##VIDEO ID:QfSgRYSGCGI## e e e e e e good evening this time I'll call to order the business meeting for the fwell public schools School Board here in October 28 2024 at the fedal public schools district office we welcome all of you here in attendance and those of you viewing online we have our agenda here um Miss Steves will you determine if we have a quorum present yes Mr chair we do thank you will you all please remove your hats and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledges to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you agenda item number two approval of the agenda motion for approval of the agenda please some moov thank you Mr Olsson do we have a second Miss Buro any discussion discussion discussion all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I opposed motion passes agenda item number three recognition Awards and present ation 3A presentation of the mcea 2024 project award to the district for Multicultural adult drivers education program am I supposed to wait till 7 o'clock yes sir I'm so glad I read this before now okay so we we will wait until approximately 7 o'clock and the presenter will be Anne Riel the mcea board member and Winona Community Education director with that we'll move to 3B uh the fairbell high school strategic plan present presentation so Mr Joel Olsen and staff if you'd like to come up and welcome and again board members we'll have Mr olon go and staff go through the uh presentation and then any questions uh afterwards so welcome good evening thank you thanks board uh so we're presenting tonight on our strategic plan that we developed this uh last year uh we had a group of Staff come up with uh issues that we want to address at the high school and then throughout the summer we had staff students and parents uh come up with a strategic plan uh outline so if we could move to the next slide you keep going so I put in there our district goal or MCA data from uh last uh 2023 uh one of our goals is to graduate uh 90% of our students by 2026 and you'll see um the last two years we've gone up and uh at the high school 85% of our students uh graduated within those four years we go to the next slide that for me thank you our building goals to increase the percentage of 9 through 12 students who pass 100% of their classes from 66% to 75% this year our attendance schoals to increase from uh increase our students who attend 90% of their classes from 53% to 6 60% this school year and this is our outline of our strategic plan and uh it starts with me is is the the message we want to send to all of our staff and students uh you'll notice at the top uh the green boxes our FHS values our FHS beliefs and our FH culture uh the first two boxes our staff uh we surveyed those staff and Joe Timmer uh did that last spring and those were the top uh pieces of information that our our staff felt was important and then this summer with student staff and community members uh we worked for two days uh working with them on coming up with what does a positive High School culture look like so ultimately we want to increase a positive High School culture in those three areas I'm got a little bit to go yet uh those three areas uh that we feel like if we lift those up this will increase our school culture and staff wellbeing student well-being and College and Career Readiness and those strategies for for each one of those areas um and you can read those but basically uh improving U instruction uh greeting students by name and building relationships uh schoolwide practices um consistent implementation implement a of our cell phone policy and restorative mindset towards discipline and we're using uh a behavior framework that really looks at um those things in the in the classroom for tier one Behavior where teachers uh are able to make those relationships with kids and also when things aren't going so well um they're the ones that uh address those in the be in the classroom and then if they need us to step in on those tier two and three behaviors that's when the administration come in so I break down those uh pillars uh staff well-being uh what we believe uh and this is the uh uh on the left side is if teachers feel like they're have autonomy in their classroom are connected with not only kids but with each other and that they feel competent in their instructional practices we feel if we lift those up uh that'll increase um staff well-being and strategies that we are using uh instructional coaches our Wellness teams mugs and mingling is a Wednesday every Wednesday our staff get together for coffee and and fellowship time before school uh we have staff that are doing book clubs uh SAR we're modeling this after the elementary and middle school programs uh Anna is one of our teachers one of our Math teachers and she's leading our new Mentor our new teacher Mentor program in second and third year teacher group and I'd like Anna just to talk about how that's going thank you Joel um like Joel said my name is Anna adig I teach math at the high school um we revamped the new teacher program this year uh and we also revamped the second and third year teacher to make sure that our new to building staff have a support system so we have our new to building staff First Years get together every month um and we check in with them making sure they are feeling supported in what areas they might feel they need more support on and then we touch base on things that they might feel they need further assistance on in the building um we have have some really awesome teachers in the building here for new to building this year and then second and third years as well um our second and year third years they meet about once every three months and we have the same kind of setup we check in with them um we provide them any resources they ask for and then um kind of an open discussion format as they've have the experience at least a year or two under their belt at the high school um and just making sure that they don't feel that they're all alone on the island now that they're not at at a year one stance anymore more but that they still have that support group behind them our next pillar is student well-being uh we believe that uh all students uh if we can work towards building trusting adult relationships and if they're engaged in extracurricular activities whether it's sports clubs uh uh after school programs with Community School Falcons Beyond so those strategies uh there uh you can see zel are RIS program which mentors students the Falcons Beyond program PGC is a is a program for ninth graders that we have Juniors and seniors mentoring ninth graders of course activities in athletics um our cell phone away for the day and again our sore program where we uh build those uh Behavior expectations in each of the classrooms and finally pillar three College and Career Readiness that's what we're here to do is get kids uh prepared and ready to go at Life After High School um our instructional practices our classroom practices and our counseling department all uh play a part in that Zell again is uh is an online platform for kids to identify career interests um they do match matchups with interests versus careers colleges uh it's a very uh comprehensive program that uh we're starting to implement uh not only with uh the counseling department but we're pushing it out into classrooms and for teachers to uh learn that as well so they can speak to kids about uh career in college readiness our Deca program you know is strong rotary strive and interact I went to a meeting last month and there was over 30 kids there taking part in that our career Pathways our College and Career Center led by Mary mcnellis uh we do college visits business tours and then our community part Partnerships with uh different businesses uh military come into the building and meet with kids so Innovation and meeting the need of our students so we identify the needs that our kids have and and and uh we asked teachers to uh kind of showcase some of the things they're doing so I put a couple of slides in here about that uh We've noticed a lot with our newcomers uh language is a barrier so with the help of Katie Schultz and others we've developed a bilingual ta program so students uh uh can become a uh teacher assistant but they're there for translation and helping in the classrooms uh with our newcomer classes and we started this uh in September and as you can see uh they get paid to do it they can earn credit for it and you can see some of the classes that those uh students are helping out in uh this is uh one of the new classes we did this year uh to meet the needs of our newcomer students who uh need an art credit and that's a required credit from the state and uh so um we started a guitar class and uh so a lot of newcomers and other students uh we have one SE section of it in the fall or in the first semester and one section in the second semester with over 30 kids in each of those classes we actually had to uh turn kids away because so many kids wanted to do this guitar class the next one uh Global Music is the other class we added this year with Ben boprey and the choir uh so Global Music is also for our newcomer students uh where it's not a performing class it's a it's a learning about different cultures and different music styles from around the world and in this particular one um we have some students that are helping one of our students from msab uh during the class and uh they're just there to help uh the kids uh in those classes so a shout out to those kids that are part of that class uh this is another one for Anna to help out with um they're doing building thinking classrooms and she sent this in uh to kind of show case one of her classes and what the kids were doing and she's big part of the building thinking classrooms model and I'd like her to talk a little bit about that uh so like Joel said this is my uh C calculus students most of them um and there's all the there's lots of research around the building thinking classrooms new teaching style as yes students and people can learn by drill and skill however that they're not going to develop the skills to critically think think and if we want them to be a greater asset to the community once they graduate school which the that's our purpose right is prep prepare them for College and Career Readiness um that is why we are now transitioning into building thinking classrooms um based on the research and it started in the math discipline but it can be spread across multiple disciplines so um essentially I gave them the big theorem the big concept there's lots of theorems in Calculus if you haven't brushed up on calculus skills in a while um and and then I gave them a function and I said okay prove it to me so there's very little um kind of me directly instructing them as essentially it's been proven they just mimic it they're not learning them critical thinking skills so it gives them the opportunity to learn the theorem truly what it's for instead of just copying down um just caseby casee basis and then can apply make it more applicable to different situations um these students here they then present it to their groups explain their different functions um and then I made them take a picture thank you so who helps with all this uh we have different teams that we developed this year and I'm going to have Joe talk about that otherwise I'm just standing here doing nothing all right uh so if you if you recall back at the at the slide uh a few slides back the green slide that had our three pillars there we also had three strategies um that we intend to use this year and and in our Year's upcoming classroom practices building our classroom practices on I just touched on that uh reformatting our team structure at the high school uh so that we can meet the needs of all of our students so here are the different teams that we have uh reformatted uh both to align with what's going on before the students come to us but also just to make sure that we're meeting all of our needs so we've got a culture and discipline team that is going to be uh starting up here in the next couple of weeks we' intentionally waited just a couple weeks to get that one going um our site leadership and department chair this is a a reformat uh to make sure that our um all of our site Department chairs see themselves as leader leaders in our building but also um their we're building their leadership skills uh in preparation for plc's each time that we've got our Falcon uh days our our staff uh professional development days our staff Wellness committee we had that going last year a revamping of our attendance team where we've we've built a um more clear and structured attendance action plan for for our attendance team to follow so that way we can follow up with students that have um some of the most significant attendance needs and then we can uh make sure that we are getting the supports in for those particular students an intervention team this is new for our school at the high school this year um we are working to build interventions for Behavior interventions for our students uh right now we're starting with behaviors we be moving to shifting to academic interventions in the later half of the school year year um so we are building interventions and focusing on meeting the needs of all of our students um our group is responsive to what we are seeing behaviorally in our building and making sure that we are um equipping both of our students and then working with the staff members that are impacted um with some of those needs and then uh Mr Olsen does some student parent and staff focus groups right now the one that you I don't remember which oh an attendance focus group right now uh with teachers just using uh the the expertise in the building to to build uh new ideas um so that we can bring that to the attendance team and then you might have seen um we have a new Behavior framework Mr Olson referenced that a little bit earlier that behavior framework is is helping us build consistency in how we respond to incidents or different types of behaviors and then making sure that we've got an intervention so that we can actually retach um and and guide students along the way when when they make mistakes um we have uh had lots of meeting lots of meetings with parents both for attendance and other issues that that we have encountered in our building this year and then our fantastic social worker team um we have two fantastic social workers in our high school they are doing um some like they're one of our Frontline when it comes to um some student needs that that we have we have what we call a crisis group um where we can plug a student in right away um if if that student is is feeling like they or we feel that student needs something in conjunction with their parents and and collaborating with their parents and then we've got some long-term skills groups that are working to build skills uhu build resiliency in our in our student population um obviously we have not seen the fruits of that the long-term one yet because it's it's not done um but that's something that our social workers are doing right now that was a quick overview of this this plan and I'm appreciative of Anna and Joe to be here tonight so got any questions board members it'll open up to you Mr chairman miss budro this is a little unrelated to your presentation but could you update the board on principal Olen on how the no cell phone policy is going I mean we'd love to hear yeah how that's going and you've observed uh the uh when when we first started it we thought we'd be taking 10 to 12 phones per hour um our most I think so far is 14 in a day so on average it's anywhere from 8 to 10 or so each day and uh for the most part um we ask teachers because I'm rounding with the teachers as well and that's one of the question questions that I ask is how's that going and uh for the most part they say it's going pretty well um every every morning I try to get on the announcements right away as soon as the bell rings and I say okay this is your warning put your phones away get your class you know get your stuff out and get to work and uh so then the kids the teachers then will uh you know they might tell them to put it away and then they put it away or not um but for the most part everybody says it's going well and they're very thankful for uh implementing this this year thank you thank you for that response and it's still early so it worked the bug out of the system and I'm glad to hear positive consistency is the key yes it is thank you else Dr Moore um yes for the um you mentioned the 85.3% graduation rate now that's for four years these other the students were not counting the students that maybe graduate after five years or six years correct that was just High School data that was just when we when we looked at the the district uh information when