001I call this meeting to order. This is a regular meeting of the Northfield School Board. Today is Monday, April 14th, 2025, 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 the community here tonight to observe the important work being done on behalf of all district stakeholders. Dr. Helen, we have some items in the table file. Will you update us? Yes, we have several personnel items in the table file in the consent agenda. There's some additional appointments, increase, decrease, change in assignment. There's a leave of absence, um, and a termination. So, if you can take a look at those in the table file, um, we'd ask you add those to the agenda this
002evening. Okay. If there are no objections, we will add these items to the agenda as we move forward. Okay. Is there a motion to accept the agenda as presented? By Jeff, second by Jenny. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. Post. Motion passes. Thank you. Kelly, do we have any public comment signups? No. All right, that's item three. So, we'll move on to item four, announcements and recognitions. Yes, we have just a few this evening. Um, we just want to congratulate several students for some outstanding performances. So Aki Gupta and Tristan Westerrren, they have qualified for the Business Professionals of America National Leadership Confer uh competition. We want to congratulate Northfield High School 9th graders Hazer Shuffton and Leo Salon who were selected for the 2025 Minnesota Band Directors Association 910 Honor Band.
003Northfield's Ben Guyger has been selected for the USA Hockey Under 17 National Team. This is one of 23 players on the team across the entire country. Noah Marole and Elizabeth McCormack qualified for the state speech tournament uh this past weekend and congratulations to the Northfield High School knowledge bowl teams. We had two that had advanced to state and they both finished in the top 10 out of 48 teams at the state meet. So those are our announcements for this evening. Terrific. Members, do you have any announcements or recognition? Okay, item five tonight is items for discussion and reports. And first up is the proposed 2025 2026 debt service fund budget. Director of finance MDorf will present the 2526 debt service budget uh fund budget. The board will be asked to adopt that budget at the
004May 27th board. Welcome Val. Thank you. See if I can manage two different devices at once without breaking any of them. So, uh, tonight I'm going to present the debt service budget for the 2526 school year. Um, so a little reminder, I won't need this quite yet. Um, just about what the debt service fund does. It's a separate fund. Um, just like our general fund, child nutrition, community ed, etc. We are required to levy 105% of our debt, principal, and interest payments. So any voter approved or state authorized debt that we have, we issue bonds and those schedules then we levy 105% of that each year. Um we do get some state aid to offset some of those payments. Um part of that's our long-term facility maintenance aid. That's our largest. Um and some other
005kind of miscellaneous state credits that we get. Um, we do have uh two bonds that are issued using our long-term facility maintenance aid. And so those did not require voter approval, but we also have the offset um they basically take lower our revenue in the general fund to help offset the debt service fund. So it's neutral for the taxpayers um but allowed us to replace a few roofs in the district. Um and then other financing sources you'll see is listed on there. um we do not typically have that. That's if we're doing a refunding or that sort of thing. So, we haven't had that in a little while. Um but that is another line item in the budget potentially. We just haven't had any for a while. Um debt service expenditures again is really just
006the principal and interest and then any fees that are associated with making the payments on the debt. Um we're also required to um do some required mandated reporting that Ellers does on our behalf. There's a small fee for that as well. So overall, um this is probably one of the most straightforward funds and presentations that I get to do. Um again, local property taxes make up the biggest portion of that. And then there's obviously some interest because we do a cashbased um allocation model or a poolled cash investment model. the state of Minnesota's those state credits that I talked about and then other sources. And so you'll see um the revenue in 2425 went down pretty substantially and that was you'll see the the offset in the expenditures as well. We paid off that middle
007school debt and then the increase for 2526 is adding on the voter approved uh reimagine Northfield High School bonding. So that's what those increases are or decrease and increases are. So, we're looking at just over $9.9 million for revenue next year for the debt service fund. And then again on expenditures, you can see the total principal and interest payments. Again, those are directly off the schedules when we issue bonds. You can see that decline in 2425 because we paid off that middle school debt and then the adding um the reimagined Northfield High School bond. And then the other fees is again those um payments to process the bond payments and the annual required reporting. So about 8 point just shy of 8.9 million for expenditures. Um so overall we're going to anticipating growing that about
008a million dollars. Part of the process with um the Department of Education is because we are levying 105% so we know we're levying slightly more than we're required to pay that balance builds up over time. And the Department of Ed does a calculation looking at your three-year fund balance. Um and if it gets to a certain level, then they'll basically reduce your tax levy. Um, so offsetting some of that cost for taxpayers to make sure that we're not just pooling money there for no reason. Um, so 2.9 is our anticipated ending fund balance. Again, I think that's on the high side for us. It's usually in that million and a half range. Um, and so I anticipate we'll see a a pretty big tax adjustment on our levy um for pay 26. And then this
