##VIDEO ID:evtXcb1p-bs## session uh looks like we have one person for public input this uh this evening Bonnie Drake the mic is yours I want to read a brief statement before you start though okay istd 318 School Board shall provide specific period of time where persons May address the school board on any topic subject to the limitations of policy 206 all individual comments shall be lesson five minutes any group of five or more persons must appoint one person to present the group views to the board depending on the number of persons present the school board reserves the right to set further time limits to allow participation within the allocated time board shall not allow negative comments in public session about individual employees or students specific factual information or restation of existing policy may be furnished in response to inquiries but the board shall not deliberate or decide regarding any issue that's not included on the agenda posted the notice of the meeting it's all yours Bonnie thank you um I live in Northeast Friend R my grandson attends East Elementary and uh a couple weeks ago I said Gavin I see that you just don't read books anymore and he said well Grandma the library is closed and I found that hard to believe so that my question is is that factual and why I kind of can guess if it is closed why it might be closed but are there plans to reopen it that's my [Music] question um we we don't normally respond uh do we want to talk about the situation of our just a general statement about our libraries yeah we have we have reduced or eliminated the staff that are Staffing our libraries but they're not closed um teachers still have the ability to bring students there to pick out books so there and there are still books being read in the classrooms so and and um many teachers have classroom libraries in their rooms where kids are able to read so um they're not closed uh we still do have Staffing you know shortages or challenges there because of reductions we've made and in some cases looking for some volunteers to help too do you know what the Staffing is for East ENT you know what qualifies for a volunteer to help run the library I think those questions would be good follow-ups with the the building itself yeah thank you yeah next item on the agenda is the staff and indicator report casy good evening board my name is Casey van cleberg human resource director I always love pulling this information together for you guys all right so the the connection to the district strategic directions I'll just highlight a couple here um a culture of trust engagement and belonging in Human Resources we connect with each new Hing person through an orientation that includes human resource items as well as benefit offerings and then under partnership and collaboration we have a districtwide Labor Management committee we also have specific unit ones um for our ESP unit as well as our teachers and we work through items in those and then this coming spring and every two years we go through and meet with all of our units to negotiate contracts and those are always collaborative meetings as well staff department information we have five full-time human resource staff that support the Grand Rapids area schools nashat kwat and schools and a tala area schools cabaa this is our team here we have an administrative assistant k a payroll clerk Isaac benefits coordinator relle human resource coordinator Holly and myself um we do have it currently organized that each person is performing the same duties for all three districts just for ease of um kind of mastering those duties that we're doing the team we have here is absolutely incredible we're very fortunate to have each of them the student impact um for Staffing as you can imagine our staff impact all of our students at the start of this year we had 575 certif certified staff members those are our employees that have a regular schedule and then we had 464 casual and substitute employees we'll go through the breakdown on the next slide employees make up just about 83% of our budget so for last year fiscal year 24 the salaries were just under 34 million benefits around 16 for a total of just about 50 million spent on employees out of about 60 million in general fund this is our breakdown of Staff you can see the teachers obviously is our largest p that's about half of our staff followed by our ESP group and down the line there we are down seven certified staff from the 23 24 year due to budget reductions and just a note this count of 575 is employees that are employed so it does not reflect any open positions that weren't filled at the beginning of the year as far as substitute staff um we have a lot of substitutes working in the district dist currently over 180 we truly could not run school without them we're very thankful for the contribution they make to the district and allowing us um to cover absences that need to be covered there's a breakdown there of the number of employees in each of those units and then the number of substitutes as you can imagine When there's less staff in general Subs become even more important because there's just less people to cover um less teacher preps in a building um you know more students in each classroom so it becomes more and more important that each of those absences are filled this slide shows our sub fill rates you can see the teachers um on the left there we had a pretty strong dip for two years during Co and the last two years we've seen an increase in our fill rate teachers so the graph on the right that top kind of yellowish orange line is District 318 so that's our fill fill rate there and then that bluish color is I ask so they see a very similar pattern than us but significantly lower fill rates for teachers and then the esps um we have very very poor fill rates for esps as as does the rest of iOS last year we had 26% of our absences filled that we asked for a sub four and iOS was around 8% so very difficult positions to fill we are doing better in our fill reads than the state and and the region as you can see we did work last year we created a substitute committee that had representatives from the teachers and secretaries and many of these people trying to fill these absences and had really good ideas and collaboration and hoping that some of those ideas will will create some improvement too this slide is my favorite it it goes back to what I feel like Matt talks about all the time is even though we have less people we don't have less work to do and we're continuing to work really hard to move initiatives forward even when it's really challenging to do that so this is kind of our snapshot of the HR office in the last year most of this is really in the last six months but we added two districts so nashat Katan came on in January and then I came on in July we did add one new position to the department which was um the result of an elimination of a director and the addition of two coordinators transition payrolling benefits to human resources in July so that's we've talked about a lot of years during the Staffing report report that that might be a better fit and we feel like we're working a lot better um in collaborating and and getting the employees needs met that way the health plan change that started last year in October you guys remember switching to the high deductible Health Plan and then the coming this current plan Year we're moving to aligning our plan with the fiscal year so those are both positive changes that require a lot of um time and energy from all the employees that the district but really positive initiatives July we started transitioning staff to entering their time off in Skyward so Skyward is our new system that has U finance and HR and other items in it that that improves our processes internally because we're not needing to pull absences from um an external system and it gives employees quicker access to their balances because they're updated as soon as they those get approved by supervisors they're live it's also um saving us money in the long run by eliminating Frontline we also transitioned our hourly staff to their timekeeping in Skyward so again this one is both a process and and cost saving so we're able to eliminate Frontline on the timekeeping side and we're able to have time sheets automatically uploaded into payroll versus needing to import them one one of the biggest things we did this year is transitioning our hourly staff to being paid as they work that was a huge initiative that the board undertook in the last round of contract negotiations we're very thankful that all of our units came to agreement to U move forward with that and that rolled out in July for our 12-month employees and September for our 9month employees we think that this yeah go casy I just want to go back to the adding of nashat kiat and I ask school districts we got some people from the public here and not sure who's watching tonight we're selling services to them we're not taking on their work without any compensation for that is that correct I