##VIDEO ID:y4Dq4JLdm3k## welcome to the October 14th regular meeting of the Board of Education this meeting is now called to order um let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of alance to the 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 um for a roll call all members are present and next we have the open Forum we have one speaker uh Becky Madison just here is good hi good evening uh my name is Becky Madison and my husband Mike and I are the proud parents of three current Lakers our oldest is a freshman at Prior Lake High School um our middle is a sixth grader at Hidden Oaks and our youngest is a first grader at Hamilton Ridge so having three kids in three school buildings means we receive a lot of emails um and it also means that we've got a really good beat about all the good things that are going on uh across our school district Marne for the past three years really thrived in middle school at Hidden Oaks and we are very grateful as parents for the many opportunities that she had to pursue elective course offerings and try a variety of sports and activities in clubs after school Josie spent her final three years of Elementary School attending Sage Academy and again our family is beyond grateful that our district is providing such an opportunity to meet her learning needs Ace is still pretty young uh but there isn't a day that goes by that he isn't excited to get on the bus and go to Hamilton Ridge and see his teachers and Friends uh he adores his bus driver and also likes to stop by his kindergarten classroom to say hi to his teacher from last year uh we feel very lucky to live in a school district that grants our children access to varied learning experiences quality instruction um but most of all caring adults who invest in the well-being of our children as much as in their academic growth because of these things and countless other reasons our kids like going to school um as happy as we are about that we also have to acknowledge that not every kid experiences school or life the same way that our children do I have been a professional educator for the past 17 years teaching middle school and high school science for 12 of those years and now I'm an assistant principal at a middle school in a neighboring District a lot has changed in education in the past 17 years but perhaps most remarkably from my perspective is the growing dependency of our communities on our local public schools to be able to provide any and all types of services resources and support in addition to teaching and learning to meet the everg growing needs of our children in our communities our school leaders teachers and support staff are diligently working to meet these demands often without enough financial or human resources to do so with Fidelity on a daily basis they are putting their all into meeting these impossible expectations because we're talking about kids we are caring for kids and I know this to be true because I live this experience every single day perhaps in a fairy tale land kids would all show up to school happy and healthy and well rested and well fed they would have clean clothes and shoes that fit they would come to school ready to learn with their basic needs already being met but we do not live in a fairy tale our reality is that many of our kids come to school facing real world adversity some need food and clothing and rest and they come to school to get it some need mental health support special education services Andor behavioral support some are caring for their siblings while their parents hold down multiple jobs and some are working to help financially support their own families some are new to the country and are just beginning to learn English and acclimate to life in Minnesota some are medically fragile and require 24-hour Health Care Services which are delivered by our Public Schools some of these kids are gifted Learners gifted artists and gifted athletes and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to describing the kids that walk through our doors every day the real Miracle of it all is that any combination of these indiv individual circumstances show up together in one classroom all at the same time and our teachers continue to rise up to meet their calling they not only know our kids by name but they know them as people they invest in them as our future and give and give and give of themselves to be emotionally available patient with behaviors encouraging with content supportive of extracurriculars the list goes on and on I came here tonight to say thank you you because you probably don't hear that enough um thank you to the bus drivers custodians nutrition services office and clerical staff coaches advisers teachers Specialists School administrators counselors psychologists social workers and District leadership thank you for continuing to do all that you can to meet the needs of the children of Prior Lake and Savage and just as you show up for our kids in a million different ways every day it is my hope that our communities will show show up for our kids on Election Day and pass this Levy please vote Yes to support our students on Election Day as Educators we don't just advocate for some kids or my kids because they are all our kids and it takes a village to raise them so thank you thank you okay next on the agenda is the is the approval of the agenda I I need a motion in a second so made by director olad second second by director Crosby all in favor I opposed that passes 6 zero next on the agenda is the consent agenda the consent agenda uh is routine in nature will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a board member or citizens so requests in which event the time will be the item will be removed as a consent agenda item and addressed the removal of an item for discussion must be requested prior to the approval of the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of financials which is the check and wire transfer dispersement summary the wire transfer EFT and a banking activity the bank reconciliation statements PMA Financial monthly wire detail monthly health health and dental wired detail monthly check detail monthly a detail purchase orders above 25,000 monthly financial report approval of the Schoolboard minutes Personnel items including candidates for employment resignations terminations non-renewals District retirements leaves of absences um chair France I'd like to both two items from the consent agenda okay for further discussion um the September check deta detail or check register is that A7 that is 7 A7 7 A7 please and also purchase orders above 25,000 please for 7 7B okay those items will be moved to new business anybody else okay um asking for a motion I mean I already got a first and a second so I'm asking for um a vote on the consent agenda with all items except a77 and and uh B all of B purchase orders above 25,000 I'll make a motion okay motion and a second second second okay all in favor I I opposed that passes 60 all right next on item on the agenda is the resolution for acceptance of gifts tonight we have three items we have a $1,400 gift from Mark and Dana Neeman for blinds for room b26 at Hamilton Ridge Elementary we have $1,000 from the Prior Lake Savage Optimus club for the community Halloween party we have school supplies from Health Source of Prior Lake for all of Prior Lake Savage area students do I need a motion in a second so me by director olad and second by director bullan this is a roll call vote director olad I director Crosby I director bernick I director bullan I director Atkinson I and I so that passes 60 okay next on our item is um Laker Pride so I'm going to have this over to Dr Thomas thank you chair France uh tonight we have our team um focusing on one aspect of our new strategic plan um specifically that around um how we are optimizing resources and um as we do each month just sharing some of our practices that are aligning to our plan and how it's uh we're actually breathing life into this in our daily practice so with this I'm going to turn it over to um our Executive Director of Business Services in team thank you chair friends Dr Thomas members of the board Community we're going to talk about today um one of the ways that we optimize our resources around enrollment and Staffing so the first kind of Step that we have to do for enrollment is as parents come in in kindergarten they um register for their their child for the kindergarten classrooms and then what we end up doing is looking at where their um District school is around in their boundaries and assign them to that school um then we look at all of the current students in 1 through 11th grade um we ask the IT department to just kind of roll over all of the records so that all the first graders at for instance Hamilton Ridge become second graders at Hamilton Ridge and so forth they'll just Advance one grade um at the same site then when we do that we look at um our open enrolled students and um determine we've made a commitment to having them receive their first second or possibly third choice for open enrolled students so we'll place them where we can um again looking at the total enrollments at the the sites so as we um kind of get all of the students where their boundary schools are where their open enroll choices are then we start looking at um if there's any exceptions we need to make if there's requests for different sites um just kind of doing our our adjusting for the manual requests that come through and then come up with kind of a preliminary um kind of plan on what each of the classrooms would possibly look like as we move forward hi school um members of the board um the next step in this is look looking at the Staffing so we pull all of our reports for the current year and roll them forward looking at um the tenur FTE that we have in the system and then the probationary FD we have in the system as well aligned with lure requirements um at the elementary school we typically have um all of our licensers covering areas but we do have licensures that are um one 1 through sixth grade so we have to monitor those as well um for the kindergarten exception um but secondar is where that really comes into play making sure that lure is aligned with FTE with the student enrollment needs and tracking um the enrollment with our FTE on a weekly basis as we move forward to the Staffing season um and then the partnership that we have with Dr Edwards and the principles to really move those two pieces together between our current FTE and our projected enrollment um so I'll have them speak to that thank you good evening members of the board uh want to uh talk a little bit the time that we've the information that we've shared up to this point uh gets us back again Tammy mentioned uh beginning in January and now we're in the April to May time frame uh of a preparing for an upcoming school year and that time is really uh fine-tuning uh our registration numbers that typically come forward in February and into March at the secondary level and again continuing to watch throughout the spring and into the early summer months um where things are lining up in terms of our enrollment at our each of our respective Elementary uh buildings and uh work working with the principal of leadership at each of our sites uh to see uh where our staffing needs presently are and that can shift uh throughout those times from May until early August and um and we continued uh and start to meet actually on a weekly basis uh even throughout the summer months with particularly at the elementary level with all of our principles myself uh EX Ive director uh Frederickson executive director Herman uh looking at anything that's changing as the summer months come with enrollment we are Central enrollment uh process as a district so uh families might uh come to the district service center uh and we continue to accept open enrollments Etc uh throughout those those months and uh this past uh school year in preparation for our current school year uh we did a number of adjustments in the month of uh Late July early August time frame um as we were seeing some changes from our original documentation that we had prepared in April May time frame and uh worked in collaboration with our principles around that and that's why we have uh Mr Frederickson here to speak uh on behalf of the elementary uh principal colleagues with regard to some of the adjustments that we made throughout August and in even to early September thank you Dr Edwards thank you uh chair France and superintendent Thomas and the rest of the board I appreciate being here um through all that complication with enrollment numbers and looking at Staffing pieces I also say I wish I knew in April what I will know in August because it's a moving Target as we go along uh as you may recall last last time we went through the budget we actually reserved money for growth and then we were watching our uh the weekly meetings that Dr Edwards referred to looking at what are those Target numbers we have for each grade level in each building and what are those discussion caps where we're looking at uh do we need to have another section uh at that building and after a while it's like well are we ready to do this yet because we know once we make that decision that will determine what the next decision is so we did earlier in the summer hire a couple more positions because a few of our sections grew to quite significantly above the discussion cap um then when we got to this fall we realized that that budgeted amount was shrinking and we found that kindergarten enrollment had gotten higher at multiple buildings above that discussion cap uh and some of those happened earlier some of those happened later uh and it got to the point where hiring another kindergarten teacher first of all would have been very disruptive to the system because we'd already had some uh assignments of students and also there wasn't quite the budget left to do that so we moved on to having student support pair of professionals not just at kindergarten but at Hamilton Ridges at first grade I think Jeffers Pond it was second grade and fifth grade uh and thinking about optimizing resources how do we make our schools run with all the resources we have and one resource we have of course is people including our parent volunteers including people we're hiring and we had three positions that we weren't be able to hire for they're two and a two hour two and a quarter hour noon supervisor positions they're hard to fill because most people want to be able to work more than two hours a day um and we had three of those open at the same time we found we needed two student support PA professionals but we only had funding for one more so while we're continuing to um use parent volunteers to help staff our cafeteria to help make sure our kids have you know kindergarteners have someone to help open their milk and the other kids can open the plastic pieces with an adult there um these positions weren't getting hired so we ended up taking those three positions one at Hamilton Ridge uh one at Westwood and one at redtail Ridge and combined them in order to hire another student support specialist uh when we needed two and we could only afford one so again thinking that we're using all these different resources and we could a little creative in positions we couldn't fill to reassign those funds for something we actually need and could fill at all the buildings so thank you for listening one of the pieces I'd like to add to that particular comment um is uh that that idea generated specifically from our elementary principles in those meetings uh we had talked about you know here's our dilemma unfortunately this is our our tight resources that we have and they offered up that suggestion in early I think it was the second week of