##VIDEO ID:YtM-vXbe4bU## microwave in the next one thank you chicken for your yeah all right good evening everybody Welcome to our regular meeting for Monday October 14th uh we're going to call call this meeting to order and start with roll call here please stand for thege of the United States of America indivisible andice can I get a motion to approve tonight by Kath car disc all those in favor say I any opposed motion passes we're going to start with a couple of tax evat requests um the first is a request from balone wning construction um presented by Executive Director of Finance and operations Tober good evening thank you chair person good day Dr P School Board I'm here tonight to read through the tax payment from B Ling construction address is 1308 17 Northeast a Minnesota and the value is $320,000 320,000 is there a motion to approve the tax evat request from big and construction motion motion by Le second any discussion all those in favor any oppos motion passes our second abatement request is from Cedar City Builders yes so the second one is c c city builders the address is 13 Place Northeast in Austin Minnesota and the valuation is $400,000 is there a motion to approve the tax evat request from Cedar City Builders motion by Kathy second by Peggy any discussion question that was the time if I look at the first one uh the signature was this one is a law firm in Austin can you explain that to me must it's a different Builder I've never seen that before than all right further discussion all those in favor I any opposed motion passes we're going to jump into a couple of recognitions tonight our first is um Chris bis presented by Carter activities director good evening board chair green Dr Paige and members of the school board I am here tonight to honor and recognize Chris Badness um for his induction into the 2024 class of the Minnesota coaches Minnesota basketball coaches association he will be inducted next weekend is that correct um so just to read his bio so we can celebrate him a little bit Chris fadness started his basketball coaching journey by serving three years an assistant coach at Luther College four years as an assistant coach at Hamlin University and onee coaching in the Icelandic lead in nvic Iceland his high school basketball coaching career began at calonia in 1993 where he spent four years leading the Warriors to four conference championships three section championships and a 1997 class 2A State title in 1997 he moved to Austin where he led the Packers program for the next 25 Seasons retiring after the 2021-22 season under coach fness tutelage and leadership the Packers earned six big n Conference titles and seven Section 1 3A crowns resulting in three state runner up and one state third place finish Chris was recognized by his peers as SE section coach of the year eight times 1997 Minnesota state class 2A coach of the year and 2014 Minnesota class 3A coach leader coach fness is a member of the 500 WIS club and finished his career with an overall Mark of 504 wins 266 losses he served on the nbca executive board as a section rep 20072 2008 as the nbca president and coached in the mvca allstar series Chris on behalf of everyone in Austin Public Schools we congratulate you on this tremendous honor and thank you for your years of service to the young men you have impacted in your career [Applause] well thank you very much it's very much appreciated um and obviously I feel very blessed this has been a great home for our family and uh you know Tak and uh I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for all the support I've gotten within the community uh within the teaching profession here um the administrators I've had um uh ads everybody so uh again just just very thankful we've had some great players um I've had some great assistant coaches um and they're all they're all a part of this so uh and last and foremost I better thank my family my wife here but uh you know we had three kids during that time and a lot of those nights she was spent with the three um so thankful that my family allowed me to to pursue my passions um and again just just grateful I I really don't know what more to say I just again I'm just so thankful for for everybody uh and this community that's been so supportive um for years we had fund rais and get money and do all those types of things and people showed out for us and uh and gave for us so again thanks to the committee thanks to you thanks to everybody you flicked a lot of Pancakes over here didn't you no no I I basically walked around while [Laughter] people I I got to say that the letter that you wrote that we read the last thing you said is that you appreciate the support of your family who allow you to purs your that was awesome Chris and uh uh I looked at the U Minnesota high school basketball coaches association website and I saw some names on there your Mentor coach VI Carrie lindbo g h Terry Kopi Al W olon all those individuals B Obie burin so you really belong there and that's an awesome group and congratulations to thanks a lot it is a great honor so thank [Applause] youer ready ready tonight we get to honor Cathy 25 years of advocating for ausome public school students that means if you do a little math 25 graduations with roughly 350 students per class that's 8,750 graduates that have been impacted by your work plus the 5200 students that are currently active in the district which brings your total to just shy of 14,000 students quite a legacy to leave behind Sharon and I dug into the archives to find some of moments you have held every officer role on the board and without checking thoroughly I am certain that at some point in time you have served on every single committee there is to serve on in this school district you were impacting this District before you even joined the board bying 1990 facility renovation project remember that that was huge you championed the idea of bringing students onto the board as members so we could hear hear their voices this is why we get to listen to students like Anita and Michael you are instrumental in major facility initiatives including IJ Holton uh implementing all day kindergarten before it became before it was a thing Renovations at Westcott High Academy this beautiful addition to the annex you are involved in all of it your advocacy of the district Regional State and National levels has been significant and your wisdom regarding legislative change and policy will be sorely missed may be Consulting we hope that in the coming days they are filled with travel and lazy days in the lake so and Time with Peter and all your kids and all your grand grandkids I know we will CET your time and your energy and we are so excited to send you off into this next season of your life life and let me be the first to thank you for your 25 years of service to Austin school thank you [Applause] oh my gosh um I'm here because I'm a parent first and foremost that's what you know started it off back in the 1980s and it evolved into my running for school board being one in 2000 I was doing the and you did the math with the students that's the number that counts um approximately 296 board meetings I know of a couple I missed but it was it was minimal so this is going to be a big part of this is where we get to hear the good stuff that's going on in the district and thanks first of all I want to thank our administrative assistants and K Schultz in sharees and they're the glue that keeps this together and I've said that before and I truly mean it and it's like you know everything stays every once in a while she'd get confused but it was like I think the two meetings I missed I think I've known her being confused twice in all these years so she's done awesome I've worked with wonderful school board members within our community and they brought their talent some have only stayed one session and but they brought everything they had they brought it the game and that was really great it's been wonderful getting to know board members along the way serving with them working with them I have so much admiration for the staff in this district and here we see the kind of you guys are supervising them all but everything from our custodians our food service workers our teachers our Paras our Specialists we all put it together because each and every student that comes before us as an individual and we need to really bolster and continue to bolster the individual spirit and creativity that we have and the students that come before us and that's something that I charge the board and the staff with as you move forward keep that in mind that they all come to us some of them more excited to learn than others but can find the motivation here to be success so that's really great thank you for the superintendent Joey for being here with us for for taking a chance on us um there's been many superintendents I think I did the math I think I've worked with about 11 