School Board Meeting 4/20/2026

001I think let's go. You're late. Pledge of Allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You're almost late. Lisa, are you here? Here. Lori? Here. Jeremiah? Here. Thomas? Here. Chuck? Here. Tanya? Here. Linda, yes, here. Um take a look at the agenda. Anybody have any additions to that, Mr. Lovelace? The regular agenda? Did you get signed up on the guest list? >> I have Rick. I talked to Jenny, yeah. Okay, then I need a motion to accept the agenda as it is. I'll motion. Lori? I'll second it. You can give it to Chuck. Okay, he's got it. Jeremiah did it. Any discussion? Any further discussion? All those in favor say

002aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Okay, I have two guests. Kaylee, do you want to go first? Yep. Grab that. Okay. All right. So, we are here today to just update you all on our Unified Special Olympics program. So, um this is kind of a slide that I have already in the school bulletin. Um it is just to inform you all on that we are hosting our very first Unified uh track event here at the Thunder Stadium. So, we're very excited about it. Uh Emily and Tori here have been part of Special Olympics with us in the past, so I will also show a little bit about that as well. Um so, we invited Next slide here. So, we invited Little Falls, Staples, Motley, and Onamia schools plus our school to be part of

003it. So, Special Olympics has changed how they are doing events, and so they're focusing on the smaller, more unified events. So, we don't have our students do the um sports physicals to participate right now uh just because it opens up the door to more participants. And um it's a little less work, honestly, on the back end to just have fun at these events instead of it being so competitive to get to state. Um and yeah. Um opening ceremony is going to be at about 9:45, so we have students who are going to be saying the national anthem, and then we will have um students who do the Special Olympics oath as well, and then we'll have events happening. Um so, something fun. Jeremiah has offered to help with that, so he is going to be

004there as well. So, that's pretty fun. And we have a community member who just got approved today to be a volunteer, and then we have um Mike Evans who's coming back, and he's going to be volunteering that day as well as one of our parents um and otherwise we have student volunteers. So, I'm going to kind of pass it off to these girls, and they can kind of go over what we did at winter um carnival. So, yeah. Um yeah, we were doing a bunch of activities with the kids. We did snowmobiles, dog sledding. There was some soccer and stuff on the ice. It was very fun. We were the be involved with that. Yeah. And overall, um the winter carnival was a great um opportunity for us um just to form some camaraderie and

005just to develop the friendships between our unified partner and our athletes. Um so, like the numbers are up there, so we had 16 students total go. Uh 12 of those were unified athletes, and four of them were partners. So, in the future we're hoping to have a one-to-one partner-to-athlete ratio. Um so, as we get more into this uh this is my second year, so I was focusing more on hosting an event, uh which I think is going to be pretty well uh received by all who attend. Um we put a lot of work into coordinating volunteers. Emily and I have worked together on making sure that we have our Google form all set up, and um yeah. Uh really looking forward to it. Any questions for us? Are you looking for any more donations for

006the event? Um so, we um right now are working with um the Lions Club. Um and Michelle um Helen contacted them for um some donations for covering the cost of concession stands so we can have a small concession stand open at the event. Otherwise, we're really sitting pretty good. Um we do have a centralized account with Special Olympics that we did a very good fundraiser for last year. We did not do a fundraiser this year just because that last year's fundraiser was so well, and we haven't needed to use school funds to support our program. And so, I'm pretty impressed with that aspect as well. Sounds good. Okay. What did you learn about poaching? Um so, uh >> [cough] >> yeah. One of the stations you could um find you could feel all the different

007furs and things like that. Um there was a lot of interest in identifying what the different furs were that they had. Um overall, poaching's bad. Basically. [laughter] Uh um yeah. So. Any other questions? What are some of the events you're going to be having ON MAY 6TH? YEAH. SO, um we are going to be having traditional uh relays, so we will have a unified relay and a traditional relay. So, unified means that um possibly Emily here will be running along with one of our or two of our um staff or sorry, students. And then we do have a traditional relay, so that means that's all just unified athletes will be running that. So, we are practicing that in our DAPE class, and if they're not in DAPE, which is the adaptive PE, we are um

008able to pull them from their study halls and practice the baton toss or handoff, I should say. And then we are doing long jump, and then we have tennis ball throw and softball throw, and then other various um running events. I'm not sure if we will have any adaptive like wheelchair events or walker events. I meet with our Special Olympics representative on Wednesday via Google Meet, um and then we'll finalize what the schedule looks like. All right. Any other questions? You're praying for no snow, right? Well, yes. Historically, this event has been around this date in Pillager, and it's just gotten so big for Pillager that they're taking a step back. And so, like I said, we are hosting this year, and historically it has been raining and cold. So, we are really hoping that

009we will not have that this year. So, yeah. And I hope to be fully recovered from this walking pneumonia situation I have. I'm supposed to be the one who's talking the whole time. So, hopefully that's all taken care of, too. Okay. All right. I'm going to pass it off to the girls here. They have some student council updates for you guys, so I'm just going to unhook this. Thank you for sharing that. Um so, we have the color run coming up on May 8th, which is a really good opportunity for the elementary kids to get out, have fun, and play games. I know we have a bunch of students being paired with classrooms. I know it's mostly the juniors and seniors doing that. And then there's going to be So, like the sophomores and under

010are going to be running the games while everybody else is going through the color run. And they do vary for like ages, so there's ones for the much younger kids, like the parachute, like much easier tag games. And then for older kids, there's more soccer and like a little more complex games. And then the other update we have is our new officers coming up, with our president being McKenna Altis. Then vice president is Brianna Lux. Then our treasurer is Addison Young. And oh, secretary. Secretary and our treasurer is Kylie Kraska. Do you have any questions? How was prom, Zachary? Good, but very long. >> [laughter] >> Dresses were beautiful, by the way. >> Thank you. Any other questions for the girls? How many days till graduation? Do you know? Oh, 24. >> [laughter] >> YEP.

011Good stuff. I always told Mr. All right. All right. Congratulations. >> Thank you. And then I think we go back up to the solar grant. I believe Ideal Energies. Hi Ideal, how are you? Pretty good. I have a little handout here for everybody. Thank you. Hey Rich. I'm all right. >> [snorts] >> So, thank you for giving me the time to come come up here and talk about the solar for schools grant. Uh my name is Rich Ragatz from Ideal Energies. Uh our company's been around for 16 years. Uh and we've done about 700 projects to date. 230 projects with schools and 91 projects with solar for schools customers uh in the first eight rounds. In round nine, we have 17 projects that we're working on, and you're one of the 17 projects. And the

012good news for people that wait in the round number nine, 100% of the cost is given to you by uh a grant from the Department of Commerce and a direct pay tax credit. And I'll kind of go through that as we walk through the the presentation here. So, I just kind of gave you a little bit about our company. We're vertically integrated. We have everything to do this in-house. Um really focused on the school space. On to the next page, this is just a list of some of the schools we've done. Here's showing you a roof mounted array, but yours is going to be a ground mounted array, and I'll get into more detail as we get along in this. Uh next page is another more comprehensive list of all the school customers. Uh we

013have Park Rapids, Grand Rapids, and Little Falls. All three of those we're going to be doing ground mounted solar arrays for when the weather turns a little better, probably early summer here. Um and then on to this next page, this shows you uh where we're looking to do the the ground mounted array. That's in that geothermal field. Uh and I there's a few questions that I Daniel forwarded to me um that I incorporated here. You can see that we have a 50-ft setback from the uh uh the west side of that solar array. That's the area where you guys like to plow snow in the wintertime. And [snorts] then on the the right side there, on the east, we also have a 33-ft easement for the the power line that goes through there. And we

014can make [snorts] it a little longer and skinnier if we want to have a little more buffer, but uh we should be plenty good for space to do this, and that's an area really uh we have above-ground racking that we're going to use that's not going to go in and affect the the geothermal field. >> [snorts] >> What is 324? Is that per day? What is Um that's the the kilowatt-hour DC size of the array, and that's based on trying to maximize the grant and the So, kind of like per day, I mean, is that kind of a rough estimate of like what will it put out like per day? Produce? >> You have that later? Yeah, it's on the Okay, okay. Yeah, it's on the next page. >> Okay. We can just go to

015the next page. So, the next page we're talking about this will create 365,063 kilowatt-hours annually. So, you're looking at about 1,000 kilowatt-hours daily on average. And based on your current rate plan, in year one, you're going to look at $29,960 worth of energy savings based on your rate plan with Minnesota Power. Uh and I'll go on to the next sheet here. >> [snorts] >> This is kind of showing you the sources and uses and how it kind of flows through the program. So, there's again, this total cost is going to be $713,900. And you can see on the the funding sources, you get a $499,730 from the solar for schools, and then you get a $204,345. That's a direct pay tax credit from the federal Department of Treasury. And you can see that there's $9,800

016here out of the operating budget. That is based on having a fence with the solar array. That's not a qualified project cost for doing the the ground mount, so that's something that we're hoping that that'll be able to be funded through the solar for schools grant. If not, that would be something that you guys would have to pay for, and we could figure out how to do that. Insurance wants the fence. What's that? Insurance wants the fence. Yeah, insurance will you'll have to get a rider on your insurance policy, and we have a lot of history with that, and that shouldn't cost you too much. Um No, I I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but it was minimal. They provided that you have a fence to help minimize vandalism. Yeah,

017you know, we've with our we've done what, 230 projects for schools. We haven't had any of them vandalized by kids up there. So, it rarely happens. Maybe it would happen with a ground mount, but yeah, that's why you have insurance. And so, this is just kind of showing you based on the program how how the the dollars would flow. But in the end, you guys would basically have a system paid for by those two sources, the the grant from the solar for schools Department of Commerce and a direct pay tax credit. Okay, on to the next page. So, what we did, we had a readiness application that we submitted March 2nd. We were supposed to hear April 2nd whether or not you guys got funds, but because of the history with this, I believe you

018guys will get definitely get fundings for this, especially how we put it together. And so, any day now we'll find out that you guys got grant approval. Um we're in progress with the the electrical and working with Minnesota Power in terms of interconnection agreement. That's something that's needed for the the next uh obligation that's out there, which is the full grant application. That's due July 2nd, 2026, and we'll uh help put everything together to get that in, so you get final grant approval, and we can move forward with the project. Um a couple things as part of the program, you have to have you have to use this somehow some way in your education curriculum. For the last over 10 years, we've been providing kind of modules that are up to the three current learning

019standards that can be incorporated. You can use some, all, none of it if you want to. The other thing is we have a monitoring platform that's a web-based portal. You can have that on your website or a screen in the lobby or somewhere or uh access have the kids have access to it. It's kind of cool. There's a little more detail further along in the presentation, but it shows you how much energy was created daily, weekly, monthly, annually. There's some cool how much CO2 was saved, how many trees were saved, you know, stuff like that that they can learn about. >> [snorts] >> And that needs to be you know, put on the most of our customers put it on their website with the link so people can get on there and check it out.

020So then um again this is how we're doing it. It's 100 basically 100% paid for. We'll help you work through and get the direct pay tax credit from the IRS. That's a little complicated, but we've done it many a times. And the system we're talking about has a 30-year panel warranty. Um and you have a rider on your insurance so it'll be you know, working for a long time. Uh And then we'll also provide operations and maintenance for the first five years to make sure it's working properly. You come out to fix them? If one would break you would come out to fix them? Yes, we have two people that are dedicated for our operations and maintenance and we actually operate and maintain over 400 systems around the state so lots of schools, cities, counties

021and non-profits. >> on our house so Okay. I mean you know, and like we had a hail storm, baseball size hail and no panels even broke. That's great. >> That's nice. Yeah. So For sure. And we have a lot of history with you know, all over the state so we know the the panels that should be used that are much more resistant to hail. Mhm. So Um you have operations and maintenance years one to five. What happens in year six beyond? If you wanted just to continue we'd continue doing that for you. Okay, then there would be a fee to that. >> Yeah. Okay. Do you typically know how much that fee is? Yeah, it's around like 1,500 bucks, something like that. Yearly or Annually, yeah. So it's not a whole big you know, that

022you're looking at about 30,000 of energy savings so it's you know, $1,500 of 30,000. Yeah, go ahead. You brought up saving how many trees and teach the kids that, but where do you dispose of these panels when they are no longer in use? Well, good question. There there's no hazardous materials in the panels and actually now there's over the last five years there's been many firms that have been created that actually would come out and pay you for the panels. And they'll recycle them for the rare earth metals that are in them. So they'll pay you send it $7 a panel. And they also have a production warranty so after 30 years you have a warranty claim if they're not still producing 85% of what was told up front. So you're still after 30 years

023they're still producing 85% of what they did day one. So you're probably going to have a 40-year life with these. Believe it or not. What's the brand? Um Well, we I'm not certain what the brand of the panel is. We we've been using Silfab with the new foreign entity of concern stuff that's out there. You have to have certain panels that meet the domestic content. >> Where where are they made? I mean like this Uh well, one of them is in Jacksonville, Florida. Okay. And that's what you would have here? Yeah. Where where are your panels coming from? Well, we have some that we get from Jacksonville, Florida. There's some actually in Minnesota here up in the Iron Range that are also available. Um That's what I'm getting at are they are they domestically made?

