##VIDEO ID:ng6svuQwZPI## call the meeting to order would everyone please stand and join us as we say the Pledge of aliance pledge of alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation God individual with liy and justice for all okay Katie will not be with us this evening and we're in competition with the coronation which starts at 7 7:00 so we'll do our best to stay on task here um does anyone have anything to add Jeff do you have anything to add to the agenda we needed to add approval for the Ed Foundation Embers was that or am I missing something what was it did I read that text around are you talking about like a new member is that what you're thinking yes was there not as far as I know was that maybe I misread that so we don't need to add any not that I aware if we need to we can do it on next I haven't heard of any okay that I me previous I got today oh okay last year never mind then sorry since we have no additions or deletions to the agenda I would look for a motion to approve the agenda as sh I'll make a motion jelan on the motion second second by Luke you won that any other discussion all in favor of the approval of the agenda say I I I opposed that is carried schedule presenters we have a zoom presentation by Darren strel yes he is on Darren is online okay right now and so I'm gonna introduce Darren he's the executive secretary of M we're getting bad feedback here sorry and so I'm GNA let Darren go ahead with a presentation on M and then we can talk after that unless we have questions here go ahead Darr okay I'm on mute thank you for allowing me to be part of your meeting and uh for us school board members I want to thank you for your service it's a really wonderful thing to be serving the community and doing the work of a school board and working with your community and your staff to provide education for students so I'll start with just a short little introduction about myself I'll just let you know that uh I actually was a rural student uh growing up uh parents grew up on a der Farm in the northeast corner of Iowa and then attended the University of Minnesota for agricultural education and from there I worked with cill and then taught agricultural education in southeast Minnesota and then from there uh worked as a athletic uh activities coordinator High School principal and then superintendent and 10 years as superintendent and then a college dean academic vice president of academic Affairs and a technical college so my roots are absolutely rural I have a lot of pride in being from rural areas and we've raised four children in rural Minnesota so that's sort of my connection as a rural educator and a believer in public education in our great state of Minnesota so with that I will just share a few things I know that you have a lot on your agenda this evening I want to draw some highlights for MRA and uh just be able to answer questions if you have some of those as well so with the first one I'll start to share my screen and I think it should work that way for us and hopefully you see the flyer correct wonderful so Minnesota rural Education Association m is the only organization that Advocates exclusively for Greater Minnesota education and that's one of the things that's unique about m is that we are rural to Our Roots and many other organizations Ed Ed organizations in the state such as the Minnesota school boards Association as a school member Focus Minnesota Association of school administrators has an administrative Focus Minnesota Association of Secondary School principles has high school principal Focus right they're defined by the jobs and the duties that they do MRA actually has membership across all groups so it's staff its Administration its School Board all together and that's an important piece to this because we know that when we're looking at issues and problems if we connect all those views the solutions we find typically work better because they involve all the stakeholders and the views also knowing that we are the exclusive group advocating for Greater Minnesota all the other groups include folks from both Metro and greater Minnesota so that's a little bit that's a unique piece of M and we'll show that a little bit later on on a map our mission really exists to Champion Equitable access to high quality educational opportunities for Rural students and what that means is when we look at what MRA deliver it's all about our advocacy work making sure that our voice is heard we are the voice for Rural Minnesota education communication making sure that we're sharing information with rural leaders across Minnesota collaboration when we're working with the other Ed organizations as well as business and industry partners and then highlighting the and elevating the people that do the work of public education a greater Minnesota we all know that we have just fantastic staff that show up every day and just take care of kids and that's what's really important so that's a kind of an overview of our mission and where we're at and from there I'll just talk a little bit about stay connected so when we talk about MRA and you look at this map of Minnesota all the red districts are mraa districts and so you can see hopefully and I should maybe zoom in a little bit with that that show a little better but you can really see that in terms of the twin Ci's metro area and the sub Suburban ring there for the most part M represents Greater Minnesota and that's why uh when pby for example has a question about teacher lenser I've gotten a call from pby and they say Darren we want to hear what does rural Minnesota think about this how's this going to impact Greater Minnesota education and that's why it's really important to make sure that our voice is there and then it's heard and who can subscribe to our uh Communications it literally includes staff administrators school board members a variety of people we're really known for good communication across what's happening in the educational State m is also part of a National Organization so we know that what the legislature does impacts us and it can be frustrating at times for sure but we also know that the national legislature that also impacts what we do as a state and what happens in our local school districts and so MRA is part of the national rural Education Association and again so what we do in our work is advocacy collaboration communication and celebration and I'm really happy to talk about the national rural teacher of the year so we select a Minnesota rural Teacher of the Year from each of the four zones in Minnesota and then we choose one of those four to advance to the national competition so last year's National rural teacher of the year was Jenny Maris um business teacher from Morris fantastic full of energy she's phenomenal now this year we also won national rural teacher of the year so Minnesota's back-to-back national champions and we know that doesn't happen very often for us in Minnesota so it's phenomenal but it really is about telling the story and uplifting the folks that are doing such great work and so I'm really proud of that and we celebrate that our rural teacher of the year for this year was actually just on KSTP um this past week here uh so it's really amazing it's a fun thing to be able to do so let's talk a little bit about the summit so the greater education Summit is mra's professional development conference and again this is a conference that has specific breakout sections that are for school board members MERS administrators principes um staff faculty members and it's really a professional group that gets together every year in November and we have a summit that focuses just on Rural education issues