001we're g to call the big lake school board meeting to order show that all board members are present except for Mr Nelson uh first we need a motion to approve the agenda move by sixberry second by Brown any other discussion all in favor I oppose motion carries uh please stand for the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all did we have any open form okay since we have no open form we're moving forward with the consent agenda the previous minutes from the February 26th regular board meeting the February 26th work session and the March 12th work session claims and accounts in the amount of 1,572 357 the credit card report
002Personnel fundraisers the memorandum of understandings uh and the approval of those one read policies that are listed make a motion to approve consent agenda items motion made by shilan second by sixberry any other discussion all in favor I opposed motion carries on to donations I will make a motion to approve the donations second by Brown any other discussion all in favor I oppose motion carries uh financial report Angie there now you can hear me right good evening um so Schoolboard financial report tonight uh we'll go over enrollment as usual and then I actually did a spring budget revision so there's a lot of information in here so I'll try to summarize this um for the board and so you can understand it so um first of about enrollment more good news I feel like I'm
003broken record but that's that's good because it's good news every month um we did have an increase of enrollment actually this month from February to March it was growth at Liberty um actually have some extra or additional students there our average ADM is now 3,128 it it's 11 adms over our re because remember I revised the enrollment budget back last fall um and so with this budget revision which I'll go over I actually hadj just aend a again um for um our growth that has occurred during this school year so as John shows there as as John Scrolls to that you can see that graphically so what I'll do next month is I'll adjust that yellow Bo Yellow bar up because we've adjusted that budget but it's it's such good news because I I think
004when I was looking at this our enrollment we're now back to our enrollment level of two years ago so this is just great news um and we hope that continues so as for the budget revision this slide actually looks very similar to what I had done back in November so I I basically kind of went through I called all the major accounts look at gened Aid as I mentioned that was adjusted based on enrollment our special education Aid now has been updated normally I have to wait till April to do that but the state has come out with a revised model as well as last year's results and as well as I had update update information from the co-op so I actually was able to update that actually a month earlier than I knew normally
005do and that was positive results um increase in special Aid um just other state AIDS Grant estimates just updated everything for things we know now um the other thing I wanted to mention is investment earnings um last fall we were projecting the feds to cut rates and they actually have now um I think the latest latest meaning is they're on pause and so our investment our earnings are more because we're getting a higher average interest rate so I adjusted based on basically what we know now and and that's been significant the investment earnings you know just even a few years ago we weren't earning anything because rates were so low so and that's been a significant part of our budget um just updated other misscellaneous revenues and then community service also updated um Stephanie looked
006at her budget and updated for known changes in program enrollment and expenses so that's on the revenue side expense side very similar um the staff revision you know we had adjusted salaries for known hires in the last fall but then we had open enrollment for benefits in January so updated that based on the Open Enrollment changes um did decrease Transportation because we did have one snow dat um and that's actually like a $42,000 savings so just for the one day um and then what I also wanted to highlight redac funding um we we got so there's two pots of money onetime money but we're not going to spend it all this year so I had the entire amount in our budget and I didn't want that to skew our our our um information so I
007carried forward it into the next year and then there now there's two new Reserve fund balances and that's required by law because we have to spend it just on redact um funding eligible items uh say tuition estimates Grant estimates yeah same as the revenues then the expenses you got to take a look at them as well as community service so general fund um mainly in revenues increase quite a bit and and it's as I mentioned the federal actually State special education as well as federal education Aid special education Aid I what I wanted to mention is is we've been discussing how to maximize the federal special education Aid um in comparison to how it interacts with State special education Aid and so one change making that I have never done but but I'm I'm convinced
008this is the best way to do it is we are now using some of that Federal funding to pay some of our tuition bills to other districts then we can maximize what we're getting in in state special education Aid it's a complicated formula and I'll leave it at that but if you if you do want have any specific questions you know just give me a call or something but but we've had like two or three business manager meetings about it um and then expenditures like I said um only decreased slightly and that mainly was because that snow day and then I talked about the re act um allocation to next year so bottom line what you you want to know is where's our unassigned fund balance and so 9.4 million it is 23% of unassigned
009expend un unassigned expenditures previously it was at 22% and just reminder our fund balance policy is 9 to 12% of those unassigned expenditures and then community service fund um basically what I said before investment earning Staffing costs um Community Services fund balance did decrease 10,494 um and also when you look at the components of the community service fund balance the School Readiness fund balance is negative due to in that there's just not enough funding from the state to support preschool programming so essentially like the community service fund balance has to subsidize that program if that makes sense uh other funds just small changes again um investment earnings um again Food Service Debt Service um and same with the OPB trust and then OPB trust we've got a little bit more of the investment advisory expenses
010so I just up that budget to reflect what's actually happening so bottom line is this is the report you see every month and let's see if I can point out that there's those two new fund balances it's under um boy about middle of the page under literacy you see literacy a okay let me let me back up there's three components there's like three literacy buckets of money now there's the ongoing yeah thanks John yeah keep going keep going there you go so literacy Aid incent literacy incentive Aid that's the ongoing funding we've always been getting literacy Aid react onetime money and then redact training onetime money um but any amount that we don't spend like you see the revenue we already got the revenue we're only projected to expend the 75,000 and then so then
011the fund balance goes forward then to next year and um as far as I know there's no timeline on when we have to spend it by I don't think but read that read yeah or 20 oh okay yeah we got a couple your suspend it yet then okay okay and then uh I also you probably may have heard heard that the governor has come out with a revised budget so I just got some highlights there I'm not happy about that first bullet point but five he's proposing 5% reduction in sped transportation that could be about I calculated this about a $75,000 hit if that would go through yeah I have 75 to 80,000 impact to Big Lake um reducing the Community Education Equalization Aid so the funding stays the same it's just because they're going
012to decrease the aid that's more in our taxpayers so that's the impact of of that proposal is that instead of the state paying our taxpayers pay um his proposal to cut private school funding does remain um proposal to cut cuum Q comp funding does remain um now I had here initially no additional funding for summer term unemployment but I believe Tim corrected me on that there the he is proposing I think one more year of funding yeah yeah so we might get one more year so so I I just I had done this before I found that out so um so so actually we he's proposing one more year of the summer term unemployment um that's a lot of information do you have any questions comments um otherwise um just approve the financial reporters normal
