001The Monday, May 18th, 2026 Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education's regular meeting is called to order at 5.30 p.m. Tonight we are meeting at the district office. As a reminder, all public comments during regular school board meetings must be related to an information or action item on that night's agenda. If you'd like to speak on an agenda item, please complete the public comment sign-up form with the district office coordinator. You will be invited to come forward at the appropriate time. To ensure meetings remain orderly and productive, the board may end comments that fall outside our established policies and public comment guidelines. We do hold public listening sessions prior to all regular board meetings for topics not listed on that night's agenda. Additional information about public comment and public listening sessions is available on our
002district's website. This meeting is being recorded, and access to the recording will be made available on the school district's website as quickly as possible. Our school district's mission is to inspire, innovate, excel, a community commitment. Board Clerk Shana Dukes, will you please take roll call? Yeah. Member Pearson? Here. Member Klingner? Here. Member Warwick? Here. Member Dukes is here. Member Larson? Here. Member Neumillia? Here. Member Lansbury? Here. We're all here. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to 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. Do I have a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda items? Motion by Member Larson. Second. Member Nehemiah. All right. Motion by Member Larson. Second by
003Member Nehemiah. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. We have a very full boardroom tonight, and we would like to invite Activities Director Will Short to highlight our winter and spring activities. Good evening. a lot going on tonight, as we always do in the spring, and we do have a middle school choir concert, and we have some kids who need to go to that, and so, you know, whenever I come and I want to talk about activities at Simley High School, and also include IJH Middle School, you know, it's a huge motivation for kids to be a part of something here at Simley, and they develop lifelong friendships and memories that will last a lifetime in a lot of the activities that they do, and one of them has been most
004recently the Mean Girls. production that just happened and I have five of the participants here and they're going to come up and speak first because some of them have to leave. So all five mean girls, come on up. Come on up here. All of these weren't the mean girls. There were other mean girls in the play. But go ahead, introduce yourselves ladies and tell them a little bit about your experience. Who wants to start? Can you introduce yourselves first? I guess I can start. Hi, my name is Flora and I played Kevin G. My name is Kaylee and I was ensemble. My name is Giada I was ensemble. My name is Lou and I was ensemble. My name is Sophia and I was ensemble. I think Mean Girls was a wonderful experience for us all
005considering like I met all these new people and like I made so many friendships I would not have made if I didn't join theater. Yeah, I I really like theater and I love it because you meet so many different people that come from so many different backgrounds. Oh, I feel like last year it wasn't such a great show but when Nico came, the theater community built more and I feel like more kids were like open and join theater and like not feel weird about it and he made us all feel welcomed and loved. I Really liked this year because I got to meet more high schoolers, which I don't think I have been able to do a whole lot and it kind of just opened my eyes to more age ranges and more serious theater.
006I really enjoyed it because it gave me a chance to stretch out into other activities and kind of see how I can take part in other topics and such on since I've always been more of a homebody, it got me a chance to kind of, again, also meet a bunch of other people. And yeah, Nico, definitely, I feel like from what I've seen, it looked like he kind of turned the whole thing around. I feel like more people had seemed to join. Can I? Last year, it was very... disorganized. There was not a lot of planning. Everything was kind of just last minute. But then when Nico stepped in, he kind of like put more of the planning into it and it wasn't just like spontaneous on the spot planning. He like put time into
007planning it. We had a huge, we sold over 800 tickets for the Mean Girls. That was almost triple what we had done the year before. We tripled the number of students that participated in our spring musical. And so, obviously, I did one thing right. I hired Mr. Nico. And Mr. Nico ran with it. So thank all of you for being a part of Mean Girls. Great job. Good job. I have a couple more students that need to be on the road, and so I'm gonna go a little out of order. I wanna talk a little bit about winter athletics, and I have some people here from the winter sports season, but the girls golfers are on a time constraint here, and so here are the captains of the girls golf team, and I'll let them
008introduce themselves. I'm one of the captains. I'm Emerson Lemkowski. I'm Kennedy Shepard. I'm also a captain. We started our season off with a spring training trip in Arizona, which was super duper fun. We, like our team definitely got closer from that. We definitely improved. We got to see some amazing courses. But overall, this season has just kind of been about improving week over week, just looking at the small things, figuring out what we can do better, what we can improve on just overall so we can improve as a team. We had our all-conference champ today, and we took fourth as a team, beating South St. Paul and Hastings, some of our rivals. Emerson got all-conference, so that was good. But yeah, we've just been working on improving our scores, working on the small things like
009short game, whatever, just making sure that we're doing our best to put forward a good team score. We look forward to sections next week. Good luck. Good job, ladies. Thank you. So I'm going to speak a little bit about our winter season. I'm just going to give a quick couple highlights about each of the sports. Now, obviously, we didn't get to do a winter highlights. That was my fault. Well, technically, my daughter-in-law, she had a baby, and I had to be there. So I was my granddaughter number four, and so I was not able to be at the board meeting that was scheduled. But we did have a really great winter season. We had a really interesting gymnastics year. and I just wanted to kind of just do a quick highlight for Coach Pearson. She
010came in and replaced kind of a legend in the sport of gymnastics, Miss Walsh. She's been doing it for 40 years. We were really worried about are we going to even have a gymnastics team? We graduated four fantastic seniors that were all in the state tournament, and we were this really great team, and we didn't know when we'd come back. We ended up having 21 girls come out for gymnastics, which was 10 more than we had the year before with Miss Walsh. And Ms. Pearson went out and recruited girls and was in the hallways. She's obviously an educator here in the building, and it's always about who we hire. And if we get good coaches, we have great experiences for our kids. And so I wanted to say that Jill has been a great addition
