##VIDEO ID:aJbtF7F06q0## States of America and the for it stands one nation god indis with Justice for All all right I want to apologize from the start we um we are recording and the recording here us but the microphones are giving us a green light but they're not working so um know though that we're going to project our teacher voices up here for you but there will be a microphone if you're presenting that will be live um so that will be helpful um but everything should be recording and we should be hearing everybody like it's on so like when we tested it it would did the th th on the recording so we're good all right so um there there are um there's nobody for the open Forum so we'll go ahead and go right to celebrating District success we have uh multiple presenters for this one Kim Larson should we just start with you yeah yeah that SS wonderful good everybody so happy you're here Barb I'm so excited that we have wonderful Barb here I am very excited to announce that she was our employee of the month at Halverson for August so I know this is making you feel uncomfortable but I'm happy you're here because you are absolutely marvelous so I'm very honored to say that barb has proven to be an invaluable asset not only to our school but also the entire district with the other three elementary schools having newer administrative assistance Barb phone Barb's phone rings constantly um with everybody asking her a multitude of questions she graciously answers each inquiry with patience and expertise and she even goes the extra mile by visiting the other sites to ensure their success so Barb dedicates countless hours in the evening to volunteer her time she consistently is demonstrating her commitment to helping others succeed her attention to detail is impeccable she brings creativity to everything that she does creating a warm and enir inviting environment for caregivers students and staff alike barbar is always willing to lend a helping hand and is open to trying new ideas to benefit everybody around her hson is incredibly fortunate to have such a marvelous individual on our team Barb's dedication creativity and willingness to support others makes her a perfect candidate for employee of the month congratulations we're so proud of you congratulations Barb thank you now we have um uh Kelly Callas for August as well and Sheila thank you call I say it wrong myself Kelly is the exact admin assistant in student services person who nominated Kelly wrote if you work in the special education World in District 241 you know that Kelly is extremely deserving of this recognition she works hard gets things done and is always willing to offer help Kelly is the backbone of the department thank you so much Kelly for all you do and she does the work Kelly does is it's incredible work every single day she juggles so many different moving parts from our early childhood all the way up to adult it's it we always joke that I can think of a task and Kelly has it done before it's even said so I mean you make a difference in the lives of of our students our staff every single day we are so grateful for you thank [Applause] you congratulations eron Guston is a special education teacher and work-based learning teacher kind of wearing many hats this year in our transitions classroom for our adult Learners in our 18 to 21 Aon runs the 18 to 22 transition program with a group of fantastic job coaches she works with students that have special needs at various levels she and her job coaches teach the students basic living skills and job skills that they can use in the community her program runs like a well-oiled machine and her students are hard workers I appreciate the relationship that Aaron has with her students and their parents her students are adults and she treats them as such while still providing them the services they need Erin cannot thank you for everything you do for our adult Learners the The Joy on every single one of their faces your job coach team the opportunities you provide them each and every day absolutely phenomenal thank you we also have a really big success within Erin's classroom that I just want her to share for about 30 seconds on what is happening in her classroom this week so uh a couple years ago we were awarded uh $190,000 Grant through the state of Minnesota to develop a program or develop more of our vocational program for our students so we've been using that money over the years and it's coming to final fruti this week um we've used that money to purchase a wheelchair van to take students to work at different work sites in the community we've and then in if you go upstairs room 2 uh3 you'll see that we're in the process of building a commercial kitchen with um commercial oven and dishwasher and fridge and freezer you maybe walked past it when you came in uh and a washer and dryer and so it's been a huge collaboration between lots of different people who have made this happen and um it's been been it's been great once it's going it's all in place yeah yeah exciting students are very excited so you have to come visit when it's done yes thank you Aon congratulations Aaron our next uh employee of the month is okay Kim Eric blankin ship it's close close Eric but yes it's German it's okay good well thank you for being here so welcome Kim so we would like to recognize Kim um she is our enrichment uh marketing specialist through Community Ed we would like to give her um definitely the recognition so this is what uh the nominator wrote about Kim over the past six months Community Education has seen many changes Kim has stood up and embraced the changes as opportunities for us to improve and to try new things she has been our office anchor when things needed to get accomplished she has stepped up when we've been short-handed and she continues to lead as we envision what Community Education can become for our future she keeps a focus on our community students and grounds Us by looking at what others experience whether on our electronic communications or in our classes Our Community Education Office is more successful thanks to Kim's efforts so congratulations Kim thank you would you like to say anything [Laughter] no congratulations Kim uh Cindy Angelman and Christy Kennis here okay so we'll move on to Mariah leech oh you can you can tell us about um Cindy Cindy I okay good just read yeah certainly do that yeah okay Cindy is a our dedicated Health clerk at SI Elementary she um consistently goes above and beyond in her role demonstrating exceptional empathy and compassion every single day Cindy's genuine care for our students shines through in every interaction she approaches each situation with a kind heart and a reassuring presence making sure that every student feels supported and valued Beyond her interactions with students Cindy is a an invaluable resource for our teaching staff she's willing she willingly steps in to assist with various tasks all always ready to lend a helping hand with a smile her collaborative spirit and proactive approach make her an essential part of our school community and this is Mariah leech and she is in our Discovery classroom and Mariah approaches uh collabor collaboration with enthusiasm and generosity always ready to offer her insights resources and support her dedication to enhancing the collective success of our teams exemplifies a spirit of cooperation that benefits everyone around her Mariah exhibits an extraordinary level of care and understanding towards her students she goes above and beyond to connect with them on a personal level recognizing their unique needs and perspectives this personalized approach not only Fosters a supportive learning environment but also makes a lasting positive impact in her students lives thank you [Applause] congratulations Mariah all right 4.2 State Fair FFA National Convention uh Crystal Victor is our presenter come forward with some students welcome hello my name is Mason adding I'm the president of our albertly FFA chapter uh I'm Anderson deau I am the treasurer and I'm Crystal Victor the FFA adviser and a teacher at the high school so we have a couple positive things we'd like to share with you today um starting off with our state um livestock or yeah would you like to talk about that sure so our first highlight is State Fair and County Fair kind of mixed together um we have students that exhibited and participated in both at the local uh chapter level we have a food stand out at the free Freeborn County Fair that serves as a fundraiser and we had about 15 kids exhibit there and then we took three students up to the Minnesota State Fair to exhibit for the second half of the Minnesota State Fair which serves as FFA week um so you can see those pictures highlighted up there and we had one student receive a grant as a first year exhibitor um so getting students that come from the city of arly and taking them out to the farm so she's a town kid quote unquote brought out to the farm and earned a grant um to the cattle for the first time um then another highlight up there goes into our homecoming parade we were represented well there um and then we helped out at the third grade farm tours that's a partnership with the Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce and the a committee and we supplied about 25 students to go out to the farm and serve as tour guides as well um then I'll let these two talk about National FFA convention um couple pictures up there as well as National Convention we went to Indianapolis a couple weeks ago um we took 12 kids down there and what pretty much it is is pretty much a convention for a bunch of FFA kids they go down there and um explore a couple careers that they might be interested in um there's a bunch of speakers that we listen to um bunch of career well it's a career Expo so doing jobs that or looking at jobs they might be interested in the future um on the way down we made a couple stops at cinnamon Ridge Farms um pictures up there as well um it was a pretty neat experience at another um welding institute we went to and it was just really cool experience that we got to go down there and um just see a bunch of people that have the same interest than us and the same kind of common goal to continue with agriculture uh for fruit sales we currently had two $20,000 in our FFA account and then for fruit sales we sold $222,000 in fruit uh then for regional cdes and LT ldes uh we had I think it was last Friday we had someone compete in uh prepared public speaking I do not remember what they placed but third third and then for uh Creed speaking which we play he placed seventh in out of 21 and then for uh we have a state team going for livestock judging and we also said green hand day last Friday as well um green hand day is pretty much for a bunch of young kids going coming into FFA um eth and nth graders I believe and we had a record participants for that it was over 20 we've never had that many and um it shows us that it's a promising future for ourf the Fate chapter which