##VIDEO ID:dv9hFk6WiHI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e finally paid up my student loans like three years ago and now I'll end up with more it's like that part is like work doesn't sponsor there argument is that another company will hire you but ladies and gentlemen it is 6: PM on the 19th of August and this is the regular school board meeting of monacella District 882 um if you're inclined please rise with us for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands Nation indivisible andice at this point we will uh move to approve our tentative agenda as the permanent agenda for the evening so all moved second moved by Melissa Curtis seconded by Casey root all those in favor of approving the tentative agenda to the permanent agenda for the evening please say I I I all those opposed please say no motion passes 5 we do not have any citizens comments for this evening moving into item number five our fiscal stability this is a consent agenda item consisting of the approval of minutes from August the 5th our Personnel matters and our bill summaries for the month uh members of the board receive all this information approximately a week to a week and a half ahead of time have the opportunity to ask questions about any of the information that is on there and then we do move these three items together all moved second any discussion from the board all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items as presented please say I I I any opposed please say no motion passes 5 Z moving into item six we have a wonderful opportunity this evening to recognize one of our students and I'd like to welcome um Gary Revan to the podium to discuss this um celebration that we have ahead of us right good evening and I'd like uh Lance and his parents Joe and Tracy to come on up please all right we have a a first in school history um Lance this past summer here end of the spring season uh out of 12,000 students participating in trap shooting across the state of Minnesota so think about that I don't we've had state champions here before but we've never had someone in competition with 12,000 individuals and Lance represented Us in the state tournament made it as an individual and um biggest stage of his life he gets 100 shots Lance made all 100 so he is a co- a champion 100 and before I turn it over to Lance for a few questions I just need to thank mom and dad so Joe and Tracy who are here tonight as parents are our coaches and they took over for Tammy balloon and um they've done an amazing job they're so passionate about trap shooting they think trap 365 days a year and constantly hounding me to to make our program even better and I love it and uh it's a huge honor to to win and to win at that level so congratulations uh Lance he also got to go to the Twins game was recognized there so he's kind of on tour right now and he's only going to be a senior he's back this year so back to defend the title so congratulations any questions for Lance yeah I have a uh two questions did I read also that there was another compet comptition in the Twin Cities that you took first in that one as well uh yeah I shot uh MTA competition at Alexandria and I shot 100 out of 100 there too that is Days Later outrageous and so you know there's another Olympics coming up in Los Angeles in 2028 and you have four years to get ready so we're watching you now on behalf of the board we do have a certificate to you just from the board recognizing your achievement and your honor and um obviously we'd love to do a picture with all all this whole gr up here but are there any more questions I don't want to steal answers congratulations that's really exciting yeah congratulations and then you mentioned the MTA is that the same as trap shooting or is it a little bit different yeah it's just the Minnesota okay all right tra social okay and thank you Lance's parents for stepping up and Co yeah you must be amazingly proud We love it yeah Journey um just staying focused not doing other stuff just cuz I shoot like I'm at a club four days a week working or shooting so how many shots per day uh normally it's like 75 to 100 a day he doesn't need any extras was pouring rain by the way too pouring rain but that's what he he does best than that so now we know we got to have it rain the day rain wind all the he's got it so yeah U let's get a picture where do you want them well we here be glad to take your picture the Stars show in the middle the absolute best part congratulations thank you [Applause] thank I know the administration gets uh invited out every year so by the coaches so please take that opportunity um I think Miss crto surprised a few people uh in one of her visits um and I've been able to go out there and learn from thees the shoters absolutely right there [Laughter] no fighting back there well it's hard to beat that but we'll go ahead and move on with the rest of our agenda this evening but it sure is wonderful that's the best part of being on the school board is to get to celebrate the successes of our kids when they really excel in a way like that so moving on to item number seven we have a resolution for the board and then uh it may seem like it's falling at a bit of an awkward spot here as to what this is so the Minnesota school boards Association has um a government relations arm and they work with our legislators every year and with the Committees on items that are important to school districts and so individual school districts and delegates to the um delegate assembly can submit resolutions to go onto that platform and that's what this uh particular resolution is we approved to the last meeting and won this meeting so this particular resolution is um I'm going to have uh member Melissa Curtis read it for us just the highlighted part just the highlighted part I think that's resolved msba urges the legislature to fully cover the cost of a carton of milk for public school students who bring a home prepared meal to school for lunch and so is there any discussion from the board forward on this resolution any question I think it's a good thing to bring forward it just seems odd why you know we could cover a whole meal with the milk but the kids that do bring the lunch it's it just seems odd that that would not have been thought about at the legis level when it was first pass so yeah at the situation as it is now the students actually have to stand in line and take a hot lunch and discard it if they don't want to eat it in order to get a carton of milk and there is also a provision for free to get it for no cost no cost no additional cost and I believe kindergarten students can receive an additional carton of milk midday or mid as a snack um without a a cost so it's only students 1 through 12 that are kind of affected by this and we did the math in our district if a student were to buy one carton of milk every day it would cost a family approximately $117 over the course of a school year per student so we feel that this is something that if the legislature feels um strongly about providing free meals the the nutrition component of the milk carton is the same whether you bring your lunch or have the uh School prepared lunch so we're asking them to cover that this year so does this need a second um yes second second uh read by Melissa uh Curtis seconded by Casey rote all those in favor please