##VIDEO ID:USCitd1vnZM## e e e e e e e here you go time is 7:32 and I'm going to call to order the regular business meeting of the St Lou Park school board meeting for September 24th 2024 and um before we get started I will read the land acknowledgement we are gathered on the land of the Dakota noj peoples I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota no jibway Community your elders both past 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 this school district is located this acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and a District's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools um the next thing I will do is we will have approval of the agenda on the agenda tonight we have first we have open form then we have the superintendent report we have uh number six on there is discussion items we have Schoolboard listening session dates we have strategic priorities update we have an early learning program final presentation and review we have the consent agenda we have uh action item no wait then yes we have then we have action items which include a certificates of participation sale um approval um Aquilla phase one footings and Foundation bids preliminary Levy approval presentation and vote and then policy development second reading of policy 522 student sex non-discrimination and then we will have um we will call Communications and transmittals I think for one last time once we approve things tonight um our uh report from board members and an adjournment so with that it is recommended that the school board approve the agenda for September 24 2024 as presented do I have a motion moved by and do I have a second second second vilia all right any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed pass it 70 okay we are open forum and we have we have nobody who signed up in the back and we had one person who had signed up online who communicated to me that they will not be participating tonight so I'm just verifying that by Visual and um but we do have information on our website for people who want to participate after tonight it's going to be called public comment so the information online has been updated to represent that we've also updated some information on there um in terms of uh bringing it back up to some current language here um some of that was outdated and some pre or some kind of immediately postco I think kind of language that we had up there so some of the information has been updated there as well okay with that that gets us up to the superintendent report and I turn it over to Dr HS thank you chair Cox um to begin I'd like to Center my presentation on our mission St Louis Park public school sees inspires and empowers each learner to live their Brilliance in an environment that centers student voice and experience to create racially Equitable learning that energizes and enhances the spirit of our community in alignment with our mission I want to acknowledge that September is Hispanic Heritage Month and School Board appreciation month so I want to thank each one of our school me school board members for all that you do I am also pleased to provide an update on the successful start of the 2024 2025 school year the efforts of our staff students and Community Partners have insured a smooth and welcoming return to school I'm excited to share some of the highlights a significant amount of work was completed throughout July and early August to ensure that both staff and students would feel welcomed and supported upon their return our leadership teams Co coordinated professional development sessions for staff that focused on instructional strategies student engagement and mental health support this allowed our Educators to enter the year equipped to meet the needs of each student over the summer I had an opportunity to learn from our youth data analyst these remarkable students conducted research on how teachers and staff can better support their learning their presentation provided datadriven insights that will inform future decisionmaking and their work is a Testament of the caliber of our students before welcoming students we held a kickoff rally for our staff all of our staff came together in celebration of the new school year I was I was also excited to be a part of welcoming students across the district there were many welcome back activities including orientation sessions for news students and assemblies um to kick off the school year one of my goals this year has been to listen is has been to listen to our community we held multiple Community engagement and and listening s sessions which gave families an opportunity to share their thoughts concerns and ideas it was encouraging to see such a high volume of participation and commitment from our families the national May merit scholarship cooperation announced the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 7 70th annual Merit scholar Merit National Merit Scholarship program including two high school students Elsa Hughes and Caleb T tikman congratulations to these students on their outstanding academic achievement and lastly I'd like to highlight some of our alumni three Louis Park Grass Ryan du duer duer Thomas sha and Micah Davis represented Team USA in the world junior ultimate championships in Birmingham England this summer competing against teams from Great Britain Singapore Australia Colombia France and Switzerland in pool play they Advanced to the quarterfinals where they defeated Japan and Italy in the semifinals as we move forward I look forward to continuing to build on this strong start our Collective efforts have set the stage for a productive and successful school year thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to the to the success of our students thank you thank you Dr hin for that update okay that brings us up to our discussion items and the first thing on our discussion items um is Schoolboard listing session dates and that we have in here that it's recommended I don't know that we have an official vote are we supposed to take a vote on this um well we through the poll yeah we taken a poll that we would um that the school board approved the following dates for the 2024 25 School Board listing sessions that should be I think um and the idea here was to make sure I think that we were um uh sort of uh using existing events as opportunities to uh connect with um parents and community members so already go where people are going to be at as opposed to having an event that people have to come to is that why you're here is to answer questions like that is that in case there are question in case there are questions like that okay good I'm making sure that I'm not taking over what you were supposed to be saying so that and we pulled board members to see check on their availability and it looks like the two dates that that could work for people and we'd still need to part out exactly who's doing what would be the two events that we have listed here kindergarten welcome which is Saturday November 2nd 2024 from 10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and then how o green uh which is Sunday October 13 2024 from 12: to 3 where at where's that at uh Halloween is one of our City events so it's at one of our local parks I believe okay that wolf par that Wolf Park all right keep keeping and we're pretty sure we'll verify that but it's the pop up their little popup okay so those are the two events and that was the idea here and we'll I think um this works out in terms of just people's of General availability and again going where people are at and hoping that that encourages people to come and speak with us and have um some good attendance there instead of making them come to us on a random Tuesday night or Wednesday night so uh any questions or comments about that from board members or questions for director of communications here do we need to set expectations of what this will look like so it's not because in the past it's been a while since we've done a ling session we sit in a presentation almost style but this is more informal GRE type of thing correct is what I'm understanding yes so I'll answer this for kindergarten welcome we will have a table for you so the I think we had over four of you who are able to be in attendance that a table will be set up so that families can stop by and ask questions or converse with you um as they are able um in Halloween will be a little bit different uh because it's going to be uh