and how do we do those things our Sunday evening starts off with a celebration with our educators of excellence awards and then Monday and Tuesday we have keynote speakers and so this year we have the Aspen Institute as a keynote speaker and there's going to be a session as an example specific to what it means to be a principal in rural uh communities and so it's those types of things that really are wonderful additions that people are trying to look at growing professionally and the other part of that is then our legislative platform um is presented at the summit and everyone gets to take a look at that after we do our fall member meetings so that's an important piece as well so part of the offer that I um shared with with you as canid Falls group is that the membership would be 50% discount for this first year and then there would be free registrations uh free registrations to the summit and I would really encourage you to bring a team of three right uh we know that momentum grows when we've got a group of people working on the same thing and so I would really encourage you as board members to consider um joining and um consider coming to the summit it's a fantastic event with that um there's legislative accomplishments and obviously we really know that the session from 2023 has been a driving factor and we know that what happened last year uh also will be there because the legislature is going to have to figure out how do we pay for these things knowing that a budget year is coming up and so that's a lot of what we do in terms of our accomplishments is just being able to make sure that what is decided at the legislature hears from our rural voice and what it means for our districts in Greater Minnesota so with that I'll talk just about a couple of specific things on the um um legislative platform as we go along I'm going to advance two specific examples the advancing roof repair and replacement as part of long-term facilities maintenance ltfm we've actually held three Round Table sessions this summer uh working with representative ver legislature and MD staff and it's really been good for us to do our advocacy work outside the legislative session and I think that's one of the things that really is a strength for MRA is making sure that we include our member districts in these Round Table discussions so that folks have an idea of what our needs are and the ability that we feel in terms of budget stress of how we take care of our buildings knowing that our community has made an investment in these and we really are trying to take care of those and be good stewards of public dollars so look' got another example is advancing seasonal tax based replacement Aid um again just another way of trying to represent the voice of our rural districts so I won't beor any of those other points but I just wanted to share some of those um with you and let you see some of the types of communication that we share so that folks know what our key actions are that we need and what some of the key issues are that um we bring forward when the legislative session is happening with that our MRA board of directors you will see are made up of um higher education administrators school board members um and directors that are also uh include teachers so I just wanted to share that with you um from southeast Minnesota you see Jake Thompson from planville Al mville as a school board member you will also see Nells onstead as a superintendent from Wabasha Kell and you will see um Matt Schultz as superintendent from Lanesboro Minnesota so we have a good strong connection there um and I think it's a it's a good way to stay connected that way so knowing that you have a lot on your agenda and you have homecoming as well uh I'll maybe stop there and just ask if you have other questions or things that I can help you with do you guys have any questions initially um mraa is an advocacy group at the legislative session or at the legislature uh four schools uh currently we are members of c um when you say advocacy is that it just a a nice name for a lobbyist on our behalf yes same thing yes and so their job is essentially to promote rural education yes well in this case education in general but I think more specifically as Darren had said uh they are seen as the voice of uh rural Minnesota for education do you have a background in previous employment with with this group do I yes no I've used them that's what I mean oh yeah no I have work for I I've had them in uh souland and ler Ostrander and then also uh it was in mford as well we used them so when you've signed on with them before is there like meetings that you participate in regularly to kind of stay up to date on things or yeah yeah there's opportunities that we have um Darren are you guys still involved with um I don't know what the proper term was uh uh like local Regional meetings with with the people hang on I'll unmute here if you want to speak yes absolutely so what we do is we do a series of fall member meetings U there's another one coming up here in October on the 2nd and then uh when we go through those series of fall member meetings they're mostly about what are the highest priorities right like where are the pain points that are out there right now the pressure points that we need to work on when the legislative session happens and then we use those to gather data and gather stories so that when the discusss come up with legislative folks you know even outside the session as well as during the session I think that's a key piece is that we work on our advocacy all year long um as an example of that I'll just share a quick example uh pby called and had a question about science lure and wanted to know how that would work and so I met with pby um and we talked about science licensure and how difficult it is to find the teaching staff that we need in our rural areas and the reality of having seven different science licens really makes it difficult because we have a hard time finding teachers let alone one that has a specific chemistry a specific physical science so forth and so that's part of the deal is just being able to have that voice and share that we need some flexibility from them um we need to be able to make sure that they understand what it means for our rural schools so Masa which is the Mota Association of school administrators and MRA we met together with palp and and talked about that so that's a part of what goes on how we do our communication is that we send out what's called an Insider brief outside of the session it goes every other week right so every two weeks there's a an update in it's about 100 to 200 words on four or five articles and then there's a a learn more button and then you can click and see a a larger um description or a more in-depth article on that particular topic and then when the legislative session is going on we we send an insid or brief out every week so there's an update legislatively each week and then we also do an online meeting each week where we present um Sam WTH who was our lobbyist at M and then myself as the executive director we share what's going on in the legislative session and then we also at the end um we just allow all the members ask questions uh to share concerns whatever it might be so that we make sure that we're um staying in touch so those are some of the things that we do in terms of communications and making sure that folks are connected I I would go on to add too when I was uh in Southland at my previous District that I was asked to come in by the then um executive director since I was a superintendent at a school district with less than 500 kids he wanted to get our opinion on small school funding and so