##VIDEO ID:XkfVxwc5v7U## educate prepare and Empower all Learners in partnership with their surrounding Community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's Society Zach can you please lead us in the pledge allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and then can you please call R and uh following board members are present at the District administration office Scott andron here Natalie Copeland here El delren here Zack Doral is here Shannon hos here Heather Williams here the following board members are not present Monica sugara Schwarz the following cabinet members and staff are present at The District administration office superintendent Dr Lori putam assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of E5 learning Nikki Hansen executive director of Community Education Adam Holm executive director of finance and business services Amy scall executive director of operations Joel heid Camp executive director of research enrollment and assessments Don rooper director of community engagement and Communications Tammy Dand media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott the custodian on site is Austin goodwater thank you then can I get a motion to uh approve tonight's Board of Education meeting agenda so move classic have a motion by Scott and a second by Natalie Zach can you call vote Scott and rayon yes he Williams yes Natalie Copeland yes El doen yes Shannon hod yes and Zach doorold is yes thank you then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items the board Toops routinely without debate any s single member May remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption on tonight's consent agenda item a approval of minutes from November 6 2024 and November 20th 2024 Item B approval of bills and other Financial transactions in the grand total amount of 4,745 $734 item C approval of personnel staff changes item D approval of monthly financial report for October 2024 item e approval of monthly Treasures report for October 2024 item F acceptance of Grant Awards and donations item G proposed Revis board policy 406 public and private personal data legal reference and statute change item H uh proposed revised board policy 410 family and medical leave policy statute change and item I bid award North roof replacement I do have a request to remove item f um does any board member want to remove an item other than F okay uh so can I get a motion to approve um items a through e and G through I so move have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zack can you call vote on that Zack dhol yes Natalie Copeland yes jannon Hots yes Scott andreon yes El doen yes Heather Williams yes okay then we have both uh board member Natalie Copeland and El doen recusing themselves from item F so Zach can you call vote um without them Scott andron yes Zack door oh wait wait I need a motion to approve item F sorry we don't do we need a quorum we have one four we have two abstentions y so four left okay uh so move second uh motion by Scott for item F and a second by Zach Zack can you call vote Scott us yes Zack door holds yes Heathers yes Shannon H yes all right thank you going on to informational items tonight uh first up we have the South Junior High School presentation um presented and welcome principal Becky Estrada um come forward and we're looking forward to this so thank you for being here okay hello everybody can hear me kind of a little bit closer okay awesome hello everyone I think what I'll do is start with the video and then um the regular um introduction so I'm going to try and get this going here at South we are excited to set intentionality this year around academic Excellence collaboration and a sense of belonging we are really being intentional and writing into our continuous Improvement plan an effort to recognize student achievement in the classroom modern classroom is essentially using a variety of different strategies to kind of guide kids through the learning in the way that is best suited to their needs so we have must do the should do and the aspire to do level of work the must do is what everyone is doing to meet these standards or to meet the basic grade level expectations then on top of that if we need additional practice we have a should do which is kind of reframing the learning in a different way to help it make more sense in their brain and then we have what we call the aspire to do which is generally more of a creative interpretation of the learning for kids who are really really getting it they've mastered it or they have shown that they can do this 80 to 100% of the time with whatever circumstances you give them then they have this opportunity to do the more creative or like fun work with the content we're really shooting for boosting motivation and confidence of our students creating a positive learning environment we are doing this through a number of different ways in our student announcements and we also have additional videos uh playing throughout our building on large screen we really have seen a positive shift they're seeing themselves represented we're laying the foundation for future success we're excited to celebrate them it's creating positive relationships between students and in the classroom and really hitting home that sense of belonging in our building early in the year as we're working through our continuous Improvement plan we start talking about voice both from the family perspective also from the student perspective and one thing that we're working on is well how do we capture that so what we began and what we developed is a student voices group now the plan is that we give kids a voice we let them know that we are here we hear them and then we want to put things into action so every student did a survey in which they talked about why they're happy to be here at South what they want to change what if they saw it happening they would feel more belonging and we took that data and we used AI to generate themes now it's like okay we got our themes we got our work but we need the people because we also want to know about what do they want to get out of their time here at South what do they want to graduate what skills so brought them in today and they started to generate ideas around academic skills social emotional skills and that's the beginning of the work I think it's a good thing that they uh did do the student voices because then you can come up with ideas to make the school a better place and what you think should happen to school you know and just be yourself so the reality is that we are all seeing the same things and we all want something very similar they see the pluses and they see the opportunities and they want to be a part of that process I'm super excited for this program think our planed moving forward want to get some more high schoolers to come back to middle school that's went to South and engage with the community kind of creating that bond between high schoolers and middle schoolers that they get this opportunity to talk to the high schoolers what it's like and to hear about the experiences and get them prepared I think that's pretty unique the history is that those kiddos who came in today are are two Tech seniors they walk these Hall they lived this life that's that history and also leadership now let's also say that our students who are showing up they are also leaders they are also leading and they want to see someone who looks like them talking with them about what they want to hear what they want to work towards I think it's a good thing that they that they're bringing Tex students over because they could have went here they probably did and they have like the same struggles not knowing where the classes are not knowing how to open up their lockers we are excited at sou Junior High to partner with our families and establish a family advisory Council trying to get all voices heard and making sure that our families are feeling connected to us and feeling like they're able to tell us what they want for their kid making sure that what they're expecting and what they're hoping for their child that we can help make that happen here at South I'm really looking forward to being involved in the family advisory Council here at South I think it's going to be a great opportunity to connect with other families and just bring more opportunities for our students go Tigers go [Music] Tigers okay so um before I get started um good evening superintendent putam chairos and Schoolboard um I just want to share that it's just been a pleasure the last um you know the first trimester the first few months at South um everything that I get to share today is really a collaborative effort I just get the pleasure to be the person here sharing the story tonight so um I wanted I would love to give shout outs to every single leadership team member um my students the community the the families and parents that I've been able to meet um because they're really what you know brings this presentation to life so just wanted to give that shout out first so at South our guiding principle for teaching learning and decision-making is really centered on the belief that all students can learn at high levels and that we the adults are the ones that create the conditions that are necessary to reach grow teach challenge Inspire every student every day so in order to to reach this goal we have aligned our work with superintendent putnam's pillars of safety belonging collaboration and Excellence we believe that a safe building has strong and meaningful relationships and as a new to the school principal um with some new staff we've really been diving deep into relationship building with our students with our staff with our community and with each other we do that through a number of different um ways like PBIS SP web and student in family voice which you saw highlighted in the video and I'll talk more about as we go through the slides but also in the middle level supporting a strong support for social emotional development we know that really helping our students um build their advocacy skills and their self-awareness is super important when things get challenging we want to make sure that we offer them um in time and write support um as middle level Learners we offer active supervision daily and we have daily student support team meetings that are proactive relationship based and responsive so we meet every day to talk about spaces places classroom students that might need our proactive support so that we can be there um in supporting things uh before they even know that they need us we also benefit from a really awesome partnership with an on-site SRO that promotes physical and emotional safety daily so the first pillar that I'll talk about is the pillar of belonging and um it really started back in August um I'm you know thinking about how do we start this year you know where do I where do I even begin um and the new student Academy was something that South had done in the past and so it was something that I really wanted to make sure that we maintained um the new student Academy was very well attended our incoming fifth grade students were all invited and then all new new students new to South