you may not have a table but we ask that you're there in a in the same area um and engaging with community members as they're walking through the event four or three I was going to say we can only have three I think so sorry I think three three yeah but four people were available available to do so yes we you can figure out exactly who who does what but um but any other questions comments about that okay and so that's the recommendation and so we're moving forward with that there's no really vote on this but I think we just wanted to be clear here and that sets those two dates and then we'll have further dates that we'll look at for the next um for 2025 to get closer yes I think we're going to evaluate how this works for us and then consider what types of options we want to look at for spring okay all right well thank you for bringing us forward thank you for this creative thinking and uh we look forward are we encouraged to dress up in costumes you are okay um I don't know about that but anyways all right but thank you very much but you get to stay at the table because the next item is six Fe strategic priorities update and um it says on here that you are Communications senior specialist but you are our director of communications um you have an update on the uh staff of color priority work um and so I turn it over to you okay so I just want to revisit uh what I presented to you back in I think May or June um around our strategic priority work number two around our staff of color retention goals so our goal has been to develop a retention strategy that amplifies the voices perspectives and needs of Staff of color leading to a safer more empowered and fulfilling culture of belonging um and focused on retaining our racially conscious staff so what that culminated to over the last year was a uh we brought together we surveyed Staff first then we brought our staff together to provide feedback so I'm just going to go through this as a reminder of what came of that discussion um because we wanted to come back to you one of the commitments I made to you was that we were going to determine our action steps moving forward for this school year and so that's what I want to I want to spend uh just briefly talking about that um so when we asked our staff what what would make them want to stay in SLP these were some of the key themes that came up both in survey and in conversation um on that half day that we did with our staff uh authentic relationships accountability and action courageous leadership and Equity were big areas that came up for our general staff of color the other side represents the our our leaders of color that we've pulled together so accountability and action support and recognition and anti-racist allyship and these were themes that were then used to help us determine what are the next steps moving forward so when staff were asked about their dreams for the Future these were just a few of the things that came up um that sense of safety and belonging accountability the ability to speak their truth were just a few of the things that came up in people's responses um both in an interpersonal conversation and again in the survey response and again likewise we pulled these seeds and I'm just again going through this really quick so that we refreshed on what we what we previously have talked about and what I've shared with you before um so similar ly for both our staff of color and our leader group we saw some similar themes and these were the things that were used when discussing what are we going to do next so these are the three things that we are committed to doing this school year as as we commit to our ongoing um priority work so one of the things that is happening is we're creating Affinity groups um and Ally groups so what that'll include is groups for um like all of our Asian staff will be invited to participate in an Infinity group and likewise we will also have groups for our white allies to learn grow and develop in their racial Consciousness we're also working on developing a leadership development opportunity for racially conscious staff to empower people to continue growing within the organization um both in their racial understanding but also professionally and gaining more of the skills to better serve our students overall and last thing which relates to our strategic priority work number one um based off of what we heard from staff though what we do for our students also has a big impact on our staff Wellness so the third thing that we are really committed to doing is fully actualizing care team Cycles in order to decrease the the racially ACH racially achievement gra Gap um so those are the three things that we are working towards uh they're big big things that uh many people within this room uh are playing a key role in accomplishing um so in partnership with human resources in partnership with our instruction and learning um these are all the things that we're trying to accomplish in order to to provide a better um retrenching strategy for our sta so just very high level that's what I've got all right thank you um a question from the board com question from the board um comment any questions thank you it's great and it's great to see some really concrete next steps that are going to be happening in this area um one comment one thought is that on that last one there in terms of who we actualizing care teams we're using the term racial um achievement Gap and I wonder if we've thought about shifting our language to the opportunity Gap or whether we have thoughts on if people have thoughts on um opportunity Gap achievement I'm personally in favor of doing that and it's a we haven't reposted our strategic plan PDFs so I've been holding them and I will make that Amendment well I mean I also just I would apprciate but I wonder what our my colleagues and Dr H think about that language I think I think we're looking to you oh okay so I think that there has been a chi shift in um language when it comes to achievement versus opportunity um one of the things that for in my in my just reflection of the two words the opportunity means that the adults are creating spaces for things to happen for students and so it the adults are are heavily involved in creating space whereas achievement solely feels like it's on the it's the students responsibility so as Educators and facilitators of learning I believe that's where the the shift and um language has come in from from the achievement to opportunity so that we as adults are being very intentional about creating um different onramps of for learning when it comes to Bas basically where students are in their a in their skill sets thank you yeah that I mean that what my ask on this I think a lot of this is about the adult accountability that we've been looking for here so I don't know how others feel but that underlies why I'm asking anybody have issues with considering changing it to opportunity care I think it would make sense to change it to opportunity Gap especially considering what the piece is which is the care team Cycles which I think is about what we as adults can do that was my question what um what do you mean or if you can give me a very brief help me to understand what fully actualizare team Cycles is versus what we may or may not have been doing clearly there is a m we were not doing so what what was that and what are we going to start doing so I think we've been making ongoing efforts with our care team Cycles um they're not part of the reason why we decided to continue our priority work into this year because we saw that there was still opportunity for us to continue moving in that direction and so I think this is just an alignment also with our first strategic priority work that we were already working towards and we're just committing to continuing on this path um even deeper than where we ended last year I'm not sure if others who are um more in alignment with some of the academic side of care teams might want to speak to that that was calling me out Dr Duffy coming hey good evening um so you know this last piece on the steps for the 2024 25 school year I think as as was mentioned I think it um ties really well to our strategic Priority One which is at the core really partnership with our students in particular are historically marginalized students our students of color um our care team work which is collaborative action research for Equity asks our teachers not to look at how we are