that was nice to be identified and then pulled in as somebody that could share our concerns and what we can do to to help approve that moving forward so Jeff you say we're a part of C right now what does that mean does that mean the their contact is you and you work with them or so we work C is our our current lobbying organization uh to use that term um I would say the rest of the schools on that map that aren't red are C or organization schools um or they're not belonging to anybody okay more than likely see though um and so uh we would have we have them we is that a July 1 to June 30th or January 1 to December 30th membership I can't remember July so it is July and so the thinking here from my standpoint is if we get a 50% discount on this organization I would you know I would encourage the board to at least take a look at it for the rest of this year maybe even attend the conference and then uh the board I think we renew that members or that that um membership in January every year and if you need more time we can certainly take more time to do that uh instead of the January organizational meeting but um my thought was just to bring forward information and see if the 50% discount was of any interest to you and we get a chance to attend that conference in November um and see what it's all about and if you want to move forward with this or you want to stay a see that does that if we went this route does that mean that we would no longer participate in the other membership with c yeah some districts join both but that's up to you guys yeah I think I'm interested in at least looking further into this I just know we' talked a lot about how South Eastern Minnesota schools have maybe not been I don't know priorities right we're about funding right and and if we can get something else another perspective or something with a different group I think because I I feel like I haven't got a good answer why we're not funded like others and I don't know if that's a c issue or mean whatever but something different maybe sounds good at this point especially a discounted raid and a chance to go to the conference and I'd like to see at least get an answer why why that is okay do we have a rough idea of costs for Darren I'm gonna let Darren speak to that about what was the uh membership was it based on per student I in my mind I want to say it was um $1,500 or so for the rest of the year because normally I think it's about 3,000 well so what we have is a base membership feed where every District pays an $1,100 base fee and then the rest of that um is based on student enrollment and the cap is $2500 so that's the maximum that it can be is $2500 um Jeff honestly I left you with the offer sheet and I don't have it pulled up on my computer so I think it was $1,200 but um don't hold me to that but but I think that's what it was uh I think it was $1,200 and what I did as the new executive director I started in July right so I've um was literally just a superintendent uh 3 months ago the reason that I included the three free Summit registrations is that I think that's really a critical piece to that there's one piece of advocacy and making sure your voice is heard at the legislature and then there's another piece of what other service do you get with those dollars and I think being able to come to the greater education Summit is a really big piece because we have legislative pieces there we have pieces there um regarding um Mental Health and Care pro programs for students we highlight um professional development pces that are going on we highlight unique programs that are going on in rural districts so it's an opportunity to really be um think of it sort of like the msba conference just smaller and focus strictly on small schools and so I think that's an important piece the other part that I would just add is that the advocacy piece there that's where I think m is essentially critical to small schools um and I will tell I've been a member of M in the districts that I served as well and it was really for that reason because I know that having served on legislative committee and worked um with msba and masasa is that they represent the entire State and when you look at C similarly in that there's a lot of districts um around the Twin Cities area that belong to C um and then there's a little bit of a difference when you get out into greater Minnesota and I would say I'm not advocating or asking continue to leave see that's not my ask at all my ask is that you look at the value of M and and determine if that's uh the value for you and I believe strongly in it um I believe that that our rural Roots really match with your District um just because I know southeast Minnesota and I would say there's things that you would find to be extremely helpful one of the things uh that we provide is an interactive map so when we through legislative funding and different pass bills pass we actually post um an interactive map where you can click on your district and it shows you the funding differences and it will show you if you're in the you know the upper portion the middle portion the lower portion and break those things out so I think those are some of the things that are are really valuable as an organization I'll will give you one other example quickly is that our truth and Taxation will be coming up here shortly right in a few months uh we have to have our truth and Taxation hearings so M provides a PowerPoint on truth and Taxation to all of our member districts and then folks can you know edit that choose to add to it delete slides whatever but it's just another resource that we do um and we work with ERS on that to make sure that we've got really good information and that's part of the financial support um that comes in with the membership and so I just want to highlight some of those things because sometimes we're so busy doing our work that we don't think about what other ways we could um receive Assistance or get help with what we're doing I think I think we're good on this on the presentation we do have an action item coming up in just a bit so we can discuss you know wants concerns from here but we okay with the closing the presentation Darren thank you a lot for coming on and uh hopefully you catch some more big up there so hey I came in early but I think tomorrow I'm hoping it'll be even better right that's the story fish we always hope tomorrow will be better than yes thank you for your work and thank you for taking care of kids take care okay we'll deal with that in uh on page 200 under new items um our second presenter national parks trip presentation Paul Sall is here with some uh students I think as well got three Paul I would like you to stand up here next to our old flag right and uh present for us sure thing and if you want to bring any of your up everybody come on up I'm actually G to have you guys do a lot of the talking I think because I'll kind of get run away here I I will talk way too much you can not you can move over in front of the other flag as well just beise for us um so this is kind of a recap of our presentation or our national park trip that we did in June this past summer uh six days um we flew into Las Vegas you can go to the next slide yeah so we flew into Las Vegas um it's kind of a midday flight I think we left here in like 10: a.m. 10 a.m. flight um got into Las Vegas our tour guide was waiting for us down in baggage claim um we were able to grab some food at the airport and then we headed over to the bagio which is where the pictures taken um and all the other groups were there we were the last ones to arrive um and I think we spent maybe like 2 hours at the two to three hours um and we could