say I I any oppose please say no motion passes 5-0 moving on to our collaborative connection um we are very blessed that pretty much every month we have donations to our district last year that was nearly $300,000 in donations um both monetary and in kind and um this year is starting out to be just as um exciting for us and so we do have donations that superintendent Olsen will be talking about absolutely so the first one that um I'd like to bring forward is um $2,500 to sponsor the resiliency conference U that we had at the end of July um that's from wri County United Way and then the second one is carlen and James Janssen uh for $500 for students in need um klen comes forward um for the last two years and she is an admin assistant over at Center Care uh for the executive director hering uh so it's just she just really her and her husband make a decision to come back and and give uh to uh the school district in order to help students in need so to great um giving uh entities uh just coming forward for our kids and great programming so we have a resolution for these donations this evening therefore be it resolved by the Bonos solo School Board District 882 to gratefully accept the following donations wri County United Way um for the amount of 2500 sponsor resiliency conference and carlen and James Jansen for $500 for students in need all those in favor of accepting the donations as presented please say I I any opposed please say no and motion passes 5 Z and now we are uh delighted to welcome our neighbors from Big Lake School District this evening we have with us um Big Lake superintendent Tim trach um Sherburn Northern County right Co-op director John Weekley and Big Lake Schoolboard member Ashley shilan um they're going to be discussing some of the issues related to our special education Co-op and for anyone watching um that is unaware we have a co-op between monacello big lake and Becker school district for our special education services so welcome superintendent and um we're interested to hear what you have to say and just real quick um I just think it's a great time and we have a work session tonight where we're going to be talking about um aligning our um budget and looking into the future of how uh what next steps are we going to take and that's what we get to hear about you so we get to hear the steps that you've taken as a community and see how it's going and where you're at in that process so we we couldn't be more excited to have this I I just don't ever remember having this kind of collabor collaboration with uh districts and this collaboration we're pretty proud of uh Becker big lake and uh monello the three superintendents who are part of uh John wickley's uh Cooperative so yes uh Madam chair superintendent Olsson as well as board members thank you so much for having us super excited and I'll be honest with you it's a little strange uh first of all I'm wearing the wrong colors apparently I don't know what it is but uh go magic I guess I I don't know wait is this recorded wait no I thought I would loose it up just a little bit there but no we're super excited I'm here tonight actually and and and actually what what uh superintendent Olson said it's it's very true we've really been working on collaboration um we're part of a co-op we serve our students we are way more alike than we are different um we we have a lot of opportunities for us to do some alignment and try to share some um things and try to work together because together we can actually maybe offer some things that um we couldn't offer otherwise and uh tonight I'm just going to talk to you about one of those types of things and actually I'm going to invite John up here shortly but before I do that I also want to invite or just kind of acknowledge Ashley shilan who's a board member um she she's present often and she uh is here so if you have specific questions or things you want to ask she's obviously a fair game as well so uh but I want to talk to you we do have on the ballot coming up here this fall we have uh three questions uh that are going to be uh going coming up to a vote um it's we're going to have a tech Levy and we've got an operating Levy and we've got a bond referendum I'm not going to bore you with the details because it has to do with Big L things or the tax impact and all of that fun stuff because I've given lots of presentations on that uh but I do want to talk to you about the bond referendum uh the bond referendum actually uh it it and I think there is an image that can be displayed can we pull that up Kevin so our bond referendum just to kind of orientate yourself it's it's actually I always tell people that Levy for learning bond for building so the bond uh uh portion of this is a facility and the portion in yellow is actually a multi-purpose space that's going to connect our high school and our middle school and it's an indoor obviously Fieldhouse type setting that's got um some other additional spaces approximately 65,000 Square ft just to orientate yourself this is to the right um to the West there or to the east uh is our football field and our track and uh straight up on top is our high school gymnastics is that kind of square box right up above the word facility or Plaza that's where the gymnastics space is just to kind of orientate yourself of where we're talking about but what I want to talk to you about tonight is actually the special education space that's kind of that curved spot down there that's approximately 15,000 square fet um we as a district identified some needs and talked about timing with some debt dropping off and things and we have an opportunity for us to uh ask our voters to support um these two facilities and this one in particular is of interest to not only us but also to the co-op which means you um we have some specific needs in particular in the area of a setting four which is your behavioral type setting currently we do not necessarily have a Continuum of services and many times we house a lot of these Services inside our buildings because there are not spaces for these students to be programmed correctly a lot of times they end up on weight list and if you are a teacher in the house or a principal you know what I'm talking about um because I do know that they there are some challenges and we do the best we can to provide those programs for those students but sometimes it's a real big challenge we are proposing and we have because of those needs um that we add this additional square footage and we utilize that space essentially as Co-op classrooms for this programming so again not just benefiting Big Lake but also benefiting the overall Co-op which includes monacello and Becker so that's essentially where we're at uh with this whole P but um I did want to point out that we do have obviously because we have a strategy in how we approach the vote piece we have a tech Levy but the operating Levy needs to pass for the bond referendum to pass as well so I just want to make sure you kind of full knew the full picture because we need to have operating dollars support the new facility as well as other operating cost so that's kind of where we're at with the three questions I'm going to invite John up here a little bit to talk about special education programming and some of the needs and again obviously I would open up the floor to questions if you