is a good thing to see um just a lot of good things that are going on right now with fruit sales were good for us and also a lot of new members MERS coming in and doing well and being involved as well um I think that was it are there any thank you very much for coming and presenting are there any questions from what grade are you guys in right now I'm in 12th grade I'm in 11th okay yeah I'm just wondering career path where do you see yourself going after graduation no no pressure you sound like my mother she called me this morning so uh uh that's the big question right now if I'm going to do a twoe or four year something in agriculture um the final goal is to take over I live on a farm right outside of Glenville that's the final goal is to continue with my father there and kind of take over and work with him um but right now I'm not quite for sure not many people can make it on just farming salary alone especially my dad was first generation farmer so especially that too um so I'm going to try to find a side job around here or go to college for a couple years and get a degree to have something to fall back on in case farming is not always good thing to have your all your eggs in one basket you know so um that's kind of the question right now appreciate that what about you uh I'm planning to get a degree in Agronomy and then come help my brother on the farm there we go all right thanks guys any um any word on using the greenhouse in the near future so the greenhouse is currently being used um last year I got it back up and going and we had a plant science class in there um and Mr Ron wigner bought some plants from us for our plant sale so everything worked well last year um I received a grant this summer to put in a new watering system so I purchased aquam mats uh that are yet to be put in but then that'll be self-watering so I don't have to come in on the weekends I've got another plant science class slated for this spring that'll come in and we run the Carnation sale um over Valentine's Day and then we'll partner with uh Hilltop Greenhouse in Hollandale again to get flower plugs and vegetabl so we can do the flower sale and vegetable sale in the late May area so it's up and going one last question what kind of judging teams you guys running right now um so like he Andy mentioned our general livestock team made it to state so they're continuing practicing um on December 4th we will have our farm our farm business management team go and compete and Fish and Wildlife is competing um we also have a small animal team a Meats team crops team soils team we're fully loaded so if anything we need more help cuz I am busy around the clock see that that's great thank you I just wanted to add so yes I did buy tomato plants 6 Ines ended up being about four feet tall so it's a tomato tree so well done uh they they were wonderful uh and as well as the plants they lasted through the whole whole summer so nicely done we appreciate everything you do thanks you guys for coming and presenting we appreciate it congratulations on your success for thank [Applause] you okay moving on to uh approval of today's agenda this is an action item I'll make a motion to approve second it has been motioned and approved any discussion I do have one change to make with the consent items but I can bring that up when we get to that point okay so I believe since it's an a change to the agenda we'll have to do an amendment to the approval of the agenda um I don't think so I was double-checking our policy and I did bring it with it doesn't say that you need a second to remove an item from the consent agenda you just need to request it so yeah so it but it it will change will be adding to the agenda we'll be adding another line item if we take something off so we can we can definitely go forward and approve the agenda but just know that we'll have to then make an amendment yeah so okay it's been motioned in second and all in favor signifi signify by saying I I those opposed n um motion carries five to one all right moving on to consent items this is an inaction item as well is there a motion to approve consent item items is there a second I was under the understanding that right that's why we do it in the agenda but so if if we can have it with a lack of a second and Angie can can make her recommendation then we can approve the consent items with the removal yep yep right I that's what I was was under the impression NE um I would just request that we remove item um 6.14 from the consent agenda and move it to the regular agenda for a separate vote and that is theou with the executive Directors Association and we can move that to 7.2 if everybody's okay with that under effective and efficient operations any objection to that okay so is there a second no I second okay all right motion and seconded uh for the consent items removing 6.14 and putting that under 7.2 all in favor of approving the consent items with the adjustment sign signify by saying I I I all those opposed motion carries 60 all right we're moving on to 7.1 effective and efficient operations presentation and approval of our 2324 audit report this is an action item and presenting is director Walsh retired director Walsh and and Andrew I'm gonna not do well with your name so you share with us what your last name is uh Andrew fety for so thank you chairperson Nelson superintendent Wagner and Schoolboard members yes this is my last official Duty uh but since the it's the culmination of my final year and so executive director Durban was nice enough to let me present uh the audit as you may remember uh we had our prior auditor retired and so we were fortunate enough to to make an arrangement with Smith schaer out of Rochester and Mr petti is the principal who oversaw our audit and is going to present his findings all right uh thanks for that introduction um as Jen did allude to we were uh contracted form the audit for Albert Lee school district for the year ended June 30th 2024 um so tonight uh we will walk through this PowerPoint everything in this PowerPoint comes directly out of the audited financial statement that I did hand out to you as well um so if there is any questions about numbers we can jump into the actual audited financial statement as well um but uh we did sit down with members of management on November 6th and went through that nice 100 page document in more line by line detail uh tonight we took some of the highlights out of that financial statement and are going to review them with you tonight so if there is any questions as we go through here please feel free to stop me as we go through um that said if we can go to the second slide I got it sorry I got my own all right um so our audit opinion on those audited financial statements are a clean unmodified opinion which means we believe everything is fairly stayed in accordance with gap it is the highest level of assurance you can receive on a financial statement our audit opinion provides reasonable not absolute assurance that the financials are free from Material misstatement as we do not look at every single transaction that occurred throughout the year we take a risk-based approach and make selections based on those perceived risk um with that said anything that we did request for additional supporting doc mentation was provided to us by the district so your accounting records were in good standing throughout the year also included in the audited financial statement is our opinion on Minnesota legal compliance uh there's about seven areas that state statute require that the school districts comply to uh conflict of interest contract and bidding Public indebtedness public expenditure we did not know any exceptions in any of our testing related to the items that we did test also um as according to Minnesota State Statute all School School uh school districts are required to be yellow book audits which means that we provide an opinion on your internal controls or a letter on your intern internal controls in your financial statement uh we did have one finding that the same finding that you have had in the past and is very common in many school districts um as a yellow book audit of the gby government accounting standard board requires you to perform or prepare that audited 100 page document and make sure all the disclosures and everything are uh recorded in that fin fincial statement uh you guys relied on our expertise to uh provide and uh prepare the financial statement for you uh we did review it in uh detail with management so we feel that you do have the ability to oversee that um so there is one finding you have it was a reoccurring finding that you had in your prior audit as well uh you since the school district did perform or expend more than $750,000 in federal Awards you also are a single audit uh which means there's different programs that we have to go through to make sure there's uh comply with all those States uh all the federal requirements of those um the compliance supplement uh this year's major food Pro or major program was the Food Service uh so we tested your food service program we did not note any findings with any of your uh spending of federal Awards uh we did not have any Student Activity compliance findings and then I did hand out the audit committee letter uh which just states there is some use of some estimates uh we didn't have any disagreements with management and they did provide a management representation a letter to us stating that they provided all information to us all right maybe it worked a moment ago yeah just that but there Darcy can you forward it for us thank you all right um so next that we look at is your average daily membership we look at this as a metric to determine how the school districts doing with uh ADM wise and it's a indicator of uh how much state aid you can expect as state aid is a Maj major funding source for the school districts we kind of expect this would be the trend of some of the numbers as we go through the actual uh presentation there um so with that said I'll have to make a note to send this to you guys in PDF so your guys' printed copy looks good but the ones up on the screen are going to be a little skewed so I apologize for that um so we have four main categories there of how the school district is funded the first one is property taxes the second grouping there is State AIDS Federal AIDS and then other um so the total uh actual Revenue that the school district did receive was just under 68 million for the year up about 3.7 million or a little over 5.8% uh the main increases there is going to be a small increase in uh property tax in the first category the largest is in your state AIDS there that was up about 5 A5 million U most of that increase in the state uh funding um was related to your compensatory Aid was up about 200 or $2.1 million your special education Aid was up about $1.7 million and then with the state Source or the Food Service changing now to be fully funded by the state uh there was an additional about 