##VIDEO ID:6siFPr7tFs4## 24 the time is 6:31 p.m. our mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage Inspire educate prepare and Empower all Learners in partnership with their surrounding Community to be successful in today's and tomorrow Society Zach can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all thank you and then Zach can you please call roll yes uh the following board members are present at the District administration office Scott andron here Natalie Copeland here El doen here Zack dhol is here Shannon HW here Monica Shara Schwarz here Heather wngs here the following cabinet members and staff are present at the District administration office superintendent Dr Lorie putam assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of prek through grade five education Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services Shannon avenson executive director of Community Education Adam Holm executive director of operations Joel high camp executive director of Special Projects Gary gangji director of community engagement and Community Communications Tammy Dand controller finance and business services David Cooney media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott and the custodian on site is Aiden Ander thank you then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's Board of Education meeting agenda so move thank you I have a motion by Scott and a second by Natalie Zach can you call vote Shannon hos yes Zach D holdz yes El dogran yes Natalie Copeland yes Scott andron yes Heather Williams yes Monica SAR Schwarz yes thank you then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items that the board adopts routinely without debate any single member May remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption on tonight's consent agenda item a approval of minutes from August 7th 2024 and August 21st 2024 Item B approval of bills and other Financial transactions in the grand total amount of 6,875 6783 item C approval of personnel staff changes item D acceptance of Grant Awards and donations and item e McKinley addition and renovation project change order total of $1,624 at this time does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda okay looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as read we move and again a motion by Scott and a second by Natalie thanks Z can you call vote uh Shannon HS yes mon Shar Schwarz yes Heather Williams yes Scott andreon yes Natalie Copeland yes El doen yes Zach dhol yes all right moving on to discussion and action items we have first up the preliminary Levy certification David Cooney controller is going to be printing presenting two items for us tonight this and then the final Levy certification announcement first one is an action item all right uh good evening uh chair H superintendent putam uh members of the board um first I just wanted to touch on uh one item or a couple items prior to getting into the numbers which I know you guys are all pumped for um uh first this is just a pre preliminary Levy um the final Levy will come to the board in December um there's three huge components um to the levy general fund which is the largest Community Education and Debt Service and uh lastly the Lev Levy is done in a fair amount of Advance due to the timing of everything um the school district has a fiscal year that runs from July 1st to June 30th um versus the tax uh being collected on a calendar year so um the you can go to the next slide Gary the proposed uh 24 pay 25 Levy is actually for taxes that will be um collected from the taxpayer in calendar year 25 but we will not actually recognize the revenue until 2526 so um the first one is the general fund um I'll kind of just kind of hit on the Heavy Hitters because there's a lot of information on here um number one and number two are for uh voter approved reference ROMs and we don't have any at this point um 3 four and five are enrollment based um and are uh based on current and projected enrollment and the other large one is line number 11 which is the building lease Levy um this is a increas on uh this kind of offsets the increases on lines 3 through five um due to a large excess balance adjustment from a previous year related to core review we discussed this during finance committee if if anyone has any questions as well go to the next slide Gary uh the next one's Community Education um oh it's a primarily driven by early childhood um which that's due to uh enrollment being up and um the rest of it's primarily driven by population so it's nothing that we really have a lot of input on next one and the final area is Debt Service um the reason why you're seeing an increase here this year is because in the actual 23 pay 24 Levy which is on the left column there is actually a large um uh decrease uh due to a fund balance adjustment um that was just a one time and that's why you're seeing that increase if you go to the next one yep thank you Gary um overall this is about a 3.6% increase year-over-year and that is in line with our prior year okay anybody have any questions or comments Scott it looks like there's a whole bunch of different levies there is uh are there different levies for different things over different time periods for different amounts it it is it's about a 40-page uh document that we have to page through to see all the calculations okay that's enough any other questions or discussions okay then I realized you have three items tonight but do you want to move on Al have I would move that we approve the preliminary can we do that yet yes please I would move that we approve the preliminary Levy certification for um 2425 was it I'm sorry it's the uh it's see proposed 24 paid 25 okay that's the one and then who seconded that I have a motion by Al and a second by Monica Zack can you call vote um Monica suara Schwartz yes Shannon hos yes Zach dhol yes Al dogran yes Natalie Copeland yes Scott andron yes Heather Williams yes okay David and then we have just a discussion item the final Levy certification announcement yeah the final final Levy certification will take place at the regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting on December 18th 2024 at 6:30 p.m here at the district office um and there will be time for public testimony thank you anybody have any questions on that all right one more item now uh David Cooney controller is also presenting tonight the enrollment report I did print copies of this um in case anyone needs them um if you guys need them just please let me know more than happy to hand them out um I'll I'll start with the overall and then which is down at the very bottom um and then I'll kind of work from the top all the way down to the bottom starting with Elementary but overall um not including Early Childhood we increased by 74 or 8% from 9,187 in 2023 to uh 9 to or sorry 2024 to 9,261 um and then at the back up at the top area in the elementary schools um it increased by 25 or 6% um we see an overall increase in elementary enrollment despite a decrease in kindergarten enrollment which is down 57 compared to last year um secondary enrollment uh not including um has increased by 66 includes uh cmva an increase in high school enrollment uh cmva is 128 student equivalents uh which is calculated based on percent percentage in role than cmva versus iners um for those students who are not full-time in cmva uh this represents 220 actual students with 55 being full-time cmva and the rest part cmva and part in person um it was 159 last year with 45 being full-time this is only an increase of two um however 38 of the students were in the middle level and so that equates to uh roughly an increase of 40 in the high school program since that's all that's being offered this year um the alternative sites decreased by 17 um based on need um for those specialized programs and early childhood um increased by 96 of that um 29 is uh um ecsc um and 67 is VPK and VPK increases are due to additional VPK SE sections approved by funding at ill Westwood and Tali lincol um these were existing spots uh but were not funded so were not included in the VPK enrollment figures last [Music] year there's a lot of numbers really really fast I apologize if went a little quick thanks for printing these out to Monica so yes that that was a bit fast so um so you said um so I got L um what what did you just said that did not get reported about PRK The Early Childhood so the um VPK increases are due to additional VPK sections approved for funding at oakill Westwood and tahi and last year they weren't included in those numbers because they weren't uh they weren't being funded but what does that mean they were the programs were offered but the numbers were not included they were not VPK sites last year so every year we have the opportunity to apply for a VPK status which will give us partial funding from the state and so we always apply for as many as possible um and we were awarded those three sites this school year oh okay so every year we get to apply for that funding correct so um and now we got approved and that's for this year only and then we have to apply apply again correct um and then what happen so it will depending on the funding that we will offer it or not um so we have a very sustainable plan to maintain what we have for our prek enrollment sections and so part of our our wanting to really last spring look at those VPK opportunities was because we have our currently funded rotary for Success three programs uh six sections and so this is a way to give us some of that partial funding back and so annually we get that notice and we work with our mde counterparts and we do write those applications for as many VPK spots as possible and what exactly is volun PR kindergarten say it one more time what exactly is that program voluntary preschool yeah um it's it a lot of it is based off of the demographics of the students who attend um and so the reason you access some of the funding is due to socioeconomic status and some of those free and reduced lunch categories um and so that's how we acquire that funding and it's different that is do we have a PR kindergarten that is no voluntary correct yep at clear viiew and Kennedy we currently have two programs that are not VPK sites and what is the difference of funding yes so parents do have to pay for those those sites to attend okay got it thank you I have a question about the elementary school numbers so overall they're up huge increases in oakill and Westwood and the other ones are down do you can you do you wrap your mind around why is it housing differences program differences or yeah so we've been kind of seeing a trend in oakill of those Rising numbers over the past few years at Westwood we could um with the immersion programming we are seeing a large increase due to that immersion programming growing up we currently have two sections of Spanish Immersion in kindergarten and two sections in first grade so over the past two years they have grown four class classroom sections it is not clear view immersion has sustained all of the sections they had prior to immersion starting on the North side but but the like the the non-immersion schools do you think that's some of the numbers going down is because they're headed over to the immersion could be some of the shifts um any of our Northside students who want to attend that immersion program would have access through Westwood um I do update numbers as well every Monday Wednesday and Friday and I can tell you right now from last year's counts we're up 48 students um we're very close to projection numbers as far as Staffing goes as we watch those average class sizes and make sure we're being responsive to student needs and enrollment uh Heather along the same lines Kennedy has seen um pretty substantial declines uh both in Elementary in grade 6 seven and 8 can you talk a little bit about that Trend yeah so this this is my second year of kind of watching these numbers closely um and right now we see Kennedy I have down 46 students from last year and so we are seeing a decrease there is a little bit of a glimmer in kindergarten we saw some of our numbers go up in kindergarten where we had to add a late section this year um and so we are we are watching monitoring closely but we are seeing a decrease of enrollment out at Kennedy do we think that that's related to open enrollment and going elsewhere that is some of the patterns that we are watching yes I think you hit it right that's that's the pattern we're losing our students on that side from Kennedy to go to rori we start to look at it because the families choose if they want to go to Apollo or one of the other suburbs and so at the middle we really been looking at it but the good thing is we got a a big sixth grade class coming in and so it's our job to maintain that and and grow programing to keep our families within our in our system about Early Child anybody else any other questions all right thank you Nikki thank you David okay next thank you um we have the 20124 through 2026 uh strategic Communications plan we have Tammy D land director of community engagement and Communications and Tammy you are joined by um three are they coming up to present two we have uh Jake Sturgis uh Chelsea bront and Stan I'm I'm just butchering it so if you what okay thank you chair H superintendent putam and members of the board I am very happy to welcome here tonight members of the Captivate media team they are going to be presenting a Communications plan that focuses on enrollment so it is very well timed and so we do have Chelsea BR with us Jake Sturgis and Stan Allen I'm going to let them take it away uh Cher HW superintendent putam thank you for chair HW superintendent putam thank you for having us here tonight uh we're very excited to share some of the work that we've been uh doing over the last year uh when it comes to uh uh enrollment um wanted to just quickly go through the agenda that we have for you tonight uh we're going to talk about some enrollment data and goals uh we're going to overview the work that we've completed uh we've got some recommendations and next steps uh talking about your role within all this work as well as uh some time for questions and answers so first wanted to start with with just a few introductions uh my name is Jake Sturgis I'm the founder and CEO at Captivate media uh we're an organization that works primarily with schools we've been around for 10 years I worked for two different school districts in the Twin Cities area before I started this business uh St Cloud area schools was actually one of my very first clients that I had uh way back when uh about 10 years ago and excited to be continuing the work that uh that we've been doing and uh excited to share a little bit more about what we have uh in store for you uh coming up and I'm Excuse