might have some afterwards so John hello and members of the board John weekly I'm the director of the sherbet Northern right special ed cooperative and as Tim said we serve the communities of monel Becker and Big Lake I can't reiterate enough how excited I am for the collaboration that's happening between the three districts not only in special education but just talking bigger picture and maybe eventually regular education and so there's a lot of exciting dialogue that happens kind of behind the scenes as we're talking about ways to best serve students in this region um the cooperative's mission ultimately is to make sure that all students have the level of care that they need and we've done a great job over the years but the needs have been changing and as we go in as Tim said level four programming has become a real priority need for us um biggest challenge is um not programming for these students but also within our current footprint of buildings doing it in a very efficient manner so historically we've had programming but it's been spread out across multiple buildings and this year we're able to kind of have a have an immediate solution for it but not a long-term Solution by leasing some space where we're able to get three of our four major level four programs into one location we still have one that's occupa space here in the in the Middle School our goal is to be able to get all those programs into a real state-of-the-art Innovative space where we can meet their needs setting for students tend to have higher incidences of you know aggression agitation and elopment and so by having a program that meets their individual needs it doesn't only support them but it supports the learning of all students by having all students have a regulated learning environment the goal is not to take those students and put them in a separate facility you know forever the goal is to help them get the skills they need help them transition back into the least restrictive environment if possible by having the location um and the the Continuum of Care within that program having the max maximum efficiency then we're be able to meet those needs of those students question three really would allow us to remove some students from waiting lists as well um we have students that are within our member districts that due to not being able to grow the program as quickly as we would like they're on waiting lists and that tends to stagnate and allow them not to make the progress that we would like if we're able to move forward with the question three on November 29th when it gets voted in then we would be able to um really be Innovative in those programs as far as benefits to monacell so ultimately this really benefits monacello big lake and Becker students it would allow us to be efficient and it would allow us to have these students in programs that really spur their growth and potential any questions about the setting for Cooperative program initiative yeah I have a question on the space itself so this Bond reference end up up in Big Lake so of this space that you want to build how full would that space of special education B and how many years would the capacity be supported before you would have to build like are we are you just building the the to to fill up a space on there and the last thing you want to do is ask for money build a building or or an addition so I think that was part part of the longterm long-term discussion and then seven eight years later while we're we're at capacity again so so it allow ow us to move all of our existing programs into the location with the square footage that we have but it would also allow us to increase each of those programs by you know four to at least four students is kind of the go is the goal there but Additionally the design of the program was that they could build easily within that space structure so that they could increase capacity if we needed to increase down the road but ultimately we' be able to start off with filling the needs of all of our current students and being able to bring in additional students potentially students that are on waiting list or even students from around surrounding communities um I I get a call at least weekly asking for program availability from neighboring communities like Buffalo you know down in the Metro and additionally in St Cloud area and so we'd be able to actually bring in some students from outside of our member districts that way you could charge for and also recoup some funding for that space so right now would the capacity be 20% full 30% full 80% full of the of the future space yeah if you had that future space right now I would say it's probably be right around 80% so I just Ashley shilan so um so the Schoolboard has had a lot of conversations about this and obviously um what we're dealing with right now is just a blue blob on a screen so there are no plans drawn other than figuring out where it would fit on our property but as a school board we've had very extensive conversations and one of the recurring themes is making sure we do build this for the future that we have spaces that are able to adapt to Growing needs in this population as well as growing needs of actual bodies you know student body um and so I love that you brought that up and that's something that you know we we talk about a lot too um and something that we definitely will be looking forward to I've had John pull a lot of numbers about you know how many we have and weight list and you know what the area need is and stuff and um you know so far he's you know they feel very comfortable with square footage that we'd be able to um allocate um to grow you know for foreseeable future but yes thank you for bringing that up and I will make sure I bring that back to our board as well because that is something that we've talked a lot about um and and we're with you we want to make sure that if we're spending this money we we're building for the future so we we kind of calculated our existing Footprints in each of the buildings and piece me those together to get close to that 15,000 with we were at about 13,000 if I remember exactly right with our square footage across what we currently existing have okay but it's not very efficient space right so sometimes it's a program that has two rooms that maybe have a little distance between them and so not only do you lose you know efficiency with that it's really challenging when you're working with this population to be able to do those Transitions and so by having them all in a nice safe secure space with less transitional spaces we're able to really help with safe safy and that climate of students and then additionally being able to bring the teams together just right now we have a lot of islands of teams that we have amazing people but they're working kind of in silos and just having that support network of a broader group of professionals helps them program development but it also really helps them with being able to rely on each other so like if we had a setting four teacher absent from one of our buildings right now if they were sick it's kind of a crisis right we don't really have a long subl list of people that are wanting to come in with spaces but by putting these programs together we already have a safety net built in there where we can reassign people within that space and support