2025-08-11 LFCS School Board Meeting for August 2025

001All right, it is 5 o'clock. I'd like to call the August 11th, 2025 school board meeting of Independent School District 482 to order. Ask everybody to please rise and join me with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Well, the district's mission statement is that Little Falls Community Schools will work together for each learner to achieve academic and personal growth in a collaborative, safe, and engaging environment. Kelly, do we have any public comments? >> We do not. Okay. Thank you. Um, looks like next we need an approval of the agenda. I believe you all have it in your packet or on your laptop. So move. >> I

002have a motion by Dan. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a second by Mark. Any further discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Motion carries. Next we have the consent agenda which covers personnel, prior meeting minutes and financial transactions. Um do I have a motion for approval? Motion to approve. >> Have a motion by Mark. Do I have a second? I'll >> second. >> And a second by Kelsey. Any further discussion? Anything anybody want pulled from there? Okay. Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Okay. Sharon. Uh resolution. >> Okay. Resolution for the acceptance of gifts. Whereas the following have generously offered to donate Little Falls Community Schools. Therefore, be it resolved

003by the Little Falls Community School Board of Education to gratefully accept these gifts. Carnegie Library donation of assortment of library books to the Little Falls Community Schools elementary schools. Ronald Nagel donation of $1,000 to Little Falls Community Schools. Mara J. Nagel Nursing Scholarship Fund. Nights of Columbus Tootsie Roll Drive care of David Miller, donation of $1,996 to Little Falls Community Services for adults with disability programs. Kathy Adam, donation of $6,500 to Little Falls Community Schools Randall Area Scholarship Fund. Minnesota Power Foundation, donation of $500 to Little Falls Community Schools Day of Caring Program. Little Falls Lions Club, donation of $500 to Little Falls Community Services Play Clay Target League. Mid Minnesota Federal Credit Union, a donation of $1,000 to Little Falls Community Schools High School Student Council. Randall Building Supplies, donation of $50 to the

004Little Falls Community Schools Randall Area Scholarship Fund. Randall faculty a donation of $10,34528 Little Falls Community Schools Randall Area Scholarship Fund. I am making this motion and asking for a second. >> I'll second it. >> Thank you. Have a second by Doug. This is a roll call vote. But first, are there any questions, comments, or discussion? >> Hearing none. Don't have um Doug. >> Uh yes. >> Dan, >> yes. Julie, >> yes. >> Kelsey, >> yes. >> Mark, >> yes. >> And myself, yes. And resolution um for the acceptance of gifts passes. >> Okay. Thank you, Sharon. Next, we have a presentation by Carol Potter. Carol, take it away. >> Sounds like a song and dance coming. >> Yes. Here we go. Thank you, sir. All right. Well, good evening, Chair Dolberg, Superintendent Johnson, and

005board members. Thank you for having me here tonight to share an overview of special services. Um we've done a lot in the last couple or not a couple of years, just one year. It's only been one. Um so we're really excited to share that with you tonight. And Greg is going to drive for me. Thank you, Greg. All right. So just a little bit about our agenda. We're just going to talk about um who we are, what we do, and then a review of this past school year, and then talk about our goals for this school year coming up. Okay, so our team, um this is our administrative team and as you can see, me as the director and two of my fellow colleagues sitting in the audience tonight. Janet Toma is a coordinator who

006serves her time 50% in early childhood and 50% in special education. And then our new coordinate coordinator Emily Museas who is 100% in special education this year. And then our internal team you may all know Julie Musho and Lisa Lame help us behind the scenes doing everything that we do in schools. along with the five of us that were on that slide, we have lots of teachers and pair of professionals helping us out. And so I want to explain how these numbers what this means. So the schools are across the top of the table and then the first two rows of numbers that you see. So for example, early childhood on the left you'll see four and four. So the first two rows are teachers. So in the 2425 school year, this past school year,

007they had four teachers in early childhood special education. And so the second column then in pink is they'll have four teachers again this year. So going across to all of the schools, Lincoln had five special education teachers last year. This year they're going to have four. Eight and eight for Lindberg. Middle school eight. And they'll um lose one teacher and they'll be at seven. the high school will remain eight and eight and then we have a transition teacher one transition teacher and one special education teacher at the CEC okay so looking across there we have decreased in our number of teachers and and pair professionals and I'll show you that in just a second and this is why we worked really hard this past year to right side so when we were started with staffing

008in February already we looked at all of the case load sizes and knew that we had to find some way of being consistent. And so we worked off a ratio document that I've actually used in another district and we set the case loads and the case loads for our related service staff that were appropriate for what they needed to be doing. So their workload in essence. And so um when we looked at that, we recognized that we had some case loads that were really small and then we had other case loads that were a little too big. And so we really tried to get people in their lure area across all schools doing what they do best and then the right number at each um uh school as well. And so if you look at

009the second the bottom two columns that's pair of professionals in each of the schools. And so last year in early child there was seven parent professionals. This year we needed to add one due to the number of students. And so we've increased by one. L um Lincoln went from 14 parents down to 11 based on the number of kids that were going there. And that's also why they lost a teacher as well because the number of kids is lower. And then Lindberg 19 um I'm sorry is it 19 to 16 and so it's a loss of three 12 to 12 at the middle school staying the same. We added one at the high school because we've had some new intakes come in. Um that has been uh interesting. We had a couple of students join

010us last year with pretty significant needs late in the spring. And then I've had a couple of phone calls as of late too um from some social workers in other counties that have called to say, "Hey, by the way, a student is moving into Little Falls." And so we needed to add a pair there and we may end up adding another one depending on if the students do um indeed join us this fall, but we'll see how that goes. And then um transition has three pair of professionals. They'll maintain at three pair of professionals and the CEC does not have any pair of professionals with them at all at this point. So a nice um group of teachers and pair of professionals. And then on the next slide you will see the related services staff.

011So all of these folks help out everything we do as well. and you'll see the number of each of the categories in the 2425 school year in the second column and then in the third column what the plan is for this coming year and we um the only change is is we added an SLPA which is a speech language pathologist assistant coming in. Speech language pathologists are really hard to find and we landed um early in the spring already we landed a really skilled speech language pathologist assistant to join us this fall. So not much of a change there which was nice. And the good news is is we're fully staffed going into the school year. that as you know if you watch social media at all that they are special education teachers and related

012service providers are really hard to find. And so we feel very blessed that we are fully staffed with people with the correct licenses in the right spots and we're going to just be super strong this fall. So special services in a nutshell what we do is um we coordinate that student centered care and so we cover the areas of special education section 504 social work mental health health services which are nurses in the buildings and then McKini Vento transition so our homeless population as well. So those are all the components that we um work to support. And then how many people is that right? How many people are we supporting? And so every December 1st we count the students that have an active IEP. And so last December 1st, so it's one date in time.