pop around the bagio um we walked around um there was like a big mall across the street um we got to really experience kind of the the severity of Las Vegas heat in June um but also the uh just kind of the advanced of their air condition system and the mall the mall was really cool there was like a whole area that had like a night sky lit up and it was all like dimmed out and it was like kind of old west and so it really kind of felt like you were outside um so we spent some time in Vegas uh just kind of farting around the first day um our tour guide was with us the entire tour um stayed in all the hotels with us uh went out to dinner with us uh rode the bus with us we had the same coach bus all to ourselves uh it was a brand new coach um St bus driver uh I know the week after he had WNBA teams that he was going to be driving around that week um you can go to the next slide so it was three and 1 half hour flight from Minneapolis Las Vegas and then a three and a half hour flight home from Phoenix to Minneapolis uh we went through three time zones we started out central time and then we were in mountain time and Pacific time and then we came back to Mountain time and then back to Central Time uh total eight students there were three parents and then I was the one teacher Vegas was day one then day two we woke up uh you guys want to talk about kind of what we did at Bryce introduce yourselves to oh yeah oh uh I'm medcraft I'm wber Katie and I'm R and they're all softs um that was our first kind of hiking we it was kind of kind of a long first day me being in Vegas and seeing all the cool fun stuff there um we did a 2 and a half mile w walk or like hike around it so down where you can kind of see like the little canyon part of it we went down all the way down there to look at all the cool rocks and and with the heat and everything like that we all made sure we found little fun hiding spots to climb into which were nice and cool but um everybody kept up it was a lot of cardio up and down the hills but other than that oh yeah yeah this was our highest elevation day we were at like 10,000 ft so it was it was an eye opener I definitely felt my age even though I'm not that old yeah but yeah so um they probably won't remember all the stuff that we learned um although they did learn it um but we learned a lot about the hoodo and the formation of the canyon um we hiked over a th feet down into that Canyon um it was really really cool if you go to the next slide um so that's the view up about halfway up the hike and you can kind of tell from the tree the angle of it and so they really they really got to experience kind of walking through canyons and and what it's like there in the southwest all right they two R take it day two was basically just the coral big sand dunes which uh was pretty cool he like search and this actually really hard at first yeah did you I don't know were you able to uh I think I made it like 10 ft and fell it was it was it was a lot of fun these two I think were some of our best writers and then Malachi which is and Malachi yeah and I got a video of Malachi so that's our whole group right there uh with three parents and then me and our eight students so if you go to the next slide oh okay anyways this video was Malachi going down access okay hit request access real quick okay let's do this real time bear with us at he searching what draws you to go to this to be part of this I thought it was going to be like a lot of fun since I haven't been out uh that way in the states and I thought it was like a nice experience to go to all the national parks and stuff like that learn stuff go with friends time I will say Bryce Canyon was my favorite pting I've ever been in so it was beautiful really man yeah that's impressive yeah he was very good at it all the way yeah so yeah longer the ride the longer the walk and it's like once you get to the top it gets like this and so you're like crawling and you'll see rying struggling and so we we got there at maybe about 8:00 in the morning we try to get at the coolest part of the day and then so if you go back to the presentation go to the next slide yeah there's and so this was also day two so we did uh Coral pink sand dunes early in the morning kind of learned about this big pink Sandstone layer um that's a part of that region um that just eroded away in this particular area and formed dunes and they move over the course of the month um and then we drove to Z which was kind of on our way South will you want to talk about what we did in Zion um in Zion we went on a hike like a small hike down a trail next to a river and at the end it was like a weird horseshoe sort of thing and um it was a really pretty like there was we were in like a valley Canyon sort of place and it was really pretty and we went in the water a little bit yeah yeah so we chose like the easiest hike to do so we the what was it called The Narrows were all closed um and forget what the other hike was was closed but it was like a really very involved hike and so we went to go do the Narrows and discovered that paralleled this stream the whole way and we stopped on our way back and just like took our shoes off and it was a really it was kind of a really nice way to end it Zion was much cooler than I think a lot of the other places we went to Zion was very cool yeah so you can see how tired we were on our drive back yeah there's a lot of sleeping on the bus uh Glen Canyon and Horseshoe Bend uh that goes that's the Colorado River um and that was our fourth day and this was our rafting trip I didn't get any pictures or videos um from the trip I left my phone because I just was like I'm not gonna I'm not going to tempate on that um so I didn't get any pictures of it um we had a gorgeous day uh until we got on the water and then it like started to get cloudy and then torrential down poror hail it was craziness so and then it like all cleared up right after so that was uh that was day four um it was kind of a lot of a it was a big driving day and we stopped at like a lot of overlooks we saw this massive Dam that formed Lake Powell um yeah and then headed back and then day five was Grant Canyon and I got it's just a video of the Grand Canyon so it's not super important but we spent quite a bit of time of the Grand Canyon it's a huge area that you can walk around to and there's different viewpoints um Visitor Center that we went to uh we did a big IMAX uh movie just kind of on the first people to navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and map the river Etc um our last day uh we woke up checked out of a hotel went and hung out in Sedona which felt very touristy it was beautiful those are pictures from Sedona it was our Hulk group um so there were there were four groups there was one from Washington one from kind of the Great Pittsburgh area and then there was a group of Girl Scouts from Ohio I think yeah so those were our groups we all shared the bus um you can go to the next one oh no I think that's it yeah so I forgot to mention the day previous so day five after the Grand Canyon we went to the L Observatory um at like 900 p.m. like once it started to get dark and saw like the telescope they were getting the telescope ready that they discovered Pluto with um we got to see like a big presentation about kind of the history of LOL and uh his discovery of Pluto they have about half a dozen live telescopes with astronomers there and these big um monitor screens showing the live photos of they were looking at like nebula they were looking at little satellite galaxies that orbit around our Milky Way galaxy was super cool and then we got into a hotel at about 10 so this trip it really