me I'm Chelsea brat I also come from uh School Communications prior to working at Captivate um I worked at an intermediate District um in the Twin Cities and then um Prior Lake Savage area schools in Prior Lake chair HW superintendent putam members of the board um I'm Stan Allen um my background um is in Communications Consulting I've been doing that for about 10 years um excited to partner with Captivate on this particular project um um but prior to um my Consulting work um I was in three school districts um I was a chief of communications from Minneapolis public schools for about seven years um and then I move moved from North Carolina I was in a a district in eastern North Carolina and a district in Asheville North Carolina so um good background with rural suburban and urban um just happy to be [Music] here so we're here tonight to present on uh our plan for enrollment and growth and um some of the things that we were looking at as we were some of the factors um affecting enrollment we wanted to dig into that we wanted to outline some strategies for retention and growth and I also want to just make sure that we differentiate retention and growth are two very different things uh and we'll be talking about those even though there are some connecting points um there are some different strategies for both of those uh looking at ways to to build and retrain uh and retain trust and uh you know I just want to preface this work too that this is uh this is deeper work than I think a lot of people may realize uh when we talk about retention and growth um sometimes when districts ask us to help with enrollment plans they think that we're just going to come up with some uh some really nice videos and some shiny Billboards and that's going to be enough to to bring more students in um and as you'll discover with our work uh you know it's much deeper than that um we could have the the the best Billboards in the world and if people are coming in and the brand that is portrayed there isn't reflected in the school uh in those in that experience that that families have when they enter the doors um all of that work and all that money is going to be not well spent and there are a lot of things that we that we're doing and we're suggesting to help build that trust and that experience that people have um and when we talk about Communications in our plan it's both uh mass communications pieces but then also interpersonal communication pieces that we'll be talking about um a lot of this is is relationship based and and and building and rebuilding trust and that's uh as you'll see an important piece of our work um so I just wanted to start with uh situation analysis I think you I mean you just saw a lot of that um when we did our research um we saw that you were losing about 4,200 students to open enrollment every year that's about 30% of your eligible population which is in contrast to the state average of 9% so just to give it some perspective and of course um that's dollars out the door um $30.5 million in Lost Revenue annually some of the things that this can't really measure that we're also thinking about um is the negative effects on the community that's lost Revenue in the community that's um missed opportunities in the community and you know some of the narratives that can go along with this work are divisive um I I think I want to use this slide as um being optim istic um being being excited about trying to do something that that needs to be done um when I was went I use Minneapolis public schools as an example when I first moved there um they had lost a lot of students and um we came in the team we had had to come up with a marketing enrollment plan to to go get some students and so and we were successful now since then they've started losing students again um but but I have this slide up here because this is a huge thing to think about but if you start thinking small then it it becomes something that you know you can do like 15 students 15 students and I hate to put numbers on students we don't like doing that but when you think about per pupil expenditures um 15 equates to $109,000 over a course of years um it could easily get to a million when you think about just adding 15 at 15 um once you have success and you start feeling success let's look at the 200 students um we're talking about revenue of over $1.5 million um so there's a reason to do this and um it could be something that people get excited about and the last thing I'll say is I mean you see 15 um there was a time where where you know you you you go into communities and you know there are certain people that live in an area and let's say it's 15 or 20 of them what kind of conversations are you having with them and how do you get them excited and all of a sudden they want to come back together um that was something that we talk about we don't want to get into tactics now but that is just kind of bringing it to life these numbers yes I want to talk just a little bit about process um we follow a four-step process with our work which is research plan Implement and evaluate um and we always start with research uh and our research included listening and included looking at data and included looking at past practices uh and existing practices that are going on um we conduct we'll talk about the some of the focus groups that we conducted um but this was um research was a key piece and then uh the the first thing that we did when we started working on this project [Music] um so we like Jake said the focus groups um we we did all those focus groups and then we kind of really looked at the data synthesize it and then we came up with some findings um some of the there were a lot of things but these are things that kept coming up over and over again um you have a lot of folks and all groups that are excited about saying that they want to be here because of diversity they think diversity is a strength they talk about diversity in a positive way now we didn't unpack that because we know diversity can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people but it was very positive it was very consistent so that kept coming over and over and over again um educational opportunities kept coming over we spent we we met with some passionate um families particularly the immersion families um they are very excited about the programs they're they're pleased they think it's awesome um they have some questions I'll get into in a minute but um they want more they want a lot more and they they they are articulating that um some of the things that is on there already but they they're they're questioning rigor they're questioning um is are there enough programs and and and things like that but um it was a very positive group to kind of they were on board with with trying to build enrollment and and get this thing going um staff relationships I I've been in three districts this is mixed everywhere I've been um you know these are tough jobs these are fast-paced jobs um but really um finding ways to strengthen those relationships finding ways to be more lined um is is a common theme um that's not unique to to to St Cloud but uh it is something to be thinking about and I know the superintendent already has some programs in place where we're looking at internal things um to try to make sure staffs are on the same page um Athletics and activities we did some student groups and you can imagine that came up over and over again they want more and more and more they love the Athletics they love the activities and they want more of them um so that was a common theme among the students safety came up a lot um and there's still question marks in our minds like safety we were in some places like when we met with the students they feel safe the students felt safe they felt everything was fine now the adults that was kind of mixed um we had some family is that it was a major concern um we didn't have a lot of specific things that people mentioned but high level um there's a lot of perceptions out there um I think it's an encouraging conversation that you can have you probably already started having but that is something that that needs to be clarified and worked on among some of the groups because there's a perception for sure um declining rigor I mentioned it already um there's a perception that you know and I think that there are some students that that have so much to learn and they are far behind that maybe they're slowing down some of the kids that that are ready to to to fly you've heard that before you don't need to hear from me um and then we threw in an extra one customer service um we just felt like um there's a lot of things going on and we felt like there was an opportunity to get I call it low hanging fruit some immediate wins for you guys and um we did witness some variant in customer service as we went into different buildings and and we feel like that's something that that you guys are absolutely working on and we're going to talk about that in a minute I'm G to hold it too instead of lean over um just to talk about how we got here um of course our research included data it included all the numbers um historical enrollment data population data anecdotes from the staff members and the admin that we talked to but then we really needed to bring bring in first of all the human element and hear what those narratives are because that is the most powerful piece that's um convincing people what to do um and so we wanted to go straight to the source and talk to different groups of people to hear in their communities what are the narratives around um the school district that's what brought us to the focus groups so with the focus groups we had 16 different focus groups uh throughout the course of our um time we worked with many existing groups so many Affinity groups that are already existing in the district we uh had conversations with many of them um this is a combination of focus groups that were conducted in person as well as uh virtually we had a uh a a bad weather day back in uh was it March um where we were planning to be in person but uh we conducted those online um so overall I think a a good cross-section of of different groups within the uh the school district that we had an opportunity um from families to students and staff um there were invitations to all those groups to uh all those people to participate in these focus groups so then from our findings we developed a list of key messages um we worked closely with District administration and Dr putam to really build out like what we need to say as a district and how to show our values um so I'll just read them off quick We Are One District bringing communities together to serve all students everyone belongs here we welcome love and support all of our students families and staff we offer a world of opportunities empowering our students to create the future of their dreams and then we just included some bullet points of of items to make sure to highlight the the things that attract families to your District yes oh I'm I'm doing this no I was I was just going to mention that key messages are that piece that um we want uh woven in throughout all different types of communication and um uh repetitive message and when everybody's singing from the same song sheet um that resonates more with the community rather than everybody you talk to you're hearing from different things so having some consistency and having some defined key messages is is a really important um strategy and I'll just add um key Messengers it's hard because you you need to repeat them over and over over and over again and people that are inside like Schoolboard members and staff members you hear the whole me you hear the messages over and over again but it takes a lot for people your other stakeholders your parents your families your communities to to get those messages so you can't say them enough you times for them to to to to get it and it's very hard work I have one more thing to add not yeah absolutely um but we will show you the work that is to come as well we'll dive into that a little bit key message Mees they you shouldn't think of key messages as like uh Jake mentioned earlier like a billboard where we're just going to say it we're going to actually show you some work to do to make it true if it's not already I'm just going to read a little bit from the side and elaborate because um it's putting these these key messages to life that's what we want to talk about um so I think you know Jake mentioned it um marketing is is is way more than ad campaigns and billboards it's about relationships it's about how how do people feel how do they perceive you after they leave your presence or after they see what you've put together how do people feel they care more about that than than all of the data sometimes what conversations are staff having um with each other or other people out in the community um I used to say this when I did this in Minneapolis is like you know we have we had 7,000 employees and sometimes you never know what they're talking about on Saturday night at dinner and so the more people that you have that understand the key messages that are aligned with the key messages then then you have something going because now you have a lot of people who are who are communicating and marketing and how can you align your meetings with these key messages um that just goes to making sure that you you are have a foundation of the key messages and you you're resonating those but everything you do is linked to that in some kind of way and since your commes are always focused on on on students um that's encouraging because I know sometimes we we get caught up in adult issues um but we're going to talk about tools and things like that like like Chelsea said um later in this presentation yeah I'll mention one of the tools right now which is a uh which is video and we started production on a a video to kind of help bring these key messages to life last spring and this video was debuted uh this uh in last month with uh the staff welcome back celebrations that were taking place across the district and wanted just to take a uh a couple minutes tonight to uh to play this video for everybody to be able to see um kind of what that looks like and the energy the enthusiasm um the love that uh you know we can see staff having and and students have uh for for what they're doing uh to be able to show some of that energy and enthusiasm so hopefully everything will work when we play the video here imagine imagine [Music] imagine imagine a place where every dream is Within Reach where rigorous academics and lifelong learning are what we do and who we are where Innovation creativity and passion Thrive where each step forward prepares us for college careers and life imagine a culture that makes Excellence the standard that