013It might be different the day before and it might be different the day after, but that on that one date and time we had 627 resident students in Little Falls that were served in special education. We currently served um 448. And then we have another 38 students that are Little Falls residents, but they're placed in programs. It might be a hospitalization program. it might be a level four setting program um that they are getting additional help that they can't really receive right here at our general ed sites. And then students that are open enrolled to other districts that are served in special education is 138. And then in addition to the special education population, we also serve another 54 students on section 504 plans. Are you familiar with section 504? >> No. >> Okay. Well,

014let me tell you what that is. So, section 504 comes out of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And what that is, it says that if you have any such thing, if you have an impact on your walking, your talking, your reading, your listening, your just about anything that we do in a day, you can um be evaluated for a section 504 plan. And so the in our schools, the social workers and the guidance counselors head up that section 504 pieces. And so what they do is over a 30-day period, just like an IEP, they take a look at the students MCA scores, their fastbridge scores, their grades, they observe them in the classroom, how are they functioning, and then a section 504 plan is the school's plan, how to support. So, it's different from an

015IEP because it's not goal driven. An IEP, we write goals and objectives for students, but a section 504 says, how are we going to accommodate this student in their day? So, for example, let's say that we had a student um who has diabetes and that student has to leave their general education class to go be their blood levels need to be checked. So, they leave class, they go to the health office. So it's time out of their regular ed class. And so oftentimes we write a section 504 plan in that scenario if the student is missing their general ed instruction to support them. So then we would look at okay is it do we need to make up that time? How much time is being lost when they do go to the health office? What

016are those accommodations? Do we need to give the student a pass to go down there? What are all those little pieces that make the connection for that student in order for them to get what they need? And so a parent needs to sign off that yes, I agree. We need to do an evaluation for a section 504 plan, but they don't have to sign off to say yes, I like your plan because it's the school's plan. Does that help? >> Okay, great. Okay. So, I'm often asked about what we do in special services. And so, I'm just going to give you an analogy about this. Okay. So, on the left you have this brick patio that's getting started part partially completed. So to build that brick patio, you dedicate layers of u maybe black dirt

017and a layer of sand and then a layer of crushed rock and you tamp that down, right? You make it even and level. And then you align your brick so that they look how you want them to look, possibly how they look on the right if that's the way you want them to look, right? And so then after all everything is in place, you put sand over the top or maybe some really fine crushed rock that goes in between the cracks in between the bricks. And so in special services, we are that sand in between the bricks. We are the ones that hold up that alignment and keep them tight. Because over year, sometimes a brick patio may shift a little bit and then there's a little crevice or maybe there's a weed that pops

018through. We spread that sand year after year so a crevice doesn't occur. And if something a weed does pop up, we make sure we take care of that right away by spreading more sand. And so thinking about how we build that brick patio. So each one of those bricks, if you think about that as their their daily stu a student's daily experience in school. So it's everything all of the instruction that they do. It is lunch, it is recess, it is um it is all of the pieces about round the sense of belonging and the love that teachers provide to their kids in their classroom. And so to maintain all of those bricks, all of those pieces containing those things, containing that keeping that integrity of the bricks, we come along in special services and

019we are the crack fillers. We spread that and we support wherever we need to support support to keep that tight, keep the bricks tight. >> It's good analogy. >> It is. >> Okay. So to build our foundation this past school year um looking back at this past school year. So we set three goals at the beginning and it was very clear you all developed a very strong strategic plan the strategic vision and so our goal in special services is to determine how do we fit in for those pieces. What are the pieces that we take control of to make sure that the teachers and related service providers that are in our care that we are doing our work right? Okay. So the the goals that we established last year were to increase clear communication with

020families and professionals. So that's our strategic goal number four. Goal number two was increase overall learning around due process and best practices. And that's right out of goal one, strategic plan one. And then goal three was to increase our use of quality curriculum and instructional practices. And that also is out of strategic plan goal one. Okay. So we built all of those pieces and again trying to ensure that alignment and these are just some of the items that came out of goal number one creating clear communications with families and professionals. So we we created IEP templates, meeting templates, so parents could view the monitor and know exactly what was happening next and exactly what was being written in that IEP in real time, right? In real time, they could sit and we were asking them

021for your input. What do you think is best for your student? What are those accommodations and modifications that really work? What works at home? How do they transition in the hallway? Tell us about all that. And so um we got really good feedback on that from parents. They were really excited to be a part of the process instead of to be talked to. And then things like our enhanced partnership with Midstate. And by enhanced I mean that we still have access to the wind program which is their level four e program but we have created lots of dialogue. So we meet with them monthly to say these are the kids. here's where they're at in their functioning and in their process of meeting their goals there. What when can we talk about a possible transition?

022What does that look like? And it has been a very successful meeting every month. Um they're very clear about what we expect. We're very clear about where the student is functioning and it's been really nice. Um, I'm going to skip over to the right side just a little bit because you can read them all on your own. But the one in the the red um the sped scoop, I'm going to highlight that on the next slides. And then I'm going to highlight staff feedback sessions and I'm going to highlight due process guidance documents. Again, all of these being part of that communication process that we have been working on. Okay. So, the first one is um in the fall I decided to go out and meet with every school, their special education teacher team and

023their related service team and ask for feedback on each of the four strategic goals of our strategic vision. Like, where are we in special education? I just needed some baseline information. Tell me what you think. And so it was really good information going to each school and they were very thoughtful in their feedback and they gave me just really enlightening information. And so the strengths you can you can read um the areas of systemic improvement the teachers felt. Now again this is the teacher feedback. This isn't mine, but generally now, this wasn't every teacher, but generally they wanted to expand targeted professional development for all staff with an emphasis on special education and mental health. So, they felt like they needed more of that. And then improve resource allocation to alleviate space and budget pressures.

024Talk a little bit about that. standardize and support social emotional learning and wellness practices districtwide, not only in any particular building, but what does that look like districtwide? And then strengthen our crossdisciplinary communication and streamline IEP processes. And what that one means is that we need to be talking to our general educator partners, our peers more is really what they were suggesting. We need to work together and collaborate to support students. And so just some feedback just to let you know where we are on that systemic the systemic improvement. So we have for this fall so workshop coming up here in a couple weeks we have targeted professional development for every group within special services at our back to school workshops. And then um for number two improved resource allocation. So, we are developing increased

025um MA billing strategies so that we can be bringing in more revenue. We've been working with the social workers for the majority of this past school year and talk as it's a new thing this year. So, talking about how we can get revenue for them providing the mental health supports um and that's been really positive. And so, we also I talked a little bit about this earlier. We have rights sized our case load and the number of teachers and pair of professionals needed at each of the buildings. And I'm happy to say that for the first time in recent memory for Little Falls, according to our business manager, that we have a carryover in our special education budget of about $50,000. Now, that's not huge, but that's something that we can do with, right? And

026so, we're going we can build on that. And then then when we have those emergency situations, if we have a student that moves in that has some pretty significant equipment needs or some um if we have a big instructional need, we have that little bit of cushion that we can use up until for it's it's mandated that we can only keep it about 27 months. And so I'm sure that it will get cycled in and then maybe we'll add some more um this next year. So I'm really excited about that. Um, we have also shifted some of our special we we had enough in our fund balance, if you will, in special education that we could shift about 15% of our special education funds into what is called CIS, coordinated early intervention. And what that

027does is when we shift those funds into that other code that allows us to serve students in general education as well. So we are um on Wednesday we are interviewing for a new behavior interventionist to run interventions at the middle school. So we're really excited about that and that was a nice change too. I don't think that that probably has been done recently, but we're excited that we can make sure that all kids have the support they need. >> Carol, yeah. >> Um, on where you expand the targeted PD for all staff, are you talking all staff that are sped or all staff for general ed too? >> You know what? Both. So, we some of the uh professional development for general education. We're really focusing on that MTSS, those pieces this year. And then

028individual buildings are going to be doing different things. So, for example, um Lincoln and Lindberg are focusing on character strong outside. And that was going to be my next statement. So, um strengthen all of those SEAL pieces with the addition of character strong. So, it covers all teachers as well. >> I guess I was thinking more of the students that are under your your sped umbrella. The teachers that have them in their classroom, are they receiving extra training to work with them? >> They are. They are. So, we will have them one whole morning 7:30 to 11:30 and we are doing some rotation teaching um station teaching. And so there will be four of us that will be providing professional development. And then within that those related service providers so like the speech language pathologist