we built that goal for the district all it was uh ALC and uh adult basic ad and those classes as well but for this one I looked it up on the report card and that was just High School this was just but it's probably more than that if after 4 it's the percentage will go down if you include probably ALC and Del basic Ed oh and and I was going to mention too for pillar one staff wellbeing I know sometimes there are long long longterm term substitutes are you including those in that pillar one stuff or not long-term Subs like teacher Subs yeah you mean like are they part of all of that yes yeah so like when they're so we just uh we have people that might be out on maternity leave so they're part of all of those groups and yeah that's good we need to do a better job of the short-term subs and making them feel welcome and wanting them to come back yes right that that's but you're working on it we are yes and I do like the idea that you have um the guitar classes I think music is very important so and another thing uh was I going to say oh yeah for the student Tas I I really think that's a good idea because they have a little taste of teaching experience and I know I know of individuals that have way back you know they've got their teaching degree and then they got in the classroom and decided that they really didn't want to be a teacher and so I think that's a good thing because I can get a taste of this to see oh one thing uh with the focus groups uh you mentioned parents where did you get quite a few parents I did last year I had a a parent group that I met with about once a month okay and then we uh we're going to follow up with that same group this fall just kind of tell them how we're doing where we're at and so we'll get that going again uh but otherwise yeah we meet uh every two weeks with teachers on like Joe said like for now we're looking at vaping and uh attendance and how's it going and what do they see and what are some ideas that they have we research other school districts to see what they're doing um and then uh I had a couple kids today say when are we going to get this going again and so that kind of pushes me to uh get the students back involved again uh and actually we're meeting next week so Dr robish show it's not a question just an observation um thank you this is very comprehensive it appears that you are attempting to change the culture of the high school uh to address some issues that we've had discussions about in the past number one is academic and attendance you can't have good academics without good attendance and uh you're not separating those you're working at it very diligently um so the efforts that you're putting forward in attempting to address a cultural shift at the high school here to be commended you and your staffs thank you I have a couple questions and I should know this if you'd go to um pillar two and three MH uh the strategies z x e l l o i it is what so it's an online platform so in the past uh we've used what did we use Navan Naviance so that that's a program that kids would use to submit uh transcripts for college applications things like this and through some uh work with uh Katie Rod fold and others uh we determined Z was going to be the new platform to use and we've done it we've practiced with it and you can go in as an adult you can go in as a student and and go through it and there's been been things when we were going through it this Summer that were like I think I could do that job I think I could do this job maybe I should look at that job and uh there's just so many things that kids can look at and and hopefully as we we've as we build out over the next couple years uh starting in ninth grade we get those kids on it right away and even backing up to middle school if they can get into that and and learn about it they can start taking classes that kind of Meet the the interests that they have um and they can also look at colleges and things that uh they want to do eventually interesting Joe Scott it also involves uh some academic planning like Mr Olson was referencing planning out some classes eventually our our plan is that we have all of our students uh plan out their four years through Z and Z can then connect with our um with Infinite Campus and help students just get them in the right courses so they're not just choosing courses because it looks like a fun title the second question I have is uh as Dr Ro show alluded to uh student attendance so increasing student attendance uh hard to have good academics without good student attendance so when you meet with parents are they aware that their student is is not in attendance are the excused absences and unexcused uh working I I'm just kind of curious what it seems like a to attend classes you know to get that percentage up to make sure they attend most of the classes I'll say it's pretty rare for a parent to come in and be completely blindsided by the fact that their child is not going to class as much as they thought they were um and simply because Infinite Campus does um do a automatic we've got it set up to do an automatic either text or phone call to families each day when if their if their child is missed or I don't think it's set up for tardy but if their if their child has missed one class period it should be calling those those families each night now that does not mean that some parents don't get those messages but um most for the most part parents are aware and that's where it's coming together to partner to help find the resources what what's going on how can we best support you you know your the best you know what makes them tick or not tick how can we help you how can how can the school support um how can you support the school have been that's been how most of those conversations have gone as we set up those AC uh those attendance action plans with those families great yeah I saw that some nodding of heads in the audience when if they get the call saying your child was not in attendance third hour fourth hour whatever some going okay it works but I didn't know what your strategy was to get parents well even to add to that a little bit with attendance and academics uh we have a great relationship with Jake and the alc and we can make a phone call to Jake and say can you come in and maybe this is an option for that student uh different educational environment and Jake's at the ready to come over and meet with us so big shout out to Jake too excellent further questions board members with that I thank you excellent presentation and appreciate it next we'll move on to item four uh 4 a student board representative uh Miss Jullian huberty hi so I just have like a recap now it's going to be a long time ago but of our homecoming week which if you remember um was September 30th to the 4th so we changed some things up this year with homecoming um and we kept some big things as same so that Sunday the Saturday before homecoming we did our neon dance and this year we did it at Jefferson um and we ended up raising about ,500 from the dance alone for student council um and that was a neon theme this year um and we had pretty good turnout obviously with raising that much money um then like normal we had Powderpuff which if you don't know is girls playing football um out at Bruce Smithfield on Sunday um and then one thing that we did different this year was with coronation we moved coronation to the PAC during 7th hour um and we had it be just Juniors and seniors um so you could go if you wanted um and that's where we did like are crowning our king and queen um and the high schoolers really like that especially the people on court they found that it felt a little bit more formal because they were up on stage like getting crowned versus you know being in the middle of the gym floor it's kind of awkward um and the people who wanted to go and see their friends and see their siblings could go and the ones who didn't um especially those younger class um they tend to not um be as invested in that weren't there um so we had a much more a crowd of people who really wanted to be there and see that um Tuesday we changed something up um instead of having activities be after school we did them during falcon support time so we have Falcon support time every Tuesday but this week we um of homecoming week we added it to be Tuesday and Wednesday um so the boys did powder buff um which is boys playing volleyball so then we had like seniors vers freshman and then Juniors versus sophomores we saw a really great turnout with that and a lot of um students came because it was during the school day no one had to like go after school there was no outside events conflicting with it um so we found that was a really great way is having it during the school day um Wednesday we did Dodgeball um again with that we got great turnout um that was really fun um and then we did seniors versus staff which we also saw uh spark just a lot of like enjoyment from students because who doesn't want to see their teacher throw a like a foam ball at a senior like at the football players like that's fun um so we got a lot of enjoyment with that a lot of just like pep and people excited to be at our pep Fest Thursday was tour of the schools so that's where um the sports captains Court the band um goes around and we run around all the different schools and then Friday we had our petfest um and we just added games to that and we saw a really good turnout this year too we um added some new games but overall we raised a lot more money than we have in the past for our student council and it was we saw a great amount of like participation and student excitement at our pet Fest which was really awesome to see so that's what I have great thank you any questions or comments board members right thanks uh 4B Schoolboard members uh before we get into this piece I'm just going to remind board members to pull as I'm getting a little communication uh from the back please pull your microphone down and towards you so we can your teacher voice Echoes right into the uh microphone so any items of information from school board members Dr robishaw just a couple um I did have a chance to um participate uh in a staff development experience a week or so ago I guess it was a Wednesday before Thanksgiving um the activity was to actively engage students and it was interesting to see the DI hear the dialogue that uh teachers were engaged in um trying to identify more active ways of engaging uh students in their learning process the other um experience was I spent uh probably about 45 minutes with the principal of Jefferson walking the building um and I didn't get a chance to go into the classrooms which I will next time but it's interesting to see the the the Dynamics of the classrooms and what our teachers are um experiencing um so opportunity to get those two experiences were very very rewarding for me thank you Dr any else Miss Steves um so I am a part of our local rotary chapter and this is um the first year that I have had the time to sign up for rotary readers um so for the last three weeks and throughout the school year I will be um spending about 45 minutes to an hour um with some first grade students at Jefferson um I have a first grader this is like the most enjoyable hour of my week and I can wholeheartedly confidently say that these kids are trying their best and the giggles when they get through a page um makes my day so I would encourage board members to um participate in this program or just get into classrooms and um start helping great anything else Mr chairman Miss bud I wanted to mention this last month but I think it's still okay to mention we have a publication or it's online it's called around 656 and I could not believe all the activities that were on this for September and I just I photos with it I mean it it was really well done it's very positive for our district I wish we could have it here but I realize we don't all have time for that but it it is professionally done I'm just looking at homecoming activities Roosevelt fifth grade the high school the middle school booster club elementary and middle schools on PBIS initiatives I I took notes but it was too many things I didn't get them all get them all down but just Jefferson School Lincoln soar um the skits they had at at Jefferson and their sore councel I mean I I can go on but I just I hope our board members are seeing this because it it enlightens me and it helps me know what we're doing I mean how could we possibly know all of these events are taking place so I can't wait for October but I just thought it was very positive I don't know if all districts do that I just wanted to mention it thank you so thank you for around 656 and our editors in the audience great I believe that's Miss Denette uh does that so thank you Denette just excellent job yes it really does inform our public is and us as well it's it's great to read it really is and Mr chairman I think that there's contributors from all schools so thank you all for doing that that is really great great stuff awesome anything else from board members here see none okay Mr benty superintendent thank you Mr chair um so what I'm going to be reading is all of the pieces that um we have done in the last month outside of homecoming since you went through homecoming so um I attended Lincoln's Unity Day celebration uh the goal of unity day is to unite students parents Educators businesses and community members to convey that bullying is UN un acceptable and that every student deserves a safe environment at school online and in the community uh our Lincoln students and staff walked all the way to Central Park where Miss uh St Croy Valley shared a powerful message about embracing our differences uh and they created a Unity chain and we ended the Celebration United in song uh also we building literacy skills at a young age as we know is incredibly important and it can be fun too so the families at Roosevelt Elementary uh our our school kindergarten Spanish emerging CL immersing class got to see how their child learns to read and write at school and learn ways to support them as readers at home through games and Hands-On activities uh the fall session of uh ECF CH Early Childhood family education classes wrapped up uh and fall two sessions started earlier this month our ECFE program supports Minnesota families with children from birth until kindergarten uh Prov proving resources and education to help parents nurture their child's development Faro ECFE offers various classes tailored for new parents and families available morning afternoon and evening and anyone that is having their first child I can tell you I know even though I was the oldest I greatly would have and would have welcomed a parenting class so uh we want to give a huge thanks to the fabell police department and fabell rotary club for providing winter clothing for anybody want to take a guess how many kids 243 fairo kids great it's uplifting to witness our community come together to create such a positive impact we want to thank both organizations for all that they do for our students families and our community um I was able to attend the je Jefferson wathon which I'm so much happier as a wathon and not a jogon um they raised a whopping 7,000 , 725 thanks to businesses community members and students um the money raised will help pay for field trips busing and other events throughout the year uh Miss Lemieux's third graders performed a little Reading Theater production about Harriet Tubman uh it was fun way for students to continue to practice their reading skills uh we have an exploring a class that's been learning about livestock and the dairy industry over the past two months and earlier this month the student students were able to see how robots are improving the dairy industry uh thank you to Emily at mogga Lake uh Dairy for the tour so they went on a tour out there uh the SE September sore winners at Lincoln Elementary School and I'm going to have to do an investigation because I believe one of our board members students have maybe won twice already so I'll be looking into that but um they faced off in an epic kickball Showdown against the farbo police department and they won uh the students played their hearts out with their classmates cheering them on and excitement didn't stop there after the game the fairbow police department officers made it even more special by signing the students t-shirts uh we want to thank everyone who made this an unforgettable experience uh possible for our students Roosevelt Elementary School kindergarten classes had a fantastic time exploring Riverbend Nature Center they learned about the characteristics of plants and animals while using four of their five sentence sentences uh to engage with nature making meaningful connections between their classroom lessons and the real world students in Miss Mrs Peterson's fish and wildlife