##VIDEO ID:5Jxt3MePvEI## e e e e e e e we're going to call this meeting to order Joan roll call director hacker here director k here director low here director Petri here director pbny director seander here chair Sherman here y great let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right I am going to to make um a motion to approve tonight's agenda can I get a second so moved great director thander with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda raise your hand and say I hi hi opposed motion passes tonight we would like to welcome our new student council RS welcome to today's meeting and we look forward to having you here um we're going to turn it over to anley for the first part of the student report thank you um so yesterday we had our first freshman day of school and we had the their orientation in link crew and that ran really smoothly um nothing else to say there yeah and today was supposed to be the first day of school for the 10th to 12th graders but unfortunately we had a two-hour delay that turned into a cancellation due to a power outed so we'll hopefully be able to get back to on that in a few weeks on how school is going for everyone else and then fall Sports have been picking up and we've organized different super fans we've got the 15 members coming about um and we're organized different sports games themes that's going to be posted to the student body either this week or next week um and then talking about our goals really quickly will be to build up the school community and spirit as well as promoting an inclusive and welcoming environment at STW water and we want to promote this by knowing the school song by heart because most students don't know it which is you want to test the school board exactly no we don't want um and then we want to promote the cultural and student identity in the school we've been working with bipac Union to do that with the flags and different sexual orientation at our school um and we also want to have more numbers in engagement in school activities such as like dances football games and different student events great thank you guys we look forward to having you um is there anything like I guess really quick just to maybe introduce yourself to the community who wasn't watching in the spring that you want to share about um what you're doing at the high school or what I don't know is there anything and not to put you on the spot I guess but I did but anything you just want to share a little bit about yourselves why you ran for this position um yeah M and I really care about the student body and the student voice and we've been connected to a large number of students through different clubs and extracurriculars M and I are super involved in the community with a bunch of different clubs and extracurriculars and so um I guess that we have a large notion and ideas that we want to promote in the school to make it a better place and make it more welcoming and inclusive to all students very cool well those are great goals um and so thank you guys very much for being here and we look forward to your contribution thank you for having us great okay we have the superintendent report so first thing before I I get into some slides I've got for you um we have hired a uh new um well I will call him I think he's an assistant director associate director of Finance in the school district and the Really primary purpose of the his name's Jamie Atkins uh primary purpose of Jam's role is we have a $175 million construction project that we'll be building two new schools be doing two significant additions to two of our other schools and you know we've got Mark and operations who's helping manage the construction part of it but we really don't have anybody who is managing the contracts the RFP process um from the district side of things so we are hiring this individual half of them is paid through the bond half of them paid through some other dollars but they're not General dollars um to really help us get through the next few years to make sure we we get the most of our dollars moving forward so I think that's a real win for the district he's got a lot of experience from uh from both City positions and and uh he also had uh some Finance positions within St St Paul school district so um we'll introduce him at some future point but I think want to get out that out there because I think having somebody who who understands processes in contracts um and is dedicated that will really help us as as a district moving forward so now I want to switch to what the students had to say this morning because yes there was uh um some interesting things with school today so I will share share with you kind of my morning and Mark's morning and Carissa's morning and some other um and kind of talk through what happened today okay so everybody heard the storm probably this morning and I thought about 5:30 gee I hope that doesn't impact school and then about 40 minutes later I get a phone call from Mark and he said to me well at that point we knew we had power out at three schools we had power at Stillwater Middle so that was not going to be impacted but we had no power at Oakland middle and we had no power at uh the high school and so superintendent okay decision time all right so the bus is our roll starting to roll right when Mark's talking to me and they're going to go pick up the kids and the power's out and XL was at that point giving us an O ETA on when it's going to come back on so it could come back on in 10 minutes and then we would delay or or impact school or we could wait and one of my real things I like to tell people is don't rush to failure okay they're picking up the kids we're going to have some time to make a decision if power still not on we can we can hold the kids at school until we figure this thing out so we waited till a little bit before 7 power did not come back on we made a decision to um to tell the whole Community for those two schools we were going to be two hours late so that was the plan in the winter time when we are two hours late we typically send out messages saying we're two hours late the buses will be coming two hours late well this was different okay because the buses were already coming to the schools so we sent out a message that was incorrect okay the message said we're two hours late buses will be running basically two hours late so the community heard that and a lot of the folks not a lot but some of the parents whose kids were out waiting for the bus said oh it's not coming for two more hours and they went back in the house okay so our intent was never to run another because we had the third tier with our our privates and and uh nonpublic that we were still going to be running on time so the message went out and it was inaccurate and so that confused the community so then about 7:50 um the power came on at Oklahoma Middle School it's funny story I was walking from in the parking lot into the front door there were a bunch of people just standing out because they you know um in the uh front of the school and as I walked up I said turn around because as I was walking I Saw the Light come on and they turned around the lights come on said okay my job's done and I left so then we came I um checked out the high school saw that was still dark and we said we needed to make a decision there by 9 o'cl what we were going to do so went back to Central Services and we decided we needed to send a message out to the families um at Oakland saying okay school's going to be two hours late all right what we didn't do do in that message is clarify that there is no 2hour late bus um so some people who brought their kids back in went back out and and uh waited for a bus that didn't show up we got phone calls from some people saying they saw kids out waiting for buses so we sent some Vans and