001Good evening. I would like to call to order the Senoka Henipin School Board meeting today, November 10th, 2025. Please join the board in pledging our allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy andice for all. Our first order of business is to approve the board agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> Thank you. We have a motion from Director Langenfeld. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Director Simon. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed say no. With six in favor and zero opposed, the agenda is approved. Members, the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. As normal, members could remove any items for separate consideration and
002discussion if that's their desire. Is there a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented? >> Thank you. We have a motion from Director Adet. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Uh thank you. With a second from Director Simon. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose say no. >> With six in favor and zero opposed, our consent agenda is approved. Our next agenda item is communications, delegations, and petitions. This is time for community members to provide input directly to the school board. I do not see any yellow cards, Fio. Any No, no yellow cards. So, we will um skip past this section of our agenda, and I will turn it over to our next agenda, item six, board calendar and district updates to Superintendent McIntyre. >> All
003right. Thank you. Tonight, I'll be presenting some items of interest for the board and our community regarding activities and events that we are proud of in our district. We do this to celebrate students, staff, and our community members who are contributing to the accomplishment of our mission, which is to effectively educate each of our students for success. So to lead us off with registration for next school year approaching quickly. This is a reminder that Anoka Henipin offers choices to students for specialty schools and magnet programming as well as in district transfer options. Uh specialty programming includes STEM, steam, biomedical engineering, uh traditional engineering, aerospace and children's engineering, international balorate, career and technical environmental education as well as um areas in the arts. So priority enrollment deadline for the district's six magnet schools is December 17th,
004rapidly approaching with the deadline for the district's six specialty schools set for January 15th. Visit ahschools. us backspecialtymagnet for upcoming openhouse dates and additional information. Next, career and college specialists from Anoka Henipin's comprehensive high schools are joining forces to host an event for collegebound students and their family families. Financing your future is set for Wednesday, November 19th from 6 pm to 8:00 pm at Rapids High School in the auditorium and atrium area. Information sessions focused on scholarships, financial aid, lowering college costs, and earning college credit in high school will all be covered. The event is free and open to the public. Also, board members, some of you have toured uh this location. An NOA Henipin's student focused Ali and A retail boutique. We'll have extended hours on Thursday, November 20th until 6 PM. Everything in
005the store is 20 5% off. The store is located right here at Sandberg Educational Education Center and the entrance is right in the alley side of the building on Second Avenue. So, Ali and Aav is open to the public weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to shop for home decor, gifts, and furniture refurbished by our own students. The store offers hands-on experience for students participating in our district's workbased learning program called TEAM, which stands for teaching employability through assessment and manufacturing. This program is designed to help high school and trai uh transition age students develop additional skills before seeking paid employment. Our uh kindness poster awards. So anoka henipin's 22nd annual kindness poster contest attracted over 150 entries with this year's theme being my vision of kindness. The winning posters were selected through a
006special election day vote at the educational services center. The poster on the screen is a creation of one of the winning uh posters and winning students. And this is one from Oxbow Creek Elementary third grader Maggie Pervvis. The annual kindness poster contest supports a safe and welcoming environment for students by promoting kindness and anti-bullying. Congratulations to all of our winners. I know we do take time to recognize them at a future meeting. Tomorrow is Veterans Day and the school uh district will be in session. Throughout the district, students will be either attending school assemblies or learning about the importance of veteran Veterans Day in class. Our schools are set to celebrate local veterans in a number of different ways. And we appreciate all the work by students and staff to make this day one to
007remember for our local veterans. And lastly, I hate to bring this up, but we have reached that period of time where severe weather can impact our ability to ensure students and staff can safely get to and from school. So, I know we don't like to be thinking about winter weather quite yet, but it's coming. And um I guess we're lucky that with media coverage, it's rare that anyone is uninformed about potential weather challenges. But as a reminder, the district makes decisions not to hold school in person based on our ability to safely get students to school between and and for staff to get to school as well, but really between those hours of 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. and then again home from school between 2 and 5:00 p.m. So snowfall prevents safe travel during
008these periods or extreme cold makes walking unsafe for 20 minutes or less. We that's when we consider a weather related closure. Our goal is always to keep school open, but do it that safely and to give our parents, students, and staff as much lead time as possible should the district need to close. As a reminder, the district will not have asynchronous learning or e-learning should the district close to weather. Also, the district has implemented an early release system for high school and middle school students on days when afternoon travel becomes an issue. The goal for that early release is to give buses time so that elementary students are home at their expected time. Um the goal is for the district to make a decision on that usually by 10 in the morning whenever possible. Uh
009if that's being considered and I know we have a a lot of additional information on our website. So if uh anyone's interested they can find more information there. Uh cocher co-chair dashane that concludes my superintendent's report this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you superintendent McIntyre. Any questions from the board? All right, our next uh agenda item is communication and public relations. Will item 7A, canvasing election results resolution will welcome Jim Skellyy, the executive director of communication and public relations, and Thomas Hunt, the Anoka County Elections Manager. Welcome. >> Uh good evening. Thank you, chair co-chair to Shane, superintendent McIntyre, members of the board. I am Jim Skellyy, executive director of communications and public relations. This also includes government relations and elections. The star of our show tonight here though is our Anoka County elections manager
010Tom Hunt who does a great job on behalf of uh all of us to make sure these elections are run um accurately. We're here tonight to submit results from the schoolboard election in districts 3, four, and six, which took place on Tuesday, November 4th. The school board actually serves as the canvasing board for the election results. And this is an action item for the school board to approve or canvas the results. And in your packet, you'll find the abstract along with a resolution for your approval that will certify the election last Tuesday. With approval, that'll open the 7-day window for a possible recount. If that does happen, an updated resolution would be presented at a future meeting. So, this is a procedural step, and Tom Hunt will share a short summary of the election, answer
011any questions you may have. >> Madam co-chair, members of the board, uh my name is Tom Hunt, the elections director for no county. Uh thank you for having me. Uh, I just want to say first off, thank you or congratulations to all the board members that won re-election last Tuesday. Uh, second, I just want to say thank you to the the district itself for being such a good partner in administer administering the election, whether it's Jim or the members of the facility staff or the the members of the the print shop. They all do a really fantastic job. Um, outside of that, as far as the election goes, really the biggest story was turnout. Uh I remember being here in 23 and uh I I felt pretty good about the the turnout because we hit
01215 and a half%. Uh if you'll see in your your packet there uh on Tuesday we reached 25 a.5% turnout which is pretty amazing. So uh yeah really fantastic turnout. Uh, as Jim mentioned, you you have the resolution before you to certify the results, but as always, I am more than happy to answer any questions that you might have to feel comfortable in in certifying the results. >> Members, do we have any questions? >> Okay. Uh, it does not appear that we have any questions. Uh if not members before us is a resolution to accept the canvasing election results as presented in appendix E hearing no request for discussion. Uh would the clerk call the role please? >> Simon votes I. [clears throat] >> Uh Hman >> I. >> Audet I. >> Langenfeld >> I.