I think showed the kids what like an intense trip can be and kind of what TR travel is life sometimes like checking into a hotel at 10: p.m. and like throwing your stuff on the bed and just dying after a day and then getting up early the next morning to go see more cool stuff um but yeah I think that I got a ton out of it it was a huge travel experience for me I'm sure the kids got a bunch more than I did out of it really unique experience we had a great tour guide who was super flexible um it was really kind of like whatever whatever you guys want to do you don't want to stop here that's cool we want to stop this place on the side of the road let's do it yeah so it went really really well we had no hiccups no delays with flights we missed that whole uh software debacle late in the summer thank God yeah um yeah so that's the presentation on that we'll keep talking about that um but what I'm here to talk about too is uh a trip for not this coming summer but the summer after so for this current group of eth graders it would be after their freshman year I had a print out of the trip and it's in full dirt my house um but I will get that to you guys I can send it to Jeff we for it to you all um but it would be to Puerto Rico it's another it's the same style trip they call them their Adventure trips and it kind of mixes geology biology and then the history of the area um it would be a 5-day trip and we would fly in Puerto Rico and then spend those 5 days I think there's only two spots that we get hotels um but it's it's the same price essentially as this trip I tried to figure out a way we kind of worked it where we shortened it a day um and we were able to match the price of what this was which seems at least in my opinion reasonable for families um so far as far as the interest that we've gotten how many students do you have coming up this coming summer we have 26 currently oh that are coming going on that trip y so he went from 8 to 26 in a year is there like a limit on like how no yeah so yeah we're going to be we'll be a full plane it should be pretty cool this trip a big group of kids I didn't know the price and I wanted it kids all the way over there no 26 kids are going to we're doing national parks this summer Sebastian needs to go on that trip you yeah I'll be considered well thank you yeah thank you it's a great experience for everyone yeah super cool thing for kids to do it's worth yeah thanks for coming gang all right any other questions for them no all right thank you appreciate your time reports in communication we have no uh student rep Schoolboard committee reports anybody have anything for the cause we uh we just we had the all the poker either one you okay the um the Ed Foundation had their poker social um last weekend and the turnout was bigger than last year um so it was awesome they a lot of people definitely noticed that it was a lot more it felt smaller but it was only because everybody was so more organized and just on top of everything it was just smooth and everybody had a good time so it was good and raise money correct yes yes I haven't heard those numbers quite yet but um but with a bigger turnout it should be it should be good so it's all I got all we got nobody else um we had our marketing committee meeting too um that only happens every every so often for that particular meeting um but it talks about um utilizing like our social media and utilizing like the the almost like the the web that gets thrown out and draws people in so whenever they come in to our area to our community to our sporting events to our school um and we pop up onto their cell phone and everything like that so how many clicks we bring in which then potentially turns into tours which then potentially turns into new students um so it's this whole big cycle um and so we chatted with those guys um and like our click ratio so how often the can ofall schools gets clicked on um is up 23% which is awesome so it's just more traffic to our website than last year um and they're currently working on a few different videos um to really kind of I don't know up our appeal right um like like what do we have what do we have to offer why are we different than somebody else and why should you come here to us um so not just the school um but also to just the town in general can Falls in general too um so it's super awesome to hear yeah we work collaboratively with the U Eda and the Chamber creating another marketing video that we'll be streaming out on huddle and hopefully some potentially some commercials coming up during activity events so that's very good I'm overwhelmed by the marketing of the school it used to be it's impressive like what it's capable of yeah y okay committees committee reports are finished administrative board reports um I think we have information on each each one of our uh administrators here Jen anything to add I do not have anything to add it feels like it's it's been a while since I wrote that board report but I do not believe I have anything to add okay Tim you got middle school high school and Tech anything I think it's all in there it's all in there okay um Community Ed activities again I I didn't see reads in here oh there it is yep so please refer to these for for any information that you want to glean off there and you can certainly contact the administrator to check into that if you have any more can I just quickly tell J the bomber conferences that you all do they're wonderful for my own children that are in the manry and trying to get out of Summer and back into school mindset they just they they go to there one way and they come back completely different ready to start the school year so thank you for doing this I know it's a it's tough Management schedule they have to do a night where they come in parents have to find daycare for those two days as well but just my own kids it was a very noticeable difference from before and after the cup so thank you for organizing those that's a lot of work we really do find Great Value in that just easing uh parents first time to the district and just kids you know as they come back from Summer it's nice for them to just have a little one-on-one time with the teacher so they know what to expect when they come back so than I just add too I had two different teachers tell me that they appreciated it through that that way versus the I don't know what we called it before more open house style and they like that one-onone and they were just so chaotic and it was stressful for the teacher stressful for the kid and you're shouting across a room a child has an allergy and there's just like Kleenex boxes are flying in so I'm just um I'm very thankful that we can do can do that so I think the other thing to point out too um for the um Athletics and the qvs stuff is um reminding everybody that the outdoor bathrooms behind the high school here are open and are ailable for use which is exciting so it is exciting it's a whole another it is it is yep um Dave Dave included his maintenance report in there although brief um big time for them always getting ready for the upcoming school year as it is with everyone uh sup report Jeff anything for you uh just as I have the agenda items on there um this is Schoolboard recognition month msba moved it from February February I think to September now so thank you all for what you do each of you should have a certificate in front of you thanking you and recognizing you as well um just a quick update on the operating Levy information is being pushed out as we speak we started that uh last week or the week before out on social media and our website I am currently out doing inperson meetings for groups that have asked but