##VIDEO ID:ZRCmug3vLnE## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e school's board of education for attendance purposes we'll go around and say our name and your role make sure you speak loudly and clearly for the microphones Kim Baker chair Michael Balman interim superintendent Brenda alch administrative Services Carly Anderson board of education Terry Lynn Board of Education Michelle Humphrey executive director student services Judy kellerer Board of Education Emily McDonald assistant superintendent build home doing business services thank you very much I appreciate that oh so we'll go ahead and get started with our agenda we don't have a lot of topics on the agenda tonight but some of them do require quite a bit of discussion or at least information for the board so everyone should have three booklets in front of you um bill will tell us where to start on that and we'll go ahead and get started with the fiscal year 24 audit report yeah we've been spending a lot of time putting this together the last month or so I want to in introduce my staff again they here tonight I don't know if everybody's met um Jack Baker he's our new controller m and then Jill family she's been here for many years actually she's our for how young she is she's really our and then we have Jackie Dak she's new with us over the last about six months seven months whatever it is so thank you for coming and thank you for the work that you've done tonight from Bergen KTV we have Nancy um I always kill your last name so I'm not going to try to kill it it's schulenberg schenberg y so so there are our auditing firm and I'll have her go through the information that we have for you this evening and then here's thank you clicker all right well thank you um for giving me some time to go over the results of our audit you do have three booklets in front of you but I pulled the highlights into our PowerPoint we can find Pages if the numbers get too small on the screen oh I think I went the wrong way there we go so so to start out I want to talk about some of the letters that we issue as part of the audit and the most important is going to be the independent Auditor's report and it is three plus pages long and you can find it in its entirety in the very front of the financial statements um but very high level it is an indication um that uh discusses responsibilities um all the standards that we use uh what is the district responsible for what are we responsible for what levels of assurance are we providing and the most important paragraph is going to be the second paragraph of that letter and that is our opinion paragraph and what we're issuing is an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion the best that we as Auditors can offer and it basically states that everything is fairly stated based on the results of the work that we completed so that's where you want to be and then we have some other Communications so because you are a school district in the state of Minnesota we as Auditors are required to follow government auditing standards so they require us to look closer at laws and regulations compliance with those things and also internal control and based on our work there this year we did have one internal control finding there was a material AIT adjustment in the Food Service fund um you all know that the state changed the way things are handled so all meals are paid by the state of Minnesota so new this year there is a receivable at year end and that wasn't picked up until we came to do the audit but we did adjust it and at the end of day that statement is fairly stated no instances of non-compliance related to those standards that we noted and then we have our report in accordance with uniform guidance and this is related to the federal funds that you receive if you are over 750,000 which you are well over that uh we are required to do a risk analysis of all the programs and taste test the larger programs on a rotating basis uh so we looked at Child Nutrition this year and based on that we're issuing an unmodified opinion on compliance and we also had no internal control findings as it relates to that that compliance so clean Federal report so that is always good news and then our last official letter relates to Minnesota legal compliance the office of the state auditor of Minnesota has very specific statutes as they relate to accounting matters that they ask us to test and look at as part of our procedures and related to that we also had no findings that we noted so really just the one finding related to Food Service one second yes uh just for attendance purposes uh director Brian Thompson has walked in thank you sure can I ask a question yes so when you're talking about evaluating something like nutrition or you said Child Nutrition how can you just give an example of how you would evaluate that sure so U the uniform guidance is very clear and they issue a compliance supplement that's hundreds of pages long and it includes each program that is common so for Child Nutrition there are 14 common compliance requirements but they don't apply to all programs so we test the ones that apply to Child Nutrition so specifically look at activities allowed are appropriate things happening in the Child Nutrition program we look at the um separation of the fund so it's fund two is that all seem appropriate we test eligibility of participants um because there are some that are receiving free and reduced on a federal level in addition to the state amounts that come in and then we also have some special tests so we look at um is the appropriate amount being charged based on the fund balance in the fund is um non-public being included in the process if they choose to be things like that so there are a lot of different things that we look at um which are different for each program so you're looking at compliance with let's say standards as well as amount of spending as appropriate we look at the amount of spending with the financial statement AIT we look at compliance with the financial with the um Federal audit so there it's two different things um but we do look at things like does the district compare budget to actual are things approved appropriately those those types of things yeah and the internal control that surrounds that compliance as well so what processes and procedures are in place to make sure that the district is in compliance okay thank you yeah and everything looked very good in that area and then we have a separate um document that is titled the communication letter and there are several pieces or sections to that letter uh we have required communication that are things that our standards say that we put in writing to the governing board of the district it would be our tool if we had any difficulties anything significant that we uncovered so you'll find the material audit adjustment in there talks about the um risks that we look at as part of the audit and if we had any disagreements that would all be part of that nothing Strays from our standard language in that area and um clean bill of health if you will then we have financial analysis which I will cover tonight and then in the back there's a legislative update from the latest session and also emerging issues which relate to new gasby standards because gasby is just busy so there are three more that are included in that this year that will be implemented in the coming years all right so moving to the financial information and if you want to follow along in your communication letter probably starts on about page nine okay it's a little bit easier to see the numbers [Applause] there all right so we have several slides to take a look at the components of the calculation of general education Aid this is the district's largest funding source so it's important to understand what's going into that number so starting with the formula allowance if you look at the chart here we go back 10 years and then we look forward uh to next year as well 2024 you did receive uh 4% which is the highest in all of the years that we're presenting here and we're expecting back down to 2% based on the last session for 2025 so a little bit of a jump up for 2024 and then the other half of that calculation is going to be your student counts so we start uh with a chart on your residence and you can see an overall increasing Trend in your resident students up about 1.1% for 2024 and if we look at the five years up about 6.4% or 733 students so definitely growing in the resident area and you can see that highlighted even better on um the graph so we do charts and graphs people see things differently uh so this separates by grade level so if you look at 2024 you can see increases in both your secondary and your Elementary categories and a decrease in your kindergarten which you have seen for each of the last two years in that kindergarten level but other categories um going up and overall increasing I have a question I think it's for Bill are we still getting less kindergarteners and we graduating seniors uh yes but we have to remember when when we get to the um n9th grade we have students that come in that are in bral schools so the number goes up so it's very natural for our secondaries have higher class sizes than our elementaries okay yeah because we know we have 900 here that you know that our secondaries are in the 980s 990s okay thank you non-public students are not included in that Resident number they're just not counted until they are attending yeah a little bit different than people going elsewhere to other public districts um so then we take those residents wait them by grade level and then also factor in open enrollment and that's what you see here so the waiting factors are on the top and then the activity below that so you can see that increase in your residence and then you have um since we look at this chart have been have experiencing a loss to open enrollment and that loss has increased um last year it was a net loss of 169 this year was a net loss of 228 but because of the strong growth in your residence your overall student served the number that you are paid general education Adon did increase about 6% for the year up about 78 weighted adms do that oh go ahead B no go ahead I'm just look I was just G ask ises that decrease have to do with us limiting open enrollment or is it just a random is just is this people choosing to go somewhere else and come here do we have do we have a lot of people from the Y new market area that go to new pra and then come transfer over to uh lville I guess we've never we haven't really looked hard at you know if the students in the secondary if they come from theal New Market area where they weren't actually an element but we do know there's um several students that go they open roll out of our district in the new market area I think we're just our element okay I think if you look at the uh the second line there the the WM gain that's been very consistent for the last four years you know right around that 835 number so um the number of students coming in is consistent at least years as students graduate there is a replacement for them but it's not a an increase the number is pretty stagnant is that how how I should read this um the WM gain is the students coming open and rolling into Lakeville yeah yeah the residents increasing overall yep yeah yeah and larger increases in the secondary elementary categories than the the kindergarten and like Bill said that's probably because you're getting those non-public schools when those stop at 8th grade or sixth grade or whatever it might be they're attending public school after that but but on average like we're not having significant increases of the gain correct is that how I'm reading this because it's it's flat so those that graduate those that come in like however many that are open enrolling outside of our district hasn't increased over the past four years it has it went from 793 students back in 2020 to 1064 that's the loss right those are the kids that are that left our district but the ones that have come into our district from other districts has stayed flat yes got it okay so so we've got community members outside of our district saying we like Lakeville but we haven't um maybe I'm not saying we didn't do enough promotion but uh that number has stayed flat and so no one else is jumping in to say hey whatever marketing campaign is what I'm trying to say no one's saying that that number has an increase outside of our residents just growing but we are having a significant loss of students leaving our districts over the past four years we've lost almost 250 students uh since 2020 right and then if we're looking at the $7,100 per pupil that we get that's almost 22 $2 million of we're student you know Revenue loss is is is how I'm understanding this okay with that Revenue there would be additional costs but yeah yep yep high level that's what's happening that's not property taxes that's just from the state so with property taxes with an assumption how much is it per student for property taxes it like 300 bucks or remember as students if students leave though we don't lose property taxes the property taxes go against got it properties in our district got it so got it I think I think maybe part of this correct me if I'm wrong is the fact that we have limited enrollment big time because we didn't have the elementary school open that's what Carly was asking pardon that's what Carly asked okay yep yeah do we even have capacity to fit 250 more students right now well that's where some of the schools are limit like Sentry or other they're middle school limited down some of them we limit it down to 1% I think grow can account for some of that but I don't think it would account for all of it but you know just like with any business it's important to know as as a school where your students are going and why they're doing it because then that also shapes like what we're doing as a district and how we are providing services for the for our students I think it's important does this include um this does include like online on the Online Academy so that's somewhere where we have I think there have been others that have shut down or closed and so that's an opportunity like Brian is saying to sell something that would be that we can scale and have more Revenue come in yeah feed that to our local monite classes interesting okay all right let's dig into actual numbers so this chart shows you sources of revenue here like your student counts your revenues have been increasing steadily since 2020 up about 133% for 2024 a lot going on um in the categories so on the top the skinniest portion there is your federal sources decreased about a million and a half just relating to the falling off of those covid funds you can see that 2021 was your largest Federal year um scaling back back uh the subsequent years the next line skinny line down there is going to be the other category that was up about 1.2 million primarily biggest driver is the change in investment earnings so a different Market condition at the end of this year versus the end of last year right below that the largest portion 68% of your total revenues are your state sources that's where the biggest increas is so 15.4 million overall in that category part of that is your increase in students part of that is the 4% and a big part of that is um compensatory and also special ed special ed cross subsidy this year for districts huge increase so nice to see that coming back so that you're actually getting the money to serve the students who need it most and then the bottom line is your local property taxes that was up about 7 and A5 million with an increase in the levy and most of that came in the referendum area we're still like 8 million short on um special education is that right at least probably so I'm not sure on the number yeah I say it's pretty close to 8 million we can get we can get an exact number for I like the bump but just to be clear that we still are not well funded for our special education well it's only for a year right so so here's a number that I think we we all need to like ask ourselves like so I'm look so looking at pre the previous page 11 sure right in 2020 we had 12,470 students in 2024 were projected about 13,000 right no I'm sorry that's dollar a month I've got the wrong is that membership 12,470 and then 13,39 so we're looking at a 500 student increase okay go to page 12 I'm looking at how much we spent in 2020 $147 million and in 2024 $199 million so we are spending I'm just looking at the I don't have the answer I'm just saying that's a $50 million increase in that foure span and I look at the number of kids that we're supporting right I it's revenues so it's a little bit different than the expenditures that's how much more you're bringing in an expenditures did increase sizeably too costs go up salaries are up but we only added 500 students in the course of four years and then we all then we added $50 million to our budget in the course of four years just that's my observation okay all right um next slide takes a look at to actual so when we look at this you had anticipated about 2.4 million in an increase in fund balance when you did your original budget well over a year ago uh modified that a little bit increasing that to 2.8 million I'll perform that budget and increase the fund balance by 15.2 million so a nice Improvement for this year when we look at the variance column on the far right uh and take a look at your total revenues those were over budget by 343,000 that's a 2% variance so really good budgeting for uh what you had anticipated to come in and when you look at the variances other local and County that's the investment earnings that are driving that variance it's the biggest reason for that it's hard to predict where that's going to be especially after last year and where we landed um so that's something that we're seeing across the board and then your state sources under budget uh related to enrollment being less than what you had anticipated in the budget but again very close overall expenditures about 9.9 under budget about 5 0% a lot of that has to do with the way the settlement happened so um light on the front end backloaded so those increases are coming