May 21, 2015 meeting of the Hopkins School Board

001I call this regular meeting of the Hopkins School Board to order. Today is Thursday, May 21st, 2015, and the time is 7 p.m. Our first item of business is open agenda. Open agenda offers the public an opportunity to address the school board regarding issues or concerns or ideas related to the school district. Anybody in the audience an open agenda card needs to be filled out before addressing the board and if you don't have an open agenda card They're in the back and please fill one out and bring it forward At this time we have a special presentation and so John I'll turn it over to you well, well, thank you sitting in front of you are participants of from our school district that went on the civil rights tour and I'm gonna turn to Stanley

002is Stanley here. Okay. Are you? Are you introducing this or? Okay. Introduce yourselves and talk about this great event. All right, absolutely. Well, thank you for having us tonight. This is a great opportunity for us to talk about the trip that we took over spring break from this school year. And my name is Mike Baybine-Dennon, and I teach social studies at Hopkins High School. And I'll let the other students introduce themselves, and then we'll get going on a presentation. I'm William McClendon. You guys. Known me from the past. I'm Madeline Buckner-McCurdy. I'm Julie Uneza. I'm Xavier Johnson. There we go. Perfect. So this is about our civil rights research tour from 2015. And just to start out, we thought it might be a nice thing to show you a little bit of a trailer from

003our documentary that will be airing in next week, which I have an invitation for at the end of this as well. But here's our trailer for the Unapology documentary. I'm apologizing. I don't apologize for anything I've done. We were fighting and we would never go back. God, the dream. That represent freedom or peace. Stripping of culture, genocide, a slavery. Now something's telling me it wasn't made for me. So that's the trailer from the documentary that we're going to be premiering next week. And we'll get it returned to full screen. All right, so here is our mission statement from our trip. Our mission statement was to address misinformation, create a human connection between students, weave information into our journey, and bring people below the line with our personality, knowledge, and experience to create change unapologetically. So

004the unapology is representative of all of our shirts, and that was kind of the hashtag that we went on our trip. So whenever we marked photos or anything like that on our Facebook or Instagram pages, which we'll talk about, we always tag them with this hashtag unapology. And our itinerary was out to Washington, D.C., to South Carolina, Selma, Alabama, Tuskegee, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee. So we hit all of these cities over the span of eight days, which was a whirlwind bus tour. And we got to know each other's body odor pretty well, I would say. But it was an amazing opportunity to spend. We used the time as kind of a mobile classroom. So we would watch documentaries, we would have conversations, and further the dialogue that was occurring. Our documentary and

005microcontest that we did, it's like we created a Facebook page and an Instagram page to connect the outside world from what we're doing. So each time we took pictures or we went somewhere, we would post those pictures to Facebook and Instagram and connect to not only Hopkins, but to different kind of schools in Minnesota. So that was good. We also discussed about, we watched a movie and we discussed about different ideas and we connected what was happening right now to our personal, what we have experienced as black people. We tried to connect it to what we were watching during that time. And sometimes it was kind of emotional and we learned a lot. We got to interview like we got interview with the students and civil rights leaders. So that was really good. We made

006the mayor of Tuskegee and the mayor of Selma. So that was amazing to meet people like that for me. So that was really amazing. During the trip we noticed different patterns and themes. Starting with connecting with your past. So when we were in South Carolina on the St. Helena, on the trip we would have these discussion groups. And one of the things we talked about was how do we keep up with our culture or how do we stay connected to our past with our ancestors. And people said through food or their language. One of the special people that we met was Queen Quet, and she talked about, or she stressed the idea of staying connected with your past, and she is a South Carolina native, and she is fluent in the Gullah Geechee dialect of,

007and it was very like... tricky to your ear to hear when she was talking because she would just go switch from language to that language. And actually, we learned that Gullah Geechee is, so when slaves came over through the Middle Passage, their way of communicating was through this, they created the Geechee language from combining all of these African dialects together, creating the Geechee dialect. So that was great to hear. And then also on the trip, we learned a sense of identity. So like what Mr. Beattie was saying about watching a series of movies and creating a mobile classroom on the bus, we watched Hidden Colors. And one of the main people that they talked about was Mansa Musa, who was... the richest African during that time. And that's something that is left out of our

008textbooks because when our history classes, they kind of just skip over Africa and go into Africans being as oppressed and subordinate. Just watching that movie gave us a sense of identity that our people were prosperous and still are. And assimilating and hiding one's culture to fit in. So that's also, I guess in a social setting, of connecting to a sense of identity because you feel that your culture is less than someone's and you are scared to represent who you are as a person and privilege that leads to power. We talked about how a system that was created to protect those that created it will still continue to do that. So, for example, in the Constitution that was created, it was held or created to protect those for it. That was patterns and themes on the

009trip. Just to clarify one thing she said about Manamusa, he was actually the richest man in history. He was, in today's money, he was worth over $400 billion. When he made a trip to the, when he made the Hajj, it's an, at least I think it was the Hajj. The Hajj is a... House is a pilgrimage to a holy site for it for the religion of Islam. He gave out so much wealth that the Pride that the worth of gold actually dropped Because he was spending so much and just anything and I think they said that the handed out over 10 million dollars worth of gold on his way there and now to changes for Hopkins One change that we would like to see is creating a black student union. It'll give us a greater

010sense of who we are racially because there seems to, from my perspective, there seems to be a lack of it. I never really felt as connected to my history as I did when I was on the Civil Rights Research Tour. We also want to create a Dare to be Real club that would help encourage conversations about race. Race, I've noticed, is a topic that people tend to shy away from because of all the controversy that can come up from it and from people's fears of being perceived as racist if they feel confused about something and so they decide to not saying anything at all. And we also want to have influential teachers to support us. And we also want more diversity within teachers. And from my perspective, one thing I've noticed, but never really brought

011up any time, or at least never really realized until I went on the tour, is most of the teachers that I've ever had were white. I think it wasn't until... Yeah, it wasn't until I came to this school district that I had a I actually had a black teacher and he was he's my advisory teacher and and it would feel it would Black students would feel more included if they felt that they had teachers who sort of looked like them instead of always white Hopkins should definitely participate in the CRT trip again because Like I said, it makes us feel closer to our history. We always study the history of, from my perspective, white history, you know, European history. But there's very little black history, African history. And this trip... There's just so much information

012that I never knew, that I was never exposed to. There was even so much that it was overwhelming at the amount. I tried to write as much as I could in my journal, but there was just so much. There was even a time when we were at a museum, I was running as much down as I could, and I was just in the first part of the museum, and I had to get out of the museum because I almost ran out of time. And I was just at the first station. And so as I'm walking through the rest of the museum, which was very thorough, I was practically walking from, like... like pre-silver, pre-silver rights movement era that we would consider to be, that most people would consider to be a civil rights era all

013the way through to like what seemed like the 2000s in the span of 10 minutes. So that's the general gist of what we did on our tour. And we just want to take a couple minutes to give even some more personal testimonies about some of the ways that it actually impacted the students. And I want their voices to be the last ones. So I'm just going to talk quickly about my personal testimony for this, is that it was just an unbelievable opportunity for me to be surrounded by incredible... students not only from Hopkins but from the other we met schools as well and to just learn from them and be at a place where I could soak up and see One what it means to have white privilege. What does that look like? And what

014does that look like not only in the US but also within we map and then even more specifically at Hopkins High School What does that look like? How am I? Either in kind of continuing that stereotype or how am I breaking against that stereotype? As a teacher within the school. So that was kind of my biggest test or testimony about it is What am I doing to create this change and to bring about this change within our school system? Um for me First it all started when Mr. Crocek gave me the application to the trip I didn't like I was like I want to just spend my spring break on Netflix watching movie instead of like going to a trip where I won't have we only have like six to like seven hours of sleep

015and the rest I'm gonna be working it's better to spend it on Netflix so but But then my dad was like, I think this is going to be a really good opportunity. So I was like, ah, dad, stop. You know how parents try to push you, but you don't want to do it? But then at the last moment, I turned in my application at the last moment. And I had to take, on that day, since it was almost like the final, I had to take a lot of tests so that I won't miss anything. So I gave up my time and I read the test. And that morning when I woke up, going to the bus and I was like, oh I'm actually doing this. I'm actually going on a trip. And once I got

016on a trip, I was so glad I went. It was such an amazing experience. It made me feel like I'm back in Africa. I'm like back home and that meant a lot to me. Well, from my experience, I was on the same thing as her. As soon as I got the first packet, I did not pay any attention to it. I grabbed it, gave it to my parents, and said, I'm not going. But then they made me go, and I didn't really want to waste my spring break, but this was actually not even close to a waste. The biggest thing for me at this trip was a sense of identity. walk around in our society nowadays, I feel that I have to filter certain things I do, filter certain things I say to, I guess,

017fit in or be amongst normal or whatever you want to call it. But then after this trip, I learned so much about myself. I found a new confidence that, and with our hashtag being unapology, I'm not apologizing for anything anymore because I am the way I am and if you have a problem with it, that's a personal problem. That's, I don't know, that sense of identity. I know who I am and I'm very comfortable with it. I agree with Xavier with the sense of identity. But for me personally, Before this trip, I was so used to settling. I would hear the racist comments or whatever, being called an Oreo, black on the outside, white on the inside, or saying you talk white or whatever. And on this trip, it just gave you a sense of

018identity. I just really learned who I am as a person. just just just taking it and running with it and I'm like what Xavier said I'm just unapologetically just living life and I'm just really happy I went on this trip I just learned so much for me this trip is actually suggested to me by my little studies teacher I had thought that I'd actually missed the due date on when I was supposed to actually turn it in, only to find out, I think it was like a week later, that the due date on the packet was actually wrong. Luckily, I did get it in time. I still made it to the trip. And it was my dad that reminded me that my granny who passed away over the summer, my granny was... She was a

019very strong woman. My dad can attest to that. He could almost never get away with anything. And I know she would have been really proud to know that I went into our history because although I never got the chance, well, I did have the chance, but I missed my opportunity. She did walk with Martin Luther King in one of the marches. And being on the Civil Rights Research Tour, I found out a lot of things that my granny might have known, might have not known. But either way, I know that it would have been the proudest moment of her life had she lived this long. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Can I say something? Yeah, one more thing. With this trip, it has so much, like, the window's so big for it to

020be so much bigger. Because I don't know if we've, if Hopkins went on this trip before, but with this, it can get to the point where there's so many kids that need this. Because I just feel with our generation, so many people are just lost, don't know who they are. Or even if they know who they are, they try to not show it because they feel ashamed or they're not comfortable with who they are. With this trip. It could it's so eye-opening that I wish everybody could go on it. I wish this would be like a school trip like that would be a lot of kids but That I think that that's how big it is and it shouldn't even just be for African Americans We there's so much stuff that we when we go

021through our school system and learn That they leave out When it comes to anybody's history, they only put things in textbooks that they want you to know And it's key for people to find out below the line information like we did. So this trip needs to happen. And there's a notice on the screen here that there's going to be a documentary. Yep. So on Thursday, May 28th, so next Thursday. There are actually three trips that went out through WEMEP. So one was the Native American experience. And they will have a premiere about kind of their story of the pre-settlement of the United States from European settlement. And that will be at 6.30. And then our documentary, which is an apology, will be shown starting at about 7.10 or 7.15 with some Q&A afterwards. And then

022there will be another one that's talking about systems of mass destruction. that will go on about eight o'clock and then with a Q&A after that as well and we just extend the invitation to all of you if you're able to make it it's at Robbinsdale Armstrong and again starts at 630 okay that's good thank you so much for your time thank you very much and this whole evening really gave me a fantastic opportunity miss miss Buckner because um My first grade teacher is sitting right there, Ms. Buckner. So just to introduce Ms. Buckner to the public. She did really well. She said I was a really good student. Good luck to me. Taught me everything I know. Thank you for that great opportunity. Thank you. Thank you very much. The board wants to thank the

023individuals who came forward this evening and we value that experience very much. And the board wants the public to know that we realize it's not always possible for everyone to... attend the meeting and so we still are interested in hearing your comments and Would refer you to the Hopkins schools website contact the board form and Also, our telephone numbers are listed there and we welcome your comments so with that we will move to the Next to the next item of business Which is the approval of the agenda? there's a one change in the agenda the item and M under consent calendar will be heard separately so with that I look for a motion to approve the agenda so move second all those in favor please say aye aye opposed same sign okay then The next

