001hey good evening welcome to accommodate its public schools Independent School District 13 school board meeting for Tuesday November 26 2019 like to call the meeting to order to ask you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance welcome everybody Laura if you would roll call please Euler here Severson here Larkin here Louis here a samurai Palmer here ok thank you our mission statement creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner all belong I'll succeed our core values are community excellence collaboration integrity respect courage and innovation first up would be approval of the agenda second Maddie any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed have Stan motion carries announcements on November 28th and 29th 7 Thanksgiving holiday no school December 5th Thursday at 7 p.m. that be a joint meeting with the
002city of Columbia Heights Council I'll be at the public library December 17th 7 p.m. be a regular school board meeting here in the community room December 23rd which is a Monday the via district in-service no school and December 21st through January 1st will be the winter break there'll be no school on January 7th which is also a Tuesday at 5:30 will be the school board organizational meeting will be held here in the community room correspondence thanas any correspondence tonight there is no correspondence this evening next up would be communication to the board citizen employer representatives at this time any citizen employee may briefly address the school board the board will listen to the brief remarks ask clarifying questions and if desired request that the administration follow up the board will not take action at this
003meeting on presented at this time okay next up would be the consent agenda which includes the personnel report and the treasurer treasurer's report for May June and July of 2019 start with a motion so moved Lorien second discussions hearing none all in favor say aye opposed abstain motion carries acknowledgments of contribution we'll start with a motion in a second then I'll read it and open it up so moved second Lorien analogous of contribution resolution whereas Minnesota statute one to three be point zero to permit school boards to receive for the benefit of the district because donations or gifts or any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated in that behalf the board may act as trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and for the benefit of pupils
004thereof therefore be it resolved by the school board of Columbia Heights Public Schools Independent School District number 13 that the school board accepts with appreciation the contributions detailed in the background of the amount of four thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars and fifty cents the detailed background a donation of 186 dollars was made to Valley View Elementary by Wells Fargo community support campaign for student needs and value and kind donation of winter clothing was made to Columbia Academy by Rick Nick Roni for a student needs estimated value of two hundred fifty dollars donation of a hog was made to Columbia Heights Public Schools by Bill stress for the all staff picnic estimated value $750 donation of pizza and gift cards was made to Columbia's public schools by cathy kelly for staff the four staff thank
005you estimated value four hundred thirty dollars donation of cake was made to columbia 8-spoke schools by school board members Larkin Severson Palmer Mueller Lewis and a samurai for the all staff picnic estimated value of $150 donation of hats and mittens was made to Columbia Heights public schools by further the campaign of cheer for student needs estimated value of $130 donation of grief covers was made to Columbia Heights High School by paths for mr. Pauly's class estimated value 310 dollars a donation of mittens was made to Valley View Elementary by st. Philip's Lutheran Church for student needs estimated value of $180 donation of a little free library was made to value by HB fuller for student needs estimated value of $488 donation of classroom supplies was made to hi-low know mentally elementary by exact kids and
006needs or kinds of needs kids and needs for student needs estimated value 1053 dollars donation of apples was made to hilum elementary by the fall Dean American Legion for student needs estimated value of $75 and a donation of dictionaries was made to Highland North Park in Valley View Elementary by frilly Columbia Heights Rotary for 3rd grade students estimated value of nine hundred ninety seven dollars and fifty cents age to total fiscal 2019 2020 monetary contributions to date seventeen thousand three hundred forty-five dollars and 33 cents discussion comments a comment and I'm always overwhelmed by the generosity of our community and I also see that there there are a number of things that are done on a yearly basis so there's a lot of tradition involved with this you know the apples and the dictionaries I
007recall from previous premium previous donation so thank you again and the traditions are really really nice to see Thanks okay this is a resolution so Laura if you would a roll call please Mueller high C person I Larkin all right Lois high Palmer I motion carries thank you discussion reports and information items reports so members of the board board members will report on board activity since the last regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education Lauren would you mind going first sure since our last meeting I attended the work session I want to thank member Palmer for providing us dinner it's delicious thank you very much I also have had several conversations and emails with some community members and parents thank you sure attended the work session with Lorene last week did you mention that
