##VIDEO ID:hZTpiSrJLgs## e regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday September 10th 2024 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all our 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 Schoolboard members superintendent Kent pel a non- voting ex officio member and assistant Schoolboard clerk Miss Lorie Sam Miss Sam would you please call the role here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance alag uned States item 2.1 is a approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda move 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 assmbly comments to the board it is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students staff families and schools we welcome communication via email phone call Our Community engagement listening sessions and here during comments to the board the purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our Authority the board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online request to provide comments to the board form by 5:00 pm on the Monday before the school board meeting to sign up for a time slot the form is available on the RPS website and on the simbly main page a reminder that policy 206 and procedure 206a set the time place and manner procedures and restrictions on comments to the board by participating in the public comment period each speaker agrees to abide by this public comment procedure speakers when your name is called please come to this table if you have written materials to for the board please provide them to the assistant school board clerk prior to your REM marks and she will distribute them to board members choose a microphone to speak into and be seated please direct your remarks to the school board you will have three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed in front of me please begin your remarks by stating your name Speaker one tonight is Emma Madison e e e e e director Workman tonight we recognize September 8th through 14 as arts and education week Rochester Public Schools is proud to provide Arts education across a rich array of disciplines including media arts Music Theater Visual Arts and dance each school year is a new opportunity to be inspired and moved by the performances and artwork that bloom from the personal expression imagination and creativity of students in our community most of us could give multiple examples of how our students social and emotional well-being grew through Arts education which allowed the development of of self-awareness self-confidence self-management and perseverance social awareness and relationship skills we thank all of our Arts Educators in Rochester Public Schools who guide their students to develop lifelong skills in critical thinking and problem solving discipline and collaboration alternative ways to communicate and express feelings and ideas and crosscultural understanding we encourage everyone to celebrate the Arts throughout the year by attending a concert play Dance musical theater performance art show or display at a Rochester Public School we are also recognizing September 17th as National it Information Technology Professionals Day we are grateful to our Rochester Public Schools it Professionals for their everyday management and maintenance of the essential networks systems and applications that power the technology we use in teaching learning and communicating Our IT staff is still engaged in the mammoth task that is getting our technology systems up and running at the beginning of the school year and we are grateful for their skill and patience in educating our staff and troubleshooting each issue that arises our it professionals face a myriad of new challenges every day and we want them to know they are valued members of our RPS Community item 4.2 is board member committee updates does any board member have updates from any committees or events that they'd like to share there no okay um our next agenda item then is a focus H sorry our consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.5 would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed the consent agenda has been approved now we have a focus topic item 6.1 the 2024 MCA scores analysis school and system performance superintendent for account thank you chair Nathan and board members I see our uh director of research uh and Improvement coming up Dr Peter Ruck and so I'm going to turn this over to Peter I do want to um say to board members and to uh anybody uh who's watching we got some good news uh provisional limited but nonetheless good news in the Minnesota comprehensive assessment scores that came out for Rochester Public Schools um very recently of course for us this was a a a somewhat more important indicator of the degree to which we are helping our students Master State Standards than in many other districts because we were not able to give the test um for the 2023 assessments and so there was a one-year Gap um we are emphasizing that good news tonight in Peter's analysis and presentation um uh I think that's appropriate it's uh I think a mistake when school districts um only focus on the areas for improvement but I do want to assure the board and the community that we're also looking at the areas where the data showed we have work to do and in particular when we present to the board and the community our comprehensive achievement update tied to what up till recently was called the world's best Workforce report later in the fall we will dig into that Fuller um data set uh but for today uh I have asked Dr Ruck to highlight some of those points of progress and some of the hypotheses that might be behind some of the preliminary gains that we're seeing in the data in addition to really take some time with this board and uh our community to explain the MCAS because for teachers for administrators and for parents they're a fact of life uh the federal government requires every state to give an assessment to master its standards we don't often take enough time to really understand what it the assessment measures and so I've asked Peter without taking us so far down into the weeds that he loses all of us to give us some background on this particular measure which will be a core part of our improvement work going forward so Peter thank you for the work and we'll turn it over to you absolutely good evening we're here to talk about MCAS this evening a little bit of my thunder was just stolen though because I was wax sof sad I was we didn't give them for 2023 anyway so what are the MCAS and why do we do them at a very high level the MCAS are a measure for systems Improvement uh and they are also how the state and the federal government measures whether or not our students are meeting the legally required standards that we are to construct how do we do them the primary method for the MCAS is something called a computer adaptive test or a cat for sure a computer adaptive test is done on a device either an iPad or Chromebook in our case and the questions adapt to the student in terms of difficulty over time until slowly it's sort of zeros in on what it thinks the true score is that's true for any computer adaptive tests some of the college entrance exams like the GRE are computer pretty common there are some paper backups although we learned they don't even have 17,500 paper backups last year anywhere in the state but we do have some students that end up doing it on paper is an accommodation and there is also uh mtas for students with specific disabilities that are qualifi for that alternate assessment our relationship status though is still pretty complicated um we everyone knows what the MCAS are but unfortunately there's a lot of misconception about what they can be used for and what they really ought not be used for uh as well as the utility for us at a at a system so what goes into making these tests nine figures of money uh it is a huge contract that mde puts out whenever they develop a new standardized assessment across the state um it's not quite at the billion Mark but it's up there um so it's a massive investment of resources on the part of the state to create an assessment that's customized to fit our state standards uh is the MCA worth doing my personal take is yes although I would question whether it's worth the financial expense that but for its intended purpose it's the best data source we have uh as for certain questions as I'll go into in a bit but it is complicated because we have to keep track of when we can and can't use it the folks who develop the MCAS are called psychometricians they make way more money than any of us they work in Pearson and other companies in large highrises they drive fancy cars and they're also ludicrously intelligent they work on the theory and technique of measurement um why do I mention this when standardized tests are developed like the MCA they go out they develop an item and then they test that item over and over and over and over and over again under different contexts different situations um testing it against other pre-existing data sets the point is to try to get down to a core group of items that they can be really satisfied with uh I don't know the actual number off top of my head but it's not uncommon to discard 10 items for every item you retain but does it actually measure what we think it's going to measure yes it does um they use a variety of methods to test and ver and validate and make sure that those items are doing what they say they are but in the end if you really get down to it what the questions they're asking are how hard is the item for a typical child uh does the item measure what we think it's measuring and how does that line up to the state stands those are the three items that they're really testing against when they're developing now a lot of our folks I hear this a lot especially when I'm talking with um school-based administrators or teaching staff whoever it might be I already know who's proficient and I already know who's not proficient and I actually I fully believe that um so why should we test them the reason is because when it comes to the MCA the IND individual student isn't actually the focus for us and any individual student scores isn't the part of the MCA that's useful what's useful is when you aggregate the data together to look at things from a system level but that tends to be sort of a newer idea for a lot of folks to get their heads around for a lot of reasons some of which I'll mention so how does that work each Year's assessment is fully independent what I mean is there is no progress on the MCAS you don't take it in third grade do better in fourth grade and and say you improved each test is a fully independent assessment of the standards and skills that are expected at that grade level so there are different questions they're asking different things um we wouldn't talk about Improvement or progress a really good example of why is the one question conundra because the MCA was developed as a systems measure any individual student may only get it's very possible one question on a particular skill set when they're taking the MCA we would never judge a student skill based on a single item on a single instrument right but when you aggregate all of those students together who all got different items maybe they got more of them less of them and so on you start to get a really accurate picture of a larger level function a grade level a school that type of thing