024item on the agenda is the approval of minutes so I would look for a motion on the approval of minutes so moved second all those in favor Please say aye. Aye Opposed same sign the minutes have been approved Then the next item is the consent calendar minus item M So I would look for a motion approving the consent calendar so moved It's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay. Then item M has been requested that we take a roll call vote on that. I don't know if anybody has any comments that they want to make prior to making a motion on it. Not necessarily. I just think that right now as we move forth, it is important that we just publicly

025acknowledge where we are, and this is the way to do that. So I'm just asking that based on the decision that was made, is that what is the vote of the board? Okay. So with a roll call vote. Okay. I will move the approval of... Item M as written. And I would look for a second. Second. Been moved and seconded. Again, is there any further discussion? If not, then I'll ask the clerk to take the roll. Betsy Anderson. Aye. Wendy Donovan. Aye. Warren Goodroad. Aye. Steve Adams. Aye. Michael Kuras. Aye. Irma McIntosh-Coleman. Nay. So we have five ayes and one nay. Okay, that motion passes. Moving on to the next item of business would be the Treasurer's Report, and I will call on the Treasurer, Steve Adams. Thank you, Chair Goodroad. along with it well

026as part of the Treasurer's report this month was the enrollment report and I looked at the enrollment numbers as probably you all did May was down 23 students compared to April 13 of those were at the high school, so I think that reflects probably people reaching the age of 17 where they can withdraw or early graduation, so I think that probably accounts for most of the the decline at the high school but overall the district Enrollment is still over what we had budgeted at the beginning beginning of the school year, so That's good news Financially, we're 83 percent into the school year And I looked at all the different categories of expenses, and we are at or below 83% for all but two items. The thing that surprised me was that we aren't over budget

027for benefits this year for the first time in a long time. We're right at 83%. The exception is insurance. District insurances are at 111% year to date, but that reflects the fact that we do advance payments on a lot of our insurance premiums. So that should probably end up at exactly 100%. Targeted staffing was slightly higher than 83%. That's at 88% year to date. I would imagine that would flatten out also as we go into June. Significant expenses this time. There was a May payment to District 287 for the balance of the school year. That was 86,000. There's a payment to the city of Minnetonka for a remodeling permit for the kitchen at the North Junior High School, which was pretty substantial. It's almost $9,500. I didn't realize permits were that expensive, but I guess

028that's what it is. There was an expense for electrical work at the high school, and that's a precursor to us putting in LED lighting at the high school this year. this summer and payment to the Minnetonka Police Department for our liaison officer for 2015. So with that I would move that we approve financial disbursements in the amount of two million eight hundred thirty seven thousand dollars nine hundred thirty two at nine hundred thirty two dollars and fourteen cents for the period of April 30th 2015 through May 13 2015 Second it's been moved and seconded. Are there any questions for treasurer Adams? Yeah, would this change the lighting throughout like the entire school? Do you know where the lighting is going to be changed into LEDs when or where in the school? Throughout is what I

029understood. Oh Wow Yeah, okay And what do we project the payback was like seven years? I think on that something like that If not, then all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. The treasurer's report has been approved. Next, we'll move to reports, and we will start with our student rep reports, and I'm going to start with David Wilson. Surprised him. To see if he's on his toes. Always on his toes. Good to see you guys. So in the last couple weeks at Hopkins High School, a lot has happened. Mainly just, I guess, spring sports finishing up. A lot of the JV teams are done with their sports, and varsity has moved on to conference finals and sections games. So baseball, guys baseball, had a game today against, I

030want to say Minneapolis. Southwest or something. I think that's the team. And last year I heard they beat them 33-0. So hopefully they swoop through this game. Also, track and field for us, conference finals will start next week on Tuesday and Thursday. I want to say lacrosse. had their game yesterday and our ultimate frisbee team has already won their conference and they are ranked fourth in the nation and JV is ranked 25th in the nation. So our JV team was smacking around the other schools varsity teams, which is amazing. I just want to look back and just want to give a shout out to all the teams that did exceptionally well this year. Girls basketball, guys football, a lot of different teams have just done excellent this year. And just a shout out to them.

031Okay. Thank you, David. Anybody have any questions for David? William, are you ready to talk some more? Yes. Good. We recently had AP testing at Hopkins High School. AP testing is for students who want to get into AP classes. Do I understand it? AP testing is mainly used, or at least one of the main uses of AP testing is to see if students are prepared for taking the class, like AP Euro, AP English, AP practically anything. And the reason for that is you don't want a student who, struggles with the subject to take on an AP class because it could end actually end up hurting their GPA and putting them at a worse position than if they took a class with less difficulty. Before students who are able to handle the extra workload for AP

032classes It does save you credits, which in turn saves you a lot of money for colleges because obviously since you took the class in high school, you don't have to take it in college. Some students had to double up on AP testing. They didn't just take an AP test for just one class. Sometimes they took two. The testing, they did them in three locations. One location was the high school, then here at Eisenhower, then also at the church. And from what I understand, the AP test for all the AP classes was pretty rigorous and students were pretty tapped out by the second time through. And they only had a 20-minute break between tests. Hopefully they didn't collapse when they got the third hour Thank you any questions for you Okay, then we'll move on to

033our sophomore rep London. Thank you Well, this is the last school board meeting of the year school is wrapping up and plans for summer next year are starting to be set up The lists were who will be in what orchestra band and choir have been posted I tried out for the top band called Wyndham Ensemble and I made it so I'm very excited about that Thank you. Also, there's an orchestra concert tonight at 7.30, so I know none of us will be able to make it since it's already started, but I hope they're playing well and having fun. I'm in the music production lab right next to the orchestra room during second block, so I get to hear some of their music, and they sound great, so I hope they're doing well. Those are my

034two main events for today, but I'd also like to thank the board and Dr. Schultz for allowing me to do this. It's not only helped my speaking skills, but it's also allowed me a glimpse into how a school district works, what decisions are made by who, why they make those decisions, and what brought up the problems in the first place. And not to mention, I'm also starting to get to know the board members and Dr. Schultz better too, which I enjoy. I'm really glad I've been able to be a board representative this year, and I look forward to continuing on with it next year. Thank you. And Catherine is her last meeting, and so we'll give her the final word. So, yeah, kind of like Lennon said, things are wrapping up. For seniors especially, we

035have to get our senior checklists and stuff checked off. I still have a bunch of library books out that I need to get in, but I'll get it done. Let's see, what else? Last night was scholarship night for seniors that applied for the local scholarships and were the recipients of that. So congrats to all of them, of course. The high school Envirothon team went to state last weekend, and actually one of their teams took first in state. So they'll be heading to nationals in Missouri in a few weeks, I think. And lastly, on Tuesday, all the physics classes at the high school right now got to take a field trip to Valley Fair, which I was lucky enough to go on to, because of course, roller coasters have physics involved in them. So it's just

036too amusing. And again, just like London, obviously, this is my last meeting, which is one of the parts of high school that I'm going to miss the most easily. I'm so happy I've gotten to know all of you. This is such an amazing experience. I have learned so much. I don't know if I'm sure you guys have noticed from when I was a sophomore. when I am now, my speaking skills have improved, my confidence has improved, and I'm just really, really grateful to have this opportunity. So thank you. Great. Thank you very much. And so with that, we will move to the superintendent's report. If I could ask the Maggins and Jolene and Katie to come forward. And Rick. I thought we were doing that. I was going to get you. Wake him up. Rick.

037This team of people submitted their work to the Minnesota Association of Government Communicators and came home with all of this. One was for our early childhood family education promotional brochures and pamphlets. Hopkins Royal Opportunity Day and I'm gonna have Jolene give all the background on this that was an award of excellence and this thing here is like the Academy Award of government communicators so that that's really really an impressive award and then they got a photography of an individual photograph and we'll show that an award of excellence for that individual photograph and then Megan Lewis Hi, Megan. For our video on program choice. And Megan Jensen is the one who you did the photograph. Okay, and Rick was part of Royal Opportunity Day and just to see how collaboration works in partnerships Royal Opportunity Day

038was Something that Rick put together in the West Metro Leadership Academy And you've seen the work that Nick and the other West Metro Human Resources directors have done to bring teachers together to develop leadership so All this happened because of people working together and I can't be prouder than I... of these groups, this group of people and how they collaborated together. So Jolene, do you want to dive into the details and then brag a little bit? Sure, I can brag. There's two reasons why it's so exciting to be here tonight. The first reason is because you have the opportunity to meet some people that you don't get to see all that often, if at all. Not Rick and Katie, we see them a lot, but Megan Jensen and Megan Newis are just instrumental members of

039our communications and marketing team. Megan is constantly out taking, Megan Jensen is constantly out taking photos and doing stories and updating the website and just doing all this work that magically happens. Megan Newis is the producer of some of the wonderful videos that you've seen this year. Fabulous job. She's our communications intern. Megan Jensen was a communication intern last year and then we just couldn't let her go. So now she's our communication specialist and is just doing fabulous work. So that's the first reason. The second reason is because because of Hopkins Royal Opportunity Day and the award that it received. Not only did it receive an award of excellence, it received the Best of Show Award, which means that it represents the best work in government communications in the state of Minnesota. It's a tremendous

040achievement. And it really isn't about the Hopkins Communication and Marketing Department. This is about the Hopkins spirit. Because this was an idea that Rick brought to us six weeks before the event when there was no event or even idea of an event and said, I have an idea and I've thought about it a lot and I think we can do this. And Rick did what he did really well, which was just energize the staff at the high school, put together this amazing plan. And we did what we did really well, which is, you know. branding and marketing and communicating and getting getting people there and it was just a fantastic collaboration of You know, it sort of to me symbolizes the Hopkins spirit, you know Just like this is this is what it means to

041be in Hopkins We care about this place and we have some really passionate teachers that have that stepped up phenomenally in that event So that that I think is what's really exciting and it's a great way to end the year. So I will and see if other people have. I know Rick also might have something to share with the opportunity as well. Yeah, what you're seeing before you is the photo that one. It's a photo from last year at graduation. And the title was? Before the Leap. Before the Leap. One. That one won the excellence. And then there was one more. Is that on here, Julie? You have to exit out of that, I think. Can we get someone up here who knows how to operate the? You always have me one picture, right? Yeah,

042the other video is online. And then the video. We'll play the video. And this is Megan Newness' work, right? Hi, my name is Patty Johnson, principal at Hopkins High School, and this is the second edition of Hopkins Highlights. In this episode, we are focusing on the variety of classes we have here at Hopkins High School. Hi, my name is John Anuprisan. I'm a teacher here at Hopkins High School. I've been here for 14 years. We have an amazing amount of opportunities in the course book for students to take and that's really exciting as a teacher. But I think what makes that choice even more powerful is the fact that we have a four block here at Hopkins High School. And that gives kids 16 credit opportunities during the course of the year, which is more

043than if we had a six period day or a seven period day. The cool thing with our schedule here at Hopkins is it allows students to take a variety of courses. One of those courses I teach, which is a dual enrollment course, it's called anatomy and physiology. It is a great experience for our kids that they can take a college level course here at Hopkins. They get four credits through the University of Minnesota upon completion. They also get two credits towards graduation here at Hopkins, so hence the term dual enrollment. In Hopkins, our students have a lot of advanced placement in college and the schools options. I'm a social studies teacher. If a student would go through our entire arc in social studies alone, they would start their freshman year in college as a sophomore

044with the number of credits that they can earn. And that's a really powerful thing. It saves money and it gives them an amazing experience so they really are college ready when they exit out of college high school. My name is Shannon Bailey and I'm the Hopkins AVID District Director and I also teach the AVID 10th grade class. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. It's a college readiness program that we offer here in Hopkins for students who come from groups that are underrepresented at the college level. Students have to apply to be in the AVID program so they have to show us that they're highly determined. We want students who want to go to college, who understand that taking challenging and rigorous classes are the kinds of experiences they need to have in order to

045be prepared for college. The AVID classes teach students how to do school well. So we're looking for students who really want to understand how to improve their school skills and how to be successful in hard and college prep classes. Both yearbook and newspaper are unique classes in the school because they're primarily project oriented. What we've seen from a lot of authors and a lot of researchers is that the skills that students are going to need coming out of high school are going to be skills that build on collaborative skills, which build on problem-solving skills, which build on the project-oriented nature of the class. As I take this class, I think they appreciate some of the ownership that they have getting to kind of craft what their project is going to look like. over the course