school um and said you know this is we want to prioritize this is where the greater need is and multiple principles offered up that to support and benefit another school rather than their own and that uh collaboration again that continued um into that uh time frame we just wanted to highlight that bring that forward that that is the collaborative spirit that that our across our system uh our administrators have and the teams that support that they support have at our sites uh to do in fact what we just talked about here in optimizing our resources I think we will entertain any questions you may have um from any of the four of us I don't have any qu I guess I don't really have any questions I think that um I really appreciate the I appreciate the um collaboration between the principles and you know looking at how to how to optimize when when positions are uh such as the supervisor positions are hard to fill and H how can we um use those resources to best help our students um I really appreciate learning more about that so thank you for sharing it gives context to our agenda item that we'll talk about later tonight around class size so we appreciate that thank youbody else all right well I appreciate learning about the entire life cycle and how early it starts the unpredictability the adjustments and the teamwork um was very interesting to know and and understanding that uh being able to project and plan ahead isn't always possible and the ability to adapt uh on the Fly uh is done so smoothly to the point where none of us know any better and I'm sure neither of the famili so thank you very much thank you thank you okay um next we have personal items and I don't have anything on the agenda there's nothing there okay we're going to go into um no unfinished business and go into new business and we're going to start with the items that were pulled off of the consent agenda the first one is uh 7 A7 what is the check and wire transfer um can I can I ask really quickly sorry to interrupt under Personnel items we do we have two retirements I just want to acknowledge early in the meeting we do we were going to do that during our board reports but you're right we do have two retirements would you like to do that now you can wait if you want okay I just didn't know sorry I mean we can wait till the end doing board reports but thank you um and on to the um items off of the consent agenda starting with the uh 787 uh thank you I have a question on the September check detail there was a check to Spiker and Co on September 11th for $61,800 a couple questions surrounding this um why was this not under on the purchase ERS over $25,000 I looked back and I didn't see it on the list it actually was we put it on there it was the entire policy it was like a $900,000 that we had for Spiker there's five different portions of that policy and we just listed them on the um po over 25,000 as one item number um so it was I I'll have to double check which month it was in um so last month it was it was listed as EMC and I think that's why I was confused because I didn't see the name Spiker so it was EMC and it was general liability insurance is what it was Spiker is our broker right so um the EMC is the insurance company it's it's all the same payments okay and I can I can certainly break down the I think there's four components to the insurance that we pay to Spiker I can get the to you no that's okay as long as it was in included that's fine and then um I'm I know I asked this question I'm assuming like do you do comparisons with other Brokers on this um and like how how long have we use the same company so we just did an RFP this past summer um I think we provided all that information to the board um I think it was in the spring summer we did an RFP and Spiker was chosen um I think we've been doing business with them probably for the last 10 years I before my time here um but we did have an RFP I think there was three responses and we chose Spiker okay wonderful thank you um my second question is about the purchase orders over 25,000 um for the purchase of au for the portrait of a graduate software for 43,500 is this um new this year director ainson um this is actually um a software technology it's not just unique to the uh profile of a learner um we are looking at morphing into Au as a comprehensive data warehouse and visualization tool and sunsetting some other contracts we're in this transitionary period we can actually save Resources by utilizing their company so there's actually three builds that we're doing with them um the first will be around how we have data visualizations um across the board for um elements aligned to our strategic plan so they'll be able to build in metrics of how we actually execute that secondly we're um going to be putting together what's called a student 360 profile which is an online dashboard accessible for our staff that will house all of our fast Bridge Ela math Sabers MCA act you know all the data points for our kids and then the third is building out a more robust uh Behavior Analytics tool so that we can warehouse and track and monitor intervention supports of all the discipline and behavior infractions and then at the end of this year there's a couple of softwares that will be sunsetting um after that contract expires and then saving Resources by bundling into um Au so we're in that transition period right now and that's being supported through our AI Grant correct yeah okay and is this is this um when I looked at this it has to do with the whole child is that correct the auy the portrait of a learner the whole the whole child that's a d That's a data point right and then it aligns it's like the core it's like our strategic core beliefs in our strap plan at the at the high school level we worked with a lot of our students to De to develop the attributes of a learner Pro so a lot of the you know collaboration critical thinking you th those skill sets there's like seven of those that were developed and then we'll be able to track and monitor um uh against uh students being able to demonstrate that these are aspects of their learning as well okay MH that's um yeah and I I saw it also aligns with the castle model so I before I had heard that we weren't using Castle so we're not using Castle okay Aubrey Aubrey is an IT solutions it has nothing to do with other anything other than warehousing data and allowing staff to take action with the data that it that it collects and it uh develops dashboards and visualizations so I can see where every student is performing on a variety of different metrics so that's that's Au Castle as anal company that's not part of au well it was listed on their website so that's why I wanted to ask about it um two different companies is this is the data all internal then um intern it's not shared with anybody or it's all it's all internal this is this is our internal data dashboard that we currently have with educ climber and things of that nature and so we're looking at exploring ways that we can optimize our resources so that we can um save dollars and become more efficient and how we can be also more responsive to our kids needs okay and one last question I'm sorry um because I know we had talked about you know this this teachers are mostly going to be using their time for um the read act so how will this platform be utilized and who will be utilizing it very similar to how teachers are using other platforms currently except expanded and enhanced effic efficiencies for the user as well as uh bottom line cost savings for the district okay um that's all the questions I havek thank you okay um I need a motion in a second homeade by director Crosby second second by director bernick all in uh so for the vote for the consent agenda items 7 A7 and 7B all in favor I I I opposed nay okay that passes 51 all right moving on to the final audit presentation and I'm going to hand this over director Frederickson thank you uh we have with us here tonight um representing our audit firm mmkr Jim Ikon and we welcome him and he's going to go through his presentation thanks Jim thanks Tammy members of the board superintendent my name is Jim mikon I'm with mmkr CPAs uh the auditor for the district I'm here this evening to provide a presentation uh for the audit report for the year ended June 30th 2024 um the role of the auditor uh is to um provide an opinion on the district's financial statements you are required to complete an annual financial statement uh and submit those financial statements to a variety of governmental agencies including the office of the state auditor uh the Minnesota Depart of Education as well as the federal government uh related to the federal Awards receive um as part of the audit process this process is Guided by standards it requires us to uh audit your internal controls specifically related to financial reporting uh we also audit your compliance with u a variety of laws and regulations specifically related to the uh AIDS and grants that that you receive uh we're also as part of the AUD process uh uh auditing your schedule of expenditures of federal Awards the district does receive received significant Federal Awards um and as uh as a result uh you are required to follow the standards of the federal agencies that provide those grants um uh th that particular uh set of um auditing standards are guided Again by the federal government which also requires us to audit your internal controls specifically to those grants that we uh complete as well as uh your compliance with requirements of various major programs depending on the year and the audit cycle that we're going through um I do want to point out that the district's financial statements uh uh um also are issued in what's called an annual comprehensive financial report which is goes above and beyond the actual uh requirements of a financial statement these are submitted uh for achievement in excellence and financial reporting so you should be commended for taking that on as a an additional added component of your financial statements as part of the audit process I issue What's called the management report the management report is a report that is uh can be read so that you can understand the financial results and the audit results in a more condensed format without having to look at the uh larger documents um in that management report I'm going to cover the highlights tonight and U provide you with some audit results um I believe as part of the audit packet that you did receive all of the uh documentation the audit information uh please recognize that these documents are in draft form as we stand here tonight um the the U I will call it the quality review uh process is ongoing uh that includes the ongoing the audit review process at the staff level internally but also in my uh my uh uh level as well in my office and going through quality review and making sure all of the reports are accurate and in a uh um um in good form so as a board if you do recognize something as you go through in detail please forward that on to tamy she can uh forward it on to me and I can get any corrections that you see uh um um in place so that being said uh um the district did uh receive an unmodified opinion on that basic financial statements it was a clean opinion unmodified is the technical term but it is a clean opinion for for all intensive purposes uh uh we were able to issue that opinion this year as I have for multiple years um as I mentioned the internal controls of the district are uh are good form we did not have any Financial reports specifically to internal controls over financial reporting activities uh continuing on the reports I didn't I feel to mention that we also are required to audit your compliance with Minnesota laws and regulations the office of the state auditor here in the state provides us with a list of the laws that we audit we don't audit every law just the ones that on their list um uh the audit results in that particular area did did uh come up with one finding specifically related to unclaimed property uh the district is required uh to submit an unclaimed property report to the state on an annual basis um basically providing them with a list of property that you might have had that were unclaimed probably the best example is an outstanding check somebody that didn't you know Clash a check um so we did deem noted that that particular rep report was not filed um but actually in this case the file if it were to have been filed it would have stated there were no unclaimed property so it was more of a we didn't file the report but uh um it is required to actually file a report even though you don't have any unclaimed property um the second opinion excuse me the second finding that we had this year related to uh procurement standards within the single audit of federal Awards um in a single audit in a federal framework um you are required to determine if any vendor that you have working in that space um is suspended or debarred from receiving federal funds uh the federal government issues a list of vendors that are suspended or Deb bar and it is a requirement of the district that any spending that goes through that particular federal grants is be validate that they weren't suspended or debarred um that particular internal control findings is very specific in that it relates to the internal controls and why I say that is the controls here were deemed to be insufficient in that the district was really just looking uh at those uh um at that list once a year uh and you should be doing it uh as well every time a vendor is added to your system um to to make sure you're not adding a vendor and then paying them the next day um importantly it's also important to recognize that we do test for compliance in this area and the district did comply with that standard U this particular finding relates to the controls and not the compliance very important distinction so I'll continue on um um in my management report I do also then provide information on the financial results for the year U that particular management report starts with this particular graph this shows um the uh uh District's uh uh unrestricted fund balance balance uh over the last 10 years compared to the Statewide uh fund balances um collectively of of our state um remember that this particular percentage being used here is is the Minnesota Department of education's percentage the district has its own internal calculation that differs from this particular calculation um and you can see here that uh Statewide actually fund balances were pretty consistent almost 20% is a percentage of operations for quite some time going all the way back to 15 all the way through uh uh 2019 when the pandemic hit actually fund balances started to go up as uh uh spending uh went down during the pandemic phase as well as some federal money that was provided to districts was increasing those fund balances as we get post pandemic and those federal dollars start to dwindle we're seeing Statewide fund balance is declining uh enrollment has been declining as well kind of Statewide the blue graph is the district's graph and you can see uh over the last few years the district's fund balance has declined and at the end of the year you're at 10 10% and I I'll go through some of the individual um U data as it relates to your calculations here in a bit so this graph is also in my management report and it shows uh revenues on a per student basis uh compared to both the Statewide comparisons as well as the metropolitan area um so what this graph is telling you is in 2024 um the revenues of the district were $ 17,29 per student um and you can look at that particular graph and break it down by the various components of revenues that you're receiving uh the first thing that stands out to me is really that total uh compared to um