would like to see those capitalized as groups of assets groups of similar [56:00] assets with regard to the internal control and compliance for the financial audits so that's under auditing [56:06] standards you're required for a couple of reasons uh the federal single audit requires your audit to be under [56:12] government auditing standards and the state of Minnesota requires our school districts to be under government [56:17] auditing standards so as you can see have noted there we had no material weaknesses in the internal controls and [56:24] we had no instances of non-compliance to report for you I think [56:30] the the button you can see I added is that um stressing that internal controls need to be constantly monitored updated [56:37] as you know times and things change how you receive payments and how the uh areas shift and where you're collecting [56:47] resources the last couple of areas that we discussed from the an audit opinion or reporting standpoint is the single [56:53] audit of your federal Awards we've issued what is known as a clean opinion [56:58] uh on the ca or the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards uh you can see we noted we had no material [57:04] weaknesses or instances of non-compliance on the major programs that were tested this past year and then [57:12] the last component there is the Minnesota legal compliance audit so for the office of the state auditor legal [57:17] compliance manual there's seven broad categories and inside of each one there's many tests that we have to [57:23] complete or make sure you're following and we're pleased to report there were no instances of non-compliance so um you [57:32] know really from an audit standpoint we're looking for instances of compliance and reportable components and [57:37] we had none to report for you this past year so uh really pleased with the results of the audit and our testing for [57:48] 2324 uh the rest of my slides that I have here are just to share information out of the financial put together by [57:54] information of your staff and I'm sure they've got a lot more details than I would have on that to share with you but [58:00] I'll hit some highlights and we can go from there uh we include the slide here for adjusted ADM or average daily [58:08] membership as a measure of the on a daily basis to show you the [58:13] size of the organization the funding really does follow the number of students you're serving you can see this [58:19] past year the current estimate at the moment was about 19,0 and9 students uh [58:25] for 202 before that represented an increase of about 239 or [58:31] 1.3% over the prior year number of students that you served on the next slide we show your [58:39] size of the well financial position or trends of the organization so we picked [58:44] some of the key components to look at for uh showing how the organization has changed over the past 10year period uh [58:52] really what this shows me is a improved financial position you can see uh the [58:58] size of the organization is also grown so we do uh in that circumstance want to see your cash and fund balance Equity [59:05] levels increase in a similar proportion over the size of the organization because it'll take more Equity cash [59:13] balances to operate on a day-to-day basis as the size of the organization [59:19] changes diving into a little more detail of the general fund so I've got several slides for the general fund as your [59:25] primary operat fund so the slide I have before you here is the general fund financial position uh for the past 5 [59:32] years looking at the components of equity nonspendable are resources that [59:38] are still able to be used by the organization inventory prepaid items but [59:43] you've basically dedicated how you're going to use those resources for the purpose that was purchased before the end of the [59:49] year the restricted category really captures the dollars that you're holding at your end that came with specific re [59:56] requirements on how utilize them uh long-term facilities maintenance operating Capital basic skills dollars [1:00:03] and then everything else falls into the one of the categories of unrestricted fund balance so uh committed fund [1:00:09] balance is designated by your highest level of governance or in your case the school board sets those dollars uh [1:00:16] creates those categories they also have to be selected before the end of the year you can't wait till find out oh we [1:00:22] had a good year we want to commit dollars uh that decision has to be made before the end of the fiscal year for an [1:00:28] organization assigning dollars uh can be made by the school board but you've also [1:00:33] delegated that authority to your superintendent and um other areas to be able to make those assignments and that [1:00:40] can be made after the end of the year when you find out where your financial results uh land uh Sometimes some [1:00:47] popular ones uh end up being uh if you had a planned project it didn't go because of timing you might assign them [1:00:54] in your case you've generally used it and and almost a requirement that's written into the standard when you adopt [1:01:00] a budget where your deficit spending for the following year so that's what's making up yours in large part is when [1:01:05] you've adopted that budget saying okay you're now operating in the next year and you're actually halfway through it [1:01:10] now um we can't consider all of that fund balance available for us because we're operating um with those dollars [1:01:17] anticipated to be spent already and then everything else falls into that unassigned category so um really what I [1:01:25] want to point out with