##VIDEO ID:Nq1LwIQ9IE8## e e e e all right I'm going to call this meeting to order the November November 26 2024 school board meeting the regular business meeting which um and at 6:34 um last time we met it was for a study session and that was on November 12th and that's been our pattern except for December we'll just have another one of these we'll have a business meeting um all right before we get started I'd like to read the land acknowledgement we are gathered on the land of d OTA o jway peoples I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and O jway Community their Elders both cast and present as well as future Generations St Louis Park public schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasers of many indigenous peoples including those on Whose land the school district is located this acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to the dismantling of the ongoing legacies of colonial power and a District's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our school R um the next thing on the agenda is the approval of our agenda I'm going to go ahead and read that and um so people know what's on the agenda we have first we have public comment second we have uh the next item we have superintendent report then we have a series of discussion items 6A data story about Advanced course enrollment 6B budget update um fiscal year 2024 year and audit results and some information about fiscal year 2025 we have 6C a strategic planning timeline 6D communic Community Education final program review adult programs 6E budget listening session review and then we have the consent agenda and then after the consent agenda come some uh action items and that would be 8 a aqua project bid acceptance 8B policy development we have a number of policies um 8B is second reading of policy 614 8 C is second reading of policy 410 8D is second reading of policy 43 and 8 is second reading of policy 503.com mened that the school board approve the agenda for November 26 2024 as presented do I have a motion moved by uh director Anderson do I have second second second by director Williams um all those in favor say I I I any opposed passes S zero all right next up we have public comment and I believe we have at least one we have two do we have Kylie here as well Kylie okay great um and before we bring them up here I'll just read the description to support open communication the St Louis Park School District provides an opportunity for the public to address the school board during business weeks if you wish to speak please complete the public comment sign up do we have anybody else sign up just want to check on that too um on our website before the meeting begins anyone including in indicating desire to speak during public comment will be acknowledged by the board chair and a lot minutes to present their topic during this time the board and administration will listen to comments please note that disrespectful comments are those of a personal nature directed on an individual either by name or inference will now be permitted okay with all of that read and with uh we're ready to hear from someone our um public so Kylie I believe your first up anywhere specifically yeah just come on up here and um director Ibrahim will have the time over there for you and so that right here so that if you have if you they'll help you keep track of those three minutes and I'll give you a two minute one minute and then I think it's 30 seconds okay and you can go ahead and sit down all right yeah thank you well good evening uh my name is Kylie I'm a resident of St Louis Park and I'm here today to urge you to invest in electric school buses through the epa's clean School Bus rebate program I'm grateful that you guys applied um for and was granted funds to diesel buses during the 2023 cycle of the rebate program however last time you did apply for propane buses and today I'm hoping that this year you will apply for funding to replace diesel buses with electric school buses instead since you went through the process already uh firstly propane is still a fossil fuel running propane buses is still contributing to the climate change crisis and in terms of emissions propane is comparable if not worse than diesel buses Minnesota is not immune to a changing climate uh we had the hottest summer on record once again last winter was very mild and we are facing an increase in both the frequency and intensity of weather conditions and I believe that we should take action now secondly propane buses still emit a slew of pollutants these pollutants are breathed in by students faculty members bus drivers and community members the pollutant can lead to an increased rate of long related illnesses a decrease in test scores and an increase in mid school days there is currently $965 million available during this round of the rebate program St Louis Park can submit one application to replace up to 50 retiring diesel school buses if you contract with private fleets you can include them in one application um for example Michigan who is currently leading in the Midwest for electric school buses has found that electric school buses can schools 4 to $1,000 in fueling and um operating costs if you are interested which I hope you are um applications are due January 9th 2025 I hope that you will take the time to invest in students Health the future of our planet and the wellbeing of community members by applying for funding through the epa's clean School Bus rebate program thank you and that's all I have I think in the online stuff to ask you if you want to be follow up with and so we're glad to do that yes yeah definitely I think that my contact information on there thank you all right next up we have mat hello again um my name's Matt Kenny I've lived in St Louis Park since 1994 I had two children attend uh SLP schools K to 12 um and I spent six years on the St Louis Park police advisory Commission uh for so for the record I just want to say the schools are great the police department is is awesome um but um I'm here to talk to tonight to the board about sro's and the discussion held at the last Schoolboard study session uh the discussion at the study session was very hard to follow uh the superintendent and the city representative seemed to be operating under the assumption that the SRO model was a done deal and that all that remained to be done was to hammer out the details but that was never stated directly I don't know how we got to this place but the decision to return to the SRO model is an important one that should be made by the board the discussion at the last study session was premature in the absence of such a decision by the board so should we have sro's in our schools it's easy to fall back on the familiar especially when it seems like common sense of course having a police officer in the schools makes us safer but when you dig a Little Deeper the case against sro's grows stronger first of all there's no evidence that having SRO protects against school shootings it just there's there's just no evidence um secondly the presence of police officers helps create the school to prison pipeline which disproportionately affects students of color students with disabilities and lgbtq plus students pushing them into the criminal justice system with permanent records that can affect their lives for years uh the third the president of armed police officers can create an atmosphere of fear and anxiet Society for students again often this is most prevalent among our students of color students with disabilities and lgbtq plus students when students view police officers as disciplinary figures rather than resources for safety it can erode trust between students and other school staff making it more difficult to build positive relationships and address underlying issues finally the idea of having SRO is out of step with the district's implementation of restorative practices the money that is being proposed to be spent on SRO could be better spent providing students with access to mental health professionals such as counselors and social workers who can help address the underlying causes of Behavioral issues and provide students with the support they need to succeed I believe that policeing schools is harmful to students and the overall educational environment and doesn't make our schools significantly safer the school board should review the data for themselves have a rigorous public discussion and come to a decision not just allow us to slide back into the SRO model as currently seems to be happening thank you all right thank you and as always this is an opportunity for people to comment here there are other ways including emailing the school board and attending our listening sessions and have those as well all right with that I'm going to turn it over to um item five which is the superintendent report Dr H thank you chair Cox um so I will will give my report so at the end of October I was able to participate in the singer program coffee with us Series this is a great opportunity to share information and connect with our community members mayor Muhammad also engaged in the discussion with our seniors these gatherings allow us to hear directly from stakeholders celebrate successes and address questions or concerns in a collaborative manner additionally we were honored to host the Somali Ambassador dear Hassan AB in October students and staff had the opportunity to share more about their experience and the events like this remind us of the importance of fostering Global perspectives and celebrating diversity within our schools I had the privilege of participating in a panel at the annual School law conference this month I shared information that provided valuable insights that can transforms districts and personal trajectories I appreciate the opportunity to showcase the innovative efforts of our district while learning from other education leaders November brings meaningful celebrations Native American heritage month and American Education week I want to express my deep gratitude for the rich cultural contributions of Native American communities and the essential role of Education in shaping our future thank you to our Educators students families and staff for embodying the spirits of these celebrations through learning teaching and Community engagement our students demonstrated their