know as a board we know that but I'm not sure that the public understands that yeah thank you I don't want anybody to think that we're taking on work when yep we took on um we're Contracting for business services and Human Resources so those pieces we are doing but they are still their own separate entity otherwise thank you yep okay um transitioning our hourly staff is going to be helpful for budgeting getting them paid as they're working and then also just less room for error and analizing their pay and anytime there's a shift in coding or hours or anything it has to be recalculated and annualized and then an ongoing process is transitioning our electronic Personnel records transitioning to electronic Personnel records we have about a th000 an active staff members in our district so this is a big undertaking but it is it will help and is helping and we have to look up things moving forward just a few more facts we paid 999 people in the last year um you can see we received 773 applications lots of background checks on employees added to the system these numbers are mostly up from last year so that's a good sign um as far as getting those casual people in helping with activities and subbing and that sort of thing another Rand of fact um in the nine weeks since August 1 when this number was ran we had processed over 200 employee folders so that could be a new hire it could be a term or it could be a change a change in schedule change in hours anything like that and all of those people need to be touched by all five of us for our separate pieces so very busy there's a lot of a lot of moving Parts happening evidence of success our teaching staff is highly educated qualified and has high longevity a percentage of fully licensed teachers moving our staff to hourly um to to not be annualized we just talked about that and then aligning our health plan with our fiscal year this slide might not make a lot of sense but our our tier one we only have one tier one teacher in the in our district those are the teachers that have a bachelor's degree but are not working [Music] in no you're good our tier two we have four of those so those are individuals that are currently enrolled in a program to obtain lure but do not yet have a teaching license and we have nine out of field permissions those are fully licensed teachers that are just working in an area that they're not licensed in so sometime it might might just be a grade level that they're not licensed in or it might be a completely different program one of those is a discretionary variance and then two are just a point to FTE that they're working out of their area so in total we have 14 teachers that aren't fully licensed out of that 267 which is just over 5% the most recent stat I could find at the state level is about 7% of unlicensed teachers and that's two years old so I anticipate we're doing significantly better than than the state average this you've seen every year but this is just a snapshot of our teacher education level 66% of our teachers have a master's degree or higher 90% have graduate level cours work beyond their bachelors and our average years of service right now is just about 12 so most of the students in in the district are being taught by teachers with a high leveled education and high longevity some of the barriers to success budget obviously we talk about that almost every meeting we're down 70 staff members from 5 years ago um with the reductions we it also becomes more difficult to fill positions people want security and that that's hard for people to make a shift we'll talk about mandates and one of the next slides unemployment we've seen a huge uptick in kind of last minute resignations at the start of the school year because of the we suspect because of the unemployment now being offered to hourly staff in the summer they do have no incentive to wait until the last minute because as soon as they decline employment they're no long longer eligible we still see high absenteeism and unpaid absences it's not uncommon but we're we're struggling with that like other districts and businesses and then just our our workload and HR is we're very lean here's the budget slide that shows the 70 reduced staff we've had from from five years ago so you can see that broke out by um position there again these numbers are only counting people that are in positions not vacant positions the barriers to success so mandates is a big one it we have more time that we're spending tracking things and Reporting things that allows less time for our kind of day-to-day stuff and the the employee needs so here's just a few in the um handful of years earn in safe time you guys are familiar with we had to create M us for each unit we're now needing to track those hours um there's a cost associated with that or system setup that had to happen and then adding additional categories or usage reasons paid sick leave is coming in January of 26 that will be a cost issue and definitely some concerns with absenteeism with up to 20 weeks paid um at the state level per employee Union data a lot of people probably don't know about this one but this has been in effect for around a year now so we're now having to report every new higher term change to unions periodically and then send an all staff list every 120 days there was exempt changes so when people can be categorized as exempt we didn't have a change we had to make this July but we will next July some of our salaried staff will need to move to hourly and then wage theft went into place a number of years ago and requires some new requirements for um reporting pay and having employees sign off on that some recommendations obviously we have contract negotiations coming up this spring getting those settled as as quickly and fairly as we can um our pay Equity study is due in January of this year continuing to look for ways to create efficiencies um complete the backloading of the electronic Personnel records hoping to find another process for Teacher Lane changes again this is a cost it's it's currently being done through front line it's the only thing in that module and it's not a cheap U module also hoping to look for another subsystem both cost-wise and process wise not having to import those hours of the subsystem and then complying with the new mandates Mr chair Casey can you go back and and just touch on the pay Equity study and the reason why I asked this for you to do that is I think the board knows we got blasted here a couple years ago we have to make some adjustments to some of our staff because they weren't in compliance with state law and again for the public here can you explain a little bit about that if we not compliant with that happen to us yeah so the the pay equi study has done every three years they're looking at um pay um they're looking at the number of years to reach your max salary and your longevity and they're comparing that to gender to make sure that we're in compliance and people with similar work that are males are getting paid comparable to the females um we are required to meet a threshold there it's 80% in three different test scenarios and if we don't then I don't know what the answer to that is other than they would send us a letter and we would need to get into compliance with that so we've taken the steps that we can to reduce the number of years it takes for female classifications to reach their top step and then um increase some of the males that were lower we've done some other um adjustments and things but we'll need to continue to make sure that we're looking at positions that fall out of line so we stay in that thresold thank you k y Melissa if I mind if we don't comply will be like Michigan it just goes to the you can be sued and they lost they everybody had the back pay well again I I I just I view it as an important piece to for the general public to at least get a grip a little bit of understanding on it and uh explaining that then it's something that's not a oneandone thing it's something that has to happen every three years we need to sit down and take that internal look and if we're not in compliant we have to make those adjustments that we are compliant to avoid that piece so again thank you for explaining that yep um question I know we have paid family lead coming up in January 2025 uh which seemed long and now it doesn't right yeah but there's really been nothing on it yet that I've seen do we anticipate or have any idea what the cost might be to the district because it's like originally was s but I think that might have shifted yeah the last estimate was about 88 with a Max uh in the current legislation the max to be 1.2% of wages and that would be shared by the employee in the district so potentially 6% of wages would be the max that's currently written in so that 14 million 14 million 40 million 40 million yeah with Benefits that would all be in compliance it's significant again one of many mandates from the state that we got tagged with between unemployment and and the food aspect of it yeah um and then outside