School Board work session - Feb. 9, 2026

001Good evening. I'd like to call to order this Anoka Henipin School Board work session for today, February 9, 2026. Our first order of business is to approve the board agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> We have a motion from Director Simon. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you from co-chair Langenfeld. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose say no. With five in favor and zero opposed. The agenda is approved. Members, the next item on our agenda is our item three, the consent agenda. As normal, members can remove items for separate consideration and discussion if that's their desire. Is there a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> We have a motion

002from Director Simon. Is there a second? >> Second. >> With a second from Director Duchaine. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Any oppose say no. With five in favor and zero opposed, our consent agenda is approved. Our next agenda item is the board calendar and district update. Superintendent McIntyre. >> All right. Thank you, Cochair Hulman. Uh just a couple dates I want to point out in your materials. Uh dates to remember. We have our um Monday, February 16th is a district holiday. So, we will not have school on that day. And it's a good reminder here that that day is coming up. And then a couple other key dates here. We have uh as of this point our student growth recognitions uh uh event at Anoka High School

003on March 3rd. Always looking forward to uh those events that we do each year here the last couple years. And then also kind of a milestone moment too. We have end of our second trimester March 5th with uh staff planning and um other activities with no students on March 6th. So just a couple things that are coming up soon on the calendar. It's a little odd to be talking about the month of March. Um, also I just want to take a moment to give a kind of an update to the board since our last board meeting around um some of the impact and activities around um the immigration enforcement uh topic. And on January 26, I gave a update to the board with some comments and we had some uh discussion there. So, I wanted

004to just update since the last two weeks some information that I know the board and our public would like to be aware of. So, um as I before I get into some details, I just wanted to share that I'm really proud of our staff and the district for doing our best to work hard and support our families and students and and um our team to try to do our best to keep families and our community informed. So, um I know at our last meeting not all board members were able to attend and we did have some discussions. and so on to make sure I'll uh try to do our best to um update our board members and our community again as uh what has happened since our last board meeting. So since January 26, a

005few things have happened. We've published a community communication that addressed school and uh community safety in our network of students and family supports through messages that went out to all families. And our communications team uh shares with me that that was viewed by about 45,000 people. So, it was um it did get a lot of um hits on that communication. We encourage families and students to connect with their school regarding any attendance concerns or any options for accommodating their attendance um or any challenges they might be facing on a temporary basis. We've also worked hard to continue to update and provide resources and links at our website at uh ahschools.usimmigration, including additional information about bus stops. There was a discussion about bus stops at our last meeting. So, we did add a Q&A item for

006that particular topic. We shared information also in our monthly focus e newswsletter in the last two weeks that was sent out actually was last Wednesday, February 4th, which also included resources for families and how to navigate conversations or, you know, guidance if u it was helpful for families um in those areas that might be feeling impacted. We've also had some media coverage. I know um NPR News, our local ABC papers, um some social media um post by local legislators, and we've also had some national media here, of course, in the Twin Cities. I know we were referenced in the New York Times story as well. So, we've had some media coverage. Um when it comes to staff, uh there were some questions about that at our last meeting. We've addressed resources for staff and communicated

007with our staff to ensure that they're aware of our approach and our district plan. We've had just shy of 12,000 hits on that and we have 8,000 employees. So we we know that multiple um staff must be you know using that multiple times. We've also shared with the public resources that uh we gave our staff made sure our staff got that communication that we sent to families along with the resource page for staff and our internet page where our staff go to get um the tools that they use uh for their day-to-day operations. So, uh, at the January board meeting in our, um, community and staff messages, we did share that overarching district plan and kind of how we're trying to accommodate for attendance. And, um, right when those concerns began to emerge, we made

008sure that our school principles, our counselors, social workers, and teachers and other staff members took immediate action to make sure we're um, creating plans to continue learning for students on a case-byase basis. So really and our approach has been to individualize that as much as possible uh for anyone who shares some personal safety concerns. So that support has really been a school focused school-based uh student centric approach and really customizing that support for each student and their family. Couple other comments here with our approach has been to be as practical and and provide as many u foundational consistent tools to maintain engagement, maintain access, maintain academic progress for students who might uh be impacted and really we're just trying to do our best to provide consistency and stability uh through through the challenges that we

009have here and we're monitoring that closely. So, our district's learning and achievement team has continued to develop and make available any readytouse online or print materials that uh teachers might need so that they can uh use those with their students in their uh that are assigned in their classrooms that might be um being impacted um which really just helps them remain connected, provide grade level learning and minimize disruption as much as we can. So families or students who are looking for support, we just strongly encourage them to reach out to their school, start with their teacher, their principal, their school counselor or social worker, and they will work hard with them to make sure they're connected with the resources that we have available. Uh last time too, I kind of covered some um we get

010questions. I know board members, you get questions about what what incidents have happened in our district that we can verify. And so there's two I can share with you in the last two weeks that you know we feel comfortable that we can we can verify. Um I think I shared three last time with the board. We did uh here in the last two weeks have an incident where we had um enforcement agents parked in one of our elementary school parking lots in our staff parking lot. And I want to give a credit give credit to our local law enforcement. They worked with our safety and security team along with the school administration to to um have them leave the property so that we we could maintain a um a safe distance there. So they they

011were very com compliant once we had a chance to engage with them. We also had a situation where one of our at reported by uh one of our elementary schools that on the way to school we had um immigration agents follow a school bus and then approach an adult when the students were getting on the bus. So that's a one of those concerning areas where the the sight lines and you know students can see some of those activities happening. But in both both of these cases I can report that you know all of our students and families um were okay. Students made it to school safely and uh we whenever we get a report like this we do I'm looking at Greg Cole and our team. We investigate that. I know Tim Palmier has given

012some updates as well on investigations of of incidents that we can confirm and we do the best to determine the most appropriate communication plan based on the facts and the timing and the situation of of any incidents that we can con confirm knowing that we we transport nearly 32,000 students every day with over 500 vehicles and 8,000 bus stops. So, it's a it's a massive operation and and when we do get any reports, we we do our best to to look into those and um try to verify. I know board members, you've also received questions regarding a lawsuit filed by Education Minnesota, and there's been two school districts, Fidley and Duth, that are are part of that. Um this the suit is based on a claim that the federal government's violating the federal law by

013improperly um changing the long-standing policies that previously restricted enforcement at sensitive locations in school areas like buildings and bus stops. So they're seeking an injunction to reinstate um those those pieces especially um enforcement activities within a thousand feet of a building or uh school buses uh school bus stops uh etc. So that is an active litigation. we are not part of that litigation. Uh we do have a a close session tonight to really discuss any uh real details or specifics around that with our general counsel knowing that that is an active uh case in process. So those are some high level um kind of follow-ups from from our last meeting in the last two weeks just to give you some some quick updates. Um, that that's the end of my report, but maybe I'll just

014pause here to see if there's questions or any comments from board members. >> Yeah. Board members, any questions? Director Duchain. >> Thank you. I will make sure I have this close enough. Is this audible? Okay, great. Um, I just want to acknowledge that our staff in buildings are really carrying a heavy load right now. Um, I had the chance in the past two weeks to attend conferences at both the high school and the middle school and talk to a variety of teachers and building administrators and also visit several of our elementary schools. And I just want to say thank you to all of the people in the building who are keeping as much of a sense of normaly as they can with this this heaviness and this weight uh on their shoulders. I think two

015conversations are extremely illustrative of of what's happening. We absolutely have students missing school because they don't feel safe to leave and that is very worrying and um not okay. We also have students that are at school worried about their friends, worried about their neighborhoods. And the these two examples, one is a chemistry teacher and the other is um a music teacher. and both shared that they have found that just doing what they do every single day, day in and day out, focusing on the periodic table, letting students just get into their experiments and keeping class as normal as it can be during this time is is helping those students get an escape from the worries that they're carrying coming into the building and leaving the building. Um, same with music, right? Students are processing through

016music. they're processing with their friends by playing playing songs and being together in that way. And I know it's hard to do that. It's hard um for all the adults to continue to just process life as as normal as as they can and our students to do the same thing, but they're they're do they're doing it. Um and I'm so grateful. So, I just wanted to say that and acknowledge that it's hard uh for for people in our buildings and I'm so grateful to them. co-chair. >> Thank you. I also um have had the chance to have many conversations and visit many of our schools and again reiterate and thank the folks. They're showing up. Our principles are showing up. Our staff is showing up and for the most part most of our kids are

017showing up. Um again we worry about those who are not there and again there is that constant dark heavy feeling on people's shoulders trying to make sure that everyone is safe at all times. So I think that continues but again the normaly that schools are trying to achieve. Um there were some things that were postponed and cancelled in some schools, but I had the privilege to attend uh uh book the a young author in our community um came to Monroe Elementary and I know that there were some news stories on that as well and um was able to celebrate her book, an author coming and talking with students and there was dance and there was music and it was a really important day I think for everyone in attendance as well as the community to

018see that that we are celebrating in our schools um even at this important this this incredibly um I don't know even how to to describe it sometimes time at this time in this moment of inflection in our world. So anyway, that's the good news that's happening in our schools. And again, um the support from our community, uh both, you know, from law enforcement as well as our entire school community and our administrative team has been exceptional, I think, in terms of ensuring that everyone is as safe as we can possibly be and getting the resources that everyone needs and deserves, whether it be in school or outside of school as well. Thank you. Director, >> I was just curious, do we know how many students are missing class as a result of >> kind of

019the concerns about ICE and everything? >> Yeah, we are tracking our regular attendance districtwide. So, um on a daily basis, uh we don't always know exactly. uh we we have our codes that um come in and uh I think from our elementary and secondary principles who are also trying to identify who might not be coming due to safety concerns I think it's probably in the range of maybe 3 to 500 out of our 36,000 we have um every day and uh I will also say we are tracking our attendance we compared the last three weeks of attendance compared to last year now last year this was the heavy time for illness. >> Yeah. >> So, we had more students out of school last year at this time than this year, mainly due to illness. Um,

020and not that illness isn't hitting us now, because it is. Um, but we are below the the absence numbers from last year at this time, mainly for that reason. So, uh, it's it's, um, right around five to 6%. So, we're running at 94 to 95%, which I know is s honestly significantly better than other metro districts right now. So, there's a silver lining there. I think co-chair Langenfeld, you said it well. Um, and and I think you all would agree, the consistency and stability we can provide right now for those who are able to be with us is critical. And then how do we best reach out to accommodate attendance uh if if that's impacting a family individually and just kind of taking it on a case- by case basis. >> Director Simon. >> Thank

