##VIDEO ID:72uOU6aOjDY## e e e e e e e e e I mean there's lots of stories she went through all the interviews and she's like okay here we go guys i' would like to call to order the September 17th regular board meeting of the MS School Board good evening and welcome the first item of business is agenda item 1.2 adoption of the agenda I would entertain a motion so moved second the agenda item has been moved and seconded any discussion hearing none all in favor I I any opposed motion carries next on our agenda is item 2.1 student representative reports tonight um for our first meeting this new school year we are very uh glad to welcome students from Irondale and monu high school so if you would join us up at the table right there we have kenu from MSU high school and Sydney and AA from Irondale High School well Irondale is starting out okay thanks and welcome so my name is Sydney my name is AA and we're seniors at Irondale High School um we're on the exact board for student council and here are some highlights from our start of the year so far so we marched in a lot of community or a lot of clubs and activities at Arendale marched in the soccer days period um with other community groups and yeah um our marching band has been really involved in a lot of things these past couple weeks so we recently finaled in our m i mean Ros Mount tournament and we got second place it was a very close call so you know and we're approaching our September 28th March of the nights which is a really big event so we're all very excited for that and then a lot of seniors joined us on the turf to celebrate senior sunrise and it was like a great kickoff to the year um our fall Sports have had a great start to their seasons and our girls volleyball especially has had a number of games that they've won so we're all really excited and then the this week has been homecoming week so we started off the week with some clubs came to decorate their hallways for just to like get some school spear started and then on Monday we had the volley buff and Powderpuff tournaments um where the seniors won and we had a good turnout to that um on Tuesday I mean today we have a lot of sports games happening after school so we're roting for our nights and then Wednesday is the homecoming royalty or the DECA homecoming Royal Roy showcase um Thursday student council is um hosting a Family Feud Style game night show so the student bodies like pretty involved in that and we're hoping to get some school spirit with that and then Friday is the homecoming uh football game with the marching band performing at halftime and the dance team and on Saturday we're finishing off our homecoming week strong with our school dance and the theme is glow in- the dark cool and that's about it for our school year so far great well thanks so much you guys thank you hello my name is konu guson and I'm currently a senior at mvw high school um just to give you a rundown of what's been going down at Mountains viw for student council we had um a get together event in August where we had a lot of incoming Freshmen um come and see what student council is all about and learn about um all sorts of activities and we had um our Mustang mentors event um the day uh where freshmen and all new students come in and we had a lot of uh student council activities at the fair where um freshman got to experience uh what what it's like to be involved at MSU through Sports and clubs like um NHS or uh the red uh Red Cross blood drive and uh many other things and um for our spirit week is next week and we recently sent out a form to the entire school to get opinion on what kind of um spirit days we should do so a lot of students really enjoyed Jersey day or groutfit or pink out um and we're looking at doing bring anything but a backpack day which is pretty fun and to really increase um or ramp up participation in uh school spirit week we're planning on doing um like raffle boxes before school so we're having student council members um kind of like take pictures of students and post on social media and we're trying to see if we can get more people involved in the spirit days and also we are doing a new event this year it's called um movie night on the field which is next Thursday so we will actually be airing Spider-Man homecoming for free to students to encourage people to come out to the dance and the football game and it'll be free for everyone to attend and we'll also have student council members running concessions and then um we will be having um petfest on the 27th of course and we will be having a tailgate committee um which will be planning food trucks like tacos or donuts and um photo ops for that we'll be posting on social media and then we will be having another setup on Saturday morning um to prepare our murals um our homecoming theme is starry night um we will be see here yes we'll be cleaning up up at the dance and yeah that's pretty much it thank you so much we're so we love hearing what's going on at the schools as you welcome all the students back in the community thanks so much for taking time out of your night to come and present us tonight and uh feel free to leave at any point in time don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting you're welcome to stay but we definitely don't require that thank you thank you so much moving on to item 2.2 announcements Shauna could you please read the gifts for us yeah so there were two gifts for schools and programs receed this period for a total of $600 and there were 10 gifts received for the Real freeder Food Shelf this period for a total of $37,500 it is recommended that the board accept these gifts and extend our thanks to the donors great thank you shaa uh upcoming meetings our next work session of the mzi school board is Thursday October 3rd at 5:00 pm and the next regular meeting of the school board is Tuesday October 8th at 7M and both are here in the district center now we'll turn it over to superintendent letics for item 2.3 the superintendent's report wonderful thank you uh a couple additional updates uh student recognition so our our students already talked a little bit uh about some of the great things happening uh this one is dated just a little bit because the state fair was still going on when I got the information but we're de had a meeting since then so here's who I want to recognize the Irondale High School Marching nights because they not only placed first in class A at the 2024 Minnesota State Fair Parade they were also named the grand champion which means that they actually received the