so 6 through 8 we're invited to come in for a week in August to get their schedules meet some teachers explore the building try their lockers ask the questions see the lunch all the things you know that a new student would want to have it was really well attended um our families were really happy um that we offered that I want to focus um on this slide around the intentional work that we've done with family voice and student voice and trying to create um a topic called Future Ready like what does Future Ready look like to a student and what does it look like to a family so as you saw in the video we're um running a student voices Council and a family advisory Council and our student voices council is run by students for students so we had our two Tech High School students come over and they're like yeah I want to be a part of this and they want to have more people get involved more of their friends get involved uh the students really appreciate having you know students in front of them talking to them about well this is what my my priorities might have been when I was in Middle level but just helping them to um figure out what their priorities might be each month and then they bring that into Administration and talk about what do we want more of what do we want less of you know um what do we want to do here at South that would make it even better for me as a sixth grader or seventh grader or eighth grader and it's been really powerful our family advisory Council meets B monthly so families were surveyed back in August at our um back to school conferences to find out what topics they wanted to have presented um throughout the school year so this month um in December actually we're having our family advisory council meeting tomorrow at 5 o'clock um and it's around mental health and social emotional Wellness for the middle level student and um during this meeting we'll also give continual input on what do our parents think a future ready student is Our intention is to make sure that we're sharing our student voice and our parent voice back with leadership team members as we build our continuous Improvement plan so that when we build it we have um authentic parent and student voice incorporated into it and then for South staff in belonging um I want to talk about another continuous Improvement plan priority called celebrating student learning um each week our teachers are able to highlight evidence of learning and that is in um the form of like you saw the little video on the um on the video but like it can be pictures it can be um a paper or a collaboration that students did but essentially we're looking for evidence of student learning and we're using these large screens as our virtual fridge so that our students can um hang up their work their collaboration and the things that they're proud of Our intention with this is to really let our students know that we see you that we're proud of you and you belong here a couple of examples this first picture is in our tiger time some students exploring um guitar in music and then on the right it's two germs talking to each other on an Instagram post um in science which I thought was clever um but really um able to celebrate what they're doing in class and and see themselves throughout the building and their work that they're doing throughout the building the next pictures are of Art and science labs and collaboration the cool thing about this is that we get to highlight new students whenever we want the link is live and so as teachers are um taking pictures of great work or even Exemplar work um they can upload this into the link at any time so our our fridge our virtual fridge is always changing and the last one that I snapped a picture of and and added to the link myself was a couple of examples of um collaborative projects around different types of energy and science class so family engagement at South um under the pillar of belonging we have a number of family engagement events like I mentioned our fac is tomorrow um from 5: to 6 and our winter conferences are coming up uh one of the things that I wanted to highlight is that our our parents um get a newsletter every week and in there we advertise that academic and social emotional popins are always welcome now that is with Administration so they come in and they pop in with us and they get to you know check in on their schooly or their um their homework or grades or social emotional um check check-ins and they're always welcome to do that the next pillar of collaboration I'd like to highlight um for our students career in a year and for our South staff the ey time lessons so career in a year is a priority this year that's bringing in speakers um to talk in our core classrooms about the many different career Pathways that students can explore um and we wanted to do this in the classroom our teachers are then connecting these speakers their work their skills back to the learning in their classrooms and in their lessons what we're really trying to do is answer that question that we've all heard muttered and we may have even muttered it in Middle School um when am I ever going to use this what is when am I ever going to use this anyway and so what we're asking is um and we've had a number of people sign up already we're really excited um to be um partnering with um career Readiness at the district level as well um with Sarah and bringing these te uh people into the class to kind of bring these career Pathways alive and connect um lessons to real world experiences and real world examples um eye time lessons uh for our self staff under collaboration are taught weekly in core classes they're a part of our bar curriculum which some of you know about and in bar um part of making sure that um this is is going well is making sure that we're connecting collaborating and using teamwork um to to know our students to know what they like um to know um how to connect learning for them so our eye time lessons are put together by uh our fabulous bar coordinator Courtney Garett she put these puts the lessons together our teachers deliver the lessons and then in our bar meetings we get to share what we learn about our students about their talents and the amazing things that they might even be doing outside of school that we didn't know about but the eye time lessons are a collaborative project from core classrooms all the way back to the bar meeting and the last uh pillar that I wanted to talk about um was high expectations and high supports um so I want to talk about tiger time which I know has probably been talked about before but tiger time is brand new to South this year I think um Tech has been doing it for a few years but it's something that our middle levels really wanted to emulate I think North also has been doing it for a couple years but it's new to South um we found that tiger time has been a really awesome way to boost feelings of belonging for both students and for staff and created deeper relationships but we also have this academic portion of the tiger time that I wanted to highlight so our Wednesdays every so every six weeks the students get to choose a new activity which is awesome and it keeps it you know really highly engaged but on the Wednesdays during those six weeks they're what I need and so students can choose a teacher or a teacher can choose a student and they will go where they need to work or they need more support So a student who needs to take a test or retake a test complete an assignment with support or just you know wants to work on a group project um they can choose where they go or a teacher can choose them um so I thought that I just really wanted to highlight that um and then for our South staff I think for high expectations and high support I've probably mentioned it quite a few times but our vision is clear um our leadership team our teachers uh were always referring back to our continuous Improvement plan and keeping it really clear um and focused our teacher leaders and District Partners help to move our instructional priorities forward we have a number of teacher leaders in our building that are doing anything from like tier 2 instruction differentiation um modern classroom they're willing to share and they you know we go farther together um it brings up our our high supports when you know exactly who you can go to to learn more about your profession um and we've been really successful in offering a number of different um professional developments from internal experts this year we have an intentionality around two things in instruction um one is tier two instruction how do we help um students go further that might already know and how do we support students that aren't there yet and then applied learning for High student engagement we review both of these priorities often with our leadership team um using the PDA pdsa cycle for improvement which is plan due study act which allows us to kind of reflect on where we've been bring back items that we you know may need to focus on again um but always uh doing that with the The Continuous Improvement plan at the center and at the focus so thank you for letting me be here tonight um I'll open it up to any questions that you might have about South thank you anybody have any questions or comments at all Natalie thank you for sharing all those pictures of those beautiful little but not so little kids appreciate that they're in the middle yes love that um I really loved the um virtual fridge that you talked about and how teachers can just add they don't have to like send an email and then the other person has to upload it so it's makes it really accessible I really love that and also student voice group way to go um and I'm wondering how if those things came out of some of the um data from um the student survey or how did you decide that those two things were um kind of the big rocks that you wanted to move into yeah so um when we met in August to design our continuous Improvement plan we do use that that you know the student survey data um our parent survey data and we really used that to decide which goals we would might want to change or go deeper with and so it was definitely at the center of our work and the work that the leadership team wanted to um make our Central Focus we also decided um and I think it was all leadership teams that we wanted to spend at least 80% of our time speaking working and being intentional around instruction um so those two things show up a lot in the continuous Improvement plan yeah um when I was looking at the data deck I was um noticing which of the um the student survey answers had a a disagree and Andor strongly disagree above 30% and it's interesting that that all points back to what you're talking about you're doing this year so way to use your data um but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about I noticed some correlations but I'm not in your building so I want to know if if my thinking is correct on that so um I feel safe at school um and extracurricular participation where disagree or strongly disagree on both and do you think I'm just wondering if there's correlation between it seems there's correlation between kids that are feeling like they