500,000 of Revenue that came in through food sales that were PR previously and that far right in the other Revenue category coming through there um then your federal AIDS were down as we did those Co are coming to an end those were kind of the last years of being able to spend some of those monies and then the other other revenue on the far right is down about 400,000 as I mentioned most of that is related to food sales a different way of looking at how the school is funded is on the left is going to be your 2024 numbers the right is your 2023 numbers total funding sources for the school about 73% of your revenues come in through State AIDS compared to 69% in the prior year property taxes pretty consistent about 13 and 14 %. next we look at your property tax levy history so the bottom of this chart is going to be your general Levy uh the green is going to be the community s community service portion of the levy and then the depth portion in the darker color up top uh the one on the second one from the right is the one that actually funded the 2024 school year uh the 2025 is the one that is funding the current school year that you are in so we did see a little increase in our property tax revenue most of that was in your general fund in that great category next we move into your expenditures across all the funds excluding any building construction and Debt Service expenditures uh so total expenditures for the year just over 63 million up about 3.7 million from the prior year uh the main categories are broken aart on the bottom across there so your school administration and support services were relatively flat or down a little bit from the prior year largest is increases whereas in your regular constru ruction area which is the third grouping there in the green that was up about 1.9 million from the prior year 1.5 million of that is related to salary adjustments and about 225,000 of that is related to health insurance the fifth group in there is your special education Aid which was up about a m special education expenditures which was up about a million dollars most of that was Celler related as well and then everything else was pretty consistent where they were for the prior year a little bit higher in people support which is where your transportation is as transport was up slightly and then the second from the right and the far right the food service was up as we had additional revenues coming in as more meals were served and then your community service was up as you had a little bit more activity in that program so you had a little bit higher expenditures related to funding those Services next we look at just your general fund activities so the First Column there the gray column is going to be your revenues coming in the yellow is going to be your expenditures um and then the far right the uh black is going to be your change in fund balance um so from 2023 to 2024 your revenues were up about 3.1 million as I mentioned the majority of that increase was in your compensatory Aid and your special education Aid that did come in um and then there's also some additional new AIDs that came in uh for the library and student support and student support Co-op which were additional funds uh coming into the school district in 2024 that were not in the prior year expenditures were up about 2.4 million most of that was all related to salaries and health insurance as well um so at the end there the school did have positive change in the fund balance in the general fund of about just under 500,000 for the year so where those funds did go um we look at your uars general fund balances here so the orange color is going to be the unassigned fund balance um so that's the amounts that uh the school district has that are not do not have external restrictions and can be used for general purposes uh the blue is going to be your restricted and nonspendable fund balances that we have a slide on where those funds are sitting in a couple slides and then there is some committed funds so right now your unassigned general fund balance is at 12.36% of your uh calculation of your expenditures that you do use as I mentioned here is your restricted fund balances where they are sitting uh the majority of those restricted fund balances are sitting in the blue colors there are just over 200,000 in your Student Activities about uh a little over 200,000 sitting in operating Capital uh your ltfm is at a def slight deficit Ma um a little over 200,000 as well and scholarships the same um and then basic skills youve received more compensatory this year so we did grow that fund balance a little bit as well and then there is also some committed fund balance amounts for qm um which is sitting a little over 140,000 as of June 30th next we get into your food service um so again we talked about the revenues being up in the Food Service fund about a 100 or 500,000 the majority of that increase is due to uh the fre meals that were provided by the state this year with a higher reimbursement rate so revenues were up 500,000 expenditures were up 264,000 with those additional meals served uh more meals uh prepared um so we did have positive operations in the Food Service as well about 237,000 so they are sitting at a healthy fund balance of about $937,000 community service fund again the revenues in the First Column expenditures in the yellow change in fund balance in the green uh so the revenues were up about 172,000 due to additional tiger cub revenues and School Readiness fees that are coming in expenditures were up 123,000 um so they did still operate at a slight deficit but that slight deficit has been cut into the last three years there as you're just about using 15,000 of fund balance there so pretty much break even in your community service fund and when you look at your fund balances there you still have about 334,000 set aside for your community service fund so they still are in a healthy position uh these next ones here here are just going to show some fund balance amounts uh here so your debt service funds are sitting a little over a, 766 th000 most of that is due to collecting some of those property tax uh revenues in 20 24 that are going to be paid in August of the 25 just based on the timing of those schedules there so you do are collecting some of the payments in the prior year that are going to fund the current year payments um so they are sitting at a healthy fund balance there the building construction fund uh sitting at a little over 2.4 million as of year end there was a one Bond issued for a little over three and a. half million for the year spent about 2.2 million of those Bond proceeds um so there's still a fund balance there of about 2.4 million uh since the school district does also have their own health insurance in the internal service fund we did put your uh amounts that are out there a little over three and a. half million set aside in your uh health insurance net position fund balance that are going to be used for future uh health insurance claims or needs so then the summary there the district did receive an unmodified audit opinion the general fund revenues exceeded expenditures by about 494 th000 in the current year the efar is UN assigned general fund balance as of June 30th is a little under 7 million or 12.3% uh 12.36% as described in your board policy for calculation of that uh uh number the Food Service fund revenues exceeded expenditures by about 237,000 and ended the year with a healthy balance of 937 th000 and the community service funds expenditures exceeded revenues by about 15,000 but they are still have a healthy fund balance of about 334,000 know I went through a lot of numbers there pretty quickly maybe not quickly enough for some but uh is there any questions or anything you want me to go back and clarify or remind me what ltf long-term facilities maintenance so we did definit we made an effort this year to decrease the uh negative fund balance that we had we prior year it was about a little over $700,000 negative fund balance it is allowable to have that be a negative fund balance I know that uh director Durban has a plan moving into the future that we will get that back to a break even but we made very large Head Road this year talk uh give me give me a little bit of a background looks like we're going to be down about 104 student units um from last year to this year where what is that going to be in the neighborhood of State funds that we will not receive well um we get just under 8,000 in gen Ed Aid in total Aid um I think our per pupil amount is about so I what it was last year so last year with being down 113 104 students uh your Revenue actually from your general education was up 93,000 just with the formula adjustment you actually did see additional revenues coming in um but just with the formula increase um being down that so I would expect it about the same so in the $100,000 range so the yeah and last year we did get 4% increase on the gened formula and this year it's a 2 %c increase so uh with declining enrollment um our kindergarten class uh although better than last year's is less than uh the senior class who will be graduating so we will see a a small decline in enrollment for this current year and then and then when we look at that unassigned fund balance which we all talk about the 12% things like that we like to keep so on based on our budget on let's just call it 6 8 million that's in that $250,000 range the the. 36 over the 12% I know I'm a little bit so and I just wanted I mean somebody had said once it was about 30,000 no it's got to be more than that so and you we had anticipated uh that we would end fiscal year 24 with an 11.98% fund balance so we did outperform on that budget you know it is something we take a a lot of pride in in this school district uh we we are very uh we work hard at being fiscally responsible and that is uh a tribute to the school board the superintendent uh certainly all of our all of our executive directors and other staff people that understand that we cannot uh serve our students if we don't have a healthy financial position you know and that and and again that's 100% true just Notting that if we're 250 over we're $100,000 down I mean it's it's it's healthy it's good it's tighter than it yeah it's tighter than some and a lot more than others a lot more than others so that's why I said that so it's been a good job keep there any other questions I just want to thank uh the school and the staff for helping us uh get all the information needed uh to perform the audit uh made our jobs easier so we appreciate all your help and pulling those documents so thank you thank you for all your support any other questions or comments can a quick question for you you just mentioned in here and I think you explained it real well in your letter about uh the significant risk identified and that's basically not having a CPA on staff and that's fairly common I'm sure but I'm just saying is this pretty much like most districts type thing it would be