short buses out uh but again it was just a misfire in Communications and and we did the wrong we we we did not communicate effectively in that and so of course then what happened at the high school we decided okay we're going to close so at 9:45 buses show up and at what 10 o'clock the power comes on um so that's kind of the first most interesting first day of school I've had as a superintendent Chris so because I was getting those emails yeah so are you saying there wasn't supposed to be like a a 9:00 bus for the high school there was not and so so the so good that he didn't have to go cuz so so the yeah the plan was so so here's the information I had all right we sent the bus bus went out to pick up the kids kids were all supposed to get picked up and brought to school so we didn't need another bus coming out because they were all supposed to have got picked up but because the message was incorrect that we sent out saying the buses the message should have said school will start at two hours lateer instead the message said buses will be running 2 hours late whatever it said so parents were confused um and so there was never a plan to have buses um because we were running we had a third tier we were running on time um so that's where the the confusion of the the messaging went and again I own it as superintendent here we should not I mean we need to get that we need to get that right um yeah but I don't think we've ever imagined you know being delayed the first day of school and I mean it was just a perfect actually the true story Perfect Storm I mean six bam I mean you know um and the other thing that really um compounded it was okay you got Still Water middle going on and there's not impacted so how do you delay some of the buses and not the other so we just you know made the decision and went be um so okay so did those students um originally did they go to the schools then they got picked up but then some of them did not get picked up and were waiting for a a bus that never came correct do you know how many students were sort of in limbo like that or left behind I know when I talked to the high school administration this morning we had about 700 students at the school um that we were just holding so Mark do you have any estimate on that okay but it was later I mean the the message went out at at 7:20 I think is what what what time the the message went out um so I would say I'm getting to Ballpark it here 34s of our kids were on the bus or who who needed Transportation if the kids were already at school from that first round then why I mean two hours late I mean does it even compute I mean because they're already there right so we we made a decision at a little before 7 o'clock hey let's give us a little bit more time to delay to see if the power will come back on so we're not rooting the entire first day so we said okay we're going to hold the kids who are getting dropped off for a couple hours and then hopefully the power will turn back on just like it did at Oakland so Oakland it worked and we were able to run the whole school day at the high school it didn't and so we had to turn around and send them home um so basically we're just trying to buy it buy us some time to see if we could get it most of the day in um so it was a challenging start to the school year for that piece of it memorable for seniors right not many can say your first day and um clearly you know we can kind of La like I'm I feel almost guilty laughing because there were a lot of upset families understand oblo and um and so I think there's a lot of lessons probably to be learned so I guess I would want to put if you you know knowing what you know now or would you have a different protocol for power outages or um again you know I think what what I keep in my mind when I'm making these decisions is all right you know first of all what's best what's safest thing for kids all right so we got them on the bus they were safe we got them to school we were able to take care of them we were able to feed them um so that piece of it was okay as far as the the uh the and and with power I mean I'll give you an example today we heard Anderson Elementary this afternoon um and three of our elementaries who were doing conferences so kids weren't in school um had didn't have power today so we got an update from Excel around one o'clock that Anderson was going to be out until tomorrow Thursday at noon within an hour this power was back on yeah you never know so it's you know it's hard I mean we're you know so so what we're trying to do is buyas some time I think that the where we we uh um broke down systems wise is we didn't vet the communication that went out okay people were we got to get this information out and we didn't have somebody double check it and I think that's the lesson that we have to do so is it just so for my understanding the communication should have been a little bit more like school is going to be starting two hours late but we will be transporting on time and we kind of hold that your you know kids will be kind of in place at school waiting for the power if it's not turned back on we will bring them whatever you'll hear turn bring home as we did okay um Andrew um so if there's certain schools like still water mle that had um classroom instruction time and like high school canceled how does that affect the number of instruction days or do something the high school has to made up make it up or yeah we already we're having that conversation this morning um so we because you know part of the convers Deion was do we call it an e-learning day really we we haven't been in school yet we're calling it I mean how are the kids even going to get you know so we said no we're just cancelling um so Mark and I were having that discussion this morning and and we're looking at can we count test one of the testing days that we do um as a day of school so we we're going to work through that um yeah I mean obviously a breakdown in Communications and and that can happen um you know I'm just wondering how we have dealt with it afterward did we send out any communication apologizing to parents or what what was the communication afterwards I a number of people contacted us those who contacted me directly I responded to um you know we did not send out a districtwide but we did talk to the Pioneer Press so I think there'll be a statement coming out there uh but I don't think we came out with a an official um oops this is what we did but that's a good idea good done and again I mean it's stressful enough with the first week of school and I know first week of school and I know you're going to continue to talk maybe about some of the other um issues here coming up but just an apology because um it's an it's a really rare situation it's like a you know natural weather event and it's just it was terribly unfortunate and I'm glad that you're taking responsibility I think that goes a long way um shouldn't happen I me you know the event happen but the communication we can't we cannot have that moving forward and so hopefully you know internally we can I know it's you're still working through it but hopefully internally we can learn and create processes so it's avoidable in the future and to those families impacted I mean sincere apologies from um staff and and the board so um but yeah so we'll let you continue because I think you've got more so as you are likely also aware as as a board um we continue to have challenges with transportation and you know I've said this to a few people I've been a superintendent since 2005 and before I came to Still Water start a school transportation issues were never an issue and that's just what they seem to be here in still water so I'm going to kind of give you an update on where we have been maybe provide some information on where well I am going to