Northfield School District Board of Education Regular Meeting 9 22 2025 Full

001I call this meeting to order. This is a regular meeting of the Northfield Public School Board. Today is Monday, September 22nd, and the time is 6 p.m. This meeting is being livereamed and recorded. The recording of this meeting will be posted on the district website as soon as possible. Welcome members of our community here tonight to observe the important work being done on behalf of all school district stakeholders. Dr. Helman, we have some items in the table file. Yes, we have a number of items in the table file this evening, including uh some additional appointments, increase, decrease, changes in assignment, a leave of absence, and a resignation. If there are no objections, we will add these items to the agenda as we move forward. Is there a motion to accept the agenda as presented? >>

002Motion. >> Thank you, Jeff. Second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Corey. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Okay, motion passes. Our next item is public comment and we have four individuals who signed up. So, I will call you up momentarily. This is our policy on public comment. This is an opportunity for residents, business, andor property owners, parents, guardians, caregivers, students, and employees of the Northfield School District to address the board. All comments to the board must adhere to the guidelines set in place by district policy 206 regarding public comment. This is not a time to debate an issue, but only for the board to hear your comments. You're prohibited from making comments about specific students, staff, and administrators. The board respects and values input, but when it relates to a specific individual

003or a specific matter, this input must be heard by the appropriate personnel, including the building principal or superintendent, and not during an open meeting of the school board. You will be gabbled out of order if your comments are not in compliance with these guidelines. Please address the board from the podium after being recognized by the chair, identify yourself, and if you represent a group, we require that you limit your remarks to three minutes. You are not allowed to yield your time to another person. It is expected that members of the public will address their remarks with civility and respect. Personal attacks on anyone addressing the board are unacceptable. The board has allotted up to a total of 30 minutes for public comment at regular schoolboard meetings. I'll now begin to call those who have signed

004up to speak in the order in which they signed in. Vice Chair Cory Butler will be monitoring the speaker's time. He will signal each speaker with the time they have remaining at 1 minute, 30 second, and 10-second intervals. Please make your remarks as brief as possible, but no more than 3 minutes. The first person to call up will be Karen Mater with Be Smart for Kids. Welcome, Karen. I'm back. Um, you all know who I am. I've had my kids graduated from here. Um I'm excited about and hopeful I guess because um I was included and invited to a meeting at Dr. Hillman's office this week where about 10 of us got together to discuss gun violence and there's some very exciting student initiative that's involved. My piece is making sure that the adult responsibility

005piece is still side by side I guess. So, be smart for kids. I reached out to um all of the PTO elementary school uh leadership people in an email to see if at their next meetings, their fall meetings, I could, you know, somebody could present a short thing about be smart for kids. And then the other thing I've done is um I've reached out to Sarah Swan McDonald and Jennifer Lampart and Erin Johnson and Tessa from Torch um because I've invited you know students to join me at the enough to end gun violence plays. They are written by students in the spring. They're submitted. They're chosen. So, there's six 10-minute plays that are presented and they're doing it in four places in Minnesota this year on Monday, October 6th. You don't have a meeting. I'd

006be happy to take any of you at the Landmark Center, at Hopkins Stages, um, in Marshall, Minnesota, and in Dworth, which was just added. So, it's it's just giving a voice to students. So, there's many many avenues that are being sort of reached out to. I appreciate your time. Thank you. >> Okay, next we have CC uh L. >> Welcome. My name is Cece Lindstrath. I live at 408 Lwood Drive. I am here representing Age Friendly Northfield. Age Family Northfield is supported by the generosity of taxpayers to enhance the quality of life of the 30% of our community residents who are over 50. For something to be supported by each Berling Northfield, it must have four pillars. It must have a physical activity. It me I'm going to drive you crazy going in and out

007with my bobblehead here. It must have a socialization component. It must be free and it must be done in cooperation with another organization. The last time that I was here, I came to let you know about the wonderful collaborations that H. Friendly Northfield was doing with community education. These collaborations have continued to be mentioned in your quarterly brochures. These include free Sunday pickle ball at the high school. Last year we had 644 members playing at the high school on Sundays. We've done Nordic walking, regular walking at the high school, and a new proposal with community ed that calls for partnerships between older adults and middle school students. Age Family Northfield has participated over the last year in meetings organized to develop both the physical plan and the concept of a community gym. The plan for

008the actual community gym you will see tonight. It is great. The gym will provide for many great physical opportunities in a beautiful setting. We are thrilled. The walking track is just what the community needs for our older adults and anyone with any kind of mobility concerns for safe and free walking during Minnesota's varied weather conditions. It's in a beautiful setting with only a little over seven full laps for a mile. However, the next discussions will be more complicated as we develop the concept of a community gym and a schedule for the community place. AFN knows these discussions will be new ground for all of us, requiring creativity, flexibility, and compromise. We are looking for a way to blend our views. Please remember statements made during the referendum campaign that the older adults wouldn't get the

009leftovers. Your stewardship and our votes have brought us a tremendous opportunity for the many members of our community over 30 and otherwise for this great facility to be used in meaningful ways. Thank you. Thank you. >> Next we have Carla Johnson. Thanks. Haven't done this in a long time. Uh Dr. Hillman, school board members, my name is Carla Johnson. I live at 2014 Grant Drive. I currently serve as the interim executive director of 50 North, representing 2,200 members we serve through fitness programs, social activities, and educational opportunities. I'm also a taxpayer who voted yes on all three of the referendum issues questions for the reimagine project in the fall of 2024. My son graduated from Northfield schools. My granddaughter is now in ninth grade at the high school. And with another grandchild on the way,

010my family's connection to this district will continue for years to come. I've seen the plans. They are beautiful. Part of me wishes I was that newly coming into the world little creature to be part of that school. In reviewing 50 North records, I found documentation from 2024 when the city, Northfield schools, community education, the YMCA, and 50 North met to explore collaboration. At that time, the expanded gym was still referred to as a fieldhouse. Most compelling was a statement attributed to Dr. Hillman, and I'm just going to share that with you. The goal, operate a fieldhouse attached to the high school that also serves 50 North's members. All Northfield school gyms are full from 3:00 to 10:00 p.m. daily with varsity athletics. The district is seeking partners to make best use of a new fieldhouse

011space, which would include four full-size basketball courts, lines for pickle ball, and an indoor track. Half of this gym space in the track would be available to 50 North members, the community from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and sometimes on weekends. School security member check-in process would need to be addressed. Those ideas came together within the Reimagine campaign. As the re-imagine referendum was put together, these items were not just an internal discussion. They were a selling point to the community. A public flyer that was distributed at one of the um meetings about the referendum at 50 North said it will also expand access for community indoor activities like pickle ball and a walking track. 30 seconds. We fully recognize that student safety and security are paramount. At the same time, we ask to be at

012the table as those issues are addressed. Pro programming for the expanded gym can and should balance the needs of students with the health and wellness needs of the community members, particularly seniors, who supported this referendum. I respectfully urged the school board and administration to honor the promise of expanded community access rather than treating it as an afterthought. Current presentations and conversation that suggest limited hours and a closed off walking track create the impression that Northfield seniors are being overlooked as valuable partners. >> Thank you, Carla. >> Thank you. >> Our last um commenter tonight is Andreas Turn here. >> Welcome. >> Good evening. Uh good evening. I'm Andrea Stone here and uh as usual I have a little bit concern with your with your project and one of the concern is we have bike lanes

013here in town and my question is are we not connecting the schools to the bike lanes. I mean this is a city question is a city for uh question for you and I would say uh this should be should be in there as well that we are thinking about that that people are walking or biking to school. The other thing is the building why we need 18 16 to 18 koma for each wing is unnecessary. is just more um envelope space or area and that means you have much higher area of uh heat or dissipation or heat gain over the day. That means you need more cooling or heating capacity in your geothermal system and this is for me a concern. The other thing is your your window curtain walls on the entry side and

014the courtyard. These are large areas where you have an R value of about four and a half to five. If you have a triple pen, if you have a dual pen which is standard in this country, you have about a value of four R value which is very low and you will have condensation. That means again you need baseboard heaters actually to keep these walls ice free and condensation free. It's also an energy concern. The other thing is the energy use usage intensity of that building we have right now is about 70. You know that from the handout ahead and also from the studies the consultants did for you. I would say for a rebuild like this we should aim for 35 kilobu per per square foot per year which is easy attainable. I mean

015the rock rock for um one of the Virginia project which you have seen actually has demonstrated that to get at least a 15% u uh savings with very little little effort. So I would like to see that too. But this is one thing you have to set as a goal for the design team else they're not going to do this. And that's why I ask is this possible to go better than 35 kilob per square foot per per year on the design. Thank you for the considerations. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Our next item is announcements and recognitions which I hear there are none tonight. Okay. And now we move on to our items for discussion and reports. And first off, we first up we have the DYC District Youth Council update with co-chairs Deline

016Hawkins and Attekus Mayor updating the board about their 2526 school year plans. Welcome, Attakus. >> Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. So, as she said, my name is Adakus Mayer. I'm a senior at Northfield High School and I'm one of the two co-chairs with my friend Delphine Hawkins on Northfield's District Youth Council. So today I'll be presenting the District Youth Council's 2025 2026 update. And I don't know if you can hear, but I'm a little sick. So I'll try to not make that effect too much. So first off, for those unfamiliar with what DYC is, the purpose of district youth council is to ensure a meaningful connection between the student body and the school board. So what this means is that every DYC member serves on a district committee. I myself am entering my

017third year on the policy committee and also every DUIC member attends at least one schoolboard meeting per semester and every DYC member works on a DYC subcommittee which I'll go into more details about later. Then lastly throughout the school year DYC hosts a multitude of events to connect the students of the NHS with the school board and vice versa. So what are what do these affformentioned DY events look like in the past? Well, during the 2024 2025 school year, we organized the Reimagine Northfield High School referendum forum, where we presented the details of the NHS referendum on last year's ballot to students. We also organized the schoolboard candidate forum where schoolboard members seeking election or re-election presented their cases to the NHS student body. We also held our annual school board brunch, which gives the

018members of DYC and the school board a chance to introduce and interact with one another. We also had a budget we also held a budget reduction forum where we presented last school year's budget cuts to the student body. And one more event we organized was the menal product distribution that takes that takes place annually at the high school. So what will DY look like this year? We will have 17 members. As I mentioned before, the co-chairs are myself and Deline. Like last year we will have two subcommittees. Student relations which student relations which will be led by Audrey Gilbertson and board relations whose lead will be Genevie Kudson like the name implies. Student relations will handle relaying information to the student body and obtaining information from the student body about district related subjects. Board relations

019will handle obtaining information from the school board and the high school administration and also relaying information from the school from the student body to the school board. Also, another big update, Emily Culver will be the new adult adviser for district youth council, replacing Martha Lind, who held a position for the last few years. A few a few potential events we look forward to this year include events relating to the new administration group we have this year with an entire new principal and Mr. Dibble and a whole new position in the dean of students held by Mr. Dubet. It's important that the students understand the changes in the admin team and get a chance to meet the new admin administrators. So also we look to possibly add in addition to the and Northfield public schools website

020or even a DYC focalized website in order to expand our reach to an even larger audience. And our next and most possibly and possibly our largest potential project is the reintroduction of the student pledge against gun violence. This was introduced back in 1996 as an effort to prevent student gun violence at the source. And since 1996 this pledge has lost its use usage across the country. But recently talks to bring this the pledge back to Northfield have been had and the originator of the pledge Mary Lewis Gro who has many connections to Northfield has joined the conversation to bring it back. So to be clear this pledge is purely a commitment to gun responsibility and safety. It makes no comment on the second amendment rights. Along with the previously mentioned DYC events, we also have

021our two annual events in the schoolboard brunch and the period product distribution. So lastly, I'd like to go over our goals for this year. So this first point, there are still plenty of questions involving the budget cuts from last year and to reimagine NHS topics which are being asked by NHS students. So to even further broaden their knowledge of these subjects. Oh yeah. Okay. So to even further broaden their knowledge of these subjects is very important. Another goal we have is expanding DYC's reach on social media to ensure our information can reach as many students as possible. And now along with the student body, we at DYC would like to integrate the entire Northfield community members Northfield community into our reach. This goal goes back to the DYC website or addition to the NPS website

022we previously mentioned which which we believe will help parents and other community members access the information that we provide. Lastly, we would like to begin to utilize the tableabling resource that occurs during flex at the high school. It's a great opportunity to reach students that wouldn't otherwise looked into DIY or take the time out of the day to attend to one of our events. So, I really appreciate the opportunity to present in this school board meeting and that this district has such a focus on involving student voice. With that being said, I'd like to open this presentation up for any questions involving BYU and this presentation. >> Excellent. Thank you, Adakus. Board members, do you have any questions or comments at this time? >> Hey, >> thank you, Adakus, for taking over a leadership role

023in this group. And um looking through everything you did last year. It's um I'm blown away by how involved you all were on top of being full-time students and doing all of that. So, and all your other activities. Um so, thanks to you and your group. I think a lot happened last year. You were very helpful. um connecting the board to the students and helping explain things. Um so we really appreciate that and I look forward to um interacting with you and seeing what your group does this year. Thank you. >> Thank you, Amy. >> Anyone else question or comment? Okay, Corey, >> I'll just echo what Amy said. I really commend the DYC for their engagement over the years and particularly last year. there's a lot of big topics in play and not sure

024I've spent more time at the high school during a day in any given year than last year. And it was good to see all those events were well attended by students and really well engaged. Uh and even like the handouts for candidates was great. So I appreciate the extra steps there to make sure students knew what was going on at the high school, going out at the bond and going on with the election. Um I'm curious for this year as the the leader of this group now. What are you hoping for DYC this year? I know you have the goals laid out for the organization, but for yourself, what do you hope come May that you have accomplished? >> That's a great question. So, personally, I think I would I would like to see that

025almost every student in Northwood High School knows what knows what DYC is. And that's that's a pretty hard goal to achieve, but I think it is, you know, very important that they know that we are our resource and we are available if they have any questions and they can approach me or anybody else in DYC in the halls and ask one of these questions. So, I think that's one of my main hopes and dreams for this year. Um, another one I'll go back to the piece I said in the goals about integrating community members into our reach. We've had community members reach out. That's part of where the um where this that's part of where the uh student pledge against gun violence came into play. A community member reached out to Emily I believe and

026Dr. Hillman and so we are going to be integrated in that process and I'm really excited for that. So yeah, so just expanding our reach to more people and making sure more people know what we are what we are and what we are doing. >> Thanks Adakus. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, Jenny. >> Um, thank you for the presentation and all of the information. My question is, um, how do you obtain information or exchange information with the student body? Like what what methods do you use? >> Yeah. So, in the past, we've used a lot of um we did a lot of forums and we also did a lot of um Google forums. So, especially the big one with the um I think it was uh I think it was two years ago, we