of the cost just who fills the positions right right right d Mr chair uh Casey could you say a word about the union data I was a little unclear on that requirement yeah so we have to report now when there's a new hire or term or a change in employment for any of our union members we have to report that to the unions um within 20 days so what we do is every time we process them we just send them and then we have to send a full list of all of their employees with their addresses cell phone numbers email addresses um higher dates all that information every 120 days and that's provided to the union it is most of the unions have been agreeable to just having a shared spreadsheet so we just keep up with it and they don't we don't have to send emails and keep tracking those but some of them do want them in Excel and we have to attach them to emails and send them every time we process thank anybody else well Mr chair as long as I'm a little bit on a soap box here and and I say this for the members of the public here and some always ask how can we help school I think we use your help when you're talking to the local legislators and talk about these mandates that they put on us and there's no funding technically to carry these mandates from now to perpet tuting unless there's a law change and that's very frustrating for us as a board here because we have to deal with the aftermath of the legislator so if there's anything that you can do for us let talk to local legislators and we talk to them all the time and sometimes we're the broken record and they run from us when we see us coming so as general members of the public we can use your help in that Arun so at this point uh Casey thank you very much for the report at this point we're going to adjourn the work back back into session with the regular meeting in just a minute or two [Music] [Music] [Music] C [Music] it's 60% here [Music] [Music] right it's call the regular meeting to order please stand for the pledge I pled Al to the flag States of America to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible and first item on the agenda is approval of the amended agenda with the addition of item 7D so Mo second second by David all favor say I I oppos the agenda is approved next item on the agenda principal report Grand rid High School Darren hofstead good evening board um chair schroer superintendent gross uh appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of Grand Rapids High School um I was proud to uh to leave that school and um excited to be here tonight I have with me Tanis Anderson one of our school counselors um she's going to fill in some gaps as we worked on some of this uh information together um first off we're at the point where we're wrapping up our fall Sports season um we had a really high participation numbers in all of our activities um we have a couple of teams still rolling our swim and dive team just um W um True Team section Champs they participated down at State this this last weekend both our football and our volleyball teams are holding the number four seed needing to get out a home playoff game um and coincidentally they're both playing Rockridge so it's it's US versus rockid here in the next couple couple days um we have cross country still in play and um and again as we start to wrap up those events we start to to see the end of the quarter coming our concerts are in full swing we had our band concert last night and hopefully if everything goes well I can get to our choir concert tonight um a few of uh highlights we've had uh recently on um a scale where you know I've said it and I've heard uh Suri our past teaching and learning director say it you know we have the greatest teachers in the world that work right here and some of the data to proov that Briel Carlson um she was awarded the the K12 distinguished teaching award in geography education um the National Council for geog Geographic education Awards is to one teacher annually in the United States and real got it so that's that's quite an honor we also um had two teachers in our IB curriculum our International Balor as you know um highly rigorous rigorous challenging but also a global education and on a global scale when you think about who offers IB it's it's private schools um schools that are affluent um we little Public School in northern Minnesota and we have two um of our subject areas tested higher or achieved higher than the global average and that was in Spanish um taught by Steph Stevens and in biology by Mama Shelly Lindstrom so um just want to acknowledge all the great work yeah go ahead and clap these guys are just just a couple of our rock star there's there's a lot we could certainly uh point to um but very proud of the work that they do and then connecting um our students on that global global scale is is really really quite remarkable um the um kind of the angle I wanted to talk about tonight was it's October it's College knowledge month um and we've had some some activities that taken place at at the high school recently that I just want to highlight first of all um we had a college fair recently attended by all our Juniors and seniors so what that means is we bring in colleges um into our gymnasium and we invite local schools to come and um experiencing that face-to-face conversation the handouts the pamphlets the sales pitch we had over 60 schools um attend colleges and state um and universities um to be able to uh pitch their best to our our students that are interested in that in that field um another component that I want to highlight in this is new this year is our College um our directed missions um were part of a pilot in the state of Minnesota um and this is a program that needs to help high school students in Minnesota learn about college options and reduce the stress of applying um to college um there's there's a money Savings in there to for for students and families but how it works is early in the fall so right now participating high school students seniors receive a personalized letter that lists the colleges and universities that are ready to admit them based on their academic records um students can then apply to the colleges they're interested for free so it's it's a it's a really great program the goal of the program is to help students know they have multiple college options in Minnesota whether they want to attend a four-year University a two-year um Community College a trade school or tech school so um it's it's really going to be a great option um to get students that exposure and to expose students to the options that they have here in the state the benefit of the program aims to reduce the equity gaps in college enrollment by providing important colleg goinging information to high school students um it also aims to to reduce the self- selection bias by easing the transition from high school to college college so the participating institutions um there's over over 120 high schools in the state that are that are part of this pilot um there's 23,000 participating seniors um and more than I think 56 colleges and universities that are in play on this so it's it's really um a great thing I think it takes a lot of the um the middle work out of it and I think it'll expose more of our students and and into uh you know to their interests in their fields if they if they so choose um I'll have Tanis kind of touch upon this a little bit and also the great work that our counselors do um the the work that they put in to college knowledge month not only that but also um the the career in college readiness um I'm gonna have Tanis speak a little bit on our ninth grade um seminar classes where our counselors are going out into classrooms um teaching teaching lessons and providing some information on um career and college readiness so than thank you um we're really excited about college knowledge month this year um excuse me I think the biggest thing is is when we talk about college as the counseling department it's really about any training Beyond High School like it's not just a four-year college that we're telling kids that they have to go to it's really it can be a technical program it can be as short as six weeks all the way to a doctorate and so that's really our huge message during college challge month um we're excited tomorrow we're having our seniors choose breakout sessions during our re recharge time where there's five different breakout sessions that seniors can come to and learn about there's a military panel an apprenticeship Workshop um how to apply and some scholarship stuff and then we're also partnering with the tech Hub they have a a financial aid kind of program that they do and they're going to come and offer that to the to the students as well so that will be tomorrow and we're really excited about that um with direct admissions I think one of the most exciting parts of this is it is based on their academic record and their GPA but as long as a student is on track for graduation they're still going to get proactive admissions to 28 colleges or universities