##VIDEO ID:TKiUQQd0JtQ## e e e definitely e e e e sure but I'm still here like I'm still iner notice you said we callely right the study session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday December 10th 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 superintendent Kent pel a non- voting ex officio member and assistant Schoolboard clerk Miss Lori 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 Allegiance item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve 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 our Focus topic tonight is the rethinking funding proposal superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan and board members I want to first start by introducing two colleagues who are here with us virtually um uh Kevin wiel and Dan hegner are with afon Partners who are our national technical assistance firm that's been working with us on um the rethinking funding proposal they are here tonight in particular to listen to the dialogue the discussion the questions as they are continuing to help us in producing at least two more versions of the model before you vote in January um uh Kevin at least we can see you in a very large screen I Let's test the technology here and see if both you and Dan can just briefly come off uh uh mute and uh give us a quick uh intro to who you are and your background and then we will jump into the subject tonight and we knew there'd be a delay be a delay that's quite a delay hi superintendent we're yeah we're very delayed so I I'm happy to do that uh we just just heard your intro um very quickly my name is Kevin wsel senior director here at Aton Partners I'm joined by my colleague uh Dan hegner um and we yeah we're happy to I think mostly listen in today if we're going to be delayed uh but yeah happy to have helped Rochester and uh and to hear the discussion tonight that sounds great and thank you for being here and we now know how long the delay is so that's actually I'm glad we did that um we have got um a pretty meaty PowerPoint to get through and I plead guilty to practicing worst practice presentation tonight which is that I'm going to read um hopefully not word for word components of this PowerPoint because we know we're at the point where board members are looking for specificity and also materials that you can refer back to as we enter the next stages of this process I think two things that I would just briefly reiterate before we turn to that presentation are number one I know that whenever you um are contemp a in a significant change there is an understandable um tendency to revert to the status quo because it is known I think as certainly this board decided when it uh approved a far-reaching strategic plan in 20121 if we remain with the status quo we will remain with the outcomes that we have in our current state and I think we've been very clear that that is not the intent that doesn't mean that everything in this proposal that we're about to update you on on is fully ready for prime time um and doesn't need to change but that I think there does need to be a reminder certainly I thought this myself uh including last night as we had a really good discussion with our community budget advisory committee that we have to realize that the Comfort level that goes with the status quo doesn't necessarily lead to achieving some of the aspirations that we have uh for our kids the final point that I'll just reiterate which is not so much for Schoolboard members as the rest of the community is that the vote we are asking you to take on January 7th would be to direct us to integrate the final version of this model into the budget you would approve in June meaning there would be many months in which to test and refine technical aspects of the model we're looking for the endorsement of the conceptual model by early January which as board members are aware is time sensitive because John Andy and the team need to begin building out the budget right after that meeting so with that let's turn to the PowerPoint which is up on the screen if I can bring it up we are here on December 10th one of the requests that board members made of us was to provide a refined listing of the positions and functions that would be in the four categories of the balance budget model you can see that summarized on the slide that is on the screen and which board members and the community have uh electronically it is important to note that while this is a much more exhaustive list than you saw previously it is not encyclopedic and so it is still illustrative it is um indicative of the positions that would be in the district required component which would largely be allocated by full-time equivalent positions or FTE as we currently do now in two categories of school administration and general education essentially allocating our educational program at both the elementary and secondary levels in the way we do today you can also see in the school managed category positions that would have increased flexibility so that schools would be able to tailor the learning supports and other resources including potentially additional investments in things like lowering class size across those positions if you move further to the right you see that centrally managed component all of which are positions in school but that like special education teachers and staff multilanguage learner staff are allocated from the central level and then finally you see the central office one of the points that came up in our community budget advisory committee yesterday is that while we have listed here the Departments that exist in the central office we need to provide you and uh other stakeholders with a more detailed listing of the specific functions that exist within each of those offices so that will be forthcoming board members also received with tonight's study session an even more detailed list of the positions that are listed in our budget book also broken into the four categories of this model finally on this very full graphic is another thing board members asked us for which is a mapping of the commitments that the board made to the community in the 2024 referendum and you can see those are noted by asterisks and in each case whether those Investments fall in the district requir School managed centrally managed uh categories uh we're confident that we can in this new model meet all of the commitments for funding those Investments that we made during the referendum campaign so we are tracking them and I'm glad to come back to any of those issues uh as board members uh would find it valuable so moving on there are a number of really important questions that lie uh ahead of us but as I've been increasingly talking with a wide range of people about this proposal there are a few critical bottom line points that I think it's essential to understand as we uh move into digging into the details here and the first is that in both our current budget State and in the Balan budget model um all schools are uh funded tied to enrollment and so some of the changes that we're seeing in school funding levels under the move to the balance budget model would be happening anyway even if the board made no change in our budget model because of those enrollment changes and it's it's very important to keep that in mind second as we look at the projections by School uh of the impact that implementing the balanced budget model would have it's important to note that that balanced budg budget model includes a 3% inflationary increase of all costs whether it's staff benefits or operational costs that can look like new money that could be spent on new projects it's funding that as anybody who pays their household expenses knows needs to cover the increased cost of current business point three the balanced budget model does include the costs and investments from the 2024 referendum as was just shown with an asterisk on the previous slide those uh are commitments We Believe can be fully met by the balance budget model but it's important to keep in mind that the referendum was not about new Investments it was about uh Financial stability for our school district and avoiding raising class size closing schools and making other Draconian Cuts number four this is in some ways what should really be number one under the balanced budget model most schools will be able to maintain current Staffing if they choose to do so with the exception of schools that are experiencing enrollment declines and some of our current Title One schools now that brings us to point number five which we spoke about at some length in our last session in our current budget model in RPS we concentrate Federal Title One funding on a limited number of elementary schools and some secondary schools like our high school Alternative Learning Center that have poverty rates over the required percentage that the federal government requires us to allocate title funding for so we have really concentrated historically those dollars on a limited number of schools in the Balan budget model I'm proposing that we uh use those dollars to also support middle schools and high schools and a broader set of schools there is a cost to that there's a reduction that's there those schools have not only had Title One funding in RPS they have had the state of Minnesota's funding for low-income students the compensatory education Aid um which is not in existence in many states and so they have had a real combination of federal funding tied to low-income students and very significant State funding and that's why I believe even though it's not a simple thing we can make those reductions to allocate the title funding more broadly because the same students that were being served in those elementary schools are still with us in our middle and high schools point six under the balanced budget Model A significant number of schools would receive increased