013and then and the budget res budget revisions I just reviewed any questions for Angie motion made by shilan second by sixberry any other discussions all in favor I oppose motion carries all right and LT right or WTC right Tech ltfm sorry I was going to keep going and forgot okay there go yeah so um this is the annual ltfm resolution for right Technical Center so we levy on behalf of right Tech and um as you know our plan will come before the board probably in June but right Tech has to do their earlier because it has to go to each member district and so the impact to Big Lake is it's about it's under that paragraph one there 36755 183 that is actually about $2500 less than last year um so and mainly because our
014share actually went down um so so the net effect of that is essentially then our taxpayers will save a little bit because our share actually has gone down um but this does this does require approval by the school board this will then go on our pay 20 Let's see we are going to do pay 26 Levy and um and I do recommend approval of this resolution because without the ltfm funding um right Tech um it's not good for them financially so because then they would have to use general fund dollars to do some to do like some deferred maintenance um expense costs and um they they really should tap into the ltfm funding so if our so it's for 26 but if our shares go up you know we have more enrollment next year that
015month does that amount change or is this like by year like would that be it's yearly it's yearly and it depend it it's twofold it depends on our total enrollment and then it depends on our enr no sorry I have that wrong Tim I think it depends on grades 10 11 and 12 enrollment and then total enrollment and then participation yeah yeah so that's how they allocate it okay and so that is that um something that would be revised off of this or is it a year delay like is do they do they Levy based off of like last year's numbers and yeah yep exactly Mo made by second by Brown any other discussion since the resolution it's a roll call vote uh Brown sorry okay nelon hi Han Reasoner I sixberry hi chillian I
016okay the resolution passes 60 right thank you thank you Angie uh mtss update good evening I'm excited to update you on all the work we've been doing this year uh in regards to mtss um we are we are in year three of of our implementation next slide so just to give kind of a very general overview of what mtss is it's a framework where we look at how can we most effectively and efficiently help students be successful both academically and behaviorally and so mtss is that framework that um mde is is very much uh sponsoring and supporting Statewide um it's nationally uh recognized as being one of the most effective ways to have a school distri make sure that our students are being successful so that's that's what this framework is um so you might
017kind of a visual might be helpful to think about with our district um we have so many different departments so many different initiatives so many different efforts people working in different ways those are all those small arrows where the work of mtss looks at how can we make sure that we're aligning all towards Student Success so all of our efforts we're we're having communication and understanding and really thinking through all the different pieces our district to make sure that again this is about uh efficiency because we're resource based how can we make sure that we're using all of the different pieces for students to Suess so that's just a visual to kind of help you understand kind of this uh framework so like I said we're in year three um so just kind of going
018through the different years um kind of starting small and making sure that our Administration uh has a deep understanding of what mtss is and then that next year looking at how can we increase that training and with more uh administrators as part of that training and then looking at helping the the staff understand what it is um that it's not a trend it's really um like I said MD mde is heavily um really supporting and encouraging uh districts around the state to incorporate this framework and then this this school year uh though it says districtwide implementation it's just two words but yet that is huge um and as I'm work working with others uh coordinators around the State um some districts are are just uh implementing mtss in one of their buildings or maybe just
019the elementary whereas big lake has said this is effective we've seen how you know the research says how effective it is we want all in and so this year has been a huge year for that part of helping us with that is the Grant from MD that we uh received and so that's really helped us move this effort forward so in talking about TSS uh there's five components so five pieces of when they when they've done research if we can uh maximize ourselves in these five areas um this is what we need to have a really sustainable effective system of school support or student support for our school district so those five are there what I'm going to do is now kind of break each one apart and give a couple examples of how we've
020been using those five different components this year in the work that we've been doing and they're not in any order and there's no um uh all of them are equally important um just like when you're like with a recipe you need all the ingredients and that one is more important than the other all are all are important same with mtss so the first one is infrastructure for continuous Improvement a lot of this is the it talks about the foundation making sure that we have the teams the resources the staff to make sure that our our implementation of mtss our system is solid and so these are some of the ways that we've been working at that this year um so in each school we have a person that's designated an mtss lead um and this
021was an additional piece to uh their their full-time uh role but we found that that's really effective especially as we have the different teams like you can see there the district mtss team each building has their own mtss leadership team then each building has their intervention so their mtss tier 2 tier three team so that mtss lead uh is on all of those teams to make sure that there's communication and understand understanding sharing information um so there's alignment again and then that second bullet the coordinator my position is helping with kind of oversee the Imp implementation can you can you elaborate a little bit what who's on a tier two tier three intervention sure so each School looks a little bit different but essentially um when we're talking mtss there's three tiers and when they
022talk about tier one that's what's happening in the classro for all students so effective um instruction and learning happening in all all the classrooms that's where we can uh maximize Student Success is making sure that our classroom teachers are are really equipped to do their job well they uh statistically they say uh we should have 80% of our students doing really well at that tier one so then the tier two is uh students more in small groups doing intervention and tier three is more even more intensified stud students who were needing that additional support So to your question as far as a tier two tier three team um each building has their mtss lead as part of it I'm part of it we have our data integrationist we have an admin from that building and
023then we have some people some representatives from the intervention whether it's Behavior interventions or academic interventions so for Behavior be more counselors Dean um social workers for academic interv mainly reading interventionists on that team so there's like sub teams within two teams so that that tier two tier three team that's that's one team that meets almost weekly in in many of the buildings looking at for students who are needing that extra that extra dosage of of an intervention whether it's again academic or behavior how are they doing are we seeing progress as we're meeting with them in small groups are there ways we need to adjust um as we're progress monitoring them and we're seeing that maybe these students are doing well but we need to discuss some students who aren't responding as well to
024the intervention that's what that team does and so do those so you kind of answer that so that's that team is looking at that group of students that's already within that tier two or within that tier three so get pushed into that tier two and pushed into that so tier three would be pushed in from tier two but to get pushed into tier two from your general classroom is that um you know reaching out by the teacher is that the intervention team like looking at data saying oh wait a minut it looks like there's a problem in you know X classroom right or is it a combination of both yeah it's the ladder it's it's heavily looking at the data that we have so when we do uh like specifically our fast bridg screener we