going to change students practices but change our practices um and learn from students and that's a shift from the typical professional Learning Community model that a lot of teachers engage in around the Twin Cities and even nationally our shift is really to partner with our students of color and learn from them about how we change our practices so I think the language that we've used in the last strategic plan has been around racial predictability of achievement and that racial predictability is based on our inability to change our practices so to fully realize the care team cycle it would be us continuing to respond to what our students are saying we need to do differently as teachers and then making and implementing those changes and I think the reason that it ties so well into this is it goes back to if we are listening to our children of color about how we change our practices I think um we can't expect to be listening to our our staff of color our families of color our students of color and not change our practices and feel like we're going to retain families as well as St that look like the students who aren't being served I I think we were talking about uh understand that was part of the question but there's a separate question about fully actualizing that's fully actualizing what I would say is you know we have to have we we have um a racial predictability of opportunities as well as achievement and a lot of that is based on our practices and our inability to consistently change our practices to me the needs of our community yeah but saying I'm having I understand the two but when you see virginity like we can sometimes Overlook you know the the students when we say targeting we are not playing students to do targeting yeah students CL those but when you say like we can like Overlook individual students that's right say that's right I don't personally like to use the term Gap because that normalizes everything toward white achievement rather than looking at how each student needs to learn on how we respond to the needs of each of our children and to each of the people in our community can I ask a a followup to the full fully actualizing the car team Cycles um is it part of that work taking a look at what has worked so far in like the last year or so of of doing the car team Cycles absolutely yeah there's been a lot of progress with the care team Cycles it's our it's our it's our major vehicle for collaboration across the district and it's an opportunity for our staff to engage as scholars in their work to engage in action action research and I think the shift in philosophy that takes time you is to then really listen to and respond to the needs of our students rather than asking them to change and respond to what we think they need to do that's the shift that we're making like I understand both of them equally Ed also understand you have you say way of virginity rather than that's my opinion rather than achievement yeah I agree I I I believe the most devastating factor that we have in our schools contributing to the lower achievement of children of color and historically marginalized students is systemic racism and it's our opportunity in the care team cycle as well as in our strategic plan to find ways to address systemic racism and how we can have an impact on that as adults I have one other question but it's not related yeah I have similarly I have another question that's well my question was about the affinity and Ally groups and how you're reaching out to them and about that in terms of um are these like how if you could speak just in Broad shows about how that's being advertised or promoted and how people identify as to that or how people are sort of approached to that we're in some really early stages of this of even just figuring out who's willing to take on some of the leadership of bringing together our groups of um our communities of color and our white Ally group um so we haven't really fleshed out fully how we're going to be communicating broadly with staff I can tell you what the intention will be we will be starting with a um we have our staff newsletter like we'll be putting the call out wide and doing staff text staff um email direct to everyone to figure out where people want to go it's not we do have um like our uh racial and ethnic groups that we could pull from Human Resources directly do targeted contact points with our staff of color um and we may pursue that depending on right like how how much do we I like to let people opt in that's my personal approach is like I for my own lived experience but we haven't that's essentially what I was getting at because I just wanted to make sure that people felt comfortable because when you're saying like if it's a group people who identify in multiple areas and stuff so that was you're getting to what I'm was getting to so you don't need to probably that much More's question um my question was really to the same topic on here and have a wondering about as you're creating infrastructure to support affinity and Ally groups um whether and this is importantly focused on um retaining staff of color and also I'm aware through my policy work through this board that we have other Affinity groups of staff that might benefit also from that structural support from the district and whether you might consider inviting for example an LGB lgbtq group or allowing staff to identify that there might be other Affinity groups that they'd like to see the district I'm glad that you said that because Dr hin and I had a conversation even today about what this looks like to start bringing in intersectionality across our yes we've had a very strong racial Equity Focus um but that's not the only focus of inequity within our district we have people across many different identities that would benefit but um so I think we will will be looking at what that looks like to have more opportunities for people to get connected um within communities that would be supportive of them all right so this is a this is something that's in proog in progress we know how to reach out to you if we want some updates this might be something we see in a study session or something else at a later date but also just an opportunity for us to be aware that this is work that you're doing and giving us an update on that for that I think on are any other questions burning questions we'll say thank you well thank you chair Cox and everyone else all right that brings us up to item 60 Early Learning Program final presentation and review it it sounds so final when you say final presentation review like early learning program is not going way I want to make that clear I think this is that we we saw some of this stuff in some others places and so this is a a more formal presentation of that we have director um Tre Howard here to um to kick it off and we have the B let her present for people that are sitting next to her instead of me reading what's describe here so director Howard are we going to project it here oh it's it on that I think it's on yeah there you go all right good evening uh chair Cox member of the boards superintendent Dr Hines we are here again today um well this evening uh very quickly but we have this opportunity it's always an honor to really highlight and share with everyone the amazing work that we do across Community Education programs and specifically in our Early Learning Program so we offer high quality Child Care um and it's just a a true gym in St Louis Park and so I'm going to pass it over to our leaders here who will share more about uh our work in early learning in themselves right and I have my classes yeah good evening I'm uh Kim Rosell I'm the interim Kids Place preschool supervisor I'm Erica Scott thank you for welcome welcoming us into your space tonight I'm the Early Learning Program supervisor we'll give you an overview of the programming that we offer just on the uh west side of this filling so we're happy to be neighbors with the district office uh at the central Early Learning Center uh there is a lot going on we have a lot of different programs so we have this uh visual to help to help folks understand so I supervise the Early Childhood family education program that's ECF uh classes uh for caregivers and their children ages birth to five we I also supervise the halfday preschool program and the Early Childhood screening also existing in our building is the Kids Place full day preschool which is full day preschool