046of a couple of weeks. And then they have a product that they produce and give to their classmates. Great. Yes. Yay. Thank you very much. So, Rick? Well, I know I was here earlier this year and for the recognition of the event so I don't want to rehash it too much But I want to highlight two parts of the Royal opportunity day one is that it really is a Hopkins success story As dr. Schultz pointed out it was the efforts on behalf of our school system and opportunities for teachers of dr Lightfoot to provide the West Metro leadership opportunity From there, because of the way this building interacts with teachers and the openness that is available, it was inviting enough for me to call Dr. Schimmelfinning and Katie Williams to say, hey, I have this

047idea. What do you think of this? And for them to sit down with a teacher and say, well, take a listen to what you have to say. And from there, moving into the fall of this year and then taking it to the marketing team. uh... into the the district cabinet as well so for an opportunity for a teacher to come up with an idea to be given the opportunity and skills and an opportunity and finances an opportunity and support from people I don't like talking about levels but literally two or three levels above where my pay grade is as a classroom teacher for them to open their doors and listen and communicate and collaborate and then connect me with this wonderful group of people you have in the PR and marketing. That combined makes it

048a really truly Hopkins success story. So I had an idea. I was given the opportunity to help that idea blossom and give given the support from people across the district in all sorts of leadership areas So that's that's a huge part of why this is successful and the second piece as the award denotes is that Jolene and her staff are incredible people and they do incredible work and not only are they good at getting messages out But they're really fun to work with. I mean as a classroom teacher I'm the one that acts like the 17 year old so the 17 year olds have fun But it's a great group to work with, and they really do outstanding work for our school system. So hats off to them as well, because it really was all

049of us together to make this successful. And I'm glad that Jolene was able to submit this, because it's her hard work and our hard work, and it could be a feather in the cap of our whole school district. Thanks, Rick. Thank you all. Thank you very much for all you do. Yes? Question. Question. How are the pictures and videos graded, like, criteria-wise? Well, that's a really good question. They so each Photography is probably great is a little bit different but but you have a variety of things, you know you would probably grade on composition and The circumstances the the event the type of camera you have that type of thing video would be Very similar but key messages and other communication Elements would be also included into that so and and who the people that

050are judging are other professionals that work in government communications. So they're all communication experts that are judging. And then how many schools from Minnesota do you think participate in this competition? Well, it's not just school districts actually it's a lot of state agencies. It is like the Department of Natural Resources and Hennepin County a lot of cities as well as school districts. So it is really all-encompassing when it comes to you beat them all Yeah, we did we beat Edina twice The city of Edina was up for two awards and we We beat Edina twice. Wow, great work. And Rick echoes what everybody says in the district about this communication team there. They do amazing, amazing stuff. Congratulations. And thank you. What should I do with these? Jolene, do you want to take these? Yeah,

051we'd like our awards back. And that Chair Goodred will be my report. Does anybody have any questions for Superintendent Schultz? If not, I'd like to start the board segment by talking about our senior student rep. And so, Catherine, we know that you're moving on next year to the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Business, which happens to be my alma mater. And then... We know that you have been involved in student government for the last three years and that you have served on this board for three years now, which is quite a long time, as we learned. And you went to the MSBA January leadership. conference and made a presentation on a panel about student reps and I think you learned some things in that process about what other school districts do and I think

052we're very proud of what we do here at Hopkins. You're a part of that and we are very pleased to have you as a part of that for the past three years. And I know that also in your experience at the high school that you've had a lot of academic success and we've given you some awards and we're very happy and pleased about that. And we know that you've participated in DECA and that you were a part of the... uh... competing in the world championships uh... for deca and uh... uh... and so you are uh... prepared for uh... moving out to the uh... school of business and so with that we wish you absolutely the best of luck next year we have a little uh... token of our appreciation something to remember a spot and

053with that i'll call on betsy anderson thank you chair good road i have the honor of thanking david for your year of service with us on the school board you started your service this year and you wouldn't know that it was just one year of experience you jumped in right away with enthusiasm with curiosity and with intelligence we are so pleased to have your contributions here at the board table and to have your presence with us on Thursday nights. And we very much look forward to continuing that experience with you next year as a senior. So we have a small token of appreciation for you as well. And with that, I'll call on Wendy Donovan. Well, I get to thank you, William, for your, this is your second year on the board. You always have

054an interesting tidbit of information for us that you've researched really well. So we really appreciate all your time and service on the board. So I have a gift for you. And with that, I'll call on Steve Adams. Thank you, Chair Goodroad. I'd like to thank our sophomore representative on the board this year, London Lomanstone. He comes to these meetings so well prepared. He's got his... Is it an iPad? I don't know. It's a tablet. Whatever. And always has prepared remarks. And as you've seen tonight, he's not afraid to ask questions. And he's also got a, we found out this year, he's got a talent that he didn't share with us previously. He juggles. So he's very well-rounded. is able to juggle a lot of responsibilities. So we've got a token of our appreciation too. Chair

055Goodroad, can I just make a quick public thank you to Bobbi McClard for all of her help in arranging and coordinating the gifts for our students. So thank you, Bobbi. Thank you very much, Bobbi. Yes. With that, then we'll move ahead with board member reports. So Irma, do you have? Okay, go ahead please. Okay, thank you. First of all, I'd like to announce for those of you who may not know the loss of one who's very near and dear and that is Arlene Bush. We mourn her loss. She is truly, she has been the epitome of a school board member in the state of Minnesota as well as in our nation. She was a giant in the arena of school governance and the support for children universally. My boss she was when my professional career

056in Bloomington, a mentor and truly an inspirer for my tenure right now sitting on board in Hopkins. Her motto was, be true to yourself, follow your truths. She leaves an exemplary path for all of us to follow when we think about what is best for kids. Thanks, Arlene. Yesterday was really an interesting time for me. I stopped over at Alice Smith Elementary. They were having a celebration, the picnic, for a million minutes of reading. with the picnic and the DJ. And the no dancing Irma was also engaged in making the steps and the moves with the rest. But that was fun. We were outside just having a joyous time, realizing the importance of reading and sharing with the students their excitement for what they had achieved. WeMAP right now is going through some challenges as

057our legislators are as well. With that has brought some interesting pieces for us in making a decision about where we're going with the conveyance of the two schools to both one to Minneapolis and Robbinsdale, especially for both of those districts that are challenged with lack of leadership about where their next move is going to go. But we are really hopeful and we know. that the path is going to open and everything is going to work out just fine. The other piece is a part of WEMAP for the board who ended up buying these. What do you call them? The little bands supporting stopping Ebola in Liberia. This was an effort that was taken on by one of the grades at Fair School who said for 2014-15 their goal was to raise money to send to

058Liberia. The joy is hearing the word that it has been over 50 some days and there have been no, no outbreaks of Ebola in Liberia. So we want to continue that effort, but it also says that our students are interested in making a difference, not locally, but globally. And we are part of that as Hopkins because many of our students were a part. of the effort. So we salute them and what their goals were. Thank you. Thank you. I have just a couple. OK, go ahead, Betsy. As Irma mentioned, Arlene Bush did pass away last Sunday. And I had the opportunity to go to her funeral yesterday. And it was a wonderful tribute to her standing room only in the church, which is so Arlene. And one of the comments that was made was that

059Arlene always walked into a room smiling. And I thought back, I'm like, I never saw her walk into a room without a smile on her face. Even if she knew she was walking into a tough discussion, she walked in with a smile on her face, and I think that's a great takeaway that we can carry with us of Arlene. So that was a wonderful tribute, and I spent the morning in St. Peter with the board members of the Minnesota School Board Association, and we developed our... voted on our budget going forward and had an extensive legislative update that could change because nothing is set in stone right now. And we've all been at these functions over the last couple of weeks, the recognition night, the scholarship night last night, the retirement dinner on Monday. It's

060just a wonderful celebratory time of the year. Thank you. Oh, sure. Well, I've been to a lot of events, too, end-of-the-year events, and they're always gratifying. from the retirement dinner where we heard from so many people that have given so many years of their life to the Hopkins School District. It was a very wonderful event. And then, of course, the AVID celebration and the scholarship night and senior recognition. It just makes you feel good that we're doing the right things in the district. I would like to update David here, though. The Royals played Minneapolis South tonight, and they won 9-2. So I thought I'd give you that update. But it's just a great time of year for baseball and for things in general. Okay, thank you very much. With that, we will move on to

061the... Old business we have no old business so we'll move to new business and the first item on the agenda is the Minnesota State High School League Why we play initiative and membership so with that dr. Schultz, maybe you can yeah the Minnesota State High School League You summarized it well with why we play initiative going across the state and asking boards and communities to understand the mission of the State High School League and Dan has been a leader. Are you on the board there yet? I am. I have one meeting left. And we have Betsy Anderson who sits on the board and can provide us some background. This agenda item will result in you approving the membership tonight. We usually do that in the organizational meeting in August, but the resolution that's in your

062packet is to... to recognize the video while we play and to approve your membership for next year. So I'll turn it over to Dan. Very good. You know, when Betsy got on the board, we were really contemplating kind of a hostile takeover. We were thinking there were some things over there that we should change. Also, a couple of things. In this room next Wednesday, we'll have 125 students from the late conference from the five schools. We'll bring 25 each. And this is part of the Positive Coaching Alliance movement that's taking place around the state. We're bringing the leadership groups of our fall activities this time, and then we'll advance that into the other winter and spring. It's about a three-and-a-half-hour program. We've brought in speakers to work with them, and then those of us as

063athletic administrators will do the breakout groups and do the work there. And then also at about 2, it was about 3.30 this afternoon, right before I got in the car to go to Eden Prairie for softball, which unfortunately lost in their game, we finalized the fall musical for next year. And I'm supposed to keep it a secret, but Greece is the word, so we're going to be... We're looking forward to that with a lot of fun. So I think we're set. About five years ago, getting some feedback here, the State High School League came to... I guess those of us as administrators in athletics talking about coaches' education and how much consistency we had from school to school and even from coach to coach. I was asked at the initial group to get involved as

064part of the state faculty, and in the last four years, I've been off of it this year because of my other obligations, but in the last four years, I think I was in front of about 1,200 coaches. at various times and in various places from Marshall to Wabasha to Duluth to Alexandria. And we put together a curriculum that we thought that fit pretty well and it was primarily for those coaches that didn't have a teaching certificate, didn't have the teaching background and work with a coaching minor in college. Because as you know, we're seeing more and more coaches Head coaches included that are not teachers in the school district are not from an educational background They're coming from all walks of life, and we want them to have a good experience more recently we have

065developed the why we play curriculum which is part of a statewide initiative that everyone is part of and with me today Dale Stahl Dale teaches at the high school and has been an assistant basketball coach and has worked with kids at all levels. And to my right, Greg Bartz, math teacher and swim coach, former assistant golf coach, lots of other things. Also teaches at the high school. And I brought these two. Each of our coaches are required to do what's called a coach's clipboard. They register, they go through a series of videos of segments of different pieces that they have to kind of test their way through and have knowledge of the state high school league bylaws and they have to have knowledge of concussion management and. blood-borne pathogens and they have to have knowledge

066of interaction with young people and appropriate interaction and language and all those pieces that so many already know but it's always a good reminder and of our hundred and ninety-one coaches I went through all of their purpose statements because the first thing that they have to do when they develop this clipboard is write their purpose statement. And some are very specific to their sport. They want to talk about coaching track or tennis or golf or whatever it happens to be. While others are almost too broad and too global. I picked... Dale and Greg, not because I knew they'd come, because they will do anything that I ask and go beyond that for lots of good reasons. But I really like the statements that they wrote. I did my own, and I thought, theirs are way

067better than mine, and I cheated. I've got all this stuff here. So what I would like to do before we see the video is to let them give you their purpose statement and just a little capsule about their coaching life. So I'll start with Dale. Well, thanks for inviting me. It's nice to be here. What I wrote in my statement was my purpose in coaching is to inspire athletes and students to strive for excellence, but also to greet struggles or failure with both a sense of humor and camaraderie between me and the athletes and among the athletes, both on and off the court. And I think what's great about coaching is it really allows you to, you know, our business is a relationship business. So it allows you to really get to know students. better

068almost than when you spend time in the classroom. You spend a lot of time with them. It's a smaller group and you get to know them as individuals and you get to work on some of the skills that are really important for young people today. Things like mindfulness, empathy, camaraderie, collaboration, grit, communication, all those things that we want to help develop among young people. And I really enjoy Having that chance to build those relationships with kids and you know competition is great but it's it's seeing the students drive and be in their form when it doesn't go well and then and celebrating when it does just a Relevant note in terms of relationships and whatnot tonight. You heard a presentation from Michael and Xavier and Michael's, you know started at our school as a student

