001The Monday, June 22nd, 2020 Inverdrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education meeting is called to order at 532 p.m. We are meeting tonight by teleconference and we will continue to conduct our board meetings for the foreseeable future by teleconference following the guidance of health officials to present prevent the spread of COVID-19. This meeting is being recorded. Access to the recording will be made available on the school district's website as soon as possible. Our school district's mission is to inspire, innovate, excel. A community commitment. Board Clerk Rachel Hansen, can you please take roll call? Certainly. Member Schaffer? Here. Member Hansen? Here. Member Warwick? Here. Member Nordstrom? Here. Member Lonsberry. Here. Member Stensgaard. She's absent. And Member Cardy. Here. And we have a quorum. Thank you very much. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I
002pledge 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. Thank you. Do I have motion and a second to approve the agenda items tonight? And please remember to state out motion by member, your name or second by member. And if you are making a motion on any... or if you are making a motion on any board action item recorded properly. So with that, do I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda items tonight? Motion by member Clardy. Second by member Warwick. Any discussion? Okay. The board will now vote by roll call. District office support staff, Tracy Lout will assist by calling on individual board members' names for roll call voting throughout tonight's
003meeting. Tracy. Member Lowntes? Aye. Member Warwick? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Thank you Tracy. With six out of six aye votes, the motion is carried. We're going to start off tonight with Superintendent Dave Bernardson introducing our district highlight. Thank you Matt. As all of us know the 2019-20 school year has been like no other. The annual employee organized ISD 189 Employer Appreciation and Recognition event typically brings staff together to honor employee anniversaries and retirements. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 event has been postponed for the safety of the participants. And each school has held virtual celebrations, made videos, and created online thank you cards for each retiree. So on your screen this evening, you do see pictures of our retirees. And we have Paulette Anderson from
004Simley High School, Christina Barbato from Amber Grove Heights Middle School, Barb Birch from Salem Hills Elementary. Carol Ellison from Simley High School, David Holligan from Simley High School, Fran Mountain from Hilltop Elementary, Deb Schmidt from Inver Grove Heights Middle School, Connie Schultz from Hilltop Elementary, Cheryl Saliga from Pine Bend Elementary, Kathy Shoup from Hilltop Elementary, and Trudy Weiss from Pine Bend Elementary. And congratulations to our 11 retirees. Their service and presence in almost all of our buildings has touched the lives of thousands of students. and put them on a path to success. Whether they've built supportive relationships in classrooms, in our offices or cafeterias, they change the lives of our students and staff, and we wish them the best as they begin the next chapter of their journeys. Thank you to all of our retirees,
005and our employee recognition group is looking at the possibility of doing something to honor the retirees and potentially the others that have had anniversaries sometime in the fall, if conditions allow. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Dave, and thank you to our retirees as well. Appreciate all the service. The board was notified no one has signed up for any non-agenda items this evening, so we're going to move on to our consent agenda. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved by Carhanson. Second by Nordstrom. Hanson and Nordstrom, thank you. Any discussion? Any discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy? Member Ward? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Lonsberry? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. Six out of six
006aye votes. The motion is carried. Up on the screen, you'll see our donations to the school district this past month. We very much appreciate your generosity and support of our schools and very much appreciate that because it makes such the difference for our students and especially after the spring that we've seen here. So thank you very much. We're going to go to our information items for tonight and we're going to start with Director of Community Education Barb Pierce sharing an update on our summer programming. Thank you, Matt. Most of our summer programming community education consists of providing summer child care for our families. We are providing it at Salem Elementary School and have about 40 students over there following all the social distance guidelines for MDE. So they started last week and are doing very
007well. Thank you. Thank you, Barb. We're not going to have Vice Chair and Treasurer Sherry Warrick share a summary of the school board self appraisal summary that was just done by the board members. Sherry? Thank you Matt. As part of the Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education's three year agenda, the board recently conducted a self appraisal of performance in the areas of productivity, effectiveness and communication, both with the public and within the board. Each member filled out the appraisal and the results were compiled and shared in a closed session meeting earlier tonight. Among the findings of the self-appraisal, board members respect each other's views, opinions, and differences and find that communication between each other is effective. The self-appraisal shows that even though the district communicates with the public extremely well, the board feels that
008it needs to continue finding additional avenues for itself to communicate with the public, especially after the events of the spring of 2020. Attendance has been very good, and board members would like to continue to be prepared to have productive, action-oriented meetings that ensure success for a policymaking body by continuing their professional development. around anti-racism and social justice. Thank you, Sherry. Committee reports. Facilities Committee. Back to Sherry. Do you have any report for us? Yes, well the facilities committee did not meet this month. I do want to say that the Pine Bend addition is going very well on the outside and in and the pictures that we've seen and just going there to see it on the outside going very well. And it looks like they are just a number of weeks away from completion. Awesome.