009is our actual principal and interest schedule for next year. Again, we have four issues um outstanding right now. And you can see the um newest Reimagine Northfield High School. We just issued that uh last month and got the funding for that. We are anticipating issuing the remaining debt for Reimagine Northfield High School probably in May of 27. Um, but that's the 39 million that we issued this year. And then this is all of our outstanding debt um for the next 23 years. Um, so just about 112 million including interest um that we'll be paying. And again, I think what's important is if you're looking at that total column as much as possible, those numbers are really similar and that helps keep the levy um as consistent as possible for taxpayers. So, that's an intentional strategy
010that we can do in scheduling our bond payments to help make that level. I think that was everything. That was a pretty straightforward one. So, if you have any questions, I would welcome them. Members, do you have any questions for V? And at this time then we will move on to the next item which you will be presenting the 2025 2026 internal service fund fund budget and also the board will be asked to adopt that May 27th. Yeah. So this is the internal service fund. So, as a reminder, this is the separate fund um where we account for our self-insured health and dental plans. Um on our financial statements, it's actually a completely separate financial statement. It's not included in our um governmentwide financial statements. And so, just know that it's totally separate. It's classified
011as a proprietary fund um in our financial statements. We have been self-insured in our dental program since 2006. um and we went self-insured with health in 2012. And so the revenue is the premium. So our um benefit advisory committee meets annually, reviews the data, and sets the premium for both the health and dental program if there's any um increases needed, that sort of thing. And then that premium um part of it's paid by the district, part of it's paid by the employee, and then we do have some retirees that are still on our plan as well um based on their contractual um agreements and what they're allowed to do after retirement. Um, and then expenditures are any actual health claims, dental claims, and then there's an administration cost of BlueC Cross Blue Shield or Delta
012Dental, issuing cards, processing claims, and doing all of those things. Um, we switched back to Bluec Cross Blue Shield January 1st of 24. Um, we've kind of flip-flopped back and forth between Bluec Cross Blue Shield and Medica depending on which was most financially advantageous for the district and our plan. Um so currently with Blue Cross um and then our stop loss coverage is at 125,000 per per year. Um so you can think of that as the the plan risk is up to 125,000 per per um member and then Blue Cross Blue Shield is then paying any excess but it's an insurance premium right? So we part of our administrative fee is paying for that stop-loss premium. So, we do analyze that each year just to see um if it makes sense to increase it. Um
013but right now it's still at 125. So, I'll start with the dental fund. We do track them separately. Um even though they're reported as one fund, we track them separately so we know exactly how each of the programs is operating. Um, and we've seen both with health and dental, we've seen a um, just a slow incremental decline in enrollment. My theory is that that aligns with what we've seen in our budget reduction in the last several years. Um, so we just have some we have fewer staff that are enrolling. Um, and then the premium has been basically the same since 2006. 2024 was the first time we've increased it since 2006. We actually did um I think we called it a premium holiday. In 2015ish where we had so much fund balance that we actually
014reduced dental premiums and health premiums for a while, but now we are finally getting caught up where medical inflation is um making it so that we need to actually increase the premium. But that's a pretty good run. Um, so that's a great story for the district. So we did increase it another 5% uh for 1125. Um, but again pretty pretty reasonable premiums for the plan. So overall um you the top lines the um the fund balance the first two columns are our audited results. The third column is what we are planning to happen this year for our adopted budget and then what we're projecting for the 2526 school year. So charges for services again a 5% premium increase means we're expecting a little bit more revenue even with the offset um of a slightly declining
015population accessing it. Interest earnings again is a cash pulled model and so we're anticipating that to to be a positive. Um I tend to budget pretty conservatively there because it's a it's a bonus to have it in the fund balance if we get it. So um total sources is about 968,000. Insurance claims again we increase that based on um the average medical inflation that we are anticipating. And then administrative fees is typically on a per member basis. So you'll see that um declined from our adopted budget in part because we were looking at historical and because we're having less participants um active in the program. And so our ending fund balance is projected to be about 227,000. Our goal for both health and dental is to have about 40% of our expenditures or our claims
016expenditures just to cover um and so we'll be slightly projected to be slightly under that. Um projecting for 24 25 to be kind of spot-on, but that's why we started increasing that premium is to make sure we're not getting too far down the road. So we anticipate that to to continue. Um but overall it's a pretty stable fund. um there's not lots of um swings like there can be with um health claims. There's a lot more volatility. So overall very stable, but we'll keep working towards adjusting that premium incrementally so it's affordable for staff and the district as well as managing the fiscal responsibility. So now to the health fund. Similar um the enrollment is just incrementally declining. Again, similar reasons to dental. I think we just have less staff to access it. But also,