different superintendant over my tenure before being on the board um schz was she was wonderful in the beginning I knew nothing and she kind of explain to me what superintendent were what they did and that was really great um other than that um once again the students that's why I have been here all these many years that's why I will continue to watch and pay attention to what's going on in this District this is truly a blessed this is this is a district that has so much good going for and the Legacy and the depth of history of this district is so incredible and it will continue to evolve and be a place where kids can be successful I thank you very much for everything all you guys have done and I'd be remissed if I didn't thank my family thanks Pete the five Austin High School grads and now their entire family and my kids now are parents of kids in school districts and it's so fun to see them following my in my footsteps they're very involved and so if I've done anything good that's the Legacy I leave so I thank you very very very [Applause] much are there any delegations I don't see anybody would be a tough to follow I guess I think weour a pretty good all right well jry de bate members of the board good evening uh my report for October I want to highlight a few things first of all um our distinguished alumni Jason BAS class of 2002 and the late gertude Ella Skinner the class of 1881 where the 2024 distinguish the lumni members that were selected by the Austin High School alumni friends Association we had a wonderful program in week um during homec which you're going to hear a little bit about later also that week we also uh selected Hall of Fame uh members for this year for the class of 2425 and we adoped Paul notman um Zack Elling Kristen Faber Katherine Wagner Peterson and John Stephan the coach so we had an excellent program with them and honored them during our homecoming festivities uh keeping in the spirit of homecoming we had our nourishing our Champions event uh that was in partnership with formal Foods Hometown Food security project uh and then United Way uh this was a if you had a chance to be out there and see this or if you seen any of the pictures or news coverage it was a pretty exciting event we had over, 16600 students and volunteers that packed 24,000 snack packs for our food pantry and support of students and helping our local community organizations uh it was an incredible effort uh during uh hunger action month um we were really excited uh for that uh recently we just completed our Elementary wabon uh those elementaries had a goal of raising $60,000 and loing over 4,000 miles and I'm going let you know that they surpassed both of those so was a very well uh supported event and thank uh all of uh the contributions across the community since our last meeting uh a couple things I just want to highlight one in September was National it Professionals Day so I want to shout out to our incredible it uh department for all the things that they do to keep us up and running uh and October 2nd was National custodian and maintenance workers recognition day uh we know each and every day our students and our staff walk into buildings that are ready uh to serve to learn in and to do an excellent job of uh keeping our sites productive and safe U recently awesome aspires is a longtime partner with awesome Public Schools uh celebrated her 10th anniversary and our partnership has been very important uh over the past decade this collaboration has brought tremendous benefits to our students from improving academic success and preparing them with Future Ready skills and together Austin buers and Austin Public Schools and focused on Equity Innovation and Community engagement and they had an event here um recently it was very nice to see former superintendent C uh was had an opportunity to be acknowledged for his work but also our director q and former Austin Inspire executive director Jen mad so thank you to both of them for their work across the years this month also we're going to be celebrating JY Shara uh dwey was selected as the mor County distinguished citizens award and so we'll be honoring him uh later this month and congratulate him for receiving the Albert K fretwell outstanding educator over uh also uh this month October is National principles month I'm very proud of the principles in our school district the leadership as they guide the implementation of her strategic priorities the dedication makes a lasting impact on our schools and our Community um each March um Austin High School holds uh women's history assembly we had a cancel last year as there one weather event uh if you recall how nice the winter was but we had one weather event and it happened to be during uh this uh event was postponed uh but last week uh justice an mck uh Supreme Court associate Justice was here at awesome High School uh to visit with our students it was a wonderful program and hopefully we'll get to more uh of her or the Supreme Court the awesome Public Schools hopefully during the visit uh also know that we've got the year started I'll be beginning my superintendent listening sessions in all of our buildings uh this is uh as we've shared over the years this are informal meetings for myself uh for staff to hear updates and have open conversations with me attendance is always optional for our staff U but it's been very important to get information from our staff and share back with theard administrators uh we began um a new uh meeting this month this is the student uh superintendent student advisory Council uh we had our first meeting we have a couple members here on the table for getting started here uh this really is an opportunity for students uh voices to be directly heard in District leadership discussions uh they've had an opportunity will have an opportunity to work closely with me and other District leaders as we work to improve schools and matter on matters uh of students concern so I really appreciate all of the students that are participating um they're going to have an opportunity to discuss important topics provide input uh collaborate with their peers and then also hopefully gain some valuable leadership communication and advocacy experiences so we look forward to those um meetings in the coming months and finally I know um s b had an opportunity to uh talk about Kathy green and I just want to take a moment to express my sincere deepest and gratitude to you Kathy uh for your dedicated service to our school board your commitment has made a difference in your leadership has helped guide our district to a strong positive place so I've gotten to take a couple phone calls of my life that were really important one uh my future wife saying yes she would um have dinner with me uh and the other one that really comes to mind is you need a phone call um from chair green um to come serve in Austin Public Schools so really appreciate the opportunity to work Clos see with you learn from you Cath and thank you for your service anybody have any questions any school board reports done yeah thank you I would like to Echo what you always said about Kathy I mean a very distinguished career I'm glad that to highlight and celebrate your tenure 24 years 25 years on the board it's truly amazing and you've done a great job I'd also just like to point out that in the last month or so we've lost another Schoolboard member that's dick Leeds and dick was a longtime teacher in the atin public schools um a recognized coach after he got done teaching he became a guardian at light with the legal system in Mar County um Pi funeral was last weekend and a great turn on number two were there uh so dick dick was a a solid Community member great teach a good board member like youy um last meeting I I um suggested that I wanted to go and visit all the kindergarten classes to see how the transition is going two down two to go I went to Nevin last week and uh the teachers are doing a great job you know it's chaotic at the beginning of the year they tell me and then uh things get better and right now things are going really well um but I would like to say that I Purp gone about 11:45 in the morning where I can go to lunch and see the other side of these students and the thing that I've uh gone away from that experience is these lunch STA and the elementary schools are lce off they are kind they are compassionate they have a long fuse the kids are having fun in the lunchroom and they just have a smile on their face they help them get their food they help clean off their uh tray uh they're polite they sit down and talk with the students uh it's really an awesome situation so if Dr pig ever goes and Scoops out goulash and he asked for some help I would recommend that you sign up because it's good Duty real good Duty thanks Don anybody else I have joined other board members and Dr paig in touring the Four elementary schools this this fall since school started um lot of