highest score out of all 42 bands who participated uh at the fair this year so to all our staff students and parents who are part of the marching nights just thank you for all your hard work and dedication uh it is amazing how how that all comes together and the wonderful performances so just want to congratulate them on that outstanding award uh and second I want to let you know that three of our students have been identified as national uh Merit semifinalists they are Rahi Kim Isabella KK and Isabelle Le uh they join about 16,000 students naturally who compete for those highly uh competitive scholarships uh as they move forward finalists are scheduled to be announced in February so we want to wish these three Scholars well as they continue uh in that um effort and wish them best of luck moving forward right thank you thank you uh we'll move now to item 3.0 approval of the consent agenda I would entertain a motion moved second the agenda has been moved and seconded any discussion hearing none all in favor I I any opposed motion carries our next item uh item on our agenda is 4.1 certification of the proposed tax levy I'd like to welcome up Bernice hnik Executive Director of Business Services to explain this certification to us good evening state law requires boards to certify proposed property taxes by September 30th the estimate estimated proposed taxes total 60.7 million for all funds the school board's approval of the maximum Levy at this stage is St as a standard part of the process the approval of the maximum Levy gives districts flexibility to make adjustments as final funding figures are are clarified in the next coming months proposed levies for school districts carry the option of leving at the maximum versus a spe specific amount due to continuing updates by the Department of Education truth and Taxation statute requires a hearing to be conducted during a regular school board meeting the statue also requires that the date and time of the regular school board meeting um be notified and announced at the time of the proposed Levy is certified the regular school board meeting at which the truth and Taxation hearing will be conducted is December 10th 2024 at 6 p.m. at this time I'm asking for approval of the proposed maximum Levy to safeguard the district's Financial stability and ensure the continuation of all educational programs and student services thanks any questions for Bernice great i' entertain a motion that the board certify the proposed taxes as maximum on the levy limitation and certification of the 2024 payable 2025 as presented no move second the motion has been moved and seconded any discussion hearing none all in favor I any opposed motion carries thank you Bernice thank you thank you now we'll move on to item 5.1 District operational plan goal update uh every year the district sets uh District operational plan goals and uh tonight we're going to be hearing an update on the goal uh of community resource center so I'd like to welcome Carl Brown director of community ed and Mary Su Hansen director of the Suburban ramsy family collaborative who's joining us tonight thank you all right good evening everyone uh tonight we have a report on some of the work supporting the district's strategic area of meaningful family and Community Partnerships more specifically the district operational plan goal of exploring the development of a community resource center in our district um we'll be back a number of times this year with updates and uh reports of the work of the school but for tonight um like edot said uh we have Mary Sue Hansen executive director of the Suburban Ramsey FL family collaborative it's a group that MV public schools has been a part of since the Inception of the group back way back in 1998 and Mary Sue will share more information about the collaborative and the resources that are available in our community thank you Carl hello board members thank you for having me uh again my name is Mary SU Hansen director of the Suburban Ramsey family collaborative I just want to tell you a little bit about the collaborative and then um if you have any questions throughout or at the end I I would welcome any questions um we always say that our collaborative is um one of the mottos is we're stronger and better together and that's what collaboratives are they're really trying to figure out you know what can we do together that we can't do alone so the Suburban Ramsay family collaborative since 1998 um formed from legislation from the Department of Human Services and our mission is connecting individuals families and Community Resources to create relationships which enhance the well-being of our kids cradle to Career so we serve children youth and families pre-birth to 21 um who are really struggling with their health learning Safety and Security um we always ask the question how are the children as our foundational work the first action that our joint Powers board took in 1998 is a how of the children here to the ground survey so we hired Sue Garretts um she used to be a mayor of um Falcon Heights and she had a side business and she did some focus groups where she went to laundromats throughout all of suburban ramsy County Libraries and just asked families you know what are your needs and where are the gaps and how does a collaborative kind of attend to those needs um so our foundational question ever since then has been how are the children and that is really the our website too ww.how arethe children.org and one of the things we do is act as a systems change Catalyst and what that means is if there are are emergent issues or gaps in the system for children youth the families who are underserved unders supported marginalized in Suburban Ramsey County we look at how do we change those systems to be better useful um accommodating and responsive to kids and families with those needs so that's what systems change is about for us um I also say that our work is complex adaptive flexible responsive it's really hard when people ask me what I do because I'm like you know well I work with a system of care that involves you know libraries and social services and Corrections and school districts and Community organizations and Mental Health social services and we hold this umbrella of support that really works to respond to the formal and informal needs of kids who are struggling in our communities with their health learning safety security and people already their eyes glare over and it's just too much it's it's so what I say is you know we try to hold families together to do better by them