##VIDEO ID:MgZH-kacFDE## um I'd like to call um to order the business meeting of December 17th 20124 um the first up on the agenda is our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we just have to um do the approval of the agenda before we get to the achievement awards um can I get a motion in a second to approve our agenda so mov all right move by Martins second second by Livingston um any discussion before we move on all right all in favor say I I I um all oppose say nay all right uh the agenda is approved um and so now we're going to move to the achievement award so thank you for coming um today and I think I'm the one doing it okay good evening everyone my name is Andy beaten assistant superintendent for secondary schools it's my pleasure to introduce uh some outstanding students that are here to be recognized from Tartan High School and North High School for their achievement in activities Fine Arts and Athletics so let's start first John Janetta is John here we'll read a little bit about him JN is a junior at North High School he exemplifies leadership both on and off the field as the captain of The Polar football team JN ranked among the top five players in the state for receptions and receiving yards Beyond his athletic achievements he maintains an impressive 3.65 GPA and represents North High with pride at leadership conferences Jon's influence extends beyond the playing field as he leads in the classroom the halls and in the stands in the spring he continues his athletic Pursuits by competing for the polers on the track team it's Caitlyn here Kaitlyn come on up all right your hand you can stand by Jer this is Caitlyn hoppy Caitlyn hoppy a senior at North High School serves as the captain of both the fall and winter cheer teams she maintains an impressive 4.1 GPA while excelling in numerous accelerated courses Caitlyn is also a key leader in the Northern Lights show choir and played a prominent role in Anastasia the fall musical at North [Applause] congratulations after we're done Ka Caitlyn if you could stick around we'll do a photo with all the kids who get recognized thank you Thomas are you here come on up Thomas Thomas kubic is a senior at North High School has made remarkable contributions as both an athlete and a musician he plays key roles on the football team's offense and defensive lines competes in wrestling and participates in track a quiet yet influential leader Thomas excels Beyond Athletics as an allconference band member demonstrating his talent on the tenor saxophone he performs with North High's top Ensemble the symphonic band as well as a show choir band the constellations and the newly formed pop Ensemble polar drift his dedication to both Athletics and the Arts exemplifies his commitment to the North High community [Applause] Jer is Jer here okay we'll read about jer bource jer has had a historic season this past fall at tarton highlighted by over 2,000 rushing yards and 20 rushing touchdowns amazing both setting a new school record his exceptional performance earned him prestigious honors including Northstar East gold running back of the Year all subdistrict uh Team selection and tartans offensive and Team MVP awards Beyond individual Accola Jar's leadership and impact were instrumental in guiding the team to the section finals making this a truly Unforgettable season all [Applause] right a is AA here okay aah Thompson aah Thompson has been a standout athlete and leader of our tennis team a two-time letter winner she has cons consistently demonstrated her commitment to the sport and her teammates this past season AA was chosen as Captain a role she embraced with dedication positivity and High character her leadership and encouragement have made her a steady supportive presence and she is well respected by her peers AIS hard work paid off with all conference honorable mention honors and she was honored as our team MVP this year her drive to improve even in the offseason speaks to her work ethic and passion for excellence it will be greatly missed but we are excited to see her continue to shine as she pursues a degree in animal science nice Gabby Fleming okay Gabby Gabby was the top individual finisher for Tartan in the sections this year she finished 11th in the 100 back and 16th and 15th 500 free she was instrumental in securing a sixth place finish in the 200 free relay in the section she swam the fastest leg on that relay and was the first Tartan swimmer to go faster than a 255 anybody can swim that fast here not me 255 in the 503e since the school record was set in 2013 wow she was the top points earner for the team this year scoring 252 points on the season she was a top points earner in 2023 as well she swam a lifetime best swims in the 500 free 100 free and 50 free and 100 back dropping times in all of those at the end of the season she's an allconference recipient this year for the second year in a row has been the Team MVP for the last two seasons Gabby is a great teammate and extremely hard worker she's a team leader while also remaining humble all right okay so we can have our students that are here tonight if you want to come up for a photo that would be wonderful we'll take a photo with our school board members and we'll make sure if we have families in the audience we'll send these out to you so you have copies of these to save as well but come on up we also know that our our very talented high school students are often the busiest people we know so we understand some people couldn't be here this evening but um we'll make sure that they get a copy of the recognition too come on in photos closer Mar [Applause] so proud of you guys you are talented I love it although honestly it's not that sometimes they have a lot going on Tru so thank you um so next up we have public comment and maybe we don't have anybody right okay um and then we have the consent agenda um this consists of routine items that are acted on in a single Consolidated motion without board discussion um board members have the option of pulling items off the consent agenda if they wish to to discuss discuss them or consider them individually um so I recommend that these consent agenda items listed below be approved as presented could I get a motion and a second um K can I approve a or motion to move to approve a through G and poll H okay yeah we can do that um so can I get a motion in a second to approve a through G and then we'll pull H more discussion all right moved by yenner second second by Martins um any discussion on those a through G okay um all of proof say I I I'll um post say nay okay um so those are approved and then um we're going to now talk about H which is the grant Awards H yes I just wanted to pull it because it's great that we have a grant for electric School Bus planning 6,400 for the year that's super but really I was excited to see the 622 Education Foundation gave 16 grants to um throughout the district to different schools for $500 each and I just wanted to highlight that because every year they do the um silent auction as well as other fundraisers and it's just really cool to see that money go back to the schools like that and so thank you to all of the folks who work on the 622 Education Foundation which is volunteer work if it is all volunteer if I could add to Michelle um these were grants that were awarded to individual staff members who submitted their ideas for Innovation and and trying different things and so the foundation was really diligent about combing through those applications to um support teacher um Ingenuity and creativity and Innovation so it's really cool this is the second year of the program and it's it's definitely been blossoming yeah and I think if I recall correctly on uh Facebook they said originally they were only approv for 15 but because they got additional funds they were able to add a 16th one so that's really exciting so yeah um anything else on that one okay um could I get a motion um in a second to approve um H move move by Nardi second seconded by Livingston um any disc additional discussion all right um all in favor say I I I and all oppose say nay all right um so that one also passes um next up we have our reports so from our H first up from our student board Representatives all right I got a couple things so first we had our band concert last Thursday which was great and we have our choir concert this Thursday so it's at 7 p.m it's free if anyone wants to go we have a really amazing choir so I definitely recommend going we just had our M New Year celebration and uh they had a thousand people show up to enjoy the food the show they do like a fashion show uh talent show type thing it is super fun to watch I went last year I loved it uh let's see coming up and currently latinx is doing a hot chocolate fundraiser at our school right now and this Friday we have pancakes and PJs uh Super Fan is putting that on we're super excited we make pancakes for the student body and I think they're $5 so and then we have our snow days coming up it's uh February 1st at the vanness commons it's winter wonderland theme we're really excited student council is planning that as we speak and uh some personal things I got accepted to Denver University today and then Y and then um I don't know if I mentioned this before but I'm working at John Glenn doing the flight program and it is really fun I'm having a lot of fun uh working with the middle schoolers um I'm doing a photography class and a workout class and I help with a cooking class there's lots of fun stuff going on and the kids really enjoy it so yeah that's all I have all right uh so Tartan uh started up a healthcare Discovery Club it's an after school activity on Tuesdays uh it's for uh students uh who are looking to pursue like healthcare uh forensic science stuff like that and there's the opportunity that people will come in and talk about what they do in each field and it's a wide variety so that's pretty cool uh winter clothing Drive started up and uh straight into the events we have uh this weekend tardan theater debutes their uh uh annual Christmas together show uh Saturday and Sunday 7 p.m. and uh sporting events for tonight uh girls basketball versus Central playing right now uh boys hockey versus Anoka playing right now and girls hockey at Woodbury uh then some personal updates I committed to Concordia St Paul on a full scholarship and uh looking forward to uh continuing my academics and Athletics at Concordia so yeah any questions I love I love our students and so I always have something to say thank you so much for being here and uh sharing uh what's happening at the school uh as