013>> Arco >> I. >> Deshaine >> I. >> With uh six in favor and zero opposed that resolution passes. >> Thank you so much for being here. >> Yeah. Thanks a lot. All right, board members. Our next agenda item is elementary and secondary education item 8A, proposed new courses for the 2026 2027 registration guide. We welcome Sarah Hunter, the executive director of learning and achievement. Thank you for being here. >> And board members, as Sarah's moving in here, I'll just jump in. Um, we don't really have a presentation pre for you tonight. you've been uh updated with briefings uh last week for the courses that we're proposing and um really this is just Sarah here to answer any questions you may have. I know some of you had some questions um as we were preparing
014for this. So really um it's your chance to get any clarity you need on the courses that we're we're offering here tonight. >> Thank you, Superintendent McIntyre. Uh with that members uh we'll open it up for questions to Sarah on the courses uh included in our packet in appendix F through let's see F through H. Uh Director Langenfeld. Thank you and thank you Sarah for joining us tonight. First of all I appreciate having this discussion publicly. So I think it's very important that our community hear a discussion. I am a huge proponent of CTE pathways. I'm hoping we can go one by one. Sure. >> As opposed to just mushing them all together. I think that would be helpful. Um and and I appreciate as I read the course um focused on CNC machining. Could
015you just confirm for me and for the public um that this particular course the manufacturing coupled with um welding is something that only Andover does not have as compared to what the other high schools have in terms of opportunity for uh starting in that space to have a pathway to the to step. >> Thank you for the question director Langenfeld. Um that's correct. Andover at this point doesn't have an intro course that gives them a pathway um to the higher level courses um at our STEP uh pro uh program. So this would allow them um essentially a parallel pathway to what all four of our other um high schools have already with welding. Can I just as a followup then would we then anticipate that the course itself would be somewhat similar to what's actually
016being offered in the other high schools as well? So that >> somewhat similar in terms of a an introductory course um the machining the um they don't have the equipment at Andover to offer the the other courses that our other four high schools do. So this would again sort of put them on par um with their peers in the other uh in the other high schools. So they would have then the same kind of access in their high schools and then they could take go on to the STEP program and correct get industry certifications and move potentially if they chose into the workforce upon graduation as well in this area. >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Members, any other questions on the CNC machining course being added to the registration guide at Andover High
017School? All right, the next course, appendix G, is for an artificial intelligence course added at step. Any questions from the board on that artificial intelligence course? Director Hookman. Thank you. Uh, so I read the information and that we were given about this AI course and I guess I'm still um trying to understand what would be the scope, the understanding, who would be delivering the content. I >> um very interested to learn more about that. >> Sure. It's a great question. Thank you for the question, Director Hookman. So um the idea behind this course is that it would allow students access to information that would um introduce them to u potential careers in that that either involve AI or are in AI as as a career pathway. Um, similar to other CTE courses, it would it
018would sort of be the first um in a line of allowing for our students to access information about a a pathway that they might want to go into. Um, it is an um an increased uh the field is getting larger, right? So, we want to make sure that our students have access to this if if it is um an interest of theirs. And there is a teacher um already at STEP who is prepared to prepare and then teach the course. So, I guess yes, thank you. That was my followup. Um, just >> you know, it's such a new field. I have a hard time uh understanding putting my head around what what that would look like. I mean, um, we can imagine some of the fun things that we've all seen AI able to do,
019but um expanding and making certain that the course um develops skills that can be put forward. So, I mean, I'm just thinking, do we do we have courses elsewhere that we can model this after? Are there places like the tech school has them or >> Yeah, expand on that. >> Um >> there is an increasing number of districts that are offering courses like this. So we would we would model our course after what other other systems are doing. Um there's also the potential for support um from there there are um there's federal funding that could come with supporting the um teaching of this course as well. So again just to follow up. So again trying to understand we can see you know CNC machining that's a course that would be at the tech school that
020we would be delivering kids into that pathway. >> Is there >> I guess I'm trying to understand if tech schools or colleges or do they even have this program? I'm trying to make certain that we fit in. I know um one concern just as the entire system that we have here of so many students that we're trying to serve well um to make certain that we have courses that are going to be productive for students and carry them forward. I know um one thing that goes with that is further discussion could be had about courses that >> we have in our registration guide that are kind of timed out and are not providing those useful pathways anymore. And so that's a separate discussion for a separate time, but I just want to make certain that
021this course is in fact going to give our students the the grounding, the footing that they need to move forward. >> Sure. We believe so. Yes. That it would um many uh um jobs in the tech industry across sort of a wide array of of types of positions um involve needing to understand how to use at at least at a basic level how to use um AI inside of their workforce. Um, so the hope would be this wouldn't necessarily only be for students who want to go into a career um, specifically in AI, but that would might need to be able to use it responsibly um, as a part of their life or career. And then that we also are each year um, to your other point, we are um, we review the course catalog
022for courses that need to be removed. Um, so I do have there are four courses that in this annual review um did get um removed from the course catalog due to lack of student interest um andor misalignment with um our current programming. So some of that I I appreciate your question right about as we don't want to just balloon up our course catalog. Um so I really appreciate you bringing it up that a part of the annual process is removing courses that that are not or no longer align with what makes sense for students today. Thank you. Uh, co-chair Argo. >> Um, I have a maybe a more general question for the superintendent. So, I remember we used to have Kayak and then that was done away with because we wanted to bring these discussions
023to like work sessions and now it seems like there is still a curriculum advisory committee but then are any board members currently on that committee or >> that? Yeah, that's not with board members. That's the internal staff from each of the buildings that come together and if you want to describe that a little bit more Sarah. >> Yeah, that's the um advisory committee that has folks from um each of our high schools so that we're making sure that the pathways are represented um members of my team from a content perspective um and then um several other folks like our IT staff to make sure that our courses um are being set up correctly in the system. That committee meets monthly um in order to bring in information forward about you know are there new courses