for children ages 3 33 months to 5 years old Early Childhood special education is also housed in our building and we also offer some en courses let dance Aquatics and newly added Mini Sports as well so there's a lot going on uh I'm really proud to share our core values with you uh we developed these core values about four or five years ago and they're proudly displayed in all of the common spaces in our building and in each classroom and we believe that they are simple and straightforward and easy for young children and their families um to to learn about and make part of their world too so at the central Early Learning Center we welcome each other we care for each other we protect each other and we stand up for each other and we weave these core values through our second step social emotional curriculum throughout the school year so for Early Childhood family education I moved here uh almost 20 years ago from Boston didn't know of soul and I joined an ECF class and I'm still friends with some of those people who I met so it's it we have morning and afternoon classes for families of children who are as young as six weeks old um and and even younger um all the way up through age five uh we offer we have special Latino Affinity ECF class which started three years ago and is is really thriving uh as an affinity space for Latino families our classes are opened year offered year round uh they're located at Central but we also have a partnership with Westwood Nature Center where we offer an ECF class there uh our classes are based a fee based but on a sliding fee scale and no uh family is turned away due to inability to pay we also have a help of SC hug home visiting program led by our lead parent educator Kathy Dickinson I also supervis the supervise the Early Childhood screening program Early Childhood screening is required by the state of Minnesota for uh entrance into public kindergarten so it's recommended at age 3.5 but required at age five uh we do our early childood screening right here at the central Early Learning Center and we also have some Partnerships with other organizations um in the city of St Louis Park and are also looking for other ways to increase or decrease barriers and um make Early Childhood screening accessible and really early childhood screening is an opportunity for families to uh bring their young children in for a vision hearing height weight and developmental assessment this helps us uh help families get connected with resources within our building resources within the community and also any sort of support that they might need so it is really for many families the very first introduction to the St Louis Park public schools uh and um we are proud to to serve in that way early learning half day preschool we offer flexible class options for busy families so students can come for two days three days four days or 5 days in the morning or the afternoon our classrooms are inclusive that means we're partnering with the early childhood special education department to serve all children and uh tuition assistance is available through a variety of funding streams Pathways to scholarships and School Readiness funding we also just qu uh received um we were accepted to receive School Readiness plus a funding to further offer uh preschool opportunities to All Families in St Louis Park transportation is available to those who qualify all right Kids Place preschool is our full day preschool program for Working Families we are open from 7:00 in the morning until 6:00 p.m. we're also inclusive uh the children either get served the ecse children get served in our program or they go to a halfday program in the middle of our day um we have ongoing enrollment in tuition assistance through CCAP and then it's just a full day of fun full day ofun and both of our programs are wear they are we have rigorous standards to achieve with regard to professional development and um the programs that we deliver right so Kids Place uh preschool has 132 students in it early childhood family education has 130 students and families uh Early Learning Preschool program has 250 children in it and then we included Early Childhood special ed infin toddler intervention has 50 and early childhood special education including their speech classes are 15 and a total of 550 or 577 students served in our building every day it's as big as an elementary school I think it is important to to recognize that we are the size of an elementary school and we are the first school for St Louis Park students the youngest Learners we had a lot of uh District staff welcoming students back on the first day and um the babies were coming in and the Toddlers and the preschoolers all right uh and just so you know we have a variety of funding streams to support our um our programming some of the program some families pay tuition we are able to offer free or reduced tuition to some families and then these uh figures here help you understand that um what the percentage of breakout and about 27.3% of our students are receiving special education services again this this CL you know mirrors what you might see in an elementary school so potential kindergarten and enrollment so out of all of our programming we approximately sent 185 students to kindergarten and we're working closely with uh Elementary staff and and kindergarten teachers to to uh create a smooth transition from Early Childhood to kindergarten and to help um f them through that transition so this is just a typical day um in either preschool program and just in kids place we just get more of a day so you can just read over that they get lots of fun and we are a play based learning program so you may walk into a preschool classroom or an acfd classroom and see kids engaging in a lot of toy play and dramatic play and sensory play they're all standards based and connected to specific learning um standards that teachers are really intentional about the play based options that they're putting out for families and for students excuse me also gym and large motor playtime are super exciting and I want to just highlight the beautiful new playground that we have on the west side of the building which everyone is over the moon excited about just so many amazing options for all all the students we've gotten some support from the rotary foundation too for some of the furniture so it's just very exciting and I just hope you know how much how grateful we are for that new space um so we have several curriculums so Erica and I and early childhood special education get together every summer and we design our scope and sequence so no matter what classroom you're in we're working on the same math concept the same literacy concept so across the board the same letters so we have big day for prek is our main literacy we Bridges to mathematics which is Early Childhood fifth grade um Early Learning or ear Learning Without Tears is our handwriting curriculum and then second steps is our social emotional curriculum which we we those four count core values in through that so and if you're were to walk through the building and peek in classrooms it would be hard for you to tell which is the full day classroom and which is the half day classroom because of this aligned continuity through the scope and sequence also you know that we uh assessment informs instructions so we have formal assessments and then we have informal assessments always happening so that we can meet the needs of our students but these are a few of the assessments that we use in our preschool programs both kids place and half day also we know that as uh young students are experiencing the world they're they're really working on developing a positive sense of self-identity and we know that a healthy sense of self ident identity helps children um to be more open to people of other backgrounds they're less likely to fear differences and so we engage in a lot of schoolwide activities to help kids understand who they are celebrate what makes them unique and special understand what makes their friends unique and special and understand how all of these different um unique and special traits make are building a strong and Vibrant Community all right so we have an early learning parent advisory Council it's gotten larger every year which we're super excited about building it up since covid so in that uh we have a core team and then we have bigger meetings which and Casey comes to which we're very excited so