later not affecting 2024 so that's what you see in like the regular instruction instructional support some of that um actually vocational instruction and special education the instructional Support Services was some curriculum that wasn't purchased that was postponed and you'll see some assigned fund balances for those amounts when we get to the fund balance chart and then um finally your sites and buildings um was under about 3.2 million really mild winter so less snow plowing less utilities less staff time that you would have had overtime um those things driving that variance there so overall uh 12.4% 12.4 million positive variant to the budget so that is good to see especially after the last couple of years it's nice to to have the Surplus oh I'm sorry can we go back I'm sorry yeah yes so our fund balance is up is that how I'm this so we were projecting I believe roughly $5 million at our last uh Finance meeting I think for this this the previous cycle no in June in June we were projecting $5 million right I think it wasun I think a little under five but I mean we'll get to the actual fun Bal okay cuz this is not the fund balance the 15 million this is the change this is the change okay yeah in a couple of slides we have the whole activity of the general fund kind of pulling everything together that we're talking about so I think that will help okay tell the whole story so the two P charts that you see on this slide are your expenditures for 2023 versus 2024 and expenditures actually decreased for the year down about 2.4% or 4.6 million and a lot of that has to do with again those eser funds so you had them last year you spent them last year and your biggest difference comes in instructional support services so were Capital items purchased there last year driving that to 13.1% those didn't repeat in 2024 so that that is down to 99.2% your your instructional categories increase from 60% of your total expenditures to 63% so that's the amount that you're spending on direct student instruction regular special ed vocational Ed all three of those and then we have a a line graph that shows you uh operations and cash balances for the last 5 years and I think a little bit of a whirlwind here and you can see the low point that you experienced in 2023 with a nice Rebound in 2024 so ending the year at 16.3 in fund balance and 30 million in cash and the difference between the cash and the fund balance is primarily payables for salaries unassigned combined yes that's the total that's the total fund Bell yes everything not the out sign correct got it includes it it includes it y so I think if you look um the following chart is going to be high level general fund operations so we talked through the details of the revenues the expenditures there was some other financing sources related to some new debt issued and some sales of capital assets so your fund balance in total went from just over a million dollar to 16 million and then the bottom portion of this chart outlines all the components of that fund balance so you have nonspendable that's items like prepaids cash is already spent it will be used in future years so it's segregated not available and then you have all of the restrictions from the state of Minnesota so um those did increase sizeably this year some of it is new funding some of it is just being able to um have those balances at the end of the year just based on the position of the district so some increases there and then you have that assigned number so you haven't had an assigned uh amount before that's internally set aside and two big pieces to that so first of all curriculum so we saw the under budget so that has been set aside in a separate fund balance and then also contract settlements it makes up the rest of it so you know you're going to spend those things you've already committed to that so we've set it aside and then the unassigned number nice increase from 1.2 million to 6.9 that's 3.7% of your expenditures based on 2024 your fund balance policy outlines a minimum of five so you're headed in the right direction but not quite there so a good picture um but still some work to do so that 3.6 is you said curriculum and then still contract settlement type things yes okay yes because the contract was backloaded so planning for that y after the end of right exactly so planning for the future and knowing that money is already committed spent yeah that's good news yeah and then we have one more chart that takes a look at the fund balance in a little bit different way and this gives us the ability to compare Lakeville to other districts across the state of Minnesota so it's unrestricted fund balance as a percentage of unrestricted expenditures so it's not the 3.7% because we've included the assigned and the nonspendable in this category and um we've also factored out all of those restricted expenditures so anything that was spent for long-term facility maintenance operating Capital any of those factored out so so you're at 6.9 again up nicely from the 1.1 which is getting very close to zero um but still sitting below what we did was take the the 20 largest metro districts to compare to but still below that significantly below yes I mean not just below I mean you're looking at 6.9 comparable to like 177% yeah and it's hard CU we don't know what's all in that number because there could be big assignments that you know districts have for things they they could be prepaying for things it could be if you're averaging the 20 largest metro school districts I think it would take that into account you know what I mean like if there are some that are leveraging that yeah but I mean you've got 19 other school districts that might not be doing that so I think it just shows how far we need to go still great did did this um 6.9 number does that account for our um student enrollment money we have to give back or whatever wasn't it a large trunk of money that has to go back like 2 million great yes that money is sitting in in this fund Bal yes but that's a sign yeah wait that's part of that's part of the 3.6 or part of the 6. 6.9 so it's really not 6.9 is that right the 6.9 includes our our unrestricted fund balance we we just talked about it also is the money we've set aside for the the backend loaded contract and all the curriculum that we didn't buy in the previous year that we will be paying into set so it includes all that plus all our fee okay but it doesn't include I think what you're asking is money that we have to give back to the state correct because the L and a year another year y have to 26 right yeah you see that we had that 800 and some we had that negative um adjustment and that's because our enrollments slowed considerably so when we get remember when we're doing our Levy it's always two years ahead of when we actually use the funds so when we we put together our our enrollment projections we assume those enrollment projections are going to be correct so we say yeah we're going to have this many students in 26 right but that didn't happen so yes so there's a negative Levy adjustment in the new um calendar year of 25 where those where those funds will in all in reality is going back to the taxpayer because we aren't going to have that many right so yeah so when we get to 26 we're not going to see an increase in our in our Levy it just be flat we we look at our operating LS it's not a big decrease it's just not good we're not going to see an increase that the increase we otherwise would expect okay yeah the Lev is a tough one because it it crosses three years and you have to set it so far ahead yeah and you remember in the last couple years we we saw 2 and 1 half and 3% increases in our mhm that's your in okay well and depending on what happens with the economy and building and things like that the we might see a big boost in student enrollment all right any questions on the general fund all right good no that it's uh a lot favorable than what we were originally Planning by a couple million dollars I think which is great because I think we're anticipating five we're sitting at about seven uh so a good $5 million jump from like you said one million 1.2 uh but I think this also is just a just Testament to to to we need a fund balance to have enough when you have those kind of variabilities that come into play and so like if we had 1.1 million dollar in 2022 like we would be in a hot mess and and so getting it close to what the 20 largest metro school districts are at about 17.5% that would be ideal and so we've got a ways to get there but but again without sacrificing programs and services that kids ought to be getting that previous kids got and so how do we balance that out I have a question about this comparison with the larger um districts it I thought that it's usually the smaller districts that have a much higher Surplus because they're dealing with much smaller budgets and things like that and so they need a larger percentage just to maintain and if there was an emergency they they need that fund balance and um really small districts have about 50% and their policies might be 30 some per. so I'm just thinking back to a few years ago when we had we were at 12% people on the board can speak to that and there was kind of a purposeful spend down and so does that just have to do I guess I'm wondering is it not a good thing to really be having that should we really be shooting for 17 18% or is it more re is a should I think it all has to do with your policy and your comfort level and the things that go on in your District so the the age of your buildings can be a factor that you know all the things that are unique to Lakeville are things that you should be considering so we put this in here but I hesitate to say you should or shouldn't be these numbers I wanted to highlight that so right now your policy is 5% you're not quite there yet for that unassigned number yes for unassigned um we should be at 10 million at least I have a related question question regarding that I have to ask you um Moody what do they like to see for a fund balance I don't think Moody necessarily looks at the Fun B they look for falling fund balance well that's what they saw last time was a falling fun balance but what they what they really look at is your tax capacity of your particular district is it growing is it shrinking okay so when we see a lot of building a lot of growing that's a very positive thing because they know we'll be leing more dollars in futes but we had a increase at one point because of the fund balance did we yeah we went down one tick the last time we bought so this will help maybe yes absolutely so Carly for you like when we were at this 10.7 and 10% we' had pretty nice I mean that was the comfortable level of fund balance for us to be at when we were here and so I don't know that we have to strive for 16 and 18% 17 and 18% but for our district in where we've been um if I'm not mistaken when we were at the 10.7 and the 10% Mark that was a pretty comfortable level for us to be at yes yes it was yeah okay that would be interpreted different there I wouldn't show up as 10 it would be a larger number in this particular graph right because this is a different number the 6.9 is a different number than the 3.2 yes it is because this is also including money that we've set aside m right so it includes that okay so that 10% would have been really higher under this cuz that would well you're unassigned would have been lower our unassigned was lower but but this just looking at this chart this is the Comfort level of where we could be at from a district perspective and looking at it in this um we don't need to be where these blue bars are and we get back to this 10.7 10% Mark here that was a good unassigned Comfort level for us last one there was a lot of covid funding too right but there was costs associated 2021 2021 2020 would have been impact1 yeah that's when we started getting it but that was at the end of 21 I don't remember 2021 year that we received I think it was over $6 million in Federal and that's what really helped us keep that fund out up up for 2021 but not for 2020 so 22 you see that's when we didn't have the fun the federal funding any longer and that's where you saw that fall spending our programming remain the same yeah yeah so so Bill I'm I'm looking at then for your budgeting for 2024 25 right I think we were projecting an extra $1.5 million increase into the fund ballpark so we could Target roughly maybe close to 85 million by the end of next year uh you know at the end of the school year or so but on page 15 I am looking at the instructional Support Services decreased by 7.9 million I know uh 15 uh so we did that that $7 million budget cut and I'm just wondering like there there isn't going to be another instance where we are going to gain almost $5 million in savings every year I just want to make sure that we level set like this is after we're done here too I have I have a couple things I want to show you exactly where we were under budget so you have a better idea where that was and what was temporary what maybe was got what was for a minute and so and and so I think it's it's good for us to maybe just talk through because there were a lot of things that we did cut and is there opportunity to bring some of that stuff back or not and again that's probably for another conversation uh but I do think that it' be good to know you know um what what that what that is made up of well I guess just as a general comment you know we don't have new funding that has come across correct to replace the cuts we put in place back in 22 okay right so what we actually see some new funding before we can bring those pieces back or we have to change totally what we're programming now for our where we would find room to move it to a different SP okay cuz we may not have another good winter like last year I mean it could be we hope so but be nice could be we can all wish that a new normal but that's a million dollars right there in savings so well is that sorry is that in the um general fund or does that come from like M that doesn't it's in the general fund yeah all of the maintenance costs and stuff are in the general fund that everything is there except for very specific Food Service community service Debt Service and capital okay so I'm glad to see that we're at we're close to seven that that gives us some breathing room where yes something hits a fan we've got some money so yeah it's a little bit better picture than the last two years so yeah very nice all right then the last two slides I have take a look at your special Revenue funds first of all food service so very significant increase in your revenues with the money that came from the state of Minnesota you did have um all those free meals plus you had increased participation uh along with that expenditures were also up related to food for in inflationary increases and also the increased meals um and then also some Capital items there you did increase your fund balance by 1.3 million and are sitting at 4 a half at the end of the year which is more than 50% of your expenditures so so what does that mean we have to spend well it it it is a concern because if you remember not too many years ago there was a limit on our student nutrition fund balance of 3 months of purchases right during Co they allowed that to change and went to six months okay we're still within the six months but there's talk at the state that want to bring that back down the three mon so it is we are concern that we might lose some of this money because we can only spend it on certain things I can't take any of this money putting the general fund to fix anything that we okay we are being very very look very hard at any type of Maintenance items any type of equipment items that we need right now in f Serv to do that now to drop that fund balance down so we don't lose any of these funds can I just clarify though that one of the things that people were worried I guess we were worried about with the free meals from the state was that we weren't going to have as many people enrolled in the free and reduced lunch plan is that have we squashed that right now they have a um they have a they have they have situation where they were held harmless right so we still get the old numbers until that goes away but now there's talk again that that will go away in fiscal 26 so yeah then we're back to we need people to sign up for that are eligible for free and R so we get the fund yeah so we are concerned because there's no incentive to sign up for for especially in the elementary level there's no incentive to sign up for that that's not related to like activities either see high school is a little different heing the elementary incentive and that's where lot of our some of our some of our programming at the secondary level is subsidized by the free and lunch comp so if they want to be eligible to get a subsidy then they have to sign up so at the secondary level we do get a lot more families participating and asking for the paperwork to get it filled out not AV El so we did see a decrease we're just getting like I were're held harmless right now but if you look at the numbers yes all right and the 4.5 should be something that we spend on onetime expenditures or not recurring expenditures so absolutely I mean because only I mean Italian duckers can only go so long that's what we saying it's for equipment or repairs or something like that that's what he was saying but right now this number should be Clos closer to 2 and half million so there's quite a few funds here that we need to use Bill I know the elementary now has breakfast programs for everyone if they want it y That's all free also and then that's not reflected you have reflect in next year's oh no they all had free lunch and breakfast the past year yeah that's why we saw a lot more volume not free okay got it just wonder free to the students sir right yes not to the community at large right what free and reduced or free lunch free breakfast it's free to the students red exactly I just commenting on director Thompson's concern about what he said is free tax based right he is correct okay all right then the last fund is the community service fund um for the second year in a row excess