funding due to that reallocation of Title One and the fact that we would shift our compensatory education aid from 80% of the total going directly to schools to 100% of the total going directly to schools and then finally uh as we've also talked about at previous board meetings our high schools would experience modest reductions roughly five or six full-time equivalent positions through a shift in how we fund post-secondary education options our ctec and our ptech programs currently we both allocate funding to uh post-secondary options providers like Rochester and Community Technical College or we pay salaries for our staff at ctec but when we do that we do not reduce the funding that our high schools receive through the general fund that's not a sustainable strategy at the large number of students we have taking those classes and so we would use a three-year rolling average where we'd reallocate uh those dollars from our high schools now fortunately for the high schools the increase that they would see from under fund other funding sources like Title One and compensatory would more than make up for that decrease and so we would we would fix uh a essentially a double dipping uh in our current system of paying twice for a student who's taking classes but the other the other components of the model would enable our high schools to do that without needing to cut those five or six staff positions so some really critical uh points there that I wanted to begin with at the outset moving on and again oh excuse me I'm looking at my chart on this one there are a number of issues that we are working on that have come up especially as we've continued with um uh feedback sessions with all of our administrators who chose to participate many many did with our community budget advisory committee and with written feedback that we've gotten and I want to briefly highlight those in some ways these are contextual issues for the model but they're really critical ones for you to be aware that we are cognizant of first of all training and support for School principles and for our directors and other central office administrators in how you allocate these resources in this model will be critical it's something we're already talking uh with Kevin and Dan and their colleagues at Afton about because they have significant experience in that kind of leadership capacity building we are also working and we'll be uh talking in a moment about our 2025 annual Board calendar draft um and on that agenda is our new school continuous Improvement planning process that is critical because this budget model is intended to Resource that process and so we are very actively working on what that process should look like and I'm glad to talk more about it later if it's helpful um we we know that um when you're putting more decision-making Authority and resources at the site level you need a defined process for how those plans will be made how those budgets will be developed so we're also uh working on what should be the required and optional uh participation on school continuous Improvement teams or skip teams then similarly what process will those teams use to develop the plans that guide their um Investments and how do we support that from the central office level and then what's the process for review view an approval um at my level based upon criteria that you as board members set for those school do have sight level autonomy with system level support and accountability similarly we need a process for how School principles will develop their annual budgets under this budget model if you approve it and how that just like the skip plan will receive Central support and um approval and then finally really importantly um is something we've we spent less time on in our discussions with you as a board um how do we actually fully develop our central office budgets in that fourth and final category and in particular how do we make sure we have resources for major change initiatives like what we've done with the adoption of our wit and wisdom curriculum or the adoption of a new student information system or curricular enhancement in other areas and how do we have um uh funding for other major operational initiatives like uh adopting a new student information system we've got to Res Source those things because when we don't we all feel the consequences um of living as we are right now with a Skyward uh system of our student information system that is so dated the company is about to stop supporting it and so that that central office piece um is there a few more critical design issues that um we are working on and that we will be either including in the final version of this model or some of them are things that really need to be answered before we give you a final proposal in June these are more nuts and bols points number nine we need to figure out the traveling staff issue it's something that uh Mona as our chief academic officer has been digging into and it's something that our finance staff has been looking at for quite a while there's both a financial aspect and an educational aspect of how we share especially staff who provide what we call our special services at the elementary level but also other services um across the district number 10 we are thinking hard about our professional development funding The Proposal would put more professional development funding at the school level um which makes sense in many respects because they know the staff who need the support but there are some instances as we're currently experiencing with the redact implementation and a new uh uh curriculum where we need to centrally require people to participate in professional development and so we can handle that two ways we could take more money off the top and reserve it centrally or we could say in relevant issue instances School sites must use their professional development dollars for certain required District professional development so that's a design issue that we're um also thinking through we are looking at the process for adjusting our budgets um for fluctuations in enrollment during the year um we have got a process that very diligently sets our budgets based on a projection of enrollment in the late spring and then an adjustment in early October but kids and families come and go throughout the year and so wanting to be as responsive as we can to those realities while also realizing you need to hire staff and build your class sizes um is another issue that we're grappling with number 12 we have got a series as this board knows well of requirements in reporting for both State uh statute and board policy everything from the comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness report that you just approved and the Achi integration report that you just approved and things like the staff development report that board policy requires every year we're working to build those into this process so that they are not separate activities that have to be um organized every year um as we uh move forward number 13 um the balance budget model largely holds current course offerings at the secondary level in particular constant it also doesn't change the structure of the elementary school day in particular a number of Staff who have provided feedback to the model to date have asked that makes sense uh on one hand but how can the model support future innovation in program content in class offerings uh and in school structures um that's something that is not inherent in the design of the model um and then finally there's a need to make sure that we are accounting for some priorities that are not currently funded but that are important to our students and our families and one example that has come up frequently is not only curriculum which we've talked about uh at the board table but playground upgrades there's a long-standing historical exper expectation in Rochester that ptas will help raise money for Elementary School Playgrounds and that is not Equitable and it's also not efficient because then we get playgrounds that are out of date and in some Cas is not safe and so we need to build in uh funding for a regular cycle of playground upgr grades that at least has a core base from the school district level that every 15 or 17 years a school ground uh an elementary school gets a playground update because as any kid will tell you the playground is not an unimportant uh part of an elementary school and this has been a major issue of concern for some of our PTA members since I got to Rochester and this is just one of those examples so those are a number of the design issues that we are working on and then I picked a set with uh input from uh Denise and John and Andy and the team a set of the questions that we have received to date and I'm not going to read all of these kind of like I just did those points but I want to um highlight them so that board members can come back to them should you be interested in doing so one question we've gotten um why would implementation of the new model increase or decrease funding for some schools more than others even if you have a similar number of students and the short answer there is it's the demographics of the the students that is the starting point for um the funding impact that's going to happen to you uh that's going to occur between uh the current model and the next model um and we are working very hard to be attentive to those differences uh between schools it is however important to ask first do the schools have enough to offer a highquality educational program for the students they serve more than are they increasing or decreasing more than other schools I would argue that the adequacy of fun for the program in each school is our first priority not who's going up or who's going down more than someone else because funding streams are tied to student needs and demographics and those are very