not at the classroom level and not at the individual student systems so what do we do with systems level analysis um one of the powers of the of the MCA which we'll get to in a little bit is identifying individual areas of uh skill deficit but I want to and we'll talk about that when we talk about the three calculation methods uh but it is a little bit like having it both ways I'm sure somebody in here has thought okay but if it's not about the individual student why are we sending individual skills reports home to every kid the answer is we are required by law to do so so we do um however if you you are interested in skill deficits for any or you know where your where an individual child may fit on that scale the MCA is not the assessment to use you'd be better off using fast Bridge El so systems are fundamentally just collections of people and decisions so decisions that you could make with this type of systems data are uh informing instructional strategies resource allocation maybe it's telling you about staffing needs um areas for curricular Improvement many of which we're already aware of as well within um my area in the research and Improvement Department we try to uh quickly within a sentence or less evaluate each decision we make using those uh five criteria what process did we use what results of the process what Improvement did we make what data did we consider and how is that um that's the kind of framework that these types of systems level data can okay so you probably just really want to know how did we have two different methods up here that I will walk through after I show you the results this slide on the next slide is the Northstar accountability system which is what Minnesota's assessment system is under Essa the every student succeeds act the numbers that you see on this slide in the next slide are the numbers that the state reports to the federal government about each of our schools um and it is also the data set that is used by both the state and federal Departments of Education to identify schools in need of additional support based upon test scores we had no schools identified for additional support in this last round of MCA scores but more importantly you can see the trend data in that lovely branded graph off to the side uh we're not talking about a a short-term Trend or just a pandemic Trend we had a long-term Trend underway for quite some time um among our three skill areas and while the evidence is preliminary there is pretty good evidence with these MCA scores that we may have uh started to reverse that downward Trend if we move on and look at the Improvement in uh some of our demographic groups you'll notice some pretty large gains on this slide I chose simply the top five uh percentage point increases among demographic groups uh for literacy I had to add a six throw because both our special students receiving special education services and our students that are getting lingual Services uh tied at 2.9 now you may also notice that there's no science on these two slides even though we do MCA science that is because science was dropped as an accountability measure in 2022 so it's no longer reported these data are the ones that pop up when you pull up the Minnesota report card on MD's website it's the first thing that shows up when you log in these data take two clicks to get there these are the data that show up the first time um these are just the test results summary I'll go into that difference uh in just a moment but it's a the same test just measured in a slightly different aggregated in a slightly different way so you see that many of the Point increases are consistent across schools uh but that overall gain on the chart is still there in all three areas is just slightly L same thing if we look at our demographic groups again um American Indian students students receiving special education services these were groups that showed up repeatedly no matter which way you were looking at the data really okay so you've heard me we have two different sets of data which one's true the answer is actually they all are all three are true just depends on what question you want to ask so we have three different ways of looking at MCA data uh the first is the District student results that's a big table with numbers for every single kid in the district there's no calculations no changes it's just a record for each kid the test results summary those are the ones that pop up again if you go to the mde report card that's your first thing that shows up that's a measure of essentially everyone who showed up to test that day regardless of whether they were there for five days or five years regardless of whe you know any number of other characteristics if they were there to test they're there uh but students who opt out are counted as not proficient in that there's some minor calculation changes for validity that the state does veryy small the last one is the Northstar accountability system but you'll notice there's this big long list of criteria for whether or not a students score counts within that average the reason for that is with the test result summary a student may have been at that school for like I said five days or five years if a test score of a kid is who only been in the school for five days do we really think that that school had a large impact on that student skill development probably not so Northstar tries to account for a lot of those variables by um only accounting students who have been at a given school for uh specific duration of time so that it's actually measuring the exposure to that school services on that student uh as well as a number of other criteria and that list is not exhaustive but those are the big ones so if they're all accurate then what kind of questions is it that I can actually answer with these data three different things they're all accurate the numbers are different but they're just showing different sides of the same coin so the details are your student reports if you need to identify grade three has this particular skill um is really a challenge at multiple schools it's a systems thing how can we get more resources to this particular the test results summary is useful if what you need is a snapshot of who happens to be in your school that day which is very useful information for a variety of questions but it's usually going to tell you where to dig deeper um to get additional information if you need a systems level measure the accountability system is the best one to use because it actually accounts for students who've been at that school for a duration of time instructors and curricula and everything else so we do have some preliminary hypotheses about uh why our scores increased although one thing we don't have to hypothesize about is that the hard work of our staff and students comes through loud and clear uh in our results but if we are looking for some of those mechanisms behind some of that work uh we have a lot of focus in the last uh two years on improving School climate focusing on uh deeper learning uh investing a fair amount of resources in in our school principles to develop their instructional leadership abilities um and our datadriven decision-making framework through the faster success program and some other uh ways of looking at our assessment data to make intervention choices here's what didn't happen one of the uh earliest things I'll hear from just about anybody who's been in Rochester for a while that I talked to test scores is well the boundaries changed that accounts for the change um before I even presented these results I did the math to figure out if that accounted for it and it does not the boundary changes are a factor but they are not even a major factor uh they do not explain the difference in uh changes in attendance patterns and opt outs there's always changes every year we actually had slightly fewer opt outs this year um not explanatory for our our changes and we didn't do test prep there was no drill and kill there was no closure books so we can focus on questions now like none of that happened in ours so what's going to be coming for the next year uh we'll keep focusing on a lot of those School improvements uh for the environment we have our new wit and wisdom curriculum it's very exciting it lends itself to deeper learning really well um we may see a one-year dip for the first year of the curricula That's Not Unusual you have a new curriculum everybody's learning it at the same time they're teaching it it's not unreasonable to see a slight decrease um when you're doing something new we do have a new revamped School continuous improvement process we are currently working on including A school-based needs assessment professional development and of course that key dependency because I know director cook will ask time is our key dependency as always quick question that I get a lot how predictive is the MCA of fastbridge we our new uh Chief academic officer Mona Perkins and I had a meeting with fastbridge just today about this um fastbridge is extremely predictive of MCAS if you are of the math mindset it's 080 for the correlation coefficient um however fast bridge is geared towards comic Core State Standards and in general Minnesota standards are more rigorous than common cores so our benchmarks uh while the scores themselves are predictive our risk bands are set a little bit too low to be accurate so we've been working on making improvements there as well as a big uh push on calculating thresholds in the summer this is my last slide everybody can be happy I'll stop um the mca4 is around the corner so in another year we get the mca4 science uh then we get math then we get literacy the MCA 4 is a very big change to the MCA 3 it emphasizes application and um reasoning far higher There Are No Object there are no questions who have the objective of identify blah blah blah blah blah a student who has memorized facts will not do as well on the MCA as a student who has developed critical thinking skills a student who's developed a problem solving framework and so on that's especially true in science and math um so it's something on the radar as we're thinking about instructional strategies and some of the items we need teaching and so forth that that is a shift that's coming and with that I would be more than happy to answer questions hopefully that gave b a background on what the MCAS are and what they aren't members director Marvin thank you this was very good although you left out some of the terms that I was hoping you were going to use the really long ones but it it was still good he talked me out of it before the meeting well okay U no it was still very good um is there any way of knowing kids who may not I this is good news this is really good news we're doing things better and it's absolutely going the right direction for kids who don't do so well is there any way of finding out which kids are not getting better scores uh because they don't know the information versus kids who just don't test well they have test phobia or they just it's too long to sit still or whatever is there any way of kind of figuring that out separating the two not without collecting additional data probably um however uh I lost my train thought on the second point that you made um not without collecting additional data on how students are engaging with the test I suppose the uh other thing to consider though is that we collect uh you know