001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. On public comment, anyone from the public would like to come up and speak, do so now. All right. No movement. Moving on to the consent agenda. Is there anything in the consent agenda? Board member wants to pull for consideration. If not, I'll take a motion for approval. >> So moved. >> Motion by Kudson. Is there a second? >> Second. All in favor say I. >> I. Agenda passed. On to digger time. >> Good evening. Um I'm here tonight to present to you a new part of our operations for uh PRCE and the fields um and grounds. And so um we had some staffing changes
002come about this summer. So we started looking actually this spring at some options just to make our operations more efficient and effective. And one of the things we started demoing and looking at was automated field striping uh and field painting solutions. So, we we demoed four different types of and companies of these automated field painting um operations. They all were a little bit different but similar in what they did and provided and ultimately we ended up on turf tank one. So, I'm just going to give you a little bit of overview um present some of the benefits and how it's going to help us out all across the board. So, just a brief overview of um the Turf Tank One. Saves time and money, improves our field quality, will support student athletics, reduce staff strain,
003and it's environmentally friendly. Um again, a little bit more information about it. So, it's a robotic field painter designed for athletic fields. What it does is it uses GPS technology for high precision. Um, it's operated via a tablet or a phone and we have a tablet that does ours um for customizable field templates and it'll paint multiple fields across the board for um our operations football, lacrosse, baseball. It also does parking lots too which is kind of an added bonus as well. Um so just a little bit about um the benefits of it. So manual field lining would typically take two to three employees working 2 to four hours per field. Um so it was a big time constraint for our staff. It would tie up u multiple staff into one field and to make
004sure that we were doing it um as precise as we could. We would make sure that you know our staff were trained in it appropriately as well too. Um, with the turf tank, one single employee can um, line a field in as little as 20 to 30 minutes, which is very efficient, effective, and um, you can actually push the button on the tablet and walk away um, to do some other operations. We won't we won't leave the the turf tank unattended, but they could be emptying garbages, um, weed whipping, checking other things out while the the robot is out painting and lining the fields. Um, another thing is the cost reduction. Um, so we looked at a couple different options with the turf tank and we chose the lease option to try and through our
005um, research and our demos, we thought this would be the best um, the best route to go because it's a yearly cost. And then um, with that it includes paint. So they actually give us paint. Um, and then also it includes all of the software um, assistance. So if there's an issue with it, someone will come on site. they'll help take care of it. Um they'll update the software as we go. Obviously, this is a very new um operation for a lot of places and so the technology is constantly changing. So, we thought the lease option would be um a way better way to start. Um we can always buy it down the road, but we thought this would be the best for what we have um and be the most budget conscious as well
006too. Um, so we went with the lease option and then, um, so for example, we spend about $8 to $10,000 a year on paint for fields. Um, this will significantly reduce it by half, which is very nice. And then in our lease, we get $3,000 worth of paint for our fields right now. So, it'll be a really good thing. We're kind of going to see how the first year goes with that as well and then recheck it then. Um, but also why it does that is because the GPS guided system uses less paint compared to manual striping because you have the user error of putting too much paint down on one spot. This is all GPS coordinated and then it gives the same amount of paint the whole way through. So, it's very consistent. Um,
007and then also because it's so um consistent, frequent touch-ups aren't needed as much. Um, and then when we re when we're rellining a field, we put it in the same spot, hit go, and then the paint is less again. So, it really does have a good material cost reduction for our operations. Um, and then we can store over 45 different field types right in our system. It's really cool. It pulls up um a map of our school campus and then you can drag and set where the field needs to be and then you run a quick pass to make sure it's in the right spot. And then the person hits paint and it just goes um and then someone needs to be again be nearby in order to refill the paint as necessary, but sends