069teacher and he coach with us. He volunteered to coach his first year. And that allowed me to see him work with young people and see what kind of a caring person he was and enabled me to be able to fight for him as our department leader to, you know, get a little piece of an FTE into the building and keep him here. In addition, this year Xavier being on the varsity team, I got to know him a little bit and his family and I actually recommended when Michael was thinking about doing this, I recommended that he talk to Xavier to get him to go on that tour because I knew it was important to him and his family based on conversations and seeing the way he carried himself and I'm glad Xavier took that opportunity

070but I would not have known that had I not coached with him. So I feel proud to be a part of that and that all came through the coaching. Great. And Dale, you coach basketball and I'm the assistant basketball coach with Kenny Novak. Okay. How long have you been doing that, though? As long as I've been here, since 96. Long time. I just want to thank Dan for giving me this opportunity on the school board to just share not only my purpose statement, but some of my experiences of coaching. First of all, let me start with my purpose statement. My statement says, my goal as a coach is to help to teach my athletes what it means to never compromise your integrity, to be honest with yourself and your teammates, and to be a good

071role model to everyone you come in contact with. I've had the opportunity to be a part of the swimming and diving program for 18 years now. And I first started off as an assistant coach and later on co-head coach for a couple years. And now I've been the head coach for the last eight years. And it has just been a wonderful and incredible experience to do each and every year. The students that I work with, I have the opportunity to work with a program that I can coach not only high school kids, but junior high kids. The swimming program is a 7 through 12 program. So swimmers can come out in 7th grade and actually participate in varsity events and actually swim at the state meet. A few years back we even had an eighth

072grader participate at the state meet. But as I'm going to kind of reiterate and repeat some of the things that Dale has said, I think the number one and the biggest piece about coaching that I appreciate so much and I love is the relationships you build with the kids. The parents of the school district entrust us as coaches with their kids. for two, three hours a day. Sometimes we're talking 15, 20 hours a week, depending on how many, in Dale's case, games or how many swim meets that we might have in a week. And so knowing that, being a parent, I want to make sure that I'm doing everything that I need to do as a coach to provide a very positive experience for my swimmers and my divers. The one thing that sometimes that

073sports will emphasize, especially in the pro level, it's all about winning, but there's more to it. you know, sports than just winning. And one of the things that I have loved about swimming is that we're a program that we welcome everybody. We have students or swimmers that come from clubs that swim, you know, 12 months out of the year. And we have kids that come out even during their senior year that have never swam or never dived in their career. And they come out and... and they have just a wonderful experience. And once in a while, the seniors will say, boy, I wish I would have come out years prior to that. Just to let you know, this past year, and the range of talent that we have on our team ranges, as I said

074earlier, from kids that have never swam before to kids that are swimming year-round. This season, we graduated 12 seniors. on the team two of which were a part of last year's relay that broke a school record that was dating back to 1997 so they broke the 200 medley relay record but not but not only that but we also had a senior this year by the name of alexani that i wanted to bring up who in his eighth he came out as an eighth grader if you don't know who alex is uh there was a nice article on the royal page about him not to or not too long ago in the last issue that talked about how he's planning to swim for the Paralympics. Knowing that and knowing that I've been a part of that

075is extra special to me but knowing from where he came from in eighth grade never swam before in his life and knowing that we first started with just swimming the length of the pool and going from this year going from 50s to a hundreds to 200s to him swimming his senior 500 a tradition that we've done which is the longest race for swimming at the high school level. 500 yards is basically 20 lengths of the pool. And Alex was able to swim that race in under 10 minutes. He did it in 9 minutes and 39.90 seconds. I have that time just memorized now. Because it was just an incredible swim. And not only was it incredible, but to see our team. They're supporting him. And then to see the other team who were swimming against

076Minnetonka that night and to see the Minnetonka swimmers there cheering him on and the fans cheering him on and giving him a standing ovation during his last 50 was one of my big highlights from this past season. So I'll end it on that note. You can see why I invited these two gentlemen specifically. The education-based program, what's that? Thanks for sharing. Thank you. They are, you know, why we play, why we coach. So education-based programs that you're going to see. I'll tell you, I have one meeting left here in a couple of weeks on this board. Betsy's in her first year, and hopefully she'll agree to do this for some time. But this is a video that... Has come together. It's got some moments in it. That'll make you kind of snicker a little bit,

077but it is I think where we're headed. I think a lot of times You know we talk about transactional coaching and transformational coaching and knowing the difference because we're all at times Transactional we don't intend to be it ends up that way The goal is for all of our coaches, head coaches, assistant coaches, junior high, freshman, fall, winter, spring, youth level, summer level, whatever it happens to be, to get away from that ideal of win at all costs like Greg was talking about. That's the only thing that matters. That's the only thing that we value is the championship and so on. If that was the case, all of us would have a pretty light load. These gentlemen here beside me work very, very hard and work very passionately with us. So with that, we'll watch

078this short video, and if you have any questions, we'll take those at the end. I think the culture of sport is broken. Success is defined by winning, by having more points on the scoreboard at the end of the day than the other team. That's where the value lies, and whose name is in the paper the next day. and who had the most points and who had the most rebounds and who won the game and who gets to the championship. It's the reason why we do it. The Minnesota State High School League's Jodi Redman is passionate about developing the human potential of students. She's leading a national movement to reclaim the purpose of sports. The pressure to win and sometimes at all costs is significant. Kids feel it. They feel it from their coaches. They feel

079it from their parents. They feel it from their friends. They feel the pressure to be able to win. When we think of how our culture values high school sports today, certain words come to mind. And that of former coach and NFL star Joe Ehrman. Destructive. Expectations. Regressive. Trophies. When at all costs. Lack of value. When at all costs. Lack of value, yes, yes. Missed opportunities. Zero fun, sir. Zero fun. Misguided. Unfortunate. Unfortunate. Sad. When we look at education-based athletics and what a trophy means, I think it's about the experience. It's about what did we provide those students that was life-sustaining through trying to get the trophy. Today's student athletes feel the pressure to compete at a high level so they drop out of sports. 70 percent quit by the age of 13 and they miss

080out on a big educational benefit. There's a University of Kansas study that draws a correlation between kids who participate and are involved in high school athletic and activity programs. Students that are involved in those activities do much better academically than students who are not. The research shows that the reason for that is school connectedness. It's been amazing what we've learned. Five years ago, Mounds View High School began to survey their students asking what they really get from being involved in the school's athletic and activity programs. I was shocked to find out that our coaches and advisors are equally as important in the lives of our students as our teachers. It was a game changer for us. Our whole district, where we're going and how we value activities, it's not after school. It's a part of

081the educational process. It is no longer an extra. We've defined that, and it's something that we value every bit as much as what they do during the school day. The purpose of high school athletic programs is not to develop college or professional athletes. In fact, most students, 97%, will not play organized sports after they graduate. Instead, these powerful mentors we call coaches have four years to make a difference in kids' lives, to teach them life lessons that will help prepare them to be successful in life. I will be honest, our goal is to win. Our goal in many sports is to win a state championship. Winning has a place and there is value in learning how to win. However, that's not our purpose. Our purpose is to enjoy that experience, enjoy their teammates, enjoy their

082coaches. and learn from whatever took place on the field or the court or on the ice on that given day. Our purpose isn't the score at the end of the game. The purpose is the growth and development that comes through trying to achieve that win. Three objectives I have, I want them to be a better baseball player, a better teammate, and a better person at the end of the year. We're working with coaches to develop their own purpose statement. Why do I coach the way that I do? It comes because I had a couple coaches in my life that touched me and changed my life. Joe Ehrman has been called the most important coach in America and a leading voice for change in how we coach our kids in sports today. Why do you coach?

083Is it about you or is it about your players? A transactional coach is basically a coach. that uses his platform and position for his own self-edification. for his own identity, his own empowerment at the expense of the development of their players. It's kind of, if you meet my needs, my demands as a transactional coach, then I'll give you playing time, I'll give you praise, some kind of plaudits, but it's basically using young people. As a child growing up, I had a lot of transactional coaches when I was younger because I was a very talented kid. Once I got to high school, my head coach, I didn't have a dad. So my head coach was my dad. It's tough. And he showed me I'm more than just an athlete. Transformational coaches basically understand the power, platform,

084position they have in the lives of young people, and they're going to use that to change the arc of every young person's life, to help them develop morally, ethically, socially, and emotionally. Transformational coaches mentor young people. And to mentor, you have to build a relationship with people. Transactional coaches do nothing but monitor young people. They move them from drill to drill, season to season, no relationship, no contact. When I first started coaching, I only had one goal and that was to win at all costs. And I don't use that term lightly. I know how it sounds and I'm not very happy with who I was as a coach then. Now looking back. To be a better coach, you got to be a better you. Now our focus is much more on what I'll call trying

085to build a team family within the chemistry of our individual teams that I coach and trying to find ways for our athletes to grow as people. Get excited, can't wait, let's go. Every day, Coach Troy Kors works hard to keep his purpose alive in everything he does and he's helping his team's student athletes to do the same. What three words would identify you as an athlete? This is completely you as an individual and what you want to get out of the sport. Um family. Okay, how come? Um Because you basically feel like a family you can like go to them for anything. They'll help you with anything The word I chose was friendship. I like going to track practice, hanging out with people I know and just getting to know them. I chose responsibility because

086I feel like you have to be able to rely on others and you have to be reliable yourself. I'm going to take five. You have six. You have seven. I grabbed three words as well and mine goes like this. I coach to create positive relationships with my athletes so they know I care about them while striving to be an authentic leader who they can trust as we both... work together to discover joy in our sport and through competition. That was a good time, 13.65. Thank you. Nicely done, well done, well done. I'm mostly in track just to have fun. Just because I'm not the best doesn't mean it's a problem. The big group's kind of like family to me. For me, it looks like... we're enjoying ourselves more. The idea of sharing in something and

087enjoying each other's company and being a part of a sport we love to play. For me that's been the biggest change I see. For a coach to withstand the pressure of the current win-at-all-costs sports culture and to truly be invested in transforming the lives of students, there must be support. Support from school leaders, parents, and the community. For this to happen, we must want more for our kids than just wins, losses, and a good performance. We want to give them more. We want to give them... a significant experience that's going to help them develop into people that are going to live in our community. We want to give them a way of being successful that will sustain them throughout their lifetime, not just... until the season's over. So we have to align school communities around

088this idea that we are purpose-based, we're education-based. I want school boards to reclaim sports in the name of education. I think school boards need to make sure that we move away from this win at all costs. We need to start building a system where coaches are held accountable for the transformative impact they have in the lives of their students. It really boils down to what do we want to give our children beyond the trophy, beyond just the win and the loss, beyond the trophy case. Hopeful. Filled with potential. Men and women of great character. Yeah. Confusion and mistake-making rocks. And every child feels loved and belongs. Connected. Greater relational capacity. Wow. You're rocking. What else you got in there? Might have noticed some familiar faces first Jody is Was my first assistant ad here now

08916 years ago and our girls basketball team was in there and there's a little snippet you can see Our boys basketball team right at the very beginning in a game from two years ago on the state to run so If I could add something just very briefly, we've been sitting here a long time. But Dan, as the leader of our athletic department, I'm very proud to be part of Hopkins Athletics. Never been asked what we're going to do to win the next game. Never been concerned about our record. Always wondering how we're doing as coaches. I was wondering how our kids are doing. I see him and his staff talking to kids and getting to know them. regardless of the outcome of contests. And I think he sets a great tone for us all and

090puts education first, and it's obvious why he's part of this effort. Thank you. Go ahead, David. Who determines school-funded sports? So let's say there's, I guess, a rec team. How would they, I guess, proceed to being funded by the school? We have some policies in the board policies that pertain to adding and withdrawing teams, basically. Those parameters are set by are they a member of the late conference roster of activities, are they a member of the state high school league roster of activities, and then from there we work back into the intramurals and the club funding and so on. Very happy. Is anybody else? London? I just have a comment. It's really nice to see the league moving in this direction. I know a couple years back, I kind of went through this moment where

091I looked at... what I was going to try to do for sports. And I thought, why do I play sports? I don't play sports because I want to be the best or I want to win. I play it because it's fun. And if the winning becomes not fun, if I'm bringing home a trophy and it's just cold metal and I get no sense of fun out of it, that's not a sport I want to play. So I'm really glad that you guys are moving in this direction and that sports should be fun to play, not necessarily for the winning. The winning is fun, and that's why I want to win. You're exactly right, London. And I hope, That we've always moved in this direction. Sometimes it feels like there, you know, and no doubt we