those students even if somebody's absent so the concept of bringing them all together can be a little daunting because you're talking about a lot of high need students in one space But ultimately the it it will help us in the long run and again tonight I'm we're not here asking for anything other than right awareness and uh just information uh because like said uh it's it's one of those things that uh it will strengthen the opportunities for our Co-op and we believe in that Co-op so I guess the only ask is to continue that support for the co-op and uh uh know that uh we're this this is in the works this is on the ballot and we're hopeful that um we get a favorable but I will say this whether this passes or not in November this is a continuous need so um this is one that I I oftentimes tell the board and she's heard this before that it's a bit of a journey sometimes it's not necessarily a destination or you don't necessarily arrive right away these needs don't just go away you have to continue to uh find Solutions and uh this is this is one we believe could be a solution but if our community chooses that it's not at this time then um we'll try another another way so and then separating the level three from the level four is only going to benefit the level three classification of students in special education we have students that are in settings one two and three yep setting three tends to be where they're spending you know about half of half of their time outside of the regular education spaces setting for is a higher percentage of being out of out of there and so currently we do have students that maybe have a setting four level of need that are in setting three and by delineating them out of there that does help um the level three settings one two and significantly I have a question uh We've relocated some of our special education uh assets to the high school um from theary building that we had and how would this build this build that you guys are going to do how would that affect us that program probably can take it so um we mov the Alp and um we uh the high school has been um planning uh to have the aop at the high school as a um a long-term solution so really the short-term solution um over at the workbase Learning Center um has really no impact on the high school um programming it's more of the co-op programming okay thanks yeah I forgot that that was Alp specifically and then I just want to make it clear for any of the people that might be watching that this particular question is not going to show up on our ballot it will only be big lake vote well it does affect us but I mean that we might have some questions about you know do we only get this one question because it affects the co-op or something like that yeah no and that's thank you for clarifying that and and when we talked about this we talked about communication efforts we T um we thought that it would be really helpful for us we've already been to the Becker school board um and now we're here because let's just face it our families are across the street from each other and nine times out of 10 probably related to somebody in there so it's important for us just to understand that we're kind of all on the same page and we're all part of that Co-op and again we really value that and and superintendent Olsen has worked really hard to uh kind of drive and and Lead that uh collaboration we want to continue that effort and we believe in the co-op we believe in the services they provide we believe in special education because child is different and we want to strengthen that and we want to provide the best program whether it be through the co-op or you know your own individual districts and and the co-op is just a fantastic entity to kind of strengthen all of that so I really feel I really feel confident and I really feel good about that hoping hoping to strengthen it with uh with this any further discussion from the board any further questions thank you guys so much for coming this evening very much appreciate um you coming fantastic job and good luck with your questions on your bond moving on to item number nine teaching and learning we'd like to welcome Jeremiah Mack and his team from Community Education this evening um they're going to give us an update and I'll let you introduce each of the members of your team all right well we're back again to just talk about past school year and then kind of look up ahead to look ahead to this coming school year so today we have Jen Johnson our ear learning coordinator Andre Greenwald our magic Adventures coordinator Ryan Sidell our theater manager and Foundation director and Jill Kowski our activities and Recreation coordinator Stephanie is not here she just got married on Friday so she is out on a honeymoon and Jill became AB manager went home with an injury today so so I get to cover two parts but we's get started oh perfect as we laid out last time we were here um our overall program goals Community ad cross about trying to make efficient use of all our school facilities and grounds coordinate with other local agencies and outside groups to best program for our community needs here in monacello uh and try to find a balanced programming approach that hits all participants because we do serve everybody from birth to death so we're the only part of the school that serves everybody all 22 and a half thousand 23,000 people in monel plus outside of our boundaries uh and then always how do we continually monitor what we're offering and how we can we get better and what are those gaps that we're not serving so we can fill in those gaps or work with partners that can meet those needs because we don't have to do everything right but we can do a lot so these are our main program areas we have early learning adult basic Ed our facilities Foundation is new uh marketing enrichment programming and school age child care so we'll start with our youngest Learners with Jen all right so for Early Learning um we have ECFE we have School Readiness and we have Early Childhood screening um and so this year in ECFE we served over um 600 participants um with our classes and special events um we had a new class this year that we tried out at nature-based and it was a very well-received we had a waiting list um was called Forest friends and we did that on Friday mornings and so that was really fun to see that take off and we're going to be doing it again this next year um for ECFE we did several family events like big wheels we did a prom at eec um we also did an event out at Bertram and this year when we had that event out at beram um this past year it has been the 50th anniversary for ECFE across the state of Minnesota and so we invited the teddy bear band to come out and they had written a song for um ECFE this year to celebrate that so we were honored to have them come and enjoy that celebration with us and the families loved um singing along with the songs and dancing and all those fun things um for School Readiness we had over 250 people participate or students at East viiew and then um 23 students out at nature based and for Early Childhood screening we had over 250 um kids ages 3 to 5 that were screened and the one other thing I just wanted to point out is Rally to read um that call to action initiative um just excited about um the things that will be happening with that as we