029the um deaf heart of hearing teacher the adaptive fed teacher we have and social workers we have aligned um specific professional development for each of them. So, social workers will be continuing to work on their MA their MA manual for MA billing. And then, um, our DAPE teacher needs training in a brand new assessment that just came out. And so, she's going to spend her time doing that. And so, we really have targeted the things that they need in order to move forward. >> Yeah, good question. Thank you. Um, anything else on that? Um just one more comment on that. So the last bullet point on strengthening the cross-d disciplinary communication is that we really have increased our monthly meetings. So not only are those related service teams meeting monthly, but our we're really pushing

030our teams to even at the beginning. So don't just send the general ed teacher an email. go to them and say, "This is who's going to be in your classroom and this is what this child's needs are." Now, you can, you know, here's your um piece of paper that says what their accommodations and modifications are, but it's so much better if we just go to their classroom and talk about what the needs are and then I'm the person if something happens with this student, come see me. I'm their case manager. And so, we're really going to be honing in on that this fall just to keep that communication. It's still a goal for us moving forward. The communication pieces probably always will be, right? Okay. Okay. That second focus area then that I was talking

031about on the communication slide with all the the bubbles that look like Easter eggs um is our sped scoop. And our sped scoop is we house it on our website and it's all of our process procedural documents so that if a teacher needs to look something up like how do I do that again for extended school year they have a document to refer to we are always here for them but it's something that they can look up on their own if they need to get the procedure right away and we might not be available and so we've made a lot of different guidance document in our um our due process process specialist has been instrumental in designing all of these documents. They're statutriven and so and they're MDE driven so whatever they're telling us to

032do that is what we lay out for people so everybody's really clear on the expectations of how we do our work. Okay, this one I thought was really important to our internal system communication. So if we're putting out all of the this information to our teachers somehow in the background, we have to be developing these things in order to get them the information. And so we have done a lot of training in the background. So the box on the left, the suspension training, that came out of an MDE complaint. CPI training. I'm happy to report that our CPI stands for crisis prevention intervention. And so it is not brand new to Little Falls because I was told that it was here in the past, but then moved to safety care. And so now we have

033just switched back to CPI because the training is more user friendly and it doesn't take as long to train people. We can do it in about a day about about 8 and 1/2 hours we can train our staff. And so so far this summer we have trained all administrators and deans. We have trained half of our special education staff. Coming up on the 13th, so this week we have a second half of our special education staff. And then during workshop week, we'll be training all paras. And so it's verbal deescalation, how we talk with kids. And then if needed, it's physical deescalation as well. But as always, very last resort. And so we talk a lot about how the brain functions and where a student is functioning and then how do we bring them back

034down again? How do we create a safe spot for them again and the rest of the kids too. So um in addition to that, we have done evaluation training for administrators. So these are the people that have their eyes out in the building, right? So they need to know how this all works in order to help teachers. And so we did a transportation training, social work, MA building training, mult MTSS, multi-tered system of support, IEP co-pilot training, that's an AI um training to help write goals and objectives for sped teachers. And then we revised our SAT and CST forms. Our we have lead teacher meetings now. Um related service provider meetings. We formed a restrictive procedures team which is actually required by um statute. So we did that this year. And then utilization of our

035um data warehouse prolic. And then all administrators also had a training, an AI training on how they can utilize that to speed up their work and give it some give them some background information on how to, you know, maybe start a parent letter or start an email back to a parent and then um go from there. But that was really a good thing as well. >> Okay. How am I doing for time, Kelly? Great. Good. Okay. >> All right. And so our due process learning opportunities. So that was our goal three that we really wanted to teach people how to complete due process. But we knew we have to have opportunities to do that, right? We can't just do oneoffs. It it's not sustainable. And so these are the opportunities that we have had this

036year. So we have monthly trainings for our out of field placement teachers and our new teacher training which is also required by statute and again our due process specialist headed these trainings up. Um and I'm very grateful that she was willing to do that and so each month it was a different topic for those new teachers so they were up to speed on things. And then we had quarterly due process nights. So we timed it so that it was maybe right after the end of a quarter or right before the end of a quarter so that um teachers could complete do any due process that needed to go out with report cards. And then of course our back to school workshops. I'm going to save the MDE for last. Um, we have weekly child study

037meetings to talk about where kids, how kids are functioning, where they're at, what possible supports might they need. And then monthly itinerant staff meetings, too, with all of those different teams. And then we have weekly evaluation team meetings to make sure we're honing on on the kids that really do need to be evaluated. We don't want to miss evaluate anybody. So, we're really clear about the interventions that have been tried and making sure that we are evaluating students that are really um would possibly qualify. And then our PLC's, we have PLC's twice a month. One is dedicated just to special education and we go in again and we teach on the instructional side high leverage practices and so that comes out of the council for exceptional children and it has been that has been really

038good learning too. It's good reminders for teachers on how to make sure we're providing best practice instruction. And then the um up in the right corner um I put that odd shape up there um the MDE complaint response. So obviously we don't want to get MDE complaints, right? That's something we want to avoid. Um in the last few years there have been about 11 MDE complaints in Little Falls. This year um so in the fall there were three that were carried over into the fall that we fulfilled um this year. One we just sent in June June 1st we sent in the last response for one of them. And then this spring we ended up getting one more MDE complaint and I'm happy to say that all of them all of them. So what happens

039is MDE has an attorney that reviews the complaint and then it looks for anything that could possibly be attached to a statute. And there were three or four things that could possibly be attached to a statute. and we were cleared of all wrongdoing except for one little line in a prior written notice that didn't match the box above it. And so not a big deal. We're going to clear it up at back to school um and hopefully we can continue to be compliant and um not have any more MDE complaints because the complaints themselves and the reason why I put this on here as a learning opportunity because the complaint response they take between 40 and 80 hours from when you get the response to read through the whole complaint and then you um have

040to g gather all of the data that is being requested for the response and then you have to write a response to the complaint and then you get a response back from MDE and then they either clear you of any wrongdoing or they assign you corrective action. So by the time all of that is done, it's about 40 to 80 hours. And when there is a student that has a complaint, I go to that case manager and I say, "This is what I need from you. Do I need the most current IEP, the most current evaluation report, any data that you have collected, um any emails, and that's usually the longest one. All of the emails back and forth between parents and school takes the longest. So, it is an amazing learning opportunity for all

041of us and and um after that, we follow statute pretty closely on whatever it was that we missed. >> So, it's good. Was there a pattern to those complaints or were they just kind of I mean they weren't like one specific area that we may have been consistently missing or was it just kind of all over the board? >> Yeah, that's a really good question. And so usually what I find is that complaints in general come around a miscommunication. Sometimes it really is something that we just didn't do our job. It just wasn't correct. And so usually on those my response is, "Yep, we screwed up. This is how we're going to make it better." And and MDE is quite grateful when that they don't have to do all of the digging. And so I

042can just show them, yep, we didn't have that signature or we didn't have whatever we needed. Um, but the complaints for Little Falls are kind of all over the place and they seem to stem mostly from around communication that I didn't get that prior written notice or nobody told me that this was something that was happening or that IEEP didn't meet their needs but nobody did anything about it. It's mostly those kinds of things. >> Thank you. >> For sure. And you know with that too I'll just add one more point that is that with all of our professional development not just this is that our goal is to be just really intentional like what is the intentionality of providing that chair and you had asked about you know is it individualized for those people.