energy lot of excitement um a lot of um PR the principles are all big cheerleaders for their schools it's good to see we've seen a lot of physical rehabilitation done within the buildings this summer and so that's nice to see there's still spaces that are being renovated but um overall I the kids were the Highlight we had a couple new jungle gyms that the kids were out playing on and the weather's been beautiful so that's been good just to look moving forward I think that we need to let the schools have personality and with that both visual verbal um the kids themselves and so they've got it there now and I just hope that we encourage that in future so enjoy the chores car first of all I want to thank Kathy too being my first term on the board she's been a tremendous mentor to me so thank you very much for everything um I've gotten the honor of doing only one Elementary tour that was and I tell you I got so many hugs from those kids it was if I am ever in a in a depressed mood I'm going there get my f hug because it was just amazing um and I want to thank everyone who did an outstanding job with the with the homecoming events I I have the blessing of um helping with the food packing event that was just I was just in awe I could not believe how smoothly that went it was just a wonderful experience um the parade was wonderful the football game was wonderful um these are just some things I got to partake in and I got to go to the and I tell you that was the kids were just everything Emily you did such a wonderful job she had it totally it was just everything fell in line it was everybody who helped out it was just fantastic the kids were wonderful it was um it was just a really beautiful night also so we were extremely blessed thank you to everyone who had anything to do with the homecoming I can I don't know if you Rec when I was considering running you met me for lunch and I asked about a million questions and you have answers for one of them including um what are some of the pitfalls and you gave me answers and you were right about every single one of those um but said do it anyway and I'm so glad that you encouraged me to run and I've learned so much from you in in the time that we've been together on the board and I'm very excited for what you have to come a little bit jealous but more excited so congratulations and thank you for everything um and way to go on the teing you guys that was like Stellar work you know what you're doing not not you two but like overall this year's high schooler did a great job with the T and like all over town I was wildly impressed I was with a group of fols all around the state during the I was not in town during the food packing event and as the pictures became available online on social media I was sharing the pictures and over and over and over again I got how are they how is this happening what how what are you what are they doing we could never and I kept doing that we could never I'm like no we couldn't only in Austin I I was so proud of the work that was happening there because I kept hear we could never great work good job else just thank you Kathy um you were telling her the pitfalls and I didn't know if I wanted to run because you have set the bar so high I was a little nervous but you have really been um you set the You by example you dug in aspect of this and I [Music] apped um thank you I'm just I've been so impressive just glal of how the system works only ask guance thank you all right we're going to keep moving forward with our student representative reports with Anita and Michael G like Michael on first superintend page chair members of the school board my name is Michael Gary and today I'll the first half of the school report first I want to recap our funing event which was very successful this with 760 attendees at the dance that's a School record it was wonderful to see so many students come together celebrate school spirit celebrate school spirit and enjoy the dance the changes with homecoming were also well received with positive feedback in addition to the dance we hosted a the children commitment to service students work hard to pack meals for those in need this showed teamwork and commitment to our community it was inspiring to see our students come together and make a positive impact this is truly the most engaged ever seen all of the students and it was amazing to see I would challenge us to enhance that engagement and see in what other areas we can find that I also want to recognize our rotary students of the month Ali music and the their dedication to leadership is not something we should not something we should forget about I would like to also thank them for their homecoming efforts aliani are the president and vice president of student council next I'd like to mention the new digital digital ticket system working well and helped us manage attendance numbers for this made the homecoming dance checking experience much better it also allowed us to use efficient tracking of attendance and make the overall experience better lastly I would like to talk about the new school link system this is a website that helps you prepare for your future get connected and show you opportunities it also helps you manage your college test scores goals and Pi a college that is well fit for you thank you for your attention to these important updates it's an exciting time fill with school spirit Community engagement and recognition for our outstanding students thank you anybody have any questions for him M you did mention uh how involved everybody was with the the event packing snack packing I mean you find that they were more involved in sometimes you have a battle connect situation some kids might be on the sidelines and and that's understandable sounded to me like talking to people that just about everybody was on board is that right yes I would say every every student I saw was packing food and engaged in that event that's awesome thanks thank you our next student representative [Music] is superintendent paig chairperson today and members of the board my name is Anita r and i your 12th grade representative for this and I will be presenting to you the second half of the student report lots have been happening this fall and the study body has been busy as ever just last week the women's history guest speaker Justice mck came to speak with the high school students this event was supposed to take place last March but was rescheduled due to weather miik went above and beyond during her time at AHS and not only stayed for the assembly but also met with the pack of profile classes to about her journey besides talking with one of the Minnesota justices the Packer profile has also met with count individuals around Austin learning about different career paths and different job opportunities right here in the community of Austin moving on Fall sports are beginning to wrap up with football volleyball soccer cross country cheerleading girls and girls tennis having their last SCH meets and entering the champion season the girls dive team competed at True Team this past Saturday and made the podium bringing home a plaque for the trophy case as well as our diver Alena keny breaking the six dive 11 dive and pool dive record replacing the previous record from 1986 overall it has been a successful Sports season with an energetic student section and lots of supporting fans we can't wait to see how the Austin Packer teams compete in Big N sections in as come to an end some exciting news regarding new sports at Austin's is boys volleyball has officially been recognized as a school sport instead of a club Sport and this will they will have their first season starting in the spring there is many active participants in the past couple years as the club so it's exciting to see this new change within our activity system lastly there has been many opportunities this past month for students to explore more about their future one being the college that happened last Thurs where students were able to meet with representatives from a bunch of colleges as well as armed service recruiters the school also arranged a direct admissions letter open ceremony for this year's senior class students were able to see what colleges they had been accepted to and celebrate the hard work they have put in during their time at AHS direct admissions helps opens students eyes to see the possibility of college and how their future can fold out the teachers Club also attended a professional development conference called geofest on October 5th the students interested in a teaching career learned about African-American studies eth Ethiopian poetry and how it fits in with the United Nations goals they also had the opportunity to tour the University's map library and the West B neighborhood as you can see HS has been working hard to increase the opportunities available to stud and it's paying off October has been a great month so far with