revenues in this fund increase programming so revenues and expenditures up um down on the bottom are all the segregations of your fund balance and those are all positive with the exception of the overall general education but nice improvements in that balance as well so um taking that decrease you know down from under a million uh to 788 so Improvement there each of the last two years as well so hopefully that will continue and that will get out of the negative and all will be good good I guess just make comment in that too um if you look back back before the pandemic we did have years in in the community service where they were gaining two 00,000 in bounds right and now we're seeing the same thing it's coming right back yeah I think as programming is now back to normal and more people are participating that's kind of the trend that we're seeing there as well and that is everything I have uh unless someone wants to hear more about anything in more detail we're good okay well thank you the only question I have for you is just to make sure you know sometimes um people ask me questions like where did the money go and I try to provide an explanation based on what bill has told us but this helps assure our community that there is no improper spending not necessarily the case that we're um optimizing all of our spending but there's nothing Shady happening I guess is what I want to confirm yeah so we plan our audits um around risk so we look at internal control and we look at significant activity balances and those types of things and then we determine where the risk is and we formulate our OU procedures surrounding the risk we're not providing assurance that there isn't anything going on um we're we're giving reasonable Assurance it's a high level but it's not absolute so I can't sit here and say absolutely no there's not I can say that based on the procedures that we completed everything is fairly stated and we have the highest rating yes okay thank you that was a very clear presentation thank you oh you're welcome happy to be here to do this and uh my partner will be here for the next meeting so it won't be me again you won't have to listen to the same stuff which is always always good too bad a little different perspective on it from her um but yeah so before I go want to thank Bill the team uh OT went very well I think we're wrapped up we're so close to actually being ready to issue that act for which is a huge undertaking we have all the pieces so final reviews and we'll be ready to go thank you very much thank you thank you thank you than I'd like to just take five minutes before we leave the audit um talk just to to show you really where where were we under budget just so you can kind of see that it doesn't you know from the high level we talked about you didn't really see that thank you sorry my turn hang on yeah Emily is ready to go here so just just just to reiterate um in the negotiations process of with the teach2 the when we got done the contract was back and loaded so what we budgeted that we thought we were going to spend in 24 was only like like half what we thought we were going to spend and then it got pushed into the new year in 25 okay so um and then we have curriculum we plan to buy some curriculum actually quite a bit a curriculum that we didn't buy in 24 but we are going to buy it in 25 okay is that as in the math curriculum right well we so we have we've purchased math curriculum for 45 because if you recall our K3 are doing redact and our 4 five are doing math um and then we'll flip-flop it so so so we will have a significant purchase um I think what one of the things that has impacted our um curriculum purchasing is the implementation of the read act so we can't do a lot of other things when we're trying to do that um the other thing is as you know we have a very in-depth process around curriculum and sometimes that for a wide variety of reasons takes longer than we anticipate so when we do our curriculum budgets um we really are looking 3 to 5 years out and then we try to plot what we based on the state required curriculum review cycle where those purchases will be so we can plan both short-term and long term and then what happens sometimes is we have to push something into another year but we have accounted for it so we know that the dollars will be there when we need to make the purchase hey so Bill back to your first bullet point so the EML negotiations the money that we planned uh for the 24 cycle all right right uh gets carried over to 2025 right because because they had higher percentage for the second second year okay and so then we're really not saving any money it's just that that there'll be a decrease in expenditures uh Inc same amount in Revenue but next year is going to be higher in expenditures the year that we're in we have budgeted for it so the budget we presented does have the higher amount in it okay there's a no there's no surprise of coming in above budget for our um salaries in 25 see budget it twice or you so are we double dipping then cuz in the first I don't think I'm when we put the fiscal year 25 budget together yep that was after negotiations were done so in 25 we have the correct amounts in got it but in 24 we're way under because we spent less than we anticipated way back in June 23 oh then but if we knew we're going to spend less why don't we just carry that over and and budget less for 25 then well never mind so what I'm hearing is that we have more money yeah and we'll show you here in a second where that money is sitting ready ready to be used that's why I want to take a few minutes to talk about this the other thing that we really are seeing is open positions and especially when we get to our buildings and grounds you see an area where we're really under budget we are having trouble um keeping our custodial staff full um right today I'm short 10 custodial positions and it's very difficult we find a higher one and then someone else leaves and it's just this cycle it went all last year the other area is in our our technology department they went all year with several positions not filled so we have people working very hard to keep everything moving as we try to find new employees and it's same thing happening in our in our special ed Department Michelle can tell you all about that and do we have a reason I can help Okay substitutes if you remember the last couple years we talked about substitutes and it's always going over budget and we're many many people gone more than we anticipated well this year was the opposite we're way under budget in our test substitute so this was good very good news for us um and the weather now we talked about the weather you remember last Christmas Eve it was 45 and a rain like 2 Ines was crazy but we number one didn't have to plow hardly any snow we didn't have the guys coming in in overtime shoveling snow and we we didn't have heating cost that we usually have kind so and yeah but L salt we you know anyway many many things so the weather really affected our budget and we know it's a onetime thing but it definitely saved us money okay is it generally pretty consistent like usually it's pretty much the same okay yeah so just to give you some better ideas on what those numbers mean so in the in the EML contract it was a change of about 4 $4.2 million not spent in 24 but will be spent in 25 um our curriculum that's been um gone to a subse quent year is at $1.8 million now our open positions and technology is about 600 grand um this last year and our substitutes we're under budget by half million dollars um in our unused overtime $400,000 I mean these are these are big numbers that we're not going to see every year um but certainly helped us put us in a much um healthier financial position this past year so again the in the under open positions in the buildings those are custodial um utilities which mainly our electric cost yeah almost a million dollars under budget half million dollars in heating fuel and you see $300,000 there we didn't PA not so that's $10 million that were under budget so that's why you're seeing these big changes but I mean but it's a little bit misleading because we didn't save 10 million let me rephrase that we saved 10 million in the in the budget but 5 million is being transferred over to 20125 right so when we look at our total when you look at our fund balances you see that the assigned and that's something we haven't used for a while because we haven't had money to be assigned for something else so that four M that $3.6 million that's set aside for the funds now that we need to spend on EML it's the funds that we need to spell on on the curriculum so it's been set aside so it's not something that's going to hit our 25 budget it's been set aside to take care of that isn't it 5 million I'm confused didn't you say 4.2 and yeah so if you go back one part of part of that though we have to spend out of the regular budget okay we just set aside a portion that was bigger than it would have been otherwise okay so if you go back to the previous Slide the onetime expenditures that don't have to carry over for extra cost it's going to be everything from technology and down because open positions we save that so we don't have to like pay them back the only thing that that will carry over are the top two correct correct okay so that's million is and that's why you see here six that's when you see here there's 3.6 million set aside for those purposes but then what do we make up the other 1.2 then or 1.4 back to what currently we're saying it's six because they should come out of uned correct there there's a few things there that were in the restricted area so that's why you're seeing a you see our restricted area to went up by over 4.6 million okay got so so it will be so the two expenditures from that we had last year in savings isn't going to come out of our unassigned balance correct okay so we'll still be Target we ended at 6.9 I still expect an increase in our fund balance going into next year y we've set this aside now yep but so when you built the 24 25 budget did you have that larger percentage increase they did yes and and and you weren't accounting the savings that carried over so I'm just wondering is this savings on top of the because you've already you've already allocated it when you projected it that is correct correct so if you go back to the previous page I saw $4.2 million in savings right and if you already allocated savings those are it's it's it's just deferred money not it's just moving it to the next year I I'm sorry but so my question was when you budgeted for the for this school year did you already maybe I'm not explaining that right in the New Year yes we' budget everything in the new year but we're expecting to buy down the assigned fund balance in the 25 year so the the 3.6 million that you're seeing there in the assignment that will be used for two purposes y number one is part of the bigger amount for EML contract and the other is the curriculum purchases of $1.8 million so about half of that is curriculum but half of it is a larger percentage for EML so let me let me reate let me res say because I this can you explain how you just talking about the EML contract for the two years how you put it into the 2024 year and then how you put it into the 2025 year and then what changed so how did you originally budget the the original the original budget way back in 23 before we finished our negotiations we remember we knew we were getting 4% um from the state of Minnesota we knew we were getting some more money for um special education so that budget that those two years are budgeted at a four and a 4% four and a four in 24 that percentage increase for the teachers was two and a quarter y not four y so we saved that well I say it we shifted that 1.33 into the next year because now the New Year if you remember the the percentage that went onto the Matrix is 4.75% okay yeah so the portion above the 4% yeah is set aside no I'm not tracking so bear with me one more time all right so for this school year right this is the second part of the so when you when you budgeted this school year you you you had a I'm making a number up you $10,000 in your checking account and 5,000 was going to go towards the teachers right so you allocated $5,000 towards that uh from the existing budget or from your from your Revenue my question is is that is that $5,000 from the current Revenue that you're coming in or you is that $5,000 a component of that from the previous year that you're bringing forward cuz I'm asking because is that previous year then extra savings on top of tracking it's not extra savings extra it's a onetime savings okay but we are going to spend it in 25 but did you already budget for it with money with that you were getting in 25 or were you you going or were you using the money that you saved in 24 still using remember the original 4% that's in the budget that's fine we can take this offline that's fine it's fine well there a question I recurring is this a question of is is it a recurring expenditure that's going to impact us differently in future years no the question is is the cost savings used to pay for the for the current school year of 2025 or did he did he use a different bucket or um of of money to pay for this school Year's expense but this it's a separate issue that's fine I'm not explaining it right so don't worry what happen I mean really the the just just in the teachers contract alone over the two years there it's budgeted for both years and if it's not all spent what's not spent in this year gets moved over and added on top of this year so so but you're talking about the previous year because they weren't getting paid that increase and then once we settled the agreement then then there was more money spent here but there's also more money in the revenue so the question is is is the expenses coming from a fresh set of remember remember that in fiscal year 25 the new money from the state of Minnesota is only 2% right okay but we're paying out an increase in the ml contract of 4.75% yes okay so we're going to spend more than we we getting than we get a new Revenue we are going to spend more that's why I set the money aside and aign we're going to use that money to fill that Gap in the revenue paid less that yes now so we got 4% this year but we paid less Les than the percentage because that's the way that contract negotiated so I have a question about when we get when we think about the cross subsidy for special education that are we're receiving that money now like I guess I'm wondering that was 6 million6 million tiny because there because we have less students and we thought it's actually a little under $6 million now but it's still you know it's a considerable new piece of revenue for the district which placees Rel fund your jet Ed fund if you budget cycle to cycle even though the cross subsidy doesn't cover the actual cost which we cover from the Gen Ed fund right correct is just less gened coverage than you would have otherwise had to do so we don't but we don't see a Hu like is that contributing to some of this increase or like it also feels like it's not as much of an increase as we should feel you remember that when you look at our budget at almost 200 million 6 million isn't a big number is MH um but when we look at the volume of our of our budgets that's actually a relatively small number MH okay the more we talk more I get confused I was just wonder double and you're not okay okay okay what we got the wrong way again sorry thanks Bill so I just um we talked about L fund balances with Nancy but here's here's all of them so I just want you can see the the changes the first four of course are the general fund we did see a you know $800,000 increase in our in our tuna nutrition we saw $300,000 increase in community ed which is terrific our building fund shows a decrease there of 2.2 um the only reason that is that way is we as we finish up the new building we spent some funds a little earlier than we anticipated finishing up that building so the funds are all there to pay for the building we spent that a little sooner than anticipated um Debt Service actually an little bit of an increase in that fund balance and I think it's important to see where we are with our internal service fund too um we had anticipated gaining about a million dollars in our in our health insurance account and we didn't quite get that much you'll see that um we went from 76 to 72 this the past year is the first year that we actually used a little of that fund balance to help subsidize the the premium amounts so you see that affected us a little bit but we're very very healthy fund balance when it comes to the health insurance and it's been a great change from where it was you four or five years ago when we started started with Self Insurance yeah I was really happy to see that yeah it's it's it's gone well yep so so I didn't want to create more confusion by so I don't know if I helped or not but you help this is this is kind where I'm good it he just wanted five more minutes is that what he told yeah five more minutes Bill time wake up wake up she's next she's not done yet well just so you see a graphical look at what's happened with that fun B so this is truly just our unassigned fund balance and we made a you know very nice stride to get back to where we need to be and when we look at the budgeting that's going on now you know I anticipate we will be at 5% when we get to next June 30th good what is 1% in there 1% is $2 million that's what you got to watch yep okay thank you for your time all right check when do we do when do we move do Moody again move to what when do we do Moody again we'll do that next time we borrow money okay so yeah soon whenever that is at this point there's nothing that's a loaded question that was really for the there's nothing on the docet for borrowing any money right always interested in moodies are you ready I passing it off Dr McDonald ready all right I'm going to I'm going to drive as soon as they give me permission to do so on the big screen um I'll start by saying that um I'm here tonight to share with you our annual world's best Workforce report um for those of you that have been here for all of