043Yes we just want to be so intentional about our work that there isn't a room for mistake in there and most teachers are. That's good. Okay, thanks. Great. All right, and then the last area I want to touch on is the curriculum and instructional pieces. And so again, that's fed the PLC. We spend time every month talking about high leverage practices and instruction. And then we also purchased for middle school and high school. Um, this curriculum is called Visel. And so it's an online curriculum, but it's all standardsbased. And teachers can um complete a whole course if they want to or they can pull lessons to say, "I'm doing this lesson in math today. I really need something on fractions." And so they can go in and they can pull a standardized lesson on fractions.

044And it has been we only are in it. We've probably been into it deeply since about last November. So, we need more training on Visil and to even go deeper, go to that next layer on it as well. And then, as you know, they're doing letters training for all sped staff as well as the general ed staff. Um, and then also, this I found to be really important for Little Falls, too, is that the service model guidance document. And what that is is it's a document that outlines like how we do our business for a student. So, if we're serving an elementary student for reading, how much time would be appropriate? And some some IEPs would say an hour pulled out of their classroom would be appropriate. Some would say 15 minutes would be appropriate.

045And so, we really developed some guidance, and that's just what it is. It's guidance because every student is an individual. some guidance of how to do that because we had service grids on IEPs that were all over the place and they didn't necessarily fit into the master schedule that was being done. And so again, it's just better alignment and better communication about how we do our work. Um, and then we also developed data collection tools. This also was a great area of need and we found that through those MDE complaints was that we weren't doing a real good job of collecting data. So we have goals and objectives and we didn't always have a way of measuring did did the student we'd send out progress reports that said well they're making adequate progress but what

046does that mean exactly? And so we're really again honing in on data collection so we can be really intentional on kids achieving their goals and really intentional about the data that we're collecting. So next year then our focus for this coming year, we are going to continue to strengthen our practices through our continuous improvement utilizing our MTSS, our multi-tered system of support framework that we've been spending a lot of time on this year. It's been really great. And then deepening our community and agency partnerships so that our kids have the opportunity to be connected in our community as many of our students stay here and many of our adults stay here too. And so we need to have not only a sense of belonging for kids, but we need to get them connected to businesses,

047community partners as well, the county supports. Um and so we're going to continue to work on that to make sure we spread our our web out there, get kids connected and then um building united school and family partnerships. And I mentioned this earlier with a focus on communication. So the communication pieces won't stop. We are going to continue to work on that and have our parents as partners. So, we're going to be teaching our parents about due process and about instruction and inviting them to the table more often. Sometimes we like to make phone calls and say, "By the way, this is going to be in your email or by the way this is coming in your US mail." That's fine. It can be sent that way. But guess what? We also need to have

048a conversation. And sometimes that's face to face. Sometimes it's on a virtual meeting or sometimes it ends up being on the phone if a parent can't come in, but we need to have better communication with our parents so we can teach them about the pieces as to your point, Doug, the more we can teach parents about due process, the more that they understand what is expected from the school from us and we might have less maintains in that way. So my last slide, I just want to say a big thank you to all of you for all of your support this year. It has been a wonderful, wonderful year of learning for me and for staff and I'm I'm really grateful to be involved. So thank you. >> Good. Um couple questions I have. The

049sped scoop, if I understand it, is that is the it's like a central location where they can find >> right questions or information on on how to deal. Okay, that's what I thought, but I just want to make sure. >> Yeah. >> And then I'm just curious as how the staff um reacted or handled to the case load adjustment. I mean, I'm sure if you were overloaded, they were probably ecstatic, but >> Yeah. >> I mean, was there I mean, seemed to be receptive to that or >> You know what? They were they were I think they recognized that we needed to do something different um and make sure that we had I I don't want to use the word fair because you know maybe equitable across and so um staff were really good and

050most of the time I could go have a personal conversation to say this is what we think is going to be happening and with teams too. both teams to say this is our you know I have it right here here's our grid this is how we're going to focus moving ahead and the coordinators were fantastic to say yeah you're right we need something that's more consistent and so they were out delivering the message every single day and as we moved through staffing we could simply say when we met with the teams we could say this is what we're looking at this is what it looks like today because you never know again when someone moves in or someone moves out, we might have to adjust and we did have that actually. So when Dr. Knight

051closed, we had some shifting of some staff and we had shifting of kids and so not as many kids went to Lincoln as they did to Lindberg. And so we had to take a teacher from Lincoln and say, "Oh, this is where the kids are." And so the teachers have been really good, really, really good. You know, if you think about all the things that I was sharing with you, it's overwhelming, right? When I look back and I'm like, "Holy cow, how did we do all those pieces?" And and but teachers have been saying, "No, bring it on. We tell us more about how to do it. We want to do the right thing. We want to follow statute. We want to do what we are the best practices for kids." >> Any other questions

052for Carol? >> Thank you. That was very thorough. Thank you very much. >> Mhm. >> All right. Next, looks like we have the superintendent report. >> Mr. Johnson. >> Yes. Tomorrow is districtwide registration day from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 pm in high school commons. We've narrowed it down to just one day and look forward to greeting families and helping them get registered for the school year to transportation. All the buildings and other programs will be represented. So, it'll be good good day to help us get started with uh back to the school year. We have a work session planned for next week 5:00 in this room. And for now, I have agenda items as discussing the Dr. Knight facility and plans moving forward, ideas. There are no specific plans in place, but we do need

053to talk about some of the ideas and interest that's out there right now. We also have four other properties in the district that I'd like to talk about during the work session. Again, just to get your insight and thoughts about how to best move forward with those. Want to also talk about our secondary school planning. Part of the discussion through facilities is to look at and consider a 7 through 12 secondary school and what those steps might look like. I'll also share with you staffing updates. It's nice when you have a your student services special ed director say that we are fully staffed and it's August 11th. >> So hopefully no surprises August 18th when we look that during the work session >> and then Mark has been doing some really um incredible things with

054safety and security to align our practices and we want to share some of that work with you. And then the last item I have is a discussion about some of the Title N laws and federal um regulations that could impact Title N. So that it's a pretty full agenda. We'll have a light dinner for you. So don't worry about missing dinner. We'll take care of that. Do you have any questions about the work session agenda items? >> You said five here. >> Five o'clock right here. In a little bit, you'll hopefully approve all of our student handbooks that we have. One change I do want to talk about, maybe I could wait it until that time, but you'll notice in the high school and middle school handbooks, they talk about wands for helping vape protection.