provide some information on while we're in the current situation we are and then uh um we are going to um talk about the way ahead okay so this part of our transportation challenge started back in April of 2022 um school board approved a contract with Tyler technology to transition to a new routing GPS system called traversa okay there's two systems I might talk about today one is Versa trans which is our old system the new system is called traversa all right so when we did it we bought it we didn't go out for an RFP all right we didn't go out and say okay what's best what's most compatible with our systems it was a single Source purchase no other vendors were considered and we just said we want this okay so when we did it we didn't pilot it we didn't check our systems compatibility with our with our student information system we just bought it okay next slide July 22 I start in the fall I got a report that the GPS pieces for the bus that go with the system were delayed so traversa said we said we're not going to do anything with it we're going to wait till the GPS's get in place place in the meantime we had had I think for about three years this was year three an outside vendor called ciso who did the routing for the school district lot of concerns I heard my first year with ceso ceso does a nice job routing but they're not local so they don't understand local issues and and you know there's someplace else in the Twin Cities uh so we took a look at the finances of what we were paying ceso we think we we figured we could do it better ourselves and so um we told ceso sometime in the fall or late late fall of 22 that at the end of 2223 school year we were going to cease being part of their part of their uh Consulting and and we were going to go off on our own so in Spring of 22 we began to hire rout planners internally to learn the system well the system we had at the time next slide um was versatrans we didn't want to take these planners who are just learning on versatrans and suddenly say okay now you're going to have to learn a new system um so we we stuck with versatrans um versatrans as as we found out as you heard last year had many routing issues and a lot of challenges and um we experienced a lot of significant issues at the start of the last school year so then we made the decision at this point okay this year we have to figure out we're moving to the new system we bought it a couple years ago and we want to move to traversa so we said rather than do it in the summer let's see if we can pilot it and try it over spring break well we did and we moved the system but then the GPS was not working with traversa all right and I know some of you heard probably last spring we were having issues with the new system we were able to to Patchwork it together based upon the routes we had in place and we were okay all right and so um this summer we said okay we are now going to fully transition to traversa they're going to do the routing for us and we are going to just lean on this system moving forward so real important here at the bottom of the slide it says traversa relies on our siis for routing our sis is our student information system it's the it's it's power school it's where our students names are their addresses parents family information etc etc the previous system did not what was what's the name of the previous one firsts trans had their own addresses their own system they didn't talk to our student information system it was all self-contained okay that's important to know all right so um go back a slide quick um okay Mo go forward um so what happened was we started to try to get traversa to work with power school and we started to see we were having some compatibility issues um so that was piece of it but we also had some data issues and I'll talk the data issues first so one of the things that we have discovered and again there's a lot very complex lot of pieces to this but we used to use versatrans and we used to have ceso so if a parent called up the school district and said I have moved I have a new house I have a new location where I want my kid picked up the people who were running ciso would enter into versatrans okay address is here all right and they would put it in there but there was never a follow through to the rest of the district saying family has moved and this is their new address so power school was never updated okay so um that was a problem the other thing that we've discovered is about three years ago when we went from Skyward which was our previous vendor for student Information Services to power school there was some glitches with the migration some addresses were bad some information didn't get transferred and so some of the data is just bad within power school and now power school which has doesn't have updated data for people who've moved because they were telling a vendor to put it into another system and um we it's a migration issues with it is now our system of record that we are supposed to be making all these routing changes on okay because now versat trans is trying to talk to to uh to power school and make these adjustments next slide so they don't talk to each other consistently so one example that we were dealing with just over this weekend is if you were say at Stonebridge last year as a fifth grader and now you were at Stillwater Middle as a sixth grader power school will say that you are a sixth grader at Stillwater Middle but when it talks to traversa traversa says your school is Stonebridge so they're routed back to their old school um that's one example um another one we we had some bad addresses for people so last night um we got 80 new addresses that we loaded into the system in the power school um that we said okay send it over to traversa out of the 80 17 did not transfer 63 did but 17 did it um so we're having why are these not transferring what what is what is happening here um alternative address they're not exporting so if you're you have a split family and mom lives here and dad lives here we're they're not exporting over so to give you an extent of the challenges we've had with the transition I would say I think we had 30 hours plus 20 or 30 hours plus a training the summer with our transportation folks and then since early August Late July I think they have been U meeting with traversa people for you tell me Mark hour to eight hours a day um trying to get us to help through the transition so that we're working through these these issues uh the other piece is special ed is another problem so we have power school all of our student individual education plans are within sped forms if those plans require Transportation you click it's supposed to flow to power school which which then it's supposed to floa Rav Versa and it doesn't so then we'll our special Leed routing is is uh um has been inaccurate um to say the least so my frustration for the team is our our Lisa sigfred who who is our lead route planner for the district has been you know working 22 hours a day um trying to get this right and um we are providing a system that has bad data for her and we are um having compatibility issues that you know they're they're trying to work through so the the big term frustration is okay we we bought these systems they really don't seem to work together and now um our families are being impacted um and and I'll sh share this much about traversa you know because I've been checking on this every single day for for weeks a time here because I want to make sure we get it right the routing works so I was told up until like last Wednesday routing is good routing is good routing good okay problem is if we are routing from the wrong houses or they have the bad information that we're routing from then it's bad information and so parents are getting information wait I don't even live there I