the Statewide and metro area averages are quite a bit lower um you can see in 2023 uh the district received $16,200 per per student when on average the metro area was 19,600 Statewide it was 18,600 and you might ask well why is that well you really have to look at the very first line uh property taxes which is really generated um through formulas of the state but the district is re receiving less property taxes U than than other comparable entities and that is driving the lower than average revenues at the district level some of the things that stand out to me in that particular graph show shows uh the increases in some of the state funding uh the state did provide uh uh additional revenues on the general education Aid as well as the district received additional special education dollars this year which is really showing up on that state line in the general fund you're also seeing in the special Revenue funds the Food Service revenues increasing again going back to some additional State revenues for meals provided this past year uh lastly I'll point out the federal line uh you can see the federal line is declining and again as those pandemic related funding uh is dwindling you're seeing that federal revenue go down uh in 2024 so how does that how does that correlate to the operations of the district well this graph shows expenditures on a per student basis and as you might expect uh when revenues are less than average expenditures are less than average um in general they they correlate so in 2024 the district spent $7,555 19,600 at at at the Metro Area um those particular uh uh numbers really uh correlate like I said to each other and um generally when you look at this graph if they don't you you end up uh um in in challenging time is you're spending more than you're getting in the on the revenue side some of the areas that stand out to me in this particular graph uh stand out in the areas of of additional expenditures in the um general fund you can see that the district had additional expenditures in both regular instruction and special education instruction most of all of that is in salaries and benefits uh additional teachers as well or additional Personnel can't just say teachers uh were also um added into these particular categories the district is also seeing additional costs in in both regular transportation and special education Transportation which is showing up in the pupil support service category so continuing on um in my report we do go into each individual fund there's some trend lines uh and data on individual funds this particular graph shows the general fund financial position um financial position in an audit like this is really indication uh in two ways the cash and Investments as well as the fund balance at the end of the year and is widely used to evaluate where you're stand from an equity position in your general fund and the next graph actually gets into a little more detail but I'm going to focus on this one right now um you can see in the in the at the end of the year uh the district end of the year with a fund balance uh decline of almost $4.3 million um revenues expenditures were higher than uh revenues by that $4.3 million um the the the budget of the district um anticipated uh a fund balance decline of about a million and a half so you're almost $3 million more uh um decline in fund balance than what was budgeted originally um revenues were higher than budget by almost 4 million um expenditures were higher than budget by about 7 million offsetting each other uh what does that mean in terms of policy um this particular graph shows the general funds financial position by category um there are a number of funding elements to the state's uh funding s system and and uh it includes restricted balances money that comes to the district that are restricted for various purposes which can be seen on that second line that did increase uh probably the biggest piece there is some monies that are going to be used for uh basic skills uh and then you have amounts that are assigned internally for various categories things that carry over from year to year uh assigned for particular purposes um the district does have a a a fund balance policy and this particular policy um states that the district is to maintain a fund balance um minimum of total fund balance of of between 8 to 12% of the annual budget um when you look at that particular graph at the bottom we do include that those particular uh percentages which um the percentage here that you should focus on is the 8.9% right below that graph that is the percentage that correlates back to your fund balance policy so you are within the fund melds policy range of 8 to 12% uh but um after being pretty much above that particular percentage from for the last four years you're you're kind of in the range but at the low end of that part particular range so as I mentioned um well this is a graph you can see here these are the various fund balance components this is getting into a lot of detail I'm not going to cover uh this uh significantly but you do have various uh fund balances that are going to be used for various categories including uh literacy incentive American IND Indian education Aid basic skills a variety of things that are carrying over specifically because they weren't spent uh um on in in the previous f school year so this graph does show the general fund revenues and I really put these here to really show some of the trends some of the things that are happening at the individual level um uh the total general fund revenues did increase um by about $7 million in 2024 um Revenue increases again were mainly in state aid uh for both general education as well as special education I mentioned the decline in federal dollars happening and you can see that on that particular graph um um in the the uh as you can see here on this particular graph the the general fund budget was over budget by almost $4 million um as mentioned earlier uh categorically um other revenues were significantly over budget mostly because of conservative budgeting in in certain areas you just don't know what you're going to get in certain categories uh that was below budget uh interest earnings were above expectations again you don't know what your your interest earnings are going to be just based on market and lastly state state aid was higher than expected mostly in special education um and again special education dollars are generated by cost so because the costs were higher the revenues were higher so on the expenditure side you can see here that uh um the various categories uh certainly salaries and benefits of the majority of the spending at a school district um uh total general fund expenditures increased by almost $8 million 7.8 million from the previous year 4 and a half in salaries uh 2.3 million in benefits again most of the increases were in those special education excuse me in the salary and benefit areas um some of the increases that you're seeing um mostly relate to you know contract improvements uh increases in benefits um increases in Staffing levels there was quite quite quite a bit of inrease in Staffing um substitutes is becoming more and more costly um around the metropolitan area um as well as transportation that I I previously mentioned so I'll continue on um we do also in the report show other governmental funds and um um you can see here that you have this the district has a food service special Revenue fund that uh has a fund balance of almost 2.9 Million it increase from the previous year as well as the community service special Revenue fund I look at that graph and see great improvements in that particular graph or particular presentation that yellow line um or the yellow kind of what the year was that 2021 was a year that I remember standing here going that's that's a low Point U for the district and certainly seen some very improve great improvements in fund balance and equity in that particular fund since that time um the the financial report does include a lot of other information there is a districtwide uh presentation this particular presentation takes all of the the financial data of the district and puts it into one particular Financial St presentation why I put this up here because it does show that from one year to the next the overall Financial results of the district improve by almost $10 million in that particular presentation so uh um U certainly that can be that can stand out in terms of overall Financial picture of the district um so that's the end of my presentation so in summary I was able to issue a clean opinion on the on the uh basic financial statements of the district uh you did Issue or will be issuing an annual comprehensive financial report which is exceptional uh had the two findings which again were mostly control related and not compliance related uh I reported uh reported the various individual Financial results uh of the various entities uh and the last thing I just want to point out that U this is one of my first audits that we issue my firm issues quite a few Audits and um with the the the com the comment there about the district's uh finance department providing timely and thorough information uh this audit very goes very smoothly and I'm glad to report at this time uh um very positive results both from the audit perspective but but also just the audit efficiency perspective so with that I'll turn it over to you for any questions that you might have for me okay um are there any questions on the audit um I have a question about the slide with the fund balance um I apologize I don't have it I don't think we received this so um no it's the one where you showed the percentage of 8% oh this one so my question is on that one is we our policy states unrestricted and restricted added together yes so the number are you referring to 8.9 as being both unrestricted and restricted correct you are okay and does that include um the food funds and like the because then you went back a couple more slides and you talked about how those are have improved which I know that I've seen that from the numbers so is that included in here as well uh the fund balance policy of the district does not include those two funds it just includes the general fund so that percentage is just the general fund fund balance okay thank you any other questions I just had a general question about um we've seen The Substitute Teacher increase quite a bit the cost increase it was kind of a bidding war for a while between various school districts um the other thing was um so I'm basically when you when you my first question question about substitute teachers was when you made that statement with regards to overall salaries and benefits and cost of employees so that was included in there that wasn't part of purchase Services um substitutes are part of purchase Services okay so when you look at this particular let's see let me get to it this graph the purchase Services is where the substitutes are are landing and you can see the the actual cost there being above both last year and and and expect there's other things in there like Transportation but substitutes are definitely in that category yeah I just wanted to clarify because you had made that comment at the same time as the other ones and I just that's what I thought um the other thing is inflation rates I know that this is the first audit that you've uh completed but we have seen inflation on goods and services go up significantly in the past three or four years um what um did you look at the percentage of inflation as in relation to our expenditures so same product price is higher that sort of thing was that broken down anywhere yeah so that's a great question regarding how we treat inflation in an audit like this um so um as part of my audit process we in June if you will sit down as a firm as a team and determine our expectations our benchmarks um those benchmarks are built into our audit process so anytime um our Auditors if you will um are out in the field and they see uh a particular cost and they they look at the benchmarks that we're putting together based on inflation and that if that number says 4% and the district is experiencing 10% we tend to pull data we tend to pull invoices we tend to pull other information that says well this seems odd why is it 10% just to validate um you know that yeah there's nothing unusual there um but but um I we didn't dive into it any further than that but we do do some testing specifically to benchmarks based on inflation okay thank you any other questions no first of all thank you very very much for the uh thorough report um the next step for the board is to vote on the draft and uh assuming no other substantive changes they're just quality control with spell checks sentence structure Etc yes qualify okay um so I'd like to take a motion on the budget report homade by director Crosby second second by director olad any other questions okay all in favor I I opposed okay that passes 60 and next on our agenda is the um uh District enrollment report and I'm going to hand this over to director Frederickson no board action is requested it's informational only thank you chair FR um you can see we have updated the monthly report that I have been giving you for the last couple years we've added the October 1st count um just keep in mind that while October 1st has passed um we still have time to get uh any students that were registered on October 1st that we can still get the um free and reduced lunch forms or the additional educational comprehensive report done we have until um actually December because it goes on the Mars report um but these are kind of The Unofficial official October 1st counts um we've got got 40 more students than what we ended the year in June with um we still are about a 100 students more than what we're projecting which is great um the majority of them are in kindergarten um but you can see we're at 552 kindergarten students Which is less than the 575 that we ended the year with but it's more than what we were anticipating so we'll continue to watch that um and again we'll come back to the board in December if these numbers hold we can uh look at doing a budget amendment but right now we're going of sitting pretty good with our kindergarten classrooms are there any questions I'm Tammy I had um one question and just to clarify because I did get some questions in um from people when they're comparing just first grade this year to first grade last year and I me mentioned that you really need to take kindergarten from 2022 to first grade of 2023 to second grade to show the progression and um it does look like um really only one grade level did we actually drop uh and I think that was expected so um it looks really good um so thank you for all this hard work thank you yeah just a I'd make like to make a comment just that I appreciated the um and going over the numbers I appreciated the conservative enrollment projections um and it's really promising to see um what the numbers actually are with no other questions or comments uh move on also to The Five-Year forecasting model and this is also informational only thank you uh so we have um completed the five why can't I get this the U fiveyear forecast um I guess one of the things that I just want to remind you is that this is a projection model that shows what 5 years out could look like with no structural changes this is not a budget this is not um an actual what what we're going to look like in 5 years this is making some assumptions which we've defined in this document um and assuming that if all of those assumptions were to come true which we know is probably not going to happen um that this was what could possibly look like in five years I've done three different scenarios I've done uh one that looks at um the actual if we