we are busy Y and our focus is to build trusting relationships create that sense of belonging lift up and empower the parents so that they can carry that sense of empowerment into the elementary school and um some of our SI goals are focused around parent engagement specifically four minutes four minutes okay we just want to be mindful of the time yeah we linked um so anyone if you put up a presentation we link the family events so you could be yeah we have a year in review with photos of the events but as you can see we work with the elpek to plan an event we have one almost every month with the exception of December in addition we also offer parent education evenings for parents based on feedback that we're getting from them around topics that they would like to learn more about um and so we really feel like these family events are excellent opportunities for families to start building relationships with with one another and feeling that sense of St Louis Park public school pride and they are really well attended and and lots of fun and they're now all free they didn't used to be free but now we do not charge yep we have one butter braid fundraiser which is happens uh every year and that covers the cost of all events to remove those barriers and here are just some more pictures of the events and just a small event calendar so you can see what's what's in store for the school we had to cancel our family playground play date last Saturday because of the storms moving in but it is rescheduled for this Saturday which looks beautiful so we're excited about that thank you thank you thank you so much for having us so again we saw some of this during the work study session and got to provide some comments there so we shot comments that's okay because people have provided that but I do want to open up the opportunity for many board members and we're all appreciative of this again and we're appreciative that full community gets to see this as well any questions or yeah I just I'm so grateful to be part of the outpack this year again um as my kids are like sort of exiting the K2 system it's really fun to go back to where they started because we also started um at Central and I want to uplift something that's really different from when my kids started at Central which is this alignment that you talked about like between your programs and then between your programs and the kindergarten and the C system um that did not exist then that doesn't mean you know it wasn't a bad program but we had different programs that were sort of confusing and what what's this and what's this um and this is just marvelous you've taken a really good thing and made it better with that alignment and um I know that we're going to see that um in numbers when we when we see how many kindergarteners come from come from Early Learning so that's just um that's marvelous thank you for that thank you I have a Qui question yeah um if we go back to slide 10 with the the um pie I just want to clarify something on here I I I'm making an assumption about this but I want to make sure my that's correct so the the part about 27.3% of students receiving special education services what this brings up for me is like why would that be included on a slide where on a pyra where we're talking about what people are paying and as a percentage of that and I think my understanding of that is because special education Serv are something that we as a district provide free of cost but I don't want folks to be left with the impression that like it's based on um economic ability to pay right like so that I just want to clarify make sure my understanding is correct that that 27.3 would be on here because it's something the school district funds people regardless of your ability to pay special education services are paid for by the district is that yeah no that's a good question and I created the slide and really when I was creating the slide I was um it was in an effort to present to um District staff and and colleagues uh the way that a central Early Learning Center uh can mirror what you would see at um an elementary school so um and I that's a really good point and I will take that to heart and um sorry I further explaining this so special education services are free they students are not paying for that even when they're in early childhood I guess that's the point that I'm trying TOS I thought was my yeah and even when U students who receiving early um Early Childhood special education services are are members of the classroom um they might be working alongside a family who is paying full tuition a family who's fully scholar shipped uh students with services are not paying some families might be paying a certain amount a month so uh what I was really trying to capture was kind of the socioeconomic r that we might see in the St Louis Park public schools in addition to um like the diversity of the inclusive classroom uh but that is good feedback and I I will think about how to present that information differently thank you for answering my question and I just want to Echo what folks have said really grateful know a lot of folks and families who utilize Early Childhood um Services here at Central in fact my four-year-old came in to do his early childhood screening I think it was called and wanted to go on the playground which was closed and suggested to my wife that she just like lifting over can we can we put that can we put a guard over there children it's so enticing it is so enticing anyway thank oh yeah you're welcome other questions comments feedback um I appreciate that um from a facility situation you were able to make space thanks to the community um here at Central for that that is dedicated to that you guys have taken over former Elementary School space yeah um but it's been customized for you and the stuff that you need and when my kid did early child it was upstairs and they're like these are old high school class right I mean they lowered the toilets and stuff like that but they were tall ceilings and high ceilings and big spaces and cavernous and not really designed and now you have spaces that are really well designed for that and so I think the community also building support from that facility space we got the space that we need because it's possible to do this in weird spaces but um it also I think helps when the facilities are there to to life so appreciative to the community and appreciative to all the hard work that you all thank you yeah and I just want to mention that um our helps are to come back every month to further highlight each of the programs that so just want to put that out there when we see us again in October we're going to give Erica a break because I think Erica has been at every meeting developments School UC yeah all right thank you very much thank you very much okay that brings us up to the next item on the agenda which is our consent agenda on our consent agenda we have business payroll we have recap of expenditures we have electric fund transfers accounts pay dispersements investment Holdings donations Personnel minutes uh policy 203.27 two5 open and closed meetings and that's it would anybody like to remove anything from the i' just like to ask [Music] for on on the on the whole consent okay so there's been a request for a roll call on the entire consent agenda um it is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda with the following business and Personnel items for the September 2424 school board meeting as presented so first of all I need a motion to bring the consent agenda forward so move and then I need a second I'm going have a second bying okay at this point there's been a call for a roll call vote so I'll have the um we'll have the uh clerk what the clerk I want to sayate secretary the clerk I'm do a ro does it matter where I start okay am I Davis no Anderson I'm undecided how do I you can obain Casey no yes uh Ibrahim sorry Williams yes manini obain so we have three s's two extensions we have three s's two Nos and two exension you that that passes correct yes so then it passes the consent passes um thank you all right moving on to action items it is uh we get to the certificate of participation sale approval and we have Director of Business Services Patricia Magnuson she does not get a break from attending board meeting she is with us today and she it is recommended that the school board approve this your participation as presented so I will ask for a motion