almost all districts some um go the extra way and they have a CP on staff or they have a contracted outsourc provider that has a CP on staff that reviews the documents for them um but we don't have any districts uh that have a CPA on staff that would not receive this finding so and I would say even some districts with CPA on staff still get the finding because they're just they're not producing the financial St statements I I hadn't seen that before with our other group um that did the audit for many years and when you put that on there I thought you explained it well how it works but I thought is this sound pretty common yep yep and it actually was in your prior audit as well it was okay we've had this finding oh good for a few years yes I think it was explained well this time maybe that's all right any other questions comments other this is an action item so make a motion to approve the financial report and audit as presented there second okay has been motioned and second any other discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 60 thank you we appreciate it good luck Jen thank you thanks thanks for everything all all right we'll move on to 7.2 this is uh the movement of memorandum of understanding 6.14 with the executive director's Association do we have someone speaking on this are you going to speak on it well how about we do this is um is there a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding I'll make a motion to approve for the sake of having some discussion it's our second second is there any discussion Angie yes just thank you for pulling this aside I had just wanted to comment that um the reason I am not totally comfortable with this is there are two and you can correct me if I'm misunderstanding this but there are two new stiens being added that total $30,000 in new spending that would go to two administrators and just the way things are set up it doesn't completely make sense to me and I just feel the funds could be used more effectively in in other ways and my my understanding with theou is that there's been additional responsibilities added to these positions and thus the reason for the stien yes thank you uh to bring us back this as we look at efficiencies within the organizational chart uh prior to in August we realign Community Ed Under exective director mson to give coh that direction and we did early learning which is inclusive of ECF and and early learning and we fed that under for coherence really thinking that prek through adult learning and that went under executive director Franks so these were additional realignments that would created efficiencies we we waited for the end of the audit to look at our official and our financial report and that's why the add additional compensation under couple comments and on my side you had mentioned a little bit about efficiencies here several months ago I had asked for a um a job description of each of our executive directors and I haven't received it and the reason I bring that up is because I think anyone here that's ever been under a salary before Gary that would be you there are duties that change all the time we don't always get an extra stien an extra payment or anything like that because there's also duties that go away from us sometimes when they go away from us we really don't want to have a decrease in what we're being paid also so just a reminder on how I mean we we can do hourly I mean if we start talking hourly here I think we're looking at $745 an hour for the individuals which again you know the job calls for certain things we also cut you know a $1.2 million out of our budget and uh one program I think is I talked to executive director now Durban uh is still uh going as our energy program we cut a $166,000 stien out of that to uh which had saved us I think uh $7 million over 19 20 years which is three two three $400,000 a year which I hope we can continue that but as I drive by I see lots of lights on buildings now so I don't know if we're going to see the decreases we had over that time and uh F you know again just kind of a a re shling of the money when we've got money it seems to burn a hole a little bit but we've got a nice little budget or um unassigned fund balance which I think is good for the district but again I think uh when I start looking at some of these efficiencies we did move executive director double down to a director level cut him about $122,000 and we're adding 15 back in now for supervisory so those are my questions not uh anything more than understandings and maybe I haven't understood everything but those are some things that I've looked at I did hear you say we get you the job call that get those and and and I know they're Ever Changing I mean but but that's why I asked for them because then we start you know adding duties and you know we we we call it efficiencies and I guess it it does fall under efficiencies but it' be nice to see I mean I would hate to see one job description and one job description and then maybe this gets paid more than everyone else type of deal so I would like that thank you a clarification to on the m so the stiens are just a one-time adjustment or just it's not a permanent adjustment in salary just a question yes this is a u so there there are three and this one's particular is a two-year uhou adjustment yes a one time adjustment a one time yes okay so if I'm making $100,000 and I had 15 i' make it 115 this year but next year I'd be back at 100 B if that was the this is a two two that is I might just add um if if anybody else has something to add um I'll add that uh you know one of the things that we do as a board is as a governance board is um we ask for um Administration to manage the work and so I feel like this is a management um decision on work that had been being done by other uh directors that we we um we asked um the work of um Paul and Jennifer to look at where can we cut or what can we make different and we asked uh Administration to make those cuts and that work still has to fall on somebody to get done um and so I feel like this was a management decision to include this extra work on people and I I get I I understand that but the work still has to get done and and um we're expecting that as a board that that work still gets done and so for me this is a good uh way to make sure that happens now if we want to start looking at um down the road what that looks like because we have to continue to make Cuts or encumber those expenses then let's do that as a board as a governance board but the man leave the management to the administration which we asked them to do and for me anou is basically just managing the dollars to make sure that we we hit the the fund balance of over which it's over 12% we they they did what we asked so that's my input any other comment I just I would say I don't if we can make this a condition of theou but since we've restructured I'd like to see an assessment of how that restructuring is going and and were those were those moves effective in achieving the the goals of the various departments I think that would be something we should do as a matter of practice anyway and Dave you're right I mean I I Riverland they put student housing in my job and with no additional pay and I tell people I could be a tour guide in hell now for that experience of being in charge of student housing that's a joke don't put that in the minutes but anyway it does happen and you're right sh we look at reports and you see director maton director Franks that is part of our strategic plan when we look at those and how those Fe up and out into our report so we'll ensure that those those agencies are declared in our strategic plan and our as well all right any more comments or questions sure we absolutely can do a roll call vote we'll start over with uh Darcy are you ready y okay Bruce ssen I Dave clot name Neil score hi Angie Hoffman me Gary Schindler hi Kim Nelson I motion carries 43 42 I'm sorry 42 thinking seven thanks for that appreciate that all right moving on to reports thanks for everybody for letting us adjust a little bit the the agenda for the audit we'll go ahead and start with our superintendent report 8.1 good evening thank you madam chair directors student representatives and public uh welcome to Brookside uh first of all this is uh something to celebrate it's been a lot of collaboration a lot of work there are some bumps in the roads or our mics are not which you heard are not quite fully working yet uh but as this continues to evolve I believe it's it's really the Capstone as we think about the move uh within Brooks side bringing us back to this transformation align to our our values of the birth to adult that's what exists in this building and it's really been this transformation to really bring back Community Ed and centralized Community Ed this all started when our Head Start program moved out and looking at efficiencies we really how could we recoup those dollars so we welcome back to our area Learning Center which is going very well and it's very exciting but to do that we had to also look at space and the utilization space so now we have Services that's con concentrated in different areas to provide the best for our students and all students we transformed our classroom right across the hall into a cafeteria for our ALC students so it's been remarkable to watch this Capstone even out in the parking lot to think about how the traffic flow what that looks like to keep our students safe so it it's been a collaborative effort but that goes way back to our work that we did two and a half years years ago when I first stepped in as superintendent is really look at our welcoming and safe entrances our efficient use of space and how do we get on the other side to ensure that we're utilizing our areas to the capacity we also look to rekey Brook side which we've done and the reason behind that is we had multiple keys and a lot of the keys we didn't know what opened what and if we think of safety of the building if our safety team needed to get into a locked room there were multiplicate and as superintendent or executive dor of safety and operations we often times had to Fumble through keys and didn't have all the the right key available so there's been a lot of work into uh transforming Brookside going back up to the former boardroom we now have two professional learning rooms we're able to pull the the curtain or the wall so we have two spaces now that can be scheduled out for professional learning so again it's it's been remarkable to look at this transformation couple thing is uh met this week with our student uh or last week of the St superintendent student leadership cabinet couple things we talked through was was the calendar the students were in full support of the early start they love they appreciated uh ending right at uh winter break and to really have bring closure to their learning for the semester and then coming back after winter break and starting again so a lot of positive conversations