class at our high school had an exciting Hands-On learning experience last week Jessica from Great River Greening LED our students in planting native seeds in our prairie area which is out back behind our high school they discovered that native plants play a vital role in priting providing uh promoting excuse me biodiversity preventing erosion and conserving water after planting the seeds the students covered them to provide protection and support their growth as spring arrives the seeds will begin obviously to sprout and students will have the opportunity to see the impact of their efforts um our early childhood development class visited little Scholars Academy here in town to Ober observe and interact with the infants there they're learning the difference between objective and subjective observations fairos grow your own program took its first field trip to Winona State University students explored the College of Education toured the campus and enjoyed a meal at the student dining comments uh for those of you that don't know our grow your own program we have a couple different ones some of them are at the student level which is um scholarships and uh uh money that is available for students to go become teachers uh and some of them are actually available at the adult level to go back to school uh to get your teaching license so we have a couple different uh grow your own programs in place uh after learning about Johnny apple seed and the life cycle of an apple in their Scholastic News Magazine Roosevelt first graders walked to Trump's apple orchard to see the apples growing on the trees they also saw pumpkins gourds sunflowers and squash uh Mrs wans Fable high school students in the human growth and development class had a fun visit with Miss elstead and Mr Joe's second grade classes at Jefferson Elementary uh they enjoyed reading books and playing games together together creating memorable moments of fun and learning Also earlier this month our adult education students in Miss an's book club uh Read A Long Walk to Water and learned about the Dinka tribe from southern Sudan in class they engaged an interactive photo gallery walk matching captions to the corresponding uh paragraphs this activity helped them expand their English vocabulary and deepened their understanding of the main character's experiences and the challenges faced by the dink of people it was a meaningful way to connect literature with real life cultural insights um also Roosevelt first graders took a trip to the library and they got their first library card so um our fairbell high school 2023 2024 yearbook is on the uh pava honor role out of 6,000 yearbooks produced last year we made it in the top 100 so uh and then finally Jefferson kindergarten classes got to go on a field trip to KOMO Zoo this experience allowed students to work on kindergarten standard learning about plant and animal parts that concludes my report Mr chair thank you Mr benty um I think we can see that we have a lot going on in within our classrooms and within our schools as many of us have pointed out and great things are happening here in fille public schools move on to agenda item number five public comment this evening we have public comment uh Mr Bill Spike Mr Bill Spike uh we should talk about volleyball and as you come up here if you just introduce yourself and U we'll going from there so good evening good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak you're welcome my name is Bill Spike I have a junior daughter McKenzie spike in high school and I think I think the uh volleyball program is way off course big time we have uh seventh and eighth graders playing with in the volleyball in high school but our high school girls can't play it and I'm sure my daughter wasn't the only one that would like to play that didn't get to play and she played she went to fls so she started playing third or fourth grade played the whole time goes to summer camps for never no indication that she wasn't good enough to play so um but I see certain people with certain names they're all their kids are all playing or if their dad or mom's a coach they're playing and I guess I spoke with uh other schools they said there was no limit how many could play on the junior varsity team so why cut any of them so they don't get to play as much as some of the other ones or whatever but ain't this about teaching them teamwork and friends and it's high school but they want to treat them like professional volleyball then why don't they act professional when it comes to uh cutting them some some parents got called in with their students I had a sit down I got a a phone call from my daughter to come pick her up and I found find her behind the high school by was s hiding and crying real professional I reached out to Mr benty in regard to some of this he reached out I think to Mr olssen and uh Shane Gunderson the altic director I received a call from Mr Olson Mr Gunderson never did so I gave him a call said how about having a little sit down with your head coach you and your head coach you know to go over some of this and I think some of the other parents might want to be in on this meeting you know what he said well I'm not going to have a meeting so you guys can team up or gang up on my head on my coach but it's okay to gang up on these little high school teenagers huh girls it's okay for that real professional let act like we're Prof professional if we're going to treat uh high school volleyball like it's professional sport I think it should be up where all the girls get to play what's wrong wrong with that M Mr spike your time is just about F would you just please wrap all right well I want to end this on one thing and I'll never forget this I saw a survey once of schools they surveyed 102 schools in the state of Minnesota Rosemont was number one furbot was number 101 I'm starting to see why thank you moving on to agenda item number six the consent agenda the cons consent agenda consists of the minutes from the September business meeting employment additional assignments other and authorization of payments transfers and investment account accounts motion for approval of the consent agenda so moved thank you Mr Olson do we have a second second thank you Miss Steves no discussion all in favor of the motion signify by saying I I opposed that motion passes move on to agenda item number seven the district advisory committee there's no report uh agenda item number eight 8A policy committee the policy committee minutes the report uh Miss Steves and Dr Moore anything over the on the uh policy committee minutes I think the the note uh reflect the entirety of the meeting uh Mr benty could you refresh my memory on why the rational behind uh tabling policy 537 um if I remember correctly there were a lot of concerns that came my way about 537 and we were looking to use that time to focus on uh the library uh excuse me the yeah the library uh books policy 66.5 so uh the one that was tabled will return on I think it's February if I remember February 4th February 4th yes so anything else on the policy committee minutes board members with that we'll move on to 8B the first reading of policies so policy 9005 is advertising policy 105.6 equal access to school activities policy 418 drug-free workplac SL drug-free school and policy 901 Community Education any questions uh for members of the policy committee regarding the first reading of policies see none mov on to 8C the second reading of policies with this board members um as I sent you emails uh regarding we do have a uh proposed we have proposed amendments for two of these policies so I'm going to set aside or pull at this time three of those three policies that is policy 540 acceleration policy and procedures uh policy 515 protection of privacy of pupil records and I've also been asked to pull uh policy 616 School District system accountability so with those three so I'll entertain a motion for approval of policy three 308 administrator director evaluation policy 416 drug alcohol and Cannabis Testing policy 503 student attendance and policy 532 use of peace officers and crisis teams to remove students with IEPs from school grounds so moved thank you Dr robish show do we have a second second thank you Mr Olsson and discussion discussion any of those policies discussion last call for discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I opposed the motion passes now we'll go back up to policy 540 acceleration policy and procedures motion to approve policy 540 acceleration policy and procedures so Mo thank you Miss budro and we have a second second thank you Miss Steves and discussion yes Mr chair Miss Moore yes um I guess what I did put forth an amendment that we do um leave and when we say scores on grade uh it's step two on the first page initial screening it's the second number two scores on grade level nationally recognized standardized scores and I I the amendment was to leave this the second uh sentence in scores should be at the 95th percen or above on the math portion to demonstrate high achievement in math uh one of the concerns stop stop okay I'm sorry so your your motion is to amend uh policy 540 and your amendment is to leave as is yes acceleration policy and procedures 540 the acceleration process step two initial screening leave as is scores should be at the 95th percentile or above of on the math portion to demonstrate high achievement in math that is your motion for an amendment do we have a second second thank you Mr Olsen and now discussion uh M Dr Moore will you please uh uh address your motion please yes thank you Mr chair um my concern is that uh we're not even lower in our initial standard we're eliminating it completely I think we have to have some kind of statistical standard looking at this and so that's why I wish to to keep that standard in um as I said I because when the number two states scores on grade level nationally recognized standardized test it it does it eliminates the the statistical standard we don't even set a statistical standard on that and I think we should keep that in any further discussion Mr chairman Miss bu I have a question as to why that was removed is there some logic um I'm not aware of uh with that question I'll refer to I I don't know if anyone has an answer okay sorry so one of the things I I can just bring a little bit of Enlightenment to miss um Julie Haller director of teaching and learning is uh out this evening uh she's having an a medical appointment here in the next couple days but one of the pieces is if you look further into step three it will talk about the 75th percentile so one of the things that we were looking at is when we lock ourselves into the 95th percentile you might say that my student is um uh you know physically per perhaps age-wise a year older or nine months older than everyone else in the room uh they're more mature or uh they have you know they're they're maybe perhaps board with the curriculum we were very concerned with a 95th percentile is an incredibly ridiculously high amount that means out of every 100 people that take it you are in the top five um and it and it was specific to math so if the student had a bad day or if the student wasn't exactly at the 95th percentile in math we they would not be considered to be accelerated barring any other circumstance so when you go on to step three step three on page uh three lays out the different uh committee assessment and reviews and what assessments they will be looking at what they will be looking for and what the committee will focus on um based on whether that student should be accelerated or should not be accelerated on an individual basis does that answer question Mr chair I believe it does okay so to summarize for me it doesn't put a just a percentile from an achievement test there but you consider other strengths that that child may have you might be very strong in uh Visual Arts Etc reading that but not in math but you might still accelerate I mean not just relying on a test per se that is correct looking at looking at other aspects of the students behavior uh maturity uh academic levels in other areas um to follow up on that Mr chairman does this mean that more people would be able to participate in the acceleration program more students would be able to apply to be accelerated if they chose to be or if they thought and it's actually the students families that that do this okay so it allows more participation yeah thank you Mr chairman Mr chair I don't know if this is the referring to since Mr benty brought it up uh the 70 as I said off um demonstrates off level which is you know look at more than one test I guess standardized testing performance at or above the national 75th percentile as compared to students at least one grade level above the current placement I I do appreciate that uh the fact that it's in there I guess my concern is after it says students scoring below the 75th percentile will be be considered based on additional criteria being met at a high standard and I don't know if this is the time to bring this up or after the amendment but I am concerned about that you know we're uh need clarification what is this additional criteria and what is the high standard I guess um it's very subjective and I'm not sure if this is the time to bring this up now or we just bring up the I think maybe bring it up in okay yeah and that's what I'm concerned concerned about as I said I'm going to read it again students scoring below the 75th percentile will be considered based on additional criteria being met at a high standard uh I'd like to know what the additional criteria you know what it is uh and what is a high standard um it it seems like it's a Rel it's just a relative term it's a very subjective and that's what I'm concerned about the subjectivity of that and so that's why I still wanted to put in a statistical standard so thank you because it seems to negate yeah that that and I and I do wish to be clear this is not the school deciding this student should be accelerated this student should should stay in their class this is the parents coming forth after they have seen their how their child performs seeing their test results and saying I believe my child should be accepted accelerated um and then the school looking at that and you'll notice on page three looking at that with the parent and there's at the top there number one there's a written acceleration plan that's completed for the child and copy days are distributed so there there's a there's an in-depth look into this based off of the parents wish to do this not the school's wish to do this thank you thank you for the Mr chair thank you for the clarification so this would be the parents bringing this up then and then they would be yes the parents must start this process it is not the schools that start this process all right then great okay we have a motion in a second for a an amendment to leave as is score should be in the 95th percentile or above on the math portion to demonstrate high achievement math any further discussion you will be voting only on the amendment so a yes vote will be for the amendment no vote will be against the amendment with that Miss Steves I'm GNA ask you to do a roll call on this Linda bu no Linda Moore I Richard Olsen I Jerry Risha no Cassie Steves no John Bellingham me says four to two Okay so we are back to the fails four to two I'm sorry thank you motion fails 42 um we're back to our original Pol original policy approval of the policy 540 acceleration policy and procedures we do have a motion and a second for that just uh one comment or one thing I have here uh in all my years in teaching in the classroom I do remember just one student that was accelerated uh from fifth to sixth grade and uh that was initiated by the parents and went through quite a process uh meeting with teams at the elementary meeting with uh counselors um a lot of different factors went into that that acceleration and did quite well happy to say so uh anyway with that but U further discussion on the approval of policy 540 Dr Mo uh Mr chair yes I I want to thank Mr benty for that clarification because I I think I was assuming that it was the school that was doing this but if it's the parents um I'm not I think I would be okay with this then um and then of course there is the procedure that from what I've been seeing uh that you're meeting with the parents and there's other uh uh teachers and I think even a psychologist there so I think I'm okay with that clarification and further discussion on the approval of policy 540 let's call for discussion all righty so with that we have a motion for approval of a poli of policy 540 acceleration policy and procedures all in favor of that motion signified by saying I I opposed motion passes next we move on to policy 515 protection and privacy of pupil records motion for approval