008an alert to the iPad, tells them that it needs more paint or it's getting low so they can come over, change it, and then um continue on with what they're doing. It really is um really quick and efficient. Um, one of the things too, um, before our staff would need to use tape, strings, measuring tools, all that type of stuff, that's all stored right in our system. And so we don't have to worry about pulling all those lines and stuff like that where that's where it took like two to three employees before, which is a huge um, timesaver. Um, and then we'll go to the next one here. Um, so just a quick little uh, chart about kind of our traditional method and the turf tank one. So setup and measuring would take about 3
009to four hours with our traditional staff. Um the GPS coordinated the setup is minutes. So you walk up there, you there's a tripod with the GPS coordinator. Um you align the turf tank where you want it to start. You hit go and it just goes. So it's really like minutes instead of hours. Um and then painting time. The traditional method was 6 to 8 hours depending on staffing. The turf tank, depending on the field, can do it from really a half hour or an hour and a half to two hours, but it's actually some of our fields are quicker. It can be um you know 30 to 40 minutes too once they're already programmed in. And then the staff required traditional method was two to three staff. Um the turf tank one is one staff
010and it's really just supervision only after they set it up. So they can do those other tasks elsewhere. Yes. >> Is this for just one field? We're spending We were spending three to four hours setting up paint time versus this one field. So like the football field took this much time over time. >> Yep. >> And how many times did you have to do that per season? >> Well, this the setup takes is the the biggest one. So that's the first time. And then if but then if we would let it go to the point where you couldn't see the lines, then we would need to bring them back in to restripe. So restriping was quicker, but still required a couple staff to do that. Whereas now we can just hit the button and it
011goes because it memorizes all the all the templates and we can overlay fields. It can be lacrosse and soccer together. We can we can do all that with it as well too. And you can drag and drop right into the system right on our school campus in the map. >> And it's errorree where error sorry errorree whereas as good as your folks are >> yes and talented as they are. They're only human and can make mistakes but this is so precise. It's sort of >> Yeah. And one of the other ones we looked at was um more of a it was still autonomous, but it was more manual. Someone sat on a side by side and it controlled it that way, but that still took a staff sitting on it while it was striping. Um
012so the two we looked at that were autonomous and nobody needed to do were the route we wanted to go. Um so that this was the better option for us as well. >> Does this do our logos as well or no? >> It does. Great question. So, one of the cool things um and I have a picture of it here. Um so, for the Reach camp, our >> um Chad Greenway camp, we actually had that was the first week we had the robot and our staff were able to uh paint the Reach logo out on the football field, which was really cool. Great addition. So, we'll be able to do logos. Um we can do the hash marks on the football field. Just our our options are now a lot greater than what we were
013able to do before with our staffing time. But yeah, really cool feature of it is that you can do logos. There's just way there's so many things you can do with um with the turf tank. So, we're really excited about it. Um Justin and I have had lots of conversations, our our park staff. Um but really excited about how it's going to help our operations and make us better and more efficient. And I think just the overall professionalism too of our fields is going to increase. um because it is autonomous and it's a robot and there's no human error in what we're doing which will be a really um great addition to what we do. >> Can we put some stickers on it that say fetch tigers or anything? >> So, actually we're going to
014do a naming contest and the PRC advisory board is going to pick the name of it and then uh we've talked to Carver signs and they're going to wrap the turf tank with its name on it too. So, yes, it will have a name here shortly. >> That's cool. When did when does that contest go live and when does it end? >> Ends on the 18th, right? >> Yeah. >> Submissions due by the 18th. >> Okay. >> Unlimited submission. Okay. >> It'll be great. Yeah. So then we'll have it wrapped with its name and um it'll be a good addition to what we have and a fun thing too. >> And how do we enter our >> email l? >> Say that again. >> You can let me know. >> Oh, it's not like online.