009That's great, thank you. Finance Committee, Cindy do you have an update? I don't have my script for it. Sorry. Did someone else have it? Sure. I've got it. Thank you, Rachel. So the Finance Committee met virtually on June 8th. The agenda included the year-to-date spending analysis and the monthly check register. All right. Thanks, Rachel. Personnel Committee, Mary Frances, do you have our update? Yes, the personnel committee met virtually on Monday, June 8th, and the agenda items included employee relations, contract negotiations, and committee updates on insurance, labor management, and ECA. Staffing for 2020 and 2021 also was discussed. Thank you. And last but not least, Carrie, do you have an update on policy? Yes, the policy committee met virtually prior to tonight's meeting to discuss policy 416, 902, and the 100 school district policy series. Very
010good. Thank you. Moving on to our membership reports. Cindy, do you have an update on Equity Alliance Minnesota for us? Yes, I do. We met this past Wednesday. We heard the plans for professional development and the districts that they're continuing to work with in collaboration. We also had a large portion of our meeting was discussing what many of us attended Reimagine Minnesota. And it was a lot of discussion around that and positive moving forward. And Mary Frances Clarity was with me in that meeting. So she got to meet members of the board and we shared a little history with her and we are moving on with that. Thank you, Cindy. Dave, I think you have our AMSD update today. Yeah, thanks, Matt. AMSD did not meet this past month, but as Cindy mentioned, they did
011host the Reimagine Minnesota virtual conference last week, and we had a good number of our board members and district and school leaders that participated in the conference. I think all told, there was probably 300 people that participated in this opportunity, and it was a very well-done conference, and I think one that helped all of us. think about and plan action steps moving forward as we look to reimagine education and equity in Minnesota. Thank you, Dave. On MSBA, I wanted to just kind of give a few stats on what MSBA has been doing for school boards lately this past year. They came out with a listing of 10 stats here that really... talk about why we're a member of MSBA as a school board. One, they responded to more than 15,000 calls and emails and logged
012about 638,000 web views, provided timely and relevant communication to about 3,900 members who subscribe to their monthly magazine. Trained over a thousand people in their learning to lead workshops. That's kind of those phase one, phase two, phase three workshops. Protected 366 school districts, co-ops, and charter schools through the Minnesota School Boards Association Insurance Trust. Advocated for and against 68 bills through the legislature and also brought 28 different resolutions to MSBA's Delegate Assembly. Educated and connected 2,400 members at their leadership conference and then a bunch more in the summer seminars. And this was 2019 stats here. Kept about 6,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, informed and up to date with education news and events. Led 88 board members from 13 school districts through strategic planning set the course for the future. Guided 320 school districts through
013our policy services, and we are one of those districts there. And then the 10th one on here, and hoping we don't have to do this for a while, but MSBA directed and supported 136 board members from 21 school boards with superintendent searches. And also MSBA has been keeping school board members and administration up to date along with AMSD on some of these special session in the Minnesota legislature. Sounded like the education bill did pass this past Friday, but there was a lot of stuff that that could affect us in some form or fashion that was tabled until a possible next special session here in a couple weeks. So I'll have to wait and see what comes of that in the future. Let's see. And last membership update we have is IS917. Dave? Thanks, Matt. Intermediate
014School District 917 held their last meeting virtually on June 9th. The agenda included approval of resolution terminating support staff employees and approval of the identified official with authority and approval of several position contracts. The next meeting is scheduled for July 7th. All right. Thank you, Dave. We are going to move on to our myriad of action items tonight. We got a full slate here. So we're going to start off with Director of Business Services Heather Aune, introducing the recommendation to approve the IEP 199 Long-Term Facilities Maintenance Plan. Heather? Thank you, Matt. Every year, Minnesota Department of Education requires that we produce a 10-year plan and have the board approve that 10-year plan. It's a big and ugly spreadsheet, so it's not on the screen, but the health and safety budget ranges from $238,000 to $248,000
015each year over the 10 years. And the long-term facility maintenance budget ranges from about a million to 2.4 million, just depending on the needs of each of those years. And we have more in-depth plans within the district and maintenance from year to year. And that's shared with the facility committee. And within this budget, the expenditures do not match the revenues because of that saving for the projects in each year. This year what's new is that they, within the spreadsheet that's in your board packet, they ask for the fund balance projections as well on the spreadsheet and a transfer out for COVID-19, that flexibility that they allowed us for 2019-20 and 2020-21. So tonight I would like to ask for the school board's approval of the 10-year long-term facility maintenance plan. Thank you, Heather. Do I
