##VIDEO ID:H135kxuHMFg## e e e e e e e the study session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday September 17th 2024 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples present at this meeting are school board members super Kent pel a non- voting ex officio member and assistant school board clerk Miss Lorie Sam Miss Sam would you please call the role here here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Alle i al to the United States of America the stands one nation godible liy and justice for all item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda Mo approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed the agenda has been approved the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org assembly this meeting is being live streamed on youtube.com isd535 the recording of this meeting will also be posted following completion of the meeting item 3.1 is a focus topic referendum defeat consequences superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan and board members tonight is authentically a study session where we're looking to have a conversation and get your individual and Collective guidance on um something that we have heard from our community uh consistently since the narrow defeat of the referendum that was on the ballot in 2023 which is the desire to know with as much specificity as possible what will happen if the referendum that is on the ballot in November of 2024 does not pass and so tonight's discussion is a precursor to a resolution that I plan to present to you at the next regular board meeting for your consideration and potentially action at the following board meeting that would give our community some sense of this board's broad thinking about what would happen if the referendum doesn't pass the tension of course as board members know well and as I will outline on a brief presentation here in a moment is that that notice comes ahead of more than eight months of detailed budget planning that take place every year year before you vote in June and as board members are well aware every year new information changes in enrollment in state funding in uh labor costs all play into that final budget and so in a desire to respond to the request from the community for a sense of how this board would uh stabilize the district's finances if the referendum does not fail we're also navigating the ition of a fact that the budget process for 2526 has not yet begun in Earnest and so therein lies the conversation that we will be having this evening and so assuming that I can make the clicker work we will be moving in to this discussion of the study session um I have learned the hard way that it's always important to at least briefly State the why when you are looking at difficult issues like the ones that we are looking at here and so on the screen you can see a picture that is coming to be well known um here in Rochester I probably have dreams or nightmares about it um frequently it is the increase in the general fund which is our primary source of funding from the state of Minnesota that has occurred over the last couple of decades that's depicted by the dotted orange line and you can see there the blue line that is above it is what the funding would have funding increase would have been had funding increased at the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index and um had that happened we would have more than 18% per student higher funding than we do today so therein is the primary source of the structural deficit that we are grappling with in Rochester Public Schools the second is a more local deficit as you can see there another picture that's becoming well known in our community of the school districts in the state that serve 10,000 or more kids and there's 15 of them Rochester ranks last and voter approved operating levies um and we are well below that green line that depicts the average should the referendum pass in November of 2024 we would be slightly below that average but in the meantime that comparatively lower level of local support is the second source for that structural deficit that we have been working to Grapple with as I mentioned a moment ago timelines matter a lot here because the work that John Carlson and Andy Cad and their team do um is painstaking as the last four audits without a single finding uh indicate uh and very well done in Rochester Public Schools um but it is not done at this point in the year and yet we uh have had a request from our community to give some guidance before the election on November 5th so um normally in a school year in November uh of this time of year we'd be actually Looking Backward at the finalized audit from the previous school year in December you will formally approve the property tax levy within the constraints that the state gives this school district and also school districts in January of 2025 so then when we're firmly into next year we will begin to update the financial forecast and um at least since I've been here in Rochester you have set budget parameters each year that have been tremendously important in our development of the budget Guided by your policy Direction then in February and March we engage in those really critical uh meetings with our building principles about their student enrollments their educational needs uh the what they're seeing in their data and the Investments that they want to make in literacy and math and other areas um and then of course we have a contractual responsibility by the end of March to notify staff who would be losing their position as board members know this year in Rochester was the first year since I've been here where we didn't have a lot of those conversations we did for more than 150 positions in my first two years uh it has been great not to have uh those conversations with folks and instead be talking about our academic agenda then in April and may we um take those findings from our discussions with our building leaders and we build those line by line budgets that board members dig into as we get into the budget home stretch in May and June of every year and so the resolution that uh you might choose to approve at the next two regular board meetings would come far in advance of a lot of that analysis but it's not um entirely by any means uh theoretical um we know a lot about the core bottom line of the district's financial position that does lead me to believe that it is prudent to give our community some formal sense of this board's plans for dealing with this strategy so um I think board members know I usually like pictures and graphs and not words but um in this instance I think it was helpful uh to put the The Narrative down so I'm going to I'm going to read to you for a little bit here and then we will uh Shift Into The Conversation Piece as I've made the point a couple of times this is a response that has come from our community in particular in the listening sessions Community meetings and the uh web survey that we did after the narrow failure of the 2023 referendum to let people know what happens if the referendum doesn't pass so the budget uh would normally as we just saw in the previous slide go into high gear uh starting in January with a lot of preliminary work happening starting in the late fall over the next months really important information inform will come into play that will influence the proposal that we will make to you in the uh summer the end of the school year and you see there several of the most important variables salary and benefit costs based on contract settlements but we continually are in negotiation with some Union somewhere and we have important contracts that will be up in the year ahead health insurance contributions are based on the actual cost of our employees illnesses and uh Wellness over the course of uh previous years enrollment projections are a critical driver of uh our financial position and so we are constantly trying to get the best projection we can of how many students will be privileged to serve state and federal funding levels can be highly variable uh recent change in Minnesota to the general fund in indexing it at the rate of inflation could be a GameChanger for the lack of predictability uh for K12 education uh if it is preserved in state policy as we expect it to be um and yet there are categorical funds another important variable that in Minnesota lays out there is compensatory education Revenue which is generated by kids who live in low-income families as you know has historically been determined by percentage of kids with free and reduced price lunch as we have moved to free Universal breakfast and lunch that measure is losing a lot of its incentive for families to sign up for for it and so the state has to come up with a new methodology to calculate the uh compensatory Revenue um in the meantime all districts have been held harmless but John I believe that goes through 2025 so we are on the cusp of having some new way of calculating what is a very significant Revenue source for our district and we're not sure exactly what that methodology is going to be uh at this point um then there's the funding from local levies that uh is uh significantly determined by where you set that Levy by December but there also are things that uh play out as the numbers are crunched um and then of course utilities costs and there are others the structural deficit that we've been talking about in the referendum since the budget projections that we completed last year after the failure of the 2023 referendum have talked about a structural deficit of just under 20 million it is in my view and in John's view very likely that that is the amount that we would need to cut and so I uh in in in moving into the discussion here tonight I don't want to suggest any backtracking from that analysis but because should you choose to pass a resolution on the 2025 2026 budget we would want to take it extremely seriously and be able to stand by what we told our community through that board action I would recommend that the resolution identify $16.7 million of reductions that we are Absol absolutely certain would need to be made and the logic of that amount within the larger nearly 20 million structural deficit is that we know mail Clinic is not getting another getting out another check for $10 million and we know that we cannot do what we did last year which has draw down $6.7 million in reserves and so a conservative recommendation would be to pass a resolution that says we know we will cut um 10 uh 16.7 million I