015All right. >> Yeah. Okay. And then I'm sure you did a cost analysis. >> We did. Yeah, we looked at a lot of numbers. So the lease options um there were two different options for a lease. We went with the cheaper one just to start. Um so it's $11,000 a year. Um which will come out of the city budget, but with the help of our joint powers agreement. We have the maintenance agreement between the city and the school. So we'll kind of look at that as we as we move forward. Um so it's all funded right now from the city, but it's used on the school district facility. So, we'll have those conversations as we move forward. Um, but there was an $11,000 lease and an $18,000 lease. We went with the cheaper one at
016first just to kind of see um how it went. Some of the differences um were more paint. They provided more paint. So, we were just going to see how it went this first year. Um and then a little bit more um customer service I think would be um the other piece of it. I don't have it in front of me, but we looked at what would work for our operation. went with the cheaper one to start. They told us we could always bump up to the next the next lease option and add more to it later. Um to purchase the turf tank, it was about $60,000. Um but then you're on your own for paint, you're on your own for all the software updates, all those things. So, we thought that this would be a
017good test to start and then um we can always look at different options down the road. But we thought with with a quick turnaround of our staff leaving and this was a good time to do with all of our demonstrations, we thought this lease would be a really good start to the turf tank. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> No, I like it. Yeah, >> it's cool. >> Thank you. >> Thanks a lot. >> All right, on to second and final policy reading. policy series 7800 and 900 217 400 and 500. Uh is there a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Uh motion man Jacowski, second by Kudson. Any further discussion? >> Um I just have a quick question. Um between this reading and the previous reading, do we have any
018changes? >> Uh I think Mike Mossman had asked a few questions. One of them was could schoolboard members still um excuse absences and that had been repealed as part of that statute. So I let him know and and also he asked about the bus stop if there was a sex offender or predator and could instead of related ages or like ages be told could it be everyone who is associated to that bus we put any age student instead of like those are the only changes. >> All right thank you good. All right, there's no further discussion. All in favor say I. I oppos same res. All the policies passed. All right. And on to acknowledgement. Tenure for probationary teachers and they are presented on the screen. We just like to congratulate them all. Good thing.
019Good thing. All right. Superintendent Diets. >> All right. All right. Uh starting out with uh Teamworks, the uh company that we selected for doing our strategic planning, uh did come and do a planning session with a few of us and kind of laid out what the the next 10 months or 9 months are going to look like to get a strategic plan. The first bigger session is going to be at our work session on the 25th. It will include all of you along with all our administrators and they will be leading that. Teamworks will be and that'll be during the work session from 5:30 to 8:30. And after that then there's a whole bunch of other meetings that'll take place but they won't all have the school board as part of them. So we are
020on our way to um towards uh developing our strategy plan which is really exciting. and my my staff and I have been working closely with Superior Transportation as I said last time in preparation for first day of school. They are planning on sending out postcards and those should go out soon within the next week so everybody gets their their uh pickup drop off times. And then they also will have a presence during our open house for families that have questions, maybe moved or need need something changed or just don't know, didn't get a postcard for some reason or something like that. So that is on its way. And then also uh I'm going to be helping out at the Tiger Path Fair booth this Friday. So, if you're at the fair between Thursday and Sunday
021and you want to go into I don't know what that building is called actually, but >> commercial and you want to come and say hi to the people who are staffing the Tiger Fair booth. Uh we'd love to have you do that. Andrea is not here this year, so we are all kind of taking over for her. So, she's a big part of that and she wanted to keep it going. So, we're making sure that it doesn't have a year off. So, and then also, um, I started my quarterly meetings with principles and directors today. We are reviewing the start of the school year, what they might need, if anything else, and also looking at each school's crisis plan so that that is up to date and making sure that it's ready to go on
022day one. Also uh I am going to I'm looking forward for the welcome back of our staff which is next week new staff come and then the week after will be all staff and uh it's always an exciting time of course then the week after that is when students come. So things are starting to come along pretty quickly with the start of the school year. Mike, Scott and I attended the welcome back superintendent seminar on August 5th. It's put on by NASA, which is the superintendent organization and the department of education. Uh we had several things we went to, but one of them I wanted to share with you. It's kind of sobering a little about um educators and hiring and retaining, but it is kind of interesting to hear. 75% of our public schools