025can see that's that's our our our thermometer to see how are students doing um and so students who are are showing that they're not meeting Benchmark on the screener then we take that that uh data as well as other data to see you know as as uh classroom participation and grades as far as attendance behavior all those things and so we look at the data for all of that and then we see these are the students we need to focus a little bit more on who aren't being successful just in our general Ed classroom then the data shows that we need to give them some extra support in different ways and then I think you're going to touch on the the involvement of a parent but like at that point what what does that look
026like for the student have a student that needs that extra support and the teams identified that what does that look like so it'll be it's dependent on building um with elementaries uh let's say if it's a if they're struggling with an academic if we have an academic concern then we'll do a diagnostic to see okay if they're struggling in Reading as an example what part of reading or what component of reading are they struggling in and then we will put them into an intervention small group that specifically has an interven matching that student need if it's behavior um then we might say you know at the high school um having a a counselor or social worker reach out to that student and and talk with them meet with them to see kind of how they're
027feeling about school um their engagement all those kinds of things to see how best to help them so it looks a little bit different by by school are parents notified of this concern that the team is identified or yes yep and especially right yeah letting them letting parents know that you know like at the elementaries your student will be you know and it's it's important to know that like a tier two or tier three is an addition to tier one so if they're struggling in Reading we're not going to take them out of the reading class to do intervention they're going to have their tier one classroom reading time with their classroom teacher and then have that additional time with in a small group and then assessment some of the things that we've doing this
028year um both uh with the district level and building level teams we've been doing a self assessment so MBE has this metric where it shows us these hundred different different areas within mtss to see how are we doing with the implementation and so we're rating ourselves and then based on that then we'll know what our action steps are for you know in this in this particular area we're a little we're we're showing that we need some improvement so what's our what's our action step to better uh be more successful in that area so that's what we've been um completing this year and then as well as thinking about the different assessments that we're giving students making sure that there's training uh for the staff of understanding how to give the assessment making sure they understand
029uh why we're giving the assessment um so that there's Fidelity with our with our results because we use those results for everything else we need to make sure that it's very accurate so that's assessment um then connected that is that databased decision making um we've uh done a lot of great work this year with educ climber um and looking at so we we we get the different the different pieces of information for student we have a lot of data but how can we make sure that we're using it to change and alter our response to supporting students and so educ Climer really helps us in visual ways to see what students are struggling um what students are doing well how are they doing well uh desegregating that into subps groups are doing well versus others
030again to guide us in making sure that all of our students can be successful so um that's one piece and then the other piece is uh another team that we've just more more recently created called The mtss mtss Advisory team and like it says there it's it's a team that can come together that can do the research and kind of dive deep into mtss and different pieces maybe that we're working on with our action steps and then bring that to the district mtss leadership team and recommendations and kind of guide our work um districtwide so those are a couple things for that piece and then for multi- practices and support this is a lot of times when people think of mtss this is what they think of with those different years um so part of
031that is again training our staff of what is mtss and MD mde has offered some great trainings this year that we've been a part of um again our the work that we're doing is largely LED we're looking Tod on implementing mtss and they so we're we participating and connecting with them very often which has been a great partnership for big lake and MBE and then the other the middle two I guess the the rest of them again talking about those different tiers making sure that when we have students in our general Ed classrooms that were meeting the needs of the vast majority of our kids because we're resource based we need to make sure that we can have a solid foundation think about a house before we're putting a lot of work on the second
032floor the third floor we need to make sure that that's that Foundation is solid and so that's what we've been doing um in different ways with the curriculum and supports for students in the classroom and then again with the tier two tier three if we see that this is a need for a student what is the intervention that's going to match that that need making sure that we're measuring its Effectiveness and then with our interventions making sure that there's training over these specialized interventions and that interventions are understanding how to do the interventions with Fidelity so we've been doing a lot of steps in that area so you said 80% in your tier one is your goal where roughly what are we at now I mean I imagine it varies by grade level but on
033the whole how far off of that IDE pyramid are we we are we're gaining steps in that direction of making that bigger with the goal of 80% in general we're around 60% right now as we're looking at our data that that has increased in the last few years but we're looking to increase it more as we more effectively and that 60% is that fairly consistent across buildings like as a district we're about 60% in every building or is there certain yeah buildings that just really there's a little there's a little discrepancies in each building but in general 60% is well I so these are good questions it's it's more so um a little bit trying to think how how best as far as numbers um again we're we're resource based so the more we can
034work at our strengthening our tier one we have then tier two and three Specialists that can help with our students so um as far as numbers right now again it's a little bit different in each building and I don't have the information right now but I can give that to you so you know when we're talking about tier two these are how many students are receiving tier two Services building that kind of and then another piece is making sure that what we're doing translates and there's communication engagement between school and home and so one of the things that we've been working on is our mtss handbook which basically all the different pieces of mtss in one place um so we've been working at completing that because there's lots of different pieces to it as we've
035been um completing our our self assessments those over 100 questions from mde we're seeing that there are certain pieces that we need to make sure that we have in writing this is our process or this is our plan for supporting students that they're struggling these are the ways that we're strengthening our tier one those kinds of things so we might we need to make sure that that handbook is in place and that'll be by this summer so we can make sure that we're connecting with families of if a student is receiving intervention this is why this is what the data shows this is our process for seeing which students need extra and this is how we're going to match their need as an intervention and then that consistent Communication in different ways if it is
036a student who is uh meeting with the counselors or interventionists making sure that parents are involved in that piece through phone calls emails Desir conferences can you share that the when you complet it the there's just a lot of manh hours involved in this and I know it takes up a lot of you guys' hard work and time so I think from um you know our perspective where we're just looking at numbers on paper it's helpful to know sometimes what all those men hours are you know are doing it and you know we we don't we don't do it as directly as you obviously but we all certainly want what's best for our students too and so you know any any program that you're ADV advancing that's going to help our students I mean it's