021you. New setup to get used to here. Um, so first of all, I just want to say I missed the last meeting. I was traveling for work outside of the state um out of state, but um I really appreciate your guys' discussion. So I went back and watched it. Of course, we were kind of talked about it before gave an update. Um so thank you for that. Um, one thing I wanted to comment on is that um, you know, our teachers are doing a great job and they they've always done a great job in all honesty when um, whether it's this in incident or other situations, students have to miss school. Uh, and sometimes for an extended period of time and teachers fill that gap. Um but when you have increased students for maybe a

022specific reason and for a longer duration of timeout, we as a district also need to give them support in that area. Right? So um workload is a big issue for all staff and teachers. So I would just say to Corey, I know you're doing this, but um please reinforce that even more. Um any help we can give to teachers during this time, I think is needed and probably will be very appreciated. Um the second thing since I wasn't able to speak on it last time um one thing I really appreciate uh Corey that that you are doing and administration is doing and our district is doing is focusing on you you use the term verified incidents right there is a lot of reporting out there are a lot of rumors out there in all honesty

023at least for me it's hard to know what to believe like I you know I I hear it from all angles so I really I think I've always focused on and as a board member is like what's my role in this moment and I always think my role is what is happening in in Noah Henipin and what can we verify and that's what you're focusing on in reporting is what can we actually verify that happened so I really appreciate that and would just like to say let's continue down that road of um not the rumor mill just on things we absolutely know and we um have verified um you know I think you talked last meeting about Um this meeting you talked about some incidents at a bus stop and um parked in our parking

024lot. You might not have mentioned bus stop that it might have been last time. Um I was able to visit one of the bus stops um last week that probably had the most reports and um I was there for the middle school and the elementary bus stop pickup. Um I think I think we kind of scared them a little bit because they might have thought we were there but not not from the district but we introduced ourselves. So if we did out there school, I apologize for that. But um nothing, it went off without a hitch. There was a lot of community members there supporting um after all the buses left. Um immigration enforcement did come in the area, but they didn't come during our bus pickup. So I think that's at least in that

025moment. I think that was a positive for our school district. Um and then you had mentioned the lawsuit with Fidley. You know, I'm getting a lot of comments and I know we can't talk specifically and go into detail about lawsuits or potential or those types of things. We'll do that in a close session. But, um, I'll just say that with the Fidley and Duth lawsuit that's out there right now, that's in the news, so it's not it's public. Um, again, I've always been focused on what happens in an Okahenipin. So I do not necessarily lean towards saying let's join something that isn't specific to us. Um so I just wanted to mention that but I do think we do have incidents here in in noa henipin. So how can we how can we engage with

026um immigration enforcement if we can engage with them specifically uh and say like the like the van stopping incidents that Corey went into last meeting. um at least when I viewed them and I know the board viewed them. I viewed them the Friday before your meeting. Um that was a concern for me watching that and I just wonder how we can engage or if we can engage in a proactive and positive way with enforcement to say hey look at this like in my opinion this shouldn't happen. Do you agree? How can we work together to do it in in lie of a lawsuit? I'm not sure if it comes to that or not with the Noah Henipin, but I would rather go in a positive way and have a dialogue, but um I know we'll

027talk about that more in close session, but I just wanted to mention that to the board on kind of my thought process since I wasn't here last Monday. So, thank you. >> Yes, >> I I appreciate that comment. I think one of the things having been a superintendent in a in a city and place where ICE would come um at not like what's happening here in Minneapolis, it's a very different kind of conversation in the community when the the lawsuit is addressing that particular statute or law, whatever it is in place, that they don't um uh come on school grounds. And I think it sets a different tone. Um, I was of the understanding that things were toning back, but again, I think it's really important to have really, um, information that's verified and and

028current in our community. I don't know how you would go about doing what, you know, you suggested. Um but at the same time I think that people would appreciate you know recognizing the fact that that many people are willing to have those conversations and would appreciate uh having a place and a space where we could return to um ICE coming into the community because quite frankly they've been here for a long time you know and they were in Green Bay and even when they would come to town um it would be a very different outcome than what's happened here. So, >> I just want to make sure I take a moment to thank our safety and security team. When we do get reports, we and in our our whole team works hard to um be

029as supportive as we can. We deploy them uh out to the site to provide our administrators and our our building staff the kind of support they need to make sure we're providing a welcoming and safe environment. So, I know um as I'm looking at some of them in the audience, they the minute we get a call, we are reacting and responding and investigating and taking action immediately. And many won't see those actions. Um, but that's what we do every day and working hard to make sure we do everything we can to sort and I really also should echo the sentiment that our our building leaders are doing an amazing job um working within our our unique uh individual communities to make sure that they're um again sending that message of it's safe at school and

030and doing everything we can to help safely get students to and from. So, thank you board members for your comments. >> All right. Thank you, Superintendent McIntyre. And uh yes, thank you to all the staff um from top to bottom from all the people working hard to ensure that our our kids are safe and that they're getting the quality attention and education when they when they make it here to school from Yeah. from our safety and security team to our bus drivers. Um appreciate all of the hard work. Okay, our next agenda item is item five, work session. Uh we will begin with learning and achievement curriculum adoption process. Okay. Welcome Superintendent McIntyre and Sarah Hunter, executive director of learning and achievement. As uh Sarah gets comfortable, I want to give a a moment to

031just say thank you to co-chairs Langenfeld and Hokman as we've been having some conversations last few weeks on how to uh continue to develop our curriculum adoption process. So, um based on those conversations, we're kind of coming to the board here for some initial recommendations on how to uh keep this process moving forward. >> All right. Um good evening um co-chairs Hookman and Langenfeld, Superintendent McIntyre and the rest of the board and the public. Um this I'm I am very excited to be here to talk about this process um given that um ensuring that all of our teachers have the best quality materials in their hands to educate our students is I would say like the the biggest and most important part of my team's job. Um, so I'm excited to um get to both

032share um some edits to the process and um talk about the first steps that we would like to take um this uh later this winter and spring. So the first thing that I would want to share is um we had and um still have a um very comprehensive um process for curriculum adoption and the edits that have been made are predominantly for um streamlining the particularly the initial steps in the process um and then moving a couple of the steps in the prior process to uh sort of a better spot so that they are there aren't redundancies or sort repetitiveness in the process itself. Um so what you see on the screen right now and we are we are um rebranding to phases um because it isn't accurate to say that we just have two

033steps. So I want to say that um off of the the at the beginning um we what we've done is we've taken the prior um process and we've reorganized the the the steps so prior steps into basically a prephase um which is what I'm going to talk about in detail this evening which is called igniting the process. That's essentially the pre-work that is done mainly so that um like has been mentioned already this evening um steps that can be done without bringing educators out of their buildings um can be done by um district office staff so that when we do bring educators into the process we're using their time um the best that we can. Um and then what we would move into and I'll talk about in much more detail um throughout um the

034winter and spring this year are phase one and phase two um which are the two parts of the process where we would come to the board with um action for you to take as a board. So this evening I will step right into um igniting the process. So these are the the first few steps not phases um that that we would like to take um essentially as soon as possible. Um so I want to walk through what that would look like. So the first thing that we need to do when we know um or we are um are concerned that some of our resources might not be meeting our students needs is to um look at our standards, identify gaps in student data if there are any. Right? So places where our students aren't being

035as successful as we would um want and need them to be. Um and make sure that the resources that we have in our teachers hands aren't the if that there isn't misalignment. Um and then to make sure that if um research has changed such as um the um the research around science of reading, right? We have now adopted curriculas that are supportive of um what we what we know students need in order to to learn to read. So things like that and other content areas we would look at as well. Um and in order that is because we want to make sure our resources are aligned to standards and are um rooted in our researchbased um best practices and then um first and foremost meeting the needs of our students. So once we identify a

036need right a gap in either um the what our students are showing us with their achievement or our materials we would do a resource all call. So that is the the sort of first step in um what you would see either publicly or internally in our process. So we as a team and this so each of these um slides tonight have the same structure. So who would be doing that action? Um what is it and then why and we'll continue with that consistent format through the rest of um the presentations this spring um just for consistency. So we as my team um would identify resources that are being used effectively elsewhere, right? So whether that's um inside of our state or outside of the state um we want to know what's working uh well so

037that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. Um and then um sort of aligned with that we u would invite vendors to provide us with curricular resources that align with what our needs are. Right? So we have a set of minimum criteria um that we that would apply across content areas. So again, we're looking for potentially I um curricula that are already successful, right? Have measured success and that align with what we need. Um and then once we do that, so that's a public all call. You would see that um vendors offer us their resources. Some of those resources aren't going to be what we want, right? we're going to we're going to get a ton of resources that are offered to us and we want to make sure that we um narrow down that

038group of resources to um a smaller number that um that truly align with what our students need. And here's where we would start to bring in um other folks into the process. So instructional coaches um if applicable in the content area, we would then use a rubric um that we uh create in partnership with R um that is aligned with all of the evidence-based best practices in whatever content area that we are looking for resources in. And the goal there is again like I said to narrow that selection of resources so that when we bring teachers in in the very next step um we've narrowed the what what is in front of them to what um we would actually want to be using in our classrooms um for a potential pilot. Then um this becomes

039the much larger group um and this is where I think both members of the public um and schoolboard members would want to know. This is the first time that um we would have um a a a space for for you all to be a part of a group including my team. Um we would have study committee members. So those are this is where it becomes a much larger group content area and grade level teachers. So whatever content area that we are looking at materials in members of the technology team in order to make sure whatever um resources we're looking at align with Anoka Henipin's technology um instructional coaches again and then schoolboard and community members. And there we would take that rubric, we would um have vendors present their material um and then we would

040gather feedback from that whole stakeholder group. So each of the the members um of that committee in order to determine how to narrow for a pilot itself. Assuming that we were um successful in finding materials that do align with all of the those sort of different steps in the process, I would then come back to the school board um with a recommendation that is based on the stakeholder feedback on what resources to pilot in whatever content area or courses. Sometimes it'll be a particular course. Um and then that would be when this group would make a decision about moving forward with a pilot in one or more courses or content areas. um I would do that on behalf of the committee. So it wouldn't be my recommendation, it would be a recommendation on behalf of