017it is becoming more expensive. Um, as you're aware, health insurance across the district, uh, the state and the nation is just, um, can be very expensive. And so, we want to try and balance that the best we can, but it is an expensive benefit. We do have a very solid benefit here. And so I think for the most part staff are getting their their money's worth. But for everyone that is is the cost that they have to analyze. And some other employers, you know, their spouse might have a better program. And so there's all kinds of things that happen from year to year that can change that enrollment. Um so about 448 people are signed up for our health insurance. That does include over a thousand actual covered members. So 448 um staff or retirees
018but 1,000 people covered when you consider family insurance and all those sorts of things. The um premium we in the benefits advisory recommended a 10% increase. Um I will say this is the first time in probably five years that I feel like I'm giving an even remotely positive health insurance update. 10% um while still significant um we had a 25% I think a seven and now a 10. Um so we've had some pretty substantial increases. Our claims data is um looking much more um stable is the word I will use. It's still um we still have some high claimments but not nearly to the level that we had been seeing. So overall revenue um obviously with a 10% increase we're expecting that charges for services which is that premium revenue to increase. So looking at
019about $10.6 million there. We do um have a specific um agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield that we will get all of our prescription rebates. There's other models where they get the rebate um but we pay less administratively. um it has worked to our benefit to actually take those in-house and so we've seen anywhere from $200 to $400,000. Um so 290 is what we're projecting for next year. And then again interest earnings slight increase over what we are projecting just based on our historical um but again conservative um because I don't want to overinflate that. And then insurance claims you will see is actually projected to go down a little bit. Um partially due to less um people on the plan partially because when I look back at our historical if you look at the
020audited results uh 9.4 seems a little high but we had also been projecting a very high um claims increase trend. And so that's exciting to bring any part of the budget back down a little bit. and then administrative fees at about 1.3. That is a rate that we had locked in um with a a specific increase with Bluec Cross based on our two-year process. Um so when we switched back to them on January of 24 and then in the I didn't put a graph in here, but just um we I did have a a narrative in there that talked about our high claimments and kind of showed some history. And so you can see from um January through December of 24, we had 24 claimments that exceeded 50% of our stop loss. So that's $62,500.
021Those 24 claimments made up 27.7% of our total claim spend. Um and nine of the 24 exceeded the stop loss of 125,000 by a cumulative 1.45 million. So, this sounds like a lot of big numbers, but that's actually um a pretty significant improvement over what we had been seeing. Um I think it was, you know, 30 claimants making up 30 plus% um if I'm remembering correctly. Uh oh, see, this is why I brought my computer so I could just look at it. I just have to scroll to it. Um so, yeah, 32 claimments making up almost 37% last year. um with you know $3.3 million 1.4 over stop loss. So we're seeing less high claimments I guess is the positive message um and less overall total spend. And so we're hopeful that that continues. We
022do have some analytics that we or an analytic software that we use to kind of project based on the claims that are coming in what types of things we expect and might see in the future. And overall that's looking better. So I'm cautiously optimistic that um we are are close to the right premium right now that we can have like more normally normally incremental increases rather than looking at 25s and tens year-over-year. Um I think we've stabilized and are in a place where we can hopefully maintain that now. So that's a great place to be. Um it's like I said, it's been quite a while since I felt like I was giving any sort of positive update about our health plan. So, um overall, again, it's still um the question we get a lot is
023does it still make sense to have a self-insured health plan? and we analyzed that the last we're required to um go out to bid every two years and we did analyze and get a full fully insured quote and it was over a 30% increase that we would have had to take to the premium. So at this point, yes, it is still financially the best model for the district um and for our employees. And so we're hopeful that our 5-year crazy run is uh slowing down and that we can go back into kind of just normal health insurance um experiences um because that would be great for everybody. So that I think is all the information I wanted to share, but again that one's a little more complex than the debt service. So if you have
024any questions, I will gladly answer them. Excellent work for members. Do you have any questions for that? Right. Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Right. Um the next item is our priority based budget reduction recommendations discussion. And so we're going to um open that discussion over the proposed budget and board members will look at each reduction package as presented. We can discuss an increase or a decrease of any item, but we ask that you refrain from suggesting any new line items. And you're welcome to ask for clarification um information of administrators, but um stick to the package we're reviewing at the time. And those administrators um may or may not have the answers for you right away. So, a little um patience and grace with that. We will try to get that information
025to all of us. Um, we have the rest of the month to continue to collect that information and then I ask that you I ask respectfully that you limit yourselves in your questions just to allow other board members to speak and then we can come back around if you have further questions. Um, and then I wanted to make a few comments before that um, discussion starts just in that um, that vein of recapping where we're at. understanding that people show up at different points in the conversation and so this may be um for some one of their first meetings hearing about how we landed at this $6 million um reduction need. So I'll start with some thanks. Um thank you Val for um your excellent financial expertise managing our budget over the years. Um external