016have a motion and a second to approve the ISD 199 long-term facilities maintenance plan? So moved by Member Lounsbury. Second by Nordstrom. Thank you. Any discussion? Just want to note that this was reviewed at our last work session. also with the board. So they've seen it before. You've all seen it before. Very true. Thank you, Dave. Any other discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy? Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Schaffer? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Lonsberry? Aye. Member Wark? Aye. Thank You Tracy with six out of six I votes the motion is carried We're gonna keep Heather up here director Business Services Heather on II introducing the recommendation to approve the ISD 917 long-term facilities maintenance plan. So same thing, just 917. Yes, thank you. Yep, they require the 10-year plan
017for the intermediate district as well. And intermediate 917 had their board approve in May and then member districts approve afterwards. And then it's sent back to the Minnesota Department of Education. So they have an overall levy of about $27,000 for this upcoming year. ISD 199's portion of that levy is about $1,774. And same thing with them. The expenditures do not match the revenues. And we reviewed this at the board work session as well. And I'd like to ask for the board's approval tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the ISD 917 long-term facilities maintenance plan? So moved, Member Clardy. Seconded by Nordstrom. Nordstrom, thank you. Any discussion? Any discussion? The board will now vote by roll call. Tracy? Member Clardy? Aye. Member Shaper? Aye. Member Hanson?
018Aye. Member Lonsberry? Aye. Member Wark? Aye. And Member Nordstrom? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With six out of six aye votes, the motion is carried. I'm going to keep Heather again here. She's going to introduce the recommendation to approve the 2020-2021 budget adoption. Heather? Thank you, Matt. The 2020-2021 budget, as we first projected it, was something that would net to zero, meaning that the revenues and expenditures were equal. And so the adjustments on the screen are those adjustments after that, that we reviewed with the administration and the board and gone through the budgeting process. The school district budget reductions would be administrative 1.0 FTE and elementary 1.0 FTE reduction, which is based on enrollment. That amount was included in the base budget, so we didn't add it into the total here. And high school 1.6 FTE
019reduction, also based on enrollment, for a total of $235,000 in reductions. And in the additions, there's a few contingencies. And I just wanted to note that with contingencies, it doesn't mean that the amounts on the screen would necessarily cover all of those expenses, but it's for the extra that what's built into the budget cannot cover because there are funds within the budget that can be reallocated to cover some of these. So for additions, the custodial... 0.5 FTE increase at Pine Bend Elementary. We have the addition at Pine Bend and that's added square footage onto that building that we need to maintain and keep clean as well. They had already had a higher square footage per FTE for custodial staff in that building and so this brings them to be more equal but still they're have
020a higher square footage than the other elementaries. Community ed child care contingency. As we go through the COVID situation, they have to offer child care. Some of the ratios and things are a bit more expensive to run the program, so we have a contingency for that cost that within the general fund budget. Content review contingency. TJ, do you want to talk about that at all? Is TJ on the line? I'm right here. Thank you. The content contingency is just planning for additional costs for software applications, textbooks or curriculum development and review as teachers are looking at prioritizing standards and identified learning gaps, additional costs around intervention. as students return and other types of materials and I think as Heather had shared as well it provides an item for us to know that that cost is
021there but it also may be more than that and would also be reflected across some other budget planning that we already have. Thank you and then the Custodial cost contingency is the guidance that we're getting from the CDC, Center for Disease Control, and the Department of Health. include some higher cleaning standards which would have higher costs for custodial hours and cleaning products in order to meet those standards. So we wanted to make sure that was included into the budget. Technology contingency for repair and replacement of devices. As we've used more devices and handed out more devices to students to use in the homes, with more use comes more repair and replacement. So that is to cover those expenses. And EL 1.0 FTE, that is a change from a para position to a teacher position at