024being requested in a certain department uh department. Um are there concerns about um prerequisites or um not having enough interest in a course and then what we would do is at at this point this is the part of the point in the year where we would bring to you any um changes that need to be made at the system level. So all of the sort of smaller logistical pieces of that process get uh run through the curriculum advisory committee. >> One point I would add too just from a process standpoint is um if it's put in the catalog it's still driven by student interest. >> So if there's sub you know sufficient enrollment there then that's built into what the existing staffing allocation. There's no additions there. >> Correct. And then um curriculum is written
025later once it's confirmed that it's you know we wouldn't we wouldn't do that ahead of time. Yeah. >> Just want to make sure there's actual enrollment to support the course just like any other course. >> Uh director >> [clears throat] >> u I guess I have a question on the AI technology itself. Has the district license an AI chatbot for or something similar for use here? We do use the embedded um Google tool. Yeah. So there's like introductory courses that teachers can take from our our um technology team. So, have we So, this is an interesting it's a I guess it's a I don't know what it is a parallel to this, but I know with AI with any of those chat [clears throat] tools or chat GPT or any of them >> once they're
026on your system, they rapidly search your system. They learn all kinds of information. Um, it just becomes part of what it knows as it learns. So it's just a question from a technology perspective. Are we have we covered all of those bases? Because um really quickly it gets on your system. It can access all kinds of information and um so then in particular if students are going to use it, what protections do we have in place for data privacy and all of those kinds of things because this is a it's a pretty important kind of a big deal. Yes, >> that's a great question and I'm probably not the best to to respond to it, but I know that that's a part of why um we choose carefully which tools are supported inside of our
027school system. Um so chat GPT is not the tool that we are trained on um in terms of internally because you can create um >> I'm not going to use the right terminology, but essentially like barriers around your student data um using the tools that are purchased for your system. Jill Jill Borman's here from our tech department probably can uh give you more specifics. So thanks Jill. >> Hi good evening co-chair Duchaine co-chair Ar Zack Arco Superintendent McIntyre and members of the board. Um I was just listening to your comments about AI and how we're using AI in our environment and some of the protections around it. So in our environment we have adopted um Google of course Google for education workspace for education. So we've opted out of other open AI tools such as
028chat GPT. Um with that we have data protections in place with Gemini. Um such as we have a walled garden. So we have protection within our own Google domain for those practices. But we also have adopted AI guidelines. And so those guidelines are in place um and have been shared with teachers districtwide, staff districtwide. And um with that um we rely heavily on data practices and data security. So with that, we definitely stress to teachers um even within our walled garden domain of not sharing private information uh student information um confidential information but we do have that extra protection with Google for workspace and um adopting only Gemini. >> Okay. So, I don't know what Gemini is, but I guess uh I gather from what you're saying, you feel confident that we're protected from the
029kinds of risks I'm talking about where people are using it uh they enter data somehow and now it becomes part of what everybody knows in the world. >> Definitely, especially with AI being a generative learning tool, right? as soon as you put something out there >> um into um open source and it's constantly learning and so that's our biggest stress um with teachers staff um is just uh making sure that you're using the AI guidelines and our uh Google for workspace education only Gemini so we recently had some um also some um extra um professional development that happened on October 20th um for a bunch of for high schools and secondary schools and we had a um a very good professional development um leader come in from outside to work with those three schools and
030all the teachers and also same thing we customize that professional development for our specific um environment using only Gemini. Do do we have many people that have access to these tools? Like is it all employees or is it just some or how does that work? >> Yeah, that's a good question. It is all staff have access. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you for joining us for this discussion. I appreciate it. Does anyone else have questions while we have Director Borman? Uh Director Langenfeld >> information. Um in in the report you talk a little bit about cyber security pathways are recommended by the advisory board members um using occupational outlook. Could you talk about the advisory board so that we have a clear understanding as well here at this table but also in our
031public domain? >> Yes and um uh Jess Leapa who leads our CTE programming that's the CTE advisory board. So making sure that um the courses and then um the sort of pathways that go along with a course um are aligned with what we are seeing in terms of current workforce. Um so as as we see um interest and then um positions open positions grow in a particular area. This is one where they wanted to make sure that we are we are at the very least beginning um to offer courses. So, so just as a followup, so industry >> are at the table, >> correct? >> And and informing the next >> informing all of the sort of additional programming particularly when we look at CTE, correct? Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you for
032the question. >> Co-chair Argo. >> Yes. Thank you. Um [clears throat] I think the idea for a course on AI is somewhat fascinating. Um but I also kind of in and amongst that I view AI a lot like kind of like the advent of cell phones and that very quickly is becoming ubiquitous and you sort of can't not use it if you simply go on the internet and so I think there's value there um but we are also struggling to a certain extent to keep students from using AI to cheat on homework and whatever so I would for me to support this I would want to know kind of I think director Hokman was speaking to it a little bit like specifically what does the value add outside of what you can't help but learn
033simply by using the internet if that makes sense and so like kind of at this point I I think it's a good start but I'm not entirely on board with the class as of yet and I think that's kind of why I also asked about the kayak because if more of the details were here I think I I think I could get behind it but at least at the time Like I mean you can use it to generate text, you can use AI to generate images, you can do all but like that stuff is it's almost self-explanatory. So I I I guess I mean I use AI for various things. I even use AI at work occasionally. I'm but like no one taught me how to use it. I just kind of figured it out