would end the um referendum I did one with assuming we got the referendum and then I did one assuming that we renewed the referendum um again it's not intended to be um a budget just kind of playing this out some of those assumptions we're making we've listed the assumptions that we've made in enrollment and keeping in mind that we are as we've talked about before and aging State we're not getting a lot of um new births so we're not anticipating um having a lot of new um kids coming into the district again this is an assumption based on the historical data that we have um we're still showing declines of less than 1% um or less than 5% in or 05% in some cases but again we are showing some decline um we assuming that the state formula will increase 2% I know the legislation has a cap on it based on inflation of 3% um I did a conservative estimate and used 2% because that's what it's been for the last several years if it's 3% then it again it'll change some of these um slightly change some of these assumptions um I'm assuming the same number of free and reduced lunch students um I'm assuming the same number of English Learners um the one thing that you need to also keep in mind is that this spring is a legislative funding year um and we know what happened two years ago we got a lot of additional Revenue with a lot of additional mandates I don't really anticipate that happening again but um who knows I mean this again this is making some assumptions um the expenses I'm assuming um a 2 and a half% increase on all wages and and um all the wage scales um health insurance increased this year um by 4% we're assuming a 5% increase moving forward on our health insurance again that may or may not happen depending on um but it is probably a likely scenario um so our projection is taking those assumptions looking at um what we anticipate having starting the year next year and you can see that assuming all of these things looking at our current year that we are um if nothing changes and we take the assumptions that we have built into this that we will be looking at about $3.7 to4 million de decrease that we're going to have to make for next year um and that's assuming that we wouldn't get a um voter approved Levy done um you can see as we carry it out that uh as that Levy ends um it will change some of those numbers um I've also done again a projection that if um we just renewed The Levy what those numbers would look like and then I also did assuming that there was an increase um I o did some additional projections in kind of appendix 2 and then I've done a projection Revenue um again in appendix 3A what it would look like without a new Levy what it would look like with a new Levy and then what it would look like with just an expired Levy and I've broken down all of the components of the revenue um so you can see all of the different property taxes all the state aid the um special education Aid and then some of our other Revenue so basically that's how we put together this five-year forecast and take any questions I have kind of a detailed question sorry oh I like your detailed first and then we can move forward um in terms of compensatory Aid what does that change look like when it's tied to the general fund are have they have they explained how they're doing that to us yet no they're they're still talking about it right now they're um assuming that the next next year and possibly the year after they're just keeping it status quo they're just saying whatever you have now you're going to get you until they figure out how that formula would change if they do tie it to I mean it's not a huge huge funding bucket but it matters thank you I just had a comment as I studied these projections which I appreciate very much um the one area that I think is pretty easy for everybody to look at from just a over like a high level is when you look at the total expenditures 2425 but let's just say it's 1 122 122 million and then look ahead at 29 to 30 and those expenditures go up to 138 million 1387 simple math shows me that's like a $16 million increase and then my mind goes right to which buckets are my largest categories and you can see pretty quickly that line three Elementary and secondary regular instruction goes from 56.9 to 66 million which is Staff right 83% of our budget and then you just kind of break down and you can get pretty quickly to that $16 million swing I mean I'm off a little bit but I mean no matter how you decide what your Revenue looks like if you can pay attention to your expenditures and say where is that money going I see pretty quickly that it's to people and salaries and benefits so again I'm assuming that there'll be a salary increase every year that's just one of the assumptions that I made yeah and then it breaks out Administration separately which is good to see too right because then we can think about are we too heavy on the administration side versus you know and you just start paying attention to it sites and buildings goes from 10 million to 9.7 so just I think that's a pretty good it's just an area that I would encourage the community to take a peek at and all of the other board members and say well you know your your your look at this is pretty conservative and unless we don't have people and the other in my mind the other two large B buckets are special ad and instructional support which both are you know serving students with people and needs that many of which are mandated so that gets us quickly to 14 million you know well 10 and then three plus plus one yeah it gets it I mean it again I'm not trying to lose a million dollars here and there but it's pretty easy to start looking at where this is coming from and it's a good thing but people cost money and that's our largest output is salaries and benefits I have a question so I've been tracking and I appreciate the fiveyear forecast um but I went back and I looked at the one that we did a year ago October 30th of 20123 and what I'm trying to wrap my arms around is that when I looked at that forecast um which basically says the the current referendum ends in 29 at that point the way it was forecasted we had a positive fund balance all the way up until 29 and so I understand I've done a lot of financial forecasting in my life and you basically understand you use your best guest it's really your best guest at the moment in time based on the information that you have available to you and so as a board director I'm sitting here trying to understand what new data did you have that like that the your you know your revenue is I want to say somewhat staying flat but then your your expenses are dramatically increasing over where it was forecasted and I think you'd have to have this in front of you to really I didn't dollar It Out by each each year but I'm just trying to understand from what you knew last year to what you know this year what's driving this and you know maybe it goes back to I understand what you said about people and I know we hired 63 new positions last year so with declining enrollment or stagnant enrollment would we continue to hire 60 new3 PE 63 new people every year if we're not having the enrollment to demand it and so I get the comment about people but would we in fact continue to hire that many people going forward if we don't have the enrollment to justify it to justify the need so this forecast would be not assuming we're adding all all this forecast is doing is taking the actuals um and from 23 to 26 I mean there's two more years of data that we would have looked at um we got you know the budget for 2425 was different than it was in when we did that forecast a year ago um we're looking at actual numbers we've settled contracts now so we have actual um amounts that were paying people I think when we did the original one we were still in negotiations with with some of the uh bargaining collective bargaining agreements we know what those are now so we're assuming that so I'm not assuming that we're adding positions I'm taking exactly what we have now adding a 2 and a half% increase in salaries and just moving it forward I'm not assuming that we're going to be adding anything um it's just a straight if you do the I think if we do the math it's just a straight 2 and a half% increase on those um and then the fringe benefits assume you know a 5% increase on the health insurance um and so like the other question I had when I looked at this is I mean pretty shocking that we're over $7 million over our budget and as a board member I'm um I guess concerned at what point in the budget process our board members made aware that we are going to be $7 million over and when I look at this I I don't see it as being $7 million over budget cuz we cut 4 million expenses correct so that means we're at 79 11 million over and then you go into the fund balance where we took two men two million out of fund balance so we're really $13 million over in expenses is that correct no you have to offset that with the amount over in our Revenue because when you the special education increases in our salary we get Revenue based on what we spend in special education there's a formula of what you get so um while um Mr Aon was explaining our expenses were up 7% but our re or 7 million our Revenue was 4 million more so you have to net those um is some and you know you have grants that um we only spend what the revenue is so if we get a new Grant and have additional increases in that Revenue then we're going to spend those expenses so it's it's commiserate with the amount of Revenue that you have you have to net those to right no I understand and and again happy to see the extra 4 million in Revenue but like how confident are we with this projection that we're looking at not a super conservative approach to enrollment which would drive down the revenue and a super conservative approach to um Revenue but then we're being aggressive with our expensive and that's going to have a major swing and a major impact on how the total forecast forecasts out and that's when I look at it from a a big picture I look at the one we did in October 30th to one we did now and that's the biggest like the difference I see um just looking at it from that way it almost looks like our like we're looking at a very conservative approach on the revenue but aggressive approach on the spending which then would mean we need to dial back our spending so I guess you could make that argument but the the expenses that we looked at we've looked at historical data and if the expenses are going to increase for instance we know that our our bus contract is going to go up 8% next year um this year it was up 6% so we already know that we're making some assumptions our utilities went up 8 to 10% this year is it going to go down next year probably not so you if you're I don't feel like we're making um aggressive estimates of our expenditures based on the historical spending that we've had year over year I mean we could argue that that maybe some of these assumptions are not necessarily um correct but again I'm taking actual numbers and increasing it by in some case other than the contracts that we know like Transportation which is going up 8% we already know that um I'm using a conservative 2% um which I think if you look in our own personal lives 2% increase in some of these expenses is not um necessarily A an aggressive um increase yeah no certainly argue it and and say these assumptions maybe should be different but based on the historical data that I've seen over the last 10 years the the um increases that I have built into this forecast I think are reasonable I think the only reason I question it is when I look at the historically where we landed from budget from the past 10 years from revenue to expenses we didn't see these big jumps in the past especially with expenses it seemed like it happened in the last two years where our expenses have just skyrocketed and um and and our Revenue to be honest with you um so that's that's where I'm trying to just literally trying to wrap my arms around like why all of a sudden are we in a position where it looks like I mean the forecast does not look good right so why is that is it I mean that's I guess I I can make my own assumptions on that but um just my own perception of of what I'm seeing so my my perception is different I think you've walked this walk with us and and taught us a lot along the way about what you're doing and and how you all as an administrative leadership team are looking at things and the challenges you're faced with the one thing I want to touch on is that when we talk about number of hires I think that number is um not super helpful in this conversation because I feel like as the example was tonight there were three open pair of positions and instead we hired or sorry lunchroom supervisor positions and instead we hired one so number of number of hires is not context matters around all of that it matters around this whole conversation but I'm not going to throw a number of hires and think that that that number is going to impact you know the way I think about a district and and also um again and I just this is such a state issue and I appreciate what the state has done around this but there's a lot more work to be done around the special ed cross subsidy and many of our hires have been around that and that need is growing and if you talk to Early Childhood Specialists who are screening kids I think they thought postco that that would change and it's not changing and our so so while we may not know the why or we all have different reasons why this is our reality this is where we are and so that drives increase costs as well so I just want to speak to that and um if I were to just make a comment on how you have um forecasted for expenses um taking that data I think it would I is it fair to say maybe I maybe I should pose this more as a question for clarification is it fair to say that if you were to um forecast um maybe less generously for future expenses um while that might look different on the forecast uh it would cause more trouble given if expenses were as high as as um uh past Rises indicated um when you share that you're assuming um oh where did I write it when you were sharing your assumptions um you assumed a formula increase of 2% is this correct correct assuming the same number of el students which most likely that's an increasing number that happens um that uh the expenses the 2.5% increase in wage scale um if you could just expand a little bit on that we've done a l I know we've done a lot of work as a district to um with our contracts and and um making those I want to say better I'm just going to say better I'm making those better for for our staff members um is the 2.5% increase in wage scale is can you expand on that a little bit more is that is that typically what we've seen in the past um you also said for insurance is that a typical um that 5% is are those increases typical historically typical or have have you buffered them in because of the work that we've most recently done in um making our contracts for lack of better terms better so again I'm I I have to start somewhere so I'm just going to assume at 2 and a half% which I think um if you look across many Industries two 2 and a half% is not unreasonable um we want to stay competitive I'm just starting with 2 and a half% but every collective bargaining agreement is different um you've seen some of our PA professionals that we've given them increases that were significantly more than 2 and a half% because we're trying to meet Market needs um we'll do the same as we work on the future contracts um but I have to put something in here so I'm using two and two and a half% um I think those were the parameters that this board set the last time we did that 2 and a half percent as you recall when you compound