022the high school. And that is based on student needs within the EL program. And then online distance learning specialist 1.0 and additional technology support. Caroline, are you able to talk about that at all? Sure, yep. The online learning specialist would be a position that would help us in our planning as we move into additional online learning opportunities. for all of our students, also just in getting prepared for any kind of distance learning that might need to happen in the future to really bring in some expertise to help us with best practices for online learning. And then the additional technology support is additional tier one technology support within our buildings. just to bring that support up a little bit so that then the district level support can continue at a higher level to support the increase
023in devices and other technology throughout the district. I do want to make a comment, additional comment. The online distance learning specialist, we're still playing around with the title. It may be online distance learning coordinator. I'm sorry, my daughter's in the room. Yeah, thanks, Michelle. We're not sure that that's what the title is going to be, but it's the idea of it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you guys for your help with that. So the overall total cost of the adjustments would be about $200,000 between the reductions and additions. So on the next slide, this is the overall budget. And Tracy, are you? Do you want to go to the next slide? Thank you so much. The general budget, you can see that the revenues are about $200,000 less than the expenditures at $48.2 million versus $48.4
024million. Student activities of $49,000 is actually part of general fund, but we break it out separately just to be transparent. and that's new that that's moved over to the general fund. It used to be a separate account. Food service is revenues about $2 million and expenditures about $2.2. So it's a deficit spend of about $182,000, and that's been a healthy fund balance, and we've been strategically spending down in a sustainable way. Community education. It has about $1.8 million in revenues and $1.93 in expenditures. So it is a deficit spend of about $132,000. There is some fund balance in community education, but at some point as we continue to spend in that budget, the cost of school readiness is higher than the fees that we could take in from families, but we want to encourage that
025enrollment. So at some point you may need to have general fund. help the community ed fund. Construction, 380,000 is my best guess at what is going to be remaining after the 2019-20 school year that we would carry forward into the next year. But it just depends on some invoicing in those things. debt service and OPEB trust, those two line items, they're kind of separated out here, but the revenue never equals the expenditure. Sometimes it's higher or lower. We levy at about 105%, which means we end up with more in that account. And then there's adjustments that bring it lower. And there's also interest that we receive in that account. So it lowers the amount that taxpayers pay. So that varies from year to year. Employee benefit trust is not actually district funds, but the funds
026that we hold for flex benefits for staff. And then the OPEB account is our other post-employee benefits. And we usually budget about $500,000 in revenue. Due to the economy, we brought that down to $250,000 in revenue and expenditures of about $434,000, which is severance payments. And that is another budget that is healthy and funded. So overall, the total budget for revenue $56,800,665 and expenditures $57,551,300. Oops, I was reading the wrong line. Oh, that's the total governmental, $379,000. And then all funds is $57,742,585 and $58,709,676. And I'd like to ask for the board's approval of the 2020-21 adopted budget. Thank you, Heather. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2020-2021 budget adoption? Motion by Member Warwick. Second by Member Clardy. Thank you. Any discussion? Just a reminder to the public that we
027make revisions throughout the year. So this is the initial approval, but we make revisions throughout the year to the budget. And to that, Cindy, we've been talking about this at multiple meetings coming into tonight. Yeah, the actual budgeting process started in January. Any other discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Clardy. Aye. Member Schaefer. Aye. Member Hanson. Aye. Member Lonsberry. Aye. Member Wark. Aye. Member Nordstrom. Aye. With six out of six aye votes, the motion is carried. Okay. Moving on to... Our next item, we're going to have Director of Instructional Technology, Caroline Little, and Director of Services, Heather Aune, introduce the recommendation to approve the technology device leases. Okay, so tonight we would like to present the device leases for the continuation of our one-to-one program throughout the district. Needless to say,
028and we've said it before, how grateful we are to our community for the opportunity to have the devices that we do and how it was so beneficial for our students during our distance learning time this past spring. This coming school year will be the third year of our initial plan and so we will be providing purchasing devices for 11th and 12th grade which would be one-to-one Chromebooks in 11th and 12th grade. The middle school will be finishing the middle school with eighth grade we'll be getting one-to-one Chromebooks also. Technically the sixth graders coming in will get the new ones. The eighth graders will continue to have the ones, but all the middle school kids will have iPads, excuse me, I say Chromebooks. The kindergarten and first grade students will be two to one with iPads.