the MCAS are only one point in time and since we would never use the MCAS for things like an an instructional Choice with a kid or teacher evaluation or anything like that um we're going to have multiple data points fast bridge is the same way we get I mean I get phone calls you know from staff or whoever I want to reset this kid score I know they had a bad test day I want to do that's a real that's a real thing but that's why we collect data in so many different ways is so that we can kind of get the full picture this would be just one among many so I think we'd catch it somewhere else okay thank you Dr Baro um excellent presentation um oftentimes the community the community uh individuals will uh suggest that uh we're not doing we as a system aren't doing that well because uh well the MCA say this or that how can we help individuals the community better understand um what we are doing and uh the progress we are making uh I I think you did uh say up front that uh these are just a measurement of a snapshot of a moment in time you know versus a uh true indicator of Johnny being proficient or not um is it possible to um help uh the community understand and maybe dispel to some degree the the myth that we um are somehow I hate using the term failing our students but not uh doing what some would imagine we're not doing C can you topel that or um I'm not asking you to prove it through this presentation but to PR ideas I don't know if it'll dispel it but the first idea that pops in my head is when people in the community find out what my line of work is almost always apparent the first thing they'll say to me is oh what's the best school in the school district and my answer is the same every single time I don't know I don't know your kid and they're usually surprised by that answer and then they say well which one has the highest test scores and I said that's not how to judge what school your kid should go to come get to know us get to know our school get to know the staff who's doing what how they're teaching um you know come take a tour uh learn about what your neighbor school has to offer um that tends to be my go-to message when folks are asking about that at a broader systems level keep in mind that Minnesota so first of all we're pretty much right at the state average for most of this stuff secondly Minnesota standards are significantly um higher than other states when other states had schools that had proficiency rates that were too low they just lowered their standards Minnesota didn't do that so uh for example fastbridge geared towards common core but for fast bridge to predict whether you'll pass whether you'll be proficient on the MCA you need to score at about the 65th percentile or higher and it's on the national percentile so what that's saying is the student has to do much better has to be further along and their grade level norms for the national Norm to meet Minnesota's standards that same student would probably exceed standards in a different state so a lot of it has to do with how our standards are defined for for us um by Powers outside of ours thank you I could I just uh Dr B I really appreciate that question the other thing I would say uh adding to Peter's points at least as long as I'm here in Rochester we will never use the MCA or fastbridge or act to do things that essentially weaponize or stigmatize or overvalue test score data we will never use a a single cut score on one test test to make a high stakes decision about a kid we will never use a standardized test score to rank a school and we'll never use a standardized test score to reward or punish a teacher or a principal all of those things have happened in the last 15 years of American Education they're not a fantasy they all happened most were methodologically unsound and what they did even worse than that is what they did was they made one tool in the toolkit uh deeply stigmatized for people who should be able to look at this data as a useful tool for improvement and it became um a judgment of their you know professional capacity or the intelligence of a kid and so one of the things when we chose to highlight what uh Peter's presentation called Leading Edge schools one of my concerns was that we'd have other schools that weren't on that list who would uh see that as problematic and in fact Peter said they are not the better schools they improved more between 2022 and 2024 um in some cases schools that weren't on that list didn't approve as much because they were already at high status right and so I think it's just very important that we put this in perspective um including the fact that we know when you look at life success the best research from the economists now would say about half of your earnings uh your income level uh your success in the world of work is your cognitive capacity your ability to recall facts analyze information and half is what we used to call soft skills um or or social emotional competencies or what the economists call non-cognitive skills and that we need to develop both with kids and the Minnesota comprehensive uh assessments and no assessment directly measures those and it only partially measures the cognitive skills so we we this a valuable tool we want to take away the stigma but we also don't want to over overstate the uh value of it either so I really appreciate your question director Garcia um in my line of work I also give a lot of standardized tests so I have feelings about it but I did want to ask though with the MCA 4 coming out do you anticipate or what might you anticipate that we will see in terms of the trend so right now it looks like we're on an upward Trend but I imagine with the changes coming with this version of the assessment great what might we see oh it's a great question um I can't speak to that I can't predict that what I can tell you is when the MCA 3 was released Statewide not just RPS Statewide scores went down a lot because of how they change and you know the kids didn't unlearn stuff it was like 15 points right it was a big decrease well I'm thinking like in terms of director Bar's question about if next year people see a significant decrease which will likely be seen across districts are they going to interpret that as we weren't being transparent and what we are showing for this year's right scores well they don't do us any favors by phasing it in one year at a time either like it be easier to explain if it was all at once but I mean I think that's a that's a legitimate uh risk that we have to think about with our families for sure but yeah when the MCA 3 came out it was a lot of decreases State it's just the difference in how they measured sure thank you dror cook um well I uh I I really appreciate the the the context that you provided because um I do think it's important and regardless of the understanding that we have internally of the MCAS and their utility and their relevance they are extremely important to the community they're extremely important to every new parent that is deciding which neighborhood to purchase a home in and I mean that's why things like test scores show up right alongside real estate rankings I mean there is a very um all of those are based on the MCAS right and so um so anyway I I I do appreciate that they are extremely important for lots of reasons um and I'm also very comfortable with having high standards and striving for a community where all the kids are above average that seems like a pretty motan thing to um aim for um but I I wanted to I wanted to just hone in a little little bit on you talked about the limitations of what these tests can tell us and what they're useful for so when we're talking about improvement from 2022 test results to 2024 test results and these are not longitudinal we're not comparing the same cohorts of students what what spec just to put a really fine point on that specifically what are we able to compare in the 2022 test results to the 2024 well one year does not make a trend right so our best data before the 2022 school year is 2019 because that was not impacted by the pandemic um we do have comparison data available for most of these and we can get the rest of it from 2019 when you're looking at a one-year Trend you want to be cautious I mean it's not a trend right if you're looking at a one one time point to one time point in a change you want to be cautious and deeper in general so it's a good and that's why we have like in the slideshow the list of hypotheses for example right so part of what we need to do is now that we have these results they've given us some preliminary indications that what we're doing is working we need to dig deeper on each of those items that we've been implementing and figure out uh where the Special Sauce is and that's part of the work that we're undertaking this year through ay and and if I might amplify that the key thing director is the percent of kids meeting standards because you do want to see that at very high levels to your point and we want to see that growing every year in schools where it's not at high levels it's not a f effective measure of growth year toe but we can compare this year's third graders to last year's third graders to the previous year's third graders and if we have uh either within subgroups or in a school or in the system levels of proficiency that are not what we would hope for we want to see that percentage go going up um and so that's like that that core thing that it's valuable um it's not growth but it's Improvement um over time and it is relative to the Minnesota state standards that's specifically what MCA is about correct yep thank you director mclin um again apologize for being late thank you for your presentation I always enjoy your work um kind of reflecting actually on Dr Bar's question that's kind of where I was formulating things if kind of flipping his question around are there better measures from your perspective some either data or nonata there are off the shelf solutions for standardized assessments that I think are would give us as valuable information as the MCA the map test is a good example um but you know that's obviously the legislator's decision uh on that front but yes there are off the shelf solutions that I think would be just fine for uh evaluating systems progress uh we just have a very customized highly specific assessment in this I guess my question was more designed to are there things that we're already doing to collect data that would be a better data source compared to the MCA um I don't know that it's better I think it's just depends on the question so if you're if you're approaching a problem or a decision or an unknown um it depends on what question you're asking for which data source would be best sometimes that's going to be fast Bridge sometimes that's going to be MC CA sometimes it's just going to be Skyward stuff grades are actually a very good measure it's you know a a cumulative grade is multiple assessments over time um any number of ways to uh split the Apple all of which have different utility depending on what problem you're trying to Sol and I guess I was kind of tying it into director Cook's question as well is what can parents and Community do other better sources is it the talking to the teacher meeting the school teach conferences are key a lot of especially at elementary they'll go over um one of the redex requirements is communicating our district screening results from Fast Bridge so that's