and I think when we look at that like that population um a lot of times maybe have um some disbelief that college is for them and really what we're saying is no if you if you want to pursue an education B high school you can and we're here to give you the support that you need to do that and you know with college applications being you know 20 to $50 per application this really takes them the financial burn now families too and there's no commitment so say a student gets all 56 colleges on their list they choose which ones they're going to interact do I think kind of continue to go forward with so we're really excited about this program and and seeing the impact it has on our students um really we do back up um you know that that's kind of the senior year Focus that we have is kind of this you know what are you going to do what's next what's your next PATH After High School but we really start these conversations um in ninth grade and even before in eth grade during registration um looking at you know the different career Pathways after they have the career Pathways day exploration that the eth graders get to go on we go right into course registration and talking with students about how the classes that they choose are really um a way for them to um explore different careers and different career pathways and so we carry that on into ninth grade seminar where all students get this nth grade seminar where we go in weekly and do lessons that are career connected learning and so focusing on um we use the platform Z so it's like doing interest inventories researching um different types of careers what training you need and so we kind of really build that foundation in ninth grade and then go all the way up to that 12th grade year so that's tonight's report if you guys have any questions on any of that I I just have a question tennis um so that's making it easy for the kids to connect with the colleges and you know that Northstar promise program how do they get the information on that from through Northstar promise do they get things mailed to them um yeah the office of higher education has a lot of like um flyers and information and so it's something we have available in our office I don't know that we've done uh we could probably do a better job of advertising that to students that would qualify for it I just think that double wh you having like easy access to the colleges plus easy access to possibly not having yeah absolutely like our kids are doing great they're graduating they're already set up to to get the next steps for them thank you yes Tannis uh um could you speak uh to the challenges uh in uh counseling I know that uh in a per pupil uh ratio our numbers are considerably low uh than uh we want them to be could you speak to the challenges yeah you know I think the um the career development is just kind of one slice of our overall role we really focus on three areas so academic development personal Social Development and career and college development and I would say that um we spend a lot of our time doing mental health counseling with students and kind of responding to different crisis that are happening in the building um there's definitely um unfortunately at times students need to wait to see their counselor because there is such a high need of students um you know I think at the high school we're lucky I think we have about 300 to every one counselor but it does increase as you go down through the grade levels you know at elementary schools they're looking at what 1 to 750 you know so there's definitely um not all students have Equitable access to school counseling and support services at our at our schools and that's unfortunate you know I think you like Casey talked about the budget stuff I mean that's definitely a ramification of that um but we're really you know we just try to be thoughtful in our planning and just try to meet kids where they're at and kind of work on both ends right like how can we be proactive on what we're doing and also deal with the reactive stuff and um just eat a lot of lunches in our office too so it's a t tremendous team David too I mean a lot of um the roles and responsibilities that came from the administrative office when we went from three principles to two have fallen on some of our counselors too for example Tannis is also our J jibway head director um we have counselors that have taken on testing duties we've had counselors taking on um you know um our U internship program like there's there's responsibilities that have spread throughout um on top of you know again serving the the 1100 to 1200 kids that we have every day so it's it's quite challenging it's formidable task um but again I'd put these counselors up against anybody it's a tremendous team thank you just a note to speak a little bit to what you said about the tech hubs so they did a presentation today uh for the chamber and they talked a little bit about that program where you could help see what it's going to cost a student they input numbers um to go to each what whatever colleges they're selecting and what they found was um at least in deriver for one particular student they thought they were going to go to ICC but when they plug in all the numbers and they showed the scou it actually was cheaper for them to go to the University of Minnesota and so that's where they're at now uh for reasonal so it was kind of that I love the fact that you're getting a letter with colleges who said hey if you're up for it we're in like we can partner because I think there's so many schools that people don't even think of you kind of get focused on what are your friends talking about what have your brothers or sisters done and you kind of forget and then if you know how much it's going to cost that's way better thanks more realistic thank you uh J great great presentation I hope you will share uh with the staff uh the board's admiration uh of the quality staff that you have and that you're working with there very much appreciated appreciate it David thank you thank you thank you thank you next item on the agenda is to approve the minutes of the 9 23 24 regular school board meeting looking for a motion move second move Melissa second by pth discussion all in favor say I opposed minutes are approved next item on the agenda is to approve the September 2024 claims and the amount to 12, 83,1 12339 so moved moved by second second by David discussion hearing none all in favor say I I opposed claims are approved next item is approval of the consent agenda and we've changed our format just a little bit here um all matters listed under the consent agenda are Staffing related or considered routine and do not require discussions these items will be added uh together in one motion if discussion is desired on a particular item it'll be removed in the consent agenda and considered separately by the board we also plan to highlight retirements uh separately this point I'm looking for a motion to approve move by Pat second by minding discussions oh sorry no discussion all in favor say I I I opposed consent agenda is approved next item on the agenda is our addition item uh to approve a resolution to expel student gr x1- 24-25 for a per period of 12 months superintendent gross thank you Mr chair uh members of the board in front of you is a resolution relative to uh student expulsion obviously this isn't something we do often it's not something that we uh aspire to do but there are uh there are times when this is unfortunately necessary the state statute provides very specific conditions under which the board can expel a student and as you'll see in that resolution uh the there's evidence to support the fact that the student did violate a number of those conditions um the student was afforded the due process that's provided in the law and uh after an investigation by Mr hofs and his team I I recommend approving the resolution looking for a motion to approve the resolution approve motion by Ben second second second by Mindy uh any discussion uh go ahead chair uh Mr uh superintendent uh what's Our obligation to the student uh at this point we're uh we're required to continue to provide Educational Services to the student and in Practical terms what does that mean uh it can look like a variety of things and I'd say those details aren't worked out yet but it can range from um homebound services to part-time to online or some combination of a variety of things but we do retain responsibility for the student that's correct y thank you any other discussion Julie I think we need a roll call Vote Yes please uh David Marty yes miny nuring yes Melissa bar yes Ben Hawkins yes Pat maduri yes Mar schroer yes resolution is approved next item on the agenda is to approve the resolution for Minnesota State High School league form a grant applications so superent G thank you Mr chair this is a resolution that uh if you've been on the board for a while you've seen many many times or probably every year it's a Grant application that the district submits on behalf of both schools uh to the