continue to move on with that this year and then our next slide these are just some upcoming things for this year that we're looking forward to um we're adding in ECFE another new class um relating to Nature we're going to do this one at East viiew it's called backyard Buddies so we'll add some nature components just at our main site and then um we'll continue with our ECFE family events um and then I'm honored to be um part of the the Statewide um ECFE celebrating the 50 years um committee and so I will be presenting with um some other uh people on the committee at the MCA conference this fall um and then for School Readiness we look forward again to having our family fund night for leap into literacy that was very much well received by our community we had um close to 400 um people there and so we're glad to be doing that again we're going to be adding another assessment tool for um our School Readiness students age four um it's called fastbridge and we're that's to align with the fast Bridge tool that we use in kindergarten so we can see how um our assessments align from year to year with them and then we are adding an early learning core um position through that early learning core um Group which goes along with our rally to read initiative and just supporting more kids in their early literacy skills right hi everyone thanks for having us um I'm Andrea I coordinate the um Child Care Program magic Adventures um I'm going to focus on kind of how our numbers are looking um how they were last year how they are um going for this year because that always seems to be uh an important piece um so last year we served um 280 students um I do have 50 staff members which seems like um a lot uh but they all have different availability and so some of them maybe are only available two mornings and some might only be available 3 afternoons and so um I have three amazing site leads that help me coordinate all of it um scheduling things like that so um we are able to serve as many students as we possibly can we had 51 um additional students last year than we did in 23 24 um and then this year our waiting list and I'll get to this um was at about 70 at the beginning of the summer and I've got it down to 33 so we're getting there I've got applications coming in we're sitting right at um 303 kiddos for this coming school year so far um this summer we have been busy um we operate from 12 uh 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m Monday through Friday so again my staff is absolutely amazing it gets to be kind of a long summer but it's been great they've got great teamwork and it has been one of our most enjoyable Summers I would say um the last day is Friday and then we have some non-school days starting up before the school year starts um we went to 26 different field trips uh we were busy twice a week uh a lot of them are between four and uh 7 hour field trips so again I have lovely staff members that take the students offsite um we went down to the Minnesota Zoo Baker park is a good one one ninja United is a new one that we're trying this year um and they loved it um yeah 285 last Friday I got a lot more in we have uh 303 like I said uh for this school year so far and a huge part of being able to offer more spots is really my work um with Mr olon and um Miss chido at the high school and she really was um helpful in in figuring out this new youth service class that we were able to add and so I have F sorry um 15 high schoolers that will be starting they're not available every day again if they were I'd probably be able to wipe out that weight list but um that has really helped um and getting additional students child care services um and yeah Sherry at the office is great helping me post all their jobs and um uh a Facebook message actually was um I had a staff that graduated college that was wanting a different career and she's back so it's been um kind of neat to be able to um try to again offer as many spots as we possibly can and get some old staff back in the door um yeah and I have to you know slowly add because we're regulated by the state so through um the Department of Human Services so I can't just add everybody off the list I have to make sure that we have enough staff for our ratios so Andrea can I ask you a question about those weight lists um so approximately how many kids do you have on a weight list 33 right now for the school year yep about 10 at each building which is not bad it's probably it's the least amount of weight list that we've had in this is my seventh school year so that youth service class has really helped and then parents aren't they aren't really needing before school as much I only have about 45 kids at each building in the morning but after school I'm up to 80 to 100 after school so the principles have been great to work with me and get more spaces and so thank you and the custodians are you able to talk about last year like how long did family stay on the wait list some of them the whole year did and if I did have sometimes if I did have a spot um they had already found care so that's kind of hard to say I guess but yeah some of them if they didn't register right away are we limited in terms of our physical space like how many students we can have in a room or is it are we limited to how many people we can hire so it's a staffing issue not of physical space is yep yep cuz I know you guys would support us if we said we need more space and the principls are very supportive so um that has been really helpful yeah we've talked about the weight list several times last couple of years so it's it's certainly one of our priorities to not have any families on the weight list if we can get to that point you know in some mechanism yep I just wanted to be I try telling every parent like I am doing every I'm one person in the office I'm doing everything that I can I've got a couple more interviews this week one next week so slowly they're trickling in I think after covid more people are looking to work again I don't know it this summer was the best I think we had less than 15 on the waight list so the summer for the summer yep were you were you able to bring any of them off the weight list over the course I think we got down to 10 okay I mean we start I really start at like you know 40 and then I can get down based on hiring more so thank you yeah yeah and another thing about like Andre's weit list too it depends on what students next on the list so we can't pass over students with special needs so we might have we might be able to hire one staff but we might only be able to service one student too so it kind of depends upon who's next on the waiting list of how we have to accept them into the program so you know obviously if everybody has no special needs I said we could take you know 10 in potentially but also then their contracts will mix and match on days and how the staff are coming and going too so quite a few variables but all right next enrichment and marketing this year was Stephanie um she had over 541 participants with 400 408 different individuals taking a community class in adult programming this this is just enrichment not Recreation so just enrichment programming over 950 different individuals taking an enrichment class either in the summer or after school um all of our trips and tours we do partner with as we talked with Big L