growing and learning thanks so much for your time and this concludes the second half of the student report any questions I'm just gonna join you up here I didn't realize they get to do this again uh we would like to recognize our two super board Representatives with a certificate of recognition for serving as our Representatives during the 24 25 school years thank you just a comment that you two are doing fantastic you're speaking skills are wonderful and your leadership in the high school is more than evident and you're going to be going great places and keep keep the Austin High School spirit with you as you go all right thank you for those reports we're going to jump into our consent agenda can I get a motion to approve or can I a motion yeah motion by Peggy second second Kathy you pretty much have to do something on every single one tonight that's a um any discussion yeah I have questions cinet reports for in your report you had commented about um the request for proposals for the additional Partnerships for the school based Mental Health Services and they were due on the 11 how many did you get we we did end up getting one proposal and we're in the process of reviewing that this week I just had a question said that 97 devices were never returned by the students who unenrolled and then so they've been given to the administrators to work on recovery through grade and they're in grades 5 through 12 I was just wondering 97 97 that seems like a lot how many like did we have like total we have uh several hundred devices that we do hand out so one of the things that the tech department has been working on is um reducing the amount of loss that we have so this is the goal that the department has one of the things uh I don't have the specific numbers that I can send them I don't have off the top of my head but uh is one of the things that we're working on is to have um system in place for device recovery because it is very expensive for us to replace these devices um but we also want to make sure that we're working through the right communication channels to get them so I know our administrative team is continues to try to reach out and find our students they always don't know where they so very difficult we do have the ability to make them inactive um so to do that work on okay thank you very much um my uh Schoolboard knowledge is not as far reaching as yours is uh is Cy is um is the Minnesota State High School league Amendment update and uh for me they set agenda okay I would I would just like to ask I believe that the um I'm not mistaken the U the update has to do with nth grade uh being included into U the definition of high school and in the October 4th board report there was a comment under Ms mshsl that we did vote in favor of changes previously communicated did that have to do with the ninth grade yes uh that was the ballot for that was for the two constitutes to Amendment changes uh not on the consent agenda tonight that's something completely different so we did was the was this nth grade update part of that we had yes that was what the vote was for I mean I I I i' like to consider myself some area I don't remember specifically that that's kind of a big deal is it very big deal so our our school board representative is Evan uh so we took part in uh a team zoom meeting with the Minnesota State High School league uh to review the Amendments and then as a voting member uh we casted the vote in the affirmative to approve that we won't know the results of that until the 18th me so there were several other amendments that you voted on there was two two I mean was the board ever were we ever explicitly told about the the nth grade inclusion High School just B that's a significant change right K the what that that including nth grade usually 10 through 12 that's a significant shift in Minnesota State High School policy right so they'll now be covered under their insurance and liability for catastrophic um so yeah that is huge that's a in my opinion as someone with a background in board that high schoolly board I believe is important but I really don't remember seeing this my my missing view is anybody is anybody recall I don't if I recall voting on that he V on when it says we vot in favor of change say was two of the school district yes that was at the state level so I [Music] [Music] pass Roy not as a of confus I any other discussion about the consent agenda all those in favor any opposed motion passes all right our next agenda item is a homecoming recap with AHS student council advisor Emily Hu we chair today Dr Paige and members of the board hang on turn thanks board chair dub page members of the board I'm emle hubin I'm the student council advisor for Austin High School and I'm here to give you a recap on our homecoming week on the slide in front of you you can see that we had 1,600 students participate in this week at Austin um High School from Austin High School Austin area Learning Center and from our Austin online program we had our school service project we also had over 150 volunteers from our community who came in and supported we had over 125 hours volunteered by student council um 900 plus food and personal care items were donated to our Packer Pantry in addition to the food packing event as well as lots of ble of connect points tallied and then of course our student attendance of the dance so the first slide you see here is on our food packing events so as was mentioned by a few 24,000 snack packs were packed in 22 minutes by our students which was pretty amazing um all throughout the month of planning month and a half of planning that Katie Carter and I sat on with a very large committee from Carmel United Way um and the Hometown Food security project they continuously said well it's going to take an hour and they're going to need the whole hour and I kept telling them I don't think they're going to need the whole hour so I made lots of backup plans for um what they could do if there were additional minutes because if I know one thing about our students competition can be intense for them and they really excited about that so um needless to say 22 minutes later they couldn't believe that our students were done and um not only were they done but then uh we we asked them to help take down the tables and clean up and the volunteers were scheduled to be there until noon to help tear down and get it all ready to go and the entire front lawn was cleared by about 10:50 a.m. I think so um it was really exciting to have them out there you can see those aerial pictures from above were pretty awesome we also had so many volunteers from our community come out with 150 um volunteers we had U people from the district office come and work with us that we don't always get to see during godle connects we had a huge group of alumni that are currently working on Hormel who um May don't even have children within the district yet and it was just really um really uplifting to see all of that support from our community in addition to what our students did those Food Packs um are are helping our school with they're in our classrooms and um in our pantry but additionally they are out in the community helping with different uh groups as well so it didn't just impact our school but it impacted the entire community so um this was something that we heard was really engaging our students um you can imagine I get a lot of feedback during the homecoming week and um sometimes that's really enjoyable and they but teachers were coming and saying like this is the best thing we've ever done and I know in my 17 years of being in a public schools standing out and look at that bom that morning I was like this is the best thing that we've we've seen happen with our with our students and like Michael mentioned um nobody was standing back um somebody came to they said even kids who like really don't like doing things we're doing it so it was really just um super engaging um we also had record-breaking uh members at our dance um Carol was so kind to come in chaperon with us which she said she got to which I was like that's amazing she got to um last year we had just a little over 500 students in attendance so jumping to 761 this year it was um pretty awesome to see that that rise in numbers we had our food trucks out that we can get to come in which was exciting still to have that available we're I was looking at expanding that um yard games we expanded a couple more of those this year but a really um engaging part as well because some students just don't prefer to spend their time dancing and um that that area we continue to bring in more and more games each year um next year we've talked about possibly having a movie or something else going on we really are trying to turn it into an event that's open to anyone not just people who enjoy the dancing so our battle connects um there are some different things going on this year with battle connect which uh