used to live there four years ago why do you have that information in your system um so that's kind of the reality of uh of where we're at um and and we're we're working through it um next slide so here's kind of the way ahead no not kind of here is the way ahead for the district so we are going to identify our student information system as the single source of records for students in the district all right we have different systems we use we use sped forms like I talked about versatrans used to have their own student system as far as transportation and what was happening people were entering information into these different systems but they weren't marrying up so we need to as a district this is our single system for for um student records and we have to make sure that system is accurate um the other thing we we need to do is what are the processes that we need to put in place to get information into this system um because I think we have too many um Cooks in the kitchen at this point too many different people that can okay well I want to update this piece I want to update this piece so we we really need to to focus in on it um we need to put some RFP processes and that's why I mentioned that we're hiring Jamie um in place um before we extend expend District resources to ensure that the things we are buying are compatible and they meet our student needs and and our family and our state staff needs because right now what we are doing is just trying to burn through people to get these things to work together and we're getting there they're working hard on it and and we're getting there um we also I really think need to take a internal review of our student information system and our routing system and determine whether we need to go out for rfps to better meet the needs of our district all right are these meeting our needs um I think the traversa routing side of it is working well it's just the the synchronization with power school and I don't know um what the real issue is there but and again we've put huge huge uh people hours in into this thing and then we need to equip our staff with the resources they need to effectively do their job and we're not at this point we're giving them bad data and bad systems that are not compatible um and is the end result is people are scratching their heads wondering why they can't get their transportation information in correct um so we sent some messaging out on that um last night and uh we've gotten some information back from families but I think we we need to we probably need to send some more information out so that's my update tonight questions on any of that yes Andrew yeah um first off you know big shout out to Lisa the transportation coordinator for the heavy lift and the heavy burden she has and working within the challenges that we have within the system as well as the you know entire Transportation team and all the staff that has stepped up to help um throughout this challenging process um I guess two questions one you know why do we use power school doesn't communicate with anything and then number two um how do we know like the single source of record of students I love the idea of obious having a source of Truth for all student data how are you able to trust the Integrity of the data at this point to make sure what we have is accurate it's not accurate and that's the problem we're having and so we are actually having I mean so I'll give you a real world all right last night we sent this message out we told parents to log into power school to see if your data is accurate your address phone number and address is accurate so we have we have admin assistant um Joan being one of them uh who are just taking the brunt of this from from families and so now the latest today is I can't see my address in power school okay so how am I supposed to know if I I can't see it and so I I think what we're going to have to do is um we may have to expand the the data search um and then we've got a system set up so we can flow information once we receive it in a spreadsheet into Power School um but um we don't know at this point and that's the problem we're kind of blind we don't know if it's wrong we don't know if it's um not there um and and so what this what this whole past month has really identified is we have a uh we have a student information system but it's not accurate and we've um so that's power school yeah yes um well just a couple of comments and then a question I guess but um I just want to say thank you to number one thank you to everybody who's on the front lines of this um who are taking all these phone calls because you know it's understandable that parents are upset about this I mean this is this is a huge deal if they can't get their kids to school properly I mean it seems like a safety issue to them and and it it ruins ruins first day of school I mean which is a I already did an emotional kind of like an emotional thing for parents so so thank you to everybody who's working you know double time on this much much appreciated number two um thank you to um Dr Funk and his team for coming in here and recognizing that this was a massive systems failure Within in our district that needed to be addressed um and I'm glad that you have a way forward you know to try to fix this um because these things all should be working together seamlessly in the background so that it doesn't cause a lot of stress for families that's that's exactly what we need to have with our systems and if that isn't happening then it needs to get fixed um and then just one question that I had so is the GPS working because it seemed like last year the GPS was not really working but now I wonder if it was working but it wasn't it didn't seem like it was working because the the um you know because the addresses were wrong is the GPS system working so so here's here's what we did okay so the GPS is working all right so last year we didn't we the addresses we had were routed from the old system we just we just patched them over to the new system this year new school year new kids etc etc we built new routes and this is where we are finding and by when we're building the new routes we're building them off a different information system our student information system which is which we should be doing um so that's that's kind of the difference this year um and and we're finding out that our sis that we have the information we have in there is not accurate and that's what's causing this issue along with some compatibility issues between the systems director haer thanks um first of all thank you for walking us through the whole story here and kind of piecing everything together I thought that was really helpful um and just understanding the complexity of this issue and it really hit on um several issues that at least have been brought to my attention in the last couple days um regarding busing outside of what happened today um so I appreciate kind of understanding the background to this um my biggest concern right now is the people that are on the front lines as we keep saying dealing with this um is there a plan to put more human resources behind this I don't want people to burn out I mean this is a maddening situation um and super frustrating so I I want to respect the people who are on the front lines answering really tough phone calls with very frustrated parents um and doing so I'm sure with Grace and trying to get through the day so I want to make sure that we have enough reinforcement we have to look at flexing more people into into helping out that would be y very helpful um and then one other additional thought as we go through this sounds like it's going to be more than just the crisis fire right now in going through our systems and looking at all that data um and I'm wondering can we do we have access to the