belong because they're also in extracurriculars but um safety and then the belonging I belong at my school was 30% so if those are all kind of in the in the 30s it seems like that would be a obvious Next Step would be to get them more in activities which I know you want and everybody wants um but can you talk a little bit about that absolutely um so I I think you're right on I think the more that students are feeling connected and the more um they're involved with in their school the more they're going to feel connected in that sense of belonging um we have a number of Community Partners and projects that are happening you know during school but also after school so when we think about activities a lot of times we think about Athletics but we have more than 15 different things that students can get involved with um just this winter and we've got our fall play that happened and we've got our musical audition auditions that are happening right now um we have a Latino uh group that happens after school that's part of our 21st century Grant um there's an art Club there's um you know our um School yearbook uh committee is meeting so when I say 15 I'm probably on the you know the low side but there are a lot of different ways for students to be involved um and we have been intentional about recruiting students into activities and making sure that once they're in they're feeling comfortable to stay in um and that's the work of our um new athletic and activities director um Jasmine so she's been working hard on that too yeah I've worked with her a couple times and she's doing really well yeah she's very um intentional so I really love that um what do you think are the barriers like the top three barriers to students um being able to uh participate in after school activities [Music] I think that um sometimes it might be awareness yeah you know if you look at the data um like do I belong there is that something that is going to be an anxious space for me or you know am I going to have a friend in that so I think for sure the friend yeah you know I think first of all as adults we go right to money or Transportation but I think it's really about do I have a friend in there in that activity or in that sport am I going to have the support um I think that kind of where my brain goes in the middle level because they're not really they're not thinking about those other things they're really trying to be independent and stand out um but also blend in at the same time yes both end yeah notice me don't notice me yeah right yeah thank you I'm interested in the family advisory council is is that kind of like pte or what's it about um yes and yes I mean um we wanted to we don't have an active uh PTA right now and so we wanted to have a intentional working group group to help us with our continuous Improvement plan work and we wanted to increase voice right uh family voice and so um we want to invite them in intentionally um continue to build uh you know as we go this year and and into next year build on a core group of people that might you know because our ptas sometimes can get to be a core group of people that have that um history of our school we'd love that um but I also want to add in an authentic voice and a piece of action so that's where the advisory comes in I want it to be action oriented so so the advisory committee is more sponsored by you whereas a PTA would be more independent I think so yeah there there's probably a few nuances but essentially I think you know there's an overlap you know between those two um we'll see where it goes we're in the infancy stage right now so okay uh could you tell me a little bit about the modern classroom yeah absolutely um is it the first time that you're hearing about modern classroom somebody mentioned it sometime or other okay so modern classroom is um a flexible learning style um that allows students to come into class um have their Core teaching but then move on independently so there's a Musto um a can do and an Aspire to do and so they will move through these um these activities or these learning spaces um with with Mastery checks so they will intentionally be checking in with the teacher on each one of those um steps to make sure that they're not skipping a step um and then the teacher can make sure to give the support in time as we know especially at middle level well probably every level we learn at different rates and so it's an intentional um way to deliver a Les lesson that gives students what they need in time okay thank you uh I see you have an open house coming up yes what's involved so this is my first one um but this is our fifth grade um open house that'll be coming up in January um there'll be presentations about um everything from you know the schedules or social emotional um questions that parents might have um but we're offering two presentations that night um and I'll be working with my school counselors closely to um put that night together thank you it's good okay so this is probably out there kind of but watching the presentation and and this isn't this is it's out there and it's just a it's for conversation but watching the presentation there's a lot in there about creating a sense of belonging um and and I I always love to tie things back to maso's hierarchy of needs a sense of belonging is in the third level of that pyramid bottom level is physiological needs the second need second is the needs for safety uh and a place to sleep things you know a place to live um third is a sense of belonging there's two levels above that and it's and and I truly believe that for for the highest levels of learning you got to be up in the top of the pyramid right so the self-actualization because it's it's the u sense of belonging and then above that is a sense of self-esteem which then opens the door for you to be the best that you can be and have a lot of energy towards learning and believing that you can do it and and all of that if we focus and I'm not this again this isn't criticism this is just a food for thought but if we focus on the sense of belonging is that because that's where we're at and if it is then what are we doing to move students through the next the next level so that they can move into a level where we actually have exceptional students and we have exceptional students I don't take that wrong um to where we have high levels of exceptional learning going on and great levels of success in all of in all of our schools I'm not picking on South here either but it's just it's a it's a learned it's a learned trait I think to to learn to believe in yourself to believe that the world isn't out to get you to believe that you're not set up for failure all of those things are they're taught and they're they're learned but you have to have it to get to where you need to get so what types of things do we do at South to move people through and on up into the top of the pyramid where they can learn at exceptional levels well said um so you know maslov's hierarchy is not lost on a middle level principle so um it's something that I think about every day um it happens in the minutia you know like talking to individual students about um where are you at today you know just that individual check-in about um remember you know remembering um what they're here for and what they're capable of but it's also the macro level of like checking in on classrooms and making sure that our classrooms are um you know well run and a space where like we talked about with modern classroom a student who might need a retach can sit side by side with a student who's already ready to move on to the next standard um and get what they need in real time and I'll tell you that the sense of belonging where we decided to um start our work as a leadership team was intentional um we we feel like that's you know where we're at and I trust the leadership team that was there you know before me um to help me set those goals uh and at honestly after the last two days of calculating GPA I'm very pleased um with you know how our classrooms are being run and the number of students that are on our A and B honor role which will be published um in our newsletter as we go out to break for our families um but I'm really really happy um with the way that our students are showing up academically um every morning in the announcements I thank um students for being there and I remind them that as for for our teachers that remember you're here to find your Genius or Geniuses and we the adults are here to help you know them and grow them and so we have a a very academic intention um in students are seeing themselves as Scholars and they're showing up that way um so yeah I I think we're there can I just say quick uh Becky's a new Middle School principal and middle school is never easy to work with to what we just talked about around all those things and spending time with her in the walking around the hallways in the cafeteria and doing just what we know needs to be done to see a kid that's by by the themselves to talk to them to ask questions specifically at that age love it continue to do all the great things we talk I I I'll say it again I have the blessing to work with amazing principles every day walk in the hallways and she just you just heard it again of what's being done in our schools and we'll continue to talk about safety belonging collaboration and Excellence because our folks are living and walking that every day and you just heard it again so Kudos continue to do the good work awesome thanks for letting me be here right that's it okay we have um next informational item we have the presentation uh of final 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy certification uh presented by Amy scall executive director of finance and business services it's kind of going to be the Amy show here for a few items oh there it goes all right it time out just give me a second to get connected okay good evening chair HW superintendent putam members of the school board uh tonight is our final step in the 2024 payable 2025 Levy process so the preliminary Levy came to the board in uh September and then tonight um we will look at how that has changed um and then do the final approval okay uh so there uh is in accordance with statute there's a few requirements um tonight technically serves as our truth and Taxation hearing um and so as part of that we are required to present um the levy any proposed changes and the reasons for those changes uh do a review of the current year fiscal year 25 budget um and then also provide a time for public comment and question um so for uh the school district levy because levies are C are taxes are levied on a calendar year and we run on a fiscal year um we do a levy uh in the fall of 2024 those taxes are collected in calendar year 2025 um and then that revenue is recognized in fiscal year 2526 um so anytime we're looking at Levy we're we're really crossing over multiple fiscal years um and we're we're looking down the road into what that that revenue is going to be the following year there are three components of the levy the general fund um Community Education fund and Debt Service general fund um has a number of components that we uh have