um by working together supporting them getting resources in their hands and really kind of um working across multiple sectors and across systems um to look at better and more efficient and more effective ways to support families so I talked about our vision is really creating kind of a safety net um where children Youth and Family safety health and learning are a priority for all and it would be just ideal if no child remains in an atrisk circumstance um we really work strategically with private and public and nonprofit Partners to create that strong network of services and we identify gaps we mobilize Partners to um provide formal and informal resources and we really try to create and enhance critical supports for the schools um everything we do is school linked because schools are a pathway to access in Suburban Ramsey County and our collaborative work was works with all four school districts in Suburban Ramsey Mountainview North St Paul maplehood Oakdale Roseville and Whitebear Lake Schools um we also try to leverage human financial and in-kind support so really bringing in people's um gifts and talents and capacities to help um attend to the gaps and needs in the community there are 90 Children's Mental Health and Family Service collaboratives in the state um this was an AR Arie Carlon legislation in 1998 and that's when our collaborative form Carl and I were just talking we both started in 1998 so I've been doing this work and he's been doing this work for a few years yeah um and I did talk about how we ground um all the work that we do with the question how are the children we partner with a lot of family service providers so we're not a direct service so it's not like people give out our phone number that's not what we are we're behind the scenes um working with providers with school partners with the county and with human service agencies to create more family centered services and then we're the coordinators I feel like I'm constantly coordinating um services to say how do we do better who should work with each other how do we connect together to address gaps um and like I said it's different than St Paul where they have one collaborative one family service collaborative one school district and one city we have 17 cities four school districts 57 schools so our work is a little different because each of the school distri districts out here are very different they have different systems and so we really try to create strong relationships with all our schools to make sure we're we're being of use to you all um and so when we bring in partners and I've talked to this about the fact that a lot of our gaps have been that we we really lack culturally specific organizations in Suburban Ramsey County so one of our focuses has been to bring in culturally specific services from the cities or throughout and bring it to bring them to Suburban Ramsay form relationships and and bring those providers so we can serve more kids who are underserved this is a little bit of our funding we do receive some direct service dollars they're actually title fora dollars from the federal government which is foster care dollars and Ma dollars that flow to the state and then flow to the collaboratives once they become um collaborative dollars they they cease to be federal and state funding and um so we do receive right now we have about $700,000 we're allocating in Direct Services and I'll talk about what those are real soon our collaborative receives 37.3 37% of that countywide money the St Paul children's collaborative receives 49.99% and the Ramsey County Children's Mental Health collaborative receives 11.63% that's a much smaller amount and so our collaborative Partners very closely with the Children's Mental Health collaborative and we um have a memorandum of agreement to grow our mental health system of care together so that they get some of those funds and that balances that disparity um our overall budget is $1.1 million this includes our fiscal year 2324 operations um our admin is about 15.8% of the overall budget we keep pretty lean I'm the director and I have a few co-leads who helped me update resource directories and things like that um but um I have been really lean uh these last these these full 26 years because I really want to um you know keep our collaborative Partners engaged and if I feel like if we ask too much of them we might um we might lose um their participation but um for the past 26 years all these providers have um supported the revenue for the collaborative that includes Ramsey County that includes your District thank you so much uh 622 3 24 and cap RW and they each give um um a core partner contribution every year and we'll be asking for your core partner contributions again um for this coming year but here's your return on invest investment so since 1998 we received 4.7 million in core partner contributions from you all in turn we received the 24.6 million in lcts funding we served 142,5 30 children youth and families so far in Suburban ramsy we raised another 30 million in added Direct Services so that's a total of 55.4 million in leverage Direct Services for Suburban Ramsey County so that's nearly a 12-fold return on yourest investment the kinds of services we have are School link collaborative Services they're Mental Health Services with the Children's Mental Health collaborative and these are school-based therapeutic supports uh no I'm sorry these are School linked therapeutic supports culturally specific supports but we also get funding from DHS and I've worked to get that funding from the Department of Human Services from the very beginning I think this is our fifth round in multiple year grants and those are the school-based the therapeutic supports that are in your district and the other districts um the community social worker community resource Navigators are in each of your school districts too um they serve the comprehensive basic needs of um children and families who are in Atri circumstances we partner with with M Health Fairview with our cultural Brokers um we also partner with um um marn's table we have in the past in 2017 our board created a partnership with their intentional social interaction model but this year we we don't have any funds to work with them which is sad because I know this community engagement work um it really requires a lot of support and so it's unfortunate that we don't have those funds but we also do things like um every week since the pandemic hit I work closely very closely with a basic needs practitioner team and um we used to meet