was here earlier we partner with several of our surrounding communities to offer adult trips for mostly our senior citizens uh Steph just had one last week where had a bunch of younger people on the trip so just kind of f on the trip so it's nice that we collaborate uh also with our youth enrichment this year we've started collaborating especially on some of our things with big lake as well to offer certain classes that maybe just went run but then we'd have some classes in Big Lake some classes here so we share to get classes to run so this we don't have to cancel opportunities for those students especially ones who might have two or three here and they get three or four and we can run the class and still run that opportunity it was not as hard with the bridge closing down to get across town but as once that is done it just that just sharing those resources to get make sure that students have the opportunities to do that another thing we introduced this summer between some enrichment classes and swimming lessons is some Dynamic pricing structure where we had different price points so we had like the regular price a couple higher prices in a reduced rate and we just allow families to pick the price that best fits their budget so we kind of said told them that and said if you really value you want to help offset cost for other families you can pick a higher price point or you can pick the normal price point or reduced price point and then they don't it takes away that stigmatism of having to ask and call for us to give you a discount because that's kind of about the only way we've had it so that we it was very successful with swimming lessons we'll kind of talk that about this year so it made a lot easier for families to not ask for help and we don't know the instructors don't know what they pay they just see there's roster so we you know we can see who paid but it doesn't matter to us it's just we want to best serve our clients in that way uh she also can see some pictures on there so things that she did this summer now we got J um I'm Jill kadelski it's good to see everybody in the new role um some summer Recreation offerings we had over 1,859 users from July 1st to June 31st um a list of some examples we offered this summer is sports Samplers strength and conditioning basketball camps golf camps with the monell Country Club swimming lessons gymnastics taek kwondo lacrosse clinics and Diving clinics um some big events for the facility we had over 48 non-district users of 5,750 hours uh 27 out of District users which is 3,650 hours um some Partnerships that we've built and that I have in this new role I met with the city of monacella we're offering a co-ed adult volleyball league co-ed softball leagues uh we're doing some pickleball tournaments at the city uh swimming lessons we talked about that and then they also did a needs assessment that they're going to share their data with us some organizations I've met with is uh youth basketball youth baseball volleyball and wrestling and then again just collaborating with the High School coaches to see how to best utilize the facilities uh another one fun thing that is part of our department is obviously our adult basic education program we are a CO we are the fiscal host for adult basic Ed program so it's kind of like just a larger Co-op where we have 16 schools Four County jails two Workforce sites and we also have a center at career Force otherwise Workforce Center is the old name but now it's the group Center and we do offer official GD testing here in Monella schools uh this year just for Monella students we had over we had 169 different adults take ESL or GD class GD prep classes with monacello um and within that mix we had 26 different countries represented and 10 different language just spoken so we are getting more and more diverse uh looking at Jill's numbers 37% of our students were of Caucasian and the rest were all people of color or immigrants coming into our community so we are serving a very diverse group of adult Learners coming in for El and ab Services um also our makeup is about at night we had 92 female and 76 male participants so it's pretty balanced of who's coming in in you know obviously knowing looking at our classes we do serve far more El students than we do GED students so we have a lot Julia did a great job on Monday and Wednesday nights of having that and Elizabeth did a great job during the day and then we also started a family lit program this year with in conjunction with ECFE so we have moms or dads coming in with their little youngest Learners to learn parenting skills and ECF and those kind of skills but also then the adults had a time to work on their English skills so they could be better prepared to speak English around with the community um we had a wide variety of ranges that our students went from um as our youngest Learners can only be 17 you have to be 17 to participate in adult Bas again uh and you have to have dropped out of high school so we do get several students will come from the high school and ask and like well you have to do this this and this and they don't come back they usually just go back to the high school because it is a lot of work for them to officially drop out of school so we want them to finish but we also know High School is not the fit for everybody and we do get a lot of students that are 18 to 24 that dropped out then come back and take their GED and get it done quickly so our goal is make sure that they get their GED so they can be more successful going to college or getting a job or we get a lot of we've had adults that are in their 50s say I never got my diploma but I need it now to get a promotion at work so they come in and get their GED and and all these services are free to to adults so we get paid based on total census in our Consortium and how many contact dolls we have with our people initi year we ran over 42,000 contact dolls Consortium wide so which is an increase about 17% over last year now we'll have Ryan close all right good evening everyone Ryan cidel theater manager and I'm also the executive director of the Monella schools educational opportunities Foundation some updates on the foundation we are wrapping up our recruitment efforts in order to fill our advisory committee um we've already had a handful of solid applicants and we are finishing up some meetings with local organizations and businesses this month to to try and get their voices heard uh in the foundation as well uh just this afternoon we wrapped up a meeting with the Rotary Club and in a few short hours since that has concluded I've already had two applicants from that so I'm hoping to have that wrapped up by the end of August early September so we can actually stand the board up and actually start meeting um we just this past week we successfully rolled out the employee contribution fund which is a voluntary uh payroll donation and talking to the folks over at HR we've already had a solid number of folks enrolling that and I'm sure that that will continue to grow as the school year starts and then we are setting up some fundraising uh efforts for The Fall season my thoughts right now I'd like to do a couple of competitive sporting events I'd like to do a competitive weightlifting event and and either a volleyball bad mitt or pickle ball just depending on what's going