looked at every year a lot of those are student enrollment driven um whereas the Community Education Levy is a lot um of population based not just uh based on our students who are attending but the population of the whole community that the district serves and then The Debt Service levies are Set uh based on any board approved um bonds so we have ltfm bonds and another um debt that the board can can authorize as well as any voter approved for our district our Levy uh is about 55% in the general fund um 42% in debt service and then Community Education is really a very small portion of the levy at about 2 and a half% um in comparison to last year we see The Debt Service percent going up a little bit as we look at our Levy increase the majority of the increase is really coming from Debt Service um because there were some large adjustments last year that have dropped off um and so we see The Debt Service percent um go up slightly compared to last year um and then that has a corresponding decrease in the general fund Community Education is very comparable to last year right around that two and a half% for both years uh so in total we're looking at a levy increase um as a dollar amount of $1,247 uh $20.93 that is a 3.66% increase um how that compares to the original Levy that the board approved in September um it's very close it's about a $7500 increase um and so the preliminary approval was 3.64% so very close uh and really the majority of those changes um were driven by mde enrollment adjustments related to our additional VPK um funding and so those weren't um awarded as of the time of the preliminary and so when those um came through mde adjusts the enrollment figures accordingly so that's the reason for that little bit of an increase so now um and this is a lot of numbers and we are not going through all of them and it's hard to read um as required as part of the truth and Taxation um statute we'll just briefly kind of recap our current year 2425 budget um so this is a snapshot uh we have total uh revenues of about 205 million that's across all funds um the majority of that about 176 million um is the general fund um and that's about 86% so really that the general fund makes up the majority of the district's activity um and then revenues um or sorry expenditures are are more than that um primarily because of our capital projects fund we still have proceeds for the LT M bonds that are being spent down um and there's no correlating Revenue because the revenue has come in in a previous year uh this just shows the revenue by Source um and again this is all of the funds combined and so you can see um and again might be a little hard to read but the biggest piece of the pie there is our revenue from State sources uh so we get about 72% of our Revenue um coming in from the state the property tax portion um really is is a relatively small percent of the revenue we collect it's it's just under 177% um and these are uh pretty comparable year-over-year um particularly that Levy portion is pretty consistent from year to year um we are seeing um for the first time in a number of years um that decrease in federal revenue and our state revenue going back up to where it kind of normally historically was um we know from from past um couple of years that we've had significant Esser and other federal funds that have have kind of skewed um that shift uh percentage allocation between state and federal the last few years but now 2425 is kind of our first back to normal business as usual sort of a year um and so these are our typical percentages um that we would expect to see going forward this just shows Revenue by fund um again that 170 um about 176 million of our total revenue coming from the general fund um again that's about 85% um so that's really where the majority um of our activity lies and then we see that same comparison on the general um for for all funds um with the expenditures um so again that uh that Pi graphic looks very comparable to the revenue um with the exception of uh again that capital projects fund um having a larger um percentage of expenditures because we're spending down um that money from previous years um so we'll shift to look at just the general fund um for a little bit this is our expenditures for um the general fund and how they break down by category um I'll go to the next slide because the visual um the graph is a little bit easier to to look at and interpret then a bunch of numbers um so then this shows uh kind of how those expenditures break down by category and if we look at the the bottom sort of um bottom and left those are our three instructional categories special education regular instruction um and Vocational instruction and so those instructional categories are really where the majority of the district spending occurs um and those account for uh just over 64% of our total general fund spend so School District levies um authorities are determined or the Authority for levies is determined one of two ways um it's set by a state formula um which is the majority of of the bucket that our levies um land or there's voter approved um we do not have any voter approved operating referendums um but we do still have existing voter approved Debt Service those are the only two um ways that a district can authorize um to have funds uh to Levy and the calculation of how of how much we can Levy is very prescribed again in statute and so this really differs from how a city or county levies where they can set a rate and so if they need to generate more Revenue to cover salary increases or other inflationary costs they can increase that that taxable rate um we don't have that same sort of flexibility um ours are very much more prescribed in terms of the dollar amount that we can Levy um so I'm not going to go through all of these lines because again it's very comparable to what we went through in September and we we kind of went through all of those um detailed lines this is the general fund so in total the general fund um is an increase of just under 50,000 so in total really very comparable to last year um there are some areas uh components of the levy that are increasing others that are decreasing but overall um really very comparable same thing with the Community Education fund um about a $45,000 increase overall um but again very very consistent with the previous year and then Debt Service is where we see the the port the significant increase so um really our full increase in our Levy is coming on The Debt Service side um and again that's not because we had any new debt or anything this year um it's just because of some large fund balance adjustments from previous years um that have dropped off of that Levy um so then this is just that summary of 3.66% um you can see all three of those components together and then this shows a historical five-year Trend um and so we do see uh uh Trend upward in both general fund and and Debt Service and that's really driven by our ltfm um and so the majority of our general fund increase over the 5-year period has been an intentional increase of our annual ltfm Levy um as well as on The Debt Service F side uh with some of with the two different issuances that the board approved um to do the HVAC projects and the improvements at Apollo um the fortunate um thing for our district is we have a large tax base and so while on a dollar value um we can see the levy trending upwards that hasn't necessarily correlated to um significant actual tax liabilities for our taxpayers um and we'll look in a little bit at the end about how we compare uh to our surrounding districts um so there's a lot of variables that can cause changes in in tax increases and decreases we're not going to go through um all of this but the one thing um I will note um is that market value is a big driving Factor we don't set the market value those are set by um the counties they come from the tax statements um but I do want to point out one thing that is a change for this year um and so there was a change starting with taxes payable in 2025 um to the market value exclusion um and so what that how that will directly impact our um our residents uh is up to a certain valuation there will be more of your property value that is not taxable essentially um so if we just use an example um of a $380,000 house I have to use bigger numbers for it to um kind of come out to easy math um but if you had a a $5,000 increase in the value of that house which is about a percent which is kind of the average of our area um in a normal year you'd see the value go up and then your taxes are likely going to go up because your value drives the taxes last year that $380,000 house would have had an exclusion of about 2700 this year that exclusion will jump to about 11,500 so even though the value is going up by 5,000 the value that is actually taxable is going to go down um and so that's a benefit to our um to our taxpayers particularly on um our lower to to Middle income um that middle box is how it calculates once you hit $517,000 in valuation there's no exclusion so you know our um our Homestead residential um high value properties aren't going to see much relief but for our lower um our lower valued properties um we'll see actually and we'll we'll see that on the next slide even with values going up and our total dollar amount that we're levying going up uh we will have some of our taxpayers who will actually see a decrease um in their in their School portion of their taxes even with a market value increase uh this just shows the tax history um of the the overall tax base um we know we're coming off a couple of a couple of years where we had really really significant um 10 to 15% market value we're really back to sort of a normal um stabilization of the valuations and so overall uh we had just about a 1 and a half% increase um in the actual tax capacity and values went up about 2% was the average so this just shows with what we levied um assuming a 0% valuation because the tax base is growing um we would have homes in in most of you know the the middle lower to Middle um Homestead value actually see a decrease in their School portion of taxes that said we know that 0% is not realistic we know values are going to change um so if we put in that 2% which is the actual average for our area um we see that really up to about 175,000 um in valuation even with their value going up their tax liability is going to go down because of that change in the in the exclusion and then um just to to wrap it up uh this is where we compare to our surrounding districts um and so this isn't new this graph has looked like this for many many years um we know that we continue to be um the lowest uh School portion of of tax compared to our surrounding districts and then so we do um need approval of the um Levy but that will be after um we open it up for the public comment unless there's questions for that does anybody have any um questions or comments about um Amy's information thank you okay I might take that as a no so um uh as on our agenda at this time we're allowing an opportunity for public input on the final 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy certification um going once going twice uh