you have been here for this report at least one time um if you recall the world's best Workforce was 2013 legislation um whereby the state required districts to create a world's best Workforce plan that included goals in five areas those areas were were basically kindergarten preparation um ensuring that all students are reading well by third grade um that we are eliminating um achievement disparities um among groups um that our students were career and college ready and our graduation rate the intent of the state in developing the world's best Workforce legislation was to have districts collect data basically on sort of the entrance to the system and the exit to the system so how do we take these dipstick measures across a students experience in the system to determine how we're doing and how we're meeting our goals you a couple of a couple of years ago then um the state then required as part of the world's best Workforce report that we also report on our goals related to the achievement and integration plan um part of that was to for districts to think a little differently around alignment of these two things um so tonight what I'm going to share with you is um I will share with you some uh disaggregated data specifically um reading math and science achievement data from the MCA as well as our graduation percentage um also disaggregated um by student groups so that will be the part of the achievement and integration plan that we'll talk about tonight um the other two areas that achievement and integration requires um is around integration both um racially and socioeconomically um and then around Recruitment and Retention of Staff of color so I can share a little a little bit um I don't have the data in the presentation but I can share a little bit with you tonight um at the end of the presentation on where we are in terms of that last achievement and integration goal um which is around our staff um particularly our teaching staff so one question related to that so last year we had a discussion um as part of the achievement and integration plan where we were replacing Avid would are there is there anything about how that process is going or do these numbers show like what we're doing now you know what we did there was we made a shift to our career in college Specialists we started with one um we found out that there was a lot more work than one person could do at two high schools um so we did end up hiring a second person um and we can certainly provide you a more detailed report on their work and what they're doing um as we get along throughout the year um we had some changes in Staffing in that position we obviously had some changes u in Staffing and our Equity uh Department as well um and so as a result we're really taking this opportunity to make sure that that plan and those actions are really aligned to best practices and that we are maximizing those dollars um to support the students that are they're intended to support so so definitely let's get that on the agenda that's not part of the presentation tonight but they they have been doing some really incredible work um of helping our students access postsecondary opportunities which really was the point of of avid so thank you um yep thank you for that question um the other thing that I'll add is that uh we we're throwing a little bit of a curveball coming out of this last legislative session where they have now eliminated the world's best Workforce language they have changed it starting next year you will get the annual report on comprehensive assessment and Civic Readiness so we have made a shift well we're making a shift moving forward I'm presenting on last year so that will be like next year's presentation um the state also did two things in the process of adopting that new title the expectation around the plan is they have removed the read well by third grade goal they actually had done that that previously because they've attached that now to the read act so that will be assessed through our readwell by third grade plan we have a whole separate plan just for that um and so that's that has come off of the world's best Workforce plan um and then starting for this year going into next year then they have added a goal um we have to have a goal around lifelong learning so we are in discussions right now as a team um looking at what are the internal metrics that they have that would really demonstrate that we're making movement and supporting students to be lifelong Learners we have lots of ideas and we have things that we're already measuring internally um that could be used for that but um those goals have to be set by November 30th for for you know what will be reported on next year so world's best Workforce making a shift but tonight you're going to get world's best Workforce and you're going to get a little achievement and integration as well so I'm going to um I'm going to start by driving um if you have a device and you would like to follow along um what we have done is we have created a um public facing web page for our world's best Workforce information so that anyone can access it um and then we will continue as we are making refinements to the achievement and integration plan up updating our goals for next year that will all be housed on that on that web page as well are you going to put it up there I'm going to put it right up there okay perfect I'm it are you going to talk about kind of the um complexities of examining the MCA test results in terms of students opting out and what that looks like I'll touch on that a little bit I mean it's a re oh guess you don't really want to see my email there um it is a it there are some complexities there that um certainly I can talk about when we get to the our aligned achievement and integration and world's best Workforce goal is around the uh eliminating achievement disparities among groups so um we can talk about that when we get to goal well they changed it it used to be go three it's go two now so all right so if you are on our public uh website here um and you go over to the district Tab and then you go to strategic plan you will find under strategic plan world's best Workforce the local literacy plan is basically our readwell by third grade plan um uh that's not part of tonight's presentation um and then you can see the achievement integration plan if you click on this little arrow here here's where our dashboard is and again this is public facing so it's accessible to anybody that would like to um go go take a look what was the first part of that that you said where do you first it was uh go to District at the top upper left y menu bar yeah and then go to strategic plan okay then go to the little arrow next to world's best Workforce are you there Carly should I back up no I'll figure it out I think on the wait I think you're good are you on is yours red or blue blue it is I've got a green one this is where we really need our eight-year-olds in here wait you got it okay great all right so again we're reporting data from last year based on the goals that we set uh for world's best Workforce last year so our first goal is really around all are all children ready for school um what we have done over the course of a number of years we a collaboration between early childhood and our principles and our um uh Elementary teaching and learning Department um is they have developed a a year-long multiple opportunity for incoming kindergarten families to engage in our system so they start with a fall event that is just a district event then they have building opportunities in their own buildings with their own principles and a summer opportunity as well so our goal is to engage families early and often um and so we set uh a goal of 70% we wanted 70% of our incoming kindergarteners to have an experience in the district prior to coming to kindergarten um as you can see we just were slightly below our goal um part of that is we had changed our our goal from what we have had for previous years and so we need to have a more concrete robust system for data collection so we think that this is fairly accurate but there could be some a human element in there that we're not accounting for um but in the meantime um we did get very close to our goal and feel really good about that um anytime kindergarten families incoming kindergarten families come and engage with us we know that that's a pretty good um signal that uh students will be prepared and that we can help them be prepared to start school in the fall let's unpack that what what does that mean like a transition opportunity is it like come over hang out at the playground or you're here for a whole week no we have four um we have four kindergarten opportunities that um that were strategically designed um the first one is a like a it it's not it's a district level event so anybody can come from any school learn about kindergarten our principles actually facilitate those meetings so it's like a meet and greet like yeah virtual or meet and greet okay then the second two are in their actual buildings okay so the second two events so we have that's the fall the fall is like the big one like hey you're coming to kindergarten in a year come just check it out like then the next two are in the building so they actually get to go to the building they're assigned to they get to meet with the principal and the staff they get to engage in learning activities they um are sent home with resources to do practice things Etc is it just a one day event for a couple it's just an evening it's just an evening event that they do and those happen twice and then there's a summer opportunity so it's really about number one helping helping families understand what is kindergarten that's where you want to start like information first and then providing families an opportunity to come engage engage in activities um that that they that will help them in their transition to kindergarten as well as get comfortable with the building and the classrooms and those types of things yeah I think I got I think when I read goal one all children are ready for school it's it's like they've done the preassessments they did whatever like whatever check marks that need to be done so that they can start day one prepared and they've reached a certain level requirements to actually do it but really goal one is like like freshman 101 orientation that's really what it is like that's that's that's how what I'm hearing you're describing it yes our previous um in previous years we've had a goal around Early Childhood screening um we move moved away from that because we just didn't feel like that actually gave us enough information um to help students versus knowing them personally and meeting them personally and understanding where they are um those types of hard hard well hard data assessments those are done um the week prior to school actually two weeks prior during our assessment days um where teachers get to um assess students and have the data so and then look at that data prior to for prior to school starting at all grade levels right yeah including kindergarten yeah and I get that I'm just I'm just want to be mindful that the goal one is you just want kids to be able to see the school before they start school is that I mean but they also have to do those preassessments too all required and vaccinations and all kind stuff but the amount of money and resources we're allocating to go one Whatever may be is there actually some kind of data element or some kind of data set that validates that these kids are now prepared or ready for school on day one because they've done all these things well I think we don't have any hard data other than the participation rate which is what we chose as our goal um I think T in talking with the principles they could give you probably a more indepth their perspective on the value and importance of those events in terms of transitioning a student to kind my perspective I did that when I was El principal and it was interesting that those days they would that evenings that they would come in many parents would come up to me and say I didn't realize that they had an know that or I really feel was going to be good I mean but you had a lot of parents that and we provided resources for them at the end for everyone that this is kind of where we want them at when they get here some are there some parents show a very concern and want as much as they can so that prepares that group a little bit better I think well and it gives is someone who just had a kindergart go through this it gives kids the opportunity to be in the school to be around to their students to recognize teachers they meet all the kindergarten teachers which is fair yeah I want to discredit it I'm just want to make sure that but this is this sounds like economics right yeah but I mean it should be just like Baseline it shouldn't even be a goal like every kindergarten should go through this like every kindergarten should come in for the orientation prior to going starting school they got it's like this is what we make it required for assessments don't we and so I don't think we required I don't know I apologize I don't want to just derail the conversation but but you're right there there are people that up to the week before school starts oh yeah my child's should be in kindergarten next year you you have that percentage yes yep great yeah I think you know the the one thing that I would add to that is you know our kindergarten teachers I honestly I don't know how they do it every day um but they have a they have students that have significant preschool experience they have kids that have a daycare experience they have kids that have been at home with their parents for for five or five and a half years they have it runs the gamut and so part of it is being able to help our adults understand what that TR transition will be and what to expect when their child comes into kindergarten so it's the kindergarten is very unique to our system because by first grade they've had a school experience they have routines and rituals in the classroom they sort of know how to do school right um kindergarten is a very different Beast so anyway I'll move on because uh we have other things to talk about but certainly appreciate the comments um so goal two is our a Ani plan aligned goal and it's really focused on achievement gaps eliminating achievement disparities um so first the first thing you're go you will see there is um uh basically our MCA test proficiency rates overall the red that's the state um and then the blue bars represent um the performance here in Lakeville so you can see the district for example in Reading was at 61.2% while the state was at 49.7% Etc so we always look at our data from a disaggregated standpoint so we want to know um if there are differences um among groups and whether or not those differences are trends in the system meaning they're persistent um and so you can see here if we start with reading and I'll read the groups um across in case that's too small for you to see or you don't have your iPad um so that first on the far left there is the are uh White students that identify as white and again red and Below that's the state blue is Lakeville um the second group is two or more races the third group is Asian at um 68.1% proficiency um with our native Hawaiian and uh Pacific Islander um the state does not allow us to and rightfully so does not allow us to publicly display data if the cell count is too small that it could be identifiable so you'll see that in a number of places um it says sell um too small or too small to count or something like that there's an abbreviation for it um the next group at 56.7 is American Indian followed by Hispanic black other indigenous U peoples then we have um we're looking at economics here so students elig eligible for free and reduced price lunch and to Carly's Point earlier this is only the students that have filled out the form and identified provided that um to us and then the last one is students experiencing homelessness so you'll see a range there there um between 68.1% and 24.1% I I will also just caution you a little bit because when you have smaller cell sizes when your number is lower the impact of any score is greater so if you have 10 students in a cell and you have one that's performing lower that's going to that's going to have a more significant impact on the overall percentage so do we know anything about the students who are not participating so I don't think this is the MCA results is that's what you're asking this this is this like do we know well here's what we here's what I can share with you right now we what we know about the students that are not participating is our participation rates at the elementary are actually quite High we don't really see an issue with a lot of a significant number of op opt at the elementary where we're really seeing the impact is at the high school so if you recall it they don't it's not like Elementary where the students do all three tests they do the science in biology then they do reading in 10th Grade and math in 11th grade um math we had more than 50% opt out last year um actually let me yes I think it was 51% but right around there um for the reading test for 10th grade um it was like 70 we had like 76% participation so more students did participate in that test um and then the science again we have a actually we see a higher percentage of high school students participate in the science because it's associated with a class so they do it in the class so so that impacts now we we I don't know that we have access to the data to look at that um by student groups um we have dug in a little bit to look at are they students that are in AP or what level of math but it's it's you almost need a full-time statistician to really dig into like every possible angle to look at it so that's sort of I feel like there's been at the state level more discussion of it's like white affluent students who because does a parent have to sign any yes so they they have to be opted out yes and so I mean when we think about I just I think that's important because as you say it's not just like a null impact it is a negative impact on our MCA scores not anymore I don't think they