011to our coaching staff. And we did not have the success we had the year before. Obviously, we lost a lot of really great seniors. But the girls had a fantastic experience, and we grew our program. And that's part of what we do here. And we want to give kids opportunities to be a part of something. As you hear when you see the Mean Girls or if it's gymnastics or whatever sport it is, we're trying to give them the best experience we can and let them be a part of something. Our girls basketball team improved. In a couple ways, we had a couple more wins, and we improved from two teams to three teams. We were fielding a full three teams this year under Coach Zizer, and he's done a good job of trying to get
012more girls to come out for girls' basketball. And so that's an improvement. We improved a little bit with our record, and we also had a better experience across the board with our girls' and girls' basketball. We still got some improving to do in our skill set, and Coach Zizer's got a good plan for the summer to work on our ball handling. which is what we need to really work on our dribbling. So we're going to work on that for the summer. Our boys hockey team finished with nine wins. And this was, of all of our high school sports, I think is the one that I think has the most potential down the road here of making a huge improvement because we started so many ninth and tenth graders in boys hockey. And we played most
013of the season with a lot of young. young men playing boys hockey and it's tough when you're 15 playing an 18 year old. We were competitive, we stayed in games, we skated hard. Coach Horsch is in his second year and he's doing a really good job and we feel like we've got a future bright for boys hockey. Our girls hockey team went 11 and 14. We had a superstar season from Ella Sanders. She's our senior outstanding player. She broke our record. She had 167 points, 104 goals, 63 of 6, and 6 hat tricks in her career. She was an outstanding girls hockey player, and she's also going to be receiving some awards on Friday at the Activities Awards ceremony that's happening during the school day. They went to the second semifinals, lost to Albert Lee
014and had a good year. And the girls had a great experience under Coach Kurowski. Our boys basketball team under Coach Brazil had another, well, they doubled their wins. They went from six wins to 11, not quite doubled, but they were right there. They also turned around and got two wins against South St. Paul. That's the first time we've won a game against South St. Paul in basketball in about seven years. That's a school that's our neighbor. It's a bordering town, and they've always been obviously one of our rivals, but also been a high-quality state tournament basketball team in the past few years. We played some really nice games. We went into sections as the fourth seed. We lost to Minneapolis South in a very competitive game in which if we could have made some free
015throws down the road, that game could have been totally different. Of course, South went to the state tournament and we did not. And again, we've got a really, really good core of young basketball players coming through Simley High School. We're going to have some good boys basketball teams coming and we're really excited. The next group, I do have some students here. I have the captains of the dance team. They're here, and they're here to tell you a little bit about their state tournament run team. Come on up, ladies. My name's Aubrey. I'm a captain for the next season. My name's Noelle, and I was a captain for this season and the following. My name's Morgan, and I'm a captain for this coming season. This season, we got second place at sections in kick and third
016in jazz, which was like a major improvement. following the past years? Yeah, the past year we only got third in jazz and didn't advance in kick. We were in like fifth and going back to the state tournament for kick after five years of not going was a very fun experience getting to spend a whole weekend at the Target Center. Yeah, this year we advanced in both to the state tournament and had a really fun time and I feel like as a team we improved a lot. Also, we had a really successful conference season. We'd been averaging last year like third or fourth, and this year we took home second in both kick and jazz at the conference tournament. And I feel like we all, we had a bunch of new members, me and Morgan, ourselves,
017and we all grew together so well as a team with like putting in extra work every single day with long four-hour practices and also lots of team bonding events too. just all came together and had a great season. Oh, congratulations. I have one more set of young men here from the winter season and one of them is a captain of the wrestling team that won the state championship and one of them is a senior leader from that team. Jake, how's it? Vicente Alistando. Hi, my name is Vicente. I wrestled 215 for a sibling. I just want to start off by saying that naming off some stats, I guess. We were conference champions, section champions, and obviously state champions. I think this year it meant a little more to us than any other year, kind of.
018As you all know, we've won state quite a couple times. But we didn't win last year. We got fourth place last year. So we kind of had an itch to come back and win it back. I think if you would have asked Most of us halfway through a season or a little less than halfway Or the coaches even if we would win the state tournament. I think they probably would have said I don't know I mean we weren't really that dialed in we were letting we were we had a high ranking but we were letting that ranking speak instead of Really showing up and and wrestling how we should but we really we stepped up near the end and and we put in the work and you know, a bit off. I'm Jake. I'm a
019junior. Kind of going off of what Jacinte said, I think one of the best things for assembly wrestling, besides the success that, you know, Coach Short pushes for us to succeed, is, you know, kind of the bond that I think wrestling drives a little deeper than other sports do. Because even though it is like an individual sport, you do come together as a team, and you put the work in together, I think, harder than any sport out there. And it kind of shows you through the year of having so many young guys, older guys, different types of people, even all statisticians. Get in a group of kind of you know odd dudes. You know just be able to body I'll share that with the stats No, we really came together on at the state tournament
020I'd say but the closest thing you could as like a family could get from a team standpoint That's one of my favorite things about lessons that knowing that you know a year and a half from now and we graduate I have a lot of brothers from this team. That's one thing that wrestling does that I I enjoy in love The girls lacrosse team is playing tonight. They're at Park College Grove and so I couldn't pull the captains from that game. So they are not here tonight. They are five and six right now. We are under a whole new coaching staff and it's our third coaching staff in four years and when you have turnover there's always been some bumps in the road and I have a very young coach who's just learning how to coach.