celebrates diversity and fearlessly Embraces the unknown and each [Music] other community that works towards common goals that builds together learns together and grows together a community that supports families in and outside of the classroom imagine a world where every student feels engaged inspired and empowered where safety care and compassion potential as achievement of promise and Endless Possibilities a world of opportunities [Applause] imagine a place that won't settle for anything less imagine St Cloud area [Music] schools one of my favorite Clips in there is the uh uh custodian holding the paper towels it always gets a couple laughs when people are watching that and it just kind of shows the uh the enthusiasm and the love and just the the culture that's in these buildings and the fun that takes place in addition to all the uh all the learning yeah we want people to feel something when they when they see that video hopefully felt something felt Pride felt excited excitement um I'm going to shift gears and um we we really talked about um research and then we executed that the key messages in the video um but we also thought there was an opportunity at the start start of this school year right before the start of this year that we would um focus on customer service training and um I happened to co-present um some training with Dr Corey joer who I don't know if you've been introduced to him yet but um he's awesome and he's been working in the schools already he's going to be working with this on with with folks all year and we teamed up and we F because we felt like this was an opportunity to to make a immediate impact um everybody like you you all know when you go into a store when you go into an establishment you want to be treated a certain way um and if if you're treated with Excellence you'll never forget it and so we wanted to to Really equip people to move to it's not okay to just be good we want you to be great at this because these people are important these are our these are our families these are our babies and so we started off um with with um a lot of groups I'm proud of you guys we did um Frontline staff people who who you will see when you walk into the buildings first and people who are working directly with families and students um administrators were in these sessions um we had nutritional services staff that was one of my favorite sessions um because they had a whole different take on things but it was very cool um they really enjoyed it bus drivers that was another different one think about how important they are they are the first people that that the students see and the last people they when they getting off that bus so they can set the tone so that was a good move to have them in the sessions and then we have Equity teams that we we worked on on talking and I'm not going to go over to training now we can do that at a different time um but um Dr putham wanted to um really start setting a standard and so um at a at a at a level where we wanted to declare we want our folks when phone calls and and emails and things like that we want them to be a standard so if you can get it done in 24 hours that's great that's exemplary if you're waiting longer than 48 hours that's unacceptable and so we want consistency we want people to to to get a response we want people to get a response that's helpful um we all know when we call places when we call places and don't get a response um we know the feeling that we get and we don't want that to happen it doesn't have to happen um so we we tied that into this um internal and external impact um in addition to talking about the people that may visit or ask questions we also want staff to you know Department serve each other HR has to work with Finance curriculum has to work with different departments and we want people giving each other good customer service too because that makes a team better that makes everybody rise and and understand Excellence though that's the standard and then we want and this is where Carro Corey did a great job create a sense of belonging for all of our stakeholders it's okay to welcome people it's okay for them to to feel like they're understood we need them to be understood be we want people to belong and have ownership of this District we want all people to feel that way and then at the end we gave practical tips practical tips like just an example there's something called a four-part greeting um where my goodness I was in some school districts where people would just say Stan Allen or Minneapolis public schools or and so we want people to say and forgive me for saying Minneapolis I said it for hundreds maybe thousands of times this is Stan Allen with Minneapolis public schools well first of all you have to say hello this is Stan Allen with Minneapolis public schools how may I help you today it's a fourpoint greeting and if we get a lot of people doing that people will feel that and so we know just because you do it once we have to reinforce that but we want you guys to feel that um when you're engaging in these buildings and these departments this is just a highle overview of some of our recommendations and next steps we will definitely dive into those a little bit more um we need to address that reality or perception of safety um of course if it is a reality that places are unsafe that's number one on our list um we need to evaluate and improve discipline practices make sure there aren't disparities um make sure that you have good support systems so that people do feel like they belong and they can learn uh improve that District pride and live it as members of the board you are part of that team like you should be lifting up the district um that's part of those like key messages in action be proud of your district and talk about it and then um address rumor that you hear headon don't be afraid to dispel rumors um developing and maintaining a feedback loop for continuous Improvement we've started with that with the focus groups and you'll see in our communication plan it's very ingrained um and then the transition to Middle School can came up and you saw it in your numbers um although it might look a little bit better we're losing you're losing a lot of students at that transition Point um from elementary to secondary and every District in the history of the United un States I think right now has the same problem with middle school there's this narrative that it's this scary awkward horrible place and one of the things that we can do is just change that narrative and stop talking about it as adults that way talk about how exciting it is all the opportunities that are available that's just one example of one of the um improvements that we can make couple other recommendations and next steps is improving uh support to new to Country families um it's hard enough for many people who are new to um the area to navigate how to enroll and and the whole education system can be very confusing and I think there are ways to improve um support for that fostering relationships uh more relationships in the community uh looking to improve the communication and Community engagement strategy which you'll see in our Communications plan um and then also um we know that there's talk about a a potential referendum campaign um and incorporating our Communications within um within that and um getting everything integrated so I wanted to take a second and uh just kind of talk through uh our Communications plan and show you what that looks like um you can see um the plan is really it's a two-year plan and year one is really focused uh internally and that's that was purposeful for the reason we did that for some of the reasons we talked about we want people who come to your school you know uh if they if they do see a billboard or something that they uh um with with your brand and and and what your promise is we want to make sure that that promise is fulfilled we want to make sure that that customer service oper uh all of those pieces uh are in sync with uh with what's going on um going back to customer service I remember uh I've got a Middle School uh son and he forgotten his iPad at school one day last year and uh we had to work with a custodian to be able to get back into the classroom and get that and that's people forget I mean there every every single situation and every every encounter you've got an opportunity for a positive interaction or you've got a opportunity for a not so positive interaction and people talk and I have shared my experience with others which fortunately was a good one but we know that people generally share bad experiences more than they share good experiences um so we really want to we that that year one focus is intentional uh for being internal year two you'll see a lot of the same things we want to institutionalize many of these things and it's not just a matter of of trying to do as many new things over the course of the next two years we want to be intentional we want to be able to grow and get better and refine some of those things that we do in year one so in year two uh they're stronger and better and more effective uh but year two does include more of a shift to that external Focus we know with enrollment when it comes to either uh getting new students in through open enrollment or retaining our current students it's much easier to be able to retain those current students so that is our goal here also in year one is to make sure that those Transitions and that experience for your existing students are really really positive and then focusing on proactive communication strategies um we want to be on the offense not the defense with how we talk about things and this Communications communication plan helps us do that so let me put this up on screen SC so our Communications plan um you know it starts with an introduction and it talks about our objectives and um this includes many of the same slides that we have yeah I can make this bigger here will you hold the mic I did that for everybody um it reinforces those key messages that we've already discussed um and then we kind of go into a um a a timeline and this starts with uh work that was completed this spring you can see some of the things that we talked about with focus groups uh presenting to different groups our customer service training uh the back to school kickoff uh creating a toolkit which is in process uh that is going to be available for uh different staff members to be able to lean into where we've got things that are kind of readymade um and we've we've created things that include those key messages and some of those brand pieces that we want to be uh highlighting and um making that very very easy for people to be able to incorporate um we talk about a uh we're calling it a road show uh but for uh superintendent putam to be able to go out and talk to different groups uh throughout the community again this is this is this work is sort of the old school work I guess of of going around uh being in groups uh presenting shaking hands building relationships it's that interpersonal piece that I think is really really important for people as they're looking to uh to build trust and and looking to get answers from the district and to be able to have more of those positive interactions and being being able to have some of those misperceptions that are out there be addressed in a really authentic way for them to be able to hear of all of the great things that are going on within the school district you want to talk about the communications content calendar sure oh I have my own yeah so the um we'll be working with Tammy and her team um we're already collecting the content calendar that they have all of the um planning that they do every year and we're trying to align this work with the existing and ongoing communication that happens in a school district so we want to make sure these key messages are looped in and that every single piece of communication internal and external is being thought of when we um plan out this work and I'll highlight just a few more things I know this is in your board packet um but just want to highlight a couple more things as we talk about um Middle School we talked about that being a uh an important piece and be working with Middle School staff to kind of help on that transition piece I think there's there definitely is some more research that needs to be done there uh before we just start rolling out uh different strategies and Communications pieces but that that work will start this um this fall as well as implementing some Community engagement events uh to get people together and get people talking to be able to listen again that two-way communication I think is a is is really important um we're going to be talking about different grade level transitions we know that um a lot of families make decisions at those transition points whether that's kindergarten whether that's um sixth grade whether that's ninth grade and I think all of those different transition points um you know there's some uh some auditing and some some work to be done there to T take a look at how those um transition year experiences can be better and then um this spring we'll be looking at that that Middle School transition and and looking at ways to implement that and creating materials to help with that transition in terms of communication both internally with staff as well as with families um engaging with the new to Country families that I talked about and finding different ways to be able to uh serve them better uh key key communicators network is a really important piece where you're getting different people from different um different groups from throughout the community together to be able to hear all the really positive things that are going on through the community and then we'll be uh looking at another video for next year and then um I'll end kind of this first year with a uh looking at a brand refresh because I think there's a lot of different things that are going on internally that we want to make sure that people from the outside know that there's a change taking place here that it's not just uh their imaginations that uh you know things are changing that there's an outward kind of change in presence with the way that the school district is uh representing itself and showing itself and this would take place uh sometime next summer I'm going to pause there for questions um I could get into year two if there's more more questions on that but I know we've been doing a lot of talking and I want to make sure that we've got plenty of time for uh for questions from the board tonight okay Monica thank you for this work this is very exciting something that we really needed um when you talking about customer service and that's kind of one of the key parts that I have noticed and um two