changed that law last year it used to be that was a NE not anymore though it is on so they have the Northstar report and then they have their report card and one of them impa has an impact and one of them doesn't this one does not it doesn't impact this one is not no but if you have smaller sizes it's still the impct larger the fluctuation is greater based on any individual student score okay um so if we look at math again um you can see that we are trending above the state um and again same subgroups um across the from left to right um You can see the level of performance there and then finally when you look at science um you can see that we had one uh actually two areas um where we were just right below the no nope that bars wrong oh yeah we're just below the state um in in uh two areas in science um in our students that identify as white as well as our students El eligible for free and reduced lunch so can can I provide just a little bit of clarity for for Carly so I did send this email to mde last year asking this question so my question was to confirm my understanding if 100 students took the test I'm sorry if there are 100 students 75 take the test and assuming those 75 have met the valid test score definition of those 75 people the average Lakeville math score is whatever that that they display and I think it's like 58% right now so slightly above half of the 75 are meeting the state expectations can you is this my is my understanding accurate and so then Andy from MDA data and research analyst whatever guy he says your interpretation and conclusion below is correct so if a person does that take the test that that their score is not part of this score so whoever takes the test their score meets is this score correct but that was just changed that wasn't always the case yeah well for last so this was October of 2023 correct so so whatever these metrics are I'm assuming they're still the same yes okay so if if half the school doesn't take it then it it may not be a true reflection is what I'm saying of the score make sense and then other those who do take it they have to meet they have to meet the uh the test score validation requirement and so if they start it and don't finish it then it doesn't count so there's some other nuances Associated but again if students choose not to take the test then it's not a true or accurate picture but again this is the same rule that applies to every District yeah so it's not like saying we can't compare app to well every district has the exact same Rule now every District may have different philosophies of taking the test and or you know Farmington can say hey we we require all students to take this test at the at the district level or so but but whatever the variables are does apply to everybody and so if you see other districts where they have higher test scores either their test scores are higher or their participation counts are higher or they have less opt outs for whatever well that's where I would want to understand we have a high percentage of opt outs it sounds like for math especially and it would be helpful to know like what is the makeup of that group because why do we have such low participation yeah I mean I think it's a valid question um and I don't I don't have that level of and we don't have a DAC right now because they um are person left so yeah but we will we'll dig into that a little bit more um I do think that uh just two things to note um from what Brian was saying the first one is that the state requires that we allow students to opt out we cannot force students if their parents want to opt them out that that is they tell us that number two they made a change to statute a couple of years ago where we whereby we were required to provide opt out information to families so we're sort of advertising you know to families in a in a way um not to take it so um so I appreciate those comments because I do think those are things it's hard um because it it feels like a little bit of a mixed message there uh if we want to have high levels of participation so but we'll look into that a little deeper it's tough do you plan is this all you're going to say about MC is do I just have one comment about go ahead my comment is my expectation would be that our scores are higher than the state average they should always be and my my feeling and to find out if we're really doing well or for how well we're doing in the MC because we don't know how well we're doing because we hopefully we will look at other comparable districts and see how well how well we compare with them with comparable districts and I I I do that every year and you know I you can see where some districts do better than but anyway it should it would give a better picture of where we sit compared to comparable districts if we if the district looks at that and they might say oh we got a red flag here we need to work on this or we're really doing well here we should be advertising that well I think we I think what we have to be careful of doing is this is just one measure of student achievement right we have a lot of other measures and we have to take them all into consideration cuz tot this is the public measure that the public I understand but I think the message that we have to share with them is that this is just one measure if we have a high level of kids that aren't participating because they're taking AP classes because they know the AP tests matter and I would assume that would be theable the secondary well but we also have a high we have a very high level of number of APS and number of students that participate not all districts have the high level of AP participation that we have so I'm just saying carable districts probably do I would say so that's but that's my concern is that we're just looking at this and we have to know if kids aren't taking the AP class or the AP kids aren't taking this cuz they don't all know that this doesn't really I mean they they know this doesn't necessarily impact there's no personal gain to taking well there there is well and I'll share so two aspects one you are right I think so two things you you are right as well that there are are there other things but two there isn't any other Universal program or application or testing right now that that apply that that you can do comparable Apples to Apples beyond beyond besides MCA so for now that's the only universal one out there until we get until there's more that that's credible then we should then this is the only one that we can rely on two um we got to let parents know there are benefits for doing the MCA so as an example for a PSO student uh Charlie he had to I'm supposed to say his name sorry my son well now you guys know shoot all right but uh to do PSO they wanted to know his MCA score in math to make sure that he's eligible to take a PSO class so there are added benefits in taking these exams to making sure that uh they they score well because then he wouldn't have been able to do it as a sophomore so I'm not I don't know what other reasons why MCA scores are relevant but that is one instance so if we as long as we let parents know there are benefits for that then maybe they will encourage their kids to take those and then the last comment I'll share is that you are right uh we do offer a lot of AP classes but how do we show the um ACT scores historically as another Benchmark to say is that progressing or is that declining and the sad thing is that if it's declining we've already missed the ship I mean we can't like you got to go back five six more years later to to course correct that and so we got to find the right incremental metrics along the way to to monitor but so that that's what my point was going to be Brian is exactly that is to share a full scope of communication around what these are these are one benchmarks how they benefit the child if they take them and and that parents need to be looking at all be because if this is the only Universal measure we have it is they have to I mean I know it is and but they have to know that there's other things that they should be looking at depending on what's important to you and what's important to your student and and Beyond parents I think parents have other measures that they get yeah Elementary the reading what is that called now the that they F bridge and stuff F Bridge the what F yeah and there's some other ones too but the par the parents know because they get those reports annually on the different tests including MCA so they have a better picture the public does not that doesn't have kids in school the 70% that doesn't have kid important to note that this data is just desegregated by race and there are other things that impact someone's academic learning such as a disability so you could be looking at all of these groups across here and there are kids in every one of these categories that have a disability and they're receiving special education services within this District which would be about 16% of our population right so to qualify for special for academic support you need to be two grade levels behind and we're having them take a test that's at grade level MH your data yeah they don't qualify for the because the state has continued that step so there's only two there only two assessments right like there's the MCA and there's the MOs and the M TOS would be for our kids that are very significant population like are maybe like 2 to 3% of the kids that need to take the mtas it's very different they had a middle level one that was like it was an MCA like one or something like that they discontinued that test I want to say like 8 to 10 years ago right so that gave kids a little bit of like a like the end wa where it used to like level down to them a little bit we don't have that option anymore so I'm telling you like a lot of the special ed families we opt out because it's not a very good recom or like picture of what our kids can actually do we doing the NWA more no um I I so I I appreciate all the comments and I I we're off track I do want to say that um I do want to say that it it speaks to it speaks to the complexity of trying to use one measure right um in a district to determine the success of your students so um compare so and this might be a little controversial but the reality is that MCA tests were never intended to be an individual to be used as to determine individual capability and performance of a student on its own the MCAS are intended to be systems level data which we should look at from grade levels from groups of students to say the MCAS are represented of the standards so when we see low numbers on MCAS what that tells us is we need to do a better job of aligning the standards and teaching them to the level of expectation of mde because a lot of times we're teaching the standards but we're not maybe teaching it to the high high enough level of rigor so when they get to the T they understand the concept but they can't actually perform it to the to the degree that's being asked on the test so CU I when I look at y Zetta and I look at minaka and Eden Prairie they're at like 81% in math and so for the exact same test but those are so so to get to speak to that Brian well kind of not funding wise but to speak to that so when I talk about systems level so one of the things that we did at the elementary is we noted that um y Zetta we at the elementary level when we were starting our math review this is what we looked at we looked across systems and said what they're doing something that different so we want to go find out so we went over there we did site visits we talked about their curriculum we talked about their professional development and so those are the kinds of things that can inform us so that we can then bring back to the system things that are working and Implement them and what I will say is although the MCAS as Standalone are certainly not where we want to be we strive to do better um we have seen some slight incremental Improvement in math over the past two years yes so and now we have a new math curriculum so we've been taking some steps to do some implementation um she scared me so so we have different expectations now it takes a little while to get things implemented and and to see that in honest score at the end of the day but um but that's really how we want to be utilizing this information so you talked about a so I'm going there next um our third goal around career and college readiness um was around our act um what I will tell you is that our 11th grade students so you see like some of our low scores in math and our opt outs in math in particular we talked about quite in depth um our ACT scores are extremely robust here Minnesota as a general rule is is at the top in terms of performance but our our students here in Lakeville have always performed extremely well on the a you can see our goal there um you can see that we met our goal there um this is something that and and here's the other piece to note that we have very very very high levels of participation in the ACT there are some states where and and even some districts that it's just an optional like whoever wants to participate can participate so we do we have a day for students to do this during the day um to come in and participate in this and so um so we do see we do see high levels of performance on the act so that that's a really another really good metric for us to determine whether or not their career in college ready and then the last one um is that all students graduate from high school important to note uh graduation data is always one year behind because they calculate graduation data based on a four-year cohort um and so they have to wait until like the some sometimes kids finish in the summer or like in the early fall and they count those into that cohort group um so that's why it's it's a year behind um we have a very strong graduation rate currently um we had a we had a stretch goal there of 96% which is very very high um we did get to almost 94% so 93.7% um if you look at the in this chart here this is the state of Minnesota averages um and then um also broken down by student group um and then you can see our percentages across the board um our students are graduating um almost exclusively at higher rates than the state um and so that's good we do have uh as part of our goal that no student group will uh be below 80% um and so that's something that we are constantly watching as well to make sure that that we are hitting the Mark um for all of our students and our student groups so the last thing that I want to show you is this is not part of our world's best Workforce um goal but I don't know if you all are familiar with sleds sleds is the database it's a it's sort of a collaborative effort between um Career College institutions and the state um and what it does is it attracts students for their basically for four years essentially through what would traditionally be a college experience and then they provide Prov us data specific to our students so where did our students go are they graduating in four years did they go to the work force did they go to a 2-year school did they go to a four-year school and so I know it's really hard to see maybe I can make it a little bit bigger here whoops o I made it too big um but so this is the most recent data we have because remember they're following them to like college graduation which is four years out so our 20 our 2020 these are this is is representative of our 2021 graduates so you can see that we have 177% of our graduates enter the workforce right after high school after graduation um we had a very high percentage of those that chose to go to um a postsecondary institution we had a high percentage that start right away so they go straight um straight to school that next fall um we have you can see um we have students that go to the the most common place our students go is to the University of Minnesota that's not a surprise that's actually been the trend for the past four years I think um and interestingly these schools have been the top schools for all four years that we have access to this data with the exception of one there was one that was different one year but it's the University of Minnesota Normandale um man University of St Thomas and Deluth those seem to be our most popular schools not Madison I thought you know Madison might have that might have been the one that let me just go I think that was on the list at one point oh no oh Claire was 2018 okay um so anyway this is and this gives you um this gives you a sense of like you know where people are going are they going to two-year four year are they staying in Minnesota um a large portion of our students do stay in Minnesota whether they choose a private or a public institution or a 2-year or foryear institution um and so that's interesting and then you can see down below the other states they don't go they don't tend to go too far um so you can see this is the general area where we see that's most common um for our students to attend and then sort of speaking to the point um that we were talking to earlier related to the MCAS we do we do track and look at this this metric um tells us how many students required were required to take one or more preol courses when they get to college so often times you have to take a test when you go in they place you if you have to take a pre-ol class it was uh down to 7% and actually this metric this has decreased by about 50% in the past from 2018 to 2021 from that group of students so um so just another way for us to look at how are our students doing and where are they going and what are their experiences after they leave our system I've always learn to know that information is it possible for you to send that slide to me yes it's on the website it's on the website now Terry but I can send the slide to you where is it on the website same same place it's it's at the bottom of the world's best Workforce it's not part of it's not a requirement it's just something that we do yeah I've been asking for that for years well it's very interesting because you have the kids that stayed in all the snow States and then the 16 that said I'm out I'm out went somewhere warm thank you yes um so that concludes my presentation um thank you for the