from our student voice we also discussed our cell phone policy which we hear about tonight that was discussed within the student leadership cabinet and it was robust conversation what that looks like on their end which are the which is the user in and to really explain what some of the uh opportunities and how we set those high expectations and they rise up to those and finally we did continued our learning walks we were at Halverson last week it was amazing to see uh the staff it was very evident of the collaboration the purposeful planning there was independent uh uh student uh groups there were differentiated groups there were scaffolding it is just amazing what's trans uh what's happening at our elementaries and this is our second Walker haverson and both times it's been really rewarding to see so compliments to the work that's happening there and we will continue those learning walks so greatly appreciate that so with that uh just want to say thank you and that's my report superintendent wner remind us who goes on those learning walks you yeah thank you madam chair so this is executive director Franks we've asked cabinet to come along executive director Reby comes with us and from the HR lens executive direct director Matson was able to join us at the high school learning walk to really get that perspective as we align our uh FTE or our teachers in the classrooms as well as the building uh leader and H and their leadership team so it's it's a really robust group and we don't just all go into one room and sit we're divided up and it's per L planned and that information comes back to uh in that kind of informs their look fors and their strategic plan or their school Improvement plan thank you all right we'll move on to school board member reports director score start with you not very much to report at all I concur in the uh advantages of this this setting prior to our previous setting it's a lot easier to get to and this was uh in the Well when the old high school was uh was uh replaced with the new one this was a boardroom the boardroom was at the at the old high school and then when that was demolished U this room was so anyway it's it's been here before um the only thing I have to report is that uh we are transitioning from these fall uh fall Sports to the winter sports season and I am beginning uh my current uh experience in the wrestling room I started in the fall of 1968 and you do the math all right I have a couple things I attended the curriculum committee meeting with Neil and uh we did some goal setting and talked about several things most of which Tanya had addressed actually at our last study session um I toured Sibly at the end of last month with Davey and Gary um great another great experience seeing the buildings and talking to people um we have one more place to go and our same group is going to Lake View next Tuesday um and then last week I attended a zoom meeting with msba about their delegate assembly uh Dave Gary and I will be going to that next month and um Ms Bay was going through the different resolutions that the delegates will be voting on so looking forward to that um more hats off to Jeff on the career exploration opportunities you given our students and well covered in the media which I like that also I'd like to just uh Express a shout out to the counseling department and the Career College Fair just a tremendous event uh uh I went there on the invite of the counseling department and really enjoyed that experience um did a tour of Si as noted a couple committees policy business Ed committee and then we our ad hot committee on super intendent evaluation process met took in the workshop for the delegate assembly last Friday uh attended the wrestling fundraiser what a well oiled machine those parents are they took care of hundreds of people uh it was very impressive took in some girls hockey and also attended the robotics uh competition in Adams and we did really well we qualified for state is what I heard from a couple parents over the weekend so that was good and we attended the um teach to heel Workshop also at the U Edgewater Park you're right there right next to me yeah yeah you were you were I think we had I think we had a meeting since then though yeah yeah yeah and then on a personal note attended Civic music again our facilities are just incredible for that series that's around in albertly and also in Clear Lake also on a personal note our Lions Club donated uh funds to the back food for backpack program we're hoping to uh do $1,000 before the end of the school year and they also donated to the robotics team that's it I'm guessing you'll talk about the ad hoc meeting okay so I'm not going to cover because you will you'll do it well so we did have an ad Kitty meeting again Gary Kim and I was a good meeting H last week on the local level then on the uh state level uh we had another uh video conference uh with msba kind of preparing a little bit more for delegate uh assembly also looking at some of the uh the state financing and that and talking about as Jennifer mentioned now it'll be 2% uh next year and just you know seeing some different challenges that everyone's had with the uh contracts settled across the state um also on our uh delegate assembly here next month which Gary and Angie will also be part of I will be introducing and uh making a motion on a resolution and it's only a study that we're looking at in the state of Minnesota but it is to how interesting it comes up tonight it is to move our student calendar and our student contact days to 200 days and looking at there's been some successful programs out more toward the east coast Pennsylvania in that area that uh have been able to increase by 20 to 20 or 22 to 25% their actual test scores and and the students learning and they decided to try that a couple years ago after covid and saw what had happened to the kids so anyway that's going to be introduced as one of our resolutions to take a look at and out there they had he they had stiens we all hear what those are but they had that and increase in pay and all that it was extremely well accepted by the uh the staff the teachers the Paris the students and the parents so that'll be one little thing that uh I will be uh working on and and it's only a study but I would think if it goes through the legislature because it'll take extra money uh then at that point there may be like some of the programs we've been able to do sign up early like the reads act there uh executive director e you brought that up many years ago but being able to do things like that and then maybe there'll be an opportunity how many days 200 what kind of student contact student contact 200 days well we're at 170 yeah one but I mean you can do 182 we used to be versus the 165 minimum so yeah basically you'll start about three weeks early and end about three weeks late type of thing and kind of like the all around or the all year school but instead of doing the 45 days on 15 days off 45 days on being more disruptive that there's still some planning that can happen and again just a it's probably one of those thinking outside of the box type of deals so anyway that's what I got thanks for I attended the Freeborn County collaborative meeting uh uh superintendent Whitner is also there uh we're getting real close to hiring a coordinator for that and that'll help push at group forward we funded four different things autism support group of freeorn County which uh parents and kids meet every so often and we uh gave them $700 for goodies and things for winter meeting uh we gave $3,500 to the Glenville Em's team Advocate Group we gave $7,881 to the food for backpack program and we gave uh $1,200 to Head Start for a washer dryer so the so the uh workers don't have to take things home and wash them I'd like to put a plugin for the freeorn county collaborative since I'll be no longer on there after the first of the year it's a great organization it's a number of uh organizations within Freeborn County that help parents and kids and you can actually see the help you see what we did night autism uh Advocate Group uh backpack Head Start they meet once a month uh the first Wednesday of the month and they get to feed that's at the courthouse you get to be fed but if you're going to be on that committee you should commit yourself because they're always short of getting a quorum but uh it's been a great group it's been a privilege to serve on that for the for the school district so when you're thinking about committees in January think about that one hard place and then I went to Career exploration day also that was very exciting and if anybody likes hockey go to a girls hockey game they are absolutely amazing they are really fun to watch so if you want to get out and support some kids go out to a hockey game someday that's all I have thank you Bruce for your work on that committee we appreciate your commitment um so I attended the policy committee meeting uh we have some of of the the policies on the agenda tonight um we did have our first ad hoc committee meeting and at that meeting thank you Ashley for providing us resources historically and and also uh guidance on what that looks like for us and to just to remind everybody this ad hoc committee is really to develop framework around the evaluation of um the superintendent um timelines uh what we're going to evaluate what the tools look like we we talked about a couple different tools um and so we're excited the committee is excited to be able to present something at the December meeting for for everybody um and was really happy about the work that we did and and um coming together and wanting to make sure that we're we are um evaluating um both what the district needs and what the community needs for with our superintendent so um anything else you want to add no other than you know it's exciting to be in a meeting where there's Synergy and all four of us I thought uh were able to pull some ideas together and really come out of there with some agreement on how we're moving ahead so I was proud to be a part of that group yeah yeah and and and thank you for coming up with the idea because we have been and I'm not going to say Helter Skelter but it's just always been I remember when I was chairman yeah that's right we got to get in any evaluate you know Ashley puts together the timeline now and says heyo by the way and then it came up maybe make another position on the board kind of responsible and just doing different things that uh can help with efficiencies as Ron mentions a lot but uh to try to make a process make a process instead of just a something that needs to be done I'm not very good in my office about evaluation so it's because I don't have someone to tell me when to do it that's only at home that's why I have to leave now and then just kid so anyway yeah thanks Kim yeah great point about um what we talked about is having that person on the board that also has the responsibility so that'll be part of the presentation