021It's one of the things that I think that as educators we overlook. in the business of education is that when we get these outstanding coaches, which we have here at Simley, we've got to hang on to them because it is a profession that is very difficult to be good at. It is one of those things that when you have a coach who is a professional educator, who somebody really knows how to build relationships with kids, build a winning culture, build those memories for students, and yet find a way to win games and have success, we've got to keep those people around. And so going through our third coach in four years isn't helping our process in girls lacrosse, but the girls are battling and they're doing a good job and they continue to try and
022improve each week and we're hopeful that they can finish strong here. Our boys lacrosse team is struggling. and we're working hard to do the best we can. Luke Johnson has done a great job for Simley High School. He is great with our young people. We're struggling with our youth program and our feeder program, and those are things we're trying to address so that we can have kids who come up with some more lacrosse skills. We are one of the smaller schools with a boys lacrosse team, public school with a lacrosse team. There's 80 lacrosse schools. There's only one class in boys lacrosse. And we are one of the bottom five when it comes to high schools that are offering lacrosse on their own. So we're going to continue to work on improving and giving the
023kids a good experience. Our boys do have good experiences, but we do have some injuries right now, and we maybe have some students who are maybe in positions they shouldn't be just because of a necessity. And when it comes to a contact sport like cross we got to keep working on that so we got to keep growing in that and that's something that as the ad I have to keep trying to Manage and make sure that we're putting kids in a successful situation. And so we're going to continue to look at that Next I have for you today The boys golf captains are going to come up and talk since Ron a little bit of golf still Hello, I'm Charlie. I'm a senior golf captain. I'm a senior golf captain as well. I put a
024two seed. Yeah, just like the girls. We also went on a golf trip to Arizona this year and it's just a great time not only for improving scores for preseason, but also improving relationships between the team because we have a very young team and Obviously some of the kids can get scared taking that we're seniors and it's just good to get to know them and everything. Yeah, the Arizona trip was great. We got the girls out this year for the first time, so it's nice having them out there. And then we got probably double the kids this year. Since last year we have, I think, 40-plus kids in our program now. So very bright future, a lot of younger kids. Thank you. The golf program's popularity has really taken a toll on some of our
025other sports, as a matter of fact. 42 boys golfers is not helping our lacrosse team for sure. But obviously students choose what they like to do, and golf is a great sport, and it's been a lot of fun to see the improvement of that program. Next I have the captains of the Boys and Girls Track Team. Hi, my name is Anya Benedict and I am a girls track and field sprints captain and we've had over 207 PRs this season and with a growing program and the boys were true team section runner ups and we had last week a fifth grade track meet here at the school and the weather was just wonderful for that so I was so excited for the kids. And we have lost a few coaches this year, but with the ones
026that we do have, they are working their hardest and putting their best foot forward for us. And you can see us Tuesday and Thursday at Two Rivers for conference. Hi, I'm Lee Ban. I'm a junior. And, yeah, same thing. Boys finish second at True Team. Boys had the best shot ever in school history to win True Team. But it's sad that we came up short, of course. But we're working hard. We got a lot of young guys, and I feel like when we're together and we have fun, it just motivates us to perform better, run better, and have a good time at the same time. Thank you. Now I have some of the leaders from the baseball team come on up. Hello, I'm Tommy Lonsberry. And I'm Brendan Kester. So this is my, I'm fortunate
027enough to play fifth year on varsity. So I played on a lot of teams, a lot of different players. So it's interesting to be a senior and to have the young guys because we went to state last year and that was super cool. We had a lot of seniors, but they're gone now. And so it takes... couple guys to step up and to mentor those young guys. So I'm super fortunate from my end to be able to be in that leadership role because it's super fun to play with those guys and we got sections coming up and so it'd be super fun to... keep growing our relationship and enjoy the sport of baseball. So that's definitely a big takeaway of our season because we've definitely had games where we've come together and it's super cool
028to witness that and also make an impact myself. That's what I would say for me. Yeah, kind of what BK was saying. We lost a lot of seniors last year and kind of the beginning of the year was tough. kind of finding that new voice because we kind of last year when adversity hit we kind of just fell back on the seven seniors we had and now you know the start of this year was kind of tough and we had some tough close losses and then some games that we were just right there we couldn't get the big hit or had one inning that kind of the bottom fell out and throughout the later half of the year we really started to turn a corner and kind of that turning point I think me and
029Brendan both agree was Played Matamita, who has a Division I commit. Throws 93 miles an hour. Hits bombs. He's really good. He hit a homer off of us. He pitched against us the first time. And so then the second time, we faced him again. We didn't get a hit off of him the first time. Second time, we got three hits, I think. Three hits off of him. Yeah. Strumming some hits together. Got some base runners. We didn't win, but it was a good improvement. And we've had some, like Brendan said, the young guys have really stepped up this year. Ninth grader Ernie Fitzgerald has been a huge force. And then eighth grader Wyatt Gutzman just threw a no-hitter on Saturday, which is, you know, not bad. So it's been fun. Like Brendan said, we're starting
030to peak again. Like late last year, we're starting to peak again. And hopefully we can take this momentum into sections and hopefully go back to back. Good luck. Thank you. Can't say enough of how much I think of Coach Heiderscheidt and the job that he's done with our baseball program. We were struggling for so long to get some stability in that program, and when Johnny came in, it's just been a complete turnaround. The whole program is solid top to bottom, and that's what builds not only successful wins and losses as a program, but develops that culture, that culture that grows. It's essential to the educational experiences, that culture. And kids develop resiliency and belonging and school community, all those things that come from activities. But it is fun to win. It is fun to win.