037just nice to have a little bit more understand how how that's happening so and then um you know thank you for entertaining my questions I just I kind of wanted to put it in context that you know we throw around the acronym of ntss and and to actually what does that mean again to the to a person in the room that isn't in the classroom every day so that's why I kind of was drawing out a little bit and I appreciate you elaborating a little bit more on that because again I know a lot of your efforts go into that and and what does that do to actually help help our students in the room and so I any other questions thank you very much uh we're going on to PBIS e for e for
038e e e last e was was e know our e e e you was don't e for e for and e for J e e e so e know you e e e SCH for so I just had one question have you or Mr offered to eat above because you say that that doesn't work for Middle School you say Middle School is are difference but I got to tell I kind of wonder if you walk into your cafeteria and say Hey listen up guys you've been loud lately as I here has happened and by the way if you're quiet Mr Mr Ernst who didn't come tonight so we'll make him do it he will eat a bug just just curious just throwing it out there b I think the Slime would work to just just
039saying I got one in all your buildings so I I oh thank you I'm just saying there's a lot of crossover at the dinner table talk that's all I'm saying there's a lot of crossover uh on to data update oh I disagree data is a lot of fun data is so much fun um no you're right no I let yep I let them have the fun ones all right so three times a year we're coming to you with data and so that was the promise so we came um in the fall after our fall screening so we come after our Universal screening our Universal screeners are the big test that we use to help us make those database decisions um and then we use progress monitoring once kids get into interventions but I'm going to
040come three times and just show you that big Universal screening data for both attendance academics and seel so this is something that all of our buildings do we're just a little slow um so all of our buildings go through data dig processes this is nothing different I've showed you this before we kind of predict huh what do we think our attendance data is going to look like what do we think our reading data is going to look like we look at it we just get some high Lev observation we wonder about it and then we ask if we need to plan so for for example I want you to predict right now what do you think our attendance data is going to look like our goal is always about 90% we're always going for about
04190% attendance data and then we're going to look at it and we're just going to say this is the data so for attendance there's our monthly attendance so the difference between a full day attendance rate and our reported attendance rate is if kids are not in school for a full day they don't get a full day attendance rate so and we have kids leave I know right that that was the tricky one um brilliant um and we have kids leaving for a lot of different reasons if they're going to write Tech if they're going for on the job training so that data is lower and it's skewed not all for bad reasons of kids leaving us yes this is this is only districtwide so I'm just going to give you guys District on this um
042yeah we do know that attendance is one of the big indicators if kids are successful in school or not so we've really taken it on this year for um attendance as being one of our um interventions that we do with kids to try and get kids in school above that 90% um and so that's monthly attendance and then we also do weekly attendance because we like to make sure that we have kids coming to school on Mondays and Fridays as well as Tuesday Wednesday Thursday so it's nice to see that we don't have those big dips because um sometimes we do so then academic assessment data so we do use fast Bridge which is now a required um screener for the state of Minnesota and noticing that we use early reading and early math in
043kindergarten in first grade a reading and a maath for second through 10th grade so just so you get a reminder of what our fast Bridge Benchmark colors are so the low risk which is our 40th to 99th percentile or on a reading it'll be the 40th to 70th and then they have an advanced category 71 to 99 that's on grade level so that's considered a grade levels that's where we're trying to get kids that some risk 15th to 39th percentile um would would flag for us that those are kids that we'd have to look at for intervention right now being we're resource-based we're not able to serve up to that 40th percentile we're more serving that 25th percentile and below and then the high risk level is at 15th percentile and below and those are
044kids that we're going to look at that need more intervention or possibly specialized services so our literacy data so we'll start with our early reading remember this is kindergarten in first grade at Liberty and so um this time I'm just going to show you our fall to winter data so we can do just a comparison of fall to winter so we can see that our low risk went from 47 to 56 and so Ashley you were asking Ben and I was like wait wait i' I've got that I've got okay so there it is our goal is to get that to 80% okay we're not there yet um but that is our goal and we know that it's going to take with a with a new literacy they're they're saying three years before you see
045we're starting to see some really good gains in that I do want to also say the early reading scores in fast Bridge we have one component that does not align to redact and that is the site words I'm mentioning it they're all sitting back there going we've had this discussion um which plays it's really heavy part of the psychometrician ISS what they get this data off from and it doesn't match um so you can there's all different kinds of site words the test picks these our curriculum picks those so we're really not matching what we're teaching and so we know that's a skewed fast bridg is working on it they're well aware of this but they're the state assessments so it's a little skewed for our a reading and this is liberty so this is
046second grade and so you can see we had very nice growth with our second grade and and I I I am hoping that those foundational skills that we were teaching in CK plate are wonder I wonder I don't know but um yeah so there's that data and then NDA reading so we had a decrease in our and we kind of look at that low and advanced level together of course trying to get that closer to that 80% and so a decrease so something that we go H okay what's spring going to look like and then do we have to have an action stuff on it so that was a lot of discussion that happened um at Indie in February during our data days and so looking at that so that's one of the questions I'd
047written up for you is do you have did you make a change based off of this now or is it a wait and see since you're still early into c yeah so I don't know J do you want to to that or um sure and that's fast bridge in general so the fast Bridge metrics so they're not just going you're going to get tested on the same thing and see where your kids are fast Bridge assumes we're going to grow and so it's just are you growing with that and so that's kind of been fast Bridges deal since we've all started fast Bridge across the state everyone sees this dip in the winter um um and then a raise again in the spring and Big Lake sometimes even sees a a nice raise in the
048fall so whatever Big Lake kids are doing at the library in the summer good for us um and then the other piece of that is this would be the year that we would dig into CA to look at just gaps in the curriculum compared to um our standards but because we've been doing so much literacy training which I believe is helping we've not been able to do that work as well and so there's been some little bit of Disconnect of what we would have normally done in curriculum work so is that a trend that's consistent throughout all of indie or is that I mean is there one particular grade level that's bogging your numbers down and that's how it's been even before c k we kind of saw that as well so yeah so and