024Are we running into politics and you know, there's a lot of politics involved in solar panels and all this. Where they're produced, how they get into this country. The big tariffs that are being applied to them. That's the questions I'm getting at. Yeah, there's a lot of tariff craziness out there, but we actually have stuff in our inventory that we can use for this that's not you know, subject to any of that. We've kind of taken the chaos out of it. Okay, thank you. Okay, then on to the next page. Here's the again the solar curriculum. I mentioned it is up to the three current learning standards in the state. Kind of some cool stuff that the kids There's we have fifth and sixth grade science is one of the targeted areas that we have

025modules for and then we have also something for kind of the high schoolers. Good good way for them to learn about renewable energy. And then this next page shows you what we're doing in terms of the the monitoring platform. Do you have your own monitoring platform or do you No, this is through SolarEdge which is the most popular inverter in the world. Is it SunStrand? Is the one we have SunStrand? Oh, no we don't have that. We have. It's just it has all the All the same stuff. >> and how many trees and how many gallons of fuel you saved and Right. So Yeah, so you can see down in the bottom right corner here that's the two of the things they show the CO2 emissions saved and the equivalent trees planted. And this is

026called SolarEdge? Yeah, SolarEdge. And then on to the the next page um I'm looking to get an approval to continue to proceed with with this application. And we'd work on getting a full interconnection application done with Minnesota Power. Uh submit the full grant application and gear up for um a uh um a project for either later on this fall or spring of next year. How long does it take you once you start to start to finish the project? Yeah, a couple months. Okay. And we can work around whatever's going on at the school district in terms of you know, >> [snorts] >> all of the stuff we're doing. Very very flexible. Won't be disruptive. And how many panels are there? Do we have that in here somewhere? Uh I don't have the number of panels,

027but uh um There's probably three or three or 400. Okay. Does it interfere with anything that we have going with Minnesota Power? I mean do we buy bulk power from them and therefore what we get from you? Well, Minnesota Power has been involved for quite some time and we actually they allowed for some rebates. Okay. So um jump in, but like they've been working with me on the process every time. And they've done a few energy audits. They've provided you guys a lot of information. Yeah. Yeah, they're easy to work with. Paul over there is a great great guy. We've done a number of projects with Minnesota Power. Is there any concern with reflection off these for the houses that are behind them? Um as far as the glare going into the houses or anything

028like that. No, I don't I don't see that because uh if you look at the picture um the panels will be directly south facing and they're at a like a 30° pitch so you're really not going to get reflection that's going to affect the houses. And um all panels these days are made with anti-glare technology so even we put them on condominiums in like Northeast Minneapolis and you know, so we want to make sure that there's no glare for other condominiums and places that are around there. It hasn't been an issue. Um going back to the price breakdown here. You you have a 499 thousand dollars of the grant then the remaining 30% of that 204 thousand that you said would come um from another source. Is that a reimburse uh reimbursement source uh source

029where we have to pay up front and then we get reimbursed or do you guys just wait to receive that 204 thousand dollars directly from the source? Yeah, you would pay up front. So we would have to pay the 204 thousand dollars up front and then get reimbursed for it. Yeah. Okay. Um what happens um tornado comes through a whole stable or your ground stands for wind and the things like that in that situation where strong winds have come through and we stand up to what type wind will they stand up to I guess is what I'm asking. Well, it depends on your your wind loads up here, but we have a structural engineer on staff that's done thousands of projects for us over the years and he'll factor in the local snow and wind

030loads and we'll have to engineer it for those. But I can tell you if you remember back in 2011 there was a tornado that went through Minneapolis and Fridley in the cities. We had three solar arrays on a building Murphy Warehouse. It's a big third party logistics company. And the solar arrays on the roof didn't move an inch. And a tornado overturned rail cars, semis and the system itself just sat there. So they're they're really built to withstand some pretty heavy duty winds and if they don't, that's why you have the rider on your insurance policy. Is there grass left in between these that have to be maintained or does it get turned completely to a Yes. Grass or gravel asphalt rock surface, what happens? Yeah, there'll be some growth there that you'll probably need

031to weed whip on occasion, but it's not going to be like high growing stuff. Okay. Um so you said this array would pretty much go over our wells right now that we have. In between the wells, yeah. >> the wells. So what eventually those wells we will need to be replaced um even though we just replaced them now. So but in 30 years from now then would how would that affect that well replacement? Well, depending on what you do, you can move the the panels. So to get to the wells we may have to move panels. Potentially, yeah. Yep. And do you come in and do all that? What's that? Do you come in and move the panels then like or is that part of our $1,500 like if we >> No, that would be

032a separate thing. Okay. Yeah. How do you come up with the figure of kilowatt hours produced? That's based on this longitude These these obviously don't put out any power when we have uh you know, 200 days of clouds and snow and everything else, right? Yep. Yep. So they they do not produce power then, right? Well, in the wintertime ground mounts are better because the panels are at a 30 degree pitch, but uh Melt off. We do mostly roof mounted stuff and the roof mount is at at a 10 degree pitch. So at a 10 degree pitch on a roof, you're going to have a lot of snow sit on top of those panels. With the ground mount, you're going to have a lot less snow that sits on there cuz it'll slough off easier. But

033we factored in that in in especially like December and January very little production because the the sun is so low on the horizon. You have shorter days, so you only have like 1 or 2% of your energy created in each of those months. And so uh That's all factored in. >> It's all factored in. We there's a program we use called Helioscope and they use weather data that's from this longitude and latitude and we know based on experience what it's going to do. They they have a shelf life, right? I mean I noticed the production tapers off as they age, right? Yeah, they they get a little little less productive which is degradation and it goes down by 0.5% every year and so we factored that into the production that it gets a little less

034productive each year. Okay. As part of it. How come how come our savings increase if our production goes down? Well, because the utility continues to increase rates. They Minnesota power increased rates by 10% last year. And with the AI influence all the stuff going on, you're going to see pretty dramatic increases. It's a good way to hedge against it as a school district. >> Makes sense. Um this question may be more towards Dan, but during the summer obviously we're not going to be using as much electricity because we won't have students and sections inside the building. Are we allowed to sell back then to Minnesota power? Well, the good news is with the Minnesota power, they're one of the good utilities where you can do annual banking. So those kilowatt hours sit on your bill

035as a credit. So you're not selling them back to the utility at wholesale and buying them for retail. So you're getting the the the good benefit for them. So really then during the summer we'd be banking those called kilowatt hours. >> Yes. So then our payment So that it all kind of averages out throughout the year. Yeah, and that's why we sized it the two two reasons we sized it the way we did. First of all, we wanted to you know use all of the grant and uh we didn't want to go over in terms of what your as long as you use all that you consume, you're not going to sell it for wholesale and pay retail. Okay. And construction would not proceed or you would stop proceeding if for some reason that both

036grants aren't approved, correct? Yeah, this this would be contingent on grants being approved and you getting a fully energized system. Okay. I'm I'm not an electrical engineer, but for my own curiosity, you're generating DC off of the off of those panels. How does that get converted into AC for us to run our building? Yeah, we have inverters that take That's the SolarEdge is the inverter. I don't know we'll probably have two or three inverters as part of this and what they do is they take the DC created energy and convert it to AC. So you can either use it on site or it goes back to the grid. Okay. There's also energy involved in this. No storage. >> Is used locally or put back on the grid? Yep, and what they do is they put

037Minnesota power will put in a bidirectional meter. So that if you're not using it and it goes back, it spins backwards and they take uh uh They keep track of >> [cough and clears throat] >> Do you want to turn on the light for the reimburse? >> So then for that 30 30% you'll be able to pay the two or four up front. Yeah, it's about 90 days. >> Okay. What are you looking for from us tonight? Approval of this and with this Yeah, I guess approval contingent on the grant to just keep proceeding with the application. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, and what we want to do is I want to I I think that I'd like to be back in front of you when we get all of it we get the interconnection done,

038all of the details done so we can show you kind of a fully baked This is pretty much baked. We think this will be exactly what it is. But then we'll have all the details after we kind of do all of our due diligence and get everything back from them so that I can come back with a fully baked hey, let's move forward with exactly this. You mean like what the grant ends up verifying cuz we got kind of a like give us this and this kind of letter back and that's And so like kind of final stamp of approval, right? Yeah, so we haven't gotten the the readiness application approved even though we got an email basically saying that you need to do these things to make it perfect and then you're we'll give

039you the readiness grant. But yeah, so we want to get kind of a few steps done and make sure that what we're telling is exactly what's going to happen. Then I'll come back and ask for formal final approval. So approval to continue with the grant process with Ideal Energy coming back upon full approval of the grant update. Right? Yeah. All right. Okay. Has it cost us anything yet? No. And not until we have What's that? It won't until we have an approval on the grant. Correct. I guess I would make the motion to um allow you to continue on with the grant application and uh take the steps forward to complete it up until everything's completed and you have to come back to us and make the final decision. I'll second it. Okay, great questions

040everybody. Is there any more discussion we need to have? I mean, we just got this information. I'm I would feel way more comfortable making sure that we're approved before we We aren't making the final decision. >> No, but before we say yes, we'll even go on. I just want to make sure We kind of got an email from the um Yeah, we got something earlier. Kind of got >> Well, no, you you did get an email and they wanted clarification and there's a quite a history here and knowing that you guys will be approved for this grant. I'm just saying I would feel more comfortable if I knew we were approved before I I mean that's a pretty big decision to make I think. That's why you want to come back. Yeah, that's why I

041want to come back. So I want to just I want a thumbs up from you guys continue to do what you're doing and then I'll come back with a fully baked here is exactly what we're doing. Would you like to move forward? This is not a commitment of funds at this point. >> Correct. Forward continue on in the process. Really more so shows the grant that like we're still interested, right? Yeah. Correct. Okay, any more discussion? Any more? I'll call for a vote. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed same sign. Make a roll call vote then. Tom. Yes. Connie. No. Lisa. No. Laura. Yes. Jeremiah. Yep. Chuck. I. Linda. I. Motion carries. Five to two. All right. Thank you much. I look forward to coming back and giving you some good news. Thank

042you, Rich. I'll take it. Is there this one thing that maybe we ask Russ to come and talk to us about it? Russ I brought it up and uh me and him have worked on it. This is the third third year in a row we've worked on it. So, we have done various site visits. So, I'm sure advice will come because I had Russell call Rich before this to ask some of those questions about snow removal and different things. And like send me questions cuz you guys want answers. We can talk about it here and people can watch but the answers aren't there. So. Yeah. Feel free to send me more questions and I'll work on getting the answers. I think it would be good to have Russ come and just give his opinion what

043he thinks, don't you? Anybody? I I think the next meeting. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for coming. Drive safe. Um next on the line is the consent agenda. I would need anybody want anything pulled off of there to talk about? Then I would entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda. So moved. I'll second it. Um any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Here. Opposed? Motion carried. Um down to the reports. Activities. She's here today. Any questions for Kelsey? >> [clears throat] >> So, while Kelsey is here like when we get to the budget streamlining stuff, there are some stuff that pertains to activities. You know, and I sent some of it ahead of time. So, I think all this stuff is there to talk about now but like we're taking a look

044at like a 20% reduction in the games. Depending on We're on that 17 game marker give or take the sport. >> So, we're looking at 20% reduction for activities that have 20 to 26 events. So, that would bring depending the sport would bring it down to either 17 to 21 keeping everybody in that range and then reducing the amount of junior high events from the 14 down to 10 to 12. And that isn't written in stone yet, right? >> No. Okay. So, we're just talking about it. So, if you got any questions and stuff, there's a answer person and there's an answer person over here. So. And we will take a look at participation versus staffing but nothing on that's been like nailed down but that's where you would start any reductions. And that kind

045of doesn't it affects kids but it doesn't pull a teacher out of a classroom so they have 30 kids in a class instead of 25. And that's kind of a way that you would make cuts without too seriously. Does that do anything like to the you [clears throat] know, varsity the other teams that you are would you have playing teams that have the exact same schedule like the amount of games? No. You don't I just want the schedule. I would not really. I would just try and make it home and away even like I do right now. Um it would kind of affect like our QRF which is where like how our section seating gets determined as we wouldn't have as many games. But it's just kind of part of it. I don't think we're

046the only school having to do this. How much money would that save? I don't know that for yet. We were going to take a look at our transportation costs from this year and then kind of ballpark it on a 20% reduction on those games. So, there. That would be our best estimate at this time. So, you're still working on it? Yes. So, any other questions for Kelsey? How is the Bound team system going? It's going to be awesome. It's going to I mean it's a all-in-one stop shop. So, all of our stuff 47 team reaches I'm a part of it's going to all be through Bound and coaches can have be in control of the roster so I don't have to like go in our system and upload things. They can just do it from

047their phone. Um it'll send like families physical updates so like if the student's physical is out of date or has to be redone in 6 months they'll send a reminder that it's about to be out of date and then again at 3 months and then at however many weeks. So, it'll have some cool features to it. It's just a matter of learning learning them and having the coaches learn them, too. But I'm excited about it and for co-ops I'm going to use hockey for one. So, like we're the lead school for girls hockey. So, they can put all of our schools into the system as one. So, like whenever I make an update their website will update. So, like when Sauk Centre puts in a change for boys hockey ours will automatically update, too. So,

048that [clears throat] will be great. Sounds pretty good. Anything else for Kelsey? Okay, on to the next community ed. Mr. Brad. No questions for Brad? Did you hear anything more about BPK? Yeah, we we did hear. We know that we're in the process I talked to Lisa quickly about the Lisa. Um we're in the process and we're hoping to know hopefully this streamlines the situation through the fall by May. Um that's what we're hoping to make. That's kind of where we're at but she said they also told her that in the past. So, um you're just kind of it's just kind of waiting. We did do some We sat her and I sat down and what changes we we would need to make in order to make those cuts. So, that's kind of what we

049talked about we did and then we also have some a little bit of contingency that we're working with. I've been working with Tammy about okay, if we have this and we need a room where are we going? And it worked out nice because she's a good someone that specializes in the ability to ASC. You can go over that. So, that we would be able to actually take the room that they were in and that has an office nearby so there'd be an office for that person and utilize some of that stuff. So. There's a bathroom in that room, too, right? Uh no, there isn't. None of them None of the facilities that we have are going to have a bathroom. Yeah, we want them to have a bathroom when they go down to their going

050to classes and then the actually the only other way we could do that is if we would move one of them down. Uh We'd have to move probably have to put Head Start down. So. I thought Eric's classroom. Well, yeah, down there but we're not >> You're not going there. No, that's where the special ed I think is going. I think he's going to be down there for special ed. I don't I don't know about that Kelsey. What Kelsey? Yeah, I know that's what's been discussed. I mean Mrs. Stabile has been going through that space. Currently pretty optimistic about it being able to comfortably convert for that purpose. Would it take much to convert it? She's not seeing a lot that would like require a lot of TLC. So. Initial impressions are good. And then

051the other thing that goes along with BPK is there is money allotted where you can do updates to your building which is kind of nice. Um that's one of the things that BPK does have built in. You can apply for those construction grants. Um and I know people have been fairly successful um through the grants. So, if we wanted to we can see if we can add a bathroom or As far as new shelving or having lockers put in or whatever it is, there is some money available for that and Lisa and I have talked about what how that what that would look like. But there's a on the other option would be is to move the current offices out of that but that's a problem because he also has three-year-olds so I mean it's

052it's a little bit tougher for three-year-olds to make those drastic changes before you can talk. That's kind of where we're looking at it. We're hoping to maybe do something. I think we have a good idea of we have no control over the meeting we had earlier. Like I said, hopefully we'll find something out and I'm sure that the ball will really roll down hill and we'll be able to find out. One other quick question, yes or no. Did you hear anything about 21st Century? I was just that's one of the reasons I went to a head conference and they went down to Monticello and they had a 21st Century and another group UA and I they were all together in that space and I asked them and it is basically been sealed up in red

053tape. So, we're waiting. They are really hoping for the end of this There is some there is some state people that are putting pressure on the people to try to see if we can get an answer for that but it's a it's a federal thing so it's just probably probably not. Nobody has received any funds. Um I did ask that question. I said, well, it's not to us. Only the funds only the people that were funded the last time which was 3 years ago was the last 3 years left on the grant. >> Basically frozen. They have asked several times and There's a lot of other people right now in the federal government. With the education department they should say. That's That's one of the reasons I went down there is because they're No update