to get this on move this along here and we have and then we have a second and with that then discussion and I ask you to BR at this here chair Co superintendent Dr hin and members of the board I'm here tonight with Aon bubger from ERS and Associates you've seen jod zesa here we might see more of Aon um in the coming um years um so he's got the results of our sale and we added the sale day report to board book today and I think we have good news absolutely yeah thank you Patricia good evening uh school board members and Dr Heights as Patricia mentioned we do have great news to share with you tonight uh on the sale of the certificates you do have a sales day report in your board packet I'm just going to cover a few of of the main points as we uh sold the certificates uh this morning so again the purpose of the certificates um are to finance a construction of the building in addition to Aquilla Elementary School uh similar to a credit score when you apply for a mortgage school districts receive a bond rating um as a part of the the bond issuance or certificate issuance process uh the rating for this issue is an A2 uh which is a downgrade from uh the previous rating that you had however it's still a strong rating as evidenced by the interest in the market that we saw today so we did received three bids this morning the lowest bidder was from Hilltop Securities out of Dallas Texas so you can see you did receive uh National interest uh on this issue the low bid came in at 3.69% and the high bid came in at 3.82% so a very narrow spread uh which is really indicative of of where the market currently is right now so when was out here a month ago uh we estimated at that time that the interest rate would be 4.31% so that's well below at at 3.69 and so we are see seeing about $400,000 Less in uh principal and interest cost than what we were anticipating uh just a month ago so so really great news there um again we structured this issue to generate uh just over $6 million uh for your project which is what you were looking for at the beginning of this process and then finally I'll just note um so it's a 15-year term we had originally estimated about $570,000 in annual principal and interest payments however since we got such great bid results um we are staying with that 570,000 in the first year because that's what's on your uh property tax levy that I think you're going to talk about here shortly um however in subsequent years we were able to reduce those payments down to 540,000 approximately so about $30,000 a year uh for the remaining term of that so with uh your s Day Report uh Moody's report is included in that and so you can uh take a look at that um that includes uh Moody specific rating for The District as well as the different criteria that they use uh for their uh rating process so you can um kind of get up to speed on some of that information that your leisure as well so with that that concludes my summary uh you do have a a resolution in front of of you to uh approve to award the sale of the certificates so be more than happy to answer any questions you have questions or comments from thank you great news yeah this the I so some of the stuff you know numbers start swirling and all this stuff did the federal interest rate changes did that have an impact on this for us um it did um in a little bit of an indirect way because the market tries to predict what's going to happen uh and so kind of previous to the FED meeting we did see a decrease in interest rates with the expectation that the Fed was going to lower the rates and so when that did happen happen then then the rates were kind sort of doesn't matter because we're seeing a savings and again that savings that's passed onto our community too right that we're saving our community from paying higher costs for this work that we deemed really important but we also want to find ways to make sure that it's that we're being proved with the money and stuff so um any other questions comments feedback then we've had a motion in a second then I would uh call for a vote all those in favor say I any opposed passes 72 thank you all right thank you okay pcia get to St here you get to leave us thank you um is recommended that the school board approve the bids for the footings and foundation of the Aquilla Phase 1 Project that's presented by Jin Langan Manor of facilities and safety and Canin so to bring this to the board I ask for a motion I'll move it do we have a second second second by Taylor okay good evening chair Cox superintendent Hines thank you for your time this evening and like I said we're we're happy to have this first phase of footings of foundation out um right now we are currently right on budget for the exist of this we have another phase coming out here in the next week or two um of which we'll be looking for uh going to the board bring it to you guys in November so we can start construction this fall yet before the snow flies this is going to be a fast and furious project to do as much work as we're going to try to do over there roughly eight months um is going to be a lot of work so did you say so that I'm just hearing this correctly you're speaking with soft voice so I'm thinking that probably recovering from some sickness or whatever or but that we're actually pouring footings here before it snowf that is the intention if I'm not mistake and then I'll let can actually want to come on up and let us know I just want to make it clear we're yes we are going to be digging footings and pudding in Foundation we approve this yes correct so board members Dr uh yes so we're anticipated to start construction around November 21st of this year for phase one start clearing EX excavations and then footings and package they'll be wrapping up right around the J or January time frame and then bid package two which is going to come out October 14th this is the deadline we're looking for bid opening around the 14th of November and then the board later board November so and then we would just blow right in from bid package one completion right into bid package two if there's any more so so essentially it's starting to become a work site then as soon as we start boring these footings and stuff you're fencing off is and you're putting up some and you're starting to and but the outline of the facility will be will be in place correct correct yes did you have did you have a question or I say you become civil engineer now what you become civil engineer now civil engineer now don't no I do transport I I pretend to with transportation and I I get in all sorts of trouble doing that so I can tell you about like concrete curing and things like that you got to be careful with the temperatures and you got to watch special testing for this okay you don't want me out there doing it no if you'd like we can get you out there no no no no I do Communications not the real okay all right so any other questions or comments um then it is recommended that that we said we've had a motion in a second on this so all those in any yeah all those in favor say I any oppos passes 70 okay thank you thank you congratulations hey all right Patricia yeah back here at the table recommended that the school board approve the preliminary Levy as presented by the Director of Business Services Patricia Magnus said I have a motion to bring this forward so moved so moved by Virginia do we have second second by uh CIA okay all right director Magnuson I think we've heard some of this stuff before in the working session at least right at the work session we didn't have the final numbers and they're actually um in terms of a levy certification it's better news the the levy um um is going is not as high as I had thought we would be a couple weeks ago so that's really good news um so tonight what we're doing is I just want to give you final numbers as they are today um so that you can um certify the levy at maximum and we continue to work with the Department of Education right up until Monday the last day of September to make sure that the final numbers are exact before um truth and Taxation notices go out and just a reminder that this is the taxes payable in 2025 which begins to build revenue for um the budget year 2026 so this is where we're at right now the levy is a total of 44 mil 12599 um just under $200,000 increase from last year less than half of 1% increase so that's really good news in terms of tax impact so a little over half of the levy goes to the general