041the committee and I would then um be sharing the results of the data that we gathered as a part of the process. It is possible at that point um that you that and this has happened where you have a failed search, right? Where the materials that were offered aren't um they aren't good, right? They're not good enough for our students. In that case, that is what I would present, right? Um, ideally that isn't the case, but I just um want to make it really clear both um to the board and the public that we wouldn't bring forward resources that didn't meet our qualifications in in the event that we didn't um end up with high quality resources on the table. So, I think this evening what um we were we are hoping for is direction

042from the board in terms of what steps you would like us to begin to take. Um, and then as I shared at the beginning, my plan would be um to continue to flush out the rest the other phases in the process as we move forward so that we're essentially like having an ongoing conversation with the board and the public about each of the steps in this process as we move forward this spring. I'll turn it back over to the co-chairs for comments. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Uh, any questions board members? Dr. Simon, >> thank you for the presentation for being here. Um, >> so I just want to go back to why we kind of the historical perspective of why we have the current process that we have and some of the challenges

043we faced that created this process. So, um, and and I don't like I'm supportive of, you know, new leadership, new folks coming up with the process that works for them. I'm supportive of that. Um but you know we did we did have where um at times in my service we might have chased the shiny new thing at times we may have um >> uh brought in u materials that were not communicated out to teachers right so they arrive at their classrooms in August or whatever and they're like why are there new books in my classroom and they didn't know it. Those are extreme examples. They didn't happen all the time, but they did happen. Um, and so we created this process to make sure the communication was effective. Certainly, that um, uh, made a robust

044place for the community to review what we were going to do, which I think is important. I know you have in here, but I just wanted to reiterate that. I'm not saying that your process won't do that, but those are just some historical things that we need to make sure we don't revisit, right? Um, I think that In my experience, even with the process we had before that and this could have been just communication to the board. It may have been done and just not communicated to the board, but evaluation was kind of hit or miss for me at least on specific things we brought in. Some of them like wonders, unbelievable feedback to us, right? Like for years about what's working, what's not working, how we're changing things like that. And then some other

045things like I don't think I've ever heard anything. I've as had to ask questions about it. So I just want to make sure that there's an evaluation piece. Not only I know you guys are probably doing it, but that it comes back to the board and we know is is what's happening what we thought was going to happen. Is it working for students? Is it working for our district? So I think that's a very important piece to me at least. And then with that evaluation piece, I would also say um you know and our district changed our structure quite a bit this year, right? So that's why you're here, right? And uh so we went from more, I guess, level and subject specialist to kind of more generalist, at least high level. Um I think

046we need to keep an evaluation of how that's working too. So I think um I've heard feedback from the buildings, good and bad, right? Challenges and no one can hear me. challenges and um successes I think with the process but I think the evaluation on if that new structure works will be important for the board and the district to understand too. Um I think that's it. Thank you very much. >> Go ahead uh co-chair. >> Thank you. Uh thank thank you for the presentation as well. I like the um the steps within the phase process. And I think one of the things that I see in here that's very explicitly stated is evidence-based best practices and also looking to see where proof of concept is already exists. I think that was a question as we've

047been grappling through this process the last couple years since I joined the board. Um and I I think it's very important to have that and I know we have talked um in depth about the importance of highquality instructional materials and that doesn't mean the district has been not adopting those. I don't I don't want to say that. What I what I what I wanted to do is make sure that as we begin forward and you start piloting things just recognizing how um important it is that our teachers have the very best in front of our kids uh to make sure that we have those piloting programs where we want them to be as well so that the teachers don't have to pilot more than they need to. you know, I mean, it's it's a it's

048a big lift and so and I know you totally understand that based on your your experience. So, I but I but it's evident in these steps and I like them called out. So, I appreciated that. I appreciate both those two really important points and I also appreciated that you put in where the community and the school board becomes part of the part of the process because I I want to be sure that we are very transparent. I mean, we made an investment of $4.5 million. And to um Director Simon's point, I was actually around as an educator in the district um when the packages of curriculum showed up that people, it wasn't good. And people, teachers need to be part of it. The community needs to be part of it. So, I like the proactive

049approach of this. And I know many of these points were in the last step. So I don't want to say it's all brand new either. I think to be respectful to to that process and then say, you know, customize it to what you know and and work forward. So thank you. >> Thank you, >> Director Duchaine. >> Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and um I will echo the comments. It's very well laid out. It's easy to understand. I think it's nice to see pre-work and then phases of work that'll help everybody understand what is happening and where we're at in the process. Uh and I also just want to say that this this current board has been very interested in curriculum and you know we had moved away from doing a committee- based

050discussion with only some board members participating to the whole board participating. So I'm thankful that we are having this on the agenda and I think it's really good conversation for us all to be a part of. So, uh, I I appreciate that and thank you for bringing it to us. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh, one thing that I would just like to add, yeah, Director Simon, you brought that up. We don't want to be surprising anyone and we also want to have the best possible materials and one thing that I went think went so well and we're going to continue hearing information about how the reading adoption went. Um but preliminary results say that things are going well. And I think a big piece of that was um the information for the teachers at

051the beginning before we even started looking at what materials um we were going to pilot or anything. It was hey let's let's see where the science of learning is right now. let's get new information because you know even the best um quality teachers that we have that continue taking um coursework and advancing their education um sometimes the science of learning is is progressing faster than they can keep up with. So, it's good for us to have that opportunity at the front of this process to say, "Here are the new trends. Here's the information, the science of learning that we have. Here's the cognitive research." And by helping the teachers see that those new trends at the beginning, maybe in professional development, I don't I think that they won't be maybe at that surprise state and

052like, "Hey, here we don't just want to get you new books." that's important to have materials in the students hands that are um you know not torn or damaged um but also that they're the quality pieces and so I really am excited with this upfront process that we can um look at those newest um newest research pieces and get the best materials um in front of our kids. So really excited about this possibility and the process um that it will keep working in a in a really positive way. >> Thank you. >> Other thoughts anyone? >> Just a quick comment. Thank you board members for your support of the work because there's a lot of work in front of the board um coming up. So this will be a regular placeholder in all the work

053sessions and you know where needed board meeting regular board meetings. Um the team will continue to take then phase one and two and the multiple steps within those and uh at our next work session kind of give you um some time to ask questions about the next phase of the process. But this igniting the process phase is one that's really important so that the team can get to work and begin to move uh a lot of work forward that will be coming back to you. So again just thank you for your support. Actually, one thing that just I don't know what made what you're just saying trigger for me, but um just that thought we have a number of things um areas that need curriculum adoption. Do are we planning while they might not be

054yet be able to get their hands on any information because we still are at the very beginning igniting process, but are there any professional development days or planning that we can start getting them some quality information? I'm not trying to put you on spot or anything, but >> I love that. That's actually perfect timing. So, February 17th is our all day um district PD day for our secondary teachers. We had one in October for elementary. So, yes, and we are already planning um for some PD1 um around what the process will look like just this beginning phases and then where our educators would be a part of the process and then yes, throughout the the the whole day and it's it's essentially set up like a conference, right? It's a professional conference that we put

055on for our own staff um in many cases by our own staff presenting to their peers which is I at least you know in my experience as an educator was when I learned the most right was from really um rockstar teachers in my own district who are able to present on their practice. So that we have a whole day of PD. Folks would be welcome, you all would be welcome um to um one look at our um what the sessions are there um throughout um every content area for secondary um everybody gets to attend four sessions over the course of the day and much of the professional development in each of our content areas is what you're essentially asking for, right? Like what what does high quality instruction look like in your particular content area?

056And we do see it as it's sort of like the before the igniting the process um step for our educators. And that is ongoing every year, right? We have we have PD to start the year in August. We have it then um embedded throughout the year. And um so right now my team is really heavily um engaged in making sure that all of the logistics for that day um go off smoothly. I also just sort of I would love to reflect back on some of the um comments that Jeff made that um yes, I'm a firm believer in in program evaluation and that being a really important part of any curriculum adoption process. So, as I'm looking at um my the curriculum adoption process slide with the sort of three phases in my head as

057you were talking, I'm like, "Yep." So, that's like the fourth phase or the right the phase that's sort of off the end of my slide. Um and and it is the the phase that we are in for CQLA bridgeto read and functional morphology this year. Um we have a week at the end of February where every school gets a full day um walkthrough and observations around CLA specifically. At the end of that day we will have a ton of data that I then get to share with you all um the next right the next time we're able to be together after that week. Um and that's the sort of um data collection that I want to be able to bring to you on any content area. that's just what we have adopted this year. So,

058I I really appreciate you bringing that up. It's important that after we adopt that we make sure the materials are actually working. Um, and sometimes the shifts that we make in the first, second, and potentially third years after adoption are making edits to to how we use the resources, right? Um, for our own teachers as you know, taking things out of a box is only um only as high quality as the training that you provide for the teachers after the fact. So, thank you for making those points. I really appreciate it. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Uh before we transition the next one, I forgot to announce and anyone who's watching, I should have said this at the beginning. Um this different setup we have here is this

059is a work session, not a board meeting. And so we're just trying some different setups so that we can have hopefully some better just conversations um around these things while it's not an actual formal board meeting so that we can have um really carry these ideas forward. So feel free to jump in here and make certain that we're getting all the information that you all as board members need to have. Okay, with that our next agenda item is 5B medical insurance administration update. Welcome Dr. Jennifer Cherry, human resource chief of human resource officer, and Todd Menink, director of labor relations and benefits. Okay. All right. Thanks, board co-chair Pokeman and Langenfeld, members of the board, Superintendent McIntyre. Um this evening we're here uh to do really I I appreciate what you just uh shared uh

060co-chair Hogman because that isn't our our intent tonight is to provide really an overview of um where we're at in relation to our health and hospitalization plan in the district. Provide some baseline information for you. uh some key information about what it means to be a self-funded uh plan and um uh as part of that uh what it means to have a third party administrator. So um we'll also provide some key information about cost drivers to our plans. We've had a lot of uh questions and concerns this last year. we did see a spike uh in the premiums um that we are required to um have for supporting our our plan and um as we're thinking about cost containment measures um really being able to examine some of those cost drivers and and what we