nobody is here so we will move on to then our action item um of the approval of the final 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy certification so um Administration recommends uh the approval of the property tax levy certification looking for a motion to approve as presented second okay a motion by natal and a second by Scott any discussion at all okay Zach can you call vote please Heather Williams yes El alren yes Zack orals yes shanon hods yes G andreon yes n Copeland yes all right thank you uh one more for um Amy scall we have the approval of budget for Apollo reference yes thank you um and so there uh the information is all included in the background um in the background sheet uh but it's it's pretty uh pretty straightforward in terms of um what we're what we're looking at this evening um we know that the board previously approved the the resolution calling for the special election um anytime we're doing a special election that's a standalone election there are obviously election costs um and the district is responsible for those um as well as marketing and communication um around the the upcoming election um and so this information has been reviewed by board finance committee um we're estimating um that those costs would be um somewhere between 125 to 150,000 um the majority of is the actual election costs um about 100 to 105 more than likely and then the remainder marketing and communication costs um and so the recommendation is to approve a one-time purchase of that out of the unassigned fund balance um we know uh we just had the audit presentation in November our unassigned general fund fund balance is at 10.8% um which is above the board minimum of 10% um after that expenditure it would still be at about 10.7 five so really minimal um minimal impact uh there is also a high likelihood um while we are requesting approval of the fund balance that we won't actually see the fund balance go down um when we get to close out the year um just because interest rates have been high and so we have interest income um that is projected right now um assuming rates continue um to be significantly more than what we've put into the budget um we always budget interest conservatively because it's guaranteed um and so there there's a high likelihood that we won't actually have to see the fund balance go down um but we want to make sure that we're we're transparent and that that is where it would come from um in the event that that there weren't interest Revenue to cover it um and so we would be looking for board um approval uh to establish the budget at 150,000 okay anybody have any questions or comments I would move approval of the Apollo Levy budget I have a motion by l a second by Scott Zach can you call vote Zach doorold CS Natalie Copeland yes he WAMS yes Shannon hes yes Scott andreon yes El do Gren yes thank you Amy okay one more action item tonight we have the approval of the 2025 202 26 High School course catalog um presenting here we have Dr Jason Harris as the student superintendent of secondary education and welcome back Hillary Johnson director of secondary education thanks for being here good evening Cher house superintendent putam uh board members uh director Johnson and I were here about a month ago on new course proposals and you got to see all the new courses that'll go into the next steps for our students in the new course uh catalog for 20 2526 and so uh tonight we'll talk about just the process for high school students what it looks like how do I start to make a selection of uh what courses I take uh within the course registration and then we'll get a chance to get dive into the course catalog and director Johnson will kind of lead us through some of the things that you approve for new courses and then some just some things that in our CTE as we start to move in a uh different direction of more Hands-On uh types of learning and we'll get a chance to talk about that tonight so all right and just lines right into our strategic Focus area of career and postsecondary options for every student right and so how we align it to our Strategic Mission so if I'm a student I just uh last week started to talk about about registration you they started to hear like all right where am I at my world and my current reality of courses requirements what I need to register for courses and so the step one went through graduation requirements uh step two uh just this week they had a credit check document to kind of do their self- selection like where am I at in this process right we talk about building agency with students they need to have the understanding to sit down all right where am I at and so when we have these meaningful conversations to students and I talk to them all the time like where am I at in my graduation right if I want to graduate in four years what do I need to be doing now and so uh step two in the process we talk about a big thing with registration and you could keep going uh ninth grade that transition year why is that important because it sets the stage and so showing the video will come when they come back from break they'll all be well rested and not right after that Monday because it's going to take a couple of days for them to get back after break that they'll get the registration video our folks shout out to our counselors at Tekken Apollo to create videos and all the things around information then they'll get a form on the 13th to the 17th uh specifically at registration conferences I know Tammy's Department been working with our folks to uh promote registration so families understand this is the most important part uh on uh family night on January 16th that my student needs to have a good understanding it's family conferences but what are my kids going to register for and so we talk to our Communications folks like how do we help everybody understand like this is important we need to make sure everybody registers and our families need to be with our kids and we offer support to them to make educated decisions on what our kids take and so that's coming up in the middle of the month of January and then they'll actually start registering that week like what courses should I take my counselor sits down and say well you need to take these courses these electives and here's what it it's going to look like and so uh director Johnson's just going to walk us through kind of the here our great folks our counselors that are doing all of it at Apollo and then if you want to go to the next one at Tech they sit down and just do all of all of the things with kids and so uh yeah I would um thank you Dr haris I would definitely give a a shout out to both of these teams for the work that they have put in on um coming up with the process and getting everything ready their collaboration with Donna's team in um Rea to get Skyward prepared in order for um registration like the technical part of registration to happen these are also our best ways of individual support So when families we have lots of opportunities for kind of group information um but families that have um in individual questions their counselors know their students the best um and reaching out to to the counselors is a great way to get support um and have those questions answered um these are all the other ways too I Dr Harris went into a few of them um another shout out to Tammy's team um they've worked with our counselors on putting together a social media campaign that will come out in um January to make sure that everybody knows um what's going on and and and parents um we also work closely with our Pathways coordinator to think about ways that they're taking courses that are aligned with their College and Career Readiness interests um we also are working on some large group registration lessons and really thinking about ways to use um our early out days creatively um to work with our students and the last one to highlight is our counselors do a really great job of updating the school web pages so that families if there is um any of the videos that the students see in advisory are posted for everyone to see all of the documents are on the tech and Apollo registration pages so those are places that are really helpful um if families are looking for information um as they're partnering with their children and making these decisions um then we get to the course catalog so the course catalog um after it's approved tonight will be um posted on that website where families will be able to go in and read more detailed information on each of the different courses um there is lots of information about postsecondary planning about how we um tie to NCAA options for our students that are interested in um pursuing um Sports after they leave us there's information on PSO I mean um it is a it is a great source of information a couple of the places that I would like to highlight um one of the one of the um Pages um our course catalog is a website so one of the pages on the website we call our special programs and in special programs um are the couple of the courses that you approved already this um fall you can see the US Army Junior Roc and our driver's education classroom instruction um will both be located in those special programs a couple of the other new courses that are located there are our cosmetology which is our nails program um the micro internships which we're really excited about um continuing that and growing that program um and then law enforcement and Public Safety which has been a lovely collaboration between our schools um and the St Cloud Police Department another area that I wanted to highlight for you today um was the page on our information technology so that's where you'll see the new courses um that you approved on AI literacy computer science web design it also hosts our courses that we've been offering for a long time on AP Computer Science um and our digital foundations classes so those were just two that I wanted to give a little shout out to so thank you for having us tonight um and we are open to any questions okay does anybody have any questions or comments and this is an action item uh Natalie and then Scott this is my second time seeing this since I saw the district advisory committee and so then I just was going to say that my daughter came home on the 16th and said I had to do this thing or I had to fill up my credit check I'm like yeah I know all about it and she was like how do you know all these things I was like I was in a meeting she like you're always in a meeting I'm like yes I know but so she was like yeah I did it and I already knew I was fine but you know it's uh she was like why do I even have to do it and I'm like well exactly what you said because it's important for you to take control of your education so yeah thanks for building that ink you Scott okay um you indicated they needed 63 credits to graduate yes what is a credit and how is it determined great question um so in 742 we have a credit is one course over a trimester so a student can take up to six credits per trimester and 18 credits in a year does that does that help okay the the course is have a specific length of time or yeah so like one like our classes are so we have our classes are