##VIDEO ID:D0CmORAxrX4## e all right we will move on to the approval of the agenda as presented so move second all right we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director Ward discussion uh Mr chair director Heyman I'd like to make a motion to uh remove item number four uh from the agenda which is public comment by chair Bo okay do we have a second on that motion already have a motion second yeah I don't know how that works yeah Kevin don't we already have a motion we have a motion on the table for approval of right so maybe we address the first motion the uh the motion to approve the agenda as presented so discussion you can hold your motion director heidman okay uh discussion continuing I'm in favor of move removing it from the agenda as well if the rest of the board is I'm I'm I I I'm in favor of that as well so we so Mr chair we voting on the motion so can we amend I think we can amend the initial motion to approve right because R uh director Hyman is suggesting that we remove item number four so if we amended the agenda to approve the agenda per director Hyman amendment that should get it done and then where would number four go it's being removed from the agenda would you want me to restate my motion or I think we have to withdraw the motion until we solve the first motion that's out there you can't have two active motions at the same time to my understanding so we either have to amend the motion that's out there or v on it as is and so maybe we'll do that can we we have a first and first there's no such thing as a first we have a motion with a second to approve the agenda as presented we had some discussion which included a motion which we can't do right now uh those in favor of the motion to approve the agenda as published uh say I I I those opposed same sign I I I all right so that motion fails and director Hyman you're now free to make a motion okay um make a motion to to remove item number four from tonight's agenda which is a public statement by chair boils second okay now a discussion so Mr chair director Ward is your purpose not to have a a statement by chair boils at all or is it is it no um it would the as you brought up in a uh board retreat the ability at a at the end of the board meeting for update where okay anybody I understand okay thank you all right so I don't want to put words in director Hyman's mouth but is your motion to approve the agenda as presented with the removal of item number four yes that would be that would be a true statement yeah and is it true that you would second that motion director dondlinger yes is there any further discussion on this motion okay hearing none those in favor of the motion signify by saying I I I oppose same sign no no 32 motion carries it's removed okay we'll move on to uh oh wait yeah we're good let me that down recognitions on to recognitions I will start this off welcome back to school year 24 or 25 for all students staff and families a special welcome to all new students and staff joining our Warrior family this school year uh for uh recognition bullet number two I would like to pass this one to director Ward thank you Mr chair congratulations to the 2024 distinguished achievement Hall of Fame inductees John malum a 1912 Briner high school graduate for his service in public leadership and Nelson in 1962 brard school graduate for her service in history and Eric Ward in 1996 BR high school graduate for his service and Entrepreneurship and um somebody I dearly know and love great great thank you uh I congratulations to the following students who were selected for the Berard High School homecoming Court Olivia Brown Briana finnean Garrett Gilbert Rees Glenn David harth Chad King Ty Nelson Autumn Schiller Ben Statum and Maya touches and congratulations to ree Glenn and Ty Nelson for being selected as the 2024 homecoming king and queen there we go so we move on to public input uh Teran kudon please and just to remind everybody a member of the public can address the board during this time comments will be limited to 3 minutes complaint compl or allegations against students or employees may not be discussed due to data privacy complaints or allegations must be submitted in writing to superintendent Grant the Board of Education superintendent will not converse with guests to address the topics covered at this time if you give me half a second Karen I'll get my timer set up okay and you are good to go thank you okay as as a community member and a taxpayer I'm expressing my concern about the unprofessional manner in which Kevin Bo used his position to misuse School District resources for his own personal use as a School board chairman he asked an influence the staff member on paid work time to gather information about other candidates and call and alert him as applications were submitted therefore by thereby gaining an advantage not available to other candidates as a subordinate School employee she should have been made she could have been made to feel either pressured or obligated to supply the requested information this employee either didn't not know this was unethical or was not comfortable denying this school board Chairman's request A House Divided cannot stand if the intended outcome was to cause imbalance in the school board in his prefer in his preferred favor or encourage someone else not to run that would go against the basic standard of giving citizens the vote Schoolboard election should not be polarized by personal or partisan gain but by the vote of the citizens each candidate should find ways to stand out from the other cand Cates with what they have to offer the district and the board in order to establish a Clear Vision relevant to Student Success and achievement and fiscal responsibility for the district they also need to both encourage and support innovative ways to improve education and high moral and ethical values in our schools Schoolboard members are unsung heroes in the community if they establish vision and goals that represent the values and views of the community they are Prov Visionaries for parents the children belong to the parents from birth to adulthood they want to know they can trust you to be open honest and truthful in all situations the decisions you make can secure a partnership with parents but if they see untrustworthy if if they see something as untrustworthy they can withdraw their children from the public schools and that in turn affects the budget keep in mind that education is not a line item on the budget it is the only item on the school budget and directs how other finances and other issues are afforded I urge you as a board regardless of the outcome to function as a team see others as more important than yourself don't polarize others to see things your way you may be wrong put politics aside in order to focus on the Improvement of educational opportunities and good performance for all students welcome creativity promote the attainment of higher student performance and success promote Excellence unite as a board agreed to be objective and one last thought if you can't play fair and you have to pick pick your own team get off the playing field you don't get to pick the team we the people do Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that refuse to change be morally upright as a part of the whole undivided in purpose which is to serve the public for the advancement of education and teaching our children to make good and right choices in a world that can be challenging and also deceiving thank you thank you uh Mark NES please just a public statement for the board I um sit before you all as a product of the Brainard public school system I was a member of the last class to graduate from this building in 1968 in uh my years as a young student I experienced uh a consolidation of the country school system and the culture blending into the city schools I even uh am old enough to remember release time classes that gave us a an hour every Friday to reflect on our spiritual health for almost 70 years this was uh in the Elementary classroom or later on it was in the house of uh of Faith uh if the individual desired it was uh considered a normal part of our Elementary uh or educational development what I learned my values my sense of Pride my uh pride in my country and my love of liter music and uh history developed Within These Walls and uh these walls were deemed obsolete in my last year after 40 years this building uh was not as old as the new brainer high school today but it it was packed with students and one of the finest school systems in the state I was taught by a fac uh by a faculty that remembered World War I fought in World War II in Korea and could relate stories of their grandparents in the Spanish American war we understood how fragile our life and community and country are many of us left this environment to go almost directly to Vietnam some of us didn't return the values we acquired here stood the test and gave many of us the underpinnings of faith faith in ourselves Our Heritage and the courage for leadership and success in life we all know who Ron stolski is he first was a brainer Warriors activity director an athletic director he instituted many good programs in the school one of the best creations was a program-wide theme or Mantra which became known as The Warrior way it was uh initially about how we were to uh going to uh behave and what we were going to believe in the first principle of the Warrior Way was the uhu was to create and maintain an environment of Integrity that people wanted to be a part of it's a philosophy that is grounded in respect Mark that's three minutes that's three minutes have a great me next is Susanna Lusa hello I'm Susanna lamusa and I've got two elementary students in our district and I'm a Community member and I just wanted to voice some concerns surrounding the intervention programs the positions that have gotten cut this year um we my family personally can speak to um how they have impacted our fourth grader and with her permission I have um I'm able to share her little story um but marale during covid was a preschooler kindergarten and first grader by the time she got to second grade our first parent teacher conference um the teacher told us that she was five reading levels below and in order to be at grade level at the end of second grade she would need to do nine reading levels which caught off caught us off guard but we got to work and we utilized the intervention programs that are offered at this district and and she was able to complete nine reading levels which is two grade levels worth at second grade it took a lot of work but it also included 15 minutes with her teacher and a half an hour at least 3 to 5 days a week with the interventionist um my concerns that with us cutting these programs is the additional stress that is putting on our teachers um when kids are not at grade level the self-esteem and lack of confidence goes with them other kids know that they're not um so I realize that the budget is a huge issue I realize why we had to do the cuts but if you look at the report card for brainer from mde we are not where we need to be and I am just really concerned that if we're not helping our kids by third grade get to those levels there are statistics that show if they're not reading comprehending and able to read proficiently they are more likely to end up in trouble so this is very concerning that we have cut these I get it the the you know money is an issue but I'm asking that we would reconsider for sure for next year getting some of these positions back because I know I we're not the only family that has experienced the benefits of the interventionist so thank you thanks uh next up is Rick Fel please there's not a single perfect room person in this room everybody makes mistakes in January 1977 I drank a whole fifth of Brandy on an empty stomach and I almost died from alcohol poisoning but it was probably one of the most stupid mistakes I ever made in my life but it was almost one of the best things that happened in my life because the very next day I accepted Jesus Christ is my savior and he delivered me from the addiction of alcoholism and that is exactly what I'm praying for Kevin Bo that this would be a turnaround point in your life I realized that I had apologize to my squad in the Army for letting them down but I also repented and the repentance meant a lot more to my constituents that I had let down than my apology did and that is a true sign of a leader I could make a strong argument that the spirit of God is already bringing judgment went upon this school system just in the last three years alone we're on our third superintendent two years ago we had five school board members drop out of the race first time in 130 year history that we had five directors on the Bo on the ballot we went from Top 10 in the high school down to 161 we have multiple financial difficulties we've had the largest mass exit of this school in 130e history I would say that the Judgment of the Lord is coming upon this school system now the point that you have to realize is this a prophetic warning is God going to bring judgment upon you I believe that sometimes he will and I pray that I'm wrong but I believe that he's going to give you a chance to repent and turn to him for guidance and I believe that God will bless the school system again if you do that but if you don't I really do believe that the spirit of the Lord is going to come upon you and I pray that the repentance and the and the turnaround would come into this school board and I pray that as you seek God's guidance that he would bless you in many many ways thank you thank you Rick Shirley joerger please good evening it's good to see you all for a new year I would like to read the text messages exchanged between chairman Bo and the unidentified School employee back in July and August I will only read the ones where the employee initiated the contact they were gathered to data request after Mr boil himself revealed what he had done and when questioned said he didn't think he had done anything wrong July 30th employee Charles is here boils thanks employee Andrew is here now August 5th employee Stephanie ederman was just in to file Bo thanks now we wait to see if the mystery person files employee I'll let you know boils thanks again August 12th employee Mike Stromberg just filed for school board boils son of a thanks can you send me his contact info employee unexpected obviously boils DJ let me know over the weekend but didn't really seem excited by him but there was no guarantee he would file employee gotcha August 13th employee Hey Kevin I was looking at your withdrawal affidavit and I think you need to redo it with a candidacy filing date of July 30th and then sign it for the 14th it looks like I keep them and let the county know by end of day on the 15th boils okay thanks employee okay I put a sign on the main doors for Schoolboard candidates to go upstairs to 203 and told the front office gals they leave at 3:30 boils okay thanks employee so I hear Charles just showed up boils yep Andrew is refusing to drop go figure my comment is that if we expect Integrity in our students then Integrity must be modeled by all the leaders in authority over our school district I believe this community would like to feel confident that you as a board will uphold consistent values both in public and in private we want to be able to trust all of you thank you thank you Shirley Andrew Mendes hi uh good to see you all my name is Andrew um I'm here to SP speak about the mental health issues in our school district a government's first and most fundamental duty is to protect the people that they represent the US Surgeon General declared that declining youth mental health is quote the defining Public Health Challenge of our time unquote even more so than covid-19 according to Minnesota student survey data in our district by the time students reach fifth grade over half of them are experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety by the time they reach 8th grade 12% of students have attempted to take their own life and over 30% of them have seriously considered it approximately 177% of our high school students have tried to take their own life already and more than 40% of them have seriously considered it despite over 70% of our high school students experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety only 36% of students have received any treatment for these symptoms outside in the back there are three school buses every single seat on those school buses could be filled by the high schoolers who have already attempted to take their own life it is nothing short of a miracle that all of those students are still with us today each time we collect this data every single one of figures continues to get worse and worse later today the board will decide on creating a task force to try to stop this issue from worsening I beg each and every one of you to support this measure and to fulfill your most important duty to protect our students by making immediate and drastic changes to save our students lives we need to make sure that every child feels loved supported cared and valued and know that we are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them here because no one wants to wake up another time and find out that they lost their child their sibling their friend their classmate and their student thank you thank you Tony Bower please good evening um I was very disappointed to see the chairman of this board seemingly misusing taxpayer resources namely the time of a school district employee to convey information regarding other Schoolboard candidates filing status I wonder did any other Schoolboard candidate have the same courtesy extended to them it also appears to be an abuse of the position for your chairman to use District board time to discuss his personal Behavior it's not a school board issue I might add it seems an abuse of the position to arrange the agenda that he might speak to this