you know uh you guys are the people that tell us what's what's you guys [Music] are not spies per se but you embassadors you're ambassadors uh to the school board so uh thank you for being here and I'm so excited that you guys are getting acceptance letters I saw you wearing sent Thomas I thought that maybe yeah so I thought it was St Thomas but Concordia is also awesome too especially congratulations for the uh full scholarship and thank you for being here with us it's is no anyway I I thought it was the end of the school year but it's only the end of yes yes it's only the end of the academic h no calendar year n oh my goodness okay all right thank you so much um next up we have our report uh for finance all right well good evening chery Yang directors of the board superintendent Tui osoro and cabinet tonight we are holding our public hearing for taxes payable 2025 also known as our truth in taxation state law has two requirements for school districts during their truth and Taxation a public meeting and a presentation and you can see the requirements of each category for the public meeting that needs to take place during the time frame of November 25th through then of December it needs to occur at 6: PM or later it may be part of a regularly scheduled Schoolboard meeting we must allow for public comment and the school board May adopt the final Levy later on in that same meeting and during the presentation we are required to talk about our current year budget and also the proposed property tax levy so our agenda tonight uh we will go over some background information on school funding we will then talk about our District budget followed by the proposed pay 25 tax levy and then open it up for any public comment School Finance in Minnesota is highly regulated the state legislature has authorized all Minnesota school districts to Levy and then collect property taxes for specific elements of school funding the state sets the formulas of which determine the revenue the tax policy for local schools and the maximum authorized for the tax levy in other words districts are only allowed to Levy for programs that are allowed by State Statute or if local taxpayers approve an increase the basic general education formula in Minnesota has not kept pace with inflation since 20022 2003 if it had done so the basic general education formula for this year fy2 would be about 18.6% higher than it is currently for our district that would mean approximately $155 million more in revenue for this school year and this this shows that information in graph format special education in Minnesota continues to be underfunded our our students who receive special education services are first and foremost our general education students but some students do need additional support and services to thrive in school oftentimes there is a gap between what is received in special education Aid and what is paid out from the general fund for those services that Gap is called the cross subsidy in FY 23 the cost of providing special education programs were under were underfunded Statewide by $726 million the state legislature has made some recent improvements to the Cross subsidy formula in our district our cross subsidy is about $17.6 million and this year we are receiving about 44% or $7.7 million back in Cross subsidy reduction Aid next year that is predicted to go up to about a 50% reimbursement still even with those improvements mde predicts that Statewide special education programs will still be underfunded by $455 Million by FY 27 school districts and cities and counties operate on different fiscal years in school districts we operate on a July 1 through June 30th fiscal year and the cities and counties operate on a calendar year fiscal year state law requires us to discuss our current year budget during our public hearing because of the difference in our fiscal year compared to the fiscal years of the cities and counties our district budgets are dispersed between seven different funds the largest portion our general fund is where we will spend the majority of the overview this evening in June of 2024 the school board approved our 2024 2025 District budget this is a breakdown of the budgets between the different funds you can see the largest portion the general fund makes up about 78% of our overall budget our general fund revenue is received through various revenue streams the largest from state aid we are in the people business so when you look at how our expenses are broken down just over 80% is dedicated to salaries wages and benefits that 80% Mark is pretty consistent from year to year when we take a look at how the general fund expenditures are broken down by program you can see the two largest buckets are regular and special education instruction every owner of a taxable property pays property taxes to various taxing jurisdictions as a school district we are a taxing jurisdiction school districts do set their own Levy based on limits of the law and then rely on the counties to collect the taxes from taxpayers the counties distribute the payments to the other taxing jurisdictions throughout the year state law allows districts to Levy taxes in many different categories as a mechanism to pay for specific programs and operational expenses each category and the maximum amount is set by the state there are six steps in the property tax process that may impact overall school taxes but school districts only have control over one of the Steps step five is where the school board adopted the proposed Levy in September and then you'll be asked to take action on certifying this Levy later on in tonight's meeting the proposed pay 25 tax levy is an Inc increase from last year by approximately 4.98% or about $3.2 million this is the handout that was provided tonight in the board packet and is also available online with each Levy category divided between the various funds this slide provides the same information but it is broken down between the two categor ories that taxpayers see on their property tax statements there is a voter approved section and a non-voter approved or other category section again that taxpayers see on their property tax statements received from the counties now we'll go through some of the overall changes in the general fund there is an increase to our OPB or other post-employment retirement benefits due to an increase in estimated expenditures every year we see adjustments to our Levy those adjustments sometimes take three to four to even five years to balance out so you can see this increase is just due to Prior year adjustments to previous levies our long-term facilities maintenance Debt Service fund is seen a decrease due to some shifts on what we are eligible for based on state approved project costs now we'll take a look at the tax impact and what this will look like for our taxpayers many factors can cause a tax bill for an individual property individual property to fluctuate from year to year let's take a look at an example about how taxes are spread across the district and an impact that property valuations have on a homeowner and their tax bill every property owner pays a portion of the pie we have two homes we have the orange house and the blue house in this example both houses are valued at $100,000 the total Levy in this instance is $500 and so therefore each property would pay $250 of the levy now we will see that the houses had a value increase the orange house had a value increase of 10% and the blue house increased by 25% the overall total Levy stayed the same at $500 and so the district is generating the same amount of Revenue even though the home values increased however the orange house will pay less and the blue house will pay more because the blue house had a higher value increase back in 2023 the state legislature passed laws that are impacting property taxes payable for this Levy certification a couple of the examples in the recap of the major changes are included in the slide they increase the homestead exclusion for certain valuations and also increase the limit for egg homestead land this chart shows the trend over the past several years of property value increases in our district you can see that the estimate for pay 25 is that those High increases are no longer going to happen which means that the levy increases are estimated to not be spread as wide as they have been in previous years this chart shows an example example if a home in our district was valued at $325,000 this homeowner's estimated School tax bill would be $1,472 and you can see how each um bucket is broken down on this chart into the various categories this chart shows the estimated tax impact based on property valuations this shows the impact if there were a 3% decrease in property value a 0% increase and a 3% increase along with the estimated annual change from pay 24 to pay 25 the next couple of slides show the voter approved operating Authority for our district some of our neighboring and comparable districts and then the state average at the far right you can see that our voter approved Authority for operating expenses is well below our neighbors comparable districts and Below State average this graph takes into account the combined voter approved operating Authority board action on the local optional Revenue which is part of the tax levy and if the district has a voter approved Capital project Levy or a tech Levy which we do not you can see that we also fall well below our neighbors comparable districts and the state average when taking all three of these into account assistant superintendent Beaton made a great point after our last board work session earlier this month that we in 622 are trying to squeeze the orange Into the Blue the Orange is the voter approved capital projects Levy or a tech Levy that a district has Authority you can see again that we don't have one here in 622 and so we are trying to squeeze our Tech expenses into our approved operating expenses you can also see that there are a couple of districts that also do not have a capital project celby but they have more blue which means that they have high higher voter approval our district is has higher needs uh we are a more diverse district and so we are definitely the poster child for doing more with less however this is just simply not sustainable as we wrap up I wanted to share that there are some options out there for property tax refunds into referrals that are outlined on the slide if anyone has questions they should reach out to their local County the next steps in just a moment I'll open it up for public comment and any board questions and then there will