061can do to address that in the future. Um and then we'll also be um talking about the timeline for decision making uh things that'll be coming uh to your um attention within the next month and uh two months uh for actual decision making that you have to do. So I'm going to turn it over to to our expert here Todd Minsk um that'll provide um some of that baseline information. >> Sure. Uh so Minnesota statute 471.617 617 governs self-funded insurance for uh political entities in the in the state of Minnesota and it basically says any entity that has more than a 100 employees has the option of instead of purchasing insurance um insuring ourselves and so uh that's what we've been doing in an noa henipin for half a century um a lot of other

062districts are doing it now uh but we were really on the forefront we're the first district uh to self-fund our insurance Uh and and so it basically means that we are setting our own rates, paying our own claims. Uh and then if we have a good year, that surplus we get to keep. Um in bad years, uh we we might end up uh spending a little bit more. Um but in general, we're not pay paying insurance companies to take that risk for us. Um and so overall, it's a more affordable option. Um uh as part of that we do have stop-loss insurance. The statute also um allows any any employer um to to get stop-loss insurance. And so any claims over $500,000. We have an insurance policy that covers those. We also have an aggregate

063policy that covers any claims over 125% of what we expect for a year. Uh we have never had an aggregate stop-loss claim. we will this year because last we we're already up to about $2 million in claims beyond what we were expecting last year. So, um at at the end of the year when all those claims run out, we'll be getting a check from Medicica for that. Um it the the statute also mandates coverages and uh and there's also a mention of a union role in that the unions need to uh any reduction in aggregate value of benefits needs to be negotiated with the unions. Uh so we we talk about those things in our insurance advisory meeting. Um in general we need agreement from all of our unions to reduce that aggregate value. So

064that would mean that our if our if we were going to make our top plan worth less than it is now uh we would have to negotiate that we can make changes um you know that are cost that are neutral in terms of aggregate value and we can make changes to our lower plans um because they always have that option of going to the most expensive one. Uh moving on to administration. Um so every two years by statute uh and this is also called the health insurance transparency act. It passed about 10 years ago. Uh we need to go out for a bid every two years. Previously it was every 5 years. Uh and so this is if you're fully insured, you go out for insurance. For us it's it's for the third party administration

065and stop-loss insurance. Uh so if we look at our insurance budget uh in fund 20 there's we have an $83 million budget 77 million of that is claims um so that's about you know 93% stop losses is about 3 to 4% and our our administrative fees are only about 2.5 million uh so uh you know less than 3% of our total cost is the cost of paying the administer administrator to administer our insurance. Um, in doing the RFP, uh, we work with AON and they also look at the discounts provided by the different because they've all negotiated different discounts, um, and they all provide guarantees and so they kind of roll it up and and give an expected total cost to us uh, for that RFP. And you should have a memo in your packet

066as well, which is um, our recommendation of Medicica. So, we just did that review. Uh Dr. Langenfeld was at the insurance committee meeting and and um saw the presentation by AON. Uh so moving on to cost drivers and containment levers. Uh this is uh a a big topic we're talking about. We had those large unexpected claims um last year. Our big cost drivers are high-cost claimants. We've had se a lot of high-cost claimants. um you know, people that are in the hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars in claims in a given year. Um in addition, specialty drugs, particularly GLP-1s, um have really spiked in cost recently. Uh and then uh medical inflation, it used to run about 7%, it's been running about 9%. Uh the other thing I'll note about the inflation is

067um the inflation on pharmaceuticals exceeds that of um healthc care in general. Um so we usually get sort of a blended rate when we talk about that where um pharmacy might be going up 10 or 11% and other things five or six and it comes to a middle ground of seven or eight. Um and again those are just numbers I'm throwing out there. I'm not sure what the trend will actually look like. Uh and then as far as containment levers, so um you know the the easiest the simplest thing is you just raise premiums as costs go up. Uh but out-ofpocket costs can also be uh adjusted and so we um we have in the past um added deductible plans. So previously none of our plans had a deductible. We started paying on the very

068first dollar. People would pay a co-ayment um you know so you'd pay $25 for your visit. Now, most of our employees are on high deduct on deductible plans where they have to pay the first 1,500 or $3,000 before the insurance kicks in. Um, and that's really a measure to try and help to it's kind of a market-based measure. The idea is people will um make more affordable decisions if if they have more skin in the game. Um, I have co- insurance here and and I would also note even our our high deductible plan. I mean I I mean even our our plan that has all co-ayments, you try and steer usage within those co-ayments. So the co-ayment for going to a convenience clinic is always going to be lower than for going to an urgent

069care clinic and it's going to be lower than going to a um emergency room. Uh so there are some levers we can pull in our plan design to try and um get people move people towards more affordable coverage. Um and then all plans always have an out-ofpocket max. So there's a point at which um the the plan will cover um everything. And so um that that would be another option is to increase those out-of- pocket maximums. Over the years we've kept our deductibles and out-of- pocket maximums the same. um while everything's inflated. So the the you know the spending power of that $3,000 deductible 15 years ago was very different than it is now. So really those plans have gotten a little bit richer over the years um with inflation. And then the last thing

070I I mention here is just network coverage formulary. Um so included in this we never cover every drug. Um you know Medicica or or thirdparty administrator um will um negotiate uh rates for different drugs. So there will be exclusions and usually there's an appeals practice process by which you can get a drug that's excluded if you need it. Um and then similarly network one strategy we've been involved with with Medicica for um decades is using narrower networks that that provide larger discounts um to the insurer um because we're we're keeping our our business within the network. So, we have two plans that really focus on that new that narrow network um strategy and the claims are projected to be about seven and 10% lower based on the narrow network you go to versus if we

071had everyone in in the broad open access network. >> Yeah. So, >> go ahead. >> Okay. Um thank you for that explanation. So, if we go back to the last premium increase, it was 22%. Which is pretty high, much higher actually than any kind of like nation average. Um, I know there's been discussion about like how to make this to not have that happen again or make it more affordable going in going into the future. Could you paint me some kind of a path or paint me a picture of a path where um you know next year or whenever it is that we're going to vote on like another premium increase or something that it's I don't know within the average or more reasonable like it what's a way that we can get there? >>

072Yeah. And so that really gets to these containment levers. Um so a few things we've talked about in the insurance committee. One one big topic has been that GLP1 coverage for weight loss drugs. um we need to provide GP GLP-1 coverage for um people with diabetes. It's required by law. We can't exclude that from our formulary. Um but for um weight loss, we've always used to cover um weight loss drugs, but they used to be really cheap and not particularly effective. Um and then these are incredibly expensive and incredibly effective. And so it's led to this big spike. And so the committee has talked about either restricting their use um by requiring um higher thresholds of body max index or even excluding them from certain plans. We might need to continue to have it on

073our highest plan uh because of the aggregate value issue. Um but you know we we could look at excluding it from some of our less expensive plans. um it's it's four to five percent of our claims are are going to these um drugs right now. Uh and so we have a we have a lot of employees that would probably prefer to have a more restrictive plan that doesn't cover everything but gives them a more affordable premium. >> If I can ask so of that 22% premium increase so if you say it's 4 to 5% of our claims I think I heard the number that uh the GLP1s were responsible for 4% of the premium increase. Is that correct? >> Yeah, I they're they're really close together. I mean, like I said, 90ome percent of our

074expenses are claims. >> Um and yeah, and then the other thing are these other cost drivers. Um so right now we have we have a few other really nice features in our plans like our prescription drug co-ayments don't apply to the deductible. Um and most plans don't have that. And actually high deductible plans, if you wanted to have an HSA, would need to um apply the prescription drugs to the deductible. So we do have people that probably are spending their $1,500 deductible, but we're only charging them $120 of it because they're doing it with 12 $10 medications. Um so, you know, that's one option. And the other thing is increasing those deductibles or out- of- pocket maximums um or the uh the co- insurance amounts. And so um you know we we looked at all

075of that a little bit in the spring and um AON is where the staff is working with an this month and we our plan is to bring that to the insurance committee and then to the board in March. Um, we really actually need those decisions to be made by the first half of March in order to get the changes into our insurance enrollment system in time for open enrollment. >> And then if I can ask because I remember the last time we had the conversation about the premium increase, it was still forecasting like a large increase into the future as well. Do we have an idea of what that might be or what we're on track to be or is that just too early to determine at this point? I have to say that's too

076early to determine at this point. We there was some analysis done by AON in order to make this projection, but they made it really with early data. They're going to want to get a couple more months of data to make a a more accurate assumption on on what it will look like. I will say we haven't seen huge increases in the last six months. Um although I guess this is another thing I should say because of the structure where people pay their deductible and then the insurance starts paying it's really actually hard to project based on September, October, November, December what claims are going to look like in May, June and and July. Um and so our AON has the ability to go back and they'll look at actual claims where I tend to be

077looking at bills I'm paying. But, you know, a lot of the bills we're paying in September or October are really for last year's claims. It a lot of it runs out several months. >> Coach, >> thank you. Um, having attended the meetings has been very helpful for me to understand where we currently are. And I think one of the things that that um hasn't been stated that I think is important is and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but how people were um actually did really well not going to emergency rooms and they they really took care. So I want I want our our staff to know that's that's an important part because sometimes you look in a lot of it's emergency room visits and it was not the case. um they were they

078were going where they needed to go for the lowest costs. So that that was appreciated. I think the other part that is really important as we have these conversations, one of the things that came up was that the importance of staff understanding what options they have. Um, and I know that a lot of folks, we talked about it at the meeting, people don't didn't always you come on board, you might be a single person, you don't know what to take, you're brand new to the district, and you might just say, "Hey, Michelle, what are you doing?" And I say, "Oh, try this." And so what what they promised and and the conversations that we hope to have with the members is that they really have an opportunity to talk about their needs specifically before they

079make a choice. And I think that will help people get the right plan. And then also the discussion around um a plan that is maybe not currently being offered uh with with a a lower premium option or whatever a payment option. So just kind of expanding the portfolio. Um still having that aggregate like you said we have to have that as part of statute but also recognizing um the importance of of options but knowing what your needs are too and not just signing up. Now that isn't true for everybody but there was a lot of discussion around that which told me a lot of people have made choices like that. And I know even in conversations when um there were a lot of folks out out there talking to me about different things that we

080were in insurance um you know some had just looked very casually at the plans and they had kept the same plan for a long time and their needs had changed uh to fewer needs. So lots of options and opportunity out of out there as as we think forward. Um there's a lot of discussion about uh pharmacy on the market, you know, out there um that you can just purchase versus what we're paying. How do you see that factoring in? Um there was just a a roll out of RX out there um that has much lower prices and you go out in the open market. What does that how does that impact us and how will that um >> are you referencing the GLP1s? >> No, I'm referencing I'm referencing pharmacy being reduced significantly if you

081go to a website, you know. Um >> I don't I'm not sure. So, this is like the uh oh, what's his name? The former Dallas Mavericks owner runs his own Mark Cuban has a >> discount good well even good RX and things like that that are out there that that that I'm hearing you can go there to get a month's supply of GLP1 pills. I'll just use that as an example for significantly less than maybe you need a prescription. I'm not suggesting that and it is not a compound and it seems like those opt options or opportunities are out there in different spaces. So just curious if they factor in or >> I think maybe part of our pharmacy benefit manager, right? Like we have specificies that we >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> that Yeah.