personal actions let alone allow before allowing public comments to be made but I'm pleased to see that this agenda was modified to remove that comment period thank you thank you and then our final public comment is uh Jeff chesak please my head here which oh sorry good evening speak so you can thank you um o Straight Ahead pardon me I'm straight ahead did you want others to speak so you know who's where I got it okay H DJ Randy John Michelle right okay okay okay um thank you for giving me the time I um I was thinking of something it's uh if you're not telling the truth you're lying and I think what the school district needs as much as uh protecting students mental health is honesty integrity and trust you heard your Schoolboard uh superintendent talk about all those things just listen to the first half hour of your interview with him back on June 4th he went over that time and time again I heard uh Mr NES talk about the warrior way I don't think he got a chance to finish but I presume he was going to talk about what is the Warrior Way Warrior Way is about integrity honesty helping us helping a teammate from the other side of the field that at the other side of the field opposition helping him up when he's down on the ground giving them a hand you don't want your athletes to cheat to win nobody would want that I often listen to the Vikings with Paul Allen I love it because he's objective he tells what's going on whether it's a good play a penalty against his team that's fair he'll call it if it's a penalty in favor of the other team that was bad he'll call it if it's a penalty against the other team that's that's in favor of the Vikings and it's not the right call he'll call it he'll say it we want truth that's what the public wants they want honesty and I'm glad also that you took the item off the agenda that allow chairman Bo to speak because it's his own personal time it's a personal matter that he got involved with this is no place to use the public resource of this meeting to talk about your personal issues Mr boils it is a resource that is not available to anyone else just like using a staff person to serve you like you did in the text messages I imagine there was phone calls when I talked to you you said excuse me uh you said I had I had her contact me when people so a data request was made obviously I didn't see the text message from her to you when she told you I called that's another thing were you supposed to get phone calls or Communications from her when people called and asked who filed I I I didn't see that in there but that's what you told me so if you want to go on at the end of the meeting and give your speech a statement it's only self-serving Mr boils you're you're you're uh you're compromised you are are uh conflicted you should not be speaking at all and any item coming before this board to talk about what happened between a school staff member and yourself taking care of your own personal business as a candidate and that is wrong and everybody knows it so I hope the board has enough courage to stop that before it happens you are conflicted you are compromised that is where you abstain for any discussion to do the right thing that's what the district wants that's what the people want so do the right thing keep your mouth closed over this matter thank you thank you three minutes exactly well done all right no further public comment we will move along to approval of the minutes from our last meeting on August 12th please I make a motion we approve the minutes from our last meeting second all right so we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director Hyman any discussion bless you uh hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I oppose same sign motion carries consent calendar um I have a note on this one director Ward that um somewhere in the consent calendar is a donation that you provided so you be abstaining from this vote if I need to I believe that's the recommendation okay dor chair yes director Heyman um I just want to make a a notation I mean all of the gifts that we get are fantastic but I believe the niswa Lions Club gave almost $99,000 to niswa Elementary for their uh speaker system up there that's a that's a nice Hefty gift so I mean all of them all of them are appreciated but that one kind of stood out out to me so uh that that was that was very nice from that standpoint yep okay great chair Bo director Ward since I am going to be abstaining um due to a donation um I I wouldn't have voted for the consent calendar just because on the consent calendar is the approval of the 2025 through 2027 Brer High School yearbook agreement with Justin's I really think the Board needs to take a look at that of the uh of the um and you'll hear a little bit more about it maybe during the um finan financial report um I just want to make the the board aware of that that that um the Justin's the Justin's contract um we need to look at more competitive sources um the the yearbook is you'll hear more about that during the financial committee report but um I wanted to make that clear that I would have been voting against it just because of the of the uh job Johnson's C the Johnson's contract for the yearbook is it getting expensive yes Dr okay and and Director D can chime in as well we we are losing uh district is losing significant money um with the yearbook um at the high school not so much at the middle school but at the high school and I'm assuming that it cost students a lot more money than two it cost more money for the students as well okay so just want to point that out and in the future I hope that I mean now we be tuck into a contract for 25 27 but um so is this issue was raised at the finance committee meeting yes it was okay the the Middle School uses a different company yep than jost's and we get the rings and the the pictures are taken by the other company yep but the Rings if they're still doing rings and the yearbooks actually come from jost's and they're person their staff person that does it really likes the J's rep and maybe likes the product better because we didn't get to see any of that but um we heard about it and it's getting to be awfully expensive which is kind of sad but I suppose it's just the way things go I don't know CH they recommended that we stick with J's at least for this year and maybe up next approves that for three more years basic if I'm reading this right do it so right can I make a can I make a motion to pull that out of the consent calendar yeah we have no active motions on the table for further discussion at a future board meeting I mean we're kind of locked in for 25 this school year right John great DJ I think so should we ask Marcy if it makes a difference if we did one year or three years Marcy can we go one year ni supp so the threee gets you some of those additional benefits um um and they are the adviser is aware and he's trying to find other ways to like for example last year they started advertising which I shared with the two board members um so we are trying to turn it around but and we as committee members also made some suggestions on how to um improve the financial situation um my concern is just as director heidman said uh a three-year contract versus one-year contract and if I was a Salesman I'd be looking to find some perks too because um it's it's good for him or her um what is the cost for the students I believe it's 65 65 is our cost I think at cost you said I think 65 is what we pay that's what their cost is that's what the students cost is50 something $50 and some change for C where we're losing Michelle is that we have to have a staff person because they have the photographers and they got to lay the book out and it's I mean it's this any other class I guess um you know they're learning something doing all that I would think I good for you Le to lay stuff out and all those things so it's that's all you know that's all part of the thing I don't think we're actually losing money on the book and I don't think that the other ones which we didn't get a number but I don't think the other ones are going to be 30 bucks MH I might be 52 so I don't know it's lifechanging but I understand and there is talk about it because for some reason the middle school programs been doing great they' been making money not we're here to make money but you both ways so the the difference the financial difference really is about $60,000 so it's not a little over multiple years over multiple years but it's it but it's it's not it's not an insignif in my opinion it's not insignificant yeah no it's not but the high school book is probably nicer than the middle traditionally our the Middle School yearbooks have just been pretty B basic and I would prefer to see a one-year contract and then and then and talk about Mar I don't I'm sorry but I don't think we even talked about that at the finance committee about I didn't realize it was a three year at the finance committee I didn't even catch it on this consent agenda we didn't because they did give us an offer of one versus three but we went with the three because of the additional perks um we don't get that with the one gives us additional perks in onee contract yeah yeah I mean and and part of it was you know the adviser does um like to work with this company so they did want to see the threee as well what are the perks so in the contract in there it um I think there's an additional 1,500 noted y okay which we would not okay get with the one year 1,500 for the three years so $500 a year and uh Marcy and I I apologize if I I too didn't realize it was a three-year contract did we maybe did we discuss that at at the finance committee and I did not get that I good question I'm trying to recall if I noted that or not talking about that yeah and when I saw on the agenda I'm going for three years yeah that's concerning well you guys are a lot closer to this issue than I am and I'm certainly not going to sit here well Mar is a heck of a lot closer to it than either John or I we just heard about last week one of the things that I proposed during that meeting was we do have a substantial fund balance at the middle school we could transfer to cover that um deficit to help offset and get basically give them a restart a refresh soy would you be okay with a one-year contract and re reevaluate I would be okay with that but I think the adviser would be a little upset about that just because we we've pretty much committed to jost's at this point to a threeyear but maybe he'd like to come and give us a presentation you're a tough salesman John if you guys are okay with that we could Wipe Out the deficit um go with the three-year and at the end of this three-year if we have another deficit then it's we need to look at other vendors if that's fair say that again Maru please we go with us we wipe out the deficit we see how they do the following these next three years and if they are continuing to have a deficit then we say we have to look at other vendors when at the end at the end of that this contract so we got to go for the we have to go for the three years though yep we can't write something into the contract to say we can get out of it after the first year if this continues on this path I can ask the question but she's more worried about the adviser that runs the yearbook yeah and that that's legitimate that is legitimate Mr Jensen does a great job the sad part is we don't know if we're going to save this budget's 475 so we don't know if it's going to be 46 or if it's going to be 22 right 22 it's like oh gez that's a lot of money if it's 1,000 bucks to upset everybody maybe just isn't really worth it I don't know this is how this Schoolboard stuff goes we don't really know about it till it's too late but I guess we're supposed to worry about bigger things maybe I don't know what is the deficit right now it's uh I just looked at ending last year or two years ago because we're still closing it was 25,000 and there's we can cover that in the other site we can cover that with the Middle School revenues yep because they're generating more than the deficit of the high school why is there such a deficit it's just been accumulating year after year um and making people aware right like hey we got to be watching this so it's everyone is aware now what do you have any idea what percent of students buy the book I don't know that that's kind of the sad next sad situation that we're turning into everything's just digital yeah I mean I found my old yearbook here look trying to look somebody up before our 40th class reunion I was going through that puppy watch no excuse me so I'm Marcy okay with your recommendation what you what Marcy just recommended and I what I heard her what I heard you say was accept this contract we'll re re review it at the end of this year we have made the committee has made some suggestions uh to uh the adviser about uh looking at possibilities of how to generate more revenue and and I know that will be also uh told to him and so I'm okay with that um I think Marcy was suggesting we look at it at the end of three years right oh okay I misunderstood that I mean I can ask him if we could revisit it at the end of this year and still sign the threee and just make sure we're monitoring it but that's a that's based on the feedback you guys give me okay I'm I'm sorry if I'm being slow here but what what's the reason for the deficit so the expenses that come out of the yearbook are the advisor and any type of supplies cameras okay you name it um that is related to that club okay and so over the years if they've um spent more than what they've collected it just continues to accumulate okay so we take all the pictures we the this this this club yearbook Club staff students and advisor they do all the work and they just kind of put it together and then Austin's prin it correct Y is it a class it's a class isn't it I believe they get a credit class class yeah I don't know I think we we're losing money in about every class right now so I don't know what the big differences really well we don't have money making classes we don't make money in math you know we don't make money in English we don't make money in gym what what classes do we make money in so right now just so I can get this in my P brain what do we what what is the final cost of a yearbook for a student I believe it don't quote me but I believe it's 65 okay I thought it was I think you're close and it's a pretty I'm assuming it's a pretty thick yearbook I mean this isn't something that's right okay 200 pages I was going to say 200 Pages 200 plus um I only put more kids on each page let's get it on to 100 I don't want to delay the discussion but I wanted to bring it up because I'm I'll be sustaining abstaining um I think it's a worthy discussion and I I really do mean yeah I I do I really do mean that you know may maybe it is time for him to come in front of the full board um I I would like to have you offer that to him who's him or I or the sales salesman okay I'm sorry here's the deal maybe we'd be better off if we just had the supervisor the staff person he bring them with them and just come to one of our Retreats good so we're not hogging up board time good good point they could come and kind of explain to us so we really understand what all goes into it 65 bucks sounds kind of expensive all right uh I am going to uh remove my uh motion okay then okay well we could we could still approve this but so in the future like John's talking about we kind of actually know what we're talking about that's just going to come before us if it didn't come before us then they would just do what they want to do and we wouldn't yeah my motion was to just to remove this from the consent and have it as a separate agenda I think we need to get moving if you're going to have your books for the end of the year I know that's why I'm yeah so he's withdrawing the motion so we back the motion taking a motion to approve the consent Canal calendar as presented as present I'll make the motion second okay so we have a motion from director doninger with a second from director Hyman to approve the consent calendar as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I please I I oppose same sign one exstension motion carries thank you all right we'll move on to our old business and we are first up is a presentation from Morris Leatherman by Peter letherman and I was just going to say in Peter's absence I'm going to introduce Peter Le Leatherman um with Morris Leatherman very good all right welcome welcome to Brainard sir Peter for Peter it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening uh to talk about what we do and how we've helped school districts over the last 40 years um as school districts go into funding requests to the public um a lot of them will do a community survey um the purpose of the community survey uh there's four major parts of a community survey the first is to understand the general atmospherics in the district because we know after working on over a thousand referendums and levies over the years the number one factor is to understand that General atmospherics at a macro level you want folks to walk in the voting booth on Election Day and make a simple cost benefit analysis what's being asked for and how much does it cost and make the decision on that value equation you don't want them to walk in the voting booth with symbolic no votes um issues with the past issues with personality any of those sorts of things so it's important to understand and this involves multiple uh questions where we look at the overall quality of Education we look at the involvement of the community we look at decision making we look at at financial management Administration governance um and those sorts of factors um then we get into the specifics of the survey that that you're looking at what the funding request is operating Levy Bond the components we test Communications to understand where are folks getting their information how do they prefer to receive their information