of that being a duty of potentially the vice chair um so that was great discussion um thanks for that so now we'll move to that's the end of my report so um I did attend the career in college exploration too and it was really fun but Max why don't you go ahead and give us our student report report today okay hello everyone um few things have been going on at the high school recently um on Election Day we had a student election put on by our social studies department so that was good to give everyone a chance to learn how the voting process works um especially for the ones that can vote soon because that can be kind of scary your first time um so we went over the results for that in our social studies classes and it was cool to see how students voted versus that the actual election uh we're also doing a food drive at the high school uh which is being put oned by student council and I believe we're trying to raise 8 tons of food this month uh this is an annual thing that we do every year and it's a really great thing to give back to the community and the holid day season and I think usually we do meet our goals so hopefully we can get that eight tons um like director scar said winter sports have started up um actually just came from swim practice so excuse me being late basically got to the pool and came right here so um there's a lot of dedicated students in our sport so it's good to see that and Leadership from the captains um we have our fall musical this week which is exciting uh this week on Thursday Friday and Saturday night I believe 7 p.m. at the high school they're doing Mean Girls this year um it's a little different than your typical musical but I think it's good to uh try something new and the students have had a lot of fun putting it together and finally one other thing is our chamber Corral had a retreat this past weekend so we had a full day of rehearsal and fun games and bonding and that's a really great thing to spread some holiday cheer in the community because we go out and we sing Christmas carols like who doesn't love that uh we just go around to like a bunch of nursing homes churches and community events and it's a great way to show our student representation in the community thanks so much Cari your report hello um there's a lot of great things I have to report um this time um recently this a couple weekends ago I think uh some student journalists went to Philadelphia for the national student journalism convention um they learned about a lot about University equity incl and inclusion as well as maybe possibly expanding our um podcasting um sort of deal and then uh other than that um again we are transitioning from Fall Sports to winter sports and with that I just want to congratulate Haley Deming she went to state for swimming and that's pretty cool um and and then and that's all I have actually Max kind of covered everything thanks so much um today we have with us um Mr sonenberg from the high school who's giving the teacher report for us great well our student reps kind of took a bunch of my points I'll reiterate uh yeah Paul's play it's being directed by our uh Spanish teacher Mary scers and she's pretty excited um that starts this weekend like you said it's it's sort of a a new kind of musical so I expect to see something um a little different from what we've had in the past and also wear pink on Wednesday for Mean Girls so just to uh promote it everyone's got their Pink t-shirts it's kind of fun um the maiden Elbert Lee uh event uh Mr alerson was provided leadership our counselors worked really hard on that and a bunch of teachers chaperon including me it was a really great event uh I'm also teaching the career exploration class this semester and so that's been fun to have you know those references and ask the kids about you know where you can do these different careers right in town so um we really enjoyed that and it was a really well organized program the elementary schools had a Veterans Day program that uh went really well there's a lot of positive feedback I didn't really see what they did but um uh there were multiple reports that it was it was a success and the high school also did at a Veterans Day program on the um tiger Vision which included features of some of our uh teachers who are veterans too and so that was good to be able to honor them and recognize you know that we have so many of those those Heroes doing the work you know in the classroom after serving their country so um yeah Haley Demi too we wanted to congratulate her and recognize her accomplishment the state and um yeah that's about all I have to report thank you so much for your report right and next time I'll remember to invite come over to the sorry about that oh okay good good all right so moving on to um 11.1 we're starting the uh effective and efficient operations part two 11.1 the presentation of uh the 2526 and 2627 school year calendar this is an action item presenting director Franks and director Madson yes uh good evening chair Nelson School Board director superintendent Wagner um so this evening we will bring forward proposed school year calendars for the 2526 and 2627 school years um we do have paper copies for you as well um that way when we're walking through them you'll be able to see what's there in front of you all right so um just as a reminder we do have a district calendar committee um currently members of the committee are um 20 participants six parents two administrators uh we do have three teacher Representatives one from elementary one from secondary and one from Early Childhood um we do also have six representatives from other bargaining units um and then executive director Franks Darcy rasmuson um and myself so um that is currently our committee um that is uh part of the calendar process we did meet on October 24th um and at that meeting we did review the initial calendar that we um had drafted um and then really took the time to walk through what did student contact days look like what did the District staff days look like at the beginning of the school year um professional development and then conferences after that meeting we did request um for our committee members uh to reach out get some feedback from the building level um and then as well um uh building leadership teams then on November 7th we had a virtual meeting to discuss really what that feedback looked like and uh conferences anything else that I missed maybe no I I think you covered it all um I do I felt one of the things I shared with executive director Matson walking out of the October 24th calendar Comm committee meeting um the conversation was extremely fruitful with the representatives at the team or at the table um and I felt I shared with her I felt like it it was really good conversation of looking at different scenarios for the calendar um and all Representatives whether representing the teacher unit or parent committee members um brought ideas to the table so I really do feel like um it was the collective work of the committee in in the final product that we're bringing forward today so with that we will move to the 2526 calendar um some main points we'd like to um cover here today is this calendar does have 171 student contact days 11 District days so those are um highlighted gray and then also within their albertly Academy days noted in red for December 1st and February 13th um and then this also does include conferences November 10th and February 23rd one item that um as we had discussed the feedback is we are currently looking at what is our conference um conferences look like throughout the district especially all the way from Early Childhood to adult um that is definitely work that we're going to continue to receive feedback on and then work with uh staff District leadership teams administrators um of specifically what does that model look like but uh for this evening we would propose November 10th and February 23rd for um set conference days then moving on to uh the 2627 school year very similar um to the 252 calendar we again have 171 student contact days 11 District days highlighted in Gray two albertly Academy days and again two days of conferences albertly Academy days are the two days highlighted in red um an item of note on those Academy days those were days that are structured around um focused professional development needs um initially those were built out so that we could meet the requirements of the read act in the the literacy um training and um the read act training will continue phase two starts this this coming um July is our phase two start of the react literacy training um and as I've shared with you before we're still waiting for those recommended literacy trainings to be rolled out for our secondary staff um Beyond literacy though the feedback from from our teachers unit and administrators is that the red Academy days have been extremely fruitful in their professional learning opportunities um and as I shared at my professional development update at the study session last week the work that's being done on our Albert Lee Academy days or our staff development days um so they are built in again for this coming year uh not this current year we have five Academy days looking at bouncing that down to two so that we can increase our student contact days again thank you um so as we uh we did start we do ask for your recommendation to approve the two calendars 2526 and 2627 school years as presented this evening so entertain a motion I'll make a motion to approve both calendars approve them collectively yeah there a second second it's been motioned and seconded is there any discussion so our student contact one of our student contact days this year this calendar we are at 169 okay you picked up a couple good good good um the other thing is that um you know listening to stakeholders is a pretty important thing that we should be doing and I've consistently heard from students at this table and in the checkout at hi ve when I ask they like this calendar they like a clearcut in December so I just want to be very clear that I think we're doing the right thing by our students to give them that chance to have that break in December clean and then come back for the for a fresh start after the new year I think I like to say one more thing I'd like to see is the is the calendar committee set in stone is it in writing as a Comm standing committee or no it is it is not a a Ved upon committee so I'd like to recommend next year that a school board member serve on the calendar committee a couple questions oh sorry go ahead first how can people join the calendar committee if they want to can any parent join or how does that work our parent Representatives have started at the parent teacher organization level at the elementaries so um at the PTO then they've nominated a representative or designated a representative for the parents is there another way that parents have joined the committee um it is through the the recommendation of the PTO in building administrator