different across our schools second question why would some tile one schools experience decreases in funding while some non-title one schools would experience increases under the balance budget model and as you can uh see from the answer there the under the current model we've concentrated that title one funding in a relatively small number of schools and we're proposing expanding that to provide those resources to uh more schools including our secondary schools um the the increases that uh the decreases that are happening there are very much uh tied to the fact that as I said a moment ago those schools had a combination of compensatory title funding and even achievement integration funding some schools that have had not Title One schools and have had fewer um students who generate those compensatory dollars would see an increase but it's mostly that inflationary increase and so just to put it really bluntly this is not a system in which our affluent schools would get a large increase at the expense of our schools that serve uh higher poverty populations if you just look at the dollar signs comparing the current state to the next state you might reach that uh conclusion uh but there's not a a onetoone shift with the positions in the school managed category of the balance budget model be allocate allocated as FTE and would we continue to utilize partial FTE and the finance team has said that at present the plan is to continue to D allocate partial uh FTE even though that at times that can get complex and be challenging for both Finance folks uh and even the individual employees in those positions to manage it allows us to meet multiple needs across complex uh situations will we allocate positions based on the average cost as the current practice or based on the actual cost um this is an issue that Rochester is not alone in having grappled with were we to charge a second-year teacher uh salary and benefits to a school at the actual rate it would be very different than a 20-year teacher to a school um there's some argument for doing that in so far as you are putting the actual costs at the site level we are not recommending that however for a number of reasons including the fact that we don't want to create a disincentive for schools to be Staffing people who are are more experienced we think there's incredible benefits to that we also of course have to and want to meet all tenure obligations to all staff across the district and so in the end even though this proposal puts a lot of emphasis on the school level we're all one district and all of those commitments need to be met across the full District um question about how would compensatory education Aid be allocated across um the model um the state largely determines uh the allocation of the those dollars but they do give school districts the opportunity to take 20% of those dollars off and use them for authorized purposes at the central level that's what we do today in order to maximize funding for the site level we're proposing to take that to 100% And that is one of the sources of increased funding for some of our schools um in this model number six how would a school that receives no title funding and little compensatory funding benefit from uh this new model the core answer there is flexibility they would not be seeing significant uh increases in funding though there are potentially are some depending on the school but they would have greater flexibility ranging from 25 to 35% of their uh total budget uh roughly would be in that school managed category giving them the resources to shape an educational program that could be more tailored to the needs of their students uh inflation has been on many people's minds uh in recent months and so a question that we had how would the model um uh anticipate inflation and right now we've built in a 3% increase uh in all costs of course uh figuring out the inflation rate is an ongoing Challenge and John and the team work to do that every year when they build the budget uh but the budget uh model that we would build this out for you to uh consider in June would set it at 3% in our current thinking um eight how would pek and CC would pek and CC receive the categorical funding and the short answer answer to that is no those dollars acre to the high schools where those students are enrolled but PCH and CC are in that um centrally uh funded bucket of the model and so they would be funded um directly through Central resources as they currently are number nine could positions that don't current currently exist and RPS be created under the model um the short answer to that is they could and should but it should be sparingly and in a very disciplined fashion because while part of the purpose well the main purpose of this shift is to allocate resources tied to student needs with greater flexibility at the site level while still ensuring a common educational program across the district we don't want a runaway train of adding positions uh in the school district and so we will need to have a really clear and thoughtful process for the creation of new positions and ensure that not only are they funded but that they're also not duplicative of roles that could be met in other ways without creating new positions number 10 we are in the home stretch um elementary school counselors where are they in the model in reviewing the commitments we made on the referendum where we said we would use referendum dollars to fund slightly more than $5 million for uh school counselors it became clear to us that the first version of this model which only incl included middle and high schools in the district counselors in the district required would not ensure that we could meet that referendum commitment and so for that reason we've moved uh in the most recent version Elementary counselors into the district required so we would have K through 12 school counselors would be in that required bucket a question uh came in also about the training we're doing core training is one of the several approved types of training that the state of Minnesota has authorized to help uh teachers and other Educators implement the read act uh we had from one of our principles a question um would the training that's now underway be funded through the balanced budget model and in fact we have um allocated resources to fund the full implementation of the core training through the end of the next um school year from other funding sources um and so we are covered in that regard the model will have to fund future investments in professional development in all subject areas as we talked about a moment ago we are thinking through the exact right balance between the school level and central office level decision-making about that if reductions are made to the general fund budgets of high schools to adjust for students who take classes through PSO at ptech and ctec will that discourage students from taking those classes it is possible that there would be some uh shift in how our high schools see PSO p and ctec if there is some reallocation of funding based on the student decisions um but I don't think there's any possibility in which we would see a wholesale reversal of the fact that it's good for kids to exper experience post-secondary education um I also think uh that as part of our next strategic plan we have some deep work to do on the role of PSO and other college level classes in our high schools and making sure that kids are taking the right classes that really Advance their long-term goals and priorities um and are not taking it only because it has a college credit attached so um I'm confident that we would still see the large numbers and the increasingly diverse numbers of kids taking those classes but we simply can't hold the high schools harmless because we don't have the funding to do it at uh at the level that would require so you see here again the uh timeline that we are on we are there at the 10th of December in this important study session we have our colleagues from afon Partners who are here we will begin working literally starting tomorrow on version three that is going to be based on the feedback that I have partly summarized for you here uh at of which we've also received more we will then be opening up an opportunity for a broader group of staff to receive it I will say we've recently received from some of our principles concerns about seeking that feedback next next week right before the holiday I get that um people's minds are not necessarily on long-term budget model design issues and there is limited time before the holiday to dialogue about these issues that said um we really want to keep this train moving so you can make a decision on January 7th and so I would say on balance we'll still be going out seeking uh feedback from broader staff which we would then incorporate into the next version of the model and then we are headed for that uh January 7th um uh vote we hope on what will then be version four of the model and in the board meeting after that we would be asking for your direction on parameters for the development of the 2025 2026 budget potentially based on this model if you approve it and if not likely based on our current uh budget and Staffing model so Madam chair that was a ton of me talking about fairly dry content I'm going to try my best to make sure that Andy and John and other colleagues are able to join in the discussion that I know will happen now but I'm sure I will uh be jumping in at key points as well and I hope that that gives the board some summary of uh some of of the feedback and questions we've gotten to date all right board members any questions of your own or comments on what youve heard tonight Dr to Marvin this is really good and I'm really heartened both by the specificity that that you've provided here as well as the design issues in consideration I think it's a really thoughtful list