August 8th 2024 Meetings of the Hopkins School Board

001All right, good evening. I'm going to call to order this organizational meeting of the school board. Just as a heads up for our community members and those out in the audience, we will not be doing public comment for this 30-minute organizational meeting, so I just wanted to make sure that I provide that heads up and that transparency to everybody out there. With that, I will move to section two, which will be the approval of the agenda. so moved second sounds like there was a motion and a second thank you uh and then next i will move to section three which is new business with new business we're going to be looking at the resolution designating depositories for school funds so i would like to welcome up director chap and duca our business services director to

002the to the table please excuse me vice chair ross yes I just had a question. Do you need to vote to approve the agenda? We did. There was a motion and a second. Never mind. I missed it. Should we go back and do it again? We could do that. Did we do the voice vote? I think we need the voice vote. Alright. I will be looking for a vote. Voice vote. Those who approve the agenda say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Those who do not approve say nay. All right. Quorum approved with the agenda. All right. Now we will move to new business. So thank you, Chair Andreessen. We'll move to new business with Director Chapman-Duca. And this is going to be in resolution designating the depositories for school funds. The administration is requesting the board

003to approve the proposed depositories for the 2023-2024 school year as follows. And I believe this will require a voice vote as well. Those who say aye, those who vote yes say aye. So let's, excuse me, Acting Chair Ross, Director Chappenduka, did you want to talk a bit about these? Sure. Okay. Yes, since they are new board members. And again, this is a resolution which is something we routinely do at the beginning of each school year in terms of the different depository banks we work with when we do business for the district. So we have a number of financial institutions the district works with in terms of some of our depository requirements with our... payroll accounts, payable accounts receivable when we receive funding from the state and the federal government. So currently we partner with U.S.

004Bank as well as the Minnesota School District Liquid Asset Fund for our checking account depository, our payroll, our community education, our school nutrition, and the general and student activity accounts. We also have other financial institutions we partner with from an investment perspective. We partner with U.S. Bank. We also have partnerships with public finance management, which also is tied to the Minnesota School District Liquid Asset Fund. We also have a partnership with CBIS. CBIS does our... uh investments for our trust funds mostly with our op-ed and severance we also have partnerships with fidelit and metlife for our retirement accounts for four or three bees the district also you know since we do transaction high level transactions from a retail perspective. We also use U.S. Bank for cash transfers, which is tied to the Minnesota Liquid Asset

005Funds, as well as U.S. Bank being the custodian of all our liquid assets. So that being said, I think the Board can either, if there's any questions, the Board can either vote on that resolution. I move that the board approve the proposed depositories for the 24-25 school year. All right. Sounds like we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any nays? Oh, sorry. Aye. Any nays? No. So then we move to Section B, which is authorizing the electronic funds, transfers, and investments. Director Chapenduka, is there anything you want to share on this as well, please? Sure. I mean, again, this is another... routine process we do which is kind of standard you know across school districts when it comes to authorization of electronic funds I mean we we do

006a lot of wire transfers for receipts we get from state and federal sources as well as The payments we make to our vendors to our employees so this resolution is giving me authorities the director of business services to be able to transact on behalf of the board in the district on any electronic transfers or any decisions which are related to electronic funds transfers and investments during fiscal year 25. All right Thank you, Director Chapenduka. It appears that there is a roll call vote with the recommendation that the board adopts the proposed resolution below authorizing the use of electronic fund transfers and investments as follows. Resolve that Director of Business Services, Terrio Chapenduka, be authorized to make or cause to be, or cause to be made electronic funds transfer between school district accounts. Resolved further that

007director of business services to real Chapin duca be authorized to open or cause to be open investment accounts with designated institutions in consideration of terms conditions covenants requires such institutions to endorse or cause to be endorsed on behalf of the district any drafts order certificates checks or other investment instruments in connection with such accounts and to make or cause to be made deposits to such accounts by check draft order or electronic fund transfer resolve further that unless superseded any and all resolutions here here to four adopted by the board of education is certified to depositories designated at the organizational meeting of august 20th 2024 governing the operation of the district accounts with them be in our hereby continued in full force so moved second All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any

008nays? Now, this is where I need education. Is this still part of the roll call, Chair Andreessen, or am I incorrect? I think Clerk Thompson needs to administer a roll call vote. All right. Thank you. Is that correct, Director Chapaduka? Do we need that for this resolution? Yes, because it's a resolution. I think it requires the board vote. Okay. So, Director Thompson, can I seek your assistance by doing a roll call vote to ensure that all board members have voted on this, their vote? Please. Sure. So, please vote either aye or nay as I call your name, Chair Andreessen. And I am sorry, I am not able to vote at this meeting because I am not able to attend in person due to COVID. Understood. Treasurer Hartland. Aye. Director Roper. Aye. Vice Chair Ross. Aye.

009Clerk Thompson. Aye. Director Westmoreland. Aye. Director Zhao. Aye. All right. We have a unanimous vote. We'll now move over to section C, which is the designation of the official district newspaper. And again, I will pass it back over to Director Chapenduka. Thank you, Vice Chair Ross. Again, this is another routine resolution which the board has to allow. for an official district newspaper. I think we've been using the same seller for the last couple years in terms of any legal notices or any official publications for district businesses. And I've been trying to actually connect with... Sunseller in terms of the rates. So currently these are the rates we have. If there's any changes to those rates, we'll bring those back to the board at some particular point in time. But the rates we have right now

010for any legal notices that the district pays $13.25 per column, per column inch. for the first incision and $7 per column inch for any subsequent incisions. And if it's via mail or fax, there's an additional $20 charge per typesetting. And these notices will be posted. to the Sunseller website which is www.ecmpublishers.com at no additional charge. The district also provides an affidavit. At no additional charge and any additional of Davids will be two dollars and fifty cents each and those are the rates We currently have like I said if there's going to be any changes I will get some notification from Sun sailor and will bring those to the board at a future date Okay, I got some coaching on this one what I'm supposed to say is I'm looking for a motion to approve the

011Sun sailor and Sun posts as the official newspaper of Hopkins public schools So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, unanimous. We will now move to Section D, Intent Resolution 2025A, Goal Facilities Maintenance Bonds. Again, I will pass it back to Director Chapenduka for background. Thank you, Vice Chair Ross. Again, this is a continuation of our long-term facility maintenance conversation, which we started in May when the board approved the 10-year capital plan. The 10-year capital plan, actually, the total cost over two years was about $24.2 million. And that $24.2 million is structured into a Bond sale as well as a levy which is the LTFM pay as you go levy which is generated through our annual levy process.

012So the resolution we have here is the intent for the district to sell bonds to the tune of $13,650,000 to cover a portion of the 10-year capital plan over two years. The difference will be covered through the general fund pay-as-you-go levy. And if you add the $13,650,000 and about $10.6 million in general fund pay-as-you-go levy, it takes us to that $24.2 million long-term facility maintenance bond, which we presented in May and was approved and sent to the Commissioner for Education. Okay, thank you, Director Chapenduka. What I will be looking for here is a motion and then I will transfer it over to Director Thompson for that roll call. Vice Chair Ross, can I ask a clarifying question? Yes. Yes. So this $13 million, I think you mentioned that it's related to the 10-year bond. Is

013there any variance against budget or is this exactly what we budgeted for? Do you know that? So this is actually... what we budgeted for in terms of one the long-term facility maintenance which is funded through the through the levy component and the difference is what we'll fund through the sale of bonds So if you look back at the 10-year capital plan and you look at the 25 and 26 breakdown, and then you also factor in what we are generating out of the pay as you go general fund, the $13.1 million is what that difference is to be able to accomplish those two two-year projects. Thank you, Director Chet Manduka. Vice chair Ross can I ask a question too? Sure. Okay, so just to say that one more time this sale of these bonds makes up

014the difference between What we need and what we get from what again so so there are two components to this director Thompson, so How we generate our low-term facilities maintenance? Revenue is either we sell bonds Which is what this resolution is or our live it through the property taxes generate dollars Which are used to cover for in of those defaid maintenance projects So right now based on the current structure we have so that we try to mitigate any increases in property taxes We are going to be generating about ten point six million dollars out of the levy general fund component the difference between the projects we said we'll need to actually fund for uh for the two years uh is that 13.6 million dollars which we have to sell bonds for and then we'll pay

015debt services over time okay thank you and then just one more thing caught my eye as i opened the actual document here the PDF if I go to the last page it says the total amount of district indebtedness as of August 15th is a hundred and thirty three million if these proposed bonds were issued after the date so then you add the thirteen point six five to the 133 right so what so those are the 133 are bonds that have already been sold correct So the 133 bonds we have already sold, we are already servicing, and then we'll be adding an additional $13.6 million to that over the period of which we have to repay that, and that gets included as part of our debt service, which is covered through our property tax levy. Okay.

016Were there any other additional questions from my board colleagues or any other board colleagues? All right, I will be looking for a motion. Or am I supposed to, oh, sorry. No, you were right. I move that the school board issue general obligations facilities maintenance bonds series 2025A in the maximum aggregate principal amount of $13,650,000 and taking other actions with respect thereto. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right, Director Thompson, can you please go ahead and do your roll call, please? Yes, so again, please vote aye or nay. Treasurer Hartland. Aye. Director Roper. Aye. Vice Chair Ross. Aye. Clerk Thompson is an aye. Director Westmoreland. Aye. And Director Zhao. Aye. All right. Thank you, Director Thompson. Unanimous, all ayes. Thank you, Director Chapenduka. Thank you. I next want to invite Superintendent Dr. Lightfoot to

017the table. We're going to be reviewing Sections E and F. Section E is going to be appointment of legal firm. Dr. Lightfoot, the floor is yours. Good evening. Good to be with you. Section E is the appointment of legal firm. There you will see the rates that are here specific to this. This is general counsel. Oftentimes, depending on the nature of specific need, we may use other service as well. But in general, this is an approved. uh list of uh rates that are here that are not increasing over the previous year so at this point if there are specific questions related to e i am happy to address those otherwise we would look at the appointment of the firm do any of my board colleagues have any questions uh vice chair ross yes director thompson

018um thanks dr lightfoot is this the same firm we've used in the past it is Did we solicit any other bids we haven't gone out for RFP As a follow-up question, is there a cycle that we do that on ever or is that just up to? the board and admin's discretion? It's up to the board and admin discretion. Part of what we look at is we also look at those that are on approved list by our insurers as their rates have been guaranteed by our insurers and so often our insurers will recommend and use specific legal counsel of which Ratwick is identified as such. Was gonna say that you know if anyone has ever had to retain legal services lately those rates are like fairly low and reasonable so those ones are guaranteed you said

019by our insurance company provides a list of Firms they know are in compliance with these Okay. Thank you. I think what's helpful too is that? We've been working with this firm for well the partners have changed a bit but for my duration on the board we've been working with this firm and so they have that historical context and knowledge and relationships within the district which has been really helpful so they have provided some guidance on policy issues we've brought them into the monitor monitoring committee to help with that they've joined us at the board table to help with clarifications so yeah just wanted to provide that context I think also my understanding is there aren't many legal firms that have deep educational expertise, in particular with special education. Is that correct, Dr. Lightfoot? Correct. Okay.