and then also we can test messaging what resonates what doesn't resonate with districts uh with residents on a potential funding request and in looking at messaging you test the pros and the cons you don't just test the pros uh because then you've created a a bias survey it's not neutrally worded um so that's kind of the general idea of why districts do surveys now there's two primary methods of surveys out there um pollsters have uh had a difficult time and and a lot of folks have not bathed themselves in glory in providing less than um accurate polls over the years and especially you see it in the presidential race races you know all the time um the methodology matters in a survey that's the most important part when you look at the first thing when I open the Star Tribune today and saw the Minnesota poll the first thing I did was go and look at the methodology first there are two types you have the opin survey which is primarily internet or mail out surveys where folks will make a decision on whether they want to participate in that survey now there are two inherent uh biases introduced to the data the first is upfront in an internet survey in Minnesota 5 to 10% of people don't have access to the internet it's a very specific demographic um so you've immediately eliminated that group from the ability to participate in the survey um on the mail outside I make the joke but it's very accurate my 24-year-old son doesn't know where the mailbox is much less is he going to go take a survey out of the mailbox fill it out God forbid try to find a stamp put it in and then mail it back it's not going to happen so you have an age demographic bias in both of those that's important up front but the most important part is the self- selection bias that happens what we have found historically in the past and I'll give an example back in the 90s God that makes me sound old um we did a survey for the city of Fridley with the business community and the mayor wanted to do a mail out and we said we can do a mail out but within that mail out we have to randomly select 400 businesses that we have to hear from and so in doing that we did the initial mail out you get 10 25 30% return it's your typical mail out return uh sometimes down to 10% um but then we still had this 400 that we track we needed to hear from they got the reminders on the surveys we need to hear from you we actually ended up calling about 25% of the folks in order to finish the survey when you looked at the data back then and you looked at just everybody who returned the survey and then the controlled random sample within it the con the the uh general population was 10% more negative it's human nature if you have a complaint you're going to go on and complain look at reviews for restaurants nobody goes on and says I had a good meal they go on it's either the greatest meal in the world or it was terrible and that's what has happened in the opt-in surveys what we have been seeing recently over the last 10 years um with some of these surveys is um the reverse where supporter try to win the surveys um and they over represent uh my hometown in Wisconsin uh failed a referendum and brought in a company to do a mail out survey a post elction survey and they came back 6 weeks later and the results of their survey showed that it it passed 6535 it it actually failed 40 to 60 but the supporters returned the surveys the opponents didn't um and so it really gives a distorted view of what the DAT the public as a whole um looks at now they do have an advantage it's a great engagement tool for participation at the end of the day though it's a large focus group you really cannot set a margin of error because of the bias and introduced with self- selection um and so we've been doing uh my my business partner started the company in 1983 um I joined in 1994 and what we do is telephone random surveys um it's changed over the years in How We Do It um the key with the telephone is everybody uh has an equal chance to be called it's random um we've included cell phones in the mix for uh since 2007 um in order to uh compensate for folks going from cell pH from landlines to cell phones you know currently in Minnesota it just did a Statewide that we've shared with amsd uh the school boards Association I I presented that last week um we find it's about 55 to 60% of minnesotans are land are cell phone only there are still 10% landline only they do exist uh and then the rest have some sort of combination um and so we the I just I pull up the database for the Brainard School District I do what the skip interval for if the sample is going to be 400 I want 400 randomly selected people that live in the Brainard School District um in order to uh make sure that the sample's representative because that's also the key factor um we do quab based telephone calls those surveys that you see um right now out there in the papers talking about the presidential race um are they do it over the course of two nights they call whoever answers the phone and then they reweight you'll have if you call over the the course of two evenings you'll have 70% that are women because men don't answer the phone and you'll have 2/3 that are over the age of 65 you have an inherent bias at the outset but then they think okay well we'll just reweight the data because if if CH if households with children are underrepresented we'll just tell the computer to make make it is what it is in the demographics but that assumes that demographics and behavior are uh entwined and they're not um and so we take a different method it does take longer for us to make the phone calls we're in the field for about two weeks um and so when we call it's not okay you can't take the survey right now most phone uh uh pollsters will just say hang up call the next number we say when is it convenient for you to take the service Sur and we set up appointments half the surveys are completed by appointment at at this day and time uh because people are busy um and so by doing that I can set quotas based on census information I know the number of renters versus homeowners I know the number of households with children I know the number of households with seniors all of those sorts of factors and we're monitoring that as we're going through the process in in order to ensure that we have a representative sample of the school district as a whole now if we continue you know I've talked about a few parts of this you know I we own our own call center I have a phone Bank in Canon Falls and they do all the calls it's done in-house I don't Outsource it um the average longevity of my phoners is about 11 years they've been doing this it's a special skill to get on the phone especially you know when I work with cities you know some cities will have 150 to 200 questions on their survey um that's a lot of questions you develop relationships with people uh when you have a conversation that long the important thing to understand though is people still care about their local government I can't ask 150 questions on what people think of the federal government I wouldn't get past five questions with people they're Fed Up the state government we might get to 20 and then they're done but when we're talking your school district you're talk in your city people still care and they're willing to take the time because they view that the input can have an impact in the decision making they don't think it can impact St Paul much less Washington DC now I put this chart in just to understand there's kind of two ways that districts use our services and it's a and it's the sequence of the timing um there's a two survey approach and a one survey approach 15 to 20 years ago the one survey approach was really what was done and districts would talk internally and come up with a plan this is what the funding request is this is what it includes go out and test it in the community what we found and it came out of a very specific school it came out of the Yetta School District about 13 years ago where it was a bond referendum and they had a facilities committee that s spent six months working on what they should do in the WEA school district for buildings they had this plan at that time it was almost $200 million which was a lot of money back then um you know not $495 that District uh Rosemont Apple Valley Eagan just passed last year U but it was significant and then they brought me in to do the survey and we tested the package and it didn't have a chance of passing um it included things that people didn't support the TA the tax increase was too high even when wi Zetta um and then the board had to make a decision to go back to the facilities committee who had spent 6 months studying this and tell them to start over well that did not go over very well um and so we've kind of come up and recommend the two survey approach as long as there's time um and I always say the the first survey you know I have I have districts I'm writing surveys for now that will do the first survey for a fall 2025 election the week after this year's election and they're doing what we call a guard rail survey um and the survey goes up looks at the atmospherics like I discussed the reasoning for the atmospherics um but then on some specifics like I just today wrote a bond uh referendum survey where we're testing various components we test the tax tolerance uh we test folks predisposition um and that way as the facilities committee starts their planning process they will understand where the community is at at the outset what items are supported what are not supported and help tailor a package now as they work through that process and they develop the final package most of them will come have us come back and do a short follow-up survey and that's done around the time the board would make the decision April May hopefully not June or July because they're getting too close to the election to actually test the specific um and so probably 90% of clients now are doing this two survey approach to establish the guard rails and and basically not waste people's time volunteers time citizens time in the community Administration time and board time uh so something comes forward that is uh you know acceptable to the community as a whole um so this is just a summary um you know I just wanted to kind of lay out the general of how we do it and why we do it the way we do it and then I'd be happy to answer any questions you have Mr chair director Ward thank you so um Peter right Mr Le yes um what uh you know we had a strategic plan done just recently We Gather a lot of information on that plan lots of information on a very very high percent return had a really great remarkable return on it um when when your when your Bankers your phone Bankers take the call or you know do a call and start asking questions when somebody fills out a mailin survey you know that's that that's in my opinion that's how they really do feel when you when they talk on a phone H tell me about the bias involved with the with the questions that are given and and how the banker perceives the recipient's answer did you did you follow me yeah yeah I mean yeah it's bias and surveys yes absolutely um I always tell clients you hire me to the key thing that we do is write neutrally worded surveys I've heard everything over 30 years but nobody has ever come back to me and said your survey is not neutral I can write a question to elicit whatever answer you want it doesn't do anybody any good at the end of the day it needs to be neutral and so when we work with clients as we as we write the survey like I said the the client today they told me the topics they're looking at for a potential Bond referendum I write the survey in a neutral way and then it's a back and forth they control the topics I control the wording um because I need a neutral survey so the phone bank the phoner has the script um the phoner cannot vary off of what's written on the survey um if they do they're terminated um it it's it's quite simple there's no I mean that's that's why it is a special skill to do what my phoners do um because you cannot have any judgment you cannot have any value um you know you've seen you know you can go back to the 2016 election one of the reason the polling was off is because people didn't want to tell somebody they didn't know that they supported Donald Trump I mean that that's that's a in a bias that comes through um and that often comes through with the phoner um and so it's very important I mean we just hold ourselves to the highest standards on that that's my concern about a phone interview you understand what I'm saying that's my concern about a phone interview yeah is is the bias from the banker oh absolutely I mean yeah it it can be and you said if that Banker has that does that then they're fired y I'm and you fired some of them oh yeah I mean so that does happen then I think the last one was like seven years ago okay all right that was my next question yeah yeah I mean it's it's it's few and far in between I mean we we have systems so the supervisor I mean we have to validate the surveys are completed uh the systems are in place for the if you can follow and track the call I mentioned our strategic plan which had a great return last year how would you use any of that information uh it depends if we test it depends how it equates to the funding request you're looking at and so um you know I have seen operating levies put in place with the with you know a lot of the discussion of the funding of supporting the Strategic plan um the thing is is you know surveys strategic plans always are snapshots in time um where the community at was at last year can be a compl completely different environment to where they are now and so you know and and what we saw in you know especially in 23 um you know we worked with almost 60 school districts and we got 79% of the questions passed at a time in Minnesota last year where 41% of districts passed their funding request it really did not come down to anything the district could have done because what happened last year was Ma macroeconomic um we saw it the financially stressed households across the state of Minnesota was at an all-time high going back to the recession of 2008 2009 um you know we had 58 59% saying my income is not meeting my expenses and so what that comes down to then for folks as they go into the voting booth you know before the pandemic the norm in Minnesota was about 26% financially stressed so we're we're more than two x uh what people are feeling financially um you know most of the time people are making a decision I have a hundred bucks do I want to give the hundred bucks last year and this year people don't have the hundred bucks in their pocket it's not an it's not a if I want to it's I don't have it um and that's what has hurt so many school districts uh with the with the uh failures in the last few years I'd like to say it's getting better the Statewide I just mentioned um that I shared with the school boards Association last week um we're at 51% financially stressed it's come down a little bit but it's still double what it was uh most importantly that we ask a four-part question on the impact of inflation on one's household we're down to only 10% of motans now saying it's not impacted me at all we have 16% of motans saying I've had to cut buying Basics and we've had 47% tell us that they're cutting discretionary spending um so that's almost two-thirds of motans that are either cutting the basics or not able to go to restaurants go on vacation all of those sorts of things so I mean that's the impact right now with school districts and you know in 20125 hope you know hopefully things will get better the interest rates dropping um you know the the joke I made with a superintendent years ago they he said when's the best time to do a survey for a November election I said the Monday before the Tuesday unfortunately you can't do any planning uh you actually have to call the question 75 days before and all those sorts of things but surveys are snapshots in time uh to go back with the Strategic plan if there's a Poss you know is as we write the questions to provide reasoning for the funding request you know we could work on that absolutely but I mean I I mean there was one District about six years ago you know that did a strategic plan the the pandemic came along um that strategic plan really has nothing in play anymore so um now's not a good time to do a survey what's that now is not a good time to do a survey out of your mouth when when what I I just thought I heard you say that now is not a good time to do a survey for Success Maybe not a good time for referendum no no it's not it's it's not a good time to do referendum to have no to have an accurate snapshot of what's going to happen on Election Day surveys are not predictive they're informative so you say no I mean you say then your survey comes out as no it's not a good time I've told many districts in the past 18 months you don't have a chance of passing so what's your success rate on your passage of surveys overall 91% my last my last question right now would be what's your cost for us uh well if if you just do one survey uh it would be not to exceed 24,000 and it with that I would recommend a 400 sample uh 400 samples plus or minus 5% in 95 out of 100 cases uh margin of error is determined by the size of the sample not the the percent of the population so a 400 in the Brainard School District or a 400 in the state of Minnesota is plus or minus 5% why do we say 400 um because my costs are driven by uh two factors how many questions we ask and how many people and so to go from plus or minus 5% to plus or minus 4% you have to talk to 625 people well that increases cost by 50% now I have a conscience there's no way I could tell you that it's worth 50% more for a point in the margin of error it's it's not worth it um there are instances to increase the set the uh sample size not for the margin of error um but a brush fire next the shorter survey next year uh if you were