something that uh will occur there um that's another Avenue for another standardized assessment that we give that folks could engage with um at the high school level we have additional assessments too but that's like act thank you so we've been using the word proficient a lot tonight and I know that it in your world of data it's tied to a certain cut off and a certain level a certain number but what does it really mean what does it mean mean in terms of the body of knowledge that a student who is proficient knows there is a percentile relationship and I'd have to look it up I don't know what of time have um basically what the state when a when we say a student is proficient the odds are more likely than not that they have the skills to to meet all of the state standards at a basic level and can we say in each Year's MCA tests I I've been in a room where all the state standards are printed out and put in binders so can we say that they are no I didn't print them out myself sure um how I mean the test it's over right it's a long test but can we actually say that all of the state standards are being measured every year it's actually a very good question it kind of related to director Barlo your point um I at one point tried to map I tried to create a schedule as a like I tried to imagine I was a kindergarten teacher and create a schedule where I would teach every single kid each standard over the course of the year and I ended up with like three minutes per kid per standard or something it was ridiculous um that's a recognition of the fact that it's not possible within this Academic Year to teach every single one of those standards to proficiency um there too complex they're too detailed there's too many of them um so we focus on those areas that like math literacy that we know have a lot of uh Power for the kids later in life and that's what we focus on with the MCA assessments but it is absolutely true that um it's not possible for uh education systems and to hit every single one of those standards in a school that's not a Rochester thing that's just sort of Statewide Dr Workman would it be accurate to say then that the student who is taking the MCAS that since it's adaptive to what they're doing and not every kid gets the same question that for any single individual MCA test it might not necessarily be testing every single standard but when you put all of those individual tests together then you're seeing a picture of the standard being taught 100% correct perfect [Music] good and we've learned something here tonight yeah any other questions or comments board members thank you Dr o thank you very much you you you made psychometricians sound cool they're out there they're out there feeling pretty good our next item is a monitoring topic referendum overview superintendent Pau thank you director Nathan board members I'm going to give Lori a moment to Hy the clicker um as board members are well aware there uh is a referendum that you have voted to put on the ballot November 5th and you approved the plan for that referendum uh at the end of the previous school year and we have spent the summer working very hard to put together materials to explain that referendum uh to our many cons constituencies in the school district we um cannot and do not tell people how to vote but we can and should inform them of not just the substance of this referendum but the context the reasons for the referendum and we can urge them to vote and to make their decision um based upon the information that we hope they'll take the time to um listen to and think about and so this presentation is a debiew of my best succinct overview of the why and the what of the referendum that will be on the ballot uh on November 5th and so we wanted to having gotten over the start of the school year begin in Earnest our effort to provide the community with information on this proposal with an overview for the school board and for people who might be watching tonight and so in the interest of time and complexity I'm going to move at a pretty good clip but we will have many opportunities both at our board meetings in the future and in many many uh conversations and discussions across our community over the next couple months to dig in to these details so one of the points of feedback that I received as I gave earlier versions of this presentation across our community was you got to boil it down to its Essentials and so while I'm going to go into the details this slide summarizes the critical points that people need to be aware of if this referendum passes we will have 10 years of sustained funding for positions that assist students who need more support to thrive like our reading Specialists we will have sustained support for programs that challenge Advanced students and enrich learning for all students like our Advanced learning teachers we'll have 10 years of sustained funding for services that strengthen student well-being and mental health like our school counselors and we will have sustained funding for classes that prepare students for success in vocational and Technical careers like our ptech program our ctech program and our Career and Technical education classes in our Comprehensive High Schools it also means that we will have no school closures no increases in class SI and no major Cuts in positions at the school or central office levels in short as the title of the the referendum suggests we will be able to stain sustain those those positions and programs that ignite student learning and put the pl District in a place of financial stability for the foreseeable future but then let's take a step back from that kind of thesis statement and understand some of the context for this proposal why you ultimately voted to put it on the ballot and why we hope will take time to learn about it I would submit that um our primary purpose even beyond what we do with individual students is making sure Rochester uh is a strong community and it's intuitive to understand that strong communities depend upon strong young people but there's a link between strong communities and strong young people that sometime sometimes is forgotten and that is strong schools we have just come out of a we hope once in a century pandemic in which the impact on students is so great that across the country students are entering 9th grade this year a full year behind in both reading and Mathematics that impact of course is the challenge that lies before us in Rochester and elsewhere but it's also evidence that schools matter when we went through an unplanned and unwanted experiment of kids not being in school we saw the impact of what happens when our young people are not engaged in our schools it was a proof point of the value of schools in general and I would submit public education in particular and part of the reason I think that's critical context is that more than 80% of residents in our community do not have kids in our schools and it's a rational question for them to ask why should I take time to learn about this referendum why is it important to me so two quick answers to that this is a slide that the datea of which is pretty familiar to all of us who've been out there in the workforce but I'll tell you when I show this picture to mid school students which I've done many times it is shocking and the basic story that what you can learn determines what you will earn more than ever before in human history is encapsulated in that slide we can see that Weekly earn earnings are higher with levels of Education as are the chances that you will have health care and stable housing but the converse is also true that with lower levels of Education your chances of being unemployed and facing all the struggles that that brings in our society are also much greater so it really matters for those individual young people today who will be working in our hospitals and automotive repair shops and restaurants and all across our community in the future but it's not just important because of economic reasons there's a large body of research that also shows that people who have higher levels of Education have more stable families they're healthier they live longer they vote and they volunteer at higher rates and that people on the other end of that Spectrum who have less educ are more likely to commit serious crimes and to be enrolled in public assistance and so the context for this referendum I believe is that education really matters to our individual students and by extension to our community and we're starting from a good place in Rochester as board members know in considering putting this referendum on the ballot we conducted a poll not the kind of poll that would just be inviting people to come to our website but a statistically representative poll conducted by a polling firm over the telephone with a margin of error of plus or minus 4% and there you can see that 64% of the adults in our community rated the quality of Education in Rochester Public Schools as good and 17% related it as excellent and I know this board believes that maintaining that level of Community Trust is of Paramount importance that Community Trust also shows up in the percentage of families that entrust us with the most important thing in their lives their children you can see here that we educ at more than 34 of the young people who live within the 218 square miles of Rochester Public Schools as a district extending far beyond the city of Rochester and contrary to some uh people's suggestions that is the same what the business world would call market share as it was before the pandemic um enrollment has gone down but it's gone down because the number of kids has gone down birth rates in the United States are down by 17% since the Great Recession of 2008 so you can see that the division of school choices that Rochester families uh are making for educating their children remains largely similar and Rochester Public Schools continues to educate more than three quarters that is not a given Rochester is the third biggest city in Minnesota the two biggest are Minneapolis and St Paul and you can see in Minneapolis they now educate 51.6% of the kids that live within the boundaries of their district and in St Paul they educate 58.1% and both are declining rapidly do not have the same percentages I of course have some concern for that and I both worked in was educated in and sent my kids to one of those school districts but there comes a point where the community does not begin to see a public school district as the primary not the only but the primary source of Education in their community and I would submit that none of us would want a fire department that could not fight fires in every part of the community or a police department that could not fight crime in every part of the community and Public School District have that unique responsibility unlike those other educational providers who do great work to be able to serve all kids um in our community where their families choose to enroll them in our schools as board members know we have uh grappled with the fact that we have strengths to build on in Rochester Public Schools and we have some major challenges to address and that's encapsulated in an aggressive aggressive strategic plan that we are two years into implementing and as Dr Ruck just walked us through we are seeing some early and admittedly preliminary evidence of progress as we have reversed a 10-year downward Trend