008I'm sorry I miss ed okay the chair meeting right before this meeting and had a couple of kind of extra fun things was able to attend the Country Music Association songwriters showcase where a climbing height student performed I got to see that it was a fun night in general it's fun to see the songwriters talk about their craft but also just really fun to see that student perform an original song and it was pretty cool and they did a lot of shoutouts to being advocates for helping schools and kids grow in the arts so it was very very neat to see I was also able to have a tour I got a tour up at Northpark with director hennequin of the construction and just see what's happening up there and see frozen dirt that was
009a nice frozen dirt was on the tour believe it or not and so I got to see how that was happening and I'd hear how the project's going so very fun well I also attended the work study last week and also had the honor of being able to go to the Country Music Association's songwriter series showcase that was really really really cool and seeing our student I'm so proud to see her I mean she just did such an amazing job and and an original song at that so that was really amazing and the advocacy and the support that the the Music Association is going to give to the school I think is going to be it's it's going to be extraordinarily beneficial for our students so again thank you again Country Music Association for taking
010such an interest and in supporting our students yeah I had a chance to spend an evening with the adapted soccer team at their end of the season banquet celebrating their successes and also did that for the football team you know yes miss Severson you were there as well and then I've just spent some time watching in the Columbia Academy girls basketball team get rolling so that's about it thank you thank you my attentive the work session last week as well as well last Wednesday and they know the superintendent talked in somewhat detail last year last week about to see me when they came in but there was a host of different things that were taking place that day I had my opportunity to sit in for a little while on the workshop they had with
011the students the question-and-answer and they were sharing some of their background and then how they come up with their songs and the kids got to ask the questions and things like that and then prior to that the US bank came in right and they painted the band room and then I think they got a couple coats of paint up in the stage in the gymnasium as well I heard they ran out of paint there were that good of painter so they did a nice job when that was it was actually just a side note there was a couple people from US bank that came up and said hi afterwards and they were actually Heights grads and the US Bank the way they work that as have these volunteer opportunities you go online and you look
012and you say you want to do this and this one person said called another one that knew was some Heights hey do you want to go back to high school so they came back for the day and they got to paint and things like that and there was one other one other person I saw on the Instagram that was a Heights grad I think as well so there's three was it benek / son and then I don't know who the third one was but anyway Heights grads came back you know just to help all the things so it was actually was kind of looked cool to see him there was a ton of different things that were going on for that as far as the opportunity for our kids and they did the the maroon
013van did a performance for them once they were done with everything and then as a board we actually presented them with a couple thank you certificates dope it was a huge busy day the CMA was going on and I know that they also took 46 students to Phantom of the Opera as well so Wednesday was a pretty full day for the district but it was fun to sit and listen to the artists talk about their songwriting I attended the BAM concert for the high school on Thursday night and then a chair meeting prior to this and that concludes my report so we'll keep on moving next up is the Valley View window replacement bids [Music] chair Larkin members of the board this evening as an information item we have our results for our Valley View
014Elementary window bid we this was a project that was delayed we had hoped that we had were able to kick this project off this past summer and the lead times in the windows just became too big where they got to 18 to 20 weeks we could no longer get windows done before the start of school so we pushed this off and pushed the bid out and we're very happy with the results of the vid process at five hundred and thirty one thousand seven hundred three dollars Val pearl windows was the low bid Karl Sanderson looked into their their bid and talked to them to make sure and verify that they indeed didn't miss anything in the bid process and they're standing behind their bid and so we're recommending to move forward with them for the
015Valley View window replacement projects so again this is just an information at night and then the next board meeting in December we'll bring this as an action item so this project will is paid from long term facilities which we have the funding to do it and it will kick off immediately once the school year ends and we're actually very fortunate because it is a fairly large window replacement project which will have abating the windows on the front end and then installing the windows you know along the way so it's coordinating two different groups abatement and installation of the windows and so it'll take definitely take time so we're fortunate that we do have a longer summer next summer to get this project done and they did work here before yes so Val Perot windows did
016the windows on the addition to vallivue actually Elementary so they we haven't had any problems with those windows and they're the bid spec called for Wausau windows which was the windows that we have in all of our buildings so many questions I have to your questions the project is within our budget that we put together for this project home yes and then my next since this work is we're kind of approving the bids now for the work that will be completed in the summer and I'm assuming that those prices will stand are there any contingencies that have been included for any labor rates changes any additional expenses since the project is you know seven months from now six months from now no that's that's been figured into the bit okay the only thing that's not