023in the United States struggle to find qualified educators. This is as of like 2023, I think it was. So, it's not even the most most up-to-date, but they're going to have more data coming. 50% of staff in public schools in the US say their schools are underst staffed, leading to heavier workloads. 38% of qualified teachers in Minnesota do not teach. So, if you think about everybody out there that's out there that could teach, they're not teaching. 90% of public districts in Minnesota report teacher shortages. And 33% of new teachers in Minnesota leave teaching in the first 5 years. So you might say, what can we do about this in Hutchinson? Well, there's some things that we we are doing. We provide mentors. We provide hiring incentives and we try to tend to their get make
024sure that they uh can ask questions. Mike does a really nice job getting out and meeting with the new teachers. um I tried to get in their classrooms and I know our principles work really hard with them as well along with everybody else. So those were just some statistics I found to be interesting to hear. I will be attending my superintendent workshops in person on August 19th and 20th. And uh and I hope if you have a chance to come to the um staff all staff breakfast on Tuesday the 26th, you're all invited. It starts at 7:30 I believe in the morning. And then I also have some negotiation updates. Uh talking about HESP, uh the schoolboard negotiators, district administration and HESP have met twice. The first uh meeting we looked at ground rules and
025they were established along with HS members introducing some proposed language items and during the second meeting they they uh gave us more language items. Tomorrow we'll have another HS meeting and they will introduce any remaining language items that they feel are related to uh finances along with their salary and benefit proposal and the school district representatives will be prepared to respond to the language items and salary and benefit proposals at the September 11th meeting. Also, a subcommittee will meet to discuss new employee placements and seniority. So that's for HS and then our local 284 which is our custodians. The schoolboard negotiators and administration and 284 representatives met on August 1st. Ground rules were established and then the local 284 presented their complete language and salary benefit proposal. The school district representatives will be prepared to
026respond to the proposals at the next meeting on September 23rd. Any questions? I would just like to um go back to um the Superior Bus Company. Yes, >> we're going to get our postcards in the next week. >> I think they're plan trying to get them out in the next week. That's their goal. Yes. >> Okay. And I'm not sure if it'll say this there, but I will most likely get one and my son won't be taking the bus. So, are we expected to call them and let them know we won't be? >> I don't think you're expected to call them and say that. I think they just send them out initially and then they start realizing who's going to ride and not ride after that. But um I don't know the answer positively for
027that. I would encourage you to call out there maybe and just ask that if you have that question, but I don't think they expect everybody to call and say who doesn't ride. >> Any other questions? Thank you. >> Thanks. Uh Dr. Scott. Okay, just a couple announcements and highlights here this as we're approaching the new school year. The middle school just wanted to remind people that the students and families at the orientation for sixth grade students and those students knew it's going to be Thursday, August 14th. Um the orientation times been sent uh via email uh to or sorry via mail to families. So, if you didn't if you're listening to this and you didn't get something, uh let the middle school know um so that you can get on the list and your your
028child can attend um the open house. If students aren't able to attend that on the 14th, the middle school open house uh is going to be Wednesday the 27th. Our other building open houses are the 27th as well. Um wanted to want to say thank you to all of the hard work uh from our staff this summer. Uh thank everybody from teachers to support staff to our custodians and administration uh to making this summer's special education extended school year and our summer programming uh for summer school a success uh to keep students um engaged and learning all the way through the summer and be ready for uh the fall here in 3 weeks from tomorrow I guess. Um, and then I wanted to we wanted to recognize that Senator Glenn Grunhagen had sent a congratulatory
029recognition letter um to our um food ser food service department uh for their um receiving the award for full trade farm to school and early care grant that they'd received and another recognition from the senator just congratulating u for the great work and the continued promotion of that programming and our effort to to um partner with our local um farmers and um to feed our students in school. Couple other things coming up. Um as Dan had mentioned, we're well, we're one week away. Um so the next schoolboard meeting, I'll talk about like 300 days until new teacher support staff week, but we're one week away from welcoming new teachers and support staff. Um the schedule's all been sent to them so they know when to when to attend. And it's a full week for um