to do that to test the specific package I might suggest going to 500 or 625 not for the margin of error but because you to look at likely voters this year doesn't matter likely voters is it's going to be 65 to 80% in Minnesota so in a 400 sample we'll have over 300 likely voters but in an offe election it can be 20% you know one District that turnout was 8% last fall uh which I mean even even teachers didn't come out and it was an operating Levy uh um and so you know if you have if you do a 625 and you have 30% turnout you're going to have 200 which is a large enough sell size to really understand okay where are likely voters at versus the community as a whole 24K covers everything yeah all inclusive yeah I'm not a law I don't charge by the hour thank you you want to be like no too much work I've got some questions do you survey businesses at all or it's just individuals uh for for the purpose of a school district survey just businesses or I'm sorry just residents I survey businesses for cities business owners and managers how do you get the the cell phone numbers I'm just being curious uh it's PE people always talk about you know all the information out there um it it it is out there I mean there are there are incredible databases um buy it what's that you buy them absolutely yeah y well so what would it cost for the two surveys because it sounds to me like the two surveys is the way to go um the second survey like I said I I think in the The Proposal you said the one survey is 24 24 um the one the the second one it's shorter but it's more people um and so I think I said not to exceed 18,000 for that in addition to the 20 right so we know it's not a good time but we don't know that but it's like a great time to Tre trying to do an operating I've told I've told more people I I've told more people this year you have a chance of success but it's the presidential year which you know this is my eighth presidential Rodeo of doing this and I try to never recommend a school district uh going during a presidential year the limiting the the issue this year is the presidential race and the economy last year it was the economy much more so um and so you know the fall or the the winter of 23 I probably recommended to about a quarter of the clients to say you have to wait if you don't wait you have to make significant cutbacks and what the funding request is where we are right now and it really has not changed over the last two years people will support half to haves they're not willing to support nice to haves it's the recession of 20 8 2009 uh where basically I don't think any it was the only thing that passed at that time was bond referendums for deferred maintenance Safety and Security and operating Levy renewals um you know folks it's kind of where we're at now uh in in in making the assessment on what drives people to support it's absolutely possible I mean if you've made significant Cuts uh that will show folks that the need is there people have to understand there's logical consequences if you if you don't share The Logical consequences with the voter um you're giving them a reason not to support something at this point in time what kind of information comes out of the survey is it all just about how much they'd spend or this or that or do you get a feel for how much the community is backing this mean our Peter told me told us that you know you get a ton of great information out of this survey but people are happy with what they're excited about what they're disappointed in um what we need to do better at is that absolutely I see a lot of value in that side of it um yeah it it really is a holistic approach look at the district um there are those that it's only about the question it's only about the you know what the patient's injury is who decides what's going to be in the survey it's a back and forth process between the superintendent and you the administ whoever in the school district I've worked with boards admin ations both uh what have you it's it's all at the discretion of of the decision makers so do you recommend this is what I would do for your 70 questions or do we just start throwing out ideas oh I have I have recommendations especially for the atmospherics I mean the key what clients tell me is one of the values that we bring is with the history we have with the database we have is okay if I come in and tell you you know just an important question is does the school district spend taxpayers money effectively and efficiently okay if it comes in and 65% say yes okay that's interesting but how does it compare what does it mean okay the norm right now is 57% so you're actually doing better than the majority of school districts and so that tells us that level of information so on those atmospheric questions I have recommendations because the key is the wording is the same you know typically the survey process is if you do the larger one with the atmospherics the doughnuts been baked the district we're going to fill in the dnut hole with the specifics of what's being discussed with with the funding request um and communication channels and those sorts of things interesting Mr chair director when you said uh Peter you have a 91% success rate is that doing one or is that doing two surveys uh that's over the history of yep of the company as a whole gotcha yep so it entails both one and two surveys yep as a whole y as a whole the last 10 years it seems like the two he said the two survey thing is kind of it it it has because of the time and effort that committees have to put into with coming up what to ask for you know it got to it just especially the superintendent would say it would be so important for you to come in in the second or third meeting of planning and say this is what the Comm this is where the community's at and you know we have on our on our survey it's called our Let's Make a Deal question so if you heard the district was going to have a funding request would you support and my phoners will pick a random starting point and we'll set up the Scale based on what the funding request would be $20 a month the respondant says no how about 15 no how about 10 sure I'll I'll accept that if they say yes to 20 how about 25 so I can come in in that meeting and say okay the community is at they're willing to support 10 bucks a month on average okay um but then after we establish what that tolerance is we always go through a list and say would you support a property tax increase for this purpose go down the list and we can establish what do people have high support levels for what do they have low levels of support for and what we know is that $10 it's not set in stone it's not the 10 command commments coming down there is elasticity to it there also can be regression from it um and because it matters what's in it the I have two examples Richfield in 2017 we did the first survey it was about 10 bucks a month but we tested about 14 components for a bond referendum the lowest level of support they had in concept was 67% for a property tax increase okay that told us that you can go higher than the 10 10 bucks they actually went out for $27 a month on the average house and it passed 6535 uh but Elk River 25 years ago had a question for an ice arena that actually the dollar amount came in under but people didn't support the ice arena and it failed so that's why it matters what's being asked for so I mean if you do hire us and I come in I will say the same thing when I tell you the tax tolerance number it's not set in stone and then we can look at those compon components that push support higher which hurt support right now needs versus wants yes AB absolutely yep so your success rate is dependent on the predictiveness of the data that you collect from the survey it it it re it really does come down to helping come up with a package that's will is acceptable in the minds of the community I mean I think that that's the biggest portion it's not at the end of the day you know if we ask the question do you support or oppose it's interesting but that's where I say that question's most important the Monday before the Tuesday what's important nine months out is where the community is at for support in order to put together and tailor the best package that has a chance of success on on Election Day so I make sure I understand this correctly if we go out with the survey and we frame it in that sense where we say okay the purpose for this referendum is to provide funding to put educational assistance back in Elementary classrooms and yep uh interventionist in our classrooms and things like that yes you're saying that's the way to frame that to gauge yep individually yep would you support a property tax increase and to your point I'm neutrally worded I wouldn't say you know because I've had districts say well let's tell them why we're doing this no we're not going to make them atypical we're going to just say what is being so you have like a kind of a menu of these things and you find out which ones resonate and if they line up with the priorities that you actually have from a budgetary perspective ex exactly and so you know a bond referendum it I what's going to lead the list in every school district is going to be Safety and Security um by a mile and once again that does not imply that you know because many districts will ask the question does the district provide a safe and secure learning environment 90 to 95% of minnesotans Say Yes their District does if you ask would you support a property tax increase for Safety and Security improvements 80% of motans support that where you know was doing surveys with Coline sadly Coline that bump for Safety and Security in the late '90s it only lasted for about 18 months what changed everything was New Town New Town Connecticut and Sandy Hook um and then U valdi doubled down on it and now we're to the point now where motans are saying we will do anything on Safety and Security and then deferred maintenance uh really what we're finding on the operating side right now um the the number one thing people are willing to support is to avoid future budget cuts director Ward so in you say 91% success rate tell us if you could uh Peter your sampling of what's the size of the districts that youve that you've been 91% successful in how how can you break that down for US size of districts EO versus brainer Yetta versus Crosby have any uh Deb on that I could probably weed through and try to assign yeah I mean we we've worked with every size you know I say you know on bond referendums I've worked on $500,000 Bond referendums I worked on$ 495 million in Rosemont Apple Valley Egan um you know it's it's it's all across the board um it's across you know we primarily do Minnesota um do a fair amount of work in Wisconsin simply because I don't like business travel so if we wanted to you could get us the data on that on that question or that yeah I probably could sort the database yeah because not only not only size but location of districts also make a difference within the state of Minnesota um Central Central Minnesota up to Northern Minnesota there's a huge difference be from Central on down yeah there's really it's seven count Metro and greater Minnesota if if you look at success rates I mean it's much harder to have districts have a just because simply the tax impact and and the tax base yeah absolutely yeah and seasonal wreck property that's allow that's ABS yeah all of those things and the and the Egg to Farm Credit in southern Minnesota um you know that where they put that in and 17 18 that kind of helped but yeah absolutely okay thank you the big deal I think and you're the expert is no matter how big your community is they're going to survey 400 different people yeah they're what he's saying is 400 is a big enough number that they can get it within 5% so yeah I guess we have to trust that you know what you're doing um I'm sure you do I mean for to me 400 sounds like that's not very many my cents said you know I can go to 625 and raise at 1% so apparently it's enough as long as you get the right demographics yeah it's like Gallop the famous Gallup survey you know it kind of that kind of went away you know 80s it was the galf survey the galf survey across the United States is 1,113 is that plus or minus 3% across the entire country if and if we did 1,13 here in Brainard it's plus or minus 3% but's your point the the point is the complex in the the within that population itself making sure it's diverse enough to give you what you need absolutely absolutely that that's the the key portion of it is that it represents the community as a whole and that it's not the the self- selection that can come in you know I I I saw one survey uh that had one of the uh mail out surveys a few years ago had 74% parents the demographic of the district were 22% right so it doesn't matter no it's a that that's a that's a parent survey then yeah yeah it's going to have have very different surprisingly the survey showed High support for the funding request yeah but but it but it failed um you know typically any successful Coalition in Minnesota uh in an off year is 80% support of parents it's hard to pass anything if you don't have eight out of 10 parents supporting so when do you recommend we start this process as far as the surveys and when do I recommend it um I would say I mean you're looking at November of 25 correct that would be so um I would if you're going to take the two survey approach I would look probably in January to actually do the survey that way if there are especially on those atmospherics there's a long enough Runway to deal with it and understand where folks are at so um and then that way though you'll have the data to do the planning in the first quarter of 23 uh or 23 my God 25 25 going back in time uh so you can make have the data to start the decision making because you you probably I the legislature of course will probably screw everything up for districts um by May um so that probably will be a factor in the decision making but I always say you know ideally the the best practice would be the board make the decision in April or May um the vote Yes can get formed in the spring every communication starts with parents because then School stops ends and motans forget you know we're we're done for three months there's no communication there's no nothing uh we don't want any of that um and then when the kiddos come back after Labor Day or before Labor Day you're going to be voting three weeks later um and so all of those things need to be in place April May and I understand there'll be multiple districts next year that're going to call me in July and say okay we finally figured out how the legislators legislature screwed us up and we need to do a funding request and we may need to make the decision August 15th that's going to happen it's happened every bium uh for 30 years um but if you do that first survey you know like like I said there multiple districts already starting in November and December um so you know I I would start the survey process it normally takes about a month to write the survey um you know to go back and forth with the client um so if we're looking you know first part of January probably start the discussion right after Thanksgiving so everything's ironed out after before the holidays um and then that way you have data by the end of January you have time to look at the atmospherics understand where folks are at but then also look at specifics as you start the planning process in q1 thank you any other questions for Peter well well presented thank you very much wonderful thank you all thank you all right so this is in As Old business as a there's an action item on here to potentially approve or move forward with one of the two proposals uh directors Ward and dondelinger were not present at the last meeting when we had the other presentation um director Ward I believe you watched the recording of it I did so did I and um based upon I believe we all got the same communication from superintendent Grant he is recommending that we opt not to move forward on this tonight but to move it to October to discuss and approve when he's back well I I I'm I'm confused about the deal discussion and or approval to move forward with one of the community survey proposals was presented in August and September school work excuse me geez um so is that mean that we want we're going to do something we just haven't picked yet is that what he wants no I mean I think put it off till next month right I think it was originally put on the agenda to give us the option to do that make a motion that we put this off till next month and get to talk to superintendent Grant second if we need that well I can go either way we can go with what you just did or no motion means we don't do anything with it and it gets kicked down like what we did with sourcewell last month just table it oh I get you but the motion is valid so we can go forward with that so we have a motion from director donlinger to postpone or table the further discussion and selection of a vendor until the October meeting and then we have a second from director Ward on that motion any further discussion on that hearing none all those in favor signified by saying I please I I oppose same sign motion carries we will we will carry this over to next month's board meeting agenda there's no specific shot clock other than as he mentioned we really have that we probably have to do something but all right so next up we have Carrie Ross um kind of part two of The sourcewell partnership sour sourcewell contract for the uh excuse me for the 2425 school year uh chair boils U members of the board just a quick overview of our current partnership with sourcewell to give you some context for this contract um we've partnered with sourcewell for several years they provide training and consulting services for us we use them um for educator services and student services um they are well re well respected in our region and across the state as one of our nine service cooperatives