027did a big form that we presented. I think it was during CCR and it had students list their complaints and list what they liked about the current school building and whatnot. So, we were able to take that information and present it. I think we presented to school board, maybe we just present it to a forum. Yeah. So, that that was our main way of collecting information. Uh this year as I said in the um hopes and dreams part there's a great tableling resource that DYC has not utilized in the past which happens during the lunch period flex where you know students walking or we consider a couple of members of DYC in like the middle in between the cafeterias and let students learn more information about what we are presenting and what we do and

028any events we are taken care of there. So, and I think we're going to use that resource to gather a lot of information as well in this upcoming year. So, I'm very excited to see how that works out. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Amy. >> I'm just wondering if Emily Culver is here. I haven't met her yet. Hi, Emily. Welcome aboard. Glad to have you leading this group. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you very much, Adakus. >> Thank you. We're gonna um we've had a little bit of an issue with that connection to the screen. So Tim, just before the high school presentation is going to reboot the camera system. So it'll just take just 90 seconds or so, a couple minutes. So you can hold on for just one second and Tim's going to

029reboot the system. District and staff. um the strategic commitments that you'll see me highlight most today. You'll see there's a letter N on the um the little Northfield logo there. Though the people, the learner outcomes, and the communication are really what this what our goals and our highlights uh deal with. We do deal with all or work with all the strategic commitments, but people, learner outcomes, and communication is what you will see the most. Similarly, when we talk about the district benchmarks, we're going to make use let you see that all students are connected to the community, that they exhibit physical, social, and emotional well-being. They're going to graduate from high school with a plan to reach their full potential. We're going to have happy, productive employees, and we're going to make sure their parents

030are connected to the school uh district uh in the district and in the building. So, today, I'm going to share a few success stories with you. We're going to identify the goals that we've laid out for this year. We're going to show you how we align with the strategic plan I just went over. Inspire adult actions that make learning better for our students and make sure that all of our efforts are aligned again to prepare every student for lifelong success. And take a look at that awesome link crew this year who ran a fantastic program for our incoming nth grade students. So the highlights I'll go over is the attendance goal of 73.9 to 82% by the end of last year, an increase in credit attainment for our free and reduced lunch population, and then

031a plan for college and career readiness as we work forward. These were the three goals um that were developed for last year's uh plan. In terms of attendance, we really wanted to concentrate on that free and reduced population over the last uh four-year period from 22 to 25. You'll notice a pretty good jump there. 62 to 74 to 80 in the last three years. Um 80% is a good number. It's not good enough. We want to be over that 90% mark. However, uh the chronically absent students you'll see dropping every year with 20% last year. Of those 250 students, 200 were given individual mentors last year as a way to try to combat the new or the the the problem we've seen since the pandemic of students just not coming to school or attending classes.

032Um, of those 200 students who received mentors, 76 were able to get off of the intervention, which means they were no longer chronically absent. That's a huge step forward thanks to the um, the staff that we have in place. Um, we do remember we talked about things of aligning and getting stuff ready. One of the plans that we had in place to take some of the workload off of teachers with the new expectations were to kind of eliminate the mentor program. However, as you'll see in a couple goals from now, we can't fight data. data showed us that this program worked really well and we did bring that program back and it's running this year um with with Fidelity already in the first few weeks. So that is our um update on that goal for

033attendance. Um not there yet but growth is important. Another one is um attaining credits, making sure students are on track to graduate. Um you'll notice that our overall free and reduced population in those years from 21 up has moved from 73% to 87% which is a good growth. We did note that the 2% drop in all students in credit attainment and so we started the process of developing a u credit retainment plan where you don't have to necessarily if you miss by a couple points make up the entire credit but focus on those priority standards that you didn't get as a student. Uh the goal over the summer was to try to win back 75 to 80 credits. The number on the screen is 114.25. That's how many credits were attained in the summer programming

034working with the ALC. That's a huge win for our students who are behind in graduation credits. The final goal was to focus on that college and career readiness and engagement in the classroom. You'll see a whole um list here of, you know, your standard high school credit, your concurrent enrollment, advanced placement, PSO options, and the St. Olaf and Carlton honors program. All of these are designed to give students a chance to not only earn high school credit, but to expand their offerings. and we have a couple plans to move forward in place that Dr. Hillman and I have been uh discussing already to get more students into that work-based learning program as we move forward. The other piece for engagement last year was the big cell phone uh protocol or policy that we put in

035place to try to get students to refocus on being engaged in the classroom. And so you'll see that stoplight as that indicator. Um we did add a little data here and I went over this at my staff meeting this afternoon. You'll notice the two big green circles on the left. That makes a total of 91% of staff who were satisfied or very satisfied with the way the rollout went. The last time we had a 91% success rate in any school was a long long time ago. I don't know if it's ever happened, but um we have we're going to try to find those four people who didn't like it and see what we can do a little bit better, but 91% roll out is very well done. Uh and so our our students are more

036engaged in class and we're making sure that um they're there. The one on the right is the student response. Um, anything to the left means that they thought they were less paying less attention in class and anything to the right is those that were um more paying more attention in class. Well, you can kind of see that bell-shaped curve there is tilted to the right, which is exactly what we wanted to see. That 50% range in the middle, it's tough to get a student to pick a side sometimes. And if it was positive not to be engaged, you don't necessarily want to admit that. So a positive growth here for us is is big news and we know that by talking to our students they understand that that cell phone policy is helping them engage

037in class and that is is a very beneficial part of moving forward and we have continued that plan as as was and we um are are rolling forward with it with even better engagement and followup. So for this year's goals, I mentioned the absences. Um we are going to continue forward um and try to get 90% of our students here 90% of the time. Eliminate those chronically absent students to less than 10%. To do that, we are going to continue that mentor program that we started last year. There's already 100 students receiving mentorship um services already this year based on attendance from last from the fourth quarter of last year. Um, we've expanded our problem solving team to include attendance, behavior, and academic intervention. So, we can try to get the whole student involved in

038that process as opposed to picking out grades for one, attendance for one, and some behavior for one. We want to make sure that we're um we're meeting the needs of students all the way across the board. We're going to align with the we already are aligned with the district-wide attendance guidelines to keep the school vocabulary K12 or P uh pre-K to post12 in in the same using the same language so parents know from the very beginning how important attendance is and we have getting our students in the building and we thank the work of uh Dr. Shawn Dubet and Melissa Hansen and Carrie Duba to make sure that those strategies we have to make our students connect with our school um a prevalent part of every day. Um in our in our second action step,

039we are are going to concentrate on utilizing those high impact teaching strategies or hits um to to meet the district alignment of 80% proficiency on all priority standards. To do this, we are going to work with our staff members and teachers to change those adult behaviors that we know will strategically um allow students to be more engaged. Um those high impact strategies are things like using physical movement in the classroom, knowing every student's name, um tapping into former knowledge banks of the students, setting up lessons so we don't outrun the students attention span in in these 43minute classes, making sure our activities are changing. Um, another discussion we're having is in regards with rigor. Rigor was a big piece of last year's development, but we're going to look at it even more and make sure

040that if we have a 4.0 student that they're not getting a 15 on the ACT. We got to make sure that our classes are well structured so the learning that takes place is also reflected in those national expectations of like AP and ACT classes. More hands-on learning to energize the student engagement and to make our students more successful. Uh the last piece was here in the response to the employee experience survey at the end of last year. I connected these two together for this goal. Uh because what happened at the end of last year is a lot of our employees felt uh with the new building information going on and with talking about rigor and with the hit strategies that maybe we were too spread thin. And so as part of this the resource that

041we're going to focus in on is that resource of time. Um, our teachers work really hard every day to develop relationships with our students and to make sure that they're getting a quality product in front of the classroom. By focusing on those hits, we can bring all that together into one. We we put arch over the top and bring everything together to make sure that our employees not only feel um valued, but that their time is honored to give them the best benefit in improving their um improving the product they put in front of our students every day. And our last goal has to do with communication. Um the this this is a slide I showed not only at our staff meetings but also at the parent meeting and at the student meeting. We have

042three key tools that we use for communication. And as teachers and admin, we have gone through the use of these three tools to make sure that they are used in an appropriate way. Skyward is our location that houses our correct grade books, attendance, and discipline records. Schooly is where we park our classroom resources. show off show off the curriculum, build calendars and where teachers can talk to students um either in groups or one-on-one talking points uh which is our text messaging service uh deals really heavily in family communication, one-to-one contact with parents and then full class announcements so the parents know what is going on in the classrooms. Um as someone coming in, I've I've seen the first two talking points is new to me. Texting is where it's at. That's where we get our

043biggest bang for the buck on reaching our parents. Talking points allows that text message back and forth for parents and it also is able to be monitored by another uh person. When someone sends a talking point, I see that as well. So if there's any anything going back and forth that the administration needs to see, we know that that's there. And so the teachers and administration are working hard to make sure that all these communication methods are well-rounded and reaching the people they need to reach. Um, we will also be adding this year from the parent survey is that more positivity being sent home. Um, we just kicked off a spreadsheet today that's going to show every time a a teacher sends a positive message home, we're going to track that and try to get

044all 1223 students currently in our building at least one positive message if if not more on the um getting out to all of them. Very often a parent only gets those calls that are, hey, I'm missing this, missing that. We want to make sure we're celebrating everything those students do each and every day. With that, it quickly um gets through our three highlights and our three goals and we are open to any questions you have. Thanks. >> Excellent. Thanks so much. All right, board members, do you have any questions for Chris for Amy? >> Well, first of all, welcome Chris. Uh we're so happy to have you and I'm very impressed with your energy. that gives me like I know you're going to take the high school and do amazing things with it. So, thank

045you for bringing all that energy with you. Um I have two questions for you and I have one for Rico because I don't want Rico just to stand there all night. Um so my first question for you um Chris is um when we were looking at the college and career readiness different program opportunities, I'm wondering if you could tell me how many students participate in the different options. Absolutely. Uh last year in the AP spot, we had 343 students take 570 AP exams. So that's over a quarter of the school population took them and 75% did score three or better on those AP exams. So that's that. Um our concurrent enrollment or the college and the schools, we had 240 students take one or more of those concurrent enrollments uh classes and that's this year,

046currently this year. And 67 of our students have um enrolled in one or more PSO classes in a day. and Okay. And there's none nobody at St. Olaf for Carlton right now. >> I think I think in talking to Mark today was one or two. >> Okay. But that's still an option. >> Yep. And that's an honors program that's a little bit different than any of those, but it's it's a small number, but we hope it grows. >> Okay. Well, that's my first question. And my second question is, thank you. I'm I'm really happy to see we have so much engagement when all those different programs. That's fantastic. >> Um, my second question is about the mentors. How are they chosen and how do you connect them up with the students? And could you just

047talk a little bit more about the mentorship? >> Yeah, the the where we tried to start first this year was try to get that first hour teacher. Is there a first hour teacher that aligns with the student that's scheduled for first hour so we can see right away if they're there. Uh from there we see how many students, you know, no teacher is going to have more than one at this time or one one to two uh to make sure that there's not it's not overburdened too much. Um but usually the first hour teacher um is going to build that relationship. >> I think I might have more on that. >> I think valuing relationships I think last year too we we took requests really I that's my kid. I want to work with them

048and that is probably priority when you're working with tennis with kids. >> Nice. Okay Ro stay there for a moment. >> You know uh I just want to have an update from you Rico. I know in the past you've talked to us about um disciplinary issues and worked to minimize those and I just sort of a general question for you. Do you have any thoughts or updates for us? >> I think we built an attendance system with checks throughout absences that we are seeing unexcused and and uh and excused um really reaching out to that family. So, for example, I mean, we will bring families in at six unexcused absences and really sit down and develop a plan that is visual for them that we can share with them. And we found that to be

049highly successful. Um, I just layering support. I just got back from a MN MTSS meeting at Compass in Rochester, which was really eye opening. So to really think about the other big nine schools and how they are thinking of their systems and how this MTSS is fitting within that system, we're really light years ahead of them with our DT with our site leadership team as well. We're just doing outstanding things to layer kids up and parents see that and that's the perception that they have and their that their child is well supported and I'm just excited about the work groups. I'm excited about is a big thing with educating the whole child. So SEAL is going to be yeah social emotional learning right um that's going to be a big push next with our MN

050MTSS going forward with our with our district and our site so exciting things to come >> thank you both >> y >> Jeff did you have a question >> yeah sure Chris welcome to the district thank you sir >> um and as alumni and going back ways here being on the board um and I just had this conversation with Matt and he we looked up a lot of, you know, with math and reading and a lot of, you know, how well the district ranks, you know, out of uh was it three how many was it? Three 325 districts. So, I I I think that that's great. um kind of my personal opinion and what's kind of where we kind of been over time and this is even going back to my days here is that

051I I mean I I think you know obviously you have to set an expectation to get results and I think that you want every student to be motivated to be lifetime learners and critical thinkers and I I just think that there's no reason or and I think even over time and I'm extremely biased because I you know graduated from here um you know it's just like I I look at these numbers and how we compare ourselves and it's uh statewide to look at that too, but more out of the, you know, never name your conference the big nine where there's actually 12 teams or whatever. So So there's 12 in the in the big nine, right? 12 teams >> for now. >> Yeah. For now until But >> nine communities though, nineities, 12 high schools.