civic engagement through a variety of activities this month six graders explored the working of local government de deepening their understanding of democracy and governance additionally we held a mock election giving students an exciting opportunity to experience the electoral process and learn about it in its import importance firsthand a special thanks to our school board members who supported these activities and share and helped share their knowledge with students we recently hosted our kindergarten welcome kicking off early enrollment for the 2025 26 school year for the first time we opened our enrollment for forms in November and we are thrilled to report that we we've already in received 66 submissions this early engagement reflects the excitement families feel about joining our community and in closing I want to extend an my appreciation to the entire School Community students staff families and and partners for their continued dedication in learning and growth thank you thank you Dr hind all right that brings us up to discussion items and our first discussion item is something that we saw in our study session and here to talk more about that and bring us up to date we have um 6A the data story about Advanced course enrollment we have Dr Sy zette and Dr Patrick Duffy here to present both you yes here we go all right good evening Cher Cox superintendent Dr Hines and members of the board my name is Sylvia Lafayette I'm the director of assessment research and evaluation and I'm uh Dr Patrick Duffy the uh director of teaching learning and Leadership and as you mentioned tonight we're here to talk to the community about our advanced advanced course enrollment rates how they've increased and how did we get here and we wanted to start by talking about two significant things that started in about 2019 2021 we launched our first youth data analyst internship cohort uh that is a part of our continuous Improvement planning process and they did a research uh study that very first summer addressing this question how can we get more students of color into honors AP IB and GT courses and also why aren't students of color already in these advanced classes a second thing that Dr Duffy will be talking about tonight is also our gifted and talented design team which was also in the process of working so these two products collided unintentionally because what came out of our youth data analyst intern study this very first summer two significant things out of their five findings was directly related to gifted and talented programming so as Dr Lafayette pointed out uh our teacher leaders were going through a timeline around the same time as youth data analysts and did an extensive study of enrichment programs throughout the district um as they went through that they really identified that we need to be intentional but a pathway that elevates our rigorous programs but also um also elevates relevance in the curriculum for all of our students um as you can see at the high school we have um a wide range of rigorous college level courses that we offer um including advanced placement 19 articulated college credit seven concurrent college credit classes and 15 International Balor classes we also have a number of students that opt for uh postsecondary enrollment options we had this last year 47% of our students at the high school take at least one Advanced or honors class we are hoping to double that by 2027 and when we disaggregate uh some of our courses by our federal ethnicity you can see right here this this data reflects the percentage of student groups enrolled in an AP class from 201920 that first year where we were talking about youth data analyst interns and our gifted and talented design team as represented by the blue bar on the left and then the orange bar to the farthest right of each fed ethnicity group is last year's data and as you can see last year's percentage of the enrollment for each fed ethnicity group was the high highest since 19 uh 2019 202 there we go and then when we take a look at our PSO enrollment rates as well and we disaggregate that by that ethnicity you can see that in about 2022 and 2023 we really started to increase the percentage of students taking PSO as an option and you can see last year almost 50 a little bit over 57% of our black and African-American students also took a PSO course in addition to the rigorous classes we have we've also provided opportunities for students to get college credit through the bilingual and Global biliteracy seals program um in uh 2022 we had a little over 20 students that qualified for this but just by changing our mindset and our shift a shift in who had access to these tests we were able to get 66 students um qualified for the biliteracy seal which um Pro provides up to four semesters of college credit for graduating seniors and then um you can see there were also uh 58 students that got the bilingual Global seal um might be the other way around uh 66 let me go back one real quick oh the global seal I'm sorry is the one that students who are undergrads can take um so ninth grade 10th grade 11th grade can take it and they can put it on their college SC college applications to qualify for scholarships it's the other one sorry the Minnesota bilingual seal where they can get up to four um semesters of college credit for their World Language experience um you can also see that a number of languages were tested predictably Spanish is by far the number one um most popular language to test in but you can see that there are a number of other languages that students qualified in as well we also offer work-based learning opportunities and just wanted to highlight this because as you can see even our youth data analysts Who present and work with Dr Lafayette are a part of a paid internship where they can really engage as scholars in this work that was a much briefer version we did get greater detail got I think I think there were some few questions that people had raised and it looks like maybe some those have been addressed but I throw it open to our board members to see if there's additional questions or comments or thoughts that people have that much I just want to put it out there that the teachers here are amazing and that a lot of teachers in order to do the concurrent enrollment or to do the um articulated college credit have to get additional certification so they either do that on their own time or they write grants and so teachers are really doing a great job I have a quick question on the uh bilingual uh seals uh what is the process to uh essentially achieve one of those skills to achieve one of those skills yeah is it like a couple t or a test or um it's it's an exam that they take to show Proficiency in two or more languages so that's that's it I can also have our department lead at the high school Hanah Anderson reach out she has a very detailed um you know procedure what the students go through awesome thank you are there any are there any like barriers to take those tests like is there any reason why they would all be in Spanish or there um well some of the other languages are AR you know there's one that's a good question I I think one of the biggest barriers that we had was early on we had a very limited view of who would take the class it was often offered to students who had taken like a fourth year AP or IB course um and many of them were students who had articul you know gone through the Spanish Immersion program um I think one of the barriers that we removed was saying let's also open this up to our multilingual Learners um it was just switching our mindset to say a student who is literate and and fluent in two or more languages doesn't have to have English as their first language um so that was something that we we removed um there are fees for some of the tests um that aren't associated with classes we offer and we try to make sure that that's not a barrier for students as well thank you a quick followup I think to that did you say that it's a CL t or did you say that this is just a test for the the the C students don't have to take the class okay to show their so they can just simply take a test it's just administered similar to like other test a test ID test I would say that um historically most students have found that taking three or four years of language at the high school um gives them the background to be able to be successful on that but we have a number of students that can qualify without all of those courses but they're promoted generally speaking to all students right so that's other questions comments people have about this again we saw lots of really great detail really appreciate the hard work that's gone into this and the results that you're seeing and just we're just we know you're not done right there's always it keeps going yes and and um that it's nice to see those craft going up and hope we're very helpful and want you to keep us in a loop about the resources to to that as well we want to see our students acknowledge for that like you said there are people who can speak multiple languages we have a board member here who can speak multiple languages uh pretty well um and um it's nice to have some acknowledgement for that so thank you very much for that thank you appreciate all right that brings us up to 6B and it's been a while since we've had director Patricia Magnuson up here to to speak to us but um that's okay she needs a break too and and she's got plenty of things to do so but we're excited to have director Magnuson here to talk about budget update about fiscal year 2024 year end audit results and fiso year 2025 budget results our midyear budget update reflecting fiso year 2024 results as beginning balance I love that it's super qualified like that because as we know and you'll probably tell us you're operating in three years at a time almost always so we we're we're very well versed in that but um I like the the details so director ma yes um good evening chair Cox um superintendent Dr Hines and members of the board um I am really happy to be here to show you the audit results it's good news for fiscal year 2024 and we are almost out of that third year so we um as you will see at the end of the presentation are about to close last year so we wanted to just give you an update with some preliminary information while the audit reports