high school league and those uh funds are redistributed to Grant applicants we've been successful in receiving these and generally are used to decrease the cost of um activities for our students I recommend approval resolution for motion so moved moved by David second second by Melissa discussion all in favor say I I opposed resolution is approved next item on the agenda um approve a resolution regarding purchase agreements to sell two Surplus properties uh carar good evening back in June the board um approved moving forward with the sale of excess properties um since that time we have confirmed that one of those properties is in the state land trust so it is not even ours um so that has been fixed with the county and moved to the state's property um two there are three properties that could be sold um and two of those are up tonight um we reached out to adjacent land owners and off the property to them at the market value that was on the County website and both agreed to purchase those and um kind of on background one of those properties in s Lake the family actually donated it to the school back in the early 1900s um and we were they still own the property so they're getting it back so that's really exciting um and some of the the closing costs will be C so um I'm asking for you to approve the sale of property so move by David second second by Pat um discussion Mr chair again just in our process of evaluating what we have for excess property out there we've been looking at this for the last couple years and uh trying to get these properties back in the tax R by selling them to the general public so this is just another piece of the pie that we've been working on and putting it back out there to the public thank you for the work on any other discussion Julie we need a roll call Vote for This yes please Mindy nuring yes Melissa bar yes Ben Hopkins yes Pat maduri yes Mark Sher yes David Marty yes resolution is approved next item on the agenda is to accept first reading of policy 610 field trip super gross well uh thank you Mr chair policy work is my favorite thing to do um and this policy has been a labor of love I'll just say that um the the the good thing about it is that um our district makes a great deal of opportunity available to students and and that whether that's a trip to Washington DC like our middle school kids just had an opportunity to do um trips overseas like we've recently had um our upcoming marching band trip to Hawaii that's been part of a regular Rhythm so uh I'm not sure I'm aware of a district um remotely close to us that makes those opportunities available to kids and um our our students are definitely richer and better for it uh this so This policy uh is very much needed uh and we had one in place but it took the policy committee I don't know six months probably to work through uh some revisions and worked closely with some staff that actually go on the trips lead teams um to talk through process to talk through chaperon to talk through tag alongs uh Mr Hoff has been very helpful because a lot of these fall their work through the high school um and so uh there were changes made to the the classification of trips there was guidance created for the leader of the trips uh there were criteria developed for chaperon and tagalong and process process changes there to try to steamline or streamline or or to clarify what whose roles and responsibilities are what so this is a first reading uh no action tonight it'll come back to you uh subsequent meeting for approval and uh if there are questions I can certainly try to address those or I can bring those back to the uh the respective group or or people that might have answers um but yeah that's uh that's policy 610 Matt uh normally we get a lot of policy sample policies from msba was this one of those that came from msba or is this when that was developed internally here I think there is a there might be a like shell of one but Julie researched all over the place um and really got a lot of language from other D districts to find out what other districts were doing and you know in our case that really was really meant reaching out or that research happening to districts in the cities because you really have to go that far to find districts that have kind of comprehensive field trip programs like we do um but most of the information or learning that we did came from uh other school districts rather than MSB on this as far as changes go so just again I don't know if this has thought about I'm going to throw it out there normally the policies that come from msba because they have an attorney on staff Terry Maro that kind of reviews those before they get pushed out would it make sense to have our legal council take a look at this and kind of its blessing going forward we can do that so it falls in line with our other policies having leg will taking a look at them we can have we maybe would start with having Terry take a look at it um that might be a good place to start I just think it brings that consistency as we move forward thank you any other discussion and this is a first reading so no actions required next item on the agenda is to schedule the 2025 Schoolboard organizational meeting superintendent gross uh we're required by Statute or the school board is required by Statute to meet in January uh to establish um roles and responsibilities to elect new officers as well as schedule uh the board work for the year um and typically the date that would correspond to the the we've done in the past is January 6 I did do some looking and the law articulates that we um need to hold that on the first Monday of January or any date um uh thereafter that's reasonable I remember exactly how the laws abouted but um the sixth is the date that will correspond to what we've done in the past um discussion a motion um David you uh Mr chairman I will be uh traveling I'll be out of the uh country uh from the 4th through the 20th of January uh if we have any flexibility uh on that date uh I would very much like to participate in that organizational meeting if possible superintendent gross is it possible for us to go before the sixth the I I uh so in looking at the law the law specifically says the first Monday um at any date thereafter that's practicable practicable yep so it doesn't give any latitude previous to the first Monday um only latitude after um and I I totally understand where Mr Marty's coming from but I'm not sure you know look going from the 6th to the 21st is over two weeks I I just don't know that would be after that would be after we would typically have held our second meeting right Mr chair Julie when do the new board members actually take office effective January 1 I was thinking more of the quir qu aspect of it so um you think it be possible to attend remotely possible um it's that's a little sketchy call Vietnam I think there is we have to be in the United States oh I think there I think you're right then I think there is some stipulation there well BL you can get back real quick the other thing I would I would just add Mr chair again I I I think it would be great to work something out David but um you know as we look at January and February in the budget work that we need to do and and you know it gets accelerated really really fast in there and so just concerned I may be selfishly about um timing especially knowing that we'll have three brand new board members to bring up to speed so those work sessions are going to take even longer um because we're we're going to be you know doing a lot of education at the same time Mr chair offer a suggestion I know we usually have a workshop prior to that organizational meeting is it possible to maybe have a workshop at the end of December and kind of have a disc on what will be approved in January that would give David input in December uh in regards to that and then going forward and we'll know who the new board members are at that stage of the game and you know they could at least be present during the workshop um and maybe be allowed to be part of those discussions as well nothing has actually approved that Workshop it's more sure discussion so this at this point um do I have a motion to set January 6th as the reorganizational day by P second second by Melissa any further discussion all in favor say I I opposed so the date is set at January 6th and Julie why don't I get with you and we'll see if we can come up with the works out dat sure Mr chair I I know it's probably going to be assumed but I'll just make the comment that let's make sure that the new board members are notified when that Workshop is so that they can be present as well so right next item on the agenda R Center partnership executive direct Jim welcome [Music] is the clicker right there on the podium it is okay good evening chairman schroer superintendent gr uh ISD 318 School Board uh my name is Jim Mack and I'm the executive director of the right and sharing the podium with me tonight is Dr Katie Cargill she is a chairperson of the board of directors with the riarts