this slide you'll see some fund balance percentage calculations and we we're calculating [1:01:30] them based on total expenditures of the general fund which is how we do it for all of our districts for consistency [1:01:37] your fund balance is written as a manner to match the state's calculation of the sod calculation so they use operating [1:01:46] expenditure so they'll back off some of the long-term facilities maintenance one time so expenditures operating capital [1:01:53] and so with regard to your fund balance policy you had a goal to meet uh [1:01:58] 16.6% and that goal was to be met by the end of 2026 fiscal year and we're [1:02:04] pleased to report that you hit that goal actually a couple years early with this fiscal Year's audit so um I think you [1:02:10] ended I know you ended at 17.2% by that calculation done by the mde so I'm pleased to see you've gotten [1:02:17] to that and I I know it's a challenge to you know build that fund balance to get to that point so um it takes a lot of [1:02:24] hard work and difficult decisions to be able to do that a couple more slides with the [1:02:30] general fund the slide I show you here is for the revenues focusing on the primary sources of the funding that [1:02:37] comes to the general fund so you can educate your students of the district um you can see that focus on state sources [1:02:44] making up a majority of those resources this past year accounting for [1:02:50] 70.6% uh followed by property taxes at 24.2% and then you can see the balance [1:02:55] and federal sources um which get a lot of attention because of the single audit requirements of 2% of the general fund [1:03:03] and then the other category uh is the fees it includes investment earnings so [1:03:08] uh for your District the total revenues of past year amounted at [1:03:16] $317.66 one% and was a about 11% increase or 11 [1:03:21] 12% increase over the prior year so um the increases driven by the number of [1:03:27] students you serve this past year some enhancements to funding with regard to the formula allowance of 4% increase uh [1:03:35] you also received additional State funding the state made a uh effort to help provide cross subsidy funding to [1:03:41] help offset that cross subsidy deficit that existed so um on the favorable side [1:03:48] for the budget as I would say coming in better than anticipated I would attribute that largely conservative budging for other sources investment [1:03:55] earnings can be very challenging and really I'm kind of saying the same message I've been giving all season and [1:04:01] I got a few more of these to go so um seeing a favorable variance with investment earnings um conservative [1:04:07] budgeting was State sources and some moves the district was able to take advantage of with uh dollars and how you [1:04:14] utilize your federal funds for tuition billing so um a couple of positive [1:04:19] resources there um which will impact my next slide when we look at the [1:04:25] expenditures so a similar slide to the revenues [1:04:30] looking a budget to actual to Prior year comparison uh this past year total [1:04:36] expenditures amounted to [1:04:44] $31.15 per and about 11% over the prior year um usually I get nervous when [1:04:51] you're over budgeting the expense side I always say favorable on Revenue and then we want to be under budget but it's a [1:04:57] little deceiving this year with your your uh revenue or expenditures coming in over budget because the tuition move [1:05:04] that was made uh is really the driver and why your purchase Services were over budget which was offset by a favorable [1:05:12] variance in your special ed revenues this past year State sources so offset [1:05:17] and then I would say the other component of that is capital expenditures that you can see are over budget uh in the MD's [1:05:24] reporting of leases when you issue a new lease and guidance for leases we have to [1:05:30] report that as upfront other financing sources but in the uforce manual they net is one offsetting the other as an [1:05:37] expense code so when we present it on the audit then you're over expenses but you're over budget in other financing [1:05:43] sources but offsetting each other so really a net neutral for both of those cases so if you factored both of those [1:05:50] you would be under budget in total for your general funds so uh the the other [1:05:55] component I'd like to share is as you can see the salaries and employee benefits uh make up a majority of the [1:06:02] spending for general fund to educate the students uh this past year for your organization was [1:06:08] 75.6% um Not Unusual right in that range we see for school districts and you know [1:06:14] not not to make a pun with it but when you're dealing with your budgets it's becomes very personal you know so it [1:06:21] falls right in that light range where difficult decisions for that [1:06:27] I've got just a couple more slides uh the other governmental funds we're capturing the operating funds here [1:06:34] you've got a couple others that I'll mention uh the other operating funds for your District the Food Service special [1:06:40] Revenue fund uh seeing an improved financial position this past year uh [1:06:45] that fund balance ended the year at 43.9% and the total expenses in that [1:06:51] fund is about $12.5 million I'll just share uh the community service fund you [1:06:57] can see your uh well not by this slide but the total expenses for the community service fund was about [1:07:04] 16.8 million this past year so that's why we we only use one slide showing the [1:07:10] uh components of the equity for these two funds compared to the over 300 million you have for your operating fund [1:07:16] um really not uncommon what we've seen this past year with the food service operations it was again another change [1:07:22] in how it was funded in 2024 the state providing free meals for all districts [1:07:28] so seeing an increase in participation favorable operating results so difficult [1:07:33] to anticipate how that would impact your organizations so uh you can see that change this past year uh the community [1:07:41] service special Revenue fund you can see has been running pretty lean for many years for the district uh this past year [1:07:48] ending at $254,000 or about 1.5% and uh the comment I would share [1:07:55] with there and I think I've noted it in the management report is you within the community service fund you also have [1:08:00] splits of the various buckets of resources for Community Ed funding early [1:08:06] childhoods uh School Readiness community service Community Education um so you [1:08:12] when you look at overall you have a positive fund balance of 254 but you have certain buckets that are in a [1:08:19] deficit position so um I will share your District was one of the first ones where [1:08:24] I saw that and was uh actively aware of that uh situation because the importance of getting the [1:08:30] students into the classrooms and and the Early Childhood um so I'm not saying [1:08:36] it's a bad thing or you know a positive thing but it'll become one of those [1:08:41] situations where how are we going to finance that deficit moving forward so um really a planning issue um so you're [1:08:49] not keeping spending nose into a deficit position because you'll have to afford it in some manner the general fund or or [1:08:55] work with your legislators if there's going to be more funding specifically for that [1:09:01] so my next slid is the last slide but I did want to make a couple of comments to [1:09:07] you know give you full transparency the reports this past year uh the capital [1:09:12] project fund as you were well aware on the board uh you're starting to see the resources come in there you're going to [1:09:18] have a lot of activity going on there this this year issuing the bonds or half of the bonds approximately of the bond [1:09:25] issue uh you had some facility maintenance Bond activity going on in the [1:09:30] construction fund or we know as fund six uh in your debt service fund the district doing some good things with [1:09:36] some refunding bonds that are going to allow your District to save some resources to taxpayers with the [1:09:42] refunding bonds that were issued this past year and then another area the Chang that you may have noticed is the [1:09:47] internal service funds so we've been talking about those for several years and and this year making that change to [1:09:54] close the internal service fund and account for those now largely in the general fund and then entity-wide [1:09:59] financial statements so with that I'll make one last comment on the entity wide and and we can answer any questions or [1:10:06] comments there uh to this point we've been talking about the individual funds on Current financial resources what's [1:10:13] available for you to spend in the classrooms and programming so that focus on the modified acral is really looking [1:10:20] at dollars that you have available to you uh current spendable resources es so [1:10:26] it doesn't capture long-term assets the buildings the infrastructure for the organization or long-term obligations [1:10:33] the bonds the um pension obligations of the entity-wide financial statements so [1:10:39] uh you can see we talked about a lot of good things on the current Financial Resources um the long-term view we get [1:10:46] out of the entity-wide financial statements uh pulling in those Capital assets consolidating all the funds and [1:10:53] then also grabbing the long-term oblig ations so we talked on the individual [1:10:58] funds most of the funds seeing an increase over the prior year then we look at the net position on a long-term [1:11:04] perspective and you can see you also uh are reporting an increase there uh the [1:11:10] net investment in capital assets has a lot of that increase so while it's a [1:11:15] good thing it's meaning you're paying down your outstanding debt on the obligations the organization at a faster [1:11:21] Pace than you're depreciating your buildings which is common the bonds are generally 20ish years uh you're using [1:11:28] your buildings for 40 plus years and sometimes well beyond that uh the restricted component you can see an [1:11:34] increase this past year I had noted a couple of areas for that was The Debt Service fund we talked about so [1:11:41] restricted for Debt Service and then the food service was the other larger component that saw an increase in [1:11:47] restricted and then everything else Falls to unrestricted so um one other thing I'll say with the net investment [1:11:53] in capital assets it's great to see it in increase but it doesn't mean you have $26 million more to put into programming [1:11:59] because it's tied up in the buildings um but seeing the increase and unrestricted uh couple of factors there it's that [1:12:06] improved fund balance of the general fund and the other funds we talked about and then the change in the pension [1:12:12] obligations and I'll hedge on that one a little bit on the pension obligations because it can go the other way but it [1:12:19] doesn't mean you did anything wrong it's just how the market impacted p and TR on [1:12:25] a Statewide basis and you've continued to meet your obligations and the [1:12:31] required deposits for your pension and have met that so um you can that one [1:12:38] gets a little conceiving or deceiving