082and and so I know that has been an issue um in recently you know there was the Trump RX the move to >> yes >> um where he kind of >> gave uh access to Medicare's market in exchange for having lower prices but those prices were negotiated for Medicare patients and the private market not for uh fully insured groups uh and and I know the Medicica has talked to us about how the their farmer benefit benefit managers are now negotiating to try and get discounts that will match. Um, but that is something we talked about is would it be easier to just allow people to get it on the market and and maybe through a a wellness benefit provide a reimbursement? Um, >> I would say one of the other one of the other things

083that we've worked um just this last year with Medicica on and it's part of the plan um to try to again contain costs as it relates to all of these specialty medications >> um that again are are are new and they're very expensive >> and um they're seeing really great results. the increasing costs with these new specialty meds that are coming out have been um enormous. Uh that Medicica works with bioimilars um and that's their plan. And as bioimilars become more available, that's um what they work on is is uh bioimilars first uh whenever possible. And so there are some other options that we're seeing uh um some ways to try to contain those costs and that's through our our pharmacy benefit management um as part of our plan. And actually when you look at

084the um disruption uh when it comes to pharmacy um you'll find that staying with your current plan has disruption because pharmacy benefit managers are constantly changing their formula to try and get less expensive alternatives. Um, so we don't have a 100% uh compliance of going from Medicica to Medicica because they already know that Express Rex is going to change their formulary from what it was, >> okay, >> a year ago. >> And so if you um look at our our next slide here, this provides a timeline and decision making. Um, in your packet you do have a uh briefing on our third party administrator. Our recommendation is that we maintain our relationship with Medicica. Um, and uh we'll be bringing that to you for um your approval on February 23rd. Um and at the same

085time we are working hard with our consultant um and we will be u meeting with our insurance advisory committee again uh in the next month to start reviewing plan designs um various ways um that we uh might propose some plan design changes. We'll come back to you on March 9th with a review of those plan designs. Um and then on March 23rd at the schoolboard uh meeting, the business meeting, uh we will be recommending our new insurance plans and then rates for the 26 27 year. As Todd had mentioned, it's important for us to have those plans set in March um because we need to be prayer prepared for open enrollment which happens already at the end of May. Um and our plan year is September 1 through August Thank you. I know you covered

086it um briefly at the beginning of the presentation, but could you just walk us through a high level and the board also received the briefing memo which has the details. Uh you did go back out for a request for proposal, which is like a bit the market. So you asked many different third party administrators to give us rates, what it would cost for them to administer our plans, how could they look at our plans? We currently have similarities. Can you just give us a brief overview of why the recommendation would be to stay with Medicica? >> Yeah, absolutely. We had so we went out um all four of the big insurers um UHC, Medicica, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, and Health Partners responded. Um as well, we also got a fully insured PEEP bid. Uh and

087so after reviewing those, we could see PEEP was more expensive than um any of the providers. and we we uh we brought Medicica and Blue Cross Blue Shield back as finalists um and and gave them the opportunity to submit a best and final offer. Uh so in the end um when we did the review um when it looked at at at the open networks really the uh they were very similar like there was very little disruption. They all have big broad wide openen networks. Um, and so there wasn't going to be a lot of disruption in coverage. Uh, when they did their uh their 2-year summary, their two-year projections, it it showed that, you know, they were projecting 181 and 181.8 million, something like that. Um, and they said that it was within that margin

088of error. So, they couldn't really say reliably which one had a a higher amount. And so after reviewing it with the insurance committee, we really didn't feel like we wanted to make a a jump to Blue Cross Blue Shield if the cost is the the same. Um the the other big factor there is Medicica has some kind of unique narrower networks and we knew if we went to Blue Cross Blue Shield, if people wanted to use that narrow network strategy, some people wouldn't be able to. They'd have to move from it to keep their doctor. They'd have to move into the open network. Um, so that was I I think another big uh decision maker. Blue Cross did have a kind of in innovative uh co-pay plan that we were interested in. Um, but I

089in in general the the sense was that staying with Medicica and and staying with those narrow networks was outweighed, you know, the interest in in this other option Blue Cross was able to provide. >> Thank you. I think important. So, it's we're not only trying to work on containing costs inside of the plans once we decide who the administrator is, but we also >> for the law that you mentioned and the process every two years, we're going back out to the market to make sure we're finding the best value and lowest cost combination for the third party administrator for this. >> Thank you. Um, and then you said something at the beginning that I just want to make sure is clear. So, we had a lot of discussion about this when we're talking about contracts

090and and how insurance works and plays into increasing costs for our employees. um for our $2 million above expected claims that the stop offs insurance will be in for. Um is this accurate that that is something that like the general fund of the district had to cover as a as a shortage from the insurance fund that then that would be reimbursed to the insurance fund or to the general fund? How how would that stop loss? >> The aggregate stops. the correct [clears throat] >> uh and maybe uh it'd be good to have director Vargas uh talk about that. I I don't believe in the end the general fund subsidized fund 20. I I think but fund 20 pretty much ran out of money so that will help um build up fund 20 again. >> Okay.

091And so when you said before too like if I think you said something along the lines if we have a good year with like lower claims and Yeah. >> Keep the surplus that stays in fund 20 insurance. So it's not like the district >> gets the surplus to use. >> No, it stays in fund 20 insurance. I just want to make sure that's really clear that it's >> um it's all within fund 20 for insurance claims and it could carry over year to year. If not, everything is spent down and this year we had it spend down to almost nothing. >> Yeah. And and if fund 20 were depleted, it would have to come from the general fund. >> Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it. Dr. >> Thank you very much. Um

092few questions first. Um >> was I right on that? >> If there's more can [laughter] >> I'm going to ask first then you can jump. Um so the you had mentioned going out and getting bids, right? So we went out and got bids for the four and then you had mentioned the fully insured PE plan and the PE plan is the state plan, correct? >> Yes. Yes. Am I right there? Is there a difference? I've never heard the um the description of the fully insured or or self-insured or however you said that PE plan. Is that different? Are there two different PE plans or is it just the PEEP plan? >> No, I mean PEEP would just charge us a premium. Um so, so PEEP told us what the premiums would be. uh and they

093were significantly higher than our current premiums or what given the information they have now AON was projecting. >> Okay. >> Um but but PEEP is if we had a terrible year like we did last year, we wouldn't have depleted our surplus doing that and if we have a good year, we wouldn't keep the difference. We just pay people whatever the premium is. So, so the state plan we would move away from being self-insured and we if we did that we would join a state plan like you had just said and >> the premiums really throughout my history here every time you've reviewed or we've reviewed the PE plan >> it did not save our folks any money at all and it was actually more expensive and maybe some of the plans weren't as good also.

094Is that fair to say? >> Yeah, that's fair to say. In fact, one thing I think we're looking at as we look at plan designs is moving to a plan design that's more similar to the PL PEEP high deductible plan. Um, there is interest, you know, by Education Minnesota in creating a sort of mandatory statewide pool that would follow that plan design. Um, so, you know, that's an option we're looking at is is having our because our lowest plan design is quite a bit richer than their lowest plan design. >> Okay. Um, a few other questions on you talked about March uh or I'm sorry, February 23rd we'll approve the third party. Um, we're approving that company, but that company makes up I think you had said 2 and a.5 million of the 84 million.

095So that approval is about really those costs and who's going to be our third party administrator, not obviously not the plans. I just want to make sure the public and everyone understands that's going to be a review for later. So that's um a small portion. And I it's an important decision but a small amount um of it. And then you had talked about the the 22% quoted increase that we had recently in premiums and that GLP1s were I'm going to say you said four to five I'll just say 5% of that total cost or increase medical inflation you had mentioned 9%. >> So that would mean the high claimants were 8%. >> Is that roughly accurate? >> Roughly accurate. Okay. So, obviously Michelle talked about this and she's on the committee, which I think is

096important, but uh the plan design is going to be very important for if there's increases or not, right? Can can we create a plan that >> um people could save money or maybe it's the same or there smaller increases, right? That that's really where the rubber meets the road on on what folks insurance is going to be. Um, and we're not going to get away from I mean maybe we will, but we're going to have high claimments probably. So, um, that GLP1 medical inflation, I maybe it won't be as high, but it'll probably be there. So, the plan design really is the important piece of this. I think it's important for everyone to understand that. Um, and the last thing I'd like to, it's not a question, just I want to highlight to everyone, and

097this is to any staff or the public, um, uh, listening to this is that we have the insurance committee, which includes obviously, um, uh, director or I'm sorry, co-chair Langenfeld um, as our board representative, but also you folks um, and teachers, union, our staff in this. So, um this is a partnership with folks who um have our insurance, right? So, we are and and it's always been that way. So, I know increases were high last time. Um and everyone in that committee and everyone is working to try to keep it low and get the best plans we can get. So, I think it's just important to highlight that that um we want to do what's right for our organization and for our staff. and thank you for all the work you guys do on that.