055And what we've learned in the past year, our principles have learned from other school districts in central Minnesota is a simple wand, which is a metal detector, can help us in situations where we suspect a student has been vaping. And it's impossible and inappropriate for us to search students in many of those cases. But this wand can help us determine that a student might have a vape. It's decreased the amount of vaping in some central Minnesota schools. So, we are really excited about adding that to our our middle school and high school. Activities began today. If you were driving through Little Falls, you probably saw cross country runners all over the streets jogging. But volleyball, football, tennis, soccer, and cross country got their start today. I sat in briefly with a meeting with the folks

056that organized a flyer fest. You remember flyer fest fundraiser from last year through activities in November. They are going to partner with the ed foundation and work on that event together so that the funds raised for flyer fest can support both activities and the ed foundation. New teachers are coming in next week Tuesday and Wednesday. We have a pretty solid workshop week schedule set for August 25th through the 28th. The all district welcome back kickoff is August 26th, that Tuesday morning, breakfast at 7:15. And then we have open houses in both of our all of our buildings on Wednesday the 22nd from 4 until 7:00 p.m. And then Mark, I'm going to turn it over to you to talk a little bit about the recent meetings we've had with Camp Ripley about reunification and a

057special day coming up in September for our high school students. >> All right. Well, good evening everybody. So, uh, we have been active I on behalf of the district and other members of the leadership team have been actively meeting with members of Little Falls Police Department, Morrison County Sheriff's, Little Falls Fire Department, uh, public health from Morrison County, and Camp Ripley to establish a plan for worst case scenario in the event we have fire in a building or an act of violence where we need to do a reunification of students and families that we would um actually do that reunification out at Camp Ripley. And so we've been working with them to develop what those plans would be, identify um buildings that would work to to do the reunification within. um knowing that on any

058given day you might you might not know exactly what's happening at camp and so you you might have to have some flexibility and so we've identified that. Um but um it's really it's a unique partnership I think for us. Um there's a lot of schools around the state that don't have the resource of Camp Ripley right there and we do and to be able to leverage that and use utilize that is a real advantage for us and um the work that we're doing right now is being very closely monitored by many of our neighbors to determine could campy be a source of uh reunification for them as well. So, we're really we're really trying to um be proactive. And I I told the group when we did a reunification exercise a couple weeks ago, I

059said, "This may be the most important um training exercise that we do that I hope we never use." Right? And um and so the other day we did have members of law enforcement here and Camp Ripley here and Mark sat in with us to to listen and um it was really it was a great exercise for us because the thing that we as a school learned is we learned how the first responders are thinking. What what are they processing? What what's going through their heads? how how do we start to to align our thought processes thought processes of what are our next steps, right? And from law enforcement's perspective, they got to hear what our concerns were and and they got to identify maybe the areas where um further conversations need to be had to

060help them educate us around their tactics and thinking and how things would progress in in any type of scenario. So, um it was a really good exercise and um we'll we'll definitely do it again. Um we had a number of our admin team members here, but we also had a number that were out at other events that day. Just scheduling in the summer is tough. So, but um it was a really good exercise. So, is there more you want me to talk about? >> September. >> Okay. September. So on September 17th um we are planning a drill and I don't want to get into a lot of the specifics of the drill but um we are planning a fire drill uh at the high school and as part of that fire drill we will be

061evacuating the building and we will be um working through the process of getting our students out to Camp Ripley. And what does that look like? So, we're not going to ask parents to come and pick up their kids out at camp. We're going to bust the kids out there like we would in an event of a of an actual emergency. But then the students are going to get an opportunity then out at Camp Ripley to to learn about Camp Ripley and and what the opport what the history of camp is and what the opportunities are out there for careers both military civilian. I mean there's a lot of jobs out there um that are available. And so so we're going to we're actually going to conduct a drill that would take us all the way

062up to the point where we would then start to ask parents to come out, but we won't be doing that that day. So the students will be out at Camp Ripley from until about noon. That's Wednesday of homecoming week. If you think back to homecoming week, it it is just kind of a zoo anyway with a lot of different activities going on. And so to throw one more into that week kind of made sense just to do it. And um Camp Ripley is extremely um accommodating to us I will say and they are also being um very thorough in their planning in terms of here's where your buses are going to come here here's the exact p path your buses are going to take. here's where your kids are going to go and here's how

063we're going to divide your kids up and here's how we're going to put your freshman students in this group and your sophomore students. I mean, they are thorough. That's how the camp does it, right? And their battle plan they call it. Um so, we will be conducting that exercise. We'll send information out to families about this closer to um the actual exercise, but um both we we as a district, I think, are are excited to you're never excited about a grill, right? But but we're we're very much looking forward to seeing how this plays out and does the plan that we have in place right now. Will it work? Can we make the coordination work? Can we make everything work? And and yes, it's, you know, everybody knows it's coming, but still there's ways that

064you can throw little caveats in there to throw people off their game a little bit to make them think. And so we're excited about that. I know camp is excited about um seeing how this would work from their end and all of us would rather try this in a non-emergency dry run first, right? Rather than >> um do it in an actual emergency as the first time. So, >> it's exciting. >> Are all of the the bus company like all of the drivers going to be able to attend this training as well? Do you know are we coordinating? >> Yeah. So, we wouldn't need all of the buses. We would need about 16 of them. And so, actually going to be meeting with the bus companies to say, "Hey, how do you how do you

065guys want to divide this up?" I mean, having the buses available to us that morning, it's going to be like a field trip for them, right? But it's like a 16 bus field trip. So, it's a big group. Um, but so we don't need everybody there, but we're going to get a good number of them. you know, just thinking that they're not there that day because they're a Lincoln driver or, you know, something like that. It happened. All of a sudden, you have to be a part of that, you know. >> Right. Right. And the good news is is that those get those drivers will get very clear instructions on the day of of an event. Here's where you're going. Here's where you're entering. You know, you're either going in the main gate or you're

066going in the east gate, >> right? So those instructions because we will get those directly from camp and they'll say you're going to bring your kids likely through the east gate um because it's a very quick in do a UI and take them to one of the locations where they will be and so um yeah and I I'm hope I'm hopeful that over the course of time Kelsey all of them will get a chance to to do it but for right Now we'll start with the first 60 out of the 27 I think it is buses routes that we've run. >> Sounds like a great idea. >> Yeah, it'll be well worth our time >> for sure. >> Okay, any other questions for Mark? >> Mr. Johnson, is that your last piece? You have more

067stuff? >> Yeah, I have one more and I have to just Oh, well, thank you, >> Mark. You last call. Okay. All right. Let's move on then. Um, if you think about it, just let me know. Um, new business here, approval of the student handbooks, which is an action item. So, um I'm assuming everybody had a chance to take a look at them. Um they're pretty nicely divided and love the summary pages. That was very very helpful. So, thank you whoever put that together. So, that was great. Um so, I'm looking for a motion to approve the student handbooks. >> So, move a motion by Dan. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a second by Mark. Any discussion on any of the handbooks? Okay, hearing none. All in favor signify by saying

068I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Thank you. Motion carries. All right. Next, we also have the approval of the employee handbook and assessment questions. Do I need to do those separate? I can do those collectively. Okay. >> All right. Um, so I would look for a motion for that as well. >> Some move. >> I have a motion by Kelsey, a second. >> Second. >> A second by Mark. Any discussion on the district employee handbook. Okay. Hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Motion carries. Um, looks like this is the formal approval of the playground equipment for Lindberg. Um, I know we talked about it at our last meeting and kind of the reasons why and and where the money was coming from

069and stuff. So, um, I would look for a motion to approve the playground equipment. >> So, move. >> A motion by Sharon. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> A second by Dan. Any further discussion? >> I do have some pictures of the >> Okay. of playground and I think last meeting we talked about the need >> safety concerns on the playground and also that the PTA will be contributing to the purchasing of the new playground equipment. >> Did our old playground equipment, all of it, not pass inspection or is that why they were changing it all out or is it just wore out? It's been up there quite a few years. I would I'll let Mark respond to that. >> Yeah. So, the uh existing playground equipment is all from 1993. >> So,

070it's over 30 years old. Um there was only one piece that didn't pass or excuse me, one piece that did pass the inspection. everything else was deemed as needing to be uh failing and so um it was just easier to go ahead and replace the whole works so that we have everything um fresh and updated. So if you look at those pictures Yeah, there's a good one. So you you see that there's two two different color surfaces. The gray is actually what they call a a port in place surface. It's a hard rubber surface like a granular type rubber surface which is um very easily accessible for you know students who have accessibility needs. Um there's a couple of pieces of equipment in there that um we specifically put in to allow kids that may

