##VIDEO ID:lbu_2VcR5Ng## e e try to make feel must have something I wouldn't turn okay it is 6:31 and I will call the November regular meeting of the Sall St Steven School Board to order thank you to our community members that are attending our person in person as well as online we appreciate your interest and engagement in our school district the expectation of our community is that all participants and attendees will conduct themselves professionally and we respect for the members of our community the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all by Jen second by Emily any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I all those in opposed say n motion passes unanimously uh we do not have any um any visitors for our public forum tonight so we going to keep moving to our consent agenda motion by Jason second by Matt any discussion I'd just like to point out again another month mentions it's just amazing how how much the communitys schools anything else none all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed say nay motion passes then we will move on to our reports and our first report is our saor star report and we have yes school board members and uh superintendent RAR uh it's absolutely uh an honor and a privilege to rep or to present to you tonight the uh saber staff star of Miss Nikki Pius an instructional coach at Riverview intermediate and this is what her colleagues had to say about her Nikki has G has gone above and beyond as our instructional coach she has familiarized herself with each grade level's curriculum help staff analyze assessments and taught lessons so staff could go observe other teachers teach in that curriculum uh she's also LED our building through our inservice days which you know letters is a has been a big part of that and she's taken that on uh her hard work insight and Leadership has not g unnoticed and her staff or her colleagues appreciate that for her Nikki she can bounce back from challenges and make people feel respected and her she's always available for questions big or small um and we have the utmost respect for Nikki and her impact she's had at Riverview so just want to present Nikki as our November staff Saar thank [Applause] then I will to our school good evening unfortunately Bennett could not be here tonight because he has a Cross Country Banquet so I guess you guys are stuck with me but I'll give it my best go um over at o ELC November has been filled with exciting learning and community events the students had been exploring the importance of friendship through engaging activities they also had a blast improving their motor motor skills with a fun off scho course designed to challenge and Inspire oakd also hosted a special veterans lunch where our Young Learners had the opportunity to thank and learn from those who serve to wrap up the month everyone came together for a fall festival celebr celebrating this season with crafts games and plenty of autumn themed fun Pine Meadow students celebrated kindness week by designing kindness rocks with their buddy classrooms spreading positive messages that will be placed in the school kindness Garden this spring first grade students explored folktales from around the world and their different lands similar similar stories unit focusing on retelling stories with key details meanwhile second grade students completed the ice pop um challenge in science learning about insulators conductors and teamwork as they designed ways to keep an ice pop cold without a cooler Riverview student Riverview students participated in a successful Socktober sock Drive collecting over 2,000 pairs of socks for local organizations like 180° Youth Shelter Pathways for Youth and place of hope to celebrate students and staff enjoyed a lot a lively sock hop in the gym with Dan music and dancing fourth graders had the unique opportunity to virtually meet major Michael Carr who shared insights about the military and the importance of V of Veterans Day meanwhile fifth graders visited the Minnesota History Center and kicked off the archery unit in fied staff members also continued their professional development with letters training and new curriculum ckla and ufli November has been a busy and fun month at sartel Middle School SMS students have wrapped up quarter 1 and everyone should feel feel very proud of their accomplishments Veterans Day was honored with a lunch and two assemblies and seventh graders enjoyed field trips to the state capital and EM History Museum thanks to a generous Anonymous donor students can look forward to Turkey Bingo on November 27th with prizes up for grabs the winter activity season is underway with girls basketball knowledge B wrestling in Nordic ski and the sixth grade spring play has been announced The Hobbit also make sure you don't miss the seventh and eighth grade Musical Shrek Jr on November 21st 22nd and 23rd it's sure to be a great show at shs it has been kind of a relaxed month with winter sports gearing up and the student council is busy putting on their annual Thanksgiving and a box Food donation is there any questions I can answer for you guys going yeah a lot do you repeat the times for this weekend um I don't have any times but it's just the 21st 22nd and 23rd and you did it with Bennett I did do it without benett well similar to our benett here um I don't have as much because you guys do tend to cover it all I appreciate that both reach out to me so I know what they are covering and we tend not to miss very much between between us three so a few things that I will highlight uh the Central Lakes governing uh board met earlier this week or excuse me middle of last week where we did talk about fall participation and activities in athletics uh we spent some time uh getting ready for this coming winter season um that is attended by both the superintendant the athletic directors and that lead principles for all of the participants in the central laks conference it was a good meeting and we are prepared for our winter season related to that uh if uh the if our community hasn't seen we did do a podcast that was released last week with h Bruce Thompson and Jen Travers where we did celebrate all the things that happened over The Fall season um and previewed winter sports specific here for sartel St Steven uh the episode is now available on the district's website um it is fun to do those podcast and to see the energy of those two individuals um as we get ready for winter um is contagious last thing I do want to highlight is we do have um this opportunity coming up with the central Minnesota manufacturing association uh is going to be here hosting their Jan B on November 21st uh this is pretty exciting the opportunity was going to be down at the River Center and the participation wasn't as high as what cmma had hoped for and as they thought about all the schools that offer CTE opportunities because of the robustness of what we do for CTE they ask if we'd be willing to host so on November 21st we will have a lots of different schools and lots of different um leaders of manufacturing joining us over in the CTA area of sartel high school um it is an honor um and I'm appreciative of the work that we've had with cnma um especially for me during these last four months learning more about their organization and finding every opportunity we can to partner with them um this is one those opportunities that's the superintendent report for this evening the district Finance report right good evening I will keep the finance report brief tonight we've got an audit uh presentation coming up in a few minutes from Nancy schenberg from B and kdb um so the budget to actual report for um October is posted in the agenda we're tracking about where we would expect to be um and funds pretty similar to where we were last year again the capital fund