be an action item later on in the agenda for you all to take action on approving and certifying our pay 25 proposed tax lby and so at this time I'll open it up for any public comment from our vast viewing audience questions from the board um so thank you for the presentation it's it's uh informative about uh the dire need of um uh funds to educate our children um so my question to you is um sounds like we're doing we're we're doing more we're being asked to do more with less and so aside from um asking the taxpayers uh with the levy uh I was wondering you said the set the set formula you know that's what we have that's those are the funds we have to educate the kids and then uh for uh special Aid we also have cross subsidy so my question to you is um a few of us actually these three of us were uh at uh the the uh last last two weekends ago I think we were at uh the delegate assembly uh for Schoolboard Association advocating for more funding for public education from the legislature and uh I I was wondering why can our parents out there that are watching this from home what can they do or communities what can they do do you have anything that that we can do to ask to compel the legislature to for instance when they have mandates they should be able to fund them right um what can what can the community do I think the community can Advocate with our local elected officials um at at the state and our state government to continue to Advocate to increase school funding um and and so I I think that that's the that's the biggest the biggest thing that I think that our local um taxpayers and families and parents can do at this time is to advocate for more school funding for for their home school districts if I could add a few more suggestions along that line and I'm so glad you brought that up because we are all you know we're publicly funded we we operate on a we're not like a for-profit agency right so we have as inflation has hit our our home lives and personal lives it's also hit businesses and um energy costs have gone up fuel costs I mean salaries all those things a couple key areas you know for people if and and everyone listening who really wants to dig into this more um give us a call because we do want people really reaching out to um any elected officials and if you have contacts outside of our own District boundaries anywhere in the state of Minnesota we need to meet have those messages get across but that special education cross subsidy that Josh mentioned that really affects districts like ours where we have higher needs uh there's also an elel cross subsidy for students learning English and so we also um don't get fully funded for those Services we provide and must provide and so that's another area I would also just add as as Josh mentioned that um Tech Levy a capital projects Levy that we don't have one in our district and something that I'm constantly talking about with elected officials that's an equity issue when certain districts by your ZIP code especially when you think about how important we all know technology it's not just about laptops and devices it's also cyber security infrastructure um a lot of our textbooks and things now are are software subscriptions they're not hard books anymore and so when you think about the fact that in Minnesota that is dependent on whether your local community votes yes or no to the question whereas that's such an equity issue across the board I think for us that's a big one to really continue to advocate for it's a little tricky because collectively as a district as a state not a lot not all districts put that on their advocacy list because they already passed one and they don't have that need need but I think it's I think it's truly an equity issue when you think about things that we shouldn't have to go to our local taxpayers for we should have some you know Equitable offerings for all students across the state and and those are some areas to think about for sure and and with that digital curriculum that Christine mentioned too so we you used to buy a textbook and it will last for how many years right we're paying yearly subscriptions for these products that it it just it just cost more we used to be able to duct tape them and keep them going longer but when it's a subscription you have to pay it online every year uh thanks for the presentation Josh um I know that there's a conversation at the federal level about efficiencies finding efficiencies in government right Elon Musk is the captain of efficiencies for example um are we uh and we're open to ideas right right and um and I know in the past when we've been in budget cutting mode which we are entering a a period of of cutting um that we have asked the people in the trenches our loyal staff members for ideas relative to that so is there a way for um those uh loyal people to uh get those ideas to to us to you absolutely I mean any anyone can always reach out um if they have suggestions on how we can be more efficient in our operation um operational efficiency is not going to solve the budget deficit that we're entering but every little bit helps right absolutely every little bit helps and so we would this is this is an all Hands-On approach um to trying to tackle um our our um our Budget moving into the future and so all ideas are good ideas to take a look at one thing I was going to add we've been working a lot talking with our union leaders and school leaders to make sure that we're brainstorming all possible ideas but Josh and Sarah and I were meeting together today for a good hour and a half just looking for example at energy efficiencies so how might we really ramp up our campaigns to turn off the lights if you step out of a classroom for a little bit or um you know all kinds of things we we're we're turning over every single Stone because we know that we need to show our broader community that we are trustworthy with taxpayer dollars and we are um looking at every possible option out there and so um that'll be a big part of our conversations together in January February and March of course um but ahead of that we're working right now to generate uh a bunch of list of ideas and and possible scenarios so we'll be talking more about that in January and Beyond good I'm I'm encouraged to hear that also the um the cost of special education is just shocking right I mean it it just and it I mean I've been on the board a long time and for years people have been saying it's broken it's broken I was on 916 you know the Intermediate School District 916 that is um kind of a co-op for providing special education services um shocking amounts of money are spent um and and it's mandated right by federal law um I again I it's a systemic problem I gu but I it uh you know it starts with uh baby steps I guess you know we we just have to uh start raising awareness about the need for change in the area of funding special education and I am worried relative to our federal funding for for special ed I'm worried about that Absolut um you know lots of conversation about changes in that area from you know everything from uh uh What uh what taking the department of Ed and cancelling the Department of Education the Federal Department of Education um so so at any rate um raising awareness about that and however we can you know at the state and federal level you bring up a good point too Nancy remember um we talked about this recently at a study session too but part of our um our renovation of our har program and moving it over to the Webster building and and you had a tour of what that looks like now part of a reason for that is again efficiencies because when we send a student to a 916 program for those specializ programs it can cost us 50 to 80,000 a year per student so by by strengthening our opportunities to keep students inhouse and building programs that we ALS because there's also waiting lists for those programs as well but they're very expensive and so that's another area of really really working on efficiencies with under Trisha's leadership and our facilities team to really build a program a high quality program in-house so we don't have kids sitting on waiting lists as long and also um there's efficiencies Financial efficiencies to have by have not paying Outsourcing that service elsewhere so that's another piece of that renovation part that happened for that um Webster education center right and so and I was just gonna say um that was really Visionary in the part of of of the district to uh um uh revamp a Webster School it it's uh Michelle and I toured it a month ago or so and it just um it's a it's a wonderful It's a Wonderful facility and don't get me wrong I I want um to give services to kids who need them there's no question about that but um yeah but at any rate it's uh it's it's gotten um um you know out of whack and uh I don't know Trisha if you want to commented all this is kind of your area but I wanted to ask a question a followup to what Christine said first about the Amon CES um because um the 916 rep and uh I know that they have a shortage so do we still have to pay the those thousands of dollars even if we're broke I'll let answer that one okay yes we do it's the short answer so the tuition billing is done you know through the Department of Education as well but there's to 916 yeah any District that we have students attending for that receive special education services but yeah the the cost of that tuition is based upon the programming that's um necessary for that student to have their educational programming met and so that varies depending we have some membership fees but we also pay tuition yes yes so there's a base fee no matter what and then students specific in terms of tuition that we built but Nancy to your point I would agree 100% in terms of continuing to Advocate and raise awareness and just bring bring to everyone's attention as much as we can the um unfunded mandates that we currently have and how we can work to to reduce that Gap do you have any are there folks that are looking at this problem um absolutely yeah it's it's definitely as part of um the Minnesota uh administrators for special education the mace platform as well as Mesa every year as part of their legislative platform and MSD thank you will you go back three slides to the one more that one so can you just explain briefly my understanding is that Robinsdale and Bloomington are the districts that are most like us demographically so it's changing a little more now yep yeah so it's always kind of fluctuating but over the years that's what I've heard so can you when you look at this graph can you tell me what the impact