049then for middle school again we saw the dip and in Middle School um I believe it was our sixth grade that was high seventh grade low eighth grade high so it just kind of went all over they are going through Ela adoption and we'll have a new curriculum next year pending board approval on to math so for math again at Liberty we have our early math and so starting out very strong in our math um this is something that we're going to look at new curriculum for next year just because we do not have that horizontal vertical alignment with math um in fact I'll give a little plug for our math um our math curriculum is so old how old is it um it's so old that that we're not sure that we're going to
050be able to buy math books for next year I know right and we're not yes you should check into that because we're have we're struggling right now we knew we couldn't get the online curriculum this year we knew that was yeah so we' we've known that this is going to happen they're not supposed to be up for adoption for a couple of years but we might have to fast track it now um so our a reading at Liberty is in at 62 so that's looking closer to 80 so and then Indie had growth you mention that right now because of resources you're able to assist like the 25th percentile in you know intervention is that both literacy is that both reading and math or is that just for reading what's the math intervention like now
051thank you for bringing that up Ashley we have the resources Schoolboard that we need we are putting all of our resources towards reading and behavior and so um so we have very little math intervention so the schools are just scrambling to pull together whatever they can we don't have so our mtss framework would be look at data provide this in a very systematic and explicit way we don't have that for math we have some intervention at the middle school Liberty and Indie do their best we have teachers doing differentiation I mean but it's really it's not it's not a systematic intervention yet my hope is that as our needs for reading intervention go down that we will backfill that with math um we just submitted our adsis application this year and for the next two
052years we're still going to focus on literacy and behavior and then my hope is that we will flip that over to math in the following adsis application so I hope that's what we're going to do that's definitely what we're going to do because we'll be there by then so that's what we're going to do has this been a big change in Big L doesn't have math intervention or has big lake always struggled with math intervention we've not had math intervention for the three years I have been here or it's been sporadic I don't Angie Teresa Angie I don't yeah right and what we call an intervention is something that is very systematic explicit that is progress monitored is that doesn't mean there's a lot of really good math supports happening and we've kind of tweaked
053that language um supports means it's extra things that we're doing for students we're just not progress monitoring it with data and putting it under that framework which is very explicit and we're really watching those kids there's a lot of math supports happening um and our data shows that we're doing we're doing very well in math we just want to get to that point where we can really use databased decision making and then That explicit evidence-based instruction for students we're not there yet so well and that'll be something that we'll look at we'll look at a curriculum that possibly comes with supports um so that we know that we can provide that in lie of that resources that we need so they do that at the middle school level or not but I I think through
054all the years there always been we have math supports in all you know in all buildings we have some sort of math support um just not that systematic explicit evidence-based intervention yet yet so um yeah so there's middle school and then oural data we do two different kinds ofal um we have the students take their mys saers results and there's Liberties student data and then the teachers fill went out and so there's liberty Sabers data and they're calling them now Sabers student and Sabers teacher rather than my Sabers so I make a mistake on that I know it's been many years that I've ground that um there's Indies student and indy teacher you can see this is at that 80% or above that we're looking for so and middle school student and I just want
055to call ATT to this we have a lot of times our middle school high school students go down in the winter is kind of very common to see um and so this is wonderful just that even even though it went down a little bit um a lot of times students and we don't know if it's just a Minnesota thing that's always a wondering like oh it's cold and they don't get outside but um so that was kind of nice that it stayed steady and then the teacher is it what teacher the Sab on students I mean since they change classes every it's so we um so they've tried some different things because their advisory teacher doesn't always know them the best so I know we've tried like their Ela teacher we've tried different teachers I'm
056not to be honest sure where they've landed this year um being Cindy's new I know they had that discussion but I don't see anybody in this room that's in middle school so I know she you can tell it's her first year she doesn't realize we just might call her back I'll text her and let you know by the end I do know she also has a very long drive home so she wouldn't be answering my text so I just I can find that all because I know they were having that discussion because it is a tricky thing in high school and middle school because to do this well you have to know the student right um and so in Middle School seeing all those different kids you want it to be a teacher that knows
057you fairly well which is why we do our our Sabers assessments a little later in the year we don't do them right away um so yeah that's a I should know that and I don't sorry I just was C like I saw that data and I'm like I wonder they how about high school do you know who's doing your high school data no it has so here's the students and again um this is ninth and tth graders um and then the teachers at was Ela but I'm not even sure that that's that's even I think they just did students yeah so all right and uh data is like we're really growing into a database system and I'm I'm so proud that we're moving away from just wondering and thinking and using our guts um that
058we're really using data and triangulating data and building a system for collecting this um and so and and the amount of time we spend making sure we're looking at the data so we look at it from the district level the building level their plc's their pgps into in their own personal um world so data has become something that we do data by itself is useless data is only useful if you apply it and so that's what we it's become something we do any questions I have a comment I know I know that's a shocker uh but uh no I just have to say you know I I've had the opportunity to sit in on a few of the meetings in particular mtss I like to go to the district level one and what I really
059appreciate is the intentionality and what I really like to see is like the growth and like you can just hear it because um there I I typically sit kind of outer ring and I listen and I hear the conversations and over the course of the year because you meet is it once every month once a month once a month um so I'm able to kind of hear and even the depth of conversation and people may it's may be happening without you even noticing it but I feel like those meetings are really meaningful and it's really starting to come together and it's really starting to like utilize like U um the language and being intentional and doing some of the pieces that are there obviously tonight we was really heavy on the presentations of all the
060really cool stuff but please know these people are working really hard I'm I I say this I was saying this at the Chamber of Commerce meeting to some people I'm really proud of what we got going here and and we have merely we we started there's more to come folks so it takes time it's you know it's not it's not an easy like just flip the switch but like with anything you got to stay consistent and see it through with Fidelity and we're going to continue to see some improvements and I'm really proud of the hard work that minda and your whole department principles teachers uh Paris the whole group they're all coming together and working on stuff so I think that's really important to just acknowledge um it's really neat really neat so thank
061you for sharing all that information tonight and I I do want to say like the best part of this has been the alignment from Early Childhood all the way through 12th grade our whole system is aligned and working in the direction of Student Success and so that has been the thing that's brought us a lot of Joy thank you for bringing more data to the board I know you heard that loud and clear app it's it's been her Department she's been working this with all the principles and the leaders within but I think I really like J's uh comment about kind of and I'm paraphrasing but when you're going to see kind of the true results is in a couple years when all those gaps are filled I'm super excited because Liberty is not com