in math and science achievement uh as measured by proficiency on our state tests and an 8-year uh slide in Reading achievement as measured on our state tests and a number of our schools are leading the way with larger increases over the last time we gave those tests in 2022 as are a number of our subgroups for instance American Indian students up 11 points in math black and African-American students up 5.8% percentage points in literacy but there is a challenge that led you to put this referendum on the ballot and that is the biggest headwind we Face to maintaining our progress and that is financial we have a structural deficit that result of that structural deficit is the result of many factors but two are primary the first is depicted by this graph which shows in the blue line what state funding for the general fund the primary source of support for k 12 schools in our state would look like if it had increased at the rate of inflation and the dotted Orange Line shows what the funding has actually been and as you can see if funding for the general fund had increased at the rate of inflation which school districts face just like families face our funding per student would be 18.1% 18.6% higher today than it actually is that is the biggest source of the structural deficit that we Face the second though is local school districts in Minnesota have the opportunity to ask their local communities to contribute more to the education of their children and in uh Minnesota that comes in the forms of referenda uh which is uh what is before us on November 5th when you look at the 15 biggest school districts in Minnesota all the districts that serve 10,000 or more kids which includes Rochester where the seventh biggest you can see that we are last in terms of the local voter approved support for school op operations at $943 per student a far cry from The District in the Twin Cities where I started my teaching career Bloomington at more than $3,100 per student now we are grateful for that level of support from our community um we use those resources well but when you compare us to the state average of $2,120 you can see why there's a local element to the deficit that we face as well and so as board members know well in 202 we faced the reality of that structural deficit and we put the district on a path toward Financial stability and that began by making some hard decisions long before we asked our community to consider new Investments uh we cut $21 million over my first two years in Rochester and eliminated 156 positions from our general fund valuable positions that were doing good work but that we needed to cut to put the district's uh books in Balance then in 2020 3 we sought to raise some revenue and we sought to do that with a $10.1 million referendum that was focused on technology in our district which we lacked a stable funding source for now that referendum would not have eliminated our structural deficit which as we'll talk about in a moment is slightly less than $20 million but it would have taken a big bite out of it and it would have been a big step forward in terms of our financial stability as board members know that referendum lost by 318 votes out of more than 20 22,000 cast and so we found ourselves as the next headline uh shows cutting uh the budgets in a pretty dramatic and drastic way I know board members remember being in this room as we were filled with people whose schools were closing and services and programs were being uh cut in a way that would have been very difficult for us to maintain our academic momentum um and would have had a devastating impact on families and kids in in the schools that were most impacted um as you also of course remember mail Clinic stepped in with a transformative investment of $10 million to uh keep us uh stable following the narrow failure of the referendum and the board chose to invest from its Reserve Fund in one-time support so that this fall has been my first fall as superintendent where we have not been opening School looking around and seeing who's gone from the previous spring because we did not have major staff cuts to make um in our schools well after the referendum failed we went out and we did extensive Outreach uh we conducted surveys listening sessions focus groups and we heard three really critical things uh from our community the first was although the technology referendum in 20123 would have contributed to financial stability it would not have made us financially stable we still would have had about N9 mli $9 million that we would have had to either find somewhere in revenue or cut from the budget so folks told us um ask for what you need not a dime more not a penny less the second was be very clear about exactly what the funding would support even though uh we released the uh plan for technology Investments That was both hard to understand and especially complex because funding for technology would have freed up uh money we currently spend on technology which we would have invested in class size and that became very difficult for people who are not experts in school Finance um to follow and understand and so tell us exactly what the referendum would support and then finally as many people were of course uh both surprised and dismayed at the cuts we had to announce after the failure of the referendum tell us exactly what will happen if the referendum doesn't pass and so that brings us to the proposal that will be on the ballot on November 5th um our projected deficit uh for the 2025 26 school year if the referendum does not pass is $1 19.4 million according to our most recent estimates and so we have proposed setting that Levy the board has approved at at exactly that point each year for 10 years it would increase at the rate of inflation if it is approved that proposal would raise our operating Levy from by $1,133 per student from that $943 you saw on the slide a moment ago to $2,076 per student a home valued at $350,000 would see an estimated property tax increase of $29 per month starting in 2025 and on the school district's website referendum page there's a tax calculator that people can visit to find out what the impact would be on their home if it's less than $350,000 it would be less than $29 per month if it's more than $350,000 it would be more than that amount so let's break down the specifics of what the ignite student learning referendum proposal would support the first investment area are those positions that assist students who need more support to thrive and that would actually account for $3.3 million of the referendum or 177% of the total funds programs that challenge Advanced students and enrich learning for all students would amount to 8 4.8 million or 25% of the total services that strengthen student well-being and mental health would account for 5.9 million or 30% of the total and classes that prepare students for success in vocational and Technical careers would account for $5.4 million or 28% of the total so let's talk briefly about what is in each of those four investment areas in the first area of positions that assist students who need more support to thrive as I mentioned before we have our reading Specialists and curriculum uh really critical at a time when we are embracing entirely new way of teaching young kids to read but it also would provide 10 years of support for media specialists in our elementary schools our community schools coordinators who work to help families remove barriers to learning like housing nutrition um and other support our new Cape parent education Pro program that provides parents with eight weeks of um learning and collaboration about how to help their kids succeed in uh academically and in other ways our LEAP program or Emer launching emerging adults program that supports our older students who have really undergone either trauma or challenges to mental health have been incarcerated uh a really transformative program that I know board members uh enjoy attending the graduation um every year project search at Mayo Clinic that provides support for our um young adults with developmental disabilities excuse me in our new driver's education program for low-income students who could not otherwise afford to get a driver's license our second investment area are those programs that challenge Advanced students and enrich learning for all students that includes our Advanced learning teachers and services formerly known as gifted and talented teachers and services same great teachers same great service new name for reasons we've talked about curriculum enhancements that build on deeper learning are are are beginning with deeper learning has been teacher teams in all of our schools working to Define deeper learning the The Next Step would be integrating deeper learning into all of our subject areas and and the curriculum that guides what we teach in those areas Project Lead the Way that exposes our middle school students to early engineering skills music positions in our middle schools where many young people first discover that abilities and love of Music the staff and programs who help bring science to life out at the quy Hill Nature Center who also go to many of our schools to have inquiry based opportunities for kids to discover how the natural world works and then our great planetarium over at Mayo High School our third investment area has fewer categories in it but um actually really critical Investments for our students it includes our school counselor positions who play a critical role not only in well-being and mental health but in our post-secondary education and career strategy and then the new work we're doing on mental health screening which is discovering significant numbers of our students who are struggling with depression and anxiety and even in some cases suicidal ideation and uh enabling us to build Partnerships with Community providers who can provide treatment and support for those students and then the fourth and final investment area are those classes that prepare students for those vocational and Technical careers which we know in many ways are are jobs that not only are in Urgent demand but that for many families are that um uh generational uh step toward opportunity um for their children so that's our High School courses in autome mechanics construction trades accounting those are in our high schools our ctech program on the rctc campus that is engaging students in computer science law enforcements agriculture Pharmacy our PCH program which has two Pathways starting in n9th grade in both nursing and information technology culminating in credentials and degrees in both fields and then our new post-secondary education and career planning software and the curriculum that our counselors are writing to go with it that is rolling out this fall now you remember the chart that I showed you a moment ago that had Rochester at the bottom of the 15 largest school districts in the state in terms of local support if the 2024 referendum is approved Rochester will not Vault up to number one up there by Bloomington we would uh be number 10 out of 15 and we would be slightly below the average uh in local photo approved support for operating levies among those school districts and so we would be on a par with places that are quite similar in many ways to Rochester like South Washington County in terms of size and and demographic mix but also places that I know a lot of Rochester families visit for