of our graph versus theirs is yeah we're just we're we're generating less Revenue from our voter approved Revenue um from our taxpayers as compared to other neighboring districts and comparable districts their voters have have approved a higher amount for operating expenses via voter approval and I think that during the study session I believe you said that the the amount of our budget that comes from the levy is about 40% correct so when you have this big of a difference between North Pony or northal mport Oakdale and Bloomington Robinsdale and that accounts for 40% of your budget it's like it's a big deal it's a big deal and and just to clarify the 40% is the overall property tax that be just broken down between the various funds not just dedicated to the general fund but overall yes and so that that is it is a it is a big impact um and the the part that I always floors me is the below State average piece when we look at these when we look at these graphs about being below State average it it just yes it's interesting and that our district is one of the most high needs districts around yes yeah and can you go back one more one more Yep this is just the voter approved Authority um so these are the two operating questions that we have on the books that have been voter approved so this excludes the local optional Revenue which is in the tax levy which is on the slide that we just looked at okay great but the one right before that yeah so I know it's really really small but the average house I think is somewhere around 325 right now I mean as far as the choices here are right 250 or 325 so if we said that 325 is the average house and we're looking at the 3% value increase so like the bottom well is that what you have in that one well this this is just the the estimated School TX taxes with a home value of $325,000 how much they're paying in total school taxes with voter approved and non- voter approved yep so on the next one where it's really tiny if we looked at 325 again and we have the number yep 224 1419 y that this year it be 1521 so that increase would be $12 for a year for the year so okay because I feel bad because I know that our you know the folks in our district are financially stressed yes and that they're already getting hit by um increases from Rams County and so on per month so but if we do the math it's $820 per month so yes it is um you know unfortunate that we're going out for the increase but it's um fairly modest and I also feel like the conversations around efficiency are I mean I get it but it's a little bit unfair because we're already so much more efficient than the other schools and our students are the more High need students and we have just ex you know we have a whole lot of kids in poverty in our district and so while I do you know respect the idea of efficiency I feel like that our solution cannot be just efficiency yeah um I guess that's all of the things oh I know Ramsey County okay I think we're about 5% increase we're looking at correct yep and Ramsey County I believe is 177% and I saw in the newspaper that Minneapolis is 133% so I do think that our um ask is fairly modest compared to some others yes yep yeah so I mean for what that's worth for our residents you know we are doing our best uh keeping costs low and I do think this is our best so and thanks Josh yes uh a question uh this is a followup actually from my last question and also from uh Michelle's question so I last question I asked you what can we do to go advocate for more funding at the legislature now my my question now is about uh the community um as you know I I just ran for a school board again and and and the repeated question I I always get or comment is like oh I don't have any kids so I don't care right about school board or and and that's exactly how they feel about also the levies too so from your perspective right how can you can you please tell a message of the average person out there that's listening yep uh that's also can't afford the famous eggs uh I I think I think the simple message a couple things is is we all do better when we all do better um and I think that the other the other pieces that strong schools build strong communities and um part of part of our overall construction plan um that we spent lots of time with back in 2019 um renovating our entire schools we're seeing it work because we're seeing we're seeing kids come back to our new renovated schools which then in return raises property values which is good for our homeowners if they go to sell their home and so I think that a couple of things of we all do well we all do well and strong schools build strong communities yeah I think uh Josh I know you were our our communication person before you went and took this big leap into into uh Finance but um if we you know the more we can get that message out about our success with what we uh have and um you know our our two school board members are are College Bound very very accomplished um uh I'm going to use Michelle's daughter again she she's our poster child for getting to McAllister college with a full scholarship I mean we're we we are doing well but you know that message isn't always you know you know coming across so um so the more we can um uh trumpet you know how well we are doing the better absolutely thank you thank you um next up we have um superintendent report well good evening uh Madam chair and directors of the board I know in just a moment I'm going to turn it over to assistant superintendent Andy Beaton to introduce our uh very amazing um School leaders but before we do that I have a little quick announcement to share with you we have a Schoolboard member this evening who deserves to be recognized I'm gonna read you a little message I got from the Minnesota school boards Association in this letter dear superintendent Tui Osorio the Minnesota school boards Association awards program includes a category of recognition for those persons who complete 100 or more hours of attendance at msba sponsored meetings and activities within a four-year period of time I am pleased to inform you that Charlotte Nardi has attained the director's award for 2024 25 and we at msba appreciate the efforts and dedication all Minnesota Schoolboard members put forth for the sake of our public school children and we encourage you to urge their continued participation all of our msba award winners will be honored at the 2025 leadership conference recognition luncheon on Thursday January 16th and so without further Ado I wanted to share with you this wonderful certificate of recognition for um director Charlotte Nardi Minnesota school boards Association 2025 director's award and we're so proud and grateful for your leadership I know this goes without saying but there are school districts across the state and the nation who can't even fill their Schoolboard spots the fact that we not only have board members who have put in so much of their own valuable time and energy but who have run for reelection and been reelected we could not be more grateful and we're very very grateful to have Schoolboard members who show up who Advocate and participate and and really engage in Statewide and Metro and Statewide politics we're very grateful for your leadership and we just congratulate you for a job amazingly well done so if you don't mind I'd love to grab a quick photo um would you take one for us Josh I know mari's not here at the moment but all right Charlotte come back together we have to Char congratulations just like the students you have to hold your certificate for the photo that's part of the deal conratulations your spech yes abely that's a lot of right that's right that's right we'll to our Prof of a gradate and now we can turn it over to assistant superintendent Beaton to introduce our next guests all right chair Yang superintendent Tui osario members of the board um visiting audience I'm really excited and proud to introduce two outstanding School leaders um our Middle School principls Jill mosich and Jeff cavitt from John Glenn Middle School and Sky Middle School they're going to be here tonight to share a little bit about their work um that they have been doing this year to support the district strategic plan and um and how they have been moving uh and making progress within their schools I can tell you these two School leaders show a incredible amount of creativity um tons of care and concern for both staff and students um outstanding grit and really emotional intelligence I would say U when they are facing challenges every day so I'm going to invite them to come up to the podium and share some of their work and an update with you thank you assistant superintendent Beaton for that kind introduction Cher Yang directors superintendent Tucci asorio and other guests we are really grateful for this invitation to be here tonight and update you on our Middle School programming I'm Jeff cavitt principal at Sky View Middle School and I'm Jill mosich principal at John Glenn Middle School we're especially excited tonight because this is the first full school year in which we've been able to put our programming and our work Under the Umbrella of our recently adopted strategic plan and we're pretty confident by the end of this presentation tonight you're going to be able to make a lot of connections between the work uh being done by our staff and students and our strategic plan here in District 622 uh we'll be discussing our focus on academic achievement in the classroom through our professional development and as part of our school School Improvement planning we know that at all levels of Education in this District but maybe particularly in those really challenging Middle School years a focus on social and emotional learning for our students is needed both in how they treat themselves and how they treat each other but also how they experience being treated when they're in our schools by all of our staff accomplishing that is going to lead to schools that have high amounts of educational equity and inclusive practice and that feel safe and secure for all students we'll be excited to hear about the connections you all draw between the work that's happening in our buildings and the Strategic plan that uh gives us guidance in all of these aspects as you know as well from reading through all of them earlier this fall our school Improvement planning for secondary schools in 622 really focuses on two areas in the last couple of years we've added the focus area of attendance as we deal with the same concerns that schools all across Minnesota and the country are dealing with with encouraging students to return