031And you've got to have goals to win. And the last two ladies I'm going to bring up win a lot in everything they do. Come on up, ladies. I'm just going to say a couple things about one of them just because I know her pretty well. This is Charlie Raymond, and if you haven't heard of her, you should. She is also a wrestler, and so she is a five-time state champion. And that is something, of course. But also, she has never lost a high school wrestling match. And she has one more year to go to complete it all. So we're not putting any pressure on her. But also, these two young ladies have been a part of the softball team that keeps winning section titles and going to the state tournament. And they are ranked
032seeded number one for sections right here. I'll let them tell you a little bit about their softball experience. I'm Emmy Webinger and that's Charlie Raymond. We're two of the three softball captains along with Amelia Campbell. Our season is going very well this year. We finished our regular season record with a 14-8 record. We have some upperclassmen leading this group, but we also have a pretty young team with five out of our nine starters being in middle school. Yeah, we have our first section game on Wednesday here. It's at 430 We received the first round by because we were the one seed So we play here on Wednesday should be a really good game should be fun And we're looking to win the section for the third year in a row and make it back to
033state and have a good run How to say title? That's what do you play on Wednesday? Minneapolis Roosevelt, okay. Yep Thank you. Thank you I'll just close tonight saying that it's always a privilege to be a part of Simley High School. I don't take it for granted. I love this school and this community. It's always fun. Right. On to more fun stuff. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda items? Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Warwick. All right. Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Warwick. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. We've got our donations up, and we're so grateful for those in the community who support our schools and our students. It does make a difference. Look at that, two auto Volkswagen
034and Ford helping with the community theater. Awesome. All right, moving on to information items. We'll begin with Superintendent Bernardson and Director of Business Services, Heather Ani, to lead an operating levy referendum discussion. Thank you. Yes, Heather will take the brunt of this, but we really want to update you on our referendum that was passed in 2017 and this referendum is one which the board can opt to renew for 10 years. So Heather's going to walk through a little bit about the referendum and the timeline associated with you pursuing a renewal as well. All right, this first slide is actually a graphic that we had gotten from Ehlers, our municipal advisor, and so there's some general information and some that's specific to ISD-199. So general information, the payable 2026 fiscal year 26-27 cap for the state
035on operating referendums is $2,340.76 per pupil. And operating referendums allow districts to generate additional general education revenue. Sometimes it's a combination of local property tax and state aid, but in our case we don't qualify for that state aid, so it does all come from local taxpayers. And the maximum length is 10 years and can be renewed once, as Dave stated. Taxes are spread based on referendum market value of the homes. And the revenue, this is flexible, can be used on any operating or capital expenditure. So for us specifically, the operating referendum authority number one is, because we have two of them, the first one, which is the one that we could renew, has the authority approved in November 2017 and generates about $2.8 million for us. It is adjusted to inflation and a 10-year term.
036And the last year of revenue is 2027-28. So our renewal options would be for the school board to renew between July 1st, 2025 and June 15th, 2027. So a little over a year from now. And voter renewal would be either November 2026 or 2027. But as you can see, as far as districts in the state and the those that are asking voters versus those that did board renewed the only Let's see here six that asked voters were either revoking and replacing or asking for additional authority So they are you know basically the revoke and replace is saying let's say for instance We have 500 out there per pupil. We'd like to take that away and do seven instead Where additional authority is to say we have 500 we're gonna ask for 200 more all of
037those that continued with the same amount did a board board and renewal. So our timeline for this renewal would be that we spoke about this at board meetings and work sessions in April and May, so April 13th and May 11th, and now today a presentation of the operating referendum number one in discussion. And then on June 22nd, we would allow for public comment, and the board would be able to vote on renewing operating levy number one by resolution at the regular board meeting. So just a bit. So we just wanted to give you this, again, overview because as you've seen, we've talked about this two different times before as well, but to lay out the timeline. And our thought process, again, would be to bring this back at our next regular meeting, which is June
03822nd. And a part of that is, again, allowing that public comment, which is a part of our regular meeting as well. We'll make sure people are well aware of that. But then at that time, the board is able to renew that for 10 years. And we think the timing is right right now. because it actually is in the midst of that renewal time window. And we just think that it gives a better opportunity for us on the budgeting end as well to make sure we know where things are at moving forward into the future as well. So any questions that you may have? I know, as I said, we've shared it a couple of different times at work sessions too. Tracy, can you go back to the first slide? So the top left that is
039is that two thousand three hundred and forty dollars and seventy six cents what we are currently No, no, so that I think that's important. Also this will let me we are actually at Seven sixty seven sixty four. Yeah, right So that's just the max. That's the max. And so for those listening, we've got the 2017 operating levy and then the 24. And so combined, they can't exceed this amount. But we also are not close to exceeding this third reaching this amount. Exactly. And that was just kind of displayed as one of those general information items, I guess, for operating referendums in general that others adds to their slides. Yeah. Out of the line for the taxpayers, though, I think it was brought up in one of our work sessions, it was like $70 for the
040year. I think that was the capital project. Yeah. This would have no increase. Moving forward, but there is a initial amount that was put out and I can't remember what that is off the top of my head. It was so many years ago. So the only increase would be that adjustment to inflation that would happen. Sorry, I was thinking that was brought up, that number. We'll have that information though at the June 22nd meeting. Because that's what they want to know. The taxpayers want to know what it is. What it's costing them. And nothing will increase but what they've been. Right. It will stay status quo. I'm still going to pay it. Thank you. Heather, to ask an overly simplistic question of what is very complicated, you are always looking for opportunities to refi, right?