of issues that need to be considered and I'm I'm not surprised but really um impressed um that the thinking has gone so deep just to consider what we still need to work on one question um when during um December 16th through the 20th staff have an opportunity to review and provide feedback on the third version what's that opportunity going to look like I mean how's that going to work uh thank you Dr Marvin the current plan is for a uh video unfortunately featuring me with slides that I've offered to have somebody else do it nobody's signed up um that provides a a a a concise summary of the whole model kind of back to what we did with you the first meeting but an updated version and then a written summary that U MSU Kuts and our uh communications director will be pulling together that is a concise summary of what the model uh would do and then a feedback form that staff can go into where they will be invited to provide uh text responses to uh the same questions that we posed to our community budget committee last night what do you see as the strengths what do you see as the concerns what are your questions what are your suggestions and that's the same questions we posed to our administrators that led to the feedback we've gotten and then what we will do and our research director Dr Ruck will take the lead on this is that we'll synthesize that which of course um it's not just Peter's brain doing it we do use AI to do that which is pretty extraordinary how it synthesizes that and then we would use that in preparing the model you'd see in January you know the other possibility is to try and host like we did with administrators online forums and discussion groups or like we did with the community Budget Group but I think both the number of Staff because this will go out to all staff and then the time of year and the timeline could make that kind of a disingenuous you know source of feedback where we would listen I'm sure we'd learn some things but um hopefully this written feedback opportunity will give people a really clear chance to say this is the thing I'm concerned about or this is what I'm excited about and then we'll um as we did with the administrators we shared that all with you and we will share this with you minus any uh comments that can be identified uh personally um identify people personally um other than that we'll share that feedback with uh the board and with the community as well when we come back to you in January director yeah on slide three um which references the current budget model versus the Balan budget number seven on on the high schools experiencing modest reductions you said it's not printed here but you said that you would be thinking maybe five or six or seven positions is that per school or total that was per school but if um and I'm just going to say John and Andy jump in either correct me if I'm wrong or something when we looked at it would be about five or six the equivalent of five or six FTE in terms of the dollars again they would have more than that in additional funding to be able to to essentially um fill that Gap one question director Workman well then why do it wh why if you if you can if you can cover the dollars why make this change we're trying to build a system here that can exist for the long term and and flex as student decisions change and educational decision change so we need to get our PSO funding in a sustainable place where we are not paying the high school as though the kid is sitting in an 11th grade class at sentury or John Marshall or mayo and paying for them at Cc or PSO and so while our high schools next year would be able to cover that cost of those five positions from other sources if as I think is is easy to foresee our PSO numbers continue to grow we do have to have a way to cover those costs in an ongoing basis because we simply can't afford to pay twice uh for I get when somebody's not getting in instruction into two places so that would be why we'd be making basically a system change that high schools would have the resources to Bridge and that's where that question which was a very perceptive question well could this create a disincentive for high schools to encourage kids to take those classes over time and it would be dishonest to say that that's not a possible outcome but um I have no doubt that it will still be a priority it just might be one that high schools approach with somewhat greater scrutiny as they're helping kids choose classes knowing that it is going to influence the funding that they have to build their educational programs director cook um a couple questions one is really detailed and um but I I just have hard time understanding what the decision space is going to look like for these principles because you mentioned that um resources for the school managed category would be allocated as FTE which are related in some way to the average costs of those positions but the positions within the school managed category would seem to have pretty different average costs for the typical so I I'm just wondering like what this menu of choices looks like for a school principle they get say an allocation of one um assistant school principal um with and that you know how does that compare to the allocation of Elementary education teachers or reading Specialists or any of the other I I just I don't understand that framework let me invite Andrew John to jump in and let me say in most instances in the first years of this model director cook I think it will be we are Staffing this position rather than that position at a relatively small number of similar costs that's my prediction so this is a position that we have maybe there was a retirement maybe it's not meeting this need and we're going to add another position that is largely equivalent I think over time you might see people saying well there was this position but instead we'd like two educational support positions and so we start and then I think even further you might see people some of these positions while valuable we would rather put into lowering class size at a at a in a grade level and so now we're actually uh shifting and we're actually supplementing that educational program with lower class size with that 25 to 35% but I think my prediction is in the early years it would mostly be kind of a positionto position I think the term might almost be swap um but that's a prediction what would you say about how the system would really work the process itself as we are envisioning it right now through the tool alliv VI is that there will be a a number of essentially buckets we we' call them that that house the the dollars assigned to them in the various funding sources and as they select either a position or some other expense category non-personnel expense if there's something they want to to to fund if it's a Personnel expense it would be based on an average salary for for that job type so that we are looking at the averages but we're looking at a small subset to try to create the best average that we can find as opposed to a broad range of averages because we know within the district there's averages you know there's salaries M you know we have a very broad salary range so a principal would walk literally walk through this process uh we anticipate some support in in this as well but work with our team to understand one the model how does it work um what they can and can't do based on the principles and guidelines surrounding it but then as they get into the tool all of the positions that are part of District required will just be allocated they'll they'll be sitting there and they'll know what those are those that are going to be school managed there would again they would select these particular um uses and as they select a use that pot of money will decrease in terms of its available funding source until the point where they get to zero or they have nothing left um it that is the tool that we have in the way that it would work what we need to do is make sure they're making those choices appropriately but that those choices will be um will be helped by policy that that says within this funding source you can do this within this funding source you can do you know this so there it won't be just a wide open there will still be some parameters to make sure they're they're they're um um staying within the funding use guidelines that we often have that are often statutorily established uh then the process of approval will will then take place that Dr pel mentioned previously of how will those decisions then move up to then ultimately be approved to uh make sure they align with the skip for example and and other districtwide um expectations will the principles when the principles are making the decision will they have those values of the average cost for a position so that they know if I'm if I'm buying this position it's costing me this much from my expenditure bucket I would expect that we will provide some of that we will provide that in advance but the tool actually looks in real time and looks for an existing position like that and says oh okay I have a number of positions like that here is the average salary and benefits and so it will assign it in real time because we have actual salaries in there today so it's based on our actual salary and benefit data that is correct either way it would be whether we provide it in real time or we just do the calculations based on uh what we know today um we even know within the teacher group for example there's a broad range of salary so we're thinking about more at a position level making some um some a making the averages uh such that social workers might be an average school psychologists might be an average a grade you know grade K through or five may be an average as opposed to just a broad range of here your teacher average which isn't necessarily always as accurate as we'd like to see it we if I could just