017configured into the bed is the abatement part okay so that's that's the kind of annek different step in the process or could be working with the company that manages our asbestos for us and and putting that scope of work together and and if depending on where that comes in there will be additional resources that are available to us I think we do it's better than the LT of them anyway so thank you yeah the 10-year plan you carved yeah great well thank you very much Joe thank you thank you thanks a resolution to combine precincts and Don's gonna talk to us good evening turns Larkin's members of the board tonight I'm here to present information on combining polling places for special elections this at this time there is no special elections they're planned but this
018is just in case this is a yearly annually resolution we need to pass by law in case we have a special election that we can save money by combining our polling places this is something we have we have actually exercised this previously though yeah asked me were able to pass a resolution that was kept on file but now it's required by law to do it you're okay so nothing on the calendar it's just we need to do this to have it ready if we need to for an extreme case so we'll vote on this at the next meeting okay oh yeah just yeah that this is it only in the event that we would need to have run a special election so that we we can reduce the overall cost of being able to operate
019multiple polling places if we have to run a solo election and we've been through this process before it can be very expensive there is actually a resolution at MSBA as well about reverting to the previous where you can vote on this and then it would just stay on file unless you changed it because if you do not combine your polling places before the end of the previous year you have to open all of them and the event of a special election yeah cuz we used to be able to keep it on file and won yes I recall that yes now it's the new law so yes this will be annual this one last year remember to come with for confusion sake this doesn't apply to things like the presidential election correct okay see in the
02017th thank you next time probably before that but first next up is policy first readings the policies are 506 which is student discipline 510 school activities 514 bully prohibition policy form only 515 protection and privacy of public pupil records by 16 student medication 524 technology internet acceptable use in safety 530 immunization requirements form only 532 use of peace officers and crisis teams to remove students with IEP from school grounds 802 distribution of obsolete equipment and materials these policies will appear in a future agenda for approval these will be on the website yes for review and then we'll do our second okay all right you may have any questions about that I just make a statement I think we sometimes we gloss over this a little bit this is really a great time for people who
021are listening or watching at home to go on the website take a look at these provide any feedback to you know if there's any changes or recommendations these policies and we open these up at different times and it's a good time to take a look at them and we would like feedback if there is any good anybody else okay we will move into our action items first up would be the 2019 on it coming up good evening chair Larkin members of the board we are here tonight to introduce Matt Mayer he's from KTV and he's the manager of our audit and he's gonna do the presentation and we found it on the laptop so thanks mr. chair members of the board thanks for the invitation to present tonight I think all of you are at
022last week's work session where we did a deep dive on the highlights of the 2019 audit and the financial position of the district and I just want to touch on a couple of those highlights tonight before you take action on approving that the district received an unmodified opinion on their financial statements which is the best that we can provide it means that the numbers in the comprehensive annual financial report which you've been provided tonight are a true and accurate picture of the results of the 1819 school year we also performed a single audit to test the compliance with your federal funds during the year this year we tested the title 1 program and had no issues or findings with that we had our perennial finding regarding lack of segregation of accounting duties related to your
023internal control which is an evaluation basically a small office environment we're not recommending any changes or changes to staffing as a result of that but just reminding you and administration that we don't have necessarily an ideal environment we don't get as many touches on every transaction that we'd like to see in the process but from a cost-benefit standpoint we again we're not making any recommendations for changes there and then finally we issued a Minnesota leo compliance audit that had no findings this year as well that has to do with things like contracting and bidding conflicts of interest finance related statutes that apply to school districts so very clean audit for the 1819 school year and our thanks to the finance team here at the district for all their help in the process again this year
024Denise leading the team and Paula is here as well tonight so I want to recognize their efforts as well as the whole team just a quick overview for you and the public of the results of operations in the context of your budget you had a forty seven million dollar budget for the 2018-19 school year in your general fund as a board you authorized use of fund balance or a small deficit for the year of about seven hundred thousand dollars actual results for the year ended up being better than that a revenue was about three point three million dollars better with additional general ed and special ed aid from the state coming in over the budgeted amounts and a new federal program that you instituted this year spending was a little bit over budget as well