am uh as I've said quite sure that it will be more than that but I would not want to should the referendum not pass and we get into the spring have to come to you and to the community and say a very different uh level of reduction is required and so um it essentially would be passing a resolution that says this is the known known and so we're telling you the strategy that we would use for that understanding that it is likely significantly higher now what would the board resolution because again this is Uncharted Territory this is not part of our normal budget process and I certainly hope it does not become that what would the resolution say in in my current thinking the resolution would direct us to develop a budget proposal for the board that includes a reduction of $16.7 million that of course would be a board Direction and we would meet it the board's actual approval of that reduction however would not happen until you approve the actual budget for 2025 26 you would be directing us to build that into the budget proposal your approval of that would come as it is every year when you approve the final budget in June and as is always the board's right you could make changes in it through that discussion but we would develop a budget that was based upon uh those plans just to give a brief graphic to how much of our funding we're talking about here when we talk about that $16.7 million it's the two uh darker uh pieces of that pie graph pie chart that uh would be at play here the reserves which this year are covering 2.3% of our budget and the male clinic uh contribution which is covering 3.4% that may not seem like very big uh slices of those of that pie but it is a lot of money and it is a uh it would require uh very significant reductions to close that Gap um and once again I anticipate that it would be more than that but we're certain that it would be that so as a starting point for the board's discussions and conversant with the analysis that we started to do last year after the referendum narrowly failed and before Mayo Clinic stepped in with its contribution and before the board decided to use one-time use of reserves there are four broad categories that I would recommend the board include in a resolution directing us to bring you a budget reduction plan any amount of 16.7 million school closures would be the first category um uh in that plan the logic of that is that um while there is every reason to believe that Rochester uh is growing as a community and our enrollment will grow and that I believe it's prudent not to close elementary school buildings we do have capacity that could be reorganized in order to be more efficient in the 3 to 5 years that uh demographically it's going to take to be back at the point where we need those buildings it's important to say that if you close buildings you also redraw attendance boundaries because you can't close a building and keep everything the same it doesn't work the purpose of that is to gain efficiencies by putting more kids into fewer buildings and so we would uh save 2,300 $4 4,392 these are very specific numbers that are uh uh shared with you so you have a sense of what the division of this strategy might be the second would be uh the very difficult step of increasing class size by three students as board members will recall we've raised class size by one student since I've been here uh that was headed in the wrong direction this would be even further in the wrong direction but candidly that is where you begin to save the serious money and it's not possible to begin to get to the level of reduction we would need without going to that core cost of uh class size the third category um would be the positions that are centrally located starting here in the Edison building and our Central Administration but also positions in our schools that are what I called non-instructional so not classroom teachers the class size reduction is essentially a reduction in instructional staff and the number of teachers the third category is a reduction in positions at the building level that are non-instructional and at the central office level and our current projection there would be I'd recommend a 2, 381,000 funding increased for the rate of inflation thereby I believe guaranteeing the community and our families that they will be supported throughout that 10 years um if the referendum fails those ignite student learning Investments unfortunately are things that in this school district and in many school districts that get into dire Financial circumstances need to be cut because those are the things that are not the basic one teacher X number of kids barebones requirements ments that you need in order to operate Schools they're those things that ignite student learning and so that reduction would uh generate 6,378 n56 uh as board members know that the referendum would provide much more support than that that's because you can't cut all of the Investments that would receive referendum support and meet state requirements and frankly uh keep our schools running and functioning so briefly to highlight what's in those four investment areas the first as you all know those positions that support Stu assist students who need more support to thrive you can see those there programs that challenge our Advanced students and enrich learning for all students services that strengthen student well-being and mental health very importantly just there's been a little confusion on this the primary uh funding in that category would go for our school counselor positions uh really critical function for our schools the mental health screening is critical to our strategic plan but at very minor cost financially it's actually next year about $30,000 the work of uh the social clinical social workers and others who do the mental health screening is not included in that category and I'll add that to to Future referendum uh uh updates because I've gotten some feedback that among some of our internal folks that was a little confusing and then finally uh our Career and Technical education programs um CCH pte our classes in the high schools and then our postsecondary and career planning um um so the discussion questions that we are hoping obviously the chair and the board can take the conversation wherever you'd like to take it the discussion questions that we are hoping to hear from you on tonight really Center on four things first of all do you want to do this that's in some ways the most important do you want to have us prepare a resolution for your next regular meeting uh and then action at the following meeting that outlines uh a direction that you would be giving me for the preparation of the 2025 2026 budget if the referendum does not pass second if you do want to uh take that step do you have um feedback on the proposed reductions that I've identified in this study session um are there other areas that you might suggest we should consider we could take those down in discussion tonight um I know it's probably not uh at least on my part a good idea to to respond to them in detail but you certainly could raise them um number three with in that four those four broad categories that I just outlined should more specific reductions be identified those four are intentionally Broad and they are intentionally broad for two reasons number one I don't think anybody wants to or should find out on September 17th um that their job might be cut if a referendum doesn't pass and so we would always keep those things General but more importantly as I said at the outset we have more than eight months of analytic work on developing the budget that we would need to conduct before we could identify the specific reductions I believe we could save $16.7 million out of that uh broad proposal and so I would not recommend being more specific than that but board members could choose to go in a different direction we could choose for instance to identify which schools will be closed if the referendum doesn't pass I would not recommend that because I think there's important analysis that we would need to do uh if that unfortunate circumstance happens but we could we could be more specific um and then finally uh what information would you as board members like to receive to inform your consideration of uh this potential resolution at the next two meetings of the board so those are our questions Madam chair and I'll turn it back to you I want to make sure that um I probably don't need to say it but especially that you know cabinet members are always encouraged to join in these study session discussions but in particular John and I know Andy's in the back there if there are Finance issues please don't hesitate to jump in as well including correcting me if there's a need to do that Workman so fortunately you didn't um express it verbally the way um the number one discussion question is is uh worded but you said do we want to do this and the answer is we never want to do this it's I've been through extraordinary budget cuts the entire time I've been on this board and it is painful it hurts people it hurts their livelihood and most of all it hurts our kids so that said I think that we I personally would like to see a resolution directing staff to um include a set of identified uh reductions in the budget if it doesn't pass director bar uh similar to director Workman it's not really a matter want but it's more uh born out of necessity uh I probably have three uh questions uh Madam chair if that's okay to roll them out sure uh I know at this point it's difficult to while you have done an excellent job in identifying numbers dollar figures if you will uh it would be nice to potentially see how that relates to number of personnel um and uh in terms of class size or yes um increase of um class size by three is this across all great levels okay and then finally um in many ways um the board hires the superintendent to manage understand um the system needs and and so I really don't at least see myself you know telling you who's been hired to inform us as to where you believe those cuts and or adjustments need to occur I think it is important that you um make us aware and give us opportunity to have the discussion as we uh begin that process tonight uh and additionally to allow the public to um also understand the brevity of the situation uh not brought on as a result of mismanagement you have in the past referenced our uh audits which are conducted annually and have uh we have passed them admirably again uh John and his staff uh so it's a