029And then the fifth grade students, we will be refreshing their iPads. They were one-to-one before we began the Engage 199 rollout. So this year is the year that their iPads will be refreshed. I also just want to mention with the kindergarten and first grade, there's been some questions about... them being one-to-one and just so that we know that we do have other devices set aside if needed for distance learning or other things. But this is the budgeted plan for Engage 199. On the lease side of it, the Apple iPads, we're planning to purchase 725 iPads for engaged $199, and the total purchase price of that is $234,295, and it would be financed over three years at an interest rate of 1.49%, and the district would retain the devices at the end of the lease. For
030the Chromebooks, and this is what we had brought to the work session as well, we're asking to be able to purchase 600 Chromebooks as part of the capital projects levy. And we wanted to stay within a purchase price of $180,000 and 5% interest over four years. We are looking at numbers of about 1.21% right now and $134,250, but because it wasn't finalized, we still wanted to ask for the higher threshold just in case anything were to fall through. So tonight, I'd like to ask for your approval on the technology device leases. Thank you. Thanks, Heather and Caroline. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the technology device leases? Motion by Nordstrom. Second by Hanson. Thank you. Do I have any discussion? Actually, I got a question here. On the devices, iPads, it's
031financed over three years and Chromebooks over... four years. Caroline, do we feel that the devices themselves do last, typically last the length of those finance periods? Definitely, Matt. And with the iPads, actually, we have them in a replacement cycle of four years. So there are some years where a lease will be completed. And then maybe we, you know, have two leases rather than three at a time. So there are some years where we have some leavement in there in the cycle too. Thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Schaefer. Aye. Member Hanson. Aye. Member Lonesbury. Aye. Member Ward. Aye. Member Nordstrom. Aye. Member Clardy. Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With six out of six aye votes, the motion is carried. Thank you. Next item is Director of
032Community Education Barb Pierce and Director of Business Services Heather Ani introducing the recommendation to approve the Head Start lease renewal. Thank you, Matt. Tonight we're bringing for your approval a renewal of our lease with Head Start. Since we have been in the Early Learning Center, they've leased a room from us to do preschool for Head Start. The current addendum expires on June 30th of this year, 2020. So we would want to extend that for one more year until June 30th, 2021. It's really been a good partnership and we would like to continue this partnership. The addendum extends the term for one year, identifies the rent payments for an additional year, and then adds a small fee for copying and laminating usage and clarifies use of the space. All the rest of the terms of the
033sublease remain the same. So tonight we'd like to ask for the board to approve our Head Start lease renewal. Thank you, Barb. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the Head Start lease renewal? So moved by Lowndesbury. Second by Schaefer. Any discussion? Barb, could you just remind us that piece about clarifying the use of the space? What does that mean? Well, we realized that there was nothing in our lease about access to the playgrounds and the large motor room and those kinds of things. So we clarified the lease to give them access to those areas and what the limits on that access is. Thank you so much. Excuse me. Any other discussion? Seeing none, board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Hanson. Aye. Member Lounsbury. Aye. Member Ward. Aye. Member
034Nordstrom. Aye. Member Clardy. Aye. Member Schaefer. Aye. Thank you, Tracy. Six out of six aye votes. The motion is carried. Thanks, Barb. Now I have Director of Learning TJ Anderson-Schmidt introduce the recommendation to approve the grading adjustments for Summer Academy. TJ. Thank you, Matt. As Tracy pulls up the grading adjustments, this information was shared with the board during the June 8th work session. And we are requesting the board's approval on these grading adjustments for summer learning which would include summer academy for students in grades one through eight as well as high school credit recovery for students in grades nine through twelve and beyond. And the grading adjustments that were shared with the board on the 8th and that are shared here were based on guidance that was released by the Minnesota Department of Education at
035end of May. And that guidance, as we look at that third bullet under the guidance section from MDE, did reference that unless students were enrolled for summer programming for credit recovery, for our case for high school graduation, that students should not receive grades as part of their summer programming. And the guiding principles that we did use for the grading for Summer Academy focused on having an equity mindset. ensuring that as we looked at the different models, all of them, whether it's elementary school, middle school, or high school, are all using a distance learning model this summer that we look at and continue to account for the ways that students might be impacted by not being able to be in a physical building and in closer proximity to their peers or to teachers. MDE did recommend,
036again, in the grading situation that no student would be reported as a failure or receive an F in a summer school course. and that each of our learning models as well as their reporting procedures considers the unique needs of students. For example, students who receive special education services or English language services or career and technical education plans. So the grading adjustments that are being recommended are in alignment with MDE guidance. For elementary, that would be no grading. We use something called a continual learning plan that provides comments to families on students' progress. The same system is used in middle school, again, aligned with that MDE guidance, comments only in a continual learning plan. But for high school, the grading adjustments that are being suggested. would include the grading method that provides the most benefit to
037a student. And so in that case, it would either be a letter grade of letters A through D, including a plus or minus, or a pass. And again, no students would fail a summer class if students did not complete enough work to satisfy the course requirements for credit recovery. They would receive a no credit on their transcript, which would not negatively impact their GPA. But again, the grading method that provides the most benefit to a student would be the one that would be used in consultation with the high school counselor. So we are recommending and requesting that the board approve the grading adjustments for the 2020 summer programming. Thank you, TJ. I have a motion and a second to approve the grading adjustments for Summer Academy. So moved, Member Clardy. Second by Nordstrom. Thank you.