questions and the dialogue you know I think the these are things that we keep in front of us a lot as we think about um number one making sure that we do have a balanced assessment framework for our students that we're not just looking at end of term or end of year assessments that we're monitoring and adjusting as we move through the system um we have done significant work at the elementary around this um we have more work to do at our secondary um mostly because they are number one subjects specific and content specific but also because you don't have um access to the same assessments that you maybe do at a from a K8 standpoint so um so the secondary teams are having conversations around that about how we can better monitor over the course of a year besides just grades and besides you know at end of term summative assessments so um appreciate your time um and your feedback tonight and I think there's some great stuff happening and there's as always there are some areas of improvement that um you know you know our teams um they're very committed to trying to figure out how to do better uh for each and every kid in the system to help them be successful so thank you so much apprciate can I ask one quick additional question I know like we have I the curriculum changes for reading and math um one of the concerns on there looks to be science and I know you said sometimes it might be it's just not the high level of rigor or there plans to so so we've been in science review for a couple of years now so we are coming up on a brand new MCA in science um so significant work has happened at both the um Elementary and secondary level the first time through this process it's pretty messy we don't know what to expect um to some degree so um so we're going to have to see how that goes and what adjustments we need to make so we are in the process of addressing this the problem is I'm just going to be honest especially at the Elementary we are in science review we are doing 65 hours of redc training we are in math review we have social studies that they have now just added onto the plate and so from a system standpoint trying to manage that so that it is reasonable and our teachers feel like they have a minute to breathe and be able to implement things to the degree they need to um it's really hard it is really hard so I think everyone in the system is doing the best that they can um to try to navigate that and get on the and you cannot prioritize everything so right now I will tell you redact is the priority K3 math is the priority K uh 4 five we do have other work happening because we have to but that really needs to be where the focus needs to be for our teachers so we have to have some Grace in there um the last thing I just wanted to note is that um the achievement and integration plan does require a a goal around um uh teachers of color um and increasing um the percentage of Staff of color in our system um just to give you a that that was not identified as a goal in the plan and should have been so we are making some amendments to that plan and working with mde to make sure we have the appropriate goals in the plan um but I can give you a quick snapshot um we have 2,443 three staff members in this District of those we have 130 that I self-identify so not everybody chooses to identify we have 130 that self-identify as um staff of color um that's about 5% um from our teaching Corp in particular EML identified so that's our teaching that's anyone that's on the EML contract so that's teachers and counselors and others um right now we have 87 817 um EML staff in our system um of those staff we have 12 that have self-identified as staff of color which puts us just at about 1.4% um in our teaching Corp so that's higher than it has been it it's it's well the teachers one is higher but not the yeah so teacher one is higher yeah there's a lot of that I won't go into to tonight but there's a lot of um a lot of nuance and a lot of things that we need to be thinking about um to truly be able to diversify I mean the goal of course is to have your staff um you know be refle like to represent your student population and so we can talk about that at another time but just to give you a sense of it um we're at 5% overall 1. 4% from the teaching courp and what's the student um demographic student of color um I don't have the updated number right in my head but I think it's right around I want to say 33% overall yeah that's a big gap yeah I will double check that number but I think it's right around 32 you'll find that gap on every school district not thank you thank you will except for minap stfe home all right so the last item that we have on the agenda is the appointment process we started the discussion with that last time with a few ideas that we threw around and uh Brian Thompson did a great job of putting together an appointment process document um for that so uh just kind of want to continue that discussion and and see where we sit with that does anybody want to start well I think we left it with you wanting to check into some things yeah so it was it was more for you to give you time and space I appreciate that didn't want to hear that did you no that's fine um I did spend a lot of time thinking about it I did reread the law um discuss with um with uh legal on some of those things uh just because I had some questions around um particularly four key areas for me um one of those was election Integrity um it kind of bothers me that the election has already started um and the process of adding something new into that um whereas people have already voted not knowing that we were considering this um kind of similar to when um we were talking about the forums and you know that process during the middle of the election year so I like I said I'm just stating concerns because I went through all the positives and all the negatives and I know last time we talked about a lot of positives um so I just really wanted to look into some of those things um the other thing that I did was do a deep dive into the statute and just really try to understand that that um and the law does specifically say in situations like this we should appoint um when I look at historically when this has happened in the district which is another thing that I did I went back through all the times that we have been in a situation like this before and what we did um it was an appointment by the board um even though there were opportunities to take someone from the election pool so I just want to lay that out there um I think the the biggest question that I have um and this one is kind of too fold for me is the assumption that um the appointment process say we were to go with the fourth loser winner whatever you want to call it um the appointment process we still have to uh formally vote on that as a board that person um so we're operating under the assumption that everybody's going to vote Yes for that fourth place person I think it puts the board in kind of a precarious situation um one I don't know if everybody will want to do that when they find out who the fourth place person is I don't know but that's political not necessarily yes it is if it's not necessar can you let me finish like I I'm not done I'm not done like I said it was twofold um it's not necessarily political um when I look at my role as a citizen and my role as a board member number one it is my right as a citizen of the United States to vote for who I think is the right person for the job right so then um that's that's my right as a citizen so then I'm put in this situation where maybe I didn't vote for that person that's in fourth place but that was my right and now I'm kind of at a Integrity issue here where I didn't vote for them for a reason and now I just have to accept that because I'm on the board and we decided that it's kind of contradictory with the voting process like I I don't know I really struggle with that um it's not political I mean I've well it's it's not well it's not political but I get what you're saying but it is a difference between the election process and appointments correct so that's where the difference is and so if I understand this last concern you were just expressing was that um we're operating under the ass to say the fourth largest vote getter will be the appointed person we still have to vote formally V on that but um but that's what it is whether we go through the whole ele the appointment process if we go through the long process when we get down to the end we still have to vote correct we still have to vote but it's not putting me at odds with the person that I have researched and went to all the forums and listened to all the things about who I felt was the right person for the job and again we're all individual citizens and that's I'm not asking you who you're voting for or where we're going with that I'm just saying that we all may sit on different different pieces of that and instead of having a discussion about it and deciding who we think is the best candidate for the job like you would in an typical appointment process we're just going to appoint the fourth loser but but but like I just don't think it that's the fourth winner the fourth they weren't elected they weren't elected because there are not four bubbles on the thing right there are not four bubbles so people can't vote for that person so it technically is the loser and when I talked through all of these questions with attorneys and legal representation I'm looking at it going there's definitely a case for election Integrity there's definitely a case for I mean this they they said this really hasn't been done so there's no precedent for it so I mean you you're leaving yourself open and granted we're leaving our there's always going to be someone that's going to disagree but I just think it puts the board in a very precarious situation where when that fourth person whatever and we go to vote on it just because we agreed to appoint the fourth person doesn't mean that vote's going to go where everyone's going to vote for them I just don't think that's going to happen couple couple of comments um first I think we were looking at this option because we felt that the public had more say and who was going to be I don't think they have any say at all they don't they can't vot for they voted for the fourth the that person has the fourth most votes there's a reason that we haven't done this before they have no say if the board selects it they actually do because they elected us as representatives and the law says the law says they don't have a direct say in in that in that position ever so I'm I'm just operating from like I work in special ed and when we go to the gray areas we always look at the law we read through things we figure out what the law says the law in this case is very clear that we should appoint well and you appoint the fourth place but we've never done that so we just sat here and had a full discussion about why we don't do that this whole process we've talked about we can get it done in two weeks if we need to we need to rush the process we need to get it done as soon as possible and then we're going to sit here for 30 days and wait until the election and appoint the loser so there I think there's two different things it really is and it's happened before right and we're always talking about like these Unwritten procedures that we've had as a board and you yourself said like we have a procedure for this we've done it before and she's absolutely right we have we appoint so there there's two different things with the elction ction integrity and then the appointment right and the appointment process can be whatever we determine it to be it could be we want you to be the appointed person let's vote on it or it could be we want the fourth largest vote getter to be appointed or we want to go through this process and select somebody so that so there's the election and then there's the appointment process and that's whatever we determine it to be the election is going to take place and we're going to have three people to fill a fouryear terms correct and then what we had discussed the last time as an option because we are so overlapped with this is that for the appointment process instead of going through a process that leaves it up to seven of us or six of us to decide on who that should be um and not having people go through the application process um to respect those that did put their name in to run a campaign but they still could put their name in correct but um so I think my concern is like when we talked about talk that we were going to take the politics out of it and I don't see that this takes the politics out of it I just think it puts it people come div I think it does take the politics out of it and I think it makes it simp simpler and um and to me I think it just um gives respect to those that put their head into the ring and have been running a campaign and we know who they are and um I just think it is the simplest way to go because it overlaps and um we haven't done it this way before um I think they did a few years back but we haven't recently done it and the example I provided was was when the city had the opportunity to do this they opted to go to the application and interview process instead of just getting the next largest vot getter process and there was a lot of turmoil through the city because they didn't select the largest vote the next largest vote getter and I don't know that we need to put the community through that um and but that's that's the process like so what you're telling me is like all the the the good part about it is that we're scrutin our responsibility as a board saying that this is what we're supposed to do this is what it legally says and instead of us going through the process we want to take the easy way out they can still apply wants to say something oh sorry I just want the process is whatever we determine into being whether it be the application and interview and selection process or whether we decide the process is going to to be the fourth largest vat getter or if we're just going to pick the guy next guy that walks through the door as the candidate that's I mean that process is whatever we determine it to being and I'm just recommending and asking that we make the process the fourth largest vote getter just because it's so overlapping with the timeline of the election I get that I just I just don't think it helps us as we're trying to work together as a board team I think it causes more division um and I guess I'm going to put it back on YouTube because you guys have been through a recent appointment twice and you didn't choose this before why not because well the one time one one was a timing yeah yeah but you ly resigned in August yeah so I I did some research and I can I can I can speak to that because I watched the board meeting that had that during when you guys did the appointment process and didn't do this so um I did do research and took some notes so give me so that's why I did not interject so quickly so that you guys have time to to have dialogue let's make sure the dialogue is factual yes yes so uh thanks I did some research and I read some of the stuff on social media uh but here's a few things I share so there are four parts and they're a little bit lengthy I will share my four parts I will stop sharing anything after that no commentary because I've shared my my piece uh first part is the the state statutes the second part is is what the Minnesota School Board Association recommends uh third part is the local history of Lakeville which I went back and watch more videos and the fourth part is why uh why we should why we why we should go down this path or not so from a legal framework again according to State statutes 123 B9 sub5 uh the state does empower the school board to appoint a member when there is a vacancy uh the community elected these board members and entrusted them to carry out their duties and that includes appointing a new member as well as hiring a superintendent so relying on a fourth vote getter from the November election instead of following this process uh for me for my interpretations would be that we are not fulfilling our responsibilities uh going through the application process uh so part two uh the state of Minnesota I'm sorry the Minnesota Schoolboard Association I connected with them twice and said hey they shared with me that the vast majority of school boards conduct an application process to fill vacancies this allows for an increased pool of a diverse uh diverse candidates with a wide range of skills that typically may not be available due to campaign limitations uh legally the school board is not required uh I'm sorry legally the school board is not required to conduct an application process uh the board can literally say I I like I'm going to make down Joe Johnson and without going through the application process you submit a resolution we vote on it and it's done so uh while we may not want to go to that particular extreme uh that because that is not common practice uh so the state St statute also does not specify a time frame for this process to be completed uh allowing the local governing body of the school board the authority to decide when is the most appropriate time so part three here's some historical precedence uh let me share some history oh that's the title in the next paragraph uh Lakeville has always appointed new members rather than using the next vote getter in the past four years so four years ago in 2020 we've had two instances where we did the application process in 2020 when School Board member Zack Duckworth ran for Senate and one in November he brought up his transition plan on November 17th to the board uh which is an hour and a half minute uh last 15 minutes so the board could prepare for his transition starting on January 1st however at that time School Board member Judy kellerer declined to discuss the topic call names out let's just stick to facts let me repe well it was in it's public yeah uh she declined to discuss the transition plan because Zach had not officially submitted his resignation and there was no need to talk about it until he signed his paperwork I I I don't know if you remember there you were