that support Regional Schools um there's been some recent reconfiguration and there also our local part partner uh for mde initiatives too so for example they recently started a read act Network for our literacy leads across the region where they can learn together and collaborate and do wonderful things without having to travel all the way to St Paul um I'm just going to highlight a few uh quick seven or eight things that we are currently engaged in with sourcewell there is a larger menu of things um for us to choose from these are the things that um might be of most interest we get a lot of career specialist support uh from sourcewell um meteor is a curriculum that is used at our BLC planetarium is also used by a variety of schools across our region um and it is a great way to Showcase Forest View Middle School and the programs we have to offer there uh you might have heard of Tech Mobile um that's a program we've used previously it just recently changed its name to step bound um which is a great um partner uh with um helping kids understand uh all the connections in stem Fields um and equipment and Project based learning activities and uh support for our teachers to do that we also have a vast network of options for our Educators to participate um and learning with colleagues as I mentioned across the region uh the Rea Network we also have District nurses and our English language learner staff and our building principls that participate in networks and because of our partnership with sourcewell we get a 90% discount when our staff participates uh in uh training on site at sourcewell and sourcewell also provides customized support here they are currently working with us and groups of teachers here in our district so our teachers don't have to travel anywhere um in math science CTE and World Language they also fund uh small PR provide small Project funding for um things that we do um that are Innovative projects it's very exciting and we're asking uh for approval of our 2425 contract so who else is available to do this kind of work there isn't anybody else in the region in the region but who else is available that does this kind of work I don't care if it's Nationwide I mean what difference does it make just cost yeah um we could certainly contract with other people outside of our region it certainly wouldn't be very con convenient for our Educators especially if they to travel to professional learning or engage in some of the programs it would not be convenient for our kids to participate in students of character and some of the other programs that we have um so if we wanted to continue to provide those student level programs we would be out of options there just isn't anybody else well basically whatever sourcewell says which is a state sourcewell is a state admin Minnesota local government agency and service Cooperative so whatever they say is what we're teaching our kids not NE no not necessarily if I go through here I see that we have all these programs that we're signing up for we have a sourcewell district partner assigned to assist District in program planning and alignment of services to your strategic plan I mean it's like it just doesn't end there's it's just you just go through here and there's just I mean I feel as though they have it awfully strong they're the fifth and sixth grade curriculum utilizes games students then they have the seventh and eighth grade curriculum you know like you talked about that uh meteor that is meteor yeah um what is the deal with the alternative mode to obtain credits for advancing through school salary schedules instead of enrolling in graduate credits I thought you had to take the graduate credits to move up what what is what is this program or do we not do that here we don't do that one okay so so this stuff they list in here some of we're not doing the many of the things that are listed in that contract are options for us so how do we know which ones we have the ones that I highlighted for you right here Mr dondelinger are the ones that we are subscribing to this year these eight ah okay makes me feel better the $75 onetime administrative fee for the year that's $75 for the whole year there $75,000 a student for the whole year one time $75 jeez why is that even in there but there are other options out there they're just not this inexpensive correct this is a very good value for our taxpayer money okay uh director Ross the career specialist I thought I thought we have uh career people in our school district and I I know last year I was given this um uh book I think catalog yeah catalog I mean it looked like uh College Catalog yeah and it had all these classes for how kids can pick out their career or what they're interested in so what what does what does sourcewell do to enhance that or I guess is my question yeah so the career specialist that works um with our staff coordinates with teachers and with students to help identify those Pathways that our students are most interested in and helps kind of make sure that we have programming in place so that students are ready for those employment options or college Pathways or that they can access some experiences in the community that help them make those decisions about what career pathway they want to pursue so do we do that be do we meet with these people from sourcewell before we come up with this uh uh uh online catalog or this catalog same it is the same group they work collaboratively all the time it's not different well pays for the pay partially pays for the salary salary of our career um career leader career people whatever career people in the district so because of our relationship resource World they help fund some of that those positions so it's not different it just augments what we can do on our own I guess that was my biggest question is you know where do where does it fit in whatnot so yep so these are the key things that we work with them on yeah these are the student focused options and then these are the educator focused now as far as professional development and the plc's and all this other good stuff in AC comp U how does that all fit in well again there's a big catalog Educators can choose um what they would like to participate in there's a wide variety of options let's say the there is um educator and brainer that would like to go to the summit that sourcewell has every summer and let's say it cost $100 it would only cost our District staff $10 to go because we only pay 90% okay and I I didn't get as deep into the agreement as director Dinger did is this is all of our sort of purchasing Arrangements through them included in the same contract or this is just for these services this is just for the Education Services because there's there are other relationships with sourcewell where we're using them as a purchasing cooperative for lack of a better way to put it right which gives us buying power to purchase certain things for the district in turn also sourcewell reinvests because they're a nonprofit right they reinvest dollars back into the districts in our region one glittering example would be I'll get the number wrong but it was several million dollars that were given to our school district to outfit the LEC five it Wason yeah so we'll say $5 million so I mean the this is is just one sort of leg of a stool of our relationship with sourcewell correct the planetarium Mr chair planetarium that we have basically is because of source will that's pretty cool yeah Prett NE stuff yeah and I think they donated over a million dollars for that it's 100,000 year or something yeah it's big deal considerable they donated our tax dollars so what what so when I go back in here to sourcewell sponsored trainings and sourcewell school-based professional development is that stuff that we take advantage of we do and right now we are working with several of their Specialists to help guide learning of our secondary teachers primarily in areas of Science and Math and CTE and World languages so they're meeting with them multi multiple times of year they're coming here here to meet with our teachers to help them on curriculum development and resource alignment pretty important stuff I would say they're experts in their field absolutely they are experts yeah I'm sure they are um the thing that concerns me about them is and I'm not saying we're not going to prove this like I'm not I'll vote for this today but I want to make sure here's what I don't like okay is we've hired you right or Heidi did and we've got Peter and we're the board they're supposed to steer the ship right but sourcewell education Solutions team is going to support you with developing and implementing standard-based teaching and learning whose standards possible standards for the state of Minnesota for the state of Minnesota state of Minnesota academic standards well they're not doing very well I'm not tring to be mean you and I talked about it we have we're less than not one grades reading at grade level half the kids right so why do we want to keep pushing their ideas why aren't we getting creative and maybe a little more aggressive and starting to do our own stuff you know standards analysis alignment alignment align with what the state wants effective instructional strategies instructional unit design and delivery high quality assessment resource selection why are they selecting our resources you know that's why we have school boards is because we should be hiring people like you that have you know so we can direct kind of give you an idea of what we're looking looking for and this is what scares me about these outside companies that come in and do this stuff and they're basically bribing us with all their money that they give us to make sure that we stay in line and do what the state wants because the state is in charge of sourcewell which is kind of training all of our people and our numbers continue to dwindle not us alone I understand it's not just us but it's like I mean who's Jackie Brinkman we got the Catalyst approach catalyst is a set of beliefs and strategies of sport classroom management School culture I mean it's like John you've talked about the school culture and the and the classroom stuff for how long well where is it coming from I mean I'm just concerned you know that we should look we should see what else is out there before we just dive in I mean Peter's on board with this Carri obviously you are you both know way more about education than I do but I do notice Trends and we're trending in a certain direction and the whole State's doing it and there's nine of these NOS that are probably running 90% of school 100% 20 20% of the schools they probably work with 20% of the schools across so maybe we should go to the 80% side and see if we can make a difference well to be clearing they don't they don't choose our resources they don't guide our work we asked we tell them what we need from them and our district advisory committee approves any recommendations for resources we bring to you it is not limited to what sourcewell recommends so the Marzano resources High reliable schools is a program something we do it isn't no I just asked you if we do these things we do some of those things in there not all of them I'll tell you it would make this a lot easier for us in the future and I wouldn't mind just have any if if someone has time to do it just to go through and get rid of everything that we don't do and just give us give me the list anyways of what we do do K will you get a copy of that oh it's in your deal it's in your packet that's where I got this from it's in the packet no I'm talking about the student Focus programs it's slide thing the Google Doc is in it's in your it's there's two two things R the top one is this and the bottom one is this contract and I just started snipping through this thing and I don't I'm just not impressed with the direction the state's going with education I'm happy about the react and maybe that's to make some big improvements and you seem like you're excited about it too so hopefully that'll make a difference but seems to me like if you're failing and I'm not saying we're failing but if the state is continually on a downward Trend why do we want to be in bed with them so there's my two bits I know sourceful does a lot of nice things for us and I sometimes wonder how it's not the 1% I know I'm technology challenged but I see the one I only see one document okay I'll find it for you later Randy okay are you in the agenda yeah I'm looking at sourcewell Partnerships oh I see you got two deal contract you got the top one and then you got number two what's in your board memo is the exact same language is just on slides to make it look pretty for our presentation here this evening got it you always help me thank you that Peter doing dishing Auto on a hard one like this dirty dog anything else I can do Mr chair I'll move approval of the sourcewell contract for 2425 school year as presented I'll second okay so we have a motion from director WG with a second from director Breen is there any further discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I I I post same sign motion carries all right we'll move along to the new business portion of our evening we will start out with uh Marcy who's always so excited to come up to the microphone with the preliminary 2024 payable 20225 proposed tax levy at maximum okay so in your board packet is a more detailed memo this is is just a synopsis the presentation is a synopsis but then the second line on the board member is memo is more detailed just to FYI so the initial report was out on September 6th which is why we had a later board meeting that's just such a tight turnaround if we would have had a board meeting on the 9th um I would have barely even had a chance to review it so the first draft was put out on the 6th um we reviews reviewed this at the finance committee September it was as of September 17th and it's also being presented tonight the runs are almost daily put out by mde so later on I'll talk about what we're currently at but as of right now we're talking about 6.84% uh mid November the county will mail out the proposed tax statements and then December 9th we'll have a public hearing and that's where we can certify the final Levy so the proposed tax Levy is sets taxes payable in 2025 and then we actually recognize the revenue in 2526 so we're not like counties or cities where they are actually leving for the year that the taxes are payable the estimated increase at this at as of September 17th was 6.84% many of the levy limits are based on enrollment so I put a little snapshot of what the preliminary enrollment is for 2324 and then also the estimated amounts for 24 25 and 25 26 and that's based on the uh enrollment model that we use from Ellers just an FYI there what's the difference between the adms and the adjusted pupil units so adms are 1.2 yep that's the adjusted that's the adjusted so it takes us up a little over 10% so if you look at adjusted that's how many days they were here and then the excuse me um adjusted pupil units then is multiplying it by that one and 1.2 oh another another year of this and I'll have or down yeah you will well the levy by fund there was a shift yeah maybe we'll throw something new atam um there was a shift in funds this year due to the reduction in The Debt Service payments so last year in the general fund it took up about 35% of the levy uh this year we're looking at 47% and that's with the addition of the alt facilities funding so we're dropping Debt Service payments and then adding the alt facilities fundings and those are in different funds the community service saw no change it's it was 2% last year it's 2% this year and then The Debt Service as I said it went from 63% this year it's 51% so this is just a history of the levy by Fund in the last 10 years the 5year average is 3.62% 10e average is 4.42 um and then if you were to take out the 2019 year that's blueprint 181 when we had that large increase of 19.42% so just a history of what our increases were the past few years then this is a breakdown of what is in the general fund so it goes into detail of for example safe schools operating Capital all of those have components on the levy and it is up the that the school's budget didn't go up 44% this is just the money that's brought in locally which is what percent of our income it's only like 12 12% whole school didn't go up 45% in a year and I'm glad you pointed that out because that line item is specific to our buildings we can't use that for operational costs right and on the next page is the other C categories uh or funds I should say community service went up 7.8% and that was due to an increase in the adjusted net tax capacity nothing that we do that's all on the county side when it comes to Market values and tax all that is done at the county side uh Debt Service went down the 13.85% due to the decrease in the debt payments so overall it's the 6.84 at the very bottom and then this is just our outstanding debt so overall principal is about 191 Million last year it was 198 million so we continue to pay off some of our debt and they go through the year 2044 so if we don't issue any new debt that'll continue just to keep moving up every single year so for 2024 the market value increase is not yet known that happens every year it'll come out with a um November statements referendum market value excludes certain properties the largest being egg and seasonal wreck so the first one is Market values and then the next one is referendum market value meaning what is the market values for an operating referendum and then the next one is the net tax capacity so the taxable market value is broken down by classifications I.E your property residential commercial and that's the final classification is net tax capacity so I just kind of have the you can see the last couple of years we've really seen some increases in our Market values and I'm sure the residents would also agree yep um this one is a new uh information for