054on that. It was just as clear as mud. Crazy. I'm sorry about that. Any more questions for Brad? Brad, how come you didn't offer a packing plant tour in the latest bulletin? >> [laughter] >> I had a lot of I had a lot of interest in that because because they only allow us to be in there on certain in certain dates. Okay. Yeah, so what they do is they have So we took a packing plant tour which we had 15 people on the line and then It's it's very interesting. Um I would highly suggest if you want to see what happens in in our community go on that. I would say what you say China? Um But they will only allow us they can only do so many uh What's that? I can't remember. What

055do you mean by it's the federal Okay. Only allow us so many per week or whatever and then what we have to do is we have to fit in in the in between the commercial ones that they're actually doing for people that actually buying stuff. So I spread the word. I got a lot of interest in it. And it didn't show up. We're hoping we're hoping late summer or early fall. >> Yeah. Yeah, good. Thank you. Yeah. Anything else? On to the next. Technology. Mr. Mitchell. Anything Any questions for Mitch? You already answered my question. I asked him all about uh uh the maintenance director. He shared that with me. So if anybody else is curious ask him. No questions. Got you. And we're up to business manager. Any more to ask Sherry? >> [snorts]

056>> Getting closer to having the budget done, yeah? Yes, ma'am. Maybe the negotiators got done with their thing. Get you back. We will. Uh health office. There she is. Any questions for Melissa? Melissa, the sicknesses kind of dropped snow. Yeah, let's see. We have one case of disease last month that was kind of odd. Yeah, we only had one so that was good but Yeah, we still have some sickness obviously but I can't speak numbers like anything horrible. We haven't had that since January I don't think so. They're still sharing germs though as they always do and will. >> The number of head injuries I looked at that and I'm like So So Is that normal? Is that average? So essentially with the head injuries we we um we kind of follow the heads up

057for schools program so when it comes to a head injury whenever a student does hit their head we automatically do the concussion protocol with that heads up for school and that automatically means four office visits. So every So for the first one we check um pupils, you ask the questions and then they have to come back in 15 minutes and we do the same thing over again. Make sure all those that criteria is and then another 15 minutes we do it again and then we usually typically do it within the last hour of school again to make sure nothing's changed that we're still you know you know in the clear and we always um message families, let them know that it happened and we send that paperwork home with the child. So that they can

058monitor for any local symptoms. It looks like a lot but each one of those visits counts as a head injury visit so essentially if we have you know six or eight kids with head injuries in the day that's four visits per kid typically. Sometimes with the kindergarteners because it's harder to get them to and from we do keep them in the office and you know do all three of the initial checks and then send them back but for the most part kids get tags around their their neck and we have to chart Yeah, it's a whole process. Actually I would share it with a bunch of the LSNs at one of our meetings and they adapted it into and shared it with like the whole state of Minnesota for LSNs because we just had a

059hard time you know getting them to come back and so if a kid has a tag it's like Remember it happens while we're gone. So yeah, it looks like a lot of kids Yeah, and some people are Yeah, some of our parents are like again no thanks for letting me know and some are you know some are a little bit more you know worried about their child but other ones just kind of know Oh, this is the 17th time? Okay. Just send that paper home again. Yeah. It really depends so but yeah they they do generate a lot of office visits because of protocol that we have in place. You never know really Yeah, you never know really if you're saving a kid. Yeah, anyway I mean we I'd say you know we usually we

060send one up at least a month if not more depending so Yeah, it just depends but Yeah. We have six of them right now. Any more questions for Melissa? I told the potluck thing. Yeah, yeah we had a good good uh salad bar potluck and then we have some of the bio coming up so There you go. Anything for Mr. Grude over there? I'm sure he's got things to talk about. I see you have Captain Gown over there. Yeah, these would be the new I can jump on that. He asked me questions on the order of protocol so This is what they would look like. We'd be updating them. Modernizing. Our hoods are great. They're wonderful. Nobody knows how to wear them. Nobody knows what they're about. So this will be more of an update.

061Now one of the things we do for next year would be looking at formalizing the forms. Now what we have down there is for this year so if you flip the page over we'll also do next year. So these obviously these gowns we've gotten our life's worth life's worth out of these gowns. They're 18 years old approximately. Every time we clean them it's a $1,300 bill and that has to be done every like three to four years really. And God bless Melissa over there. She's altered, she has cleaned, she has she's made these things live way beyond their years so it is time. Get a little thicker one too I think. These are not bad. These have held up pretty well. Let's spend the money and we can clean them and keep them on for

062another 10 15 years so this will be this year's. It looks pretty good. Looks very modern, very sleek. Um And as I listed on there the kids like to keep those caps so that's something we would look at. That's good. You know the caps are not that super expensive but there is that. And they'll keep the stole and the cord? Yeah. Buy those? Yeah, we can buy these each year and I got the price listing down broken down for you that on there. I think it's just too nice to keep taking that stuff you know and It's really like that. They're really quite easy So that's what we'll be doing this year. Uh The flags are looking okay. They're still I was debating because it's tassels flags don't make them out of metal anymore. Everything's

063plastic and they break over years too and I don't want to buy new sets in the $400 or so. $500 for new set of flags. They're good for eight now and those flags are looking good so Um The event tonight is going to be at Menards. It's going to be at Menards. We've replaced all the carpet on there. So the carpet's looking good. So that's something we replaced. Bought that in bulk last year and the guys take good care of replacing it. If you remember the old carpet it just wore out on the thing. So I got a good deal at Menards and we should be hanging on to this for about another I don't know I don't know eight to 10 years so they've taken care of that already. So we're pretty well set.

064You go over the cords and academic recognition. What's that? You go over the cords and academic recognition. Well, right now uh this [clears throat] would be it. I've got if you take a look there at that current page really the gold tassel and silver tassel is we're doing away with that top 10. We're going to go with with more of an inclusive um gold tassel and silver tassel which allow us a lot more student recognition along those lines. And um 3.5 or higher and 3.25 and 3.49. Um Question that comes up with the recognition that's true right now with the gold tassels but if you look at the back side the employment business is for the coming years is changing that around for FFA, you know, different um different groups that we have not been

065set the stole for. Right now way we've always done it is it's something that you know we just bring up ad hoc and I get the approval process going graduation ceremonies are not required by the state of Minnesota so that's given over to the school to run so as a principal I've looked in along those lines FFA is a big one obviously but then there's military. I think the bigger question comes in and state law is always more of the stalls that come about. And the and the past practice that there are school long before I was there is to have a conversation with us. We could formalize that and recognize only this school or that school or this group and that group probably run into is there are situations where state law does intervene

066so there is some recognition along those lines but right now we have gold tassels and the tassels and the and the gold cords so a little bit of flexibility moving forward with that and there may be something I want to consider formalizing. I'm not sure. So just some thoughts on that going forward but this will be the look for this year and fairly secure. [clears throat] Clean. And those hoods are seeing their seeing their age >> [cough] >> so Any questions for Mr. Rude concerning graduation? So this year you're just doing the gold cords and next year you're going to have add silver. Well and then we could I mean these were just ideas that were put down. Nothing set in stone and that's something we could have that discussion at some point. Will this

067result [snorts] in a in more of the students being recognized? That's our You know that's really that's you get there more you get away from the top 10 kids just qualify. The issue we probably run into I mean the top 10 Well all those kids are having different classes so then you get in that argument of well this person is taking this class and well you know that's harder than this class over here. Now it's just you meet the GPA you're done. There's no argument just GPA. It gets a little bit more difficult too. We don't have 250 kids. We don't have a huge school. If you're in a bigger school district it's a little bit easier. Also it gets away from a lot of it because we've been going out to the thousands position

068of those GPAs and it just gets to be a real argument. Now it just did you meet it? You qualified here's your tassel you know and it's recognized along those lines. Now we're still going to have student attorney and valedictorian that won't change. That's always there. It always has been so But do I see that we we still only have nine or 10 that will be predicted to get the gold for next year? They'll get Right. So those kids that have been working really hard to be in the top 10 and now that won't be there what do you tell them? You qualified under your GPA is what I would have a conversation with. And there's going to be that transition period where we're going to be moving from one to the other. Right. But

069those kids that have been working to get that flag that will no longer be there what do you tell them? I would have a conversation with them and tell them your GPA is what got you to this point and you qualified. You're still you can consider yourself top 10 if you want to consider yourself that but from our aspect as a school it makes it much clearer and more inclusive for everybody rather than just here's top 10. We're being much more inclusive and again we're going back to those classes. I know a lot of them and you have a lot of them are going to be you know your kids that are going through CLC. They're going to be recognized and that's what we've got going on obviously with our entire year. So a lot

070of those kids are going to be top 10 kids I understand that but my argument would be to you know go back to your GPA got you here and that's what's going to get you propelled to the next level into college and beyond that. And this way we're getting away from a lot of the arguments about this student only have these classes and we've had those arguments too on the other side. I I understand that Lisa absolutely. I I agree I understand the transition is not going to be easy and then moving to that mindset we're doing this as a smaller district because this is more typical with smaller schools do as opposed to that. Uh but my argument would still be we're going to be accommodating more students in the sense of their classes

071and them themselves getting them to where they're at rather than having that top 10. And I think that's a stronger argument I would say but more people to or more kids to qualify into that either gold or silver tassel and then you want to see that level. That would be my argument. Those are the arguments we have behind closed doors [clears throat] and they'll be here so we have to have these conversations and they get things to be all said you have to have conversations with all the classes before the kids and some of our kids are taking or being challenged at their own level and we have to remember that and that too at their own level too. And I really I don't like any of my kids to be downloaded in the sense

072that they would take this class or that class and be qualified based on the work that you did in that class that might get your levels to be very difficult in that sense. That's it. Just a technical question Audrey. I see the next board meeting is 3 days before graduation. Do you want are you going to send out an email for us to pick our ones we want to go give them the diplomas Once once we get all of the seniors locked in on walks and rank sheets and then you'll send it I will send that out ahead of time. Okay. And then if you'd like to There you go. Sounds good. I know that's always a last minute thing would be tough to do. Any other questions about graduation? >> [cough] >> It is

073a time I can't believe it's graduation time already. Hey uh project momentum I believe Well good evening everyone. I am Patty Larson. I am an English as a second language teacher here at both the elementary and the secondary building. I am also the English learner coordinator for Long Prairie Grey Eagles. You will have received a flyer. Um Tammy was not able to be here tonight and so we these have all been shared with all of the staff at both buildings to encourage the opportunity to get their K through 12 additional ESL licensure and I'll explain how that is going to be beneficial to Long Prairie Grey Eagles. In the board book you will see a PowerPoint. And this is to give you a little bit of information. I'm not going to read it point for

074point but the objective of project momentum is to provide a high quality professional learning for educators to support multilingual learners. This project momentum in 2022 received a 5-year national professional development grant from the United States Department of Education as well as the Office of English Language Acquisition and the ultimate goal was to provide free high quality online professional learning opportunities specifically geared towards improving instruction for multilingual learners. The exciting news and I'm trying to I'm very excited just to let you know that. Long Prairie Grey Eagle we were offered as a school district four uh four spots at no cost for tier three and tier four teachers to have this opportunity. And so we'll go ahead um and kind of talk a little bit about what that means. This will be the third cohort this

075fall. The first cohort that this project momentum um did they had over 140 applicants and they graduated 38 applicants. So it's a very very high rigor program that has been approved by our Minnesota uh licensing board. I call it PELSB. I don't know does everybody know professional education licensing board board Thank you. board and so this has been recognized by our licensing board. And the second cohort had about 100 applicants and only um 27 were approved or received and we have one of our staff members who's in the program right now. The equivalent cost of each licensure spot is $7,500 and so this is uh $30,000 opportunity for our school to receive this. What this would mean for Long Prairie Great Eagle is that we would have dual licensed teachers within the general classrooms. Depends

076upon who the applicants are of tier three and tier four teachers at Long Prairie Great Eagle, meaning secondary or the elementary buildings. If we have a math teacher, they would still stay within their math class and receive this licensure to be better prepared to teach the multilingual learners in their classroom. And then it would help overall with the EL department. We could cert we could set a specific level of students who would have a higher proficiency level in English where they would not have to go to a separate class for English as a second language. And with the demographics at Long Prairie Great Eagle, this will be a huge benefit. And I also hope it will encourage others to go through this opportunity to get dual licensed with that. On the next slide, you'll just

077see some more information. What is the commitment to Project Momentum? What is the commitment for our school district as well? Let me make sure I catch up here. Okay. Um right now we are in the process. We've signed the MOU with Project Momentum. We've received support from administration in both buildings. And when the applicants, they have to turn in their applications, they do not get turned in to us. They actually get turned in to Project Momentum and they have to be highly qualified to be accepted into the program. And so it's not an automatic for people to get accepted. They have to pass the application process. And all of this information is on their website. Project Momentum is on the last page. You can look through the ESL licensure handbook or pathway licensure handbook in

078case you have a lot of spare time and you want to know. But it will talk about all the rubrics that applicants need to meet as well as all of the coursework that also needs to be met. And so >> [clears throat] >> I think there's only a couple handful of schools throughout the entire state who have received this teacher mentorship and retention grant. So this is this is a huge deal for us to be able to receive these. So yeah. So I'm very excited. I really encourage if anybody's listening, tier three and tier four teachers to apply to the program. And so the big thing is getting highly qualified applicants to apply. So so we just wanted to let you know of this great opportunity. So thank you. Any questions? What is there an

079out of pocket expense to the individual? Nope. Time. Just time. It will be their individual time. I'm glad you asked that, Chuck. We as a school district, we are working on how we can retain teachers and we are working with Elevate PD, which is through Source Well. We are also working with how many credits that they would get because this will be all work outside of their classroom until practicum time. And so we are also working with how many credits they could get. I mean credits on the salary schedule. Yeah. The the big to our district. Yes. Yes. Mhm. So good question. Other questions? I would like to share a little bit of kind of our thought conversation that we had with uh Well, like uh I think there's some potential to hold on to

080this project for some time or at least to continue it in the future. And uh as we look into the long range, like having more teachers like say at the elementary who are certified, even if they're the first grade teacher or the kindergarten teacher, and they're certified to do a ESL, then more of the services we provide can be offered in the classroom, particularly for the higher proficiency level. So like long range out, having more of our teachers certified means there's less need to pull students out of the main classroom. Correct. So and if you have any questions, you can ask both myself and Tammy Sabulis also a point of contact and then Mr. Root as well. Is this is this online or do they actually attend classes? This is all online. Okay. And so