we we've already kind of talked about at the school War meeting in previous months but this kind of kicked off our points for the year you can see there there's one of her doors I believe that might be Anita's home room so she's probably pretty excited about that um her home room was the winner for the seniors I believe Michael's home room was the winner for the juniors that was not that that wasn't great uh so there's a there's a winner for each grade level those students are going to be getting a cookie party so um they are the big cookies that are really amazing and exciting um we also had kickball event and that picture that's up there was taken by Ryan I think that is like it was just an awesome picture to see of our students parading down from the high school I know there were some questions of like how are we going to do this is it going to you know be um chaotic but our kids did an awesome job walking down the field and had an event down there and then the food packing so all of that came into B connect points however we're still going to be having different events one will be coming up on October 23rd those will happen four times throughout the and at the end of the year we will also have our large battle connects where we'll have all of our traditional games um that our students really you know enjoy seeing so they're going to get to see that coming back um it was funny because I saw some boys at the football game and they were like Juniors didn't win that's not fair how are we get more points I remember you have more times and they were like oh it's not over so um that that's kind of an exciting part the Kickball event on Friday afternoon we are also looking at um next year hopefully adding some more events down at the field so that there'll be different games for people to play and even hopefully getting some additional kickball games going just to kind of off that for our student body as well um our student council the number of hours volunteered you can see there that morning of food packing our students arrived at 700 a.m. and they were getting slivers and you know doing all the things but they got those tables set up um by 8: a.m. some of our lucky students walking into the building in the morning from their buses got called in by me to start helping throw tables up um our Hometown Food security team came in and and helped bow out balloons and do all kinds of things throughout the week um Ali music and elani thbr are in that bottom picture and the number of hours that the three of us spent together that week and in preparation for it those two are uh amazing at uh what they're trying to do for their student B so uh student council put a lot into that week and they're pretty name and then the last slide is just some of our feedback so we did send out a survey to our student body and our staff just about uh what kinds of things went well what they'd like to see um some of course some of the events of the past that are maybe adjusted um some people miss those of course and you know that change can be challenging but we also see the growth of what it can do and what it's done over the last couple years um our dance outside is a super huge hit and if you remember that happened because of Co and there was some push back for that to contining to stay outside but now we just that's what we do and it's fun um um lots of positives on the food packing um people wanting to see some different activities at Friday afternoon so we're going to try and up that next year um that's something that we're looking to tackle many staff and students commented on appreciating the more normal starts to the week I know there are kids of course who are like I like having things all week long but some people having those consistent days at the beginning as helpful um we got lots of great s suggestions for next year and um as always I continue to remind people IED Michael this the other day and was like okay um student council works hard at what they do but we also encourage people to continue to join us we have an open Council and it's one way for ideas just to keep growing and um for us to keep getting better at what we do um because it's student driven and we really are just trying to meet the needs of as many of our students as possible are there any questions on homecoming it doesn't question um you know there was a backup plan I had to have a backup plan like the food packing um I think I was probably praying and not sleeping for quite a while prior to that but there was a backup plan for the gyms for that um as far as like the um kickball event and things like that we were going to move it back to the high school and do some things in the gym um the dance we have yet to be rained out it won't happen it's um it just won't happen because as much fun as it is being in a high school dance Carol loves it um it just it I mean it doesn't some when you're sprinkled a little the kids get very warm at the dam so they actually are like oh that kind of nice refreshing so it's so far has it last year we did bring out some heaters um uh because it was a little bit chillier but in general we it just doesn't no that I would like to just make the comment that it was so great to see so many options for activities during the day for our students um evening activities are wonderful but not everybody has the ability to Mize themselves somewhere in the evening I love that um I was out of town homecoming week and watching the social media feeds with all of the pictures and almost in tears because it was just such a beautiful site um it's great to see that pride in their in their classes that that you guys have looking at YouTu right now and Michael I'm just totally looking at you guys um it was really fun that your energy and your your your school spirit just like jumped off like Fallen it was incredible I was very impressed and excited for what kind of memor is that's going to create for you guys so way to go yeah CE you mentioned the high bar that Kathy presented to you sh thought that right there that's a high bar energy and passion you SCH awesome you get a lot of help from these kids on you what did you say you get a lot of help from these young people we do I that's my favorite for my job kid awesome thank you thank you thank you thank you right our next agenda item is our donations presented by Executive Director of Finance and operations good evening de Dr of the board it is my honor to be in front of you to talk donations we have received donations tonight from private individuals public entities and trust and these do meet our board policy of 706 so is our recommendation to approve these so the first one is horal Foods corporate charitable trust for $2,300 Nevin Elementary M Clinic Health System Community contributors program $2,000 AHS Athletics Austin area Arts $150 Austin drama club maternal Order of Eagles $2500 Alice band Howard and Janet strip strip stri there we go $865 Austin High School athletics casc General Stores cash for classrooms $580 nin Elementary Dollar General literacy Foundation $2500 igj Holton American Legion Post 91 $1,500 AHS clay target team freeor M operation Roundup $500 Banfield Elementary South West West Central service Cooperative $475 Banfield Elementary and Austin Noon Kay is mess up $100 B for elementary so is my honor to ask for you guys to approve these T Don for our district can I get a motion to approve donations motion by Kathy second by Carol any conversation we can always say just it just overwhelms how generous our community is so thank you all those in favor anybody oppos no motion passes next we have an enrollment update with our director of information service Cory chair B superintendent and members of the board it's a privilege and honor to be before you this evening uh to share some current information about our enrollment student demographics and the impacts of attendance um as I begin this evening it's our mission to inspire Empower and and our vision is preparing all Learners to make a difference in the world and I hope that this evening I provide you an accurate picture of who our Learners are that we're preparing for the world our core values responsible resilient learner communicator and contributor are all attributes that we want all of our students and our staff um and we use these drivers of our words and actions to prepare all learners for the world in our work in additionally this evening will have touch points on each one of our strategic priorities this evening I like to um mentioned in terms of our desire daily experience um I always like to highlight one that I'm going kind of touch point on students can't do it it's every single one of these is so critical to what we're going to talk about tonight um with our enrollment and our demographics but students want to feel supported and challenging their learning they want to feel safe at school they want to be engaged in their school