038Any discussion? Any discussion? All right. Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Lounsbury. Aye. Member Wark? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Clarty? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With six out of six aye votes, that motion is carried. Thank you. All right, Superintendent Bernardson will introduce the recommendation to move. Are we good? All right, we're good. Superintendent Bernardson introducing the recommendation to approve the ISD 917 representative. Dave? Thank you, Matt. Intermediate School District 917 provides special education and vocational education to students from Invergrove Heights as well as other Dakota County school districts. The 917 school board representative serves on this joint powers board on behalf of our school district. We'd like to recommend an appointment that would fulfill a two-year commitment effectively immediately through June 30th, 2022. This position
039is in need of representation due to the recent passing of our long-term representative, Jill Lewis, which I'll talk more about in my comments this evening. We'd like the board to approve Cindy Nordstrom as the Independent School District 199 representative to the Intermediate School District 917 effective immediately through June 30th, 2022. And as a point of reference, this was also a conversation at our most recent work session. So we'd like to recommend Cindy Nordstrom's appointment to Intermediate School District 917 as our school district representative. Thank you, Dave. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the ISD 917 representative? Motion by Lonsberry. Second by Warwick. Thank you. Any discussion? I just want to share that if this is approved, we know that there are some other representation aspects that we'll need to look at,
040and we will bring all of those together back to the board at our July meeting. Thank you, Dan. And I'm feeling like I'm going to need to abstain from this vote. That will be fine. Thank you, Cindy. Any other discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy? Member Warwick? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Lounsberry? Aye. Okay, with our abstention from Cindy, the motion passes five out of five aye votes and the motion is carried. Thank you. Now we'll have Superintendent Bernardson introduce the recommendation to approve the second reading for review of a bunch of policies here. Dave? Thanks Matt. Following our policy process, the policy committee reviewed these policies in April. These policies have no changes, minimal changes, limited changes, and significant changes. These policies were presented for
041first reading review on May 18, 2020, and we're asking for the board's approval of these policies as presented. The policies with no changes are 418, Drug-Free Workplace and Drug-Free School. and 616.1 copyright law. Minimal changes are being recommended for policy 417, chemical use and abuse, 611, homeschooling, and 620, credit for learning. The policy or a policy with limited changes is 618, assessment of standard achievement. And then our policies with significant changes are... 419, tobacco-free environment, possession and use of tobacco, tobacco-related devices, and electronic delivery devices. And 612.1, development of parent and family engagement policies for Title I programs. So our hope this evening is that the board would approve these policies as presented. Thank you, Dave. Do I have a motion and a second to approve these second readings for review of the policies presented?
042So moved by Member Hanson. Second by Schaefer. Any discussion? Any discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Nordstrom. Aye. Member Clardy. Aye. Member Schaefer. Aye. Member Hanson. Aye. Member Lounsberry. Aye. Member Wark. Aye. Thank you, Tracy. Six out of six aye votes. The motion is carried. And that ends our long list of action items tonight. We will start out our comments here with Superintendent Bernardson. Thank you, Matt. I just want to start my comments with acknowledging and passing our sympathies onto the family of Jill Lewis and just share a few pieces or a few of her accomplishments and how she has served our school district. She has served our school district for... just about 40 years both as a member of our ISD 199 board and then as a representative to Intermediate
043School District 917. In addition, she was an integral part of starting the BEST Foundation, which has awarded, I believe, almost $3 million in scholarships to semi-high school graduates. Our words can't express how important she's been not only to our school district but to our community and she will be deeply missed and I want to thank Cindy for her willingness to take on and finish Jill's term with Intermediate School District 917. With the end of the school year, Spartan Pride Week graduation, we had lots of things taking place to commemorate the end of our school year. I want to thank the board and Lynette for working to recognize our students, family, staff during Spartan Pride Week and for organizing aspects associated with recognizing the class of 2020. I also want to thank the city for declaring
044graduation week the week of May 31st through June 6th as well. Thanks also goes to our students, staff, community for their grace, understanding, commitment, and support throughout this school year, a school year that brought us lots of different twists and turns that we probably weren't anticipating. Also want to thank, or I have a special thanks to Town Square TV. in collaboration with our Communications Coordinator Katie Sheridan with supporting our class of 2020 with a virtual graduation and making that ceremony as special as it could be given the circumstances. Within our school, we do have a couple of new leaders joining us in July. I just want to acknowledge Dave Losterter will be starting as a new Hilltop Elementary principal. And as a part of our consent agenda this evening, Mr. Sam Van Hefty will become
045the assistant principal at Simley High School. We're honored and excited to have these two leaders join our team and serve our community. Summer meals continue. I have started, they started this past week, or last week, I should say, and we'll continue to provide Tuesday and Thursday meal pickups, Tuesday and Friday, excuse me, meal pickups for family. And then the work that we're really embedded in right now is the Minnesota Department of Education in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Health provide initial fall planning guidance. And as we're all aware, the guidance includes three possible scenarios for the school year. in-person learning, hybrid learning, and distance learning only. And we know that we can shift within those three during the course of the school year. And as both departments shared with us, it could even be
046different shifts even within a school district. And our team is working hard to prepare for the start of the school year and identifying basically the options within those scenarios that would work best for our school district. so please look for continued communication as we work through the summer with those possible scenarios and then last but not least just want to reaffirm our commitment to our community there's not only with COVID-19 but with the recent happenings in Minneapolis and throughout the country and rural just want to affirm our school district's commitment to diversity equity, inclusion, and justice. We're here for all of our kids, all of our staff, all of our families, and all of our community members. And we're proud to be able to say that. And we'll continue that work that has been going