aren't completed yet and we'll come to the board in Janu anuary we know the results so we wanted to get that news to you as soon as possible so this is a super busy report but um what we're trying to show because there's context to everything we want to show the larger context the first thing I want you to see is that we are ending ahead of the budget in the general fund by $3.1 million super good news a lot of that is in our reserved balances however the really good news is that the second line there our unassigned fund balance is ahead of budget by $454,000 really great news meaning that we um exceeded expenditures or came in under Revenue was by 44,000 in the revenues and expenses that are not assigned to something and so that's up 65% um the best news about that is we are at 8.27% as of last year you know as late as a month ago we weren't sure as we were pulling all the data together that we were going to hit that 8% number the board um took the risk of adopting a midyear budget that was under 8% um so I can take you through some of the details of what has occurred um I wanted this is the only time you'll see the other funds outside of the general fund so I just wanted to give a quick snapshot the school nutrition fund I want you to see here that it's basically a balance budget this is our beginning um fund balance and ending fund balance in school nutrition behind where we thought we would be by the end of the year the majority of that has to do with the input costs um fresh fruits and vegetables cost that exceeded what we had included in the budget and I wanted to remind the board we didn't update the school nutrition budget at midy year so that's part of the reason that just wasn't refreshed the Community Education fund is um do is very very strong we are actually increasing fund balance by $670,000 um we knew under the leadership of director Howard that um we expected to end the year at a million dollars but we're just a little bit ahead of that in community ed they have worked really hard to increase um programming and revenues um and keep costs down of course The Debt Service fund is is about where we had expected it to be we rounded we round um principal and interest payment it's off a little bit from budget but that's um where we're at with Community or with The Debt Service fund and of course we don't budget for the construction fund but we want to show you here the construction fund by Design will be bought down to zero over several years um we still had $133 million um of the construction funds remaining um a year ago and we ended on last year so just what we had paid out by June 30th we had $89 million left we're standing in really good condition to continue our projects and you'll hear um well tonight and actually in December on some of our last bid openings the internal service fund is our self-funded medical and dental program super important to our bargaining groups and this fund balance growth is really important so um what this tells me is that as a self-funded school district the costs of our premiums are um the the premium Revenue that we're bringing in from our employees exceeds the cost of our health insurance so we continue to grow the fund balance which is very important if at some time our premiums look like they're going to go up severely we can um use fund balance to buy that down we haven't had to do that yet um the opab trust fund this shows the present value of future other post employ benefits which is what OPB stands for um and that's just the present value of future benefits for employees who retired under old contract language that allowed for um continuing benefits under medical insurance until the age of Medicare you can see that the the liability is going down just a little bit we've improved the fund balance we do have in a trust fund about $2 and5 million that but the present value of the liability exceeds that so that's why there's a negative balance here but just know that we continue to monitor that and there's a um pay as you go Levy that we also apply toward that deficit um we'll talk about that next month the custodial fund now just holds the boss Family Foundation that scholarship fund we have um zeroed out Children First by booking a receivable and we we received about $10,000 um later this fall that we were able to book into last fiscal year because we hadn't closed the books and with that $110,000 came a promise for two future payments so because we had that in writing we could book that until last fiscal year as a receivable in two amounts $153,000 and a second um check for something in the ballpark of $40,000 so we booked we were able to book both of those because we had something in writing from the children first executive director and board chair so we expect those payments we have not seen them yet um we were supposed to receive the 153,000 by the end of November so um unless those payments are not forthcoming we should be done with Children First at this time if we might have to deal with it if the payments don't arrive we might have to deal with that in this year's budget but we'll talk about that in the 10 comes so that's just the big overall picture we're ending the um the year last you're in a really strong position so we just want to go a little bit into the details of the general fund um again unassigned fund balance is ahead of budget by $454,000 there's a couple of really important things to to notice about that this is our reserve for severance there's the beginning balance there's the ending balance no change so we delivered these results without using any of our Severance balance so we're able to to continue to carry forward those funds we have about 90 employees um that still qualify for severance when they retire and their liability is about $2.5 million so we don't have quite enough in here to cover that so as long as we can continue to pay Severance out of our oper unassigned operating funds we can we can hold this balance but in years when we need it we can draw upon it so that was very good news we had expected to use about $600,000 um we did not um so our budget variance of course is a positive $600,000 so that's really good news atps is um qom it's alternative teacher performance pay program um so we carry even though this is not required under eup far's rules we carry the fund balance which shows the difference between revenues and expenditures for that Q comp program because we want to continue to function within the revenues available so between teacher stiens and site stiens um we want to keep that within Revenue so you can see that we've improved our fund balance by about $97,000 um so we work with the teachers union every year and just keep an eye on that and so um that's an improvement um in our fund balance we had expected in the budget we anticipate zeroing it out every year so it shows a negative variance but um we've improved the fund balance prepaid is an an accounting um structure that we have to set up things that we had to pay last year that weren't due until this year and so we just hold fund balance for the cash that was that was sent out so that will be zeroed out can I ask the Q is that coming um so I see that it's in our unassigned general fund or no it's an assigned sear it's under assigned right so um I said that even though I knew it was a sign so is that money is coming from the state correct yes it's a it's a it's a 7030 state aid it's an equalized formula between state aid and tax levy oh in tax levy yes and then there's some restricted areas that we don't have a choice about we have to hold these funds aside and you might recall at midy year we were um thinking we would dig very deeply into some of these funds if we could um we've got a better condition than we anticipated I'm going to talk about this a little bit in future slides but Student Activities just is what it is these are the balances for the for the accounts that are run by students we don't budget for um the technology Levy is just about a balanced budget um actually $264,000 better than we thought we would be so UND spent in that fund operating Capital the same we are better than we thought by $700,000 but just we need to be really mindful of the spending and operating Capital it is an ongoing fund funding amount but we want to be sure we're not putting too many ongoing operating type costs into this sort of capital related money and the long-term facilities maintenance fund is actually increasing um and increasing more than we thought it would in the budget and really all that means is we're holding on to deferred m M funds to be used for future uses there's nothing else we can use that funding for I'm going to just click into this fund balance sheet um so I just want to show you oh I think you have that link and it was also attached in board book I'm not exactly sure how to make this bigger um so I won't but Arrow or the little sign the BT bottom that one okay I just wanted to make the whole thing bigger I don't see how to the square ah there we go go okay so this is the stuff you have seen already but in my the PowerPoint I took out all of these restricted fund balances that we zero out every year and um um board member Williams had a question about some of these like we're we're overspending these amounts and we can't close these with negative balances so they close into the unrestricted general fund but what we wanted to display here so we sh set this up in a different way is that we do spend the revenue we receive in these restricted areas and Beyond and a really important one for us that sort of triggered this thinking this year was English learner Revenue um we the costs um to uh to to educate our English Learners and the funds that go towards that exceed the revenue because it's a minuscule amount of revenue for for El and really isn't even never was really designed to cover the costs except beginning next year there's going to be a new English learner cross subsidy Revenue similar to special ed where based on where we close the year next year there'll be a a funding source to to you know to fund that gap between revenues and expenses this year's Gap isn't going to be funded it doesn't start till next year but we wanted to get into the discipline of recording it so that it doesn't get lost next year because if we haven't recorded the Gap there's