081there are six courses they have to take. And it would just be the same six courses that somebody such as myself who went to a different university in to take. They are all asynchronous, but once per course, it is synchronous virtually. The practicum needs to be done in person and that will be one thing with the administrations that I've set up. It will look different for a high school content teacher versus an elementary teacher. And so that part is flexible, Chuck, as far as what that looks like for the practicum. Does that answer your question? But this isn't automatic. They have to they have to pass an internship and a I assume some kind of test or something to This one does not. For the ESL licensures, there are no I believe they're called MTLE

082tests. There is no licensure exam after completing the coursework and showing that you have completed all of the necess- necessary requirements for the program. Is it pass fail? I mean there's got to >> Pretty much. Yeah. Oh yes. There is a pass. Oh no. Well, no. There is not. There is very rigorous standards that have to be met. And so again, I didn't I didn't print out the pathway, but I could actually share that with you to show what needs to happen in each of the courses and what the coursework is along with the syllabi and what that needs to look like for the teacher. Mhm. Seen some of that and like I mean it's it's good quality professional It's not not just a fancy Mhm. Yes, because they had to work with the licensing

083board in Minnesota to to allow this to happen. Mhm. So it's just an alternate pathway versus because some of the colleges in Minnesota have cut offering English as a second language licensures. Mhm. So it's an alternate pathway. I just wanted to be a uh easy pathway to a raise. No. The it it And this is coming from my colleague. She's enjoying every moment of it, but it's a lot of work. But she says what she is learning has been applicable within her classroom every day. Mhm. But it's not easy, she said. But I know she'll persevere, so. Other questions? Okay. Thank you. I can live with that. Thank you. We're on to the the board report and stuff. I just put one thing on there. Superintendent evaluation is supposed to be done always at the

084end of the school year. So I thought we would just take the evaluation we did already, do it again. Change your answers as you want to or don't or whatever you want to do. And so I'll get that out and get that done in May so that we can talk about it Are you going to allow all the folks to do it like you did before or just board members? No, I think the whole staff and stuff just like we did before. Unless there's objection. And then we I decided or we thought the the reason we did the same one is the goals that we evaluated him on are the goals that he used on here. So my intention then is to be next year we can come up with a different set of goals

085and new evaluation to put on the table next year. But to do it this year, we would be fulfill that obligation that we have to do. So just be ready. We'll do it online again like we did before. Um how's negotiations coming with the superintendent on his contract? Are you guys close to getting that done? We discussed that. We want to finish up the other one. Okay. But we worked with him. Okay. We've talked. Okay, next thing, uh superintendent. So I have my report if there's any questions and there is board minute which I used a slightly method for. It was a scenario-based. A scenario of uh is a community member approaches you about a serious student behavior, what do you do? And I'm not sure if everybody's seen or looked at it, but it

086goes through the different considerations that you would have in that situation. Um different questions to ask, and so everybody have time to kind of think about what would be effective ways to respond to that scenario. If it's a good scenario. As everyone has been encountered at some point if we have not already. So, the possible responses as written as given the situation, what is the most appropriate course of action for a board member? Acknowledge the concern and reinforce that student discipline is governed by law and due process. Refer questions about specific incidents to administration recognizing their role in the day-to-day decisions. Avoid making assumptions or public statements without full information. Reinforce the district's commitment to safety and student rights. Which of these responses best reflect the role of the Referring it to the administration because

087we would probably don't have all the answers. Some of those things don't necessarily need to come to the board people. But the administrators are good but they have first-hand experience of what's going on. So, if there is a discipline issue and you have a question raised and then you do want to like kind of look into it as a board member, the most appropriate thing to look into is if the procedures and policies were being followed. Um the administrator isn't likely able to share with you like names or situations. Might even be under investigation for release. But um like one thing for example if it involves another administrative member, you can always ask the admin if the policies or pro- processes are being followed. But do avoid telling people you're going to take care of

088it because you can't. But it's a scenario-based. If if you prefer this method to what I used for the other ones, let me know. Do it a couple of times and you know, whatever's most useful. Continue doing it that way. We'll talk more about some other things. Any questions from my board reports? Questions. I'm going to move on to snow unfinished business, but skip over the board highlight. I would just want to say our spring stuff is going beautifully. Prom is great. The small group and large group music, both band and choir, super. Uh the dinner theater driver was just cool. So, thanks about the spring sports are going pretty well. We got some wins. Everything has been good. Anybody else have something that they've seen? Don. Can I add something? May I add something?

089Sure. Kate Johnson signed with St. Olaf on Friday morning for track. So, that'll be our third one for the year. Cool. You had something? Uh Perry Larson did quite a bit of work on that project momentum to get us in the pool. And so, those things just don't drop out of the sky. Brad, too, with the kindergarten stuff. That's a lot of work there, too. But he keep Keep Brad going on. Well, at least he does super stuff with the internet. Kids there and all that. We have a wonderful staff here. Very good. I guess this would go back to Mr. Rune, probably, or Kelsey. With the play coming up this weekend, there was mention of a dinner matinee. Is that been determined or Yes. Uh Mr. Lamb's working with Rune on the midway. And

090last time I talked to him, he's just finalizing everything. So, they're going to have that on the 26th. Times are 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. But they'll be Which they'll be sending something out here pretty quick. That's already so. It is. If you want If you want people to sign up, don't so they have an idea of We've been taking sign-ups through community education. Right now, there's 22 people signed up for the dinner for the dinner part. I think it's just online, so if you want to sign up, you can do that. Who's in charge Um they want to know for how many people that they're wanting to know. Makes sense. That's kind of why I was asking that. Yep. Yep. It's on It's online through community ed. Okay. It's so cool that we do

091stuff like that. It's nice. Anything else board highlights? And then unfinished business is like empty. I have to find the donations. Please bear with me if I need a drink, it could be quite I'm going to try and group some of them together. I'll do all the post proms together if I can do that and all the color runs together. Cuz this truly is thank you very much to our communities because this is wonderful. This shows. All right. Grey Eagle-Bertram Lions Club, $1,000 post prom, $1,000 trap shooting. The Rotary Club is $300 for Dollars for Scholars. Arc Electrical Service and Northern Star Cooperative and Prairie Family Dental and Grey Eagle-Bertram Lions for the elementary color run. And you can see all those numbers are there. Um CTC, Lakewood Health, Magnifi Financial, Juergen and LuAnn Brunkhorst,

092James and Katherine LaRue, Long Prairie Rotary, Arvig, Trinity Lutheran, Advantage One, Todd Wadena Electric, Cathedral Press, Belling Trailers, CentraCare Health System, American Heritage Bank. Um that was all post prom. Viking Coke uh with the Letter Club, Jenkins, Iron and Steel, Minnesota National Bank, Magnifi Financial, Trinity Lutheran, the Trinity Lutheran Ladies Circle, Trailer Center at Hillbilly's Auto Center, Long Prairie Sanitation, Cathedral Press, North Star Plumbing, Heating and Air LLC, Comfort Chiropractic, American Food Group, Double R Saloon, Tim Timothy and Carolyn Venice, Farm Properties and LLC DBA Prairie Pharmacy, Kid Co Farms Processing Incorporated, Hormel Financial Services Corporation, Colonel Al Wessel Auctioneer, Central Minnesota Realty, Goglin's LTD, CTC, Vanguard Insurance Enterprise CPLLC, Black Wolf Giving Fund, Quinlivan and Hughes P.A., Lakeland Dental, Aks Commute Transportation, Countryside Restaurant of Long Prairie, Peace United Church Long Prairie, Little Rose

093Creations, CHS Prairie Lakes, Sellnow Law Office, Phillips Repairables, Subway, Casey's General Store, Med Quest Health Insurance Services, Grey Eagle Electric, Central Bi-Products, Minnesota Fresh, Shields gave uh gift cards, uh Dairy Queen gave gift cards, LP Tarps, Beacom and Company Photo. All these are elementary color run. Fleet Supply, Fitz Electric and Heating, Hometown Abstract Title, East West Realty, Sojourn Counseling, New Image Salon, Davies Garage, Long Drive-In gave movie passes, Walmart gave six $25 gift cards, Wadena Coffee gave $75 in gift cards, McDonald's gave five $10 gift certificates, all for the color run. $2,000 from the Blanchard family for a memorial for Aaron. Central Minnesota Whitetails for the trap team, $800. Rotary Club, American Legion Post 12 for the Letter Club, American Legion Post 12 for the trap team, Dennis Breidenfeld for post prom, Stearns Electric post

094prom, Peace United Church of Women of Peace post prom, Caleb Christianson post prom, Arc Electric also for the color run. Thank you very much, folks. That is just absolutely wonderful. Um I guess we need a motion to accept those donations. So moved. I'll second. Lori. Any discussion? How does Once in a while I see somebody come in here and give you a check and we have a picture and it gets in the paper and that What's the money trail for all these donations? Where do they come to? They come to your office and give you some money or So we have a So we have a a flow-through protocol that the auditors look for every year and what happens is the original people count the money. So let's say that the concession stand they would

095count the money then it goes to the offices. So generally like that would go to the high school office they count the money. There's a receipt voucher that has multiple copies then it comes over to our office we recount the money and all along the way everybody's signing off on it and then it goes to the bank and then when it comes back as the same amount then that receipt goes back to the original person saying all the money was counted we all agreed on what how much the money was and it's in the bank. So there's a at least typically three um checks double checks before it goes into the bank and then the original person knows that it it got there. >> It got there. Yep. What about gift cards? How do you

096handle gift cards? Um those Give them to the board members or what? Uh no. No, um they we very rarely deal in gift cards. >> So they're rare, huh? Yeah, and they're given out as gifts. Like at post prom when they donate a Okay, I got you. a gift card the students um I don't know how they do it now but back when I did post prom we gave the students choices of the prizes that they won. They could choose a thing like a TV or something or they could choose gift cards and we had them to gas stations, eating places, all kinds of stuff. That's what those are mostly used for is incentivized or post prom prizes. We don't deal in a lot of gift cards for other things. One more question. Yep. What

097does that money go to? It depends. Post prom is under community ed so they got a running balance from year to year and then most of it all is in the student activity accounts. So if you look under the financial reports for the student activity all of those separate funds are earmarked and then Ashley Jenny and I go through that account a couple times a year because I mean the difference between marching band and and letter club on a 17-digit code is 460 to 461 so sometimes you know you type the wrong thing. We usually go through the detail and make sure everything's in the right place and if it isn't we move it. But yeah, most of the the money that you see like that is either um admissions for athletic events or student

098activity. We don't take a lot of money for food service. Um if they go back to families having to pay for food service then we run a lot of money through food service as well. But for right now we don't. So so why do I need this lot of Yep. >> a lot of stuff here. So all those >> more coming to us. Yep, and all those will show up as a detail in under the color run for example will show under up under elementary activity. Uh post prom will show up under community ed post prom account. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks Craig. Yep. Any further questions on the donations? And again thank you thank you. Please tell the people out there thank you for that. It makes the color run work and it makes

099post prom work and all of this stuff works good. So I would take motion. Make a motion we got a second. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. Motion carries. Do you need to go roll call on that one? Do we need roll call on that? It's good to be unanimous though. Budget streamlining recommendations. So we received a few compensatory runs and compensatory aid is aid that's primarily driven off of free and reduced lunch numbers. And the major factor for our school district is allowing us to count paper forms versus going to just direct certification because we lose about 50% of our count. And from the three runs it's a varied from having a $700,000 cut to 200 at the high end and the last one was about 300. My anticipation

100is that compensatory aid will be for us reduced because I believe this is being seen by the legislature as a sort of cut to education. At least that's the feedback I'm getting from my sources. With that in mind um I sent some of these ahead of time so they can think about it. Ultimately it's your decision but um my first set of recommendations involve shifting around positions and the purpose is to get higher cross subsidy aid. And to start off one would be to these are the instructional coach position and add a special education teacher um my recommendation would be to elementary. The reason for that recommendation is um our caseloads in the elementary are very high. I believe we have one of the higher student to um teacher ratios for our special education and

101so that would reduce some pressure. And right now I've been in contact with the union talking about what and like a cuz there's a statute regarding special education overload and so we've been discussing that in relation to our contract if our caseload numbers don't if that ratio doesn't get better we will probably be paying like some version of an overload and so that also avoids that cost. Um currently we do have a couple of first grade positions so it allows us some ability to move people around without needing to leave somebody without a job. The second part of my recommendation would be to convert two of our WIN positions over to English as a second language. The primary driver [clears throat] for that recommendation for me is in the coming fiscal year there'll be cross

102subsidy for English as a second language meaning we can reclaim about 25% of our cost. Between the 50 and the 225 moving positions around I get funding for an additional position. Um So the second part um of my recommendation is to let the Dean of Students position lapse. You guys remember that was added during the COVID time to allow Mr. Moore time to observe classrooms and provide additional support with discipline. Um we have kept that going for a few years past COVID ESSER dollars. Um and if it was a position added so we no longer have the funds that's why it's listed there. Um My next recommendation would be to take from the appendix C National Honor Society which is about $3,000 and the student council which is $4,750. Combine those positions with the athletic

103director kind of look at it as a student leadership and activities two things combined be about $7,750. With Tom we've been talking about our rental agreements between Kelsey, Brad, I, Tom and we currently spend about $25 to $30,000 on rental fees so cost, custodial, different things and the recommendation we'll bring in May would be to reclaim those costs. So that'd be part of the overall budgeting recommendation. Sherry and I are taking a look at how coding can be adjusted. So to make a long story short if you code it a certain way then the formula counts more expense towards your cross subsidy and so that could potentially based on fresh water calculations generate an extra $20,000 of revenue. Um you guys saw the solar for schools if we did do that and save the um

104money in our electrical bills that would get us up to about the $200,000 between everything with the and that's a combination of moving things around to increase revenue and decrease expenses. And then the second part of mine has more to do with item three but um that is my initial budget [snorts] recommendations. This is just food for thought, yes? Right now. What I recommend if we do some of that stuff with staffing is we make those decisions so people can decide what they want to do. Because right now we have some positions that aren't filled. And if we make those decision decisions at least on the teaching positions, then we can start taking a look at how those things can be shifted so that as many people as we can have a role somewhere. I'm

105a little confused about the taking the WIN and exchanging it. Yes, I don't know. Um I don't know what kind of position that is for sure, but >> [clears throat] >> in the WIN program part of the >> [snorts] >> reading, math, and reading Is that what they work on math and reading when they go to WIN? Yeah. Yeah. And if we have possibly more you know, people or people that can work on this. Yes, I don't I don't know what I mean with that. To take care of that? I don't know. I I Reading and math, you know, we're really low on that. I don't know about if we exchange that, I don't think that's a good idea really. I mean How many kids are important for the kids to How many kids are