030our teachers and about a half a week for our support staff. So, we have 16 new teachers right now that are confirmed. Uh, we have three more hires to go. Um, so, uh, Dan was talking about, um, shortages. There's definitely, you know, needs for for people to continue to go into the education profession and, um, applying for for teaching and support staff jobs. Uh, we have right now confirmed four new support staff hired. We have a couple in the um in the queue and and being connected with and there's I believe still about a dozen um support staff positions that still need to be hired. So if anybody's listening and still contemplating, just put your application in. We'll convince you to convince you to apply and hire you. Um so available principles and our comp
031coaches um and Dan are attending um a data mining workshop in Marshall on Thursday. We haven't attended this in the past because it's always been the same week as our um our own data retreat, our student achievement retreat meetings in our um new teacher and support staff week. So, we're going to attend that on Thursday. Just be looking at how to analyze data um maybe we'll learn some new things. We're going to be looking at the state data which just came out um as well to looking at how we're comparing to the state. I was able to pull that. I can't talk about any of that, but that information is out. It's still being embargoed till the 29th at 8:00 a.m., but we will be able to look at that data and um in preparation
032for the student achievement retreat that's next Wednesday. Um we um had the title 1 through 4 application return. There only a couple questions they had some things about. So I have that completed tonight. So um that can be sent back. Um we're working on establishing our read pair professional and teacher training. Uh we do have those dates all set for this upcoming school year. So we'll be having a rotating basis on some of our early releases. We'll be giving this more information to our staff about this for our pair professionals that need that training. We'll be having that periodically throughout the year so we can capture hopefully everybody. Um and then just waiting for the last few hires here. I want to make sure that all of our teachers that need the readact training get
033on the into the same cohort. So, we have to send now to MDE and and state specifically who's going to be getting this training and their file folder numbers. So, that's all in the in the works and just wanted to say thank you to everybody for all the preparation for the starting of the school year. It seems like when summer ends, we're doing all of those things from handbooks to scheduling to getting our speakers to the uh new teacher, new support staff, just our whole workshop week. um onboarding everybody, getting all the payroll off through. It's a lot of a lot of um preparation, a lot of work to make sure that things just kind of roll for people to start the school year here in 3 weeks. So, um that's it. So, we'll be
034next meeting we'll be talking about how all that stuff went. >> Thank you, Miss B. >> Good evening. The business services team is partnering with administration um and programming to make sure that we have all of our new hires um on boarded and on track for the start of the school year. Um at the same time, they're busy working on audit preparations which will take place the last week of September. All of that is progressing really well. Um a couple of different things that haven't been mentioned. Um we're working on procedure revisions and some corrections following the five MDE audits that we had this spring. Those are also moving along nicely. Um, last time we met, we talked about um the federal administration freezing title 2, three, and four funds. Congress did release those on
035July 25th. So, I just wanted to circle back and provide an update on that. Um, then on the state side of things, the update I have is that um, with what I know right now, the prelimin preliminary levy certification is on track for the regular schoolboard meeting in September. However, there's a state computer conversion that's running behind. So, typically that levy input site where school district business offices can start to work on the levy data and the formulas and that sort of thing. It's an interactive site with MDE. That's typically open now and has been open for about a week. It hasn't opened yet and they're telling us the end of this week or the following week. So, I guess why I'm bringing this up is that certification that preliminary certification may happen a little
036bit later in September. just we're waiting to hear how that's all going to track with their first report typically coming out um the first Friday in September. I'm waiting to hear if that would be then the second or if they're going to still be able to keep that timeline. Um it shouldn't have an impact on truth and taxation in December with what I know today. Um we are also working on um supporting the negotiation process. Superintendent Diet provided an update on both groups there. Um let's see here. I attended a negotiation and legal seminar in Marshall. Um it was put on by Baker Tilly and MSBA was talking about a lot of the changes in statutes and how that could impact negotiations. We were able to um learn more about um support that we now