things that c my attention and is the mix messages from the staff um so how the staff talk I guess relationship between am man staff and and and with staff and and others um and customer service you said that we already went through some trainings about that um what is the followup for that or how do you evaluate if if the training work um the customers service training we call it customer service 101 it's the it's the very beginning um and that's what you committed to so far um there is also I should have mentioned this at the beginning this curriculum was created by the American Association of school customer services so customer service so there school districts all over the country that have used this but you got the one1 training there's also um a 2011 training where they do even more Hands-On role playing and all kinds of things um and there's also and and there's no commitment to this but there's also an opportunity to assess or audit um the schools and the departments at some point to see how they're doing and there are pages and pages and pages of categories in there everything from how does the front desk look is it is it messy is it cluttered um how how is it consistent the messages that people are giving um it goes into a a lot of things so so that that's I think that's down the road probably but um yeah we we don't want to just train we actually definitely want to assess at some point in the corporate world they refer to it as secret shopper training where you've got different people going in and and um kind of sharing their experiences and as a way for for growth yes thank you I have a number qu of questions and I'll maybe kind of ask them all at once because I think they all get probably to the same thing um and so I appreciate the customer service piece of it uh I think two examples um that I see from a brand perspective um and not talking about schools when you walk into Quick Trip there is a customer service element that you feel and that is consistent across the board um I would say the same Costco so now you know where I shop but I guess my question is um or my questions uh so from a substance perspective to what degree can soft skills counter um and uh counteract the objective tests so we just got two weeks ago um the MCAS and the results and so you can have clean desks and you can have really nice customer service but if what a parent is seeing are when they pull up the website or when they do reports which anyone who moves into the community sees is the testing reports is that not just window dressing to some degree and where do we get into the substance um do we know the de demographics of the students in the families that we are losing that wasn't addressed in any of this um along that uh I didn't see any focus groups at Kennedy and we identified that Kennedy is a place that and maybe there was and it just wasn't specifically identified but it's it's the place where we're losing the most students do we ask the people who are leaving I I mean obviously we have focus groups for the people who are retained did we do focus groups with the with the folks who are leaving and find out what would have changed their mind or is there anything that would have changed their mind and then lastly do you have experiences or do you can you find or point us to um Communications plans um at Urban schools that have been successful and have really gotten to the heart of and I say this in a world where right now we're talking about um Springfield Ohio and there are um uh all sorts of impressions of of eating cats and dogs um from an immigrant population which I think is um you know there's so many myths out there that create issues for our community where do we address those things in strategic Communications several questions in there um we can tag team so we um we still have work to do um particularly and you're 100% right we need to talk to the folks who have left this is the toughest group to get and so we've made some attempts but we still need to do that we won't do this without doing that um but but but there's a reason why they left and sometimes they're hard to to get um and um I I think um we still have work to do as far as researching other places that have that have had success I think that's a great point and we've talked about that um we've done the initial St Cloud stakeholders first um but we definitely um have examples where where there has been success um we just need to kind of unpack that and find out more about that um the customer service I agree I don't I don't want to call it window dressing but I so so here here's where I'm excited about it is sometimes some of this is about belief and what you can do and everybody can build relationships and be good to people and if you can do that Baseline we can talk about a lot of other things like how do you communicate about test scores how do you inspire when you have I was in Minneapolis we had the worst test scores in the state almost every year and so you have to find ways to continue to inspire and have people have belief so those are real and that's substance but um I also think that the customer service piece I'll say this it's about consistency like everywhere I look at the person that's that's right here that the front desk person you guys know this person she's amazing everybody's not that good and so we need to find ways to to elevate that and so that's real work um habits have to be broken but we could talk a lot about that but you I want to make sure you guys cover some of the other questions um I just wanted to jump in and add um later on in our communication plan we do have um an addition to a focus group on those families who have left um developing an exit interview process so that there is followup and we're not chasing them after they're gone um that we can gather that information when they're kind of on their way out unfortunately but at least to have the data yeah Monica and then Natalie thank you um so I I had a couple of questions more sorry um so um I I started by the customer question customer service part because it's relational and I do believe that that is one of our biggest and weakest points in in our district and how we present ourselves um one of myig biggest fear is that the the talk about the district may or may I'm I'm not sure but probably you can tell me your research if if a lot of the talk about the district outside the district comes from people inside and and how that how is that Leed there and how do we look at that um I I I'm interested in in a board member had a question about the about the the other research but I different that heard she wanted to know more about um Suburban schools but I do my bias is that we do lose and especially with the Kennedy case we lose not um kind of rural more rural kind of kids um and one of the issues that we have in our district being so I I wanted to talk more about the specifics about our district because our district is very unique in Minnesota so I I I I want to know more about how are you addressing that uniqueness of our district because of the location where we are because of how we are surrounded and because of the a lot of the image of the district also has to do with the image of the town that it is uh Regional Center surrounded by a smaller towns and what smaller towns talk about our city in general is not always positive and those um feelings of uh safety that triggle within our district come also from community members that don't feel that suncloud is a safe place in general um and that is a lot of social media stories about that but when we have a fight or something here it just goes all over the place um but I but I but and I don't know what messages do you have around those kind of things those those pain points that um how do we present that information and how is a um we we fall many times into the um bad habit of comparing ourselves with other districts so we will say okay there is fights in there and there too and they don't talk about them that way well that's not the best way to present ourselves uh and and pil against others so I I want to hear more about those type of messages and conversations and in terms of um as as board members and people in the cabinet and also directors how do we address those I think one way um as I said we're working on a toolkit and I think U you know as Stan talked about you know on a Saturday night when uh staff members are out uh in the community they're having conversations and um typically work is a topic that that may come up and what are people talking about are they being equipped with the right stories to be able to share um and I think that's part of our work is making sure that you know we're helping amplify and Elevate some of the great things that are going on there are great things taking place in every one of your buildings sometimes a lot of that work goes unseen where it's between you know between uh many times teachers don't like to raise their hand and say hey look at this really great thing that you know I was able to do with this student but how are we as a Communications team able to help amplify those stories so when that uh staff member is out with their friends uh and the subject of work does come up that they have something really positive to be able to share because there are those examples but I think um you there needs to be some more work and structure in terms of how how we put those together so that's one idea that I have yeah um I definitely have more to add to that um part of it is this feedback loop this listening and responding um it's important that we don't just hand you key messages and walk away um we need to make sure that it's part of your culture to hear out every single opinion that is brought forward and that you investigate and address when it needs to be addressed so um we don't want to pretend to say we're just going to tell you to say that your schools are safe if they are great let's show the community if they are not you have to address that first um it's that feedback loop builds trust um it builds a connection so that um someone in the community that might be um spinning a narrative that they don't know much about they have a face to put to the information and they have um some trust built with a human being rather than looking at the district as this big entity they have someone that they can go to that they trust that they can ask those questions of um and then like Jake said the storytelling piece is huge um being on the offensive instead of the defensive is really big so that people are here hearing those constant positive stories um one of the things just anecdotally that we heard um when I think some of the parents were talking about um this perceived lack of safety when we really tried to hear like what are you give us specifics um they kind of said well I guess I don't know if it's true or if it's just a narrative because we're not hearing it's like if we're not hearing about it is it really happening right so it kind of it's it's that it's it's providing that trust um and those positive narratives at the same time and doing the work yeah these are great questions these are tough questions um and and some of this comes to a culture change and that's really hard work and I'm not saying that we're not going to do that but it's like setting the foundation um but we're going to need people at the school level to embrace this and reinforce this to for this to happen this can't just be a central office initiative um but that's culture Chiefs and so the way I look at it right now is the way this plan is is we want more ambassadors we want more champions We want internal folks key communicators that understand the message understand the value proposition and can communicate a message knowing that we're going to have disgruntled employees at a district this size it's just going to happen but can we get to critical mass can we get more people to be a cheerleader for the district and that takes work and that takes effort but um this is why toolkits are important this is why key consistent messages is important and making sure that the building level people are aligned with the central office people another thing that you was a good question about about Regional I wish I had said this at the beginning this is not only this is not a St Cloud public schools problem okay all right this is the whole area this is the city this is the whole region and one reason why we want to do a road show and get messages out there is so so we can have Partners in this work because the school district can't solve all these problems by itself and we need Partners but we can lead and we can have messages and we can get kind of get it going but we're going to need a superintendent and other key folks to meet with other leaders in this area to figure out what they can do too to help us with this and to show them that there's benefit for them as well the whole Community benefits if your school district benefits yes we didn't cover them all but it's tough questions let me see I think we got most of them uh Natalie this is really good stuff y'all um thank you so much for being here and for taking a longer time to present to us because this is really important to all of us and we've talked about this for as many years as I've been on the board and before I was on the board I was talking about it so um I wanted to bring up four different things one is social media um our biggest Nemesis I would say are a few key players that mostly don't live in our district who comment on everything that we do well or not well and um then just there's that feedback loop and um so I wanted to get uh some of your feedback on some of us have commented as board members some of our parents comment um sometimes in certain places distri District 742 comments so we've tried a lot of different strategies and maybe that's one of the things you're going to talk about but um that would be a great thing to hear a little blur about from y'all um the second thing is I wanted to tell you about nutritional services staff my daughter who's in 10th Grade has has had a nutritional services staff at every single building that she's absolutely loved and so right this isn't someone that uh is teaching her you know really but at the same time she just said to me the other day mom there's this woman at Apollo and and she asked me how I'm doing every day and I try to keep it short because she has to serve a lot of people but she's really interested in me you know and it's like oh that plus your video Mak makes me cry as a mom um we really the thing we talk about a lot on the school board and just as leadership is we want to be offensively proud of 742 like really be like and I am I mean I have two graduates and one that's going to graduate in three years and at the same