052>> Nine communities, 12 high schools. So I would say and my point is is you can comment on this, you know, and I really kind of compare myself because I'm, you know, very competitive within the conference. I mean we really want to be really do really well in the conference academically so much other things compared to that. So what do you see and what is your uh long question what do you see about Northfield and just on the ability because we are really an education town. Um and how do you I mean what what uh what do you think you can necessarily do to improve that and then how were you kind of impressed to see that or maybe you weren't impressed but I it's pretty impressive on on a lot of the numbers. So

053just kind of your your comment on the academics of Northfield kind of what our history is and we're high high achievement on academics and kind of you know what are some things that you see that we do well and and maybe we could do better or continue what we're doing. >> Yeah. Uh from from the this is my third big nine district. So I've been fair boy Albert Lee before coming here and the first thing I see is a whole bunch of support from the board from the community uh from parents that really want to see their their kids do good things. you support teachers. Um there there's two ways you can treat teachers. You can support them or you can ask them to do more and more and more and um fight with what

054they're doing or fight necessarily but not not be fully supportive. I see a lot of support in this community um from the from the colleges and and from you know everyone here the fact that you're that that the your our MCA participation rates are so high um the opt out of MCAs in other communities is huge. Um at when I was in Albertly we had more than half of our kids opting out and it was the kids who were sick of testing our high-flying ACT kids. And so that support piece is big, showing that the testing is important to show that we know what we know and then to help teachers rebuild back, you know, get the information we need to be better at our jobs. Um, the other thing that I see Northfield doing

055is this new English and math curriculum that are getting put into place. We're not status we're not we're not happy with the status quo. We want to find out what best practices are out there and make sure that our kids are getting the best possible curriculum that's out there. And I know math is starting that process this year. English is at is already in process and watching the support that those teams have um is not something you see in every community or school district. >> Thank you, >> Chris. Welcome. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Well done. I actually have a question or two for >> Rico. As the constant Good to see you again. As the constant from last year's administration to this year, I have a couple questions for you. Obviously, great highlights. Um

056glad to hear those numbers. I'm curious what you were most proud of from last year. >> I think co taught us a lot a lot of things and I think I think the systems were there just not working in right order and I'm very proud of the heavy lift that Shane Becca and I did for three years. And I guess the culture that was changed at that high school um was huge not only just with students but with staff too. um adult behaviors we're talking we're concentrating on that and we have a great foundation to continue and soar with that as well. So just the system work and what we did for three years. >> Yeah. And continue on that point because how do you carry that forward? I've seen shining high right now. >>

057Yeah. >> Dr. Dubet is going to do well. You have >> Yeah. Can I give a shout out to Dr. Shawn Dubet? I know that the budget reductions and with my team last year was very hard and at point4 in the classroom with 6, I think he's done a magnific magnificent job and it's only been a month. I called Matt the other day and said he's he's just killing it, knocking out of the out of the the the park here. So, but I think education is bake, borrow, and steal. And I think we have an expert right here that is wellversed in many uh experiences. Um I think he brings um uh a previous district I had experience with um Marzono and I think he's going to bring that and fit that within our system

058now with with um Kim Marshall currently and uh high impact teaching strategies. So I think there's a lot to be learned by Chris and and I think he's sitting back and kind of looking right now but um I think it's coming around and you're just going to see the systems here just take off even higher. >> Thank you. Good luck to you both this year. Hey. >> Well, thank you both. And I've got uh a quick question, one one to start with in the weeds. And I just wanted to say thank you to Rico. You I think you and Shane and Becca did a great job last spring kind of rounding the corner with them through budget reductions. And so this ties into that a little bit when we look at highlight number three and

059kind of that college and career readiness piece. This question is a little bit down in the weeds, but you know when we look at obviously a reduction in the number of school counselors I think you know from last year and then we have raider time and then we kind of look at earlier college admission cycles too. So more and more colleges you kind of have a November 1 application date. How are we using the resources that we have to also kind of align with raider time college readiness for that early application cycle or or is that something that's on our radar or >> I got I'll take it you got um the the counselors we have do amazing work and they have been able to refocus and put a timeline together to catch all of

060that. Um the greater time schedule's done throughout the year um so they they know what's coming and when it's coming. I know we've already talked the preac and uh PSAT planning are going next Thursday or next Tuesday as part of Raider time for our 10th and 11th grade students. So I think the work they've done they they know what's coming and they've been able to timeline that out so we don't miss anything like that >> too >> has really helped with understanding. I have a senior right now and wow I've leaned on our counselors too to kind of check timelines and I think kids are more confident navigating that. it's more out in the open. Um, and then I think with Raider time, I think it's we're really concentrating on each grade level being privy

061to that grade level and what the kids need because in the past it's always been just kind of one sizefits-all and, you know, we won't 100% attendance at at Raider time. So, it's really hard to shut down flex for a whole hour on Tuesday. the kids really, oh, we got Raider time, but it's kind of up now because it's applicable. Kids are seeing things that are delivered to them that's going to be applicable not only now, but post-secary as well. >> You also have the fact that not only are they divided by last name, but for all the kids, but they're also taking grade level um jobs. And so, you know, Cory's in charge of what the ninth graders are doing, Deb's taking AP with 10 and 11, and Mark's in charge of the 12th

062graders. So, >> thank you. I appreciate it. I just a lot of fun. >> But can I give a shout out to Corey, too? Just hit the ground running at the high school, too. I mean, we had to cut AP. We had to cut a counselor. And uh that's a great team. She's been here a long time, and I've already worked with her on a few issues, and I can't wait. She's amazing. >> And then Chris, just another question for you. I think you may have touched on some of this, but is there anything that's surprised you in coming to the high school? kind of stood out for you um that you weren't expecting? >> I think the biggest surprise is that kids are kids. No matter what community you go to, there's still even

063I can look around and I don't know a single face, but I see kids that I met before and they're different people, but the groups are still there and they still say 67 too much and they they they kids are kids and so I was felt a little more comfortable. I'd say the first month and a half felt not as comfortable. I mean, Matt was very welcoming, worked with me a lot, but until you get back to work and and you like when the staff came back, I was like, "Okay, this is a staff. They're they're adult humans who are very good with kids and build good relationships." When the kids come back, you're like, "Okay, I I know this now. This is this feels really familiar and comfortable." Um, so in terms of that

064surprise, coming from one big high school to another, it is more similar than different, but there are key differences too. Um, you know, just like I said that the community support has been unbelievable here. It's much appreciated. >> Welcome and thank you. We'll look forward to excellent. >> Then Jenny, did you have a comment question? >> Yes. Thanks Claudia and thank you both for the information and also welcome Chris. >> Thank you. >> Um I the word interventions was mentioned a lot here in this report. Um and I know the mentoring um is one example, but can you give any other examples other interventions? >> Ellen, >> yeah, I I think our SSC is statewide recognized with Ellen Muha and her team is a huge structured study hall uh support for kids who feel comfortable

065and safe and it's it's always open to anyone that needs access to that. Um, outside of that with Flex, we have a tier 2 intervention called Superflex that we're really proud of that we strategically place staff members there for academic purposes. Um, it can either be a single day where the kids are struggling with something and academically and they are put into superflex in the media center where there are there's a system of check-in. Teachers teachers will uh sign them up for that um day. Uh we have a counselor there that checks them in, gets them all ready to go, and we have six content specialist teachers there to get them onetoone help. Sometimes the academic problems are a little bit more and require a kind of a more rigorous type of uh help. So

066there's ongoing and that's ongoing until that grade does go up and then the teacher can say, "Yep, Rico, Chris, counselors, Superflex team, we'll take them off. We're good to go." And that does so much for SEAL for students. Um builtin supports just layering that that's what we were talking with parents is have been really appreciative. Um I do have uh two in high school right now that do not have that built-in support right now. So they're doing the traditional uh talk to your teacher and go before class or stay after class and that's really hard. It's it's a wonderful thing that we have going on for those that intervention. Jenny. So >> thank you. And then >> sorry we >> good >> back >> Tim. >> We got um let me let me hit that

067flex a little bit. That's different than any school I've been in. And um three weeks in here, it's remarkable how well this system works. um the way those students can get support, the way those students can have an hour to eat, have some downtime, get some uptime if they need it. Um a system that when I was being told about me, I just had to sit back and watch. And it's a it's a fantastic system with great teachers. Again, great kids and well planned out um a well planned out schedule by Rico and Sean. >> I just want to make note that just the staff is amazing because we have to have every square inch. Did I do something again? >> We have to have almost every square inch of that building supervised when you

068have 1,200 kids that are kind of at large going through. A lot of the seniors do leave for open campus because we do have open campus. But we strategically place at kind of hot spots around the high school and you will see teachers there with their carts, with their computers and they will provide academic support in the hallway with lots of kids just running by. You'll see onetoone. So they even built in they even build in their own academic time with kids even though they're on a supervisory type of platform. Then obviously we have intervention in the classrooms too. We built time during flex for that. So it's just it's a big recess built around academic support layered support. So >> and then I wanted to uh visit the the student device the new policy

069a little bit because I know that you had um mentioned it. Um I I attended the the the cell phone uh roundt discussion uh last year with Senator Alice Man and we had um a lot of teachers, staff, students um and community members and parents that attended was very very well attended. I don't I think every chair was taken and so it's obviously a very critical um element um that was posing some issues in our district. And so I'm I'm really proud that we you know some took the bull by the horns and and got into that. Um but my question is I remember at that round table discussion that there was a student there, a high school student and and this was before the policy, you know, went into effect and and he said

070that he's nervous that the enforcement part of it would be an issue. And and I guess the the positive thing about that is that we have very smart students at our high school because um his prediction came true because I noticed that you mentioned that there there are some issues with enforcement. >> Can you just um kind of discuss a little bit about what those that issue stems from and maybe what is still needed in order to help um bring solutions. >> Yeah, I I think Chris touched on this a little bit. Well, maybe today in our staff meeting is that we need to be universal in expectations across the board because enforcing it in one side of the high school versus the other side, word travels, and kids know that kids know. So, the

071adult actions, right? We're not going to really change student behavior until we change adult behavior and be able to understand that, you know, this is the red light and this is something that the staff has all agreed on. So, those are the issues and you see issues that related to that. Sometimes kids are let out of class early. Well, we have to go bellto bell. And that's kind of an expectation. But I I also think that we're combating that, Jenny, because the last two two years, year and a half, that has taken priority. So when there has been an office and dis office discipline referral that has come in right away and then we see it's a cell phone, we drop everything and we go immediately to that. And we think of a lot of

072people might think punitive. No. And and I don't think it's punitive, but cell phones are never going to go away. But we have to think restoratively with kids and give them the guidance and the skills to be able to understand that academics come first, but you got to have that skill to put that away. Every Monday morning on announcements, I I do the pledge of allegiance. I do a few beginning of the week announcements. But the biggest thing that teachers have actually loved that I say is, "Okay, kids, it's time to turn off that cell phones, take your earbuds out, turn them off, put them in the backpack, zip them up, and give your attention to those outstanding staff members up there instructing you." And that has that has kind of lifted the morale of

073of teachers because it's a battle. It can be a battle. And this has been a battle that we fought for years with with cell phones to the point where some teachers just give up and let it happen. But we're in this together. Um, we know what we have to do and and hold everyone accountable. Have those hard conversations with staff members that that need that help or need that guidance to have those hard conversations with kids about putting phones away. So, >> and then I also wanted to touch into the um you had mentioned some of the navants um and the the raider time um some of the subjects. One in here is the career curriculum that is shared during raider time. Can you give some examples of what that career curriculum is? >> Any

074on that? >> We'll have to get back to you on that. Mark has really worked with that summer team and we have that we can we can get that back to you. But um yes, that's something that we need to learn more a little bit about. So, That was the first one that we used from the University of Minnesota and it's been adapted over the years because as we've used RA was originally called CCR years ago and was re wisely rebranded as Raider time. I think they've taken my understanding that that ramp up to readiness curriculum from was what was started and then it has branched off over time diverting based upon what the topic is. So I think we can certainly get a broader detail for the board. I know was originally rooted when

075we moved to the flex time and the University of Minnesota's ramp up to readiness curriculum. >> Okay. And then along with that subject um is PSO kind of uh reviewed within raider time. I mean, how many how many times a year would you say that it's reviewed in >> in terms of what um having the option out there >> the options um just giving the students the information because so many of them you know some of them don't even know what PSO is or what it stands for >> parents do. >> Yeah. The >> Well, parents do but then we want to make sure that some parents that aren't interacting with you know their >> Yeah. So PSO is an interesting statute uh because it's we don't technically serve the kids that are in PSO.

076It's served by the college and so we're kind of restricted a little bit on how much we can talk about it but we put all the options out there for students to dig into. PSO is really designed for those students who are ready to take college level classes which has some independent uh variables with it. Um so I know that during registration time the options are put out there and it's kind of up to those students to dig in and see what they want to take. We can now our concurrent enrollment we can be advisers for them. We can push them forward there. PSL is just a little bit different. >> But the information is >> it's available. Yep. >> I'll just add one more. I I think it's goal last year with all four

077counselors were to get in front of their alphabet at least twice a year and um one at the beginning, one at the end and kind of pre and post and see you know goals have changed. But I know that that's part of their their information that is given to them during these onetoone meetings fall and and spring as well. >> Thank you. >> Did you have one question? >> Well, thank you so much for your report and I just thank you for your dedication and your investment in our kids and especially for your leadership. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have the reimagine North Hill High School update and some renderings. Sal Bagley from W Architecture Architects and Engineers will provide that update on the Reimagine High School project. Welcome. >> Good evening everyone. Um

078thank you for having me. Also with me tonight is Josh Cooper from Canut Construction. So um I might call him up to answer any of your questions um and talk about schedule and phasing in particular. Um so we are honored to be here to give you an update on the project. I will spend a little bit of time talking about process of what we've been up to. Um, I will explain to you kind of what hasn't been done yet because we are in design through February of next year. And then the main part of our presentation tonight is to go through uh computerenerated renderings of what the project is proposed to look like. Um, if you are here in the room um uh you can see that we have uh physical samples of all of

079the proposed materials on a on a table here. I will gesture to each of those as I explain them. There's a slide I'll I'll do that on um just because color rendering on anyone's individual monitor can vary quite significantly. something might look brighter, darker, more saturated, things like that. Um, and these will be made available to the school district. So, the high school will have a copy um at the high school. We are planning to be at uh conferences this week on Wednesday and have a table and kind of openhouse style and those materials will be available along with the renderings for families. So, going back to right after the passage of the referendum, we worked with the administration to put together a core planning group. I spent quite a bit of time on my

080um in my schematic design update on who participated in that, but just a brief reminder, we did have um eight initial meetings with them uh December through April of this year. Uh they did also have the opportunity to go on building tours in the third week of January. Um and then we just got them back together recently. So they were just back together on uh September 9th. Um kind of seeing a preview of what you all are seeing tonight. We did have an activities and athletics subcommittee that focused um quite a bit on I would say the um expanded gym portions of the project as well as some of the other ancillary spaces. And then like I said we did do that May 12th update to the board and here we are tonight September 22nd

081um for our design development update. I would imagine that we will do at least one more update before we go out to bid probably towards the end of construction documents. a huge part about what our team has been up to and um I'll echo um what Chris Dibble said in his presentation about um how um dedicated your teachers are in time. There's been no s insignificant contribution of time to this project from your staff and the user group meetings that are on the bottom right hand side of this. It looks like a small little note, couple bullet points. What that really looked like was teachers from all of these teachers and staff from all of these different input groups getting together for hours at a time, weeks apart, talking about um important but sometimes minute

082details. So these are all the groups that we've had user group meetings with uh over the past few months. And I would say that there's not a group that we got done in one meeting, right? It's very rare we show up, the drawing's perfect, and we decide to hang out the rest of the meeting, right? So it's often that there's feedback. We talk about rotating the room. We talk about changing cabinetry arrangements. We talk about adding or deleting marker or tack boards. Um we might have some follow-up topics or research to do for them. And so every single one of these groups has had at least two meetings. And then there's some spaces we've had to have more than two meetings to get the details right. Um things like a main office administration suite is

083complex with lots of users, lots of security topics to think through. We actually have a series of follow-up user group meetings um this Wednesday actually with a few groups. So we still have some details to work out. So, we'll be meeting with the athletic director office and the media AV. We'll be meeting with the business department um and a couple other groups on Wednesday yet. So, we're not totally done with user groups, but we've gotten pretty far. And on the next couple slides, I have just some examples of what the work product of those user group meetings is. So what we do, I will show you all an overall floor plan in a few slides here, but what we do is we zoom in on a part of the building um and we start talking