is a little bit ahead because we did our technology refresh um in July um so we spent a lot of our a lot of our capital budget uh this summer um operationally we are um working on um in food service we have a couple um longtime employees that'll be retiring in the upcoming months so we're replacing working on um training and replacing those staff um here in the next month or two a couple key positions and and long-term employees so Shelby and her team are working through that um otherwise we are pretty much just kind of plugging along um as I said the audit will be presented tonight um truth and Taxation a lot of you may have received your um public notice on property taxes from the county today that was in my mailbox um and so uh we will have the truth and Taxation uh public hearing at the December board meeting be able to answer any public questions we have at that point but otherwise we hear questions from people as they get those and have questions about the school district portion of the taxes feel free to have them give me a call or an email I can help them walk through that up and then we'll work on our school board Comm rep um yeah not really much to share but we did have a facilities meeting um a couple of properties we've been looking at are either now off the market or no longer available so they are look in partnership with inventure um at other properties out there there was one presented to us that isn't not allowed to make it public with the ongoing negotiations but they're going to send out a letter of interest just to get the process going again and our next regular board meeting is this week I don't think there's a whole lot on the agenda other than normal business career and Tech I will cover General if I miss anything so we had a meeting on the 30th um we talked they started off by talking about the success that they found with trade Signing Day last spring um just saying that you know the numbers were a little bit lower than they had hoped but it was also the first time that ever done it so the hope is that it will just continue to get um more interest and more involvement from our student body but at the same time even if it's just for one student is worth every scent or every ounce of work that our teachers put into it because they just think it's so great to recognize those students um think maybe oh sorry it's similar to when students sign for sports so those who aren't quite sure what that would look like if when it's pretty much the same kind of presentation so sorry no that's um then they talked about um ID for college credits um which is intro to engineering and design so I did not know this that was something I had learned and I believe both of my children have actually done IED but for a fee which I believe was $100 you could actually get college credit for that class which is pretty cool that is something that we are offering um and then they share the the stool that they do in metals class um I wish I had pictures to show you guys it's really cool what our students are doing um they talked about the field trips that they do so they go to wils Anderson is where they were going the following we after we met so already went and then they typically will go to dessert for interet engineering design class um they talked about the success of the saber jbirds trades trailer so it's an opportunity for kids to hands experience with plumbing so our students were able to replum a toilet Plum a sink um it starts the conversation with our students about if they want to be a journeyman or get a license as a master and what that kind of looks like if they want to go Union or they want to go non-union so just a really great opportunity for our students to kind of get hands- On Experience of knowing what that might look like but also just the conversation that surrounds it um they also shared some awesome pictures of some fire pits they did in metals 2 um the biggest downfall was that some of the students weren't necessarily taking their lovely fire pits home um which I don't but I can also say that my son made a beautiful poppy for Veterans Day and it wasn't until his teacher actually emailed me and said did you want this and I was like yes please student so um hopefully and and just obviously you can't sound a fire pit or probably the poppy if you saw it was large like home on the bus so some of our students may have that um then they talk about saberon we're currently doing Bild build 4 um it is slightly delayed because there wasn't anywhere to go with they build three um and there was some delays that um now they're slightly behind with build four but build four is actually going to be going and staying in C which was very exciting they know that that has been um just something we really wanted to see our students keep it here um So currently they had a crew of 19 um and something else that I didn't know was a tradition is that when they get done with the floor they called it the Dance Floor the SEL um st stepen Dance Team actually comes and does a test and so there was a video they shared of them dancing to coton Nill which that was just really awesome um yeah so I think otherwise they're still looking for lots for sa con 5 in SEL hopefully so that'll be next year's build so if anybody in the community has an idea or wants to share that with you that was all Happ yeah the delay wasn't on R end either it was not within our ability to move permits so that's kind the delay was but care all that we didn't have anything with Communications and Technology since last meeting and we did have a committee education advisory commit okay so we talked about our winter catalog um classes for that catalog are due December 1st for print um it'll be a 24 to 32 page document which we will still continue to to share with um the school district um so major Kudos given by um J Traer for Angie Heckman and Sarah puy but genuinely Angie Heckman with all of the skill sets that she brings to making all of these catalogs come to life as you've seen them they beauti um otherwise they're trying to get those to um the community by December 26th between December 26th and December 30th when everyone's kind of home enjoying their holiday vacation um so that's the goal we'll see hopefully it'll make it um otherwise they're trying to get more teachers for adult classes um robotics a a coach for robotics I think they have somebody temporarily maybe but um looking to really that going again in third grade and then continuing it into middle school so right now our robotics program um in fourth through sixth grade is inhouse um and we have a current high school student who is helping with that and then a teacher from middle school um and then seventh through eth grade is going to be changing a little bit that'll be with the high school as a junior high or JV team um which will be a good collaboration for them and then 9th through 12 will stay at the high school level um um sorry we had they had some really great there'll also be swimming lessons in April and May um there was anything more that no just back to the robotics I think the teacher need is 30 right I a teacher and then like kind of an assistant as well so both gos well the conversation was a lot of well could we do something with students and then it's well we need to have a St M or an adult that can be accountable for young what happens if one whatever that is like our high schoolers are amazing but maybe that's a little bit more tricky um they also T he also talked about archery archery Bob is amazing and if Jen could have more archery Bobs in her life he's just very on top of everything and archery program is really well um boys volleyball is is going to have a camp for interest to see what the commitment level would be um currently looking at potentially partnering with S I believe