034by using it. So I'm just for for a future conversation I guess I'd be curious what the value ad for this class is above and beyond what is already easy to pick up simply by playing around with it. If that makes sense. So that's kind of where I'm at with this, but it's an interesting idea. >> Director Langenfeld. >> So I I want to go back where I I was thinking about this too and thinking about this as a foundational course to introduce the field of AI as opposed to an actual course. I know that I'm going to refer to St. Cloud Public Schools has done a deep deep dive into supporting their students in use of the tool and this would not be that from my takeaway I think of I have a good
035friend whose child went through Dunwitty and is working in the industry now and one of the things as I was thinking through this and thinking that the course has not yet to be written is because of the everchanging dynamics I would assume that industry people will be involved D in terms of the course offering itself. Um but it's not necessarily how to how to do or use AI but rather to understand the field itself because it is so broad. >> Yeah. >> Part of it would be yes what is possible with in in um the use of AI. it also um our peers are um [clears throat] doing you know similar work to us in terms of I sort of see this in two ways so I think um director arco one of um your
036points that I want to come back to is we also are responsible for teaching our students responsible use right so that isn't just for the students who might choose this as a course at step right that would be um in any classroom u making sure that students understand how how and when um the use of AI tools is appropriate um given that yes you're you're right they're they're everywhere right you pull up a Google search and and you see what AI has summarized for you I think the the point of this course is u more along the lines of um director Langenfeld's point that we want to make sure that if our students have an interest in um a career that includes using AI um not just in the way a lay person would like
037myself right um more in terms of um using it for programming being being a part of the building out of an AI tool in order to support a particular um concept in in a field that they were interested in. Um that's more what this course was aiming at. And then of course as a system it's our responsibility to teach students responsible use of any tool that they have. >> Director Hulman. >> Yeah, thank you. Yeah, again just trying to get my head around. I know I've also talked with um a number of people in the field um and the exciting things that are happening. In fact, it seems like there's some great things happening. You're talking about the the school district in St. Cloud, but I know of some businesses in the AI area um
038near us. So, it's really important and and building out, but also um I'm just still just trying to get my head around it. And it seems as though those careers um right now seem to take a lot of background information. So definitely dipping our toes in is important. I guess limitations I'm thinking of are just those pieces of well if we're only using one tool, how robust and um complete is the information that we're getting? What kind of things are students getting? It's again to think back to the um idea of technology and embracing it, you know, how how do we know that the tool that we're giving them is enough to introduce them to the system and not just limiting them. So, I just feel with those questions, there's just a lot of unknowns
039and um the information, the summary that we have, I just don't have the confidence that it's yet fleshed out enough to give it its support. I I really support the idea and know that it's a field that we we want to be providing for our kids, but I I'm not certain that I see it being complete at this time. >> Uh coach Argo, >> so I'll just go back to kind of what I was saying earlier. If Kayak was still there and this had gone through like the robust Kayak process with board member input and was a little more fully developed, I would probably easily get on board with it. But I'm not opposed to it, but I think it's just a little premature is kind of where I'm at with it. So I I
040would say I'd hope to see it develop further and then I could in the future vote for it. >> Yeah. I think just one one thing that's important to note I think in that with the kayak committee coming up a few times um as co-chair Zach you and I decided early on once we had a few sessions of kayak and board members that weren't a part of it wanted information you and I decided together that those things would come to work sessions or board meetings for open discussion like this. So I think that's um that the superintendent and and um Sarah Hunter are kind of following our advice on on that and bringing it here for us to have that discussion. Um, I think uh it probably would be helpful for us to outline a
041few questions like specific questions that we have or specific pieces of information that would flesh this out to the degree that would give comfort to to board members. Um, I'm not sure if there is anything specific you could add to your your wonderings that would help us uh kind of land on what this could look like to further the conversation. >> Coach Eco, >> it's a good question. Um, the specific thing that could get my buy in is if uh just spell out the value ad specifically. Not necessarily right now, just but the value ad outside of what is easy to obtain just by surfing the web, so to speak. Um, I'm sure it's there. I'm sure there's stuff and that's why I said if anything I feel like is almost just a little underdeveloped
042and that was it. Um, so that would be what I'd be looking for. And then to address your other comments about Kayak, you are correct. It was ended for a reason. Um the re so there's kind of a nuance I want to get to is I think the reason was because there's a number of controversial classes that we're discussing and it was just useful to have all like full board input for stuff like this however where it's I I don't think it's terribly controversial. Um I do think there's value add in having kayak for stuff like this. So may maybe I didn't explain that clearly or maybe the conversation wasn't full enough at that point, but I I feel like there certainly is a place for kayak. It was just the really the social studies
043classes that were kind of wrestling with at the time. That was the stuff where it made a lot of sense to bring it to the whole board. So but not not necessarily every class, I would say. So, >> Superintendent McInty, >> maybe I can help the board there. You know, um, as we probably get through the holidays here, we'll come back. We need the board to re reestablish what it is our curriculum adoption process that you all could support. So, we've known that that works in front of us. Uh, that's a bigger process issue than just this course. Uh, so I think you got a couple options. Uh, if it doesn't have support tonight, it doesn't go in the this isn't the year for the the course to be offered. uh unless there's some specific
044followup you would like in the next couple days, we we have a tight timeline for the for the catalog so we can hit those requirements ahead of staffing uh process. Um [snorts] but if there's, you know, some of those unique things, we can follow up and and see if that changes any minds. You wouldn't have to maybe um the problem is we don't have, you know, December 8th meeting is too late to to make it into the course catalog. So that's that's maybe the dilemma we have and if there's just not support tonight, there's not support tonight. Yeah, one thing I'll I'll just point back out on this. Um, and maybe Sarah, you could help us make sure this is this is correct. Um, the decision today is to put it in the course catalog.