counil together we represent an organization deeply committed to fostering the Arts and supporting educational development of our youth tonight we're excited to share how the ri Arts Council and ISD 318 are joining forces to shape a brighter future for our schools and the broader Community through this partnership through this partnership we aim to bring the Arts Into the Heart of Education enhancing creativity critical thinking and cultural awareness in the classroom and Beyond together we are building Pathways that not only strengthen our schools but also create lasting connections between the Arts and Community enrichment our shared vision is simple to make the Arts accessible to all students and to inspire a vibrant cultural future for generations to come so let us dive into how this collaboration is already making a significant impact and what we can look forward to as we continue working together so we're going to tan them these slides because why not we're the Arts and we try to be creative so we could like jazz hands or something really entertain your guys so um and we decided to go with color because why not but uh so here we are all right the world within the Performing Arts can often seem like its own language and logic but and it baffles the uninitiated however the partnership between ISC 318 and the rights not only is critical but it also makes perfect sense in the same way that left is right and right is left things seem complex but at the right Performing Arts Center the purpose is simple supporting the ISC 318 students enriching their education experience both serving the broader Community let's explore how we're shaping the future of the Arts in northern Minnesota oh I spent all this time doing this like fade in and fade out and it's not working so I'm little sad but moving on I didn't spend that much time the partnership not only helps students build confidence on the stage but also exposes them to the technical side of the Arts offering Hands-On experiences en lighting sound and stage management through these opportunities students develop valuable skills like teamwork problem solving and communication preparing them for future success both in the Arts and Beyond oh I got the r is not just a stage for student performances but it's a cultural hub for the entire Community I'm sure many of you have been to shows at the ri um band concerts fireo concerts all the things um in addition to hosting the school events the ri offers a wide variety of Performing opportunities from professional to Productions to local talent showcases bringing worldclass performances to Northern Minnesota the ISD 318 students benefit not only because they get to perform on their incredible stage and facility that we have but they're also exposed to the huge spectrum of artistic experiences and this opportunity allows them to engage from diverse forms of art and culture that they might not have access to elsewhere inspiring creativity and expanding their perspectives all in our backyard through our collaboration with ISD 318 we offer students more than a performance space we provide educational opportunities in arts management set design lighting sound and other technical aspects of a Performing Arts Center students get handon experience by working directly with our professional staff learning practical skills that extend beyond the classroom these real world experiences help prepare them for future careers whether it's in the Arts or other industries that value creativity Technical noov and teamwork um just for example uh we had a young man that was an intern last spring his name was Noah jetn jetn thank you um he took that experience and now he's at the University of Minnesota duth and uh he is uh doing quite well he's studying in theater and music over there and uh he came back over Labor Day weekend and we had a wonderful conversation and he says wow so much that I learned here at the ri has really helped me Excel over in uh the university uh we have another young lady uh that went up through the ri her name is Elizabeth thank you and um uh she was with r dance and now she is dancing for professionally down in the cities for the Twin Cities ballet and another last gentleman I want to bring up his name is um Kevin McCoy I know his last name and uh uh he worked us up through the ranks uh uh through high school with the r theater if you will and um right now he's touring with the Hamilton show he runs all the sound in the lighting for the tour Hamilton show so it's pretty incredible so uh we are making a difference we're expanding opportunities for students and as many of you know the right is really committed to being a venue for everyone we want all people to feel comfortable and welcome and not just for the professional Productions but also for the local Productions and our local talent because our local talent is really what we're all here for right our stage supports performances from up and cominging artists students and internationally renowned professionals Alik students frequently perform on the stage as same stage as touring artists and a lot of times there's even like um the touring artists will come in and do workshops for the students which is a really incredible educational opportunity for our students to have and actually a really unique opportunity that you would not find at most theaters even in the country um so to be able to provide our students with this exposure not only inspires them but also provides a valuable learning experience and they get to observe firsthand the dedication and professionalism and creativity that goes into producing worldclass art by fostering this connection between the students and the professionals the right cultivates an environment where Talent at all levels is encouraged nurtures nurtur and celebrated the r technical team is a key part of what makes our venue special with expertise in lighting sound and set design our team ensures that every production whether it's a school concert a community play or a touring Broadway show run smoothly and professionally this means that students performing on our stage get to experience the same professional level technal support as worldclass artists giving them a taste of what it's like to work in a top tier performance environment this attention to detail and professionalism helps create memorable high quality experiences for both performers and audiences alike the r is obviously more than just a performance ven venue it's a community Builder we bring in people from all over the county and all over Northern Minnesota actually and even people from the cities by sharing this space with ISC 318 we Foster a meaningful connection among students residents and visitors using the Arts as a powerful tool for Unity and engagement through a wide variety of events from student performances to professional shows and Community Gatherings the right becomes a place where people from all walks of life can come together and gather these shared experiences strengthen the community encourage collaboration and provide cultural enrichment for our partnership with us our partnership with ISD 318 enhances both the student experience and the local economy by hosting a variety of performances and events the r attracts visitors to the area which supports local businesses such as restaurants hotels shops driving tourism and economic growth and as we look ahead the right is committed to a strong partnership with ISC 318 together we'll expand opportunities for students and fill in the gaps where students need it Foster love of the hearts arts and hearts I guess all the things and create even more ways for our Q to engage our local cultural programming by investing in our partnership we're not only shaping the next generation of artists and performance but also fostering a thriving Vibrant Community that creates that values creativity and collaboration today the ri's Arts Council commitment the r Arts council's commitment Remains the Same to Foster creativity engage audiences and provide a platform for audiences from all walks of life excuse me to provide a platform for all artists from all walks of life our vision includes enhancing enhancing educational programs introducing Innovative workshops and hosting our wider array of performances that resonates with all members of our community by fostering this partnership we will not only enrich the lives of our students and audiences but also solidify the ri's role as a Cornerstone of cultural vitality and Grand Rapids who WR this I don't know there's a lot that's to see so your support plays a vital role in enhancing and supporting the programs at the right allowing us to provide students with a transformative experience in the Arts who did write this we invite you to join us in exploring new opportunities for growth and collaboration let's work together to ensure that the Arts made an integral part of the educational experience and the community and our students whether through volunteers attending perform performances are advocating for Arts