and in presenting that because you could [1:12:43] see a decrease when the general fund had a good year sometimes just because of how the market impacted in the timing of [1:12:50] when you report that so I do want to thank your staff I know [1:12:55] there's always new things to be implementing they're very prepared when we come for the audit which we [1:13:01] appreciate and um I know they put a lot of work into it and so um going through [1:13:06] that is a big process and involves a lot of departments because we get the federal audit in there now we got people [1:13:11] that uh really don't care for accounting as much as they would rather be spending it with students so um with that I [1:13:18] appreciate the chance to be here if there's any questions I'd be happy to try to answer [1:13:23] them uh [1:13:29] just so I know this last the districtde statement of this is like the school [1:13:34] district balance sheet yes I would I would agree [1:13:39] everything pulled together and so you mention the that [1:13:48] chaliz simar simar items in a group or whatever so what would an example of [1:13:53] that be drum roll please um tech devices so our [1:13:59] capitalization threshold is you know we raiseed to 25,000 per item 5,000 per item for federal fixed assets so when we [1:14:07] buy an iPad right or a teacher laptop right um those individually wouldn't be [1:14:14] eligible to be capitalized under the new standard however now we have to group like assets and so we might have [1:14:19] purchased you know 1,500 teacher devices and now were we used to not capitalize them now we [1:14:26] have to capitalize them and so how is this different [1:14:31] from I assasing we lease a lot of our Tech equipment right so how is this different [1:14:38] from how we the capitalization of leases or it's not for for the assets you've purchased [1:14:46] under lease it isn't since we had to implement the new lease standard because we were required to put an asset on and [1:14:54] offset it with the lease liability I actually think that might have been one of the driving factors to tweak that [1:15:00] question because districts that would not lease they may not capitalize it so it'd be kind of a different treatment of [1:15:06] those assets so for ones that you buy outright you only have the asset on your books no obligation but if you were [1:15:14] leasing everything you wouldn't have noticed a change so um and then um [1:15:21] earlier you had mentioned you [1:15:32] so you talk about cash Investments net of borrowing and the unrestricted fund Bal so is the cash Investments net of [1:15:38] borrowing is that like cash on hand on June 30th yes and the net of borrowing is [1:15:45] a not really that pertinent to you because the only borrowing you have is [1:15:51] kind of the timing of that draw from the trust fund um some districts and it it [1:15:57] really goes back because I don't can't remember all 10 years for all my districts when districts had to cash [1:16:02] flow borrow using Aid anticipation certificates it became much more important to share that and so that [1:16:09] really the N but that's that's looking at your cash and the general fund as of June 30th in in Investments okay so [1:16:18] Delta top of yell line is restricted is Cas already committed [1:16:25] um the difference a little bit it's a little deceiving from a standpoint of [1:16:30] cash and Investments at year end and we're so it's app point in time at June 30th I'm only grabbing your unrestricted [1:16:37] so it's not a total fund balance and then the other factor that has a play in [1:16:43] that for school districts in Minnesota um your property taxes are paid on were [1:16:48] paid on a calendar basis but you've received half of the cash by June 30th [1:16:54] but we haven't put it into your fund balance haven't recognized any of that Revenue so there's an offsetting unearned or uh it's a deferred inflow [1:17:02] taxes levied for subsequent years so you've collected some of the money for [1:17:07] next year that you are anticipating so when do we soty taxes do in May right yeah and then [1:17:15] the county gives us the money in June so so we actually Washington County um [1:17:22] has a program that they provide advances on our property tax so typically um in late May and early June because they [1:17:29] roughly know what collections are at that point that they provide two advances to us and then they have a true up um in J early July that we received [1:17:37] kind of the trup calculation for the what we were do for that May 15th collection similarly in the um fall we [1:17:44] received so like in November late November early December we received that um kind of the advances and then we [1:17:51] receive a true up in January for that fall collection date we recognize the money [1:17:57] atog it oh simy we could have lots of conversations about how to reconcile [1:18:02] taxes so as we talk when we Levy taxes right that we're always levying and we it's not actually Revenue till that year [1:18:07] following so in 25 the taxes levied and that we receive aren't actually Revenue until 26 for us and so we claim them as [1:18:15] like a um as Aon was something think almost like a liability like if because if we went out we'd have to pay it back [1:18:21] to the county right because we wouldn't have earned it okay no that makes no sense okay maybe one comment I can add [1:18:26] with that what makes school districts different than cities governments um [1:18:32] were as taxpayers were on the same calendar year basis but when I do my city presentations they will generally [1:18:39] have a fund balance policy of 50% because their yearend balance they [1:18:44] haven't collected