to regular daily School attendance and then of course academic achievement particularly is measured uh by our state mandated assessments and so those two categories will be the focus of our presentation tonight thank you first up we're going to talk a little bit about academic achievement this is a focus for us of course every year and our goal is for all of our students to successfully meet the academic standards at their grade level to do that we're focusing heavily on using data to inform instruction and we have all different data points that we're using as we're measuring student growth identifying areas for additional academic support and identifying strengths for students our students take the fast Bridge assessment in the fall winter and spring in both math and reading and our plc's use this data to really dig into students strengths and areas for growth we also use a program called success maker in our language arts classrooms andl in our math classrooms that help give students targeted support in specific areas and connect to our grade level standards of course we're also using classroom assessments every day throughout class to take a look at what data we're getting from students and to see what their understanding and what they may need more support in and then we also have our PLC launch and land process that we started this year that helps our teachers work together to develop assessments to gather data and then meet the needs of all of our Learners so next the launch and land process that we have has our teachers who teach the the same course creating common assessments for our students and these common assessments are aligned to standards so what they're doing weekly is looking at the standards they're going to be covering in the next week and together creating a common assessment that they can use with students after creating that Common Assessment they together work towards coming up with a common grading agreement so that they're all grading that assessment in the same way they determine what does a one look like when they're using their grading rubric what does a two a three and a four look like then from there they together plan what those lessons are going to look like they use their math resources and their language arts resources they talk about possible misconceptions kids might be coming to that lesson with and they talk about how they're going to roll that lesson out and use the resource they also will look at um scaffolds that they might need to add into that lesson so that all students can be assured to be making progress towards meeting that standard then they go back to their classroom they teach their lesson and they come back together and look at their data together they look at how did the kids do across everybody's class in that assessment and then from there they come up with a reaction plan for all students so if students got a four and they'd already mastered the content they have planning going on for how do we enrich these students for students that that received a three and still have areas within that standard they need to master they give them extra support and for students that have a two and a one they come up with a plan for how are we going to further teach and retach and give kids extra practice in those areas so it's really exciting for our staff to be using many different data sources and then be using those data sources to impact instruction so after looking at the data the next step is to respond to that data and they're responding to that data using differentiated small group instruction during their classrooms they're also looking at assessments that they give students and if they don't master all the standards in an assessment they do reteaching for students and then students have the opportunity to retake those assessments we're also using data to identify students who may need more intensive reading intervention as well and we're fortunate enough to have targeted services classes after school that provide students additional support in the areas of a reading and math and we use our different data points to identify who those students are who could benefit from that extra support our teachers also go far above and beyond and oftentimes we'll have tutoring sessions during lunch where students will bring their lunches down and they'll talk about things that they're struggling with and and after school as well so that is our goal to use the data and then respond to the data to make sure that all of our students are learning and moving forward so fast bridge data three times a year and success maker data each week andl data each week and maybe daily classroom assessments and launch land Cycles how do we possibly ask teachers to Wrangle all of that information uh into preparing students to be successful on MCA exams I think you would agree that that's an awful lot of resources but also an awful lot of work on the teacher side to sort through all that information and make the best decisions for students in order to do that we have to be really good stewards of our professional development time in the same way that we expect teachers to focus on student needs in the classroom we need to focus on the needs of adult staff and particularly our teachers when we have Prof professional development time available as you all know the work to prepare for a school year begins well before that school year actually begins uh we could go back to January of this year when Jill and I began having conversations about what should School Improvement planning look like at the middle school level to better take on the clear needs that we are seeing in the data for both daily School attendance and academic achievement is measured by state mandated assessments we knew knew we needed to do something different one thing I recalled from my time as an English teacher at Tartan and participating in school Improvement planning was the frustration of discussing a reading assessment when I was the only English teacher there we had representatives from every content area I'm sure my math counterparts felt the same way we wanted to take this this on this year so we split up our school Improvement planning in August across two different days on one day we had our leadership team with the typical assembly of teacher representing all different content areas and we focused on improving School attendance and social emotional learning and other pieces that you'll hear about in just a bit then on a second day we brought our schools together with grade level representatives for both English and math with our ml teachers and with special education resource teachers and critically with our district office Partners to focus specifically on achievement in math and reading on the MCA test thanks to that support from our district office Partners in both Rea and teaching and learning we had content area Specialists present helping teachers understand the fastbridge reading and math data and how it links and can even potentially predict some amount of performance on the MCA so how should we respond to that data in our classroom they were also able to talk about the specific curriculum resources that this board adopted over the last few years and that our teachers now have available to teach grade level Mastery of Standards to students and then what are the implications of that information for students who receive Services because of an IEP or because they qualify for ML services so we had those two separate days with that focus in August coming together across middle schools and across the district to do that work really three different things came out of that August planning based on our teacher feedback one was the teachers recognizing they wanted a better understanding of which standards and reading in math students were demonstrating Mastery on on the MCA what are we already doing well and what do we need to improve on and we were able to provide that information also a clear belief that we need to have a bit of a reset at the middle school level about what do all teachers understand about the MCA what are the components of it what does the student actually experience especially if you're a teacher in a Content area that isn't tested what does it mean that it's an adapt test what are the levels of knowledge that students are tested on and maybe most critically what do the questions actually look like and what is the vocabulary that's in those questions and so in early November uh on that professional development day teachers across all content areas were able to receive training on the MCA reading and math tests that included cross content conversations about MCA questions and so science teachers were able to sit next to Math teachers and find the common topics and the common vocabulary terms in MCA questions that they can reinforce in their classroom social study teachers were able to sit next to English teachers and have that same experience from that emerged our next steps in teacher leadership and addressing the achievement issues that we're experiencing around those statmed tests so for example tomorrow uh at our next staff meeting our avid site team will be presenting about how we can use Avid wicker strategies to support students in understanding how to mark the text on an MCA test particularly the instructions identify key vocab words and know exactly what it is that they're being asked to do on each question of those tests so we've been grateful for the partnership with each other um across middle schools as well as for our district office partners and supporting us in this work as well all right next moving on to attendance we all know that we can't make a difference academically with kids if they're not in school and so our attendance goal is to decrease the number of our students who are missing 10% or more of the school year and we have a strategy or multiple strategies that we're using to make that happen so first of all all of our students have an advisory every day for 25 minutes and that advisory teacher is carefully watching over those students attendance on a daily basis and when a student isn't at school they're calling they're emailing they're texting to make sure that students all right and to let students know that they're missed when they're not here they're part of our community and so every student has that kind of an advocate working for them every day and connecting with them every day then our students who have who are part of our Avid elective or who have a case manager in special ed or um ml also have those case managers watching over their attendance and doing