062out of the park and we're going to only start seeing those be these these all the academic and Behavior everything kind of cruise through our system uh because let's not forget we had a little thing called a pandemic 5 years ago where there's been a lot of stuff that we've been having to relearn I was listening to PBIS presentation and I was thinking boy we've had to relearn a lot of stuff in general and I think um it takes time it takes time but like I said we're we're moving in the right direction so be proud of that and uh um good work to all those that are out there doing it so thank you thank you uh TJ uh bid presentation and acceptance of Big Lake Middle School Media Center renovation TJ we're going
063to touch on the radon tonight at all or just a joke Ed no we're done with raidon all right so before you tonight I've got the bid for the middle school media center renovation project the low bid came in um from Weber construction at 1,700 $97,000 um it's a little bit more than what we had originally kind of projected and kind of shot for um was the low bid there was some that were substantially higher um I do recommend moving forward with approval um some of that price I feel is you know we did bid later in the season which probably added you know five to s% right there um the rest I think is a lot of it's from the tariffs um you know overall it's still not a bad price we're at about
064$219 a square foot when we did the high school about three years ago that was $200 a square foot roughly 19900 so not too bad um overall you know realistically and and if I can just interject you real quick DJ what I'm learning is is that as as you go through these Bond projects and things like that the inflationary those really uncontrollable and you you do the best you can to project out as far as you can um but the good news is is even though this was a little bit more we're still okay we still are okay so just want to make approval of this we we will still have plenty of funds to get this done as well as the next item that we have on the list and we're still projecting a
065fund balance just not as great of a fund balance as I was projecting you know last Monday or Tuesday after Tuesday's bids realistically after Tuesday's bids I was like on Cloud9 so yeah it's been at least two years I think that was 23 because yeah 22 we did the ventilation 23 we did the media center 24 we finished Independence and did Liberty it's all kind of melted together I will go ahead and make the motion that we approve the 1,797 um for that R okay motion made by sixbury second by Nelson any other discussion all in favor I oppose motion carries and you're up next for Independence Elementary fire alarm system yep so we did we uh had bid opening last Tuesday at 2 o'clock um we had two biders we had Johnson Controls um
066that installs and now owns simplex grenell and then we had in companies uh the low bid was uh Johnson Controls with the Simplex system for $ 29,8 I was quite shocked at this price um considering when we were in construction we had issued a PR um to replace the entire system bring it up to code and they wanted $2,471 or something like that more than what they bid a year later so I'm waiting for the the other shoe to fall but I've already told people I'm going to be watching this one like a hawk because it's Dirt Cheap so you better not be cutting any Corners because I still want the full system all new wires all new everything so we want the bumper to bumper warranty we want everything to work properly so I
067don't want anybody cheating us over the summer this will be over the summer yeah so and they'll have to do it with keeping the existing system operational and then kind of flip and tear everything out so it's gon to be fun that's included in the bit I there was there was emails from the engineer we talked in detail build ground there there was uh emails from the engineer to Johnson Controls saying you are performing these items I said yep I went to be more specific you are replacing this this this and this yep we are replacing the entire system okay I'm going to hold you to it so maybe they don't have enough jobs this summer or something I don't know well they you know they wanted to keep Simplex systems in our facilities it's
068kind of my my understanding I did have a conversation with them afterwards you know I had little apprehension because I was kind of going did you miss something like how did we drop you know over $100,000 I said no we we really want to keep our system in your schools okay yeah it gives them the ability because Simplex is very specific only a Simplex person can come out and program your Simplex panel whereas the other system that we were looking at was quite a bit more open so you could pick hand pick you know seven or eight different contractors and they could all come in and program your system Simplex is you're married to Simplex but for $112,000 I'll also the motion element motion made by six second by Handcock any other discussion all in
069favor I oppose motion carries so yeah the savings that we saw there helped with the increased cost of school so quite a bit yeah thank you T Okay resolution for non-renewal of teaching contracts uh yes Madam chair members of the board every year both this time uh we do have to make some decisions regarding some staffing decisions and before you is a resolution that is related to the termination and nonrenewal of the teaching contracts uh some probationary certified staff uh the letter is before you as well as part of the resolution uh but I also just want the board to know that this is not necessarily all for performance- based it's a lot with licenses and things like that so it's very reasons for why these individuals are being non-renewed but this is the formal
070action that's necessary for us to move ahead with what we need to do um and also too for those that need to out of fairness to them um we're letting them know and March so that they can perhaps find another position if I would recommend approval of this St also something we do every year it's nothing it's not like ation ter resol oh termination cont okay motion made by shilan second by Nelson uh since this is a resolution we'll do a roll call vote uh Brown Nelson hi Hancock hi Reaser I six I chillian I okay the resolution passes 6 okay first reading of policies yes Madam chair members of the board first reading and actually the next two items are procedural pieces um I know that uh we've gone through and done a nice
071job with reviewing those as well so if there's ever questions about that please feel free to contact me or your friendly policy committee members so both the first and the second readings if there's any that you need need any updates on please let us know uh Schoolboard committee's representative updates uh finance committee we haven't met uh policy committee we met last week and got more done and updated you sure did uh buildings and grounds haven't met uh any other we had a we have a special we special special Co-op oh my goodness I forgot the agenda no that's okay uh we had presentation about Big Lake Big Lake yes uh so what um uh John weeky been doing is inviting coordinators from each of the district kind of highlighting their districts and some of the
072strengths and the programs that they offer and how it's structured differently from school to school uh from school district to school district and this month was the big lake we had uh Monica and Jackie ke and present did a really nice job representing this ni very nice job any other committees just legislatively um Andie mentioned the governor's proposed budget um they're starting to go through the education omnibus hearing on that today it's it's there's nothing real Earth shattering I mean both because of the gridlock because of the gridlock nothing is really changing in either direction um it's kind of what my my assessment is I agree is that you know and so and and also because of the the economics involved I mean I was kind of thinking maybe we'd have more policy action but
073again the gridlock is just keeping everything kind of status quo um I just um just put out there that the couple things that do have some traction um in kind of a policy way but economic way is there is some traction on some local optional Revenue um increases um it it has made it through committees there's there's identical language House and Senate so there is possibility that that would get through um but with Equalization as far as the budgetary change much but just for the public to be aware that um you know the governor's budget cut4 million and you and I did attend I was there for part of the time since the last board meeting was the last board me was oh yes the M together exactly MAA and the msba uh joint day