we also have three other community meetings coming up one being this Wednesday if you guys can make it that's would be great uh to sit in the audience um we also have one at noon and then one another nighttime one as well uh this mailer will should be coming in your mailboxes either today tomorrow or Wednesday depending on the pace of the Pony Express here in town and so all that information will be headed out uh we could not send this out legally until after today so that is why there's a delay in that but all of you that are on social media should have been able to see some of those post heading out and directing people to our website so that is all I have moving on public input you see what the uh information is you got a couple minutes to uh speak to us about anything on the agenda for this evening does anybody in the audience wish to speak under public input yes I just have a question about that that M um you know membership for those those newsletters and all those resources that the M offers to the district if you were a member of that um group is is that information available to the public or is it something that would only be going to like the school board or the superintendent um as of right now it just goes to Schoolboard members but if it's pertinent information we would certainly share it out to the public you know if there was a need to if it is relevant to what paying or if they have a question you can certainly reference that and send it out to them which is always what we've done with c as well if there's anything directly for the for the community we always yeah I know with C we've shared our position on where we're being funded at with schools in the bottom third of the state um that was one thing I know we have shared with the public that okay anyone else wish to speak we will close public input consideration to approve the finance report Mr Davidson you're on yeah so the short and brief portion of this is the the cash uh the summer is usually a busy time for us as it's audit for us our aors have been uh done their site visit um driff and I will meet with them October 8th to go through the draft um so far so good in terms of the the process of the mechanics of doing the audit um in terms of where I'm at we don't have the draft but um slightly better Revenue over expenditures not a ton it's a $15 million budget I think we came out around that $100,000 to the good which is and move in the right direction we've talked for years about trying to move our fund balance closer to that you know 12 or 16 that a may say we'd have our undesignated coming the year was about 3.6 so um at least it's a mve in the right direction not a significant one or a major one but the right direction I L um again not official Lo the dra and we have hoped to present the final audit for board approval at the business meeting in October which is a little bit ear than we have in the past um which is good get your information as soon as we can uh in terms of what's presented here um you know the biggest thing I guess to recognize is as we talked today about uh the levy and certifying that and truth and Taxation uh you'll see the uh second half of the property ta will start rolling in at the end of October end of November for the district those estimates there we get the actual numbers when the counties chew it up usually two to three days before they actually release those payments to our district but uh that would be the levy portion of what the School receives and funds uh the bulk what we get would be through ideas the state funding those are us usually listed on the the 15th and 30th of each month um other than that really not a lot to you know outstanding uh just keep in mind that this cash flow and it includes all the funds not just general fund and it's different than fund balance um as you talked F some finance things but you any questions I can do my best answer whatever you might have whether it be on this report or otherwise when you talk about fund balance uh there's that utopian number that has long since been pushed out the door as far as we're concerned and I don't know of any districts yeah it's it's tough what they would say is to have two months worth of expenditures to cover it way they get the 12 or 16% um be able to keep you know your operations your doors open um it is getting harder and harder for districts to do that uh even though the state put out historical amounts of dollars to to districts they come with mandates and strings attached and there are more coming along including uh things like FMLA uh unemployment items that we're going to have to make sure we're are accounting for um and it's all going to have a drain on that fund B so the better we can move forward the better hopefully the district is financial me well better news anyway with improved fund bance um any questions for Mr Davidson if not I would look for a motion to approve the finance report as told I'll make a motion to approve C on the motion second second by L other discussion all in favor the approval of the finance reports sayi opposed [Applause] Carri consent agenda items under the consent agenda considered routine and will be enacted under one Motion in the event a board member wants to discuss any single item it will be removed from the consent agenda for separate action Jeff usually start thing out with the acceptance of gifts acknowledgement yes um this month we have school supplies from Merchants Banks for student school supplies we have school supplies including two backpacks from Nick and Amber Martin for school supplies for the beginning of the year classroom snacks estimated at about $150 from Patrick and Emma vera for classroom snacks we have two backpacks from Linda Statler for student backpacks uh school supplies and four backpacks from the United Way we have school supplies from carav vagi for school supplies um we also got school supplies from Lorie Pas and Wang and church we got $810 from the homestead honey farm for Welcome Back staff honey uh school supplies estimated at $150 from eberry truth Vanessa harad have $100 from St aners for school supplies $300 from Family Fair for Kleenex for class rooms $200 from K Cal and Paxton Frederickson For Recess equipment a recess Rec equipment not recess pieces recess equipment uh school supplies estimated at $100 from sargenta from Kathy geir uh school supplies from St aners $3,200 from the Canon Falls Education Foundation for kindness Retreat for the fifth grade from Miss Moler $463 from the Ed foundation for skateboard eighth grade stem project from Miss toe Austin $3,650 the Ed foundation for a courage Retreat for the seventh grade Miss Miller and $1,678 from the Ed foundation for a steamroller and pillow for the elementary sensory room by Miss chapi so thank you all to our donors for these incredible gifts it's awesome I'm y good luck I don't think you're win but good luck I know I okay um anybody have any questions or concerns about the consent agenda if not I would look for a motion to approve the agenda is shown I'll make a motion I'll second Brian on the motion second and by joelan other discussion all in favor of the acceptance of the consent agenda say I I opposed carried under new business consideration to approve the 24 25 M EA membership you heard the presentation you have anything to add no I've been affiliated with this organization in the past I am familiar with them they do good work um I I think it's worth at least having it in for a half membership to give you guys some good information moving forward and see what you think come January I think like was what was discussed in the beginning I think there's a huge discrepancy between