037have available again for our costing models. And then we also were able to download and have some direction to some MSBA resources for negotiations. Um, I attended a levy process course in Minneapolis and then I served at the end of it I served on a panel where new business managers could ask questions um and learn practical application of how all this works. I wanted to I know I've said this several times but re continue to be very proud of all of our food service staff. As of yesterday they have served 55,939 meals. So that's breakfast and lunches combined um during the months of June, July, and to date in August. And then wanted to send out a friendly reminder to stop by the school gardens farm stand. It's open every Tuesday from 2:00 to 5:00
038and there's a lot of really great vegetable varieties rolling in. And then just wanted to extend appreciation to our technology team because they've completed the new phone installation, um copier installation, and I think they're down to the last few devices with Windows 11. So, just wanted to thank them and every department that I've mentioned. Um, we feel like we're in a good place as of now for the start of school and to help welcome everybody back. >> Thank you. I just wanted to add that I should have said that local 284 custodians next meeting is September 5th, not just the 23rd. It's actually September 5th and September 23rd. So, there's two meetings coming up. >> Thank you. All right. On to board member topics. Uh we're looking for a resolution. This going to be a
039roll call vote. It's establishing and combining the poll places for the precincts designated hours and not to be held on a state election. This is our yearly resolution. It does not imply we're doing a vote. This is just in the event we do a vote that we have them all consolidated into one. Is there a motion approve the resolution? >> So moved. Motion by Kudson. Is there a second? >> Second by Miss Pullman. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, we'll start with Miss Kudson. >> I Luan's eye. Jenowski >> I. >> And Miss Bowman. >> I. >> All right. Resolution passed four to zero. On committee reports. >> Miss Gutson. Facilities. >> Sure. Um facilities committee uh met last week. Um our facilities uh staff continue to work on some window issues at Tiger and
040Park. Um they're slowly um coming to um resolution um through that their efforts. Um, as you uh remember from last meeting, we're going to do a second reading for the new policy involving facilities fee at a workshop at the end of this month. Um, which Justin um and others worked very hard on um earlier this summer. Um, we had some maintenance um done at the bus garage with some filling of potholes. And uh next up will be um pre-treatment of our parking lots um to get them ready for winter. There's been some new hires within the custodian uh group as we had and some shifting around of uh workload. There's currently one um split shift opening left. Um but Justin did have a lot of great um candidates for that spot. Uh our food service
041building is going to be getting a new sign hopefully soon. Um there's some other projects over there including um boiler updating and AC unit updating that they'll be working on. And last but not least, um our facilities group has been dealing with um some storm damage issues like the rest of us probably have around the district, but have had that all worked out. >> Thank you. Finance, Miss Woman. >> So, we met this morning. Um we reviewed the revenues, expenses, uh the check checking account. Um all questions were answered. Um but at this point um our revenues are at 1% 1% of what we're expected for revenues for the year and our expenses are at 5%. Now this is not unusual but it really highlights um why we have a general fund that is at
042the level it is because at this point for this month we've sent out more money than we're bringing in. So, this is one of the times of the year um that you know our account goes down and it's important that we have funds in there. That's all. Everything else has been covered. >> Thank you. Uh who wants to leave policies? >> I don't know if we have too much to add. >> Yeah, we approved the policies tonight. There's some others that we're working on that don't need to necessarily be approved now. continue to come >> on techn >> I was just going to say the only thing that's really taking a lot of time is the superintendence evaluation that we're redoing and that's part of a policy that's taking a considerable amount of time but
043we're we're putting a lot of work into it outside of the meeting. So >> good. Thank you for the update on that. uh technology. Is there anyone from admin that can speak to it for the group or is the weekly update sufficiently good there that we receive? >> I don't think there's anything significant. They just talked about the summer and >> updates with >> Yeah, I think what he's sending you is sufficient. >> M AI focus group. They're working on putting that together when the school year starts again. That'd be the only other piece. >> All right. Thank you. And we're going to discuss our upcoming board meetings, all the other committee meetings. Is there a motion for adjournment? >> So moved. >> Motion by Miss Kudson. Is there a second? >> Second by Jenowski.
044All in favor say I. I. >> I. Meaning journed.