structural deficit as you mentioned uh I was curious because not everyone may know I I think I have a pretty good understanding as to the uh funding formula and the uh ADR or APR uh the student daily count uh I'm not sure the public fully understands that and if somewhere along the process we could bring that back to light so they can uh understand well yeah the the state maybe they're not uh giving us he once did or should and it's based on this criteria here okay thank you I just chair please uh thank you director B I think um we can bring you the estimate of number Personnel that's a that's a good idea as you may recall when we were doing uh very macroanalysis last year if we closed the entire deficit structural deficit with um cutting positions so no cuts to budgets programs all people it was over 200 people that were cut but that was at average salary so if you that literally took the average salary and what would get you to just under 20 million was 200 people but that's different than this proposal so we can we can give you some sense of what the Personnel might be we also can give you the class siiz piece um which of course to director workman's point and yours nobody wants to do that that could be made at different places so we could outline some broad scenarios for that one and yeah I we can never uh declare Victory on needing to explain the complexity of per pupil funding in Minnesota because it is what drives everything and uh a kid is not a kid is not a kid identically there there is a complexity to how they're weighted and the revenues I I think probably that's something that we may not be able to get done by the time we bring you this resolution but I I'm sure we could commit to do that as part of our ongoing process sure it let somebody else director cook um well thank you for this information I do think that this is critical for our community to have um as best we're able to provide it an understanding of what this board is faced with to address the deficit next year um for me the prospect of increasing class sizes by three would be extraordinarily difficult and of course I recognize that no one is doing this because they think it is efficient or pedagogically sound or something that is in the best interest of students but I do think this board board is broadly charged with identifying the priorities that are going to best meet the needs of our students um and you know create an educational system that's reflective of the priorities of our community and we I think all of us acknowledge that the academic mission is job one and I I just I just don't see how and I I don't necessarily have a better answer and I certainly can't think of a single thing that I would be excited about proposing as an alternative but I don't know how we could continue to offer Varsity Sports and in and reduce class sizes by three I don't know how we could continue to have robust offerings in performing arts and increase class sizes by three and I I certainly recognize the value of those things broadly I would never want to see a school district that wasn't able to offer those things but I think we have to ask ourselves seriously Where's the Line would we accept class sizes of 50 I'm sure not they're already too big they are so I I just um that one would be very difficult for me and I would I would like to explore what some alternatives to that particular item might be uh thank you that's exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for tonight direct again I agree with what others are saying it's not something we want to do but to doing on the circumstances in November um I do have a couple questions about the slide proposed reductions for board resolution you had mentioned as you were talking about increasing by and reducing the central office obviously impact people does the closing the three elementary schools impact people as well or is it a combination of people and things it does but a more limited number of people you lose those positions that are only needed once in a school so a nurse position administrative positions custodial positions um uh the other positions that are directly tied to student count would shift generally to a new building although it doesn't play out perfectly neatly but um that's why School closure saves money but it's not especially if you're in a community like ours where there is very solid not wishful thinking reason to believe that enrollment is headed upward it is a often shortsighted thing to do because the savings while we do get to $2.3 million um uh could be 5 years from now needing to be reopened um for a relatively modest reduction are there any other positions Sean that I besides ones that I mentioned with school closure that you we know don't move to another building I think you hit most of them custodial yeah um maybe an instructional coach maybe a school counselor social worker because you know they're given this many for a building yeah you do gain some efficiencies and then of course the operational costs utility that I mean there's definitely savings there for sure but in terms of people it's actually relatively uh limited given that obviously we serve the other students in school and it follow up to that kind of what you you had mentioned earlier about closing but then potentially reopening later would those buildings just set empty during that interim is there other can we rep we wouldn't sell them I guess is the other thought that I had is like you know they're real estate can we sell them and cover the deficit from what I know now my recommendation would probably be to uh shutter and hold them except as the board knows there is a second tier of facilities issues that you've asked me to bring you recommendations on in the near future you know for instance what happens to the building formerly known as fredel um and so we could have uh some uh strategic decision we could make some strategic decisions about certain buildings that for reasons of age are tradition you would take offline um but generally speaking uh there is every reason to believe that we will need those buildings in Rochester in the medium term like the near medium term so that's why I would not recommend doing that I I would I would be the I think school districts and they're they exist in our state make a terrible mistake when they subsidize buildings with too few kids to support a quality educational program and they do that in a sustained basis I understand why they do that but you then are reallocating resources to keep a building open that is not the circumstance here in Rochester there is every demographic projection says we're going to be headed up but uh contrary to what some of the the buzz was the Mayo Clinic investment is going to mean 2% employment growth every year in the clinic and the city estimates that generates about another 1% so there's a lot of community around the country that would kill for 3% a year growth it's actually a really good pattern for urban growth it means we as the school provider don't have a sudden influx in one year but it means we fill those buildings up uh in a progressive way over the next decade so that's one of the one of the things that uh leads me to hope we don't need to make this recommendation to you another question kind of rolling around my head is that just so that the community understands that closing them shuttering them not using them for a period of time and then reopening would be much cheaper than selling and building new yeah yep that would be why you why you and then I just have take them offline one more question um you mentioned a couple times in the presentation the reserves is there any possibility of using reserves as part of that same chart um you know we we were we're your projection for next year I actually was just looking at it today I don't want to get it wrong WR off the top of my head you know we're not at the 8% requirement that we wouldn't be but we don't want to be down at the razor thin and so you know the reserves are taking a significant downward Trend this year per your decision-making um but yes one of the reasons that I the decision making was about the healthare yeah decision about the healthare and 6.7 million you gave us the authority up to seven and then we only needed 6.7 could some marginal use of reserves be used for the 25 26 school year yes but not as much as we did this last year and it can't be a sustained strategy um that's one reason why I would recommend that if you do choose to approve a resolution we set it at that $16.7 million because we know that's a cut there's no Prospect of getting of using reserves to completely avoid that um the the other variables that could play out between now and June could result in a different budget proposal to you but there's just no scenario and I know John shares this conclusion in which at least that 16.7 million would need to be cut U then one final question sorry um you talked about doing very deep analysis about closing buildings can you provide us at some point with a time frame of when that would be completed so when Community if if the the referendum doesn't pass when we would let people know about um building Clos um yes we we can definitely give you a timeline for that Dr Marvin do I understand it correctly if one of the questions before us tonight is whether what right here no okay thank you if um if we want the superintendent and the staff to come up with specific recommendations before November for closures my my concern about that is that I think that the parameters you've set and the um sort of the general areas that would need to be cut are are very clear um and it's you know as others have said particularly frustrating right now when I don't think the school district has ever done a better job of creating the kind of programs and the kind of opportunities that our kids need the cuts that have been made already were intelligent and and uh we have worked through those and I think we are really on a trajectory now to make this school district extraordinary so this is just a this is a killer um my concern about making the recommended Cuts more specific like which three elementary schools would be closed my concern is that that's going to shift the conversation to not my school why did you why are you you picking on my school why are you uh choosing my program I am hoping and I'm hearing from the community even the 80% of people who don't have kids in our schools is that they value what we're doing they value what we can provide for students um