to get the most engagement my thought behind that would be just to charge a base entry fee and open it up to multiple age groups both students and adults within the community and then all of those proceeds would go directly into the foundation um and then I'd also like to implement a talent show uh possibly over at the high school and then set up uh multiple uh trivia and karaoke nights which would be free to the public to join um but we would also hold uh open donations uh at those events um looking over to the theater and the auditorium side of things we established the annual safety inspections for for both the auditoriums we had the high school one on July 1st and we passed that with flying colors we have the Middle School auditorium inspection scheduled for August 26th I'm sure that we will pass that as well with both of our auditoriums being in great condition um and then some recent and Upcoming plays that we have put on for the community back in June the Northwest Talent Academy put on Robin Hood and the Sherwood hoodies uh that was over at the high school um we just had Northstar Arts wrap up their production of clue here at the middle school this past weekend great turnout for that um in the last week of September and the first week of October we are inviting story book theater to come and do Goldilocks and the Three Bears we're looking to cast about 50 to 80 students in that grad 1st through 12th um which will be about a weekl long workshop for the students to get in learn some theater and then put on a production for the community we are also putting on Allison Wonderland here at the middle school in October we're finalizing the dates for that currently and then of course we have the annual High School Musical which I was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to direct this year so I'm very much looking forward to getting into the space with the students and packing the house and putting on a great a great performance for the community so pending any questions that is all I have all right thank you guys Aquatics uh I just want to recognize just call it our amazing Aquatics program uh Kristen said we were gold level Red Cross level learn to swim I was trying to figure out what that was but I couldn't figure out so but she said hey put this on there it's a good thing uh this past year during the summertime we had 860 different students take swimming lessons and we had over 273 people participate in summer during school year participation between pooling pizzas and private swimming lessons and then like we said we talked about that Dynamic pricing where we had the four tiers and actually looking our increase our overall numbers went up and our Revenue did not go down so that was my main concern it's like how are we going to follow this out so it was successful so we'll try it again next year uh it did help in the office not having 177,000 phone calls or doing price adjustments but we still haven't trained the public of signing up for one at a time versus the whole summer then we have to to switch you 17 times because you did passed or didn't pass your swimming lessons so that's okay uh I also want to thank Kristen for 10 years of service this is was her last Summers as you would have saw so we currently have a we're looking for a new quatics part-time quatics person to help run all of the amazing cool opportunities we have during the school year and the summertime but Kristen did plan all the school year before she left so it makes a little bit easier for us uh also just want to highlight a little bit of nwta Janine and Leanne will be here later this year to talk just give an overview of Summer but we had as we had as 10 different School District participated we had over 390 different students take classes over the four weeks and this was our sixth year and our biggest year of fun so we just want and we do have room to keep growing so we just need to make sure that we get more students and it's always the fun part is figure out those specially spaces of facts and different stuff like that so and we don't want to kick everybody out of the high school if we have to I I'll think about it so any questions for any of us not a question but just a comment I was fortunate enough to go and spend the day um one of the days at the Northwest Talent Academy and I was astonished at how it has grown over the last couple of years and all of the different um activities that were there and um as we went around she had them raise their hand if they had come before or if they had signed up for more than one class and the kids that were there were very enthusiast I Astic so this is really an amazing opportunity that our community has taken over years ago the nearest program was in Maple Grove so this is really something that um I think is a feather in our cap and that we need to continue to support it uh I I second Kathy's comment uh however my question is on the recreation and facility use it shows that you guys are on June 1st to July 31st is there a reason why we stop in July and don't carry into the middle of August or end of August I think Jill just the numbers for a certain time we do run programming all right that's that's what I wanted to clarify because that's just the so we do have swimming lessons that go from like May through the till swim season starts and then right summer programming will run through the whole summer so I want to make sure yes we have magic Ventures year round we have programming all the time so anybody else from the board questions or comments for Community Education you've briefed us on the northwest Talent Academy before in the past about goals and I know was it space for why we're limited or do we have enough space for that to continue to grow and if so what's our goal number you have enough space to continue to grow it just depends upon specialty space is the is more of a challenge because we all have one fax room so it's just trying to figure out if they need to do cooking or certain things for spaces what those may look and we we're try to be we still can go upstairs we just try not to go upstairs for the custodians so we can grow more into the high school it's just certain rooms are a challenge so if we can't we can only offer so many cooking classes how do you teer those cooking classes you know our goal we'd love to have four weeks we we have lots of parents that would like to come every week you know but they ask for that but then we put out there and the numbers don't always do that so so it's just kind of once it come like seven time to like eight all eight classes for four weeks they want more but then it's still having to make sure enough people can come and I think we tried this year was a little bit of trying to have people to pay for transportation so I just trying to think away that barrier of transportation is usually that versus saying it's free I think could change a little bit different because we didn't do midday routes because it was going to be $1,500 a week for one bus route so that's expensive so as a so we talk with all of our member districts is how can we we have a little bit of money put chipped in that we don't have to pay because everybody paid $1,500 that could cover all the busing for everybody for the whole summer and having routes to go you know from Foley down toig Becker big lake to here