074at the capital um I was there to I was there in the morning and then you stayed for the afternoon in the morning they had some panels they had the Senators couple senators and then they had a couple Representatives um and I guess that one of the one of the pieces that I took from them um which I could really appreciate I can never think of his name representative he's from uh he's principal big yes and uh I appreciate his honesty uh because one of the questions that they asked was is there any way that you could expedite some of these budgetary decisions um because schools are creating budgets right now and sometime decision isn't made until June that doesn't really help us because we have decisions that need to be made now and he
075said no there's there's he just said I'm just going to be honest with you there's no chance and that's basically how he said it he said there's just no way there's just no way so unfortunately that's just kind of where things are at but that stood out to me and then I had to leave so I'm not sure if you had anything else from that no it basically was that I mean the the any sort of budgetary relief or addressing some of these mandates is unfortunately going to fall in the back of our local taxpayers um so you know one of the things for like the unemployment insurance um the bill that you know seems like it might get through it does put that you know onetime money in I mean so I just thought
076it was interesting So currently there's $38 million left in the fund but the estimate is it's going to be 57 half million for the summer of next year you know so that fund is out and that's Statewide um so it does put some in and the governor did have that in there too the 30 million onetime fund but then after that it would be allowing us to Levy if we so choose at the board level the unemployment Levy for summer term unemployment which we hadn't been able to do prior which I appreciated the msba when they testified they very clearly said that that's not what local taxpayers voted on and so to put boards in a position where we either have to pull it from our general fund or Levy our local taxpayers doesn't put
077us in a good position and if the state really feels like that's a priority then that should come from State um it it didn't fall on De years so to say speak but it's not going to go anywhere but I did appreciate that M msba did speak up for school boards in pointing out that that puts us in a really bad spot we're gonna have I just want to bring that to everybody's attention inter it was great it really was it was made and in the end settled on bri and Prior Lake and no Prior Lake and Farmington Farmington yeah yes they have a they have a they have a co-op between the two with similar programs as to what right Tech does so it's very similar it was just that instead of working with
078two districts he's going to be working with B so and I met with him today as well at our advisory yeah yeah he was able to join and he's planning on one of the things that all of us superintendents had requested that he his way when he's actually on payroll he he'll make his way around and introduce uh himself to the board the boards so you all can absolutely very nervous about losing our current right I do know that Lynette and I I was there for a little bit Community ad advisory and it was awesome because we did the name that tune game we started off with that so that was really good uh but uh I was only there for part of the actual meeting so I don't know um Lynette are catch them
079up it's still it was it's still a fun group and it's still a really good really good committee so they do a really nice job of kind of keeping things moving forward so for the month of March I'm pretty sure everybody had everything going on so this is g to be a long report so buck up so no I I promise it could be probably longer so um to start of yeah the start of the month uh March 3rd big leg band had their concert and they had all bands performed um I thought it went really well um you could really see like the girlriend students um following up with big like high school band we had solo Ensemble so students get a piece selected from our director um and we kind of work with
080them to find the right piece for us and then we spend a lot of time practicing outside of school during staying working with their teacher and then we perform it for a judge and then we get scored and then they also give us some like critiques or things like that help us um a lot of turn out students were very excited I was very excited um a lot of students had a fun doing that next thing we had Sherburn County distracted driving awareness video contest which is the first year big legs participated in this and students got to make a video kind of like a skit informational video about distracted driving that could be not wearing your seat belt looking at your phone drinking driving all those things and we had three schools uh three
081groups from Big Lake plac in the top four we had our big like high school broadcasting team Place second we had um students Amanda marks and myself Place third and then we had HRI and Jake windows place fourth place which I think is really cool and I watch all the videos they're really cool so if you guys want to watch them I have them all and then Big L epic students got to visit the Sher County Board of Commissioners and kind of presented them about what they're seeing in their schools regarding use substance use they got to have great Community conversations and you got to talk about how like the ordinances we have in and they in your life versus some updates they could potentially do to kind of make um it like safer and
082more implementation in like protecting of shman County um the next thing is just recently our school was recommended and then approved by doc I think yesterday um for the hosting of the central Minnesota manufacturers Association Career and Technical education jamere um this is going to be held November 20th 2025 from 75 9 A.M and it's going to focus on how businesses and schools are working together on developing a future Workforce so that's going to be really exciting um Big Lake High School's first ever girls flag football team has officially started practice um there was a great turn out there's going to be multiple um JB teams um practices early in the morning and these girls are committed they're W they're getting up they're showing up yeah practice starts you got to be there before ready
083and then we had literacy night where there were crafts coloring books book walks and book giveways and then personally my favorite we had bracelet making um so I brought mine to show you guys I brought mine yep yep yep see I see they only brought it because I told them I was putting in the report I told them I told them I I know no it's been like sitting in my folder like with a sticky note next to it being like don't forget um and then we also had stem night as well we had big like families and community members were able to see how stem is integrated into utar building um attendees also got to enjoy um visiting of the University of Minnesota Raptor Center as well as watching a science presentation from Professor
084nor and end of my presentation for you guys thank you uh and you have to follow that I know all the time every time I should go first I don't know I don't know good job Alexis well done well done yet another great example of a big lake student right there um so yes I've got a couple things I mentioned that I did meet with uh right Tech today uh just want to let everybody know they have their annual open house on April 14th and it's from 4: to 7: I think it'd be really cool if you're interested in checking that out but I started thinking about that and I know we are actually due for it's been a couple years since we've had a meeting over there so I'm actually going to suggest or
085see what people think about s a work session how about on April 9th we have our work session over at right teac we could start with Brian and Oran giving us again just a quick whip re um tour of the programs and can kind of show what's going on was it last time I think Brian was actually teaching a class wasn't he yeah was I think Sean Brian was teaching and uh Sean kind of gave us a tour so and then minda gave us the start of mtss yes at that night it was it was where it all began right minda it was it is oh that's good yeah so so and I'll remind people of that in the schedule down below but if we could have that work session posted on April 9th at