um girls rugby is also been flowing around with maybe a collab um they have some great staff from the high school that are willing to lead that it's just whether or not we can get those students um interested there's also some interest in Flight football for girls and a curling club possibly so yeah uh they're also going to be doing a Color Guard C up with sack Rapids to increase skill sets for both of our communities which is great um looking to potentially have a Sarto middle school middle school family night um helping with the math night at Riverview and then a always something to put on your calendar especially for our student counil the high school is April 12th will be FunFest um which is always a great activity and they are still going to be hosting it but trying to invite some more Community to support and make the event even stronger sorry that was a lot um finance and Personnel um we had that meeting on the 14th uh a lot of the finance part was going through the audit which we'll get in a little bit here and then Personnel um the big thing I guess the big takeaway that I had was open enrollment for insur um the increases that are with that are applied to everybody it's not just to certain groups so um and that's kind of it for that Staffing we're we're good to go soor safe that was last one okay negotiations uh we had one parent negotiation session since our last meeting uh next one's come up this Wednesday and we have a close meeting as part of our agenda tonight to discuss negotiation strategy making progress then operations okay policy we have not and Senior connection senior connection um Mike remind me I think at the next senior connection meeting which is the board meeting December 2nd Monday are we doing our presentation about the referendum yes we'll be presenting on the referendum uh question one and two okay so if anybody wants to attend that I know you have lots of other visits planned with other groups around town but specifically for senior connection their discussion about the referendum is December 2nd in the morning is that 9 or 9:30 that that well the meeting is at 9:30 I don't know no but we're starting at 9:00 for y okay so 9:00 a.m December 2 um Community Center yep and then uh a couple other events for senior connection I would highlight this is the time of year they're trying to gain membership so they do uh events aimed at getting members to sign up um first of those is December 6 uh noon to 2m it's their holiday event um it's a lunch so that's also at the community center and then January 29th which is a Wednesday um that's just to save the date they're going to probably have some sort of a speaker but that is the official uh senior connection membership night I'm guessing that would be an evening event but don't know that we don't know what time that's all I have for that one okay and then we will move on to the district so I'll get uh nany's presentation up on the screen here but a lot of the graphs that she's going to be showing are also in the communications letter that is linked on the agenda as well there we go all right well good evening everyone thank you for giving me some time to go over the results of our audit with you so I'm going to start out by talking about all the communications that we issue as part of the Audits and the most important is going to be the independent Auditors report and if you want to read that in its entirety it's in the front of the financial St statement document and is three pages long but just in summary uh that letter houses our opinion and what we're issuing is an unmodified opinion which is the best that we as Auditors can offer it is an indication that based on the results of our audit the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects so another term would be a clean opinion on that um talks about a lot about responsibilities and other various levels of assurances that we provide on information in that document that is not the basic financial statements but again not going to go over that in great detail and then we have some other Communications that are housed in the back of the financial statement document and the first one is a report in accordance with government auditing standards these standards are required to be followed by Auditors for all school districts in the state of Minnesota and it requires us to look closer at internal control and also compliance with laws regulations contracts grants other matters and based on that we did have one finding an internal control finding for the lack of segregation of accounting duties not new for the starel St Steven School District not at all in common for districts of your size really just due to the limited number of people that are involved in day-to-day uh we did not have any slience findings related to those standards and then because you do receive more than 750,000 in federal funding we're required to perform what is called a single audit so we have a report in accordance with uniform guidance which are the federal requirements we tested the Child Nutrition program for fiscal year end of June 30th 2024 and based on that we're issuing an unmodified opinion on compliance and also we noted no internal control findings related to that compliance so it's a little different look at internal control than it is when we look at overall financial statement presentation and then our last official letter is our report on Minnesota legal compliance so this comes to us right from the office of the state auditor they give us a checklist and it highlights statute areas that are in relation to accounting matters for the district and based on our completion of that checklist we did not knowe any non-compliance there as well so just the one written finding overall for the for the entire audit and then we have a separate document that's the communication letter that's where all the charts and graphs are in the front of that document there are several Pages titled required communication so these are things our standards um dictate that we need to communicate to you as the governing board for the district and it would be our tool if we had anything significant that we uncovered if we had any difficulties disagreements those types of things would be all housed there happy to report that nothing Strays from our standard language in that area then we have the financial analysis again those charts and graphs and then in the back um there's some reading information a legislative update not a lot new there because we're in the second year of vium um but some some light reading again like I said and then in the very back is the emerging issues so that's gby uh so the government Accounting Standards Board is busy as always so there are some new standards that will be implemented in the next several years all right moving then to financial information starting with the general education Aid formula allowance so general education Aid is your largest funding source and so taking a look at where that number has been and where it's from projected to go for 2025 is important in understanding overall changes for the year so if you look at 2024 you did see an unusually high 4% not that 4% is you know a great number but it is better than what you've seen in a lot of years back down to 2% for fiscal 25 and student counts derive um that calculation for general education Aid so we have several charts and graphs to take a look at those numbers starting with your residents so these are the students that live within ssel St Steven bound that attend public schools um that number did decrease for 2024 down about 54 relatively stable when you look at the five years though a change of 36 students since 2020 which is 8% so again relatively stable overall we take those residents wait them by grade level and then facture in open enrollment