and they want this to pass for everybody's kids for all students and I just I I worry that it's going to get to a it's going to ignite anger about why the thing that the particular program or the particular school that I'm most invested in I I think we have to keep this conversation about all of our children which means every single kid in our school district um I appreciate thank you Dr Marvin and my recommendation is not to be more specific but I wanted to raise that uh as a possibility um I also I I think like director cook raising two other areas arts and Athletics is not being more specific within a bucket it's still raising a bucket so for instance should should I recommend and you approve adding arts and Athletics I would not recommend naming the sport I would recommend saying there would be this level reduction if we added that to the resolution um I think when we get to which school which sport um uh even more more for me than the people feeling singled out or or you know one against the other which is real I agree with you there needs to be smarter analysis that would be done before I could make those specific recommendations and candidly this is not the time of year normally where we would be doing that kind of analysis but our community has asked for some clarity about the broad strategy before November 5th and so we're trying to be responsive to that we would never want to make a bad decision about closing a school or cutting a sport and so um my recommendation would be should you choose to pass this resolution it is at that that General level director um so I I have several questions one is just a clarification on selling buildings I believe that money cannot go back into the general fund for operational use it has to go into is that Debt Service yeah so there's two paths to go down if we still owe money on a bond that we use to either build it or remodel it then we should put the money in debt service if we are free and clear so to speak there's no mortgage on the building then goes in the operating Capital fund reserve for future facility issues like rebuilding repairing those kinds of things I just I thought clarification on that would be helpful and then on your proposed reductions for a board resolution um reductions to the Ford night student learning investment areas and I'm looking at these four areas um that price tag has is about 6.4 million um that's just reductions or it's not eliminations of the program I mean what would happen I'm not recommending this if if a program were completely eliminated and once again I'm not going to ask you for a specific program to be eliminated but at some point rather than kind of chewing around the edges it might make more sense to say this program is gone um it it's a very important point that uh that should say reductions and eliminations okay because there would have to be some eliminations to get to that level you couldn't just do less in every one of those areas that would not be to Dr Marvin's point that would not be a strategic way of cutting the budget which is what we've tried to do so there would be some eliminations in that for sure and then another point I would like to make on the class sizes is we often hear oh we need to reduce class sizes but each class each every time a class is reduced by one student it cost us one 1, 880,000 $18,800 th000 okay whatever not yes almost almost $1.9 million per student so when we say we're going to reduce it and it saves us this or by reducing classes it saves us this money conversely if we want to say we want fewer kids in the classroom that's going to cost us these dollars more so um at this point I think it's impossible to entertain the idea that we are going to be reducing class sizes with what we have in front of us certainly tied to this budget cut there's no Prospect of it I think if the referendum uh passes and if uh you approve some of the ideas that are in the rethinking funding proposal that we gave you an update on before schools could and toic our schools do this already using certain funds schools could choose to lower class size at certain targeted grades and grade levels but they would have to make the budget balance um but they would have more flexibility to do that um within parameters and so that's our discussion in December um at once we find out what happens ref friend Dr Garcia I maybe I'm just being DSE about this but can you give us a general time frame in which if we did ask for specifics when you could have that effective full analysis about what would be appropriate specific Cuts what time frame would we be talking about before after the referendum I guess is my question well absolutely by by the time you approved the budget in June and we've always presented you with drafts of that budget through the winter and spring I think that certain of those cuts would need to wait until that timeline like that third category reduce central office and other non- instructural positions those are individual people's jobs School closure I think we not only could but we would need to frontload that significantly ahead of that because of the planning you know action the reason that third category probably plays into the normal budget process is because it has to do with enrollment labor contracts labor costs and so as as I know you know in the end it comes down right to the end with which positions actually need to be cut for school and program closures or major reductions I think given the um seriousness of the situation we would be in we would seek to advance that notice significantly ah head of the budget proposal as you know when we had the last referendum fail and um before maleo Clinic stepped in you were uh you had before you a proposal to close three schools in December and January so we turned that around quite clearly and you had specific schools that were identified at that time of year and then of course we were pleased to pull back from that uh when Mayo made that contribution I I I don't want to make a commitment that we need a little more time so we will we'll we'll we've already had a request for from director mcin for the timeline so we'll include that with the resolution I can't imagine us moving slower than we did last year and November was the date of the referendum failure and by December we were telling you that the specific three schools that were going to close so I would imagine working at least on that level of speed because we know families and staff would need to be planning for uh the consequences I I think the thing that I struggle with in what we heard is even though we knew by plan example what might end up closing or what things we might do the psychology for most people wasn't oh it's probably going to be our elementary school it wasn't until we identified the elementary school that people felt like they needed their voice to be heard or something to be said if that same amount of people had Rush the polls and voted with their preference I think we would be in a very different position right now and so I do struggle I appreciate you not wanting to sort of um jump ahead of this or put the horse before the cart and I I respect uh Dr Martin's um Dr Marvin's feedback I see the other side of that as if we're not telling people with as much specificity as possible they're all going to feel blindsided and like we year after year are still not being transparent about the process and I think that there are things that even if we choose not to dis to disclose which schools they are which positions they are up front I think even adjusting language like in that sort of multi-point slide that you had like basically 5 through eight it's a lot of like it might be this but maybe not because we're not really sure but definitely this I think it just need we need to do a at a minimum 16.7 million is going to be cut up to this amount and this is what it's going to mean because I think when you say likely or maybe or potentially these three schools or this type of program it it doesn't really mean anything to people until you identify Pinewood for example and I think we you know we got all those panicked phone calls in December and January and people that wanted us to make a different decision and we didn't have the opportunity or the option until somebody else stepped in and so I think you know if we're not going to have another hero in mayo if this doesn't work um because depending on a night and shining armor as like a budget plan is like not that doesn't work um I I feel like we do need to balance the very direct and with as much specificity as possible with recognizing that we don't have all the answers right now and I think it's okay to say like at a minimum this is the thing that's going to happen and this is how we might pull back um and I think to director baras point you know you're the one that's tasked with the management of all of this and I want to respect your position in that so I'm not going to tell you like I need you for me to identify these three schools um um or tell us which classes exactly are going to be increased by three but I think maybe merging director Cook's point of what are our values and they should be academic in nature I was a band kid I played Sports it would have not felt good to have any of those things cut but I can also recognize I wouldn't have gotten into college if you had cut my English classes or you know my science classes or my language classes um it it feels like another impossible position to be in and I I don't necessarily think it has to be but I I suppose the point or the the more direct place where I'm trying to go is even if you don't tell the board I imagine that whatever you're going to decide when you're talking to the cabinet that if there are three easily identifiable elementary schools that you would put on The Chopping Block that there's something about those schools that we need to address even if the referendum passes like we are still going to need to shore up a bunch of supports or resources for them and wouldn't it behoove us to just know that about our school district right now if there are places where we feel like we could slim down here because this feels like a luxury for whatever reason but it it ends up not being the case I think we still want to identify those schools as like why did we think that they were the ones that were the the thing to give up and if we do have to give them up or we do have have to increase class sizes I think that we need to be as honest as early as possible about who exactly