041Okay. Can you say that the right way? And we just recently did, so there's probably not an opportunity. Rates aren't great right now anyway, I'm assuming so. But we're pretty locked in on a nice low. rate, right? Yes, we have a lot of low rates with our bonds and we're always looking to refund and Ehlers is, you know, periodically, I would say quarterly even, they review all of our investments and all of our bonds and look for savings opportunities and actually over the last year and a half, two years, they're just as interest rates have gone up, those opportunities haven't been there. Less than once. Yeah. Before that time we did do the refinancing which has really helped. Yeah, it really helped a lot. You specifically and Ellers then I'll give it to you and
042Dave too and like to help minimize the tax impact for taxpayers I appreciate you constantly looking to do that. Yeah, and we can bring back those numbers as what it's been over the past decade but don't have them here. Thank you. Any other discussion? Tracy I assume nobody has. It'd be really neat if a student had had a question on that. All right, Superintendent Bernardson will now share several policies for a first reading for review. Yeah, and these policies were reviewed by our committee in February and April, and these policies have minimal changes and significant changes, and they'll have their second reading on that June 22nd meeting, as mentioned earlier. So the minimal changes are to 410, family medical leave, 417, chemical use and abuse, 419, tobacco-free environment, possession and use of tobacco, tobacco-related devices,
043and electronic delivery devices. and prevention instruction, probably one of the longer policy names that we have. Then we have significant changes to 426, employment supervision of relatives. And these changes are due to the application to board members and administration that are being added to that as well. So those pieces have made significant changes to that policy. And we also have 429, teacher transfer process. And this is just changing a short policy and making it a little longer, realistically. Okay, thank you. Any discussion? Thank you. Thank you to our policy committee and Tracy for keeping us current. All right, moving on to committee reports. The Facilities Committee has not met this month. Liz, would you update us on finance? Sure. The Finance Committee met on May 11th, and the agenda included a review of cash disbursements
044and fiscal year-to-date comparison reports. Thank you. Shana, will you update us on the Personnel Committee? Yes. The Personnel Committee has not met this month. Thank you and Darcy policy. Yeah, the policy committee met prior to tonight's meeting to review several policies in the current cycle policy Great Dave, will you please update us on? AMSD yes a MSD met on May 1st and their agenda included their routine business and guest speakers who presented on the permanent school fund task force Which will be a constitutional amendment on the November ballot That was just passed by the legislature Saturday. What does that mean permanent school? What that means in short is is that there's a permanent school fund that's based on some land and The way that those funds have been allocated has basically been the same since
045it started and they're going to up the constitutional amendment is to update that and basically modernize what we would receive as a school district and if I remember right it's about two and a half percent right now and go up to about four percent so four and a half percent so we would actually get a little bit more income from that fund for every school district every public school district okay so it's really modernizing the procedure sure but it does take a constitutional amendment to pass that And it does take a yes vote. Yes. Any non-vote is considered a no vote. On this one. But this would be no money for taxpayers. No, none. It would be free money. It would be an interesting explanation to this constitutional matter. All right. Shana, will you update
046us on the BEST Foundation? Yes, the BEST Foundation met on May 17th. The official announcement of the scholarship awards is scheduled for May 27th. Wonderful. Liz, MSBA? The MSBA website shows registration is open for the third annual Minnesota Thought Leaders AI Summit in June. If you are interested in attending, reach out to Tracy. Yes, I'm interested. All right. And Dave, an update on Intermediate School District 917. Sure. They met on May 5th with routine business and approval of several district policies. They discussed their preliminary budget for next year and a resolution related to licensed staff and interpreters. Okay. Thank you Moving on to our action items director of business services Heather on you will introduce the recommendation to approve the 2526 budget adjustments Okay, thank you So for the 2526 budget adjustments, we're just going
047to be adjusting the general fund both food service and community ed and the directors that oversee those budgets felt like they were in a good place to Continue with the adopted budget So I'll show you all the big numbers at first, but really it's just that first three lines that we'll be discussing today. So the revenues will be adjusted to be $61,026,067 and expenditures $61,405,597. And then if you want to go to the next slide, thank you. So what's included in the adjustments is staffing changes throughout the school year, settled labor agreements, updated pupil counts, updated revenue based on the 24-25 expenses because some of our revenue that's generated is based on those final numbers, which we didn't have when the budget was adopted. And then MTSS grant that was received and a security grant
048that was received. So prior to, or the adopted budget had a projected deficit of $589,000 and this revised projected deficit spending would be $379,000. So, and then there's, I won't read the numbers over to you again with the $61 million, but as you can see, it results in $379,530. And then just a refresher of the adopted budget deficit and how we were going to cover that. We were at that $589,000, and we were going to use various restricted and assigned fund balances to cover that balance. With the revised budget deficit, we just have to use less of those and keep a little bit more of our restricted dollars for when we need them, and we will use them definitely. So that actually concludes. It's pretty straightforward since it's just the general fund. But tonight, I
049would like to ask the board to approve the 2526 revised budget. Great. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2025-2026 budget adjustments? Second by Member Dukes. Second by Member Lounsbury. All right, any discussion? It's nice when it looks like this. So, thank you. All right. Any other comments? All in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. Thank you. Now we'd like to invite Director of Human Resources, Emily Herman, to introduce the recommendation to approve a resolution proposing placement of a continuing contract assistant administrator on an unrequested leave of absence. Thank you members of the board superintendent today. We are bringing forward two separate resolutions because per statute we have to have two individual resolutions for each individual that's impacted So per statute even though it refers to teacher in the statute that