026reviewers Clifton Larson Allen LLP declared another clean audit year for the last fiscal year and that is six years in a row. Um, also our district's financial management has been validated by receiving a strong bond rating by Standard and Porsche. And our district has the second highest rating in about 150 Minnesota school districts who are rated by S&P. So those are um great brags. Um the board is also proud of Dr. Helman's leadership. We're always proud of your leadership, but especially in this um in this particular reduction period. Um and we're of course immensely grateful and appreciative of all the community members, the administrators and vow for um putting together these proposed reduction packages. Uh I like to recall what Dr. Hman says is we're we can be proud of that process and still not
027like the result. And then finally, thanks to all of the district stakeholders who have emailed us, called us, met with us, attended um our community forum, read the stories in Northfield News, listen to the news pieces on KYN, um talked to teachers, students, administrators, educational assistant, nurses, just talk to um various people in the district to hear how the reductions will be um an impact to them. and we don't disagree as board members, as community members, as parents. Uh we don't disagree with your um concerns. It's a $6 million loss for all of us. Lately, I've also been reflecting on how much I want to find something or someone to say this is the cause and if I just fix that, um we'll be in better shape. But the truth is that we're in this
028position because of um years of underfunding of public education, um unfunded mandates, declining enrollment, inflation, and our special education funding gap, which in Northfield is $4 million. Um and then just to uh recap that public education is funded by the state. Our budget in Northfield is 70% for pupil funding and then 30% um is made by the voters and state and voter approved levies. We are extremely lucky to have a community that supports us and understands the importance of financial investment. So again, we understand this loss and we understand that um early intervention wherever it lands, six months, six years um sixth grade or at age 16 is vital for all of our students success and confidence. And I'll end with um Ben's words on the KYN uh news show with Logan Wells um that
029these reductions mean people and so we won't forget that um these are people professionals who have passion and investment in being educators and these reductions also mean children will have less choice and less time in enrichment programs. So, we'll open that discussion now. Um, beginning with the activities package. That and then Dr. Helman, do you have any comments you want to make or I I do not. I think we want to hear from board members um about each package. Any points of information or clarification on the activities package? Okay. My my question is on that first item is and and perhaps it's been answered before and I missed it. The um reduction in the service it says from all year to winter season only. And so um what does that what is the cut off
030there? What does that look like? We have some spring days that are exceptionally cold. We might even have a storm. So I just wanted to hear a little bit about um cutting it to winter only. Yeah. So this reduction means that in the fall and spring sports seasons, right? There's a beginning to the sports season, there's an end to the sports season. During the fall sports season and the spring sports season, there would not be the activity shuttle service. So for that winter season, that usually begins, you know, early November um through just a couple of weeks ago, you know, early March. Um that we would have the activity shuttle only for that time frame of the year. So you are right. There could be some cold days in late fall. There could be some
031cold days in early spring. Um of course both in the fall and the spring there can be rain. There can be thunder you know things that are um you know just part of our weather patterns. But in this case that activity shut would only run during the winter athletic season. Would not run during it would only run during the winter athletic season just not in the fall or the spring. Thank you. Okay. So, uh, do we want to move on to the next package then? I feel like there weren't any questions there. Okay. So, the next package is the district services. Any questions or items for clarification? Any information needed? I'll give you another minutes to think you have a question, Maggie. Um, my question was about line 28, the transportation fee. Um I I
032guess that's one where I think it would be helpful to have a little more information about how many families or riders would be affected. Um additional concern around school pickup and drop off and how additional um parent drop off and pickup might affect especially at the elementary schools um that that kind of traffic patterns that exist there. So if we could just get some more information about that would be helpful. Yes, we are working with Benjamin Bus to get a list of all the students that currently are registered that would that live within two miles. Um, so we can we are working on that. So, we'll absolutely get that for you. Um, and I think it's probably difficult to predict what the impact to traffic flow would be depending on um on how it's perceived
033and so but we can certainly get the data and and share with you what we have. And just to follow up on that, the two miles is that kind of put a point in the school and draw a circle 2 miles around or is it actually 2 miles like walking distance? Um I believe it's two miles um from the front door of the school based on the roads to the front door of their house. Okay. Now again, that's that's rough. They do it in their in their system, right? Um, but it's from their their school. Um, you know, so each elementary school has a two-mile boundary. The middle school has a two-mile. So each one has their own kind of boundary, if that makes sense. So it's how somebody would walk, not fly to school.