084about flow and function all the way to what directions do doors swings, you know, outlet locations, light switch locations, how should lights be switched, things of that nature. So just a couple examples here. This is an example user group drawing at least as of our most recent iteration um of the main office or administration suite. Um so just to walk you through in case um you're not as much of a floor plan reader um on the left hand side there are ghosted in suggested furniture arrangements but there will be input process for that. Uh you can see here we've got offices along the north for um principal and assistant principal um as well as a flexible office for people who are there part of the time or maybe as another conferencing space. Couple conference rooms

085on the right hand side both a medium and a large group. And then on the southern side, you can see we've got our nurses or health office um with bathrooming and then the work room for staff. So this is an example of the type of space we've had to have multiple meetings to get um the arrangements and details right for. Another important one, a building block of the high school is what does a classroom look like? So you have some environments that are specialized, right? Some of your um science environments or um teched or art or things of that nature that are are different than your typical classroom. Um but we have had multiple user group meetings with your kind of your core um teaching staff and they really landed on c creating this Swiss

086army knife of a classroom that is um flexible so that if you rearrange or have more of one in the in the future or less of one in the future um that it's not too rigid and so this um general classroom um was in had input from all of those core departments. So you can see on the right hand side um some notes all the way down to like I said power and data locations. Here's an example user group drawing from some of the science classrooms. We did spend a lot of time talking about specialization with this group um in particular. This shows two of the labs. One of them is focused around um the teaching and learning of chemistry and the other one around earth and space with a shared prep room. Uh, and

087we usually also bring, in addition to the 2D floor plan drawings I just showed you for a user group drawing, we often do bring these, we call them aonometric drawings, kind of like the ceiling's peeled off and we're looking down into it just because not everybody is a floor plan reader or you can't really appreciate space until you see it in three dimensions. Uh, so this is an example of one of those showing the um kind of weights and cardio space with the suggested equipment layout that we had gotten from those users. So that's really the phase we've been in in addition to developing the design. So I will go through uh some overall information quickly. Um it's my understanding that you all were um the recipients of a link to a video walkthrough for

088the project that I believe is also available on the district's website. We're not going to sit here and watch it tonight. Um but so all of what I'm going to go through is um two-dimensional imagery, but there is threedimensional imagery available for those who are interested. Um so here we are uh looking at the site. Um I will say that we have not yet submitted to the city of Northfield. Um we are intending to do that relatively soon here. We have another meeting with them this Thursday um to talk about the development of the project um talking about imple um implementation of some of the city's ordinances. There's a couple ordinances actually under review by the city right now that we're trying to figure out what might change actually by the time we formally submit.

089We know a lot more about grading and storm water and utilities than we did uh the last time we met with them. And then um last but not least, we have received the results of the traffic study that the district commissioned. And so those will be our main talking points with the city. So all of that's to say is that this is a draft at this time, right? We have not formally submitted to the city and we're in design till February. But I think the building blocks we can talk through. So, um you can see we've got um north is up in this drawing and I'll explain briefly the existing building portions that are remaining and being renovated are in the diagonal crosshatch and so at the very northern part of that shape actually if

090I gesture do you see it? Yes. At the very northern part of that shape right here for example is the media center. This part of that shape is the existing main office and student services area. At the center here would be the kitchen, the cafeteria commons. The main entry would be right there. Um off to the left hand side here to the west would be the existing auditorium in the lower commons. And then uh right here would be the um the gym. We've got the weight room, locker rooms on either side of it, music upstairs. So all of those are uh portions of the building that are staying. Oh, and the um the current V-wing. Sorry, shouldn't skipped over that. Um so all those parts of the project are are building are staying and being

091improved. And then you'll notice there's parts of the building that are proposed to be demolished, right? That's part of the project. Um, so in large part, the H-wing, the M-wing, the D-wing, and the S-wing are no longer shown on this drawing. Um, for context, the H-wing comes out to about right here on the site. It's very, very close to about how far the proposed addition will come out to. Um, and then there's a small connection piece that we're keeping up here. Um, but in large part, all of that will be turned over to replacement site amenities. So then the additions are the proposed additions are shown in the white. So, we've got our main entry and office and classroom edition that's proposed to go to the east of the building. We've got our uh music

092and activities edition that's proposed to go to the southwest part of the building. And then we have a bus entry and the fax um kind of hands-on kitchen classroom or a small but important addition on the north side of the building. So, I'll just walk you through the intended flow and function of the site and traffic um with the caveat that we are still undergoing conversations. Um, so the intent is to have um family or parent pickup and drop off as well as student traffic arriving to and from the site um come from Division. So you can see we're showing connecting to Division here um with a drop off loop going around this main parking lot. So that would be a two lane dropoff loop um kind of a mini version of like what you

093might see at the airport where there's a pull-off lane, somebody gets out of the car and then you can go into the pass through lane to get out of line. Um and all of that surrounds um parking. So we have parking here as well as parking here. So the lion share the parking for the building will be in these two lots. Um for context, this lot right here on the eastern side um is really uh in large part where you have a parking lot today. But we are um reconstructing it, changing grades a little bit and then we have to do some storm water management and then people really come uh leave the way they came. So, we will have this crossroad, as I like to call it, across the site that is incredibly important

094for um emergency vehicle access and before and after school activities, things of that nature. Um, but the traffic study really showed the importance of um really using kind of your most improved and um capable road division for that traffic to come and go through as opposed to on Raider. So it is likely that that will have a gate during um the pickup and drop off times that is openable for example for an afterchool event right for a show for a game for a practice. So it will be um access uh to Raider on the other side will be controlled um staff and deliveries and buses however will be going on Raider up to the north western and northern part of the site. Um so you can see right now at the top of the site

095plan you see it's labeled bus loop. Um, so that kind of goofy shaped piece of pavement is specifically engineered to um, think about the turning movements of a bus. Um, and so the idea is that a school bus could come up there, they park in an angular fashion where somebody could step off the um, out of the door of the bus and they're right onto a sidewalk and walk into the school and then the buses can um, pull away and leave without having to back up. So that is what a bus loop is and that will be on proposed to be on the northern part of the site. separating forms of traffic is really a key tenant of site safety and so that was a a driver for the core planning group. The blue shape

096just to the north of that will be a surface storm water management feature. Some people call them a pond, right? Um it's an infiltration basin. And then um we will also have um some changes and expansion to the parking near the activities entry. So on the southern side of the building uh we will have an activities entry. Um it is essentially just to the west of the southern wall of the weight room. So, if you're standing on site today, you can um kind of imagine where that wall will be. Um and so we will be adding some parking in and around that area as well. Essentially a no net neutral or kind of a net neutral parking situation in the end. Um trying not to lose stalls, but we do have to bring your parking

097lots up to current city ordinances, which um does have some implication about stall count. Couple other features I'll point out on the site. Um, we will have a small area right here for some vehicles um that transport students receiving special education services to be able to pull off. They're often in, you know, smaller buses or vans or things of that nature um and go inside the building. Uh we've got a couple key programs right inside this um wing of the addition. And then I'll talk about tennis and geothermal as well. Um so the there are five tennis courts that will be reconstructed in place. And by that I mean we will rebuild them but they are not physically moving um because that had storm water management implications. And then we will have um three tennis

098courts built directly to the uh to the west of that. So right now you have two tennis courts. You can kind of see them because we're drawing on top of an aerial just to the you have two and then five. So you'll have all of them will be in a row. Um we're working that with the athletic department and some other users. Um so all will be new but five of them are not moving. Um and then last but not least, uh geothermal, obviously the third question from the bond referendum. Very exciting that that passed as well. Um so we are still dialing in the exact number of wells that you will need. Um we anticipate the test well report will be back. Um we're hoping next week. Um they had some challenges encountering sand

099when they did the the test well um that they had to work through. Um but we're imagining that the um wells will be on the southern side of that parking lot and to the east. They might even line one of the fields a little bit in the outfield. So stay tuned on the number of wells, but generally speaking, um the recommendation is for them to be on the south side of the building. So that is the site. Um maybe a couple other things I'll say before I move on to the floor plan. Um we have been working with the city and our traffic study did have um specific comments and recommendations about tying into surrounding path systems. And so they look small on the site plan this big when you show anytime you show a

10040acre campus on one slide. Um but we had do have path connections to existing path systems to the north to the northwest um out onto division. Um and we have had to keep in very close touch with the city about um potential improvements on division and how we might tie into those. Right. Some of those we actually they don't have designs for yet. So some of it we have to just talk about possibilities or connecting but okay. So now I will go through the floor plan. Um it is in large part very similar to what you saw in the schematic design update. Um but we obviously have a lot more detail today. So uh in an effort to get to the renderings a little bit more quickly, I will talk about the key highlights and

101changes and then I can take any questions if people have them. So on this side we are showing all three levels of the building. You will have a partially three-story building, a mostly two-story building. On this left hand side of the slide will be the main level floor plan. The driving and organizing element that the core planning group really wanted to have was this unifying commons as they went to on tours of other buildings. That that was really important as opposed to a hallway based building. And so you'll see that that kind of ceruan blue color really connects all of the wings of the building. Um that is partially addition and partially renovation. So again, the existing building ends about right here just south of the volume that says torch. Um so we've got some

102in the new addition with a main entry and then um lots of it actually happening in the existing building including connecting back to the activities entry. Uh if you were to walk inside the main entry immediately to your left um would be the main office for secure and have a secure vestibule and the administration in large part is located there as well as the health office. Right above them if I go to the second floor would be student services. So things like counselors and all of that would actually be with a connecting stair right above the college and career center. Um so they really wanted to have some distinction in the services that those two groups do while still being close to each other because there is interconnectivity as you just heard in the last

103presentation. Then as we look at the rest of the classroom and office edition, I'll just explain what the colors mean. Uh so the core planning group felt very strongly about having integrated or dispersed spaces for students with special needs. And so you'll see a variety of those purple classrooms labeled throughout um each level in each wing. Uh so some of them are a little more specialized and and others are more a little more generalized, but um you won't see, for example, a wing that's all purple where all of those things will be in one area from the stigma side of it. Then we have collections of those general classrooms I talked about. In this diagram, they say WL for world language or SS for social studies um or LA for language arts. Um, but like

104I said, they really chose to design kind of a common classroom that would be functional for anyone. So, there's not a lot of differences when it comes to those light green colors. And then surrounding or in the center of all of those is a flexible learning area. So, we've been calling them pods or wings with the core group and staff. Um, so there's really two wings per floor. Um, the first floor is a little bit different because it does have um dedicated science labs. Then if I step into the existing building, the uses in the existing main office will be for torch mental health and the tech department. Uh we have the media center in large part where it is today with improvements. Um just moving a couple things out of the way so that

105the commons can directly connect to the to the V-wing. Uh we do have a move of the culinary department up to the V-wing. I mentioned there's a small addition there so that they can be kind of down by the uh some of that other hands-on um activities. Uh and then improvements throughout uh the shops and through the art area. So this diagram doesn't show those quite as much, but lots changing in the center part of the building. Um we will be doing a lot of work to expand the kitchen and serving area to serve the right number of students. So the wall of the servery will move south a little bit to accommodate that. In large part, students will enter on the east side, flow through the one of five serving lines, and exit kind

106of in the southwest corner here with two main entrances and exits. If we move into the activities portion of the building, um you can see here we've got our expanded gym volume in this orange color. So, uh right now the design shows three of those courts being in one volume and the fourth court. Many people have been calling it the community court. Our drawings show it as community court as also called court one just because it'd be the first one you would encounter when you walk in. Um and then there's a walking track loop if I go to the second level around the three courts as well as around the fourth court. So you would really have kind of a three-court loop and a four court loop. We have our music edition on that level

107as well. So there's three large rehearsal spaces for band, orchestra, and choir along with offices and instrument storage, practice rooms, ensemble rooms. That will be the storm shelter fortified portion of your building. Um and then last but not least, we have improvements happening in the game gym. Um I'll show you some views of the wait room and then lots of rearrangement happening in the locker rooms both to address um Americans with Disabilities Act challenges as well as just some programmatic needs. So that's the super high Oh, I should also say in the um area where music is today um we will have a community gathering classroom. The H is health. So we have two health classrooms. And then I will show you a view of um we're now calling it Raider Hall. I got to

108get all my new names. Um, we're learning about all of the new um, suggested names, but it's really a space that could be served as a blackbox theater, a lecture hall, guest speakers, nice gatherings of events, coaches getting together. So, a flexible space. When we talked with the core planning group about what made Northfield a special place to live, work, and send your children to school, um, there were some common themes that came up that we wanted to make sure were included in the design. Um, so at the top here, you see welcoming, gathering, and celebrating. There was a lot of discussion about the tight-knit knit um element of both the high school culture as well as the community culture. Um and that really plays itself out in pride. There's a lot of pride in

109the community, a pride in celebrating history, a lot of dedication of allocation of space to that. Um and then we wanted to make sure to capture kind of the the the yin and the yang of Northfield of that there is an energetic downtown, right? There's a lot to do, always activities happening, celebrations, getting together. Um but that a lot of people mentioned what made them proud or happy to live here or work here um was actually a lot of the access to tranquil spaces too. And we thought that that translated really well to a high school, right? There's times of energy and then there's times that where we have to really sit and focus and have some time with our thoughts and our work. And so we wanted to make sure that the design incorporated

110all of that. Um I'm going to get into um exterior design and then interior design. I think this might be a good time for me to talk a little bit about materials. Um so we are doing um quite a bit of work on the exterior of the building obviously the new additions but even in the existing building envelope um as you discussed during the setting of the referendum question there's large parts of the building that do not have um any insulation in them um and so we will be uh insulating those walls um and that provides the opportunity to do some changing of what the existing building looks like on the outside with different materials. Um, but there are parts of the building that will stay, right? Some there's parts of the building that did

111have uh uh insulation in them. And so we do have some existing bricks that we know we need to work with and honor and be holistic with. So those are shown some pictures of those are shown in the bottom right hand corner. Um, and then we do have um in, you know, the design really is seeking to respect the existing building and some of its very strong mid-century language around kind of window repet repetitiveness and um kind of some verticality. So, not matching it, but wanting to honor it and blend into it, right? We don't want to look like a building that wasn't meant to be with it. So, when it comes to materials, I do encourage people to spend some time with the physical samples because even on this monitor, like the I'll call

112it the orange brick looks really red, right? Um, and that's just color tuning of monitors. Um, but I will um I'll talk to the side and then I'll come over here and gesture. So, we have the existing brick to remain as well as um a new brick. So on the lefth hand side you see the existing brick to remain in large part that is on um the auditorium volume. There's um a newer edition that actually had insulation. And then we are proposing to um a new brick. We we call it the orange brick or the light brick um to grab some tones from that but modernize it by having less um variety in it, less flash as well as a proposed dark brick. So large parts of the u proposed additions would have those materials.