045Students would still have to register for it. This is a class at STEP, so it's students that are already electing to take career CTE pathways. This would be one more for them in the tech space on that pathway. It comes with Carl Perkins funding, federal funding. So, it's not a budgetary concern for the district. And um I think to the point you made earlier, uh part of the process that we're following is timing bound. So, this gets it into the course catalog for printing and for registration purposes. And then we can continue to have the follow-up discussions about what might be useful and helpful content for for the class to contain, which sounds like that's more where your questions are at. It's not about budget concerns. It's not about the concept of teaching workforce um
046AI use in the workforce and potential career pathways with AI components. Um I think we're maybe blending still together a little bit of like personal use of AI versus how AI is used at a workforce, which it sounds like this is what that is more targeted toward. So, um I know you know two members so far have kind of said maybe not but perhaps we still have four that are are interested in moving it forward to the catalog and then we can continue to learn more about it knowing that we have funding for it. We have a teacher interested in it and it still requires registration and if we don't get registration then it doesn't run >> and curriculum writing would only begin after board approval of a new course. So the specific details around
047right like what materials what resources these students would have access to would be a part of the creation of the course. We didn't want to get ahead um of the board in that part of this process. >> Thank you. Uh Superintendent >> McInty on that um in the moment here. Um, you heard about high skill, high demand, high wage jobs in our CTE presentation here recently and from what we understand and what we're seeing already is, you know, integrating in AI literacy into pathways like healthc care, like manufacturing, business, technology um is important. We know employers are already seeking graduates who know and have exposure and have some literacy around how does AI work and how do we use that as problem solving. And as we have graduates leaving into the manufacturing or um into
048the those those CTE errors right out of high school >> giving them some exposure in in um learning in how this works I think just enhances their ability to be employable. So, you know, the to me that's some high level thinking on just value addition to making them more of a viable candidate for for the jobs that they're they're going to be pursuing through our CTE programs. We know it brings critical thinking and problem solving uh skills to the table too and and we want our students to really evaluate what AI does uh how it works, how how do we use that to solve problems in industry. Um so you know those those kinds of concepts were missing in the the briefing you know um that's kind of on us to you know had not
049have flushed that out well enough for the board but I think we we see from the sectors that we work most with the demand is already coming our way with how to prepare our students with that additional tool with the skills that you know they're going to leave us with. Director Langfeld, >> as as we've been talking about this, I think there's some very important opportunity here. Um, have we ever put in a course? I mean, obviously, we haven't approved a curriculum. So, is it possible to put it in pending board approval? I mean, I I really think that that if there's more opportunity to flesh this out a little more and answer the questions of the board members, um I don't know that there's in concept that I'm not feeling that it's the concept,
050but rather we don't have enough information to I go back to understanding by design and being able to articulate what students know and can do when they walk out of that coursework and and what advantage it would be and if we had that information would that be satisfactory and then we'd have to discuss materials. Is that am I understanding that accurately? >> Well, any action tonight would allow us to put it in the course catalog and see if students register for it. Uh if there's enough that register for it, then typically it means we're going to offer it. So, if we end up voting, if the board ends up voting to not offer it later, then we we got to find other courses for students to take and rearrange their schedules, right? So, I I
051don't know if Sarah you want to speak to that, but that that would be the the issue, I think, depending on the timing. >> Yeah, from a timing perspective, um schools begin their registration nights um at our high schools and our middle schools in December. So December and January are sort of the months that our schools are u making sure that students are informed about the choices that they have for the following year. So I would um it it would be hard to pull that then away from students. Now to be fair, there are courses each year that don't run right because there isn't enough interest. Um but those would sort of be the two different reasons that we would need to remove a course from a student. Um so ideally anything that's in the
052course catalog is board approved so that we are we are able to move forward with our plans um for for registration and then um staffing comes immediately following registration. Right. So once students have elected what they are interested in um our schools as they receive their budgets make decisions about how to make sure we can run the courses that the students chose. >> Director Simon. >> Thanks Casey. Um, I guess I'll comment first on that and then go to what I was going to say. I wouldn't re I wouldn't be supportive of putting something in a catalog that might not get a vote. I think that's just confusing and creates um so I would if it's not going to get enough votes, I would be I would say don't do that. At least that's my
053uh view. Um I think I agree with uh the process points that was made. I agree with a lot of everything that was said, but the process specifically about um Kayak typically would have been the touch point early on where three board members who serve on Kayak would say give a head nod and say that's proceed developing that and then it would have been brought back to the full board. Um and my guess is that with um budget cuts and leadership change, you know, restructuring and everything like this, this is coming to us at a very late moment where it probably should have been and would have been um earlier I would have guessed. So I get that and it's it's logical why that happened, but um I agree with the process point that we
054we we shouldn't have that in the future, right? So, we have to figure out that um specifically to this course, um I have I have never known Jess and her team to bring something forward that wasn't fleshed out from industry and a need with her students. Um so, at least in this moment, I am fine going forward with that. um with the note of of course when curriculum does get developed we this board has agreed upon a process that that comes back to us right so >> sure >> um but yeah I'm I'm fine because of those things yeah >> thank you uh Director Hookman >> thank you yeah I I totally agree the the programming the work that the staff does um in developing things I they [snorts] work hard and I know that