athletics and other events like Rosemont Apple Valley Egan or Lakeville um so we would be in that neighborhood in terms of uh local support for our schools as I mentioned we also heard from our community tell us what will happen if the referendum does not pass and so that's why this slide is really the converse of the slide that began this presentation we will be forced if it does not pass to cut 20 20 million approximately 19.4 is our current estimate for the 2025 2026 school year that would require deep Cuts in all four those investment areas that I described a moment ago but because you can't cut all of your counselors or you can't cut um all of your staff who are providing Advanced learning services for instance um there are certain requirements and mandates and of course we don't want to cut any of them we would be forced in order to close the deficit to close elementary schools increase our class sizes and reduce staff at both the school and central office levels and this board will be taking up a strategy for if the referendum does not pass um in the month ahead so we'll have more specifics to say about that um in the near future as you probably saw if you were paying attention the ignite student learning logo that was there uh disappeared and that was kind of my lowtech way of saying um I really do believe reductions of this type are the path to being a barebone school district one in which we lack those kinds of positions and supports that ignite student learning and becoming a place where we are more uh diligently uh but in a pretty um barebones way covering the required curriculum um that we need to make sure kids cover but without those additional resources and supports that exist in our district today so uh we'll be encouraging people in the community to uh learn more about this to understand that however they vote it's important that they vote um and that the referendum uh in 2023 failed by 318 votes out of 22,170 and so whether you're out there inclined to vote against this or inclined to vote for this your vote uh matters and uh we encourage you to go to the polls there's some more information that is available on our website uh and through various uh channels um that we'll be providing over the months ahead I wanted to end with this picture because it to me in a more human way encapsulates the idea that I began with which is what is a public school district for what is the nature of a district and uh that is a picture of a tradition that I had never heard of before I came to Rochester that I really have fallen in love with it's where our seniors before they graduate put on their caps and gowns and go out to their elementary schools that they attended and I asked a kid who who didn't grow up in Rochester but I still met in one of our elementary schools uh he said I just picked one because I wanted to go so you can go even if you didn't but they go back to Bamber Valley or Franklin or fwell and the reason I love it is because it really shows the developmental progression that is at the core of what we do the old older kids are walking through those Halls that they attended as young kids and seeing where they've came come from all the progress that they've made but the younger kids are looking at where they're headed where they're going to go and that to me is the unique work of a public school system you can have a great Early Childhood Program but if it doesn't lead into a strong Elementary School the momentum is going to stop and you can have a great elementary school but if it doesn't lead into a strong Middle School the kids momentum is going to stall and if you have a Elementary a middle school that doesn't lead to a strong High School their progress toward Life After High School is going to be uh greatly uh delayed or damaged or  or whatever and then if you don't have wonderful post-secondary enrollment options like we have in partnership with rctc and University of Minnesota Rochester and Winona State and others that launching pad into adulthood is not going to be as powerful as we want it to be and so that really is what I think a strong Public School System uniquely does and it's something that um we hope people will keep in mind as they consider the proposal that will be on the ballot in September so that uh Madam chair is uh not a bumper sticker but it's trying to put into one overview the critical information that we have heard and I want to thank the many people who have um heard variations of this uh overview uh both from me and in the written materials we've distributed because they have helped us refine this messaging to where this is our uh best effort to uh provide the information that we think people need to consider how to vote on this opportunity board members any questions comments things you would like the superintendent to think about in the future director Marvin just a quick comment I I ran into a woman who um was looking into the referendum and she wanted to know why Rochester has to do a referendum why don't other school districts do it you know what's wrong with us and I mean the tragedy is that virtually every school district in the state sooner or later and sometimes often have to run referendums the funding that our kids need that our families expect just isn't there from the government and it is about the only way that Public School Systems you know we don't charge tuition it's the only way we can get the money that we need so we can do the job that we need to do for our kids Byron is running a referendum uh this fall uh doota is running a referendum and there's much smaller districts but the amount that they're asking for is about percentage wise the same as Rochester is so I wish we didn't have to but it's just we have to and um we need we need the people who live here to understand how important this is for the kids who live next door to them or who live in their homes and who I think we all want to grow up and be really meaningful have meaningful lives and be great community members direct Garcia I appreciate on the referendum website that you have a pretty comprehensive FAQ um and I'm wondering if there might be a point prior to November 5th and which you would identify what closing multiple schools what eliminating certain teacher staff positions might occur because I think even though we were communicating these things last year um it didn't really hit home for people or the gravity of the situation didn't land until it was and we're going to need to close the building of you know XYZ or we're going to have to merge these two schools and put them together um might you have information to offer the community about that yeah Dr Garcia I really appreciate that we will have a study session next week where um I would love to continue that conversation what are the things that would help uh inform the community and then we'll bring you a draft resolution that you'll have the opportunity to vote on and the idea of next week's study session is to really continue exactly the conversation you've prompted here today of what are the things we need to make clear because we learned that we didn't adequately make clear last time what would happen if it didn't fail the logic of that was you didn't want to make people feel threatened um but we learned no give us the clear understanding of it we'll make a decision uh with that knowledge that's our job your job is to make sure that we know so uh I really appreciate that our study session next week will be a great time for the board to dig into that issue and then and then we'll bring you uh some options along those lines at the following board meetings thank you and I'll also just add that you can vote early so early voting starts September 20th wink Dr MCL um I want to start by giving credit to who overtook this photo that I think it's just amazing um I think it demonstrates both the success of those students the graduates um but also their joy in what they're doing um and I want to see that for the younger students as well um I do have a question though that in talking to community members oh I have one other thing a PSA property tax relief please look into it if you're concerned about the increase in your property taxes it's available and increasing um the slides about the inadequate State funding and the low local funding how do we explain to voters that that is what caused this budget deficit and not something internal like poor fiscal management um thank you drin that's a key issue I think one reason the one point we can say is we have had at least four completely clean audits in a row and those are external audits that are done by people who scrub every aspect of our books and for a $400 million in the aggregate organization to have at least since I've been here for three years so I can say for three years not a single finding on your external ERS I ran a small nonprofit for 10 years and we had findings every year the fact that we have had no findings year after year is extraordinary we manage our money well and in terms of uh the question though of resources I think the other answer uh Dr mofin is we have cut $21 million in 156 positions and so we are not uh you are not putting this on the ballot absent very systemic efforts to ensure that we are using the resources we have effectively um there are districts um as Dr Marvin said I'm not referring to the two she mentioned there are districts who go out for a referendum before they've cut anything and as part of the financial stabil stabilization strategy that this board approved in 2021 we began with reductions um before there was any referendum on the ballot and so I think that's another part of the answer to that and then the other thing too is just School Finance is hard and if people it's one reason why I'm so glad we've created a new citizens uh budget advisory committee because we're going to have some people besides John Carlson and Andy krogstad who understand this stuff um who are out in the community and can uh be joining in that voice it's a new committee as you know they got their start just this past year um but I think it's another example of this board's commitment to transparency and Community engagement in resources because the members of that committee have the keys to the kingdom they can dig into any uh aspect of our finances that they uh choose to look at and they could make any recommendation they wanted to make uh to me and more importantly to you as as the board and just to follow up to that I want to think back to that 2021 board decision that the 21 million were was part of that plan yeah and this is not a surprise to us in 20124 we knew this was coming in 2021 yep it was always a mix of reduction and hoped for new Investments um of course what happens at the state level was the big variable in that plan and um a lot has happened at the state level and so that was something that we've factored into this plan as it has gone along that we weren't fully aware of in 2021 but I think on the whole we've done that uh fairly well in terms of sticking to the plan while adjusting for changing realities that are beyond the decisions that we're making in Rochester and just I want to add to that just briefly what you're talking about there is that the state has improved funding to some degree based on legislative changes that obviously our legislative committee U supported but it wasn't enough to fill this Gap yep absolutely thank you so to build