something similar making sure they're in school knowing that we care about them and we miss them when they're not here so the next tier of support we have is targeted towards students who last year or trimester One Missed more than 10% of the school year and so we're very fortunate to have four different POS or many different positions that are focused on the kids that really have struggled with attendance in the past we have promise fellows check and connect Specialists our counselors our social workers and our mental health therapists and they each have case loads of kids that have struggled with attendance and so they're meeting with them also as well as their meeting with their advisory teacher they're also connecting with these other supports who are are connecting home and finding out what's the problem with students getting to school is there illness in the family does this does the family need any supports that we can offer them is it a transportation is issue so really digging into what's getting in the way and trying to make a difference and get more kids in school so we're very fortunate for those resources next both Jeff and I have committed to making sure this is a focus of our family Communications as well so when we're sending out family newsletters we're highlighting the importance of attendance we're sharing our attendance data with our families and just reminding them we care about kids we care about your family and we want to partner with you and just continuing that message throughout and reach out if you need anything when it comes to attendance we also started sending out daily emails and tex texts when students are not at school and their family hasn't called them in just to remind them again we care please call us and let us know what's going on we also use different contracts with students as well as families to try to help get them to school more frequently and then we also have the county referral process that we use as needed to next is an example of a success plan that we use with students so after trimester 1 our advisory teachers looked at their attendance data for all their students and they came up with a success plan for each student who had missed five or more days and what they did is they met with them during advisory and they talked with them about what are the reasons for the absence what's what's getting in the way you know have they been ill are they oversleeping are they anxious in coming to school do they feel safe are their bus problems so trying to really narrow down what the problem is and try to help solve it then they talk with them about possible strategies and create uh an attendance contract with them and then that that advisory teacher meets with them weekly looks at their attendance talks about how those strategies are working and troubleshoots any problems that are coming up and so we've been really excited about adding that to um kind of our list of different strategies to improve attendance this year we're really excited because our trimester one data is showing Improvement so last year both at Sky View and at John Glenn in trimester 1 we had 26% of our students missed 10% or more days that's a lot of kids this year we've made an improvement we have decreased those numbers between two and 4% which is a beginning it's definitely not where we want to end we want to continue to improve but we are seeing that some of our first efforts are making a difference and so we're really proud proud of that and hope that that Trend continues before you move away from attendance I was wondering if you have like uh disaggregated data about uh uh students who have attendant issues in the Middle School yes we we run reports on attendance weekly so you have different strategy is for the different uh demographics I wouldn't say for the different demographics I'd say for the individual need of students okay and so we look at what's getting in the way for each student and then try to figure out a solution to those problems and sometimes it's additional mental health support sometimes it's a transportation issue so trying to get down to what the road of the problem is and help solve that problem each of those different individual uh intervention efforts so critical and needed we also know that uh the most refined intervention process isn't going to be able to address the needs of a student who doesn't feel safe at school or doesn't feel connected to the adults who are supporting them and teaching them and supervising them in the building and that's the focus of our social and emotional work at both Sky View and John Glenn a year ago when we were here we were able to inform you of a part partnership uh a collaboration with the search Institute focused on implementing the developmental relationship framework at both buildings and allowing the search Institute to study and measure our progress and the impact that it has on student sens of safety in the building as well as their attendance and their academic achievement last year was about learning and planning this year has been about implementation of that framework uh we've been able to bring in search instit facilitators to lead professional development uh with our teachers particularly around the ways of or on the elements of challenge growth and provide support uh those search Institute facilitators recognize that when our teachers gather together the the wisdom and the knowledge is already in the room they just need to ask the right questions to surface the different strategies that are being used in each classroom and then our teachers are able to learn from each other additionally this year has been about considering what is the student friendly language that we can utilize so the students know what it is that we're trying to do all of us here that are in public education as adults can look at this framework and be really inspired by it and can think of the many individual examples of times we've taken these actions and had positive outcomes with students but it's not necessarily in student friendly language so the leadership teams that meant as part of our school Improvement planning back in August across content areas developed what that would look like you've seen some John Glenn examples already at Sky View we chose to adopt the acronym in the phrase Sky View cares now I know that our elementary schools already use uhal language around cares and have a little bit of a different acronym so that's not an unfamiliar way for students to think about it uh what we say at Sky View is we care about our community our attitude uh about showing respect and effort and safety and in our advisory lessons students had the opportunity to decide for themselves what that actually looks like so this was adult created that acronym but then our advisory lessons allowed students to fill in the blanks what are the actions around here that a student can take to show that we care about our community and then students also had the opportunity to describe what do they need from adults in order to be able to do those things so that's how we spent a lot of our advisory lessons at the beginning of the school year we knew that we wanted to reward students uh who demonstrated effort uh to meet our expectations around Sky you cares and our partnership with the search Institute has allowed us to do some amount of student recognition so at Sky VI now we have these cares tickets that teachers can write for students they check the box of which part of that acronym uh they caught a student caring about in the classroom or in the hallway or in the cafeteria they write a brief brief description of what they saw on the back and they give it to the student and then the student turns it into the glass box that you see on the picture there and about every three weeks or so we have a drawing with two or three winners per grade level they get some small treats uh they get some additional school supplies they get their picture in the newsletter uh and we want to make it a really big deal we want it to feel as prestigious as say being awarded a director's award from the Minnesota School Board Association just to think of just to think of an example and there are students that are thrilled to win and there are students that react like director Nardi reacted please don't put the spotlight on me but it's been a fun addition to recognizing student uh achievement at Sky View this year next as Jeff talked about at school and or in middle school we focus on academic skills but we also focus on a lot of important skills that aren't necessarily academic skills and our advisory time for 25 minutes a day really focuses around the seal skills that Jeff talked about as well as things like social media safety how our kids staying safe on social media College and Career Readiness and we're connecting to AVID for some of those resources organization and study skills where we've got kids using planners and binders and trying to stay organized with their schoolwork also focusing on community building and restorative practices and then giving back to their community and doing some Community Service as well are other things that we know are critical to student development that aren't necessarily in the academic area then like Jeff said with Sky View they have Sky View cares we at John Glenn have our students create a social contract at the beginning of the year they start out in their advisory classes and they come up with five to seven things that John Glenn students will do from those advisories they send a representative to a grade level group and they revise they take all of the um information from all the advisory groups and come up with five to seven collaboratively together then we go out and we do this as a whole building so that becomes our John Glenn social contract and this year it says John Glenn students will be respectful kind understanding and not judge others they will engage and participate at in classroom and school activities they will Model A positive mindset and have an open mind they will believe in themselves and work hard they will keep their hands to themselves and their bodies calm which can be a struggle sometimes in middle school it's the joy of being there and John Glenn students will positively impact the school Community with their words and actions and they have a whole bunch of buy into these expectations because they've helped create them then then another thing that we know is critically important to kids having a positive experience at school is to be connected to school and after school activities at John Glenn and at Sky View we have a great