Community um you've heard great examples of that throughout the entire evening tonight um and that's what we're going to look at tonight is who are our students um that they're feeling safe and welcome in our environment our families they want to feel part of their child's education and Valu and respected as a family and so really what I'm going to dive into is who are our families tonight so you get a good grasp and understanding of who those families are and then our staff want to work in a district that is willing to adapt and change when to meet the needs of students and that's one of the things that is constantly evolving and you'll see slide after slide demographic shifts in our community so we're constantly changing um and it's great to see that our staff is belonging to and wants adapt to meet the needs of those students so again um our core values tonight responsible resilient learner communicator and contributor we're going to walk through a bunch of different elements to uh the presentation tonight um I hope that you certainly learn a number of different components to this because we have three primary learning objectives tonight one I'm going to give you an enrollment summary as of today um and back to one of Carol's comments earlier um with the the device management and and asset controls that we have in place while there's a lot of people that that un enrolled um that's daily when I ran the numbers this morning for the presentation tonight they were two different was plus two by the time I looked again this afternoon so I mean we are constantly in the en office having kids coming and going um and what you're going to see here is that lately especially as of this year into this fall um many more inbound than outbound um during that time frame so we'll look at who we are as a district and then um the last component impacts of attendance so this is our Friday report from last week um on October 11th which is Friday um I'm going to draw your attention to the lower right corner where it says 5,417 students um we've been waiting for a number of years to to PL or Peak over that 5,400 level and we're there um and then again that includes all of our students in all programming all the way from our littlest at uh our wion education center and Community Learning Center programs all the way up to our seniors um that we have there so it's over 5,17 students lot of Squigly lines on this screen but what I really want to draw your attention to is up in the upper corner here is the 2425 line and you can see what started out this year um and this is this is typical in most years we start out the first week and then we have more students once families see the buses running around oh I guess school's starting um we're going to we're going to get there um so we see an uptick but you can see that number is continually risen over the start of this school year already um and even last year when you look at this red line which is in here in one of the skig squiggles you'll notice something happened here at about the turn of the semester which is not a typical phenomenon for us as a district we continue to see a rising our enrollment throughout the second semester last year which typically we see Decay from start of year to end of year which is why most these lines have slight downward trend from left to right as you look at them but again this goes back to 2007 all the way through 2425 our highest number there when we're looking at enrollments when we look just specifically I'm going to take a look at the last three years these are corresponding Fridays the furthest to the right is is as a Friday this last week with 5,115 students in our K12 population we include our Littles in our prek program we're over 5,400 this is just the K12 programming when we compare that to that exact same day a year ago we're up 177 students from last year and if we go back two years that's another 26 students there combine those together we're over over 200 students larger than we were two years ago um on that same Friday in October Okay so we've seen pretty significant growth in our student population over the last year so one of the things that's really nice and that kindergarten population is running at 397 it's just short of that class of 400 um which would be one of the first classes of 400 since we've had since the current nth grade class um they were over 400 at 1 point in September but we're now just under 400 in that particular class when we look at our first GR you can see that class is growing in sheer size it went from 357 last year in kindergarten to a 374 this year so they're at plus 17 our second graders when we look at over the last three years they started out as a Kindergarten class of 340 and they're at plus 18 our third grade class from two years ago is up 21 overall our fourth grade class is up 14 from 356 to 370 and this is the one that kind of surprised me because typically we see a little bit of an upti in fifth grade um some from our our private sector where they come over to us in in I Holton for their first year in fifth grade um but this is actually we're seeing that class has been pretty steady 396 396 391 so they're actually down five from from the last year and same thing with our sixth grade class um two years ago they're at 330 now they're at 324 322 this year so they're minus 8 um so I is the only gr bands that we see the red showing up here everything else is going to be POS seventh grade is up 17 over the last two years eighth grade is up over nine kids right nine kids for the last three years ninth grade plus 25 10th grade plus 31 11th grade plus 21 and 12th grade is up quite a bit and some of that is continuing seniors um that have returned back with us but overall when you take all of those grade bands on average we're plus 18 um for each grade band as we're looking at our overall moment this year for increases so some pretty significant gains in terms of the overall um student populations so the next two slides like to pause for a second disclaimer um I'm going to share a bunch of information with you that is as of literally today um data but it's not certified data until we get it back from the state which even though October one is that magical date in education where that's where we anchor all of our student data on it takes the state from October 1 until March to actually send it back to us and say that this is your official numbers for here um because they have to reconcile enrollments from every single district and and location and state um so the the graphics that you're going to see are certified as of last year I'll show you what the bars would be um if I were to include them today so this is an enrollment history when we look back over the last 20 years um you can see we had a declining State going back even into the 90s we had declining enrollment um all the way up until about that 2003 4 year when we started to see that turn around we opened up that all day K opportunity in our region um having that all day K did help uh Garner some additional students in our area but that wasn't the whole um purpose or whole reasoning for all these students here um but that oops hit the button here first that continued to rise all the way up until 1920 where we hit that 5103 Mark and these numbers that you'll notice up here the little Asters at the top this does not include our little PRK students this is just the K2 at 5103 and then we had pretty serious event in the world the global pandemic um and we saw our enrollment really decline into that next year and so in 20 2021 pretty significant decline there in terms of overall student numbers some students we had kindergarteners that held out for a year we had families take homeschool opportunities we had families take online programming options so we've seen that slowly recovering um but now this year significant increase so this was 5103 if I put a new bar on here for 2425 which isn't officially certified yet but as of today it' be 5110 it would be the highest bar on this graph so it's our highest enrollment um in the last 25 years and 20 on this graphic um but we'd have to literally go back into the pre 80s to get numbers even back in the 70s potentially before the Sha was closed um to see numbers that are at these current levels we're at enoll so overall we're up 181 students just in the K12 population looking at who we are as a district our student population when we take a look at our percentage of non-white students uh almost 59% 58.6% of our students are students of color Statewide that runs a 38.6% so it's a 20% greater diversity rate in terms of uh background uh diverse ethnicities um today that number is at 61.5% we've actually pressed over the 60% threshold um when we look at the next number on screen free and reduced lunch population 64.4% of our students last year received free and reduced lunch um you'll see a trend on this in a little bit but Statewide 42.4% of