time we don't want to be fake we want to be real about our struggles we want to be real about our test scores um but the side caveat to that is um what Heather brought up we don't want to make scapegoats for our struggles so a lot of the time in the community um community members will say well it's because of immigrants and refugees no our test scores our test scores troubles do not just live in that Community we have test score troubles across the board so um maybe a little bit about that how do we make sure that we're proud of our diversity and also not scapegoat our diversity as well um and then finally uh safety we just had a presentation from our very own police officers who are in our school saying your student your students are safe and we would sell you if they weren't you know and then our students are saying including mine I'm safe but the community like you're saying is like no that's not true so it's these perceptions that you're bringing up that are so pervasive and negative that just aren't the lived experience for most of our folks so um I know you could talk for hours on those four things but that's what I wanted to say do you want me to start on social media a little bit I'm not going to get too far into it um but yeah that's definitely part of our um toolkit and our communication plan um to have social media be its own plan um we'll definitely have some guidelines and um tools and that even brings up an idea that like we could do a whole training on that but generally um my advice usually is you know answer the direct questions dispel rumors keep people safe if there's anything out there that needs to um you know if if someone is um attacking anyone obviously address the safety issues and once you've addressed someone's concern you have to let them kind of go um you're not going to change certain minds but the the folks that are onlookers that aren't commenting they'll see that they'll see that you responded that you are thinking about this that you've um listened to this person's opinion um and taken it to heart and you do truly need to make sure that there is a feedback loop so if there is legitimate feedback that there is a process for that on social media just as if they were to fill out a comic card or email the superintendent um but yes that's definitely um thought of in all of our planning um and I forgot the next couple questions one person wants to explain it to me if you've got a couple bad soloists you need a louder choir yes um so commun finding those people to be able to shout the Praises and the great things that are going on um despite some of the you know the the soloists who may be out there uh trying to have their voices heard tell you I used to be a choir teacher or what are you doing oh you just hit it right on the nose you're to remember that analogy wonderful things when I when I left the school district and went into the private sector for a while I learned a different aspect of social media like we were just not doing it well we weren't equipped to do it well and um I learned that gosh the people who are doing it well are younger and younger all the time and it's hard to keep up with them but but we have to figure out how to listen and follow people that we typically don't because they know how to do it it's just what they were born with and so that's that's a different day that's a different meeting but um Jake is right I think we we get defensive we want to lock it down we want to correct it and what we really need to do is have third-party validators and influencers doing that for us and doing the work to find those people because nobody's going to used to say you get paid to say good things about the district stand like we we know you're going to do it but when you have a third party and you have other people unlikely people doing it then it becomes powerful um that's just little bit but we need a whole strategy in that and sometimes sometimes it's just I'm sorry is this there we go uh sometimes it's just like giving people that permission I think there's a lot of people especially like when we've run referenda campaigns um people out in the community that do support your District don't know what to say and here are some key messages um and it's giving them permission to talk highly of your District that they're not going to step on any Toes that would be really helpful because it is actually in this community sometimes dangerous honestly and social media to stand up so yeah you mentioned nutritional services and I can't let it go because I have this great memory of the training and how appreciative they were for the training because they they feel like sometimes they're ignored and we had people talking about like people are rushing so much to get back to class that they don't even get a chance to look at them and a little smile can set somebody in a different direction and I told you I said you you have so much power like just just a smile for that teacher sometimes that is IGN ignoring you because she or he is trying to get back and they said that's one of the toughest things that they have to take is because cuz it's such a rush but I don't know who in here is in charge who who talks to Child Nutrition and nutrition services but I I would remind them on a regular basis a smile can change that whole trajectory because who else is smiling at them during the day well and talk about connecting this kind of work to student outcomes I don't know the data off the top of my head but I'm sure that you have heard it um with violence and suicide prevention just having one Connection in a school district with one adult is like insanely preventative for students so that one connection that they might have with a bus driver or nutrition staff um might make the difference in the rest of their life so yes it does affect test scores and student outcomes too and and I just want to I want to do this one more time because i' I've been a lot of districts I I have to Comm men this leadership team for putting the numbers of people that they're putting through the training that is awesome everybody's not doing that well and I'll say one more thing when I um and then I'll be done even though I could talk on this for hours but the um the same day that my daughter told me about the wonderful nutritional Services woman we went to a doctor a new doctor and asked where they went to a um school and she told them and they were like oh I bet that's not very good and she was like what are you talking about like she she's like don't you come at me with that Ridiculousness but like just even the fact that someone would say that without any knowledge of how much we love this District you know that that so do some training for that doctor yeah I'll just slip you his name cool thank you guys and I think yeah getting back to your P your the perceptions piece it is um it is you know meeting with with groups of people and we can have information on the website we can create videos and you know whatever else but at the end of the day people trust people and it's that relationship when the superintendent or other District leaders or even us Schoolboard members are out there um if someone's talking about safety like here are the facts you know here's what you know law enforcement tells us here you know here's the data um not everything that you're out there hear that you're hearing is necessarily true and um there certainly are some you know there is some truth out there but I think um I think there is just a lot of uh a negative feedback loop that just keep keeps on going that's not being interrupted quickly enough and I think um you know part of this work will help interrupt that when I was in the appointment with her and she was like oh my mom's on the school board and he got really red and he's like oh I bet everything's going great there I'm like mhm yes it is thanks you guys yeah and then Scott I'm going to say that I the questions that Heather asked are a lot of the same questions that I had she was and you're lucky she asked them because she asked a lot nicer than I do she's a lot less direct I don't think okay first of all a lot of the things that I'm seeing here it's great uh customer service training that's great I think you could come in and tell us that hey we went into a couple of schools and they could really use some customer service training we could probably handle that uh that isn't that isn't causing our enrollment decline or it isn't causing we're I mean come on guys we're losing 30% of our students 30% and you guys haven't interviewed you haven't made an attempt yet to interview people that have left our district to find out why they've left the students that were losing I mean if you talk to the people within the district the people within our district by and large love our district they love our teachers they're happy with it the people that are in our district feel safe in our schools I they do and we do surveys we we know that that isn't those aren't the issues it's not the people within our district the people within our district love our district so if all we're going to do is interview the people within our district and then look for Flaws we're looking in the wrong place I can't wait two or three years for you to go out and talk to people that have left our dist District I can't wait two or three years for you to find out uh tools for us to combat social media social media is horrible for this District it's when the MCA scores come out it's a terrible report for this District it doesn't mean we're a terrible District in fact I will put our teachers against any any surrounding District I will put our teachers against theirs as far as quality as far as the ability to teach and the things that they've have to deal with in their classrooms that they have to overcome they are just much better teachers I believe that how do we get that message out there to the masses I mean MCA scores MCA scores are past fail you are either meeting meeting proficiency or you're not meeting proficiency if you're if you're right below the line to meeting proficiency you're not meeting proficiency and the public reads those and they see really good and failing and when we have 30 25% of the students in our district are special education students 20% of the students in our district are English language Learners I don't know what percent is s but there's a large there's a lot of s students which are students who came into our district at higher grade levels without ever having with limited or interrupted educational um backgrounds so they've either never been to school they might come here in seventh grade they've never been to school a day in their life they don't speak English and now we're going to throw an MCA test at them in a few years three years whatever it is and and we're going to say oh this student's not not proficient for their grade level and everyone is going to look out there and say failure to our district when you when you are up against things like that we have what's our free and reduced 70% free and reduced lunch so we have high poverty in this District we have over a thousand homeless students that we deal with every year they don't have a home they live in their some of them live in their cars there are so many obstacles for our students to overcome and if you I always take maso's pyramid these guys on the board have heard about it a thousand times but if you're living down in the bottom of the maslo pyramid where where you're worried about food whether you're going to eat tomorrow you're worried about safety you're worried about having a bed to sleep in you're not going to learn at the same level that some kid up in sartel and just to the north where they have home size or minimum home sizes and you can't afford to live up there if you can't afford to buy a $350,000 home it's 90% plus white it's high income it's for all the it's where all the income from St Cloud goes to those students have a different life than the students that we're teaching down here and the students that we have that fall into that category that's who we're losing we're getting a it's a it's a I don't want to call it what most people call it but we're just we're losing a lot of those students to to the outside districts and we have outside districts actively recruiting students where I live I live in the Kennedy area area you have your choice you can get on a St Cloud bus you can get on a rori bus or you can get on a holding Ford bus or you can go to the Catholic schools and ride our buses to those so you've got a lot of choices other than going to St Cloud public schools and it's when you get to that junior high level the reason we lose students there is parents are deciding where they want to send their kids away to high school kids go to Kennedy love Kennedy I know what someone that used to be a principal out at Kennedy and she'll tell you that the parents in St Joseph love Kennedy they love that school and they absolutely freak out and panic when their kids get to seventh and eighth grade because they know their Kennedy run is going away and they're going to have to send their kids into St Cloud and they're going to go to Apollo High School and it scares them so they choose to send them to holding Forida they choose to send them to rori and how can we keep more of those kids I mean 30% attrition and it's it's not just to the West it's you know you go down towards Clear View they go to Becker or you go down or they go down to uh anandale I there's just there's so many options for them to enroll out around here the only one they can't is sartel because they don't have open enrollment but those questions have to be answered and we're not going to we're not going to get those 30% back by answering the phone correctly I mean I want to answer the phone correctly that's that's important but it's not that's not what I'm going to pay a marketing agency to come in and tell me I want a marketing agency to come in and do a deep dive and get to some of this stuff and the social the social uh Med the Social Media stuff it's a when something starts out there when something is in the paper or on WJ or knns about District 742 they start bashing and pretty soon there's three or 400 comments they're all falsehoods they're not truth there there's a bunch of crap that people are attacking us for our MCA scores saying that our kids are no you know our kids are failing they're not and if you took that again that splatter curve or whatever and looked the districts that are that have higher MCAS their kids aren't getting perfect ACT School they're just above the line and our kids are just below the line and we have a lot harder more difficult students to work with and somehow we have to change those perceptions and somehow we have to reach out into those