this year I did ask Ellers if they could give a breakout of what it would mean for uh residential commercial with that 6.84% so you can review that if you're wondering okay if I'm a homeowner with a $300,000 home what would that mean and this is based on an estimate of 2% change in market value we won't know that until next month um and then it's also there is an increase for a higher increase for commercial and seasonal when you look at this and that's because it's shifting from Debt Service to the general fund and it and it's broken out in different classes when it makes that shift and those numbers are per month that's for the year so a million dollar building only pays $4,700 in taxes the change so the change but so the 219 well that's for annual I get you yep doesn't make and this is on top of what they're already paying this is this is the increase correct gotcha this is what the school district portion is correct yeah gotcha yes this is not the whole you go with the elimination of the debt services does that doesn't that neutralize some of that or how does that work it does but the the taxing of it is different and so if we hadn't made no changes kept our Levy the same and we were looking at a 6.84% you'd see more of the chart be consistent of the increase but since we're shifting from Debt Service to the general fund it's it changes the components of the taxpayers and so that's why commercial and the seasonal a little bit more but a couple years since I've been on finance I forgot that piece it's super exciting um so the administrative recommendation is to approve the tax levy at the maximum and that's because there still are adjustments being made so for example today's report it was at 6.9% 6.97% so if we approve it at the maximum those adjustments can continue to be made and then we'll come back into December and have the public hearing and make the final certification right so this doesn't set it it just gives us the authority to go to that maximum in December correct exactly correct and what was that percent 6.9 you said so the whole presentation was on 6.84 currently as of today it's 6.97 okay so the recommendation is to prove it at the maximum we don't say a percent because tomorrow it could go down or go up yeah and so the other deal is is that we can go down right but if we go down now we can't go back up correct right correct so we just need to have that cushion I think not proud of it well I mean uh directors Warden doning or your finance committee what other budget items do we have that you found that we can sacrifice for this if we don't want to do it I know it's been a two process for you looking through it I'm still trying to find that's a six person question I know not two person question yeah maybe even more than six yeah well absolutely well the reason I ask it is just as you think about it in terms of public perception of the budget as a whole right the the the the constant idea that there's some $10 million wasteful spending fund that were just you know pay for snow cones or something the reality is it doesn't it isn't working like that is that to say I think so I mean something's going to have to be done but we need to have the leeway to be able to make as minimum Cuts as we can we already have a lot of frustrated parents and teachers about some class sizes and some of the grades and Y what else can we do I don't know well we'll know in May because we're going to have to make those decisions because even if even if we chose to go forward with a referendum and even if the referendum pass that money is not coming for two years right it it'll be um I just think we need to leeway and then hopefully in the next 90 days we can maybe find some ways to skinny that down and not be going for that big of a increase and I would Age the big part about the increase is the increase in property value so it hasn't been quite so bad on our taxpayers but it's still doesn't it doesn't play real well you know what's interesting would you want to talk to these guys about the car's money at all I I have it in my financial report later okay okay yeah that's pretty interesting yes and we had a robust discussion you know about the levy um at the finance and Dr Dinger is absolutely correct is that right now we just have to have some leeway doesn't matter what other governmental agencies have or whatever it's just we we need that right now okay I think that concludes your presentation does it not yes thank so you need a motion we do y I'll move it I'll move that we uh accept um Mercy's proposal of 6.84 or 6.9 maximum maximum just Maxim ma y That's Right hopefully they'll come down right so we have a motion from fittingly from our two Finance leads uh director Ward with the motion and director Dinger with the second do we have any further discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I I oppose same sign motion carries next up is the school board AFS CME secretario clerical Union contract for the 24th through 26 school years and here comes our newest and fanciest addition to the school district would you just super quick introduce yourself before you start I I think it's your first time up in the fun chair isn't it yes this is the fun chair well good evening my name is Ali F and I'm the new Director of Human Resource welcome welcome welcome welcome thank you thank you uh School Board chair boils director of school Ross members of the school board uh thank you for granting me this time uh tonight I will be speaking on the ratification of the asme secretarial clerical contract but before I do that let me make a remark I want you to know that it's been a privilege to be a warrior I met so many amazing people people whose heart are in the right place so this is a right place to be however I do want to share that my daughter arrived safely back to New York City last night and she called me and said Dad I'm back home in New York City safely and we started talking and then she said dad do you know how to make an idiot say how and I said how so my confidence it's a little bit shaken anyway she also reminded me that I am so privileged to be in the field of education and working with Educators who are changing lives every day and I want you to know that our secretarial group are individuals who are also changing lives every day I do have a presentation and I will go to that so we have there it is so I just want to say that brainer public school and it and its employee label group share common goals of enhancing the educational experience in achievement of our students our employee consistently go above and beyond so that our students can go above and beyond every day the district is dedicated to securing Fair contracts that align our values resources support our employees and ultimately contribute to our students success how we succeed together we do it by putting Student First Student needs and growth Drive our decisions and actions we do it through Excellence high expectations for all with everything we do the third is responsible individually and collectively we are good stewards of our resources fourth collaboration working together for common goals and the fifth is integrity that we are being honest and authentic in every interactions that we have oh that looks different I don't know what happened there that looks night like 1980 um Brer public school and the ASM secretarial clerical Union have reached tentative agreement on the contract effective July 1 2024 through June 30 2026 a huge thank you to the following District leaders Jennifer simara and her team and Angie Bennett and her team so the main changes to the asme secretarial clerical Union contract is as follows one salary adjustment for the year 2024 and 2025 there will be a 3% increase in wage scale for the following year in 2025 2026 a 2% increase in wage scale an introduction of Staff increase eligibility based on higher date the second change is increase in 43b District match the fourth change is revised vacation schedule decreased carryover amount and the fifth is Language clean up and inclusion of ESS and paid I read it here can't read on my copy either so medical leave clarification of position elimination of changes protocol thank you thank you for that and ours ours are fine yeah good and uh es ESS stands for just so that the audience know what that is it's earn sick and safe time lots of Acron Ms to learn in in the district so the final copy of the contracts are in your Schoolboard packet these changes are within budget so tonight we are asking school board for final approval and just so you know every time somebody does their first presentation we make sure the Powerpoints go [Laughter] funky well I appreciate the consistency we also ask that you bring donut did you bring donuts tonight no never mind I I fail on that can you remind me how the step increase eligibility based on higher date how does that how did that change I mean we were involved in it but there were so many moving parts of the steel I don't remember yeah so I'm sort of the messenger I wasn't involved and so I I think it was a deal where if you were hired like in January you didn't qualify for that till July 1st where now if we hired you in January you credit for the 6 months I believe is what we did pretty sure that's what it was good my confidence just went up thank you I was paying attention once in a while now this the steps is it's similar to the regular teacher contract where it's a longevity type thing MH okay that I'm assuming that's what it was I just wanted to verify okay so the goal is more consistency yeah yes now obviously there's no lanes because there's not an ed ational requirement to the component okay I make a motion second go ahead no no you were part of the yeah discussion go ahead second okay so we have a motion from director donlinger to approve the contract as presented with a second from director Ward any further discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I I oppose same sign motion carries thank you very much Ali welcome aboard thank you and I believe does that not close out our list of contracts for this year this was the last one we had to we had to finish up true all right next up is the discussion and approval on having the student Support Services committee explore the creation of a mental health task force um so this was kind of added on uh Friday morning to the agenda um I think the idea here was based on one of the public comments we had tonight as well to similar to how we did an equity task force to take a look at marshalling or at least kicking the idea around down at the committee and director Breen I think that's your world and director spear is on that committee with you as well if I remember correctly right so the idea was to perhaps you know put that on your next agenda and begin a process of talking about how we can do something more you you know without actually at least in the early stages doing specific board action per se but maybe have some recommendations on some different avenues that we can go down to to uh kind of explore doing some of these things with combination of Community Resources and our time and things like that so the idea is to open the table for discussion on this before we uh were to take any action on IT director heidman just a question I I think I raised this question I can't remember how long ago it was but understand that mental health is an issue we all know it I guess my question was why why does it keep increasing what what's going on is it the water is it the air I I I don't know but it doesn't seem to be doesn't seem to be going down and we you know it's it's an issue there's no question about it and I just was wondering if anybody had a thought or why why it continues to be such a an issue that continues to keep going up doesn't go down I think the societal change Mr chair I think societal changes have driven lots of impact on Mental Health just societal changes it's you know it's not unlike anything that has made a difference or an impact in previous generations mhm um you know I don't think anybody can point if if any of us had that answer we wouldn't be here number one no you're right you're right but just it's combin it's a combination of things in my opinion um the need is great and um we we we shouldn't in my opinion we shouldn't just say well it's because of we need to kind of try to find some solutions as best as we can I think stain within the fiscal responsibilities of the budget and things as such or whatever I think you said a lot right there it's not that much different from previous generations yeah I'm pretty sure I know I wasn't around or I was little I remember the day that Vietnam ended I was in nisat school and music class um I think maybe the way we're handling it I think that and I don't I see there's a policy update coming up um if you read I've been reading a lot about this is the telephones are making a whole they call it the anxious generation you know they really became mainstream in 2015 uh it came out like in 2008 2010 but it was pretty much just high school kids because parents weren't going to pay and we didn't have Wi-Fi and all the schools and all the different things now and you know uh director Breen told us about a substitute thing she did in a different School District where they Geo Fen her class and in one hour they had 262 texts and Snapchats and all these things so I don't think that's doing any favors but once again like John said I don't think it's one thing but I think that if we can clean that up you might see it get a lot better there's so much pressure there's all of this uh shaming going on online bullying going on online everybody's got it made their survey guy said have you ever heard anybody say that they had a good dinner no it's either terrible or it's the greatest thing ever you should be jealous because you're not here and that's what these children are living through and no matter how good they have it or don't have it they got person down the someone's always got it better and they're wondering why it's not them and I think it's tough on them and I hope that we can find a compromise that we can maybe start to clean up this internet stuff and maybe really take a load off their backs I I I really hope I I don't think it's the magic wand but boy if it could help it out 25% or something I think it will I've been reading about these phones and they just make these kids anxious and they're nervous to wake up in the morning cuz who knows what they said about them and it's just terrible how much they're getting kicked around on those telephones so hopefully that can help and I don't know we'll likely get an update in October on where we're at with the cell phone stuff we talked about that on Thursday when we set the agenda but we really had only had 12 days of school so trying to quantify how that's going at the high school felt premature got perspective but you guys are still working on a policy for the first of the year yeah I mean yeah based on the feedback we get and whatever I mean that's going to be on the October agenda we'll be you know looking at that we may choose again the overarching goal specific to cell phone policy is to make sure that when every child leaves for a winter break that they know what policy they're coming back to before they leave if there is even a change it's amazing you know cigarettes were an addictive thing uh all these things are addictive things and or tobacco I guess it's not just cigarettes it's everything and then to watch these telephones you know just go out for just go to Grizzlies and there'll be two couples a couple there or two couples there or a couple and their children and all four of them are sitting there like this they don't even talk to each other you know and I think that from what I've heard about these other school districts and a lot of school dists are doing this all of a sudden the lunchroom is noisy again the hallways are noisy maybe it give you a break from sitting around feeling sorry for for thinking about yourself all day long where you actually got caught up in some fun in the hallway and maybe even got yourself in a little trouble you know I mean it might be good for you I'm not sure well I don't think there's any problem with consistency or unanimity on this board about our desire to to tackle that right aough the question is the Practical element of the feasibility of tackling it to what extent which we're waiting for a little more data for but like I said I just I don't I don't personally don't have a conclusion but I was thinking when we were when we were talking about this since director Breen sits on the equity task force and on the student services thing there's a little bit of this work that's been done over in the equity world because we we looked at it through the lens over there of um just broader student safety because that's really the majority of the work that the equity task force has been doing really for the last three years is really just not really looking at anything through a very specific lens but looking at what's what are the general pressures on our entire student student body and how do we how do we deal with bullying how do we deal with you know all those other issues so I think um director Breen would be uniquely qualified to you know utilize that committee to maybe pull that out from under equity and bring it over into its own entity where we could you know dovetail it with some of these other things that we're doing right because we've got in my mind there's it's a it's a stairstep approach that's got to be dealt with first is attendance you've talked about this way more anybody else has and you're extraordinarily accurate we have a huge attendance problem in this in all school districts Across the Nation it's since the pandemic period okay so we we don't have them here how do you teach them when they're not here they get here then we have behavioral issues some of those behavioral issues are because they weren't here some of those behavioral