of policy 515 protection and privacy of pupil records thank you Miss budell and a second second thank you Dr Moore uh discussion I believe miss budo you have put forth Amendment would you like to propose that at this time thank you Mr chairman I do have an amendment I hope everyone has observed that Amendment and the amendment starts on page 24 it it is under private records not accessible to parent what the amendment does is it adds that the responsible Authority must not conceal or deliberately withhold information to a parent regarding their minor child's request to use a different name or pronoun to be recognized as a different gender or request to receive gender affirming care that involves medical interventions and I list the interventions um not limited to puberty blocking medications hormone injection and injections and sex altering surgeries thank you Miss budil for the Amendment do we have a second to that Amendment second thank you Mr olssen and discussion Miss buer would you like to speak to your motion thank you Mr chairman can I just have a clarification what page page 24 um I did send it out an email as well but thank you just a second here let see so it may be on page 18 in certain it would begin on page 24 after the language from e one e so and it would um insert a number two and then that two would have a and a b of the items I just read so parents are important Partners to a school district is it op okay right now Mr yes please speak to your motion thank you and I think it's important I first of all I will say that I am not implying that any of our staff or our responsible Authority is not doing their job properly or not not um treating parents in a respectful manner but this is an issue that's happening all across our state and Nation some schools have agreed to have polic policy in their in their District that says parents do not have to be told I think that's a very deceiving approach to dealing with parents especially with their minor child and I believe that it's the parental Authority must be at least respected and honored and there also is a 14th amendment that gives parents rights to direct the up bringing of their children and those rights are violated when schools do not inform them of changes some important changes like that that can impact the child's life in a very serious manner very serious manner I'll just say it that way so I think it's important I know that Mr benty as our responsible Authority is very a good man but I don't know how long he'll be here and I don't know what other entities may be engaged so I believe this is an important Amendment and 75% of people in this nation parents believe it's important and I present it to the board and hope the board feels it's important as well thank you Miss bud I would like a roll call oh further discussion please has this amendment been reviewed by our attorneys the verbage so this has not um so I looked into this a little bit today and there I'm you know whatever the board decides I will definitely look into what I would suggest is if the board does vote to change this language that you do it after I've had a chance to consult with our attorneys around it the reason I say that is because uh this this focus is more on furpa and the amendment is more around Hippa so I don't know what the what the crossover like that looks like it does talk in here um on Section D um I'm I should say on on Section e of that same area it talks about uh Minnesota statutes that fall under 14434 to 14434 7 gender affirming care is not protected underneath those so that is not one that that would fall in there um as for the names and pronouns that one there's already a system in place so the that we have that parents know about it so if a child just to explain if a child comes in and says I wish to change my pronouns or I wish to be called this name instead of this name there's a form that we have them fill out and it must be signed by the parent in front of our uh administrators it's it's not just a form that they can bring back and then before that is then changed in our student Information Systems which then can be seen for for everyone so this idea that that you know a student is able to come to me as a as an administrator or is even as a teacher in the district first of all it's only certain people that have rights to be able to go in and make those changes and when they do they are immediately seen by any parents that are in this in the system or log into the system so none of that stuff is hidden in any way um one concern that I do have is every time we look at changing policies we always want to look at what potential conflicts within the policy it might create where the policy fights against itself um so the the amendment here potentially would fight against section D there and it says um so this goes on to say uh the parent access would be in the best interest of the data subject in making this determination the responsible Authority shall consider the following factors and I'm jumping down to D says whether the data in question of such a nature that disclose it uh of it to the parent may lead to physical or emotional harm to the minor um we do have you know unfortunately I must say I I have been as a principal as an assistant principal as a dean and even as a teacher I have had students come to me and say Mr benty this is how I see my life going I I feel that perhaps I don't have sexual feelings like other people do or I don't feel that way under this amendment I would have to immediately report that um that would potentially conflict because I've had a lot of students say because my very first question is have you talked to your parents about this and I believe that that's probably the very first question from the vast majority of the adults that are in our building all right and unfortunately sometimes I've had them say no because my dad has said or my mom has said this or that okay this is an experience that I've personally had in two districts now um so I just want to lay out for the board that that is a potential conflict within the policy itself as well uh whatever the board decides I will take that language to our attorneys I will have them look through our uh policy 515 and I will have them give what they think uh is in our best interest legally uh so that we're not in violation of State Statute thank you Mr benty any further discussion Mr chairman Miss bud so the item that superintendent benty mentioned with the letter D the small D that would still be applicable to this situation in my understanding number one and number two what you mentioned how you've dealt with students in a situation delicate situation and is that protocol that you're using or is it it's not in writing um so and and that's why I brought that's why I brought that situation up because when I read number two on the amendment it says the responsible Authority which would be a teacher or a counselor or uh an administrator or really any adult in the building or in the district must not conceal or deliberately withhold information to a parent regarding their child's and then it says request to use a different name or pronoun um or to be recognized as a different gender so I can read that one of two ways I can read that as if you ask me about it I can't not tell you or I can also read that as saying if that information is told to me I have to immediately let you know um which then that's the conflict that I would see potentially with subsection D okay I'm Mr chairman I don't think it's compelling but it sounds like you are concerned it could be but it doesn't state that so um I still believe it's important Amendment so so just to offer a suggestion is it would it be acceptable to have Mr benty review the amendment with the attorney and put it back to the policy committee and come back or we're on the we're on the second reading and so this is not the first time that this policy has come before the board and if our Mr benty is has a fear that this amendment could be kind of fighting with the policy I guess that would be my preference okay Mr Dr Moore yes uh you mentioned the authorized representative uh the under the definitions it mentions authorized representative means any entity or in individual designated by the school district state or agency headed by the official of the control of the United States that and it goes on and on um I guess I was assuming it would be probably uh you know it's an individual Des designated by the St School District I was thinking it was you know more like the superintendent uh I don't know if we do have a designated person but so that because it said authorized representative and that's on page one it's under three defin three definitions yeah so I think the difference in that is when we're referring to data information requests the designated person is me um and and and those are some pieces that we're clearing up so that that would be more for records requests um that that would or data information that would come to me um when I when I you know we're getting into some of the other pieces down here um you know private records not accessible to parents I I think that is is something that that falls more at the building level potentially so we we do have a motion in a second for the amendment as presented is there any further discussion could the amendment be reread please pardon me could we have the amendment [Music] reread m do you want to do it or I can do it if you'd like go ahead okay thank you uh the amendment is as follows after uh the 8B private records not accessible to parent after language of one. do insert two the responsible Authority must not conceal or deliberately withhold information to a parent regarding their minor child's a request to use a different name or pron proun to be recognized as a different gender or B request to receive gender affirming care that involves medical interventions including but not limited to puberty blocking medications hormone injections or sex altering surgeries that is the amendment Dr Roba thank you any further discussion on the amendment none will vote Miss Steves will you do a roll call on this amendment please Linda buo I Linda Moore I Richard Olsson i g roasa n Cassie Ste nay John Bellingham nay so the motion fails for lack of a majority so we are back to um policy five a motion we have a do have a motion in a second for approval of policy 515 protection and private y of pupil records further discussion I'll count this as a second discussion point on the policy discussion probably already pretty well hashed out okay uh Miss Steves let's do a for on this one let's also do a roll call for approval of policy 515 uh protection and privacy of pupil records Linda vro hi Linda Moore no Richard Olson no Jerry roasa I Cassie Steves I John Bellingham I pass is 5 to two thank you 51 51 nope 52 four2 42 42 sorry math is hard move on to 8 uh 11 policy uh 616 School District system accountability motion for approval of policy 616 School District system accountability also move approval of that policy do we have a second second thank you Dr robish show and discussion uh Dr Moore I believe you had uh you wanted to say something had I I do have some concerns uh it's on page five I believe it's under e it's called I I'll just read the paragraph if I me evaluation of student progress committee a committee of professional staff shall develop a plan for assessment of student progress the graduation standards as well as program evaluation data for use by the district advisory committee to review instruction and curriculum cultural comp competencies including cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication and student achievement at the school site this plan should an annually be approved by the school board I I guess as I have said stated before um some of these terms are quite object subjective and I know in research you have to have operational definitions and what is what is to me it's what is cultural competencies what is cultural awareness what is C cross-cultural communication I just don't think that these are these are very subjective and I think before I would approve something I really want to know what I am approving so that's why I have an objection to this and I'm going to be voting no for this thank you further discussion for the discussion on policy 616 School District system accountability hearing or seeing none all in favor of the motion signified by saying I I opposed no no motion passes 42 uh in the negative would be Dr Moore and Mr olssen and Dr robish show Miss Bud Miss Steves and myself in the affirmative this is 4 two agenda item number nine other committees Finance uh reports so uh I'm going to do a combo here uh from the finance committee meetings uh to me September seems a long time ago so uh just a brief review of the September uh finance committee minutes and what happened there uh that they they have now been approved these minutes we approved the fedal high school music department trip to New Orleans uh we had an agreement or shared agreements between the fairbow and the healthy Community initiative uh we also shared agreements between the uh fairell riverb fairbell public schools and Riverbend Nature Center uh we had an approval for the E addition El program for a 6 fifths uh overload contract at the Middle School uh we approved our preliminary pay 25 tax levy there and that's about it for the September minutes the October minutes which was just a week ago today October 21st uh at the finance committee meeting we approved the fairwell high school a department field trip to Ireland that will be uh working on here in a few minutes with that we approved the north Alexander park facilities Cooperative agreement um oh I'm sorry we did not approve that we table that until the next financial meeting so we get more more details with that um our financial performance our our September student counts we're happy to say that currently uh we are over our budgeted amount by 15 students which is good news at this time but that's uh where we're at in October and then our comparative financial report our self Insurance Fund is positive uh just almost 100,000 uh in the positive uh for the year and and looking through the expenses we haven't seen an invoice yet for the September HVAC electricity and surprise snow removal so uh it's good we haven't any snow removal here through October yet so with that and then also in the committee uh our investment report our cash and Investments um are down about 1 million from August to September mainly due to the expenses expenses of the HVAC projects at the sites so and that being paid through our maintenance bonds so miss Bud anything I should have added or need to add that I missed I would just say that the egg trip is in 2026 yes we'll get yeah that's right long time out yep great okay with that I'll go to to other matters uh 10A resolution 25-06 are gifts and donations uh resolution 25-06 the donations are uh as follows under this resolution Deborah bar donated use cameras in a tripod estimated value of $370 to Fel High School uh for the art department and yearbook the State Bank of fwell donated $384 to Lincoln for Mrs Swanson's first grade class to provide each student with a book every month to build a home Library uh periods period kit .org donated four boxes of feminine hygiene products estimated value of $400 to to support students impacted by homelessness unstable housing domestic violence and those struggling to meet their basic needs Mike palmquest donated 15 to 20 pairs of brand new shoes 10 backpacks and some clothing items estimated value of 1,250 for students in need the fairbow booster club uh donated $ 4,9 $950 to fairbow high school for an ice machine the Rotary Club of fairbow the fairbow rotary use Services through our warm Community warm Community initiative donated $116,000 in brand new coats hats mittens snowpants and boots for winter clothing for 240 fairell students prek through fifth grade the fairell mill donated $122,000 through our warm our community for winter blankets for 240 students prek through fifth grade and donations to the nest period period kits Minnesota donated seven large boxes of feminine hygiene products and our savior our savior's Lutheran Church donated $500 to the nest motion for approval of resolution 25-06 it's all moved thank you Miss Steve and do we have a second second thank you Miss bu any discussion discussion once again thank you you to everyone who donated and the organizations individuals who donated to our fairell public schools for our kids very important last call for discussion Miss Steves this is a resolution uh roll call please Linda Bud hi Linda Moore hi Richard Olsen hi Jerry robishaw hi Cassie Steves I John Bellingham I pass 6 Z motion passes 60 corre thank you 10B consider approval of the egg Department extended field trip to Ireland uh