055there's quality things I Again, that pro procedure piece is that either there has to be a a committee of people who have already said, "Oh, we asked these questions. They've been cleared." And so then the the remaining board members have some confidence um in that. Certainly all board members should have input, but you know, if if there's some mechanism to procedurally look at these things earlier so that we don't have to have lengthy discussions here and uncertainty. And then that final piece is yes, who knows for what reason, but um to just not have any discussion at all to have since the committee is not there and now it's agreed upon that we'll have a discussion as a board, but we're having a discussion at the board at such a late date that we can't
056get all the issues resolved seems to be um not prudent. We need to find a better path to ensure that we can get these courses in place so our kids can benefit. uh director >> with the in [clears throat] information that's being requested I think we should wait until until we can get all our questions answered. >> Okay. All right. So let's move to the next uh and final course option which is appendix H and this is a new world language course for Ajiway. Uh board members, any questions on this proposed world language course offering? Uh coach Arco. >> Yeah. So just from my understanding, it seems like based on the briefing, this is required per statute to offer >> correct programming. Yeah. >> Okay. And it's like a language and culture class. Mhm. >>
057Um, so I guess my question, so then it seems like we'll do it. Um, but do we know if there's any demand for this course before we offer it? Has there been any like interest stated in this or >> Yes. Um, so I would say in our um, American Indian programming there there is interest um, across several of our high schools. Um and I think um one of the things that we have thought about in this course is in order to make sure that the course is able to run um we would propose that the course runs at STEP so that um students across our system are able to access it in the event that there isn't enough interest at one high school. We would want students from multiple high schools to be able to
058be a part of of this course together. Um it it would be the first year right for any of these courses. It would be the first year of the course. So, a part of our work um moving into the registration period now um we'd be to make sure that students are aware that this is this would be a new um language course available to them uh next fall. But yes, we have we have interest both in our native community and uh just from students who would be interested in another um language course. >> Did you want to respond to that before we go to a different question? >> Two quick things to add. our our American Indian parent advisory committee also strongly recommended this as part of our concurrence recommendation last year and then also
059we were just recently at our tribal nations education council um process tick process that we have required to go through with the state and it's another u strong recommendation for ten to sign off on our plan uh knowing that this is a statutory requirement so there's two additional pieces there that I wanted to add >> thank you director Aette Um could you talk about the logistics of having it at step? So like how will it's just one course period, right? So I'm just how will we get people back and forth and how how do you see that working? >> I would say so in an ideal world this course would be offered at all of our high schools, right? So I think it will depend on student interest whether it needs to be at STEP.
060That would be a um in the event we needed to pull students across multiple schools um we could offer it. Um I in the course catalog it would be available at each high school, right? And then once we see once we gauge student interest, we'd make a decision about when and how the course would run. Um the what many other um systems are doing right now. This is so I will say we are one of a number of districts um who would be posting and um are creating courses based on uh the the state statute. Um so we have the opportunity to partner with other systems that are also building out a course. So there's there's a lot of sort of precedent um for the creation of Ojiway um in Minnesota right now. Um and
061so I think ideally um director Adet, we'd be able to offer an hour of Ojiway 1 at each of our high schools based on interest. I think as a backup plan to your point, we would then work with Jess at STEPP to make sure that we were able to sort of collaborate across schools if there wasn't quite enough interest at each high school. Say there were three students at one school and 17 at another, right? We wouldn't want to make we wouldn't want to leave those three students out. >> Yes. Do you have to do like at the end of the day or the beginning of the day or how like have we done that before where we've had a students just go and take like one class at step I'm just thinking about for
062you know that's that's a hall for some >> I don't believe we do that. I I can give you more details on how logistically we can make it work but that's not efficient kind of to your point. >> Right. >> Yeah. I think they really start step one is starting with students who are really committing to the step program. >> Yeah. >> Um trying to gauge interest in the in the system and how big that is to >> Sarah's point. >> Okay. >> The idea in an ideal world as we as we um get registrations in this course runs at as many of our high schools as possible and then we would staff accordingly. >> Could you take kids from one high school to another? Would that be another option? Right. Or or would it
063not? [clears throat] >> It could, but transportation costs, things like that are >> I'm just saying like if if it worked out, you had >> a kid at Andover and Blaine, kids at Andover and Blaine who wanted to do it rather than go everybody to step. >> Other options I have seen and have direct experience with is offering courses virtually. Y >> so you can just take them. You don't have to leave your school. It can be offered somewhere else. You can get a group of students that can take a course virtually. takes a different kind of planning and resource allocation to do that though. >> Y >> but I know districts do it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right, board members, any further questions on this final course? Okay, with that and given
064the discussion that we had about the AI course, I think what we're proposing here, um, currently we are asking for approval of the proposed new courses for the 2026 2027 registration guide, not as presented, but as follows, the CNC machining course and the Ajiway language course to be added to the registration guide. So I would entertain a motion to approve those two new proposed courses for registration. >> So moved. >> Thank you, Director Langenfeld. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Director Simon. Any further discussion by board members? >> Okay. Would all those in favor say I? >> I. Any opposed say no? With six in favor and zero opposed, that motion is approved. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Our next agenda item is labor relations item 9A. authorized