106serviced in through our WIN program? And then would we not no longer have that program or [clears throat] It would reduce the staffing in WIN. I have talked with Carina Larson and Chrissa about this. And we talked some about possibly using one of those ESL positions in WIN possibly, and that would require more conversation. Um because like uh kind of what we're talking about with that project momentum, if we have our teachers certified to provide English as a second language, then we have more flexibility to meet needs in various ways. I can tell you that our ESL population is around a little higher than 380. And when we had our current staffing, that's at least 100 150 more students on our ESL. Um our WIN positions were added during COVID. Um It's always tough to

107decide where your needs are cuz if I say I have enough money to pay for all those positions, it'd be nice to even have on top of that. But I don't think uh we have the money to do that. And so I think in the deep cutting situations that I've been involved with with school, and there was a time when we cut really deep. It was much easier if I we're going to have a first grade opening, so that's not automatic one teacher out. So you could put the WIN teacher in that position so that person does not lose their job. I know that's a lot easier for me to take. Chuck, were you part of all that kind back in the day with grade? Yeah. Um I know that was important for us. I

108don't want to cut somebody and kick them out the door. No. So sometimes we just have to juggle that stuff and make it My question was I know we need We're low in reading and math, and it doesn't make sense to me if we are working on ESL to to enhance that and have more uh educators with the ESL in the program. Well, you have to do what you can pay for that time. No. That program, where are there four people that might get the Project Momentum. Yeah. Yeah. But that takes a year, right? They're just in the application process, so it'll take a year for them to be certified. >> Well, so what happens to the kids? Okay, what happens to the kids in the WIN program that are working on their reading and

109their math that's really important to them? Can I speak up for a minute? Chrissa Betts is not here right now, and I believe that currently this year, I can only speak for the elementary. I don't believe there's any title funds at the secondary this year. So with um the the title program receives money from title one, and then also access grants. And Brad can speak more on that. I believe this year there's five teachers, one position just got filled, and I believe this is her two for that, and then two paras, one access funds and one title one funds. Um The groups this year at the elementary, I believe are only reading. And so I know last year we had some math groups, and um in the older grades, and not to put Jill on

110the spot. That was last year, correct? At the end of the day there was some schedule changes. I don't believe there's any specific math interventions happening this year with the title team, but I don't want to misspeak either. I texted Chrissa, and she said there's they're only delivering reading WIN groups right now, and then they can deliver the specific math interventions. They may not get within a WIN. So do I just wanted to clarify that. >> not going to It's not going to make that reading help obsolete. They'll just Oh, correct. >> They'll be there. Correct. How many WIN teachers total do we have right now? We have a total of five full-time WIN teachers. >> So we'd just be taking two of those to help the ESL. From what Jan So one important note

111is that with the one of the ESLs and our current ESL teachers, my understanding is that they're certified K through 12. The high school really needs another ESL teacher. Um Patty, if you'd help me out with how large the classes are. Sure, let me get my papers out. So currently, and I'm just I don't have all groups. Sorry, Tanya. I feel like I keep getting Hello. Uh seventh grade currently has 38 ESL students. Eighth grade is only 15. Ninth grade is 20. 10th grade is 28, and 11th grade is 14. And Judas and Chantel, the ESL teachers over there average about 76 students. It might be a little down because we lost some students. They're probably down about 68 students per caseload. And so Yeah, it's understandable. Ashley, go ahead. Can I share Chrissa's >>

112Chrissa's statement was to share with the board was This is Chrissa Betts' words. Core instruction in classroom is more important than the WIN positions. Those were her exact words. And then she also wanted to point out that one of their instructors is half-time at St. Mary's as well for WIN services. She as far as moving students in WIN, she feels like core instruction in the classroom is more important than the WIN positions. They have four and a half for the elementaries. The other thing I wondered then is and I've talked to people about it, too. Dean of students person. To be fair, if you're going to take the high school dean of students away, why not the elementary? So if we're referring to the student behavior, Mhm. however that goes, that is paid for by

113access at this time. The reason I say that is that's one of those items cuz I'm not sure if you guys remember, but I've talked about the Blue Ribbon Commission a few times. And >> [snorts] >> there's talk about whether or not that they would do away with access in order to cut special ed funding. It's not special ed, but it gets paid through by the formula. So that's why that's relevant. >> [clears throat] >> So we currently have three positions that have basically about 50% paid for by access, and that's one of them. And then a couple of the WIN positions, like that's kind of how we cobbled it together. I shouldn't say cobbled it, like one is paid for by a combination of title, access, and there's even some overlap with the E

114and I, isn't there? Yes. So like right now to pay because when we lost the COVID dollars, we we got um special kudos to Bonnie with helping me get the word out about how important free and reduced lunch applications are. And so our compensatory aid went up uh roughly about the amount that our COVID dollars came off. And now they want to cut essentially indirectly cut compensatory and I'm pretty sure that that's what we're looking at is reduction in our compensatory aid, and it seems like the temperature from the legislature is pretty strongly that that's not going to be held harmless, obviously. Um you and I talked some, but like it's easier to say, "Hey, we do have it refunded and have the position back." than it is to tell somebody, "Hey, we don't have

115the money anymore. You don't have a job." So we will go and tell the legislators done exactly what we want them to do. Yes, I would say that is the case because of the various factors, the Blue Ribbon Commission being one of them, compensatory aid. Those are really the two biggest for us. And kind of a sidebar, our funding from the federal government for various title programs has been waning. And title three, that's the one for ELL or ELL. That one's been under quite a bit of target from the federal government and there's some intention by them to eliminate that one. It doesn't pay for a lot of our ELL services. So, our federal funds have been kind of like slowly shrinking and then the compensatory looks like it's going to take a hit. And

116I feel pretty confident in that cuz we've got three grants. All of them have had some sort of reduction. And then I don't know if they special ed funding cuz if my expectation is if they do maintain the joint $300 worth of cuts that the government targeted, that I would expect access to go away. So, I was an art teacher when I was in the classroom and I I taught back when Mr. Tim Pawlenty was governor and I got to be on the budget cut list three years in a row, so it's not anything I take lightly. What are we all thinking? Ultimately, we want what's best for the students. You know, so the staff knows. They know. You guys know. You guys know how to figure that out, what's best for the students. And

117whatever that works with this >> [clears throat] >> That's why folks have already left. That leaves us holes that we can juggle a little bit. Try me. Yes, and I mean not that original intent of project moment but we do have that. You have way sitting there. If you want to get your ESL license and you know, fit into that mix like we can provide it without a cost to you. Obviously, it's time but then you can still get your movement on the salary schedule. And I do appreciate Patty's long range suggestion. I want to think that's a good thing to pursue and try and get more and more staff qualified because funding usually doesn't get looser. So, the more that we can meet our needs, be more efficient, I think is the word. Um

118then hopefully we don't need to rob Peter to pay Paul, as they say. Cuz it is tough when you have to pick between one area and the other. But I know our special ed is definitely gotten some angry letters from that department and it's fine if you're out there. Um and ESL has been very patient with me. I do see the numbers. Don't always comment on them. I do I do watch them. Can you tell me about special ed and special ed design? What is this? Why have we been losing so much money with coding? Uh we're not losing that. >> how do you how do you plan to fix that? So, we're not we're not losing funding cuz this would be how to get more than we currently are. And so, basically it has

119to do with a mathematics problem. So, if you code an expense to this account, you still can claim the expenses over in these other calculations. And so, like then claiming expenses producing more revenue if you shift around the coding. The whole Freshwater Ed District is is talking about reporting a different way. I haven't seen it all yet. Jordan did a preliminary presentation to us a month or so ago cuz our um our special ed reporting goes through Freshwater. So, he's working with somebody at MDE to however they report to the state, we're going to recode differently. Um and and like like I said, I don't know exactly what it looks like right now but he's working with somebody at MDE for the whole district ed district to recode differently. Have we indeed lost money No.

120on that because of coding problems? No. >> [snorts] >> This is just a different way of coding that he found out about at our last MASB meeting that she recommended not She didn't recommend it to him directly. He went to her and said, "If we did this, would it make a difference?" And that's what they're working on. So, part of the story is that uh like special ed formula is like one of the most complicated formulas in Minnesota finance and that's saying a lot. And so, the presentation done at Freshwater was by somebody who like has very high level understanding of the mathematical formulas to generate the funding. And simply it was like if you code it this way, >> [clears throat] >> you will get more than if you code it this way. And

121so, she presented that to her. >> to do it this way, right? Yeah. And we're going to have that mechanism in place, right? Yeah, we're speaking with Jordan. Um He wanted to make sure we dive into it but like he did preliminary numbers and that number I shared with you was what he thought could potentially generate. And that has to be a timely reporting mechanism, right? >> With special ed, it's always good to have timely reporting because um and like as Melissa knows, like when we provide our nursing services, if they're listening I mean we have to do medical billing. Our medical billing and funding has increased the last few years um because of more timely reporting. So, sometime sometimes it's not often there's ways to claim more of the funding than you currently are

122by making sure you're like getting more things accounted. This one happens to be like happens to be generating more if you code it this way versus that. One more question. How about what effect do you anticipate the um reducing or eliminating the secondary library is going to have on instruction? So, that's an interesting question um because right now we have two media centers and um they're currently staffed by two very hard working individuals and I anticipate that maybe one of those will retire in the future. And so, then at that time it becomes a question of like I don't want the library to go away. Yeah, so reading is I have books. So, it it's more of a need that I think we should assess as far as what's the best way to deliver it.

123Okay. But I'm specific cuz that's not I don't think happening this year. Okay. Thanks. Okay then, if I understand all of this, in this motion we're going to we're going to make tonight cuz you kind of need to let people know what's going on. Um teacher coach would be replaced with sped teacher. Two win positions would be replaced by ELL teachers. The DNA students would lapse at the high school. Honor society and student council would switch to the AD duties. The rental agreements would be adjusted so they >> Yeah, that one will come more in May. Yeah. That's part of the total number I was generating. >> Okay, so you don't care if we don't talk about that one or Well, that one has more details cuz cuz Brad, Kelsey, and Tom and I were

124working on like the policy updates. >> Okay. So, then the solar grant business is all too. We did that tonight. Yeah, cuz that will come but like as you saw from the energy saving, if we did all those stuff, that's how you get up to the number. Obviously, if you don't do certain things, um I am going to investigate what we can generate in revenue from investing our general fund balance but I don't have a specific number yet. You keep looking and there might be something each year or there. Can we plant it in the garden and grow money? I'm [laughter] sorry. So, then those one, two, three, four, five things you would like us to No, four things. So, these positions that these teachers are that they have right now, will they will have

125spots somewhere else? That would be my intention. The cuz like we have one opening, so if we hire a special ed teacher, there's room to maneuver maneuver. We do have this route where teachers could get an ESL and not working on, so like So there's options that people may decide that they don't want to take those options. And that's why I think it's important to let them know early so that they can make those choices. Then we feel like it's good to leave people hanging and then make them feel like kind of trapped in a situation which I'm But you just said that that will take a year to do that course, correct? We apply for a variance. So what what would they do in the meantime if they don't have that? Apply for a

126So they have You have so many years that you can work under a variance. We have other teachers under a variance. I mean they wouldn't necessarily have to go through that program either to get a variance. But at least there's options there. So there So you're saying there aren't really spots for these people unless they do something else? Is that or you just cut positions? But there are some openings that I don't know. Yeah, and I don't know what I mean I I hear that there might possibly be other ones. >> [cough and clears throat] >> I mean I don't know until the end of the year, but I feel like you need to give people a chance to make the decisions that they want to make and then And we have staff that you

127know obviously can't speak for everybody, but We allow for the leader classes and we've had a lot of staff take that training and letters training. I'm very grateful for that. You know it's a little different when the stakes are higher, but at least at least the option is there. So would we know more about compensatory going forward after the when it's announced towards the end of the school year? Is that like a two-year cycle or one-year cycle or how long? Um I I'm anticipating to only know through the end of this year and then in the next legislative cycle they'll take it up again. And currently I don't anticipate like it being something we should count on. Just in the fact that they're eliminating it or the fact that these people [clears throat and cough]

128families would have to register at the county in order to you know to Um The way I'm understanding the formula right now is that because we would lose people because they can't do the paper forms, that's driving a lot of our loss of revenue. Right. Cuz they have to self-identify within Todd County in order for the school district to get credit for those Pretty much. Um And there's no way we could do like a big push or Well, it's a good question. Um there's sort of a push and pull with that cuz like the county isn't necessarily in a good position by trying to add a whole bunch of people through direct certification because that means there's more people taking benefits. And so you can certainly give people that information, but my experience working with

129uh the individuals that would be involved in this is that they're not not necessarily going to be eager to like throw the doors wide open so to speak. Because that negatively impacts their budget. I think it's difficult to have those forms filled out at school too. I mean there were people always I'm not going to fill out that form. Nobody's going to know my income. I think going to the county is one step worse than what Yeah. I mean it's typically right now like I know like what with my daughter stuff like that, we get the forms to fill out while we're registering for her in Chromebooks and stuff like that. But it's unfortunate that this is the direction that we're forced to go especially since I think we live in an area where you

130have that you know people don't want other people knowing what they make and also too you don't want to have the perception of that you need assistance. Right. Yeah. Um so even though it's helping our school district It's hard to convince of that. Filling out all these forms helps your school without you being able to like admit Like going to the county and filling out is a lot Mhm. more intensive of a process than coming to the school and registration where we'll help you out and we won't like ask you again saying you filled this form wrong. Um We're we're a lot easier to work with and just cuz I I don't think we need as much information as they're going to want at the county level. But you also think they're not they're going

131to do cuts to education in the forthcoming years, correct? There's there's a lot of temperature to not give us more and I think best case scenario is like say if we get Democratic majority back up the the problem is then all the mandates where like we've had So some of the things hitting us hard are paid family medical leave because there's about three times as many absences. We've had about 70-some staff either on roll or on board or exit this year. Um SST [clears throat] so we have I guess it's the absences and some are on unemployment. That was the last year. So like we've gotten more revenue in some places, but then we have to pay for these other things. And so I'm just saying with the patterns I'm seeing I I don't think

132it'd be wise to bank on more revenue. Or at least more revenue that we can decide what we want to do with it. >> [clears throat] >> Um so I got a couple questions here. So I hear a lot [clears throat] about WIN and I and I know it's kind of an important program cuz it helps work with those students that are underachieving that need a little bit of extra um a little bit of extra support to help them kind of get caught back up. So I know often times teachers please help me. Um they work in small groups, right? Three to five? Yeah. Um And so far we have five WIN teachers, right? Yeah. Four and a half. Four and a half. Um And one's brand new. And one's brand new. And then two

133paras to go with those five teachers, right? Okay. And we So and we want two of those WIN teachers to go over to ESL teachers. So do ESL teachers also work with small groups three to five? Um so >> No. No. Not three to five. No. No. So essentially then we'd be having the ESL teachers working one-on-one with individual kids? We do if they qualify under our language instructional education plan. Meaning if they meet the qualifications of taking the alternate access and um are not able to find success in the A um general ESL classroom. And we currently in our district have 13 students that get one-on-one and we usually they about 10 minutes two days a week. >> [clears throat] >> Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's what I'm seeking clarification. So