which has a minimal impact for starts House St Stephen because you have very limited open enrollment um some restrictions on that so the biggest driver in this chart is again going to be your residents so overall down about 80 most of that coming from the decrease in the Resident population and then the next graph just shows um as a percentage changes year-over-year and you can see that you had been experiencing increases in 20 and 21 and then some small decreases for each of the last three years but again very stable um when you look at the the largest bar being 1.8% all right then moving to um some actual dollar amounts starting with the general fund sources of revenue overall increasing Trend in your revenues for each of the Last 5 Years for fiscal 24 up about 8.2% or 4.2 million the blue middle portion of the bar is your state sources so for your District that made up 83.4% of the total so that Reliance on the state is significant um for your District down on the bottom there in the green the light green that's your local property taxes made up about 10% um did increase about 383,000 with the levy this year and then on the top is going to be your other sources which includes Federal down to 6.1% and what you see there in the decrease is those Federal Co funds so larger amounts in 21 22 and 23 and then falling back for 24 when we look at the change in that middle section that large portion of the state sources few things going on there big impact from the 4% versus % in the general education Aid formula allowance and then also an increase in the cross subsidy for special education so that was an increase in revenues overall for this year as well next slide takes a look at your expenditures two pie charts um so overall expenditures were up about 4% um most of that came in the instructional category so you see that going from 607 to 68% of the total and that is up related to additional personnel and then just wage increase inrees um with the contracts that you settled last time around um capital outlay is going to be the other area that you see a bit of a change going from 5% to 3% and the biggest driver in that change is the arena lease that was recorded last year so an unusually high year in 2023 uh remaining amounts really similar when you look at percentage change year-over-year then we have the budget to actual chart so originally on the far left there you had approved a budget that would increase your fund balance by about 14,000 that budget was modified um increasing the revenues by a small amount and increasing the expenditures that were anticipated so looking at deficit spending of about 1.8 you were able to outperform that budget and fund balance decreased by about 214,000 when you look at the variance column on the far right and follow that up to your total revenues uh revenues were about $1.3 million over budget it's about two and a half percent so when you're looking at you know 53 54 million in a budget it's not a significant variance and most of that came in the state sources with conservative budgeting in that area so making sure that you're not over anticipating money that would be coming in and then when you look at the expenditures side of things you're done can I stop Trigg finger there those are all spot on that 40,000 is a 0.1% variance so really spending what you had into anticipated to spend um from an overall perspective and even when you look at the categories there isn't anything that jumps out as as very significant um over or under and we have some charts that show um some comparative information so looking at revenues per ADM served um and then expenditures per ADM served comparing SEL St stepen to similar size districts and then also overall State averages so on the far left that's your District in the middle is similar size um districts and then on the far right of the state averages so you can see if you look back 23 and prior you are consistently below um for the revenues that come into the district and you did see the increase in 2024 with the increase in your revenues and the drop in your student population we start with revenues because you aren't going to spend what you don't receive so um very similar chart when you look at where your district is compared to others um similar size districts a little bit higher than the state average um um from this chart so a little bit different look there but sartel being very close uh revenues expenditure wise and increasing along with the expenditure increase and drop in students there as well uh this slide takes a look at the general fund really high level um snapshot for the last five years and where you've been and and where you have were for 2024 so we talked about the increase in revenues and expenditures and that overall decrease in your fund balance um the the categories are segregated there by the nonspendable which are items that have already been purchased and will be used in future years restricted all of the state mandated reserves so um long-term facility maintenance operating Capital medical assistance all of those pieces are included there then you have some assigned amounts that are internally set aside for specific purposes leaving you 7.8 million in your unassigned category that number did increase um for 2024 and represents about 14 2% or one and a half months based on your current spending levels so you have a policy that outlines um a minimum of 10% of the next year's budget so at the end of the year you're at 13.2 so in compliance with that policy that you have set for yourselves and then one other look at this um the state uh Department uses unrestricted fund balance as a percentage of unrestricted expenditures and gives us the ability to compare so when we look at that number um sartel was at 19. 7% and 19.8% last year and last year State average was 21.9 so pretty close but just a little bit under the state average when you look at those pieces of fund balance moving on then to your special Revenue funds um starting with food service so this fund has kind of been all over the board the last number of years with all of the changes in programming here and where the reimbursements are coming from um so if you look at 21 and 22 those reimbursements were coming from the federal government uh 21 was the summer food service program extending into the year and then 22 was all free meals um at a higher rate of reimbursement as well so positive increases in fund bouns 2023 brought a more typical year with students paying for meals again and then in 2024 the state stepped in and reimbursed for all students free meals for all students so revenues were up about 28 a. half% um expenditures were up but at a smaller amount about 15.6% you did have increased cost of food we all see inflation happening and then also increased participation so more meals served as well so a very healthy fund balance in that fund at the end of the year and then we have the community service fund so this fund had increased programming so you'll see a jump in um both the revenues and the expenditures the expenditure increase did outpace the revenue increase so overall um decrease in fund bounce about 87,000 but when you look at the categories which are segregated on the bottom as mandated by the state all of those U restrictions are positive so um still a healthy balance at the end of the year and I think that's everything I'd happy to take questions or dig into the details more if you'd like so our unassigned fund balance is 13.2% you said how does that compar last um this would be slightly less because our expenditures went up and a slightly higher rate that our fund balance did our fund balance went up by about 600,000 that's we were anticipating a spend down in that one by about $400,000 overall um so coming up 600,000 was uh a good million dollar swing in the