025about six hundred and seventy one thousand dollars for the year some transportation costs and instructional support were the main factors there so rather than a deficit for the year because of outpacing things on the revenue side you actually had a surplus this year of 1.9 million dollars which grew your overall fund balance to seven million dollars and this was the third straight year that the district has had a surplus in the general fund and you've been able to grow your fund balance in the general fund from a low in 2016 of 2.8 million dollars to a high over the five-year period shown here of a little bit over 7 million dollars if we take us and set aside the state mandated reserves and some internal and local set asides that you as a board have
026authorized the remaining amount or an unassigned fund balance of about 3.3 million dollars remains and that's the number on which your fund balance policy is based you as a board have authorized a fund balance goal of anywhere between 6 and 12 percent of annual spending and at the end of the 2019 school year you had a twelve and a half percent fund balance that grew from the low back in 2016 of 8.2 percent so you have met the high end of your fund balance policy and have about a half a percent over and above that at the end of the 2019 school year two other funds just to wrap things up the food service fund has had another year of surplus this year and has about a 25% fund balance so very healthy fund for
027your first and lunch programs here at the district and then finally the Community Service Fund which is your community EDC Fe school readiness and all of those programs combined had a small deficit this year but again this fund has a very strong financial position of about a 25% fund balance each of the individual fund balances in this fund related to the individual programs that I just mentioned were all positive as well which indicates to us that the directors of those programs are running those programs within the parameters that they that you've established for them and the revenue streams for which they're receiving so I think a good report there as well so I will leave it at that if there was anything that was brought up in the work session you'd like me to elaborate
028on or anything more you'd like me to highlight it be happy to do that before you accept the audit this year I think one of the things we talked about at the work session that I thought was helpful was kind of the average fund balance that schools in the Metro have and it was good to hear kind of that we are in range do you want to kind of repeat what you said about yeah I'd be happy to a typical metro school district has a fund balance policy and in turn a fund balance itself of somewhere between the high single digits and the low teens so we were seeing anything from 8 to 15 percent as a typical fund balance and you can see from this chart here that you're right in line with your
029peer group when it comes to that like shortly after that conversation I read something in the paper it was in I think they really tend something was there okay my balance yeah it made sense certainly mashed with what you had talked about the other days I think just to comment I did review everything thank you for a very thorough report and I wanted to echo what you said and just appreciate Denise and our finance team Paula for all of the work that you do in putting all of these numbers together and making sure that we are meeting our financial expectations so thank you to your team to you thanks mr. clarification and the one finding and it's not the first year that we've had this but just if your is that you would like in
030a perfect world is it for I just for you know for different people would be involved with the transaction I think we're at three it probably depends on that's that that's the trick it's there's a lot of different transactions that are occurring here you have got a payroll department that's cutting hundreds of checks every couple of weeks you have a revenue department who's bringing in the cash receipts and all the other things that's happening you've got an AP Department that's paying your vendors and so it's you probably have the three or four individuals that you would need to get there but then each of them have their own specific duties related to payroll ap and rather than and we're trying to cut their duties in two pieces that they can't be an expert in it
031makes sense that they just concentrate on what they're doing and establish the mitigating controls and with denise's and Paula's oversight how we're comfortable that we don't believe any material mistakes or material issues would arise as a result of that environmental cost but I guess where I'm going this is the cost benefit of creating that perfect scenario what it would cost us for bhudev obviously have to hire additional staff and things like that so it's not it exactly we'd be looking at another staff perhaps - with with full-time with benefits and if you add up the cost of that we don't believe that the district's at risk to that level and that's how we make that determination okay and that's kind of like just really refine what I had heard you say earlier okay anybody else
032anything okay at this point I'd be looking for a motion movie approval the audit forward come up Lorien circuit Laurel they need to get further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye opposed abstain motion carries thanks man thank you thank you thank you Denise - bye for book removal this was this for the for the record the board book renewal information was provided the school board members and their superintendents packet on Friday as opposed to having an information item previously at a meeting so Thank You chair Larkin members of the board as every year I'm presenting an recommendation for renewing the district's subscription to board book for book being the product that we use to package up our board packets and put everything together archive our board packets its enables us to you