098>> Thanks. >> Okay, thank you for the presentation. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Our next agenda item is the enrollment center update. Welcome Tanya Constantine, deputy superintendent. Greg Cole, chief operations officer, and Michelle Vandentop, director of technology and information services. >> Hi, good evening everyone. This is so warm and inviting. I like this setup. Um, good evening um, co-chairs Langenfeld and Hulman, Superintendent McIntyre, and the rest of the school board. Um, we are here tonight to talk about um, our district enrollment center. Right now, enrollment is an action. Um, it's something that new families can um, go on to our website and click enroll. and that works for about 85% of our families, but for about 15% of our families who require more wraparound services, um we're excited to talk about the enrollment center

099becoming a place. Um we had the perfect opportunity to create this collaborative space um with the Rapids Welcome Center um ending that lease that we talked about a couple months ago. And now this is going to create a really great collaborative space not only for the folks who are out at the welcome center and they are just a gift to these families that come in um but also to uh provide a space for all the wraparound services that are currently based um at the ESC. So I'm going to let um Michelle Vandentop talk about this because it's not something that was just talked about since I've come in. I'm about 10 years late to this conversation. That's how long that this process has been talked about and I'm sure uh director Simon, you know all

100about this conversation, how far back it goes as well. I know Corey had mentioned that even when he was an ASU here that it was something that had been talked about. So, it's exciting to be a part of it. >> Good evening board members, Superintendent McIntyre. I am so excited to be here tonight talking about our Anoka Henipin Enrollment Center and I know um we've shared that this has been a conversation for so many years and we're so excited to talk about where we're at today. Um so the first thing um is really talking about a purpose and why are we here? This uh project is really about our customers, our parents and guardians when we're onboarding them to Anoka Henipin Schools as a new family and being able to give them a comprehensive experience.

101Um right now we have a great experience. We know we can make it better. Um and that is what this enrollment center is going to do for our families. Um the first thing I want to share is that this is aligned with our strategic priorities and Greg is going to share a little bit later around how that connects. Um but first of all let's talk about how we're going to move from a welcome center to an Anoka Henipin enrollment center. Um so as Tanya mentioned we have done a lot of pre-work and proactive steps to get us to where we're at today. So this conversation began many years ago. Um, I was bringing teams of people throughout the metro to neighboring school districts for them to see enrollment centers, to experience it, to have demos,

102to feel what it's like to be one of the families and walk through there and have a comprehensive experience that offers all of the wraparound services we want to offer all of our families. Um, so we have visited um, just to name a few, Minneapolis public schools enrollment center, St. Paul's public school, St. Paul Public Schools Enrollment Center and then OIO to our our neighbor to the south. We've been back to OIO many times because they offer a very comprehensive experience that has a lot of great pushin resources. Um we've also taken some proactive steps with making that decision to move out of the Rapids Mall, which gave us this opportunity to think differently about our enrollment center. We've met with an architect to discuss plans um with the space that we're looking at at

103the educational service center, our ESC. We've discussed with people that will be moving into this space what their new role might look like within an enrollment center. And in March, we'll begin construction and hopefully in July, we'll be having a grand opening of our Anoka Henipin enrollment center. So, as Tanya had shared, we have 85 to 90% of our enrolling families do this process online. And let me just share when this began. So, I've been in my role for about 12 years now. And when I first started, there was a real disconnect for families as they entered school buildings to enroll. Everything was done on paper and they might do the process three or four or five times over. and that just was not the experience that we wanted to continue to support. So, back

104in 2018, we brought on what's called online registration through our Synergy student information system. This allowed families to enroll anywhere as long as they had access to a device, whether it be a computer or a handheld device. They could do this from the comfort of their home. So when we talk about an enrollment process, we want to look at the enrollment process that's current for today's model and then look ahead to the new enrollment center. So like I said, 85 to 90% of our families go on to our our web page and they process through the the steps of online registration. We have what's called a sitebased model right now for supporting this process. uh at approximately 47 of our sites, our K12 sites, we have what's called a registar. The registar oversees the registration

105cues, which is where that registration lands once the family completes the process. Now, going back to thinking about that family experience, how can we improve this? When a family has multiple age students, maybe one at elementary, one at middle school, one at high school, the message, we want it to be aligned. We want it to be consistent, but you have three different people processing a registration queue. The timing can be off. The messaging can be kind of out of alignment. This is where we can make improvements for our families. We can have an onboarding team at the central office taking lead on all registration cues. So, that will be a process we move into our new model. Also, as Tanya mentioned, our family welcome center does an amazing job with our families. They see our

106families that have indicated another language outside of English on the online registration process or that may need help with translations. Those families are being sent over to the welcome center for this in-person testing for their students. Where we really are going to embrace the idea of an enrollment center is having them a part of this new cohesive team at the central office. In addition, you see on the right side all of the departments that can contribute to this wraparound service. So, transportation, McKinto, our hope office, child nutrition, special education, all of our community ed offerings, Adventures Plus, adult basic ed, and early childhood screening. When we think about the impact this will have to our staffing, we are not asking for add additional staff to house in our enrollment center. We're going to take the

107the team that lives over at the welcome center right now. So, there's about five of them. And we are going to take some of my staff from applications and connection services. And we're going to become a cohesive team working out of the new enrollment center. This will offer some great flexibility with teaching one another all the different processes we currently use and enhancing that process for our families. And then again, I just want to highlight the wraparound services. So when a family enters the enrollment center at the Anoka Henipin um ESC, we will be able to do an intake process to determine what the family needs. Then all of our other departments at the central office can push in and support the family right inside the enrollment center. Our vision is that the family won't

108have to leave this space. They'll feel warm, welcome, and safe. they can stay in this space throughout their entire visit, throughout the entire onboarding and get all of their questions answered. Um, so the last part on that slide is just really acknowledging that those wraparound services is meant to create an experience that's a full onboarding experience where the family will leave with all of their questions answered. In conclusion, I just want to reiterate how this is going to create a new standard for our families and the engagement we have with them. It will also relieve our school sites from doing these registration cues, acknowledging that we give them criteria to keep that process tight, but now the message can be really aligned for families and consistent. It also will just bring all of those support

109staff in a united system at the ESC so it's not fragmented. We're not sending families over to the welcome place and then they may have to come over to talk to transportation. It's all cohesive and most importantly, it's going to ensure that every family is truly onboarded with a welcoming experience. >> Thank you, Michelle. Co-chairs Hulman, Langenfeld, uh, Superintendent McIntyre, members of the board. U, with any project, we do a costbenefit analysis. That's something we always do. I want the public to to know that. Um, and as as you're aware, as Michelle pointed out, we've been looking at this for for a long time. Uh, the stars aligned a little bit. Um, and and not all for good reasons. Our budget reductions significantly reduced staff at the ESC. Um, that impacted space. At the same

110time, as board members and the public are aware, we've been continually moving out of leased facilities and into facilities we own. Um, and the reasons for that have [clears throat] to do a lot with the flexibility that we have with our funding to be able to do more with less. Um, and frankly, in this case, we saw the chance um to essentially provide better services at a lower cost. Our our lease uh will expire here this summer at the Rapids Family Mall. Um, we'll be moving all of the programming there into the ESC and also, uh, Sorderberg and some other sites. Uh, this isn't the only program that's at the Family Welcome Center. Um, but we really saw a chance to do something special here and provide a better service. Um, Michelle, I want to

111really give a shout out to her in terms of working with our uh, buildings and grounds team and an architect uh, to really make this an efficient plan. um that maximizes service at a at a reasonable cost with the space that we have. So we spent a lot of time identifying the space, thinking about security, thinking about efficiency, thinking about access to services that we already have at the educational services center. So we feel really great about this and um yeah, we're excited for the the services going to provide our families moving forward. So with that, we take any comments or questions from board members. >> Yeah, thank you for that. Um questions board members. Director Duchaine. >> Thank you. Um could you expand a little bit on the cost benefit analysis like maybe some

112highle costs that we were having at the family welcome center at the Rapids Mall versus what the cost of the architecture the architect and construction might be um and how you how that played into your decision-m. >> Sure. Um, at this time, uh, the lease for the Rapids Family Mall programming, and it's a pretty large facility for those of you who have been there, is about, uh, $395,000 a year. Uh, the common area maintenance fees are about $180,000 a year. And we also have janitorial, um, or services that we pay $25,000 a year for a total of $600,000 a year. Um, in addition to that, uh, as mentioned before, we knew that we were facing some, uh, pretty significant, uh, mechanical, uh, replacements that we were we were looking at for the next maybe two

113or three years to the tune of around $500,000. So, uh, we're pretty confident that, uh, this project will essentially pay itself off in a year or maybe two at the most. And from that point forward, we're going to realize savings just based on those costs. >> Director S, >> I'm going to need a new mic next time. Um, thank you. This is exciting. I agree. Um, Michelle, thanks so much for your work. I think it's amazing. You too. I think it's um thinking outside the box too, like during our budget cuts of like how can we serve our folks better and save money and you guys came up with that. So, thank you um from us and from everyone in our district. Um I just had one question. So, right now the individual sites, right?

114So, the folks at individual sites are going to get an offload of some work, right? Because they won't be doing that function anymore. Correct. But that means if they're off, which is good, right? Right. We always look at um workload and not making sure we're not uh having too much, right? But if they're offloading that, you guys are getting that, right? So I just and I'm sure you've thought all of this through and everything, but um we just have to have to always be mindful and I'm sure you are of workload on our folks, right? So if it's great that sites are getting some offloaded, but you're getting more. So just keep Corey and Greg and Natanya and everyone updated if um on workload because that's important. Thanks >> Coach Langfeld. >> Thank you and

115thank you for the presentation and quite frankly it was before this date was >> Patrick Plant and I went out and started this journey in probably about 2009 10 somewhere in there. So, but but there were there were problems and you solved a lot of them just finding the space, finding the finance, all of those pieces. But this this actually factors into what director Simon is saying at that time there was discussion about some FTE going to this effort and I don't you know I think to to your point Director Simon well well taken in that that has to be monitored. One of the questions that as I think about this and I think it's really important as as our as our families come forward just a small percentage but but having multiple children in

116different spaces and needs when when a student and this may be just a general question for you Michelle when a student comes to the district and let's say having been a principal I've had had used to have students come with no transcripts and not know where their placement is. Um and it would became very um sometimes challenging to get the records. The question that I have for us as a district is what is the process and who is responsible to get those materials and let's say Michelle comes and I don't have transcripts and I'm going to a high school and you know that kind of thing and I and people don't know where to to start me out. H how do we address that as a district? And is that something that is part of

117this plan or would that still go back onto the high schools? How does that work? >> You're correct. Um it is sometimes challenging to get everything we need to place the student appropriately, especially in the 612 word 612 world where the coursework is really important. K5 is a little bit easier. Um but one thing we do not do is delay enrollment. We want to get the students started as soon as possible. Now, with that being said, we also don't want to put them in the wrong courses. So, we do our best effort to collect records from the previous institution. Sometimes they're out of country, right? So, we need to review transcripts that may be in another language. Um, we have staff that help us with that. Our counseling staff is amazing at the site level.