districts like rori and holding for and anandale and Becker and we have to do something like play up our our uh advanced placement courses and send buses down into their District to take their best kids away from them and bring them up here we have we have better programming we have more options we have better teachers we have better schools you know the fact that our MCA scores aren't there so what look at look at who we're teaching and and look at the attrition look at our turnover in our classrooms at 40% 50% you know there's just so many things that our teachers face but they overcome them I mean so I'm telling you our schools are great schools great schools yes and if you have a student that's ready to learn they're going to learn in our schools and they're actually going to learn more and exceed what their rival schools are going to do and so how do we get that message out yeah and that is that's in this work um especially in the communication plan I can't wait three or four years for it I you know yep and that that piece the communication plan is starting now we're in process of making that and that's a really detailed plan um or the the content calendar um and we'll include social media as part of that um that starts now and the engagement continues now all of that and the the engagement um will not just continue internally there are plans in this in this um marketing and communication plan to do some external um Community engagement sessions where we're asking specific questions we're hearing from the community and we're recording that as data to measure our progress um but yes you're right um the a huge part of this work is getting the word out that among all of the competition that you have that you are a good choice not just a default choice that your district is a good choice and that you have those programs right and and I want to make a point that a lot of the things that you showed us or said that this or that the things that we need to do are things that we're doing and they've already been addressed we have we aren't sitting out here floundering wondering what to do we do that stuff we do a great job of it we've we've pushed on that stuff and that's why I say that answering the phones differently isn't going to change it's not going to change our enrollment that's not that's not why we're losing our students are we're losing our students from outside factors that we somehow have to change and and and get a uh change at the image of the district in the general public needs to change Y and that's the customer service piece is one but but I want to say that when I hear those things when I hear you saying these these simple little fixes it sounds as though we're not doing them I don't want our teachers to think that it's their attitudes or the things that they're saying when they go out to a bar or out to a restaurant to their neighbors that they're saying things that are that are not uplifting our schools they don't they're out there doing that work I mean you're not you're not telling me something that we don't know when you say that we need our our staff to go out and say good things in the public to our schools that's not something we need to hear I need to hear I need someone to go in there and dig into the things that are causing us to lose enrollment within this district and those aren't the things and if that's our year one plan and it seemed like that's what our year one plan is we're not on we're not I'm not on the same page with you maybe everybody else is but I'm not sorry see I told you Heather was nicer um a lot of what El is saying is correct I've been canvasing for reelection and a lot of the doors I go to the they say oh my kids's going to such and such School my kid is going to such and such school and I would really like to have a good toolkit as to maybe con react that I I'll ask why and uh oh safety is a big concern and so I'll tell him a story about um some sort of safe thing with but we really need this toolkit what's we what's going on what are the great things that we can go out and say hey whatever you bring up there a problem we're doing this to fix it we need to have something to tell people that we're doing positive work to fix whatever problem they bring up it's pretty much it white flight exists Big Time Natalie I just want to say to us as a board we we ourselves scapegoat we know that there's different populations but I think we really need to be careful and maybe that's something you can help us with as a board and teachers and people who are talking we love our district and there's issues in our district and we have struggles in our district and we have joys in our district but like it's I just want to bring that back up like it's I just don't want our kids kids to feel like there's certain populations of students that are bringing s CLA schools down because that's just not who we are you know um just want to put that out there I would have to say it it that it's misunderstandings that are bringing our school down not not people not kids it's misunderstanding of what the number numers mean and I think to say back to your point um Stan it's a community issue and we're dealing with it as a community the sacloud perception and so that yeah but we're just actually taking it on Hardcore and have been for wow how many years and part of the plan too is bringing the rest of the community to the table and inviting them in or inviting them back in or in a different way to help um um build up that trust and that work and hopefully pull resources too so that others are doing the same work I think that's an important Point um I worked at stcloud state for a number of years and they hired their own Consultants to do the exact same conversation that we're having right here and I know there was a point about um Lori going out and doing the list of things Lori is always already doing the list of things Lori has The credibility and the relationships in this community and that needs to continue to grow but without question it is a community issue and it has to be addressed as such um and any isolated again I watched stcloud state do the same thing it has to be a partnership where we decide and we begin um in a very intentional thoughtful and probably expensive sort of way being able to tell a tell the story in in a way that hasn't been told here and I say that um I mean being on this board has been critically important to me my kids do fine in school I don't worry the things that I've learned being on this board about what is available at this um throughout District 742 is incredible and I I do think that there's a lack of of understanding of all all of what's available um but it has to be a sophisticated message and throwing and again I hate to say window dressing we don't need window dressing we need real real solutions and real conversation with people about how we promote and defend and support our students because there are great things going on and there we are the we're M microcosm of the challenges that exist globally I I wanted to kind of Base on what the two of you both were saying I forgot to mention this when I was speaking to you um this is um an attempt to systematize the work that we know you're already doing um provide a standard bring people together on the same page and expand it so that Lori isn't doing all of that work um so that there is a system and there are um data points we're starting we're starting the work now we're starting to collect the Baseline data now um so that we can measure our progress and um like Jake mentioned year one isn't um is I just wanted to clarify that year one isn't just internal it's focused internal to kind of get the house in order and um meanwhile you know expanding this work to the community um bringing Community Partners in um getting that feedback loop going out in the community um and we we did plan on having that um focus group with uh exiting families um I can't remember what the issue was was it weather um and we haven't that was one of the weather day yep and we haven't had the chance to bring them back together but it's definitely um part of the plan so um I don't know if I'm hearing different things um than than other board members um just kind of go back and rounding back to where we started so part of what I have heard is that we actually know why people are leaving we talk about and then um um Scott had been talking about how he has doing his own canvas with his with with with people and people don't feel safe and don't feel the school is safe that that's something that we already know and probably we're going to know more about that when we get those those results um for me customer service is not window dressing customer service is super important for me the way that we don't talk in one message about this district is something very evident and it's not about um having any teacher or staff thinking or feeling bad as you mentioned Al that um when they go and talk about the district we don't we are humans and with customer service or with that training and maybe that's the wrong name for it because it just sounds very superficial but but but it is it is about how we talk about how do we how are we mindful of messages what how many times have you had a good day and you go and yell it out loud or how many times have you had a bad day and is the first thing that you go and tell in the bar so if you're in the bar and you had a bad day because whatever happens that's more possibly that you're going to say that and you're not minding that the people around you don't have context of what that is and being mindful of those things is important it's important for how we present our district most of the times when I was doing my own canas in my own campaign I will run into people that work in the district and will tell me about this is the problems that we have that we're not exactly that way that we're completely out of context with a really micro um image of what that what that problem is so we have here a more macro context and bringing that macro context to everybody having us in the same page is important and it's also important to validate the experience of each one of of the people that has those experiences so it's not only about just that we have the message and this is how we talk about the district right now the other point that they have been making and I have been hearing is the part of relationship and how do we fix the issues that we have so yes every time every person every staff member that has an experience that is not positive within the district needs to be address I heard that they say that so yes that is part of what we are hearing in this in this communication plan so there are things that maybe we also need to digest a little bit more about what they are saying and they are exposing here and you correct me if I did hear you wrong no you you heard us right um but I respect and and and and accept all the comments made and I lived Minneapolis for 7 years so I get it I I understand about homeless I understand about homeless and Holly mobile I understand about having we hated when MCA results came out because we had amazing teachers that in every school they were getting it done but the stri the Star Tribune would just report that and so I get it and I feel your passion and to me this is another focus group this is another data point I hear the urgency I hear it I AC accept it and um but but this is going to take some time I mean and I'm not saying that to say this is going to take forever but it took a while to get to this point it's going to take a minute to to to turn it and and and change culture and and and get people on the same page we're committed to it we were in our conversations we were nervous about how much information to present because quite frankly this is an outline there are work plans and work plans and work plans underneath everything and a lot of the things that you're talking about it's in there we struggled figuring out how much to bring to this table because this could be a long long work session if we did but I just want to say we accept your information your information is real and your passion is real and I think we all want the same things and and and we're going to take this back in here and we're going to to make sure that we give you something that that we all can be proud of can I all right I so you know just sit back and I know we look at time and I don't want this to be long C of like Stan Stan just mentioned we all know and you you guys live and breathe in this community every day right we we all know that we we know what areas we need to work on we know if we look to the west where our students are going to and what they look like if I just showed you data from those transition points the data still look the same from 2017 so let's just I'll just give one data point on the North side in 2017 we have the numbers uh in sixth grade North Junior High School was 264 students came in and right now in 2024 two th two 261 one students right so when we look at it we know some of the things and when you go to the east side you already hit it you have choices and options right in the plan of going small and how we look at bringing some of the enrollment back is it's it's doing the work where interpersonal skills selling our programming we all know about test scores we know about these things let's just let's just take the example of course offerings and what pathways are kids having option to we give better Pathways I'll just use the state at 29% has Pathways St CLA has 33% Pathways right so we talk about the wrong things the standardized test that it is we understand and the superintendent understands specifically what me we need to do we have coffees and conversations the superintendent talks to all the stakeholders she just brought the whole Community together for multiple things right we we know those things they can help us to go deeper in what we need to do to get those other ends CU it ties into race and safety right I worked on both ends in the middle school and the high school which we all know and so when people talk about fights it's not just the school district it's the community right and you hit it Al what what's around us and so we just need to continue to sell our programs right we have immersing programs you look on on both sides how do we continue to talk about the pathways which we see our principles and our leaders and our teachers do a great job they come and share all the great things almost monthly on what things do we do we keep our folks it's it's going to your point out those other folks to say be inclusive I know everybody you know we know about diversity and how that looks and shows up but our kids come and tell us too right we have kids that come from ricori or I just signed off for open en