no Revenue to come in so we wanted to start this this year where is that funding coming from that the funding right now the little $188,000 comes from state aid um so we expect beginning next year that the state aid will increase because of that um probably won't close the entire Gap I'm we're not really sure what the formula is going to look like that's where I was going to say that one that one's supposed to be closer but the we we still have this uh special ed one that subsidy is still yeah it's still large yeah and special ed sits in unrestricted we aren't required to have a restricted fund balance for special education so that's one of the funding formulas that just floats around um up in the in the unassigned fund Balan FYI so I wanted you to see that so the only ones that carry a balance are ones where we really can't transfer any more Capital related funds into them so we carry a balance there back so special ed if if it kind of flips around then how do weo it just sits in the general fund so the revenue is an expensive so it's in the science yes and I'll get to it in in the next slide yeah so actually it's it's right here it's a really important part of um our Revenue being ahead of budget by about $3 million so taxes are ahead of budget because of you know a lot of this is conservative budgeting or budgeting not budgeting for things we don't know we're going to get for sure and that's a practice that I believe in so you know we know what our tax levy is we don't know what abat abatements will look like we don't know what miscellaneous collections will look like to um tax increment financing payments so this $831,000 just really reflects abatements that didn't occur and miscellaneous tax payments that came in so we are ahead of budget for taxes by 3.74% our tuition and local fees some of this is interest earnings the other thing that we haven't done yet is full Thro in a full throated way budgeted into fees and admissions postco we wanted to be really cautious about how much of our Revenue we thought we would begin to recoup postco so in our midyear budget we might want to reconsider this year's Revenue budget for student fees and admissions into events um it's it's not a large you know it's not one of our larger source of revenues but it's sizable and we hadn't budgeted um we didn't increase the budget after Co and so we came in $762,000 ahead of budget about $200,000 of that is interest earning um again because the interest rate Market is doing really well can I can I check your thinking there that then you would say would we reduce to fees or something like that or hold still fees is that what you're suggesting it's that we're not bu we didn't budget the budget so we we're showing a budget that looked more covid like yeah got it okay kids weren't participating people weren't coming to events got it and we don't have enough time postco to know are we going to go back to the way we were five years ago so until we have some time and that money gets spent even if this is revenue the money is getting SP yes yes also I think two years ago didn't we decide to keep our fees level we just we didn't do anything with the we didn't go up right we had increased fees but in this case we're just right the budget I get so that's why I'm just wondering if it's um because kids are more kids are participating that's why it may have gone up a little bit MH the other thing is aren't we charging more at the stadium for to to go to a game that was that the Minnesota State High School I don't know but I but I feel like nowadays Too part of that cost and I'm just speaking out of turn here is that there's a fee also associated with some of those electronic yeah transactions too that I think schools are recouping or whatever to so so this really just reflects a very conservative budget and an interest rate environment that was um really healthy um and then state aid is up by about $1.4 million the majority of this is special education Aid and that continued um investment in Cross subsidy Revenue federal funds are just about um On Target those are fairly easy to budget postco we do have a little bit of the it is the final um ARP funding for some transportation for um homeless students that we were able to use so that's this last variance in federal it doesn't amount to much and um in other Revenue it's um sales of equipment insurance recovery for things that we turned in um for an insurance claim so that's we have a pretty modest budget and so that's the increase there on the expenditures we're super close to budget um you know 0.11% um within budget and salaries and benefits we're very close this new Finance system allows us to be really um clean in our budgeting for salaries and benefits because our HR department does such an excellent job of of setting up and tracking employees and then of course there's other things um that we have to make predictions about and budget for but we're really proud of that salaries and benefits budget this looks interesting right between purchase services and supplies and equipment and it's a budgeting um it's the way we budget here for a couple of reasons first of all in purchase Services we really were um we really did exceed our expenditure budget in the area of Transportation but that was about $400,000 of this the remainder is when we when we budget in those specialized um areas for capital projects L for technology in longterm facility maintenance and in um operating Capital we usually put the placeholders in an equipment code 530 for equipment purchases but a lot of times when we use those Capital funds we're buying purchase services so we're purchasing an electrician to come out and do some work or an architect to do work so it's just a matter of how we're budgeted between those two things so that's really what's happening here um weend um that 530 account as well we didn't spend as you saw earlier into ltfm into capital projects we didn't buy all of the things that our budget would have allowed for to preserve those funds for future uses so really these offset one another it's just the way that we budget them um and then in other um expenses you know what this really is it's part of state aid as well because do you remember gby 68 a few years ago um required required school districts to start to reflect the deficit in TR and P across the state so school districts now individually have to reflect that deficit that's what this other expense is for us there's a exact offset in state aid so there's about that same amount in this overage for state aid we don't budget for either side of that transaction because it's completely offsetting but that's all that that is I'm sorry what were those acronyms again oh public employees retirement Association and the teacher retirement Association so across the state actuarially it's not fully funded so on our books school districts have to show that deficit and so we share it across the state of Minnesota on our books and then the state picks up the revenue and so so that's the result for last year very close to Budget on expenses and we did really well on Revenue the ma the majority of the revenue came from um State special ed um Revenue so here's What's Next by November 30th and actually it's picked out to the 1 or 2nd of December because of the holiday weekend but um by November 30th we send our you fars reports to the state of Minnesota that's our uniform financial accounting and Reporting standards every um District in the state to comply with those reporting standards so we send the info up to the state as final audited we'll send ours tonight actually our final audited data um and then in December we're going to complete our audit analytics we're still working with the Auditors on the final audit report we'll complete that so it can be sent to the Department of Education by December 31st and then our Auditors will be here on January 14th for a presentation and then the board accepts the final audit report the data the results will be exactly um as these are we are done with the financial part of the audit you will find there will be some findings this same findings as last year or along the same lines um payments that were not made within 30 days usually that's for a good reason we're holding those and we're trying to get better about documenting that so the auditor could pass on it we don't document why we held a payment they can't make a pass on it so you'll see some normal findings it was a really smooth audit um everything went really really well we're super pleased with the results and we're working really hard to have good results for this year again um Dr hines's leadership has been really instrumental as we sit in this room once a month and have budget managers review their budgets um so we're really paying close attention thank you board members other questions comments feedback than good yes probably the least um I want to use the word least um I don't know schooly thing I'm I'm going to use that because it's numbers right and it but it is it is really influential the work that we do and so um it is good to see that we've got this in good shape and we know that um this is a that numbers are a challenge for a lot of districts and this this is good news but we know that there's other real to we can do a lot with the money we get but we also know that we're generally underfunded on things yes we are and this and it's hard work that we will be continuing to really keep these to use these Investments like we said special we don't get the money that we're supposed to be getting to to do that work and so it keeps pulling on things and some of those things are a bit unpredictable right yeah so I think I think that's super important for our public to understand that our special education funding we are underfunded with special ed from the state that's what the cross subsidy means but we are obligated by law and by like ethics to serve our students so um I think I get a lot of questions about you know you've got all the you got this historic money from the state but that just that was we were underwater and we were drowning and they gave us so that our head is like at the surface we're still we're not doing well we're still kind of like you know so we're the um I think when people start asking about where where is the money going um I think it's important