071be, you know, in need of a walker or a wheelchair to have access to be able to participate with their friends in an activities. We try to um have some inclusivity for um those students. And then um the brown area is just the wood chips. So we will start if you approve this we will start demolition of the old one on Monday and the new this new one will be completed by the end of September. What's going to happen to the equipment that's out there now? The playgrounds is that can >> Most of it needs to just get thrown away. They'll just go through the garbage. There's a few pieces that we can hold on to as replacements like swing seats and swing chains. Um, but the rest of it >> I just wonder if

072we couldn't open up to the public to bid on it or they want to put it in their own backyard. >> Not safe for our kids, but it's safe for you. >> Well, yeah. Well, I got a lot of those rules on my place. >> Well, we've been talking about that auction coming up that we could go on today. >> Well, the challenge is is that you're going to be pulling pieces out of here. So, you're going to pull out of the ground. They're going to have 4 ft of cement that's 3 ft around on them. >> Don't throw it in your pickup. >> So unless Gerby Gerby and Friends is opening a moving company, I'm not sure who's going to move that stuff. >> Oh, >> and I don't know how. And and you

073I mean it's going to take uh require a front end loader >> to like pick that stuff up and pull it out of the ground. >> Um I don't know how much of that's going to get damaged coming out. I was just curious maybe. >> Well, if there's some pieces that are usable, >> there's pieces that are usable and salvageable to do that. >> But I wouldn't want to promise that what we could salvage for people. >> All right. Any other questions for Mark or Mr. Johnson? All right. We do have a motion and a second. Um, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos. Same sign. Motion carries. All right. Next, we have a little flyers update and proposed rate increase. Kayla Guber is here and Kayla is going to talk

074about some data that we have and rationale for making some proposed changes for you. >> Thanks, Kayla. >> Thank you. Okay. I can talk about that. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> So, what you have in front of you um is a rate study that we received from First Children's Finance. For any of you that have talked with me about Little Flyers, you've probably heard me say that our work with First Children's Finance has just been incredible. They really help us when we need things. Um, so what I had them do is put that rate study together so you could see where our rates for Little Firefare um, stand up against other child care centers in Morrison County. And so they they did all of the data tracking for us. Um, and so after I

075talked with them, looking at the rates that we have currently, when we set those rates, when we opened in March, we did not have the um, CCAP rates, which you can see on the right side of your page, um, for I think it was like two or three years. So, we didn't know at the time when we set our original rates what CCAP, which is um, county assistance would provide for families that qualify. So, we kind of just went right down the middle. $200 for infants, 180 for toddlers, and 160 for preschool. Now, after getting some of that data, we're looking at that and we're finding that we are actually lower um than some of those that they will some of the rates of other child care centers around us. So, they initiated a conversation

076with me just to say it would be a good idea as you're looking at we're now six months in. We know that we our enrollment continues to grow. I'll talk a little bit about what that looks like now, too. But it would be a good idea to increase your rates. And what does that look like? Um, we can kind of be creative. One thing that I didn't really take into consideration up until I talked with some parents was a multi-child discount as well, which I think would be really helpful for us to talk about here and and maybe add to that um rate increase. But um my proposal was that uh we were going to look at again the sheet in front of you and try to be somewhat between that 50 and 70th percent

07775th percentile that you can see. Um and do a $20 increase now and then a $20 increase at our one-year contract renewal. Um the reason I'm bringing it to you now is our contracts are actually running um they will renew in September. So, we will need to renew all of our family contracts and then they'll be good for a whole year. So, I'm open to questions. I have a little bit more of a spiel, but I want to know what >> what are you guys what are what questions do you have? What any feedback have you received? And then I can talk a little bit more. >> You pushed out some information to families. >> Yeah. So, I pushed out a survey to families um just a couple weeks ago in preparation to kind of

078get some feedback knowing that I was going to be bringing this to you. Um, I had 25 families respond and, um, I only had two people respond back to me with a concern about the rate increase. Um, and it was because of the the reason they responded back, they have multi- child, they have two children in the program. And so they said with the rate increase of a proposal, um, and I told them it would be all dependent on this conversation of what that would look like. Um, but it was only two people that responded and said, "The rates will get high when I have two children in your care." Um, which made me think, do we look at a multi-child discount, which we definitely could add to that as well. >> You know, I

079remember the conversations we had when we were doing this thing and and that was one of the things that we were pretty adamant about is that we did not want to be the lowest one on the block. We did not want to drive private providers, >> correct, >> away. So, >> yeah, >> I would support this >> 100%. >> Absolutely. >> I actually heard from families and they were pretty upset, >> okay, >> that um there wasn't a lot of communication that came out prior and it was, "By the way, if this is board approved, >> yeah, >> you're getting this increase." >> I won't be approving this only because I think we just opened six months ago and we're looking at a $20 increase. uh which I think is quite hefty. Y >> and

080then not only that, but we're also going to do another one in 6 months. I think for people that just started with us and just started daycare, that's a that's a huge increase right away. Y >> um you know, within a year, they're looking at a $40 increase per week. But I absolutely would support and look at uh an increase if we could talk about those um multi >> absolutely >> kid things because that is where it gets expensive. But >> my whole thought with why we want you know a good reason to do the whole the daycare thing in the be beginning is to get people into our preschool. Yep. >> Get them in and into our district right away. So I don't want to turn families away. Um, yeah. So, that's where I'm

081sitting >> and I I appreciate that, Kelsey, so much. I think one of the things, too, is >> this is and Greg and I talked a little bit about this, but First Children's Finance doesn't have anything over us saying we have to do this, right? They are trying to come up with >> and support us to have a long-term, you know, sustainability and so and and success. Exactly. And so, you know, just just I was writing down some numbers, thinking about our current enrollment and where we talked about 6 months ago where we wanted to be September and I was like I I would love to be like 75% capacity and we are officially over 75% capacity September and so like we are continuing to grow and grow and I will I will say any

082family that has um started with us since the se so June until Now, this conversation was brought to them immediately. There may be a rate increase at some point. >> And so, that was very that was important to me because again, I didn't want that. Hey, you're signing this contract today and two months from now you're having an increase. So, um I would be open to something different as well or a do we just wait until our year so we can get a better handle on what does that look like? Um, I love the idea of a multi-child discount. I really wish I would have maybe thought about that a little bit earlier as well. Um, but again, I I want to hear from your thoughts, too. >> Financially, how are you doing with the

083way the rates are right now? Yeah. So, I did some work on that, Sharon, and I think we talked about this a little bit earlier, and um it is so hard to come up with numbers because we have increased our enrollment so much, so fast, which has also made us increase our staffing so much, and so fast. And then we've had to let staff go or we've had staff move on. And so to be completely honest with you saying today I don't have a good number to tell you of what where we're at because of all the changes that we've had consistently. >> Are you comfortable? >> Um I am comfortable. Yes. And I feel confident that I know we have to make an increase. Does it have to happen at $20 now and $20

084later? No. But what I want to continue to do is make sure that we can pay our staff, our quality staff, and I want to make sure we can continue to provide care. Well, I'm also like Kelsey. I I really think we should have all had our thoughts together with the multi- >> y >> family members at at the very beginning. >> Yep. >> Six months might be a long time for some some people, but if we can hold it off for a while, I'd appreciate that. >> Yeah, I think and I think families I think that's okay. I I feel comfortable and and like I said, I am totally open to if we wait until our one year mark because I do have I I would feel better about being able to pull a