we're talking about because I think we got a lot of feedback too about multiply disadvantaged students and areas of Rochester that felt like they were being targeted and we wouldn't want them to be those same people on the traffic block again for this ref these referendum Cuts or these cuts it the referendum does not pass so I feel that the dialect of yes I recognize like Scare Tactics don't feel good psychologically and everybody felt blindsided when we did name the schools and so we maybe if there's somewhere in the middle that we can do this and still recognize like if we know that this stuff isn't what we need it to be we need to take a long and hard look about why that is and what we need to do moving forward regardless of the referendum um I I really appreciate those comments Dr Garcia and they actually helped me realize um there was a better way to describe there was a missing piece from the way I described the time we need I think in my earlier comments tonight I made it sound like mostly what we need is time for staff analysis internal analysis and that is important but what I think is the bigger need for time is exactly the process of stakeholder input that you just described which yes was painful and rambunctious but ultimately very valuable and uh I know people were continually shocked during the discussion last year of the attendance opson redesign that we listened and we changed the proposals because people had good questions and ideas I was shocked and I was there and we did we really did we put those schools out there because we Frank had to give people either a flag to Rally around or a Target to shoot at and it was more the latter than the former and we then we got you know very smart questions whether it was the number of kids that could fit in the Riverside building or the changes to an attendance area or um the the the the need to keep um Churchill and Hoover together even though making Hoover and Early Childhood Center is a slam dunk for other reasons so that process really was uh invaluable able and it took some time and it generated a better proposal and that was not just a like internal staff analysis that is important but I really hear what you're saying I think that timeline once a proposal is announced and school closures is what we're focusing on in this discussion because of course it is so visible but all of these Cuts would have constituencies as board members remember when we were cutting 14 million two years ago it was right up to the last minute that we were having robust discussions as a board about what you would and wouldn't support and you were hearing from stakeholders about literally parts of a position in certain places and so um all of it generates feedback and so part of that timeline is the space for that that feedback um and that's why to include specifics in a proposal that you would uh a resolution that you would vote on before the election could not could not account for that kind of robust public response that I know we will get if we are closing schools or cutting programs so that would be one of the tensions but I really appreciate the point and I hear you see the the big tension uh that is that is inherent in this in this strategy um I've been through this a few times both as a parent and as a board member and I agree with director Workman um nobody wants to do this and none of these alternatives are good but I'm usually a very positive person but I'm going to say I don't want anybody watching tonight or anybody around this table to have this conversation give them any hope hope that suddenly we're going to find a different $16.7 million somewhere else in our budget that means we won't have to close elementary schools we won't have to increase class sizes we won't have to cut those positions and we won't have to cut in the ignite student learning areas because if you spend as much time with this budget as I have and with the charts of the FTE I've looked it's nine pages of of FTE numbers expressed one or two FTE at a time um some of those positions we have to have to operate a district um there isn't another $16.7 million somewhere else so what you're seeing on the page tonight the the specifics that have been laid out in the ignite student learning areas you could take a red pen and say those are going to be gone so I struggle with um talking about a lot of Alternatives because other than what director cook brought up in the areas of academics and Athletics which does add up to a few million but not 5 million um I struggle with talking about Alternatives that might give people who are considering how to vote on the referendum some hope that we're going to find a way to solve this problem we wouldn't have gone to the community about a referendum if we felt we could solve this problem by cutting we don't want to make any of these $19.4 million of cuts I have seen things be cut and go away and never come come back we say this all the time um then the 24 years I've lived in Rochester I've seen opportunities that were precious to to students and families leave and the opportunities that the superintendent and the team have laid out beyond the class sizes and the the closing schools are advancements that we've been able to bring to our students over the ne over the past few years years that have really M impacted uh Student Success um the fact that reading Specialists and curriculum is is one of the first bullets in the face of all of our literacy work is tragedy but I do want to ask some questions so if we were to close schools and move um students into other buildings what's the consequences for the learning environment in those other buildings one of the reasons we built schools was at the time a number of our buildings were were at or over 100% capacity and we did build schools to adjust her future enrollment so are we going to just be putting kids into a another crowded situation that we built the schools to avoid um or what kind of data could you give us before we made that decision that would help us understand that we would obviously strive for balance and we uh have got schools that are very full just because of the size of the building and the number of kids that are immediately surrounding those schools and obviously those are off the table you can't fit a whole other school into fallwell for instance um just because of the number of kids that live in that Community who choose that school there are other schools where we would seek to do it as efficiently as cold and calculating as that sounds as we could um that said there's a growing body of research on school closures that highlights starting in Chicago where that has unfortunately been a phenomenon for them in the last 20 years highlights the negative impacts not just on the kids who have to move schools which actually we've always known but on the kids who are in the school that receives an entirely new group of students and that that is a tremendous uh challenge you know we would manage that challenge but it's not something uh to do lightly um so I think that the the short answer is that we would you know seek to to balance out that capacity um back to the exchange I was having with Dr Garcia a moment ago um last year one of the things that we learned and that we listen to but that we learned was that some of our projections for how many families in a school that was going to move not close uh and the number of spaces in the building that it was going to go into here I'm thinking of uh Lincoln and Riverside uh were very different when we heard from families about what some of their priorities might be from what when we just did the cold calculating math um and uh it it convinced me that that there might have been no room at D in if we had actually done that because of the number of families that would have stayed and the number of families who would have uh continued and maybe choose chosen the new school so there's the value of that broader public input that helped us actually say in the end these are decisions that our families make we don't control what they do so so it's it's trying to to estimate where people are going to be so we would do that with as much uh accuracy as possible but it would be hard to predict exactly what decisions families would make in that scenario I don't know John if there's anything else that you'd add to that we we would balance it out as effectively as we could but we also don't want and can't have kids taking our and 15-minute bus rides in this District anymore because we couldn't have implemented the new start times this year that I think have General been well received if we hadn't constrained our transportation routes so whatever schools they would need to go to would need to be geographically sufficiently adjacent that we don't actually try and save money by closing a school but balloon our transportation funding to get kids further to the new school that they're going to go to I would just Echo what was mentioned before is that we're going to have to do the boundary planning process again and while you may not hear your school closing every school elementary school the lines may change slightly to accommodate reshuffling resorting slightly or significantly slightly or signant I mean it would depend it would depend on I mean uh some schools might have a significant change even if the school is not closing because uh you know we have to serve and we're pleased to serve those families and when it comes to stakeholder input I think what we've seen in past boundary change es that's not really a conversation where we can take a lot of stakeholder input I know people want us to and they they want us to look at at various things but how many times have we've been through this in the past few years and and given the constraints of our transportation costs we may not be able to draw those boundaries based on the fact that you know we have aund parents coming to us saying please keep our neighborhood going to this school so that might be an area where stakeholder input the the data is going to show us where where um the boundaries need to be drawn if the schools are Clos I think one other thing when we fill a building to capacity we we can limit oursel when we talk about rethinking our funding um a building like Franklin that uses some um of their their compensatory funding to create some smaller class sizes do some unique um um uh class structures for kids that becomes um very limited there's not space to do so anymore so the more packed buildings become or the