113Uh the main um the main other material from an exterior perspective would be the pre-cast. So the expanded gym and um music additions are proposed to be of uh pre-cast concrete tiltup panels. So those are those 8 foot wide panels that show up on a huge truck and get erected and the building just pops out of the ground. So they are a great option um for large volume spaces both from an efficiency perspective of construction as well as durability. And so we are proposing that in a color that's quite similar to our darker brick um in a variety of washes. So we'll have some combination of acid etch water wash water wash and um sand blast uh pre-cast. You'll see the patterns on the renderings. Some other uh materials that maybe aren't as prominent, but

114we'll you will see in the renderings and of course once it's built um we will have a little bit of metal panel at our entrance canopies. Um so you'll see some of that. you have what's called coping at the top of your walls that's in a bronze color. So, we will be um in places replacing it but also matching it on new. And then of course, I didn't bring a glass sample tonight um but there is a strong motivator in the project to increase access to natural daylight. And so there will be um a prominent amount of glass and its framing is proposed to be black. And then last but not least, a special element for your project um is the stone. So, we heard a lot about wanting the building to feel unique um

115have a kind of a landmark or a special element. I think we talked about that at our last meeting. Um but also um wanted to make entrance is obvious like we have a actual functional problem at the high school of people not necessarily knowing if they've come to the main entrance and so when we're all said and done wanted that to not be the case. So the left hand or my left your right hand side of the table has most of the exterior materials. Now, I will go through the renderings. I will go through them quickly just so we have more time for questions. Um, this is a drone shot, so to speak. Um, looking at the existing building as well as the proposed addition. Just for a little bit of context, this is the

116existing main office volume. So, the existing main entrance would be about right here. Um, in that location, we are proposing um covered bike parking. So, there's some there as well as at the activity entrance. And here is that main entry. We'll zoom in a little bit more in I think it's about five slides. um with that stone um fin wall really trying to call a lot of attention to that. We have our um in large part twostory office and classroom wing here with both of our brick varieties used on it. Uh every classroom or office having multiple windows into that and then the in the background or kind of the midground of this um image. You can see the three-story component of the classroom and office edition. The commons expansion is right here with a

117significant amount of uh daylight coming in on really all sides. Um and then in the background of this you can just start to see the expanded gym. So now we'll just kind of go around the building heading to the west. Now we've come directly east of the classroom and office uh addition looking at it. Um there's a green space between the two wings. Um the addition peels apart from itself to allow um maximum amount of daylight into classrooms. And then if we keep going in that direction, kind of stepping around, um you can see part of the building is one story for our science rooms. Those are larger. Um and we are limited by total amount of square footage in the project. One of our budget drivers we work on with Kudson. Um but in

118this view, you can see the outdoor eating area that's just south of the um indoor part of the cafeteria. So there'd be doors right here. Now we've come around to the southern side of the building and we are looking north. So here is the for some context this is the existing weights area and the game gym would be beyond. Um so this is where the activities entry will be and as I mentioned the expanded gym is proposed to be made of pre-cast concrete tiltup panels um windows into that space as well as some patterning in the um reveals and the way that they cast those. And then I'll keep coming around. Now we are um on the west side of the building looking east. So you're seeing the classroom and office edition in the background.

119This right here for context is the existing auditorium. Uh and then this right here would be that um music addition. So our three main rehearsal spaces that also serves as our storm shelter. Now we're going to be more on the ground as opposed to those aerial or drone drone views. So this is as if we've just come off division and we're about to make our way into the dropoff loop. You can see on the left hand side of this image um that small pulloff area for our special education transport vehicles where they could go into a door. So, even our a door like that is um demarcated with that stone fin wall to give it prominence. And then as we come around, let's say we're getting dropped off. Mom and dad just dropped us off.

120This is what we'd see when we step off the curb. Um an entrance plaza here, proposed plantings still being discussed. Um here's that covered bike parking I mentioned. Um so we will have a significant amount here as well as at the activity entrance. And then here is that entrance into the building with the commons. You can see beyond a view indoors will show it well as um in addition, but you can see some of the high clear story windows coming into the space both at that third level as well as up here at kind of like a story and a half level. And then right here would be main office administration on first floor and student services above. This is a view of what that would look like at night. thought that that showed off

121the covered bike parking a little bit better as well as um how some of the interior um treatments will actually be very um prominently featured for evening events which we all know is a big part of high school. Another view of those classroom wings. So we have um there's really two treatments for the classroom wings but um the change or there's no change to the indoor user. Um, so every classroom right now is shown to have two six foot wide windows. So for context, um, that would be three ceiling tiles wide, is six feet. So they'd have 12 feet total width of window into their classroom. So when you're looking at this image right here, that's one classroom and right next to it is another. So there's two right there and then two below it.

122Um, and then there's um different treatment between them. Um, in some cases it might be metal panel, in some cases might be what we call spandro glass. Um, but all of that is really to give kind of the illusion of these tall windows, right? To hearken back to that original design of the building. But just to be clear, kind of where it seems more transparent is actually the window itself. So, every classroom is proposed to have one of those. And that's true even when we have our light or our orange brick. Actually, this and this would be the the windows into that classroom and we have some spandrel or metal panel just above it. Um so now we've come again around to um the southern side looking north. Um here you can see the three-story

123classroom wing where the science edition um sticks out a little bit bigger. Those are larger spaces. And now we've come into that outdoor eating area just south of the commons expansion. Um this is probably a good slide to mention before we go inside that um furniture has not been selected yet. We'll go through a whole input process for that. Um but it's always a little disappointing when we show up and show empty spaces, right? So, we're showing placeholder, you know, furniture even for the outdoor plaza, but we will have to make a lot of selections yet. Now, we've come along um all the way to the northern side of the building. So, little context for those who know the existing building. Um we're kind of I think we would be in the S-wing actually, but

124um so this right here is the um media center and then right to the right of that uh would be our proposed new bus entry with again another stone fin wall. Um and then our small addition for that culinary lab. I should have also mentioned as we went through these, we've been talking with the core planning group and in particular the art department about ways to accommodate um treatments for sculptures throughout. So, you've seen a couple art sculptures in the renderings. We don't know exactly what the where they'll be, but there was a lot of interest in maintaining that culture. Um, and speaking of art, here is the um just to the right of that bus entry, kind of if you'd turned and um 30° and looked um there is a small entry exit into

125the wing where art is as well. Now, we'll come around to the activity entry. So, now we're on the south looking north again. Um here you can see into that activities lobby. the the doors would be right here. Another one of those stone demarcators that you've arrived at main entrance. Uh high natural daylight coming in above the entrance canopy as well. And then here is the other half of our covered bike parking. Uh this is one of our stairs that comes off of the walking track as an exit. Um opportunity for some branding, which all of those things are kind of still ongoing of what what exactly we might do where for logos and things, but um we want to make sure that that pride is incorporated. Here's a view of that in the evening.

126Uh now coming around, uh this is the southern side of the music edition. So this will also be made of those pre-cast architectural concrete panels um with windows into the rehearsal spaces as well as the common gathering space and then we will step inside. So um there's a large slide here of materials and again I would encourage you to come check out the physical samples. Um, but there's a um whole variety of materials that we need to think about. Everything from paint to tile to multiple kinds of flooring um to cabinetry to what existing materials are going to be there. So, I'll probably start in the bottom right hand corner. So, there are some existing wall types that will still be there in the building. There's some painted concrete block. There's some um former um

127exposed brick that's been painted white. There is still some exposed brick and there is some um quite a bit of existing Turzo flooring throughout the circulation. Um, and many of those materials will stay. Um, we have to do some patching and sometimes we're applying a new finish on top of them. Um, but we know we we knew we wanted to be able to work with those. Then I'll go to the north. Um, we will have cabinetry material. So, Pam is plastic laminate. So, a wood look um for cabinetry and a solid surface um kind of like a a faux quartz um for the countertop material. We will have wood accents in a couple of different materials. So, we have a wood accent product that will be um on the walls that I'll show you in

128a couple key areas as well as a ceiling treatment. Um acoustics and function are always big topics when we design a school. So, we have these products right here, these tackable surfaces um that bring color in. You can hang things on them like just like they sound like you would a corkboard, but they also have an acoustic value to them, too. So, those are used strategically throughout the project. Uh we have a variety of tiles that you'll see in the renderings. We've got kind of some field tiles or more neutral tiles that will be used in large areas as well as some special accent tiles to bring in um your particular district's um colors. And then um paint, right? We have a lot of paint of um walls and other surfaces to do. Um so

129we will have a field white color or main um main white color as well as some accents that are neutral colors. Um, we've got some accents that are your branding colors and then we're also rounding them out with a couple colors that a little bit calmer to create that tranquil feeling. So, you're seeing a couple tones of blue. I do have physical samples of the carpet up here. Um, we will have a few different kinds. They will all be tiles, right? Like so that they're swap outable in case you have a spill or something. Um, but so there will be a main field um carpet tile that's um a series of gray tones as well as some accents. So, there's a one that has an accent of the gold as well as an accent of

130the maroon. So, you'll see those if you come up here. The maroon is kind of what's hanging off the front of the table. Um, in addition to what's called walk-off carpet. That's just like really absorptive kind of scrubby carpet that's intended to get salt and sand off of shoes when you walk in and out of buildings. There's a couple places we'll have a rubber floor. Um, nurse's office is a good one to think about, right? Need a durable floor there. And then there's still a lot of discussion ongoing about what the main new commons floor should be. Um, Terzo is an option, polished concrete is an option. Um, but we do know we're going to have to patch the existing Turzo in some places. Uh, quickly I'll go through, um, we do have some, um,

131more impactful branding that's proposed to happen in some of the athletic areas. Um, and so you can see um, kind of the peeling away of some of those other colors to really focus on your branding colors. when it comes to paint. Um we will have acoustic um fabric wall panels to help control sound both in the lobby as well as inside um activity spaces. And then we'll have a variety of floors in the flooring types in the weight room and on the walking track. And there are physical samples of all of those. So now I'm going to walk you through the building um in 2D if you haven't had a chance to do the 3D. And then if you're ever confused about where you are, there is an image in the upper right hand corner

132of every slide and the little dot is the person and the triangle is their cone of vision. So this is as if we've just walked through the main entrance and kind of stepped back to to survey what we can see. The doors on the right hand side are kind of in the background would be out to that outdoor eating area. The main entrance, like I said, would be behind us. And then in this you're seeing um the expansion of the commons and cafeteria. You are looking toward the classroom and office edition. So, we've got two staircases that you can see in that view. One right here. Um, one going up a stone column right here, kind of a main central feature staircase. You're also able to see in this bathrooms um on every level for

133the for the um classroom users. The main office would be this door that you're seeing right here. It's kind of around the corner from that stone fin wall. And again, furniture has not been selected. Now, we have come into this space and we're looking back towards the main entrance. So, we were kind of standing right next to the stone fin wall in the last view. These would be all the doors to the exterior. And then this is that large curtain wall um that we saw from the outside as well as some of those high clear story windows. Um I was talking with somebody right before the meeting started about acoustics in this space. And so there's a few different things that we're doing. Um we've got acoustic panels proposed to be on the walls with

134kind of a subtle N in them. Um and then we will also have acoustic kind of high um acoustic value um ceiling tiles um to help control sound in this space as well. Now we've come to the third level looking down over that space just to help people appreciate the daylight that would come in that as well as the proposal that we would have um kind of a feature um light light fixture that you would see both indoors and outdoors especially in the evening. We will do improvements in the existing cafeteria as well. Also, now we've stepped into the existing building kind of right where the doors would be today. Um, one of the main changes that you'll notice is the right now there's some glass walls that divide the cafeteria from the hallway today.

135So, those are proposed to go away. And then, like I mentioned, the kitchen needs to get larger. So, the wall of the kitchen has moved kind of closer to the gym in this view. Um, and this is that door I mentioned that students would go in to get food and then they would exit out here. Um, so this is your existing flooring proposed to remain in place. Um lots of improvement happening around branding opportunities as well as improvements in the ceilings as we are doing quite a bit of um work in the mechanical electrical systems. Now we're just come to the other end of what you know is kind of the upper upper commons or upper cafeteria area today. Um this large wall is the wall that gets into the um gymnasium proposed to have

136um the ability to have some again key district branding along that. And now we've we're looking at the exit of that um dining servery area. Now we're going to go to the north. Um so right what you're seeing in the left hand side of this image is um the Raider closet. Um so that was wanting to be prominently featured um off the commons based on the core planning group um and to destigmatize it. And so we're really featuring it. And then there's kind of a wayfinding moment here to try to help you make sure that you're still going where you intended to go. Uh so in this northern part of the building we've got the media center. We have the culinary uh part of the fax department, um the teched and art. And so that

137would help you know that oh yep, I'm I'm going in the right direction. I'm hanging a left. And you can see the main or the media center in the background here. Now we've come just um to the south side of the media center. Um for those of you who have spent time in the high school media center, um you can actually see this brick wall as you sit in the main presentation area. Right. So, um right now there's just infills between the brick and the proposal is to take those out and um open it up at least visually. So, there will still be acoustic control there um because there will be glass um but to allow some of that natural daylight that the media center is known for driving deeper into the space. We're also

138proposing to have some lockers in this area as it's right by the bus entry. So, that seemed like a nice convenient area be able to stop at your locker before, you know, at the beginning and end of the school day. coming inside the media center. Now, we're really standing um kind of like where that pres presentation wall is in the media center today. Looking out at the rest of it, one of the main things that um was important during the design was that this is a multi-use space and sometimes there's meetings that need to happen or testing or an event um that makes accessing the materials challenging because it's all one big room. And so they wanted the ability to have some acoustic control or programmatic control between those spaces, but they could still open

139and operate um at times that you want to. So that's what you're seeing there along with a relocated presentation wall. Now we're kind of just taking another angle. We're looking back through the spaces that were opening up between those brick columns out toward that wall that had the lockers. And then this is right inside the bus loop. So the media center would be kind of right behind us and to our right. Um, these would be the doors that go out to that bus loop area for students. The lockers would be right behind us to our left. Um, small gathering space here. Flexible learning area before we head into the V-wing where the culinary part of the fax department and art and teched are. This is the kind of the very beginning of that hallway. So,

140the this little al cove would be the entrance into the culinary department. So, we've got our teaching kitchen. It's kind of this volume you're seeing in the very right hand corner. um they've got kind of a classroom or a learning environment um that we talked about using as like a mock restaurant through this door. And then there's things like the pantry and laundry and an office um at the very end of the um art department. Um the there's an existing classroom that's proposed to be converted into an art gallery and kind of a flexible space for that department. And so that's what you're seeing here. There's some built-in display cases. There's some pinup walls. they could leave the classroom, you know, come out and critique somebody's work. Um, have a focused unit out here. Uh,

141so proposing to open up the ceiling here and paint the structure. Um, but then mostly leave it kind of a blank um blank canvas really for the art to be on display. Now I will come into the main office or the main classroom wing. Um, so all of the classroom wings um have a lot of similarities, so we won't go through each one individually. We are standing in the center of a flexible learning area uh here with classrooms on either side of us. Um you can see um you've probably seen in other renderings so far, but I'll point it out here. We've got um tile proposed to be on the wall up to a certain height for durability. Um we have our doors into classrooms with transoms and sidelights next to them. And then there