050does also apply to the principal's contract So while we are able to move forward with our contractual Notification of their their layoff. We do still need to meet the the statute Requirements as well and go through the process of the unrequested leave of absence we're presenting here tonight for both Casey and Miles. All right. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the unrequested leave of absence resolution? Second by Member Warren. All right. Any discussion? As I recall, this has to be a roll call vote and it's done individually, so do we need to do it by person? Correct. So the first one would be for? Miles Webb. Miles Webb. Okay. Any discussion? And this was discussed as part of the right sizing of the budget for the next year was reducing the
051administrative level and adding a teacher on special assignment. Sure. If you may recall from our budget adjustment sheet, we had a reduction in administration and then an add back, which was teacher on special assignment. And that is a budget savings. And also then it. aligns with our system where we have student success coaches at all of our schools whereas now we do not so there is not only a budget adjustment but also an opportunity at the same time all right thank you member board aye member nimio aye member larson aye member klingner aye member lonsbury aye member dukes aye number pierce aye the motion is carried seven to zero Now for the second. For the second one, we're bringing forward for Casey, and I apologize, I can't pronounce her last name. DeVerber. Thank you very
052much. Same thing. Member Nimioya? Aye. Member Larson? Aye. Member Klingner? Aye. Member Lonsberry? Aye. Member Duke? Aye. Member Pearson? Aye. Member Ward? Aye. The motion is carried 7-0. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to second reading for review of policies. Superintendent Bernardson will introduce the recommendation to approve several policies for a second reading for review. Thank you. I just want to let you know we will have two different batches that we'll all take under the same action item. So the first group is a group of policies that were reviewed by the committee in November and February, and these policies were presented for their first reading on March 9th. So there would be no changes to 402s, disability non-discrimination. 412, expense reimbursement. Then we have minimal changes to 401, equal employment opportunity. 403, discipline
053suspension and dismissal of school district employees. And then 413, harassment and violence. Then we also have significant changes to 712, recording surveillance systems other than on buses. Significant change on that one is the title of the recording devices got changed throughout. So it looks like a lot of significant changes, but it just modernized our policy on that. It was outdated language. Okay, thank you. Tracy. And then our next set that goes within this group, so our second screen. And again, these were reviewed by our policy committee in February. And these policies had no changes in minimal. And they were also presented to you as a first reading on April 27th. And there are no changes to 421, gifts to employees and school board members, 422, employee recognition, and 423, employment student relationships. And then minimal
054changes to 415 mandated reporting of maltreatment of vulnerable adults and 427 workload limits for certain special education teachers. So these policies are action items this evening. We'd like to ask the board to approve these changes. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the policies presented? Motion by Member Warwick. Second by Member Nimoy. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. All right, I'd like to invite Director of Special Services, Abel Ariyadiki, to introduce the recommendation to approve a revised language access plan. Thank you. In accordance with Minnesota statute, the school district must adopt a language access plan that specifies the district's process and procedures. to render effective language assistance to students and adults who communicate in a language other than English or require additional assistance
055due to a disability. Our current language access plan has been updated to ensure families receive timely communication in their preferred language. Updates to language access plan include key terminology, identification of parent language, process for determining English learner services eligibility, dissemination of language access services for families and staff interpretation and translation services that are available to families and staff process for requesting interpreter and translation services and staff roles and responsibilities the board must review this plan every two years and update the plan as appropriate so tonight the recommendation is for the board to approve the revised language access plan presented All right. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the revised language access plan? Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Dukes. All right. Any discussion? Just as a question, Abel, how many
056languages do we have spoken in our buildings? Oh, we have about 30. 30 different languages represented in the district. Big plan. That's a lot. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. All right. I will introduce the recommendation to approve the school board self-appraisal process. This was an agenda item at our Monday, May 11th work session, and we review seven... Seven areas. Board members work together as a team, communicate effectively with each other, and treat each other with respect and dignity. Number two, the board communicates effectively with the public. Three, the decision-making process is effective. Four, the board is maintaining its legal role, for example, policymaking body. Five, as individuals, board members understand their role, act accordingly, and conduct themselves in a manner conducive to board productivity with regards to
057attendance, preparation, participation. Six, the board agenda is structured for action-oriented meetings. And finally, seven, agenda background materials are received, relevant, and reviewed in a timely manner. So we will all go through this self-appraisal, and four strongly agree, three agree, two disagree, and one strongly disagree. And we do ask that if you... appraise us at a two or lower that you do provide a comment. We are not collecting emails. So it is completely anonymous this time around. And I just ask that we each answer as as fully as we can. Excuse me. And we will use this information to also help inform our review topics and then future board professional development opportunities. So the timeline we discussed it at me on May 11th It is a the process is the action item for tonight. We will