020So if we did go out for an RFP or we sought partnerships with other firms, how many other entities are there that have their level of expertise? Just out of curiosity. Three. I mean, large-sized firms deal primarily with school districts as their clients? Mm-hmm. In the state? Thank you. All right. Was there any additional questions for my board colleagues? Okay. So I will be looking for a motion here. Vice Chair Russ, would you like the motion to include both bullet points under the recommendation? Yes, thank you for clarification. No problem. Yes, I would. Yeah, I will make this super long motion. Okay. I move that the board approve utilization of the legal services as provided through Ratwick, Rozick, and Maloney. at hourly rates as noted above for the 24-25 school year dependent upon services required.

021Moreover, that the board allow district administration the discretion for the 24-25 school year to seek other legal counsel and or utilize a licensed attorney when there is a need to acquire special expertise. Thank you both Director Westmoreland and Treasurer. Hartland, so I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, we will now proceed to section F, review of school board policy 253. And we'll do this again with director Lightfoot. Or sorry, Superintendent Lightfoot, District Policy 253, this is gonna be board member compensation and expenses. What I do wanna highlight for the community and our board colleagues, we are not asking for anything different this year. So there's nothing, I wanna ensure that everybody understands like there's nothing that we're requiring any increase in compensation just for context, but

022I will pass it over. to Superintendent Lightfoot to add any more color commentary to the background as well. Sure. The policy itself states that board members will be compensated according to the rate of compensation established in the annual organizational meeting. What that means for the board is that it needs to look at its rate of compensation. And then as you decide at the meeting this evening, we will take forward and then process. Vice Chair Ross. Yes. I wanted to provide some context that's not included in the board packet. I pulled up the board minutes from our organizational meeting at this time last year. It was on September 5th, 2023. And we did increase compensation by 2% during that year. So for the 23-24 school year. The compensation per board member was $5,919.71 with a stipend

023of $809.43 for the chair. So that piece I think is important to take a look at. And one of the conversations we had last year was that when we don't continue to increase by 2%, which is typically the same rate that our HEA, our teachers union settles for, that our board compensation falls out of step with neighboring school districts. We also had a conversation about... compensation and the ability for people to serve on the board. This is, you know. essentially $6,000 a year for many, many hours. Many of us are parents, have other full-time jobs. And so just ensuring that our rate of compensation continues to increase so that we don't get into a place where there's a big gap. And we've seen this in other school districts. We recently saw it happen in Hennepin

024County. where a proposal is brought forward to increase by a lot that feels really out of step because it is with other negotiations that are happening. So I just wanted us to be cognizant of all of that as we're engaging in this conversation tonight. Director Rosser. Yes. Chair. I don't know. Treasurer Hartland. Acting Chair Ross. For the context. board members in the st. Paul district about $10,000 per year and They have a movement within their board to advocate for a fairly large jump and that hasn't been decided on yet But it is going to be possibly on their next board meeting Anoka-Hennepin pays about fourteen to fifteen thousand Osseo nine thousand st. Cloud and Bloomington about seventy two hundred and Brooklyn Center five thousand so that was it's a little bit hard if you're not

025willing to come through a lot of other districts minutes to find their rates of pay, but I did want to provide that additional context. We are on the lower end and of course we understand that we are in a financial. Pinch right now is so many other. Districts are, but I was curious. couldn't really remember how the conversation came about or how a 2% decision came last time and how the decision for no additional compensation was made this year. I don't believe we've made that decision. I think that's the discussion we're having right now. Sure, we did. Acting Chair Ross? Yes. Chair Andreasa. Yeah, I wanted to... reinforce that. Thank you, Treasurer Hartland, for sharing that information, which I was also going to share just to give us some context around what other boards make.

026And also, I personally feel that tension where we are asking our administration and also our Our staff and other parts of the district to handle budget cuts. We certainly participated in that as we could with our development dollars, but also recognizing that there's tension between not wanting to fall behind and recognizing that this is. That we want to attract the best and brightest to the Hopkins school board and that that can. oftentimes not having compensation that's commiserate with the duties makes it difficult for those who would like to serve not being able to serve the community. And I think there is a lot of tension there, and I'm hoping as directors we can engage in a good discussion about that. I know that when I started serving on the board, it was during the pandemic,

027and we were also undergoing budget cuts, and he decided as a board to not take a pay increase because of that. And so I find myself falling back into that perspective of wanting to. engage in the same ways that other district staff are. So that's my perspective. Acting Chair Ross? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. Doing a little bit of math, seems like 2% is about $116 per board member and times 7 is $812. And to your point, Chair Andreessen, yes, we actively did go under. consider all budget cuts and there are people who very unfortunately lost their jobs but the larger picture is that nearly every person in our system did get a pay raise so there is of course there is that tension but and we did as a board lower our professional development cost by

02850% quite a bit And then our existing staff, the budget cuts were necessary to pay our existing staff an appropriate living wage. Acting Chair Ross. Yes. Director Westmoreland. I appreciate Director Hartland's... Move toward just like talking about this in real dollars, right? so we're essentially talking about an overall cost to the school district of under $900 if the school board agrees to to increase by 2% and You both mentioned our professional development funding. So historically, the board has had $20,000 set aside for board professional development. So that's attending conferences, bringing in speakers, doing workshops with outside expertise, that type of thing. And we did cut that in half. And so we're at approximately $10,000 this year for our professional development budget. So all of that. if we think about the board budget as a big

029package, we cut $10,000. And if we approve a 2% increase, we are adding, let's just say under $1,000, right? I think that's easier for us to all wrap our minds around. So thank you. I think- You can go Shannon. Yes, Chair Andreessen. Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to, Thank you for that context. And also, I serve on Intermediate District 287's board, and part of what they do for us on that board is, because they're member districts, the goal in compensation of any kind is to neither lead nor lag. And so we get... information on what each school board pays different roles and we did get briefed on what each district how each district compensates their board members and hopkins fell near the bottom so just giving that context as well there is one though that

030um there are there are two i think two member districts of District 287 that are volunteer boards. So that's just additional context for all of us in this conversation. Acting Vice Chair Ross. Yes, Director Roper. I want to just also mention and thank you, Director Westmoreland and Second Treasurer Hartland for bringing up the really important facts that we are on the lower end and that in order to be an effective school board, we need to have stellar members, right? And so, and I agree with Director Westmoreland. to attract a diverse slate of candidates and folks who wants to run for the school board is gonna be very key. And it's really hard for people from different social economic statuses to do this work on a volunteer basis. And we're often asked to do this work

031on a volunteer basis. And I think that the students of this district deserve people who are going to be able to give this to like, who are gonna be able to do this work. effectively in a good space and not have to worry about, you know, can they pay their bills or not? And that's a lot of the reasons why there's a lot of people who don't run for the school boards. And so comparing different districts, I think that that is a consideration that we need to look at is like, how does an equity move for more school board members with different lived experiences to join this board and to be compensated for their time? Because... doing this all the time on volunteer is really, really hard. And it's not about the money. It's about

032being effective. And so I think this should be a conversation that is revisited often every year and not, you know, at like a zero percent increase. It kind of just makes me feel as if, like, you know, this is expected for folks to do this on this, on a volunteer basis. And so I would really like for us to really consider, like, what... do we want from the folks who are on the school board and what are we asking them is it fair for us to ask them to do the amount of work that they're doing for the amount of pay they're receiving so that's just one one to to add so i i do if there is in favor i would be in favor for an increase acting chair ross yes chair andresa so

033i just wanted to make sure i heard you correctly um director roper you said that you would be in favor of a two percent increase Um, I would not like a two whatever the number that we decide on like it would just need to be discussed. Yeah I thought maybe you're throwing out a number Which I'm okay with do we want to throw out a number? I vice chair Ross Yes, I I move that the Hopkins School Board increases our compensation for the 2425 school year by 2% second It appears that there is a motion and there is a second. Is there any discussion, any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any nay votes? Nay. We have one nay vote. I move that

034term life insurance in the amount of $50,000 for each board member be continued. That puts the total cost of the insurance for the seven board members at $525 annually and $75 per person. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any additional or any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. and i that sounded unanimous there was no nays so with the recommendation uh that the board establishes an appropriate conversation for 20 i believe this should be 2024 2025 also that the term life insurance which uh director westmoreland identified in the amount of 50 000 for each board member to be continued total cost of insurance for their seven board members at 525 annually and it's 75 per person There was no increase from 2022 to 2023.

