001Okay, the Monday, May 12th, 2025 Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education's special meeting is called to order at 5.32 p.m. at the district office. Tonight's meeting is considered a special meeting because the April 28th regular meeting had to be postponed due to inclement weather. As a reminder, there's no public comment during special school board meetings. 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 Larson, will you please take roll call. Member Warren? Here. Member Larson? Here. Member Pearson? Here. Member Dukes? Here. Member Klinger? Here. Member Nehemiah? Here. Member Lonsbury? Here. All right, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag
002of 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? Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Warwick. Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Warwick. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. And now we will move to Superintendent Bernardson with tonight's district highlight. We are so excited tonight to have our robotics team here to share some of the things that they have developed and what they've done. Sean, are you going to start or are they going to do it? Gary? You guys going to do it? Yep, they're going to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about our team. It's all yours.
003My name is Gabber Peterson. I'm the lead engineer on the team and we are part of FRC, the FIRST Robotics Competition. Our team number is 2518, which means we were the 2518th team to join and now there are currently over 10,000 teams. I'm Isaiah Saeed and... A total of 13 students on our team, there are a total of 13 students on our team, 8th through 11th grade. This season all but two of them are returning members. Hi, I'm Christian and I am a builder and Reefscape was the underwater game theme with coral being PVC and algae being playground balls. My name is James. I'm the lead wiring technician and drive train engineer. We competed at the Minnesota North Star Regional April 3rd to the 5th, 2025 at the U of M Area G. My name
004is Devin. I was a metals worker. There was 48 teams total from three states at our competition this year. I'm Lorian Stichler. I'm the lead driver and team captain. Our final match record was five wins and five losses. And the thing that we are most proud of is that everything that we designed worked as planned. Yeah, that was not very easy. All right. And the crowd goes crazy. the ball is already on here like I have a deterrent and so you have to get an ouch. Oh you have to ouch? And I don't think you can get it because it can kind of launch around. So you have to get the ball out of the way and then it takes a second. It took to work on this. Lots of hours. So when does the
005game drop every year? It was in the very start of the year. The first Saturday of January is when it was revealed. Yeah, so since then, when was the competition? What was the date of that again? What was the competition? Oh, I don't remember exactly. The beginning of April. The beginning of April, yeah. So between then, that was all the time we had to spend on this. A lot of the work was done at the competition because when you're there, it's so much easier to do everything because you know the game. You get to practice there. You get to practice with the other teams, the other alliances. It's really a good experience. It was really fun. And this is grade 7 through 12? 8 through 12. Are you using a lot of coding for this?
006Yeah. Is Ashani not here today? No. Ashani is our main code person, but she's not here today. And Rovan here is our programming mentor. And I'm Shani's dad. What is your day job then? Engine. Okay. Cool. So did you have to create this part too or was that all part of the... It's just kind of like the theme that you have to work around? Yeah, so they give us very specific rules and instructions and everything. And based on that, this is one of the... elements that we know would be there and we know all the specifications for this exactly so we made it ourselves so we could practice on it. It's not exactly the replica but it's pretty close. So yeah it allowed us to test our program. Who's your favorite alliance? I don't know.
007I don't think we're supposed to pick favorites. I guess probably the best team would be our best alliance. Because you help each other out, right? Sometimes you might borrow things or advice. Yeah, and our enemies are then on our teams later. Has your involvement in this had any impact on what you may look to do after you're done with high school? Yeah, I think so. Do you want to talk about that at all? I mean for me definitely. Yeah, I've always been into mechanical like engineering I think that's what I want to do, but he really hasn't as much and I kind of talked him into joining robotics and how now he's into it too. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Well it was so fun. It had been February. I mean you guys were in the
008process, but board member Pearson and I stopped by and I mean blew my mind. All of the problem solving and you know, I think you said the goal is to fail quickly so that you can learn. Does that sound like something you would say? Fail early. Which I think is great. I mean, that's just life, right? We never do anything well. first time and then just how to work together and then Gord-Mud, Brittany, and Mioya and I got to go to the practice round and so and I think at that point the arm was still in in process or something and so it was really fun tonight to see it in action. That stuck out to me too visiting your team when you all were still practicing and building this that one day after school.