fund the majority of the remainder remainder goes to Debt Service and a small amount to community service this is an overview then by fund the general fund Levy is actually going down just a little bit um and then overall we're going up by about $198,000 this is some line item detail um the thing that I want you to see is that we Levy in several different categories um and these are sort of sum ized categories with many line items so in total the general fund all these combined areas of funding which are financed through the mechanism of a tax levy rather than through state aid and in some cases they're voter approved and in some cases it is the mechanism that the state allows us to um to get funds like um operating Capital um is an example of a a levy that's partially State a and partially tax levy and that's just the way we get the funding that the legislature has approved in that category you'll notice a lot of um line items that are declining and those for the most part are adjustments um Levy adjustments in most of the um student related areas like the operating referendum are two years behind so there's a big Levy adjustment um this year from a previous year decline in enrollment so for example I put enrollment projections in the levy system this summer based on the budget they'll stay until we know for sure how many kids are here this year it appears that our enrollment is going to go up so two years from now we're going to have a levy adjustment because this Levy um was too low because we believe that our enrollment is going up it's not official yet um and until the It all becomes official so this was an opposite item um enrollment went down compared to what we had in the budget it's just a timing situation so that's mostly what's going on in the general fund you will notice that on building leases we have um the cap the um certificates of participation are included in there we had a major adjustment in building leases last year because we had levied anticipating a few years ago that we would um through lease purchase add a turf field if you recall that um several years you know a couple of years so the adjustment came through last year so that's artificially low on leases um so you might um and I'll talk about these more in detail at the truth and Taxation hearing this is the community service fund going up um just under $180,000 we are increasing our Levy for school age child care as that um program grows and the needs for students with disabilities grows and that's the cost that we can cover Through The Levy is um our school age child care or Kids Place program the cost um to support and serve students with disabilities and then The Debt Service fund is basically flat and that's how we design our debt service um to to not fluctuate greatly from year toe so that's not a surprise so then this is what we're looking at a total Levy going up by um 45% I think yeah 0.45% um property value is going up greater than that at least 1% and 2% for referendum value so we're going to have a decreasing tax rate if these numbers hold so tax rates will go down and it depends on whether an individual property goes up greater than the property values in general but this is good news in terms of tax impact of the school district's Levy this year so that will be good news during the the truth and Taxation hearing of course the other Sho drops F the budget with lower Levy Revenue um but this is good news in terms of um tax impact so this it's also dependent upon your property yes it does depend so if somebody's so rates will go down and the rate then is applied to your individual property and if your property value goes up by five or 6% these rates aren't going down enough to to make up for that increase in valuation so in our our tax rate is going to go down just depends on how um how your propertys your individualized property so this is where we're at um we will send the levy in next week to hpin County and the Department of Education parcel specific notices go out from hanen County by November 24th and we'll be back here for the final truth and Taxation hearing so that the board can certify the final Levy in December and then we'll keep marching building our budget for next year using that part of our Revenue all right so questions comments readback again we've seen lots of these but with some updated numbers so we've discussed this I guess is what I'm trying to say too so for transparency safe for people at home there's been some discussion about this in our study session meeting so any else all right we've had a motion we've had a second so all those in favor say I I any opposed pass is 70 all right this brings us up thank you director Magnus um this brings us up to 8 policy development second read of policy 522 student sex non-discrimination um it is recommended that the school board approve policy 522 student sex non-discrimination as presented do I have a motion to bring this forward so move by and second second and by Sarah okay um discussion and update here by Sarah Director D we talked about this um at length at our study session just quick reminder this is the Title Nine sex non-discrimination policy GS procedure and process uh it's a total rewrite from the prior policy because there's a major change at the from the US Department of Education sort of the best way to sum up what that change is about is that it U includes protections from discrimination based on gender identity sexual orientation sex stereotypes and sex char istics um we um had to do a few edits on here we moved the um timeline within which somebody has to appeal a decision from 10 days to 30 days to match up with believe the human rights statute um and then just made a edit to um a section that talked about when um District staff would uh investigate making it clear that they would have to have some awareness that something happened before they would be required to investigate so this is an important policy um really important change and um I folks have other questions I think the reason that we brought it forth is because you needed to do a little bit of a clean up but kind it's still so people just had a couple of just wanted to see it I think in the cleaned up version before we approved it people were pretty understanding of it I think I think we're very appreciative of the heavy lift that's been done here to get this to an updated um state that that that is I think I mean it's just we understand it's a lot of work here to get these things updated and it's really important and we were last year was a bus a year for us it was difficult for us to tend to a lot of things like this and now we're catching up and there's been some legislation and things like that and just really appreciative of all the work that it takes with all the effort that people a lot of credit to Dr H and dist staff as well than you not and sub um thank you uh everybody for participating in this so uh we've had a motion in a second um all those in favor say I I and oppos that's a 7 Z okay um we are up to for the final time I keep saying that Communications and transm I mean we we've officially approved it I think so we can say can that we are up to board updates and I want that to come ashle I want that to come flying across the screen I want that to be like board updates a whole graphic a whole package okay board updates who has a board update director Anderson let's he your board update I try to go fast I know we've been here long thank you again for everybody who stayed through and did all the work you did um went to popsicles in the park um on the 13th Friday the 13th it was awesome um I met some families I haven't met yet there were a lot of a nice amount of turnout I didn't say the whole time but I was there like the first hour or so um it was fun giving out stickers and letting kids kind of pick off their own stickers and then telling me a story about the sticker why they picked out the sticker um and there was a a a language barrier for me because I only speak English but um it was fun just getting to know the otheres and and being able to kind of come against those barriers and just use like stickers and popsicles to bring us together and kind of get us to understand that we're more like than we are different um I the human rights committee since I haven't mentioned them yet um so I went to a few of those meetings we're starting to get the ball rolling it's still just three of us um but we do have people