the students receive free and re lunch so that's a differential of 22% between a public schools and the rest of the state um today our number is at 56.9% okay um and I'll mention a little bit more about free inod lunch when we get um special education uh 20.1% was the official number last year Statewide that runs just under 19% so it's only about a 1% differential um that's the one that was pretty consistent throughout the state we have a slightly 1% higher just because we're one of the larger districts in the county and so we're able to support some of those additional numbers um that number would be even a little slightly higher if we included the co-op kids so the students in Austin Le special education C are not included in our percentage here um even though we support and those students out that application and then the last one on here which I think is just phenomenal for a district our size and and outstate Minnesota almost 38% of our students speak a primary language other than English Statewide that only runs at under 18% so again over a 20% differential between language diversity and us in the rest of the state um and so that number today is at 39.8% yes ma'am um for that does that mean they speak only of engl no these are dual some of them yes but these are a lot of them are dual asset students so of that today we're at 39.8% um U today about 24.9% of our students require e services so there is about a 15% of that population those are students that are speaking English probably better than I do um in their daily academic Pursuits so question yeah next question two questions one about the certification by the state historically if you s in numbers in October 1st you going to back in Mar are they pretty close yeah certification yeah these numbers that I'm sharing with you I would say they'll probably be within a tenth of a perc or two t of a percent of what reality will be when we get them back it does yeah now I just don't put them in print because sometimes then they have Eric or somebody take a picture and until they certified I don't want them being published as official numbers the uh upper right hand Circle um says percent students receiving uh am I right or wrong do all Minnesota students receive so is this qualify for correct so these are students that have qualified for it last year and that number is actually down this year to just under 57% um yeah and I'll show you some of those Trends and speak to that specifically Mr question better this is the ethnicity Trend so we talk about students um coming from a diverse background when I started the district in 1997 going way back here that would have put us at under 8% uh students of background students of color but you can see that's continually ran up at about a pretty linear rate of about 2% per year uh 1819 was the year that we crested that Minority majority uh year where we had more students of color than white students um and now we're over that 60% threshold as of today 1.5 if I were to put the bar on here for 2425 today every single one of our school buildings has higher ethnic diversity than the rest of the state the other thing that I'll mention here too as we worked to adhere to attendance zones we're seeing that suer who was at 90% previously that is coming back in alignment with our other schools um so we're getting some nice balance with our elementary site locations in terms of eth ethnic breakdown um the caveat to this is too you'll see that school 105 this pre kindergarten program it's not that they didn't exist um but they were just included in the elementary locations the last few years if you're aware um this year that school 105 will be back on the map now that they're back in their own individualize location so that'll be coming back together what do our student population make up when we look at the ethnic backgrounds of each of our students when we talk about a certified number last year was 58.6 61.5 today 4 1.4% of those uh students are white our largest population is at 30% or just over 30% is Hispanic and our fastest growing population is our Asian population 11.9% our black African population is staying steady and actually slightly declining in terms of overall percentage just because of the gains and a couple of the other ethnic groups um that's our 8.7 there and then a couple other smaller groups identified in those areas you guys know your student body when we compare that to our Statewide student body so this is all of the uh students in the entire state of Minnesota only 38.6% of the students Statewide are students of color you can see that Hispanics only make up just over about 11% um of the St stud body Statewide black African populations make up 11.8 and Asians only make up 7.1 with some other smaller percentages represented there also look at this as a community taking Census Data of Austin as a city uh as a community Citywide 36.9% is what our U Community percentage of nonwhite uh community members is sitting at currently um so that's over 21% differential between that and the 18 and under population that we're seeing in our schools um and even Community wise um it's only about half of what we see in our 18 and underp population with our Hispanic population at 16.9 our Asian population s our black African population at 5.4 um so greater diversity will continue to see increases in our community as those 18 and younger populations continue to age up Switching gears a little bit to socio economics looking at our free reduced lunch questions that Don was just present asking um overall Statewide the median household income is 84,000 compared to Austin's at 616 so it's over a $22,000 difference income between Austin Public Schools and the rest of the state and this is that free and reduced lunch Trend so you can see what's happened here going back 20 years uh we were steadily increasing up until the mid2 at which time we kind of plateaued out then that pandemic happened in 2020 and then the federal government came out with um free food during the pandemic um and so then we saw a decline and you're aware as the board that during that time frame we saw $ 1.3 million um loss in our compensatory Revenue because of those free introduced lunch forms not being completed because of that free menu option from the federal programming then that went away and you can see that our families responded and filled out the form to the tune of 67% over 67% and then the state of Minnesota came out last year and now we have free lunch for the Statewide program which we still continue into this year um so right now if I were to put the bar on here for 2425 we're at 56.9 % today um and those forms are still coming in as we we go forward what does it take to qualify these are the actual numbers from 24- 25 for qualifications so if I take my household as an example family of four um my kids were still attending hospy schools if our household income was at or below $57,200 lunch I usually better at this I've been using the word prece tonight um we call it educational benefits because with the federal program and now with the state programs it's not about free lunch because all the kids need it it's about your educational benefits reduce class fees reduce um Sport and activity fees and so there's there's other added benefits and that's why we do emphasize the families we call it the educational benefits for every single one of our schools has greater socioeconomic diversity than the rest of the state you can see all those schools repres there and switching over to language diversity 62.1% of our students speak a language other than English certified as a last year um that compares to 82.1% Statewide 21% of our students speak Spanish as their primary language that's only 6.8% Statewide and then we have 16.9% of our students with 44 other languages represented in there um that are other than English and Spanish in the state that's only 11.1% so you can language diversity greatly exceeds that with the rest of the state um our language predominant that uh exist after English being number one and then Spanish number two is our K and K population so those Asian populations uh when we look at this 206 students that were spoke kin as their primary language last year that ranked us six out of 66 different districts that have parin students that number is up to 235 today so that number continues to grow our K population the 204 last year there was 675 total K students in the state of Minnesota last year so over 30% of the K student population in Minnesota attends Austin Public Schools and will rank one out of 12 districts that have students from that Burma and Thailand region that speak Kore today that number is up to 239 Cory yes ma'am so with that are are these students like evenly distrib throughout the grade levels yeah y yep the family units and there isn't a significant concentration in these Pacific lob there pretty well distributed thank you y our onok