that over two years it's 7 and a half% so that was kind of our Target as we were working on contracts this year but again it's all um a bargaining process and we take into account many many different factors um I don't know if Emily you want to expand on that thank you executive Dr fredon um director bullan members of the board I think um just expanding upon that just a uh bringing back to the fact that not only are all of our contracts different but some of them have steps included in their salary schedule which um makes it diff to compare contracts across the board but we do compare um like contracts with our surrounding districts to make sure we're we're remaining um competitive in our markets with our our our comparisons and in terms of the question for the um health insurance over the last 11 years we've been averaging close to a 4% increase um but we have been way outside the industry Norm on that that's been ex um we have been able to keep our cost down significantly um thanks to help of our insurance committee and all of our members that are on our plan um making sure they're being wise consumers with our plan um I do not think that it is unreasonable to anticipate that it'll be closer to 5% as the um number of vendors in that area dwindle and the cost of health insurance and prescriptions um continue to rise we will continue to do our best to to keep those increases where we can keep them um if 5% is where we can meet I think that'd be great in comparison to what most of our um neighboring districts are seeing closer to the 12 to 15% thank you um and you know the the correlation between our Student Success is is uh closely related to our our teachers and our staff so um making sure that they're supported and taken care of I think that I appreciate the um I just appreciate the assumptions and I mean they they are our biggest resource in in for student achievement is our teachers um so it's important that we are um you know budgeting or forecasting to be able to support keeping them so thank you um I've got a question it's a two-parter um I'm on page 109 for those of you who have a print out um when you're talking about the analysis um one particular sentence just kind of broke my heart um continuing to pay for programs that will have to be considered for elimination will use valuable res reserves despite the future benefits of those programs being eventually lost um I read that sentence three times um and it broke my heart a little bit more every time I read it um can you give me my first part of the question when we're looking at those examples potentially um when do we start looking at those do we come back potentially right away in December here and start looking do we and do sorry three-parter and do those potential Cuts happen yet this school year and then related to that uh last week um the district put out um due to some of the questions that you know we were getting on um The Levy and things you know wanted to see some examples of things and put some dollars um behind it which was good um what was the process in kind of determining those um knowing full well that it's not exact or official I know that um so can you maybe elaborate just a little bit and I know you don't have all of that paperwork in front of you I know that but um elaborate a little bit on how that how those numbers came to be because I think when I read this sentence that has a lot to do with that director olad if I should I repeat like AAR start with the uh response so first and foremost when you know you read that sentence um in the conclusion or the summary similar to what we've been sharing in the levy presentation um you know based upon the forecast if we have to make some tough decisions um and couple of other board directors alluded to this there's not like lots of fat around here to say oh we're going to cut this very easily yeah so we will be making decisions between sometimes what's good for our students and what's good for our students um there's not a lot that we do that we say this is really horrible for our students and continue to do it so that's the first that's the spirit behind that Lang anguage here um that we're we're choosing we're a little bit between a rock and a hard place um when we have to make reductions whether it's programmatic reductions or staff reductions I think this is the second part of your question um that would be built into our budget development that we'll be bringing to the board for next spring so as we forecast if we need to cut 4 million from our budget again for next year um our team is already beginning that work right now analyzing our budgets looking at outcomes um and Returns on the Investments that are being made and saying okay if we have to cut four where where will this come from um and and our premise is trying to keep the reductions as far away from our students as we possibly can knowing that ultimately everything funnels into our classrooms so I think that gets to the second part of your question um last Friday when we shared examples of how um Investments could be made if the levy were to pass I'll preface similar to what uh director executive director Frederickson said those were just examples none of that was set in stone I want to be very clear with our community um that was not a budget um as some might allude to um declaring um these are in response to um our engagement with the community to say what would that possibly look like what could that look like and I'm also mindful that we've shared the fact that we would entertain a committee of sorts similar to our other committees that would help develop that so we don't want to get too far ahead to say oh we just want a rubber stamp because we don't we want feedback and and opinion on what that would look like so our process for either making some Investments or making some reductions Starts Now um yes as an administrative team we've gone through these exercises multiple times throughout our career we build budgets every year we um modify and adjust those so we have an idea of some things that um we think are high value obviously we have to protect literacy um if we're going to make cuts that would be an area where we wouldn't be making deep Cuts because of the new laws on on books so we would have to look elsewhere of other aspects could be some other learning Pathways Etc so right now um we are in this thinking phase and we would engage our community with us on that thinking phase to help develop some final approaches that we would have iterations coming to you all like we do every single year up until the spring where we have a preliminary budget that you take a look at and then we have our final budget with you in June um so that's the process um and kind of timeline when those impacts would occur um so for fiscal 25 is where that would be realized thank you thank you and thank you for pulling this together the fiveyear forecast it's very helpful um so um Tammy I've um I was on the board in 2020 when we cut the budget uh quite a bit actually um and if it wasn't for the federal dollars coming in for covid we we were we were scheduled to go into another round um then we bought some time and we cut the budget again last year quite significantly um and so far from what I can tell your projections um haven't really changed uh with inflation they've actually U gotten slightly worse and of course the mandates uh didn't help either from the funding that we did receive um I do want to qu qualify something though when does our Levy expire is it 2027 28 I believe the current one then you would see yep right okay um all right and I just wanted to clarify that in the numbers here for when you see that drop then going into the next year um and that and that with no and with we don't have um a scenario here where the levy isn't renewed if I'm trying to find that we do we do okay the very first one sorry I was looking past that and that's where you see the really significant change of uh into statutory operating debt fairly quickly um after that drop off from 2028 into 20129 okay um when you and I appreciate the fact that we have to start thinking about this uh fairly quickly about what we're going to do uh but we are going into potentially how many dollars of budget cuts if the levy doesn't pass again what we're looking at uh about 3.8 to 4 million okay just just to keep us at where we are now basically to tread water uh going into the following school year okay thank you I don't have anything else does anybody else have any comments okay so the next item on the agenda is annual class size and again no board action is requested and I'm going to hand this over to executive director Frederickson and uh director Herman thank you chair Frans members of the boards um uh superintendent Thomas um we are bringing forward today the interal um class size averages that we bring each year adding in the middle school and secondary levels um so if you can see on the first slide we have the elementary size averages across the entire system so you can see through the the system the total number of of kindergarten through fifth grade students that we have the overall number of sections we have in the system that would average out to overall class sizes the reason why we include this is that we it's part of the story that our students don't come to us in perfect numbers and boundaries um they come to us um kind of all over the place so as we try to look at our Target on our discussions cap as we highlighted it um earlier in the the board meeting today we're looking at trying to have consistencies consistency throughout our system um but because our students do not come to us in perfect packages of 20 or 22 um we do see variations throughout the system so when you go to the next slide you can see for the Elementary class size averages by school we have our Target in our discussion cap and then the um sections that are in red are the ones that are at discussion cap or over and any of the um schools that received the additional student support perah due to those overages are um have asteris in their title so as um principal Frederickson noted through the collaboration with the business office um the Lai Department uh Elementary principles and Human Resources over the summer tracking this every single week using the assigned fund balance um for this this exact purpose we monitored these numbers um really closely and figured out where and the time of the year it would be best to utilize those resources and you can see looking at the different schools there's a range from what the averages are in in each of those grades compared to what the overall District average if we looked at it as a district in totality to see how that looks quite differently when you actually look at it based off of uh the the schools um if you go to the next slide you can see this secondary core subject class size averages in the Middle School um and then also in the high school and um I'll have Dr Edwards speak to um once we we in the business office and in Human Resources we budget and we staff around um averages and then provide those FTE to the building principles and um departments to then look at the individual student needs because we look at system overall school and subject matter overall and then the principles with their teams really go down even deeper to look at the student needs so yeah I I will uh pick up there and and talk a little bit about uh go back to the elementary for just a moment and uh talk a little bit about that adjustment of needs uh certainly work with the uh principls they work with their respective teams at their sites uh when making class lists for example and identifying uh what the needs are so when you see a number for example an elementary and you see a number uh an average class size of I'll just pick on uh topic for for the moment of 24.6 7 at five Hawks um and at each of our sites we do have some center-based special education uh programs where students spend uh differing amounts of time in their uh core classroom uh with their regular education teacher and uh significant amounts of time outside of that space so at each site level our principales are working with our uh regular Education team our special education team to make the necessary uh uh accommodations uh to make that uh work uh certainly uh there are limitations around that and with our uh tight Financial Resources uh as we spoke of earlier tonight the importance of optimizing the resources we do have available not only within a given site but also across our elementaries uh similarly when we look at the secondary numbers I want to uh just speak a little bit about um the differentiation within the secondary level when we look at our 6 through eight uh levels uh sixth through eth grade levels you'll see pretty consistent uh level of uh class siiz averages there uh noted and what they're again working with our administration at the secondary level specifically in this case at the middle school level to uh look at when students course selections come in uh they generally are following a very similar uh pattern of courses they all take for example uh an English class a math class a science class and a social studies class they all have a fied class or a health class in the sixth and seventh grade as they progress through the system they have some electives um that they have some Choice out you see no noticed uh there mentioned at the bottom that we do have a little bit more variation uh in those electives then when you get to the 9th uh through 12th grade uh similarly we have most of our 9th and tth graders in a similar uh series of courses once again including the English math science and social studies as well as a fiad and health and then multiple electives uh that increase as they move through our system and their flexibility in their schedule so when you when we report that 9 through 12 uh I just want to make note that at our 9th and 10th grade level our class size average is higher because we have all of our students taking and I'll use science as probably the most concrete example um to give that all of our nth and tth graders are either in their science 9 physical science class or they're in their uh biology life science which is a AP biology or a biology course at the 10th grade level um the class size averages there are slightly higher um because they're all grouped together in one of those two courses but they progress through the system specifically in the area of Sciences students uh do need to take a third year of science sometime in their junior or senior year um and they many of our students take both uh a science in their uh 11th and 12th grade year but the variation grows significantly in terms of the types of courses that they have access to they might have access to three or four courses as a junior or four or five courses as a senior and when we look at the aggregate of those students when we spread them out um the class sizes change uh significantly in that if we have for concrete numbers if we have 45 or 50 students that want a particular course at the senior level um that's going to be two sections of students generally and that's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 to 25 students um that brings down the overall number for the science uh class size average but again we uh believe that providing that variation and uh those opportunities to expand and and maybe bring uh greater Focus to a particular area or passion that they might have um as they get into that Junior and Senior year and preparing for what's beyond uh Prior Lake High School uh we want to provide to the extent possible those types of opportunities so just wanted to explain uh that variation a little bit at the secondary level for for your benefit that the numbers when we boil it down to a number