134essentially then we'll have our most vulnerable kids receiving less support at a time when the federal governments are requesting more and more testing and children students passing those tests that affect funding going forward too then. So it seems like if we were to cut those WIN positions which could affect test scores which then could also reduce our funding that that may not necessarily be the best solution going forward. That's a very applicable question. But then you also heard what Carissa had to say. Right. But if we have classrooms of 20 plus students and we already have a bunch of those students that are receiving ESL services within those those teachers are having less time working with the other students. Correct. So I'm certainly not arguing that if we could hire five more intervention teachers that

135that would be good for our MTSS program and allows us to do a lot of stuff. I'm saying I don't think we're going to have the funds to do it. If they And I obviously some things we do in you know budgets our budgets, right? We all have to work within a set amount of money. But when it comes to cutting positions that affect the most vulnerable students that we have I don't know if I'm necessarily supportive of that type of cut. And I know those are the positions that often get Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. And I know that those are the positions that often get targeted the most often cuz they're easy to cut, but often overlooked. Well to really answer that question you have to decide what position gets

136cut instead. And I and I get that. And Like I said, I was an art teacher. I was on the low end of the total call three years in a row. So like it's it's not a fun place to be and I certainly would argue with you that I had a lot to offer myself. And And you're right. And I don't And I don't disagree with that statement. Like nobody wants to see people out of work, right? Especially in a community the size of ours cuz we're going to run into everybody. And as to you Dan, I also think that arts are important too. Um but I I just if we're going from having groups of three to five students and then we're cutting two teachers or two WIN teachers or even one and a

137half WIN teachers, then all of a sudden we're leaving out 20 to 25 students? If they have a case load of of multiple students? And then what happens to those students? Especially since uh ESL can't work within groups and they're more of a one-on-one type uh setting. Jeremiah, I don't So, when you asked if we work with small groups, so we are a federally mandated, state mandated program. Any student who qualifies The reason I went oh, a small group is because any student who qualifies and due to the large number of our students, our groups are based on our schedule and so every classroom we go into and we have to provide tier one ESL instruction to. >> Okay. So, then those students that would normally be within WIN teacher wouldn't necessarily be left out

138then or would >> Oh, correct. No. So, students still qualify for both. So, they would receive ESL during the day and then there's also a time that they would receive title one as well. So, what I'm trying I'm trying to figure out what this is. >> So, okay. So, maybe I misunderstood. >> One one of the other problems in this mix and it's tough, but like either way, we have extremely high case loads in our ESL. We have extremely high case loads in our IEP. And if you keep asking staff to service more students than is reasonably uh like is reasonable, you will eventually lose other staff cuz they get burned out. That's just my my logic, right, wrong, otherwise and you can disagree with it, but um We we have, like I said, like

139150 more ESL students than when we originally had that on our staff. And so somebody has to provide those services. Um and our IEP population is growing, too. And that's not unique to our school district, that's trend nationally. Is it possible that some of these WIN students may benefit more by having an ELL teacher to help them? Are you asking about if we could specifically >> If you're switching a WIN teacher to So, it would still needing to be the language development, the language acquisition. One thing after Mr. Leficson um talks with Mrs. Bitson and I is we have a lot of students who come in and out of our school district. And with those students, some come with a high rate of literacy and come Some come with not as high a rate of

140literacy. And one of the questions that we would like to answer systemically in our school is how do we help those students with the academics? And so is there a way that they are still receiving EL, but because of that second language acquisition, then we can also help support them in their literacy as well. Because right now we're kind of having to divide what we're doing because we each have different objectives. So, we would still have to meet the requirement of ELD, but for those newer students, we could then also include them getting the phonics or whether it's more than likely not phonemic awareness, but the phonics and the fluency and the comprehension vocabulary as well. So, that's just >> It may help some of those students that need that. A little more than what

141we're able to do. So, learning to read at Do you have a rough estimate how many students that participate in WIN have IEPs? That's a great question. It can't be really They're not getting an intervention if they're not because they have an IEP. If they are academic IEPs, I believe they are not They Otherwise, that would be double dipping. Right, right. That's what I was asking. So, uh students that are uh receiving WINs don't necessarily have IEPs, but there are those students that are kind of in the middle where they don't qualify for an IEP, but they're not quite classroom level yet. Um do you looking at the data, it could also be students who are also learning the language and they aren't able because we're a school wide title one. Right. So. Um and

142I'm just asking cuz I'm trying to I'm not in the education field, right? And so I'm just trying to figure it out here. I don't know. My brain is How many of the WIN students don't qualify for ESL? Because those would be the kids that lose out on services. >> You managed to ask the question in a way I was trying to [laughter] formulate. >> to think about that, Jeremiah. And I do not have a list of the groups and the students, so I could not give demographic information tonight, but that's a valid question to have asked. Cuz those would be the students that would really then fall behind because they would not qualify for ESL. Correct. Now I understand what you're asking. Yeah, I I was getting I was getting there in a roundabout

143I'm I'm I'm glad Lisa was able to put my word salad together and form a reasonable question that I just couldn't address myself. But I don't think any of our kids are really lacking. If they need special attention, they get it somewhere. But a lot of it's through WIN. That's why they're getting the special I mean, years ago we cut we cut our gifted program and that's gone forever. Now we're going to possibly take a big chunk out of our WIN program. I I think I think it's I think it's sad. And I think >> Money always is. >> Yeah, but I think there has to be a better way, something else that can be cut other than this. Do we know how much money we'd save on cutting the two WIN teachers? Uh If

144you do the special ed and the two ESL, basically you gain the cross subsidy and so you get the revenue of additional teacher. And so because you get the additional revenue of additional teacher, that takes that away. That becomes part of the budget streamlining. So, um because the WIN does not receive funding from a cross subsidy. Um you can cut from other areas, but then you have to weave through different funding sources. So, if you cut from a classroom, obviously you're increasing classroom sizes. Um if you cut an access position, then you lose the access funding. Um if you cut like student support, um such as a social worker, then you lose the student support funding or you have to find somewhere else that you can use it. So, it's >> [clears throat and cough]

145>> It's it's it's hard to decide. So, So, I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to Oh, sorry, go ahead. Um after I listened to all this, it's hard decisions, but when I think about WIN and ELL and then I think about our deep students, all of that affects all [clears throat] of our kids. And for the rest of I guess it would be a very difficult spot to try to decide this, but when the rubber meets the road, whatever's decided, everyone else has to pick it up and deal with the kids and what they need. So, I I don't I feel bad for you guys having to make decisions, but no matter what you cut, it's going to be I get it, but no matter WIN, discipline, whether it's anything, they cut and we just

146got to pick it up. That's what we have to do and what's best for the I think back when we instituted WIN, Mr. Cringan was here and he said very clearly that don't count on this as permanent funding because he said that was part of ESSER stuff and that was part of COVID and all that where we got this gold mine of change. So, those of us that were there then always knew that this stuff was going to come. Like I said before, it is not easy. All that we do here is fantastic stuff and it takes the money that we have. Now we don't have the money. as much money. We could spend all our balances and go in the hole and then get into statutory operating debt and all that miserable business. I

147We are far from that. But if we kept spending like this, if we didn't cut anything, it wouldn't take long. I don't How many So, there's usually five in a WIN class, right? So, would that number without these two, like would there Would be seven or 10 in a group or you have to keep it at five? I don't I don't want to misspeak. I don't believe there's a specific number, but typically between three to five. And how long do they go for each time? Like how each time? >> 30 minutes. And and they would keep the group small because that's best. So then kids would lose services. Okay. I was trying to work on a number right now. Of how like what that impact would look like. She's trying to do the math. I

148just fear that you cut these things and then families see this and they go to a district where their children will receive the service. And then we lose the funding for that child anyway. No, and like what Jeremiah said that if our um scores, you know, the the yearly scores go down, that affects our our income also. So I mean The other thing that I need to bring up like and and like I will agree with Audrey. I don't envy you your choice. If the money isn't there, the money isn't there. Um but it's also not as simple as swapping out oh like for example one teacher to an ELL teacher or a sped teacher because you now have licensing in there. So I I think we have to be aware that in reality with

149my position and two WIN teachers we are probably going if two teachers, classroom teachers, if they choose not to do sped or if they choose not to do it ESL, which that that is a choice to do because those would both be variances, they will lose positions. So that is something to keep in mind um that you know, again it it's going to be choices. So um but those people can make those choices too because licensing is a factor in there too. So So are there any other positions in school that do not directly deal with kids? Um I don't know who doesn't. Um You know, uh we have our health department helps students with sick sicknesses and head injuries. Um Our um business department helps all of the people with their paperwork to get

150through the PMFL and all those different things. Um like I said, we have more people than ever coming in and out. Obviously we have teaching positions and student support positions. Um our paraprofessionals are largely driven by our IEPs. And then we we operate on we get a lot of grants. And uh I'd like to thank all the people who do the work for that. We can spend out of the general fund if you so choose, but then like that's a choice the board's making and so when the budget audit comes and it's negative if you're okay with that, that's a choice you can make. Um But then we'll still have the same problem next year probably. Or it will work. Well, and what I worry about is that usually if you if you always try

151to balance expenditures and revenue because if you're if you are Let me think about it. So your salaries are reoccurring expenses. So unlike your building fund where you can say, "Hey, this year I'm going to spend an extra half a million and next year I'm going to not spend a half a million." The salaries if you're going to keep the person, you have to keep paying them. So however much you went in the hole one year, you're going to go twice that much in the following year. So like [clears throat] where you can adjust and you you can feel free to visit with like staff that their budgets have been frozen for longer since I've been here. And so those frustrations are mounting as well and so you have to balance different needs. And it's

152tough. And um if you make one decision here, it has consequences over here. If you don't add to the ESL, then you have teachers with extremely large caseloads and they can't manage to do all those well. If you don't add to special education, you're probably going to lose teachers cuz they just they're just too they're frustrated. Um and you also risk not meeting your mandated accommodations and things like that. Do you do we want to lose uh WIN position? No, I'm not saying we want to. I'm just saying that uh if you asked me to identify a place where um I think we can cut with least amount of impact on well, still being able to maintain the amount of staff we have, that's what I came up with and it does involve changes in

153coding, uh reclaiming expenses. So I mean I didn't go out and make a big list of people. But I still hope to not be necessary. This does not include Kelsey. Oh, she left. Kelsey's 20% reduction she was talking about, correct? >> Yeah, that number is uh I didn't get it twice. So we could have some money something left to keep one of these or not. It depends on how big that number is, but the difficulty is your activity budgets are stretched thin too. Because like the cost of your pads and equipment and gas like those same budgets that have been frozen really aren't paying. Yeah, I'd like to thank all the community members out there that donate all this money. Because if they didn't do that and I know for our elementary we do the

154color run and um the administration uses some of that color run money to uh for uh allow the teachers to purchase supplies and that takes gives them some more that way. Um You know, no decision is in isolation. Um you and Chuck would remember this. Over the years we we've come across this same situation where oh, what are we going to cut? And we looked at people that might be willing to retire because they are at time where they could retire. And we offered them a pretty good incentive. I don't know if we can still legally do that. Um So It's just something that I looked at that we did in the past. Nobody lost their jobs and it was good for the retiree and it was good for the school district. So um could

155we look into it to see if it is a legal option? You you can do that. However, what you save is dependent on who you replace the position. And that that was what it was designed for in the three level people. You know. And sometimes we cut sections. Example. We did do that. >> We are very strong supporters of the small kindergarten, small first grade. So we we have to be careful of and it could work out that way. >> Yep. However, the applicant pools are smaller. However, [clears throat] there's lots of cuts around the state. So that could fluctuate. But if you pay a retirement incentive and you hire another person on the bottom right, you haven't gotten anywhere. If you do that, I mean come on. It's just something that we did and

156it worked out for the benefit of the district. But No, I'm not disagreeing with that. lower class sizes. We did [cough] that for a time [clears throat] and then we promised that when we had the budget again, we would bring that back and we did we were true to our promise. So in my 16 years that has happened and I know that that is a real strain and the dynamics are different now than they were 15 years ago for sure. So I don't know, but I know that we had done that in the past. Um But we should could think about cutting a section out of there. Last I heard registration for kindergarten was 49. Our early childhood is like full. Well, that could be, but if we have to cut, that could be where

157you could go. Oh, yeah. Um And that saves you a teacher salary which is 80 something dollars a year. So I mean the decision never ever is easy either which way we go about it. Those are a couple of things that we've done over the years though and they worked and you know, people didn't lose their jobs. Right. Some of them worked out harder. I think we're now in the first grade teacher leave. Yeah, we currently have a first grade opening. So then you just not hire that and put first grade into three sections instead. I would rather just see something like that than to take the uh kids that really need help on reading to get the special. They're not going to learn if they don't know how to read to learn reading is

158so important. Um I So if we cut this >> it's art period. Yeah, we've done this before. I mean, so Don't you work one-on-one with kids? Ever? Um when I'm subbing. Well, I'm we've got to quit all this subbing too. I'll have to. Yeah, in my position I uh I sub probably two or three times a week. So that's going to be a strain because the other people that help out with that is is um the WIN teachers cuz we are able to fill in bits and pieces and piece it together. So then that's pulling away from the individual WIN time as well. Right. So the kids aren't getting what we promised them to get. That's right. They aren't. That is a current problem. So then technically you are not a classroom kind of person,

159your position could disappear. Well, >> [clears throat] >> you said something about teacher coach. That part of it maybe could disappear, but my job is way way way more than teacher coach. I'm the coordinator of the mentorship program, which according to the state of Minnesota we have to have. So that has to go to someone. The other really really big piece is the DAP part of it. When I first started, we had split between two people. I would say it was about a oh 70 to 75% job. So you took two two people with full-time jobs and you took that and then and that's on the appendix C. Since then with the READ Act, we have added FastBridge testing district-wide. So that's now grade 7 through 12 that I have to oversee. And now with

160the READ Act, we also have to add the CAP pre-basic test, which is one to three times a year that we are also testing kids as well. So that part of my job will also need to go to someone else. See, thank you for coming cuz I had no idea you did all of that. Yeah. Yeah. And and then also the literacy coach, which is also part of the READ Act. I'm sorry, the literacy lead. Right now Tammy and I share that. We just found out at our last monthly meeting that So like I do all of the It's such a big job that Tammy wants to be part of it as an administrator so she has her um Yeah, so I'm on the pulse. But all of anytime we have new parents that come