who've applied to be on the committee who um hopefully we we'll get that going right now as far as connecting to our district in school we we were voting on working on educating um our youth in the community about voting and voting rights nonpartisan stuff just the importance of voting and like the importance of um trying to get others to vote like speaking to their parents and trying to learn through that uh and then the last one Jewish Community listening session so I went to that very interesting um very heavy but was necessary um they don't feel heard they don't feel they feel seen but not in the right way um they feel like there's a lot of work to be done I agree um I was very grateful that they came out they're very welcoming um it was sensitive topics across the board but I feel like we all handled it very well um emotions kind of ran high there but again it kind of got us to understand that we're more alike than we are different um so I'm looking forward this last night okay s okay um so I'm looking forward to working with them more with jrc um um jcr sorry um please help me I don't know if you recall but someone in the meeting said that we have another group in the school of like that's kind of run by students our student um our Jewish student um yes okay yes so I just wanted to throw that out there because even some of the Jewish Community weren't aware so um that's another Avenue they have an Instagram page so they can go there and they they kind do community stuff there as well that was it for me other board updates well I just want a shout out to the high school team for pivoting so gloriously and quickly um with the unfortunate uh rain and weather delays caused um our uh opening and uh I went to the resource I went to the uh orientation I was really appreciative of the resources that was were there for families um there were different sort of tables that people could go to people were ooing and aing about the cafeteria which is ribbon cutting is on Thursday and the parent engagement is on Thursday I hope that everybody um can make it there because as many people pointed out it's their tax dollars so please come to that um ribbon cutting and then I thought what was significant and maybe just because I'm a teacher man our Workshop days hard when you go back to school and it's you have a thousand things to do you don't get time in your classroom and there were a group of several ninth grade um teachers who stayed to to be at the parent um orientation I really appreciated that uh and I just um I think all of the ninth grade parents were really surprised at how much our high school offers we have so much that we offer that doesn't get necessarily publicized and I know that the high school newsletter is significantly long and it can get overwhelming and so it was such a nice welcoming um welcoming event for new parents so shout out to the high school yeah yeah okay go for it I I attended in the Middle School side Council we school elementary school right yeah PTO yeah yeah and that was the first time in person since I was in the middle school all the time was Zoom yeah so this is the first time I was it was great I just want to give shout out to principals parents students you uh Middle School school student they were so excited because I shared with them we're going to be having voice in at the table yeah uh yeah I just wanted to mention as the Lea on to Susan lingren uh their annual Fall Festival is next week on Tuesday um from 5:00 p.m to 7 p.m. at the Susan lingren playground and there's going to be a lot of fun things to do there's going to be games uh free giveaways and there's going to be food trucks uh so it sounds like a really good time I be there yes I last year was good yeah I do um I want to highlight um an item that's in the amsd connections newsletter from September you can find it on their website if you don't have it in email um a groundbreaking initiative um that is led by the four intermediate districts in Minnesota so 287 which we're a member of 288 916 and 9917 um have pioneered the state's first registered teacher apprenticeship program oh that's right um it is under the umbrella of the intermediate District teacher residency apprentic collaborative or it track and it is um meant to address Minnesota's critical staffing needs within special education um the program started in June it targets education support professionals we might call them Care Professionals um providing them with related technical instruction from Minnesota State University of Mano and job embedded learning under the mentorship of their District's experience teachers known as Journey workers um this approach fulfills their licensure requirements for emotional behavioral disorders and autism spectrum disorders and aligns with the 2023 standards of effect effective practice which is a crucial step toward improving outcomes so we're really really proud um and really really excited about this program and and um we hope it spreads so more to hear so cool yeah I'll be super quick there's um I'm the Le on to psi the family welcome Thursday and then actually this weekend so PSI got a grant from um the park foundation for uh community garden and so there's a I believe it's called a community garden launch or build day um and so on Saturday from 9:00 to noon they'll be like building the garden beds filling them with soil spreading mulch all the things they do have an Amazon wish list for the garden so if you have if you're into to gardening they're also looking for like Garden Lea zon for people who are good at gardening so um it's excited um so me and my dad are that we're going to garden and we bought a lot of gardening stuff can I donate it today I think you for sure could I don't know if there's an Amazon Wish i' be happy to connect you with the peoplek I like this idea of we were going to do this Gard do we to the school my garden mean like see you gardening but also yes I way to make use of this stuff um I'll keep mine try to keep mine brief to amsd had a great update of poll data of election year data like they do all the time it's always really interesting sobering interesting all sorts of things so if you have an opportunity to take a look at that I do encourage that um uh as uh as um Virginia was talking about the groundbreaking event coming up on this Thursday at the high school we're keeping brief so but you know it'd be nice to see some friendly faces there but you should stay for the parent engagement yeah yeah and I'm just saying community members are reminded to attend the ground breaking as well too ribbon cutting the ribbon cutting yes ribbon cut we're not starting over finishing oh my gosh okay uh qua PTO meeting coming up next week so I'll have an update about that later um my wife is on a friends of the Arts board and I state that it's a small plug but also that they have an event coming up but also because they do the gift of music program and if you're not aware of this you know if you have instruments and things like that they work to help connect that there are some programs within our schools that do that as well but just it's another opportunity for people that have old instruments or people who want you know need instruments and um making that uh available to people so I just throw that out there and then I just want to give a a call out a shout out to um to our folks who worked on homecoming events this weekend particularly I mean we had a parade we had a a tailgate thing but also the event itself um as they promoted it was one of our best attended football games in years we wish the score reflected that the score was was disappointing but I still am generally pleased with the behavior of our students and even in light of that kind of those losses and those kinds of things that they're they're well behaved but students were well behaved they were kids running around and and having fun and but it was a really good time and um I just I'm so appreciative that we um we making adjust we're learning along the way we're learning things we're hearing from the community there's opportunities there things that we're looking at as we continue to make improvements at that stadium so there'll be other opportunities but just a shout out in general to the people who make an event like that happen so um thank you so much all right with that I will take a motion to adjourn it's move by Keim do we have a second I'll second it all those in favor say I e