092have moments where it's important. It's important. It's a big deal. You know, everybody gets hyped about it and it's a school event. You know, we go to the state basketball tournament, and we'll sell 800, 900 tickets and T-shirts, and everybody piles in the bus, and we go. I don't think we go with the idea we have to go and win this. I hope we're going that this is fun, we're all together, we're all wearing the same goofy stuff, and we're having a good time with it. Go ahead Betsy. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to do a little bit of background. The State High School League and the Minnesota School Board Association had a long time partnership. There are actually three school board members who serve on the State High School League board. Two are appointed

093by MSBA and one just happens to be a school board member. I don't know what other role does Steve have. Lots of different roles, but this is his most favorite one. And so we actually had... Jody Redman come to an MSBA meeting and talk about doing this presentation at a board meeting, elevating it to a public discussion, and having coaches present and share their purpose statements. And again, elevating that discussion to a public level. I think it's incredibly important because our public gets so focused on what's the score at the end of regulation. And we, as educators who are activities with youth are not about the score. Why do we play? We play for so much more than the win. We play for all the things that the coaches mentioned, everything that was mentioned in

094the video. So it's really fun to see this now come to this level after all the discussion that we've had. And I know that this is actually happening at every School board table across the state Anybody who's a member of the state high school league is doing this presentation watching this video having this discussion Before they sign the resolution to join the league So it's a very cool thing knowing that we're all we're doing it with all of our colleagues, too And I have to say some of my colleagues when we first got this directive from the league At dr. Schultz's level I went to him and and dr. Lightfoot and said You've received this. How do you want us to present it? And Dr. Schultz was very good about this is your area bring

095you what you want to bring in Let's let's get it on the agenda right away. I have colleagues that are sending this out to board members via Snail mail and say watch this Before we sign our resolution or if you get a chance to take a look at this I think it's a little deeper than that and I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate these guys. They taught all day and I'm trying to chase their own kids around or talk to them via Skype or something, and they're here. I said, we're first on the agenda, 7 o'clock. I didn't say there was other things. I just said first on the agenda. Wendy, go ahead. I have one question. Do you feel like all of our coaches are transformational coaches? I do, and I think

096all of us are transactional. And I say us because we're all in this thing together. We have our moments where. the patience gets a little thin or the angst gets a little heavy. And we're probably less transformational in those moments. But it's a hard job. It's so undefined because there... You know, in Dale's sport, for instance, there are eight or nine kids that might play in a night on a team of 18 or 20. In Greg's, it's all stopwatch driven, and if you don't meet the stopwatch, you don't get to that next level and so on. They all have a different ideal, a different plateau that has to be reached, and these coaches make hundreds of decisions every day, and they realize the impact that it has. Sometimes they can't control the fallout because... Everybody

097comes out with the idea, yeah, I want to play. I want to participate. I put my time in. I come to the practices. I want to get on the ice or in the pool or on the court or whatever it is. Not always at the level that they want that to be or their parents want that to be. Our coaches want them to have the good experience. They don't do it intentionally to say, we need more bodies so more people can sit on the bench. Last year, we had 370 kids out for track. in our district and about 20 of them were pretty fast. But it was very social and still is today and that's what so many of our programs that we try not to turn people away. Sometimes it's a product of roster

098limitations and so on. But that's where this board has been so good for us and that we've been able to not just play one level But we've had two and three and four and we have some that have six levels Because of the level of interest and being able to find the schedule so transform our transformational always transactional unfortunately sometimes So my other question is then do you have to do annual training? To be a coach. Yeah, the coaches are going through this each season. Now, this particular piece is a three-year piece. Every year they'll have to do their rules interpretation meeting. which has now moved to online. They used to have to drive to wherever the local spot was so they can do this. Our district asks that they do the blood-borne pathogen, the

099CPR training, AED training, and so on. So it's, you know, on top of going to their coaches' clinics and learning the X's and O's and more strategies about their activity, this is a piece that's in place for them all the time too. And does this also cover arts? Or is it arts or just coaches? No, athletic coaches, yeah. The biggest piece, you know, and a lot of this kind of stemmed from concussion management and trying to recognize what that was and how to treat that, what our protocol would be, and that's still a big part of this. You have to do the concussion background, whether you're coaching tennis or a full contact activity. It's all the same. And I think our coaches are amazing, and they do a great job with many, many kids, and

100thanks to all of you. Yeah, they really do. With that, I think if you will stay here just a minute, we will look for a motion. Betsy, go ahead. Chair, I move that the board approves the 2015-16 resolution for membership in the Minnesota State High School League. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. The motion is carried. Very good. Good job, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next item of business is a presentation on our staff development plan for 2015 and 16. So Dr. Schultz, you want to? Well, Diane and Becky, really are just fantastic at putting together a comprehensive program. That just isn't a program a staff development program that is just

101canned It's really looks at what is needed in the district what is needed for children what is needed for teachers and What's really neat about this report is that it changes each year Which I think is really really important and something that I always always look for and so this is a summary of what's happened this year and then Launching what we're going to be doing next year. So I'll get you on the screen, Becky. When you're plugged in. There we go. That's just slow. The gerbil's not moving very fast. Dr. Schultz, I think. Absolutely. Chair Goodroad, members of the board, and Dr. Schultz, I'm just delighted to be here with Becky Allen. I really believe the greatest investment we make in student learning is the training and support we provide our teachers. And I

102think our district survey data always supports that, that our community really values the work of our teachers. So I want to express my appreciation for the work of Dr. Schultz and the school board in providing us time. to provide training to the teachers because that's invaluable. Becky truly has, I've had the wonderful opportunity to work with more than one staff development coordinator and Becky has provided the strongest, most cohesive staff development plan of any school district in the state of Minnesota. It's really outstanding and I want to make sure. that along with Becky, I think our school staff development coordinators, our literacy coaches, our math coaches, our master teachers, and our principals, all of whom deliver that important work for the benefit of our students. So Becky has a great presentation she's gonna share with

103you, and then we'll be open for any questions or conversation you might have. All right, good evening. So you have already seen the report so I'm going to just try and catch some of the highlights in there for you but as I've talked before a key to quality and professional development is that you have to have partnerships between what the district thinks we should be doing and what sites think and getting us working together so one of the things that I've really try to emphasize is promoting common work between kind of district level leadership and site level, modeling our best practices in the trainings that we do, getting teacher leaders involved in the planning and the delivery of that professional development, and then just helping teachers see connections in the multiple things that we have

104taking place. So as I think and plan. They have some overarching goals, and that would be, one, to deepen culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy. We want to enrich through our common core work. And we want to deliver that high quality instruction by using best practices and digital content. So as I was thinking about this presentation and how to help it make some sense, because there's a lot. You know, I thought about what are really those key things that we continually keep in our minds as we start to think about how do we help our kids and support them? And it's developing language. Culture and cognition and all the things that you see in that triangle Those are all those little bits and pieces that we have taking place if they're the programs that we dig

105into those are the things that fill the toolboxes of our teachers and then through tech integration teacher leaders PLC's the quality construction in Curriculum, excuse me Those are the things that are the vehicles that lead to that and our professional development is really that the foundation of making sure those things all work together So in the report you saw areas of focus on curriculum and standards mentorship teacher leadership professional development assessment data Cultural and linguistic responsiveness and then a tech integration and many people help contribute to this So it's not because I do all of this alone. I have lots of great partners in this work So when we talk about curriculum and standards, we're continuing to work on a standards driven curriculum Expanding our vocabulary and going from just vocabulary to discourse I think

106that's going to be one of the exciting shifts and for me what I love is it's really promoting student voice in the classroom. We want kids doing the talking not teachers standing at the front just talking. And then of course we'll see more implementation of IB and STEM. They've really done amazing work in the training and the development of materials and curriculum. So kudos to the teachers who have taken the time to do that. It's big work. We want to continue to strengthen the mentorship program and today I spent time with... my team of mentors for next year. And I'm so excited to have other people working on this with me that I can turn to. And I think it will give us a much stronger, more continuity in the program. We continue to look

107at our teacher leaders as people to help facilitate and I think we've really Grown our teacher leadership in the district and really it's to thanks to John and Diane and others Who really support that and see the value of teachers being a big part of our leadership work? And then we're really continuing to look at our PLCs. And next year, we're going to be rolling out another element or another way to look at that, and that's called collaborative inquiry. And I'm very excited because it's a kind of an action research way of doing your work. So it still gets us back to those core questions around what a kid's supposed to learn and how do we know they're learning. But it gives teachers a little more focus on how does my instructional practice actually impact

108the learning. So we have our assessments and data work that continues through RTI and we're continuing to work on common formative assessments. I've worked with a couple of schools this past year on unpacking or unwrapping standards and they're now moving towards developing assessments that better align to the standards. And of course, you all had a little opportunity to get another taste of Dr. Holly this year. And so as we look to next year, one of the things that I've asked him to really focus with us on is the VABing, the Validate, Affirm, Build, and Bridge. And that's the why. are we doing this? What's the impact it should have? How is that going to support kids? Not just here's a strategy, go do it. Teachers are good at doing strategies. It's the thinking behind it

109that we want to focus on. So we'll continue to have cohorts in our schools. We're going to again boost our teacher leadership by having a CLR resource teachers in our schools and then we'll continue our training. One of the fun things that we did is we have had CLR help sessions. So folks in our cohorts could get additional training and support and again through Dr. Holly and teacher leaders. So we ran these after school. And Dr. Hawley had started us on an engagement chart. What are the ways that you engage kids in your learning? So we asked them to continue adding to that as they arrived at the session that night. And then we talked about their first walkthrough where Dr. Hawley and his coaches wandered through their classrooms. They were very, very nervous. So

110we tried to like set the tone, calm them down. What's the reality? And then talk about what was coming down the road. But in that night, then, we talked about why we're going to add CLR, the things that it does to help strengthen engagement, validate and affirm our students. And then attention signals are one of the things that he starts a lot of people with. But there's more to it than just a call and response. So we spent some time talking about why you have them, tips and tricks for using them, and just getting people more comfortable with the idea. So again, it wasn't just, I'm saying Hopkins, you say Royals, but there's something per in it. We also have a number of quiz protocols that we're trying to start promoting and this is going

111to fit so beautifully as we move on building academic language because it's one thing to put kids in a group it's another thing to have them actually having a deep dialogue using the academic terms so that they sound like experts in their discipline. And then as you'll notice, we went back to our engagement chart and had people share. All the stuff you see in purple are all the different strategies that we use with them because we want them to experience the very same strategy that we want them to use. Because just reading about it is one thing, and you may or may not try it, but if you actually experience that strategy, you can often go, oh, I can do that. That's not hard at all. So we try to give them a lot of

112experience in the evening. One of the favorite things that evening was a make and take. And I have to give a shout out to Lori Lorenz and Carleen Matz for this because they came up with this idea that we should have this little flip book of ideas and strategies. And so they did all the background work. I am not the craft girl. Thank goodness they've got the talents and they put it together. And it was just a delight the night that Lori came to the elementary group and explained their little make and take. They applauded. They were so excited for it. And so that's been very popular with our staff. As you know, we continue to grow our technology here in the district. Under Ivor's direction and his technology staff, we've really, really moved things

113forward. They will continue to do summer trainings, after school, online trainings. We're continuing to move our digital content forward and, of course, using teacher leaders. So in the end, I'm really talking again about those quality in our work through our connections We want to model best practices and I hope you saw that a little bit We're gonna focus on language culture and cognition and make sure that that's deep into all of our content areas And then it's very important that we reflect because reflecting is where the learning takes place That's my presentation So we're available for any questions or comments you may have thank you we do a lot in terms of teacher development the acronyms are overwhelming but How much of this is required by the state and how much is stuff that we

114do ourselves? There's a minimum number of hours, are there not, that we have to meet for state requirements? The vast majority of our work is self-determined. Teachers, in terms of their ongoing licensure, have to complete a certain number of hours over a period of five years. But the work that Becky shared with you tonight is primarily based on... Hopkins students Hopkins priorities and our partnerships with the schools to see what they think is most important. Okay I think we've really maximized that use on late starts, and then we have our fall workshop time. We have that President's Day that we use, and we load them up because that's really our time to capture teachers on the things that we know they absolutely have to have. And then a lot of the other work is optional