or a series of numbers uh doesn't always tell the whole story of the variation that exists so I wanted to make a point of emphasis there I think next slide I think that was it yep uh Tammy or Emily to add like this point we open to uh questions and and further conversation okay does anybody have any questions yeah I just have a comment um I know that you know there's got to be data behind this raw data that allows you to come up with an average and I mentioned in our study session that I thought it would be helpful for as a board director and for our community to be able to see every single classroom in our district and what the actual data is that rolls up to the averages because there's a lot of I hear as a board director I hear a lot of comments of oh this class has this many and this man this kindergarten has this many and it's just it's probably one of the most as as we hear I mean think we can all test it's the one of the most talked about things is everybody wants small class sizes and when you get to an average you could have a 15 a 15 and a 25 and you do the average and you're going to be right in the middle but that's not the true picture and that's where I think a lot of the the passion lies behind and I'm not saying that that's an actual scenario but my question is is I asked for this in the study session is can we as a board have the actual data that shows what every single class size is because I know we report it and you use it to get to this average and I think it'd be really helpful to be able to have a clear picture um especially when you get to the high school level of what those real class sizes are and that was my desire when I added when I requested this at a St study session was to be able to have a really transparent conversation about what our actual class sizes are and I can tell you from going to conferences last week the information I'm seeing here is different from what I heard at conferences as well so director ainson members of the board I can speak from the HR perspective um we don't have individual class rosters um when we're doing our staffing we look at the overall um enrollments and our FTE to to come to these averages so this is the data that we utilize when we're doing our St we don't um have access to each of the individual rosters at the elementary level um so that again is what we provide the FTE um based off of the enrollment numbers the targets and discussion caps within the budget and then that that those FTE go go to the site level to determine this the needs um in terms of the um pulling all that data um from the system we would also need to be very specific on um the students that are assigned to the class as um director Ed Edwards was speaking to um individuals that are assigned that are center-based students uh versus resources versus e El um and general education students um there's there's a lot of data behind all that information um but just wanted to speak to it from the HR perspective also from my knowledge of all the reports that go to the state we do report on on averages that we are reporting here we I'm not aware of any report where we reported all individual class rosters and the new requirement that came out we still haven't gotten any information or data of how they're going to be collecting that um we just know from historical standpoints we've only ever reported out averages we haven't reported every single um course listing with every single class roster in it to date um TBD on what they're going to be requesting of us moving forward we don't have that information yet but you do have the data as far as how many kids we have in each classroom um from from uh systemwide data uh HR has access to the overall enrollment in the in the in the levels and then the FTE so then we take that to divide that out to find the averages no I understand that but what I'm I guess I didn't ask that correctly I apologize someone in our district has actual how many students are in each class room is that correct I mean someone has to have that data yes that data is certainly available um and what is not available is the explanation behind um as director F Herman was referring to um the information about the specific classroom and what the needs within that classroom uh at specifically speaking at the elementary level and as I acknowledged earlier in my discussion about the secondary level there is variation and certainly that is what results in the averages as they are presented but once again as director Herman shared the uh averages are what our reporting has been yeah and our principle if I'm a director a cons and board um our principles have obviously they get the FTE allocated to their schools and then with their site leadership teams they in their class rosters based upon live enrollment they make determinations as to how many sections of each grade that they'll have and they can also sometimes swap grades based upon um the the enrollment they can also um have split grades that that has happened so the nuance are are fairly prevalent um so yes our principles do have class rosters of every student enrolled in their school by section and I will tell you as a board um the fluidity of that data and the reason why you're seeing aggregate data um it's more stable to make decisions from the governance standpoint our enrollment changes daily a student comes in students go out what we share with you today if we are at a a classroom section could look and will look different tomorrow because we have E Evan flows every day so I would just share that um as I shared before um yes the data is there at a programming level but from a staffing budget and governance level averages are stable to be able to make our for you know plan for our budget and forecast so if there are questions and if it's the will of the board to have that granular data then we can pull class sizes from our PR or our class sections from our principles um and just make sure we're very crystal clear on that cut date that was the enrollment um but we will not be able to explain the Nuance in the context around the support structures within every single classroom that the average parent or Community member looking at this will say what in the world is with this variance and understand the context in the story nor would many of folks engage in that they'll look at sheer numbers and so just want to share there's caution in that because um that data without context is not good um so so again I'll I'll defer to the will of the board if you want to go extremely granular um in a report um such as that um but I would just want to make sure that context and cut time s are explicitly clear okay so um um years ago we used to receive K through five number of sections number of kids in each section but again the breakout between different special ed categories Etc that could not be done and that also isn't given to us at the state level for various reasons discrimination reasons you name it um but that's as far as it ever went um as far as middle school and and high school or the the high school classes we were receiving average class sizes and I would agree that an average by definition 50% or higher and 50% or lower um but what I do like is the fact that one thing that we have been asking for for some time is not to give us an aggregate of those class sizes but to give us just of the core uh classes because of course the electives um are going to range all over the place and that is typical in other words a a Woods or an automotive class can only handle so many kids in there so it's going to bring the average down and therefore dilute and also misrepresent what's going on in a n9th Grade physics uh course uh and so that is the fact that we have core class sizes um even though they're averages I want to again uh emphasize that an average is by definition right in the middle there um and it is going to going to vary however I personally did like when we received the K through 5 uh broken down by number of sections in the schools because it gave us a better idea of capacity of each of those schools um understanding that the classes themselves in order to add another classroom H in order to reduce class sizes that is incredibly expensive from a staffing perspective space perspective Etc but it did help to put that into perspective is that an Ask of an update from the entire board uh regarding slide three uh where we list for example the average class size I'll just take the first sell of Lola De Lago at 20.25 knowing the number of sections associated with that number is that what I I'm hearing in that um let me just qualify we used to get the actual class numbers by section so number sections and then the classes in each section but um I'm only speaking for myself I would ask the rest of the board to to um basically give their opinion I I'll weigh in that that is not data that I feel I need to be a solid board director I don't feel that digging down into an actual singular classroom in a building um unless something you know was RIS you know unless we were getting Community push back that you know five Hawks classes are way too big and we're you know and the board's hearing about it and there's an uppr in the community the role of the board is let Administration do their job and partner with their teachers in their buildings to solve a problem to best educate their students we can see one two 3 four five we have seven hot spots that's that's what the math is telling us that's pretty good math I wouldn't be surprised if there are some five hux kindergarten teachers that um you know are feeling that and conversely if I would be surprised to hear from a Glendale parent or teacher that that their class sizes were too large right that's what the math is telling us logically so I'm comfortable with that as a board director in my role not an administrator anybody else I would just I would agree um I think that just going off what you said Dr Thomas a snapshot may not serve you know serve the purpose we're looking for in that um there with the many factors that go into class numbers I would I think I would um I'm comfortable with the information given um given the E and of the Dynamics um I think knowing every single knowing the snapshot would be more into managerial and not governance and so therefore it's not information I need yeah I agree I don't need the information either I know I know the information is out there and I know our administrators watch it very closely I know we've had hotpots before we've been on the board we've had third graders come speak to us us and tell us that their class sizes are too large and I know that Administration jumped in and fixed those areas so I know the information's out there and I'm going to rely on Administration um to not we don't need all that data the community does not need to jump to conclusions when they see certain things maybe one more um one more comment I'd make on that is if a Community member is having issues in their classroom um concerns about you know if the class sizes are tooo high uh My Hope Is that they would go to the teacher and then the teach you know work with the teacher and then and then if um their concerns are not met with their individual student that they would then you know take that opportunity to go and speak with their principal I think um however we can encourage our parents and our Community our parents specifically of the children of our students to you know communicate directly with with their teachers and then um if the concerns aren't aren't met that they communicate with their principles um I think having that open um having having that communication at the levels at which C change can be made is most important um and that's what Fosters trust and that's what we're we're looking for so that would be my encouragement to um community members you know parents of students is to uh communicate their concerns first with teachers and and their School principles um I think I I I don't need that information now um I'm going to caveat that with I could change my mind in another couple of months when we're looking at you know either you know making Cuts or adding especially when it comes to the the Paras um you know I've heard I've heard stuff too and I I know that um you know different grades have different numbers of kids you know I'm looking at this chart right here it's a big fifth grade class um you know kind of spread out across the board um and that's just a bigger fifth grade class than a third grade class or first graders things like that um so I guess I don't need the I appreciate the request for the information I I don't need it now with the caveat that I might be interested in that data in another couple of months um to make um some decisions um I did actually have a question about the Paras um if I may since I mentioned that with the schools that have the asteris I'm looking at five Hawks Hamilton red tail and Jeffers um now Hamilton has one kind of red square and so does red tail but five Hawks and Jeffers has a couple so do these um peras go between the grades are there Paras dedicated to like for five Hawks for example dedicated to kindergarten and a person dedicated to second grade do they kind of go back and forth does it depend on the day um I just had that question when it came to the Paris director olad members of the board um each of those schools received one student support par professional okay um that was based off of the assigned um fund balance that was approved in the budget uh set aside to address class sizes and um as principal Frederickson referred to earlier in the in the meeting um the the changes that we received based off of the resources that we had available we had uh additional needs than what our resources could could fit um so we were able to make that exchange to get one more but we did not have the resources to get um two uh support Paras for phox and two support Paras for JP so each of those buildings received one and then the principal along with the dean and the um learning teams in those areas have um best determine how to utilize those resources throughout the day um and that more than likely will e and flow throughout the school year as kindergarteners learn their routines as second graders go through testings as different things are happening um the building principal along with the the the learning teams will be um working through those plans and how to best utilize those supports okay thank you okay are there any other questions okay hearing none uh let's move on to our next uh topic which is the superintendent goals thank you chair France um what you all see here tonight is um a finalized version of what you all um saw two weeks ago um again fixed a lot of the formatting everything stayed the same uh the progress indicators have a couple of their sub um focuses um throughout those areas but everything else has remained the same we prioritize things to align with our plan with academic Excellence first um versus outlining the msba um order um but other than that everything else um has remained the same so you have any questions just I stand ready for questions so um first some going to take a motion in a second so made by director boan second second by director olad any questions for Dr Thomas I just have one question um when we're talking about the budget under School District finances um I see a lot of stuff about budget development and the question I have is more about around budget maintenance and my question is is just like we saw this year where um we got to the end of the year and we're over spent by $7 million how do we as a board receive updates throughout the year when we are getting you know how do you keep how do you I guess I'm trying to understand like as an administrator do you look at it three months in and go oh