047on in our school district for some time. And we will continue to work with it at all of our hearts and minds to make sure we're doing the best we can for all of these groups. So thank you, Matt. Thank you, Dave. Thank you very much. Member Lounsbury, would you like to start us off with board comments? Yeah, well, Dave and the leadership team, thank you for your tireless efforts to be brainstorming in such unique ways right now. We are grateful for that. And I also want to acknowledge the inequity that still exists in our educational system and say that I am listening and learning and believe that we will do better for our students in Invergrove Heights. I'm proud of our students who demonstrated on June 2nd for justice. I see you. And I
048am proud of our district's leadership team for the equity work that has been done in recent years and encourage you to keep learning and advancing opportunities for all of our students. And let's lead the way in forward-thinking, equitable education for all. I participated in the virtual conference to reimagine Minnesota last week and believe that as districts come together in humility to listen and learn, our students will benefit. The focus was on equity and distance learning and I know that our district is working hard as they prepare for the three potential options for returning to school and I am proud that equity is at the forefront of each of these options. Thank you for your tireless efforts to provide the best education for the students of Invergrove Heights. Thank you. Member Nordstrom. Yes, I too am
049listening and learning, and I attended the Reimagine Minnesota. And for those of you who are not familiar with Reimagine Minnesota, it started about four years ago. It was based off of, it was what came out of a lawsuit from November 2015. There were seven families and one nonprofit organization that commenced the class action lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court against the state of Minnesota. on behalf of the children and families of St. Paul and Minneapolis public schools. The suit asserted that segregation in the St. Paul and Minneapolis school districts had maintained an unfair and substandard educational environment for racial and ethnic minority students. They argued for desegregation of the school districts to combat inferior learning environments and establish equal opportunity education. And I was at a roundtable. What happened then is a group of people
050decided instead of having the state figure out and decide what should be done, that we should be proactive and try to figure this out, reimagine Minnesota on our own. And so a group of superintendents and educational leaders convened and have been working on this for over four years. And the conference this summer was amazing. And to be able to have 300 and some people attend. And I think it is moving forward in a very positive direction. I know in the past, there was not, there was reluctance to use the word race. And I believe that is at the forefront now. And using the word anti-racism and... social justice was brought to our attention by Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and she suggested if you are not supporting anti-racism then you are probably racist and so I'm
051making that a mission for myself to listen and learn. and continue to use those tools. And a tool for all of us, if you haven't joined, Equity Alliance Minnesota Facebook or Twitter, if you follow them, they're starting to share resources for all of us to be able to use. And one of the books I just read was A Good Time for the Truth, Race in Minnesota. And according to Peggy Flanagan, she said, we need to listen and learn through stories. narratives and this book is anthologies from Minnesotans talking about race in Minnesota. Again that title is and it's free this you can download it from the Minnesota History Center. A good time for the truth race in Minnesota. I also attended the 917 board meeting and I was watching and observing and I will be
052joining their official meeting is July 7th and then they also have a July 15th presentation to member districts that I'll be attending. And I want to thank the staff of Inverdrove Heights School District for all the work that's going into this distance learning planning and having all these options and flexibility. thinking outside the box and being this is really an in our mission statement where we've had inspire innovate and excel I know you're big time in the innovate process right now think so I'm saying thank you for your commitment to our community thanks Cindy remember Warwick Yes, I'd like to start off with condolences to Jill Lewis's family. I get to know her through the Best Foundation. Truly dedicated to our community and our students. So my condolences to Jill Lewis's family. Congratulations to all
053of our retirees this year. Thank you for your dedication once again to our students and our district and wishing you well. I was able to attend the senior celebration at the high school in their cars. The students in their cars seeing all their teachers from elementary to middle school to high school. It was quite the sight. Got to see a lot of personalization as well with their signs and balloons and things that were hanging out of their cars. And then the feedback that while I was there from teachers and students was that we should have this every year. So it was a different way to look at celebrating our students. It was a positive, a very positive coming from the COVID situation. Like Carrie and Cindy mentioned, the Reimagine, I was able to attend that
054as well, the Reimagine conference. My takeaway is from our small group, our breakout sessions, we talked about needing more personalization for students and their needs with the distance learning and overall. Changing up our policies in our boardrooms to shift how learning looks for each individual student. Having people of color in our boardrooms to ensure policies are justified and fair. And hearing student voices in boardrooms with the decision making going on. I think that it was Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan that said there needs to be action and not just lip service for equity and anti-racism in our districts, in all of our districts. And again, like Cindy and Carrie, I too am listening and learning all the time. So thank you. Thank you, Sherry. A note here, Member Hanson's internet is pretty bad, so she will
055not be rejoining us. So we'll have Member Clarity. Any comments tonight? Yes, first of all, I want to go back to the community and just reiterate what people are saying. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have had the iPads, the technology to service our students. As a teacher myself, we are all learning how to do that best for the students. But one thing I can say about this district is that we keep the child. first. That's our first focus. And all the discussions that we're having as board members and staff members here is, you know, what's best for kids, what's going to work. Listening to the other board members on here too, they're talking about discussions with the kids who are mostly effective. And I too went to that or attended that Reimagine Minnesota.