115work but highly encouraged, and we get a tremendously good turnout for a lot of our trainings. Good. Well, I just try and imagine myself as a new teacher coming into the district. It might be a little overwhelming. Would think you know to try and navigate I think it can be I think that's a really good point Steve and and I think Becky and the coaches and the other people I mentioned work really hard along with principals to try and measure out What's a reasonable capacity for a new teacher to learn? In the first few months of the year and what are the things we can wait and deliver a little bit later for them? At least we aren't just throwing them into a class never never They do get support absolutely yeah Diane this is

116your last meeting it is it is more questions I Think you guys do amazing work Thank you very much, and it's great to see that you all collaborate on what the end product is So it's not a top-down. It's it's a good collaboration, and it's been really neat even with the late start days you've afforded us we sit down with principals and other teachers and say how many of them are going to be building driven and how many are district topics that might be delivered at the building so that schools have a chance for unique learning that they think is most pertinent to them along with district-wide training so that it's really important to me that students aren't in classrooms where it's a lottery whether or not their teacher has been trained. So we work

117really, really hard to make sure there's consistent professional development for all of our staff. I had a question related to finding the balance between technology and content development and teacher delivery. How do you sort out? on that, I don't know if you'd say it's a continuum, and how do you sort out which way the pendulum swings. You know, I think those things work in tandem. And what I really appreciate here is that we don't see technology as some separate little toy. I mean, it's a tool that supports the learning process. And so when teachers are developing new curriculum, our tech integration specialists are here and help them translate that into a technology experience if that's the appropriate experience for the learning. And is that? That's outside of the professional development budget or is that inside

118the professional? It's both and yeah I would say in school sites might set aside a portion of their site staff development to do a tech camp at their school Iver might support or I might support some technology Content integration over the summer for instance We do a lot of curriculum writing and revision over the summer and as Becky mentioned We almost always have the tech integration team there so that if there's an opportunity to infuse technology into what we're writing, we do it rather than go back and do it later. So it is both district funds and site staff development dollars. And then certainly there are teachers who explore further training on their own. You're good, Rhoda. We did some joint training, I know, this last year with the Edina School this week. Is there

119a plan in place to continue that, or was that just a one-time deal? Iver could come up and tell you about that. We actually have an opportunity. I think it's next week to visit That cohort and it has been remarkable work I was able to visit one of the Adina sessions and I think we're attending one here next week. I ever right. That's right Well, I've talked to a couple of different people over there and at this point we don't have anything firmly in place yet We are definitely exploring expanding this program next year and maybe beyond just the partnership we have now with Edina school with that because we have heard from Teachers in other districts other neighboring districts that they want in as well We're gonna meet in the next couple of weeks

120with the folks over at Edina they're having some personnel changes and so we want to talk about how what we need to do to certify these classes again through Hamelin University so that the teachers who elect to get graduate credit can do that and also Take a look at the content of the classes because we feel that there's an opportunity to refresh some of that content To make it even stronger than it is now and but we definitely have been hearing great feedback from Both the Hopkins teachers and the Adana teachers that are part of it and it's definitely everything points to it's worth doing again. Okay I'd like to just take a point of personal privilege and thank you, Dr. Schimelfenig, for the work that you've done. And we wish you the best in

121your retirement. And we know that... You'll take many many memories with you and one of my memories of course is a new board member was the first committee I served on OSC educational services Advisory Committee and that was a real privilege for me. I also learned that many of the things about you that you're kind and affirming and very positive and those are just Things that I think brought you to the top of the class And so with that, we bid you a very fond farewell and best wishes as you move to the next phase. Well, it's been my honor and my privilege to work with this board. As I've mentioned in a couple of other settings, doing work that you love doesn't feel like work. Even if it's on Thursday nights? Even if it's

122on Thursday nights. Thank you very much for your presentation. The next item on the agenda is a staffing resolution, and this is an action item. So this is the final action on staffing resolution, so Nick will give some background, and then I believe... Does this require a roll call vote too? It does. Okay, so I'll give it to you, Nick. Yep, this is the final action for those individuals who are tenured within the district for whom we are not able to meet the level of tenured contract for which they have available to them presently to date. These individuals were aware. We did communicate with them. They had opportunity to express interest in having a hearing. These individuals did not. And as a result, the action that you are doing today tonight is the final action

123that you had communicated to them that we would be taking in order to meet our staffing needs. So that is the roll call vote that's in front of you this evening. Questions of Dr. Lightfoot? Not. We're ready for a motion. Well, one question before we, did we get the dates? Yes. Corrected on that? Okay. I'll look for a motion. I move that we adopt. the resolution Regarding termination of continuing contracts and placement of k-12 teachers on requested leave of absence Second it's been moved and seconded Is there any further discussion? If not, I'll ask the clerk to take the role. Thank you. Betsy Anderson. Hi Wendy Donovan. Aye Warren Good Road. Aye Steve Adams. Aye Michael Kuras Aye Irma McIntosh-Coleman Aye We have six ayes, no noes. Okay, thank you very much. The next item

124on the agenda is the adoption of the budget. And of course, since a large portion of our budget comes as a result of legislative action and the state and currently the state education budget was vetoed and is Was it vetoed today? It was vetoed today. And so With that we're the state is The legislature is going to have to come back into special session between now and June 30th in order to pass a education budget and if not the Department of Education will Not be able to function and of course the school districts Across the state will not receive money so dr. Schultz I hope you have a rabbit in your hat to Tell us what's gonna happen tonight Quit predicting legislation other things Tonight we bring you the 2015-2016 budget and I think When

125we started this budget process, one of the things we did talk about, if you recall, was we weren't sure what the state was going to do. So we, in this budget, primarily maintained the programs that we have in place. It maintains the class size at all the buildings. It provides the same level of targeted staffing so that we can take care of the hotspots. It spends dollars in a one-time fashion by providing some construction at Alice Smith for needed space. and it also continues to support the curriculum and instruction and the professional development that is needed for the work of every teacher in the district. In addition to providing the resource it takes to put technology into our high school students and continuing to expand what students are going to be needing for their future

126so it is this this this budget is a very good budget that really supports all the things that we have started over the last five years and then some. And what I find fascinating is as people look at our program, they're beginning to ask us to partner with us. And I have many examples of that. I actually had a... conversation today with Normandale that is interested in figuring out how they can partner with with our school district and And they reached out because of the program that we have in place across our k12 and that's directly Directly related to what our resource provides our school district This budget doesn't represent that we're spending anything on new things, but it really is maintaining the support around implementing IB and the work of the CLR, our staff

127development, our... Technology our foreign language of the elementary schools, so it just kind of maintains the growth of our programs so this is a great budget and the prediction that I have I'll go out on a limb I Think the legislature and the governor will come to a point where they will they will give us two and two on the formula. That way John has to buy me lunch. And then, and I also believe that we will have similarly childhood funding. So our four-year-old program will look a little different. So I remain optimistic. I base that on two conversations with Commissioner Casalius and with Senator Bonhoeff. So I talked to both of them today. So with that I think this is a great place for us to be right now As always we'll watch what

128happens with the legislature in their special session and as we've done in the past if we have to make modifications to the budget We'll do that in the fall as we start looking at our our final results. But as you know, most of our budget is based in contracts and staffing so We'll monitor and adjust where we can if we have to, and otherwise we'll look at it for the 16-17 budget as we come forward. So with that, I'll turn it over to the numbers guy, who has been a great partner in budgeting over the last, it seems like it's getting easier and easier and we fight less. So it's... It's a great relationship to provide resource to the learners in this district. So, Mr. Taube. Thank you, Chair Goodroad, Superintendent Schultz, and members of

129the board tonight. I do have the table of contents for the budget book that was posted on the board website in front of me and on screen, and I really just want to go through and make some comments about each one of the categories. I don't want to spend a lot of time on individual components of the budget book, but I will come back to the general fund executive summary. after I'm I go through the table of contents fairly quickly with you and then I think that's where we can discuss legislative speculation you can ask questions and so forth as it relates to the general fund so the first actual graph or Chart that is in the budget book is our school district budgeting process and that is on page nine I think that gives

130the public a very good idea of how interconnected most of our Things that we do in the budgeting process are and who who it informs So I think that's a real good chart for a person that's just looking at our budgeting process to look at and get a real good idea of how complex it is but how interconnected it also is the next item gives a synopsis of what our budget calendar is for both finishing up fiscal 15 16 and then also the start of fiscal 16 17 budgeting process which begins for the school board anyway as least as far as initial discussion 16 17 will begin sometime in october of this coming year of 15. so Next item is just the capital expenditure timeline and the procedures that we use to set the capital

131expenditure budget, followed by two consolidated financial statements. One gives you fiscal 13-14, the last budget and actual results here, followed by the next consolidated financial statement, which gives you our revised 14-15 budget, as well as our original 15-16 that we will be asking you to approve tonight. Pages 21 through 80 are our summary of funds. So we go through all of our funds, general fund, school nutrition, community ed, building construction, and debt service, and our trust fund. I'll give you a synopsis of those, and those actually have executive summaries attached, and I put quite a bit of detail in that summary of funds. the general fund because that has a capital component and a Transportation component that we track and then also on the debt service We do provide you the debt service schedules for

132the district and for the public too for that matter so that they can see what our debt service schedules are for all of our debt issuances Then we start with the appendix and we look at the enrollment projections that we also use to develop the budget. Those are starting on page 83. We also provide the CFAC report that was approved by the board in January of 2015, which was a precursor to building the budget based off of those recommendations. I also provide a 15-year levy history, and we're getting close to the time where you'll see a fairly flat levy history because I think we still have 2003 in there. 2002 where it went down significantly because of the switch from reliance on the property tax levy to more reliance on state aid through the legislature

133the fee schedule starts on page 99 and I believe that's about seven pages And then after that we have a fairly extensive summary of our general fund which includes the capital component revenue and then also give you an expenditure analysis of our budgeting by package on page 144. The reason I like to include all these different revenue components for you to look at and the history of those is not only as a board member, but as a public person looking at this, you can see in totality, if you just want to look very big picture, in the first area, general fund revenue and expenditure analysis on page 109, what's been the last... certain number of years of our district as far as revenue versus expenses but you can also delve much deeper into that revenue

134component for our district not only by the sub funds that we budget by but whether it's property tax revenue other local revenue total state aid just general education aid compensatory revenue or federal revenue and and some other ones So it's really a good picture of where we've come from and where we're at on a projected basis for our revenue component. It's really the only time in our budgeting process that we look or have the ability to look on a detailed basis. on the revenue side of things. We're more involved on the expenditure side and how much the expenditures are. We know what the total revenue is because I do a projection on that, but we don't spend a lot of time looking at that on a trend basis in detail. So that's why it's provided

135in the budget book for both you and the public. And I think if you look at page 144 where it starts the program expenditures, you'll see our budgeting by package and that amount by budget package should tie to your general fund executive summary that I've provided. And that starts on page 23 of the budget book. So I will go there now and actually Just go through that if you don't mind just very quickly on on what that looks like for the school district for fiscal 1516 our estimated unassigned fund balance coming into Fiscal 1516 is estimated be about ten point two million dollars our gross revenues are about eighty six point seven million dollars and then you see the amounts by budget package the way the Hopkins School District budgets and that total is $87.3

136million. So just on a gross basis, our gross revenues less, our gross expenses would say that our fund balance would be going down by $569,000. The biggest component that we have is a committed amount for foreign language in the elementary schools, and those expenses are projected to be $453,000 approximately for 15, 16, 17. I'm sorry, 15, 16. And so that fund balance that we have committed will actually go down from about 5.7 million to about 5.3 million or so. So that's the biggest component. of that deficit of $569,000 that you see on a gross basis. So what does that mean on a net basis? Well, the net all flows into the unassigned fund balance, and the unassigned fund balance will be going down by about $116,000. The number in yellow of 8.725471 is 10% of

137our expenditures for the current year. So 10% of this expenditure amount of 87,254,709. And then I'm just comparing that to what our fund balance is projected to be and calculating the difference. So the difference is about 1.4 million dollars above the 10% that we like to hold in the unassigned fund balance for the district. So I'll stop there and if there's any other questions, again, as Dr. Schultz mentioned in his remarks, we don't have an education bill right now, but I do wanna. For the public make sure that they understand that our budget that we approve is an expenditure Authorizing document and we do need to have a budget approved regardless So whether the state legislature as an education bill or not by June 30th any questions I just had a comment. I thought about