more uh more utilized buildings become the less opportunity there is to use the funding um creatively Ken she's right in my line of s sorry and she's in her line of s um and I guess what I'm hearing from this is maybe it's a messaging thing while we talk about the referendum but and I know messaging is important but I would want to say have to say close three Elementary schools assume it's you and your it's or it's going to impact your school and maybe we need to be more clear about that um the second thing I was thinking about in terms of messaging is that I've been talking to people who have kids in the school and people who don't I'm wondering if increasing class sizes by three might not be clear to people outside the district or I mean sorry outside the the schools that maybe we do that as a percentage in some form rather than you know what 10 to 15 or 10 to a map and that's not my forte but you know a retired person might not know what the class size it's it's 21 up to 24 they might not know that level of detail but they might understand a a broader percentage and that's sort of where I was kind of going with my plan except more to say in my artistic brain like to paint that picture for them so if we can't say you know we are choosing these three elementary schools um for people even if you do have children in the district I don't think you know a parent who has a child at Franklin understands the size of like Lincoln necessarily you know or a class of the same grade at Lincoln and so to be able to say and maybe figuring out ways to use all of the schools as examples in some way like what we mean when we say close three elementary schools it would be like we're choosing this school this school this school what would be the equivalent of closing half of mayo or um taking away the football field uh John Marshall or something like that and I because I think that those things help anchor people in the visual of like oh what is going away um and I think I use this example last time we were talking you know we have two former Educators um on the school board and so it would you know it would be like the thing we're talking about is taking away three of um director workman's Orchestra classes or um Dr Marvin's AP English class and so for people who are in those classes they can say oh no that is me even if we're not identifying those are the specific classes that are getting taken away um or for someone to understand like what do we mean by a non non-instructional position if you say you know Natalia Benjamin's position would be an example everybody that knows her would be like are you kidding me no way we would never want that to happen um and I and then I think it gives a little bit more not just agency but like personalization to the people who are listening to the message um I agree absolutely that it has to do with the messaging because people unless maybe you have a trauma history which that's a whole other bucket of things but most people are going to assume it's not me and then when it is them um they're going to feel betrayed by the district even though we're telling them and have been telling them basically since before the last referendum it could be you and here is what we're doing it still didn't land the way that I think we were hoping it would and I think even in this instance where we're doing like take two of what happened last year people are still not going to think it's going to be me unless we give them something to truly visualize and understand and I think even having conversations about those bus routes like if we close these three schools these are all of the other schools that are going to be affected in terms of bus routes even if we're broad Strokes explaining that I think that that's helpful and it you know we could broad Strokes examples but with what we already know offering specificity so if we always are going to know at 16.7 at a minimum what does that mean and what does that look like and if I think if people understood like it would mean closing all operations and staff positions at all three of our high schools that's what we're talking about when we say $16.7 million that that Rings very differently in a parent brain and also in a non uh parent in the district's brain because then they'll be like oh I live next to that school that would be weird to just not have that there or available because my NA group meets there or my church meets there or this is where we do XYZ um Community event that wouldn't be there anymore sh I have the opportunity this past um Monday to attend the regional Minnesota State High School league a meeting here held in Rochester and part of the mission statement was to uh reiterate that uh Sports and Performing Arts are are indeed a part of the educational process uh and and that I think as a board we need to be careful to uh not necessarily pit one area against another area uh for instance um in terms of student numbers we have a relatively small number of students that are involved or engaged in advanced learning Services uh just as an example and and yet we would agree that is an important area and that's part of our uh ignite student learning where we want more students to uh take full advantage of that and I know you've not asked us to during the study session or potential board discussions to uh make the decision as to what and where uh you are uh saying well that's what you've hired me to do and and I I believe you're fully capable of of doing that and uh uh and I appreciate the the um guidance you provide I I do think it is important though that we also um don't want to suggest to our stakeholders that their input is uh not valued or a value uh and and and to suggest that we've made decisions regardless of what they're going to say uh and um because these are the same people that we are hoping will see the who have heard us and who are able to see the the benefit of passing this uh referendum and and for us to in advance of that suggests that it doesn't really matter what you you say we're going to this I appreciate the reality okay I'm a realist and um you know um and and so I think in some respects we're premature and we as a board need be premature and and and really you know suggesting to you well we don't want this or we don't want that uh all you've asked of us I believe if I heard correctly and can read uh clearly uh do we want you to proceed and offering a recommendation for consideration at our next board meeting and the one after that to if we say yes then you're going to go ahead and work the magic provide the information the board will uh have opportunity to to to say yes or no or suggest well what about this area that area as we do with our annual budget processes anyway and and so I don't think we have to at this point juncture in time uh uh think that the process is changing because of the seriousness of what it is we're talking about and and so I um having uh six children and 20 grandkids I've learned how to be patient and wait for the process to to manifest itself and so I'm I will anxiously wait to see what uh you present you know we are asking our stakeholders for inform for for input sure and their input is by November 5th this is the time for them to really say do we want the district to not make 16.7 minimum in Cuts yes or no and then that information will tell us what we need to do next so I think very much at this point yes putting a referendum out there is asking the stakeholders what they want us to do this is their chance I hope they see um the necessity for all that we've presented here I think I can also just briefly say as I said at the outset um it is highly likely that significantly more than 16.7 million dollars would need to be cut we are I'm highlighting that because we're certain of that other efficiencies other changes in state policy onetime use of the reserves might Factor but not to the point where we could avoid at least that cut so things like arts and Athletics might potentially be in what else would be reduced Beyond what's here but we'll we'll take that idea for sure into consideration and and bringing you something to to discuss do we have an option to consider um expanding um the uh lock boundaries for transportation yes that's one of the other options Dr Cook I I was just about to say that exact same thing because if you add up all of our transportation costs it is nearly $18 million and of course I appreciate that we're obligated under state law and and probably for good reason to provide transportation to our students um but yeah I I think that really ought to be part of the decision space I don't think standing alone it's a great idea to have a transportation boundary that goes all the way to 2 miles down to kindergarten age students but as between that and you know fourth grade classrooms with 34 or 33 students in them I um no I guess it' be 35 wouldn't it 34 anyway too many um you know I just think that that is the level that we're at the were those are the types of tradeoffs that we need to be able to consider as a board and I the the other thing I just wanted to share about the about the elementary school closures um I I think the process that you've outlined superintendent makes um makes a lot of sense and the opportunity for Community engagement stakeholder engagement to refine um an ultimate recommendation makes a lot of sense but I do feel um like it's important that as an individual board member I'm as transp turn in my thinking on this at this stage as I can be and certainly feel uh free to continue to evolve my thinking as additional information comes forward but um the way I see the numbers it's excess capacity of about 1100 students at the elementary level so that's roughly what we'd be looking at um the capacity of school buildings to close the other thing that's on my mind is the boundary adjustments um that weighs heavily because that is the disruption that we're talking about and so one of the things that I think of immediately um is that we have three elementary schools that don't have attendance boundaries um the districtwide option schools and so to the extent that closing those minimize disruption in attendance boundaries otherwise I think that would be something that should be strongly considered um in the best interest of all the students beyond that I would just reiterate what everybody's already said that none of this seems like it's a good idea on its own um but just wanted to share that's where my thinking would be at on that point right now to be transparent