education your involvement can make a significant difference as we move forward let's continue to invest like one of these is in in order in our students and our community fostering an environment where creativity thrives and everyone can experience the joy of Arts thank you comments or questions Mr chair just really appreciate the partnership that we've had had over the years with the with the w and back and forth and I just say this that if there's issues please bring them forward so that we can work on them together so they don't fester and mush them up and something that we don't want it to be it's been a great partnership over the years and as one board member I think we all want to continue to have it happen mov forward definitely app we really do thank you for letting us present tonight uh DAV uh thank you uh uh for the presentation uh and thank you for your partnership uh with uh the Grand Rapids players and itasa Orchestra by the way itasa Orchestra has a concert uh on Saturday I've been invited to be a uh participant in the uh Lincoln uh eron Copeland's portrait of Lincoln on Saturday fantastic yes just saying do you want to see you should do some Jaz hands well now as you heard from uh principal hosta we do have concerts I think all week with the students and uh uh tonight as well and uh they sounded wonderful they were rehearsing this afternoon and um one of the joys of working right there at the rif is that we get to hear this every day all day Jim was saying one of the most unique theaters he's ever been in because at 3:00 the entire Place lights up with students and professionals and kids educational progr prrs it's just it's it's just such a unique atmosphere so thanks thanks for letting us be a part of it apprciate thank you thank [Music] you next item on the agenda is board reports um we start with Jane and okay our student council we've started our tireless teacher and staff board back up we put a little spin on it instead of just picking um one person each week at the PLC meeting we are doing like a apartment so this month for September it was the English Department won our award and a Google form was sent out to students and they were able to write nominations for each teacher whoever they wanted and we were able to read them at the PLC and then each teacher got to like keep their paper that the students wrote them uh we also have 25 students that will be going to a leadership conference in Briner at cin November 34th it's an overnight and there'll be like hundreds of students all over um Minnesota coming we actually were very thankful we're able to go because we received a grant from the endowment committee committee so we're very thankful for that and one of the speakers going to this conference is actually one of the speakers that was down in Florida that some of our student council members were able to go so it'll be a good opportunity for more stud council members to hear this and we actually have a meeting coming up Wednesday and at that meeting we have nominations for our voting for our ninth grade places so by that time all um places will be filled through 9th through 12th grade for elections our host of club which is like a healthcare just talks anything Healthcare had elections for officers last week so all those have been in place and last week at their meeting they did the highl they practiced using baby dolls so they got volunteers to bring in baby dolls and were able to do that and staff and students were able to come last thing is Key Club we were able to write thank yous for emergency service workers so for fire dep Department EMT um Police Department we all got together and wrote thank yous and like big signs and we're going to be able to distribute those this week um for me I have a few more um so we have like a new program it's like Green Rapids goodness of high school so it just kind of highlights like the good things that are happening within the school district um first off Key Club had their annual blood drive and collected 83 units and supplied 76 total donors from the high school which saves a total of 249 lives and then dig pink they had the volleyball game about at the beginning of the month I say they raised $1,344 that all went to the itasa area cancer crisis fund um and last week on Tuesday the senior football players had my jersey your impact day which is where they handed their away jersey to one teacher with like a little note and they the teacher got to wear it on Friday and wear it to the game so that was pretty cool just kind of showing positivity and gratitude to teachers in our district um and then fall SPS kind of like what Mr hofs is saying a lot of the FSE SPS are kind of coming to an end marching man just finished up their season um yeah and then weed have the two rockage games cross country section final or section quarterfinals or I don't know how they have that it's kind of confusing um those were coming up for them saw them practicing that football practice today um and then upcoming FFA is having like a Halloween event on Halloween so it's 4 to eight at the fairgrounds and they have like different um activities where you can like decorate like a booth or like a car trunk um they can donate candy and just like getting the word out there is what they ask so yeah that's something cool if you don't have any Halloween plans to show up to I think that's it thank you Mr chair maybe when they come back from the craan they can come do a report to the board on what you learn I think be a good idea thank you for the report um Matt I say this uh to you but um I was at ardc meeting in another round of safe schools grants are available um I think they're doing in January sometime and I'm not sure if that group knows is aw or not but I got some paperwork here I'll get to you and make you share with them then we got that project going at the middle school funding and short there but may be another opportunity there for that also I participated as a Rams chairperson uh and our executive director Paul P Cher the Center for Rural policy and development came up to North Eastern Minnesota last week um majority of the committee members are all Senator own agricultural majority of the committee members this is the first time they've ever been to the Iron Range they toured some of the mining areas and I got to say was very impressive on the comments from majority of the people uh they came with a preconceived notion that mining was bad but they left with their eyes open um and the Crux of it all is they're supposed to do a story on the Iron Range well I piped up and said I was from Grand Rapids well the push back was is Grand Rapids is not part of the range of course in the range of fashion at I am we had a little debate and I think we got convinced that Grand Rapids is part of the range even though I didn't go up in Grand I grew up on the center of the range in King Minnesota which was a little chuckle to everybody but anyway I think it's a good uh good thing that they came here this is the first time they came to nor Eastern Minnesota they've been asked a number of times and uh for whatever reason just never clicked um Christina Boling from uh Leech Lake reservation from itas county is part of that group uh surprising to me being in itaska County she's never seen a mine before uh she was impressed with the operation and um again I think there's a lot of preconceived notions that mining is bad but again from my set of lenses and listening to them speak they were really impressed on how clean the operation is uh in relation to water and a and Landing that so I think that was a good win all the way around just a a couple of things M I want to mention um you know we've been talking about school safety and stuff and one of the bus drivers brought this up to me not sure how Transportation fits into that and I'm not sure if Transportation has been at the table at all but I just bring that to you maybe it's something when you have that discussion if they are great if not maybe it's something you want to fold into at some point in time with it on that and then the other thing I want to mention I know Melissa I think brought it up to you in uh Carol about the new grpc fee structure that they're looking at proposing here had a short discussion with Tom pigle today I think it's really impared to that uh Car Matt both you sit on with somebody from the Public Utilities Commission could have a pretty big impact on our budget and um 2025 is implementation and you think about our budgeting right it could impact the budget that were currently in possibly going into the 25 26 budget but I think it's important that get an understanding on what it is that it might cost us based on our utilization and it is by how many meters you have so um any of our buildings within do and again not knowing that data electricity usage is private data so it's something you'd have to put a request in get and they can do run some numbers for it so again I put in a Schoolboard hat on and listening to this and not knowing the mechanics