ROM and I take a snapshot to superintendent uh rard on the other side to say we are having some kids coming over here cuz they want to go in the EMR program or they want to go in healthcare field or we got a good culinary classes they're coming right in the sense and I so our folks here are saying just start small but it's to your point we got to these are hard conversations of where we are because divisiveness shows up and how do we want to be in our superintendent words safe create belonging collaboration around Excellence right she talks about this how do we get that out and keep getting it out through the signs you just saw and the on the Billboards and all of it and so they'll just continue to help us refine what what we already know and try to get those folks that aren't going to the private school and save your parents the money and so this is stuff we we know and they can just help us drill down more it's like a rebranding of you in the sense because we got big things we got to answer about a referendum and Apollo and just all the things and so you know this could help us and they went for the low hanging fruit to uh this is Jason Harris Cloud area schools how can I help you right we just talked to a parent Cher you got a you were on Facebook you got into a a chat or something where the parents said they couldn't get into the schools or whatever Lori gets the Facebook she sends it to us we find it we get this kid in school right that Circle to tell people well all right I know you've had this experience but here's the other experience that you might not go and it happens it does happen in Social Circles and they say and oh it's going on over there we need to just combat it and say nope let's look at these things right I'll use an example last year if his inter of you know options right our kids are doing some of the things and it's just that's kind of real drilling down and being specific through all our stakeholder so I you know I I sat and we're biased because we we work here we love it so we all have our perspective but it's getting they just came in and try to give their perspective too on where we need to go and I think together we you guys love this we just talked about losing the charters and just all of it and so they can help us I think in the sense so and and Jason I think that's part of my point is that we we do do a lot of this stuff already and it isn't where we need we don't need an extra push Lori doesn't need an extra push in community outreach it's all she does and and she does her community and her coffee and conversations but she's also out going to chamber meetings and going to downtown Council meetings and going to I mean she's all over the place meeting with people uh and it you know then I then when I hear part of the plan is you have to have a superintendent that's willing to go out there and do that it's like oh we do that's not what I need to hear you know we if you can help her do it more effectively or more efficiently that would be helpful yeah but but that's we already do that so so when I mean so I'm not can I just finish to say that so I'm not saying that these things aren't important I'm saying we're already doing a lot of these things and I and I when I hear that this is our first year Focus I I don't see where that's taking us you know I I don't see those as the primary causes of what's going on in our district and you know it's maybe it's a learning thing you guys need to learn more about us and we need to learn more about you um and where where you're looking to take us and and you need to know a little bit more about where we already are so that we can I just um I want to use an example um I think it's great that superintendent is already going out um I was lucky enough to work with a superintendent that was absolutely going out what what we want to help is what is she going out with and what is she trying to accomplish is she's trying to build a coalition of people in this region that want that are like-minded that are going to do things to help enrollment growth um because superintendent and I work with a lot of them there's a lot of meetings on the calendar no matter what period that's the job but helping figure out refine what's the message what's the ask how do we get more people on board to help us and I try not to use the word Coalition because that takes a long time sometimes too but just key partners that are in it with you with tasks that they can do to build this and so not just going out more not just not not doing it with a purpose that is about enrollment growth that is about retention and and those kind of things that's what we're talking about and I just want to add like Stan had kind of mentioned each of these items there's strategy behind each item it's not um this isn't what we're leaving you with there will be deeper plans as part of every single item I would say a communication plan for each item on this communication plan um which sounds really daunting but is really important so there's just um we want to bring it together and provide more structure and strategy and responsiveness to what you're already doing in addition to um maybe adding some some things or pointing out blind spots but yes this all this work was all done um with Dr putam and um Tammy's team in addition to the focus groups too so um yes while there are plenty of things on here that are already happening it's just trying to bring everything together and put it all on the same um strategy that makes sense I just want to be mindful of our staff and I know that you have a very complex and lengthy plan but if I was an employee of the district and was informed that we have this um Communications plan and where the goal is to increase enrollment and then what was trickled down to me in understanding what that plan was is customer service as an employee and how I'm answering the phone and how I'm smiling I would think oh my gosh um that's that's not important that's great I do that um and I'm not me not doing that or doing that isn't the reason why we have enrollment challenges here and then I feel like we're we're communicating that we don't know what we're doing Natalie I don't I really agree with that and it's not because anyone I go back to like innocent classroom which we did for a while which would take teachers and they would if if if I'm not explaining this right anyone let me know but like take your 10 toughest students and I know when I was a teacher I knew who my 10 toughest students were and I had to choose a different reaction to them every time instead of just having that natural flow with maybe kids that weren't as tough because of what they dealt with in their life but there's that that's like that unconscious bias piece and so what I when I heard you talk about customer service that's where I went to because it's a it's kind of um I'll just say in a hard way privilege for some of us to sit at this table and say that our customer service and I'm not throwing anybody under the bus that's our staff the reality is with unconscious bias that you treat some people one way and other people another way unless you're actually really centered in what that looks like and what that means so it really behooves us when we say our strength is our diversity that we're calling on our staff and our teachers which we have been um to really watch that unconscious bias so that um I just kind of want to point that out to us as a board that there's something deeper than what we experience um you know we sit on a position of power and I know that when I talk to a principal it is one thing even whe whether it should be or not but just to kind of hold a little bit of that in ourselves to understand that not everybody's experience is is the same as what our experience may be I also hear what you're talking about I work in the nonprofit world and so we know in the nonprofit world that a donor you already have it's much more lucrative to bring them to the next level of donorship than it is to get a new donor the ROI is totally ridiculous um comparatively and so that's what I hear in this too as well is that something that is good which is our teachers our staff our students our families we're just making it we're we're working together to make it better not that it's bad and it must be brought up to some level um but that by doing that that's retention and retention to me is just as important if not more important than um you know having a student open enroll into our district Heather Natalie I would agree um I think everybody has the opportunity to customer service what I heard in this presentation so I'm going to be very critical wasn't about how we improve um cultural relevance and conversation in customer service okay then I missed that but I what what we talked about was we're going to tell them how to answer the phone nicely I I think that I agree that that customer service is important I I think we have to get deeper and I think that we are and and I have a bias I have a bias that we often and and again I worked in higher education we bring in consultants and we have you do a project and then you check it off the list you go away and we have nothing more than what we had at the beginning and I think that this board's responsibility is to take the money that the school is investing and hold the communications plan accountable for doing the hard work that needs to be done I just um thank you for for sharing I I didn't want to speak for Dr jger Who I my co-presenter so his whole professional his career is is on cultural responsive and all kinds of things like that so he covered that piece so that was my failing to not talk a little bit more about it but um this was way deeper than than customer service this was I mean this is some of part of some of the best training I've been part of as far as having him there because it really kind of really it talked about how do we how do we treat people who we don't know anything about and some of us have fear uh and I didn't want to get into this conversation here because Corey's not here but yes that was a instrumental part of it and just a reminder that um the customer service piece is just one or two or three however many line items of this really large plan not that it's not important but it's a baseline it's a it's a a starting point it's a minimum expectation and as a starting point we're up 80 students this year can we take credit for [Laughter] that can I just get get a clarification did you finish the presentation or do we stop and then you opened it up and then we no I think we're we're good okay do we have a wrap up or where are we at with this okay thank you yeah what what I want to um share in in wrapping up right is my deep gratitude for um all of the people sitting around this table right so while we have different perspectives um on the um on some of the the smaller things I would say I think we have um a wholehearted commitment to the the big um rocks right like I think the core values and the beliefs about our community our schools our kids and our families and our staff right we hear um really uniformly um and some of the really clear challenges have been named um by Captivate by this team um you know I've had the privilege of getting to go through the next um couple years of the plan um and I think a lot some of the the work that um went into um that Captivate has done this year has been um quieter more behind the scenes right listening digging in because to your point they didn't know us right so to come in and to give good feedback they had to get to know us um and so when I saw the next couple years I was like oh this feels really good right this feels so solid um and and so that was and you didn't get to see that tonight right and so that was super um motivating for me and and I think we'll get to some of the concerns um you know I I think it's it's always challenging right um for us to for me right I felt defensive a couple times tonight right and I think some of the the words that you Ed maybe didn't come out the way you intended them to be right I'm getting texts like our house is in order yep our house is in order and can we better yes right like um so I appreciate right like one thing like right this I feel super supported by this board so thank you right and I also acknowledge I can always grow right and so um I think that this is a a beautiful example of um Civic discourse right that we can have honest conversation we can have hard conversation um at the root of it right is respect and and listening and openness and um common care for not only our schools but our community and so I'm grateful for um each of you right for sitting in this with us um and and for you for being here this evening so thank you for thank you for hearing us right thank you for for being in this with us thank you thank you for having us thank [Music] you and then we have one policy reading tonight we have the proposed post- revised board policy 520 it's the second reading of student surveys surveys excuse me and Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of secondary education will be presenting that second reading good evening chair house superintendent putam board members uh we have uh the second read of policy 520 I'm G pull that up here three all right uh second reading uh the purpose of this policy we got a chance to look at it uh our last board meetings to make sure the purpose of the policy is to put parameters around how we gather data from students and so no major changes around the legislative portions or msba we had a few uh uh wording changes around this when you look at B superint superintendent putam uh may choose to disapprove any survey seeking or probing around uh discriminatory of nature base age race color or any of the surveys uh C what we talked about making sure families have a clear understanding uh what's being administered to them and then how they have an option to op out of any survey nothing changed inde just a few things uh we C was the bigger one we talked about around administrative uh certainty around physicals and examination of minors uh Shannon did some homework on specifically talking to our legal council around we can't take those uh words out of the document we also found with msba they told us the same thing you don't have a lot of survey surveys that do specifically uh physical examinations but in the coverage of uh talking to our folks they recommend that we keep the language and then uh you just had a few minor changes here and that's the second read of the policy we had the change with a specific language around Title 9 any questions when you sent that out to us on at least on the development committee and one of the things that I was wondering is in that that whole part about uh surveys that have the administration of certain