any taxes in advance so they've got to have enough equity to basically operate the first half of the [1:18:51] year and before they collect any of their tax payments so that like school pay 25 is for 26 uh [1:18:59] City will start their year without any of that revenue from taxes until halfway through so that that's just a difference [1:19:06] in that timing and then lastly just you know our [1:19:13] federal dollars went down by 50% from two years ago that just like hang [1:19:19] absolutely and so um eron and I were actually looking at it and I said probably two well I say 25 now so three [1:19:27] years ago I put together some information at that time um and I think out of the all the districts in the [1:19:33] state we received like the I think only 32 districts received Less on a per pupil basis than we did and so you know [1:19:41] we certainly received still a significant amount but comparatively not a lot for our size um and so that you [1:19:48] know again as those ebed and flowed and some came with County money as well and we to spend real fast um I think think [1:19:54] one time we had two weeks to spend like SE $3 million I think so um maybe three [1:20:00] weeks as fast as I've ever spent money in my life um felt like it was at the [1:20:06] store when you're like what else what do we need and you know and it was a really challenging time for our staff so it was [1:20:11] helpful to make those choices but we did try to very much be mindful onetime monies and not have tails with those [1:20:18] dollars either thank you so much I'm so excited about this thank you thank you [1:20:25] any other questions okay seeing none thank you [1:20:32] ER we will move on to 5.2 and that is our first first reading of proposed policy [1:20:39] changes and that will be presented by Julie nson super good evening and thank you um this evening I bringing forth [1:20:45] four policies as part of our regular policy review um as a customary um our [1:20:51] board policy committee has reviewed these policies I believe that occurred in early December or maybe later [1:20:56] November it feels like a long time ago um so this evening we are bringing uh [1:21:01] forward four policies 101 legal status of the school board um just updates the legal um references um 101.1 name of the [1:21:10] school district we have just added sashco um we know that when we see a report like erens it says still says [1:21:17] District 833 our former communications director might have a word with you but [1:21:22] we know that we are number 833 um we are South washing County Schools but we also are referred to as soash Co so we're [1:21:29] adding that into the policy um 102 equal opportunity education um additional [1:21:34] language is added as per msba um the model policy and statute and 103 [1:21:40] complaints students employees parents other persons um there's one update to one of the cross references um as noted [1:21:47] in your packet um so with that it is just information tonight so I would just open up if anyone has any questions [1:21:58] see none Dana do we [1:22:03] have any other no okay then we will bring these forward on our January 16th [1:22:10] meeting for a vote fabulous thank you okay on to 6.0 reports and comments uh [1:22:18] Julie I don't know about the rest of you but there's some vent up here and I am [1:22:23] like chronically Shak um for the viewing public I don't normally sit here in shake it is just so cold my nose is [1:22:29] mostly Frozen I was going to ask someone to go get my jacket um just a couple of things as we open the new year um [1:22:36] welcome back to all of our staff um it was a great day to come back uh it's a little bit of an ease in um today was a [1:22:43] workshop day for um teachers so there was the opportunity I think most of our schools had the opportunity to meet and [1:22:49] have a short staff meeting along with time to begin planning and thinking forward to the new school year here uh [1:22:55] tomorrow there is our continued professional development around with with literacy across the entire district [1:23:02] and then on Monday we welcome students back I'm sure on Monday there will probably be some snowstorm and people will wonder like why isn't she canceling [1:23:08] school again um we did run into that a little bit prior to Break um also just to remind um individuals that this is [1:23:15] the time of year where we roll things over so we roll over already in our systems the 25 26 school year we begin [1:23:22] to look at new kindergarten students who will be en rolling um it's the opportunity for student registration and [1:23:28] from now through March We Begin the whole Staffing process so you'll be hearing a lot of conversations um and of [1:23:34] course with those conversations of registrations and Staffing we also begin to talk about and set that new budget um [1:23:40] that Chris will be presenting um as a first read I think in May and then a final read into June what's that Chris [1:23:47] it's all in June it's all in June okay so first read preliminary and then all the way to the final um and so with that [1:23:53] we're excited to be back looking forward to Great 2025 please take the kids [1:24:00] back thank you Julie any board members have any upcoming events on any of their [1:24:05] Poli or committees okay seeing none we'll move on to 7.0 and that is our future meeting [1:24:11] dat um January 16th will be a [1:24:17] school meeting business meeting at the district service center at 6 p.m. and then February 6th will be our Workshop [1:24:24] meeting also here at the district service center at 6 p.m. with that 8.0 and we are [1:24:33] aour a little bit Yeah crazy C but definitely a little [1:24:38] cold