versatrans data still those old addresses we do I'm sure we do okay um is that part of the process of integrating no no okay it's not all right thanks Dr kelberg so having said all that um what's the parent to do so the parent that the bus didn't come today because it's not scheduled uh because of these these bigger areas so that'd be the one question is what should they do should they call should we ask them to be patient for a certain amount of time then the other part of that is without all this you always have your first day issues which are hey the bus would be better if it was at this corner or picking not wor about that right now yeah what's the parent supposed to do should we wait on those as well they they in the communication that went out last night they can give us that they gave us that information too that information is planned I mean that's yep we'll get to that what we really need to know is all right do we have your right address do you are you getting any information from us at all are we are you going to the right school um so we need to hear from the families what the scope their personal individual issue is and then we can take that data and and go and try and uh and fix it and what what is happening is you know if these systems were working right we'd have here's the names and addresses of the students and here's where the system the systems routing those students hey we're not we're not that synced so what we're we're dealing with is okay it's working for maybe a lot of students and we're talking hundreds of students and we transport thousands of students so it's working for a lot of the students but it's but it's not working and that's why we're families are stressed and that's why we're talking about it today and we we need to do we need to do better for them um so we need to to continue to I mean they email us they call us we take the information down and then we we sit and we we try and problem solve um and as a team that is you know they're working I wouldn't say quite around the clock but close to Around the Clock um trying to trying to get through this and and you know my concern is uh not only our community but our employees and and their mental health and the the stress level that's on them I also imagine that if you're taking all those phone calls then you're not solving the problem because you're taking all the input uh what would you is there a chance to say to the parents call this number call that number send an email email is best email is best I would imagine y so right now and they're being read so so people you know I mean we have hundreds of emails and they're being read and I just want to get that out there and and we're trying to be as as uh uh quick as we can be to get some of these things resolved so next week we start with our younger Learners yes the K the prek or K through five what is the outlook for that what can can families be doing anything right now I I I feel better about next week because we have we've identified these issues okay so we're having some time to to really dig in and work through them and again we are also telling families at this point all right go in and look and see if you can help us out here and if you're getting your routing information and your routing information looks wrong all right get a hold of us and we can we can have some time to fix it and I know the board did thank you for copying the board on the email that went to community members um that instructed people to look at Power School um I know emails can sometimes get missed are is there a plan to maybe resend or yeah we we can send out a uh like a second notice or somethings too okay a lot of school newsletters are what's most read so it'll definitely be and are we working with the teachers with the parent teacher conferences maybe including like a paper handout just to reinforce that we haven't to this point but something we can look at do we have support at power school like you mentioned the addresses not I mean we do they call us we are their Flagship school in Minnesota so uh um but I tell you what we've got a a lot of support from Travers I don't know how much of any that we've gotten from power school at this point okay well and I if we do end up looking for um different sis systems that and other systems they're making sure that they're compatible it would be I don't know if we would ever do this but I have you know I've heard a lot of people that aren't happy oftentimes in the community with power school I know we've had it I think since like 2000 or something but 2020 oh 2020 sorry that's what I meant um actually came in in 21 but I think the board approved it in 2020 you're right it was like 2020 um and so I mean that's anecdotal at best because I mean sometimes we hear only when it's not appreciated or not a beloved system but it might be nice just to understand what parents are and families are looking for in something that you know in terms of interface I don't know it just seems like the with the for us the end user has to be in mind when we're doing this and I don't know it's I'm glad that you've identified it much like anything else it just is asking our families to um to wait through some difficult times and um our staff too is a huge concern because I know that I was getting emails and sending them to uh Mark and to um he would forward them to Lisa and they would respond within a half hour on a Saturday I mean it's you know they've really gone above and beyond so thank you markk Mark thank your team um and thanks to everyone probably that's in this room and countless others who are being asked to like hey drop what you're doing and answer help us answer some emails and I know Joan is doing that and she's probably not the only one um so just for the community to also be kind to those people that are that are picking up that those phones and calls because it's not their fault um and we definitely apologize to the community for this and I I again appreciate the full background the full story it's very e this was easy to understand and I appreciate the focus on the solution moving forward I finally do feel like we know what is going on and when you know that then you can fix it so but I will share it is incredibly frustrating to have these systems that are not that are not synced and just watch the a here in the community the the impact and stress on families and B the stress on our staff and this is why we have to do the right thing on the front end and ensure formal processes are put in place where we vet equipment we vet programs properly to ensure that they work with the systems we have so that we don't end up like this yeah I remember when you first came to the district it was work smarter not harder and I don't know if that can be said this week it's not um so I'm looking forward to to this um from the board's perspective I I think I would speak on behalf of the board is there a way that we can stay updated um in terms of like how this is going to play out and just kind of with some I'm assuming we're going to be seeing things with rfps when they go forward if we do if we're making decisions no no you you will see but just not to lose track of this so the community can stay on top of it and know that we're watching this we're aware of it and that you're um communicating with both the board and the community on it yep for sure can I just add one more thing um unfortunately our transportation has become this has become more of a pattern um over the past several years so I feel like this is a extra sensitive issue because people are really losing faith um in something that is critically important to the functioning of our schools um which is getting our kids there and home safely so um I just to emphasize even more how important it is to get this right as soon as possible and