065the 2025 2027 building service master agreement. We welcome Dr. Cherry, chief human resources officer. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, co-chair Duchaine. Uh members of the board, Superintendent McIntyre. Uh actually have uh two items this evening that are uh both related to uh authorization of a uh contract agreement. Uh as you had mentioned, the first one is for our school service employees. This is a master agreement uh for the 2025 through 2027 uh contract years. This is listed in appendix I of your packet. And I am pleased to announce that our school service employees who are represented by SEIU Local 284 have ratified a two a new two-year agreement. Thank you to the members of the employee and the district bargaining teams for their work in negotiating an updated employment contract. The tenative
066agreement reached include step movement both years of the contract. Uh in year one, salary schedule improvements include uh 45 cent an hour increase to the top step of the salary schedule and a 5 cent per hour increase for second and third shift for our custodial warehouse and grounds employees and a $1 an hour increase for our maintenance employees. In the second year of the contract, the salary schedule improvements include a 30 cent per hour increase to the first step and a 40 cent per hour increase to the second step and a 40 cent per hour increase to the uh top step for our custodial warehouse and grounds employees and again for our maintenance employees a dollar per hour increase. Also in year two, uh improvements include an advanced uh for our advanced boiler license holders,
067uh stipen increase of 25 cents per hour for first class license and 50 cents per hour for a chief license. In addition to the schedule improvements, we also have an increase to our district contributions towards benefits each year of the contract. In year one of the contract, the monthly district contributions are now $95 for singles and $1670 for employees with family coverage. And in year two of the contract, the monthly contributions would be 9.45 for single coverage and $18.45 for employees who hold family coverage. The total compensation package includes a uh 6.06% 06% increase or just over $860,000 $867,000 in new money. And this contract equals 29 uh469 uh million over the course of the two years of the contract. This proposed agreement is within the authority provided by the school board and as a
068result I am seeking approval of the contract as presented. Thank you very much for the presentation. Board members, any questions for Dr. Cherry on this contract? All right. Hearing none, uh members, before us is an approval of the 2025 2027 school um uh sorry, building service master agreement as presented. I would entertain a motion to approve the 2025 to 27 building service master agreement. So moved. Thank you, Director Simon. Is there a second? Thank you, Director Adet. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> I. Any oppose? Say no. With six in favor and zero opposed, that motion is approved. The next agenda item is 9B, authorizing the 202527 school technical specialist master agreement. Again, Dr. Cherry. >> Excellent. Uh the uh master agreement as proposed is included in appendix J of your packet.
069And I'm pleased to announce that our school technical specialists who are represented by the Minnesota School Employees Association have ratified a new two-year agreement with the effective dates July 1, 2025 through June 30th of 2027. Again, thank you to the members of the employee and the district bargaining teams for their hard work in negotiating an updated employment contract. Here, the tenative agreement reached includes an increase in the salary schedule of 25 cents per hour each year of the contract. That's an across the board increase for all uh cells on the schedule. Step movement both years of the contract and an increase to district contributions towards benefits each year of the contract. Year one monthly district contributions are now 9005 for single coverage and 1670 for those employees with family coverage. And in year two of
070the contract, the monthly monthly contributions would increase to 9.45 for single coverage and $1845 for employees with family coverage. This total compensation package includes a 5.5% increase or $46,000 in new money. This contract equals $1.6 million over the course of the two years of the contract. This proposed agreement is within the authority provided by the school board and as a result I'm seeking approval of the uh contract as presented. Thank you board members. Any questions on this contract? If not before us is an approval of the 2025 2027 school technical specialist master agreement as presented. I would entertain a motion to approve. >> Thank you Director Simon. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you co-chair Arco. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose say no. Six in favor
071and zero opposed. That motion is approved. Our next agenda is 9C, our labor relations update. And we will stay with Dr. Cherry. >> All right. Thank you. This labor relations update uh is getting shorter and shorter month by month. Um and at this time uh this again is a monthly update. This is in alignment with policy 209 with which is our negotiations code of ethics uh which indicates that administration will review the status of negotiations at public schoolboard meetings consistent with open meeting law pelra our detailed negotiation discussions are addressed in closed session of the board and this is an opportunity for the board as well as the public to understand the status of where we're at within our contract negotiations looking at our bargaining goals. goals. Uh our collective bargaining process focuses on finding
072mutual gains and solving shared problems. Uh we seek to uh have a legally sound and operationally manageable agreement with clear and concise language. Uh we focus our efforts uh recruitment and retention of highquality staff and always we ensure that we're fiscally responsible stewards of taxpayer money operating within a fixed budget. some fud uh budget facts to understand uh as we look at our FY26 Gen general fund salaries and benefits. This is where the majority of our salaries are paid out of our general fund. Uh this equals 539 million for FY26. Um noting that um 1% increase to salaries and benefits is equal to 5.39 million. Uh however a 1% increase on the basic general ed formula is equal to only 3 million. This is important to understand as we look at any increases in the
073general ed formula does not uh produce enough revenue uh to compensate our employees at a 1% salary increase as well. uh salaries and benefits are approximately 82% of the general fund budget and within our FY26 budget we are including a 2 and a.5% increase in salaries and a 5% increase in benefits. Looking at the employee groups within an NOA Hannipin, we have five unaffiliated groups. These are non-bargaining units and 13 collective bargaining groups. Within our group of 2025 through 2027 master agreements, we now have three groups that have um have active uh contracts that have been settled within our 2024 through 2026 um master agreements. These are are employee groups that are in the second year currently of their contract. And then we also have a few groups that are still remaining um with 20
074continuing to operate under 2023 through 2025 master agreements and these are in the groups that we are continue to be in active negotiations with and these are the groups that I will talk about one by one. Next, looking at our open groups or open contracts uh provide an status on our negotiation meetings. Uh the first group is our largest group of employees, our teachers. This includes our K12 teachers as well as our AB teachers, ECF teachers, and now our preschool teachers are also joining this group. They are represented by ANOA Henipin Education Minnesota local 7007. Within this group, we have over 3,200 employees and we are in mediation at this time with this group. Our last mediation meeting took place on November 6th. While we're in mediation, all proposals that are exchanged with this group