motion for approval of the egg Department extended field trip to Ireland moved thank you Dr Rob show and do we have a second second thank you Miss budro and discussion I don't see Miss Schultz here but let's those dates are uh in as Miss Bud said uh June 9th through I know it's in 2026 9th through is it the 16th yeah the the end date is open at this point so it's it's the 9th through and then they're they're looking to take roughly 10 to 12 students and zero days of school will be missed because it'll be outside of the school year during spring break or no after the school year and ex it's exploratory uh agricultural tour of Ireland uh students will tour the Irish racehorses experience a day on a cattle farm local farming in region visit shellfish and seaweed farm and sheep dog demonstration we have all that rest of the details there so um Mr chairman Miss bu the students raised the money to go on their trip that is that is correct yes yes they estimate the cost per student in per person is 4 $4,399 and there'll be uh fundraising opportunities as well as potentials to partner with local egg commodity groups for scholarships for our students very important there as well so um and it's through EF Educational Tours and most many of our students have uh experienced have gone through uh discussion discussion discussion again thank you to M Schultz and the Egg department for opport G providing an opportunity for our kids possibly to expand their horizons with this so all in favor of the motion signify by saying I I oppose motion passes 10 C consider approval of the HVAC projects for McKinley and Jefferson uh Mr Kane Smith I do not see him here nope M Mr Mr benty we need a motion Barbie were you oh so thank you thank you let me get to okay so let's have a a motion for approval of the HVAC projects for McKinley and Jefferson thank you Miss Bud thank you Miss Bud for the motion do we have a second second second I got Miss Steves for the second now discussion Mr bentti um so this is just looking to uh for an HVAC project to replace our four rooftop units with new uh you can read it there uh boiler system Replacements in the boiler rooms and HVAC controls at McKinley um and then Jefferson HVAC project is two rooftop units some minor duct modifications and the HVAC controls and upgrades so it's a continuation of the projects that we have been working on across the district um for the last few years discussion discussion discussion great all in favor of the motion signify by saying I I I opposed motion passes 10d consider approval of the Minnesota State High School league Foundation form a board resolution motion for approval of the res Minnesota State High School league Foundation form a board resolution please also move approval with that do I have a second second thank you Miss Steves and any discussion so Mr chair uh Mr Gunderson usually presents this but he is not well tonight um so he is staying home uh it's actually just the resolution part the numbers will be put in later as they are calculated um so that's why those are blank uh and there are free and reduced lunch numbers uh that we have documented through the state um so for our activities piece of it so inform for me and I believe right now for to be transparent I'm going to read the uh uh resolution resolution of for for form a is whereas the Minnesota State High School league Foundation was formed to provide support for Minnesota's High School youth to participate in athletics and Fine Arts whereas the governing board uh name of school district will be District 656 FAL Public Schools district 656 uh recognizes the value of student participation in extracurricular activities and whereas the Minnesota State High School league Foundation is offering grants and funding to assist schools in recognizing promoting and funding extracurricular part participation by high school students in athletic and Fine Arts programs there therefore be it resolved that the governing board of federal Public School District supports the School's application to the Minnesota State High School league Foundation discussion any further discussion discussion discussion good we're Qui group tonight good so it's a resolution so miss we do a roll call please Linda Buro I Linda Moore no Richard Olson I Jerry roash I Cassie Steves I John Bellingham i g is 5 to1 thank you 10e uh consider approval of terms and conditions of proposed agreement with local number 7 Local 70 nurses contract so as we call Miss Yokum up to the uh table here could have approve approval of the uh terms and conditions of the proposed agreement with Local 70 nurses contract please thank you Miss budro and we have a second second thank you Dr robish show and discussion Miss Yul I'll simply give you some time to boot it up here and anything you outlay in the terms and conditions of this okay good evening uh thank you so this is for our uh nursing group there's about nine members within this employment um contract or Employment Group and we had some very nice meetings with them and had some great conversations about um their working conditions and just their overall experience and how their positions have been growing within our school system um over the past several years so overall it was a great system a great process that Mr derer and I went through with our nurses so in the economic items you'll see that our total year one package is an increase of $ 35,3 32 it includes um our actual Insurance increase of 5% in year one that we actually realized from Blue Cross Blue Shield this year also a wage increase of 6% and some longevity adjustments we um in year 2 had a total package increase of $22,400 in year two from Blue Cross Blue Shield and then a wage increase of 4% those were the all of the economical related items um just to kind of go back so for the wage increase we felt that was a good um starting wage to help us Recruit new nurses because we have seen quite a bit of turnover in those positions and then the longevity we felt strongly that that would help us in retaining our current staff so those were why those were the two main economic pieces that we focused on so all of the language items um really in outside of cleaning things up for gramal pieces the other things were all in relations to our um snow days and virtual learning days because we we are really trying to eliminate having the old traditional snow days and going right to our Falcon flex days so we had to address how that would look with our nurses um with those with those different um having having school in a virtual setting versus an in-person setting so that's what those language items under um item a uh and a refer to um under letter B that is uh addressing our paid absent leave and how many people can be out on a given day within a building and then letter C was to address our current health and safety um committee um the language was old and required an individual from that team to be on that committee and we have other individuals from our health department now on that team and then the last item number four was just to um clean things up within the contract in terms of grammar and so forth but that really sums everything up do you have any questions at all in particular about this Miss yulen and board members so at one of the negotiation session question s um the board negotiations team of Miss budro uh Mr Wolf and myself did attend the negotiation uh session with that and uh just to get some details Etc there so just want to let you know that we we were informed and involved in in part of that process as well so questions or discussion here Mr Olson yeah I get a a really a personal issue with this that uh nurses are great um especially at the high school um related to my grandson they I think sometimes they save his life when he has some medical concerns so um to me they're very precious they're in contact with the students and especially when they're not feeling good or when they have a medical emergency um I do have one concern is of all the schools do we have coverage when students are in school because in the past there's been gaps for whatever reason if somebody's sick or whatever do we have coverage that's my question sure so we do our best to make sure all of our nurses offices are covered 100% of the time um that is not necessarily always um manageable because we never know who what building is going to get hit with the flu or we have a couple nurses right now who are um going through some continuing ed and turning their LPN license into an RN license which is really cool for us and also we have a few we have two full-time floats float nurses that we've hired to help cover the buildings when we have um absences and so forth and those two individuals are also going to school to get their LPN license and so um we um our special services department does a really nice job putting it together and making sure that our students need needs are met uh could it be better yeah absolutely there's always room for improvement but we do we do a nice job um and and make sure that we have people in those offices as much as possible we also have trained people within each building to serve as backups they go through some some General Health Training with our health services department um or our health um coordinators and those people are typically like our pair a couple designated pair professionals that can step in and be in the health office for some basic um coverage as well so there's a really good system to make sure that um our needs are met as much as possible so we don't have to rely on outside sources that come in like a nurse from whatever or retired nurse or somebody from the clinic saying you know can you come in for a few hours you do that or not we really haven't gotten to that level no Mr chair I would just like Miss U Miss Yokum and Mr danard for what they they're back and forth negotiating and working with the nurses has been it's been enjoyable and um I appreciate them appreciate all of our staff but know they work uh they're very diligent and cover much area and so we're glad to have them here thank you for your efforts thank you last call for discussion on this agenda item see none we have a motion for approval of the terms and conditions of the proposed agreement with Local 70 nurses contract all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I oppos Ed motion passes next we're going back to agenda item number three I there so we have presentation of the mcea 2024 project award to the district for the Multicultural adult drivers education program and the presenter is an Riel from MCA board member orona County Community Education director did I pronounce your name correctly it's close it's reel I'm an reel re okay and reel thank you well welcome yeah I'm going to invite um some of the members of this this great project forward as well so as he said my name is Anne reel and I'm the Community Education director for one Area Public Schools but in this role I am the region one um board member for the State Minnesota Community Education Association and it's my privilege um to bring an award that was granted to fairbell Community Education last week at the state conference one of seven and I think that needs to be acknowledged by the board this was one of seven Awards in the state that highlights um outstanding projects ran by Community Education so we a lot to be proud of here so the award was given to the Multicultural adult drivers education program that varable Community Education piloted when the state legislation put in a new statute supporting driver's license for all in 2023 and so um just a couple of highlights Fair br's program prepares adults to earn their license with a combination of support from their adult basic education there's driver education their community outreach Navigators and we have three of the staff members here today and I'm going to get everybody right Joel Cassie and Yesa are here they worked together and they served over 346 individuals their first year that is amazing you should have a lot to be proud of in that that program um it's a good example of how Community Education supports all Learners I'm looking at your mission and I read the part that um inspires challenges empowers all students to engage and grow as Learners and citizens this is a great example about how to do that for adult Learners the um Community Education Program is a highlight in the in the state and it's an example to use for other education programs across not just this region but across Minnesota so it's something that not just a nice little Honor on their wall but it's something they can be proud of and you should be proud of in your community about how you're serving all adult Learners as well so congratulations and congratulations to your staff [Applause] so Cassie essica Joe would you like to say anything uh hello Joe pinka I've taught drivers education in the district for 26 years uh as much as I dislike being recognized um this is yeah uh this is a great uh award because something like this isn't just by one person it's a team um we saw a need that the community needed and assembled a great team and uh I think we were very successful uh Zack PR wrote a grant for this um I believe our goal was uh we wanted to serve what 25 25 people and we did 346 or whatever it was so um we learned a lot along the way U how to change our instruction uh to fit the needs of the adults and uh now we're in our second year uh currently running a class uh for adults as well to get their permit license so thank [Music] you hello my name is Jessica Velasquez and I help you to translate during the class and to give the class in Spanish too um what I can say is living in ferbo for 27 years I can recognize the difference of the people in power or the people in certain positions that is making this possible for adults to learn in a level that they can't understand and they feel comfortable Joe has done a great job with um creating that environment with families would tell their families we have people who want us to go to mano want us to go different places because there is a need and the way that he teach the class he makes it possible for adults to learn we know that it's not easy to have a full-time job family and then go to class for two hours is hard but the way that Joe has created the class and the environment I think families are taking it and they're so thankful so I have to say thank you for my families I will just reiterate kind of what Joe said I've been in my role since 2018 and a need we have has always been driver's ed students would come to us do you have permit class do you have driver ed that answer has always been no but until this Grant and partnership with Joe I really didn't have a clue how to get a permit from an adult lens or how to structure a program so working with Joe to develop a program and then my skills of adult dead coordinating finding the adults that want the classes paired with yesica's leadership in the community also Abdi Abdullah he has been essential for our Somali driver ed class as well um but it's just been an awesome partnership and we hope to continue we started our second year as of October 1st um I don't think we're going to hit the 3 46 this year CU that was a very high need last year um but our goal this year I believe is 75 instead of 25 but I think we'll hit that Target thank you and thank you for coming and pre and presenting and congratulations to uh all of you and the the work you've put in and exceeded your goals I can't even do the math with the percentage with that but what an exceptional and thanks to Zack puit for the writing the Grant and getting all all those uh things going as well so thank you so much for for making this possible for not only the district but for our community as well so thank you so much and Mr chair I believe that our amazing communications director would like a picture so oh that's great okay we have to come around on the front guys okay ready awesome thank you going to sneak in the back they did protein but we were the kids board members we're as we move on to agenda item 10f reorganization update and reorganization options via rubric it is according to my cell phone is 7:15 we definitely um I know some people saying why we're really cranking along here but this agenda item might take some time so we are going to I'm going to issue a 10-minute recess for the board and the people there sorry people in the audience and we will restart at 7:25 7:25 e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e close I call the meeting back to order item 10f reorganization update and reorganization options via rubric Mr benty will you go in the hallway see if Mr Olsen is still out there okay so with this agenda item here the process will be as follows at our last regular last work session where we went through the questions that were presented