on um something director mclin mentioned about the property tax relief um uh superintendent mentioned that on our website you have the capacity to go and calculate your own uh impact on your own property taxes at the bottom of that page um Ellers has also provided links to those property relief resources available from the state so it's all there in in one place I wanted to highlight that um to what director uh Marvin said about um the you know this is really the only option we have um to get additional Revenue but it's also um one of the only ways the community has to make a collective investment when I think of a a $29 a month investment by an individual family um that $29 by just that family cannot change our school system and cannot improve even for that one student or that might live in their household that $29 is not going to have an impact but the collective investment of all the households in our community um putting their money towards the investment in our students um I think um we have seen um and can continue to make uh transformative changes um I had two students who went through Rochester Public Schools and um prior to my time on the board I was the parent sitting in the in the audience watching year after year wondering what the budget cut number was going to be for the next year because there was always a number some numbers that was very large and some numbers that could be taken care of internally away from the classroom but every year there was a nervousness what opportunities will be here what opportunities won't what teachers will be here what teachers won't and the the thing that was attractive to me to put this on the ballot was to give the community the opportunity to learn how we could give our community 10 years of not having that stress year after year after year that's a kindergartener through 10th grade so if you're a kindergartener entering next year you know what your school system is going to look like at least until 10th grade that's the kind of security and relief of stress that we can give our families that we can give our Workforce um who are hiring the students that graduate from Rochester Public Schools but it only happens if it's a unified Community investment each individual household can't do it but they could do it together so that's why I urge the community to take advantage of the resources that are on our website that give more background um that the superintendent has and take opportunities that may come up um for more presentations and and the ability to answer questions we have the ability on our website for you to submit questions if you have specific questions about any of these components of the referendum um we're doing our best to try to share that information as widely as possible so that everybody can make an informed vote anything else board members I had one more question sure that kind of thinking as you were talking there are there alternatives to this other than a levy that would be Community investment but in a different form like for example uh people who either earn more or had higher home values could pay a higher percentage than others in the community or some other mechanism to do what we want to do here um Dr M and there are not that would require ch changes in state law so the way that these levies are um calculated is tightly defined um uh even the questions on the ballot are tightly defined and controlled and so that would be an interesting discussion to have about different ways to fund K12 education in Minnesota but at present there are three types of levies there's the operating Levy which is on the ballot uh this time there was the capital projects Levy mostly for equipment and material that was on the ballot in 2023 and then there are um facilities levies to build uh facilities um those are the only three and so those are the options um and that's the kind of detail where um once again uh just to kind of reiterate the point whether uh our community chooses to vote for this or against this uh we understand it's an important decision everyone has to make it we hope you'll make an informed decision and that you will vote maybe director Workman so I've been debating about whether or not to make the observation so I'm going to make it anyway that Minneapolis public schools is forth from the top in terms of their locally uh generated revenue and that's with 48% 4% 48.4% of the students in Min in Minneapolis who are not enrolled in public schools and I think that says a lot in terms of uh the city's residents the support that they have for the public schools the recognition from uh the parents of students who are not in public schools that yes public schools are important to our communities whether or not their particular students are enrolled in them or not because parents have a lot of reasons for not having their student in a public school situation for whatever reason yet at the same time that's not exhibited through the amount that they've managed to um have for their local Levy thank you board members we will move on to item 8.1 prep for action item certification of proposed School District property tax levy payable in 2025 this will be an action item at the September 24th regular meeting superintendent pick out thank you uh as board members could see our Director of Finance Andy crockstead is coming up and he is going to walk the board um through what is an annual exercise um this uh is an action that the board is required to take and Andy will explain the mechanics of that um it's something that we do every year and an important beginning uh of really in many ways our budgeting process for the following year so Andy thank you for your presentation members of the board thank you for uh having me here this evening as as as you've stated this is just a prep for Action so there's no vote this evening uh and what we're going to be doing is just walking you through very quickly where we arrive or how we arrive at the dollar amounts that we anticipate will be asking you to approve in two weeks but also um how those dollars are used and I think a lot of that's been touched on tonight so I think you know this won't be a very long presentation because I think as I mentioned we we've touched on a lot of this uh the property tax is is is used the levy that we um impose on those properties are used to fund three very um important parts of our operation obviously general fund that would be the largest portion of the levy goes into the general fund there's also a very important uh aspect of the Community Education fund that is um that there are Levy dollars that go into that as is The Debt Service so The Debt Service fund would be for our building bonds for example dollars that we Levy would go into The Debt Service fund to make those principal interest payments as they come do uh and by Statute they have to be segregated into that that separate fund but ultimately those are what the dollars are used for I think it's really important to understand who DET you know who determines the amount of the levy and and Dr pel already mentioned the three different types of referenda that are available to you as a board to implement so I won't go through those uh he stole a little of my thunder as well like uh Dr Ruck but uh that's okay uh We've touched on it but it's it's important to understand that mde through State Statute determines what our Levy is we we do not just put together the budget and say we need 4% more property tax to to uh fund our our operation instead mde through statute tells us what that dollar amount can be and we have minor levers that we can um Can can control in that particular operation but very few um you we can as a board choose to Levy less but they will ultimately tell us the amount that the the maximum amount that can be levied and and we'll get to those numbers in just a moment but it's just really important to understand unlike some other local jurisdictions you as a board can't just randomly establish a levy value there's a lot of um statute and requirements to go in into the makeup of that and mde works uh with all of the districts in that uh this is the month in which they prepared the first Levy report it's required that they produce that report by September 8th they actually got it done a couple of days early because the eth fell on a weekend uh and so they will continue to update those Lev reports as certain um pieces of the data come in it's important to understand that when you look in your packet as well the levy report that you see which I believe is attachment uh I don't remember if it's attachment B or C but but the levy report from mde does not currently include our ltfm plan which you as a board voted on uh and approved in July that then goes to the state they review that and approve it uh it's not on the plan right now but it wasn't on the plan last year and it wasn't on the plan previously there's so many that they review it takes them a while to get through those review processes and so that will be on a run of this report before the end of the year unless they tell us otherwise we are preparing our dollar amounts based on our submission the plan that we submitted and the revenue that we were using to to uh fund that plan uh that is typical that is what they would uh typically approve for us uh but again it's just important to understand if you're looking closely at that plan uh that it's not unusual to not have that in there at this point in time as a matter of fact I was on a call with mde and masbo uh just on Monday and it was brought up by them uh by mde themselves that uh many districts information are not yet in that plan this is I I think really important to understand as well and I think we as a as as a community understand that this property tax is is really spread across all of uh the property value within this within the district um and and that we as a district obviously viously don't establish what those property values are those those values are are established by the assessors in both Olstead County and wersow County which um our district serves and so uh again those values appear on our MD Levy report based on the Assessor's submission and those are the values in which the uh property tax excuse me the uh levies are assessed so here's what we're looking at for um this next year um as you can see actual pay2 for that's what this board voted on in December to Levy so those dollars are being collected this year and will be a part of our fy2 budget or part of our fy2 budget proposed pay 25 that is what we are proposing uh for our next uh our next next year's collection that would be uh approved if if so chose if you so choose to approve this value that would be done in December the final amount would be uh done would be set in December what we're asking you or will be asking you to approve next or in two weeks would be the maximum Levy that is allowed by mde and that is the 3.6% increase or 2.8 million the mde in the state requires us to establish either a dollar amount of the levy or maximum meaning you as a board can can State we will Levy the maximum you have to establish that now in that you have to either set the maximum or you set the dollar amount today I should say in two weeks and that dollar amount cannot go up but it can go down so in other words if you set the maximum if you tell us yes we're going to go ahead and set the levy at the maximum amount that mde permits that would