my gosh we're a million over already we got to stop the spending I mean what type of parameters are in place so that we don't go $7 million over and and I think $7 million over remember it's that you said when we were talking earlier it's the net against the expend the expenditures and revenue so it's it's not 7 million we we shared that earlier this evening I think the expenses came in 7 million over was my understanding the the expenditures and revenue uh balance um I think the net was around Tammy was at four around four so so again but that's we can walk but four and seven are different right we could agree on that that seven our budget was 116 and we ended at one whatever the number is so to me that's seven begin looking at We Begin yeah you have to balance the the revenue side that came in on the sped and other aspects that we just walked through a little bit ago but you got more Revenue in in other words right but either way the question what I'm hearing is I just want to know like when you hit your budget you hit your budget there's no more spending and we do and we do have freezes sor go ahead well and I was just to say you don't get I mean I would love director Chuka to come up here and share with us we don't get to just stop spending on students when there are needs it would be great for her to explain that though I know I hate to call her on this but when students come to us and we don't know their needs we don't get to say we're sorry right well this isn't all driven by students though and so I guess my question is is we sit here at this board table every month and we ask questions of is this in the budget and the answer we get back is yes this is in the budget I never ever once to hear nope this is okay maybe never never is not a good word this isn't in the budget we're now going a million over or 2 million or three million or four million so then when I just look at maintenance like to me that's maintenance how do you ensure that we do hit our budgets that we put in place so that we're there's no surprises yeah um sorry no that's it so so I think the regular monitoring of our financials our monthly financials which is something that I've put into here um also we as an administrative team we will come back to you all in December and if we have to make an amendment to the budget that's one official um point in time that we actually do that and then we look at our forecast for next year as we begin the formal budgeting process let's say around January or so and we'll start to say are there expenditures based upon what we can see with projections because as we've all talked we are projecting and making assumptions if some of those assumptions don't come true or if some of the assumptions come uh uh in higher than what we assumed then we begin to figure out where can we begin to scale back some of our expenditures some of them are fixed so if students come in requiring supports we have to deliver that particularly if they're receiving special Leed support we might have contracts that we can begin to scale back or or or not engage or we cut our purchasing cost down we try to get more fickle with printing costs or those kind of things variables that we can control so that's how we'll begin to Monitor and manage against the budget um kind of like the second half the year but our monthly financial report to you also is what we try to share each month so you can kind of see for yourselves where the money is going and where we're spending just opposed to the budget and that's laid out every single month so yeah and I do remember seeing that early on I called out that we were over by 2 or three million and the answer I remember hearing was we're watching it very closely so that's why I was surprised that we went over um the other thing I have a question about is the one point that says superintendent will bring forth a structurally balanced budget to the board for fiscally 25 can you just elaborate on that I know we've had some conversations about that but I think it's important for the community I think the target here is to basically find ways to bring forth a budget to the to the board without using fund balance to balance Revenue um that has been um that has been a practice that we've been engaging in for many years and and again the goal is to try to bring a structurally balanced um and to doing that for example um last year uh we in I think since 189 we've been using about a million dollars every single year to offset the the expenditures to bring Revenue in because our enrollment has been flat we don't control um you know kids um as well as some of the State uh mandates we don't control so to bring forth a structurally balanced budget is to not use fund balance and that is to make deeper Cuts so the goal around that is to try to match Revenue to expenditures and just know with that as a Target goal um deeper Cuts will be um on the on the table for discussion to make that happen um I also want to point out that even uh last year the actually the first year and a half that director Frederickson was in she started uh producing in our board packets the monthly highlights that shows all the variations summaries and differentials that occur and so the board does get that every month it is incredibly thorough we have more data than we ever had before and I am proud to say we have had pretty much no surprises um of those that have occurred we've had more than a month or two of of notice um for instance busing contract we found out two to three months in advance that that was going to increase significantly there were other increases um and other changes that were not expected that were for warn to the board at least I think two study sessions at least in advance so um um that far as I'm concerned there have been no surprises um there there haven't been good surprises all the time but there has been no surprises by the definition of surprise I would agree with that are there any other questions on the superintendent goals I have one other question could you give an example under so we're talking about academic Excellence the very first one under all schools will include an equity goal to address strategies for greatest learning gaps among students what that would look like um every school will take a look at their student populations and see where there might be discrepancies on demographics of students as outlined by the world's best Workforce it's a it's it's termed something new but by law and by Statute we have to disaggregate our data and set achievement goals so that all students are are achieving so if I see that there's you know um our students receiving special education are not meeting anticipated growth what are the resource supports and strategies that a school is putting in place to ensure that they actually make the predicted growth that um they should make so that would be an example of how we look at various subgroups um as outlined by the world's weest Workforce and forgive me I can't um remember what the the new is I understand thank you mhm anything else okay and I just I have just one question we're going to be using the same one for the midy year as we do for the N okay good um with no other questions and we already have a motion in a second I'm going to ask call for a vote all in favor I I I opposed okay that passes 60 all right next item is the board committee assignments um we had three open committee assignments due to the resignation of board director vquez the uh the policy advisory committee um the seek committee and then the Southwest Metro um for the policy committee I was second to Enrique um so I'm suggesting that we memorialize that I take the one last meeting I believe for the year on that one uh for the SE committee I met with um incoming board director white uh and asked him if he would take that seat um that that we only have one meeting left for that in December and then uh for the Southwest Metro um director olad was also second to Enrique on that um on that committee and she did attend already once um and I believe there's two meetings left or one the rest of the year uh yes and uh finance committee as well for Southwest Metro which he also sat on so two so two meetings and a finance committee left yes okay so that's three could be could be two could be two I didn't think they met in December but I could be wrong yeah okay so um so I'm suggesting that uh policy committee until we have the next organizational committee that I resume um the the position on that uh committee um uh and then for the seat committee director white and for the Southwest Metro director Olstead um maintains her seat on that uh committee through again the organizational uh meeting uh organizational meeting in January and then uh per normal Cadence in December after the election uh the Committees will go out to eat into each individual board member and ask them to uh choose which ones they would like to be on for the next year um so I need a can I just um can I ask a question or you want to make your motion I was going to do a motion in a second and then start the discussion okay no made okay for director olad second and second for bernick okay discussion yeah I'm just curious why wouldn't um director Dan White just fill in the positions that that and and director vesque fell off of he's an experienced board member and um I understand you have the authority as the board chair but it seems kind of ironic that you would appoint yourself to the policy committee um so I I I have no problem um with director Dan White if you know if he's available to do that I I actually found this whole conversation around the Committees the timing of it was kind of odd and I I was kind of hoping that this would come when he's on the board so he could be part of the conversation um so I'm just asking why wouldn't he just fill in the spots of that's that's kind of what I thought would happen that that he would just fill in because he is taking Enrique's seat director of alasco seat so um well let's start with the Southwest Metro and I think um director Ola can probably explain this a little bit better when she started as a second there is a ramp up time for that uh there's also a consistency for that um and um since she was already attending when Enrique couldn't she would be the natural one one I'm clear on it's the policy committee the policy committee I was on the policy committee before I always um I'm I have been a second for Enrique so I have been submitting and following the policies and as you note that we have lots of policies to review um and um they do extend so the policy committee had already occurred and I believe there's one left one decman December 12th so the policy committee had to be had to be um manned by somebody yeah that's why I wouldn't direct why wouldn't director Dan White just take on that like he said he's filling it he's filling I'm trying to get an understanding of why he wouldn't be picked versus why you would assign yourself to that committee I was on it before I was Enrique second and I've been already submitting uh information and comments back on the policy during the policy Committee in his absence yeah so that's that's why so it just was consistency me it's one meeting I mean I person if it doesn't matter it does matter it matters to you we're listening I just don't think it I think for consisten she's been on it before let do Dan White get up to speed thankful that he'll fill in that one other meeting but let's I have no problem with Mary or director board chair France um filling in that spot for one meeting yeah it's that's fine I'm just trying to understand why I was trying to understand the why sometimes things just happen and you just they just make sense well I also know board chair has the authority to appoint so I don't even know why we're voting on this cuz it says in policy you have the point the authority to appoint so know about it we'd be upset too we can we can all attend the meeting so it doesn't matter I mean so at the end of the day it's sort of um procedural in my opinion so we're just memorializing it until the end of the until the end of the year which is really a month and a half away at best yeah no I understand MH I just wanted to know why it that that just seemed like I said the one off on that one so any other comments or questions I'm comfortable with it it's one meeting let let director white get up to speed and everything will move forward with a different roster in January January will be here soon okay um are we ready for a vote all in favor I I I opposed nay okay that passes 51 um and then um uh we have to set an election canvas date that is the next item yes uh chair France and board directors uh in talking with Scott County and uh uh Martha walls uh they are recommending that we choose November 15th due to the magnitude of the election giving the county ample time to process everything that they need to um they would be a little leery that they wouldn't be able to get everything done if it was set prior to so the 15th is the latest and so they were recommending so we are recommending to you to give the county um ample time um and then uh canvas on the 15th so what that means is we would have a special meeting just for the purpose of voting to Canvas the election which is basically to approve the results of the election um that can happen any time during the day so I'm just going to throw that date out there um is there any we need need a quorum that's the first requirement okay um is there anyone that knows ahead of time that they will not be able to make it out there on the 15th we're going to be voting on you so technically um but okay so we have six uh members so um and that's a Friday and it's a Friday so would we have uh is there anybody that can make it out first thing in the morning or noon uh don't want to go too much further in the day because we do have to publish our results so I would say earlier is better for for me fine with morning yeah morning right and it would be here it would be a brief meeting it's a very short meeting right so here yes I think we've always done it just in the morning is there anyone here sitting at the table that can't make it on Friday the 15th no okay so we're going to make Friday the 15th in the morning um 7 8 900 a.m. and and Alexa I mean schedules do change obviously but we as long as we have four we're good right correct so thank time I'm an early bird myself 8 a.m. MH good for you Martha 88 a.m on the 15th got it okay so uh we do have to have uh do we need to vote on that Martha or do we just okay so actually okay so uh a motion and a second first okay bullan and second and bernick they're two bees okay uh all in favor I I I opposed okay that passes 60 um there's no policies at that time so we're going to move on to administrative reports all right thank you chair France I got a few um uh earlier this evening we had a couple of our staff uh be recognized for their retirement and I just want to say congratulations and thank you to Robin Schmidts um health aid at Westwood for 20 years of dedication to serving our community and Carla Schult uh shutz shoots sorry shoots kindergarten teacher Glendale 27 years of uh amazing support for our youngest of you know some of our youngest ofil Learners so thank you to both of you and thank your families for loaning us uh year time for so long um just a couple of highlights uh couple of weeks ago we had um a chang maker Hub with several uh districts in the metro area with our high school students to help uh they were visioning what um High School could be and to really hear from our students um how the rot uh nature of school really needs to be thought about and uh considered um uh differently moving forward and I'm excited and inspired that our students are bringing their voice to the table