138that today as we're coming to approve our budget when the state doesn't have a budget. Just because they don't doesn't mean we don't. We still have kids to educate and they'll have to catch up to where we are because we have to move forward. We have to plan. We have kids to educate. Yeah, I think one of the one of the things that I missed as I went through that table of contents very quickly But will become more important if we get past June 30 with no education bill is what's your cash flow? And you can see our our cash flow is pretty healthy Being all the property tax shifts and state aid shifts have been paid back So that will be helpful Go ahead Betsy. Just to piggyback on Wendy's comment, it won't be

139the first time that we're leading on education and having them follow. And then to answer or to respond to your comment, John, MSBA is already looking at that June 30th, what if we don't have a bill, and making sure that there's still resources flowing, much like we had to do, I think it was two or three years ago when we didn't have a bill come July 1st. So MSBA is already watching that and making sure that school districts are protected going forward. Chair good one. Go ahead I'm looking at Donna sign fund balance there. You're projecting we're gonna end up at eleven point five seven Remind me again in the public when do the warning bells go off? For us. We've got a board policy regarding right the board policy is a minimum or a

140floor of six percent. Okay So once that fund balance on a projected basis for any budget year that we're approving a budget would go below 6% well We I don't think we'd even get to that point because if the projections show in a budget year that we're budgeting for that It's going to fall below 6% We're going to make the necessary adjustments to approve a budget that has a fund balance. That's over 6% minimum But again, if you have unfavorable results, and as you know, Director Adams, that will flow, those unfavorable results will flow into the next year automatically, and we have very little that we can do to change those results if they're unfavorable in the next budget cycle because, as Dr. Schultz mentioned in his remarks, it's mainly staffing. that kind of stuff

141can bleed into the next year without the school board being able to do a whole lot about it. So that's why we want to keep that fund balance at 10% because it allows for that potential negative fluctuation downward and we can correct it in the next cycle. Thank you. So even at the deficit of $569,000, what percent is that of our total budget? I don't, you're the math guy. 569 then divided by 87, 254, so it would be very low. It's less than 1%. Right, so that is less than 1%. About three quarters of 1%. Right. So it's a very minimal amount. And we have changes coming, I mean, potentially to WEMAP. There's many changes and things that can happen in our budget. Oh, yeah, we're experiencing those on an almost daily basis right now

142on some transportation issues and all that stuff. So, yeah, it's a very fluid number. This board has approved deficit budgets before that don't end up being deficits on a revised budget basis. So I'm very comfortable with this number right now and hoping that I have to buy lunch. Because we always work in a three-year cycle. We're always finishing a year, starting a year, and looking forward. So it's a fluid. And you're very conservative, so we appreciate that. Thanks. So what's the bet? 2% versus what? Yeah, the bet is that education, the formula allowance will not go up by more than 1.5%, or it will go up by more than 1.5%. So right now it's a push, because we didn't really bet on separate years. But we'll be at 2%. You're the glass half empty guy,

143right? Kind of, sort of, yeah. Yeah, okay. What steps would you take in terms of modifying the budget on the basis of different scenarios? Well, that's one of the things that I did have available so that the board could see, and I think we've talked about this before, is what's the impact? Well, this is... These tie to our budget numbers right now in the budget book 86 for revenue 86 685 170 and a projection for fiscal 17 of 87 443 But you know as the education bill passed even though is vetoed at one and a half You can see that that impacts us by about this 22 588. It'll go down to minus 196, so that's a change of about $218,000 there, but it also bleeds into fiscal 16-17 at that same amount. So the

144amount that we lose is about double that of 436,000. So it's really important. to get that other half a percent, because it actually means almost 1% for school districts. Especially, it's which year are you gonna put that in, because it hurts us in the first year more so than the second year, because the second year will just be a loss of a half a percent in the second year. So I know why they're doing it, because it saves them the money and hurts us. So it's not insignificant. You know, the other thing about the revenue equation, you know, as we put the budget together, we have a loss of about, you know, 59 or 60 or so pupil units, which erodes that formula increase that we're using as an assumption of 2%. It erodes that

145by about 1%. Because 60 times 6 is 360, so we're getting very close to that 1% number on a formula allowance increase of about $439,000. So it does make a difference if your enrollment's increasing versus declining, or even flat. Even flat for us would give us the whole amount of 2%. So we're gonna hope for that big kindergarten class again next year Absolutely stay royal. Yeah. Yep. That's one of our mantras in the school finance class that we teaches Increasing enrollment is always good. I mean there's some problems, but are they really? They're all good problems usually so and then In your discussions with other business directors because we're all in the same boat. And so give us a little idea of what you hear from other school districts. Well, what I'm hearing from other

146school districts really starts when we start that budgeting process for fiscal 15-16. So other business directors are asking each other, what are you going to put in for your assumptions, especially in a biannual budgeting year, for the increase in the formula allowance? I can tell you that we were not conservative in our projections versus other districts around us and what percent they were using for an increase in the formula allowance. But as you can see, we're real close to that right now. And I know everything else, you know, the governor is saying we start back at zero, but, you know, they're already at one and a half and two. I'm suspecting that's probably not going to go down. It may very well stay the same. It could go up. But we're going to be very

147close to our projection then of two and two that we used. And the other districts are going to be, you know. wrong on on a more conservative basis than we will be, but I kind of like where we're at. I mean, we we get we guessed pretty well. Mr. Chair, go ahead. Considering that we've had. Lengthy discussion around the budget over the last few months and considering the fact that our director of business services looks feels good about it, I'm ready to make a motion. Good. Can I I would like to make one other comment about the budget before you make your motion is that all right? What I would like to what I would like to also address is the amount of money that we have taken from the bottom line and put into

148reserves. And could you talk just a little bit about monies that we have tried to look forward as a school district and put money in reserve for programs that we have, programs that we have. Yes, I certainly can. And some of that won't appear on this page. of the general fund executive summary, but one of the first ones that I would mention would be the motion that the board made to commit 10 years worth of costs to fund the foreign language in the elementary school program. That started at about a little over $6 million. So that was a big motion that the board made to make sure that that funding was in place and there for the first 10 years of that program. And the second one that is a really big item. and actually

149bigger than the foreign language in the elementary schools was the severance amount that we transferred out of our general fund unassigned to a separate internal service fund for severance. And that was about $8.2 million that the board made a motion to do. And we are... Expensing all severance payments as they come up in that fund trying to fund one more year of service for our current staff through a transfer from our general fund on a yearly basis so that we keep on at least to the best of our ability Replenishing that fund as we go because we will need more money in that fund It's just a matter of how much more will we need and we're trying to fund that kind of on a pay-as-you-go basis now Those are the two biggest ones, but

150those two together are about $14 million, which is higher by $4 million than our total unassigned fund balance right now. So if we hadn't done those two things, our unassigned fund balance would look like it would be about $24 million, which is, you don't want to do that. It's too high. That seems like you're... stockpiling dollars and and you don't need to do that I think the sport has been very astute in investing in the foreign language for the elementary schools and committing that fund balance and also very astute in transferring that amount necessary for the severance at least on a beginning basis to fund that for staff it's very very good to be doing that and that along with our other post-employment benefit trust which is in a separate fund again for other post-employment

151benefits, mainly health insurance for the retirees once they need to access that after they retire has been another good thing that the district has done, made available by being able to bond for two straight years with other post-employment benefit bonds that the district did. So I think those are the big highlights of what we've done with our fund balances and what we've done with our unassigned fund balance to try and keep that at that 10% or a little over 10% level, but being able to make these commitments and fund the internal service fund for severance for sure. That that help answer their question. Hopefully sure good road for the public. Yes. Okay, right I do and I would add that as you continue to look under every rock for dollars We paid off a phone

152system early We paid off our bus garage so that money can go back into our general fund to pay for everyday education Yep, so we appreciate you always looking for ways for us to save money long term and refinancing bonds. Yeah, right Yep, that saves the taxpayers money in the debt service fund and certainly those items that you mentioned I am aware obviously of those and they're not small items, but they certainly contributed to freeing up dollars and giving the district flexibility So that we're ready for a motion Thank You mr. Chair, I move that the board approves the 2015-16 budget as presented Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. The budget has been approved. Thank you. Thank

153you. The next item on the agenda is a policy for consideration and action. And so with that, John, would you like to give us a little background? I think I'm going to turn this over to Nick. This is a policy that we're going to approve in single read. I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO DR. LIGHTFOOT AND VICE CHAIR DONOVAN. POLICY 427, WORK LOW LIMITS FOR CERTAIN SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS IN SINGLE READING IS BEFORE YOU THIS EVENING. POLICY 427, THIS IS THE MODEL MSBA POLICY PUT FORTH TO US ABOUT THREE OR FOUR WEEKS AGO. As a result of the rule change that does require that boards do adopt a policy for workload limits in special education teacher settings What is presented here is the model policy as a compliance component it is presented to you

154as the model policy this way we have it in Practice Linda Gardner director of special services, and I did review this We did make sure that it is compliant with our present practice. It is. You will see that it is a general policy on how we establish those workloads and what process we use to do so. So with that, it is a compliance policy, and our policy 208 does allow us for... Compliance purposes to adopt a policy to make sure that we are compliant in one reading so that we don't have to wait two or three weeks in between and that we have it for our use and then as needed as our review would allow we can then go back to the monitoring committee and make any specific changes or anything and then take

155it through practice of two reviews as we have stated. So with that I'm open to any questions you have on 427. It's just an interesting policy because it doesn't really say anything. It's not prescriptive at all. It's very procedural on the process that would be used in order to determine workloads. And that is a process that we really have. And the actual caseload approach, and this is what Linda and I did confirm, the actual caseload numbers and approach coming from MDE, we are well within those guidelines. So when we look at caseloads and we are well within those caseloads and there are specific guidance on caseloads, the establishment of those as they relate to workloads is a procedural piece that Linda goes through and details how she looks at that when they are looking at

156the assignment of staffing and they are looking at caseload and they are applying the staffing levels to the caseloads. So that is a procedural component of what they do when they review all of their staffing elements every winter and spring as they go through the staffing process. Then I had a question related to, I know that this is unaffected by collective bargaining, but is it incorporated in collective bargaining? So is it sort of... Over and above or is it a special group or how would you define that relationship? Workload and work assignment is an inherent managerial right. As an inherent managerial right, boards are not required to meet and negotiate on those under PELRA. So a board does not have to be obligated to meet and negotiate on workloads should it choose not to do

157so. Go ahead, Ruby. I'm just curious why this one came in kind of the 11th hour of the school year in terms of this. Yeah, it really was put together as a change from MDE related to their rules and their rule structures. MSBA follows those changes. And then oftentimes, as you know from legislative sessions and closing of legislative sessions, they'll say a policy must be required and that boards must adopt policy. And that was the case in this set of circumstances with the rule from MDE that boards must adopt the policy. So with that change, then the school board association put together the model policy and then distributed that to all districts. Special education directors reviewed it. And then this was the model that was pushed forward. Any other questions? With that, I would look

158for a motion. Chair Goodroad. I move that the board approve school district policy 427 regarding workload limits for certain special education teachers in a single reading due to recent change in the law. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay, that's done. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. THE NEXT ITEM OF BUSINESS IS THE SUPERINTENDENT'S GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR. SO WITH THAT, I WILL TURN IT OVER. Chair Goodrell, members of the board, we've talked about these goals three or four times, and so I'm just going to kind of give you a synopsis of this. I'm going to kind of put this into three different parts, and we'll talk about it from the perspective of partnerships, from the perspective of innovation, and

159then finally looking at future focused. One of the things we'll do this year is we'll get the community together to take a look at our strategic plan and report to you first what has happened in the last three years with regards to the strategic plan and then partner with the community and the World Cafe to report out what we've done and see if there's any tweaks to the strategic plan as we move forward. So we'll have the opportunity to bring our community together to talk about the strategy and the direction we're taking the district. In light of that, I'd also like to just extend my thanks to all of you for... for your volunteer service, because that's what this really is. But you have really given the community a great direction for learning, and it's

160an honor to work for all of you. We are going to be entering into a time when we could be electing new board members and having the community come forward. So you'll hear a little bit tonight about that. But also, I think looking at partnering with community leaders and our some of our Post-secondary options you saw the senior year study Recommendations, how do we partner with them for those applied learning experiences? And like I said earlier it is it is fun to have individuals calling us and asking us to partner The Blake Road corridor project. I think you've been part of that discussion Director Adams and so it's it's it's really neat to have those phone calls asking us to partner. Really partnering for student resources and achievement, looking for the opportunities for kids and