say one final thing this was a this was a actually the feedback we received from P principles that we it would be it would have been my preference that we actually have principles um Budget on real dollars so as they select something they know exactly what that is going to cost um but as we as we realized that and received the feedback from the principles was one of those things that we pivoted and said you know it really makes sense to just look at averages because we have a contingency on the backside to protect ourselves if for if for some reason we're a little bit heavy uh based on an average in a particular job category for example so that was one of those that was one of those moments where we took that feedback and said yeah that makes a lot of sense let's do it that way instead well and you have to think about the reality is you're going to have some schools that just that have more senior teachers that cost more and then other schools that have really they're newer teachers and the individual teachers cost less but those schools that that have the more senior teachers if you go strictly based on like a set dollar amount without looking at like we need these actual positions and all of that they could potentially really be hurt by it right um It's Tricky I've been in systems where it's been all FTE on averages I was in one system where we did both both and we played the system you put your most expensive people that were counted by averages and then you put your cheapest people in the buckets that were dollar for dollar because you wanted but ultimately it was the same pot of money like that was a silly so they they in that situation there was this belief that I could get more because I know that when it comes to an FTE I'm going to get that number of bodies or people but when it comes to this pot of money that I now get to spend if if my expenses going against that are lower I can get more so it's it's a psychological and that actually was some of the feedback that we got uh from principles is some of that shifting could take place and we also want to make this we know that the transition is going to be um there will be some difficulty I don't know if that's a little bit strong perhaps but it's going to be a challenge to get this implemented uh flawlessly we know we're going to have obstacles to overcome as we do this including just the amount of time that principles already have um um committed and now they have to carve out some more time for this we're trying to make it easy so this was another way to make it just a little bit easier and we know we believe that we're protecting again we're protecting ourselves in terms of ensuring we don't go over what we know we can spend by uh holding back some dollars and our team at afon helped us develop that process of or that that plan about how much money would we hold back from flexible to ensure that we don't overspend I I I did that's all really helpful um and makes a lot of sense to me so uh thank you for clarifying that uh the other thing I'm wondering about here is about the central office functions because um we we talked about how uh the compensatory Aid where previously 20% had kind of gone to the central office no longer would and similar for Title One funding um and also talked about some important responsibilities that we want central office to take on about R routine curricular curriculum um review and adoption and Associated professional development and so forth um perhaps playgrounds so I I'm just I'm not seeing how those two things can sit together in the same world um so how does that work uh let me answer in Broad brush terms and then you know Andy or John mono others may want to jump in when we set out with the most basic design of this system the core impetus for which I claim um responsibility I hope eventually it's credit which was this idea of keeping the educational program constant and having the flexibility be in that learning support piece then there was the question of how to handle central office and as I mentioned I think we do still uh have some conceptual work to do on that before we bring you a final vote but the core starting point was we we should spend the same amount same percentage of our dollars on central office in this model as we do today we shouldn't grow the central office and the logic of that was as you I know will recall from the referendum we're just at about the average for administrative costs a little bit lower in the state I did not see a scenario in which I wanted to recommend to this board or that I saw you approving a significant increase in our Central cost beyond that given that the dollars are most impactfully at the site level and so we are working with an inflation adjusted uh total pot that is similar to where we are now but within that we do have some important uh work to do in in allocating the resources within those departments and and the biggest pressure point which very interestingly this week or last week when the state of Minnesota announced a potential deficit on the horizon they identified K12 special education funding as the explicit one of two explicit drivers of that deficit I've never heard them do that from the state before they explicitly said it's K12 special ed increases that are driving Minnesota's deficit well we Face the same challenge in that Central budget so the the hardest single problem that's there is meeting the needs of our IEPs which were committed to do and keeping that Central cost um at the proportion that we have designed it in this system um so that's kind of the core uh big picture logic um the the theory of action was that we centrally have to live within our means in this model and then we have some work to do in operationalizing the um resources the alternative because there is no new no unforeseen money would have been taking more from the school managed and the district required in the school and pulling it up uh centrally so that's kind of where we are right now are things John or Andy that you'd add to that that core premise of where we were I don't I was just trying to look and see what Andy do you know off the top of your head what what we were taking and doing with the 20% off the top I was going to add that almost all of that 20% went back to the schools it's just that we used it were you talking about compensatory of the 20% that we retained previously it was social workers and school counselors um in one year it was social workers another year was school counselors but it was those sort support positions and and I can't speak to the history maybe John can of why we retain 20% but the fact of the matter those positions went back into the schools any anyway so now now they will just have the ability to make those decisions on 100% of their dollars as opposed to just 80% of those dollars so um I don't know historically why it was an 8020 split though that was before me and that's a specific answer for the compensatory that's forat yeah that's a really important one I think there are a number of other issues director cook that are uh Strategic investment uh concerns that are not fully accounted for in this model but there are limited dollars right now and I think some of those are things we need to Grapple with my my best answer to how we resource those needs is we get enrollment growing um and of course enrollment does bring increasing costs but if we are efficient and growing enrollment opens the opportunity for the kinds of investments in educational models technology student supports that um is a complete Game Changer because then we're a growing system and those resources are there as long as we are being really efficient in Staffing and operations um I think as we've talked about often in Rochester there's every Prospect of that happening if we are uh doing what we need to do to be the educational provider of choice okay that's all really helpful context I I mostly just wanted to check that there wasn't sort of an implicit assumption that there was going to be a lot of efficiencies identified or or or you know reductions identified at the central office level um and of course if there's any opportunity for efficiency I'm all ready for it but I I was just checking whether that was um something that was some of these other things were reliant on that it sounds like not um but not theal context I mean what one of the things I look forward to in this in this model is being able to I I couldn't do it off the top of my head right now today but when we get to the final model one of the things and we've talked about it often at this board table there's an inherent skepticism in any organization of the people downtown people in central office you know whe whether you're in a company what do the people at corporate headquarters do or in a school district what does the central office do and some of that's just human nature it's productive I've always thought I wanted to work in a district that could very clearly tell a principal a teacher a parent the cost and value added of central office like here's what we cost and here's the value we add with real Clarity and so you know there's always the thought they must have money down there you know there must be some that well this board knows there's not but like to be able to say no in our model this is what our you know and central office of course is a huge term the thing that creates the most you know tension is Administration within that because I don't think anyone says we don't need special ed teachers who are being paid centrally but people wonder if we need superintendence and things like that in the same yeah we do so but I think that this model holds out the prospect of being able to say in Rochester Public Schools this is the the cost of our Central office and then we can tell you and here's the contributions we make to the education of of kids in a more rigorous