to know that public education was underfunded decades to at least um where the state didn't give us money well and special ed has been underfunded from the federal government since 1974 yes so that is when idea came about the the sort of promise at the time was 40% and I've heard that the number that's the highest we've ever been is 17 and it's less than that now so um the federal government has literally never um like held up their end of the bargain on special ed and you're right Virginia you're right like we have to do it by law and we want to do it because it's the right thing to do for our students um but it it it comes at a at a huge cost and so if people are wondering what can you do you could certainly Run for the board at some point but you're going to be faced with the same problems that we are so reach out to your elected officials I think it's super important um I also you know the transportation costs are real like the the that is a significant increase in why we're facing a lot of the and some of that transportation is the we're it's also we're doing the right thing you know we're um when students have housing in security it is the right thing to do to make sure that they have a stable School environment but it is increased as you will probably present in the budget maybe um Ashley will but like it's the right thing to do but it costs a lot of money I use you know the privilege of being a board member too saying that we know the general fund is still underfunded too what we're supposed to be you know spending what we get from the state and they're we thankful for the money that we've gotten for Ser right but we know that some organizations I don't know where msba is on this but amsd is continuing to ask for an increase in that to to get us to the point of like there's charts and graphs out there people that show you exactly where we've fallen off from inflation we're not keeping up with inflation um this is all outside of the great work that you do what we're trying to say is we're so thankful of the work you're doing of the audits we know again that this is a struggle we appreciate appreciate your high quality sort of attention to the detail to this to your budgeting approach and to the detail so we're not getting bad news or tricky news at this time so um I also want to do a shout out to the community that next week there are Community meetings about the budget um and you could look on our website to find the details or maybe Ash going to talk about it but um you'll see all of those charts and graphs you were talking about the underfunding of of education so great thank you it's so great to see you director Magnus thank you here appr app it and um and you're free to take off there but we're going to have uh suku to talk about not budget this time we probably should have flipped it but we're going to give you the joy of talking about the strategic planning and give us an update again I think some of this we saw in a study session but um for the greater public here let's talk about it now director H and members of the board I'm G to go very quickly through this again time too um we have partnered with pink Consulting to do our strategic plan we are really excited about this partnership especially because of the work that they are going to help bring in our ideas our community voices and help guide us through this next session they are also participating in a rebranding um all of this information is now available on our strategic plan page of the website so if you if if I'm going through this too quickly that information is made available to you so you can go through and read all of these thingsbody can anybody can yes it's it's up there now um so I'm going to go through it again very quickly but we have different phases um I'm going to outline because we're already in our October and November we're basically at the end of November currently um we have our project team which is our uh core cons our core strategic planning group that is coming together they met one time in um October and then they're coming together next week December 2nd where they will go over their IDI results and engage a little bit further we are also having a number of other activities happening that week I'll talk a little bit more about them as we go we've also sent out our staff survey we today heard we have about 130 uh staff who completed it so we're really happy with that the survey is open until December 6th so and we will be launching our community survey um relatively soon here so we're hoping to launch that next week so as our strategic planning partners are here next week everyone can go through and take the survey as well um we will be moving into December January so again December 2nd through 4th is our busiest time where we are going to be having many uh focus groups tours of our schools um in engagements with our principles cabinet leaders there are some interviews that have been scheduled during those first three days they are going to come back um in Jan uary to do a community engagement session um in person we also have an online community engagement session I'm going to share those details um shortly between February and April that's when we're really going to be developing the brand so after we've collected all of the feedback that's the time when we're going through it um starting to craft the the outcome of the plan itself and taking a look at the the brand in Greater depth because they'll have come and seen our spaces know a little bit more about who we are and what we're trying to um so we should be moving into the the later phases of our plan May is when we're going to wrap up and ideally have our plan ready to go debrief figure out what needs to to happen in order for us to move forward in the summer ideally for communication we are planning um to use some of the branding elements to do some things for our our communication efforts moving into the school year and likewise same with the Strategic strategic plan to help us identify our goals and vision for the future so these are the focus group days and times so we're having specific groups that are reflective of our community so a Spanish focus group Somali focus group and Jewish Jewish focus group and then we will have an online community engagement s session on December 11th and the date that's not on here is January 27th is when they're planning to come back in person so that's a Monday night um so that we can engage in this as well um this is just the strategic planning portion I know I'm talking a little bit about the budget budget we're also tacking on to this um so that when we have our focus groups There's an opportunity for people to speak to both of those two items so that is what I've got on strategic planning timeline any questions oh I have a just quick question so those FX groups would board members be able to attend if they want yes yep I think anybody can attend to those focus groups open to the public um we will have interpreters available for our Spanish and Somali focus groups and another board member sort of asked about that can we participate and I'm like certainly as parents and community members who are you we have the privilege of also being to able to look at this stuff as a board but at that point we're really probably not trying to influence the process so if you have Community I think that's appropriate for board members um to you know to put their perspective on this as well so I really appreciate that like you said that you're previewing the fact that you've combined those meeting times too because we know that there's meeting but particularly to audiences that are under served that it's a lot to ask people to say like can you come this Monday can you come this Monday and I just really appreciate that for sort of yeah combining this effort so have a quick question um just for for our community um can you expand on why these were the four focus groups selected yep so these are also the the groups that we tend to have our um Multicultural leas for so we provide direct support for Spanish and Somali because there are higher populations um given this past year we've learned more from our Jewish community and also wanted to provide opportunities for them to engage in the process um because we've we've been looking for ways to have a more representative voice at our table again appreciate it we're going to see you again in a couple of minutes but we're g to um we're g to yeah you can go ahead and take off here and we're going to bring up our community head folks here and this is um uh director Howard is gonna come up here and as she's been doing through a whole series providing us with updates with community at which we really appreciate we've got good news about some budget stuff there we're trying and um we hear more about it in the community I think all the time so um I will let you kick it off introduce our gu right I will uh good evening to your CX members of the board superintendent um thank you for having us here today this is our final conversation about 2324 I know you guys are excited we are too because we have so many great things happening for 2425 uh I'm here today with one of our leaders for our adult and Senior programs um and I'll pass it off to her and then we'll we'll go back and forth hi my name is Becky Borman I am there s to do click on to the next one y set your controll there we go okay hi I'm Becky Borman I the um adult and Senior program coordinator um and I am located at uh ladex Community Center um so I'm going to share a little bit about our programming and Community Education um the St Louis Park Senior program is in partnership with the city of St Louis Park and it's housed at lenx Community Center the senior program is open to anyone that is 50 years old and better and that's anyone um anyone local so don't even have to live in St Louis Park um while we serve hundreds of participants through our classes programming and events we have over 440 members um this means that these members pay an annual fee a nominal annual fee of $30 um they receive our newscaster which is our senior public application three times per year in the mail and they get free or discounted classes some of our most popular classes are listed here and include our ballroom dancing cards and games arts crafts and painting and our day