issues are because they're dealing with mental health issues and so we have to determine what role does a school district play in that because I think there are a lot of differ opinions on what that looks like so if you can solve some of those things you get the kids here you get their mental state and their behavior cleaned up now all of a sudden you have a chance for things like test scores to go up because the learning environment is stabilized they're all connected you can't disconnect one of those pieces from the other because if they got better test scores maybe they wouldn't be quite so unruly in school maybe they wouldn't mind coming yep because it'd be a little more fun for them yeah positive I think the other thing too is that we have to look at what kinds of programs or initiatives that we can or resources that we can support that teach pro-social skills that teach digital citizenship that address social and emotional health of our students now these are all buzzwords and that promote just students academic social emotional behavioral successes so we need to constantly be looking at within the confines of our budget what can we do to continue to support the mental health needs of our students budget so beat up mhm and and yeah we I mean it would be great if we had more resources um within the schools to support kids mental health because it is uh an issue I've been reading some stuff about there's some experts coming out that are saying that it's certainly such a buzzword that um when you work with a lot of these children that had traumatic things you know a lot of about this I'm sure is that if you came to school every day and you have this terrible traumatic problem and I asked you how you feeling today and if you're feeling better and I keep bringing it up it's almost dragging them back into the mud and so there's so much talk about it and it's everywhere it's starting to become a little bit of a you know I must have problems too because all my friends do so why am I the Oddball so I want to get in the game as well and it's almost like there's so much information about about it that it's starting to backfire just a little bit that it's talked about so much you know it's like my I think there are things we can do for staff too that promote trauma informed responses when kids are escalated with some training that might be great so that's something we could probably afford to do yep what it's the kind of thing that again you know in in in light of this being you know kind of on here in that way is to kind of explore in committee and then see if there's a way to Marshall some resources not necessarily District resources but and kind of get you know a lot of a lot of different elements within the community within the mental health community and within the school district itself to kind of align on some of the things that we can do if there are things that we can do it seems like it seemed logical to me to explore it there may be some um pilot money out there through n through um other health organizations that um are trying to make an impact positive impact um on children's mental health and I can tell you that sourcewell is a great resource for um uh training staff to be trauma informed the way that they manage behaviors that would hopefully support students um when they're escalated well you know the problem with me is you knew before you said it I'm just a results based guy so we've been doing this for 20 years and our and everything's getting worse and the state is doing it all over the place and they're kind of teaching the training and how to handle this and we're not getting the results that we should be getting so if it was fied or if it was the lunchroom we would change and may we have changed but the changes don't seem to be paying off so I'm not trying to be mean but it's like I hear what you're saying I don't get it it's doesn't seem to be working so it's like let's just do more of the same and expect different results it never works like that you know we've got to change something so I don't know what it is I'm not a genius about this stuff but I no disagreement with that the only thing I would say is if you could magically teleport to 5,000 other boardrooms around this country every district is dealing with the same issues there's nobody knocking I think it's a societal deal and I think it's just a little bit of Internet action is being pretty on but I think some are are to your point finding Innovative and ways to kind of tackle it and I think how we got to it from a when we started to take a deeper dive into bullying thank you on the equity task force what was useful was having student voices that were experiencing those exact situations come in articulate what they were encountering now granted this was high schoolers we weren't able to do this you know Downstream to elementary schools and things like that but you know that was insightful and and it allowed us to create unique response that was more unique to the specific bullying that happens here that might not be the same as what happens in Verndale or in wetta and so I think your point is really well taken that you know it's all well and good that we have all these you know sort of state-based or other resources but we've got to we've got to really self-examine and determine what the complexion of our needs as a district are and try to address those very specifically where we can I think that you're dead on that's my opinion and I think by having committee group that looks at this well better way to do it because you can employ Community Resources we've got plenty of those folks we've got all our friends at Northern Pines and all these other people and and collaborative stuff that we can bring in so um in my opinion I think it's a great place to start I think it's important to mention that it's a start I don't think it solves anything right away but it's one of those things that you know you can't you can't end the journey if you don't start the journey I I'll give you a quick little example uh my daughter was kind of a one of the smart kids and she went to the super hard College like the ACT score was 33 and the their grade point average is 4.19 and I went to the president's meeting at the beginning of the school year when I was dropping her off the baby of the family holy cow married her on Saturday off so now I'm done with her but anyways um no you're not okay I'm not uh the deal is is that he said that listen you're the brightest and the best and you're going to flunk a test here you're not in high school anymore this is going to be hard but one of the things they made them do is take a gym class for their mental health because and they could be on the ski team or they could be on the trap shooting deal or they could be doing this or that but they had to have something and they he said that basically these kids have all been the smartest kids in their schools and all of a sudden now you're just average and some of them take it really hard and uh you know maybe something that task force could look into it'll exercise you know we used to have to take it and get doing something playing a game having some fun lifting weights jumping rope whatever it is I don't know but I you know what I'm saying it's like used to do that in Minnesota well don't we have in some of our elementary schools I mean if kids are misbehaving is it and this again might be something that I'm Dreaming up or I've been told or whatever but sometimes we take away their ability kids ability to go outside for fiad we should be encouraged get out there and run around and burn off some I we don't do that okay okay no I mean yeah okay that's cool because I agree I mean it's no different academics are no different than Athletics I mean you go to a you go to a you know to a Alabama play football well you going to get beat up once in a while that's what happens when you're with the best of the best I would enter I would uh make a motion to approve the uh this committee unless well we can still discuss but I don't know there more there is to discuss I mean we don't Michelle's the only one that really knows a lot of stuff about this K probably does too that puts a little work on that committee for sure to go build a skeleton for this thing and Carrie's also an ingal member of the Comm of the committee so so this is going to be a task force within an existing committee probably yeah okay look at second okay so we have a motion from director Hyman with a a a second from director dondlinger to approve the student services Support Services committee to explore the creation of a mental health task force and then I would say director Breen as you and director Ross Take This on if you have any need of additional people or additional hands or eyeballs reach out to whomever I think might be interesting to invite Andrew Mendes to come and speak to our group director hman um just one last comment about cell phones data uh from what I've been told things seem to be going in the right direction but we don't have enough data really to to say anything but it seems that that things are it's good to hear on the upswing which is which is was good to hear good to hear well I think what we can uniformly say 13 days 14 days in now 15 days in is there's perhaps more less push back than we might have anticipated that is a correct statement in terms of I mean that's that's anecdotal still but it's it's a promis it's starting to almost be like a n it's really taken off I mean it's like well I think the other thing that benefited was that this body got behind it early on and got the messaging out so that people understood what they were coming back to school it wasn't like a yeah wasn't like a surprise gotcha thing where people showed up I mean I think there's up 177 States now that they've just passed it as state and uh I get I've sent you guys quite a few school districts that are pulling the pin on it yeah and I'm just that's just what people are sending me for me talking about it you know it's not like I've been researching trying to find those schools I just told a few people about it and they're just like sending me stuff from out of town I think the the only definitive data piece that's missing I mean like there's no there's no data counter to the idea that limiting cell phone use in schools is harming or or helping this in educational environment right there isn't another study out there going actually it's proving it over here it isn't that doesn't exist the I think the fundamental argument that's forming is how much do you ban it like we are currently classroom bans or do you try to do the full day ban like what some of these other entities are going to do and and again director doning has shared a lot of information about that and there's compelling arguments on both sides I just haven't seen enough data to tell me which one is is going to be the way to go for our district yet I mean if I had a magic wand and I could make cell phones disappear for the whole day definitely would do it oh yeah I just don't know if it's feasible with Ohana's MC I turn my mic back on LA LA County might be the might be the one big it would be nice to see the data com but the problem is they're not implementing it right away are they I think they're already implemented they is my understanding okay well we we can talk about that let's get this meeting all right so uh any further discussion on the mental health task force piece no you guys can figure out what to do with that okay hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I those opposed same sign motion carries thank you all right we will move on to committee meeting updates and we will start with um director Hyman on the policy and Community Relations Committee well talking about uh mental health policy 516 um is new this year to the district and uh we're required to provide access uh space uh for students to partake in uh tella Health sessions right in the school district uh in the buildings Etc so that that's a good thing uh cell phone policy obviously we're waiting for for more data our next meeting is going to be October 30th I don't think we need to schedule anything earlier because we don't have data so my understanding is October 30th is is our next meeting we changed it to the 16th yeah yeah we did move it so it would be prior to the next board meeting because we committed in our board resolution to make a policy decision in October if we could why did we move that board meeting the October one yeah indigenous uh yeah there's a a holiday gotcha yep why don't we just move into Tuesdays I just this end of the month thing is just kind of whatever it's fine yeah I just know this year we have like four or five of them that have been moved yeah it was weird how they all felt like that and then the other one in November fall or I think Falls that way for election and then uh policy 902 and 902b 902 deals with the use of school facilities and equipment and policy 902b deals with uh uh alcoholic sales at uh gbi and uh was recommended that no changes be made uh at this point in time we discussed it so right and so those pretty minimal and we they were in the consent agenda so they're already approved yes they are part of the consent agenda so end of report okay we'll move on to long-range planning facilities and uh with director Dinger well here's the deal uh the softball field is been leveled and they put an ada8 accessible path from the base field over to the softball field both the tracks high school and Forest View have been replaced and painted resurfaced um some of the elementaries are getting delayed egress doors for runners there's such a thing some of them try to get away um so that should eliminate some of that uh you're talking about like at Riverside or talking about the elementary schools some of these little kids they just all of a sudden decided they are leaving and they'll run out the street and stuff like that so now there's like a delay on the doors so they give somebody time to catch up to them and settle them down um there's new uh Ada accessible playground equipment going to Forest View and they're looking at Forest VI's access control system there's a little better uh crisis response update which I think will be great thing the signage for the gz has been designed it's really cool and there's a l Landscaping plan if any of you have been to that it's looking pretty Shaggy out there um and it pretty much found a maintenance-free way of handling that I don't know if you've met Jeff yet um but Jeff's really doing a nice job I think the little bit I've worked with him um that's it all right slide over to director Ward for the finance and legislative committee update the uh most of the finance stuff has been in the consent calendar um the only thing that I guess was it was Mo sko in this consent I don't I don't remember if I saw that in there or not they don't need to be they're underneath the the limit that we have set for they're just updating us okay um Carri um Marcy's going to talk about the car's planning basically that there was uh we talked about policy 714 with fund balances there was no change on that um basically that was it next meeting is December 3rd that's in okay great thanks director award we will um bypass the brainer Public Schools Foundation report since director spear is not in attendance tonight and we will move on to equity task force with director Breen okay so we had our first meeting umbly a week ago now um We are continuing to focus on the community inside and outside the walls of the schools just kind of working with them to get input about um how they perceive things or and things that they would like happen within our buildings um we support mtss District goals by identifying strategies that are highly effective for a wide range of students and we are creating monthly staff connections through conversation starters first with principles and then disseminated with staff and buildings so we're trying to get full District collaboration around the same goal of supporting our students so kind of what I talked about earlier just helping staff have um strategies for um deescalate students and also dealing with a variety of behaviors that are racist or insensitive insensitive thank you y but it's broader than just that it's all categories R it's not racism specific specific yeah but I was trying to include all these categories but insensitive is a good way to say it okay then I guess we'll bring up Marcy one more time for The Business Services report right so in your board agenda is the enrollment report first one of the Year pretty exciting um just want to note so throughout the year we generally tend to see that students um leave because when you look at this initially the First Column kindergarten through 12 we're at 5,730 and compared to budget we're at 5,656 so you know one might go whoa you're way over budget but if we look at the 5-year Trend we generally lose about 1 and a half% and so if we apply that to the 5730 we'd be at 5,644 which is about down 12 from the budget so if we continue to track similar to previous years we um should be right on target is this actual people or is this adms so the preliminary budget is ADM and then the student enrollment is head count so so that's better if they you switch it to adms if they all stay but like I said we generally see that go down but we'll look at this during the budget revision which is is normally done you know January uh time frame and see if we can see where we're at at that point and we'll continue to give you guys monthly updates on this as well so you can see that um any questions on the enrollment the financial report uh the only thing to note is the building construction fund it did have a change from last year due to the reversal of retainage payables otherwise there's nothing else to note on that one and and then the big one that everybody keeps talking about is the cares summary so this was reviewed at the finance committee as well uh put this