to talk about what they would Envision um for their learning needs to be met so just want to say a big thank you to our students for speaking your truths and really pushing our thinking as adults um and decision makers for how we can make school more uh responsive and relevant um also want to just uh thank our National Honor Society uh and their uh support at the blood drive at the high school last week I was able to convince my wife to give blood for the first time all because of student pressure um and over the past couple of weeks we've had a couple of our schools engaging in um uh their East eastm days with our Community Partners and going out doing Pond samples uh plant leaf identifications Etc so a lot of um eastem learning happening at couple of our elementary sites and then just yesterday um a really big shout out to our cheer squad at the high school they are got their sites on Nationals and so there's a great fundraiser um that I was able to partake in um with uh uh them at the VFW um one of you will likely talk about Schoolboard Scholars so I'm going to let you all have that one um but I'm just so proud of our students I'll just say that and then uh at homecoming uh we got a win on on the board which is great for our team and also um that was our opportunity to induct new members into the Laker Hall of Fame um and uh I want to thank the Laker Educational Foundation and other Community Partners to um really bringing that uh induction back to life and I'll tell you it's very meaningful um and I want to just uh congratulate the following inductees um cydney SMI um o'keef is her maiden name um Tony dhy uh Matt and Matt Aon um Rebecca Radcliffe and uh they were she was accepting on behalf of Khloe and then we had Chris Fleck uh Kyle walner uh Deb Sunderman and um the highlight of the night was the 1970s football team 1970 football team team of Distinction and uh just a great opportunity to um celebrate the accomplishments and you know it's it's just amazing at what our graduates do in this world um and I was just blown away by some of the stories and not only for what they've accomplished but remembering some of the barriers and challenges that they had to overcome um to get to where they're at today and it happened right here in the district and they still are saying it was the most powerful experience for them to learn through some of those challenges as well so um just really great way to celebrate them so those are my updates okay all right administrative report S I just want to quickly um say a thank you to all of our staff that are working really hard um it's been a lot of um Dynamics already throughout the school year and I think a lot of our staff are working really diligently um to support not only the needs of our students but the needs of our community and just wanted to um give them their shout out and ask for um everyone who interacts with our staff to um just please um be kind they're working really hard they have a really heavy workload right now um they're doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them so just please um please treat them with respect and kindness and um they are they are trying their best and working very very hard so just wanted to put that out there um in a request to the community and staff uh for our staff members thank you um just we have an upcoming uh professional development day here on Wednesday and uh very excited about the work uh that we're going to be able to do uh launching our Ola training with our uh phase one redact training uh actually actually happening uh we've been talking about that for quite some time so launching that uh and then primarily at the uh other uh levels mostly 612 but some uh Specialists uh non-classroom uh teachers who aren't part of the redact phase one training there are some staff who are at the elementary level who that applies to we'll be engaged in uh a variety of professional learning activities on Wednesday including opportunities for some all important uh vertical uh collaboration within their teams as well as some additional training uh related to our new Danielson framework for evaluation with a focus on the instructional practices domain of that particular framework which we've spoken about here at the board uh table on a number of occasions so looking forward to that learning for opportunity for our staff coming up on Wednesday I just like to remind everybody that today to is indigenous people day uh we actually had a ceremony here this morning um a smudging ceremony that uh we want to thank Sam Oak and um Freddy and um we had some um representatives from the uh our native Community an elder and we were able to have a a very informative question and answer period and we really appreciate the um time and effort that they devoted to spend a little time with with us in our smudging ceremony um and starting with board reports this time I'd like to start with an if she's wants to give her a report um yeah like Dr Thomas said before is it good like Dr Tomy said before we're all kind of just um like settling down from homecoming week it was really successful and it was really fun um in regards to student council right now we're like making sure we're thanking everybody all the staff and all the people that helped us have such a successful homecoming week um we're working on a lot of events that are coming up this month and next month our special events committee is working on our no-shave November fundraiser um and our community service committee is kind of collabing with um the junior Optimist on the Halloween party um and we also have honorary elections coming up next week where we elect um more members to student council um it's an opportunity for people that didn't get to run in the spring so I'm excited for that um and I also just want to touch on again indigenous people's day today we had a present ation um earlier this morning and I just love the work that all of our student Advisory Group and all of our Affinity groups um are doing for the school cuz I think these things are really um helping to educate the students even if people aren't really um paying attention or anything at least they know at least they know what's going on at least they are informed um we also had the Latino Hispanic Student Union Bridge Walk last week which was really fun they basically set up on the bridge um a bunch of like different like fun activities and kind of post ERS and educated us on different Latino and Hispanic student like um cultural aspects so yeah that's all I have thank you okay board reports um thank you um I I looked back in my notes because it was brought up in the southwest Metro meeting um the new name for world's best Workforce comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness so now we know world's best work force rolls off the tongue just a little easier though in my opinion um let's see we had um we'll be asking you again for that let write it on a Post-It note um so we had our first um Equity advisory uh meeting of the year um two weeks ago um and we are very excited we have branched off into smaller ad hoc um committees like two three people committees to do some work on that committee um and the one that I'm on is our connected conversations and so our first one of the school year is November 7th um at Shephard of the lake uh church and we will be discussing um housing and stability so really excited about that there's going to be some people from our district people from Scott County um and people from Shepherd of the lake actually so um November 7th is that really looking forward to that um we also had our first teaching and learning advisory uh committee meeting of the school year um and we have some new members there and so we um reviewed our Charter um as well as um uh Dr Edwards uh stepped in and did a a levy presentation which I think was really good and we had a really good discussion on that as well uh Southwest Metro um as uh Mary mentioned I have been to um another meeting with our new um our there Southwest Metro's new superintendent DR Horton who's fabulous um uh he is going he he's finishing up a listening tour um as a new superintendent and so now it kind of moves into a comprehensive review of The District um and so he's really taking um very similar I would say to what you did Dr Thomas when you came aboard um he's kind of taking a lot of the similar paths so I really look forward to that um and selfishly I really enjoy sitting on that board um for the short time I've done it so far but it's really great to just see what how other districts function as well as hear from other member districts and what's shaken in their district and it it's just really it's really powerful um the one other thing I'll say too um mshsl um I uh there is a vote um for the member districts in mshsl um to bring on nth grade um into um the mshsl um believe it or not for those who don't know 9th grade hasn't been um in Under the Umbrella of mshsl um the biggest um piece that is very important to this is the catastrophic insurance that comes with um bringing nth graders under that umbrella um and so our district was given a ballot um to vote on this and the vote closes on Friday so it's not done yet uh all signs I think I'm okay with saying all signs point to yes 9th grade will be under the umbrella um but wanted to bring um that out as well um and then finally we have have some kids leaving for DC tomorrow morning so we wish them safe travels awesome did they get to go last year yes it was the year it was the year before that they the two years before that I think that they didn't yeah so it's exciting awesome we had a finance committee meeting two weeks ago mostly talked about uh reviewed Finance policy so that'll be coming to the board in I'm not sure exactly when we talked about it then but it escapes my mind the October the October work session thank you thank you soon um we have a really great group of community members on that committee who have extensive Financial background and every time I'm in that meeting and hearing them ask the questions they're H asking about specific accounting practices and some members even have um background in education Finance so I think that's um really helpful in that room and helpful in our community and understanding um the complexities and selfishly I'm going to give a personal retirement shout out to Mrs shes who had all three of my kids which not many teachers in the district have had I'm surprised it didn't force her to retire sooner no I'm just kidding yeah so I wish her the best and I'm very thankful to all her years of service not just to my kids um yeah so we've had our policy um policy committee meeting was on the 10th and I will kind of echo your uh comments regarding the the community members in it um it we always have such great conversations the um policy experience that's on that committee is is really um I I love being on that committee and learning from them um and also they brought forward from the finance committee the the policies that you guys discussed so I think it's wonderful the layers you know given the board's scope of policy work um it is one of our one of our our biggest jobs and and having those layers I just really appreciate that um um ECFE had their 50th year celebration and Minnesota is the only state that has ECFE which I think is so cool we talked about that um a little bit uh last school year when I first learned about that um the next Early Learning advisory council meeting it takes place uh October 24th from 12:30 to 1:30 at Edgewood and there's always room for um more community members that are interested in in getting involved with that um on October 1st uh it was a wonderful day being able to shake the hands and congratulate all of the board Scholars we have so many bright students in our district it it was a it was a pleasure to to um be able to uh shake hands and congratulate so many of them um um the last thing is um strive mentoring is beginning uh October 24th we had our kickoff meeting this past week and that is for the bridges ALC students uh last year was my first year participating in strive and I hope that I participate that in that until I until they kick me out it is wonderful I love it so much um at the kickoff meeting uh one of the other mentors said I don't know if we're if we're the ones learn we're the ones teaching or if they're teaching us and I think it is a wonderful combination of both um it is a wonderful opportunity to be able to learn from our students um and have a mea is coming up have a great mea break all I got um yeah thank you on September 19th which seems like um a lifetime ago I attended the Community Education advisory committee meeting and um we received a ly update um by Dr Thomas and um couple notes that I have here is that very encouraging that our kids co-enrollment is growing in fact we have 30 plus School AG children on the wait list um so that's very exciting um we um there they're also the the Community Education you know um business model whatever is very very healthy they have a healthy fund balance as we saw today and um just overall things are just going really well there um the some ex couple things to note um we are looking for members um to join the Community Education advisory committee so if you're interested um you can apply I believe online and then next thing up um right following this weekend we have our Halloween bash um on October 19th at the middle school which is a very fun event um if you have Littles um in the district to come on over and enjoy the Halloween bash so that's all thank you okay um other than uh policy committees and other committees that have already been mentioned uh we had career day last week uh at the high school that was a blast I was able to go for most of the day uh and at that same time they were doing the Hispanic um celebration on the bridge and I was able to catch some candy on the way out since I skipped lunch so that was very important to me but uh but it was a blast to come and speak to some of the uh students there during the break um as was mentioned Bridges me uh strive mentoring uh has begun the kickoff meeting was last week or the orientation I should say and that the mentoring will start at the end of this month uh this will be my sixth year um mentoring and strive and and as director bullan stated it is an incredible experience I still keep in contact with nearly all the students that I mentored and still work with them and they are incredible people uh we also had a scale meeting um I did not attend but the presentation is out there and one of the things that happened during the scale meeting as B plain did uh review their results of using the new CPM math curriculum in their third year and it was uh very successful for them so the principal came and discussed that and then also mcaps uh mentoring has started uh that would be my eighth year mentoring with mcaps and they are still looking for mentors I believe they are still 10 or 11 short so if you're interested in signing up to Mentor in the business the trades or the healthc care Pathways please uh contact the uh mcaps uh directors and or just call the school directly uh they are still looking and with that um I'm going to um future events of course this is Mea week uh begins on Wednesday um we our next board study session will be October 28th and then of course don't forget about election day polls are open between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. and as we stated we will canvas the election on the 15th at what time we say 800 a.m. 8 a.m. 8:00 a.m. bright and early okay and with that I need made a motion to adjourn so made and and a second by director Crosby a first by director bullion uh all in favor I I I opposed okay that passes 60 we are adjourned thank you very much