into the future that we really need to invest in making sure our buses run as expected and we communicate that properly to our families it's a huge issue so just a hammer just got [Laughter] it okay any other questions or comments um again emailing is the best solution right right now um if you're getting a delayed response time that is to be expected at this point in time um and uh and maybe I guess hang tight and we're sorry and I know that we certainly have a team of awesome people working hard to make sure everyone gets attention so hopefully that keeps working itself out thank you um given no more questions we're going to move on to my report and um I'm just going to read a summary last at last week's meeting um this we had our performance review for superintendent Funk so I just want to go over um I wrote a little statement here and so I thought I'd share it uh the Stillwater area school board met in closed session on August 6 to evaluate the performance of superintendent Funk after the completion of his second year at stowater Area Public Schools as well as looking ahead into his work for the 2425 school year the standards a superintendent is evaluated on in include governance team finances Communications and Community operations Human Resources teaching and learning student support and ethical and inclusive leadership that's a lot um while the first year of Dr funk's tenure in the district saw superintendent Funk familiarizing himself with Schools staff and existing systems in year two Dr Funk started to make organizational changes that over time are designed to better serve Learners staff District families and community members the board expressed strong support and appreciation for the work accomplished in the last year by the superintendent and his staff just some of the highlights from the last year that I thought would be um appropriate to share it's not a comprehensive list but some of them successfully passed a facility referendum replacing two schools each over 100 years old an update of Oakland Middle School and Safety and Security enhancements touching all schools with a primary focus on the redesign of the high school front entry entrance restructured the way professional development is offered to staff across the district so it is focused relevant and timely provided proactive and strategic legislative leadership ship with elected State officials and professional organizations that advocate for the best interests of the district in collaboration with Finance led the board through its first year of priority-based budgeting implemented the district's first py plan kind of the name for our operational plan designed to make actionable the or the district's new strategic plan successfully LED staff negotiations in a transparent and timely manner with consistent updates provided to the board structured a new process for addressing policy updates leading to better committee efficiency the job of superintendent is challenging there are many areas of priority as well as opportunity as a part of looking into the next year the board discussed some of the areas of emphasis under each of the elements the superintendent is evaluated the following are some of the areas discussed that had strong board support continued work in progress reporting to the board on the goals outlined in in the district's strategic plan as reflected in the pony plan improved program initiative implementation that is cross functional internally and focused on enhancing the experiences of students families and staff to inform its decision-making the board is interested in receiving data driven information whenever possible and appropriate continued priority based budgeting work budget updates including regular reporting on the health of the district's fund balance continued visibility in the community from the super superintendent improvements in curriculum and instruction across all subjects are a priority with an emphasis on literacy as outlined in the states read act and reflected in the pony plan under the areas of operation the board identified technology and transportation as areas in need of improvement continued reporting on the work and progress related to the recently passed Bond hiring staff development and evaluation were discussed under the human Human Resources standard successful implementation of the board's decision to alter the district's academic calendar and school start times cultural competency is a priority so all students and families feel supported both academically and socially and emotionally focusing on ways to enhance student engagement um the school board would like to Express gratitude for the efforts of our superintendent and all those who aided in the numerous accomplishments this last year it was an it was an accomplished year and the school board is looking forward to to the next year under Dr Fun's leadership and all that can be achieved for our students families and staff with that we'd just like to thank you for a great year thank you and thanks for your support yeah all right that was probably the longest intro I think we've had for we're only at the consent agenda okay consent agenda which is on the screen um I will go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda and can I get a second I'll second great director hacker with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda raise your hand and say I I I I opposed consent agenda passes okay now we're gonna move on to strategic Direction C which is utilize systems and align resources in an efficient manner to support learning and we have a first read for policy 515 data privacy protection and privacy of people specific data and form so we're gonna welcome Paul welcome good good evening members of the board uh thank you so yes so we have a first reading of uh policy 515 it's titled protection and privacy of pupil records um and I'll just mention that the purpose of this policy is that the school district recognizes its responsibility in regard to the collection maintenance and dissemination of pupil records and the protection of the Privacy rights of students as provided in federal law and state statute uh this is a uh a mandatory policy the last revision from the district was in 2015 um there's um in this first reading um you'll see a lot if you look closely at it you'll see a lot of reformatting um from our current policy to this one it just makes it more clear there's more definition um provided within uh this uh policy it is aligned directly with mba's model policy um and contains all the legal requirements it's a it's a if you've taken a peek at it it's a it's probably our biggest policy I think it runs 29 Pages um but makes but it is very much aligned with with furpa and all the State and and federal laws that we abide by so um with that um we'd like to have you uh the committee uh consider um this policy and um if you have any questions that's that that for now that's great if if not um if you look over and if people have questions um certainly send those forward to us and then we would do a second reading at the next board meeting are there any questions so how does apply in terms of like uh cyber security incidents and this policy does that uh is a district liable for anything along those lines you know for example there was districts last year that had some information compromised in the metro area not ours thankfully but how does that apply well I it doesn't I don't that the policy itself doesn't directly talk about security of of privacy it it it it regulates what we have to hold private okay and and um in a breach of that type um I'm I'm not sure how that would be looked at it would be releasable private data yeah and so we have insurance for that which is getting very expensive um but uh and then one of the things that the insurance