trips which are all highlighted in these photos um we also offer several other events throughout the year for our senior community which include our birthday party in the park which happens every other month lunch and learn our annual craft fair our pop your trunk flea market and our annual Senior Resource event um and I just added a little little note that we are trying to bring Bingo back to W it's exciting I have my doers do you I have my own doers uh we also offer a variety of enrichment opportunities to adults um age 18 and up some of our most popular classes include pickle ball cooking classes Arts crafts and painting and our wood shop which are also all displayed within these photos um and then last our district volunteer program is also housed at lenux we partner with all of our district sites to place our amazing volunteers um this past Academic Year we placed over 100 volunteers who served over 8,000 hours within our school sites we are very appreciative of our dedicated volunteers where is it is that h on what on your website on the community website wanted to volunteer the volunteer program yes and they would go through the volunteer application process y yeah and then last um as you can see a lot of programming happens at lenux Community Center um and we wanted to take a minute to highlight that our building is a multi-purpose building not only do we have Community ad programs offered on site as mentioned earlier we also have two District special education programs as well as a variety of community programs and tenants that serve Youth and adults um and the two special education programs are our transition plus program and the 92 program and then um we have a few renters as well in the building thank you I'm going to um highlight adult options and education program we are a Consortium member of adult options in education which includes Yetta mataka and Hopkins who is the lead a Consortium member there uh we continue to see growth in our program in fact uh just like other adult basic education programs or adult learning programs across the state we have a waiting list um in fiscal year 23 there's about 70% growth in our program specifically adult options and that is one contributed to um a new member of the Consortium which was Yetta um fiscal year 24 we continue that growth at 14% um and we added four new classes last year we had 82 Learners this current year we had 821 registered uh 40% of those are uh students online so that's been continuing to be uh continues to be a popular uh option for our adult Learners we also have increased our contact hours in that space uh last year we we provided 28,45 3 hours and this is the full Consortium uh and this year uh this fiscal year 24 was 2920 um and just I just want to highlight the growth here so last August August 23 uh we registered 156 Learners this past August uh 24 we registered 180 so there again continues to be a growth um oh sorry sorry I just want to highlight here too to learn more about do options you can click on the hyper link there those are St Louis Park teachers who are part of the Consortium uh so they do amazing work right upstairs so feel free to check them out uh Monday through Thursday and student achievements there okay and then I just wanted to highlight here too I says top TW uh 20 display but is actually the top 10 um uh here of students from uh different uh country so you can see like uh Somalia uh there's 123 students uh represented from Somalia Ukraine is next e Ecuador in Mexico Venezuela and so forth and so on um and then the the language uh spoken uh Spanish Somali Russian and Ukraine and the majority of the Ukraine students are um residents of St Louis Park we go to the next one I know this is small so I will you can look at this another time but this is our Minnesota adult basic education report card so each uh of the adult basic education uh programs do report annually to the Department of Education I just want to highlight here that um we have a very strong program so if you squint your eyes at that first one that says measurable skills gain ESL participants those are adult Learners that a number of them may have come from a a country uh their home country where they may have had extensive educational experiences too SEC postsecondary experience some may have um once had professions like in the medical field or teaching field and they come here to continue their um education with us so we are considered um um number six in our program here and so you can see that there I that's pretty amazing ranked High there and the other box of is our a participants that's more of our GED program and we're ranked um six 16 there so I think that that's some amazing numbers there you can go to the next one again small snap screenshots here here uh the reason that this is here because we uh find it important to really show the rtion and Persistence of the Learners in our program that continue to come back um which is telling and they stay here within our St Louis Park or half that well we're worried about our St Louis Parks majority of them stay here in the St Louis Park but they do become contributing members of our society as well as contributing members of the um the county uh so there's uh they can stay with us as long as they need to as long as they want to the ESL program AB we hope that they continue um career Pathways with us and uh we're here to support support their needs I think you go to the next one oh and then I felt to mention that the adult education program or Adon options program is led by Chelsea ritland who is a um employee of Hopkins Public Schools project zor is our um our recre recreational Leisure program for adults with disabilities or special needs it's led by Lindsay rickens who is an employee of minaka public schools also in Consortium same Consortium members wetta minaka H in St Louis Park uh so this is just some an amazing program that uh Lindsay and her team supports uh and we get to contribute by uh providing space and then opportunities for um adults to participate in this program too uh I know that um they love to come to linox they also love to play Bingo and then they also love to sing so there's a new choir that started January 2024 uh sore song birds choir and they practice and they also perform at the Hopkins Eisenhower um Auditorium and then Lindsay so great I just want to highlight some of her um what she calls hits or misses for this past summer um a lot of this is really driven on popularity in what a number of her participants are asking for so um some of hits or most popular was that Cruz you've seen it before I spoke about it before it was a they were over booked so not one more person can get down there they did not have enough WS for safety uh preservers for anyone so that just shows you that how popular it was uh they had a howdy hold down and Fried Chicken Fest I guess that's continues to be a popular choice for participants they ask for it Lindsay makes it happen um Bingo and then ice cream social and then they um icy tie dye shirts which uh we all have a nice beautiful tie-dye shirt too from the experience and then some of the classes that didn't go as well was the cultural connection celebrations but uh lindsy did mention that there is a need to um I don't know like figure out why it didn't go well maybe there's some additional education uh that's needed because there is an importance as to why we would host an opportunity as such so just going back to the drawing board to figure out um if there is an opportunity to improve on those class options that um weren't as popular um and then there was a tour to this American Swedish Institute um so it just conflicted with some other big events that were taking place so you can also visit um project s's website too and that is adult and Senior programs in St Louis Park you have any questions winter registration opens December 9th online online catalog will be in your home the middle of December board members questions comments I have comments no I just a great work thank that I Echo that you know as I'm looking uh the community at in different school districts I'm seeing you know negative seeing positive that's that's great what you're doing too thank you and uh you know geds that's one of my favorite program I it happened to be I was there last last year I was there I went before that so like that's that's great and seeing so many people I will just say keep up with good all thank you thank you I think I think it's great to see um to get this detail I think for the longest time I never I think I mentioned this before they the same Community as now um so I really appreciate you guys taking the time here I am in my second term and I'm just now I think getting the fullest picture of community includ in the way that you broken this down you talked about each of these programs because in my mind I was like what's adult options what's you know like it just a lot to kind of sort through but this been really great and it's great to see the results and it's great that we're doing this in our community and if you go to Linux or if you go upstairs here and walk around I've said it before you'll be amazed you'll be energized whatever whatever the event is I can pretty almost guarantee that you're going to be energized by seeing it or whatever and so just just fun stuff that doesn't happen um you know in our school school programs but in our community so great thank youate thank you all right so now she's had a chance to get some water and take a little bit of a break and now put on a different PA and talk about budget list the main session so well superintendent Hines and members of the board it's my pleasure to be back again so so soon um I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about the budget listening session again I'm going to go relatively quickly because I know I shared this information with you at our study session um one of the things that I shared with you at that time is that we would like to have more feedback so when we did our budget listening session in October we had about 15 to 20 people present we posed uh three questions to IND individuals and the same three questions that are in our survey that is still open for people to take and will'll stay open until we are through with our um our gathering sessions of time we don't have a particular