009the amount of collaboration that you all were involved in and just like the problem solving and the things that weren't working. You were jumping from table to table and Mr. Nelson was in another room like welding something and coming back and it was just neat to see the collaboration and the teamwork and I know Mr. Nelson had said, I think you told Carrie and I, the iterations, right? You go through a bunch of iterations and teaching them this model is not what we're going to use. We're going to see another and another and another and back then that thing was tiny, I almost tripped over it, I was backing it up. It was on the floor and I remember it was only this tall. To see the progress that you all made is phenomenal. This
010is great. What will happen to it? Is there an emotional attachment to this? And then what will happen to it? We're hoping to bring it into the Inrugor Pipe Parade next year. And maybe display it at the state fair too. I know Ashani really wants to do that. Does it have a name? Gavrit, what's it called? After a lot of discussion we came up with the name the brain scavenger because of the orange brain to stop the arm. That was his idea to put that brain on there. It stops the arm? It's a heart stop. I like how you have your own roles as well. Was that a requirement too or is that something you came up with? I guess it's just kind of nice to have roles. I don't think it's necessarily required. But
011it's definitely good to have one person focus on one aspect of it because then they can get really good at one part of it and really know what's going on. Because if everybody tries to work on everything at once, you're not a part of this. Yes. I love how excited you guys seem about it and I also loved it for what... It's probably the most tech savvy group of kids in the whole school. You wrote your notes on note cards. You didn't read off your phone. I was like, note cards. But it's exciting to hear you guys be excited. It's so fun after school to walk through and you see kids involved in theater. You see kids involved in music. You see kids involved in athletics. And you'll see some of those practices are done
012and then you walk by this room and they're still there. And they're working away. And Mary and John. all the adults working with them and just seeing how you all collectively work together. The walk by there are many times that I just stop after I go by just to listen and it's just entertaining to listen to the dialogue that's going along as well. Thank you for the work that you all are doing and the fun that you're having. And thank you for bringing it here to show us tonight because it is so cool to see. And again, I want to thank the adults that are helping you out navigate all that because I think at least when I look in, I think they're having as much fun as you are. I hope so. Mary, you've
013been doing this for? 2014. Yeah, and Sean this is your second year here. Yeah, I did for five years in a large school. You've been an engineer for all my life. That's a good answer doesn't give away any age. When people ask me how long I've been doing this I'm like I've been in school since I was in kindergarten. Awesome, so thank you guys. We'll give you a couple minutes to if you want to navigate it out. Yeah, he brought it actually. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. One more time. So, there should be a sustainable water right? Sure, yeah. Right, right. So that's retro. So next year we could be building a whole. Right. So, three years. okay do i have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda items Motion
014by member Larson. Second by member Dukes. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? The motion is carried. We have on the board donations and we just want to thank you to those who have donated to the school district. Your generosity and support of our schools in the community is very appreciated. I'd like to just make a comment. George and Margaret Fell are longtime supporters of the school district. They've never had any kids that have gone through the system, but I met George actually on the night that I interviewed for this job. And since that time, George and I stay in regular contact. And I see you shaking your head. George is a part of our advisory council and has been a part of it since day one. George came to me when he met a
015couple months ago and said we may be downsizing and I have this artwork that I think would be very inspirational to kids and he brought it over a couple weeks later and said I'd like to give this to the school and it's really the story about the Challenger and all the different aspects of that so right now it's sitting in my office but we're going to find a place for that and again George is He's quite a guy. Quite a guy. Sarah, I think you know British accent. I think so, yeah. I don't know if you met him or not in your advisory, but he, George will tell you his occupation was garbage. He was a... manager of a garbage company, but he was actually raised in Great Britain. And George has talked over and
016over again about how he has a connectivity to what's happening between Russia and Ukraine because, as you know, there's Ukrainians that have been relocated. Well, he was relocated during World War II because of that same exact reason. He's just got quite a story to tell. At our last advisory council meeting... He talked about some things and all the members said, you know, we want to come back just to listen to you. Because of historical context. So just wanted to share that. Very special people and very, very much rooted in public education, and especially ISD 199. Can I add another comment? It was staff appreciation week last week and there was a lot of work done by the PTO. PTAs, a lot of families contributed a lot of time and gift cards and things too. So
017just another thank you to everyone who helped make that week a success. I saw a lot of pictures and things from the elementary schools and the middle schools. It was amazing. It was amazing. Wonderful. All right, we have one information item this evening and Board Vice Chair and Treasurer Jake Klingler will share a summary of the 2024-2025 Superintendent Mid-Year Review. So this is the summary of board comments for the 2024-2025 Superintendent Mid-Year Evaluation. And under the heading of Leadership and Culture, we say, Superintendent Bernitson demonstrates strong leadership through his ability to align teams toward a shared vision. The school board appreciates his thoughtful approach to management, despite the challenges our system faces. We find Superintendent Bernitson to be distinguished as his performance relates to leadership and culture. Under the heading of organizational management, we say,
018Superintendent Bernardson empowers his team to use innovative solutions to implement and manage district initiatives. The school board appreciates how Superintendent Bernardson engages the community and uses feedback to inform future work on our strategic plan. The school board eagerly looks forward to continued updates and progress with respect to an updated vision card and the facilities review process. we find superintendent bernardson to be accomplished as his performance relates to organizational management and then lastly under the heading of communication and community engagement we say superintendent bernardson's communication is transparent engaging and strategic and leads to a sense of trust and transparency within our community this is evident through his visibility and the relationships he curates with local leaders and community members the website redesign process is one that the school board is very appreciative of and it is