118Let me talk about the process going forward because remember, we're moving away from a site process of reviewing the queue. So our team will um do the registration cues and approve using the tight criteria that we use to determine that a family is eligible to enroll birth certificate, proof of residency, etc. Once we approve, that's when the ball goes to the court kind of to the court of the the site again and that's where they start the records request as well as the schedule. So they are building the schedule. So there is a strong partnership with the teams that have been doing the work. It's just we're taking that first piece to ensure that the consistency is there. Now, back to your question, if we don't have the records at a site level, that student

119would be assessed to determine where they're at with proficiency so that they can be placed appropriately, especially 612. And that does happen often with our ML population. Um, you know, they use the access testing to determine proficiencies, to determine coursework. So then as as you're waiting for the materials or the course to understand where the student is at, do they receive any kind of online opportunities, things like that? Is that up to the schools or how does that work? >> Yeah, generally the goal is to have the student enrolled within 48 hours of approving their registration. So there may be times where we get them in a course that's not a good fit and then once they're assessed we we shift or we pivot. >> So they they they're put in schedules but there's not

120a place having done this in a prior experience putting them in online opportunities as we get that information. We're not >> we haven't explored that but that could be an option that we explore. >> Okay. I I'm just curious about that because quite frankly it it is important to place that student in the best place that they can be most successful >> and and so >> and get them started as quickly >> at a place fortunately now where we can do a lot more than we used to be able to do as we waited for the materials to come. So just a consideration as we move forward that would be great and thank you for this and you know there was some concern back in the day that you we didn't have a site on

121both sides of the river but I think we are at a place where it seems like people and transportation seems to work but I would assume if anyone reached out and didn't have transportation we'd help them figure it out >> to get here to register in >> Yeah. was actually one of the talking points we had with each of the enrollment centers. Um, AIO being on a bus line where they thought that might be utilized by a lot of their families and it really wasn't. Families found ways to get to them. Um, so we're hoping for that experience as well. The other thing I would note is we feel like this is realistic today because of online registration. Knowing that 85% of our families are completing it don't need those wraparound services. It's realistic to

122think that those families that need it can come to us and we can help them in a comprehensive way. >> You'll come back and tell us how great it's worked. >> I sure will. >> All right. >> Well, Director [clears throat] Langfeld, when we when I was here 10 years ago looking at this, that was the barrier. It was still paper. >> So, what changed the whole game is online registration. Otherwise, we would have had to do two enrollment centers, one on each side of the river, and that was um really tough. And so think back far enough, families with multiple buildings had to go to multiple buildings and fill everything out by hand. >> Um just really and this is our first opportunity to make a positive impression on our families and our students.

123So >> this will do move us miles ahead to do that. Well, and I I do want to kind of also address one of your questions. um the highest standards to make sure we're authenticating, verifying records, >> um whether it's all those required records, making sure they're they're legitimate. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> So, we're we're you know, like everyone else, trying to make sure we're following best practice, best standards, how to make sure um they're legitimate and not uh something else, right? So, that's from a safety perspective. >> Yeah. I appreciate knowing that and our public will, too. >> Yeah. Thank you for that. >> All right. Well, thank you so much. Before you go, I just want to echo that idea that um maybe that's something that we investigate as this

124great opportunity is, you know, launching and we have this chance to offer this to our families to get their kids enrolled and into classes, like you said, 48 hours soon getting them. But, but what can we do to make certain that they're um we're not pushing them ahead before putting the cart before the horse, right? making certain that they're in the right place because as a classroom teacher myself, I mean that could happen from time to time. Um, a student comes in and you do the counseling department does the best they can to get the child placed in the courses they think they need and then the paperwork comes in, the transcript actually arrives and we find out, oh, there are some services they're supposed to have that we didn't we didn't know. So, they

125weren't getting those services or they were in a course that wasn't quite right, either too advanced or not quite enough. Uh, so maybe we can think through that and and find some some ways to um yes, get them learning as soon as possible. Maybe an online option until we can get them in the right place. I think that would be really a wise thought. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> To explore. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks everyone. Thank you. >> Our next agenda item is 2627 district strategic priorities. Superintendent McIntyre. >> I'm going to try to move us quickly through this one. Uh I want to thank coach Hokman and Langenfeld for the discussions leading up to this and your ability to um poll and work with board members on their input.

126Um really we're just we're moving this forward to continue our focus and remain steadfast in our mission and really to continue to represent the commitment and disciplined approach to our work uh that you've made the commitment for. So the priorities really um are not changing course by much. We're in my mind deepening our commitment and our focus to stay the course and to turn our implementation efforts then into those measurable impacts that you're all wanting to see. Right? So when we look to the 26 27 year gives us doing this now allows us to get ahead of a few things mainly our budgeting cycle our planning cycles for the following uh the coming school year. So, we're really uh just uh pairing this down even more with more focus with the fact that uh we've

127we've accomplished some work that can come off now at this point and really maintaining our primary three areas, behavior, literacy, and workforce. And continuing to uh let those be the center of our work, especially through the challenging financial times we've been through. I think this is my recommendation to really stay true to these three areas. How do we continue to improve student engagement and behavior? How do we continue to uh implement and measure our literacy efforts? Uh you're going to see as we move through the spring the additional work at the secondary level in combination with the elementary commitments you've already made to be in alignment with the science of reading and the read act and that unified framework that this will provide. And then also lastly, just continue the commitment to a strong workforce.

128Um, not just in the teaching and learning areas, but all of our other operational areas as well. So, this really uh to me is a stay the course plan to drive deeper and and uh to really give the district a chance to then evaluate and and measure impact on on these three areas. So, that's my short description here and I'm encouraging the board to um we have a draft document in here and I would recommend if there's general agreement here that we could bring this back on consent at the next board meeting to make that finalized. >> All right. Thank you. Uh Superintendent McIntyre thoughts? >> Thanks, Alinda. Uh thank you, Corey. I agree. I think simple is better at this moment. So, I I endorse this. One thing I would like um is kind

129of the meat behind it, right? So I'm just curious if we're thinking about changing our actions behind any of these or if they're remaining the same too because I have some thoughts about retention and that is maybe different than what we've done in the past specifically. So, if there is current um action items behind this, I would love to see it. Or maybe maybe there aren't yet. Maybe you can answer that. >> How about we uh so I think it's important to do that and we can provide the board updated details behind each of the three areas. I think you're you're going to see a lot on literacy coming up. So, that's not going to be a much of a question for you. Um, as we've looked out at the next three months, a lot

130of details coming there, but I um I'll work with our team to do some follow-up with you to to flush that out. >> That's good. >> Yeah, >> I think that's a great point to uh make certain that they're not just a bullet that's listed there, but we have some >> some goals, some ideas and actions behind it. >> Okay, thank you for that. Uh to the next item um 2026 district legislative platform. Superintendent McIntyre. >> Yeah, I'll be brief on this one as well. And uh kind of a similar approach. I thank you co-chairs for helping you know pull board members for input on this because we are in a policy focused session uh this year in the bianium not a funding year. uh it makes sense that for this year's priorities and or

131legislative platform that we focus on those policy areas where we can make the biggest impact. So a couple areas key shifts to pay attention to and we did attach some dollar amounts here just to give it some tangible traction with our legislators. for example, you know, without permanent funding for unemployment and paid family medical leave, that's in the neighborhood of $5.5 million should that not be continually funded by by the state. And our uh it's always to me important, and I I think we agreed when we were talking about this recently, our cross subsidies in the area of special education and our multilingual learners is in the um neighborhood of $38 million as well. So we want to make sure we continue to make uh clear to our legislators that those cross subsidy efforts matter.

132So you know we cannot let that let that fall backwards and again it's a policy year but I think keeping that narrative strong is important. Also um the big one this session it's a policy decision but it we have a financial one is our compensatory aid funding. There's $9 million on the line for us and I I I see Michelle in the shaking her head out there. U we cannot afford to go backwards on that along with the work of the blue ribbon commission that I'm on with special education. That's for us got about another $6 million in question. So, um those are policy things that we can really focus our ef energy on. Um and also just a couple other things that we put in the the draft platform. uh any flexibility we can

133get with state standards implementation. We talked about that recently. That gives our uh gives some breathing room to districts to implement without um kind of that rigid one-sizefits-all um constraint giving us more flexibility I think would be a place to talk about that with our legislators. And then lastly, uh really the simple notion of either fully fund the un underfunded or unfunded mandates or repeal them. And you know, one of those that has come up for this board in the last couple years is that K3 discipline proposal. We, you know, tried to cost that out as we move forward. That's a good example of of that. You know, um I I know Director Arco, you had a great question earlier today about uh what's the status with u funding for meals. That is a at

134this point a fully funded um requirement. So that's not really in the category of underfunded or unfunded. It's it's a requirement. they have to fund it unless a log has changed. Uh but that's one that um I know we've tried to look at the under or unfunded mandates that continue to come out. I I still think as the read is one of those areas too where we we spent nearly $5 million and only got about half of that for PD and and materials. So every district's going through a stretcher where they're implementing using in part general uh fund dollars for that. So in the in the platform it the goal was to keep this really simple. This will be a fastm moving session. We've been hearing that a lot lately. I know um co-chair Langenfeld's

135been at some meetings with me at AMSD. Uh the session opens February 17th. All the policy bills have to be turned in by March 27th. So it's about a five to six week window. So our our recommendation is our best way to make impact is really hit hard those days at the capital. have those individual conversations using our platform to influence our legislators knowing that this is going to go much faster than a a more traditional uh year. So maybe with that I'll pause and see if co-chairs you have any thoughts as we you know we had some conversation about this here recently. >> Okay. Um thank you for that. Board members additional ideas. Go ahead. >> Quick question. So the first the first page of the legislative platform looks like you carried over some

136information from last time. Can you talk about what the planned updates to that might be or are we still sending the message that we have a budget shortfall of 26 million? >> So yeah, that's an area that we want to edit and thanks for catching that because I I kind of went right to the back page. So I'd like this to reflect that we've already made 22.2 million and we have another 5 million looking ahead. So when you get to nearly $28 million, uh that sets the tone, I think, for us to leverage some of these policy areas, especially with the ones that have big financial impact. So that would be an edit here that we, you know, we've made I wanted to reflect, you know, accurate action of the board. So we've made the