033know save time save paper just say overall costs our fee for board book has continued to be fairly consistent started out at $2,000 and we're currently at $2,100 per year since we've started it and so this evening we just would like to recommend approval moving forward and subscribing for another year second Danny second binary okay unless we news December 1st looks like right what's that December first of Reno's yes correct any comments questions and you think this is for the $2,100 it says right here that's the best bang for the buck absolutely we a long time ago they had to deal with MSBA put that package together for $2000 and they've held that pretty consistent and so we are one of many school districts in Minnesota that subscribe to it you know for the discussion
034all in favor say aye aye opposed abstain motion carries thank you thanks Brian knew suspended deleted courses good evening Tara Larkin members of the board at the last work-study session last week executive director Zena stenwick and principal Dwayne Berkus presented the new suspended and deleted courses for the 2020 2021 school year so I'm here tonight seeking approval of those new courses if approved we would be adding a few new courses to Columbia Academy these courses would include a language and culture x-play exploration class as well as a project lead the way app creators class so we're excited about the new opportunities that it would provide for Columbia Academy let's start with emotional move therefore so moved discussion questions I guess I can start and I want to thank principal Berkus and executive director Stanwyck who
035presented at our work session I think we had a really good topic and a conversation and presentation fairly in depth about that I think as people are in the audience and watching from home we are not suspending or deleting any courses for a next school year we're looking at adding the the cultural language when you go to next for a language and exploration which i think is a great opportunity for our middle school students to get introduced to language by also understanding culture and geography and heritage and and what not so I appreciate that and then just adding is that the third course in our project lead the way a group of the the app development for kind of our stem programming at Columbia Academy so just a little bit more in-depth but no no
036suspensions or deletions but really some great add-ons to our Columbia Academy curriculum thank you for adding that sorry I had jury duty last yeah welcome back and I don't know if we said this but just to be clear it's in Spanish and Arabic languages that these classes will be available which then is the vertical alignment to the Spanish Arabic classes in the high school yes thank you okay here you know further discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstain motion carries thank you thank you next up would be the police liaison contract approval good evening care Larkin members of the board I have before you the school liaison officer program approval I presented it at the last board meeting and it is for the calendar year 2020 and it's for police liaison officers
037for Columbia Academy and for the high school and it's been since the 1980s that this program has been in place so I'm asking for approval Snyder if you are if you have any questions okay let's start with the motion to move that forward so moved that one DeLorean thank you okay questions comments discussion and you just talked at briefly I know you presented this choice in the past but there's just a little bit of what I'll call roll up costs in terms of staffing and benefits but then this is within the budget that we have set aside you if it comes under safe schools budget and it's within budget so every year they they look at the supplies they use and they take the actual cost for the officers and they've just put it a
038little 3% on the increase for the training and equipment but other than that it's really close to the same price as last year thank you okay hearing no further discussion all in favor say aye pull abstain that motion carries thanks Denise next up would be the approval of school board organizational meeting procedures November 19th we were presented with recommendations for the lump deaths aroma that's going to suspend it let me catch up there we go boys being asked to approve the process for electing a school board chairperson based on Robert's Rules of Order newly revised 10th edition as prepared by Karen Keppel November 29 2011 and the first Monday in January is prepared by the Minnesota School Board Association as procedures for their organizational median so this would be the same process we'd be approving
039the Robert's Rules for the meeting and then use the MSBA process to select the different positions for the board so with the motion to move that forward so moved second nervous some real schematic any questions comments or discussion on that I think just to comment we discussed this too at our last meeting at the work session that we went over this at the work session and there are no material changes from anything that we have done in the past it's been our same process that we've used but we do have to approve this annually and it is it is an annual thing yep okay here you no further discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed abstain that motion carries okay in accordance with Minnesota statute 13b point zero three the board will meet in
040a closed session for the purpose of discussing negotiation strategies will be going into closed session at seven thirty nine all right thank you we're coming out of closed session at 8:27 we were in accordance with Minnesota statute 13 D point zero three we met in a closed session for the purpose of discussing negotiations that concession anybody with board topics all sports are starting to fire up so winter boys salary yes thank you what season is it we asked about winter sports are firing up now so parents getting your kids signed up yes believe they started this week some of them some of them have been going for a few weeks oh great sweet swimming started this week yes yes Happy Thanksgiving yeah Happy Thanksgiving thank you no further discussion we'll close the meeting at 8:28