in person at the um Maplewood uh the Woodland Hills Church once a once a month there's about 40 um basic need PR practitioners who came um since the pandemic hit we've been me meeting every week virtually there are now 460 Partners who who join this team and about 50 to 60 show up every week uh and that team really works on coordinating meting our responses to help kids and families who are at risk of homelessness and things like that and this is um this is our heading home basic needs practitioner team um we do whatever it takes to keep families in their homes their schools their Community um we create from that work that we do every week we create what's called a basic needs resource directory it's just a Google doc but it has resources on our website so if you go to howardthe children.org and you scroll down on the first page you'll see that basic needs resource Dory over 3,900 um viewers um work on utilizing that directory um um very often and we also have a jobs and training directory too that we um update and this is what the basic needs resource directory looks like um and then from those weekly meetings if if practitioners are working on a case with a family and it's very very complex and they've tried everything and the family has tried everything and they hit the wall I always say you can call me because I have 26 years of experience working with all these Partners I can come together with you we don't name familes names or anything but we provide support for the practitioners and create a team for them and I guess what what I feel that's doing and what practitioners have told me is it gives me gives practitioners more confidence to work with families who really um have lost hope and um when I used to be a social worker many many years ago the one thing families always said is no matter what I looked in your eyes and I knew that you had ideas and you had hope and that gave me hope and then I know cuz I watched their kids they look in mom and dad's eyes to say are we okay and and as long as everybody looks like they they have a plan and that we're going to get through this um kids are okay and it's all about how are the children and so I'm going to kind of end with just a quick story um I was at a fair many many years ago uh before I had a child of my own and I thought this is a really busy fair I'm worried that some kids are going to get lost and I'm kind of intuitive and all of a sudden here was like a four-year-old boy running around crying and just balling and I went up to him and I said Dad I said honey honey are you okay and he said I I I lost my daddy and don't judge me I said what does your daddy look like and I get this was before he was before I had kids and he and he as if he was going to say my dad's you know six foot two or whatever but he said he looks like he loves me and so I always think about that our kids are watching us all the time and the more we can give hope and the more our collaborative can give hope to practitioners I really feel kids are going to be okay it's it's truly as we are better and stronger together and so the last thing I just wanted to say is you know this system of care that we provided if you look at all those green numbers those are all those points of light of people in our communities that work with us in Suburban Ramsey County and I always always say it's like we've created a Verizon network and we've created all these cell towers so that people can know who to talk to to help families um lastly I just want to thank you all um your School District offers real comprehensive student family supports you have for many years studied um the complexity of mental health issues and Incorporated new learning and processes to address gaps uh you have what's called an interdisciplinary team that you support every month with your practitioners in your school who come together to work with people like us Community Partners to address the gaps um in your own School District uh you understand that collaborative work is relational work and it isn't easy but you put in the time and I believe it yields exponential results for everyone and our community's benefit from that commit the commitment to partnership so I thank you um for our 26 um years together and for your support and I really feel srfc is strong because of you so thank you so much great yeah any questions from the board we got to hear from Mary Su on Thursday night at our work session as well so I think that some of the questions and discussion we had then but any additional questions or comments yeah Jim yeah I'll just uh comment on this I think a lot of us in government always say we're going to work together and we're going to coordinate and this and that and what we all know in schools is some of our problems are rather complex and need to be handled maybe not within the school school but within a larger sphere and so um we have over the years supported and invested this and as we've seen our um dollars and our services keep growing and growing and growing and you know this is basically about connecting our families with the resources they need that's right and you know it's great we have a clearing house it's great we have Mary Sue who's devoted herself this last 20 six years and I got to tell you it is a very um efficient uh coste effective way to connect family with the resources they need and I'm really pleased with this I look forward to many more years together on this because I really think it serves our community and our kids very very well so thank you for your effort thank you Jim that was nice thank you and I just wanted to comment on something that you said that I think is so poignant um and that not all families necessarily think about naturally and that we're hoping does um come to mind a little bit more which is schools are the pathway to access and so you know reaching out to the school um if you're a family that is having challenges um is is is just so uh important and obviously takes courage um but you know the the school the school district the the staff um you know we're here to help um and you know through your collaboration and everything that you do and all of the other resources um it really is really amazing um what we can do as a community to come around these families so thank you for everything that you do and how hard you work um to to coordinate and collaborate thank you Alysa I think that's the same back to you all right back at you because you all work very hard you don't let go of people you understand your role is to walk with people too and so