161some of the partnerships like Xinxing and the Patuo School District in China so that students can talk to heritage speakers. That may seem small, but that is fairly significant. but it is important to have to establish those partnerships. As I mentioned before, the applied learning experiences, the partnerships that simply looking at the partnerships around volunteering and bringing people into the schools to read to students. Looking at innovation in our learning environment. If you take a look at how these students are sitting, if you look at that furniture, that's a real interest of mine because it's, those are called flexible learning spaces and it doesn't look like the traditional chairs and tables. So I'd like us to spend some time taking a look at that and around innovating what our learning environment could look, how it

162could be different with our furniture with our instruction and our curriculum becoming more digital and more collaborative for students, how do we create these environments for kids to work together? Another goal is the innovation in student technology. You've had a lot of discussion about that with the device technology. We'll be a 6-12, one-to-one district. So we'll continue to take a look at what impact that's having. I always think this may not be, we may think this is innovative, but I think for children, I think it's not necessarily innovation, it's just the way they do their thing. So that's a goal to work on for next year. Student opportunities. How do we build those student opportunities in the high school? How do we bring in opportunities into the high school, but also how do we get

163them outside their classroom? We're going to take a look at early childhood. Katie's already begun to take a look at that in light of the discussion that is happening at the Capitol. And how do we prepare for a world-class, excellent early childhood program, four-year-old program? Taking a look at what we currently have, making sure we don't lose what our community values, but at the same time being prepared for whatever the state wants us or... be prepared to offer something that is better than what we have. Some future innovations. Start asking questions about time. Start asking questions about calendars. Start asking questions about how are we using our buildings. our grade levels right in our buildings? Starting to ask those questions. And I think it's something that I'm going to do with my leadership team to

164begin to brainstorm, but eventually bring that future innovation to you. So within my goals, you'll find studies on bell times, you'll see discussions around year-round school. You'll see I'm forgetting one. Your Own School and Bell Times. I forgot the other one. I lost my notes on my agenda. That's the other problem I'm having. I can't get my notes back. Staff development. You saw staff development. We're going to have all our teachers, like this picture, make sure they all know how to make cake. I'm just kidding. But really having a... This is... teachers really working together as Becky described tonight with the professional development plans that they have working together and if I may also add since this is the last board meeting but I'm proud to announce that the person on the right hand side

165Natalie Swatzky is the new associate principal at Meadowbrook Elementary. The other thing that I think we need to start looking at is student data and how we're using student data and finding the opportunity to lift the student data out. And there's two sides to student data that I've learned. One is the accountability end that we all look at from a district perspective. Then there's the other part where it's data about children and data about the learning data about students and how do we give that to teachers to make instructional decisions. And I would like to continue to explore that and we're doing some neat things in technology and information services with lifting data out. I'm gonna make sure that we have data that is accessible to the people who really need it. From our perspective,

166the accountability end, but more importantly, how do we get it into the hands of teachers to make decisions? So really talking about how do we, what is the leadership that we need around student data? And then the other part is just keeping our culture future focused, keeping an eye on the prize. In these goals, maintaining that we are pushing forward the work we've done around IB, FLESS, culturally and linguistic responsive pedagogy, the technology, the... the, oh, let's see what else, there's so many of them. QComp, World's Best Workforce, the list goes on. But how do we keep those present and using those as a guide to making sure that our students are prepared for their future? It really is an exciting set of goals. I'm looking forward to the work. I actually have started some

167of it already. So it's really gonna be a really neat year. um taking a look at uncovering like director donovan always says you know uncovering what's underneath the rocks it's just how do you plant those flowers let those flowers unfold and then looking under rocks for opportunities is the name of the game so with that There's a quick snapshot of my goals. I'll take any questions that you have. And that little person there is going to the University of Minnesota next year. She graduates next week. What's that? Graduates next week. Next Friday. Thank you. Okay, John, great goals. Is it possible, would you disagree to separate out the evaluation side from the goals side? So in other words, that we would just focus on the goals. And then talk like for the monitoring committee to

168kind of pull up the process for evaluation of the superintendent's role. I've just taken the leadership from the rest of the board and the board chair on how to put these together. So I was told how to do that. I don't know. I mean, I noticed that the beginning part says goals, but then you go slash. evaluation tools. So I was just wondering if we could separate the evaluation tool side until you can pull up. What the evaluation? I don't We determined a while ago to use smart goals, so this is the smart goal format right am I wrong? That's my understanding. Yes, but that's we determined a while ago That's how we were gonna do it so we can't change it now. It would have to be I mean we his goals are smart

169goals that's the format that it's in okay so we have somewhere the procedure that says this is what we do we did this yes we do yeah okay so could we pull that up that well maybe you well you probably can't say asking I think it was a good process address a little bit. We are going to do a little bit of work on the board evaluation process. And I think one of the things that we want to try to do is get the evaluation process for the superintendent and for the board to be aligned so that we're all pulling in the same direction. and so this is going to come back to the board as a workshop and then we can discuss the alignment and whether that's how that's working at a workshop probably

170in the fall. Okay, so we don't have anything currently that's has to us. what the evaluation process tool is. Well, yes. It has been approved. It's in front of you. It was approved in May of 2013. Okay. So then we can get a copy of that. It's on the board agenda from our last May meeting, 2013. All right. No, I have, maybe I'm not making myself clear. What I'm asking for is there is a policy. says or tells us what are the evaluation processes that's what I'm asking do we have that it wouldn't be in policy it would be it would be a vote that we took as a board that we documented in our minutes to to follow this new tool to do to have an evaluation document but the specific method the document

171itself is approved by the board And so the document itself is not in the policy. The policy directs the... So the policy tells us as a board, this is what we do. One, two, three. No. But that's my question. The policy says that the board must develop an evaluation tool. to evaluate the superintendent. Okay, that we may do that and we do that annually. Yes. No, we do that. Evaluate the superintendent annually. We evaluate the superintendent annually, but the process has been approved by the board and that's the process going forward. Now, we can change that process anytime we want, but right now. He developed his goals under the process that was approved by the board in May of 2013. Okay. And that falls under the instructions of the policy. But we don't put the

172evaluation tool in the policy. No, but you do put procedures in terms of the process that you use to do it. Right, and that is in there. Okay, some say no, some say yes. I'm not sure what, and that's a piece that's unclear to me. Okay, we can address that. So we're going to be working on that. Well, we're going to work on it, particularly the evaluation for the board's self-evaluation. And the goal is to make those evaluations line up. But that will be an opportunity to address that when we do that, which we'll be working on. That's part of our... Goals for that. Okay. Okay and and you know, the input is is is valuable and and we Certainly want everybody to be able to have a say so that's that's important. Thank you.

173Okay, so anybody have Anybody have additional questions We've seen these in a workshop and we've seen this document for quite a long time. So with that, we are looking for some action to approve these and so I would look for a motion. Chair Goodroad. I move that the board approves the superintendent goals as presented for the 2015-16 school year. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the superintendent's goals. Is there any further discussion? If not all those in favor, please say aye aye opposed same sign Okay for 2015 16 have been approved and the last item of business for tonight is is the discussion of the role of board members and clerks in the upcoming election for Board members we have four seats that will be open and our Questions and I basically was

174the one who has been asking about this Because with the Secretary of State's office there's been some movement in the timing and then And then what the number of openings the board one of the things that we would like the board to consider is whether or not we Would like to do training for prospective board members Prior to filing or whether we would rather do our training for prospective board members after the filing So that's one item to think about And with that, I think we'll ask Dr. Schultz if you want to lead us in the discussion around some of the issues associated with the... I think I'll just have John talk a little bit about just the procedural aspects of... Since he's been the clerk in the office, what the role is of... What

175the role is of the district and the board with relation to the election and the filing? Sure one of the primary roles that the business office has for the school board elections is to do the duties that are delegated to the business office that if we have a that's a school board clerk that we would do in lieu of that school board clerk that is a director having them do that. So taking the filings, which for this year will run from July 28th through August 11th, taking the affidavits of candidacy, which must be filed in the office, and the $2 filing fee. needs to be paid by August 11th as well. And then also establishing combined polling places and the filing dates and making sure that the proper notice of election is published in the

176newspaper that we've approved as our newspaper for filing minutes and so forth. And then also filing the ballot. for the election once we know who the candidates are filing the sample ballot. And then after that, canvassing the election results does require the school board clerk, whether that's myself or elected director, has to be signed off by the school board clerk. The other thing we do in the business office is any campaign finance filing reports that are required, and they have to meet a $750 threshold. for doing that, then those campaign finance filing reports are collected in the business office as well. So it's... A fairly straightforward process. There's not a lot of complicated issues that go along with it. Just have to make sure that you hit your timelines for publishing in the newspaper general

177circulation and that we get the canvassing done in the required timelines as well and make sure the $2 filing fee is paid, I guess. have you had a chance to talk with any of our neighboring districts about how it's done with them I mean this is our first where we've had a sitting board clerk as opposed to you doing it before I haven't had any discussions with them because I don't anticipate that there will be much change that will be needed okay Most of the duties, regardless of whether it was a director, elected clerk, or myself as a school board clerk, would have been done by the business office regardless. So I don't anticipate many or any changes as it relates to that. Unless directed otherwise, we're going to go about that as if... you

178know it was business as usual as it relates to that and obviously anything that requires school board clerk signature we will work with the school board clerk you at this point you know to get that done in a timely fashion exactly so in other words you're doing it Pretty much. Okay. Yes, you know, that's all I needed to hear at least I thought if you were going to give me an office and a clerk You know certainly if you as a school board clerk wannabe You know a little more involved meaning this is how I mean that want to be more Informed as to what the particulars are regardless of whether you're doing them or not There is a school board election training seminar that's coming up that is MSBA sponsored Certainly would make sure

179that you have that Availability to attend that because I will be yes, and I believe my assistant as well. So by all means i definitely want you to have the opportunity to attend that yeah thank you john and then also in the past the uh school district has put together a binder and had a meeting now um had a meeting with members of the general public who might be interested in in the school board The last time I don't know how many people you had that came to that it didn't have any so members who were candidates So one of the things and of course as they move up, you know now the filing date begins July 28th Which means that if we were going to do something like that, we were talking basically in

180the middle of the summer Which I think also presents little problem So, I don't know whether you feel that we should hold off until after and then You know provide a informational meeting for candidates and Information what what are your thoughts about that? That's what I'm wondering. Go ahead. That's it. So filing closes on August 11th And they have a certain number of days where they can withdraw their name. Two. Two days. So maybe we should have it on August 12th. That's what I was thinking. Get the full list of candidates that have filed, but then give them a chance to pull out. Yeah. Let them know what they're getting into. I'm sorry. I'm not interested in circle. Is it $2 per fundable? August 12th is a Wednesday. There may be a law change around

181that too. I did hear the legislature was talking about raising those filing fees. But I keep frivolous, you know people from filing filing frivolously. I don't know but there that hasn't happened in our district, right? I mean either way I think it's important for us to do something some sort of training session whether it's before they file or after I don't doesn't really matter to me, but honestly, it's it's I think it's telling sometimes when Certain candidates show up and others don't yeah Well, I would I don't know if we need to make a motion but I would say the training ought to be done on August 12th or early in the day on the 13th Let's not make a motion on that because you know, there's always challenges with the calendar But right, but

182I think the main part of that is whether or not we're doing it after the filing or before Yeah, I would say after yeah, it's because it's summer And then the other part of the training that I think was different is that the website itself is a big part of the information. And rather than develop a great big hard copy book, we probably will focus more on electronic communication as a part of that training process. Any thoughts about that? Or you can have mine. It's updated. Not much. Okay. Anybody have any additional thoughts or questions related to the fall? It's going to be here right around the corner. This is just the last meeting, and before you know it, summer is gone. Geez, we haven't even had it yet, and you're already writing it off.

183Well depending on what happens at the legislature we may have to have an emergency meeting sometime in June Let's hope not then okay with that that is mainly an item for discussion and so With that we'll move to the next item of business, which is incidental reports and there are I believe two incidental reports and So I would look for a motion on the incidental reports so moved It's been moved and seconded to accept the incidental reports. Is there any discussion? Hearing none all those in favor. Please say aye aye opposed same sign Okay, and then with that I would look for a motion for adjournment Second yes the move to second to adjourn all those in favor. Please say aye Opposed same sign this meeting is adjourned at 10 o 1