085lot better data in a year than just 6 months. And again, First Children's Finance is saying, "Hey, this is what you could do, but you don't have to. You know, this is a proposal and this is to support you." But >> um so I I would be absolutely okay with that. Um, I I think putting together a proposal and a plan and then talking about that multi-child discount as well, um, could all be included in that. >> And I would like to see the the numbers, too, which I'm sure our business manager would help us with. But yeah. >> Yep. >> Because I know we had initial projections and I'd like to see how they compare against those. >> And yeah, and First Children's Finance helped with that. And so those things once we start

086gathering that, they'll be able to help put together a very similar summary to what you have in front of you. >> Okay. Do you have a sense of like, you know, before we did this daycare, we needed there was a huge need in our community for daycare. Are we taking away business? Do you feel like based on our rates or do you just think there's plenty of business to go around? >> I think there's plenty of business to go around. The problem is the age of care that they need. >> I can open up probably three more infant classrooms tomorrow and we would still have a waiting list. It's it's the age of care that people need. And so we took 12 infants, >> but not, you know, it's we have 28 toddlers on Tuesdays

087and Thursdays that come in and there's still people on our wait list. Um, so I don't feel that we're taking business away. I feel like it's more there is still there is just so much of a need and it's the age of care 100%. Have you received any feedback from local child care home families here? >> Through word of mouth, I have. Um, but I have not. >> Thank you. You're hurting my business. >> Um, probably that more than anything. Not not they're not rude. They don't say you're hurting my business, but they will say like, "Oh, we had families move from ours to, you know, and ours to little flyers." And I think it all comes back to kind of the reason we did this is getting our children into our building. They want

088their baby in the same at the their kindergartener at the same as their second. They want that and I think they're really experiencing that now. >> Start building. I will be honest that I've already looked at the classroom that we have open to say how could we adjust >> a baby room >> to make this a baby room because it is you obviously need more staff for that which is huge but I will say it's um I've already started to look at do we look at rearranging our building a little bit but and that's only six months in because the calls come every single day. So, but you were talking about the contracts having to be renewed in September, right? >> Yeah. Y >> So, if we weren't to do a pay raise or increase

089of $20 till say 6 months from now, >> Yeah. >> all those contracts are already going to be locked in. >> So, realistically, that that rate hike of $20 for the first one >> would not take effect until September of 26 when they redo their contracts for the following year. Correct. >> Yeah. So basically our contracts right now our contracts are like sixmonth contracts because we opened in May and we knew or March, excuse me, and we knew we wanted them to renew in September. So no matter what, we have to make a decision if our contracts are going to be six month contracts or if they're going to be year contracts. We only have had six-month contracts. >> What was your what? Yep. But what's the target as far as like what what's the

090plan moving forward coming up in September? Are you looking at renewing them at 6 months or are you looking at bumping them out to a year now that you've been you're kind of aligning it with the beginning of the school year? >> If we're going to wait to do a rate increase, what I'm going to do is they all have to be renewed because they have an end date of 829 2025. They would start were closed that day. That's professional development day. That's why they end there. But they would run from September to March and then we would do the rate increase in March at our year open or you and then they would run six months to September again. That allows families. There's nothing holding families to stay with us. They have to give

091us a two week. So they don't pay out that you know 6 months or whatever that is. If if that's kind of where you're going like are they stuck in that for 6 months? at any time they can >> I was thinking of it more from the standpoint of a rate increase not really doing us any benefit >> I get okay yeah >> if it's a year-long contract because then we wouldn't see that rate increase for that full next year >> kind of going back after what Doug was initially saying >> the main message at the front end here was we were going to be at or above what our local child care providers are >> y >> so I would I mean I would be open and supportive of doing a 29 now and

092maybe waiting on the second 20 >> until the following September or however you want to do that. But I think based off of these numbers, if we're going to stick with >> the message that was pushed, >> of us being at or above local in home, >> yes, >> I think we need to go forward with a 20. Maybe not necessarily the second 20, >> Sure. But the initial 20, if we're going to stay true to that initial message, and I would support that. >> Yeah. >> Yep. Do you feel like at that point um saying we're doing 20 now, are we able to add in that multi-child discount now? I mean, I can do that. I don't know if that's something that you guys would want to consider now. >> What do you think

093that would look like, Kayla? >> Um what the multi-child discount would be. we would have a 10% um discount for the second child off their and it would be the higher rate that it's off. So if you have a >> Yep. Yep. [Music] >> So really what you're talking about a $20 increase would help expand the program to the next level >> and we know it'd be sitting comfortable because all the staff we have to hire to cover that. >> Yep. One thing I didn't mention that I do want to say because you know making it getting it comfortable but expanding the program. We are right now in a cohort to become rated parent aare and I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with what that is but that is a program that

094helps our program um you've probably maybe you haven't but our licensing requirements for child care are like this thick and that's just opening a very basic center to be rated parent aware. There are four stars. And I don't want you to think about it as like a like a hotel rating, but um one star does not mean you're bad and four is really good. It just means you're putting in one star of extra work, two star of extra work, three star of extra work or four star. And we're in the process right now of getting to one star and then we will get to two. And so we will do that every six months. That's a cohort that we are part of. And so our child care coordinator is part of that. all of our

095teachers have to be on board to be part of that as well because our classrooms have to be at a certain, you know, expectation to be rated. Um, and so that's where that comes in. That extra increase of will help support what we need for the classrooms or what we're needing to make sure that we can sit comfortably and expand our programming. >> When do you think you're going to expand it again? >> September or? Well, I like I said, I wanted to be at 75% capacity September and we are there. Um, we have quite a turnover of some kindergarten preschoolers. So, we will continue to add throughout this year. Um, and and as staff come and go, that's we just continue to enroll as we have staff because if we don't have staff, you

096can't have kids. >> Yeah. >> How many of our families are multi? Oh, a lot. Um, I should know that. But I would say >> are quite a few more than two. >> Yeah. Yeah. Probably I would say 15 of our families. >> Have more than two children. >> Yep. Yeah. Two or more. Yeah. >> And just looking at your numbers here, if you have multi, >> then basically that nullifies the the rate increase essentially. is it's pretty close to that making it a wash. So, >> I think for families to understand that they need to see those numbers made sure >> any other questions for Kayla. >> You need a decision tonight. >> It's August. >> Yeah, September's coming right around the corner. >> Yeah. We won't have time to deep dive into any

097more numbers. >> Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think we there I think there's great conversation. I I just want you to know that if there are other questions or if there are other things that I can answer or just things that you're wondering, I'd be happy to answer and knowing and hearing from all ends. I think it really helps me think about future as well. So >> I definitely like the multi- discount >> for families. I think that's what we can help them. So yeah, >> so the contracts are being rewritten at the end of September, correct? >> It'll be the beginning of >> the beginning. Okay. So >> and they don't >> they're just renewing. >> They're renewing. Yes. Yep. They're renewing. So it's just >> families have been given this idea that, hey,

098this is happening. I have not heard from anybody that they are not coming back because of a proposed rate increase. >> I guess what I would support is kind of what Dan said. I I think $20 for the new contacts starting in September and a 10% multif family discount would be I guess I'd be okay with that >> and then >> and not the second 20 >> correct time. Yep. >> Well, I guess my question be you were only signing six months contracts with the parents >> the first when we opened now. Yes. Now you're going to now September you're going to put them to a year or still at six months. >> It it will be a year contract. Okay. >> Um but families don't aren't they're called contracts because that's how they're written