close date yet um but we can put one on it if we feel like that is needed um these were we we asked uh two other questions in the listening session that we're not ask on the survey um and we will likely ask similar questions in the f Fus groups just to gauge where people are at um what what is new information for you and what have you known for a long time when we ask those questions we received a lot of questions back these are a couple of the questions that came back to us um that helped us to do a little bit more digging into our current practices and also to help answer some of the questions because there's a lot of things that we could could say like the building project fora is indeed happening um and moving forward and people have questions about that so it's also good information for us to think about what we can communicate back to our families um so one of the questions that's in the survey is what aspects of the school's environment or Community make you feel most supportive and engaged in your your students learning experience teachers and staff are the top theme that came from that that conversation um in what ways do you believe the school best prepares students in their future both academically and personally we did get some questions about homework um we talked a little bit about some of the opportunities that didn't exist when parents were students and that's great those are things that we also want to um continue to provide High opportunities for our students to be successful what programs activities or resources do you feel are most valuable in promoting a well-rounded education at the school um again we heard a lot about different opportunities we heard some things about ID Talent Development um the cafeteria um high high topic I would also say just even in general we we heard that people wanted to see more communication about lunch um we've been adding more things on social media they are still they they are some of our highest performing um posts so our most recent one on uh Jacob one of our school nutrition employees has 178 likes on it so very high engagement it is we that that was surfaced through this budget listening session um this is the new information that I'm presenting you with is that at that time of our study session I said we had 56 responses we have doubled that so yay we're happy with that so we're up to 100 responses that's great we still want to get more and again those focus groups that we're going to be having next week will be really helpful for us to get even further um further feedback I will say the feedback that we gained from the survey so far is very similar to what we saw in the in in the feedback that we got through our community engagement session so I'm just I'm going to go go through these quickly and again if you're at home and I'm going to quickly take time to pause this um after the school board and when you're watching it on recording so um different things that came up also in the survey are things like library media centers um people like our focus on academics and skills like career Pathways is also a very popular Fey in our surveys so again I said we're Our intention is to gather more feedback these are the sessions that we have upcoming um and we are also encouraging people to take action at this time so if you are watching this um we encourage you to contact your local legislators um to help encourage people to take note of what's happening around our budgets um this is an issue that's impacting many of our Minnesota schools so encouraging people to do their do what they can to to help support our schools at this time questions questions say board um in terms of the last board item that you talked about in terms of encouraging people if you have questions you have information um amsd is a good resource in particular that has a lot of information about money and we've uh approved um a bunch of position papers that can tell you a little bit about some of that stuff so that's a good resource if you're just trying to get um a basic understanding maybe our initial understanding I should say it's not basic it's initial understanding of stuff there other org out there um we have uh we do not have a um currently we do not have a committee a legislative action committee I know that maybe we'll have that someday there's Hopkins does have one and um they have two of our state legislators in that that group so if there people have questions about that I know I've talked to their chair of that legislative action committee and if people want to be connected and glad to make that connection too so we'll take what we can get there people it's not just us there a lot of opportunities um I'll just say too that the resources that Colin chair Cox is referring to are located on the website so in the news posts there is a um a contact your legislator's resources which links the amsd resources I reached out to Ashley at one point to say hey I've never seen this on our website before um we have some information on our website and I think that's great because uh people need to know where to go to get some of this information so again really appreciate this really apprciate engaged in this process and hope that people continue to to come in and we just encourage that the more we get from them the better we feel about what we're doing because at some point we're going to have to make a decision here and that might be based on what we know but also we want to know what other people are saying to so can just ask quick so the strategic planning focus groups are at the same time as the budget listening that's correct so the first hour is going to be the strategic planning conversation and we're starting with strategic plan strategically right starting with something that centers our beliefs values and things that we want to see so this is an opportunity for people to share like what are their hopes for the future and then we will engage in some of the budgetary conversations and thinking creatively um and learning what people really value so I think the structure of these two especially when we look at the way we framed our survey questions around budget are framed around what people value of our school district um and then for the budget list is it the same so uh director Williams and I attended the first budget listening session is it the same information will be presented that okay did I so I would even encourage our board members to go that listening session is a really helpful way of understanding and um there's you have an online virtual one we do nice so I could stay in my pajamas and wear slippers and listen to more budget stuff that's perfect it is a great opportunity and I think the presentation really um made it clear to I for me it made it very clear what we're kind of faced with um and I just appreciated the the questions that you and director Magnus asked as far as um what is it that we um director or Dr H you put us like these are like this is our core value this is where we're going to spend and this is the money that we'd like to have but these are the so I really appreciate you reaching out to the community and I would encourage the community to um attend one of those one of those listening sessions because it is good information thank you can I I'm sorry I just want to say that I think it's super brilliant that you're doing them together because right like the saying right that like our budgets are just our Val values with numbers attached like strategic planning and budgeting are not different right they are the same so I think that's great and I think it'll like getting that Foundation of bebc in both of those areas will just make those so much stronger pull together thank you all right thank you again um consent agenda time it is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda the following business and Personnel items from November 2624 school board meeting has presented that includes there several things in here business stuff um to expenditures Investments um some Personnel items there's also donations we're always appreciative well the donations we get um and minutes that are in that cons agenda so it has been recommended I'll move it do we have a second a second second by director Anderson all those in favor say I any opposed passes 60 okay that brings us up to the res of our action items which um start with ailla project bid acceptance it looks like we have the wrong presenter on here have Sarah Davis on here I think that this is probably Patricia and Company it's in Jim that are um but um before we while they come to is recommended that the school board Independent School 283 approve the bids in the amount of 11,562 840 and general um conditions of 1,657 973 for a total of 13,22 8:3 do I have a motion on this so okay one of you can be the first and the second split the difference okay with that and questions for Jim mein anybody anything you want to offer about this you know um we're fortunate that we're still in a good bidding cycle on this project we did come in uh about uh maybe 7% blow budget so we're actually sitting pretty pretty good right now um you'll notice when we come back and we're going for the stadium that one came in a little higher so I think it's kind of a wash between Aquilla and the stadium project I do believe that we're gonna I would my recommendations is to move forward with both of them obviously we're dealing with quill here tonight so yes is it because of the overhang [Music] my but Aquilla have you guys Broken Ground not yet uh we're still waiting for final permits so we intend to start this December though okay all right that comes from the city too yeah so correct okay yes well thank you so we're hopeful that that gets moving here too okay any other questions comments about this watch excited that we're doing this excited that we have we do have Community Partners I'm not picking on this because are our Community Partners as well we're appreciate that so we've had a motion in a second all those in favor say I any oppos passes 60 that brings us up to a policy development second reading of policy 614 school district testing plan procedure it is recomended the school board approv policy 614 school district testing plan procedure as presented you I have a motion on that okay okay we move by Virginia direct man C to I'll second