to Mr benty and we made it through beginning on page five which is option b so in this process tonight we are going to review the last pages of questions after that uh Miss Steves and I have developed a rubric I will I will explain that and distribute the rubric for the plans and you and board members you will fill them out upon filling them out we will tally the uh the data and we will examine the data we received from the rubric and discuss uh the goal here would be to come to a consensus to narrow our plan options to two that's my vision so with that Mr benty we were on page five option b uh you may take it from there thank you Mr chair um so I'm going to continue to go through the questions that uh the board had sent in um last time we went through we went through about four pages of questions um and uh made it through option A just as as a reminder option A was the status quo option that was where we don't change anything we continue uh to run our grade levels the same as what we are currently I also have program leads and uh principles here tonight in case there are any uh very specific questions that you have about certain things um that we could bring them up that was by request of uh Mr Bellingham our board chair uh so they are available um most of the questions around reorganization like the process of it will be either myself um or perhaps a Cabinet member that answers them but if you have specific questions about buildings we do have them here as well uh so on page five we'll start with uh the option b questions and to give everyone an update option or a reminder option b is grade banding that would be Roosevelt would be pre through kindergarten Jefferson would be looking at grades one and two Lincoln would br grades three four and five there would be no changes at our middle school or High School uh for grades we would be closing uh our ALC and they would relocate to our current McKinley building uh one of the question or I'll just start through the questions what are the projected educational outcomes for this plan so under option b each Elementary School would be able to focus on a specific grade band enhancing targeted academic support and helping to enhance our PLC work that is done in each building so what we're discussing with that is that um under this plan Jefferson would be able to devote its entire building to just looking at grades one and two so all students in that building would be at first or second grade level uh what is the educational research with this you're going to see this response a lot and I won't read it every time I promise um but I did read it last time and I do want to read it again um because it comes up over and over again with with some of these the research really is split uh some of the research says that the K8 model is the best while other research says that a separate middle school is better uh this is the quote from the Brooking Institute that I believe says it best it says as at the district level consideration should be given to alterations in grade configuration that benefit students and make sense given physical and financial constraints and that's from Jack uh Jacob and Rockoff in 2011 um there's also a link there available for that uh that you can read the entire thing if you would like uh what are the estimated one-time costs so at McKinley Art and Science rooms and new restrooms would be and I have updated numbers as of today we would be looking at 450 roughly $458,000 now that is down from the $572,000 so we're I have uh Mr Smith looking into this why there was such a change so I'm going to say it's somewhere between 458 which is the quote that he received today and 572 which was the quote that we received back in January um McKinley the kitchen upgrade we were we were once quoting 120,000 that was simply uh for equipment so when we look at equipment uh plus uh a lot of other pieces where it comes to flooring um perhaps electrical and that we're going to actually be closer to about 470,000 and that will come out of fund number two so that will not impact the general fund that will come out of our food service fund which we have uh we along with many other districts have been desperately trying to spend down that fund so that will I know that sounds like a big number but it does not impact our general fund um and will actually help us uh in that case continuing on with option b the question was what are the transportation costs I met today with Garrett Regan and farbo transportation um and we they I have I gave them all six options and I said please take a look at these let me know what is what the what options are going to look like cost wise um and transportation wise so op obviously option A there's no changes to our current si uh situation option b this is the most heavily modified system for transportation right uh the Faro Transportation loses the flexibility that they have to cover the whole town of Faro with buses in order to transport to each school so basically the entire District becomes one zone for each school there Are No Boundaries anymore the boundaries simply become our district limits so they have to run that for every single grade band so they'd have to run that for Roosevelt for Lincoln for Jefferson um for the middle school and for the high school all right um it says more flexibility may be needed uh with the school with the start and end times so that we might have to stagger them um there may be students potentially kindergarteners who would typically get a direct route to and from school school that will now need to transfer through another transfer site okay um and buses may need to travel between schools particularly if kindergarten students are required to be transported with their siblings one of the things that that I said was um I told them was a non-negotiable was that kindergarteners needed to ride with their siblings um to me that was important that does add cost though so if we're looking to mitigate some costs in this um it might be that we have to say kindergarten ERS don't ride with their siblings especially if kindergarten is going to be at a separate site okay uh that I think is something for us to decide once the board decides which route it wants to go that can be something we can decide is it will would it cost more and if so is the board interested and paying more for that all right Mr chairman not all not all kindergarteners have siblings correct right at this point approximately 50 families have a kindergartener that has an eligible riding sibling that is uh in school so that would be about one out of one out of every four of our kindergarteners okay um it says between the five options this is most likely the scenario that the bus busing company would need to add an additional route right um an additional route would cost $67,000 so when you look at the option b excuse me the option b uh grade banding budget that is not calculated in there because I just got this this afternoon so you would need to take that $690,000 and take $67,000 off of that okay um It also says uh using this scenario it would require students and families to learn new routing information three times within their K through fifth grade uh careers rather than just once I have a question Mr chair go ahead uh would this increase student time actually on the bus this so this would potentially increase student time on the bus yes because one bus might be picking up uh for all of farbo instead of having a zone of Faro that it picks up to go to there like I said there's not going to be any borders anymore based on Lincoln or Jeff % it's one big border for each school so whether you live in the country or you're up to a mile away you're going to be on one or two buses that bring you into uh your school you were mentioning kind Gardens have to transfer maybe per potentially yes kindergarteners yes they're five years old yes so um they do it now what are the barriers uh to you to younger students at being housed in Upper levels uh I said this isn't this is a if this is in reference to Roosevelt which I believe it is uh then I would say little the Roosevelt building was designed for quick exit with stairwells it is actually uh one of our safest buildings that has many different stairwells uh for students that lead out the back as well of the building for students to have quick access uh out of the building right would there be room for three year uh for three-year-olds and prek at Roosevelt and I said yes under this one all early childhood prek and kindergarten could be housed at Roosevelt and that goes for all the different uh scenarios in which Roosevelt is a prek Cas site um what are the logistics of this I wasn't exactly sure what that question meant so I don't know who asked that or um but I can I'm more than willing to answer that I just wasn't exactly sure what it was you were looking for um in option b uh we will need one principal for the kindergarten class of roughly 200 students it shows that we would eliminate a Dean position but the principal would only have 200 students Jefferson and Lincoln would have 412 and 585 students actually those are a lot more uh those those are uh pretty close to actually what the numbers would be um I realized both of those schools would have two administrators a principal and a Dean um I was wasn't exactly 100% sure what the question was in there but that is correct the principal that would be overseeing Roosevelt would have other duties along with being a uh a principal uh uh a kindergarten principal I should say those would range from kindergarten recruitment right um so work in the teaching and learning Department uh setting up like Kindergarten Roundup uh getting out and doing meet and greets uh basically getting our students into kindergarten because our data shows once we get them into kindergarten then we retain them at very high percentages any questions on option b before I move to option C with option b you're eliminating neighborhood schools right yes all options except for option F would eliminate what we currently have as neighborhood schools and option A I should say with which is the do nothing option so the estimated onetime costs within this plan I understand the buildout costs for kitchen upgrade the potential for transportation do you have an estimate on how much it would cost to pay teachers to move classrooms I do not have that cost estimate okay sorry I yeah I have not costed out um that I I don't Nicole we haven't costed out that yet have we no okay um if that is a question that we would like answered um I can I can I can we can we can do an estimate on what we would think that would look like okay is that something the board would like to see I I think it's important to know the cost of the onetime cost of the in that in the grade Banning option yes well that would be for all options and for any for any time that we would uh be moving teachers out of a building to another building that cost would be the same for some options but not for all options I believe it should be me should be calculated or estimated yes all right so miss Jamie can you make sure that I work on that this week please other questions for B all right option C are the next questions that come up as a reminder option C is that Roosevelt becomes a prek through kindergarten site Jefferson and Lincoln are both grades 1 through four the middle school is grades 5 through 8 uh the high school has no grade changes the alc current site will be closed and they would move to McKinley um what are the projected educational outcomes for this plan I said the educational outcome of this plan would help with the transition of student students to middle school they would spend their fifth grade year at farbo Middle School under an elementary model and would then shift to a middle school model in sixth grade the idea is to help with the adjustment to Middle School um the educational research with this plan it's the same as the previous one like I said before the education uh the research is split um and that article is linked in there what are the one our estimated one-time costs with this plan once again EX exact same costs at McKinley uh for the upgrade of the Art and Science and classrooms and restrooms uh and the same cost at McKinley for the kitchen there would not need uh would there be a cost to renovate fifth grade areas um there would not need to be an air a need to renovate any classrooms for fifth grade so um the the next question on here what do current fifth grade teachers think of this option we have not I have not involved the fifth grade teachers in this um we can absolutely send out uh a survey to them if they are interested in that um but that is not something that I have done at this point would fifth grade students have access to band and other electives only if additional teachers would be hired to teach this for band uh fied art would already be covered by the current FTE so if we were looking to expand band or orchestra or those other elective areas to fifth grade under this model it would require that we hire more FTE um if we do option C what does this look like from a l lunch standpoint adding roughly 250 students to the middle school will cram the current lunches or Force some students to eat very early what will this schedule look like if we move fifth grade to the middle school is there any programming benefit with regards to the Arts music fied where we would get increased time in any of these um Dr Fox is in our audience here um she is much more well-versed at the middle school schedule I believe that you also discussed this at our last meeting would you like her to come forward and explain it again uh yes I would okay Dr Fox would you like me to read it again or are you okay nope I pulled it up all right do you want to ask oh do you want to ask the questions or do you just want me to answer what I see in front of me I would say just answer what's in front of you there all right so um Jesse armster last year created several lunch schedules and um we would have to push them a little earlier um we do have to work within the time frame of sedexo so we would have to both have larger lunches and push students a little earlier um but we could work around that with something like snacks in the afternoon or something like that um how early would the first lunch be that is a really good question I believe and I was just trying to look it up um but I believe right now our earliest one is right around 10:45 so it would be about 10 20105 isn't that a little early it's brunch mron if I if I may add something when I taught my class ate at 1010 every morning sixth grade which is why we would have to look into having some sort of snack provided in the afternoon for those we had six lunches so yeah for the little ones that had brunch what would be the latest lunch uh yeah so we looked at that too and because we are the drop off site for buses we do have to be careful with the you know the schedule that way too um and again keeping within the time frame of sedexo I believe our latest lunch would end up being about 1 1115 is there any increase in sedesco cost that's something we should look at uh not not as long as we stay within those time frames then then we're fine it's when we start venturing outside of those time frames that I believe that we Ur incur additional costs all right do you want me to keep running through the questions or are you good with me okay um what would the schedule look like I think it kind of depended on how you wanted us to set it up if we had a separate fifth grade area um we would have to I would have to learn how to schedule Elementary I'd have to work with my um counterparts back there to figure out how to schedule fifth graders but um we try and keep it you know according to the research keep fifth grade kind of a self-contained Elementary s schedule and then let six seventh and eighth grade continue to be a middle school schedule um and so there'd be a learning curve but we love to learn in schools um if we move the fifth grade to the Middle School um would there be any programming benefits um with increased time um we would need extra FTE for that um you know Liz Baron does a great job recruiting she's a fantastic music teacher and she is booked solid so um if we were to you know expand our band we'd have to hire another band teacher to expand that programming um and the same thing with the Arts music and PE my PE teachers now have about 30 to 34 students in their their classes right now um and so to ask them to take on extra um students we would either have to um jam-pack their classes even bigger or um hire additional FTE to to cover that from our current unless we you know I worked with the elementary folks to get traveling teachers um and then the same thing with art we'd have to we'd have to get creative with the art room um because it is used