population has actually was tied last year and our certified numbers with our pompan our pompan is now in front of our on walk our African language there the pompan number last year of 80 there was 91 total Statewide last year so 87.9% of all the speaking students that went to schools in in Minnesota last year attended a public schools we were one of six districts that have those students attending um from Micronesia um this year that number is up to 93 as of today so we continue to see this and I think some of these numbers in this Arena just really speak to the welcoming community that Austin is um once families feel uh established and connected um they're they're coming out and their extended families and and friends are coming um in with them to to Austin because of the welcoming nature that we have in our onok population at 80 from last year is actually down to 70 this year but last year that was 18.2% of the anok population in the state of Minnesota um so again we have a pretty good uh showing of our anok populations here and our French students at 58 that's up to 75 today um we are ranked seventh out of 108 districts that have French speaking students in them so a lot of language diversity um total today we're at the same number we were last 4 at one point a week ago we're at 47 our highest we've ever been is 52 different languages spoken in our district every one of our schools except for our Austin Online Academy has greater language diversity um than the Statewide student body so you can see all of our schools again there see that and I love this table um when you look at all of the rankings of all the schools in state of Minnesota last year there was 541 total school districts and Charters that reported in the state of Minnesota so this be a really long chart and you won't be able to read it I took the whole snip shot of the whole thing um but this is just the top part of it you'll see that Statewide there is 348 different languages on a table of 400 over 417 language codes on it but we have 348 different languages spoken Statewide Noah Hanan the biggest District in the state had 172 languages spoken in it um you'll see us on the bottom of the table in red with our 46 languages spoken officially last year put us at rank number 30 I highlighted a couple other school district Rochester Public Schools has 85 different languages spoken in Rochester Public Schools but with their 177,000 students we still have a higher percentage so in terms of percentage wise we have greater language universi in Rochester um M public schools with there 63 with over 8,000 students and same thing with State St Cloud with 54 different languages and again over 8,000 students in their District larger than us um every other school district that you look at on that list is essentially a Metro District um so the only Allstate ones are highlighted um we have some of the greatest language University um and back to the question earlier when we look at what are those um students in need terms of needs needing F Services almost 40% of our student body um speaks a primary language other than English last year officially 23% required some English language Services um so that leaves that other almost 20% of students that are dual language du as um students in the classroom and that's a real summary so lastly I was going to share some intendance impacts one of the studies that we did from last year was the effects of attendance on performance um and I did bring these along but we've been really having a considered effort to making sure that families um help to get their children to schools as a community it's our goal to have every child in school um for programming we have seen as a district about a 2% decline after the pandemic in our overall percent in attendance in a normal year pre pandemic on average we were in that about that 94 to 95 Below 94% in attendance um post pandemic we've been running in that 92 to 93% so we've seen a decline in our overall attendance um but we know that it's important to be there so why is it important a lot of dots on this screen but I'll break it down for you every single dot on here is an individual high school student from semester one last year it's their percent in attendance on the xais compared to their GPA on the vertical access long story short here is if I were to look at the students that are here less than 70% of the time their average GPA is a87 compared to students that are here greater than 90% of the time that have an average GPA of at 2978 so pretty significant impact on GPA when students aren't in the classroom to help support their learning similar story for second semester data is even yields even larger G up here um if they're in school less than 70% of the time their average EPA is is 8 or 827 compared if they're here over 90% of the time it's over a 3.0 it's 3.37 on average um so significant impact on a t GPA with attendance when we look at credits earned um similar story lots of dots on here all the credits earned last year with our high school student population if they were in attendance 90% of the time or more they earned on average 6.45 credits definitely on track for graduation in the four-year time frame however if they were here less than 80% of the time they earned on average about three credits which does not put them on track for graduation of time so again attendance impacts credit attainment we start to look at um some achievement data these are students that took the ACT last year as 11th graders and their percent in attendance and what we learned here is that students that are in uh School less % of the time on average earn four composite points lower scores on the ACT than those kids that are here over 90% of the time so impacts on act and achievement looking at some of our younger students third graders looking at our MCA data students that are here less than 80% of the time have 12 point lower scale scores on their MCA reading tests in third grade than the students that are here over 90% of the time so when students are here um and in attendance higher reading proficiency levels and then lastly um our eighth grade students and the middle levels looking at their math data if students are in school less than 80% of the time on average they score 11 scale score points lower than are students that are in school 90% of the time more so few key findings um and one would generally probably hypothesize that greater attendance would constitute better performance than academic performance um this evidence really supports that um and so regular attendance does help in achieving higher academic success across all the grade levels that we investigated last year so with that I'll conclude and ask if there's any questions on enrollment or our demographic student body picture or ten impax or that's enough information the [Music] hope I know you're the you're the DAT and Technology guy but that left side of those graphs that you showed those dots I mean and I can't say definitely what we're doing but somehow we've got to reach those students and families and because that that's very important your last two comments about tenants and success hand hand we have success CL at the high school and the middle school place I just wonder if we have any way that we can connect with yeah well there's considered efforts across all levels for communication the family and working to have those special points and build those relationships and when you look at District programs like bar in the high school it's been extended into the middle levels um that's something I personally believe day once since I started education relationship is key if you build a relationship with those families those kids are going to want to be in your classroom they're going to show up and so um yeah that's that's happening across the board but again it's one of those things that take time and continual efforts it's not just a one day and done it's it's ongoing all the time so with the attendance and the graphs that you had up there is there aity I'm getting the word an um do we know what that is do we have numbers relating to our new imprint kids maybe it's not a cultural education no with the attendance piece it really kind of spans across all the different demographical I mean the one that does have a little bit higher representation is in the socieconomic status okay because there's sometimes there's limitations in terms of Transportation or other that creates more barriers um but in terms of ethnic groups and languages it's they don't really a significant difference socioeconomically anybody else thank you so much got a reminder of our school board study session schedul for Monday October 28 at 4M in the district office conference room I just I just remind everybody that today was the de Line Of The Rising Star Award and I think everything got in and CCE good Lu thank you all right can I get a motion toour a everybody for us