035All those in favor, or sorry, is there any further discussion based on what I just went over in the recommendation from any of my board colleagues? No advice, Chair Ross. I think because we voted on both of those components that then this agenda item is complete. Excellent. Thank you for that clarification. Sure. All right, now we are going to move to Section G, the authorization of district memberships 2024-2025. Thank you, Superintendent Lightfoot. And now I'm going to pass this over to, sorry. I'm going to pass this over to Dr. Mayor Perry-Reed. Thank you, Vice Chair Ross, Acting Chair Ross. Hopkins Public Schools District 270 belongs to several education-related organizations, and we're asking the school board tonight to authorize continued participation in three of these organizations. The first is AMSD, which stands for the Association of

036Metropolitan School Districts. And the fee for the 24-25 school year is $10,184. This is a very important organization to be a member of, and we do have superintendent and board representation at monthly AMSD meetings, as well as participation at the state legislature level. lobbying for public school support. The second organization is the Minnesota School Boards Association with the annual fee being $12,970. And the third organization is the National School Board Association with that. Let's see, the fee for a non-member state for the 24-25 school year is $4,165. Acting Chair Ross? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. I personally have... had contact either via attending meetings or receiving informational emails or taking partaking in professional development offered by each of these organizations and I'm not advocating for us to not renew our membership in any of them but I

037was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or what it would look like if we didn't belong to say the MSBA, would we just lose our ability to access their professional development or what would it look like to not belong to? I guess maybe another way of saying is like, do we get $13,000 worth of value out of our membership in MSBA? Acting Chair Ross? Yes, Chair Andreessen. I know that we've had this discussion before in the past, and I think at most, Lead benefits mostly impacts the monitoring committee. I think that policy. He says something that we use a lot, but maybe having discussions in that committee and with assistant superintendent, like, but my. Be meaningful I know we have legal representation that helps us with policies in the past. I do also think that

038there is some benefit to decreased costs for conferences and training in particular onboarding new board members. But maybe we could ask someone in or maybe our assistant could kind of help us run the numbers of what that might look like. Acting Chair Ross? Yes. I have just a logistical question. So if we decided not to renew our MSBA membership, could school board members still participate in the trainings? It would just be a higher cost? Okay. I have another logistical question. Do we have to decide this tonight? Or could we take a little bit more time to research what the cost impact would be? You know, how much we're actually using these services right now. I think something else to keep in mind is that the MSBA does have a legislative platform and to take a

039look at that and see if it's aligned with the LAC's legislative platform to see if we're really advocating, you know, for the same things if there's values alignment i just think that there are a lot of questions there's certainly the financial piece but this also this piece of like how much benefit and alignment um are we getting out of this this organization and i do think too in awareness that we are members of nsba which is the national school board association and also amsd um So perhaps, yeah, there's room for discussion. I don't know when the membership fees are due. I'm on their website trying to find out. I guess we could look into that one. There we go. Thank you. I didn't see a due date. It says a due date is August 15th.

040Oh, okay. So you're trying to answer the question of if we have to answer this tonight or not? Vice Chair Ross? Yes, Director Roper. Can I ask a question? So if we were to, so what type of implication would this have on us, like on the district, if we did not renew, or not for the district, rather, I will say for the board, if we did not renew the contract, like would we lose certain privileges? Or I know I get emailed from them. Did you just ask that question? Someone just asked that? Oh, you did? Okay, sorry. That clearly wasn't paying attention. And one impact that was just identified is we actually can still partake in all of the trainings just at a slightly increased cost. Okay. Sorry. I think in defense of AMSD, that's

041a piece that I personally have interacted with as a part of the Legislative Action Coalition, and it is a huge body of knowledge for understanding how enormous amounts of changes, like... 50 plus changes that happened at a legislative level what that actually means for the district and they also help assemble these platforms and do provide direct useful resources to school districts to hear what other districts are doing and how other boards are handling specific challenges and they call attention to they put out calls for action for public education supporters to to know that they're doing something useful to further you know, usually financially, but not always benefit their school district. So that is one that I for sure would say keep. NSBA, I get their emails too. I've gone to their national conferences. They're a

042considerably smaller amount at $4,000. I think for me personally, MSBA just feels like their membership increased again. And do we get that value out of it, especially given that we can still attend workshops if needed. And just a note, obviously, whether you all want to be members of MSBA or NSBA, that's up to you as a board. I personally do not. attend their conferences, although I did many years ago when I was a new superintendent and we had many new board members and then I do call them maybe two or three times a year just for advice. That's the extent of my involvement and then I wanted to let you know that so far we have paid AMSD, but we have not paid the other two membership fees, if that's helpful. Director, excuse me, Vice

043Chair Roscoe has a quick question. Would it be a conflict of interest to have like another or to sign up for like another cheaper membership at maybe like a, so like the national school, excuse me, not national, like school board partners, they offer like a lot of good information and trainings and frameworks as well for school boards to. you know, utilize or implement within their school districts. I'm not sure of their exact cost, but would there be like any conflict of interest if we looked at different memberships? Or are we, do we have to by like law or state, like have a membership with AMSD or MSBA? And which they're both great organizations, I was just wondering. No, my understanding is that, I'm sorry, acting churras. Whoever wants to answer. The floor is yours, director.

044What's more. My understanding is that there's no legal requirement to be part of any of these. I agree with Director Hartland's comments that AMSD has been an incredibly valuable resource. That's the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. And so there are often issues that are impacting us as members of metropolitan school districts that are different from the issues impacting. rural school districts. And so I think that's one major distinction between AMSD and MSBA. So we can even think about these geographically that AMSD is metropolitan area, MSBA is statewide, and then NSBA is national. And so I think, you know, historically, we've been a part of all three because it kind of covers our bases on each one of those levels, right? But personally, what I found is much more value in AMSD. And if we think

045about values alignment, and that's why I said I think it's important to look at what's on our legislative action coalition platform and what the MSBA advocates for at the legislature, because those things are not always aligned. Also important to note that MSBA is no longer part of NSBA. And there are a lot of factors there. MSBA has joined. on to another national organization that I have some concerns about, quite frankly. So I think that perhaps this warrants a larger conversation about like so we can actually look at like what are we getting out of each of these things. I would be prepared tonight to make a motion to approve the AMSD part and Push MSB and NSBA to a future agenda so we can do with some more background research on this and and Make

046a really informed fiscally responsible decision uh vice chair ross um yes uh do we know does amsd provide model uh policy guidance um you know from my perspective you know if we had to monitor the policy and i'm not on the policy monitoring committee but if we had to monitor the policies for changes and then reflect it in our policy you know we the staff time required to do that would be probably more than the msba membership right so does amsd provide model guidance policy guidance no okay no they have position papers but yeah because for me as a new person right i i see okay msba has a has a policy change and that percolates down into ours pretty you know pretty reliably and so if we had some had to have somebody monitor

047and and make that change i think that might be more than thirteen thousand dollars in staff time just to do that Yeah, possibly. I don't think that anyone here was actively saying for sure do not and just raising the question if we do get our money's worth. And so a further discussion may very well reveal that we do. And is that policy stuff paid for by the 750? And could you get that without the full membership? I really agree with your point to just approve the AMSD, bring the others back, have an informed discussion, have time to do it, look into it. I think the Minnesota State High School League is also in our resolution, and I think that is. Is it still? Help, I can't. I have so many windows open. It's on consent

048for the regular meeting. Okay. Sounds good. Vice Acting Chair Ross. Yes. I'll get it right. I promise I'll get it right by the end of the night. Acting Chair Ross, I move that the board authorize continued membership in AMSD and place a discussion around continued membership in MSBA and NSBA on the next board meeting agenda. So it sounds like I have a motion to move forward with AMSD. with our membership, but then move MSBA and NSBA to a different agenda. Do I have a second? Second. All right. I received a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussion among my board colleagues? Seeing none, those are all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. So with that, that will conclude our organizational meeting. The time is 8.04. Oh, motion to adjourn.

049My apologies. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn. The time is 8.04. We need to vote. Director Thompson. Oh, it could just be a voice vote. Vote? Okay. Yep. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. I survived. All right. The time is 8.04. Chair Andreessen, get well. Thank you. You did great. Okay. Does anybody need a break before we move to our regular meeting? All right. Sounds like no. Okay. We're going to move into our regular meeting. I'm going to call to order. So with our regular meeting. we have two times that we could do a public comment. So what I wanna go over with everybody, our audience, and then our audience online is at the board meetings, public comment will

050be received both in person and through voicemail. Instructions for how to leave a voicemail to be played at the board meeting can be found at the board packet on the district's website. We have two public comment sessions per meeting. The first is at the beginning of the meeting and pertains to items on the agenda. The second is at the end of the meeting and pertains to items not on the agenda. Natalia, did we receive any voicemails at all? Okay. So since we didn't receive any voicemails, I'm going to move on from open agenda to section three, which is our reports. Actually, I'm gonna skip the reports and then move to the approval of the agenda. Acting Chair Ross, I'm wondering, did we receive any public comment cards? We did receive three public comment cards. The

051items are not on, the items pertain to items not on the agenda at all. Thank you. So those community members will be heard at the end of the meeting. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you for the clarification. Sure. Of course. Thank you. All right. I am now looking for approval of the agenda. I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. Those all in favor of approving the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Unanimous. All right. Now we're going to move to the next section, which is a consent calendar. So these are items provided to the board with information considered to be more routine in nature. If the board deems an item necessary for additional discussion, a motion will be made to move it to

052new business. So the recommendation is that the board approves this consent calendar. So what I'm looking for is a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there room for discussion? Is there a particular item? I don't necessarily need to move it, Vice Chair Ross. I just had a question on the board agenda plan. Is that... What am I looking at there? Is that kind of like here were the topics that we talked about at this meeting last year? And so it's like a rough outline of what would potentially be on there, including the exact dates or chair Andreessen, could you just add some color to that document? Yeah, I think that what we did was. We used what topics had

053come up in the prior year that hadn't been addressed through a workshop or that board members responded to an email that was sent out about topics that you wanted addressed this year and have those in loosely into places that we thought. were timely and appropriate in the upcoming agenda calendar for the school board year. Is that accurate, Dr. Mary Perry-Reed? It is. I think I would just with the caveat add that we only did that for the first few meetings. And then you're right, Director Thompson, that... mostly what you see here is a copy and paste from last year. So we have a record of everything that we did last year and can somewhat follow a similar scope and sequence with obviously our ability to go in and put in new items or items that

054are surfacing in real time as needing attention paid to them. Okay. Thank you very much, both of you. Okay. So I received a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussions among my board colleagues? Seeing none, those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any nays? All right, approved. The consent calendar has been approved unanimously. We are now going to move to the treasurer's report with Treasurer Hartland. Thank you very much acting chair Ross. This is something of a doozy. So hold on I'll try to get through it fairly quickly. So I know we're a bit behind At our final board meeting of the previous school year. We discussed how the district continues many services throughout summer So not only directly providing instructional and childcare But it also is a time of immense activity for

055certain departments like IT business services maintenance building and grounds and transportation. So during this period ranging from June 6th to August 16th, we also saw the close of the previous fiscal year on June 30th. So that meant there was something of a rush of mileage, professional development, contracted teaching services, and tuition reimbursement requests made before that deadline. On this report, you will also see many P-card expenses. Those are essentially district credit cards issued to select district employees who are allowed to make purchases on behalf of district operations. And I will talk a bit more about P cards and their role here in a future board report. If my board colleagues and community remembers, we have 13 buildings here. So all of our typical instructional buildings and then Catherine current and the bus depot to maintain.