099in our in our software. They don't they're not held to a year of paying for child care or >> Right. No, I understand that. >> No, I was just thinking if we're going to expand a year might be too long to wait. >> It's trouble because we don't have the numbers. Yeah. Right. >> And that's the hard part. I mean, and >> I think we just have to do that >> and we can't table it for a month. >> My my concern is that we've only been opened for 6 months and we're already jacking up price. Like as a parent, I'd be like, what are they what are they going to do in six months from now? And then like is this just going to be in every six months? We just opened. That's that's

100my concern. >> Yeah. Um, I get not necessarily waiting, but if we don't necessarily need the funds, >> you know, I I get we told the community that we would be looking at that, but literally we just opened. >> That's my concern. >> Um, and you know, maybe a 10% discount now might hurt the bank. You know, if we didn't do a rate increase and just did that, that might hurt the bank. Y >> So, I don't know. >> So, you're thinking one or the other? I don't know. >> I'm struggling internally. >> So the the multi-child discount is for say two. Now they get the 10% off of the more expensive one. Now if they have three, >> they get two discounts or they just get one 10% discount >> for the most expensive

101contract. >> Yep. It's one multi-child discount. It's attached to their account. I think if we're going to go with the that discount, then we need to we need to go forward with the the 20% on the front end, >> even if it's just >> eliminating the second one, >> but before the new contracts are done. And then this conversation come March of 2026, a year open, being able to have a business analysis redone with First Children's Finance. Having those numbers from the district and from being able to propose at that time or share, not even propose anything to you guys, but be able to share those numbers and where we're at, I think will be able to show us, yep, our first six months. Here's our next six months and beyond. >> I like that.

102And I like that. Not even giving a discount now too, only because they also signed up for what we were offering. >> Yep. >> That's how I will probably vote tonight. >> Make a motion. Are we ready? More discussion. We can discuss after you make your motion. >> Mhm. >> Well, no. I No, I don't need more discussion. I I do think we're we are changing what's in or what's been presented. >> Well, >> but we will need a new motion. It says to update. Wait, where am I? >> It's just little qualifiers update increase. I would just be voting no to that, but I don't need to propose anyone, >> right? >> Well, I don't know that we have an official >> motion. We don't have a motion. >> So, you can you can

103make one whatever you want and then we can, you know, we can vote accordingly. Well, I guess just for clarification, so um in March we'll have the final numbers for last year and we'll know exactly where we're sitting. >> That's what I'm Yeah. >> But between now and then you may open it up for more students >> and we're going to have more expenses. >> So, we've got to be able to cover those expenses >> with the new students >> in theory. >> Right. All right. Well, I am going to make a motion that we hold off on the multi-children discount. >> Yep. >> And the rate increase until we can view the numbers in March. And at that time, we will reook at it. >> So, her contracts right now will stay the same

104>> at six months, but she wants to go to a year. >> No, still six months. Okay. Yep. >> Yep. >> I'll second that motion. >> Okay. And we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? >> So, if I'm clear, we're just leaving it exactly the way it is right now. No multi, no increase. >> And in six months, we'll review it. >> Mhm. Okay. Including the numbers. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Okay. All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Oppos? I. So motion carries. >> Yep. >> Thanks, Kayla. >> Okay. Next, we have the approval of the summer 2026 Europe trip. And again, I think that is just a formal. We got the presentation last time. So, I'm looking for a motion here. >> I'll second or motion. >> Okay,

105we have a motion by Sharon. We have a second. >> Second. Second by Mark. >> Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. All right. Next, we have the uh review of the first reading of kind of a variety of different policies here. Um I won't go through them all, but um they're in your packet. They're on the board up there on the up there. So there's nothing really. If you have questions, concerns, um I would say contact the policy committee or Mr. Johnson. Um next we have a resolution though I will um pass that on to chair and I'm assuming you have that. Mhm. Whereas to qualify for long-term facilities maintenance revenue Minnesota statute 2024 section 123b.595 subdivision 4 states the school

106district or intermediate district must annually adopt and approve a 10-year LTFM facilities plan by July 31st for commissioner approval. Whereas the school district has developed a revised 10-year long-term facilities maintenance plan consistent with this law. I move for the resolution adoption and motion and I have to have a second please. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Have a second. And upon a roll call vote being thereon, the following voted in favor of the motion. Doug, >> yes. >> Myself, yes. Mark, >> yes. >> Julie, >> yes. >> Dan, >> yes. >> And Kelsey, >> yes. Therefore, be it resolved, school board of independent school district 482 approves and adopts the attached 10-year long-term facilities maintenance plans for FY27 on today. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. We have no old or unfinished business. Uh board

107member reports. Mark, >> you start off. Uh we had a couple committee meetings uh this last month. Uh, we got to I got to meet Melissa Pazinski >> doing our um um newsletter, right? No, that's the other one. >> Yeah, communications and marketing. >> Yeah. And got to preview the newsletter that's going to go out this next couple months or next month. It was very well done. She's really into her job, really excited about it. And uh it was just nice to hear that she's hit the ground running. >> Mhm. >> And the fact that this first one highlights some of our teachers highlights the the welcome back. Basically, it's a welcome back, but she also put time into uh kind of celebrating our past year and what had happened. >> So that that was

108exciting to hear and to see that she's really um you know excited about it and ready to go. uh Lisa Salber, uh the MTSS, she was also at a meeting with her again. Somebody really fired up about her new job, ready to jump in. She's well jumped in already. She's getting this started and she's also researching the training that needs to be done and setting up who's going to get it, when they're going to get it, how they're going to get it. So, it was exciting to hear that uh this thing is really taking off >> and that's all I have to report. >> Thank you, Sharon. >> Um just want to mention that this weekend I did go to the musical at the high school and it was excellent the voices in here. So,

109I think some of them should be on Broadway. Um >> Anastasia. >> Oh, it was it was just fantastic. And they must have hours and hours of training just moving the equipment on the stage continuously. That was it was just it was three hours and it went very quick. >> You'd be surprised how fast they can put those together. >> Well, it was just like they were spinning them around and >> locking the wheels. It was just amazing to watch. >> Okay, >> Chelsea. >> Um, academic camp started this uh last week for the elementary student. Is it just elementary? >> That's what I was going to share. and kinder started. >> Kinder Camp started today. Over 100 kindergarters >> be able to go check that out this morning and holy moly is that quite

110a a production. >> Was Henry there? >> Yes, Henry was there. That they have I was not I was expecting to drive through the loop the driveway and just kid jumps out and I keep going and no, you got to get in line. It was quite the line. Glad we were there early, but so wonderful to see so many kids at that. And the teachers were fantastic moving them all around. And I didn't see any tears. There was no Kayla, I know you were there, too. So I don't I didn't see anything that was like hard separations, which was really great. The staff did a great job. >> Quite a deal. >> All right. Julie, >> when they let Henry state, >> I think so. >> I didn't get a call from Mr. I hope

111that's a that's a win. >> All right, Dan. Um, same committee meetings. Mark was our new communications director, Melissa Przitski. She's gonna she's going to do well for us. I'm very excited. >> So, >> good. And that's I mean kind of me too. I have um if you if you're out on social media or follow any of the school stuff um there's a definite improved presence out there. So, um that's going to come out. >> It was It's very good to see and and I know that's something that we identified we need to work on and I think we've got hit the ground running with that. So >> very good. So >> okay, any other items to come before the board? >> All right. Hearing none. I'm looking for a motion for a motion by

112Dan. A second. >> Second by Mark. All in favor? >> I. >> Thank you.