um our like metro schools versus our rural schools um and I think like they said I think a lot a lot of things sometimes get pushed under the rug for Rural schools and so I think having that voice and having that outlet I think is huge I think that's awesome can you just remind me on the if we do it what C looks like so we'll continue with C until that membership is until that membership then decide yep so both of these will run concurrently then until June 30th but you would probably decide in January like we normally do if you want to up that membership if you need more time we can always move it to a different month sure to do that and then in your past experience have you ever run both side by side like that or have you typically one okay I'd make a motion to approve um an M membership 25 school year right okay Luke on the motion seconded by jool in other discussion you know we need as many resources as we possibly can have because we just can't add ask the superintendent and our other administrators to keep on top of everything that's changed legislatively in education since I've been around so we need this more than anything else we need it anything else all in favor the approval of the 2425 mrea membership say I I opposed Carri consideration to approve an earth science trip to PTO Rico with tentative dates June 15 19 26 obviously this goes back to the presentation Mr Sun Shaw um obviously some of students had fun and of BL um I would recommend that we approve this trip to Puerto Rico uh I know the student increase that we had from that first first trip that was here to this coming trip coming up was pretty significant so sounds like it's pretty popular Jim how immersed are you on this on these trips uh I know about them they're they're great experiences for kids I mean it's it's one of those things that if your family can afford to do it these are things that you do with your family but we have a lot of families that can't and this provides that opportunity for our students to experience you know these wonderful places in our country once again the learning in it's it's not just we're going to the Grand Canyon it's like they're going and they're actually doing education too so the finance piece always sets me off some because they you know there's obviously people who couldn't afford to go what what mechanism is there for people I I don't know um if Mr sunell did any fundraising uh for his first trip or this even the second round of trips or not I'm I'm unaware of whether he did anything like that um but generally it's it's on the families to pay for what what that is and and honestly I don't even know off the top of my head what the cost was for this time around I'm guessing it's probably you know we been a th000 to $2,000 for that trail but when you think about what you get for that that's a pretty good deal I know that in the past when we the people made trips to Washington they had fundraisers and such for that I don't want to scare any kids off that would like to go to this but can't afford to go to this so hopefully there's some something in place for them to at least offer an opportunity yeah so any other questions statements just I'm pretty sure I know but it's it's fully funded by the individual the school do not correct yeah in fact the reason that he can bring a bigger group is because they get more chaperon to come along with so I I'm not sure exactly what the student the staff her student to adult ratio is but most of those companies have a kind of this is what you need to have you need to have this many adults going through this many students so but this one was pretty popular I think um you know there were four adults and eight kids so that's pretty good that's pretty good ratio I don't know if it'll be like that this next time do I have a motion to approve I'll make motion to approve Luke on the motion I'll second seconded by Brian further discussion all in favor the approval of the earth science trip to Puerto Rico with tentative dates of June 15 to 1926 say I I I opposed that is carried consideration approval 1.0 FTE special ed teaching contract for Jade Franson yes this was a last minute uh resignation that we've had and we were lucky to uh fill it with Jade Franson who was with us last year ter nice approval motion I'll make a motion you in on the motion second seconded by Luke further discussion all in favor of the approval of the teaching contract for J Jade fransen say I I opposed that is carried consideration to approve the 24 through 26 School removal quotes as you can see we didn't have a lot of uh bid numbers on this yeah we had one bid from Anderson La here uh who normally does our bidding uh we did other people pick up bid sheets but they didn't um turn them back in so um this bid is for per occurrence uh for each snowstorm and I believe that the snowfall has to be two Ines or more before uh we call it in or they're called in so and we use our own equipment if it's 2 in or less we've had a strong relationship with them they've been very good for us Y is that a relatively comparable number to other du School District I mean I guess is a tough if you think of the surface area that we have to plow I mean if you think of the Fieldhouse parking lot alone and all the drives and if there's um the back area here the elementary parking not the Elementary playground area that's it's a lot it's a lot of um snow to remove um yeah I I don't know I don't know how much it is from last year's vid I'm sure it's an increase increase well it's it was uh $2,400 the B what we do is the Elementary in high school uh we generally don't have Anderson do the bus garage Andy does truck and he kind of enjoys that sometimes um but $2,200 is the per ter last year pretty mild winter and with having our own equipment a lot of it was done in house we spent under 10,000 last year for snow removal we've had years where it's significantly higher than that depend on the snow once it gets over two inches especially if it's heavy wet stuff that gets a lot it's pre- taxing on our equipment um but we're in a much better spot than we were say 10 years ago when we didn't have the equipment were kind of at the mercy of um you know the contract we had at the time to do snow um because we we still have the ability to do it ourselves at all um so it's been pretty helpful um you I mentioned earlier before we walked in budget wise we do put numbers in not specially just for snow it's usually combined snow and Lawn removal it's all within fees for services in the operations maintenance department um with the mild dir winter last year uh some of that savings was to help with uh some of the Gr stuff and I'll be back at that football fi put a lot of effort into that to try to get that back and spot where it's more playable as well so um sometimes we have to move back and forth mild winter it meant for a really rainy spring we had a mo so the mo was a little higher this past past summer so kind B reduction at $2,200 per urance okay is your a motion to approve I'll make a motion J on a motion a second seconded by Luke any other discussion all in favor of the 2426 sow removal quote going to Anderson Lawn Care say I I I opposed that is carried our next four items are [Music] procedural actually because of the teachers Master agreement where we have some obligations here and uh for leaves and so I will'll take them one at a time and get through all of them consideration approval leave request in accordance with the teacher Master agreement article 10 leaves of absence section 7 this one is from September 20th to December 20th yes this for Amber borgan and I recommend approval look for a motion to approve I'll make a