way than then I could right now um not just off the top of my head but even if you asked me to write a memo on it I wouldn't have a system for saying it I could tell you what it cost this year but not in a design model so I if I could just expand on that like the attachment we gave the very detailed attachment that Andy worked on on Sunday and Monday um that's the first time I think we've clearly said this is the FTE in the central office bucket I mean we've tried to show the Edison building the tssc building on some of our FTE reports I think this is the clearest we've ever laid it out that there's 232 jobs in the central office um doing supports and administering the district that means there's 2300 FTE out in our schools doing the work in the buildings so I really like how that chart actually kind of confirms what I thought is that most of our resources are getting applied into the schools um so I wanted to ask some questions speaking of those categories um in the centrally managed bucket we have ctec and pte um listed and I just wanted to clarify are those the costs of Any teacher who would be teaching a class at ctec and PTEC in addition to the what I must estimate would be Supply costs and Equipment costs that are related to those so those categories of teachers would not be in for example the the General Ed District required those are those are spe the specific program in its entirety ctec ptech hry Hill all of that falls within that program so principles esps every position and every not just teachers but everything for that program is lumped together there if that's correct MH and um did we get an answer to why weep teachers were in both well there's there's a ver no Madam chair because I ran out of time to ask Andy that question after you asked me it and so Andy why are we teachers uh in both uh of the the school managed and the centrally managed sport because there is a there's a component of it for the special education and that's what falls under the centrally managed because centrally managed is our special education uh category um so and and and I think that's the other thing that as you look at the detail and I said this to our cback group last night a position is not necessarily exclusive to one of the four categories because although we didn't lay it out it was it was a it was a great point that you could for example have additional grade one teachers in school managed because that principal chose to um to um have lower class sizes in grade one for example so positions positions are not exclusive to a particular category many of them are of course but not all Dr bar yes I have a couple questions uh first one deals with um do compensatory and $ follow the students I guess I want to be clear on that um they follow the students correct yes they do the the compensatory formula is more uh straightforward than the federal title formula where there are essentially thresholds of percentages of kids in a school that shape how the dollars can flow whereas the compensatory it follows each kid and then there's a concentration Factor based on the percentage of kids kids in the school who meet the criteria so if you're 10% free and reduced all those students the dollars they generate go to the school that's 10% if you're 80% pre-introduced that school also gets the dollars those kids generate and they get a multiplier for having a higher concentration of poverty but yes both follow the students with some different rules for exactly how the math Works than you and then um under the design issues uh number one training and support I was curious about um the is there a Target date I know you're not you but the goal is to have all principles achieve a certain level of uh proficiency um expertise if you will uh is there a Target date for that we have a process that is calling for benchmarks to be met and uh so beyond a Target date not that I need to know well it's you know um how then will um are there Provisions in place or under consideration to help assist or um assure that principles were able to meet that standard and even though we're talking about the uh balanced budget model uh are there any thoughts as to what might occur if indeed uh a principal or several principles are not able to uh director B it's a it's a critical question we actually just submitted a grant proposal that unfortunately was not funded to exactly study how what we're going to do is going to work um but we're going to do it um anyway the current thinking um and I don't mean to say to Dan and his colleagues at Aton that this is a done deal because this Board needs to make a decision on this model but if you decide to move in this model we have received a very uh thoughtful proposal for a followon scope of Consulting work from uh Dan and Kevin and the folks at afon and that Consulting work this winter and spring would have two key purposes one they would work individually with principles to build their MO build their budget in this model during uh this winter and spring for the 25 26 school year so it'd be direct coaching the second piece is that Andy's team will be there for all of that so that we can do that on our own beyond the current school year because they have a ton of experience in that and so we would in future Years be essentially building resource allocation into our leadership development process that Eric Johnson leads and that the the office of Finance on an ongoing basis when we have both new leaders and then leaders who get support we would be doing it internally but that afon would be helping us build that out um this winter and spring uh if you vote uh for the model right and then finally um in past sessions we've talked about um uh how what opportuni staff may have and and certainly I see the schedule that staff will be given opportunity uh but are there any design built-ins to allow parent and or SL student input regarding the uh considerations uh how their schools might look different what services might uh currently be provided but potentially uh tweaked a bit or moved to different uh site locations It's a Wonderful question uh Dr Barlo there's there's two as there's one aspect that I think I am certain I will recommend to you and one that I've heard uh feedback on two sides about the certain is that the feedback the needs analysis the needs assessment to develop our school continuous Improvement plans the new skips must include robust student and parent feedback so we know the needs assessment has to include that and we actually uh are digging deep into what uh survey tools should we use to get quantitative data but it should also include other things like the work Sarah Luiz Henry is doing with our student school board and things like that so for sure in the needs assessment the point of some discussion is should parents and potentially for like high school students be on the school Improvement team should they actually have structured positions on the team um in that they're voting members and that there's a parent sloted parent guardian and then potentially a youth I've heard uh some real positives from that including from some of our PTA uh Representatives last week and I've heard some real concerns about it because of course these are as you know complex things that some of us spend years trying to get up to speed so that question of the parent um and caregiver and maybe youth participation on the teams I would say I certainly would never prohibit that if you had a school that wanted to have a parent and you had a parent that wanted to serve uh or a student I I I would be quite enthused about it and I certainly would think the school should have the latitude to do that the question is do we want to have that as a design feature that there needs to be but certainly the needs assessment has to and even if we didn't want to do that which we do the the fact that our new school improvement process is now going to be merged with the title one planning process which is federally required that requires the parent involvement component so in order to make the shift with title one that I'm proposing that many more of our schools will receive that Federal funding and that the title one planning process which is currently separate from our skip process will be merged we know they have to be in the needs assessment but maybe they should be on uh the team as well so that's something that we probably won't raise for deep uh feedback until early in the new year because it's not a centrally Financial issue but we do need to raise it early in the new year because we need to begin to put this new process in motion thank you so on that same note when you talked about the um looking at the additional data that you needed for the needs assessment um when I think about how you've described the school managed C category and that the allocations are going to be made on what the student population needs what do you see as our big gaps and available data that principls will need to make that decision I we have our student assessment data we have our Panorama but what from either what afon Partners have seen in other districts or what what you've seen is there a is there a data set that is has been helpful in this kind of model that we just don't have um thank you chair Nathan I think the short answer is we actually ironically need less data than we have as you know we have 33 indicators right now in our district dashboard and in retrospect that's way too many um it's too many for any one person to necessarily tracked but more than that it's too many to build true um what's called early indicator systems around because what you don't want is just did the patient liver die you want the diagnostic tests along the way that tell you now we've begun that with our fast Bridge assessments one of the problems with using fast bridge at like an MCA score is that it's not intended to truly tell the