other direction um some of the other fund balances did go down we had operating Capital we spent down a little bit we started our Tech refresh a little bit in the spring with uh getting our all of our teachers new devices so they could uh we could uh they could have those uh before summer essentially and then we could take their and resell them over the summer to a third party um so we did that and we also had uh spend down how we recognized um we had a restricted fund balance for or some assigned fund balances um for separation benefits and when our XO report came in showing less of a liability for some of those longterm benefits we also reduced the assigned fund balance there so um overall you know um built up the fund balance and expected to spend it down a little bit so that was a positive and just with the overall budget going up by you know um down overall in the general fund but 1.6 million positive compared to where we where we our final budget was was um wasn't surprise State AIDS we had kept as I look from one budget to the next we had kept um a we actually budget them a little lower when we when we revised our budget in the spring you don't always know how much um people student wise you're going to retain throughout the year in terms of just you know some some of your beginning numbers um as far as head count you lose it's hard to tell whether you're going to there's going to be a net loss or a net gain throughout the year just kind of depends on what our total look like so we held firm in our enrollment so that um that was good and then we also um had more special Aid than anticipated because of the new uh subsidy Aid that that was legislative this year the other thing that was a little higher on the other sources was interest income it was just a good year to be able to um to have some money invested so there's a couple different local government investment pools that we work with in the state that only have authorized investment types um for for Minnesota districts because are really um restricted on what we can invest in and you know the average rate of return on those was like five and a half% for most of the year which is quite a bit higher than we've seen in a in a long time so um the 4% statea increase that was a legislative change and we go back down to 2% for uh for 20 yes the current year we're in now is was a 2% increase it was okay okay so I speaking of money coming from the state I thought one of the interesting things you mentioned at our um committee meeting was that when you look at that bar that shows you the difference between what we get from local property taxpayers and what we get from St sources includ that one right here oh yeah okay so I think what you and correct me if I'm wrong what you explained to us is that even though the number from 23 to 24 went up quite a bit in that middle blue part of State sources not every category of State sources went up I think our equal Equalization aid from the state went down right and a lot of that we see in The Debt Service fund too which wouldn't be reflected here necessarily but some of those things as they relate to you know like operating capital is in the general fund and our referendum re Vue uh we used to get close to 40% state aid um for our refere referendum revenue and that was approved five years ago and for um for this year's Revenue so the the tax levy that's being paid in uh in 2024 it's down to zero it only took five years because those Equalization levels didn't change and our Our Praise values shot up a couple of those years um you know that the state aid portion of those disappeared and more of that has picked up on the property taxes so that's really the increase for the the reason for the increases in the property taxes over those years because we haven't changed much yeah right and I I think that's a good visualization of what the saff group that we're part of is trying to do is trying to get those State AIDS bigger so that those property taxes can go down yeah those are up about 2.2 million in the last five years and really is we have nothing new approved no real new funding sources in in our local property taxes as it relates to generales increased y yep relative am last control correct any other questions thank you before I go I want to thank Joe and his team for being prepared for us makes the audit go much more smoothly than than it could only can Echo that it's what Joe does with his team is tremendous and it's always nice to hear these accolades every here from outside sources come in and congratulate so you got a name I can't give a letter grade but he's proficient fail yeah pass fail pass I can't say that than you thank you our first action item then is our comprehensive achievement and Report how do I Ki myself there we go stay up here with me now when you take over it'll my will disappear oh the screen near anybody I did okay it's frozen where I am now there go thank you here we [Music] are all right thank you all for having me I promise I'm going to make this quick because what I've determined is you all have heard this before so instead of going through the entire report I thought I would make this go a little faster and just address what's new what has changed does that sound like a good idea all right so to start it off um what might be noticeably different is the name uh so again yeah so uh what once was world's best Workforce is now going to be referred to comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness so that just rolls right off the tongue right uh we are going to refer to it as caser uh so we are using the acronym of cacr or caser uh uh so that is the State's new language um they feel that this uh language better um addresses what it is that we're trying to achieve here so we're really looking at student achievement and Readiness for uh the world outside of the school walls so um I guess that does encompass more than world's best Workforce right uh so what's new in the plan so this um you were hopefully also given the official plan um so that's what's up for approval this evening uh so what is different in the plan you'll notice that the old goal of read well by third grade that goal that was we had five goals in the plan there are still five goals uh but the read well by third grade goal is no longer part of this strategic plan plan so that has been removed and it's now part of our literacy plan so what comes do in the spring for our literacy plan um you'll see that goal written in there and it's no longer just read well by third grade it's read on grade level at every grade level which has makes sense right we want our kids reading on grade level at every year um there's also so instead of that goal being in there um that's been removed and now we've added in uh preparedness for lifelong learning uh this school came in very late so districts have really kind of scrambled to determine a what this goal really means because it came with no guidance uh as to what what do we really mean by preparedness for lifelong learning so um we're we've been asking districts we've all been kind of working together to determine what does that goal really mean and what should it look like uh so this year we're all kind of just making it up uh uh what what could this POS yeah what what do we think this could mean and then hopefully as um we go through the year uh we'll have time to really reflect on this and think about what could be a meaningful goal we even as we've um spent some time from our our um curriculum or our caser advisory uh we've spent some time thinking about better ways that we could write this goal for next year uh so you're going to see in in a minute here what our goal is for for this year and we even have some better ideas um for next year and again working with other districts too they've been reflecting