it um with that um since we don't have director Davis here Dr hind y so um on this policy the only changes that were made was spelling out those acronyms so we have the um data assessment coordinator the district assessment coordinator spelled out and um the M Mars is spelled out as well so that was those were the only two changes and we had seen this um for people at home we seen it in the study session um we don't vote in study sessions then we vote in these um actual board meetings regular meetings so so all the red line was what we saw originally at the first reading and those were from the model policy correct got okay anything else we have had a motion in a second um all those in favor say I I I any zero um policy development second reading of policy 410 Family Medical read it is recommended that the school board approve policy 410 Family and Medical Leave as presented you have a motion to do that so moved moved by director Williams do I have a second second by director Anderson okay um no changes since the first reading okay um sweet good any other comments from people we appreciate again the detail going through this thank you so much all those in favor say I I I any oppos passes 6 Z 8D policy development second reading of policy 413 harassment and violence it is recommended that the school board approve policy 413 harassment and violence as pres I do I have a motion on that so moved by director will second second second by director manini okay um Dr H zero changes since the first read okay any questions or comments from people on model 4113 all those in favor say I I anyos passes 60 6 8e policy development second reading of 503.com mened that the school board approve policy it's a lot of the cabinets work a lot of cabinets work thank you cabinet for getting things updated you know we've been behind and someday we're going to get caught up yes um but we're getting there I appreciate that so all those in favor say I any post pass to 60 that brings us up to board member updates I start um kindergarten welcomeing night was awesome it was nice to see so many smiling faces and families come out um Virginia and Colin accompani me in this and we did have some an extended conversation with um some of our members who just had some concerns and wanted to understand some of our policies and our stuff around grading teachers or students grading teachers so um um it was it was it was a good time um I'm glad that we had so many community members come out and a lot of people that love and support St Louis Park and um other little ones that want to come and be a part of St Louis Park um human rights committee um so we are working on the agenda for 2025 and we have decided that some of the things we want to tackle are AI just giving more information to the community about AI where you can find resources if you're um if you're a victim of some type of AI fraud or whatever um housing um helping residents understand their housing rights um also uh human rights in general so we're we're thinking of starting some type of book club where we can read some of these things or we can direct other people we're also thinking about doing arts and crafts and creating our own little like one two step books just so people can have that um knowledge and something with mental health support for the kids so those are the things we're working on there um and like little snag bags of some sort that we can give people with little um Community knowledge or um where business cards um whatever else that we may think of in between that time uh and then also I have a 20-year-old today so Marcel is if you're watching a happy birthday that birth watch meeting with my mom it's too bad we don't call these transmitt I feel we're transmitting that Spirit out that's great that's it for me okay other board members updates um I just have one quick one that I forgot Men last time that um I learned at our at our senior advisory committee not the one you were at but before that that glenox the building is turning off 100 next year and so they're going to be celebrating their 100th anniversary and there's going to be some you know talk about how that how do we do how do we do that how do we look back at 100 Years of mon so um more on that next year I think all of our buildings qualify to be in a senior program might be one of our Linux they're they're they're hosting um a movie night I think it's December 9th check the website don't quote me but they're doing It's a Wonderful Life and that's one of my favorites so I'll be there if you want to come join me I would add that I was at Linux uh I don't know two weeks ago but that the events happening over there the crop events yeah yeah I Ted that and I love going there you know uh it's super cool I I made a lot of senior people you know I love senior people because one day I will be senior I'm not I'm not going to say I mean I do qualify so I I buy some stuff over there too it was great difference that's my second one so the second one I wasend since I'm in the board I just have to really I don't remember what I've said so um I uh attended the career pathway advisory did we talk about that I think the only thing that I uh would I mean this is my favorite board I love going to it it's energizing um they t a lot of hopes and dreams uh one of the goals this year for the board for The Advisory Board is really to increase the exposure um kids to different career Pathways and one of the ways that they're doing that is they had a large success with the career fair at the high school during lunches last year and so they are growing that and um they're really committed to uh having it um in probably in January this is my thinking because um for students who are thinking about what classes that they're going to register for next year it's important to know what like the prerequisites are to get to um the other cool thing about the career fair is that kids actually get hired there like students are hired for part-time work um when they go to the career fair and I'm just always super impressed um and grateful for our Community Partners and everything that they bring and all of the leadership that they bring to that and then I also um attended the whatever DPAC stands for it's the curriculum and advis curriculum and instruction advisory Council and I just shout out to Dr lafette and Dr um Duffy for that great presentation and the teachers who came and presented and it was um really great to get all of the community feedback about the programs that are happening and I always feel privileged because it's like a preview to what they present to the board so yeah yeah I've got a a couple um I did have a chance to check out the the senior program advisory Council um and I know it's been mentioned quite a few times and is as fantastic as everybody says um in a particularly gloomy November it was super energizing uh just to see all these 50 or better people who care about the community and care for the community and uh are looking for ways to connect the community and that was just awesome it was awesome to be a part of so if you are 50 or better check it out um and then also super close um and then uh Susan lingren families there is a new event uh coming up it's the family engineering night uh it's on Thursday December 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. uh and there's it's a partnership with the works Museum and there's a whole bunch of cool engineering activities that they're going to be doing there including Dynamic magnetic structures fling flyers and uh circuit play so it's a whole bunch of cool stuff so check that out any else I um I have the joy like I said before being on an amsd legislative committee and it's been really great and we're um moving along as I said with position papers in a legislative platform and I think that's def we get approved at the next board meeting um full board meeting and um just excited to see that people continue to really zero in on things we're talking about students at the center learning we're talking about things related to um guns we're talking about things related to funding it's all sorts of things right so there's a lot of things that that are really important do impact our schools and our communities um I also had the joy of being at the MSP conference um with Dr H and director Casey and that was a great opportunity I'm GNA make a pitch I don't think I don't know what our budget looks like but they were saying I think we can take more than two of us at that meeting and if we do have that budget I do encourage people to go to it they've said that they were a little under expectations for that and but it is really good and I it's so good that my brain tires out after three sessions because you're just but there was inspiring things we saw of students presenting um great opportunities to interact with other schools we I got to talk to another District that how are you guys dealing with your budget stuff great opportunities just to have some of those conversations too and make those connections you there's other ways to do that through amsd in general but the conference is a good way to do that um as well and then I had the joy of seeing um Wiz B this past weekend too and that was a lot of fun too um and among seeing again that stage being used again yay we have two full operating stages um seeing so many students participate in that to on stage behind the scenes and a pit Orchestra all of those things um great great stuff and also to be able to enjoy our facility and the whole bathroom situation is such an improvement there um for anybody in the community who been threading going into it's a great opportunity to see that that was actually also the family um fun night or whatever we called it at the high school and I got to peek around and see the and see the more completed it's not fully open yet is it the the L it will be open December second December 2nd December and I know a bunch of us as board members you got to see it again it's just it's so it is so much fun to see that all that's great right after Thanksgiving so great all right well with that um I think we and Happy Thanksgiving everybody we are um I'll take a motion technically I found out that I don't have to but but I'll take a motion for us to adjourn um and the second I did second okay with that we are adjourned at