um and then as um as the years progress theyve also then become a middle school um and secondary I should say High School representative and then my last question I bring this up every time we have a calendar vote but have we done I think I know the answer but have we done a comprehensive survey of parents of what they think of the Labor Day you know pre and post- Labor Day start so a survey no not to all um individuals or or uh parent stakeholders um really looking for that feedback to come through our Representatives on the calendar committee yeah if I could dad director uh Hoffman as we look and I know this is being piloted at the uh High School we're also looking as part of our operational plan and our strategic plan is doing site based uh leadership or parent advisory groups separate from PTO so this is something that the high school has engaged in and we're looking to expand that out um future in our operation plan so that could be a platform as well to have the conversations to get more parent input I remember what I was going to say related to director Schindler's comment about students appreciating the Clean Cut and dates of it um another piece of feedback that we've heard from student stakeholders as well is how it aligns to the exam season um getting um your AP exams all your instruction in prior to your exams whether that's MCAS or AP so that that has been a piece of feedback we've heard both from students and teachers as well and then we don't have an exper extended period time into June um after those exam pieces have already taken place thank you uh Madam chair um 10 years ago and I had the privilege of starting on the school board at the very first business meeting that I was part of and I may sound like you Neil for a bit but I'm sorry uh one of the first things we did we voted on the early start in the calendar I it was something that uh I've always been for an early start because I really feel like number one the kids are ready to go back school number two the more instruction you can get early in the year when they're excited and before the old wonderful MCA test the better we are again that will lead into student contact days now I'm thinking in my brain about Student Success and this is where I have to start deviating from our calendar when I also started I believe we had 181 or 182 days of student contact uh as as I look at that in a perfect world I know Ron has mentioned quality versus quantity and I I I have no problem with that but that's a perfect world and a perfect world in a school system is if students and staff are there 100% of the time what does that mean how many times I just use fall breaks example a number of families that decided to go the week early because Disney World isn't as busy and I use that as an example so they take off and then they come back back and then miss time over again I I'll just call it fall break I hate to call it mea anymore because there aren't aren't class or Teachers Conference to go to but this is this perfect world and and I see this and I don't know what the average number of days a student and I'm not going to get into the staff that's their deal but but again if all of a sudden the state of Minnesota saying 165 days is our minimum for students to learn in the state all they've got to do is Miss six days and there at the minimum in their own personal learning environment not the school hey we make a calendar that's perfect and not everyone goes to it so if I miss my kid misses 10 days they're technically not getting the minimum no doesn't hurt the school but it hurts them and I'm about Student Success we talk a lot about Student Success so the first thing I think we're cheating our students out of some days and and I guess I did mention a lot about the minimum the last thing I'm going to mention on it is I think we're all well aware of what our test scores are at this school in the state of Minnesota not just albertly I I mean yeah we're different than some were better than some worse than others that the point is and I'm not asking for 200 days like I will for the state of Minnesota when I get up on the resolution but I am asking that we find some way to get these kids more face-to-face instruction because we do have an excellent staff out there that can help them if they have the opportunity I'm so fearful we got two days back from the the letters I wasn't for that go back and look at the vote I would like to see us back a lot closer and I'm not on the committee but to 180 days again with the potential of somebody being sick of their favorite or not favorite teacher being sick and missing out on that instruction so that's why I won't vote for any time and again thank you for adding two more days in that's awesome to the committee and everything else but I don't think it's enough and that's just my own personal opinion and that's again we talk Student Success we put them on top of everything I think this is one area that we should look at this calendar and maybe add days in and go back to the committee that's mine thanks yes um and I agree with my esteemed colleague director clot but I think it's a balance too because I just read a research report this weekend that there's a there's a connection between student performance and outcomes like graduation rates tied to professional development for faculty so I think that I see the teachers out there nodding that this the investment we're making in professional development is being well received and is having an impact but that impact can also be in student achievement and to me we I like a broad brush on student achievement too not just those damn MCA tests so yeah I think I think it's just a balancing act Dave I agree with you in many ways that it may not be enough up days and I'd like to see more but I think that investment we're making with time and resources and professional development carries a lot of weight and that's a high impact activity in my mind no I and and again no no problem I mean we're down to two days it's two more than we've had before but hey we're all old and we all adjust we got 11 District days in there also and I'm not saying that we don't need to collaborate within our departments but I Al also see the n in the heads going we need more time with these kids and I'm not saying little guys big guys it don't matter I just think again and you're right we do need to continue to professionally develop I mean we've had an instance uh in the last three years in a row that we haven't had professional development on yet that's happened within our school system maybe there's a first one we put in there however again I want to see I would like to see more days with the kids and and you know there's there's there's guys like me Ashley thank you for printing a nice calendar you know me it's kind of like my diet Pepsi I'd rather have that but you know I can find it on here with my glasses but sure is nice here I'm you know I like to see and touch things more kick a tire on a car than buy it online and we got kids that do that and we got kids we got people that would prefer to never step in a classroom and God bless them too so anyway that's again we're all different Gary 100% yeah me I look at this and my second year but like why don't we start on August 18th that's the Monday and why don't we have classes January 5th but again I'm willing to I'm willing to go with that part of me pauses and say why we just don't why don't we start cleaning on that CH but over I like yeah I I believe that in the perfect world we would have very well-developed staff professionally developed that is uh in front of students for a maximum number of days so we have teacher Duty days that's a contractual item and that's kind of why I asked the question about what do you mean by 200 days what kind of days um and then we have student contact days and I I don't believe in my tenure as a teacher which as with wrestling started in 1968 we ever had 182 student contact days I think the most a more typical number was 175 oh yeah U that's that's what it was when I was in the classroom uh and then it uh gradually went down and then when I uh started my tenure on the board uh I think one of the first resolutions I introduced was to in increase the number to 173 and then we've kind of eroded I'm I'm happy to see that we've come back to 171 now but I totally agree with you Dave you can have the most qualified competent staff in the world but if they're not in front of students for an extended period of time you won't get the same results so uh I I student contact days were precious to me when I was on in a teacher in the classroom and I I personally believe that all of the quantity that I had as a subject matter was quality and if if if I had to erase a few student contact days from the calendar that just meant that there were certain subjects that were not going to get dealt with and I know for a while in in uh the history of my career as a teacher the pundits were uh familiar with the phrase teach less deeper I never was a fan of that I would like to teach more deeper and you can't do that if you don't have student contact days so I would uh the point of all this uh this commentary is that I would like to see the district do everything it can uh Tanya in your position uh to orchestrate a a calendar which maximizes student contact days I just want to point out in an earlier lifetime I was a teacher one tenth of what you did Neil for years so you guys can do the math you've heard that already but again it was precious and I will say I don't think that every one of my days was as quality as it should be okay uh and I was a high school science teacher and I I love chemistry and we spent a lot of time in it but like I said I'm not saying anyone else I'm just saying that I was a human and I didn't get it done quite like I should but I did enjoy it I've been in that classroom I know what it feels like and again the more time I could spend with those students the more fun I had and then I went to sports yeah well I'm gonna say one thing um so in your conversation with your committee specifically on the 25 26 was there discuss what did how did the discussion go around that coming back after Memorial Day it was tough yeah it was a tough discussion because we really have had the pre- Labor Day start so that we could have a Prem Memorial Day finish um but in our efforts to get as many student contact days in front of the board as possible um it it was a challenge to do so we had conversations around where we could could add student contact days back in as uh director Matson mentioned at the beginning of the representatives of the committee that were at the table we had strong teacher representation at the table as well and um in honoring their Bo voice one of the pieces that we have looked at for our teacher unit is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off so that could be added back in as a student contact day and we take one more day off at the end of May uh we could beg borrow