offered like during a period in a trimester and so that course over the trimester would earn them one credit all right uh what is credit recovery and how does that get involved in this yeah so Credit Recovery if if our students have not yet completed the course or not shown Mastery of the standards in that course we offer them the chance to make up that class in multiple different ways so some of it we partner with um night school and extended time through ALC and some of it we're doing credit recovery at both Tech and Apollo during our tiger time and Eagle time classes okay uh Pathways tell me about Pathways yeah so pathways are how we think about um our career clusters so the state has a large kind of wheel where they take different um clusters of careers anywhere from um some of them are like our Healthcare cluster is one of them that's really popular here in St Cloud or our education cluster and what we do is we show the students a pathway from our n9th grade courses like all of our foundational courses into some of the specialized programming that we offer right into their college or career path so we think of it as a pathway that a student takes to prepare them for that College and Career experience sort of a way through the cluster then yeah yeah and um hopefully soon we'll be bringing the new one there's a new College and Career Cluster like wheel that's coming and we're very excited about it it has some updated ideas and cross cutting um cross cutting Concepts it adds AI into our techn or into our into our Pathways and so we're excited to think about the ways that that will help um support our students um I was pleased to see Information Technology computer science it's about time yeah yeah we are we're really lucky we have I mean obviously very strong support from from the board in superintendent putam but we also have some really passionate teachers that are interested in growing um and growing these programs um and giving the students what we call that you know state of-the-art or um industry standard experience to get them ready to go right into a career or into a post-secondary institution thank you thank you okay um this is an action item I'm looking for a motion to approve the 2025 206 High School course catalog and do I have a second second thank you I have a motion by Natalie and a second by Heather Z can you call vote Scott andron yes Natalie Copeland yes Hela Wii yes Shannon hods yes Zach dtz yes Al dogr yes thank you again seeing a lot of you lately it's great thank you very much okay that was it for our action items moving on to our reports first up we have our uh superintendent report Dr Lori putam presenting thank you chair H members of the board cabinet those listening at home um I am going to start off with just sharing a little bit of a update for um the work that we're doing around advocacy with our legislators um we have extended an invitation to local legislators to meet with District administration and the upcoming um Board of Education legislative chair in early January I January 7th I think though you know I'm all all of you know I'm notoriously bad with dates so don't hold me to that but it's in early January uh to review the board platform and some other advocacy items that have come up for District administration particularly related to funding in um so we are looking forward to that conversation and I know incoming board member Bruce henis also inv invited local legislators to the amsd legislative update which is held um and typically that their first Friday board meeting um at their uh at a site in the cities and so really looking forward to that that's a nice time when um The Association of metropolitan school districts um share their legislative platform which um often mirrors um or is uh or at least discussed items have been discussed with this board um because many of our um of our concerns um are are directly shared by amsd um and so we're really looking forward to that and I appreciate any um any uh support that our local legislators want to give us um I also want to share that we have a preschool enrollment night coming up on January 16th at quar view um and then our K kindergarten uh enrollment nights begin the following week at our elementary schools and run through the next couple weeks um and those are all available on our district website I think there's one a night almost um so a really great opportunity uh for our families to come see our schools um see all of the incredible opportunities we have from immersion um to special education and multilingual to gifted and talented programming um and so we really uh encourage our families to get out and get registered early um and then I just wanted to share as you saw from Becky's presentation earlier the career in a year um Dr Harris and I were both recently invited uh to participate in uh the career in a year one of the presentations and I know I go on January 31st and um I think Dr Harris comes either before me or right after me so we're really excited to be able to go share our um our career paths and Journeys um and try to describe what it is we do um though that is a still we are surprised by that daily um so to to describe that to to young ones as a challenge but we're really excited about the opportunity to get to talk with our students so thank you thank you then we have a board of education standing committee reports I believe we have two tonight board development policy and governance committee chair Scott andreason uh the committee met on December 11th uh 2024 assistant superintendents Harris and avenson pres presented proposed board policies uh policy number 406 public and private Personnel data policy number 407 employee right to know policy number 402 Disability non-discrimination Policy number 408 subpoena of a school district employee policy number 409 employee Publications as constructional materials and inventions and Creations and policy 410 family medical leave policy uh these six policies were reviewed and the policies uh 407 48 409 had no changes uh policies number 406 and 410 were recommended to move forward and they were on the consent agenda for tonight's board meeting and that's a report thank you and then we have board finance and audit committee chair El delren yeah finance and audits audit committee met on December 13th there was two items on the agenda both of them well no one of them was on tonight's agenda and that was the referendum budget so I'm not going to go through that one the second item on the agenda was the 20 the presentation of the 2022 2023 mde profiles of learning it's the one that I always take and sort into an Excel spreadsheet and sort it differently so we can see where we're ranked in in spending by uh category I haven't had a chance to do that yet but I'll still try um there there's again no surprises in there districts with high special education cross subsidies iel cross subsidies uh have low spending low much lower spending in areas such as activities and uh we're actually moving up pretty well now in career and Tech but this in more discretionary in more discretionary areas of spending the districts with the high special ed spending just don't have the money to spend it in the discretionary areas and it's very I think harmful to school districts that fall into those categories um but I will I will try still try to solve the or still try to sort and print that and send it out to everybody and that was it thank you then we have um future agenda items January 8th 2025 board meeting topics will include preschool for Success update full service Community Schools presentation School updates and of course policy readings at this time does any board member want to suggest a future agenda item I do yes now I won't be here but yesterday at our Retreat we talked for a period of time on the effect of MCA scores public being publicly distributed and the harmful effect that that can have on school districts and communities and I would ask that the board in the first meeting of January and this and if you need it the second meeting in January but prior to uh the sharing of our legislative agenda with the legislators that you guys go back and look at that and see if that's something that we want to add to the legislative priorities great idea okay thank you and then last um is tough here tough tough loss for us T tough loss for the district and the community is to um present a plaque to board member El dalren um as this is his last meeting um very very sad moment and I'll try not to cry here um kind of open it up here for people to make some comments and I'll pull out this plaque here um you know just so you guys know Al and I have some differences I don't know if you've ever known that but you know the thing that we have in common is that we don't accept the status quo and just because something's happening doesn't mean it should happen any longer and how do we get to the point of what's best for our kids um Al you deeply care for our community and the um your leadership it's the Integrity that you have in your leadership is um I think why people have really looked to you um in our community to know hey what's going on and what's underneath you know the the noise um and you're good at getting underneath the noise we will definitely miss your institutional knowledge and your continuous advocacy of msba and and at amsd and I think one of your um feathers in your cap which you don't usually wear hats but um should definitely be uh your advocacy with Minnesota State High School league and um that was uh it was so horrible what our kids were going through and it was such a joy to see that you don't accept the status quo um come come out of you and make some real changes um uh and so I really appreciate who you are and how you lead and and how you care so thanks for everything you've taught me over the last six years I will Echo both Shannon and um and Natalie's comments um and I I have meant for many months to say this to you Al your leadership on this board has been incredible as a new member two years ago um being able to see how you approach uh all problems and your attention to detail uh and your willingness to spend time and visit sites and um ask the tough questions and understand the tough questions uh I I will say I think uh it's a real loss to this District um it's a real loss to our public um you did it really I'll call it um pragmatic you approached things from a very pragmatic perspective um and always balanced student well-being or prioritized student well-being while asking hard questions about finances and holding us accountable um to our public which I think is is incredibly important and even to Natalie's comments um I think we all what I've appreciated about this board overall is is we all come from some different backgrounds and we do have some different perspective but it has never been anything but professional um and I think when we're challenged and you did a fantastic job of challenging us to think differently and and think bigger or um maybe get out of our comfort zone at times and uh that's a hard thing to do and and it's a hard trait to find in folks and to come at it with such compassion um and and such