kids reading level at a deep level it's intended to be a dipstick to see if the student needs uh an intervention um in Minnesota because the read act required everyone to use a tool like that for screening and then to report it to parents it's starting to get confused with a summative assessment that would be assess in like a large body of skill what you want is both you want a a some aligned assessment aligned indicators tied to a limited number of summit of Assessments so an MCA score and a fast brid score are an example of that on the assessment side another example is a graduation rate and a course failure rate we know when a kid doesn't earn a credit in a nth grade class it's predictive of potentially significant problems uh down the road and just a few zeros can encourage a student who otherwise could do the work to disengage you know from learning and so of course failure rates are a really good dipstick or Canary in the coal mine on the way to a grade to grade promotion rate which is how many of your ninth graders make it to 10th grade um and then how many of those cross the stage so what we're going to need is those limited number of those summative measures a tight set of performance measures and then this is what I think could make the system really Innovative we have to we have to track the money to those those informative indicators to those performance indicators how are we allocating our dollars to literacy interventions tied to the fast Bridge score for instance or uh Dropout prevention interventions tied to the course failure rates and interventions doesn't mean that that number drives everything in the budget but we're using that data to say wow we are losing of the kids who don't graduate in this school we lose most of them in the summer between 9th and 10th grade what are we going to do with interventions at that point because that's our pressure point that we're seeing and so we really need to allocate those dollars there as opposed to 11th and 12th grade because even though we do have some kids who don't finish even though they're close we lose most of our students at at this particular point so that's kind of The Sweet Spot that we're aiming for a smaller grid I like that a much smaller grid board members any other will not be the last time we talk about this anything else superintendent no I just want to um not only of course we you know had Uh Kevin and Dan listening but in particular particular to um Andy and John John uh mentioned Andy working on a Sunday I I don't think either of them enjoyed the Vikings game on Sunday because even though they won because I was texting them through the whole thing but uh um I apologize for that but not really we're doing really important work we're doing important work here and we are we are we are close to leaving aside the decision that the board may make about this proposal I'm increasingly confident we're going to have a very good one for them to consider um and so there's a lot of moving pieces uh to that and there's a a large team I know Chad was back behind me here and Denise is out of town this week and so it's uh it's a it's a good group that's pulling all this together and I'm really grateful for that thank you he'll hear that about five thanks everyone for having us bye they were great okay the next item on our agenda is the review of the Schoolboard handbook so board members uh we committed to reviewing the Schoolboard handbook annually and um since the handbook was approved last December msba has published a uh Schoolboard handbook template and it was based on best practices for process and information sharing so what we did is compare the current RPS handbook to the msba template and the draft uh Google doc version of the handbook is um available on simbly I just wanted to highlight what some of the major changes were um and then some of the other areas of the msba template that I wanted to offer for sort of separate consideration you'll have a chance to send in your questions and comments before the next meeting on the 17th with a hope that we will take action on it on January 7th so for the most part um the I think we should be proud that our Schoolboard handbook had most of the components of what was in the um msba model handbook um the first section you see is going to require updates to our change in board members um and our change in our um assistant school board clerk um we also just did some modifications of the about Rochester Public Schools section on page four and five um more to group uh information together on student demographics um and the history of the district so no changes there from the uh model Schoolboard handbook and now I'm looking on page seven um about the Rochester school board uh the msba template had some additional helpful information that we separated out on eligibility requirements and terms of office uh when and how a new school board member takes the office uh Schoolboard vacancies um a little more detail about how we set our compensation and then the section on Schoolboard duties and responsibilities were um reorganized to focus first on the duties of an individual board member with some additional language from msba and um we added a section on conflicts of interest and then we added a section or separated out the sections on responsibility of the school board as a whole where we had written a narrative about how our school board year looks in the um the major decision areas um that we make so there was no changes in that section from msba just a reorganization of some of the uh the concepts and now on page 13 uh we reorganized this section to match a little bit more the structure of the msba template starting by describing the types of Schoolboard meetings and talking about open meeting law and then we added information about uh the role of the presiding officer some additional information on Quorum in the voting section um we added um some background on how we talk to each other or how we address each other at the Schoolboard meeting in terms of saying director Marvin or superintendent pel um because we've had some comments from people that they found that interesting that that we did that so I want to make sure people are comfortable with that um how presenters usually begin their uh presentations To Us by recognizing the chair on the board and the superintendent and we added a specific uh paragraph about the superintendent's role in board meetings um so that those who might be new to our process understand the active role that the superintendent plays in the board meetings and now moving on to page 17 we added information about where our school board meetings are held not everybody might know that if they're not familiar with our process and not any changes in other District Communications or Schoolboard committees not any changes in Schoolboard professional development we move the section on expectations for Schoolboard service to the Schoolboard duties and responsibility section um and then there's uh two items that we retitled board communication and engagement they've been in our uh Schoolboard handbook before but there is an entire section in the msba template that I'm going to share with board me Members before next week's meeting um I don't know that I think we would recommend putting it in our handbook but it's a whole it's a whole set of information that lays out how board members can and might consider communicating with various stakeholders and various groups internal to the district and external to the district a number of other districts include that in their school board handbook but wanted to send it to you for consideration maybe as an additional document um that we could have that kind of reflects what our protocol is or what our experience is we can talk about that at the next meeting and then the other three sections the role of the superintendent and the bargaining units and the definitions and acronyms uh there haven't been any updates to those yet we're going to double check that before the end and then we have been using the check list for first steps after election to the school board to on board our new school board member who will be joining us in January um and we may make modifications to that based on how well that process works this time so given that overview is there any glaring area that you think was missed you'll as I said you'll have the opportunity to review this we'll have more of a discussion next week but happy happy to entertain any of those now all right if not we'll talk about it again December 17th thank you the next item on our agenda is my favorite prep for action item the ABCD proposal for 2025 um so I don't think I need to give the board any background but this is our do this is our document to track and uh schedule our Schoolboard agenda items over the year um this uh superintendent and um Miss Sam have created a draft um based on the work that we've done before based on a comparison to um our requirements and policy based on the priorities of the superintendent um regarding uh the key initiatives this year and what uh priorities for our decision making Rel related to those key initiatives are um there is a document in the uh assembly called the board Guide to the draft ABCD 2025 that we're going to use to go through this we are not going to go meeting through meeting and line by line on every agenda item um but I created this board guide um a as an overview of what our year is going to look like in some of the key decisions that we made so the first item are the dates of our 2025 meetings we're keeping the some the same pattern of two regular meetings per month but there's three months that we'll only have one regular meeting per month because of restrictions or holidays instead instead of the 10 study sessions we have uh scheduled for this year we're going down to five uh the superintendent felt that we could