142are some um view windows from classrooms out to this flexible learning area that the core planning group spent a lot of time talking about. Um, now we've kind of come further into the space and we're looking back where we just were. Um, there's a gathering space at the center here with a presentation wall. These blue shapes are some acoustic and tac treatments as I mentioned. Um, and then you're seeing a conference room and into a classroom here. Now, if we come into a classroom, we are standing kind of with the flexible learning area behind us looking outside. So, here's those two six foot wide windows that we were talking about. This one just happens to be looking across the courtyard toward the other classroom wing. And then this is if we were standing at those

143windows looking back at the flexible learning area. Every general classroom will have um some storage, both tall storage, upper cabinets, lower cabinets, and countertop. This would be the door where you access the space and then some um glazing next to that door and in the corner for supervision. [Music] This would be um the hallway to the music edition. So um for context, the right hand side wall is the existing southern wall of the auditorium. So like that's outside right now, right? So, we will have a hallway there. Um, opportunity to have some branding up and down this hallway. And then we step into the music department. Um, right when you walk in, we will have a set of bathrooms. Um, so there's some restrooms right here, drinking fountain in this open flex space. Um, there

144is accommodations for instrument storage um, and a a wood feature wall. And then you're seeing a little bit more instrument storage in the background. Uh, we've got some color blocking to highlight the entrances to our main rehearsal spaces here. And then this is a view that just lets you see down the hallway a little bit and a little bit better into the bathroom. This is a view inside that Raider Hall space that's in one of the current music rehearsal uh spaces. So there will be a large projection screen and um audio system. We will have acoustic panels and some uh theatrical lighting and curtains. And then the seating that you're seeing in that view is actually retractable. So it could go up against the wall and have kind of a large flat floored space. Um

145or you could have it pulled out like this for a performance or a lecture. Now we are in the athlet kind of just stepped inside the athletic entrance and we are looking to the west. So looking towards the expanded gym. Um we have on both sides of this lobby. I'll show you another view. Um a large wood slat wall with a um announcements and display monitor. Especially if you had activities you could tell say oh that tournament's on these three courts. what have you, some branding opportunities, and then this right here. Actually, I'll go forward when I'll come back. Um, you can right when you come in, you can go upstairs to the walking track level or you can go right upstairs and head to the right up that stairs. Um, and you would be

146on the kind of the balcony level of the game gym, right? So, right when you come in that activity center, you can kind of make that choice of where is where am I attending an event today? Um, how do I get there? the elevator up to that level is this uh maroon volume. So very easy access for um for visitors, for the community, right? Tons of people are intens anticipated to come here. And then that um actually serves as kind of a bridge or a link between the game gym balcony level and the walking track. So you'll have connectivity there instead of having to go up and down. This view you can see a little bit in down the hallway. Um so there's um windows being cut into those health classrooms. We've got opportunity for

147display cases and again more branding up and down that hallway. Looking down that hallway, here is the entrance into the expanded gym on the lefth hand side. We will go in that space next. Um just a little bit further down the hallway would be in a main set of bathrooms. Now we have stepped inside the expanded gym. Um we happen to be between courts three and four right now. So kind of between the northern two most courts. Um this view shows you how we have the six basketball hoops per court. Um, we've discussed where we want to have divider curtains and maybe some other features that are stored in the ceiling. Um, and then you can also see the walking track at this level. So, that's the walking track above some of that natural daylight

148coming in. Tucked underneath the walking track are in in large part um storage as well as a couple places where we have bleachers. So, kind of right in the foreground on the left, you're seeing some bleachers. You're seeing some on the north wall here. Now we've kind of come into the space um with the community court at our back looking to the north. Um obviously seeing a lot of pride in this space with um all of the color application and treatment. Now we are up on the walking track level. We happen to be on the south side of the walking track kind of heading heading north to go up the west side. So here you're kind of seeing the music addition um out of these windows. Uh we will have acoustic treatments between those windows.

149There are also be acoustic deck in this space to try to help control sound. And then just a head-on view. Now we've come into that court one or the community gym. Um been referred to a lot of names. I heard a couple other names last week. Um as we work on what to call these spaces, right, to um for scheduling and things. Um so loop above here. Um and then a significant amount of natural daylight um facing to the south here. So this gym will have a lot of that. Then I think I look back in the next one. Yeah. So now we're looking back and through these windows you can see onto the walking track of the three courts and there is connectivity on both the walking track level and the game court level.

150This is a view just to help explain a little bit the geometry. So this is one of those axon views of the whole space. So again you see the three courts and one volume with the three court walking track and then the fourth court um completes that four court walking track. Now we are in the weight room. So, um, a lot of the improvements in this space are really finishes. It's painting and flooring and lighting. Um, but it's going a long way. There's a dividing kind of half wall that's going to be taken down. And then there's currently an elevated area that used to be a viewing area back when it was a pool. So, that'll be flattened just so it's more flexible. Cardio activities are thought to go underneath there. Um, we've got some

151sprinting activities and then really weights centered. So, I just have a couple different views of that. We've spent a ton of time in user groups talking about the layout and arrangement and function and striping. And this is a space that lots of details to talk about, even down to like the detail at every weight rack. Um, there's a small lobby outside of the wrestling room. We talked about people being able to change and not drag sand and dirt into the space. And then here we are in the existing game gym bringing a lot of that same treatment of um finishes into that space. So um you're seeing onto the um kind of the upper calf area right there where it says we are Northfield. All right. And I have the video linked in here, but

152it's my understanding everybody's had the opportunity and even if you watch it really fast, it takes a while. But I hope everybody gets the opportunity to do that. Um but I didn't mean to start it right now. So, I'm going to click past. Um, I think I've said these things throughout my presentation, but um, we are in the construction documents phase right now. Um, so we will be in that phase through February of next year. Um, so preparing to go out to bid, working closely with Kudson, with the district's facilities department on exact products. Um, doing a lot of detailed engineering review. We've been sending um, and then we will get through we will start city submitt process here. We're hoping to do that in mid-occtober. thinking we'll probably be back to you all in

153January. Don't have a date picked out yet. Um and then like I said, issuing documents for bidding at the end of February. Imagining probably having a bid opening um in April. So, it's a it's a large project. We want to give contractors plenty of time to study the documents, ask questions, and anticipating mobilization on site in early June. Um I didn't put a detailed phasing plan in the um presentation. Um, but what I what I can say is that um it's complicated and we have to build new space before we can afford to tear down existing space. And so Kudson's been working very hard on site logistics and what I I think we have seven phases right now, something like that. So seven phases and what parking's available at what time and where are people

154coming from and how are we keeping people safe and still being a school. So lots of details to work out there. I think with that that's plenty of talking for me. I'm sorry. I tried to go as fast as I could, but I would love to take comments, questions, go back to anything. >> Thank you, S. Stunning. >> Fantastic. >> Thank you. >> Do you have any questions for Smy? >> Well, welcome S and welcome Josh. Um, >> thank you. >> This is so exciting to see the plans that you put together. And I was lucky enough to be on the core planning team, so I've had a lot of my questions answered through that process. Sure. >> But um just seeing the level of detail and the thoroughess in just these few documents and

155I know at one point you said there's like over when you're done there'll be over 2,000 documents >> easily >> um is very very impressive. So I wanted to thank you for that and all your good work to um get everyone together. And you know, I was part of the core planning team and got to see how that process worked where we had what was it 40 people or so and you managed to condense everything we were saying and and make it into an actual design. So amazing. Um my questions tonight are um about sort of the materials that you're using. Um, I'm wondering about the interior hallways or we're not calling them halls, but the interior areas and >> the flexible learning areas like >> I think on >> 46 I think it was

156>> 46 >> um >> my question is this >> must not be >> you know I'm I'm a big proponent of national natural lighting and um I'm delighted to see the lighting that you have, but I'm wondering if there'll be enough lighting in that area between the classrooms. >> Sure. >> So, if you could talk about that, especially in our our dark, gloomy winter mornings and things like that, how much natural lighting is coming in. >> Sure. if you'd also talk about since we're talking about glass um what new materials you have available and their sort of energy efficiency ratings and not that level of details but >> sure >> do we have how energy efficient will this building be we have access to energy efficient materials and then since we're still talking about glass

157could you also talk about the safety of the glass >> sure okay Sure. I actually think all of those topics, even though you think of them as separate, they all blend really well together because we're talking about a series of choices that are trying to accomplish different goals and hoping to land in a place that accomplishes all of them to the best of our ability, right? Because swinging completely to one end of a spectrum to make to achieve one choice around daylight would have a negative consequence effect on energy efficiency, right? um and swinging all the way on one end of the spectrum to having as much transparency as possible started to affect how how well a classroom could perform, right? So, as we have conversations around um appropriate use of glazing into this space,

158you know, those were all the drivers, right? Thinking about safety, thinking about supervision, thinking about daylight penetrating into the space. Um these happen to be interior windows, so we don't have to think about um energy efficiency for these ones in particular. Um, but what I would say is that um, you know, the first couple of times that we showed some of these renderings, the feedback was bump it up, add a little bit more glazing, right? Um, that we had aired too much on the side of maybe um, some more solid walls both for the function of this space of like having pinup space and um, places to hang marker boards or monitors. Um, so some of the initial reactions was actually to increase. So it actually has increased in the last I don't know six

159weeks or so. Um, but it was really important that the classrooms be functional while still allowing for lots of passive supervision. We actually had a group that went to a couple of schools on a special second tour visit that was in June, I think, um, to a couple of other schools with that being the number one goal of, you know, how much glazing between the classrooms and this flexible learning area to achieve all of those goals. Um and so they really um the group that went with us and then I think they took actually I know they took videos for their colleagues and kind of narrated them. Um it was really important to them that we maximize verticality. So going from the ground to the ceiling um as opposed to we went to a school

160that had a lot of like from waist height maybe to door height and it was not nearly as impactful to the feeling of um connectivity as well as daylight penetration. Right. Um, so what I'll say about daylight penetration is the classrooms in large part um should allow daylight to get into the center space, but it's all about time of day, right? As the sun moves around us, right? Certain classrooms in certain pods will get more daylight, you know, at the very beginning of the day when we've got those low morning sun angles, whereas some will get really nice high noon sun angles. So, um, I imagine that that won't be a challenge. As well as the LED lighting that'll be in the space, I think will feel quite a bit different. I know it's not

161your question, but that'll feel a lot different than the hallways you have today. So, um, and then safety is a big discussion topic. Obviously, has been, um, a huge discussion topic in the past month or so. Um, and so there's a couple of different things that we've been discussing of where we want to have um, there's uh, safety glazing as well as security glazing and then there's also ballistic glazing. Right? So, if you think about tiers of glazing and they come in that price order, right? There's kind of typical laminated or tempered glass, then safety, then security, then ballistic. Um, and so we did seek some input from, and you jump in anytime. I should have said that. Um, we did seek input from a group of first responders uh approximately 3 weeks ago to

162get some of their take on priorities. Um, and then actually when we sent a recent set of documents to Canson for estimating, um, we actually had them price out a couple of different kinds of glazing. Um, so I feel pretty confident saying right now that actually we haven't selected some of we haven't made some of those choices quite yet. I don't know if you have anything you'd add. >> Yeah, I think I mean everybody knows what we're talking about and we're looking at how do we continue that really delicate balance of having a school building that all feel welcome, right? That is a learning environment with the reality that we face, right? of needing to protect our students and our staff. And so we're looking at a variety of different pieces. The the glazing is

163one comp an important component of it, but it's one component. And I think what you're going to see as you think about this design from a security perspective, security is a system, right? And there's a number of different pieces to that system. Glazing is a really important one. And we are looking not only at upgrading uh some of the areas that typically six months ago would have been uh the regular uh the regular glazing if you will, the safety glazing I think is the term. Um what would the increased cost be to make some of those areas that we had planned safety glazing turn it into security glazing? >> There's also quite a bit of there was already quite a bit of security glazing in the plan especially at those hightra entrances. Um but thinking

164about how do we expand that beyond um just those initial components. I think the other part is that this building's technology for safety and security is going to be much more sophisticated than I think nearly anything we currently have on campus even more so than our most recent projects at Greenville Park. So we are looking at safety and security as that system and the glazing being one of those. But we are looking at what would it cost to increase more glazing to be security and um what is the tradeoff in that cost. And so that's just one component. We're talking about a number of other emerging safety and security systems I would say to be able to try to address those. >> And um I didn't answer your question when it comes to energy efficiency.

165And I actually think the you know the analogy that security is a system is a good one when we talk about um about energy efficiency too, right? So the whole building and its systems work in concert to achieve an energy efficiency goal and obviously that was a a priority of the referendum right um you know inclusion of geothermal we are insulating uninsulated walls um you will have highly modernized systems um LED lighting with much less power draw um you will have um I would say energy efficient windows but we are not currently pondering triple pane glazed windows so um that is something the district could choose to entertain But every one of those choices we have to think about first cost versus long-term costs. And actually one of the great parts about um I would

166say where we all do work is that there's a lot of um technology and incentives for energy efficiency. So um we're currently working with some energy modelers who create what are called bundles. So it's kind of like a what if you did this, what if you did that, what if you did this, and some combination of those. what would the change to the first cost of the project be versus the long-term operating costs and the district will be able to make some choices, right? And at in the end, we all have one pot of money. We don't have like an energy efficiency pot of money and a safety pot of money and a branding pot of money, right? So, we have to balance energy efficiency with daylight with programmatic function with pride with fun, right?

167So, um I would say some of those choices actually are yet to be yet to be determined as well. Code's kind of the floor, right? We know we have to meet code, but it's like how far do we want to exceed that um to really uphold those referendum commitments. So, >> is there a chance that the cure glazing is has a better energy efficiency raising rating than that? >> It doesn't really. >> I was hoping for something. >> They focused all their tech on impact resistance. >> My second >> It's still I should say it's still insulated. It's still an insulated glazing unit. So it it wouldn't perform any worse, but that's not its selling feature. >> Okay. And then I have a really quick second question for you. Thank you for trying to sort

168out that big question. Um but my second question is on your classroom picture, you had like zone A and zone B in the classrooms. >> Oh yes. >> Could you explain that? >> Oh, sure. We talked about lighting. So um all of the lighting in the project will be LED um which inherently really makes it dimmable. So that's a huge um you know a lot of times in a classroom people are very used to saying oh I want my lights switched in four every row switched separately and the reason they say that is because that's their only way to dim today right oh turn off the front band or turn off two of them so it's half power right so that will just be achieved automatically we still wanted to know if they wanted to

169have the ability to turn off the lights in front of like the display in this particular image completely just to make sure that for maximum legibility um you know uh monitor and um display has gone a long way in regards to that. Um much better than projectors used to be. Um but there was still some desire to have a kind of a zone of lighting in front of the teaching wall versus the rest of the classroom in an approximately one-third twothird fashion. So what that means when you walk into the classroom, there's going to be two light switches. One that kind of controls the row in front of the monitor and one that controls the rest. So >> thank you. I just didn't know what the zones were for. >> Yep. Yep. Just lighting zones.