about it I think just to clarify for anybody watching our transportation walk boundaries are not at Miles two miles which is what the state maximum is so we are providing busing to students that the state does not require us to provide bu to yes I think maybe just I don't know Madam chair if you feel like we're kind of uh getting to a a transition point I feel this has been exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for I I will say that um well I'm going to present you with a resolution and I know you'll take it seriously and look at it should you decide for some of the reasons that have been talked about tonight uh not to approve that resolution because there is a need for greater analysis and time I I would not see that as some kind of a rejection of a formal budget proposal it is a desire to respond to our community and give them a sense to chair Nathan's point a moment ago though were anyone to conclude that that is because there's a rabbit that can be pulled out of a hat or a white knif coming over the mountain that would be uh very ill advised um so so we will prepare a resolution along these lines um and incorporate some of these themes and of course you'll have it you'll receive it first in prep for Action where you are not asked to take action um and then you'll have a chance to take action on it um and uh should you as some of the comments tonight suggest uh ultimately decide to do that you know in October before we've done a lot is challenging I would understand that I also think it would be responsive to what we've heard from our stakeholders for this board to be on record um and so I think it's there's there's a there's Merit in both approaches but I feel that I've heard enough direction from you to bring you a resolution that reflects as much of this feedback as uh we can master and then uh we'll have a opportunity to look at that at the next board meeting and then you'll have an opportunity to uh vote on it at the follow board members anything else before we move on thank you our next agenda item is 4.1 uh this is a propep for action item um resolutions for msba delegate assembly and I believe director m is going to kick us off um so director Workman and I are the two msba delegates for this December and one of the things we've talked about on the legislative committee is should we develop some sort of resolution to present at the msba delegate assembly in December um the legislative committee determined that that was something we wanted to pursue so one of the things we did is we reached out to um Dr pel and staff um John and Peter Christensen about um christop I think it is um about what types of things would be helpful and one of the responses was the with um data requests that the district is receiving and how cumbersome they are becoming um so I think you all have the handout that we put together for the agenda tonight um and um director Workman and director Garcia please jump in if you have other comments as well um the first item is uh recommendation that our legislative committee include a provision in our legislative platform for 2025 which I believe we would get to the board this sometime December January to propose amendments and modifications for the Minnesota data Practices Act that idea came from um correspondence with Dr pel and some individuals in henpen County local government about the concept of taking that on as a project and partnering on that project in a much broader sense than just RPS or school districts in general but local government and how to modernize the Minnesota data Practices Act and I do think that's something that the legislative committee um should consider and that we will likely recommend to the board when we present our platform the second item and and definitely jump in if you have questions or uh if we can take questions about either one of these separately the second recommendation is uh the legislative committee recommending a proposed resolution to considerate the msba delegate assembly and I make the point here that we would be joining efforts with the Hasting school district and Farmington School District to offer a joint resolution because they've worked on this topic as well um the people who reached out to me were Kyle Christensen from Farmington and jica dressle and mark zek of Hastings um to join their resolution um about prohibiting Anonymous data requests and then secondly offering our own resolution to permit school districts and other local government units to charge a reasonable fee when requests are clearly led to um clearly lead to community commercial uses um and I would ask Mr Carson you kind of came up with that concept and put that in my mind if you want to speak to that further um because uh sort of generated the origin with you and how that impacts the district and you know kind of how broad that topic and that concern is um but unless Dr Garcia or um director rint have anything to add I think you you the resolutions and questions just a comment so uh for our viewing public um delegate msba delegate assembly can you perhaps Del to that these aren't individual actions we're uh lobbying the legislature to do as the Rochester Public School Board in conjunction with other school boards that they're actually if you could then pick it up from there sure and msba is the Minnesota School Board Association um director um Workman do you maybe want to talk about that since you've been involved more than I I've only been a delegate one term and she's been longer so uh the Minnesota School Board Association has um carved up the state into a lot of different areas so um our area includes not only Rochester but a few of the surrounding schools as well and so in December before December happens we have we get from msba the resolutions that have been presented to the board the msba board to consider at our assembly as to whether we want to advance these or not and then we vote on them along with that msba also provides their take on what the resolution is as to whether they would recommend it have no opinion on it um or not recommend it and all the supporting reasons for each of those choices um so we come together we vote we last last one was your first one and it was really quite Lively discussion about a number of of issues that came up um you know because often times it's like well we know how everybody's going to vote you know it's like 110 votes yes and two votes no the other way around but some of the the resolutions the the vote was a lot closer than I had anticipated that it would be um and it also GES giv us a time to to hear um what other districts are experiencing and I think with this this the um the data Privacy Act and what we are allowed to charge or not charge is Statewide and Karen touched on yeah hennipin county has been in touch with us um about this and I'm sure there are other government agencies that have the same concerned with this this General issue so um then of all the resolutions that we vote on and there are usually oh anywhere between 20 and 25 then msba will narrow those down and they Lobby on those so that's how we have input I mean from starting with our board and then to the delegate assembly level and then to the legislature and I would add to them that a little bit to clarify it it what we vote on at the delegate assembly becomes then part of the msba platform they use to Lobby our legislators at the state level the other thing that I learned through the process this year is that once a resolution passes the delegate assembly on any given year that remains um active and something they um they use moving forward so when I started digging into this topic I learned that the and that's that's one of the reasons that I liked what Hastings and Farmington has already done is that they referenced some existing resolutions from earlier years one was from um it's uh one was from 2017 and one was from 2021 that those maintain as existing resolutions and can be incorporated into what the lobbying efforts are the other thing that I think they may have changed that just this year or last year is that any resolution presented and that's why we're here tonight is any resolution presented to the msba delegate assembly needs to be approved by the school board U random school board members are no longer permitted to um to present something without their entire school board approval which I think is a a good uh way to make sure that there's some consensus from perod districts before U presenting something that might not have a lot of impact across the state one of the other things I'd like to add is one of the the resolutions that comes up every single year is full funding of special education and it's not like well we're going to present this this one year well the legislature didn't do it so we'll drop it so I don't know how many years we've been lobbying for full funding of special education and it wasn't until this last session that we actually got some relief from that so on this on the proposal that we have here I would not necessarily anticipate that it's going to be Sol d by the legislature but you know after they hear about it from year to year to year to year um then eventually hopefully something will get done hopefully it won't take years Dr Mark thank you um I think both of these recommendations resolutions make perfect sense um this district and many districts understand that when someone makes a data request um it can take hundreds of hours of Staff time to to provide that kind of data and what this thing is one of these is talking about is that um it will not be proper any longer for the data request to be made anonymously um it could have been coming from someone who doesn't even live in the country I think that makes perfect sense so that the entity who is requesting the data uh uh the district will know who that is in the event that there is going to be some sort of reimbursement the other part is that districts can uh ask for or require a reasonable uh charge for the person asking for the data and my question is who determines what's reasonable um because I I I mean I think if you want the data and if it's going to take a district a thousand hours to give you everything you want we've seen those before um you should be charged something but what's real reasonable um and I get I would answer in two first two different things my understanding in doing this research is that um some states permit Anonymous and some don't okay so that's one piece of things um Mr Carson do you want to speak to the