five of the seven periods of the day by our our art teacher so we would have to look at at what that would look like Dr Rob sure thank you I asked this last time Dr Fox and I'm still curious um if fifth graders were to move to the middle school could you foresee any possibility where the fifth graders would be in a self-contained classroom except for like science and other kinds of activities where they would actually be in a science la lab for their science class so they would be able to expand that Beyond what's available in a self-contained classroom yeah currently all of our science classrooms are being used but it's something where if someone was on a prep we would would love to have them use those those classrooms and expand their their abilities in science um we don't have the setup right now because our our pods are for classes um and so if I'm asked to put six fifth grade classrooms we'd have to have spill over into another hallway so we wouldn't be able to do just a fifth grade hallway it would have to be like fifth grade and a half the same thing with an art class being able to go into a classroom or art art classroom for art rather than having in their yeah absolutely you see that as a possibility I do yeah and like I said we could because we have a seven period day um and our art teacher teaches five out of those seven periods but there are two periods where you know she's on prep and doing CPT that that art room would be open can there was an additional question if you were to if a teacher is identified and we talked a little bit about advanced placement so to speak if you saw a fifth grader that was really knocking the socks off of any kind of standardized test would there be a possibility of enrolling that student in a sixth grade math class or even a seventh grade math class if they were really accelerating in those academic areas yeah that would be something I would have to work with the tnl team on but I think that's a possibility at any point for a student who's not going to because usually if they're doing that well in math they're doing that well in everything else but right now it's not physically possible because theyd have to move leave Jefferson or Roosevelt if they're in the Middle School it would just be a walk down the hall thank you yeah but also Dr Fox aren't aren't we dealing with or one of the things I'll bring up dealing with two separate amount of contact time between secondary and Elementary an elementary teacher is 27 and a half hours a contact Time 5.5 hours a day pretty much all subjects are taught by them with the exception of Music um art and fiad uh media time is setus Media science science stem whatever with that so there's two different amount of contact times and hours and Etc there so to say we we'll move to the music room it's still going to be that one classroom teacher teaching the science or the math or and then with the amount of minutes we focus on uh reading uh and math and language arts as I explained last time not a lot of room for anything else to be taught out you know outside of those uh requests minutes it's would be you so like any expand I mean when it asks for expansion like we can't expand minutes like Mr Bellingham pointed out we wouldn't be able to expand minutes or anything like that but we would at some point still be able to offer like a music service and an art service it wouldn't be expanded it would just be a continuation of what they have before thank you yeah good okay see anything else thank you Dr Fox for thank you Mr benty so that is all the questions for option C um any other questions around option C okay moving on to questions around option D option D is labeled our previous plan this is the plan that was presented back in January and early February to the school board um in this plan Roosevelt is a prek through Kindergarten Center Jefferson and Lincoln are both grades 1 through five the middle school and the high school have no grade changes uh the alc site is closed down and the programming moves to the McKinley building um so option D what are the projected educational outcomes of this plan the educational outcomes of this plan are to maximize space efficiencies across the district and to centralize our early childhood prek and kindergarten programming into one building offering better and more consistent programming for our earliest Learners uh this plan also allows for enrollment growth across all across the spectrum of all grade levels so when you look at uh all the different plans some of them you will see that the enrollment uh numbers are lower in some buildings than in others um this this allows if there if we do income uh have increased growth across our district this allows it to be at end any level okay uh the Ed educational research uh with this plan it's the same response as the previous two the research has split um what are the estimated onetime costs same remember those numbers there have been updated okay and that is the last question for option D uh any other questions that you had around option D or the previous plan Mr chair um how do you respond to parents they live over by Roosevelt a block away and they're sending their first and fifth graders to another school the other side of town how do you respond to that and and I would say that is that is a very real piece that happens in many different districts depending on how their borders are drawn um so in under this system uh Roosevelt would not be a school that had first through fifth graders in it um so I I don't think it would be any different of an explanation than saying um my students you know we live a block away from Lincoln but my kids are in Middle School um so it would just have to become understood that that those schools service those grade levels which I think would be difficult for people in the first few years um but then we would start to understand the new system that is in place would they understand it though we've always had neighborhoods in fact quite a few and through some bad decisions years ago we eliminated some schools they were true neighborhood schools where you get to know the teachers from one grade to another and you knew exactly where your kid was going to be first of course way back was through sixth grade yeah and I believe it was probably pushing 30 years ago now that we had neighborhood schools yeah the mid 90s that um when we would have had Garfield and Washington and McKinley would have been a uh school as well um as as was nurst strand so we would have had true uh neighborhood schools back up until I would say the mid 90s I if you're asking about the true neighborhood school thing I would say that when those schools closed that the neighborhood School kind of piece went with it for the most part I think some of it stayed with people that live around the school but we are also busing students to Roosevelt that don't live anywhere near Roosevelt currently so that was to even out diversity uh I don't know I wasn't Superintendent at that time so I don't know what what those decisions were made so that's what it was so Mr chairman how many people are busted into Roosevelt I think think you have that figure because we kind of keep getting stuck on this neighborhood school thing and it's it's impossible because our schools don't offer kindergarten through 12 so you have to move you your child has to go to another school for middle school for high school um I'm just wondering how many are busted into those from the data I received uh prior to our previous meeting October 7th uh from fairwell Transportation was 380 students are uh qualified to be bust to Roosevelt 380 so if you went that Roosevelt has 507 students that's 75% of those students are busted in if you went with 447 uh that means 85% of those students are bust into Ro of two Rosevelt thank thank you that's the data I have there any other questions for option D okay questions around option e uh remembering option e is moving the alc to the middle school so under that under this uh plan Roosevelt would be a prek through kindergarten site Jefferson and Lincoln would both be grades 1 through 5 the middle school would stay 6 through 8 and would add our ALC program there would be no great changes at the high school we would be able to close our ALC site as well as closing our McKinley site uh what is what are the projected educational outcomes for this plan the educational outcomes of this plan are to maximize space efficiencies across the district and to centralize our early childhood prek and kindergarten programming into one building just like the previous plan um this plan also allow for enrollment growth across uh the spectrum of grade levels while allowing uh fairow schools to down size two locations now with that being said I also want to caution that it would uh increase the size of our middle school facility to a to a level that it if we were to grow um at the middle school level or at the ear uh grade school level it would potentially push us over capacity at our Middle School okay uh the educational research on this once again it's split um and the same information is available there questions around option e one of the pieces that I did want to I want because I'm struggling to remember if I said this or not um and I'm looking back and I did say option e just keep in mind facility adjustments significant renic Renovations would be needed at the middle school to accommodate ALC students we have not um brought anyone in to cost that out for us um because we honestly don't know what that would look like at this point Mr benty those accommodations could be one uh parking lot whole new construction of parking lot and two separate entrance yeah so looking at looking at the way that the middle school is currently set up it one of the when when we looked at this a few years ago the first piece that came up was a parking lot would be needed because obviously middle school students don't drive to school um so we would need a parking lot for our ALC students that would drive to school and a separate entrance and exit for them um one of the pieces to keep in mind also is that our Middle School only has two Banks of restrooms so for us to be able to uh to say that we are going to wall off a certain area of our middle school that's simply not possible uh it's not possible in the sense that uh our ALC students as well as our middle school students would need access to the restrooms to the uh cafeteria and to the gyms which are on the other side of the building so both sets of students we need access to um areas that are all across the building so Walling it off and saying that we're going to physically separate them uh would not be a possibility thank you any other questions around option e okay uh option F our final option is three elementary schools so with this being said Roosevelt Jefferson and Lincoln would all be prek through fourth grade right the middle school would change to grades 5 through 8 the high school would have no grade changes our ALC site would close and the program would move to McKinley uh what are the projected educational outcomes uh for this plan it says while PE my answer is while people are comfortable with this organization of grades there would be a loss of budget savings due to efficiencies uh we would still need to cut approximately $600,000 losing more FTE and opportunities and programs for students and families across our district right uh the Ed uh what is the educational research it's the same response the research is split uh what are the estimated onetime costs with this plan um I did write down here none but that is not taking into account the fact that um uh the fact that McKinley would need to be upgraded so it would be the same McKinley upgrades that would be from uh the other one from the other options as well as uh the cost that we have not cost it out yet the one-time cost of moving teachers okay would Roosevelt house the three-year-old and prek programming yes re Roosevelt would hire would house the threes um and then we would look at four and five yearold programming in the other buildings I believe is how it would fit okay um we tested and uh Olivia correct me if I'm wrong we tested having three-year-olds in our elementaries not last year but the year before and it it just didn't work out well yeah okay um so we kind of learned from that so we would be looking to keep our three-year-olds at Roosevelt um and then move our four and fivey olds into the other buildings uh reorganization appears to me a facility reorganization not a grade reorganization the efforts to downsize the number of buildings is driving how we structure our grades the options appear to be a cost savings move um I have no disagreement with cost savings as long as it does not negatively impact student achievement uh therefore I would appreciate seeing an authentic research that is driving these grade structures what's the proposed in the six will what is proposed in the six options enhance student achievement or have a NE negative impact and I linked that same research article in there because um Dr Fox and I worked on the research around this and it was honestly what it came down to was what do you want me to tell you what do you want to know what do you want it to be and I can find the research to prove what it is you want um and if one board member wants it to say one thing and one board member wants it to say something else I can find that um so it it really came down to uh like I said that quote from Jacob and Rockoff which was at the district level consideration should be given to alterations in grade configuration that benefit students and make sense giving physical space and financial constraints Mr chair that is all of the questions that I had that was all 10 pages of them Mr benty I I do have one I have a question regarding option F yes I see Miss sage and miss inett here um I would just like to know their thoughts on on having their program in three three different buildings and how you could properly administrate that and make it effective for kids um hi I I'm struggling to find um the right words because I while I think we have done done pretty well being in many different locations already that is splitting us up quite a bit and I've struggled to find how not having a centralized location somewhere would be beneficial when these kids are just starting off in our district um do you have anything to add I think while we have done our best in in making sure that the needs of our students especially those in special education are receiving the best Services possible there are efficiencies that could be implemented if we were to have all of our team together um and allowing for maximizing of the Staffing that we currently have so that if Case loads are lower in one area perhaps a teacher could then step in to support rather than having to continue to expand Staffing to support appropriate programming Services across three different buildings um we are also a very strong team that provide a great deal of collaboration we have a number of our providers especially in special education that are already currently having to travel across buildings in order to provide services um that is a constant complaint that we receive that they feel pulled in a multitude of directions and not able to provide the appropriate level of supports that could could best benefit students our social worker is responsible for programming in three buildings she tries to set a schedule that allows for appropriate Staffing and then a crisis occurs in another building and she needs to abandon the current building she's in in order to address that crisis across town um our occupational therapists our physical therapists are going between buildings in addition to the programming that we have within the Faro Public Schools we are also responsible for programming of students with special education needs in community placements as well so at head start at some of the private daycares um we had a speech therapist last year who was providing support to students in eight different locations um we have had wonderful support from our special education leadership and we have been able to obtain additional speech support this year but that those providers are still even the way that we are now going to multiple sites if we could diminish the time spent on the road the mileage that's accured the ability to team together and meet the needs I think that we could create an even better program than we already have also I would just like to also add um one piece of this too is our early childhood screening program operates out of um McKinley so having a central location for Early Childhood would be beneficial for families across the community that are accessing our early childhood screening as a requirement to enter kindergarten and do you foresee having a centralized