170Thanks. Anyone else question or comment at this time? Okay, Chuck, >> thank you for your report. Um, one thing that I've always been a huge advocate of and always will be is is that this is a so sounds, you know, obviously like a wonderful building and and we've always been good at uh reaching out to the public and and making sure that, you know, this is a public building that uh it's available for rental and uh profit, nonprofit, private parties. And I'm sure that what we've done at community ed for a long time that we can figure out what these spaces are and um make sure that the >> um the seniors and other community members just feel real comfortable and I think maybe we could even work at kind of doing that over time

171that if we have some open houses because it's very you know very new very different but we definitely want to be very affordable and open to u you know the public because they paid for it and uh I just want to make sure that make that. Now the question with that would be um you would that maybe that's more of a policy thing is just just you have these new spaces to necessarily rent out and figure out um what the fee would be but I think typically it's always been you know we have our academics and then if there's you know not academics going on then we would we would be able to rent that space out. So any any thoughts on and another great opportunity for tournaments for all kinds of different things. So

172what has been your thought and experience um working with districts and you know how they're maybe excited about getting these new spaces to work to offer to the the public and tournaments and all that kind of stuff. >> Yeah, I have a couple facility reflections and I'll let you talk to the policy side. So we did talk a lot about community use during design. um you know in even in the view I chose to put up right now it's like how do we make it easy to access both in terms of like how obvious it is to get to the spaces and like travel distance right and how far do they have to park to get to that access right so all of that has been a kind of a a leading criteria of the

173project um including making that community court or court one kind of the first thing you could you could get to just to prioritize it um there's been a lot of discussions about who can use or maybe gets first use of what space at what time of Okay. And I think all of that's probably still ongoing. I don't know that there's been any, you know, we haven't been making a ton of facilities changes for that. A lot of that comes to your point to scheduling. I don't know if there's anything you'd want to add to that. Uh Jeeoff, I think that policy 902, you know, which is we um discuss regularly, as we start to really see more of a final we get closer to a final determination of what these spaces are going to look

174like, uh community's working really hard to look at this and say, you know, what are what is the pricing structure, which will be similar to what we have now. We've got a rate for gyms. We're just going to add gyms. So, it's going to be a similar rate. But there's a number of great I think the important piece about community ed I don't think any of us quite understand yet the massive change this is going to be. It is a cascading impact. We are adding four full gymnasium courts and other amenities at the high school. What that means is it opens up all of the other buildings that typically were already used by um high school athletics for community activities. So I I I think when we're focusing right now on the high school, that's

175understandable, right? We're focusing on this. But I'm telling you that the cascading impact of the availability for um youth activities, for community enrichment activities from new parents all the way to seniors. I don't think we have any idea yet how significant of an impact this is going to be. And with all new spaces, there there does have to be that policy consideration. And we're quite a distance from when these spaces would be open. So there's lots of time to be creative and to be innovative and think about how can we have access for the community and balance that also with the safety and security pieces that we look at. It is a public building. We absolutely will make sure that it's available for people as we do now. If you talk to community ed and

176you I just invite you to look at the um activ or the the calendar the facilities calendar and if you open up a day and you see how many people in the community use the buildings already it's just going to be um multiplied by I I don't even know what the multiplier is yet because of all the different permutations that come can come from it. So, I'm super excited about the amazing opportunities that are going to be open to the community because not just at the high school, but the opening up of all these other spaces. And that's before we even talk about an expanded seating in the auditorium. Right. The auditorium is going to be uh it's going to be the same size, but they are very creative in how they can adjust seating.

177So, there's going to be 50, 60, 100 more seats. >> Yeah. We're hoping to get close to 400 seats. Yeah. >> So, that's about a 300 seat auditorium. Raider Hall is going to be a finale. about 115 seat small feeder, right? So if you have a community lecture, you can do that. You can retract those bleachers and it can become nearly I I think of it as the room of requirement, right? It can transform into whatever it needs to be. And so those are that we also have a community meeting room built in that is schedulable, you know, for uh folks from So there's so many different opportunities here. It is going to be really exciting. I I just don't think we even have understood yet how we're just scratching the surface on the change

178in infrastructure it's going to be for the community. >> And one other quick question um interesting on the bus entrance which is obviously another entrance and then you have um the back entrance for activities and then the front. So, if we've got a basketball game or whatever it is, I mean, are they pulling up to the activities and dropping kids off and is that bus um >> let me get back >> entrance is that locked off or how does that work? >> Um, so what I would say is that for an event in either the auditorium or any of the gymnasium spaces, probably the activity entry and the main entry are both going to be just a shorter walk honestly, right? we will have the availability for the bus loop to be used for overflow

179parking and I would imagine for a big event the district might choose to leave the bus entry open. Um so that would be an option like for a you know something that's bringing hundreds and hundreds of people. Um but I would imagine that in large part um the main entrance interactivity entrance would probably be prioritized. >> Yeah. Be a little bit of a hike if you parked all the way up there. What >> else? >> Which I know people do. Okay. I just thought it would be fun if you just pointed out on the diagram where the community room is because you didn't touch on that and I think that really is an exciting feature and sort of the whole layout of that activities entry area and what that might mean. >> Sure. So, um

180you saw the renderings um but if we come in the activity entry right here um and then that staircase and elevator that you saw right here. So, if we pop up upstairs onto the we call it the bridge onto the bridge um that very first classroom will be that community classroom. So, it'll be highly accessible kind of right inside the door. It's also very very close to bathrooms on the first level. So, um I think that'll be a wonderful asset that I honestly don't know all the uses for yet, but we knew it was a priority to have. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions or comments? >> I have a couple for you, Sam. >> Okay. Um, so since you're close to the slide that you were just showing with Jeff's question, um, that shows

181the entry and exit for >> Oh, sure. You want the site? Yeah. >> So, what I'm seeing is that the drop off is suggested right there by the tennis courts and then, if I'm looking at that correctly, students would then walk on that sidewalk to get inside the building. Is that the suggestion? >> Yes. So that I think I can draw on this. So this is the path. Let's say dad's dropping me off. So that would be the path that dad would take to drop me off. Would come in. Um there is a sidewalk really um all the way around all of that. I tend to see parental influence being that they want to get Jimmy to the door, right? So there's kind of a strong like let's get him as close as we can.

182But you could let anyone out of a car at any of those points. Um, and then kind of leave the way you came. >> So then drop off could happen anywhere. You're saying from the tennis courts all the way to the front door. >> Yep. There's a path connection proposed right now. It's a little bit hard to see on here, but there's a sidewalk like network kind of here, goes to the north, goes to the neighborhood, it goes all the way around the bus loop. Um, just thinking about how bikers and walkers will get to these doors as well. Yep. >> Yep. Um, and so it's people arriving by vehicle, but also people arriving by other transport modes. >> Okay. We'll be able to use that sidewalk. >> Absolutely. Yep. >> Walkers. Okay. Yeah. Excellent.

183That was my um followup on that. And then on slide 51, there's a wood feature, I believe is what you called it. >> Yes. And I'm sorry, the slide numbers changed for me because it's a combined presentation now, but I'm going to guess you meant >> the music. music this one, >> right? Yeah. So, >> I was um I was really pleased to hear about the intention to have our students sculptures and other art pieces featured around the campus and inside. Um we have a great feature even downtown that was created by our students. >> And so I'm wondering if this wood feature um if it has some other functional is that the storage for the instruments. Is that what you were saying? So, it's >> the instrument storage is kind of in the foreground.

184Oops, I did not mean to do that. Uh oh. Oh, it says an update is available. Well, let's not do that right now. Put it back. Um, damn. Um, so that wall right there is just a um it's a wood acoustic um panelized material. Um, so it does have acoustic properties. And then the kind of the things that looked like cabinets in the foreground of that image were the instrument storage. >> Yep. >> All right. Yeah. So, I was just getting at it sounds like it has some need to look like that or to be present. I was wondering if that could be a space where um additional, you know, student art could be displayed >> and above the instrument storage and um there's a kind of around the corner that neither of these views

185shows very well. And then I also when when you say that I think a lot about this hallway, right? hu on kind of the whole walk there kind of between the auditorium and the music edition I think would have great opportunity for you know show posters or trophies or display you know all of that we didn't show it that way but I think you know there's quite a bit of linear length of wall space there that I think that would be really nice >> thank you that answers my questions appreciate your presentation all the work and effort you poured into it we're very excited >> thanks thanks for having us have a good evening >> thank you um talk about the material materials where they're going to be available for people to interact with. >>

186Yes. So, we have these materials right now for just a few days. So, if people are interested, uh we have parent teacher conferences at the high school on Wednesday from 4 to 8:00 p.m. And these u physical samples will be available there as will our partners from Mold and Kudson. And I'll be there as well to um answer people's questions, show we should be showing the video, those kinds of things. So in the near term that would be the best opportunity. Then we have to get the >> materials >> the copy set if you will a materials board that will take some time to secure that and then we can certainly bring that around and share it in a variety of different places. So right now we have this set tonight and on Wednesday and

187then they will take all of that and shrink most of it into a display board that we'll be able to show in multiple places throughout the year. Will this be featured with um display boards explaining what the items are or >> on on Wednesday night? Yes, there'll be four display boards that will have some of the images that you saw this evening. Obviously, you can't put all of them, but there's going to be four display boards. There's going to be the materials pallet and then there will also be that monitor with the video playing. That's on Wednesday and then as needed down the line. >> All right. Very exciting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Right. We're on to item D, which is an ad hoc committee update um from myself and Jeff and Amy

188who are part of the ad hoc committee looking to refresh our evaluation tool um that we um so we hold a semi and annual evaluation of Dr. Helman and we talked about um a refreshing that tool. So, I want to just start by saying that the um the motivation behind a refresh is um taking into consideration some of the comments that have been made over the years about the effectiveness of that tool. Um obviously helping us understand Dr. Helman's performance very well and he scored very high on that tool and so um it's really more about modernizing or updating it as um Jeff brought a good word into use refreshing it uh and MSBA has vetted a very nice um updated tool that's very similar to what we use now um but it's significantly um

189paired down or um more efficient more concentrated more focused and so just want to thank the board for allowing the ad hoc committee to um do some work on that and um as always meeting with Dr. Helman and giving him your feedback on the regular um and not just relying on the one or um twice a year evaluation. Um in the published packet I submitted a couple of documents that have helped uh inform our efforts. There's also um a video a slide deck um other materials. I went to a seminar at the leadership conference in January. So, just wanted to include those couple of simple documents to help you see what we were informed by. Um, and tonight what we would like to do, Jeff, Amy, and myself, is answer any questions and take your

190feedback on an idea. The first update to our evaluation tool would be to not use the current tool in December, but instead do a more informal check-in. And so what we're looking at in this new updated MSBA tool is moving to an informal check-in in the midpoint, so in December, and then a more um formative annual evaluation. For our purposes, we do not think it is wise to change that tool in the middle of an academic year, but we did feel there was opportunity to not use that same tool in December, but instead use an informal check-in. We would if you are interested in having the ad hoc committee uh take that first initial step which is removing our current tool in December and doing an informal check-in then the ad hoc committee would um

191bring to you uh a process of what that you know what that would look like and how we would implement that at the sixmonth point. Um outside of that, we will bring a um suggestion for a new evaluation tool during this academic year to use in the next academic year. So, uh Jeff and Amy will help uh answer or make comments to anything you have to say tonight in terms of direction and um we'll leave it to you. So, I'll call on you and then um Jeeoff and Amy can help answer. Okay. Any questions, comments, direction at this point? You're also welcome to grab us anytime. >> You want to add? >> So, I was a little bit of a late comer to this process and I have to admit I've done the same evaluation

19217 times now and I was used to it. Um, I was feeling uninspired by it. But even so, I sort of was defending the status quo initially like, well, it's good enough. It's worked. you know, it gives us information. But then when I started digging into all the materials about um from MSBA about board evaluations and superintendent evaluations and I started I changed my mind. I realized that it was really time to do something that allowed us as a board to um really focus on certain areas and give more productive comments um to Superintendent Hillman instead of I often felt that I was sort of saying a lot of the similar things just trying to find a new way of wording it time after time. Um the new approach that we're looking at right now

193um does not relieve Superintendent Hillman of any of his what is it 43 uh areas and plus his focus areas but instead allows us as a board to um hone in on just a couple each year and to rotate through them. Uh and then also to pay a lot attention with the focus areas which I think will give uh Superintendent Hillman a lot better feedback because I think um we'll we'll know that it's up to us to really give good feedback each year and spend the time making sub substantive comments in a helpful way. Um also MSBA did not say you had to do two evaluations a year. Uh, so since the midyear evaluation really could just be a check-in, it's kind of silly to evaluate him on his year-long goals when it's only halfway

194through the year anyway. So, um, it made sense to just say, let's do it as a check-in, we can do it as a board, we can there's lots of different ways from a closed session where we just talk with Matt or whether you know like three of us get together and have a separate meeting, what whatever it would be that we can talk about how that might work. Um, but uh I think it's um a good way of having more back and forth with a conversation than a static document that we put together in that midyear point. >> Yeah, I uh echo the the points Claudia and Amy's made and thanks for your work on the committee. um use the word or two words re refresh I guess one's a um so I think that

195doing the same thing that we've done that's been very static over a long period of time um you know we want to try something different and this is also right out of the MBSA's playbook so we're not necessarily doing anything different we're looking I mean I should say we're doing we are doing something different but it's definitely a suggested format of what of what to use for another evaluation. So, um, thanks for your comments. >> Okay, great. Yes, Corey, >> I'll make it short. I'm comfortable forgoing the midyear evaluation for all the reasons stated and I would empower the ad hoc committee to move forward with making further suggestions for us to consider for next year. >> Okay, thank you. And >> yeah, and I am as well. Just a quick question and in the

196board packet there's a workshop that's there. any thought in terms of is that something that the ad hoc committee thought was worthwhile in doing or >> we did look at that and obviously we're open especially if the board would want to invest time um into a workshop like that. Um we weren't considering it as an immediate action but we're open. >> It just it looks like that's something they can come and deliver. Is that right? In person. So that could be like a board work. Is that >> there are you'd be surprised there are a lot of districts that have not done evaluations and so that would be more of a workshop helping a district >> um start an evaluation process. >> So it's more open yeah more focus on that. >> Obviously there's always

197a lot of value in any kind of training and work in a workshop. >> Okay. No, that was my only question. Thanks. >> All right, Jenny and also Jenny served on part of the part of the time on the committee. So thank you for your um your investment there, Jenny. >> No problem. Thank you for your help. Um I'm also got very comfortable with um moving forward with um the outcome that you guys came up with. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Sounds nice. So we will um bring um a motion for you to vote on to allow us as a board to let go of the current tool for December um and then bring you a process for what that informal check-in will look like. All right. Thank you. All right. Our next item