075are still confidential and uh we continue to actively work to uh come to an agreement with them. The next group is our principles. This is a a group that is represented by the YNoka Henipin Elementary and Secondary Principles Association. There are 126 employees in this group. Our fourth meeting was scheduled for November 14th and that um uh is uh Friday and actually that was just rescheduled and I don't know if November 14th is Friday or if that's the rescheduled date. November 14th. Friday it is. Uh so that is the next date uh that we have uh scheduled uh with our principles. The next group is our child nutrition assistance. This group is represented by our Minnesota school employees association. uh just over 200 employees in this group, hourly employees uh both full-time, long hour and
076short hour employees. Our third meeting is scheduled for November 18th. And our school office supervisors are represented by Noah Hannipan Office Professional Supervisors Association. Just over 40 employees in this group. Uh there is one school office supervisor essentially for each one of our schools, our buildings. Uh our first meeting is scheduled for November 12th. We're looking forward to meeting with them this week. And then uh we have two additional groups um that are yet to be scheduled. Our community school programmers and early childhood screeners. This is a small group of employees um that generally waits to meet until after our teachers uh have have settled because they are also represented by a nohannipan education Minnesota and our special education administrators due to the sequencing and uh planning of meetings. Oftent times we wait to meet
077with this group until we're further along with principal negotiations. There are 15 employees in that group currently. So looking at our next steps, we'll continue to provide regular updates at schoolboard meetings. We continue to meet actively with each of these uh groups with open contracts. Uh a note about um being in mediation, those contract uh proposals uh negotiation proposals that go back and forth are still confidential in nature. Um but we will provide as much uh detailed information as we can to the board uh on an ongoing basis. Uh in addition to that, we do provide a brief overview on our negotiations page on our Anoka Henipin Schools website and you can see that link uh listed here on the slide. And with that, I'm open to any comments or questions from the board. >>
078Thank you, Dr. Cherry, for the presentation and information. Members, any questions? >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right, board. We're nearing our last agenda item. Item 10, board correspondence and communications. Members, this is our opportunity to share happenings in our community, report on assignments or any other items of interest. Does anyone have anything that they would like to share? Director Simon. >> Thanks, Casey. Um, for the board, but also for the public, I I was able to go to um the opening night of Rapids Middle School, Wizard of Ozplay, and I just have to say, well, first of all, it was amazing. The students were awesome. The um the stage crew was great. the uh te teacher who directs it was wonderful. But um just for the public and
079for the board, I know a lot of board members attend things like that, but for the public, check out the things that are happening at our schools, middle schools and high schools from music, band, choir. Uh a lot of stuff happens in November and December. Um and uh I promise you will not be sorry. So you can go to your school's website on the activities calendar. you can go to um a lot of times bands and choirs and drama clubs will have Facebook pages that also advertise those. Um so check them out. You will absolutely love it. Thanks. >> I'll go next quickly here. I just want to say with uh Veterans Day being tomorrow that I just want to personally thank all of our staff who serve or have served. Um anybody with a
080spouse that serves and then just my own personal family, Jack, Dave, my brother Dan, my friend Steve. Thank you for your service. Director Langenfeld. >> I also would like to um offer uh recognition for our veterans as well. I think everyone here would um in support your your comment director Simon uh Frog and Toad is the show that I just recently saw over at Champlain Park High School as well. And there's a lot of great stuff for kids these days that you can take your children to. So, I'd highly recommend um again following the guidance that you just provided. Um I want to talk a little bit just briefly about literacy. I sit on the higher ed literacy partnership. Um was invited when because I teach at BETHL, but really thinking about the work underway
081there that I think will really help all of us. um they're really working on improving teacher prep programs and if we can get better teacher prep programs aligned to the read act and so forth we will be able to have some significant cost savings and already um the student teachers are coming into we have a group from Bethl uh coming into our schools um to help out and provide additional support but there are also school districts across the state where this is happening there's pilot going on in Morehead and another pilot going on um in Mano. So, a lot of a lot of groups already the higher ed partnerships with the with the K12s and I'm sure and I see the superintendent nodding his head. I'm sure he's aware of many more than I am,
082but um really looking at what a cost savings that will be. And now I want to share just a brief pref proof of concept. Um, I volunteer at Monroe Elementary and I did hearing and vision screening at Monroe uh last week and I had first graders and one of the things that we know is that once children connect the letter or the symbol to the sound is when they can start to read. It's that phenemic aware a awareness that we want them to have. I had several first graders come in and I asked them to read the line and they're holding it up in the [laughter] when I didn't realize this was going to happen and this little guy said Z and I said oh and what letter is that? Z and he went through
083the whole thing. He was not the only child that did that. So, they began with the sounds as opposed to the symbol, which I thought really started to tell a story I've not seen before when doing vision screening in the past. So, it it was very heartwarming. I thought that was a really great example. So, that's what I have to share. I've got many other things, but those are the big highlights. >> Thank you, members. Anything else? All right, with that, our next item 11 will be conducted in closed session. An executive session will be closed to discuss labor negotiations pursuant to Minnesota statute 13D.03 discussing matters with all open groups. The closed session will be held in the Michael Sullivan room. I would entertain a motion to move into closed session. >> Thank you,
084Director Simon. Is there a second? >> Thank you, Director Adet. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. I >> any oppose say no. With six in favor and zero opposed, we will move to the executive session in the Michael Sullivan room after a 5m minute break. Thank you. >> [music]