there um in this scenario the school board knew Zach would be done on December 31st since his Senate term began on January 1st but no one elected to use the fourth vote getter uh in that scenario which included hang on let me finish in that scenario Judy Terry and David were on that board and the vot getter at that time was Katie Roberto and no one wanted to appoint her in that position uh or even discuss it uh despite knowing that she was the fourth vote getter uh so in January when we did the elections in 2021 I believe you want Judy won the chair position uh it was not brought up at all in regards to this appointment uh they brought up a meeting on March of 2021 for a very seven-minute meeting where they decided to maintain the current board Dynamics and choose not to appoint someone for that vacancy and leaving that role to be filled by a special election in November so back in 2020 that board elected to wait an entire 12 months to fill Zack duckor vacancy through a special election now here's where the twist comes into play uh Midway through that year I believe ly Gorski I I believe he was a former she sorry she yeah she resigned mid year uh but the board in October of 2021 decided you know we should do a an appointment versus a the next vote getter uh but there was an election in November uh two candidates ran uh the person who won that was elected by the community was cint schmidtz uh the second place candidate uh she was uh she yeah so according to the logic according to the logic of the appointing process right of of this logic of of what you're recommending she should have been the appointed person I agree but but the but the board at that time that included Judy Terry and David chose not to do the appointment process so these are two past precedents over the past four years that the school board um chose to do the uh the the appointment process uh it's also recommended by msba so I'm I'm a little um I'm having a tough time understanding the motivations that are driving these two to these decisions uh because the past two examples had candidates that were then next in line by election that you that that that board did not choose to activate so so here's my last part part four here's the impact and considerations I was very thoughtful about putting the document together uh there seems to be more unfavorable impacts again my perspect my my my interpretations about doing the fourth vote getter approach versus having the school board appoint through an application process number one uh I didn't get a chance to vote today but I was going to but I didn't make it but back to what Kim Baker said as a resident I do have the ability and the option to select three individuals I do not get to pick four uh and so the community ALS the community also believes that the top three elected members should be the ones uh that ought to appoint the fourth because that's part of their responsibility and while appointing the fourth vote getter might seem The Logical Choice uh the candidate the I'm sorry the community did reject that candidate uh when they had the choice to select that fourth person number two uh would more community members have ran if a fourth seat was open I don't know if Terry or David would have chosen to ran if they knew that another seat was open what I do know is that nine candidates did file to run right pardon I do know that nine candidates did file to run um with a fourth seat uh potentially considering would that activate uh a candidate who's choosing not to run uh would recommendations from Education Minnesota Lakeville now recommend four people versus three people I don't know um so there are some unknowns on the ramifications of this uh this approach this approach raises several election Integrity concerns on my on my point of view I mean if the fourth vote getter has significantly lower votes than the top three like what number is reasonable if if the fourth vote getter let's say Got 5 ,000 votes less versus the average top three got 15,000 is that reasonable what if the fourth vote getter said no I don't want to are we in alignment that we go to the fifth person or what if there's a tie or what if there there is a tie uh so lastly again back to what Miss Baker said is that you know we do have to vote on the fourth person through a resolution and if uh whoever the person might be Terry you may you may or may not align Judy you may or may not align uh but if the voting ends in a 33 tie doesn't look super good for us uh and so all I'm saying is at this time for awareness I'm not aligned to this and so my recommendation would be um uh going through the process that we've historically done uh and then add one more car to the top should the current board with three board members leaving on December 31st determine who to appoint the their previous decision I'm going to take that one off yeah should should the three newly elected board members along with the three board members who were elected two years ago by the community be the one to determine uh who to appoint for the school board so that is my point of view I have no more comments to say uh you guys decide well I'll just vote when it's time to vote I just have a two short comments number one the biggest difference I think uh with those those two examples you gave about selecting him is the fact that the election was over with the election but we knew Z was running what but you knew Z Cas he was running to be Senate like I going to get it not in my case what it was the same exact situation what Lynn retired or Lynn resigned in August after the filing deadline right and we were going for the special election for Zack Duckworth's seat so you could have chosen to the second place person not I'm not going to say loser or winner I'm just going to say second place I don't think you could appoint the second place person or it's the same exact situation Terry it really we didn't know and when when Zach ran okay we didn't know if he was going to win number one but he won number two he won y now we going to take the second place person that's the year before what but the year with Lynn's seat is exactly the same situation yeah so Zach situation when CU he when he didn't resign he finished out his term which went until January 1st or 2nd or third whatever that was and so his his seat was then and so and law didn't require that we even had to appoint we could have just waited till the next years he did four years no he didn't finish so he didn't finish his term no he didn't so he did two years he calendar year and then um through through January he resigned after he started down there or just before starting down there and so then in law didn't require that we had to appoint it just said election the election and so and just remember with the appointment process and at that time how um our District was in a lot just the community in general was in a lot of disarray because of everything that was happening politically and everything else and so we chose not to appoint and just let it ride until the 10th to defuse things that were going in the community and then Lynn did apply or uh re um resigned after the filings had closed and we talked about whether or not we would do the appointment and um process with the next fold getter and I don't truly I'd have to go back and listen to the discussion on that but I don't think the majority of the board went with that plan and that's why we did this I don't remember um so with that process but this is a to me every situation yes I think it's important to look at the history but but what's happening in our community and what's happened in the last few years is different than what happening at that time it was very controversial and I know there was concerns about if we appoint somebody um just like you're saying uh Kim is that you eventually have to vote on them you have to vote on that appointment but not only do you have to appoint vote on that appointment you then have to wait 30 days and make sure that there's not a petition that's going to be filed against that appointment and that was a big concern because of just the feeling in the community at the time of the two previous appointments that we did I don't feel like it's a diff a very different like political situation but and I can see when cinta and I were running it was two of us right so it feels a little bit different because then you're saying okay both of these people are just going to be let's say she got you know 80% of the vote and I got 20 um I mean that's not how it worked out right and so but you didn't know that but let's say that is how it worked out that would have felt very much different than the actual results which were different of 1% so it's I can see that situation um I mean in this in the ktie Roberto situation and this upcoming situation there's a large pool of applicants that the community is voting on and the outcome is likely to be similar to previous years of a couple hundred votes difference and so that's where I just feel like I feel very uncomfortable thinking about us appointing someone who got seventh or eighth because and and especially Brian not trying to criticize the process you have laid out here but going into Jan AR with a vote so we've got the interviews happening with the current board but the vote happens in January with the new members coming on board who are going to have a bias against the pool I I think the timeline is negotiable on that like I I wasn't really looking at the Timeline when I looked at his process but what I am looking at is that you know we've worked really hard to try to build some cohesiveness and how we do things as a board and I see this as deci as divisive I really do like if we go through the appointment process then we all have to like look through the applications decide the ones that we want to actually interview talk through it and this one we're just saying nope we're just going to take that person and then it's going to vote and then like I said we we run the risk of three of us saying no and three of us saying yes so then what do we do do we go to the fifth person do we go to the sixth person or then do we start the appointment process and then we're that far behind cuz I'm not aligned I I'm I just okay I just have two things but you guys have majority so it's have two things say to shut up number one I think it's much more political look what happened to the city that is my example and I don't want to see the I think we're trying to build our school district Community together I think this will be much more divisive because it was divisive on our last it divided the community on our last election big time when you when you appointed uh Robin it was really divisive no not Robin the one before that oh when you well you didn't appoint Zach remember so with Katie Roberto we decided not to because of the division in the community so you made an opinion for the community but that was after I want to be very clear opinion you made an opinion for the community that was after knowing the election results like what I feel she was she was only off by like a couple hundred votes I know she was I don't I I but this was Community not this wasn't just the board though we took a a month to have that discussion and we received Community feedback so the discussion and decision wasn't us making a decision for the community it was us having a conversation with the community to help make a decision so you got to remember the community voted you in to trust you to make those kind of decisions who chooses a superintendent which is the fourth the board right that's our that's our that's our job is to hire the superintendent what does it have to do with a Schoolboard member because that's our other job as a Schoolboard member in the law it states that when we have is to appoint I guess my feeling is I think it's that you're going to regret going forward with a selection process are we leaving so no no no no no they are leaving cuz they don't have to be here but I so I just want to play this out wait a second Terry I just want to play this out I think that if I'm not I'm going to put this out there there is clearly a group of three candidates that are together running there's five other candidates that are maybe not in align with those three candidates if I say that's really fair to say if I say right now appropriate I mean okay it's visible but but there are also three other candidates that are pretty aligned and two that are pretty aligned so I mean we I'm making I'm making a point here if I say right now that I'm committed to appointing the fourth elected person that means regardless of who that is that is it doesn't matter if I like that person or not that is who I'm going with person if you if if there is a like what I hear right now is that you and Brian and I'm not sure about Dave but when we get to that point of voting you're going to say no what if it's a person with this process but I'm saying like you are saying that in this moment what if the fourth vote getter is someone you support and then you're going to vote them like that's where the political division and the divisiveness happens right I don't get to change my if I say tonight that I'm going with the fourth vote getter I stand by my word that I'm going with the fourth vote getter no matter who it is I'm not going to say no because I don't like that person I'm going to acknowledge what the community said to us and I'm going to go with that vote is everybody going to commit to that well I will if we commit as a board in this moment that's what I say we do that's the correct thing to do well you how would you look you say yeah I'm going to take the fourth vote and then we go and vote and I vote no what does that say to the public it says I don't like that person it shouldn't be involved I shouldn't have a say in that but you should because you're a board member who's supposed to vote on the appointment and you yourself just said hey I don't think this is the right person for the job I didn't vote for him and now we're just going to put them in that position because you're listening to the community because you're for that person like if they really wanted that person on the board they would have been in the top three what would you say if they were if if they were if the vote difference was like by 5,000 are you I know but are you going to have a threshold are you going to have a threshold how many VES is considered enough if you look the last last votes I I don't think there's but if it was not there's been no big splits at all I'm I'm asking the question if it's not if I mean how many where I feel less comfortable is voting like I said for a seventh or eighth or appointing a seventh or eighth person vote getter who does have sub substantially less than the third place person well how are we going to have that happen if we go through an appointment process what do you mean how would the seventh or eighth because that person would apply that doesn't mean we have to look at that application like that doesn't mean you I mean you're opening up the pool so that more people can apply right and you also have to think like they still have to run again they still have to run again in November or whenever we do an election yes they do they they have to run again because there's more than a year left on the term so the law states if there's two years which right now there's two and like so many months that they're appointed for this fiscal year and then they have to run again and we have to that term correct we just they don't have to run again though but we have to have an election to fill the seat and they would have to that's the thing like someone either it's someone who has campaigned or someone who hasn't and then that person if you elect someone who hasn't they're going to have to campaign so like it's you have to be able to do that to go through this process so the community is being asked to vote for three board members to fill three forear terms right that's what they're being asked to do so all we're saying is that with everybody going out in voting there will be the next largest vote getter that's not filling the four-year term but we would like to appoint and invite them to be the seeded in the two-year term one year or one year term onee term and um so when that is done so um but my a another issue that I really have though is why this is so because this overlaps so well with the election right now is bringing on that new member so if we say the election is November 5th and November 6th that we ask this person and say you're the appointed person and then we go and vote on it we have to wait 30 days so they would be a board member in December so that they could get launched and brought in with the new board members that are going to start on January 1st for the four-year terms so they're all kind of starting and onboarding and training together whereas if we wait until after the first of the year I don't think we should wait until after the first of the year okay so because then if we do wait till does with the timeline after the first of the year then they're really not starting until March yeah I don't I don't think we should wait till and so I think all of that is uh has to be thought out from the timeline perspective too um and we do have a responsibility to appoint but that appointment can be whatever we think is best for the situation in the time and I do know that doing it this way is not as common but the timing doesn't ever fall into place the way this is falling in place and um well it has before I mean we've had the timing like this before and we still and we just haven't done it like I I feel like so I don't think there's it's already political cuz the people are in an election yeah right they're already it's already there I I don't I don't think there's any more conversation that need to be had it's like if if you three would like to use the fourth vote getter uh we have Quorum and that is the path that you can go uh and then now when the election is over uh one of you three can submit the res the resolution with that candidate and then we'll just have the conversation then I mean that's that's how it is I mean I don't want there's no need to spend another