161in, they have to be trained in in literacy. That's something that I do. That will have to go to someone else or go back to Tammy. The other thing too and that's also part of that CAPT testing. That will have to go to someone else and on our local literacy plan, which we have to fill out, um part of it is your literacy lead district literacy lead. We have to account for that time if it's not a full-time person who's doing what amount. And it's gray right now. It every month we go to our those local literacy meetings, new things are added. Not a whole lot has been taken off, but new requirements are added. >> Did they add any dollars with that? No, amazingly enough I don't understand. So yeah, so those are It's

162the instructional coaching has actually become a pretty small part of mine. It's my favorite part. I love mentoring new teachers and that goes really hand in hand with it, but but yeah, it's it's become a fairly small part of my job. So crazy. Okay, so we're stuck again. You know, we used to have work sessions where we just got together and put the ideas up and we as a board, you know, it's just the board in the room talking about what could be cut, what shouldn't be cut, you know, and we all had our ideas and we you know, everybody got a chance to come up with something. We did that several times over the years, too. You know that and Chuck, you know that. I thought those were effective. I was It's a way

163for to decide some things. But it's still basically our administrator's job to come up with this stuff. Yeah. If you if you get in a hole, it will take you 10 at least 10 years to crawl out of it cuz it took us 10 years to crawl out of that debt. That was not fun. It was a lot of lot of hard decisions for those 10 years. So I mean, we don't want to you know do that. Spend our money down where we can't. Um you know. You just don't want to be in that hole. That's a big >> [clears throat] >> hill to climb. Okay, so we have a thought process here. We've got Daniel's suggestions that he has talked to the administrators, he's talked to people that would be involved. We have our

164discussion. Let's move on. Okay, and Daniel is asking for a motion to do something like that. Just for discussion today. Yeah, it was supposed to be but then Daniel said he wants to give those teachers a chance to move or change or think or something. Well, when these changes come at the end of the school after the school year's over. Isn't that when you you would happen and then they would um they would get warned that they're The 2026-2027 school year. I figured out there was 76 in kindergarten so if we would drop a first grade teacher, it would be like 25 a class. If we just went to the fifth section last or 20 roughly 25. Give or take. We've been very proud of that fact that we could keep those numbers small. And

165we are also very few districts that have that small numbers. So We Last time we did it, it was K through three. I believe. And we promised that when the budget got better, we would bring it back and we didn't do that. Um We're in a Oh, we have a whole different dynamics though this time around. With all of them. They have nearly ELL kids. Right. Right. That expands so I don't know. But if kindergarten is that small at only 48, 49, 50 kids, that only with kindergarten you have four sections, that's less than 13 in a section. So then Do you recommend that we add an elementary special education position because right now Well, they're they're busy. This year? Right now? No, like for next fall. It's pretty hard to find a special education

166teacher so I don't know that you could even do it [clears throat] that quickly if you wanted to. So there we said we could spend $80,000 more and we're trying to save us some money. We're here for the students. But you can't do anything for the kids if you don't have money. So you have to spend it wisely. Yep. So And if kids can't read, they can't learn. Can they speak English? I don't know. But you know what? Kids Kids can learn from each other but like you said that is subsidized or whatever. So you get the money and but they don't. The government is not That's as state doesn't give us the money that it costs. Yeah. It is a That's a messed up deal. Yep, it is. Absolutely. That doesn't help us however.

167No. Can we have a work session where we brainstorm or did we just do that? We just kind of did that. Yeah. And what do you think? Do you think you really need to give these teachers that opportunity if you need more money? It's all in your decision but I told you that I've been in a budget cut three times in a row and several times they get it done. Like this time of year if the teacher does want to look at their options, they have options versus if you drag it out and you pretend they have a job they don't have and suddenly take away their options. Yeah. But being a person that's put in that position, I I would like you to be honest with me about what it is and what our

168choices are. We have to look at every department and We can't cut back there. Look at every department. If we would take out the two WIN positions, could we like with Kelsey, once we get Kelsey's thing, could we possibly add We could then add possibly back to >> can add stuff back, yeah. It's like it's easier to add. Right. So I mean, you know, we can kind of think that way and and you know what her numbers are. But I keep thinking that's also taking from the high school kids. Exactly. So I mean, [clears throat] if you're going to do it, you're going to take away from somebody somewhere. I mean, their their careers are this long and then you're going to cut it down even more. That really doesn't seem fair either. None of

169this is fair. But there has to be something better. And if we did have time to sit down and all talk about it longer and have actual numbers and things to look at, >> we might be able to figure something else out. Because yeah, was it thought how many jobs are we going to have to pass off onto other teachers if we take that position away? Do we know who all of all of those jobs are going to already? They would go back to Tammy. So Tammy will get all of those jobs. So part of the reason of making a decision is so you can make a plan. Yeah. Yeah. We got to figure it out. And this set of recommendations kept the number of people the same. Because when you move them around, you

170generate revenue which then cross subsidizes them. >> [clears throat and cough] >> But at the expense of of the children and of the staff because like they're not licensed to do those other things. So we ultimately are going to lose those those teachers. We We just We just heard a um assistant director. That's a whole different budget. Yes, yeah. That's a whole different budget. That's a whole different thing. And we were and I'm going to have food service training now. We may still do that, but those two things aren't mutually exclusive. And so we have Okay, so tell me. So that's all. Thank you. The food service budget is separate. Community education budget is separate. Construction kind of has its flow through and stuff. Fund one is your general fund. And we have different buckets

171you can look at like the ESL. Certain amount of money has to be on this. Certain amount of small money has to be on IEPs. What's the cost of not replacing a first grade teacher or cutting one section? Yeah. teacher 80-something probably with district spending easy. Yeah, [clears throat] salary. Would that fix this problem for at least until we have >> I I just recommend you get a special ed teacher for the elementary because otherwise I think I don't think there's There's a lot of frustration in there with the amount of people that they're servicing right now with the amount of minutes in the day you have. So you're saying you would cut first grade position in place of the special ed teacher. Either way you need a special ed teacher. Yeah. So we could

172cut the special ed teacher. The thing is when you cut a section, then you also have to understand you're increasing your class size. So that teacher has less time per child. Which is an option, but everything comes with a trade-off. It all does. Yeah, what do we do? What do we count? You know, what now? What? Are you guys come up with a motion what you want to do? We are in April. Those folks deserve a chance to Well, let my brother work if they want to go elsewhere. Maybe heads can get together and figure out if if we swapped WIN for special ed doesn't mean that's the same body. There would be a job for those WIN teachers someplace else. I mean, it's not You know what I'm trying to say is Right. It's

173not this person going to this position. Right. It's just juggling the positions around. Yeah. So it's I know I've been there too. It's not nice to be first of June. You must have been there too. And not have a job and just get told and So maybe we tell them now and Well, you said you've already spoken to them that this is a possibility, correct? >> Yeah. So I told them I was recommending it because you don't want to turn on the TV and you watch So I mean, they already have a heads up. So they could potentially be looking for a job. So if we wait on doing this, they still know it's a potential thing that we could be doing. Then they won't take you seriously. Oh, you take people serious. I would

174hope so. Yeah. No, they wouldn't take us seriously. That's what I'm I'm saying that the student the teachers that you spoke to, they would take that serious. And if they wanted to look for a different job or decide if they wanted to go a variance route or that, they would do that. In the meantime, we could still be looking for better options. That's my thought. I would agree with that because I I think just saying yep, go and do it, it's a haste um a decision that I think impacts more than what we want. It just has such a strong impact on the students in my mind. So um much less the staff but it's what we But majority rules, so Right. We said our peace. How long do you want to sit here talking

175about it? Or put a motion on the table or I'm up with something. What if we said we can get behind some of these things and made a motion for the things that we are behind. Well, I guess I can start that process and anybody can chime in if they wish. Um I think we can allow the dean of students to sunset. Um transition the Chromebook responsibilities to the technology department. Combining of the National Honor Society and student council into activities role. Um which expands that to exclude the student leadership as my Yeah, just showing [snorts] the title. Mhm. And potentially we just classify the elementary teacher elementary. >> [clears throat] >> Cuz it doesn't necessarily have to be the first grade that we cut a section on. I said we would definitely have to

176look at numbers and make it make sense. We do not want higher class. I mean, kids are hard. And if nobody's been in a classroom before, go sit in a classroom. Kids are hard. >> Especially first graders. I I understand that. >> Kids are hard. We don't necessarily have to cut the first grade position. We can cut on kindergarten position. Do we know for sure that those are the numbers though? That's the thing. Right. Because over the course of the summer, 30 more kids will come bouncing in the door. I'm already getting September [clears throat] 20th, they will still be rolling in. >> [laughter] >> And November. November has the elementary been pretty steady. Yeah. Cuz what was the number for element or for kindergarten this year? 79? Um 76. And Karen said that typically

177the last few years it's been 40 some that show up for registration. That doesn't mean that's what we're going to have in the classroom. Yeah, this time it was 40 some that jumps up. The first part of my recommendation is my motion. Okay, there's a motion on the floor. Tom wants our motion would be the dean of students with sunset. Chromebooks would go to the tech department. Uh student council and the honor society would go to the EAD person with student leadership. And further discussion to come forward. And I think these people need to be on notice that this decision will be made in May. They may be cutting them. The rest of the staff. Yeah. Maybe if Before we do any of that, I would like to um have a work session. To really

178sit and discuss and know the numbers and how it's going to affect how it's going to affect things and what what income are we going to generate by moving this and that. I mean, we know some of it, but we don't know all of it and who it's impacting because um that's important to know who for sure it's impacting. And especially when it's the students. That's it. That's That's that's fine. Yeah. So, you want to do that? Make a motion to accept those and then have a work session to figure out those. We can schedule a work session later time. I think we don't have I'll leave my motion as I have stated it. We've got a motion. I'll second your motion. Back in the first meeting of the of the year we we gave

179uh Daniel authorization or uh the power to balance basically balance our budget and to look for ways to do that and to cut and do what's necessary. He's done that. He's doing that. So I guess that's what we hired him to do. One of the things we hired him Well, there was just a motion and a second. So, we're in the discussion. Okay. So, are you coming up with another motion then, Chuck, or No, I'm just putting that out there. You can split up the recommendations across two motions if so desired. Start with one that there's three. You can maximize if that's the way you want to take that. So, we do have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes, sir. Any more discussion? Other than I agree with Chuck, Daniel came up with

180just what we told him to do. And that is the responsibility of the administration to come to us with what they think is going to work best for us. But, ultimately the vote ends with us. Right. And it's our job to look out for the kids, not not every We have to look out for everybody and everything. So. Okay. Any more discussion, one last time? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. And we will send seventh grade girl books to the tech department and student council and honor society goes to the aide position. And come back if we come up with a work night come back with some ideas what to do. So, the special ed position being tabled. That was within those recommendations. Um and this that

181special ed position is to ensure that we don't have um overload middle school overload pay um all employees at the secondary >> have they all have overload at the elementary, don't they? There's several we're working on more official language in in my contract because I mean if you put 40 kindergartners in the classroom, it's pretty obviously too much. We have more students to uh staff ratio in special ed than most of the freshman right now. Before we do that, could we get numbers and savings at I mean it's really hard for me to make decisions on things when I don't have any information other than well, this is my recommendation. You have the numbers in the meeting. Um Value of the teaching position. I don't mean I mean like how how many kids do we

182have? How many do each of the staff members have on their caseload? All of those things. What and adding someone, what is that going to do? For the money. I think if you're pushing for kids special ed is well overloaded high school and elementary. That's what I would like to see, Linda. That's what I'm asking. The [clears throat] numbers. You don't know that from anything. What are all these numbers? I don't know the exact numbers because I'm just told they're overloaded. I I would like to see the numbers. And if a teacher wants to you want to advertise to hire a teacher and you want to get a teacher in you need to do that before first of July. You go ahead and make that motion. I'm just saying I would like to see the

183numbers. And I don't think that's asking too much. To actually be informed to make a vote. All right, folks, you got to speak up. We discussed that at our special at our uh workshop. And then and then we would have numbers and all the things for us. I'm sure we'll do that before the May meeting. We should at least. I'm looking at the calendar. You have to provide the questions of the what numbers you want. The number of each. Okay. I understand, but I would assume there'll be other other points you want. So, you go home and think about it and email Daniel what questions you want him to answer and Sherry will come up with all the dollars that it takes to do a special teacher. >> been looking on Minnesota report card. Do

184you want the numbers per February this year per building for special ed? Sure. Okay. Give me just a moment. I did by district, so I will do by um elementary first. And again, this is all MDE report card for um valid by February, I believe this year. According to MDE, special education at the elementary building is 141 students. Okay. Okay. Give me a moment and I'll take a look at the secondary. I like technology. Um at the high school, there's eight six. And how many teachers at the elementary? It's combined sometimes, but some of those numbers are combined sometimes. And then five and then Yes, cuz some of those numbers will be speech only. So, six with the speech teacher. What did I see on there? And then high school, how many? I mean that

185number could change. Sorry. It's okay. How many high school special ed teachers I will find I guess about And the same and then Somebody does. Just speech only. Or just speech. Yep. Yep. And then there's two. Six at the high school also? Yep. Is that helpful? So, we have six at the high school for 86 and then six at the elementary for 141. I believe according to this, yes. So, that's interesting. >> we're saying we need a special Can we move a high school one over to the elementary? >> [laughter] >> It was just an idea, right? There's your numbers. Just looking at the numbers? No. Sorry. They're first grade level. That's very doable. >> [clears throat and cough] >> I don't know what's happening over there. It's like that was really sweet. What kind

186I mean in this conversation So, in what special I showed this one I didn't want to work So, that's what I is going to be. Special ed people. Um this is where we're going to be filling a kindergarten position that we didn't fill our teacher last year. We have one here. So, that that special ed position is for the first grade position And I suggest we have a new get that on the screen so I can look at it. So, special ed I just like there's two different numbers. There's case load and service load. Because a student No, the workload associated with each student is not necessarily the same. Correct. I understand. So >> I understand. This is what I have like handy. Um I have something with the fresh water that shows the number

187of students Mitchell's trying to fix it. >> [laughter] >> Can you email that to us right now? Yeah. And the other thoughts are going to be what night and may you think it's over? Oh, sorry. Monday is a band concert next week and the week after. I want choir concert. What time is the band concerts and then the choir concert is after that? 7:00. So May So there would be nothing on May 4th? I'll double check it but I'm pretty sure it's May 11th. I've got it on my calendar. Yes, it is the 11th of May. I have it. Yep. Yep. And the band concert for the high school is the fourth and at the junior high or 5-8. Oh, 6:00 to 8:00 choir So it is four Mondays in a row. It's like junior

188high then high school high school junior high. So pick a night. It's hard. Wednesday the 6th is the education of excellence banquet in greater so that's probably all color run is the 8th of Friday night. Could we start about 5:15 and be done by I won't be able to leave here until 5:30. And I mean I have about 20-minute drive. And Tom is working crazy hours now, too. And I was thinking Thursday May 7th I would actually like to start later. Okay. I can do May 7th. Okay. I have an ACC meeting on May 7th. It's one though. What time is your meeting, Linda? 6:30. So then you want to get together I was thinking about >> later, not that late. I was thinking about 7:00. Those are our average case loads and those are

189what you would expect from the other schools. And Vanessa Weelenburg said the numbers on it are She just She said She said Erica, Tom, Steve and I are over 25 and she's at 24 and that's how many juniors are on the list. I mean there's a few that are speech but that was I would kind of like the speech teacher in with the sped teachers but of the five main sped teachers, yes, they have very big Was there anything on the 5th that would be our other option because we don't want to really push into the week right before the board meeting. I can do May 5th. I can do May 5th. There's no little league games or anything? Uh we're doing softball this year. My my daughter decided not to play baseball. What day

190are we looking at now? May 5th. May 5th. At what time? If you think it's a waste of time, don't don't come. I won't. Okay. I mean at what time are we exactly I don't know. I can probably make it 6:30. Can Linda bring in the pizza? May 5th, 6:30. >> [cough] >> If you send me questions before a board meeting, you can always find the information on Google Drive. ahead of time. At 6:30? Yeah. And we don't vote or anything, we just discuss and figure out put everything on the board and figure it out. And you understand that work sessions are open meetings to the public, right? Yes. And it has to be posted and stuff. So if somebody wants to come and observe it, they're allowed to be. Is there any other questions?