056And all of those buildings and their accompanying systems are on safety inspection, maintenance, repair and replace schedules. So as you might imagine, a lot of that work happens over the summer to try to minimize impact to students and staff. Because of that, we paid a lot of money to support our water, sewer, electric, security, fire suppression, and audio systems. Plus maintained athletic fields parking lots kitchen equipment furniture landscaping and so many more so a couple quick examples of expenses like that were eight thousand two hundred and seventy nine dollars to maintain and treat our pool fifty six thousand dollars for asphalt in the bus depot parking lot $970 for microscope repair at various secondary schools. $18,000 paid to Schmidt Music for the repair and tuning of many band instruments and pianos throughout all of our

057schools. We paid $15,992 to St. Croix Recreation for new playground equipment. Additionally, we paid $12,000 to Morris Leatherman for that survey we discussed here at the board table back in, I think it was May. And it was that survey that tested the community's knowledge and support around a possible upcoming levy or referendum vote. $11,412 was spent on background checks for incoming employees and coaches. And I saw on our district social media today that approximately 150 new employees were welcomed today. To district intermediate district 287 we paid $238,484 for our portion of specialized services provided to Hopkins students who are educated in that intermediate setting. And then we also pay district 287 $153,000 specifically for adult basic education. We paid $127,531 for our subscription to Infinite Campus. The software that we use is our student information

058system where you can access your students' grades and attendance or pay fees plus a lot more. And incidentally, Infinite Campus is a local company that's headquarters in Blaine. Another software expense was to Skyward, which was our previous and outdated HR and business services software. And per our business services offices, this is hopefully the final year we will pay for that service. While we ensure everything that was previously there in our old platform now works correctly in Oracle. And speaking of Oracle, we spent a total of $607,671 on that huge system-wide Oracle integration in this past period. And as a reminder, just over a year ago... The school board approved approximately $5.3 million for this project that was spread over five years with the first couple of years incurring the biggest expenses. And according to Director

059Chapenduka, we are completely on track with that expenditures now a little bit over a year in and have had no change orders that would drive up our costs there. Excel Energy, Build Us, and we paid $53,225 for electrical service in our various buildings. We paid $20,351 for the spring 2024 ACT testing cycle and $42,816 to the college board for the spring 2024 AP testing cycle. We made payments ranging from $150 to $5,000 to many Minnesota educational institutions for summer instruction such as the American Red Cross, Bell Museum, Mathnasium, Happy Feet Soccer, and so many more. One thing to note is that several of the expenses I just covered are or that I just went over are covered in part or in full by fees paid by our families. So just because it hits our expense

060report does not necessarily mean that the district itself bears the complete cost out of our general fund. We spent $25,196 on employee vision and wellness program benefits and an additional $8,500 on tuition reimbursement for our staff. We paid $15,520 for the 23-24 school year speech therapy for a single student. And this is another case where the district doesn't necessarily bear that entire cost. I rightfully do not know the details for this particular system, but internally our special services and our business office have done a lot to ensure that we can, when appropriate, capture more payments from either the state Medicaid system or insurance. We pay Normandale Community College $117,000 for spring 24 PSEO tuition so that our high school students could earn college credits. $16,579 was paid to Breck, a private school within our boundaries,

061and lesser amounts were paid to several other local private and home schools. We spend a bit over $1 million on transportation. Some of those dates charged stretched back into spring. $270,931 was paid to Teachers on Call, Sunbelt Staffing, and a couple other agencies for contracted substitute teaching, nursing, speech, PT and OT services. And again, some of those dates were for charges back into the spring. I could go on and on, but I won't. This report was long enough, but it was not only because this is nearly a three-month expense period, but I also want to emphasize that a school's environment is extremely complex. We have a lot of specialized equipment and a huge amount of infrastructure that our thousands of staff and students have to interact with safely every day. So first, thank you to

062our district teams that definitely did not have the summer off. And also, as we approach a budget year at the Minnesota legislature and possibly consider bringing a referendum in front of our voters, we need to understand how we can appreciate a one-time 4% bump in our funding, but also need our legislators to continue that work in face of huge increases in teacher and all staff contracts and the reality of what it takes to run and maintain a system as complex as ours. With that, I move we approve total disbursements in the amount of $7,496,242.59 for the period of June 6th to August 16th, 2024. Second. Sounds like we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any nays? None. So we have approved the treasurer's report. So thank you,

063Treasurer Hartland. I'm seeing that there's nothing listed under unfinished business. So now I'm going to move to new business. This section, section A, we're going to be talking about back to school update. So I would love to invite Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lightfoot, Assistant Director of Transportation, transportation, Nyisha Williams. and then Assistant Director of Youth Programs, Jaleesa Smith Breleve. To the table. Thank you, Vice Chair Ross. So just for a quick framing here, today, as Treasurer Heartland mentioned earlier, we did launch new staff onboarding at our high school. And in fact, we had 206 new staff members across multiple roles that were in our high school this morning. And you can, in the personnel updates under consent, you can see who those folks are and some of the positions. they are filling so it's really exciting

064day today innovation design and learning has been working with i.t and hr and special services and other departments to host these three days of orientation and professional learning for our new staff today tomorrow and thursday so we're really grateful for all of the coordination involved in that and When I spoke with the group this morning, first of all, I recognized all of the individuals as people who are in high demand, right? Schools across our state and country are looking for thoughtful, committed school staff. And so I thanked them for choosing Hopkins. We talked about our core values, Vision 2030. and lots of other things and it was a really great day. We had a lot of support, wraparound support from HR and IT and communications and marketing to make sure that these folks had everything

065they needed. And so planning a really organized week of onboarding for new staff is a huge lift, but it's also just one component of launching a new school year. So I wanted to share that our strong school start team has been meeting monthly since January and then this past couple summer months we picked up our meetings to Bi-weekly convenings on the Natalia we need to please show the slide deck if you would do you have that Natalia? I just shared it with you Thank You Natalia So when we pull up the slide deck, then you'll see on the first slide here that all of the topics and work streams that required the attention of folks at our Strong School Start meetings, and we're really glad that we engaged in that effort just to make sure

066that we were thinking of all of the little and big things that are required to offer our families, staff, and students a strong. School start and then I did want to mention For board members and community that typically we do a comprehensive back-to-school update in at a September meeting But given that there are just a couple of areas where families have more curiosity Right now we wanted to give our school board and community heads up about how we've been attending to staffing and class size before and after care services for elementary kiddos and Transportation, so I'm really grateful for our assistant superintendent Lightfoot who will go over a staffing and class size update and then our assistant director of youth programming Jaleesa Smith Breedlove will Provide a before and after care services update and then

067we have our assistant director for transportation. I think She is attending virtually and GM Director Chapman Duca can provide a transportation update. So thanks very much, leaders, for being here and helping inform our board members and community. So Nick, I'll turn it over to you. Great. If we want to go ahead with the next slide, Natalia, and then slide after that. Thank you. So in general, as we have been in front of you before, you know it is a constantly changing environment and one that is continually in flux. As I was listening to the 5 o'clock workshop, we were also problem solving the latest staffing change that we had at one of our elementaries that happened at 4 p.m. this afternoon. Granted, we start with our staff on Friday. So when we really think about

068the changes and the pace at which our leaders are responding and have continued to address over the course of the summer, it has been a changing landscape, and there are and have been some improvements over the previous year as well. So we'll talk a little bit about some of those highlights. Just in general, a greater applicant pool that we're starting to see, which is encouraging. Across the board, we have seen the applicant pools rising. Some areas still have very, very, very limited applicants that we have seen and continue to see. And part of the work that we've had with conversations at... not only regional levels but state levels as well is how do we encourage individuals to look at education as a pathway particularly in some of our related services area when we think about

069counselors and social work and we think about numbers of people going into the school aspects of those kinds of opportunities we are seeing less individuals through pipelines so in general we still continue that work of looking to really encourage individuals to consider the broad landscape of education as a profession. What we also have looked at is greater acceptance of position from candidates and faster turnaround times, which is encouraging. We also did our work as well as we could in January and February, trying to really predict those areas of anticipated need such that we were able to get out there and get out there sooner, knowing that some of these very difficult to hard to fill positions still maintain to be difficult. So we tried to get out there. and there were some good results there.

070As identified, special education, substitutes, general workers and nutrition, and some paraprofessional positions still remain difficult to fill, but we continue to look at that over time. Next slide. In special education, I think just some really particular information that's important here because as we know throughout the state, as well as throughout the nation, difficult to fill positions, especially within special education. As has been identified for you in the slide, what we really are looking at is a strong start in this area as we think about where we were last year. Right now, successfully filled all but two licensed staff positions for early childhood to transition plus. That's really outstanding considering how many spaces have open positions right now. Still continually posting. And as you are aware, in a very difficult landscape, that means that people have

071a choice option of where they want to look and continue to do their service. So we are looking at strong retention. We are also looking at our ability to predict and really fill those positions. So that's a positive start as we think about that component. There again, speech language pathologists, other more specialized spaces where they are very, very difficult to fill. There are some partnerships that have been developed. There are some additional connections that we are looking at to really expand opportunities for individuals and increase our pool of candidates that we can consider. What we start to take a look at as well, why don't we jump to the next slide? We'll talk a little bit about a couple other things. We did start to see some areas in special education that had that increased.