and thinking about better ways that they could write their goals so you know that's that's what happens um we're going to submit this in a new data system uh that's different for us this year we've removed our site goals from the plan because that's not a requirement um it's really just the world's well caser uh goals that are requirement to be put into this plan um so you won't see our specific Cy go as part of this report and then um smart goal format for all of our goals we we've always written them in smart goal format but one of the parts of a smart goal the a in the smart goal format is to write attainable goals and we have not been very good at that we tend to re write very high achieving goals um that are very far and lofty and Out Of Reach for us so you'll see year after year we don't reach our goals and it's our own fault we get to write these goals for ourselves and we write goals that we can't reach for ourselves so it's kind of we're kicking ourselves so to speak so um this year we decided no we're going to actually write goals that we could possibly attain now that's not a guarantee um it it you know will require is still a lot of effort but it's more likely that we we're going we're not talking about a 20% uh Gap in some of our goals like we have written before which are just very likely to attain um we're writing more reasonable or attainable goals and then we did take this to our advisory committee back in October and they reviewed it and offered some really good feedback for us so um you'll see that we've taken their some of their advice and some of this all right so these are the goal areas all students are ready for school again this is what the state gives us so these are the required areas that we have to write goals for all students are ready for school all racial and economic achievement gaps among student groups will be closed all students are ready for career in college all students graduate from high school and we prepare this is the new one one we prepare all students to be lifelong Learners so uh I'm going to share with you then the goals that we've written in those required areas so for all students ready for school this one was fun we wrote this in the um summer and we already have data back on it and I'm happy to report with an attainable goal that we actually wrote We met the goal uh in Fall of 24 65% or higher of our kindergarten students will earn a composite score at or above the 40th percentile on their fall fast Bridge ear early reading assessments and in Fall of 24 80% or higher of kindergarten students will earn a composite score at or above the 40th percentile on their fall fast Bridge early math assessments and for both of those we met the goal just squeak by on the top one we got 66% and 86.1 on the bottom one so in both areas go met all right for the next category it was all racial and economic achievement gaps between students will be closed so for these we will not have um data until August uh so students will take the MCAS um late spring and then that data will be embargoed until the end of August so we'll be able to report on it um next fall so these are the two goals that we've written so for the top one for the economic achievement Gap um we're hoping to reduce the Gap um by 2% so from 23 3% to 21.3% and the bottom one and this is for reading uh the bottom one we're hope is for the racial achievement Gap reducing it from 15.5 to 13.5 and that's measured by the MCA and the mtest and the next one is for math um the top one is economic achievement Gap reducing that Gap from 32 to 30% um and so what how we've written this goal before is we've been talking about reducing this Gap by 20% and we aren't reaching we're not that's just not an attainable goal and while we want to right that I mean that's why we're writing it as a lofty goal we want to close it by 20% but we know that it's just not possible in one year right now over time we can do that and that's what we're hoping to do here is by taking smaller more incremental steps we're going to be able to close that Gap but taking such a large leap at once is enclosing the Gap so we're hoping by smaller more incremental we're going to do it okay so for math um closing for economic 2% from 32 to 30 and for the racial Gap from 18 to 16 all right um career in college this is one that we got some feedback from our advisory committee on uh because we didn't really have a strong measure for this one uh we were around with act uh lots of different measurements and we finally decided on using prea data uh because all of our sophomores take this test and it was the one assessment where we could get the largest group of students all taking it so um we just felt that this was probably the most consistent data that we had so um we're using it uh for our career in college readiness goal and our our sophomores take it every year in December so coming up here in December um we're going to be looking at this um assessment so preac what we're looking for is um these percentages uh of our high school students will score at or above the On Target Benchmark so that's the on target range that you can see there on the right and those are the percentages that we would like to see score in that on target range the tricky thing about this is this is based on a different cohort of kids so we can't compare the same cohort that's the tricky thing about it and this is fun um so this is other data that we get using prea is um they the kids while they take it it includes their educational aspirations so do you remember taking this I do good so and um at that time they they list what they might plan to do After High School uh what they if they have educational plans and then also what career oh that's a little blurry sorry about that um what possible career they might be going into so that's administrative and sales business I can't even read it on my screen technical Science and Technology Arts social services and no Career Cluster is the large one here so it just didn't identify a career for them based on the information that they put in and then two more all students graduate from high school uh we hope to maintain the 96 to 98 fore gradu graduation rate which is still 15% higher than the states graduation rate and then finally um prepare all students to be lifelong Learners so this is what we came up with with the two weeks that we were given to I think um uh determine a goal for this so upon graduation 80% of students will report preparedness to be lifelong Learners by being equipped with the skills necessary for post-secondary Success adaptability in a rapidly changing world and the ability to take ownership of their learning as measured by an optional online feedback questionnaire provided to the alumni of sartel St Steve and public schools now what we're thinking down the road is something that's built into their everyday learning that we're measuring all along their Journey we would like kids to be able to reflect on their learning every year you know how are you becoming a lifelong learner and what will it what will you need to be able to continue on that track track of lifelong learning year after year what what pushes you and motivates you to continue to want to be a learner rather than reflecting on it after you are already out of the system so but that's all we can do today right as as they're leaving so so that's what we've got for for our goals for this year what questions listen you talk about that last one like I was just thinking my ninth grader did like a personal learning plan will that be something that is hopefully Incorporated yes that would be a great one cuz I just my my older son did not do anything like that and it was very interesting yeah you want to share like what that looks like I only have experience with one but like no that would