company wants to make sure is that we are putting the proper procedures in place to put robust of a network and and training in place so make we limit the the ability to access um some of that data through nefarious means so again if you read through this um and if you have any questions or concerns you can I guess start with Paul and could copy superintendent or an Joan um on those comments otherwise we'll come back for the second reading and possible action thereafter yep um and then now we're going to move on to the next item which we're going to keep you here for yep um clean clean up some of our dated that continued process we're going to take action tonight on um revoking and I'll turn it over to you on the revocation of some policies yes yes the the committee we looked at uh two policies um that are older policies both of them are more than 20 years old um and so I'll just look at each separately the first is uh information access and decisionmaking uh this this policy is really um replaced by uh 722 um which was just in the consent agenda um and and it covers any of this information um is covered in 722 so we would request that that uh be considered for relocation the second one is uh record retention um 725 and that is um you can see it's very short um and is the same uh language is in 7 in 515 the one we just uh looked at as a first reading um covers um everything that's in this policy so again this is redundant um and so we would ask just to clear that off of our um policy uh books with a revocation um is there a motion to revoke policies 7 22.1 and 725 so moved director Petri the first and director thander with the second all those in favor of revoking policies 722 .1 and 725 raise your hand and say I hied we can get those off the books thank you Paul thank you all right we're moving on to strategic Direction D which is developed strong Partnerships with the communities we serve and we're g to welcome Annette um to give us an update on Adventure Club good evening chair Sherman superintendent Punk and members of the board uh I'm please to share a little information about where we are at with our before and after school care program Adventure Club so first I want you to take a quick look at these numbers and I think most people are aware that um there's a child care crisis happening in the United States and that it's been happening for some time and the pandemic did really exacerbate the issue and ironically Child Care um is one of those fields that when unemployment is low everybody is working and they need child care when unemployment unemployment is high people are not looking for as much child care right so if you're if you want to find a job when unemployment is low are you going to look for a part-time job you're G to probably look for a full-time job so it's more difficult for us to find people to work in a program such as the Adventure Club when that unemployment is low so it's been a challenge for a while and you can see I put the numbers in the in the Little Red Dot from pre pandemic this was as we started the school year in 201920 we had five 856 students enrolled on the first day of school with a waiting list of 142 kids last fall at that same time we had 616 kids enrolled and 444 on our wait list it was not terrific thankfully I think I have a little bit of good news we're looking at better numbers this fall and I actually have updated numbers from this this was last week um we are now at 837 students enrolled and our waight list unfortunately because we've found some additional families that are interested in care has actually gone up a little we are at 236 on our weit list um we do have about 15 individuals right now that are in we call the pipeline to be hired and with that we'll be able to bring in we have about a 12 to1 13 to one ratio that we generally carry with our program so you can do the math we'll be able to bring in a number of um um students in fact we have determined in order to serve the three 236 that we currently have in our weight list we will need approximately nine staff before school and 14 staff staff after school does that make sense so we have sort of an a lopsided need we have fewer families that need us in the morning more that need us after school so with uh 15 already in the pipeline that means that we should hopefully be able to take a chunk out of that it does take a little bit of time to get people hired as you can imagine and when I say pipeline that's everything from people that are currently uh um set up to do an interview all the way up to people who are were just waiting for their paperwork to be complete and for them to complete the appropriate trainings that they need to have done before they can start with our program so if we move to the next slide these have been some of our recruiting efforts so you can see we have used a a a postcard and then our community I catalog I brought an example here tonight um to try and highlight that we have these jobs available and that we're paying 184 an hour as a starting wage which um hopefully is a a a reasonable wage for the work that we're asking people to do and uh in addition to that we did hire radar Talent Solutions to help us in the process of doing a search for employees we did uh have I want to just check my notes I believe it was 11 six uh staff that have already been hired and in place five staff that are in process process and are will be working with us this fall so 11 um uh individuals as a result of that relationship that relationship did just end right now we feel like we're in a good place based on the the individuals that are coming to us in part because of this catalog coming out and raising awareness so we have decided we're going to set that relationship aside for the time being and focus on our own efforts internally we have increased we have increasing numbers of 16 and 17 year olds working for us high school students are able to work for us uh as you are aware next year we are looking at a different schedule which would um reverse things and and and the elementary students will be finished with school before our high school students consequently we have been reviewing the credit for employment and work release options for starting as really as next school year uh been in conversations with uh um the pathways coordinators at the high school so we have some hope there and then we have in we did increase wages and we have had had the ability to provide some retention stened and this is in part because the state has provided great starts funding which I've spoken of to the board I believe before uh that particular that has to be spent on wages and benefits for school AG Care or Child Care employees so we've been driving those funds into um our staff this last year we were able to provide an additional $170,000 uh worth of wages and benefits for that particular group of employees which was fantastic so um we've been partnering with other departments to offer a full-time and benefit eligible uh positions for employees as well so those are some of our efforts um we currently have 73 staff in place as I've mentioned um we would need you know nine before and 14 more after any questions I'll go Dr Petri and then um so you said you're partnering with other departments to offer the full-time benefits eligible employment how many of those do you have right now we have uh I believe we have two okay um that and one of them actually wasn't seeking benefits but they still were interested in the full-time work it has been less successful than we hoped in part because it's limited to employee groups that the times match um because they have to be finished with their work in a time frame where we need them to work for our adventure club and as you can imagine we do actually hire a lot of PA professionals who happen to already