cover the information that we needed and the the kinds of conversations we're having tonight in five so that sort of lessens I think the burden for all of us um at all meeting times we'll start with at 5:30 with the two exceptions of Our National Night Out in August and our truth and Taxation in December that starts at 6 o'clock p.m. we will take a vote on those dates formally at the January 7th meeting so the ABCD draft that we will take action on January 7th um there is a set of consent and standing agenda items that will occur at most every meeting or monthly at a meeting um and that you're familiar with the human resource actions our minutes our board committee updates their financial reporting and we will add additional items um if they meet the consent agenda requirements our expenditure items for greater than 175,000 uh policy and procedure updates and U PR prep for action and action um our recognitions and we are working on a new approach for Student Activities and Athletics uh recognitions for 2025 um so stay tuned and then the rest of this document um identifies the agenda items by our major categories of work if you will so we have all of our important items that we're taking care of at the first meeting in January and then we will be talking about our legislative uh priorities um at our study session and then our regular meeting in January and then we have the list of the um agenda items that are related to key initiatives for the district for uh the Strategic plan and I've tried to group them together uh no I'm sorry I put them in um in date order from the beginning of the year to the end of the year but you'll see there's uh multiple items on our Mission Vision Values uh process and then our brand tagline and Logo um information on the skip process our literacy curriculum the Middle School ALC update Sac expansion our world languages plan extracurricular activities we'll have one two three four meetings on a new profile of a graduate um deeper learning our new newcomers program our K5 science curriculum and a philanthropy strategy anything you want to say about any of those superintendent um no just that uh all of the ones that culminate in a board decision are um spaced with enough time to some extent unlike the rethinking funding work we're doing now as John and I were talking about yesterday to give us time to do analysis and stakeholder feedback between the decision points and they all eventually lead up to a prep for action and an action so that is true of our um work on the um New Vision Mission values brand tagline it's true on the very important uh work we'll have on the profile of a graduate and a number of other things the things that are Singletons there are things that I felt were really of uh very high level of importance or like the extracurricular activities update well I think that's important too but there things board members have asked for so I tried to keep a running list of issues that you've uh asked to see on the agenda and haven't necessarily had of time there were also a number of instances where I added something like the newcomers programming where we haven't brought you a detailed update but I know you're concerned about it you get emails about it so that was the logic of uh those things that are there and really in many ways this whole um winter and spring is a runup to the kickoff in the summer of the development of the next strategic plan and speaking of that is a section um where all the meetings are identified starting in July with a decision anticipated on the 2026 2028 strategic plan by the board in December of 2025 um the facilities include our usual review and approval of the long-term facilities maintenance plan but I also included uh one of the key initiative agenda items which is a uh broader discussion of facilities recommendations that will um lead into um well effect probably the long-term facilities maintenance plan and other decisions we need to make about facilities um I have a SE section on data and outcomes and uh the topics of these will look familiar um to you however uh what we've added for most of them is um an initiatives update so for each of these agenda items we won't just be seeing the data we'll also be seeing a summary of what the initiatives are that the district is undertaking to address whatever the data is that we're that we're talking about very similar to what we saw in the achievement and integration plan report where we saw the data and then there was a summary of what the district was actually doing to impact the goals or the outcomes or the measures that we're we're describing budget and finance this is our uh cycle of uh forecasts and parameters and budget draft reviews and tax levies that all feed into our uh budget cycle for 2020 uh 526 and then at the end of the year for 2026 27 uh the next two items are the superintendent evaluation and goals and the school board evaluation and goals uh the proposal on the superintendent evaluation um is that we will have a single superintendent evaluation this year unlike what we're will be doing later tonight the second half of the superintendent evaluation and um we will still be able to make a decision as to whether the board wants to undertake a Schoolboard self- evaluation instrument in July but we have the uh placeholder there at least for us to complete our goal review and our goal setting for the next year there's another document that's in assmbly that is a uh chart that we've used over the years to map what is required in Poli policy with what board actions are required so either a review or a approval or a vote and we've gone to double check to make sure that all of the items that are required in policy have found a place on the ABCD and I have to say I think we were really pleased to see that this process I think what did we say there were five items that maybe we didn't find and that we were able to add to the calendar out of a 14-page document so I think that says a lot for us for being very compliant with our requirements and policy and these are uh things that you're familiar with but we are going to have um a discussion of religious holidays in the 2026 27 school calendar before we discuss our school calendar our APAC um uh meetings that we usually have are included um and then our staff development plan student employee handbook and course registration guide review we have two meetings set for the school resource officer contract you'll remember that we have to um take no action if um if we take no action then the contract renews but we um had decided in the past few years that we wanted to have a specific agenda item to to have that discussion so that's been included and then we have other annual agenda items um our cradle TR career partnership our Rochester Public School Foundation partnership um we've added an item for retiree recognition to try to do something more intentional and formal at a public meeting about our retirees and then our annual back to school update any questions and there went another year there's another year now we're done ous it's ambitious but and and I think I for the benefit of anybody anybody who may be watching or for the press that's here um one of the other advantages aside from the fact that I think it makes our board work um more efficient this is a really important tool for the community to know when there might be an item that they are interested in and knowing when it is scheduled to be on the agenda I had a conversation today with somebody about extracurricular activities and I was able to point to the ABCD to say this is something that you're really interested in seeing comprehensively you know come to that March meeting and you'll get you know an update that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else so I that's another reason I appreciate this tool all right so we'll discuss this again in January right uh other business there was no uh Q&A document for the meeting because tonight was about answering our questions um are there any items a board member would like to bring forward for consideration on the last school board meeting agenda of the year next week upcoming board meeting dates we do have uh a special session truth and Taxation note the different time that the meeting will start that is 6:00 p.m. on December 17th immediately following we will have our regular meeting our first meeting of 2025 will be January 7th at 5:30 that will be a regular meeting a study session on January 14 at 5:30 p.m. and a regular meeting at January 21st at 5:30 p.m. the next item 5.4 on the agenda is a closed session for superintendent Val evaluation outcomes component the next item is a close session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13 d05 subdivision 3B which allows the board to go into Clos session to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its Authority while in closed session the board will engage in a confidential discussion of the scheduled annual performance evaluation of superintendent Ken pel in addition pursuant to Minnesota state statute section 13 d05 the board will summarize our conclusions regarding the evaluation at the December 17th meeting pursuant to the law I have cited will someone make a motion to go into close session so move second it has been moved and seconded to go into close session all those in favor say I I I any opposed the board moves into close session at 6:58 p.m. just sit quietly until we get back I won't say a word no e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay the board is back from closed session at 8:05 p.m. clerk mlin will you please read the list of people present in the closed session it was chair Nathan director Marvin director mlin director Garcia Vice chair Workman director cook director Barlo and superintendent pel and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 8:05 p.m. I like that short for