be something that would be ideal let's do that with all of our kids yeah yeah I think that during our advisory committee meeting too we were just defining what is a lifelong learner like what is it in terms of this goal and this purpose here because everybody could be considered a lifelong learner you're always learning something new every day so what what's the context that they meant with this goal and trying to kind of H in on that and then being able to have actionable things to you know refer to that goal because right now it was as bag as lifelong learner like I learn something new every day I consider it lifelong and that was the frustrating part I think for all of us sitting around that table is here's the goal that was given to us and there was no context there was it's just here's your new goal and there was no description or information centered around that so we're just kind of left to interpret it for ourselves as was every District so you know just in in recent last five days I've gotten email from about seven or eight different superintendant asking us what we're doing for the school too so it is it is the Talk Amongst our school districts across the state of Minnesota and I mean it is there's a benefit I saw it is a benefit of what we get the opportunity to toine that what are we what are we going to prioritize in that and then set our goal around it but I think eventually they probably will guessing Define that more um at the state level so that goals are a little more uniform there but and that's been and that's been the great discussion with a lot of other districts is we are kind of learning from each other this year and it's like oh I really like where you're taking that or I don't think I'd go there or you know it it gives us an opportunity to learn from each other um Megan and and or I'm g to p you both on this side just remind me again the reason that our goals were being set as they were or they were like 20% increases or 100% um proficiency among third graders in reading it had something to do with the previous there was some historical context of that that previously in between about 2004 and 2014 there was a goal of having a 100% of students be proficient in reading and math and it kind of started that way after No Child Left Behind so you saw school districts who were trying to have 10 to 15% increases in proficiency every year because they had this date that they had to meet 100% not recognizing that there there's some realistic idea there that 100% of all children being proficient negates the idea that we do have some students who might have a disability area or we do have some students who might join our school district at any point in time and we don't necessarily have them as a cohort from kindergarten on so after 2014 that's kind of been set aside and I think some school districts continued on with having very um very high goals and there's nothing wrong with having high goals but a smart goal also has to be attainable and I don't know if we were continuing that we need to yeah I don't we weren't the only District that we still doing our goals that way and there was a reason why they were being done that way it wasn't just because we had only because we had ly dreams it was kind of set up that way for us to go we just stop with right yeah and I don't want to say that there's I mean there's some good in that too it's but sometimes we just have to turn back to being realist in in some of these areas and say okay if we're not going to make the right kind of progress then let's let's be real here and and I mean year after year if we continue to not meet our goal it begins to wear on a system and when our teachers year after year feel like okay what I'm doing isn't working right well it should allow us to Pivot if we need to as well correct I mean in real time this is at least a goal where you can say okay we moved CA we you know we changed that reading program if we started to see regression in that goal we would have to potentially reust that yeah corre or if the 2% you know increase year-over Year all of a sudden we're blowing out of the water maybe it's 7% you know we can address sometimes a 2% is just enough for your morale to be like okay that worked now I can go to 3% and then my last question was the ACT is that because like do that go back to like the report in August our MCAS and the students that I was taking those because of AP and all the other is that why Act was children yeah so this is preac M and yeah this one yeah so we see a higher percentage of our students actually participating not in preac they're all taking it yeah I think for one of the goals you mentioned we're not going to know if we met it until August is that the case for all of them all of the MCA yeah MCA and M are we going to get a report at that time yes on the all right thanks for all your work on this thank you thank youe sorry I I I made the mistake of welcoming Dr up here I should have asked for a motion to start and then in the discussion so I need a motion to um approve our comprehensive so motion by Jen second by Emily already had discussion is anyone else any other all those in favor signify by saying I all those say n motion carries unanimously so I'll look for motion to approve oural year4 AIT by Jen second by Matt any hearing none all those in favor by saying I iOS say n motion carries you and they will look for a motion to approve the individual contract motion by Jen second by Emily any discussion yeah probably because it looks like there's a contract here but what are we are we I guess what's in the contract as far as I can I can high or I can hand out the the current contracts I'll hand those they're going to look very Sim or this this contract will look very similar to the contracts that were approved for our directors um for my understanding on June 28th if I'm saying that date correctly so I'll I'll highlight the areas that specific for the HR Director um section one of the first page is this is a contract that goes from July 1 uh 2024 through July of 2026 there was some changes that happened and um I'll slow down just a little bit just in case you want to read but the like I said the contract is 90% um looking the same as our other directors the expiration um information uh is now in alignment with what the changes that were made in June um that was brought forward as you guys were working through that process during the month of May and June so now that language does match the language of all of our other directors as we've moved down through article three the duty year um what we we've done is that we recognized from July 1 to December one um was going or is going to be an 80% contract and then starting in 2526 it is a 1.0 what happens is is after December one that this contract becomes a 1.0 FTE contract and working with legal and and talking a little bit of that through uh the idea of having two separate contracts really doesn't make sense we end up having a lot of contract language that makes that very change challenging so what you do is you make this a 92% of a full-time contract and as you see in the parentheses it' be8 for 5 months 1.0 for seven months starting on December 1 of 2024 turning the page over I'll had to refer to article four um the vacation days are again the same concept as put into place there um where we know we had to look at what the vacation days would be for this year and then next year next year's is 28 days if we're using just 08 um we had that figured out before now we're using 92% to bring the two or to bring the two contracts together the same thing is applicable As you move down to article six where you see in the first paragraph um 11.96% contract specific for the 2425 school year again the rest of the languages in match our directors As you move forward to page