now be 79.1 million if in the course of creating the budget and going through more of the that work through the fall it's determined we really only need to Levy $79 million to to to balance the budget that is possible if it's determined we need $ 79.2 million that is not possible so it's very important to understand that if you allow us the opportunity to Levy the maximum or or submit that to the state or approve the maximum I should really say um that doesn't mean it's what it ends up being it just simply means that's the dollar amount that we would that would be the maximum that we would have the opportunity just so the word maximum said um I I talked a little bit in the circle there uh as this is only my second time going through this presentation with you I did the December presentation but ultimately um what we would be looking for uh from the board is establishing the maximum amount and then we would come back to you in December as I stated and ask for a final approval whether that be maximum or some other value but it could not exceed 79.1 million one thing I did want to point out as well um last year our increase for pay 24 which is being collected this year was 3.8% so year overy year there's a slight decrease in what that maximum Levy amount is and again that is prepared by mde and established by them uh but it's important to understand that there's not a significant increase there's no increase there actually a decrease in terms of our Levy um uh on our property owners uh in next year should we uh in in the end Levy $ 79.1 million finally I just want to point out this is a slide I actually pulled from the budget discussion that we had in the summer uh and and this is what the amount is this year so I obviously we we haven't finalized all the revenues and won't for a little while for next year for FY 26 but for fy2 the levy is about 20% of our overall Revenue so it's important to recognize it is a a uh major component of our of our funding stream uh but it is not the largest obviously we know direct state aid is is the largest but it is fairly significant so I just wanted to remind everyone of where uh this these dollars fit in and obviously they'll have a larger impact in the future once the $10 we will not obviously have the $10 million mail Clinic donation next year to assume a portion of this so they become even more important finally just looking at the Timeline a little bit um as I mentioned uh September 6th September 10th today I could have probably removed those things it seems a little redundant now that I look at it but ultimately in two weeks we'll bring it back to you for approval uh what we're projecting at this particular time is that we will be asking for you to approve the maximum uh based on the numbers that we've uh that we've shown those numbers could change before the meeting in two weeks um those numbers would only change if there's a change from MD's perspective we've reviewed the report the numbers appear to be correct from our perspective but if mde were to make a change you would have an opportunity then to still make a make a determination of whether you want to establish the maximum Levy or if you want to set a levy amount lower than that so this isn't it this isn't the final uh final conversation we'll have uh then obviously um once that's approved we have to submit that information no later than September 30th to uh both to our to both counties and to mde and then finally I mean I mentioned we'll be back on December 17th for the truth and Taxation public hearing and then approval of the final Levy whatever that ends up being so um hopefully that provides enough information I'm happy to ask questions but we'll reevaluate we'll look at this again in two weeks director cook uh so I had a a couple questions just on the ltfm yes is are the numbers in the the slide deck reflective of what the district expects that lfm Revenue to be so we've added those dollars in based on the plan that was approved by the board which we also we fully anticipate mde will approve they just have not formally done that yet and so we've take we've added those numbers into what that report States today so that you have an accurate number knowing uh what that maximum will look like again that number may be refined slightly before we come back in two weeks but it's it's going to be very very close Okay and then uh the other thing is I wondered for a while for the parts of the levy that are based on a multiplication by the number of pupil units in the district the different the both voter approved and otherwise that are per pupil um the certified um Levy Authority that that we would be taking action on in a couple of weeks is based on the estimated number of pupils in 2526 but what happens to the extent there's a discrepancy on that in the future like in in what way is that accounted for sometime great question there are adjustments for up to three years in the levy for just those factors so enrollment goes up we would receive more Levy in a in a subsequent year or less if the enrollment goes down so there's a true up process that takes place over the course of three years okay and so it would get applied to a subsequent Levy that correct as part of that true up process so within the $ 79.1 million that we've proposed or that's that's in the uh report right now that includes multiple increases and decreases adjustments based on prior Year's levies and they will do that for up to three years but the third year is locked and that would be the final then okay thank you um just a minor question and I apologize if we asked this in July on your uh pie chart the slide before this one um what is included in the other local that's going to be uh for example um let's see here rck my brain uh third party billing would go into there I think I did ask this last time yes uh it's going to be fees and service fees for athletic events it's going to be um interest earnings I I mean I again off the top of my head it's a lot of money but I I wasn't prepared to answer that question uh but yes it's do you have more detail John it's also the contributions for health and dental trust the money going that's true so that's the transfer from the general fund into the other fund so it's counted as Revenue in the other fund got it thank you Dr Garcia I had one and I meant actually to ask it in the previous item but maybe it's also appropriate here so in in what way do things like the senior citizen like property tax deferral play into these things so do we already assume like if if we can only ask for a certain amount are we assuming that maybe every person that would be eligible for the senior citizen property tax referral would apply to that and that's the number or might we be asking for a certain amount and if a number of people choose to defer we would just be out that money the the Lev is established on the property values and so those property values are are there regardless of whether someone's deferral or not so therefore the deferral would come after the fact okay so they're so like this in the the ERS link that they have so that you can look at what you would be spending for the referendum specifically but I imagine it would be the same for this it says that if you are 65 or older and have a household income of 96,000 or less you could be eligible to defer a certain portion of the property taxes on your home so if we had like 50% of people in our area that would M be eligible for this then we would just be out that much money does that Mak sense I'm not sure exactly on the on how that process works but I will tell you that to date our tax collections are generally very very high like our for example we're in the 98 999 percentile in terms of what we Levy in ter and ands but maybe John sure I'll just give a quick commentary on that it would either be coming in as a state aid replacement payment for it either deferred or in the same year or it could be a credit back to the homeowner where they actually get a check or a direct deposit from the state of Minnesota pay them back okay because there was like a separate piece where it was like a special tax refund also but those two things didn't necessarily yeah the homeowner I helped my mother-in-law with this so she pays the full amount and we fill out the form and the direct deposit comes back to her personally so the the people have to pay the tax upfront themselves on a couple of those and they get money back from the state another category would be the state would actually pay us some of the state aid in replacement of property tax not collected okay so the district still gets what we are asking for on either The Ballot or The this Levy there there is small chance that somebody would not pay their taxes and then that would go through a process of you know foreclosing on their home down the road was Andy stated we do collect 99% of our levies generally over time which is a very strong collection rate okay thank you so um when I look at the um impacts on an individual we we provided that information with the referend um as I understand it at the truth and Taxation hearing after we approve the maximum and and you've put together all the materials um that is where uh taxpayers will be able to see the impact because the Olstead County will have already sent out the property tax notices that is correct those property tax notices go out between November 20th I think November 20th in the beginning of December is the timeline where they would send those out based on your determination on September 24th it will be that value that is part of th those notices so when we talk like we talked in the referendum about a $29 per month in Impact we we can't say right now what the impact would be in terms of a certain amount per month but we can say that if you look at this percentage increase of 3.6% that does not mean that everyone's taxes are going up for the district by 3.6 % as a matter of fact what I heard you say is that the amount we're levying this year is less than the amount that we're levying last year the amount isn't less just the increase year-over-year is less percentage increase year-over-year right and and to your point yes people may not most of people aren't going to recognize a 3.6% increase because the value of a properties as a whole has increased so there's more value to spread it across so that's just the aggregate number of the increased amount to the district but Property Owners May well it depends on their property value of course which we don't we don't set but assuming no increase in property value they would not have an increase in in their taxes because uh uh other property owners would assume a greater share anything else board members all right see you in a few weeks thank you Andy thank you thanks and thanks John thanks John not surprised you're a good son-in-law to help get the money back item 9.1 and other business is board questions and responses there were no questions submitted by board members before the meeting the current version of the ABCD is available in item 9.2 are there any agenda board agenda items board members would like to add for consideration to a future agenda hearing none our upcoming board meeting dates are September 17th at 5:30 a study session September 24th at 5:30 a regular meeting October 8th at 5:30 a regular meeting and October 15th at 5:30 a study session and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 7:14 p.m.