058complete the self appraisal for Tracy's help prior to the June 8th work session and then a Summary of results will be compiled and we will have a closed session after The work session to review the summary of the self appraisal And then on June 22nd, it will be presented as an information item at the regular board meeting. Any discussion? Or sorry, do I have a motion and a second to approve the school board self-appraisal process? Motion by Member Warwick. Second by Member Larson. Any discussion? It's a comment. I think it's just a very good reflection tool. Absolutely. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. The motion is carried. All right, we will end tonight with Superintendent and School Board comments, beginning with Superintendent Bernardson. Thank you. As you saw this evening, we have a lot
059of students that are involved in things outside of the school day. Our middle school is on a six-period day, and our high school is on a seven-period day. And I often refer to activities at the middle school as being the seventh hour and at the high school being the eighth hour because we have a significant number of kids that find a way to participate. And one of the beautiful aspects of our schools is they can. Sometimes if you get into larger high schools, it's not easy for kids to participate and do all the things that they'd like to choose or try to do. And you even heard Mr. Short talk about how there are kids that are trying high school activities for the first time and they're finding success with that. And that's something that
060we should be quite proud of because the school opportunity does reach outside of the school day. But for a lot of our students, that is the part where they really shine and they form those relationships that last. far beyond their high school years. So thanks again to our student athletes for coming this evening. And I think as you also experienced, thanks to Mr. Short for his passion for Simley High School and our school district. This is a very, I guess I'd call it a hyper-busy time of the year. It's always busy, but you just heard from the kids all the different things that they have going on. and we just have to remind ourselves that in just a few short weeks we'll have graduation on June 3rd and we have about 260 students graduating from
061Sinley High School. The last day for all of our students is June 4th. Encourage people to really take a look also at their school for summer options for a variety of different things that their students can participate in during the summer. And then also really want to thank our kids. our staff and our families and our community for their support during the course of the school year. As we reflect back on the school year, we look at things as being typical, but this school year had, just like any other school year, a lot of different unique aspects that happened during the course of the year. But we all reacted to those things in the best way we could and set people up for success. But also along with the community, just want to remind them
062that after June 4th, our kids will be active in different ways. So be aware of that. because they won't be in school, they'll be in other aspects, and they'll be around the community even more than ever. And we had that same conversation as you meet with our police department just about being diligent and knowing that traffic will be different, all kinds of different things will be different, but support our kids the best way that you can. And then, of course, our work continues during the course of the summer. We'll come back at our June meeting with our conversation about the operating levy. We also have a community survey that's going to be taking place starting, Katie, on Thursday, right? Tomorrow, May 20th, and we'll be doing a stratified random sample survey. We'll be working to
063get perspective from 400 community members that fit the demographics of our district so we can bring that information back to you. And that information will be, one, about capital projects and the renewal of that, which also has no cost, but also just their perceptions of the school district all the way around. We think that's a very timely piece to do at this time as well. And along with that, I wanna thank all of you because you've been working extra hard behind the scenes as well. And our appreciation goes to you for all the hard work that you put into making sure that we're doing the best we can for ISD 189, which again is our students, our staff, our families and our community as a whole. So thank you. Thank you. Member Larson. Yeah, the
064last few weeks have a lot of facets of life. I'm like, how are we here already? We're rounding on June and things wrapping up. Always, of course, enjoy the student athletes and activity participants. I really liked hearing tonight about all the young up-and-coming, the middle schoolers that are involved in the JV and varsity, ULC squad level sports. I know basketball was mentioned. Softball is another one that fielded a third team. I mean, in a few years, I don't know how many, but in three years we've been involved, there hasn't been a third one. And that those, I mean, I think most of the students that spoke tonight were juniors and seniors, and they recognized those middle schoolers even as participants. And I think the next three to five years of assembly athletics have a bright
065future. So I'm looking forward to seeing all that. Don't think I have a whole lot else tonight other than just still trying to grasp with the date Thank You number cleaner thank you to mr. short and to the students that came and spoke with us I'm always impressed and just love hearing from students and probably call it every time but there wasn't a one of them that used notes to talk to us tonight they just came and spoke to us and I think that that's wonderful because that's all we want and they did a wonderful job and then I guess just the theme of inclusivity I think back to when maybe I was in high school and maybe you mr. shorts position was called an athletic director I'm not exactly sure but I think the
066title of activities director really shows how important all the activities are not just sports all those sports are important to a lot of kids and I liked his message about the coaching coaches to be that quality adult that helps connect with kids in a different way that's not just the classroom and it might get to the win it might not but it's also building their capacity and their enjoyment in outside of school so thank you to him and to those students member pearson It's always fascinating to me when the students show up from the activities and athletics to listen for a theme. And I know that they practice amongst themselves, like the golf captains talk about what they're going to talk about and the softball captains talk about it. But they do not talk amongst