three under article 7 um you do see the salaries and how that um is aligned now to be under A8 through December 1st of 2024 and then a 1.0 moving from December 1 through June 30th of 2025 and then a 2025 2026 salary that's indicative of the 1.5% increase for 2425 and a 3% increase for 2526 that was negotiated for the other uh directors previously the 1.5 for this current year um was a adjustment that was made because of some previous contracts um prior to becoming July 1st that was worked out under previous administration so that we could have aligned daily rates going to move forward and I do believe in terms of anything else within the contracts they are going to match the other directors those were the pieces that I pulled out that would be significant differences that you might note as going through any questions though that I could try and answer and as it relates to math Joe has offered help if necessary so for um I would just like to say I appreciate the compromise than for absolutely Echo I think might done a lot of the hard work I appreciate the work that you put in to get us to this point you're welcome okay um all those in favor signify by saying I I those oppos say n motion carries unanimously uh we will move on to discussion so we have our second reading of board policies 410 412 and 413 um I think everyone agreed that we're going to move forward with changing how it's stated on our agendas that it's just easier for everyone to understand and follow so next month we will see that this is a reading um but moving forward it will always start with the first reading the second reading and then that final reading just so it's just really clear um then we have our ref to I'm going to try and put something up and see come up for me so just three or four brief slides to to give our community and the board an update uh so right now I think most of us are aware our referendum questions were approved on October 28th um and we have gotten the confirmation back from our County Auditors that they have received of our special election that's an important part of the steps that we take our review and comment responses right now we're expecting back before December 3rd uh that is a requirement within the timeline of what happens um and then I think as we're all aware our first day of absentee ballots will be on December 27th and our date of the election is February 11th at this time uh anything that would come back possibly from riew and comment would be something that uh Joe and I and Christa would be able to work on and rectify that should not slow down any of the process the things I did want to highlight for you this evening we've already had one of our first uh presid presentations uh we are going out to a number of community groups and uh last night we were with one of our booster clubs or two of our broster clubs for giv me our baseball and softball associations um I want to take an opportunity to thank Dr Dingman um Jesse Pagan Joe prom Bruce Thompson Shane kler they're all joining me as we go out and do presentations and we're spending time ensuring that we're addressing both question number one and question number two we recognize all also with some of these groups we'll be going back again in January in hopes that not only would be be presenting to their executive boards but that they would oftentimes bring in their whole clubs or their their whole parent groups so that we can make sure we have the widest audience possible um we've we've ensured that we're really talking about information only and making sure parents and community members have an opportunity to decide how they would vote so I appreciate the work of the school board during my oneon-one on and giving um some ideas of some other groups that I may be missing um and I've tried to include those up there if there are other groups that come to mind um please reach out to me we want to ensure that we're throwing out a wide net and getting the information out to um all members of our public last slide I did want to highlight a little bit um today we have had uh some videoing going on with a professional videographer and Marketing Group um so I I did have three suits that I had to wear at different times the day because they wanted to be in different suits because I had to be in both videos thank you Sarah cppy um but uh that's that's fine so we did update our HVAC and indoor air quality video um and that went very well earlier this morning um we spent a little bit more time creating our outdoor facilities Improvement video and we expect those videos to be able to be launched on our website uh Facebook by December 2nd we will also be utilizing those videos as we go out do our presentations um obviously just to give a little bit more visual uh to what uh the referendum questions are about uh lastly I would highlight that we do have a contract currently um with a marketing strategist from ciso um excited about their work and bringing their expertise into this as we go through the next three months of uh working towards uh ensuring that our community has all the information they need to make a vote on February 11th or to be picking up their ballots on December 22nd uh that's my brief report on the referendum are there any questions that I could try and answer or any feedback from the board um that you'd want us to be considering is there any literature that we can put in local businesses that's yep that's one of the discussions that we're having with the marketing strategist to ensure that we we do have funds set aside for that and we're trying to be conservative with the use of those funds uh but yes we certainly are going to be hoping to do that other questions from um how can people get involved I guess I've had people ask you know what can I do I tell them to contact you but yeah absolutely if they would like to contact me there are contacts right now that are available for the vote Yes committees that are bubbling up out there um and I would be glad to connect them with them as a as a school board and as a District administration um we're involved in providing information to our community members um but we don't necessarily participate on a vote Yes committee or a vote no committee so please yes send them my way any other questions that I could try to answer I know you've only had a couple meetings so far but with the boosters has there been any talk of how to mobilize an effort at getting donations toward this project I mean we've talked at different meetings th far fac about the potential for going up for donations you know maybe in exchange for some sort of advertising on a scoreboard or something like that I assumed you weren't speaking about the indoor air quality HVAC process we could put a plaque we could put a plaque in a Bo boiler that would be pretty neat um yes it did come up last evening as we were talking about that um I have to really thank Bruce and Shane for the PowerPoint and the presentations they put together because we are able to show a lot of the illustrations that have been put together by our firms and one of them is is that beautiful scoreboard that would be part of this project um and that was part of the conversation and thinking that this will go in a positive bner for one and or both questions which I mean number one has to pass for number two pass have we been given like will it be 2026 that we might be able to start seeing this have start yes for the HVAC project we would be starting in the summer of 2026 with hopes of being totally completed by fall of 2027 and would that be true for both projects or yes okay thank you thank you so I need a motion to CL session but does anybody um I would make a motion to close the session for negotiation motion by J second by Emily discuss allvor motion thanks guys for coming [Music] okay thank you