13722.2 with another five million, you know, roughly pending. So I think that's the edit I'd make there. and we'll we'll make that adjustment before you u make the final approval on this document. Probably coming back to you on the 23rd of February. >> Uh thank you. That was all >> Director Simon. >> Good question. That was one of mine. Appreciate that. Um I like the simplicity of it. I think it's very clear. Um I'm in support of that. One potential addition that I would suggest to for us to consider um you know the 22 million it might be good to to give some bullet points uh to the legislators of what that meant to us. What did we cut? What did we lose? What are our students in our community not going to get because

138of that money? And maybe can that can be carried over if they get rid of compen and 9 million. What we don't know what would be cut. Obviously, this board would decide upon that, but what are some highlevel bullet points of important things and how much they cost us, right? So, like 9 million, how many teachers would that mean? Not saying we're going to cut teachers, but just letting the legislators know. I think it's very impactful for them to have those talking points and that transparency into what those types of dollars mean to an NOA Henipin. Um, so I would suggest that I think it might make it even more impactful. And I would just add uh as we've had individual conversations with our legislators, those are the things we do talk a lot about

139to kind of make it understandable like what does that mean? How many staff is that? Those kinds of of things. I think we maybe can um rethink some of these factors. We've had these factors on for two years straight. I think people are pretty clear on what those are. So we could shift that to what are the areas being impacted by those cuts that we've made >> as a shift. That's an excellent suggestion. >> Okay. So, we'll work on that and bring it back um in the next uh by the time you approve it on the 23rd, we're already a week into the session. That's how that's how quickly it's it's approaching. >> Director Arco. >> Yeah. So, okay. Uh one quick question then I'll have a thought followup. I had sent an email earlier

140asking if we had any data on how many classroom evacuations we had specifically for K3 um this year so far and last year. >> We do. Thank you for and I was able to get that. I didn't think I'd have it ready, but last year uh that K3 discipline piece last year collectively there we had approximately 240 and this year so far we've had about 140. And um just as our friendly reminder to the board members, we do have a page on our website with this information around classroom safety and evacuation data rate linked on our page where our data from 2425 is on there and then a an analysis and breakdown of that that goes even deeper um from key findings to classroom impacts and then some resources as well um on that page.

141So, uh, want to remind the board that we still have that information out there for our public. >> I appreciate that, uh, Superintendent McIntyre. So, the reason I or ask that is just just point out this idea with that the K3 discipline statute that it might be true in some sense that if we get we have a number 1.5 million listed, um, maybe we could help with staffing or additional resources to offset the cost. But really the the primary damage that's causing the district is I mean just if you could boil it down to a single metric it's just increased classroom evacuations because what we were told is previously sometimes when these students have behaviors they would be for example suspended not for the sake of getting them out of class per se but to

142come up with a plan give the staff time to recoup and figure out how best to help that student. And so we've lost that ability because we're not allowed by law to suspend any student in kindergarten through third grade. Um, and so the kind of pernicious nature of this, just to point it out, is I believe it was a a board meeting a while ago, our lobbyists had explained that one of the motivations behind why the statute was passed was because it was specifically whoever the author of the bill was is a representative from like the St. Paul or Minneapolis area. And they were concerned that students of color were getting disciplined more than I guess not students of color. And so their idea then was to pass this law which essentially creates a lose-lose

143situation for like no one benefits from this at all including the students of color because regardless of who's causing whatever like behavioral issue if classrooms are evacuated the students who are doing nothing are not learning and the student that caused the classroom evacuation is also not getting help. And so it it just creates a lose-lose across the board. This is one of the worst laws in my opinion passed in recent Minnesota history. and it has done only damage. No benefit has come from this in my opinion. And I guess if we could get some money for it to help, that would be great. But I think just repealing it is the very safe thing to do or the the very kind of common sense thing to do. So I would be much more in favor

144of just saying please repeal this. It helps no one. Um and unfortunately, as Director Langenfeld knows, we were at an MSBA event and there's a really good speaker there and they pointed out that um the number of mandates, unfunded mandates, but just mandates in general, has increased dramatically in recent years in Minnesota. And there's, this is the way he described it. I appreciate the honesty he had, but there's really no political incentive to get rid of them, regardless of how bad they are, because to get rid of them could be a liability to politicians, but once they're there, um they kind of just move on to the next thing. And stuff like this just gets lost in the fray because this, I guarantee you, is not being talked about by the public. The public doesn't

145really care about this. They don't understand the impacts of it. They're generally not going to connect the dots. The politicians know this. And so, sadly, I think we're probably just going to be stuck with this one. But I'm going to keep harp harping on this. Like, we really should advocate to get rid of this mandate. It is terrible across the board. It is a lose-lose scenario. If you could even point the one party that was benefiting from this, at least we could have a conversation. But there's literally no one benefiting from this. So those are my thoughts. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you for this conversation. Um hopefully we'll be able to carry this forward. And yeah, just want to echo that thought that um we have a fixed budget. We we can't just raise

146funds. We can't go have a a cookie sale or something to get more um money into our into our school system. our kids need that. Um the only relief that we can possibly have is to take these unfunded mandates and and relieve the pressure so that we can get the attention where it needs to be on the students in the classroom. We definitely don't want to minimize any of the services that we're giving um our students. We want to maximize every dollar that we have to give them the best possible education. >> Maybe one last comment. Uh we we just had our legislative session at AMSD on Friday morning and there was really great presentation on the compensatory aid by Rochester and uh Centennial um some other districts that presented. Um we had a really

147strong turnout actually of our legislators and one of the panelists was our own Senator Abler. So, um there was engagement there and uh so kind of to your point, hopefully we have the ear of our u those that that serve us and um we will do our best to make sure we're um telling our story. And I if I could add to that um if you've not seen uh you should have gotten an update to be able to watch the presentation or listen to it. It was excellent because um both Centennial, Minneapolis, and Rochester took different different issues, you know, from COPED all the way to um the the impact of the current reality that we have around the unfunded mandates of employment and employing people and paying all through the summer. um things like

148that and and really getting down to why it's why it's problematic. Um thanking the legislature for what they have done and then the panel of experts um representing different areas of the state um including Jim Abler who is remote um you can listen to their responses to these important questions um which I was going to wait for it but I'll do it right now. Um, we have our opportunity for MSBA at the legislature on Mar March 9th. We do have a school board meeting that night, but it's from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. And um, we'll start out the at the history center in St. Paul. Legislators can't come in. And what's really nice about the day at the Capitol now is that MSBA actually sets up the appointments so we can just roll. And

149sometimes it's just being in the hallway um catching people as we go through as well. I know two years ago, director Duchaine was there and uh and uh Superintendent McIntyre and Jim Abler was on the committee and called called them up to talk. And you know, I think that's really important um because it affords you the opportunity to get the the reality to the people who are are advocating for us and our for our schools and communities. So again, that is March 9th. Everyone is invited. I know that we're supposed to go through our office to let them know how many are coming and Miss Ball is smiling over there. Theo is smiling. So, if you if you plan to go or would like to go, we'd love the contingencies that I see from different

150districts always impress me and I'd love to have everyone come on down with us as well to be able to share um those things. But the AMSD update, it was excellent. the legislative preview and um also the uh piece for the upcoming opportunity with MSBA on the 9th. >> Okay. Oh, go ahead. >> I apologize for the late question, but it just reminded me of something here. Are we planning a legislative meeting with our district legislators? >> At this point, we're not only because the timeline is so tight. So as we talked with our lobbyists, we thought our impact will be greater on the individual meetings on those days at the capital. The calendar was a challenge for us and by the time we could make our schedules work with the tight window we had,

151we felt like our efforts were this time around at least more impactful at hitting those days at the capital and in those one-on-one conversations. >> Okay. Thank you for for that update. And just as one board member, I really value those meetings. So, if we could continue discussion as a board about bringing that back for next year, um I would be in in support of that. I think it's really important for us to be engaged and in front of them um as often as we can. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. We are nearing our last board agenda item, board correspondence and communication. Members, this is your opportunity to share happenings in your community, report on committee assignments, or other items of interest. Does anyone have anything to share? Director Dasha, >> thank you

152again. And um I just wanted to start off with one thing. It's February, which is I love to read month. And um we have a lot of readathons going on across our district. I know we've been asked to be guest readers or mystery readers at a few schools. Um, there's some surprises and fun things going on at different elementary schools. So, I just want to encourage all of our students out there to make sure they're reading, make sure they're participating in the events that they have in front of them. And to that end, I brought two of my favorite children's books that have animals as lead characters. Little Bears, Little Boat, if anybody wants a recommendation, and then uh the Mercy Watson series. I think those are super great books. Uh, I would encourage anyone

153that's curious about books to talk to your media specialist or your librarian. uh and get in your reading minutes. Thank you. >> Just to follow up with that, um Battle of the Books in the different schools are already starting and students have been reading and reading and I am going to be at Battle of the Books tomorrow, Jackson Middle School to do some observations, including my own granddaughter. So, I'm pretty excited about that. Um, the other thing I had the privilege to do was attend my first sixth grade orchestra concert over at Jackson as well. And I what I love about Anoka Henipin, always have always will, is the investment in the arts and the re and the incredible incredible people we have um leading our kids in the arts. Um, it is it is

154well known and we've been named the best school districts or whatever for those awards for the arts, but to really keep the music and and programming alive, theater included, and I know director Duchaine and I both were able to see the the play this last weekend at uh Champlain Park High School, our town, and really have those opportunities for our kids in addition to incredible sports opportunities. ities, theater, music, all of the above. So each child can find their own passion and pathway. And that doesn't even include all the clubs and things. And we had a great presentation at the um uh celebration for Anoka Henipin Education Foundation and thanking you, Director Simon, for representing our board on that board and huge success. But um they had a great great story about outdoor adventures and

155if you don't know about outdoor adventures, you really should. It was pretty impressive. So that's those are my updates. Okay, thank you. Any other comments? All right. Um next item, item seven will be conducted in a closed session. The executive session will be closed pursuant Minnesota statute 13D.05 subsection 3B to discuss attorney client privilege. The close session will be held in the Michael Sullivan room. I would entertain a motion to move to close session. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh Director Simon and Director Duchaine. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. I all those in all those opposed say no. With five in favor and zero opposed we will move to close session. Five minute break.