pragmatism I think is a is a really nice mixture so thank you for being a mentor thank you for um showing me the way uh and for being a voice both for students and for this community you are really well informed you know more about what's going on in this place and almost anyone except the superintendent you must talk with her once in a while keep up uh the dialogue uh I was one of the things that impressed me was a you found this building you found this district office you also found uh the Katherine Johnson Building uh I don't know if you studed the real estate Pages or or what but it's quite amazing he was you found structures that we could really update and make use of uh you've been a a strong delegate to the msba uh D delegate conference youve presented our positions on a number of different items and that's been really good to to watch you and just sort of be the backup man um and you're very well informed on the district finances uh I've learned a lot from you thank you for your service I'm just echoing everything they said I thought a lot about what I wanted to say and they said a lot I'm going just want to emphasize how um I don't think the community at large understands how much of a loss this is um you are a walking pillar of now institutional knowledge and um it sucks to see you go um yeah that I'm pissed I mean it's you know and I because again the tension and Detail in all everything you do um just uh it's a lot so thank you um for everything and then everything you've done for our district outside of this role um with leaf and everything else so hope you still stay close there's so much to be thankful for and and again it's a huge loss um that you won't be joining us next year on a personal note um selfishly um thank you for um teaching me to we live in such a divisive world and sometimes we too too quickly without thinking things somebody disagrees with me so they're wrong I'm right and I can't get along with you and I can't like you and and respect you and and we disagree on some things yet um you've taught me that step back look at this appreciate this um I respect you I value you and I appreciate everything that you've um done for this District um and working alongside you um we don't as a society we we're never going to agree on everything um but yet there's so much in common and we we have the same Mission and values so thank you so much again a really tough loss here and very unfortunate for us I told I told Al before this that I wasn't going to talk because I would cry um but uh I I think it would be um I would be remiss if I didn't share publicly right um that I too feel like this is an incredible loss see I told CH don't you cry um and and I am uh I am disappointed right um because what you bring I think people misunderstand you often right um and I think people um I don't I think what people um if if they if they misunderstand you I think what they miss is that you are one of the fiercest Advocates I know for all kids right and there is um like you will you will piss anybody off right like for for a kid right and um there are not many people who are that unafraid um to Advocate the way you do for this district for our staff and our kids um and this District in um will is we are poor off um without your um your advocacy for us out in the community um at this board table um and I will miss um the the the way you challenge me right but then also support me right at the end of the day you will listen to me and I will listen to you and we will walk out we can right we can disagree in private but we will walk out with a public united front and I will miss that dearly and I have appreciated it greatly so as for the uh seeing things differently yeah I probably see things differently than anybody else on the board here and and but I don't see education as being a partisan issue and so you kind of put that aside but I do approach things from a different perspective and I think that perspective is going to be missing I'm sorry but it's going to be missing I'm stally conservative and I don't think anyone else on this board would stand up and say that but you know what we still always pretty much always agree on most everything except for wearing masks you know and and I think I was right on that one so I didn't you know I I I kind of thought about what I wanted to say and I don't have a whole lot to say but I'm just I thought about some of the things that happened when I was on the board or things that I was proud of or very involved in over the course of the 12 years that I've been on the board and the first one that I had listed was that I brought a conservative perspective to the board in a non I I TR and I tried to do it in a non-political manner uh I represented I represented over a perspective that over half of the district residents have and and spoke on behalf of those people and but that doesn't mean that it had to be in a negative or in in a fighting way it just brought thoughts and ideas that had to be that had to be said um I spoke heartfelt and favorably publicly about the school district with local media um I I've done I don't know how many hours on Ox probably 50 60 hours on Ox um I for when I was chair of the board I was on J Caldwell every other month doing that uh I had a very good working relationship with Jenny Berg who's now with the star and tribun and I still have a very good working relationship with Jenny Berg and I've stood out on or I've gone out on social media when I see someone trying to beat down the school district I try to beat him back cuz I and I and I don't do it this ingenuously I I say what needs to be said one of the things when I first got on the board one thing that I'm very proud of is we hired our new superintendent we hired Willie Jet and I want to say that there was a member of the school exact connect community Ken drag Seth who said some really nasty things to me out in the hallway after we hired Willie because we didn't hire the person that he chose for our district to hire and he came up and he he approached me because I had spoken negatively about the person that he presented that he wanted us to choose and I mean he he basically told me that I had no idea what the H I was doing and that I should have kept my mouth shut well Mr drth I would like to say that I not only hired the due superintendent of the school district but I also hired the next Commissioner of education for the state of Minnesota so you don't know what you're talking [Laughter] about um early on I brought marketing and branding as an issue to the school district at the time I got on the board that was the superintendent's responsibility uh the superintendent was the one who was supposed to speak publicly for the district That was supposed to do all of the marketing and branding for the school district and it was overwhelming it was impossible for one I mean that's a full-time it's a full-time job isn't it Tammy and so after that uh that was right after we had hired Willie And Willie brought Tammy onto the school district and I'll tell you the school district has come I just made Leaps and Bounds forward in marketing and branding creating a cohesiveness from building to building from program to program uh making ourselves very identifiable quickly um it's my background it's franchising is all about creating a brand and being able to sell that brand and I was able to bring some of that here but I didn't do the work and and none of do I take credit or do I say that I did the work I was just involved in the uh direction that the district went with that uh participated in creating and passing a mission statement and a strategic plan that guides and shapes our district still today uh again when I got on the board we did not have a strategic plan um that was created after that was one of Wily's first things but that's a project that was a year-long project and there was a team of people who did the work but the board was the ones that were responsible for it in the end and we put together I think a pretty good one because it still stands strong today and I don't hear anyone saying that they want to change it we we revise it every year we update it but I don't see any major plans to go out and change it and move to a new strategic plan so that and that and that's the most important document that we work from uh brought changes to the bidding Pro pissed a few people off with this one too brought changes to the bidding process and that was focused on Roofing and that was a that was a year-long battle but the the the way that things were being done was wrong I stood my ground kept it in the Forefront I can't tell you how many meetings we had over that but in the end the process changed and it changed for the better and I think it saved the district millions of dollars over the past 10 12 years uh helped shape the curriculum review process and that was more that I'm not going to put myself in and say that that was me specifically I think that was actually more Jerry that did it but I was involved in that but I did lead the development of the policy review uh project and our policy book was terrible uh we had Minnesota school boards Association review it make recommendations I was the chair of the policy and governments committee at the time we went through every single policy over the course of two years we revised and updated and that process is still in place today I testified before for the house education committee on the special education Coss subsidy don't know how far we got with that but there has been changes uh and it was an important thing for me participated in every phase on the building advisory committee for uh Tech High School and again talk about a project that was multiple years long but the the number of hours that we spent talking about every last detail on that High School and the number of things that happen I mean when I walk through there I don't just see a building I see pieces of a building where it's like yeah I had something to do with that or had something to do with that but it was really that was an honor to be able to build a high school uh that doesn't happen very often it probably won't happen in this district for another hundred years so or more uh okay and Scott mentioned this but disc covered and recommended and promoted the purchase of this building for a district office we got the district office out of Apollo High School we have meeting space here this this building has worked out perfectly for a district office building and I was so happy that we were able to find this thing we got it for a bargain um and it's just worked out perfectly overcame two fires and participated in the building of quy view expanding ear Early Childhood opportunities so that was another building where we had a lot of meetings we we came forward had a lot of board meetings we had a lot of input and on the structure and and that just the that process with Gary the help of Gary Gangi pioneered a huge upgrade to the building grounds care and maintenance the exterior um our district buildings look really good now I think when I compare to what other District buildings look like when you drive by you get a really positive feeling and it