019a critical communication tool for staff families and other stakeholders we find superintendent burleson to be distinguished as the performance relates to communication and community engagement thank you thank you all right moving on to action items Director of Business Services Heather Ani will introduce the recommendation to approve a 2024-2025 budget adjustment. So as you know, we adopt the budget in June and then some things change over the year during that time. And we typically do budget revisions in the spring. And it's also typically in the fund one, two, and three, which would be general fund food service. That's how I meant four. One, two, and four. So general fund food service and community ed. But we don't need to adjust the food service and community ed budgets this year because they were still... pretty on par
020and not big enough fluctuations to do any sort of adjustments so we'll just be asking for the general budget revisions today and I'll go over that in the following slides. So the revisions include staffing changes throughout the school year. Settling of labor agreements and updated pupil counts or typical changes. And then our prior projected deficit spending was $132,177 and the revised projected deficit spending is $482,713. And we plan to use $150,000 of the third-party billing funds that are sitting in a restricted fund balance. So that deficit spending is intentional. And we're still projected to have a fund balance of 8%. Last school year we ended with a surplus due to a large purchase that fell into this school year 24-25 instead of 23-24 so then we put that balance in an assigned fund balance so
021that we can pay this year's deficit with that. So it looks a little larger, but it's just between fiscal years. And this was shared with the school board at the April 14th meeting as well. So tonight I'd like to ask the board to approve the 2024-25 budget revisions. Thanks. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2024-25 budget adjustments? Motion by Member Klinger. Second by Member Wark. Motion by Member Klinger. Second by Member Wark. Any discussion? I appreciate Heather so much, your last, just how you explained some of these things, because I have had very down-to-the-detail questions, especially about that purchase from last year to this year, and where it is, and how does this work, and I appreciate knowing. It's just very helpful, since budget is kind of, the buck stops
022with us, we have to understand it, and you just do a nice job. Thank you. That was really good. Right. Any other discussion? thank you all in favor aye aye opposed the motion is carried all right director of human resources michelle carroll will introduce the recommendation to approve the resolution relating to the termination and non-renewal of the teaching contracts the first three consecutive years of a teacher's first teaching experience in a single minnesota school district are considered a probationary period I want to add on a little bit. There's also, if a teacher has received tenure in another school district and they become employed by our school district, then the probationary period is one year. So I want to add that part in. Teachers currently must work at least 90 days per year to count towards
023completion of the probationary period. Days devoted to parent-teacher conferences, workshops, and other staff development opportunities and days on which a student teacher is absent from school do not count as days of teaching service. A probationary teacher whose first three years are interrupted for maternity, paternity, or medical leave and who resumes teaching within 12 months of when the leave began is considered to have consecutive teaching experience. If the teacher does not receive a notice of non-renewal by July 1st of the third year, the teacher has a continuing contract with the district. A school board can give notice to a probationary teacher by July 1st during any of the probationary years of employment that their contract will be non-renewed. That means the teacher does not have a job the following year. This information has been reviewed with
024the personnel committee and a staffing update was shared at the April 14th work session. It is recommended for the Board of Education, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 122A.40 Subdivision 5, to approve the termination and non-renewal of the teaching contracts of several probationary teachers at the close of the current 2024-2025 school year, effective June 30, 2025. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the resolution? Resolution presented. Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Klinger. Motion by Member Pearson. Second by Member Klinger. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. superintendent dave fernardson will introduce the recommendation to approve the 2025-2026 school board and committee meeting schedule thank you yes this was shared at the last meeting as an information item basically as you look at our meeting schedule every one of
025our board meetings with a work session on the second monday and a regular meeting on the fourth monday of each month is put in place with the exception of july where we have one meeting based on that summer schedule Then if you look at August, we do meet two times in a row because that is the start of the school year, so there's items that we want to make sure get covered. And then if you look at December, there is only one meeting. Due to the activity in the month of December, that's also our truth and taxation meeting. Then March, we do have one meeting, and that really is about around the aspect that we have spring break in March. And then if you look at May, when you get to May, which is what
026we're experiencing right now, we do meet two weeks in a row as well because of the activity that happens at the end of the school year. Otherwise, all the other meetings follow our typical schedule. Also on this proposal would be to have our finance committee meetings after each work session, unless noted, our personnel committee prior to work sessions, and then our policy committee meeting before our regular meetings. Otherwise, the calendar. looks very traditional except for of course the dates are changed because we're in two different years so this evening we're looking for you to approve uh your meeting schedule thank you do i have a motion and a second to approve the 2025-2026 school board and committee meeting schedule so move number nine second by the views all right number five motion by number and
027second by member dukes any discussion all those in favor Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. All right. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, May 19th at 5.30 p.m. at Pine Bend Elementary. This is a location change since the April 28th board meeting was postponed. Do I have a motion and a second to adjourn tonight's meeting? Motion by Member Ward. Second bed member cleaner. Motion bed member work, second bed member cleaner. All those in favor? Aye. Motion is carried at 5.59 p.m.