other piece about how you determine reasonable already it seems like that's part of your role yeah we look at it kind of through the lens of you have to read it and understand it first and then you have to apply some judgment as to what kind of time you're going to put into it where are you going go searching um honestly if you're searching through emails that's faster than having to go through paper files um but searching through emails also comes with the responsibility of redacting any um not public information and so then there's still human element and time involved in reading and figuring that out so um yeah if we get one that's very very extensive that's going to take a lot of work we try to give a best estimate upfront so that um we know what it's going to take and what it might cost so I have a quick question for you on that so the time that you take to let the The Inquirer know how much it's going to cost them they may say oh that's too much I'm not going to do it are you re reimbursed at all for the time that you've put in just to get to that point no we have we have not been and nor I don't because we haven't produced anything so I don't think you could bill for anything at that point and my understanding from the research too is that that redaction is a lot times the very labor intensive depending on what it can be is that's challenge that's correct um one of the other things I did learn from the resolution is that some of the districts are encountering situations where they go through that whole process and then because it's Anonymous people don't even show up to look at the data and that's a complete waste of time and money um that that's I think that's what's driving some of the discussions here it was one of the examples that Hastings incurred a $6,000 legal fee uh for a request from a requestor who didn't show up and that's a I mean that's real money yeah that's almost like a fully funded student for year that cost yeah especially and when we're talking about you know proposed budget cuts I feel like that is would be like a bottom priority thing for me and easy to cut um do you do you know I mean could you estimate how much we're spending on these source of requests already I think we'd probably want to do a little talking and Analysis on that because we have a position now that's not fully devoted to it but a chunk of the time is devoted to it so I would make some sort of reasonable estimate based on on how much time he's spending so like 50% of some person's time in the district is spent managing these as often are coming in I would want to talk um to make sure I understand about how much time it is I wouldn't say it's exactly 50% it could be more could be less but there's a portion of a position and that doesn't um include legal fees for any of the examinations for redactions or things y there are some that we consult with and and generate some legal costs like that too to figure out what to do and how to respond and all that so as msba is requiring us to pass a resolution which is what would be on the agenda um at the next meeting for Action the language that would be in the resolution that we would be approving is um the proposed resolution number one be it resolved msba and then also the proposed resolution number two be it resolve msba those two paragraphs um I believe that they would want us to include the whole content the description of the problem the explanation why this is a problem so just a larger resolution with all it unless we can put that in our background would maybe be another option I think that's that's the required information that they ask you in the form but in terms of what we vote on we're supposed to approve just the just the be res which okay then that make sense yes could you repeat that so msba has the form where you have to submit the resolution and then you're also supposed to submit the describe the problem and explain why this is the problem section I think all we have to vote on in ouru just the be resol pieces it's what msba is requiring on the form correct so does anybody have any comments or language changes to talk about with regard to those first those two paragraphs titled be it resolved so that when we write the resolution for next week we have the right language CH Nathan before we do that um Mr Carlson can you speak concise because you can do this more con I just get mad about this topic but I don't talk about it very well about the uh the commercial use of our yeah so there's a vendor I think we just got it again in the last couple days that regularly requests all purchase orders that we've generated um in the district so basically where have we spent our money and I what I believe they are doing with is their datam mining the results of it they're putting in a database to to sell to others like hey this school district body this for this price but this one got it at this price and so they're they're making a financial gain off just information they're getting for relatively no cost or free basically from us in the way you explained it just one people are monetizing this all and it's going to it's going to explode and and and and people are actually now becoming businesses to help people craft data requests to monetize it so I am and like a second level absolutely I am so enthused that this board is taking this on it it right now it's a unproductive drain on our resources though we're privileged and pleased to provide authentic insight to the public that wants data requests but it risks being a runaway train um and I just have to acknowledge the the person that Dr gari was just asking about his back there and Peter Christopherson who was a wonderful teacher in our district and whose primary work is helping our schools use fast bridge and other data but who has been invaluable in actually uh systematizing how we respond to these so thank you Peter but I would rather have you helping teachers with fast bridge data than fulfilling uh Records requests for smart procure so they can sell it somewhere so I think this board has has developed very common sense approaches that do not undermine the true purpose of data requests but could help this district and others get ahead of what I really do believe could be a runaway train at the very least the legislature needs to modernize the language it's like you may charge 10 cents per page or 25 cents per page you know paper that's we don't do paper anymore so we can't charge them for that because we don't have it on paper or maybe if we do then we would but um that doesn't mean the costs of complying with the requests have gone down because so much of it is digitized or in some sort of data format you still have to go through the process of obtaining it and organizing it redacting it Etc quick question it's my understanding that when people do um give a data request that they don't have to give a reason why is that true correct so they just say I want all this data on these specific things I don't need to tell you who I am um that's right and I can't I'm not going to tell you why I want it so that's a bad thing and I don't want to pay for it and I what John just said yeah and Mr Caron I just want to add it to what you were describing the way I understood it from our earlier discussions is that it's not just they're not just seeking the data from Rochester it's all districts and that that's what they're combining and making it's their business model as you described it to do this that's what they do for a business is collect this data on various things and sell it Nationwide Nationwide so that's why we need I I just feel like we need to tap into those funds if we're talking about how we're going to pay for things like that well D director I just want to thank our legislative committee for the work they've done and I look forward to voting on this um recommendation at our next board meeting I I would like to really personal person personally thank um director L MC Laughlin because she has done the really very heavy lifting um in terms of all of the contents and contacts and the um putting this document together it's been um hours and hours of her time and I for one very much appreciate it as I'm sure the rest of the board does as well I will I second um I I uh superintendent your observation on the data mining potential of government data seems spoton to me I can very easily imagine how to build a business model around that activity um I don't know that this resolution will be real effective but it's maybe it's a good first step you know you got to start somewhere like you were saying director Workman um but yeah that that's a tricky one aside from classifying new sets of data as private or something it's it would not be trivial to stop that um the the only other uh uh thing I wanted to share and director Workman I'm so glad that you started by um talking about how it's been many years that addressing the special education cross subsidy has been um one of the top items to come out of the msba delegate assembly because I really think that that is the thing that hopefully all school districts in Minnesota are pushing the legislature to address and they are instead of going from 6.4 to 44% of the special education cross subsidy to just go ahead and fund special education make it 100% why not um so I I I I do think that is the very best thing that the legislature could do for school districts Statewide but um but yeah this this looks like a um a good set of resolutions Thanks For Preparing it and do I also hear that as plug to the legislative committee for perhaps including that as part of our legislative agenda for next year regarding the special education cross subsidies yes and I think that was discussed the last time we looked at the the legislative priorities but yes that is you can consider that app plug yes okay I have a note anything else board members so we will in incorporate these two paragraphs as is in a resolution for our next regular meeting so some housekeeping items um our annual Board calendar draft update is in the agenda are there any items a board member would like to bring forward for consideration on the future agenda hearing none upcoming board meeting dates uh September 24th at 5:30 is a regular meeting October 8th at 5:30 is a regular meeting October 15th at 5:30 is a study session and October 22nd at 5:30 we have a special session on field trip fees and immediately following the special session is a regular meeting and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 7:10 p.m.