072pool of candidates. And as we worked to get out there sooner, we were able to secure those ahead of time, knowing that there always is transition. We still have Tier 1 and Tier 2 licenses in special education. The Tier 1s are the community experts, for those that might have been familiar with that term. We do have some Tier 1 and some Tier 2, but significantly less than the previous year, as we've really been able to look at. tier three, tier four licensed candidates and individuals moving from tier two into tiers three and four potentially. Tier one is really in special education right now, a difficult avenue to pursue as a tier one with some of the federal work that was done in the state of Minnesota, but the reality is that we are in strong

073position right now with less than we had in the previous year. As I mentioned before, in one of the areas in the partnership, a new collaboration with the University of Minnesota to train clinical speech pathologists so that we could really kind of almost create that pipeline in looking toward a future focus. So we've taken some appropriate connections and built those so that we've really tried to get individuals in the space who are qualified and we can grow individuals into pathways into the profession. So some of these are just... some general overview examples of some of the specific actions that have really taken shape over the course of what we've been looking at. There again, in general, if we want to jump to the next slide, in general, we are also starting to see increased candidate

074pools when we think about general education. Some of the areas still are difficult when we look at math and sciences. Like we said, we really were able to do a lot of the proactive recruitment in those February-March timelines that really did put us in a good position in the start of the school year. We still have some hard-to-fill areas that we're looking for with some changes in the previous week. We have open counseling positions. I believe we have filled that social work position. And then we have some smaller FTE portions that we're looking to fill just in general with maybe some, if we can't fill them, additional assignments, often in our work called overages, if there is like a need for a class to be covered or something thereof. But when there is such... a

075labor opportunity for individuals and we have smaller FTE needs, those can be a little bit more difficult to fill. But I will say that the state has done a good job of being flexible for us that when we have smaller FTE needs that are isolated in maybe particular areas that we can look at out-of-field placements. If it's below a .25 of an assignment, we have an opportunity to look for individuals who are willing to do that on a short-term basis. and able to really kind of try as best we can to look at how we can fill that and how we can look at finding individuals who may have an additional skill set that can lend their skills to that opportunity as we look at how to fill for smaller portions. As I mentioned before,

076even as I was working on this afternoon, last-minute resignations continue to be a challenge. We work to hold individuals in the contract until we are able to find suitable replacements, and we continue to do that work throughout the course of the year. Paraprofessionals, we have continual need. We are very well staffed right now in our special education paraprofessional area, which was our largest need last year. And we have open positions right now that we are interviewing for. And that's, I think, kind of just a general look at general education. In addition, next slide, please keep in mind that we also have the staffing components for school nutrition and custodial, and I want to make sure that we call those out. Our assistant director of transportation will speak to bus drivers as well. But here you

077can take a look in school nutrition. We had really right now four food prep positions and one cook. They're in the middle of offering positions. They are feeling very strong about their ability right now to almost be fully staffed before the start of the school year. We were able to fill three open supervisor positions internally, which worked out very well for us in August. with some staffing transitions that were unexpected. We are in this case, like I mentioned, in much better place than we were for our school nutrition, which were significantly difficult to find last year. Custodial all year round positions are filled. Excellent news. The challenge for us there is substitutes. And what that means for us is even with fully staffed in our positions, when we have absences, it means that staff have

078to move from other fully staffed spaces to support other spaces that may have particular needs. So that creates just that overall demand on the system. We continually look to put out information about substitute opportunities in our custodial pool. We continue to recruit, and we do that throughout the course of the year as well. But that really kind of speaks to the staffing updates. Any questions on the staffing updates in general? Happy to address in more detail. Yes, Vice Chair Ross. Yes, Treasurer Hartland. Or Acting Chair. Does a better outlook in our school nutrition department mean that potentially we'll get to run a la carte? meals or Services in some schools or are we not or we don't know yet if we're at those levels because it cost us Or at least left quite a bit

079of money on the table for us in the last Yeah, currently based on conversations with Assistant Director Schack, I think we are still planning to go with Alucard. And I know the last year we didn't do it, we definitely lost a significant amount of money and revenue. So right now that's still on the table. Great, thank you. Vice Chair Ross? Yes, yes, I do have a question for dr. Lightfoot I think you mentioned last-minute resignations Is it is it higher than normal and is there a common thread is there you know? Is it just accent you know stuff happens or is there you know a root cause? Higher than normal I would say it's actually less than last year It's more than previous years to last year. I mean so It is, like I said,

080a more volatile market. Like, so for example, the resignation this afternoon was a position that was offered in another district in a different area than the individual is presently serving. So in some cases, that was almost a promotion for them. So you get those kinds of last minute pieces with other opportunities that are offered in other spaces that just come about. We try and work on those sets of circumstances to make sure that we can continue our contract with that individual, find the suitable replacement, and then dialogue with those districts that are looking to bring other people on board so that we can release them from the contract. Thank you. Vice Chair Ross? Yes. I just have one question, Dr. Leifert. When you mentioned that we started earlier trying to fill stuff, right, the earlier

081start helped increase the fill rate. How or why were we able to start that process earlier compared to previous years? Yeah, great question. We did a lot more anticipation of where we would see openings and what those needs would be. In part, we were working more directly on what we knew and anticipated budgets were. We also were more reliant on the enrollment projections and where we saw enrollment likely to be as we think. In the area we did that most, I would say, acutely was special education and looking at where the growth areas were, looking at where programs were going to be housed, what needs in the sites we knew that we could anticipate. And then Director Contreras and Assistant Director Stanley and then additional staff as well started to say these are our anticipated

082needs. We started in February with what I kind of like to call the virtual world now where we just had open rooms and kind of what are now virtual hiring fairs and actually had quite a few candidates that were interested. And so we started making conditional offers in February and March, knowing that we would have a need in the specific locations and other spaces were offered at that later point when that could be fully identified. And I think if needed director Contreras could speak to some of the other strategies that work there as well I'm good. Thanks Can I ask one quick question? for the needs that need to be filled have we Worked with like a staffing agency such as I use an educate to feel like those immediate needs Yeah, we do have

083specific staffing agencies and some agencies specialize in particular positions. Those always come with additional cost and they are an expense that If needed, we can attend to an address, and this Director Contreras is coming up here. Most of those fall within special education, and I know we've really tried to decrease any reliance on those, and that what we've also tried to do is fill with licensed positions also. So, in particular. A couple of things. So, we've always tried to start early. But I think this year we just were able to capture more applicants seeking Hopkins specifically. And so, because we've always started like January trying to get the new graduates and just trying to get a hold of hiring, but we were just able to fill at a higher rate. Dr. Lightfoot said decrease the

084number of tier one applicants this year. And we went from 17 agency contracts. We're down to four. And so that feels really good because we are having more staff seek us out. And a couple of things. We didn't lose a ton of people. We lost a handful of folks that were able to, like in previous conversations, here tonight go to other districts for a lot more. Also with the growing need of special education. So it's kind of a both. It's two things filling the constant demand of increased needs as well as seeking highly qualified staff and filling those positions. So I think this year, our last year this time, we had between 15 and 20 opened para positions. We're down to two. So it feels really, really good with the hiring that we were able

085to do. And then with... Three of the contracts that we have signed with agencies We have them open so that we still have those positions open which we didn't do before So last year we just filled the positions with the agency contracts and keep them all year But we still have those postings open. So if we get Permanent staff we will slide them into those positions and then So the fourth position is a unique contract that we have for speech, because I think our hardest-to-fill positions are speech pathologist and nursing staff. And so with the speech pathologist... pathologist position we are creating a new pipeline with the partnership with the U of M so they will have a supervisor in place and clinical students training under that supervisor so hopefully we create a pipeline to

086retain those clinical students later down the line Thank you for that. Yeah, thank you acting chair us Yes, treasurer hurtling I really appreciate the like creativity and all that extra effort has gone and it has got to feel good being in your position I know it's it's nice to hear from ours. Do you have any idea? What the cost savings is to reduce our reliance on those agencies because I kind of report on that number Fairly often because that's a big expense that we bear sure so like Contracts can run anything from $85 to $130 per hour, but it doesn't include benefits. So in some cases with the lower-end contracts, sometimes depending on that person's years of experience, we may or may not come out better if we use the contract agency. But if they

087have a lot longer experience, they're more expensive. And so they supersede what it would be for someone to come through our system. Okay. All right. Any other staffing questions? Then we can move to the next slide. The other element that we've been watching is we've been looking at enrollment in general. Enrollment now is, at least from the last set of work that we've been doing, on track. And what we're trying to look at with that is making sure that as we look at those numbers, we're staffing accordingly. In general, with elementary. We're in good shape with elementary classrooms, those being at or below where we anticipated with resources that we have. We've had a few shifts in the last minute that we've had to look at at particular sites, so one-off grade levels that might

088be a little higher than anticipated. which is wonderful with larger enrollment coming in, but then we have to, of course, look at how we can address that with resource in the space. And we did that through some of our targeted staffing work at the end of July at the elementary, and that has moved its way through. and we are in a position right now where that's solid within our class sizes with elementary. Secondary, we've been looking at a more acute level and really getting down to each individual class, looking at where that class is, how the sections have been working. As you may be aware, we do have a memorandum of understanding with our Hopkins Education Association. We've been working with them and looking at the set of information that we have as we've been

089working through math. scheduling at the end of July and the beginning of August. You can see from the information there about five to ten percent of at the middle level are at or slightly above the compensation point. Our compensation point we kind of determined and said in that memorandum if you recall that at the middle level that's 32 students. uh... and if there is a classic it's over that then we would look at that uh... hundred dollar per student acknowledgement of that work that the instructor would be doing uh... so we've called as much as we can on the information that we have now with schedules uh... And, you know, I'm happy to report that the scheduling work is continually ongoing now that our counselors are back and we have some last minute registrations. But

090that that has continued to go well as we've been looking there. High school, a little bit larger because at the high school level, we have more singletons. What I mean by singletons are courses that are like one. class that is offered and that in order to run the class part of the dilemma that we face is with principal Ballard and her staff looking to say okay we may have 40 students who are interested in an AP course how do we look at that when the compensation point is 36 we have conversations with instructors to say are you willing to look at those Some of those we have to look and run through and say, okay, we're able to offer one section. Can we look at other alternatives that may have been of interest to the