and steal from other places but didn't get enough days that would allow us to finish before uh me before Memorial Day two other places that we looked at to director Schindler's question was January 5th um the why behind January 5th particularly well it's at all levels now because Elementary moved to um semester grading um and the high school moved to semester grading as well January 5th is in there as a gray uh District day so that we can build in a grading period opportunity for all of our staff that's the end of a grading period we had conversation around whether or not that grade day should be December 22nd and 23rd um so yeah very first fruitful conversation about the best mix parent voice at the table what their preference was in having that gray day either before Christmas break or following um the the winter break um and then to the August 18th Point uh that is gray but I'm going to add uh technically in some of our spaces that's a soft launch it's built in as an orientation day um and so up there it's built in as the eighth grade orientation day but we are having some conversation around other uh spaces that could potentially um have an orientation experience to set our students and staff up for success for the school year anything to add on director Nelson's question I would just also add then looking at 2627 having that Memorial Day ending prior to Memorial Day um again just how the calendar Falls um that gets us back to yeah yeah it's that late Labor Day yeah y thanks for that feedback all right all those in favor of accepting the 25 26 26 27 calendars signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 42 112 these are final reads um the first policy is 512 School sponsored student publication Frank is presenting so the per first policy that we're presenting this evening is policy 512 School sponsored student Publications and activities this is the final reading of this uh policy I've brought it Forward uh for the last three months uh to this point we have no um questions brought forward regarding policy 512 so we are requesting a final approval this evening student School sponsored student Publications and activities it's an action item is there a motion to approve so move is been motion and seconded all those in favor signify by saying I I didn't just for clarification I usually do ask for discussion because we're on the third read and there wasn't discussion the last two times that's why I didn't ask so I should parliamentary procedures is there any discussion all those in favor signify signify by saying I I motion car car or all opposed sorry motion carries 60 all right thank you director Franks um annual policy for review 11.3 Ashley Tanya Jeff and Sheila are presenting that that's right we're going to do teamwork on these policies so good evening chair Nelson Schoolboard directors and superintendent Wagner um this evening we have a number of policies um for you to review and ask for your approval all with MS ba recommended revisions um so to start uh the policy committee did meet on November 4th um and reviewed each of the policies presented tonight um and as you see we'll um break it into four different areas and uh executive director Halverson will start us off with policy 524 good evening as mentioned uh just annual updates and this has to do with statute uh Minnesota statute 121a uh if you look at the polic District policy 524 previously technology acceptable use policy if you will just updating that to include the terms internet and then technology and then cell phone acceptable use and safety policy and that statute uh then creates the addition to the policy on page 11 which deals with the uh State Statute and the school district's responsibility to go ahead and establish procedures for cell phone use within the schools specific to the different levels and areas any questions I'm curious our student represent is there are school districts surrounding us that are Banning cell phones I think you can check them in at the front desk if you might have a need to get a call from your mother for some emergency or something what's your reaction to a cell phone ban at the high school because it's it's related to students that are more attentive they're more engaged there an impact on mental health because you get less of that social media garbage that happens so what are your thoughts about a cell phone ban um I think that like a lot of kids like overreact about it like honestly I don't think it'll be the end of the world if we can't go on our phone from 8:30 to three um I think it's good to get off your phone sometimes because there's more like there's plenty of stuff you can do at school there's people you can talk to you can learn a lot of things if you actually pay attention so I don't think it'll be the end of the world but a lot of students do so I think um it's it's hard to find a compromise that won't send like everyone crazy um so we talked about this a lot at the uh superintendent cabinet meeting this past week and we talked about the different options like um between putting your phone in a pouch when you walk into the room and then taking it out so you can still have it at least during like passing time uh versus the pouches that lock and then you don't have your phone all day so that's one of the options we discussed um and a lot of it just revolves around how well it's enforced and if the students are going to come up with different ways to follow it because like one of the things with those pouches is like some people might go to extremes to bring two phones and put one in there so if you're spending a lot of money on those it kind of defeats the purpose of it you know um yeah I can see it can go both ways I can also see it going both ways um but from a student journalist perspective um we as student journalists use our phones a lot whether that be um with um interviews or we do run our own social media Media or you know just checking our website um but I do believe that there would be a good impact um on putting our phones away obviously but um I personally find that our stoplight system works really well in advanced classes um but maybe not so well in younger classes like in eighth grade because they're not quite tuned in yet um and I don't know maybe not necessarily putting them in the lock pouches away but um in the pouches in the classroom would work best personally because there are some classes where you do need to use your phone and makes sense can I add something to that um I do very much agree with her about the classroom pouches just putting them in there versus the Locking ones because that would allow teachers to be like oh if you're done with your work you can go have your phone or if there was like an academic purpose for it um and another thing with the advanced classes like she said most of my teachers don't even use the stoplight because in the advanced classes the students like they're not going to go on their phone anyways because they're focused on their work so I think it's finding a balance between not like punishing the students who are it's like not a big deal for them cuz in my advanced classes um it's the phones are never a problem but for those classes that it is a problem um that's where the measures need to be more effective per se so I think it is really about finding a balance between not punishing the good behaving students and still having it being effective thank you when I was in school and there was emergency the secretary came down right Neil it's all I'll say all right we're going to take these all as one so any other questions for Jeff director Al thank you Jeff all right thank you moving on to policy 533 under Wellness um this is just uh a few legal references or updates to the legal references um really under the Minnesota statute 121 a215 it's adding the word website um it does State when available a school district must post its current local school wellness policy on its website which our district already does um so that is the update to that as well as just removing the year 1966 from the Child Nutrition Act any questions on the wellness policy all right we'll move on to um a set of policies that executive director Reby will assist with good evening first policy 516 516 student medication um statutory Provisions um such as Minnesota statute 121 a.21 access for space access to space for mental health care through tella health and then rearranging a lot of sections for clarity but the tella Health statute is the newest one that began in October of this year policy 521 student dis disability non-discrimination updates statutory definition of disability 532 use of peace officers and crisis teams adds the school resource officer language rather than police liaison it now refers to a school resource officer that was the language changed in in that policy policy 608 adds child with a disability rather than disabled and then policy 615 only the references were updated so little changes to each of them any questions thank you thank you thank you sh thank you Ashley moving on to our last set um executive director Franks will walk us through each of those revisions the first four policies that you see on my list 513 601 603 and 616 all have revisions now that the language of world's best Workforce has changed to comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness uh policy 612 title one uh parental involvement these revisions within this policy everywhere in the policy that the word involvement was is now changed to engagement everywhere it said parent it's now changed to family uh so the focus really around our Title One parental involvement being um Family engagement oh you're fine thank you and then the last two I have policy 604 instructional curriculum this is updating to align to Minnesota State Statute uh they have again removed Civics from the language uh and then added these legal references to align to the academ standards and Benchmark statutes and finally policy 614 is our school district testing plan and procedure policy this adds one uh provision at the end of the policy related to retaliation under a statute definition this would be to um any individual that maybe reporting interruptions in administering an assessment cannot be retaliated against so it adds language regarding retaliation under Minnesota statute questions on mine question so these uh amendments are all a result of statutes which have rendered our previous language obsolete that is correct yes that has been yesing them that was my yes all right this is an action item is there a motion so move there a second second any discussion it has been moved and seconded all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 60 uh before we adjourn just a reminder Monday December 2nd um at 6:15 is our study session that follows Our Truth and Taxation hearing and then Monday December 16th at 5 is our regular meeting is there a motion to adjourn so move there a second yeah yeah yeah taxation all those in favor all right a