range of things for students to participate in after school we have Athletics for boys girls intermural Athletics we have clubs like National Honor Society math team urban debate league we also have after school classes like flight and targeted services like CCE talked about she's working at John Glenn in our flight program after school and then also Service Learning opportunities this is from one of our newsletters and it's highlighting service learning that our students participate in during our community market once a month we have a community market that serves probably about 100 families monthly and it's funded through a collaboration we have with Cross Lutheran Church and in October we had our students that were wrestlers both at North High and at John Glenn collaborate together and help out with the community market in helping they're helping with grabbing groceries for families and then carrying those groceries out to um cars they're feeling great about it students who have that opportunity oftentimes are asking can I help next month can I help next month they're feeling good about themselves and they're helping their community and we feel like that's a big piece of something we want to instill in our students as well then like Jeff talked about student recognition is also critical we have a student of the month program at both buildings celebrating students accomplishments we have shoutouts from staff where staff can send out positive things about students and we put them up on the display board we highlight different student groups in our messages to families our grade level teams will celebrate students and then we also have our trimester H our roles and here are just a few pictures from some of those celebrations thank you for giving us the opportunity to share a little bit about Middle School we really appreciate it and we appreciate all the support you give us thank you as you guys are getting ready to answer questions from the school board I just wanted to apologize we have a little distraction because we realized some of our students that were supposed to be here at 600 came at 700 so they've been out in the hallway so once no we're good we're good but uh we uh we were just doing a little bit of like oh what are we gonna do so we still want to answer questions from our school board but I just wanted you to know if we're looking at each other that's what that's what we're looking at each other about I thinking it was the mic it wasn't about your presentation you guys are doing great um I would like to ask a question back to your attendance slides that you had you were talking about the efforts that you are putting forward in contacting families Guardians and just curious I know you can't share specific cases that you um receive but as a collective what's the um theme or the feeling that you're getting reciprocated back to you from the families that you're reaching out to is in um are they grateful thank you or is it I can't do anything about it this is the way we've got things going so just curious what you guys are seeing in that space they're absolutely grateful and I think it builds huge bridges for us with families because we're here to help our goal is to work together with families to get them what they need so their student can be successful and what it's done is it's built stronger relationships with our families we have families who for instance if they can't come to the Community Market we have staff members who will get groceries and drive them to them and so they know we're a place that they can come to get any kind of support if we don't have it we will get them connected so it's been a game Cher for us in our Partnerships with families and what if phone email text doesn't work I know that's the world we live in what's kind of that next um Step or layer that you guys would take that's another great question we get in the car and go over there okay we do home visits um which can be you know it's hard because you don't want to invade the privacy of families but you also want them to know you care and that's the the message that we go with when we come there we're just care about you we want to make sure you're okay anything we can do to help and those have actually been received very well as well okay that's good to know I used to be a juvenile probation agent so being able to take that next step to just you know some sometimes we don't know what's behind the door or outside of school and if it's something as the district and staff in each of your buildings that any way we can be supportive is important so thank you this is really impressive I um uh my adult son was just a terrible student in middle school at John at uh Maplewood Middle School I mean terrible just for an example and but by the way now he lives in wetta he has two kids he's a finance guy he's very successful but he was terrible in middle school and I got a call one time that he was in detention and with all the it's kind of like the break Breakfast Club you know and they were all in this detention and he locked the door so that the teacher the supervisor couldn't get in you know and so the the teacher was like politely knocking on the door and then it and then uh it turned into like a rage knocking on the door and a and a lot of and a lot of um um you know colorful language um but I'm just saying that it takes so much patience to do what you do and and you're but it's all um you know this is just so impressive all these all these uh um services that you have you know the MCA we were interested we were at the MSD meeting uh last Friday and they were talking about the MCAS and the and the opt out in the high school level of the MCAS is is Prett really high so that people wonder about the value of MCAS you know and so uh the Eden Prairie superintendent did a very impressive uh uh presentation about how they uh measure uh uh Student Success not in addition to the MCA given that the MCA has kind of lost credibility should we say at the high school level I don't know uh uh so anyway and and I can see now that you are measuring and measuring and measuring right and and that's fine um but you're also supporting and and talking to the parents and that's that's really I I remember one thing that was successful when when Kip was at uh makeb Middle School was that they had parent night and they had like um uh topics you know how to deal with you know this kind of behavior how to deal and that and they were so well attended I mean people really uh parents were just desperate to come and find out what to do with with this child who's going through this one other thing I want to say is we're we're facing a and this is a very serious thing but I mean the news from Madison Wisconsin today there was a 15-year-old girl shooter right who killed teacher killed herself killed another student wounded how many others I don't know what the situation was but what you're doing is so important in prevention for that kind of a tragedy um the police chief of Madison Wisconsin made the best comment I thought in the paper he said everyone in this building at this Christian School is a Vic victim everyone is a victim they'll never forget this you know so what you're doing is really important um and I'm very comforted to know that we're not going to um that you know that we're going forward with this and um and that we're looking at kids not just with their MCA numbers but a whole lot of other measures and uh so keep up the good work yeah yeah I I also have sympathy for everyone involved in the Madison uh shooting and one thing that really strike me is that a second grader is the one that called 911 yeah oh okay okay okay yeah so it was tragic nonetheless um but I too also had a terrible student in the school district and uh M that principal kavat then Mr Cav had one of them hopefully hopefully it didn't traumatize you and that's why you moved to Middle School AG Michelle had no impact on that decision sure she was a joy every day oh yeah absolutely talking talking um but um my question was around uh finances this is probably more of a a Christian question I know that um attendance has been a huge issue in uh this since the pandemic and and we know that it's also affecting academic um uh success to so with all these increased uh uh resources to find kids and all that do we have additional funding for the the resources to track children because this is more than we used to do in the past absolutely and I'm so glad you I mean I'm I'm really glad you asked the question Charlotte because um the slide that you showed about all the different layers of supports and intervention um you know we have gotten a lot of resources from different places we've gotten grants we've gotten State funding through the promised fellows um with Minnesota Alliance For Youth and other organizations but you know as we look at you know as school districts ours included across the state are going to be cutting budgets again it's very worrisome because the you know before the pandemic this attendance problem was nowhere near to the levels that it was post pandemic and I think one thing that we have seen is that you know in school districts with with some of the higher needs we're uh taking longer to recover and bounce back the resources are very very much needed and used very very intentionally and so um I wish I had an answer that says we're going to be just fine but I am very worried I mean when you think about what it costs because all the individualized meetings and phone calls and and work around with kids who are struggling with attendance needs takes a lot of Staff time and people to do those efforts together and to collaborate and coordinate County and and local resources too to support families and so um we're going to continue to roll up our sleeves and continue to look for Creative Solutions but um it's definitely an all Hands-On deck situation when you think about and not just in our district but across the state and even the nation the number of chronically absent students as you know from the pandemic on was just un staggeringly High numbers and so we're finally um getting we're making some Headway and um there's been some really amazing efforts that we're starting to see in our data related to student um interpersonal um behaviors and things in schools too dramatic improvements from last year to this year so um we're we're making Headway but it's definitely in all hands on deck situation um just really quickly thank you you to both of you and thank you for the work you're doing with our middle school kids the um slide that has success plan and you have where