together we really do make a good team so I think you're District as well and I maybe would close by thanking Mary Sue uh again but I'm going to piggyback a little bit and just emphasize because we had a chance for the public to talk about this Thursday at the work session um some may ask well why is why are schools doing this aren't you academics um and the reality is is that we're not going to be able to solve all these issues as a school but what we can do is partner um there are experts out there there are practitioners and and if we we're not the experts this isn't school because we're the expert it's school because that's where the families are that's where the kids are and when we identify those needs we can create these Partnerships and find ways to remove barriers so then kids re-engage in our classrooms and in fact learn more so this is a is a relationship that is critically important to us and and I just want to thank you Mary Sue and all the partners that you work with uh out there who who do support us on a on a daily monthly yearly basis it's uh just a a wonderful opportunity for us for the public you're going to hear a lot more about this because we want to make sure that this remains established and is something that our community our parents our students our staff can count on that these resources will be here into the future and are sustainable so uh again thank you thank you to the board for since how many years 98 yeah 1998 for supporting this and uh that's pretty pretty amazing and we want this to continue well into the future me too yes very much appreciated thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you thank you great at this time we're going to move on to item 5.2 updates Jim do you have an amsd and legislative update for us oh yes amsd uh met uh recently and they celebrated their 50th anniversary what is amsd I always said I got a school board I was going to talk in acronyms so because I never knew what people were talking about but it's the association of metropolitan school district a Consortium of the larger school districts in the state that get together and work on issues together and Advocate at the state capital for those positions so they celebrated their 50th Anniversary so we ran through a whole lot of great successes and some not so great successes and uh that was wonderful we also had a excellent presentation and and I'll encourage school board members to look at it in their inbox from Morris Leatherman we um which is a polling research firm and they help build on our legislative agenda but just took the mood in the public um it's um is interesting to hear some of the what the Public's interested in in public schools and some of the challenges we face and there's a lot of Shifting Tides out there but um one of the things that was number one that the Public's very interested is the subject mental health it was the number one thing in the polling that they thought schools should be dealing with a lot stronger so and um you know from a Schoolboard point of view career Fine Arts Civics uh those types of things that the Public's very interested in us pushing a little harder um we're doing at the M School District so that was great so uh and as we continue on I think um next Friday morning at 7 a.m. uh the legislative committee which I am on will meet and we will work on our legislative issues from A to Z at the state capital for next uh January so that's my report and thank you great thanks for representing us there Jim uh Shauna do you have a report from uh Northeast Metro 916 I do so we met on the first day of school September 4th it was a fairly quick meeting we did uh review and approve uh the 916 superintendent evaluation it was a favorable um evaluation for superintendent bow um and then the other kind of big item of business was to approve a joint Powers agreement between the city of North St Paul and the career and tech ed part of 916 um the students will building uh be building a single family home um so that construction can now get started which is super exciting because that does include students from the mountains School District in that program who will be helping to build that home I got to tour one of those homes last summer and amazing to see what they do and what those students learn in that process so that's great cool awesome uh next is item 6.1 Schoolboard member reports any Schoolboard members have any additional um tidbits to share tonight yeah I just have one thing so I uh I had the privilege of attending uh last Tuesday the Island Lake PTA family picnic which was a a great welcome back picnic that was put on by the uh the PTA there and it was uh was a great event I had the opportunity to meet some of our students there our staff and and uh some parents so it was a great event I mean the I I couldn't believe how many people uh were there attending and it was like a three-hour event it was again a lot of fun so I just uh wanted to give a special shout out to Stephanie wise the uh the uh PTA president and her entire team there just did an excellent job putting that event on and they coordinated and brought in some some of the other community organizations to um to speak about the different activities that that students could could participate in so it's just really a wonderful event so that's all I've got I know our iron Andale student Representatives did mention but music of the night it's a 32nd annual Music of the Night on Saturday the 28th uh starting at 5:00 pm at Irondale High School if you've never been to a music of the night I highly recommend it it spans from um not only all over the state but we get bands that come from out of state um this year iron Dale's show is called composition 24 in blue red and yellow um and it's fantastic and when they said it was close that Irondale got second place it was two t of a point that they um missed first place yeah was very close but it's a really great show so I encourage everyone to come on out great well this is our first meeting since this started the school year so I just thanks to all of our staff um across the district who worked tirelessly over the summer and um tirelessly in those last days of August and early days of September to open our buildings and welcome back all of our students across the district teachers par professionals custodians cafeteria staff bus drivers everyone who's contributed so hope everyone's seeing all those buses out there and uh and watching out for all of our students so if there's nothing else to come before the the board we are ajed e e