091student? So much of that work has been happening throughout the course of the July-August timeframe to look at how we can work with individuals to get as much as we can within the slate of courses that they look to select, knowing that really in that kind of 36 to 38 range. The high school has been very clear about setting that kind of cap, if you will, knowing that some may have that little bit of flexibility in order to allow one or two more individuals into the space to take the course. Certainly those conversations have been occurring and the counselors have been working back on that as well. So those are continually in flux day by day. As we get closer to the September launch, typically when we have provided those, we've kind of given breakouts

092of here are the classes, here are the numbers, so that you can see all those as well. But those are the general updates on class size. Thank You dr. Lightfoot we are going to transition to an update about our before and after care programming Thank You Jaleesa thank you so starting this school year off so across our district we have received a total of 916 total contract requests for before and after school care in still rising so we've received some since me putting this number so we're more like at 920. And the church kind of small but so I have Alice Smith we're at 100. Eisenhower 180 Glen Lake 225. Meadowbrook 277 and then Tanglin 134. We have been able to except 685 of those contract requests so that puts us out of 75% acceptance

093rate at this time and that's average across the district our highest acceptance rate is 86% at Meadowbrook and our lowest is 62% at Glen Lake um we have 231 contract requests waiting for care and we have began our wait list as of last week Monday where we sent out notification to parents that we are beginning our wait list to let them know that there is a high potential that they will not have care on the first day of school so that they can have a strong start and have other plans or utilize some of the resources that we've been able to extend to them. And so then we also have had program changes for this year. So we enacted our priority, our 2.0 priority in lottery process where we went from at random lottery for

094all students to prioritizing those that are most vulnerable and needing childcare. So our priority list included those who receive scholarship. So that makes it targeted where they have limited spaces that they can apply those scholarships. So you're thinking about Hennepin County Child Care as well as Resource West Scholarships that are specific to our care. And then we also have kindergarten as well as a few other priorities. During our priority window, so we had a window of two weeks where folks could request care to be considered in those priority spaces. And during that two-week window, we received 811 of our contract requests, and majority of those coming in on day one, two, and three, at about 700 requests in the first three days. And then additional program changes are we have enacted a Gatewood and Glen

095Lake partnership of care. We've seen a significantly reduced amount of requests from our Gatewood families. And so in order to provide efficient care as well as being budget conscious and being able to be efficient and potentially sharing staffing, Gatewood and Glenlake will now provide care at Glenlake Elementary. And we talked to a few stakeholders about feasibility for this, so partnering with transportation who will provide busing for students to go back and forth, as well as the principals and leaders of those buildings about feasibility as well. So I'll go to the next slide to talk about staffing. So we were able to retain about 95, 90% of our staffing that we were able to increase last year, but we still have staffing need as we've seen an increase in the request of this year. So total

096of the district, we need about 18 or so staff to fulfill. all of the requests that have come from our families and those those staffing needs are in our activity assistant roles and they serve in a 15 to 1 ratio in our program and then in addition to before and after care kids and company we've also enacted our partnerships and we'll continue our partnership with the ymca for those wait lists that are the longest so That's our Glen Lake, Tanglin, and Eisenhower Elementary. The other elementaries we feel like we will be able to quickly serve those families and reduce the wait list at those sites. And then, of course, we have our community at Youth Enrichment who has taken a heavy lift to provide additional courses and classes that can also serve as a Monday

097through Thursday child care option if parents schedule properly or a specific way that they need. So that's our update. I don't know, questions? Acting Chair Russ? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. How many students of ours were previously served by YMCA approximately, and are we anticipating the same amount? Yes, so last school year we served 55 students were served by the YMCA And we do that in partnership with one of our neighboring districts So 55 was were just us and I haven't been able to weed out how many of our students currently They just got us to report today, but right now they have 75 students signed up So there is a increase at the YMCA and we bust them Yes, those students, okay. Yes, transportation partners with us to bus. Okay, and is that staffing ratio that's

098locked in, is that determined by state statute? Correct, DHS, Minnesota Department of Human Services. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Ross. Yes, Chair Andreessen. Thank you. Thanks for this presentation. As someone who used kissing Co with my kids when they were younger, I appreciate this program so much and the way it. It builds community and also understand the struggles of staffing. But I am wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about the decision. To not have kids and Co at gate. Because I guess I was kind of looking at the numbers and Glen Lake looks like they have the biggest waiting list. So just wondering if there could just be a little bit more discussion about that decision. Yes, certainly. So at our Glen Lake location, it significantly reduced requests. So this school

099year, we received about 34 requests for care at Gatewood compared to some of our counterparts that were in the hundreds. And so that site then had five staff dedicated to it to serve those 34 children when we know that really they need about two to three staff to fulfill their needs and so with taking In account the efficiency of having five staff dedicated to 34 children when we know there's a higher Higher need and other sites We felt that it would be efficient to To partner that site with another site so that staffing could be utilized in a more efficient manner and help pull students off of the Glen Lake for instance list so then but then also and can we took into consideration the rising cost of childcare and and Some of our staff

100are quite senior, so they are at some of the top of the ranges for our pay ranges. So there were those factors into consideration, and then also the continued decline in requests. So also pre-COVID, some of the numbers, there were like 75 requests, and we considered some of the historical context before we made the move as well, as well as space efficiency and those sorts of things. with not being able to have a lot of youth enrichment at Glen Lake due to the growing need of care and also wanting to have youth enrichment in what we call in the west, the west side of the district. So some weighing those two components. Okay, thank you. I don't, did any other board colleagues have any questions before we transition to transportation? I will hand it over

101to Dr. Mayor Peer-Reed to welcome Naisha to the virtual table. Thank you for your report, Jaleesa. And Ms. Williams, thank you for joining virtually. And to Rural, thank you for being here too. provide help naisha provide the transportation update so naisha we can start with you thank you so maybe the beginning oh before you uh before you go on i just wanted to maybe kind of give some context then you can Go ahead and give us an update on transportation. First of all, I wanted to acknowledge the community members who have been advocating for electric buses. This morning I went through about 40 to 50 postcards which were sent to the superintendent's office around the need for electric buses. And I know we've had conversation with Director Roper, with some of the community members. members

102we have had conversations with around electrical buses and i just wanted to make sure that the community also understand that our transportation structure currently is a hybrid of us working with independent bus contractors who provide the majority of transportation to the to the school district so we are partnering with our two current bus contractors in terms of advocating for a shift to electric buses. And I know they've been working with some of the preferred vendors who have some more information around how we can Get some grants which will fund some of those electrical buses I just want to assure the community that we are we are listening we we get the feedback and we are working with our bus contractors in terms of What we can do currently as far as electrical buses are concerned

103and will be coming back to the community with more information around What the next steps look like? And that being said, I just also kind of want to do an opener before I give over to Director Williams around where we are with transportation. And I know this process for this year started earlier on in the year. And we've worked as a community, as a district between our schools, our departments, as well as... the whole community around what transportation looks like at the beginning of the school year. And I know in the past we've had some struggles and we've been working hard to make sure that we minimize the impact on our students and community around busing and the safety and security of transporting our students. And I would like to thank... Director Williams, I would

104like to thank district leadership on the effort they've put together to make sure that we have a successful start to the school year for 25. It is a challenge with transportation, starting with budgetary. That's one area where we do have a lot of pressure around how to sustain and maintain costs. And I know we have been negotiating with our current bus contractors. If you look across the metro, the average increase on transportation costs is about 16%. which is huge considering our finite resources. So we are trying by all means to make sure that we create efficiencies. We locate our routes. We work with our different stakeholders in minimizing the impact. At the same time, providing quality service to our students and our... our community and this again is work in progress we started somewhere as

105you will hear from director williams but we are continuously looking at creating all those different efficiencies as a system and build a sustainable transportation network that being said i'll give the platform to director williams thank you director cap and duca So for this school year, we plan to transport approximately 4,000 students to start the 24-25 school year. And this is across all the district activities that we have at each building. Currently, we have routed 47 Type C big yellow buses, 35 Type A small yellow buses, and 10 vans, which are our Type 3 vehicles. The reason these numbers on the type a and a type 3 are subject to change are because with our special services, there are different dynamics and transportation. So, at some point, these may increase from now until the start of

106the school year, depending on how things work. We're pretty much done with routing, but it's a possibility that these will increase, especially in the month of September. Once we get new enrollees in. For our department, we configured all routes for efficiencies through the transportation registration this year. And we also rearranged everything for the bell times at the secondary level. Next slide, please. So we will be beginning the 24-25 school year with an updated routing to support the secondary bell time alignment. The transportation registration process is complete and it allows us to focus only on students who need transportation. We are utilizing metropolitan transportation, which is MTN, as well as Lake Country Transportation, which is LCT, to navigate driver shortages. Our department leveraged district technology to structure better communication between our families and our transportation department

107for this year. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you all for your presentation. Appreciate your time on your busy schedules to walk us through this. So, yes, open it up to any of the board colleagues to see if there's any questions they have for any of our directors here. Vice chair Ross director Thompson Thanks for this update on the busing I'm you know thrilled to see that you know the reconfigured routes or finding efficiencies I was just curious were it based on how we had done that opt-in to do the transportation Registration we were able to find these efficiencies. We're were we able to like eliminate any routes Altogether or do we still have the same number of routes? That's a good question. So it seems that the number is pretty much the same when

108it comes to the Type C Big Yellow buses, and that is due to the new bell time configuration. We were able to eliminate routes, but with the bell time configuration, it did actually increase routes. So we're at the same exact number we started at last year for the Big Yellow buses because of the new bell time alignment. Understood. Thank you. And just to add to that also, that means that our special services vehicles have increased from what they were last year. That 35 number is a pretty high number for our special services. We haven't had that many special ed type A buses in the district for, I would say, many years. Vice Chair Ross? Now you go ahead. So a question on the new routing. Is there, are we building in a little bit more?