you know Zimmerman to here right so it's just running different routes that kids can ride the bus but take away that barrier of fees and how are we for um hiring teachers for that do we have a plentiful Supply is it is it kind of tight if we were going to grow the program yes I think it all you know I there more the teachers are our best salesmen for that this year we had our most proposals we ever had and that we we do a good job of making a decision sometime right around spring break if classes are going to run so if a teacher's classes does not run they still have the opportunity to go back and do summer school or do something different so they all want to work with us because they get paid pretty well based on how many kids they have in their class so they do a good job and we have a lot of returning teachers and we get a lot of new teachers too so sometimes too it's like what is their proposal what they want and what's offered other questions or comments from the board thank you very much Jeremiah appreciate you and your team coming and giving us a briefing and good luck Ryan with uh with coaching all the new uh plays coming up musicals thank you good job community so moving on to item number 10 safe and healthy culture we'd like to welcome Mr Terry Woodworth our director of buildings and grounds to the podium he's going to discuss with us our lead uh testing procedures and our management plan just an action item for the board Yep this is an action item so again thank you for giving me a couple minutes of your time um so yes we've had to revise the lead in the Water Management plan um this is to meet the new criteria that went into July 1st um and again this will require uh board approval I'm going again it's based on the Minnesota Department of Health uh model plan um a brief synopsis uh of the changes from the last plan to this year um um it has to do primarily with the lowered action limits um before previously the EPA had 20 parts per billion um it's now lowered to five parts per billion um the new uh the new plan includes verbiage about Mandatory Action responses and it also will we have um require us to notify the community and mdh on reporting so once this is approved get together with Scott George our resource and training uh Advocate and uh we'll start testing water and Reporting all this and and making sure it's reported in the proper space so um yeah so that's that's about it it's just been a revision so so the the dominant change was the drop in parts per million from 20 roughly 20 to5 are there any other substantial changes from the previous and is the the cost about the same as it used to be the cost to the district well there's a potential that there could be cost increases um but again we have ways around that we can you know we can either remove or replace the source um we can Implement a flushing program or we can you know again these are when you think of bottle fillers I think that's where they're kind of trying to get everyone to so when you test a bottle filler it's always going to pass going to be five parts per billion or lower but a regular drink in Fountain now that's where the the higher levels will come from so again this might be something that lobbyists are pushing for you know what I mean so um there's ways around it um but I can assure you that all the bottle fillers they will test properly every time so questions for Mr Woodworth from the board between bottle filler and a drinking F so a bottle filler has a filter on it a drinking fountain does not a normal drinking fountain that's just in the hallway like a porcelain one that does not have a filter on it but a bottle filler that you'll see in the hallway over here there's filters on it so so so the test cost more to identify five parts versus 20 parts or should the testing be the same cost testing will be the same cost okay yeah y any additional discussion from the board so we have the uh 21 page lead in water management Plan before us as an action item so moved second moved by Melissa Curtis to accept the lead and Water Management plan as presented seconded by Casey root all those in favor of accepting the lead and Water Management plan please say I I any opposed please say no motion passes five zero thank you very much Mr Woodward and now we have Mr Rob Daner Director of Human Resources he's going to discuss with us the evening this evening um employee handbook which is an action item for the board as well as um two policies welcome Mr Daner thank you chair zebar members of the board superintendent Olen uh so the first thing on the agenda uh for tonight uh that I have for you is the employee handbook um and this is action item for approval this evening um we over the summer we did an extensive rewrite of the employee handbook um brought it up to date in several areas added uh new and relevant items and others and um and then provided it for feedback to uh various District leaders including the policy committee uh two weeks ago and so feeling pretty good about the state that that it's in and um happy to bring It Forward for Action tonight is there any discussion from the board on the employee handbook okay so I'll entertain a motion I move to improve the employee handbook as presented second moved by Melissa Curtis to employ to approve the employee handbook as written seconded by Casey root all those in favor of approving the employee handbook for 2024 2025 please say I I I any oppos please say no and motion passes 5 Z thank you all right and then we also have two policies for second reading tonight um as always our policies go through the policy committee before coming to the entire board for first and second read uh second read tonight on uh policy number 611 homeschooling the purpose of this policy is to recognize and provide guidelines in accordance with the state law uh for parents who wish to have their children receive education in a home school that is an alternative to an accredited public or private school um as uh in addition to this we also have a standard operating practices document that is housed within our teaching and learning Department to help um implement this policy into practice as well is there any questions on policy 611 for Mr Daner I think we'll approve them together since the second policy is policy 613 graduation requirements um as the board remembers this one sat on first read for some time until we got um it into a um a final um uh final State uh and really the the delay is is really part of the process of moving the the high school from semesters to trimesters and so um a lot of credit goes to um princi Hansen and coell for their work in getting this in shape along with director fashing and making sure that uh we have this document and this policy um you know usable for our community any discussion from the board on policy 613 okay so we have before US policy 611 and policy 613 um and I'll entertain a motion so moved moved by Casey root to approve policy 611 and 613 seconded seconded by Jamie Sean all those in favor of approving policy 611 and 6113 as presented please say I iOS please say no and motion passes 5 Z thank you Mr Daner and at this point finding that our agenda is complete for the regular meeting we will adjourn at 7:03 we will reconvene for our work session this evening at approximately 7:15 um thank you everyone for attending e e