056And I also am on that learning curve. I was able to go to Equity Alliance meeting last month just to kind of get an idea of what they do and what they are. able to do within the community. So I'm feeling really good about that. I'm feeling really good about the direction that our superintendent is providing us to. And this group that I work with is amazing in the sense that they, you know, I will push back, they'll push back. And it's all about conversation. It's all about what's best for the kids. So thank you. Thanks, Mary Frances. You know, the last time we met was as this official meeting was May 18th. And when we had that meeting, we had been distance learning due to COVID-19 for about two months at that point. We
057were concerned about how graduation was going to look. And then, you know, we still... Even though we still don't know the answer on this one, we were wondering what fall is going to look like, too. I do want to say that the graduation was awesome, I think. I believe that between the staff at Simley and, you know, Lynette's help and Town Square Television really stepped up, and it was a great performance. So I really appreciate that for our graduates. And then just a great job by our teachers, our staff, our students, and especially our parents for completion of this spring semester. It was something we hadn't had to do before, something we hope we don't have to do again. We all got through it. And so I want to just say thank you to everybody
058for that. You know, but, you know, some other things have happened since the last time we met as a school board at our regular meeting. We saw the George Floyd murder in our backyard in Minneapolis. We've seen protests across the country. And we've seen racial and social justice brought back to the forefront of our mindset, of our minds and policies. And hopefully our actions moving forward as well, it's at the forefront of those. We've also had the passing away of two prominent members of our school board community. and former Invergrove Heights board member Jill Lewis. And also St. Paul's board chair Marnie Zhang passed away from COVID-19. So we send our thoughts out to the St. Paul board as well and her family. But there's been a couple positives too just recently with Supreme Court
059decisions, one around DACA. And at least for now, ensuring that the Dreamers in our community are safe from deportation. And then we also had the decision protecting gay, lesbian, transgender workers under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. which, if you don't know, gives more protection to people to not be judged by gender identity and sexual orientation. So the point of bringing this up is that everything I just mentioned has affected our community in some way. And being a school board member, I feel it's an honor that I do not take lightly. especially because it's the community that entrusted this position to me through an election process. And I don't think any of my fellow board members take it lightly as well. I am here for you. I am here for our whole community. I
060think, you know, I'd be surprised if I can't say we are here for our whole community. We're going to continue to work on how we can implement more and better equitable practices and procedures in our schools. You know, I have about three and a half years left on this term. And so it's going to be at least three and a half years of working to do that for our schools. And going to continue in the effort to help our children be the best humans that they can be. as they go into this world and become our leaders of tomorrow. So once again, thank you to everyone who helped kids, families, parents, staff, schools, communities get through these last, let's see, April, May, June, three months, but especially maybe this last month, it's been particularly... difficult
061for some so thanks to all. There is no current work session scheduled for July and the next regular board meeting will be held on Monday July 20th at 5 30 p.m. by teleconference again. Do I have a motion and a second to adjourn tonight's meeting? So moved by Nordstrom. Seconded by Clardy. Thank you. Board will now vote on this by roll call. Tracy? Member Clardy? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Hanson has left. Member Lounsberry? Aye. Member Warrick? Aye. And Member Nordstrom? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With five out of five aye votes, the motion is carried to adjourn the meeting at 6.40 p.m. Thank you.