109kind of like lead time or like tolerance time for, you know, if a bus doesn't show up or, you know, for whatever reason, you know, the bus is late. You know, I know that was one pain point potentially last year. And I just want to make sure that we just wonder what we've done to address things like that. Thank you. Thank you. So we have added a small portion of cushion for load and unload times. But if we increase too much, then that means students are waiting on the bus when there isn't any foreseen incident happening. So we won't increase it too much just because we've had done that in the past. And we have had students sitting at the school site waiting before they're able to actually get off the vehicle to go into

110the school if we add too much time. Yeah, to also just add some more context to what Director William just said, we also have increased our leverage of technology in terms of, one, doing dry runs, because that does have an impact in terms of, you know, knowing that as we start this school year, there's a lot of construction in different parts of our boundaries. We definitely have started dry rounds earlier on so that we can identify those roadblocks along the way where we can proactively communicate with families if there's any impact. We've been working closely with our technology department and our transportation routing software vendor. Just making sure that the tablets, the geosystems which we use for directions are efficiently working. So we are hoping that that will help with some of those efficiencies. I

111appreciate it. I know that's a lot of moving parts. I appreciate it. Just real quick, I am so happy to hear that you're doing the dry run stuff. That's just awesome. I felt like that should be happening because, you know, all of a sudden a lane is closed. So do we build that in? So thank you two for doing that. That's awesome. Can I ask a quick question? I'm really excited to hear the electric school bus conversations coming up. So thank you How many buses did you say that you were applying for? I missed that part for electric school buses Naisha, do you know how many buses Lake Country, and I know Lake Country did put in application, and I know MTN have been working on that, but I'm not really sure how many buses

112they've applied for at this point in time. So both are going through the process, but I am not sure the exact number of how many buses they have applied for. I can get those details for you, but they are both in the application process. Okay. And then so if, let's just say all goes well and they're approved, would those buses be here this year or will they be next year? I would think it depends on when they would be able to roll everything out. So if it... Was a possibility for this year and we had the structure in place and I think that would be an option But if not So once we go through the process and see if they're approved and what the next steps are we can determine if it will be

113this year or if it will be something for next year Yeah, because I mean also if to look at the infrastructure infrastructure we have to build one with the charging stations, so we have to reconfigure it some of the Access points for those buses and it might take a little while to get those infrastructures in place. But I mean we can get more information as we get details from our bus contractors. Thank you. May I ask one final question? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. So just to be clear, so we did this opt-in process, and so we're serving approximately 4,000 students, so like a slightly more targeted population this year. But any savings there was offset by the fact that we're now accommodating essentially only two tiers of start times. We're pretty close anyway, and so we

114had to add routes back in to make that happen to have the secondary start times aligned. you mentioned a 16% cost increase. Was that like a statewide number or did you mean that's our number for our increase in transportation costs? Yeah, so. So the 16% is, I mean, like if we look across some of the metro area school districts and, you know, the contracts they have in existence. And one of our contractors, which is Lake Country, when we actually brought Lake Country into the system, and this was... just before the pandemic and you know the market was still like low in terms of rates and we maintained that for the first three years and the contract actually had some provisions for us to go back and renegotiate so we renegotiated with them which kind of

115brought them to par with what we are really seeing out there in terms of the market which is definitely fair for them so that was one of the factors which really has had some impacts around the transportation budget. as well as just the fact that we are now operating with two different bus contractors, which has put a bit of pressure around the transportation budget. So do you think that the initial projection, so I remember... from some of our budgeting talks that you had increased the projection in what our transportation costs would be. Was that sufficient or do you think our actual costs are going to eclipse even that number? Yeah, definitely we're going to have to come and revise those numbers. What we've presented with what we are seeing in terms of the cost of

116transportation and the service we have to provide definitely needs funds propped up. in that budget. So we are still working on some of those modalities. We do have some estimates of what that might look like, but we're also trying to create some efficiencies so that we may minimize any budgetary impacts. Okay. And did you say last year we talked about since we're in this place of operating at a deficit, would significantly increased costs in one area mean that we have to discuss it again at the board table? So will we, if you find out that we are, our spend on transportation is quite a bit greater, will we hear about that at the board level? Absolutely, yes. We have to bring that back to the board, yes. Okay, thank you. Chair Andreessen, did I see

117that you have your hand or was I miss, am I not looking at the screen correctly? I feel like you're just reading my mind. I was about to say Vice Chair Ross. So thank you. I was just wondering, just for our community's sake and also for mine, I've been experiencing a little bit of anxiety as a parent with this new opt-in process around busing. One, I'm wondering how can parents who have opted in rest assured that we're included in this? This route that we know that our kids going to have a bus to take them to school and home and then also how are you planning for those who are either new to the district and didn't know that they needed to opt in or people who. find that they do indeed need transportation and

118didn't opt in. I'm wondering if that's been built into the plan. Thank you. So for the first question, what we did do was just upload all of the students that did register for transportation in our system and set them up with transportation. We do still have all the record of who just in case there was, say, a family that wasn't on our list, which we've gone over it and we feel like we brought it. Everybody that did say that we needed transportation. But just in case we have our list and we're able to pull that up to make sure and cross reference and we would add them if there was some type of issue at that point. When it comes to new families, we have a system that we've worked out with the enrollment department.

119So I did have enrollment at a checkbox on the new enrollment packet that families can check if they're opting into transportation. So enrollment sends that to me twice a week. And once there's a new family, we just go ahead and add them at this point. It's late in the school year. So we add them to the closest existence stop until we're able to reroute and make those changes after the start of the school year for for all new families. Did I answer that was 2 questions right? Answer both. Yeah. Okay. And then so then I'm wondering, like, let's say that there's a family who. Opted in thought they opted in, but didn't actually so they would then contact the office and they would be going to the nearest route. Until they can get rerouted, that

120would be their process as well. Yes, and most families that move into the district are already on a close stop. That's just for families that say, for instance, if. There's just a stop that's a little bit too far. They would get the closest stop until we are able to reroute and that's new families. Only that process is set up with enrollment. If there are families who may have possibly had a change in circumstances, we do have a system that we set up and I went and trained each. I worked with the secondary, the elementary and early childhood to kind of train them and give them our transportation questions, answers and our FAQ that pretty much lays out what you would do in that situation. And for those families, they're able to opt in throughout the

121year. There's three more times throughout the year, which are aligned with our high schools. beginning of their quarter. So when high school's new quarter begins, that's when you're able to opt into transportation again. Great. Thank you. Were there any other questions from our board colleagues? Well, thank you, all the directors, for your time and your presentation today. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, I'd like to echo that. Thanks. Thank you, Nisha for showing up this evening and all your work coordinating transportation Thank you, Julissa for all of your work with before and after care Nick and Truro appreciate all of your hard efforts as well. Thank you. Thank you Okay Now we're gonna I do want to highlight one thing what I wanna be able to do is let my board colleagues

122know we're gonna move the incidental reports to next agenda. So I wanna be able to make a motion to be able to move that particular item to next agenda or next meeting. Let me clarify that next meeting agenda. So is there a motion to be able to move this section incidental reports to the next meeting agenda that we're gonna have? Yes, Acting Chair Ross, because the document that we needed to look at in order to approve it was not linked to the agenda, I move that we change this incidental report and put it on the next agenda, which would be on September 10th. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those approved, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any nays? Okay. So now I'm going to transition back to our board reports.

123And I do apologize. I goofed by not allowing you guys to introduce yourselves at the beginning of the meeting. So I am now going to grant this opportunity for board members to introduce themselves. And if you have a board report. please feel free to state it. I think I wanna start with Chair Andreessen since she's virtual and she's at the virtual table. So Chair Andreessen, the floor is yours for your board report. Thank you, Vice Chair Ross. I appreciate it. My name is Shannon Andreessen. I am this, oh gosh, this is my fifth year serving on the Hopkins School Board. And I have a rising junior at the high school and also another child who graduated from Hopkins High. And I do not have anything to report this evening except that I have to attend

124this meeting virtually because I am isolating due to COVID. So I appreciate everyone taking over and Putting up with that necessity Thank You chair Andreessen. I will now pass the baton over to director Westmoreland Good evening. I'm Jen Westmoreland. I'm in the middle of my second term on the Hopkins School Board. I am a proud graduate of Hopkins Schools. It's also where I began my teaching career as a long-term sub. And en français, in French. And I have a child who is at West Middle School who is currently adjusting to the new start time. and they'll be in eighth grade. I wanted to share some information about some professional development that I did over the summer, but I'm really aware of the time and I know that we have community members who wanna give public

125comments. So I will wait and give my summer update board report at our next meeting. Hi, I'm Jim Ming Zhao. I use he, him pronouns. I have, oh, this is my year and a half on the board. I have two children in the district in a rising fourth grader and a rising first grader in the Xing Xing program at Eisenhower. And very excited for back to school. I think I remember why we're doing all this is for our kids. So appreciate everybody here. My name is Jason Ross. I'm the vice chair. As you could tell from the virtual meeting, I've been acting as the chair. So I'm going to definitely give my flowers to Chair Andreessen. She will be back and you guys will be in better hands. This is my first or actually fourth

126year of my first term. So my year is going to be concluding relatively soon. And I have three kids. Two of which have twins They're gonna be sixth graders rising sixth graders starting in two weeks And then I have a third grader in two weeks third grader will be at Tanglin the sixth graders will be at North I will pass it over to Superintendent Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. Good evening, everyone. I'm Rhoda Marie Perry-Reed, Superintendent. I'm starting my eighth year in this role. I will have a seventh grader at West and a junior at our high school. I will provide a thorough superintendent update at our September board meeting. There's lots happening across the district this past summer, mostly very exciting, and I look forward to updating our community. Thank you. All right, I am Treasurer

127Rachel Heartland. I use she, her pronouns. I have three children in our district who are in their ninth. seventh and fifth grade years at Hopkins High School, North Middle School, and Meadowbrook Elementary. I have happily lived in the district for eight years now, and I'm proud to be, I guess, wrapping up my third year on the board, maybe entering my fourth. Thank you. Hello, my name is Brooke Roper, and I use she, her pronouns. This is going on my... second year, one year and a half. I was elected last November, so I will say it's my second year. But I have two rising students in the district as well, going to first and second grade. As Director Westmoreland mentioned, I also do have some summer updates about some professional development opportunities that I engaged in.