067each other. And yet every single time a theme emerges. And for me tonight, what I heard is it is very interesting to hear how people. frame up the contributions of others when they're talking about their own accomplishments. And over and over and over again, they were mentioning other people on their team, other stats from other players, and other accomplishments. And it was just... Heartwarming for me to know that that already exists. This week I had a chance to go to the end-of-the-year band banquet, and our outgoing band director, Michaela Pash, shared a reflection with the band families and the musicians, and she said, if you want to be in a place where you are surrounded by a village of people, you have to be a villager. And that was so powerful for those of us
068listening at that moment, but also I was reminded of it just listening to these folks talk, right, because they were acting as a village and speaking upon their other teammates and their other activity participants. And so that was just cool to know that that exists in the next generation because it is not all that common all the time. Thank you. Member Nehemiah. I think wonderful shout outs by my three colleagues already on the activities for spring and winter. I just want to add to the gymnastics coach and kudos. They've never gone really to see gymnastics before. And the welcoming of new students, including students. Just it might have been a rough year and just you're still gonna get a shot and to do it I mean that is so great and that's that's true in
069every sport But I got to see it with this new coach and I was so impressed and then I really appreciated our activities director did get a little emotional in the end and I love that because they every kid here was so happy and so dedicated and and staff is so Care so much about all of our kids And it's just so wonderful. And then if you are bored and you would like to talk about the public school fund trust, I would love to talk to you about it. So please. But really, I'd love to talk to anyone about it and spread the word about it. It's going to be a neat, neat change potentially. Thank you. Member Dukes. Yeah, same as many people said. At my job, we have this thing that we talk
070to students about. We say you always say positive us, not negative you. And I think that was, it came up in my head, especially. When he was talking about the other softball player, that was a baseball player, that was so good and had all the stats. And it wasn't like, yeah, he got all the stats and look at that. It was like, no, he's good. He's really good. But we're good, too. And I thought that was so fun. And it's like we're proud of ourselves and we hold ourselves up, but yet there's still room to hold up other students and how well they do. So I thought that that was really fun. And then it's graduation season. It's my favorite time. I say this every year, but, you know, as a person who graduated college
071in a time of COVID, when I thought, you know, I was going to go back to my work-study office for one last time and never went back again. I just say to seniors, you know, enjoy the last couple weeks that you have. Do that thing that you love doing. You know, high-five that. That staff member who was important to you. And I say the same thing to staff members. You know, these they're they're your kids. You know, I spend my summer with students. And when I just had a student that I taught when I was a teaching fellow back in 2018, she just graduated from college and I cried a lot. And I sent her a message every time I saw a picture of her. I sent her another message because she's so important to
072me and my story and who I am and how I became. invested in these things and I think all teachers have that student and so you know spend extra time with them when they barge into your room during lunch you know spend that extra lunch with them because I think they're just you're just as important to them in their story as they are in yours so you know enjoy yourself and and have a good last last couple weeks over here some of us still remember your excitement putting up Putting on a graduation gown for your first time as a former member. Yeah. How thrilled you were. That was true. I still talk about that. I didn't. I didn't get a, I've not walked into graduation. I didn't get a college one. I didn't get a
073graduate one either. So this last one, I was like, we're going to walk somewhere. But I think it's so important for students and teachers and staff members like that. It's an important relationship, and sometimes it happens so fast, and you don't even realize that it's happened, and you miss them. And so, you know, enjoy the last couple weeks making those last memories together. Yeah, to echo everyone else here tonight, just a thank you to our student athletes and activities participants for giving their time tonight. Very busy time of year, as Dave said. A thank you to Will Short also for organizing the kids and for his passion, too. A huge congratulations to our 2026 graduates, one of many milestones in your life. Whatever you choose to do after graduation, choose kindness. Wonderful. Similar to Darcy,
074I have some themes. Opportunity and belonging. And, you know, would it be amazing to... I mean, it's probably amazing for our wrestlers, right, to have a consistent experience getting, you know, being a state champion. But even in the adversity, they were building relationships with each other. And, you know, obviously I'm partial to baseball. But what I heard from those two young men was, somebody needed to rise up this year. The leaders graduated last year who we and so just that there are opportunities here for for students to grow and leadership and grow and seeing the younger students and encouraging and empowering and I think that also comes like Will said from the top down. I think that's how it really seems that our coaches Treat students to is they're encouraging they're building that relationship for
075creating that opportunity and that belonging so I'm grateful and I just wanted to Preemptively congratulate all of the recipients of the best foundation scholarships next Wednesday And thank you to the best foundation for all of their work in supporting supporting our students so On that note, we will have a closed session following tonight's regular meeting for the purpose of labor negotiations. And then the next work session will be held on June 8th. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, June 22nd here at the district office. Do I have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting and to move into a closed session? So moved. Second. Seconded by member Diggs. All right. All in favor? Aye. Motion is carried at 6.35 p.m.