086right Tech and I'll make sure I get an address for you y see if you haven't been there so I'll probably just gole there you go it's yeah it's it's a pretty neat place and it's a great it's a great it's a great resource for uh our students but again we'll be getting that tour but I just want to mention that they do have their open house on April 14th from 4 to 7 I do plan to swing by there um also on April 6th on that Sunday we do H we have been invited to an Ice Hockey Association focus group gentlemen are here this evening uh so I know that um we don't typically like to have a quorum at those types of things so I am curious to see uh who I plan
087to attend I know uh minda is planning on attending and I know the invite has been sent out to principles I haven't heard yet for sure who's going to be attending from there but could we maybe have have two board members that might be interested I know there was some interest expressed um so who would like to attend on that evening I okay Amber okay well that okay so we'll get you the information it starts um and as I recall there's like an open house type two o'clock start and then the focus group is like at 4 4:30 that town hall yeah so if we could being 2 o'cl at what we meeting Lupin okay how could I forget that so uh and in that community meeting space there I'm assuming that half that's really
088nice yeah um so yes sounds great so appreciate it Lynette Amber appreciate you attending um it's Sunday the 6th April 6 all right perfect uh Ashley covered the legislative stuff quite nicely so thank you for that Ashley I did want to add one thing though um they did both house or both Chambers actually did pass through a bill to handle the sales tax thing so again so that we'd exempt the exemptions so that we wouldn't have to go and ask for a specific exemption it did pass out a committee to do a universal exemption for building for yes so for building supplies so we have our bill that's been heard yes and laid over so there's a chance that that will get in there's always a chance there's always a chance but there has actually
089been a Statewide some movement in theate wide bill that was heard and laid over so there's twice a chance well that's great I mean and honestly I mean as you recall it's better absolutely in between 7 and $800,000 that's that means to Big Lake so correct year just for this project yes moving forward if we could get the Statewide in place then we wouldn't have to do it helpful as well just I just thought that was that was I did not hear that yes I have the numbers yes I have the number somewhere I emailed it to myself so I'd remember but well that's great thank you for sharing that um also Alexis talked about stem Knight which was awesome 1,423 does that sound right just a big shout out because this is from my
090the district by the way Indie did a fantastic job of posting and all the from all on the district really if you have not been to uh uh a stem night you should really come come and check it out it is quite the event it's fantastic so uh good job to principal Dil and her team as well as all the people from around the district uh let's see oh Community Fair on March 15th we did host our annual community Fair again uh I appreciate um those that could attend we had about a little over 1,200 people show up again to that event so was really well attended attended it's a great event that continues to really bring the community together so a big thank you goes out to obviously the chamber just to just to
091remind this money that was essentially earned or raised by that event goes towards scholarships for our students so that's how the chamber funds their scholarships that they give to our students so that's a really cool thing as well so a big shout out to Chamber of Commerce as well as the uh Stephanie and her uh crew with facilities and whatnot as well as TJ's crew uh and also um you maybe didn't know this but the softball team helps to set up for that event and uh as a fundraiser and the Chamber basically pays them some dollars for that and the Trap Team helps to tear down so it's really a group effort and um what I what I really like this year I was I was um tasked with being the MC because I'm on
092the chamber board uh for the different events and we had everything from jazz band played they were awesome um and we had some dance groups and some different things so it's really if you if you haven't been there before please come and check it out it's a pretty neat event and people really show up to it so uh it was really neat um let's see here literacy night we already talked about uh rise and shine uh the youth associations came to provide activities for families there were approximately 50 families uh even though was a little bit lower they all still had a great time but yeah you were there okay yeah so that it was really neat um so and we also had a free child care training that offered uh uh we offer and
093hosted by our early childhood Department um it actually helps child care providers meet their ceu and training requirements for their lers so once again really appreciate Stephanie and her team uh providing that service to our community because that's really important to have we're kind of all in this together so really appreciate that but I just want the board to be aware of that as well um as well as we got a couple things coming up here with dates I know I just want to I'll cruise through these and once again I'll send it out at my weekly update uh but on April 2nd we have the local 284 meet and confer so lyette that's at 3:30 so I think I think Sue's been in communication with you about that um blem what's BL yeah and
094actually actually our our blem group didn't didn't have any issues there were no issues to talk about so meeting confir was canceled that's been canceled so um there's Wednesday the 2 be 30 correct yep uh come to the district office there we go you're welcome so April 3rd through the 4th I just want to remind people that the robotics competition uh at River's Edge center it's taking place I'm planning on attending and I think m is too on Friday the 4th I believe that's the date um to go check out our robotics team I've never been down in the pit is that what it's called yeah I'll be in the pit I get to wear some cool glasses and safety glasses required safety glasses required I'm super excited to see it so uh I know
095that I I apparently the action really revs up around 11:30 until 2 is what I was told so yeah on Friday it'll still be qualifying matches yeah yeah but that's when it starts really gets a little intense attent I'm I'm pumped I can't I've never like I said I haven't seen it so I'm excited to go so it we I will I will because that's I'm really excited to attend that so they're excited good yeah and I and I try to get back to them right away and and make sure that the kids new was going too so all right uh April 9th we have a work session that is officially going to be at right Technical Center so uh just to let you know a little closer for you too I suppose right coming
096from Buffalo there you go so uh yes and I'll send that reminder out as well in my in my dates to uh uh April 11th Ashley we have saf formerly known as C General membership meeting uh and then April 14th right Tech openhouse 4 to 7 April 16th policy committee uh we do have some items to discuss I know I've been actually having Kim pull a few items for some policies so we do have some to review this month and then just to reminder April 17th through the 21st there's PD day and no school for that Easter break uh so and thank goodness it's designated as a weather makeup day but no weather makeup days this year because we haven't had very many snow days I know I just I just I can't believe I
097said it I said it out loud but we're good we're good and then then finally April 23rd we have our regular meeting again at 6:30 so that's kind of the month of April I can't believe we're talking about April already but so the third winter oh yeah it is not my fault so that concludes my report unless of course there are are questions any questions I will say at the running I was going to add um on I find it but on Facebook they posted L schools um um two Big Lake High School students were named finalists for the Statewide escape the V challenge Ali and I'll link I but I just share that I think that's really cool and the video that they made is is fun to watch too you vot for that
098that's awesome the rest of us will have to vote once again I mean we're doing some great stuff around here really feel proud of uh and you all should too because we're working really hard so that's all I have Madam chair any other questions I will make a motion to adjourn our regular meeting second by Nelson any other discussions all in favor I oppose motion carries