128But I will say that for the interest of time. But I do want to mention that on Friday, I will be presenting at the state fair on the importance of electric school buses with my transportation team. And so I will keep you all posted and post great pictures so you can follow. And I'll share that as well next time. Director Roper, if we wanted to go to the State Fair and see you present, what time is that happening and where is it happening? Oh, sorry. Yes, it's going to be in the Echo Center at 10 a.m. Very cool. Thank you. It's a good time to get to the State Fair, actually. Can you get us tickets? I'll try. I'll put in a good word. I'm Kai Thompson. I'm the clerk on the school board. I

129started in January. I have three kids in the district starting eighth and ninth grade. They are involved in... athletics practice already busy with that and then my youngest will be a fourth grader my only report there is that he was on a baseball team with vice chair Ross's base youngest last spring summer and their home field for the Hopkins Youth Baseball Association is the newly renovated Eisenhower baseball field right here which is just an awesome asset to have Renewed, revitalized. There was a great ribbon-cutting ceremony the first game they played there with the mayor of Hopkins was there for that. Threw out the first pitch, did a good job. So that's kind of a fun thing. So thank you. All right, thank you guys all. Okay, so now we are moving towards our public, our

130final. options for public comment. And these are items that are not on the agenda. So I do have a laundry list of things to read out to you guys. So these are gonna be the guidelines that we have to follow and we have to read these out every time we know we're gonna have a public comment. So just that everybody understands the rules of engagement. We wanna ensure that you please keep your comments to three minutes or less. Public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond directly to the public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to the comments that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period related to items not on the

131agenda. If the board determines that the action is appropriate, the action will occur at a future board meeting. If you've left your contact information on the card, which I have three cards in front of me, a district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. I will only recognize one speaker at a time. Only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak. Individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers, the board, or the proceedings may be asked to leave. Personal attacks on any individual, including any other speaker during public comment session, are unacceptable and are in any obscenities or profanities as unacceptable as well. Persistence in making such remarks will end the individual's opportunity to address the board and may result in an individual being directed to leave. I will rule out of

132order any statement that would violate state or federal law. school board policy or privacy rights of an individual. Minnesota's open meeting law prohibits the discussion of private educational data during open meeting. According to the public comment session, no person may discuss private educational data on an unidentified, on an identifiable student. The open meeting law also requires the board to close a meeting for preliminary consideration of allegations against the employee. Accordingly, community members who have concerns about an employee or want to file a complaint or allegations against an employee are encouraged to contact the superintendent. We ask you not name an employee by name during your comments. Repeated violations of these time, place, and manner restrictions may also lead to the meeting being briefly recessed. Community members will also have an opportunity to be heard within

133the limits of the law and subject to the time, place, manner restrictions above. Thank you for sitting there and listening to my monologue and the guidelines, and thank you for participating in public comment this evening. So the first individual that I want to invite up is Eric Mandel. Thank you all. My name is Eric Mandel. I am the father of two Hopkins students. I last spoke before this board in June regarding the assault on a transgender student that took place at the end of the school year. That was also the first meeting that I attended and afterwards I spent actually much of the summer studying and doing a lot of research including watching over 30 school board meetings and literally reading hundreds of articles and publications. I've also started my own blog, hopkins270.com, to gather

134and share my thoughts and concerns about the current direction of the Hopkins Public Schools. For those that don't know, over the last several years, students in the gender-expansive LGBTQ plus community in the Hopkins Public Schools and their parents have repeatedly asked the district administration and this board to provide readily accessible gender-neutral bathrooms in our public schools. To date, the administration and this board has and continues to this day to fail these students. And that failure arguably resulted in the end-of-the-year assault on a transgender student at Hopkins High School. That was not addressed in today's earlier discussion. It has been 81 days since that assault and 70 days since the last school board meeting. Our kids will be back at school in a few days, and from what I understand, we've done nothing over the summer

135to ensure that students who identify as non-binary or transgender will have gender-neutral bathrooms readily accessible to them, specifically in the high school and middle schools. How did we get to the point of ignoring pleas from this at-risk group? Before I sat down, I handed this board two documents. Due to the time limitations placed on my comments, I will not be able to explain all of this in detail. Instead, I point you and anyone listening in to my comments to my blog at Hopkins270.com where I address this topic in detail. In 2017-2018, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigated school districts across the state for racial discrimination based on data showing racial disparities in exclusionary discipline. In August 2018, MDHR publicly announced a series of so-called settlement agreements with 40 school districts and charters, including Hopkins.

136The two documents I've shared relate to the announced settlement, but they do not align. The PowerPoint slide that I presented in the presenter notes shows that it was supported by the district restorative practices coordinator to this school board and to the public that there was an agreement with MDHR that required implementation of restorative cultural practices district-wide. That was the statement made. It is available on video. If you turn to the second document, you'll see the Hopkins didn't sign a settlement agreement with MDHR. Took me a long time to find this instead what you see on the top of page one was that we signed a collaboration agreement Not a settlement agreement why if you look at paragraph 11 on page 4 you'll see that MDHR did not find any indication of wrongdoing by Hopkins schools

137or any legal basis to allege that this district was discriminating against students of color I want to be clear. I am not saying that racism does not exist in the United States, Minnesota, the Twin Cities, or maybe even in homes served by the Hopkins Public Schools. Thank you, Mr. Mendale. I will continue my comments online. Thank you. All right. I would like to welcome Debbie Hahn. Hi. I know some of you. My name is Debbie Hahn. I'm the parent of two current Hopkins students, one of whom is transgender. One of my kids attends Hopkins High School as a 12th grader and one attends North as an 8th grader. I'm also this week beginning my 25th year teaching in Hopkins Public Schools. I've spent all of those 25 years at North Middle School. I have been

138at least part-time in the classroom all of those 25 years. It's my passion. It's my grounding. I've also had various leadership roles in the district, including as a district-wide peer coach, building instructional coach, tech coach. I've served on Hopkins' instructional leadership team, building instructional leadership teams. I share that because I want you to know that Hopkins has been my second home and I'm deeply invested in this community. And while I also love my neighborhood community in northeast Minneapolis, my husband and I chose to open enroll our kids in Hopkins because of what we do and who we are. I love our students and families and my colleagues and administrators at North. They knock it out of the park pretty much every single day. I believe that if we can execute our vision and mission in

139a truly diverse community, my kids will be better people and our community will be better for it. I believed Hopkins was a great place for my kids to be educated, including learning to be good humans. And now as a teacher and as a parent, I'm disillusioned, discouraged, and afraid. I'm also angry and resolute. The assault of Cobalt Sovereign and the missing and misguided and even harmful Hopkins High School and district response after was a deep system and moral failing. It is causing harm to the LGBTQ plus members of our community. I believe in our vision and we are not executing or manifesting that vision with fidelity. We aren't. I do not see leaders requiring accountability to our vision and values when it comes to full, authentic inclusion for our transgender students. We are letting down

140some of the most vulnerable and marginalized students in our system. Cobalt should not have had to use a bathroom where she was misgendered and where she was ultimately unsafe. Let's remind ourselves, Cobalt's teeth were shattered and her jaw was broken in three places. Unfortunately, we parents saw this coming. We have worked for years independently and as a group, multiple conversations for years across schools. When my kid was a first grader, I had conversations with you, Rod, had conversations with medical principles, some responsiveness, but as a system, we're letting them down. We need you to carefully read the letter we sent to the board. We parents need a substantial and timely response to our requests. In particular, as we return to school, maps in all schools to open, safe, well-maintained, gender-inclusive bathrooms and update on plans

141for system-wide training around these issues. Specific anti-bias bullying training in addition to the general safety and security issues discussed before. It needs to be in addition to that. That's not enough. It's doable. There are systems that do this. There are schools that do it. We do it well at North. Kids feel like they belong. They're safe. They have access to bathrooms. There are bigger school systems than Hopkins. Thank you, Ms. Hahn. There are bigger high schools than Hopkins that do it. And we need to hold ourselves and, in particular, Hopkins administration and all adults in our system accountable for this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hahn. And the last individual I would like to welcome up is Ms. Garcia, Amanda Garcia. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. I'm the parent of

142a rising Hopkins senior as well as a recent class of 2024 graduate. Our family has navigated much of the LGBTQIA plus experience with Hopkins District over the last few years. Our family has changed our students' preferred name and pronouns with the schools only to have Hopkins High School publicly post our students' dead name on a list for the whole school to see on state standardized testing day. Have a teacher use our students' dead name when handing out those tests and our student be ridiculed by fellow students who had never even known our student by any other name but their preferred name. When our gender expansive student made the move to the high school well after the district adopted the gender inclusion policy Guaranteeing a student access to a gender-neutral bathroom. We couldn't find a gender-neutral

143bathroom at the open house We asked around we waited for counselors. We emailed the counselor. We were told there might be a key there wasn't a key It took weeks into the school year before my student even knew where to go to the bathroom Eventually, bathrooms were noted where these students were to go, but then some were locked. And one had a broken lock for over 100 days. And when a trans student spoke to Hopkins High School administration about it, he was told it was not a priority to the custodial staff and to write the custodial staff a letter. When students were tearing down the Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club signs and hacking into the GSA Club email group to send them offensive emails, the students themselves had to investigate who the offenders were, like

144Scooby-Doo style. When it was determined who the offended students were, administration sat them in a room with the GSA leaders under the guise of restorative practices, and nothing happened. It wasn't restored. It was further victimization of these students. I can tell you that we did not need an assault on a student in May of 2024 to tell us that we need to do better by our LGBTQIA students. We need to only turn on the news or read in the newspaper these days to see that anti-LGBTQIA sentiment is growing. And our students see it and they feel it. They see it in our schools every day. A group of us parents sent you a letter over a month ago asking for communication and accountability, primarily centered around showing us how this school year is going to

145be different and better. How are you going to keep our kids safe? How is this year going to be better than last? How are you going to show me that my kid is going to be safe at school this year? And we've heard nothing, nothing to tell us that this year is going to be better. I understand that investigations are underway, but we don't need investigation results to tell us that we need to be better. We have not forgotten what happened last spring, and we're not going to let you forget either. Our students matter, and the longer this goes on unacknowledged, it's further traumatization to those that are affected, our students and these families. Thank you, Ms. Garcia. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I'm going to move the meeting to adjournment at this time.

146So I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The meeting is adjourned. The time right now is 9.42 p.m. Central Standard.