half an hour I think we should I think we should be making that decision now because again if we say we make decision later then we're going to know who that fourth person is and that might influence somebody's vote and that's not right yeah but what he's saying is you guys have majority there's three against two here and so just go with that well I think I don't know I think where I'm struggling with this is we often say that we make a decision as a board and when we make that decision we go forward honoring that decision as a board so even if you didn't agree with the decision of the overall board you go along with the process and so there have been things I didn't agree with in the past but I'm not going to speak out against it or I'm not going to because that's what the board decided so I think what is hard is Dave isn't here to share his opinion um Dave isn't for it we Dave isn't for it I talk so I mean I would want Dave here to speak for himself um but if we say we're going to do a process to the community because that is what the majority of this board in this room decided and then we don't do that um that looks terrible and I don't think it's I don't think to me it's like we make a decision tonight and that's what we do um I I just think if it's a post Hawk change of opinion for anybody here for anybody in this room that's right I think that looks very bad for our board um so I'm not going to I will state right now if we go with this process doesn't matter who it is that person is getting my vote for appointment and should from every one of us so that your opinion that's your opinion and so as a school board member elected by the community they're entrusting me to make sure that we have the the the a Schoolboard candidate that we're that we need and that we're looking for I'm not going to just yeah but your opinion but not the Public's exactly so so then so with that trust that they've given me in hiring a superintendent and these key decisions that we need to make as well as saying no for uh renewing of of of of of of a levy and stuff like that this is part of our responsibility and our role and so I will I will be in Sp of being transparent I'm I will vote no so whatever you guys choose whoever it is whoever it is I will vote no that is not the process of how we're supposed to do things what do you want to do we getting late to me it I think to me it the thing that I really like about it is that it takes all of the um it it allows the community to speak and takes our individual opinions out of the equation and I would rather go with someone who the community has votes behind um and if we say we're going to do something different on the DAT I mean I just think that looks really bad and that's where I feel like we are not one voice we're making a decision tonight but then people are going to do different things when that comes to be which I think is very bad that be very public and it would be very detrimental because our process is going to be advertised Y what do you want to do chief well do we need to make the decision today does it really matter I mean can we wait until November down the road I mean I mean does it need to be made today that's what we agreed upon last week that's true we said we were making the decision tonight so that we could get the communication out to the community as soon as possible okay well says during these meetings there's no voting needed it's just a decision if that's what you three would like to do you decide so then we can send Communications out that's process but the communications would be then to the Community member we're going to select the fourth vote getter and then the Community member would be like all right how do I select the fourth no you don't get to pick the fourth whoever happens to be the fourth runner up or they don't get to pick the person appointed it's no different They Do by selecting the individuals by selecting you and I to do this role that's that's how they select us I appreciate that if we weren't in a in the process of a election but I feel like this is and this is a big election there's going to be a lot of votes in this this isn't part of the election process this is the appointment process and the appointment process will be that you will go Mr Community member you're going to go vote for three foure terms and when that election ction is done our appointment process will select the fourth largest vot getter to fill this seat for 11 months but there's no discussion on that like we don't get to discuss that as a board we don't get to talk about it like it's just that's the person whether we really feel like that's the person or not so that's the Integrity issue that I have but we're honoring that the Comm so can I ask why you didn't do Katy Roberto at that time because you had an opinion that she wouldn't be a good member for the for the board no it had nothing to do but then why didn't you use Katy rerto I don't really want to get into like oh let me refr yeah I think that's probably a good I know but but like it wasn't about the individuals and stuff it was more about the um the or no what was going on within the community politically and everything not just the school district but just it it had nothing to do with the individual right I apologize I want to be clear I don't know I don't know the individual I'm just saying that she was the V for vot getter and so while the data was there and the community had her and wanting her to be the fourth vote getter because she came in fourth place like the logic should have been applied at the same time the decision was made that was a conversation after the election was done we're having this conversation before the election so we don't know who it is and and what who is being selected or getting that fourth vote get a play so it's not about any candidate it's about our community is going out and voting and they're going to vote for the top three this fourth person who is like the runner up has enough support within the community that we can say has the validity to sit at that table and be able to be a member of the group for 11 months how many votes do you think would you feel is reasonable for that fourth person to have well we kind of already talked about that we're C how many school districts there are there in the state of Minnesota 362 and this has not happened like they they appoint out of that many districts they no no there's they don't this is appointing this it's not appointing because an appointment process means we sit down as a board we we let people interet it that way too though we're fourth person board appointments can happen however we determine is best for our situation and our community at the time and that appointment can be and as you stated we have a process which you said several times when we've been talking about this we do have a process for appointment Brian wrote it up and now we're not going to use that they do the same thing either time right or they did the same application they did different things for one they deferred until November and for one they uh did an appointment MH right after the election and there wasn't controversy around it so I don't I guess like I think you're there was yes right but nobody nobody went back and like tried to get her recalled or whatever so get a thousand um no I I not going to say you think that even if you appoint the fourth person that there's not going to be the same thing yes yeah I mean the for because the public spoke the public didn't the majority spoke that's fair yeah going to go around so if if that's what that you want to do then I guess that's that's the voice of the board I just don't agree I think the problem that we' run into is we have another member here um who I'm assuming won't agree with that process either based on conversations I've had with him and so then it just when we go to vote on that person I don't know what's going to happen well well honestly he hasn't been here to hear so hopefully he's listening to this conversation so he's not just getting a perspective on it correct so either that or he abstains from not voting on it so are you so Terry and Judy are you committing that the fourth person whoever it is you're going to vote Yes today that's what that's what I am saying my commitment is process and that's what I'm asking if that is our process that we agree to make that our commitment because it's it's going blind we don't know who that fourth vote getter is going to be that means you vote Yes for no matter who it is yes that's what I'm committed to because that that's we're reflecting what the public is telling us that's it's to me it just goes against everything as far as my Integrity well that's okay they can they yes and then when it's time to vote then you can have the choice to then that's where it goes it it's like I said like we're supposed to have like a say in this process and talk about it as a team and we're not talking about it and like I may not have voted for that person for a very good reason like maybe I just listen to things and I don't think they have what it takes to be on the board your opinion it's not The public's opinion our opinion matters because we're suppos to the appointment process is a board appointed process opinion okay I just I just seems yeah I just can't I can't figure out that logic because if you commit to the fourth place because they got the fourth most votes and it's only for a year and the and the people voted for them I'm going to say no because I don't like that person right but obviously there's logic there because even the city didn't do that pardon the city didn't do that when they had the same option the board has never done that but that's where it can become it's a political entity too and the school board is not supposed city is city is non it's nonpartisan it is nonpartisan but there's politics there just says there's politics here like it's not my I have no opinion about what political party they're affiliated with I'm just saying that I listen for like the education things that I'm looking for and if they don't have that and I don't vote for it then I just have to I'm sorry that you took your us right as a citizen to vote your vote doesn't matter we're just going to appoint the loser so that person will be on for 10 months 10 months 11 months yep and we'll make a decision whether or not they're going to continue forward and run or not run and then the community will then have a say and they will need to prove themselves why they're on and be part of the board but that's the same risk we run when you guys got elected and corre I got elected yes it's the same exact risk you don't know who I'm fine with the election process I I just can't I have a hard time like combining it with the appointment process that's where I'm stuck yeah I understand do you see where I'm coming from understand where you're stuck but I'm I'm just saying to me I don't see the difference because there's I am I'm going to be going and voting for three candidates and I may not not vote for whoever that fourth vote getter is but I have respect for everybody that is filed everybody that has put themselves out there for the last six seven months or four months or whatever it is and to give them the opportunity to prove themselves at the table you won be if it doesn't work hey that she a Community member that can evalate that is true can I sh I'm sorry can I share some metrics is that okay can can you yeah I'll let you finish I'm sorry nope go ahead you all your numbers the uh uh David Anderson when he ran he got 12,898 votes so almost 13,000 votes Terry came oh I take that back Terry was number one Terry was number one 12,960 votes and then David Anderson was like 75 votes away from you so you if you don't mind can I round up and we'll say you and got roughly 13,000 votes yeah but I give a bad sign about but you beat you did beat him uh the second vote the third place vote getter was Judy with 10,165 votes and so that rate there is a big 3,000 vote swing like that's not 5% that's at 10% I mean still getting 10,000 votes in the community I know but that's that's that's almost a 15% swing from 13,000 votes to 10,000 votes that's a lot of votes it's a lot of votes and then the fourth place person got uh 9,000 votes and so aot and then the fifth place person got um 8,500 votes and so the difference between the fifth place person and then the fourth place person was less than 5% and so you're the board is deciding that those extra 500 votes is just enough for that person to be appointed by the community I mean that I just feel I feel like we're going around in a once the board makes a decision the majority of the board speaks the majority of the board has spoken and then when we leave the table like I said I I don't agree with it but the majority of the board has spoken so it'll be what we do um can we have a contingency plan where um if that person the fourth person does not want it or if there's a tie or the person doesn't get voted in me oh I don't want to talk about a conce plan if they're not voted in yet but I I would feel I would feel more comfortable if we're going to do this and this is what the majority of the board is decided if there's a resolution that we vote on in the meeting on this next meeting that we have that lays out what our process is and that we are agreeing to that but if you said I have to agree to it too you have to what I would have to agree to it too yes I feel like in our last meeting we said we were going to make the I I mean this is where like if we wait till the end of month's meeting we're delaying you can move forward with the process but I just think we should vote on it what is is 3 three it's 3 three but I don't think we vote on the process yeah like a resolution for the process well I think if we're going to decide need to have contingency I can appreciate a contingency but I feel like that when we met last week we said we're going to make a decision tonight so that we can get the everything out to the community yes so we can I don't care if like to me could I agree to okay if the fourth person says no I don't want to do it um do we then change to an I I mean I we can explore that but I feel like that's that wasn't what we said we were going to talk about tonight was any contingency plan so we have to have a contingency plan if this is our process well we can discuss that did talk about that last time where we said what if the fourth person says I don't want to do like I ran for a fouryear seat I don't want that right so then do you go to the fifth person or do you go to an appointment they because they're running for as she said we're offering them an opportunity which is fine they may turn that down okay if they turn it down then I feel like we have to discuss what you the Fifth Fifth Place person or we I think we should discuss what we do this is not what we' had opportunity to further discuss which we wouldn't do at the end of month board meeting we would do in a work session so that when we're laying out the process we have to lay out our process so that the community knows what is going to happen if the situation were to occur in my opinion since we'll know who the fifth place person is we should go to the appointment process at that point yeah because then we would know yeah well what if the fifth place person was only like that's a good 70 votes away from the fourth place person like we got so many ifs and ifs and ifs I don't know any of this is going to happen I agree though at that point I think one of the reasons why I really like this approach is because we don't know who it is but at that point we would so at that point we could because then it opens it up for all of it so we could okay yeah I'm fine with that is is that fair that's fair I mean once we know who all the places are then it's got to go to a point if we it's the fourth place person so what's the communication like are we going to type up some communication for the community that to say what our process is going to be I think I don't know that we need to say the contingency plan the contingency plan is now on record but we say this is what our process is going to be and then if it comes to that we made this decision back back at this point to to go to an appointment process but I feel like to go through the ifs ifs ifs just I don't think we need to do if ifs ifs but for every District around us that is going through the appointment process right now they put out communication either on their website or through email based on what their appointment process is going to be they've adopted resolutions on that on what their process is we haven't done any of that um which is neither here nor there because we were really talking about it right but like if this is what the board decides and this is what they want to do then we should have communication around this to the community so they're very clear on what the expectations are as soon as possible that I would suggest that the communication should be that the fourth place person will be voted on by the board not be appointed by the board that was the whole purpose of this still we any appointment still requires a vote it is the appointment is the appointed person but the board will vote on the appointment got so make sure we're clear with that yeah that's fine okay and if for some reason the fourth person does not want to do it then we go to appointment you know if you're thinking about a new school Schoolboard member wouldn't that be the best place to be because you're only committed for one year if you don't like it think about it that way I don't know it's not a bad position sure all right so that was all that we have on discussion for tonight um I guess like will Communications type something like that up or should we well we'll take a shot at it but um I think the logistical process of uh of this will have the potential to require refinements uh I'm going to try to keep it as simple as possible okay that would be good I appreciate that all right well thank you everybody for your attention tonight Terry wanted to go to midnight I'm sorry Terry we're gonna I'm fir up was that wine I think thank you good night hey Brian I need to talk to you about one e