198is the consent agenda. As a reminder, there was some personnel items in the table file added to that consent grouping. Is there anything anyone would like to pull from the consent grouping for separate consideration? Okay. Is there a motion to approve the consent grouping? Okay. Thank you, Amy. >> Second. >> Thank you, Jenny. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. All right. Motion passes. Next is our items for individual action and we have four. First is the policy committee recommendations. I'll take a motion first and then we can discuss and vote. Is there a motion to approve the policy committee's recommended changes to policies 613, 620, and 707? >> I move to approve the policies. >> Thank you, Corey. Is there a second? >> Okay. Thank you, Ben. Are there any questions

199at this time for Dr. Helman? Yes, >> I do want to make one comment. Um, so in regard to policy 620, credit for learning, I want to point out a clarification that we made under the new weighted grade section. So we had inadvertently um included some incorrect language in the first reading. This is why you do two policy readings. And so the point of this is that we're required to include a weighted grades section in this policy now. And what we needed to do is to codify our existing practice. Our existing practice was in alignment with what the expectations are. um that we have waited AP grades for a long time and as you know we have students who participate in PSO and college in the schools but as of now those grades were not

200weighted. Now, of course, the board could have a discussion about weighted grades down the line, but the purpose of this is to clarify and codify the existing practice. And so, the key thing, the re reason for this change is that the change didn't impact us because we did not weight either uh concurrent enrollment or PSO grades, but some schools did weight those differently. And so, it was an issue and the purpose of that legislation was to bring par to those items. So, I apologize for that error that was in the first um reading. We've corrected it. Talked with the high school counselor. So, what's in there now codifies and clarifies our existing PR practice? We can of course talk about weighted grades down the line, but we want to take this step to put into

201place what we've been doing for some time. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments outside of that? >> Okay. Then we have a motion. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. Right. Motion passes. Next is co-curricular ads. Is there a motion to authorize the district to hire an additional assistant boys cross-country coach at a total cost of 4,435 subject to change upon the settlement of the 2527 NEA agreement. Note that this is a request that would make the assistant coach position for the boys cross country permanent. We'll move. >> Thank you, Amy. Is there a second? Go ahead. Right. Is there any discussion on this um on this additional hire? >> Hey, Amy. >> I just want to say it's really exciting that we have 74 boys on the cross country team. I

202mean, people complain that teenagers are not getting off their screens and moving around and um this is fantastic that it's increased to that level. So, great work, whoever is inspiring those boys to join the team. >> Anyone else comment or question about the hire? >> Yep. >> I I just I just saw the the team out running around town the other day and it was it was a lot of it was a lot of kids. >> So, that's good. >> Yeah. >> Was it 74? >> Probably more because it had the girls team, too. So, yes. >> Great. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Right. Motion passes. Next is the proposed 2025 payable 2026 preliminary property tax levy. The preliminary property tax levy for 2026 is required to be

203certified to the district's home county auditor no later than September 30th. And our district of finance val Murdorf will review the levy certification timelines and analysis of that levy. >> Good evening. So, I'm going to review the preliminary levy. I will try to keep it brief, but um give you enough information so you know where we're at. So, as you know, we don't start a presentation without talking about our vision and strategic plan. So, we prepare every student for lifelong success by developing critical thinkers who are curious and ready to engage in our society. I would argue that, not argue, I'm just going to say that I'm pretty sure I'm right. The levy will impact every single strategic commitment and every single benchmark. It makes up 26% of our total budget. And if you can

204imagine not having the resources that our community has supported and our some are state authorized levies, it would look very different today. So um obviously this is supporting all the work we do. So what is the levy overall? It's going to be about 27 million. Again, 26% of our total overall just general fund budget. There's also a community education part and a debt service portion. Um, as a reminder for the board, this is um highly regulated by the Department of Education. So, there are voter approved uh levies and state authorized levies. And so I think 73% of our total levy is voter approved, which is pretty incredible when you think about a $27 million overall levy. Um, and then again, the revenue is used to support the general fund and the operations. Some have very

205specified purposes, others like our voter approved operating levy is um open to support how we direct it um within the budget that's approved. And then um it also serves our debt service obligations um which we'll talk a little bit about also. [Music] So just in terms of timeline we are doing the first step in this preliminary process. Um my department enters a lot of data to submit to MDE and then they do a calculation and we have to certify this by September 30th and then send this information to our counties. Um, as a reminder, we touch three counties. So, we are primarily in Rice County, but we do have um some property in Dakota and Good Hugh counties as well. The county will take all of the preliminary levy amounts, generate the tax statements that

206get mailed out in November, and then I'll be back here in December doing that final certification. And then once we final certify, the counties take that information and send out the final um tax statements in this in the spring. In terms of our budget year, uh in no shocking turn of events, they don't line up. And so the taxes are obviously collected over a calendar year. The county's fiscal year is a calendar year. Um so January through December, but our budget year doesn't start till July. That's our fiscal year. So we defer any of the payments that we get um prior to June 30th to the next fiscal year. Um so what we are certifying right now is based on estimates of what we think is going to be needed for the 2627 school year.

207So this is just kind of a snapshot of what the proposed levy looks like. Um so of that 27 million 17.8 8 is the general fund. Obviously, the most significant portion, 8.9 million, is debt service. And then about 655,000 is for community ed. And then that smaller pie chart to the right is what um the 17 million for the general fund is made up of. So you can see half of that is just our voter approved referendum. Um again, we live in a super supportive community. The capital projects levy is 2.2 million. Again, a voter approved and then the state authorized is 6.7. And so these are the required categories that we're that we have to share. Um and so you can see the totals by fund which we just covered and the percent change.

208Both the general fund and debt service are declining slightly. General fund is primarily related to declining enrollment because most of the formulas are tied to enrollment. Community ed is increasing. Um obviously it looks pretty significant 240,000. Um and I'll talk in a little more detail about that next. The voter approved and other again is that just that breakout of what's voter approved or state authorized and like I said 73% 20 million is voter approved. Um if you're comparing to last year that looks like a a pretty significant jump and that's due to the um passing of the reimagine Northfield High School bond. And then the subtotals by tax base. The referendum market value is just the tax base in which our actual voter approved referendum is allocated against. There's some differences between um for egg

209property about if you get charged for referendum or not. Um and then net tax capacity is all the other levy calculations. So overall the levy is going down about 271,000 or.98%. [Music] So this gives you a little more context um terms you've heard and seen and um so we can talk a little bit more detail in the general fund which is the largest portion and so significant changes between last year's certified and the pay 26 the other postemployment benefits. So, you've probably heard me refer to that as OPED is decreasing um slightly like 111,000. And again, last year when I presented this, we did have a pretty substantial severance payment for teacher retirees, 426,000. We have a sunset clause that allows us to levy for those payments. And so, last year's was higher. uh we

210did not have as many retiree severance payments this year. So that number is coming down a little bit. Um adjustments for pay 20, that's supposed to say pay 25, I think. Um pay 24 was really high. Pay 25 came down again. We're catching back up to we had some very conservative estimates for enrollment during the pandemic due to the uncertainty of where students were going to land. Now we're a little bit more stabilized in our projection. Um so those adjustments should be leveled out. Um we don't like to see large swings there because that means we did not estimate something uh as tightly as we could have. Uh the community ad increase uh 243,000 that is primarily made up of the school age care levy. So, we are able to levy dollars to support um

211student specific accommodations and needs um in our school age care program. So, we do have a few students coming into the program um this coming year who have some pretty um kind of one-on-one needs and so this levy supports being able to make sure they're successful in that program. And then debt service is decreasing. Again, that seems counterintuitive because we just passed the bond, but it's actually um we're required by law to levy that 105%. That 5% builds up as we pay our debt, and the state does a calculation to take our average um three-year fund balance, and when it gets to a certain point, they'll reduce that funds um reduce the funds so that we aren't levying as much, basically giving that money back to the taxpayers, if that makes sense. So overall, $271,000

212down.98%. [Music] Um so this is what the levy looks like over 5 years. Again, pay 25 is that voter approved um reimagine Northfield High School bond increase. Our 5-year average is 6.6% I think 6.67%. Um so overall pretty reasonable again going down for um the coming fiscal year. And then this is the estimate that others put together on the potential tax impact. Obviously with the levy going down we expect taxpayers to see a slight savings. So around four and a half% depending on your property level. Again, uh I couldn't fit all of the language on here, but there's a disclaimer on the bottom that says this is assuming your house value stays the same, your market value. So, obviously, we know that's not the case, but assuming it did, taxpayers would see a decrease in

213their school taxes um on their tax statement. I think that is all the points I wanted to highlight. Um but if you have any questions I will gladly answer them. >> Thank you. Val question. >> So are we asking for the max then? Is that number changed? >> Um it has changed slightly. We are thank you certifying at the max and really all that means is when they finalize it that we can't exceed that anymore. Um we can always underlevy between now and December but we've typically always certified at the max. So the difference between the max four years ago and now is what? >> Um >> is it minuscule or is it a big percentage? >> So if you look at pay 23 we certified 21.1 million. So really it's it's the increase in

214the debt service for the most part and the capital projects levy I think would be in there too as the big increases. But any of the significant changes were voter approved. >> Anyone else question, comment? >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Is there a move to certify to county auditors the 2025 payable 2026 preliminary levy limitation and certification at the maximum authority? >> So moved. >> Okay. Thank you, Ben. >> Second. >> Thank you, Corey. Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. Motion passes. And finally, we have MSBA platform recommendation resolution. The board is requested to authorize the superintendent to submit a resolution to MSBA for consideration as part of their 2026 legislative platform to request the Minnesota legislature broaden the definition of operating capital to include essential training that supports

215the adoption of new highquality curriculum materials. I will take a motion first and then we can discuss. Who will move? >> I move. Thank you, Corey. Your second. >> Thank you, Jenny. Hey, Dr. Helman, do you want to share some comments? >> Yes. So, we in my time here, we have never availed oursel of this process where we can submit a potential resolution to the school boards association for inclusion in their legislative platform. We know that we are entering a time of austerity. We do not expect significant new money from the state. We do not expect significant new money from the federal government. And so what we are looking at is to be able to use the funds that we already have in a more flexible way. So if we're operating capital, if we can

216purchase the textbooks, right, you've heard a lot tonight from Crystal, our new high school principal, about his how impressed he is with the high quality curriculum materials that we're working. But we know that research shows that teachers need around 50 hours of training to really wield those materials in a way that is skillful. And so it puts pressure on the general fund. It puts pressure on our title 2 budget to have to use separate funds to do it. So I'm asking that they expand the definition of um operating capital to include training only for the materials that you've purchased in that particular year. And so when you approve this, this is not like it just hap I wish it if we just approved it and went to the leg fixed it. That's not the way

217it works. We're hopeful that MSBA would include this in their platform. something I will advocate personally at the legislature this year, but if we get MSBA behind it, it's an example of how do we use the funds that we already have more flexibly to meet the needs of students and teachers in our district. So, if the board would be so inclined to approve it, then I will submit it requires that the board approve the resolution and then I can submit it on your behalf after the meeting. >> Okay. So, tonight we're just approving um authorizing you to submit that resolution and then you'll bring the resolution to us as well. Well, then it's about then it's up to MSBA. So, we submit it and then MSBA puts it in with all the other resolutions that

218have been submitted and they determine what ends up in their legislative platform. So, the only action the board needs to take is to authorize me to submit it. >> Right. Exciting. Okay. Question, Cory. >> I believe MSBA is finalizing its platform this week. Is that correct? >> Yeah, it's due on the 24th, this uh this submission. >> So, if we approve it tonight, you're on it tomorrow morning. >> Uh I'm not leaving until I submit there. why I laid it out the way I did. I can copy and paste. >> Okay, Amy, >> it seems like a very sensible resolution to propose. So, I I think um the hopefully the legislature will be looking for ways to help the school and this is an easy way to do it without having to provide more money.

219Um and I think it'd be great if MSB gets on board. Um, but my question is how does this then get made into law? I mean, don't we have to get a representative to introduce it into the legislature and do you have a process for that or what are you thinking of the next steps would be? >> So, this is really a handoff to MSBA, right? MSBA uh they have their paid lobbyists and they have a number of way people who will sponsor bills. So, if this were to make it into the legislative platform, the MSBA lobbyists and I'm assuming lobbyists for some of the other educational organizations would work with those lobbyists to draft uh what they they go through the process of having the nonpartisan um folks who work at the capital draft

220a bill. They find sponsors, sponsors sign on, then it goes through the committee hearing process. It's the old um I'm just a bill right from the 1970s schoolhouse rock. And so, yes, there's a number of other steps. maybe doesn't even get taken up this year, but I think again this is the message of we need more flexibility with the funding we already have. So, several steps, all of which we just shared. >> Very good. All right, Jenny. >> Thanks, Claudia. Um I'm all for um this type of process, especially if it's free. I'm assuming no charge. Yep. >> Uh sounds great. But I because we've this is the first time our district has ever um taken part in this process. I just I'm more curious. So I just have some curiosity questions about on on

221MSBA's end um how how long or how many years have they been taking on this process where they accept resolutions from school districts and then they do all the work. Yeah, I I don't know the answer to that, Jenny, in terms of the history of MSBA's uh component of this, but I do know that, you know, MSBA for I I feel safe in saying decades has been the voice of school boards at the capital. So, I feel very comfortable saying in the last three decades for sure. I don't know how long how far it goes back. Of course, the way that we lobby and advocate at the legislature has changed over the years, but one of MSBA's key roles was to elevate the voice of school boards in a unified way at the capital. So,

222I can certainly find the history, you know, more than that if that's of interest, but I feel comfortable saying for decades. >> Thank you. >> Very good, Corey. And just to tie into what Matt said, um, you know, they want voices from board members and boards throughout the state. So last week they had three different meetings, virtual meetings for board members to contribute to a potential platform. So Maggie and I were on a call last Friday talking about some of the challenges we've had in our district with K3 suspensions and things like that with funding. Uh, so they're developing their platform and they want to hear voices of all different stakeholders. So I think Dr. Hillman doing this is great. I appreciate you taking up the mantle to do that and we'll see if it

223makes the final cut cuz just even last Friday with the hour there was probably 20 ideas and for it to be effective they probably need to focus on four or five things. So we'll see if this makes the cut but if not there's always next year right? >> Anyone else good comments questions? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed. All right, motion passes. Um, item eight is our items for information. We have a retired educators lunchon coming up Friday, October 24th. It'll be at 11:30 a.m. at Ruth's on staff um RSVP to Kelly no later than October 15th. Our future meetings are Tuesday, October 14 as Monday is Indigenous People's Day, October 13, Monday. Monday, October 27th, 6 p.m. in this regular, it's a regular board

224meeting in this boardroom. and Monday, November 10th, also a regular school board meeting. That is all the business that we have tonight. Is there a move to adjurnn? >> Motion. >> Thank you, Jeeoff. Second. >> Who will second the motion? >> Second. >> Thank you, Corey. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. All right. We are adjourned. Thank you.