wasn't that way 10 years ago helped amplify attention to Charter School issues in the Minnesota State High School league rism incidents to make real change and did that through board resolutions uh the cultivation of mutual respect within the media and participation in the M msba delegate conference those are kind of the three Avenues but we we did make as a board made real progress there supported the purchase of the Katherine Johnson Center and Scott I think you're wrong there Amy found that building and brought it brought it and and came to us and said said there's a building that's available that you can get that one we literally stole that was a that was that was a great uh purchase I mean there it was would have been a stupid not to buy it but it's been able it's it's enabled us to to support our students uh needing those supports and we didn't have space to do it before we do now it's changed the way that we can do education in in the district uh brought Lorie putam in to lead the district and um it wasn't I was involved in every decision along the way it wasn't just hiring you as a superintendent you uh uh when you were being hired at Kennedy coming from south you interviewed there there was some public interviews yep and then as the public we got to vote on whether we thought it should be you or somebody else and and I hate to tell you this but I said that we should hire someone from outside the district and and thankfully Willie didn't listen um and that I'll tell you what that comes from my background in in retail and with JC Penney where they would transfer people because there was a belief within that business or within that system that bringing people in from the outside gave them an opportunity to be a stronger leader than bringing someone up from the inside because they hadn't already established their position somewhere else and it also brought in new ideas and new focus and and people that could come in and say well we did it differently over there and this is how so it wasn't anything to do with you there was obviously there was two very very strong candidates there and and I was wrong okay but um then you came to the district office and you and you were working as an executive director of secondary education right and Marsha was the the assistant assistant uh the assistant superintendent for elementary she was not she was not an executive director she was an assistant superintendent when she came in but I I knew that you had at one point I knew that you had received your superintendent's LIC license and I also knew that we had somebody really strong here and I sat down with Willie in a meeting and I said you know I think it would be really smart of us to change the way that we structure our Executives and go from one assistant superintendent to multiple assistant superintendent which is a which is something that he was familiar with from St Paul and immediately and the reason was because I didn't want you out looking or applying in other school districts making up for that no I did I learned how wrong I was and I but I didn't want to lose you to another school district simply because you wanted that superintendent role and so almost within weeks we added that assistant superintendent and uh immediately when when Willie said that he was leaving I went to him and said uh do we really have to go outside and hire a firm or can we hire from within and I said we've got someone here who is better than anyone that we could hire outside and if we would do this it would give you the opportunity to work with this person side by side for up six months prior to having that hand off and it would go so much smoother and that's what ended up happening so I was I I you know I I didn't do it the board did it but boy I sure do feel like I was involved in some of that uh while while this was happening I I did I was able to Triple the business or triple triple the size of my own personal business and and and donated and I put and donated over $55,000 to the school district via and a whole bunch more in product to the district Transitional services department in the end I'm proud to have participated in allowing our professional Educators to educate for providing oversight and not interference and I a lot you'll notice that a lot of things that I was involved in were it I didn't talk a lot there about interfering in the curriculum or getting involved in the ins and outs of classroom or personnel management I I really believe that as a board we hire a superintendent and an executive team to do that work you guys are the professional Educators you go be professional Educators uh I was an overseer and I oversaw what I could see but I didn't if you if you'll notice I never ever came forward talking about things like the inside of a school building and what should happen on the inside it was always on the exterior because I could do that without interfering directly with School uh Personnel I'm proud to have been on the board for 12 years the kindergarteners when I came on the board graduate this year so that's how long I've been here I'm proud to have made a difference in education in 742 and as was said in the retreat yesterday what act what actually happens here is much different than the public perception we deliver on a mission for which we should be proud uh and I and I can't say more about the the honor that it's been to serve on the board it's been the honor of a lifetime as for you guys my chance to get back at you guys Heather you know I had no idea what was coming when you came but I'll tell you what you're uh the the clarity in which VI you view things and the expertise that you bring to this sport is unmatched uh I can see I could tell that you've been involved in education but I can also tell that you've been involved in leadership and you show it when you talk and I and I have truly appreciated that the only thing that I would ask of you in the next two years on the board is that you do something to get rid of the offsides look back in hockey it's just as it's just as it is just as difficult for a team to accept that they brought a puck into the zone and the referee screwed up and they have it in there for a minute and a half and score and that goal gets taken away that's just as difficult as if a referee misses it and the team shoot comes in offsides and scores I mean it's just which team is disappointed but God if something could be done about that put a put a 10-second rule on it we can look back for 10 seconds oh boy Scott your neighbor talk to you a lot uh bounce lots of ideas off each other I'm sure I'll still be doing that uh as we go forward but um it's you know you've been on finance committee for a long time you were on there before you were on the board uh it's been it's been great you know it's been good working with you and like I said I'm going to continue to see you so we we will talk Zach you need to talk a little bit more cuz we need cuz when you do it's really it's really good um I I I have truly enjoyed the one thing that I really get from you a lot of times is being the the mental health professional you approach things from a different perspective again and and and you bring things in and there's a Clarity there also also in which I'm a lot of times I'll be trying to explain something and you come in and say about three words and it's like yeah that's what I was trying to say I'm and I'm all garbled and trying to say it's just uh it just you you you're very good at that Natalie yeah we don't always we don't always see everything through the same lens uh but I have I mean I've enjoyed working with you I've changed my perspective I mean who I thought you were and who you are is of course different and and you probably can say the same thing back to me you like a tour of that around central Min um you know it you you don't have to see things out of the same lens to be able to get along with somebody and I think my mom probably taught me that that you know it's just like just you got to get along you got to get along with people but I think you you bring uh a very compassionate perspective to the board and it's it's a a view that the Board needs so so so keep doing it Shannon nothing but respect you sit in a a tough chair it really is a tough chair there I I didn't like chairing very much it's it's a different it's a different role on the board you're not the boss of the board you're still just a member of the board but you got to sit there and keep your mouth shut at every discussion and and I can't tell you how many times I used to sit there and it's like I had all kinds of things that I wanted to say but you go around and you're just calling on calling on calling on calling on calling on and by the time it gets to the end of the discussion it's pretty much over you I haven't said anything pretty much everything that I was going to say has been said and so then you just call a vote and you move on to the next thing and then you go through the the same thing over and over but it's really hard to sit there and not say anything but to just keep the keep the meeting moving along to be fair and in my time on the board we've had chairs that weren't fair yeah we've had chairs that called the conversation knowing that the next person to speak or who was in line to speak wasn't going to agree with or they were going to speak against their point of view on something and they didn't allow free flow of conversation amongst board members and you don't do that at all and to be a good chair you got to let everybody talk and that's how you get a that's a good chair and that's also a good board when everybody gets a chance to speak everybody gets to hear each other and hear each other to the end and not clock watching uh that's really important and you do a phenomenal job of that very very fair and Lori uh I I'm sorry I didn't vote for [Laughter] you that's that's okay but I'm glad but I'm glad that you are sitting where you're sitting um you know all I can all I can say to you is you are very smart one of the smartest people I know compassionate Visionary you are a phenomenal listener you're fair you're honest you're approachable not a lot of people in your position are but you are a leader you're a woman and you're very strong and don't let anyone ever step in your way or stop you or prevent you from being that person cuz that's the person that we hired and that's the person that we got and I appreciate that and tell you guys over there I probably pissed a few of you off over the [Laughter] years but it's it's a great team and there's a lot of there's a lot of talent sitting around the room and at that table and just keep doing what you're doing I have full confidence you're going to do what needs to be done that's it well thank you very very much and again thank you tough loss for all of us thank [Music] you so looking for a motion to adjourn our meeting motion by Natalie is second by Scott all in favor say I I opposed meeting is adjourned it is 8:23 p.m. thank you for watching um have a good night we'll be back January 6 for a reorg meeting and January 8 for our first uh regular board meeting I hope drag Seth watches that out with fire thank you