location that growth would expand more than it is currently is already AB for your for your programs yes I had many more questions about special ed but uh Miss in answered them very well so it's because it's not we're doing physical therapy and some learning therapy for the special ed as well correct we provide whatever the services um that the child is eligible for so we have physical therapy occupational therapy we have deaf heart of hearing staff we have vision impaired staff we have speech therapy um we have children who require behavior supports from our school psychologists and our school social workers um and the elementaries have been nice partners with us but they have enough of their own students that they are responsible for that sometimes having a couple of extra classes isn't where the priorities are able to be placed um by having us all together we are a stronger team that is providing better programming for our youngest Learners and we are the Gateway into the farble public schools and the Poss possible equipment that's needed for some physical therapy it might be in one building but not okay very good sharing of resources thank you and I'll just remind the board and I've you know I tried to stay neutral in this as much as possible unless I'm directly asked which which uh which one is you know my professional pick um remember that early childhood came to us and did a wonderful presentation earlier this year around the growth that they are making and are ready for kindergarten programming um they are truly setting our students up to be more successful in kindergarten um and we know that it's a program that we are looking to expand um I I I'm going on a bit of a birdwalk here I will say I was quite upset with the legislature that they did not increase uh funding for prek programming um to the level that we you know I believe it was needed um but I believe that that will be fixed in the future or we with some of our budget savings we might decide that we wish to fund more in that area uh and be able to reach out to more of our students earlier um so these any one of these options that that that allows us to have a prek andk center I think is is a huge advancement for this community thank you sorry this is going to be kind of a dumb question for Mr benty and maybe you guys could help at one time there was a cap of like 80 [Music] for voluntary pre kindergarten mhm um that has increased and that number is directly based off of our um current kindergarten enrollment so with decline in kindergarten enrollment that number could go down we did receive additional seats this year so we're able to serve more students this year it increased to 92 or 93 92 additionally we also do have um program that programming that has a tuition tied to it as well so we are not limited by our VPK seats they are just one component of the ways in which we can support families in accessing services so what would be your estimation for preschool fouryear old 5-year-old preschool so just looking at VPK classes either or So currently we have 12 classes that includes our special education classes our halfday programming for threes and fours and then our all day four-year-old programming that's divided up in the district um we would look first at um probably implementing another three-year-old program to help um feed our four-year-old programming but then ultimately would like to expand our VPK seats and our four-year-old programming into one two more classes at least ma today what what would be the practice number for threeyear olds four year olds so we're looking at we serve around 200 students 200 to 220 students right now okay we'd increase that at least to like 250 okay and approximately a 90 you said are VPK students so no tuition is paid for those students correct right yeah that answered it perfect thanks anything else thank you thank you very much uh for my chair there is one other Avenue or piece here that uh and he sat here very patiently for the last two meetings uh maybe three Mr Hager Jake Hager from the alc uh if you would come up here because uh obviously with some of these plans we have ALC involved deeply in these plans um so where some also uh tell us what research says about what your what the program needs and what your vision is for the program Etc um I think what we see with ALCS is that ALCS do need to be in their own separate building um when you look at ALCS well around Minnesota that are programs within programs what you often see is well the programs just aren't as big when you look at the program that fairo has had for the last 4year 50 years we are one of the bigger programs in the state of Minnesota and I think one of the big reasons why we have grown to be the size that we are is the ability to have create the culture that we have at the alc and the big reason that we have that is being able to BU build a program with the beliefs in mind that we've had for the last you know 50 years under the leadership of Jeff having Margaret so on and so forth so when it comes to meeting the needs of atrisk kids we really have to be able to embrace the alternative views with well education mind being able to focus on the mental health supports first and having the spaces to bring in those supports to allow the students to have access to those Services during the school day so you've answered what I had in my mind so it's thank you sounds good Mr Olsson so you would favor moving ALC to mckenley right yes now would you there was an idea of moving it to the middle school mhm what's your opinion on that I mean in all honesty can we provide the services we provide in many different settings yes do I think we can provide those Services as well at the middle school no do I think we can have the program that we have the size that we have and provide those Services there no but basically with the alc you're you're mixing adults with children basically right unless you build the separate building tach on to the middle school then what would be the advantage of that I don't see an advantage of you're almost you want to build something but and and that was you know one of the pieces that I stayed away from was anytime we had to break ground that's it because as soon as we break ground we're talking about Millions upon millions of dollars that would come either out of a a bond Community or would come out of our general fund so I stayed away from anything that would have that would require building so but mckenley would be isolated enough for you right and your students I think it would be optimal um a lot of our families that are enrolled at the LC that is the area that they live so so they could walk there a lot easier than where you are right now yes I think it would help a lot with the transportation so Mr heger you ALC enrolls students from other districts as well too we get kids from Kenyon Waterville uh Northfield Etc right yep we have some from Northfield Medford uh Jamesville Waterville and Wasa right now excellent yep thank current population like number of students yes uh 122 okay that's about the average usually about 120 we're usually right around 120 125 okay anything further thank you Mr Hager very much thanks okay board members it's time done with this um as I said when we began this uh agenda item and thank you Mr benty for went through the questions and explanations here um in your packets you do have uh as uh Miss Kenny you do have the printed version handouts here of the uh reorganization options because uh we're going to do now is we're going we've as I said before Miss Steves and I have developed a rubric first of all a little history with the rubric uh the rubric has four criteria not yet still got the teacher hat if you pass them out they're going to start in out see if four criteria and it's based on the goals you would it's B 36 years I haven't lost it okay it's based on the goals or objectives laid out to Mr benty to form a committee and what were the four objectives of the reorganization plan you have we will score each plan uh on those four criteria from one to five your choice um and then at the end we will and then you will add them up and we will uh write them on the post poster board over here and because in our Playbook we make decisions by data data driven decisions we will uh have a discussion on that data so now miss Steves do would you don't need to put your name on them or anything I got one already but you're good if you'll notice in your packet you have six pages each page has its own plan uh there you can see it so op the first page is option A the status quo option coincides with your printed uh option plans here uh notice the criteria optimizes educational outcomes notice we have the terms minimal defined down there and notice also what has been used is potential of some positive Comes potential of moderate outcomes potential of significant outcomes potential of transformative impact Etc so just because a plan we have a plan here to and we're just going to you say we're just moving kids once we move kids what really are the potential for that that plan with that move second criteria is operational efficiency and cost Effectiveness the third criteria is smooth transition for students across grade levels and the fourth criteria is align resources to to support student needs so with that you go through each one on uh option A here uh optimizes educational outcomes you select a one through five put your score in the right hand side same thing with the other three criteria put a score there and would you please add them up when you get done at the at the bottom of that and then you have the six plans Mr chair I do believe I need to make one correction is that they do need to put their names on them oh okay uh we cannot have a private there go secret vote so okay well we're going to put them up on the board anyway but yes go ahead put your name on your packet I thought once the teacher would have to tell kids to put their name on their packet but didn't happen Okay so if you'd fill that out now if you have any questions um get Old Miss Steves or myself so we'll just just go on a quick uh we'll go to a recess here for about 10 minutes so Nasco if you just want to pause it would be okay and um we'll come back when everyone's finished Mr chair do you want anything up on the screen like this the community survey or the committee survey I should say or anything or that be that would be great Nasco if you could put up the uh reorganization committee ratings that would be good is that what you're asking for Mr yeah I'm not sure I say we collect them e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay we'll come out of that little work session here so the process now will be is that we will go each individual board member and you'll simply read off your score for each option so before we do that uh just to preface it uh one I would like to thank uh Mr benty for the work youall done on the this reorganization option from I think we did this in March or April again so thank you thank you to the committee 30 some people or more thank you for your time your efforts uh opportunity uh seeing the big picture hopefully and presenting in a very professional manner so I just want to thank that and so whatever scores come up that however each board member feels whatever I truly believe that this board has vetted this process and from the information we've been supplied very very well so with that uh because now we have technology and I wanted that board but we're ruled over here so we will simply go through uh as we uh vote for a roll call uh Miss Steves will call your name and you'll simply say your number for option A B Etc and um Cassie I'll turn it over to you so do we have the are we going to put that up on this there we go right so this is for option A which is um status School option status School option uh Linda bu four Dr Moore so let's have let's have her do all of them going across oh all of will that work oh yep option b 16 option C four option D 20 option e four option F four Dr Mo okay um option A 10 option b 11 option D 13 option D 16 option e 13 option F 11 Richard Olsson option a um 12 option b nine option C four option b uh 20 option e uh four option F four Dr Risha option a eight option b 13 option C 11 option D 14 option e four option s eight so I've got option A as nine option b as 10 option C as 11 option D as 12 option e is six option f is 13 um someone reading I have Chad's yes okay I met with Chad and distributed this and he gave it to me before he left so option a 13 option b 16 option C 13 option D 17 option e eight option F 12 Mr Bingham option a 12 option b 15 option C 12 option D 18 option E 10 option F 11 thank you board members so from the data from what we see Mr chair could we have a print out of this certainly uh yet tonight you want um whatever it'll be on board book right Miss Kenny it'll be on board book or okay I'll that would probably be easy to get on board book and we can make a copy to El that okay thank you you're welcome so because we as we said with our Playbook we are uh looking at data so from this so looking at this data obviously as we go looking at me pointing to the screen sorry thank you n good uh we have option D very strong in fact I see if we go through each individual scores is 17 to 20 is a strong plan and so majority of us have it as a pretty strong plan with there um and then also the second coming in second is option b which is the grade banding coming in at uh 90 so looking at this facilitating this looking at Option a c e and f could we could we say that to come to a consensus that uh options D and B would be our two our highest scoring obviously with that would be our preferred options for a vote disc scores say what it is I don't know what else to have Richard be honest with you there so um do you want a motion and no we're not going to vote on that tonight because it's not on the agenda all right so is this anybody wish to could I have those back up please Nasco Co so do we have any comments anything with this so do you want to clarify the the process in which you're thinking to do this or is there any point within the next few weeks that a staff survey can be put out with yes there is narrow down plans yes so with this that and information board members um I believe we've come to a consensus of options D and B with uh I see nodding them heads consensus with that so with that I'm going to announce that I'm calling a special meeting on Tuesday November 12th at 4:30 p.m. to the agenda item will be to vote on the two option plans option D or option b i selected that date because we the board will need to be here at 5:30 for canvasing the election results and then I believe have a work session planned after that so it seemed like everyone would be 4:30 4:30 then then then whatever then we'll begin our canvasing of the election whatever at 5:30 we'll begin our work session in canvasing elections with that and could Jamie send all that information out yes certainly will so noting that I've called a special meeting then for everyone else for the public for people in attendance uh once again as always the board is accessible to your comments and thoughts uh here's your communication to us uh via email calls other sorts of um communication You' like to uh present to us regarding the two options that we've come to consensus with option D no what right D and B right so this is your opportunity please send us the emails whatever if you sent to the entire board the board the board will not respond I'll respond if you wish to communicate separately with the board member um you may do so after sending it but board members when you do receive communication if you'd forward it to all board members Etc I think everyone deserves to know the communication you're getting preferred option plan there I think that would just be good with that Mr chair you mean if we if somebody On's uh somebody sends us a a personal email the teachers or anything even the parents we are to forward it then certainly yeah maybe maybe they'll just do the entire board or whatever they want to with that sometimes they do it SE anything else on 10f organization and again I just want to thank the people on this board it's been a very grueling process still is but I think it's been a we've vetted it very well 10g uh move to a closed session as per as permitted by Minnesota statute 13d 03 for negotiation strategies with PA professionals could I have a motion to move to a closed session as permitted by Minnesota statute 13d .03 for negotiated strategies with PA professionals a motion by Mr Olson do we have a second Dr Moore thank you any discussion discussion discussion all in favor of that motion signified by saying I I oppose motion passes we are in we will now go to close session thank you all for attending sorry it's okay I just jumping a gun and