of it Liss and I talked that last week about it and reach had some of the shared questions they said it reach out so but again I think it's something that needs to be at least looked into so so I am U my report I would like to mention Big Fork advisory committee we had a guest speaker up there to speak to the group about project learning and it was really an interesting option that could possibly work for a school like big fork and that committee is going to continue to examine that possibility d uh yeah I had an opportunity uh Schoolboard for fors for potential school board members uh have been happening uh ictv has one that's been pre-recorded uh most of the potential school board members uh attended and was very informative uh I had the opportunity to sit with uh Matt and Melissa and talk policy that was more fun than you can imagine don't know what you guys from uh as as Matt indicated it's been months in the making and is a pretty thoroughly vetted uh process at this point uh endowment committee met uh the endowment committee ISC 318 endowment committee uh awarded just over $57,000 and it's spread uh to all the schools um Big Fork ALC High School elementaries uh across the uh Forum there was uh I believe 1.3 requested so we had to turn down uh a number uh of requests but we were able to some of those requests we were able to look for other Alternatives where they didn't need to get the money uh they were requesting for example risers uh for the school and uh there are risers hiding out uh in the uh uh in the high school and so if we can uh make that happen those requests also can be filled uh and the boys and girls club uh met and uh we're challenged right now uh for uh employees we really need some more leadership uh coming into the Boys and Girls Club the clubs have been uh consolidated and uh the greenway students uh are coming to Grand Rapids uh so Grand Rapids is the only boys and girls club site right now uh but we are short of staff and we still have uh major facility issues that we're working on uh the uh Boys and Girls Club is a guest uh of the uh the middle school at this point uh but that's not a long-term solution for them so we need to be looking at that nothing um yeah I asked meeting uh nothing super surprising there talking a lot about launching the early Edge which of course used to be known as invest early um that's all new uh career Pathways um hats off to Scott patro who finally pass uh was able to partner with Minnesota North to gain um certifications for those in the healthcare field for um what used to be known as an alpan but is is no longer that acronym but um they will be able to to get that through the healthc care pathway um so that that's coming and the CB Pathways which we have eight um there's we're looking for businesses to partner and kind of expand some of those areas um and automotives and welding and those kinds of things are being successful uh Minnesota north now has a mobile Ling unit and so there's some opportunity there for us to tap into some of that um there's no uh lack of opportunity I don't think and then of course there is the whole side where Chris he was here earlier um he keeps his eye on for cyber security and those kinds of things which keeps us safe which is a big issue um with all the districts we have in IAS as there's so many and they're all unique and different um just a hats off to the r um as someone who is privy to a lot of people coming in this community all the time uh the Arts is a driver for people to come stay and be employed here um along with the schools and they are always impressed with the fact that it's attached and connected and and um they see that so just a hats off there in uh Mr ver talked about it the utility franchise fee so the City of Grand Roberts has proposed a franchise Fe some of you may have heard it as a stre fee um they're kind of intive but so utilities have the RightWay use the RightWay to lay fiber pipes whatever and the the legislature has given government cities the opportunity to charge a fee for because it's their responsibility to maintain that and so that comes through utility companies and is not a tax it is a fee so it does apply to everyone nonprofit residents for profit so it does have an impact and I would just ask people to be informed about that we the chamber does have a lot of information on our site and our newsletters I know the Herold did some work on it the city has a wonderful website too uh you can link right on there and it'll talk about it but but folks should at least be aware and know that that 2.5% uh fee is set to start in 2025 and the city of Grand Rapids has a meeting on it on one day so and because that's connected to the school that's where I think this is just be informed and uh Matt wegworth who is the uh City engineering director of PC he is on it and if anybody wants an estimate on what they would pay um they have to disclose those the cost to him he can't get those but he'd be happy to uh take any questions or calls so just for folks to be informed yeah that's oh and Minnesota Mining has their conference this week their annual meeting is Wednesday so when you talk about mining um everybody is an environmentalist nobody wants to live back in the 70s everybody cares R and we want clean water and we want uh healthy forests and we still want to be able to work and live here so that's just my thought Mr chair I forgot to mention one other thing I think you're all aware that the newsletter came out Matt I gotta say wonderful job just a wonderful job I was at church yesterday and there was a little group of us talking and was brought up and um they like the new format and they like the content inside of it it was very easy to read and follow and very informative and the thing that's resonated with me is balancing budget for the last three years there's that reception out there that we're not balanced um and I thought that person got it and there were four others around when he commented on that he said it was very easy to follow and read but impressed on the FR so hats off to staff and you for a good job I know you talked to us at a workshop about it but I didn't realize how it was going to be really impressive thank you next item on the agenda superintendent's report superintendent uh that was one of the things I was going to just touch on and again um I mentioned before Casey mentioned earlier about Staffing reductions and you know that really was a labor of multiple people contributing or maybe previously it was one person running point and Gathering um there were a lot of people that had a hand in making that happen so um just uh proud of the work there something we got to make sure and hit on in our next Edition is also uh our the great work that our staff are doing right down the hall here in our area Learning Center great work our staff are doing at IC itask and education center and also at Quest we didn't highlight those in that Edition so we'll have to make sure and hit that in the next time but I want to make sure and recognize that too we do kick off the road show tomorrow um with the city of casset again we're going to be out there just talking about the school district um making sure people have a chance to hear who we are what we do and ask questions so that'll be the first one um and have many of those scheduled coming up uh a couple updates on Big Fork and then my voice is about to be done here uh we did hear back on the first round of funding on solar project so and Big Fork so we're kind of invited to move to that second stage next stage is um the development and issuing an RFP so um we're there and so that's kind of excited to see that move forward and then second piece um the last Cog in the project up in Big Fork is the storage uh for the edge that went from uh a uh kind of the renovation of a room and punching holes and walls to realizing that having a shed built would be cheaper it'll work better and it's turned into an opportunity for our students to be involved in the build um our Career Tech Teacher there St Austin dorf just grabbed it by the horns and so the kids there were uh they surveyed the place they helped I mean I saw kids on a a road grader and packing machine and porn concrete I mean they are getting real life building experience and um so it's not only a good fit for the edge it's not only economical for the funding that's paying for it but those students are you know 20 years from now are going to be able to drive by and go out help build that and so that's a really good project and and it's a lot of extra for stew and so um I appreciate that in taking that on and that's going to be a great project there so good stuff that's all Mr chair okay reminder upcoming Schoolboard committee and meeting dates are posted on each agenda Schoolboard meeting agendas can be found at the district website and on designated posting site at the ISD GRE head Services Center is there any other business to come before the board Julie has anyone signed up for public input I not meeting [Music] journ for