be full-time for the most part but that um because they're still working with students at the end of the school day in order to get down to the Adventure Club program or even to get to another another school to work in the adventure Clum program it does delay them being able to support those kids at the time when they're arriving in the program so it's a little it's a little bit of a challenge so our nutrition services is a great example of a department that we do pair well with and that's where we were able to find a couple of employees that were interested in that option okay another one more question um so the the first slide where you talking about the numbers from August from last year and August to this year um what happens during the course of the year to that weight list generally speaking we continue to chip away at it um SI even pre pandemic we were not able to uh get to a place where we were um providing care for everyone that was on the weight list Although our numbers were much much smaller than they have been in recent years fortunately because we're starting at a much lower place we are hopeful that this year we are going to be able to serve a a large quantity of that 236 now whether we're going to be able to serve all of them is very difficult to say okay thank you yeah director kenberg almost the same question that Bev just had but um so if they're getting imagining food service if they getting benefits who's now going to pay for those benefits split those benefits yeah I'm sorry the two programs split the benefits okay and then that's kind of like a raise for that person right do they still get the same pay but then they're also getting the benefits correct I mean not a bad deal correct absolutely so I've asked inette to come a few times throughout the year to just give you an update on where we're at with particularly with the weight list and and Staffing for Venture club and this is so this is the first start of the year and it's it's a good start our numbers are down on that weight list but we still have some opport to uh get them lower absolutely and we'll keep working on it we we never stop hiring it's a program that's constantly in a mode of hiring because certainly we do have attrition there are staff that um we oftentimes employ college students and so you can imagine that um their schedules changes like mid year and then we lose some of them and so it is it is a bit of a constant CH Dr har oh thank um I am very excited about this 16 17 year old like bringing our own students into the um elementaries for child care um has that already started like could you give a little more information about how that's working this year and then also I'm really hopeful this works to continue next year once those start times work as well but how's it working this year right so this year and then we've had it in place for a number of years what we're doing is we're going to increase the number of Youth that we can um have have in the program so how we run our program is is that we have a ratio as I described earlier and that uh we try to provide certain types of activities for the kids a variety of activities after school and so um a student could take advantage of going outside going to the gymnasium going and doing a project um they might be working on homework there's a Vari or they're playing right there's a lot of different options and that with 17 16 and 17 year olds we're not able to uh uh leave the students the children alone with them we have to have a person who's 18 or older with that group so where we have large groups of kids that for instance are going out on the playground it's very common especially this time of year that we'd have a lot of students going out right after school to enjoy the outside we would send one of those younger uh employees the 16 or 17 year old out with one of the 18 or older staff and then that way we still maintain our ratio that's appropriate and that person that student isn't alone with the children uh so there it does limit us a little so if for instance because we let the kids choose if they choose to take part in the art project and we only have maybe eight nine students that want to participate in it we can really only put one staff person with that group and it has to be that adult so we can't you can't uh overload site with 17 and 18y olds because you aren't going to be able to provide as many opportunities for the kids so we're finding a new balance part of it is is also our numbers are increasing as a result of having more staff so it does make it possible to have um more spaces open to the kids that they're likely to group in large enough groups that we can have those 16 and 17 year olds mixed in in order so provide the service and it's we we really enjoy having the 16 and 17y olds because sometimes they stay with us first of all sometimes they're former former Adventure Club students which is a lot of fun for the staff and then they tend to stay with us for a number of years even as they matriculate into college if um if they are going to a more local uh institution and so um we can have them work for us for four five six years so it's fantastic to have those that stick around great it's like your own little girl your own absolutely great thanks for the information um I think my only question would be because I know you're coming back um more regularly this year if um we get a lot of questions obviously about the start times at least I do have I get them fairly regularly and how confident we are we're going to be able to um you know improve our weight lless numbers or at least not make the problem worse I think is kind of what we had said we're not going to do something that would make the problem worse um maybe next time just to bring some information on how you're starting to plan for next year and just some information that would maybe hopefully make the community know that this is being thought through and um and how that would work and what you're anticipating because I know we've talked a lot about maybe the split shift isn't very attractive they can work more hours if it's you know if the need is really on the back end of the child care of the day not the front end right in the morning so right right right and you did see a some of the things some of the efforts are on the list you can flip to the next y some of those are things that are really directed especially the one uh using the uh credit for employment and the work release those are really more focused to next year but yes absolutely like I didn't know if it and I think what I'm talk more surveying um parents you know one of the key data points that we and we we had some information on it last last year was what White Bear Lake okay okay what was their shift when they went and did the early switch this the uh the times and how much did the morning go down and how much did the afternoon go up and what's our plan for an increased afternoon right so for example I mean maybe the radar I know it seemed like the radar Talent Solutions was um helpful so maybe we would can pick that back up or I just think it the talk that out in the community I hear this is going to be great news because it's a step in the right direction I think people are going to say okay I'm the confidence is building um but just you know change is always a little anxiety causing I think for people and so um any additional information on how it's going to look next year so yep happy to do that now you did say survey was there something well and I'm just throwing that out there but yeah just just anything on how the plans are for the following year are going I think that's what the community is talking a lot about all right great absolutely thank you thank you um with that we are adjourned thank you last part is always so unceremonious e