191Doesn't mean the floor is open because they might just be eager to listen. That's correct. Okay, we are [snorts] not done then. I can contract and approvals. The only one I have is uh I move to approve the contract that was presented to us this evening. I'll second it. Jeremiah Steve has second it. If uh yeah, it was Tom and Jeremiah. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Motion carries. And I think the solar project grant we did was online to do. Yeah, um the there's an online thing. So Um what this involves is um asking to create an online teacher position authorize staff to get a vendor for offering online instruction. And so what that would do is that we'd open up basically like we have an elementary high

192school site, we'd have an online site. And then uh We would We'd probably have to make more decisions down the road but then the administrative team can keep working on the steps. And the intention would be to offer online instruction as an option. If you read your board book, you know that we lost about 30 students in our high school just this year since January. And so the objective would be to lose students. Those 30 went online somewhere else? No, I didn't. Some of them went online, some of them went to ALC. But I would say it's like if you look at the ALC program when we went to online and started at like 10 and right now we're at about 40. And if you talk to the neighboring school districts and you know Brad

193has and a few other people, this trend of more students going online is statewide and I just think it would be smart of us to get ahead of it than behind it. And that's your choice but if you want to go down this road then let me know. You would spend the night on it. So if we approve this tonight, it would be just to keep looking at this, not necessarily to start advertising for a teacher at this point. Is that correct? I think if you want to seriously start in the fall, then you need to get a teacher in there. So we can't afford a wind teacher but we can afford an online teacher. If we add If you add 10 students at the high school level, that's $120,000. So how how can you

194say that, Tom? How do we prove that kids online are doing their work? That they are doing their work. Well, that's part of the reason you get a vendor. We've been in dialogue. We visited with a teacher who currently offers online instruction. We're planning a site visit to schools that have it. They have like different security measures and the proctor test and different procedures. But getting like type the I would like to get somebody who's experienced, who already is doing it successfully. And model it off what they're doing to have the requirements and what we offer so that our quality of the instruction is there. [clears throat] Um Brad, would you chip in some of the stuff you've been learning? Um just that we've lost great dollars for 13 of our kids that are online

195that went to ALC. And they chose to go online. So the 13 ALC students that are online right now which would be equivalent to approximately $130,000 if you look at it that way. I can't say that that's It's to happen that way. Um but we are losing a lot of money because that money now goes to Freshwater. It does not go directly to us. So, that's part of it. I have talked to The district I've been talking to is I've talked to them before, which is very similar. Again, we wanted to get someone that we wanted to talk to people do this, but we wanted to talk to someone that has kids who do it. They have They have their program that's growing the whole entire time. You know, they have all of the kids

196that that go there, which generates between all the stuff that it generates between $500,000 to $500,000 to $600,000. And they're running that program with two teachers, two parents, which costs them far less than that. So, that's where that's at. Their suggestions for us is to make sure you have a vendor that's qualified and certified through the state of Minnesota. Um, can I ask a quick question? >> Yeah. Uh, there's really two big ones that I think that are that would do that. Um, I think the the the two are It's called Edgenuity and Edmentum. So, some of those people that you you had a question about all that stuff, they check in daily with their person. And then they actually Edgenuity the program actually generates exactly how many minutes they've stayed on the program that

197day, how many modules they've completed within a week. All those things that are that are um part of me. Uh, if you talk to the kids that are online, the reason they chose to go online is because they don't feel like, you know, they feel like the education that they that they have at school doesn't fit them very well. A big part of that is some of them are doing There's a couple of them that are that are working outside the house because they need to support themselves. Um, there are some that took the online classes so that they could accelerate um their their program towards like um extra for like extra stuff or >> [clears throat] >> like a They need a They need a class to get to, for instance, one of the

198person that she talked to us person talked to us, she said that um they needed an extra class in order to get into another class. So, they're able to get into college. They have that background that will help them in some places. So, there's kids that are going there. But, there's a lot of different kids. Um It's it's it's uh If you talk to anybody around the state, this is it's not growing, it's it's growing exponentially. Um, there is there's a district right now um that has 345 kids online and 145 of them are in their district. The other 200 are from other places. Which generates $2 million for their district. Um So, You know, I worry about We already have a huge mental health crisis in our country and probably around the world for

199sure. And then we're going to you know, um say, "Well, you want that much money, go do it." It bothers Does it they you know, they need to be social in those years, not you know, not isolated. I'm not I'm not >> Whether they think it's right or not, we're the adults to make help them make these decisions. Didn't we do it at at Edmentum or whatever we did it before? >> at Edmentum during the pandemic. Couple Now, there's Edgenuity. There's a couple of people that went to Edgenuity since last fall. I just got back from my association meeting last week. And I had that discussion with the other principals. It is and then Brad alluded to that already, is the state of Minnesota. So, it is very common now to recapture those students. Now,

200there's a couple of reasons why Brad mentioned And to be honest with you, things are changing, the technology is changing so quickly with AI and that. I mean, it's not even from what I see at Edmentum. Edmentum's changed within the last few years. It's getting better than what it was. I mean, you put the student in the right place. So, you have those catches in there to address these situations. I think, you know, we're just gathering information right now, but there's a lot of promise with that. A lot of positives, but I'm not [snorts] advocating for or against it. I'm just saying from what I've seen now, a lot of districts are having that kind of conversation with quite a few principals. They're all They've got that and they're doing that and working with them

201and That's what they're looking at. A lot of kids though, but you know what? We You look at the kids though that come [clears throat] into school. They're not the kids we had four years ago. They are wired completely different than what with with what we're seeing. I mean, the kids are starting out devices at a much younger age. We're seeing that. So, they're tuned differently than what I know, cuz I'm thinking back to the way things were. It wouldn't fit for me. But, for some kids, it's going to be a good fit. Some kids are going to want and some kids are going to want to be here. Some kids, you know, so what you're doing is kind of broadening your horizons on it. It's like, "Hey, we've got options." That's the way I

202look at it. I'm saying now I'm just saying that Can I just but interject something too? When we met with this teacher, I was under the assumption of you just assign these classes, you watch videos, you do the work, and you don't talk to anybody. No, the teacher actually makes a personal relationship and meets with them weekly or daily and actually helps them through the assignments remotely through video. So, they are actually interacting with people. So, do they fail if they don't show up? Yes, [clears throat] big time. So, they're truant >> and they have to if they don't do enough stuff, they they truancy immediately is sent. And yes, they will get into to major trouble. And they also have very good relationships with parents because the parents are the ones that are pushing

203the students to do it um to make sure they get their stuff done. I was I was shocked cuz I had I had no clue how it worked and I was thinking the same thing, they're just going to sit by the computer and not see anybody. No, they're even interacting with the other students in the classes to do study groups and things like that. It's all remote. So, I think if we get ahead of it, we can define >> You know, those rules of like, you know, the student needs to come in and get their tests here or whatever whatever things like I'd like to pick this teacher's brain about like what are the things they're doing to maintain those connections with the families, with students. And instead of responding to other districts offering this

204after we've lost enrollment, like choosing how we want it to work. Um We were looking at 9th through 12th because of that social emotional element because like We want those kids in school as much as we can as long as we can, but a lot of those 9th through 12s, you have your college classes moving online. I was at the Minnesota legislature and some superintendents were talking about like hey, like college is changing and that college high school and they're just seeing more and more people take these options. And what I worry about is that if we don't offer something that's good and quality, they'll simply find a program somewhere else because that's what they're looking for. Um, and you've talked about creative ways to try to maintain staff, and one of those ways is

205to get students in the door. So, I mean, it's ultimately your your decision, but if you There's only so many things a school district can do to generate revenue. So, would they be part of the Long Prairie School District yet? Still graduate with them, unlike the other online programs that do their graduation >> Yeah, and they'd be different. >> They'd be different than ALC. And obviously, we'd have some say in there. >> Right. Cuz I know like whatever's what Minnesota Connections Academy, whoever you if you It's a good example. >> Well, through that, you graduate with thousands of other people down wherever they have graduation at sites. But, they would graduate here, right? They would be part of our school district yet. Yeah. And you know, we compete with our neighboring districts quite a bit

206in a few years um and we'll have that high school come down the pipes as I put in my messages where you can only compete in the district where you're um enrolled. And you know, if if we gain some new students from Little Falls or Sauk Centre or Osakis because we offer a program, I think if we waited until everybody else had it, then we're already too late to the game and we're probably not going to get those students back because they've already found a program they like. >> [clears throat] >> Um, this year our ALC classes for the kids that are online at ALC this year graduating from the ALC, we have four Osakis kids, a Bertha student, and there's one other student that have come to their online school and out of those

207five, three of them wanted to graduate with our diploma and they have a choice to graduate with the diploma of that if their school district that they live in or the school district that the parent lives in or the school district that we're in. And so, they have that choice to graduate from whichever place that they choose. While we're in ALC, I don't know how that would work on the online. But, we also have some online kids that have gone online and decided that that wasn't for them and decided to come back to the school. Give us the opportunity that that they would still be within our district. Our district. The other thing we could do is set minimum requirements to do it. Like you need to have such a GPA or whatever we thought

208was constructive like versus it's kind of wide open. Well, there Well, see we don't we don't get um money for that student. So, I mean Well, we we do technically. What happens is all that money goes back to the freshwater. And then we get 1/9 of that money. Oh. So, this would be a way to keep all of the money if you could keep those kids. I mean So, you instead of keeping 1/9 of that money, you'd be keeping 9/9. So, but it wouldn't be called ALC then? No. So, what would it be called? It would be No, this would be a It would be It'd be called probably online grading or online or Thunder online or something like Yeah. Online. Yeah. And there still would be an ALC out there. Cuz kids would Oh,

209that's actually a good point. The other thing that um Kelsey had said to me was is that there's a new rule coming out about the sports. You already talked about that. Yeah. And just I've got just one more question and then I'm ready to make a motion, but what happens if we don't get the 10 students for whatever reason? Well, you can cut it, but based on all these online programs that I'm seeing and I'm doing some background work where I feel like with setting up setting it up to be a fairly good chance of attracting some students. At least pretty optimistic. Obviously, you know, you can't count your eggs before they're hatched, but you miss uh you miss every ball you don't swing at too. So. I'm going to say as someone who talks

210to a lot of middle schoolers and early high schoolers, a lot of them very find the appeal of online school. One of their big hesitations that we've talked about like in small groups and things is well, I have to find someone that will give me the quality education. A lot of these are students that you want the quality education. They're like, "Well, I can go on Google and type in online school and 300 pop up." And they're nervous that if they choose the wrong option that's not accredited the right way or isn't a good fit. They're now out of the public school and have to come back to public school in person or try to go to another. Um they And there's kids that some don't like school, some have huge aspirations that they want

211to keep flying through, but they're very hesitant cuz they are looking. But they don't necessarily know how to discern what's quality and what's not, what will keep them so they can play sports, what will keep them connected with their friends, and all of those social pieces as well. A lot more kids like that are >> [clears throat] >> looking or families are looking. But they don't know how to weed out what's quality and what's not quality. And what's free and what's not really free and what's going to get them where they want to get to. And there's a lot of people that are looking more than we probably realize. Could we put out a survey to parents and see like how many would be interested in their child being in ours? We can do whatever

212you want. But I think if we wanted on board for the fall, we should give them the okay to go ahead. >> I move we proceed with this. I second that motion. I think it's a good idea. I think we'd want to be trailblazers in this and not try to follow up. Progressive. Like this way we get to set our terms, we get to set what we want to see it, and then we're not going to um you know, we follow them on the next steps. I think it's also a way to potentially draw in homeschool families. And I I think if we this passes that we would probably as administration come back each month with this is where we're at, this is where we're at, and there will there will be more decision points.

213I mean I I think you're probably going to have student cuz I agree that you're going to probably have students that are more interested in this than versus the traditional. And I think if you look at college right now, how colleges have just really expanded online to almost pretty much everything now. Well, then And they You know, you could also have a situation where somebody goes to physical school in the morning and then in the afternoon they do online so they can take a work shift like some a lot of our kids are already doing, and then they finish their classes in the evening. Like I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be online >> be self-paced. They would be You have to be >> class. You have to be in in a class at

214a certain time for a certain time, right? There's different ways to set it up. Okay. And um it's it's not based on seat time. And I guess credits aren't based on seat time. I learned that today. But yeah, there's there's a lot of information. There's a lot to clarify. But um >> [cough] >> Well, and if we cut a different position that's not say that person can be the online teacher. Too. And if it if it expands that might provide funding for other positions that we don't have to cut at the Right. Well, but if it expands, we might not need other positions because there won't be kids in the building to teach. If they're coming to our program though. I think we need to meet families where they're at though. And this this offers

215that. If they can be in extracurricular activities, I'm totally better about that. They can They can They can be in their online at our school. They're still one of our kids. Yeah. I'd be better about that than just sitting here. Just give them a little bit I think we want to make it look how we want to make it look. You have to decide if you want to start there. Okay, folks, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion on it? Motion and a second. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of her and I don't think we're ready for all of the education that we have to offer it. And everybody else has We're losing students to it right now. Any more discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed,

216same sign. Aye. Roll call vote. Chuck. Aye. Tom. Aye. Jeremiah. Aye. Lisa. No. Mark. Yes. Tanya. I'm going to abstain. For personal reasons. Linda. Aye. Motion carries. Aye. Good afternoon.