physical examinations to miners gives me the willies I I don't like that in there but if it has to be in there it can be in there but I but I'm wondering if I mean we don't do it number one so but it having it in there is going to signal to people that well we might do it and I'm just wondering if somewhere if if there is and I if it's in this policy or another policy but if there is a survey which would in any way shape or form include physical examination of miners if those surveys could be opt in only and not opt out so it could never happen unless a parent said yes I want my child to be a part of that survey Shannon you want to share just the from the lawyer perspective of uh just around that that piece can you hear me all right um I think this was um the intent of this was because it's all tied to the same law around um anytime we have federal funds being used um and so we have to have this policy in place and what our our lawyer did agree with us that it seemed out of context but they just kept it all in one spot because it was all related to one statute um in regards to the physical examinations to minors um nobody could really pinpoint what exactly that was referring to however um there was some suggestion that maybe it was in reference to maybe um uh vision and hearing screenings and and and pieces like that um so it isn't related to surveys in that it would be part of a survey it was related to an opt out piece because it's all part of the same opt out form surveys and um and these pieces down here um so I I don't think it's related to the survey pieces at all that's not the concern they wanted to keep it all within the same opt out form but I I agree Al I think we could maybe add some language that's clear that physical examinations will not be admit I the the language is vague and we could certainly add some pieces to clarify but I'm I guess I'm I don't think that we really it's got to be rare that we do any we if someone needs a vision screening we just don't we send them to a doctor we we do admin some vision and hearing screenings as part of IEPs um but we get parent permissions for those and then Mass that's where the opt in comes correct if we opt in a parent can never say you didn't tell me if we opt out then we could accidentally do one and say oops we didn't we forgot to tell you or we didn't know you didn't know or it just puts us at so much more risk than if we if it's opt in if we can't do it unless the parent has agreed to it then then I think we're I I don't have have as much concern about that one but we could change that in a couple of places and I will clarify we do do still do some Mass vision and hearing screen screenings through our health offices that's something that you know is is common practice but we do uh kind of a mass notification of that right that's part of all of our uh those pieces but I agree with you I think we could add some language clarifying that and do the optin and then see when you look at the and I'll be quick it just talks about the administration of physical examinations or screenings that the school district uh May administer to a student right so we if we change anything this is the area where we would look to do any language change administration of an optin you got to S all these requests out you got to get signatures you going to bring them all back it's very time consuming and things like Visual and hearing it doesn't really matter where you gonna go Shannon or doesn't say that though no I think what I was looking for on this was this is the exact thing we're talking about and I don't think anybody including the lawyer has that so I'm I don't really it feels like a cya and like oh sorry that's not appropriate a cyb and I'm just like that's not what policies are about you know for us anyway I mean so I'm I'm not really cool with it either at this point because it's not specific enough I could make a recommendation that perhaps we clarify when we would ever have a need for an optin for types of physical examinations or we could add some clar language that we we really aren't doing physical examinations of the way that it makes it sound in here and maybe include like a definition of what types of screenings and physical examinations and clarifying for your point Al that we would say if someone is getting um a vision and hearing screening as part out of outside of the mass ones and I think it's fir first third and fifth grade um if it was an individualized piece that would be an opt-in situation and we could explain that for what that uh I think it's just because that's all it says is the physical examinations and we all just kind of went that's a little strange um so I think that could be clarified by the definition of being added to it if if we wanted to do that at our at our next meeting yeah I think we can do the updates look at uh area d add the language there we can send it out back out to the to the full board once we look at language and then you guys can our dyslexia screening would not be considered in any way not tied to a survey that's not a survey or a physical right keep forgetting we're in the survey right this is this is specific we are here why it's really Weir right in specific right and so that's what we looked about so let me just superintendent put it like I'mma push you guys along right in the sense of where we are and see the school district receives funding on their Federal things right and this is how this came up we don't receive federal funding around specific screenings it came up around the disabilities that counted the Shan's point but going to your point I think we could change the language which we feel more comfortable with about opting in in D or C and then we'll send it back out to the full board if you guys are good with that yep okay so are you going to send it to us we're and so then we have a heads up of what is on it for the third reading on the consent agenda correct go to the consent it should come back for a third reading come back for a third reading and an act as an action item right as a as a third reading we'll wrap it up with with the new language thank you thank you okay thanks uh moving on to reports then we have first up um superintendent Lori putam will be presenting the superintendent report thank you very much chair house members of the board uh folks in the room and listening public I just want to start off by recognizing representative Bernie Perman who is here in the audience with us and has stayed all evening even though I said it's okay if you want to go partway through she's like no I'm very interested I was like awesome so she has to see the ending of the book yes and representative Perryman has been um a steadfast support um in this district and and an advocate for us so deeply appreciated and in fact my second agenda item um she helped get uh passed through the legislature last year which was in for our um Emergency Medical Service uh uh programming in ambulance Bay over at Apollo and so I just wanted to update where we're at with that um Senator putam and I met with mde just to get clarity on how we can spend that money and um uh got the information that can only be used for facilities so um we will uh have that uh set aside as we as we look to get that construction moving in the next year or two um we have been in Partnership discussions with centri care and ongoing um thinking about grant funding since we know the funding from the legislature cannot be used for um you know certainly centri care is going to give us a lot of equipment but there will still be curriculum writing and training and test fees or background checks for students as they go out to be um paramedic so um we are uh continuing to uh look at the grant funding that's available for that work and I was invited um I think representative depman is also part of that I'm going to the Greater St Cloud safety Foundation next week uh along with with Joel H Camp um we'll be going to share uh our plans for the ambulance Bay um for the Emergency Medical Service and uh I don't even know that I've sh I think I've shared with this board but I think I know I mentioned that Personnel one thing that we're super excited about is um if we um have into the the uh potential plans for a potential Apollo referendum also the ability or the the planning to lift one of the uh autom bay ceilings so that then we could have a diesel mechanic program alongside the ambulance so that our students are um it's a full wraparound program and there's even more skills and more Workforce opportunities um built into that one opportunity so super excited to go talk to the greater sa Cloud safety Foundation about this and it's um part of the work that we continue to do as we talk in our community about um how we are preparing this community's Workforce um and then just wanted to share a quick um uh new thing that we are doing um uh Jason had mentioned it uh a bit ago uh we are calling it future 100 um representative Perryman was also there so thank you very much you give us a lot of time thank you um we are uh committed to making sure that every one of our students has a plan at graduation for a productive successful future Beyond high school and so um this year for the first time we are bringing in um volunteers from Chamber from rotary um from each of the three higher education institutions from uh boys and girls club United Way um lots of our um our other nonprofits like too much talent Cairo um and some of our Islamic centers um we're bringing in volunteers on three days um into our high schools um to uh do small group oneon-one one on two one on Three work with our students um just to make sure that all of our students either apply for one of our local um higher education Institutions and those there will be no fees for those applications um or meet with a military recruiter or um meet with a local employer so that if they're committed to being an electrician they can meet with uh local uh electrician companies right um and then uh ideally our our volunteers will um have had such a great time because Gary got money for each of them to have school lunch um that they'll come back and do uh FAFSA and ongoing uh train work with our students and ongoing mentoring um because we know that for many of our students simply applying to college is one barrier that would remove but then how do we help them navigate next steps housing right how do we how do you buy books right how do you go see the campus all of those kinds of things that can can put barriers in our students way um so again involving our community um in in getting into our schools and also um addressing some of those safety misperceptions cuz when people are in our schools um they love them and they love our kids and they see exactly who um we are and then can go help us tell that story so really excited about that and we will update you uh as we go on how that shapes up and how that goes and you guys are of course welcome you can come volunteer too not that you don't give us enough time but we'd love to have you thank you thank you and then we have uh Board of Education standing committee reports I believe we have two board finance and audit committee chair El delren we had a meeting on September 13th uh two items on the agenda the first item was a referendum update Lori reviewed information from the last referendum advisory committee meeting David shared David Leopold shared revised drawings showing suggestions from the referendum advisory committee and asked for feedback and we gave lots and lots and lots and lots of feedback uh Lori briefly reviewed a suggestion for the activities entrance Amy also presented information on potential tax impact which is very very low and the committee reviewed red these items and gave feedback which Lori will bring back to the next referendum advisory committee meeting and then the second item on the agenda was the preliminary Lobby which David went through tonight and I'm not going to go through it again thank you and then we have Personnel negotiations committee chair Monica siga Schwarz so we met yesterday September 17 uh we had um couple of points in the agenda we discussed the superintendent contract for 20 2025 2028 um we discussed the next step for bringing forward uh superintendent um we to bring it forward to approval from the board so that approval will come up um H for action on October 2nd meeting so we as as you'll know this has been part of our three-year plan that we have stated several times along the these three years um so that's kind of the end process of that we also discuss what other parts we have H in the in the plan for um Lori to report to US during this um year um so we discussed that a little bit more the superintendent that the superintendent contract is going to come for Board review um I ask a a a Tracy to send it to all of us before the meeting so we have a chance to review it um please ask questions not to Lori but well of to Lori she has some things laid down in the plan there um but yeah we will have that in in October 2nd we also discussed B policy to 522 um that's the review proposed board uh board policy and is in alignment with the new title night regulations that went into effect August 1st 2024 so the next step of that will go to um board development um the B policy 495 nepotism uh reporting ask us to review that once in a while remember how often but we review it yesterday um not thing excited about it to report and the also we discuss a request for administrative variance the administration reported to us the request for administrative variance for a principal licenser for assistant principal J craft due to a concerns by PS which gives the license with Mano State University programs designed so uh she had completed completed all requirements of her principal license through license through the Mano St University and the variance was issue pending resolution of the program concerns identified by PS to mano State University so nothing to do with our staff is because of mono St University's program that is being questioned by pels so um we have given that variance and we don't need a Bo action on that that's informational item so that concludes my report thank you last up we have future agenda items October 2nd uh 2024 board meeting and work session topics will include the Minnesota multitiered systems of Support Review the 2023 to 2026 strategic plan review Safe Water presentation schools update and policy readings at this time does any board member uh want to suggest a future agenda item all right that's everything um looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's board meeting and I have a second so I have a motion by Natalie a second by Scott reversing that all in favor say I meeting is adjourned it's 8:49 p.m. thanks for watching have a good night