together to summarize all the cares funds that we've had since 2020 actually and it's it the grand total as of right now and this is not final we still have spending to do is around 21 million which is just crazy to think about how many how much money we've seen with cares funds so I just wanted to give you guys that brief summary it's it is literally revenues and expenditures it doesn't go into detail it's just so that you can see how much money we've received in cares funding in the last and are not receiving it anymore right I think that point is very important to hear and it's been in all sorts of categories you know we received money in Food Service when um food costs were going up we've received money in uh community service for um after school care we've received money in just the general fund for our basic staffing needs so it's all across the board devices one toone devices that was a big chunk of this money too I thought you said that we had 21 million yet to spend I was no no no I I I you know I was wish byproduct of that was because things like ventilation and other things like that were able to be covered we were able to like was I guess ongoing when I first got on the board four years ago and then uh we were able to redirect some of those dollars by using some creative allocation of those dollars that's what allowed us to build the unreserved fund balance up that gave us the the cushion to be able to draw down on it for this particular budget year so that was done very deliberately by the board at that time to specifically build that balance as a a hedge against what we knew would come when this Cliff came and we the funding dried up mhm it's hard to believe we could have inflation well inflation wasn't necessarily factored into it all that well given what it's done over the last well that's what caused it it's just brainer got 20 so what did peac get well no I get that component I'm talking about the financial planning piece of it St Cloud get you know 100 it's like we just spent it all so you got to imagine that your furnace at your house might go up to when they're all weing here on HVAC I mean I'm not picking on us it's not our fault but it's just like wow it's amazing $21 million Marcy did the car's money support the interventionist that we heard about earlier this evening and um some of the behavior interventionists too did that come out of car's money so the um Specialists that we had at Forest viiew and the high school were a part of cares part of cares Y and then I need to find out more about which positions were being reference the the extra support that elementary schools got yep because um last year the literacy coaches did uh go away those were Co development oh that yeah okay and the reference um for the interventionist reading interventionist today was that was talked about yeah um was for the elementary Reading interventionist oh so that came out of that fund came out of cares uh no it did not that's what I was trying to figure out no the dollars were very earmarked yes yeah like tightly earmarked it was it had to be some direct the device one's probably the loosest one we were able to lean into quite a bit but it was it had to be specific to dealing with excess costs caused by the pandemic so things like the robots that we have roaming the Halls doing the disinfecting and the cleaning and yes and some of that stuff so we were able to take certain positions like when Heidi Han was the assistant superintendent she was also the co director so we were able to defay most of her salary as the assistant superintendent and bucket it over in the covid money so then the dollars that were left over from that were able to go into the general fund and build build the reserve up so there was it was very um what I would say is very strategic and Marcy and the team did an absolutely fantastic job of getting creative with that stuff and really finding way to kind of redirect as much of that money legally as we could to make sure that we could use it in the general fund for when you know we for what we know is happening now in this budget year and what will almost certainly happen next year as well Mr chair direct so Marcy you mentioned that we still have some car's money available about how much do we have available um so as of this report we have about a million in Sr 3 and then a million in Sr 3 20% and the 20% is very hard to spend because it is after school and summer summer activities so we did as best as we could but those ones are we're we're going to end up returning funds the other bucket we're still to spend down um in fact I'm going to look at the director of Technology we're trying to figure out ways that we can get some Chromebook parts and things like that to spend those down we have December to do that end of this month oh end of this month September so fun and Friends doesn't apply to the after school bucket no so um targeted Services uh esy those type of things not uh extended school year sorry okay Special Education Service Services extended school year so can we can we offer tutoring um tutoring Services after school and on weekends we tried we did some of that in the previous years we've we offered talking about now uh so it only goes through this month or through September yes all of it all of it's done in September yep great y all right that was our hardest bucket to spend otherwise we did pretty good on everything else any other questions from rcy before we um and I do have one other um I want to introduce you to our accountant Lacy maias and she's hiding in the corner Hi Lacy surviving back there that's great if I'm ever not able to present she will be presenting so I wanted you guys to be able to put a face with a name and then you know you're not as scary too I don't know about that thank you next up we have uh filling in for superintendent Grant we have our executive director of schools the thank you um just a couple of comments about uh opening School this year um we are as we established on day 15 of school everything is going well we've actually had a couple of field trips already uh take place um superintendent Grant and I made the rounds to all the hope and House events um and several of the activities that were happening in school buildings before school started uh we had about 300 teachers start their literacy uh online language and literacy Academy training at the end of August that's going very well um and we have our first district advisory committee meeting next week wonderful thank you very much all right we will move on to director updates um maybe I'll kick it off um so uh obviously we had plenty of public comment this evening and a couple of those admonished me not to uh make any sort of public statement so we moved it out of the agenda and into director updates which is our time as directors to share as we see fit in the name of transparency which is something that I ran on four years ago I would like to read the following statement that I intended to read earlier my mother raised me with the idea that I should always try to do the right thing but she also understood that we all make mistakes she instilled the idea in me that one must always own one's mistakes and apologize to those impacted negatively by those and while my mistake here does not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors it requires no less than the application of the standard that my mother taught me all of those years ago one must always take responsibility a few weeks ago I asked a district employee to to let me know when candidates filed for the school board election to be clear this is public information that any citizen can call or visit the district office and receive at any time that they wish and people do that I myself did this almost daily as a private citizen when I first ran for the board four years ago but by asking this District employee to proactively supply me the information I inadvertently crossed a line and essentially use the privilege of my position to get that information communicated to me in a way that is not available to the general public and I also failed to consider that my request was inappropriate first I want to apologize to The District employees and to superintendent grant for putting them in a difficult position and subjecting them to wholly undeserved scrutiny I interact with these folks so often on District business that I failed to consider that my request was inappropriate at the time that I made it second I apologize to the community at large for this oversight I shall continue in my ongoing quest to execute my office with the integrity and the best interest of our district and our students in the Forefront of what I do I believe that I have a four-year track record of fairness inclusiveness and respect for the opinions beliefs and concerns of every person in this school district I've worked hard to see beyond my own views and to consider that everyone and to consider everyone as I work with my board colleagues on making thoughtful decisions regarding the operations of this school district as the board chair I have never blocked a single item from being added to the agenda I have never quashed a single voice and I have met with people that I vehemently disagreed with to try to understand their views I would like to conclude by once again apologizing to The District staff who did absolutely nothing wrong they simply fulfilled a request made by a school board member any citizen that has further questions about this matter can certainly engage me directly my contact information is front and center on the district website there's phone number there's an email address give me a call and I will be glad to talk to you about this in more detail but I see no reason to use more District resources and time on this matter thank you very much that concludes my director report for this evening director hien um my only comment is that I think we uh um also the policy committee chair I think we do need to look at uh maybe some guardrails so something like this doesn't happen in the future um and um hopefully we'll avoid future controversies uh and Andor misunderstandings and I think that's something that I think we're going to bring up I don't think I'm going to bring this up for discussion in in policy and uh uh we we if we have something I think then uh everyone can can see what's what's in front of them and uh take the appropriate steps so uh for sure guard rails uh Etc so U that is my only comment I'm passing I'm passing I've talked plenty I'm not passing um my only my only report is about the student rep Michelle Bri director Breen and myself brought up about a student rep on the school board and we have met with a committee that we' set up with that um and has been very very fruitful in my opinion uh we do have a student rep on this committee uh it's a young lady that uh glennis Glenn or Rees Glen Rees Glenn excuse me that uh we heard from last year um at a board meeting she presented on indigenous women um and did a remarkable if you remember that remarkable remarkable um in my opinion uh piece so so we've we've met with uh High School administration with the District administration director Breen myself and Stu and the student um what we have done so far the student did ask why the when we when we first uh first met the student did ask um what was the board what was the board's hesitation about having a student rep on the school board and um we just basically said that uh that's a good question we do know we do we do know that each individual board member has their reasons for whatever they feel and um we did feel that we came up with and director Breen you correct me on anything that I misrepresent here we we did feel that the the the other the directors our board members came up with a good Solution on uh considering putting students on committees where they might have more of a voice more um opportunity to get into an interest area of their own and so that's the direction we are headed in right now and um I will say this that we are we're making we're doing an application we're doing a parent form we are doing a process and um we uh our next meeting um will be set up this week actually it's not we're not meeting this week but the meeting will be set up this week to bring forward um uh not not necessarily a final product but a final another report next time um as to where we are it's been in my opinion it's been very fruitful um Reese has been a great has had great input along with District administration and um and High School administration um director Breen yeah I'll just add a couple of things so we're looking at putting or at at students applying for whatever committee they have an interest in and they'll go through some kind of interview process and then we would likely move committee meetings to the high school so those students could be excused from class and we recognize like for student Support Services I think we meet quarterly so they it may not be a huge investment of their time but part of our intent is to look at it as a learning experience for those those kids who have some interest in in governance and and being a part of a an organization that has lots of different um legs that it's needs to be able to function so that's what we changed my mind I changed my mind on what you want to talk comments word God is three minutes you ready it well we aren't limited to 3 minutes you can it says it in the rules does it yeah it says right in our agenda tonight 3 minutes oh we just put that in for John it's not for you oh good uh here's the deal I'm not burning the house down or anything but I have felt since I've been on this school board that there's all this stuff happens behind closed doors that it's like the um Wizard of Oz I felt as though we've been blindsided at meetings by Administration which all is gone now nobody's here to to take the BL right but you know remember our first meeting in January we had to have the emergency meeting to approve the budget I was like I told Heidi don't ever do this to me again like we never know what's coming you know I talked to about the school the school Forest you'd already walked it no one told me about it and now Michelle and John have their own committee I don't think it's cool but whatever this committee was approved by the board yeah oh was I gone I'm not sure if you're gone or not was approved by the board when we talked about it when we talked were you here when we talked about the student rep yes you were because at the retreat no no you were here when we talked about the student rep rep uh Director D because you were the one that said I'm not sure that is this is appropriate for the student to be on a school board you made that you made that comment so I know you were here to be on the I know you were here so it was approved by this by the board oh well I'll look it up good good I'm done okay uh I do have one uh addendum to my director update uh superintendent Grant has requested that we look at calendars I think we should try to get a board retreat on the calendar as soon as we possibly can um he's got a lot of weird topics sitting out there that we haven't addressed in a while not the least of which is some of those things but um he asked me to work with you folks on calendar dates for between out is going to toss them out yeah I mean we can do that I can we can coordinate we can have staff coordinate and try to find a day that works what what month you talking about I would say between now and the end of October preferably before the next school board meeting would be my and one next SCH October 23rd I believe 21st 21st yeah October 2 2st excuse me I I have a recommendation on that is that I'd appreciate if we have to do it every on Friday afternoons that's your preference or don't do it or do do it don't do it on Friday afternoons well I mean you were advocating Saturdays for a long time I'd love to do Saturday more and I think before we were get my my preference would also be that because it it uh be great just go get this knocked out and you have the rest of your day to do what you want uh I I tend to agree they become too a pretty substantial time commitment for people that are locked up in you know day jobs careers yeah yep for sure yeah I mean that's what I'd like but all right well I'll take that under consideration as we look at if everybody's amendable to that I know I don't know director Spear's mind on that but I think um Saturday works for you director Hyman if we look at those instead Saturday mornings I think we were looking at to try to do like 9 to1 or something ry's on six Saturdays and the Sunday I'll try to fit it into my schedule no we can put a nap time in the middle of it if you want you'd have to get up a little earlier all right so everybody's comfortable with me working with staff to look at calendars for Saturdays yeah just give us a couple options and we'll pick them okay I don't have anything pressing going on okay at least on my schedule okay so then the only other future meetings that are currently on the calendar are we have an October 16th I didn't know that either I screwed up so um where we will be talking um about cell phones so um if anybody has any input or stuff like that or data that they're finding please send it along to director Hyman and myself since we're on that committee and we can you know incorporate that into the discussions with the team uh mea break is uh October 17th through the 18th so there is no school next board meeting is on October 21st and then there is a long-range planning and Facilities meeting at noon on October 22nd otherwise that's everything we have between now and November great all right if there's no further business before the board I would entertain a motion to adjourn I'll give you one second so we have a motion from director Hyman with a second from director Don linger for adjournment is there any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion carries we are adjourned everybody have a nice evening