you interview the kids I think it's specifically John Glenn maybe you both do it but you specifically interview the kids and then ask them this question this is really interesting because there's a lot of speculation around why kids are missing school myself included speculating on why it's happening so it'll be really interesting for you guys to collect that right absolutely yep and we we know that there are Trends but there's not one or two things it's widespread but it is really interesting to take a peek at and so we will be doing that at the end of second try we'll collect those plans take a look at them and look at that data and see what we're seeing thank you so much yeah thank you so much um I just want to say real quick my son goes to John Glenn um and he got a a honoral certificate and and brought it home crumpled up because he said he said he threw it away and then realized I probably wanted it and we can make you a new one no it's okay it's it's the story goes with it so but but yeah it goes to what uh you had said um principal kabin about some kids shy away from the recognition and and some you know embrace it and my son does not care for it yeah we haven't seen we haven't seen my sons either he's a seventh grader at Sky View and it's in a binder or in his classroom we're we're not sure but yeah thank you very much thank you all thank you all right to our students who are anxiously awaiting we are going to pull up um our recognition information for you and our assistant secondary assistant superintendent Mr Beaton is going to read a little bit about your amazing accomplishments and then if you don't mind afterwards we'd like to grab a photo with the students and the school board so that we can save that and that we'll make sure families get copies of that so you have it to hang on to well we're really pleased that you're here so maybe our Tartan students have both can come forward all of our tart students that are here tonight come on forward and we can introduce you and and celebrate you thanks for being here all right so I'm going to read a little bit about you and so we can do that publicly so first I want to say is Jer Gerard oh Gerard Gerard bouray gerar had a historic season this past year at Tartan uh highlighted by over 2,000 rushing yards and 20 rushing touchdowns both setting new school records his exceptional performance earned him prestigious honors including Northstar East gold running back of the Year all subd district uh Team selection and tarton offensive and Team MVP awards Beyond individual accolades jer's leadership and impact were instrumental in guiding the team into the section finals making this a truly Unforgettable season so thank you for your work well done and don't go away because we're GNA take a photo here when we're done it's Gabby yes okay uh this is Gabby Fleming Gabby was the top individual finisher for tartan at sections this year in swimming she finished 11th in the 100 back 16th in the 500 free she was instrumental in securing a sixth place finish in the 200 free relay in the section as well she swam the fastest leg on that relay and was the first Tartan swimmer to go faster than a 255 in the 53 since the school record was set in 2013 wow she was the top points earner for the team this year scoring 252 points on the season she was the top points earner in 2023 as well she swam lifetime best swims in the 500 free 100 free and 50 free dropping time in all of those and the 100 back at the end of this season she's an allconference recipient this year for the second year in a row she has been the Team MVP for the last two seasons Gabby is a great teammate and extremely hard worker she's a team leader while also remaining humble so thank you and families thank you for being here tonight so let's take a photo if the school board can come forward we're going to go over here and we'll take take a photo with you this is our picture station stand right here we'll GA around but you got to hold up your certificates so that family remembers what you were bring on e e thank you thank you all right um next up we have our action items um first up is our acknowledgement of contributions which Nancy will be reading we go there we go okay um Minnesota statute 123b doo2 permits school boards to receive for the benefit of the district requests donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated in that behalf the board may act as Trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and for the benefit of pupils thereof therefore the Director of Finance recommends the following resolution be it resolved by the school board of Independent School District number 622 that the school board accept with appreciation the following contributions and permit their use as designated by the donors and there's just three tonight uh first is Linda hash $5 to the Glad Stone home delivered meals sy's coffee had donated 30 bags of coffee for Tartan High School staff and coffee shop and Michelle saaj donated $300 to math Masters uh this brings the total fiscal year 2024 25 monetary contributions to $27,600 thank you so much and I would move that we accept with appreciation the uh generos generous donations all right uh moved by Livingston seconded by Nardi um any discussion on any of the contributions okay all in favor say I I and all oppose say nay all right um so that one um passes um next up we just have to do the oh um the adoption of the 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy um the final property tax levy must be certified to the county auditor by December 28th 2024 attached is the final certification in the total amount of uh 68 million 46603 uh the Director of Finance recommends the following res resolution be it resolved by the school board of Independent School District number 622 that the 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy is adopted in the total amount of 68 M 46,6 three and further that the Schoolboard clerk is authorized to sign the document used to certify the property tax levy to the County Auditors and the Minnesota Department of Education could I get a motion and a second right move by Martin second by y um any discussion all right um all in favor say i i u the chair votes I um oh any any opposed all right uh so that also passes thank you um next up is our board Communications uh just want to share last week on Thursday at Eagle Point we had our second grade choir concert and I just have to share the appreciation to the staff and the second grade teachers of wrangling all of those kiddos to get up on the bleachers and um they sounded really good so you can really tell the music teachers have worked with them and um making sure they were hitting all their notes and my kiddo Cameron got to ring the sleigh bells and you would have thought he was like a statute standing somewhere because he had no expression because he was really being um taking that role very serious so just you know thank you to the staff for that and um want to the holiday break is coming up and so want to extend um restful time with family um for all of our staff and all of our um staff in the schools and staff here and Cameron came home tonight and said Mom I have to bring a board game to school on Friday to play with my class and I said okay and the game he chose was life for a second grader and before my initial was like oh my gosh we're going to lose all the pieces and the life money is going to get crumbled but then in my head I went that's there's something about a second grader saying I want to bring the Game of Life to school um so again I just I appreciate the work that our Eagle Point staff is putting in just to make this week before break fun for the kids and um happy holidays to the rest of the St well I I I did mention that um uh I attended amsd last Friday and I I was really impressed Christine was there as well uh with the um presentation about um about how to measure Student Success in addition to you know the standardized test and I was impressed with the Middle School presentation today where they were really looking into what is on that mysterious MCA test you know what are these questions and uh um and I think you know digging deeper into that and uh and then measuring the kids in in other ways uh other than the standardized test is really is really important uh Christine is there did you have a takeaway other than that from that I just think one of the things the whole state is starting to look at is how do we measure successful graduates how do we measure all the different ways that we can measure because in addition to you know standardized stat test data you know what skills kids graduate with it's a it's an exciting time and this whole state is joining into this right now it's it's it's pretty energizing the energy around those conversations right now is just really fun right right and we and we had a good conversation um about that subject at our last study session so that's all thank you um as briefly mentioned a few of us attended uh the msba annual uh delegate assembly uh conference uh I think was Friday and Saturday December 6th and 7th and and uh this is where we get together and just talk about uh the different um um legislation that we want to uh bring forth uh in the uh New Year and uh I was really glad to see that there were several of them this year that I didn't go against you know I think there were only two or three that I voted no to and most of them were good so I'm really um I'm encouraged that we're going to have good legislation this year except for that the other one that I I opposed but yeah I I'll talk to you about it you did a I heard about it yeah yeah but uh yeah it was good overall it was it was a good meeting so yeah um I don't have much either um but also just thank you to staff and our our schools for um you know pushing through so far and you know as we end on the calendar year and and get started into the new year um let's make it a great great rest of the year so yeah all right um I just have to set our future board meeting dates um so the next one is January 14th for our special meeting at 5: um here in the boardroom and then immediately following the adjournment of that meeting we'll start our work study session um also on January 14th um in the education center room um 202 um and then January 28th will be our next business meeting at 6 PM um also here in the boardroom so um could I get a motion and a second to adjourn tonight's meeting so all right moved by Martins second by Livingston um any discussion all right all all in favor say I all right and all oppose say n all right meeting andj thank you