motion I'll second Brian on the motion seconded by Jo any other discussion all in favor of approval say I I opposed carried consideration approval leave request in accordance with teacher Master agreement article 10 leaves his absence leaves of absence section 7 Child Care leave September 20 to November four uh this is for David borgan and I recommend approval motion I'll make motion who on the motion seconded by whom I'll second seconded by Jolan other discussion all in favor say I I I oppose that is carried consideration to approve a leave request in accordance with the teachers Master agreement article 10 leaps of absence section 7 the child care leave October 28th to November 24th this is for Brody hugginson and I recommend approval I'll make a motion Julian on the motion a second Brian on the second all in any other discussion all in favor say I opposed Carri consideration to approve a leave request in accordance with teachers Master agreement article 10 Lees of absence Section 8 medical leave October 23rd to November 7th for Cal vanderhook and I recommend approval look for a motion to approve I make motion Julian on the motion second I second second by Luke other discussion all in favor of this medical leave say I I opposed Carri consideration to approve the 2425 Assurance of compliance Equity laws so this is an action item that is yearly and this to make this is uh confirming that we are following all of these federal laws and all of these state laws and they are linked in there if you read them ahead of time correct looked at them all I looked at them and so uh this is just assuring the state that we are in compliance with these and I assure you that we are in compliance with these hav't been called out to date so I guess we are look for a motion to approve the Assurance of compliance Equity law I move approve luk on your approval a second motion second okay seconded by go in other discussion all in favor of the 20 425 Assurance of compliance Equity law statements statutes statutes uh statutes laws laws stat okay all in favor say I I I opposed Carri consideration to approve the fiscal year 25 proposed Levy Jos sure so it's the the T RI deit sent off to MD our County by September 30th um we would recommend at this point since it is preliminary that you would certify at the max that way there can be some adjustments or fluctuations before uh final numbers were to come in uh when the final L is approved at the December meeting at the TR taxation meeting um what you have here is a comparison of last year's Levy limitation uh with the preliminary for 24 paid 25 Levy uh it will not include uh the question on the operating referendum that would be part of that adjustment that could happen from now until December uh successful passes our referendum would change this information obviously um the biggest adjustments are going to be uh we start with a Debt Service they collect 105% of debt uh when there is an excess or you know receive more in debt uh than what our requirements are there's a reduction for Debt Service um we have that same reduction this year but it's not as significant as it was in the past because we need to hold back $101,000 $11 00,000 um from the CT hbac project so there's still a reduction but it's not as large as it was the prior year so there's an increase in Debt Service uh that's you see that's 7.02% uh the the community service is community ed uh ecfp mechanic kids those types of programs in there uh there's a sliding increase and it's in the uh the Canon kids portion of it uh for the uh help of like the the special need or disabled type section so there's a little increase in the community app Service uh 4.6 is the total increase in community app um in terms of the general and that's where most of the dogs are coming from there's our already current referend that's in there the $500 uh if there we were to be successful in the passing that would be revoked and replaced with the the 12 that we're uh asking the public for um it's all based on the formula uh the adjusted pup units for the district times State funding formula uh by default there's a two and a half two and a half% increase on state formulas so that's going to push the number up to begin with um there is an increase in uh people units slightly that times the formula is going to increase cause for that in increase from the prior year as well as uh with our Actuarial study um and by law we're able to not only um Levy for opep benefits the the retire portion of that actual dollars but there's an implicit rate subsidy we can apply for that as well so there's a slight increase in our Levy for that um in all uh you'll see that the increase from prior year about $190,000 over the totality of it uh 7 24% their increase so really what we look at for the total W increase is that Circle Number the 7.07% um like I said that is as of today that's all the plary information in it's always recommended that we um certify at a Max so that there is a allowability for that fluctuation uh whether that some of the information that we put in either is changed or erroneous it can be allows it to be corrected by the time we put in for a final Levy if we do it at a certain dollar amount we're kind of stuck at that dollar amount so the recommendation would be to approve this and certify at the max any questions I can certainly do my best to answer if we don't do it for the Max and like you say we lock ourselves in correct Y and potentially not being able to Levy for the operating if it does that so every year we just recommend certifying I don't know if I've ever been here when we haven't certified the max it just gives us a little bit of wiggle room just in case well I think the bigger work room is if there are any are that allows for that correction by the time we get to December and everything is true up at the through the taxation yeah the state doesn't even have the ly done yet as of this so that's another reason to certify and we will have a specific number in December corer look for a motion to approve the proposed Levy certification at its maximum I'll make motion julan on second Brian on the second at the at the max right at the max yes any other discussion all in favor of certifying at the max say I I opposed Carri okay our meeting is for the most part over on the 14th that's our upcoming meeting as you can see it uh it goes handin hand with an operating Levy meeting that we'll have preliminarily I guess probably leak into the regular schedule meeting so um if you have any questions or you need something to be added to the agenda please contact Jeff or Lori and check in the feasibility of uh adding it anybody else have anything for the cause I would just add um you know as we're out and about just to encourage people to to go to the informational meeting on Wednesday for the levy I think um you know today's world it's easy to hop on the internet and just say I don't want more taxes whatever I think this gives us a shot to explain why and uh whether you feel strongly one way or the other just give us that shot to to speak and and uh get it in front of you and and make it your best decision based on that so there's three coming up but Wednesday would be the first one so yeah I think it's important to point out that there are three available options to come to these informational meetings so daytime and evening and there may be more your okay I'm ready to call for an adjournment who wants to make that motion I'll make a motion to adj Luke I will second and Brian will second bet you're going jump in that time motion a second to this meeting any other discussion all in favor of of adjournment say I I opposed we are finished thank