034Yes. Correct. Jeff, did you have a question? I'm just saying, isn't state law one mile and we do two? State law is we have to transport if they live two miles or further. But we we currently do one mile for secondary and 75 for elementary. Anyone else on this packet? Just had a question on 23 the two full-time subs. Can you talk a little bit about how those positions are used and you know kind of what happens without them? Sort of what does that strategy look like? So, the full-time substitute uh are positions that we began during the pandemic when there was a real der of substitute teachers and we had quite a significant amount of unfilled absences. So, we at one point had three I believe um we went down to two. And so,
035what happens is we reserve those uh positions for um people who call in on the day that uh the day of the absence. So, lots of times teachers uh or educational assistants can plan in advance. You I'm going to be gone for this medical appointment next week. I'm going to be gone with my students for, you know, this particular knowledgeable uh state tournament and I'm going to have the um substitute selected ahead of time. When you call in in the morning, our system continues to run. So, the substitute automation system continues to run. Substitutes casual subs or daily subs pick up those jobs. If there are jobs that are left over, then those uh full-time substitutes are assigned to a full-time teaching position first, a full-time daylong teaching position, and then if there all of
036the substitute positions are filled, they'll be assigned to cover an educational assistant absence. Those are the positions that we do still struggle to fill on a day-to-day basis. Um, we uh pay very competitively for daily subs. We have had better a much better year this year. I'm looking at Mr. Jelano the middle school principal. This year has been um much better than last year. Last year was the better than the year before. We are seeing um a deeper subpool. And so when we look at all of the things across the packages, one of the things that we looked at are there things that we know, you know, that we need and things that we're building in for margin. And you'll see a number of things that we've built in for margin or some of the
037things that we're reducing. The two full-time substitute positions. the people who have been in those jobs have done excellent have done excellent work. It's not a value judgment, but it's a mar it's margin. It's something that is nice to have, but when we're looking at all the other reductions, we just didn't feel we could continue that the team didn't feel they could continue forward with that um in terms of having that the benefit of that margin when we're looking at the other reductions. And so, you know, what happens when we don't get sub for a class? What does that look like? So, it depends on the age level. Um, we would always prioritize the full day substitute if we're in that position. We'll always pro uh prioritize the full day substitutes at the elementary first.
038Harder to patch together an elementary day, though it can be done at the secondary. What happens is the administrative assistants, they look at the people who are on their prep schedule and they ask for volunteers who would help to cover those classes. And so if I give up my prep to cover a colleague's class, um I have an addition some additional payment based on the contract. And so you may if you're missing a substitute at the middle school, that teachers class um load of five courses may be covered by was likely going to be covered by five different people. So the secondaries have that ability to patch in people who are on their prep time. The elementarymentaries don't. In some extreme cases in the past, we've had a circumstance where we do prioritize having people
039who maybe were um are facilitating small group instruction who may go and cover for a day. It might be uh the behavior coach might cover for a period of time, things like that. Sure. And so obviously the goal is to make sure that there's coverage and so that still comes with some incremental cost. So when I look at these two FTE it doesn't quite if it's 132 roughly are we assuming some additional cost to cover what would need to be cost covered in the absence of those two positions or yeah we don't know the answer to that yet but you what you're saying is likely. Um but what we're what we are also seeing is that we have times where these positions were hired as teachers and there's um dozens of times this past year
040where they have been placed in educational assistant roles. So, I think it depends on, you know, how you look at um, you know, that that benefit and where it's going. Okay. Thank you. Can I just add a little bit on that one? Um, so the data on that is they spent 60 roughly 65% of their time subbing for teachers and 35% subbing as EAS. We did have that data already. Um because there were only two positions, I was able to actually calculate the actual cost of those two positions rather than using kind of a an estimate. You know, 300 teachers is a little harder to to pull each one. So that was an estimate and they are not paid on the teacher contract. It's a separate rate. So it's a slightly different model. Gotcha. Okay.
041Thanks. Yep. And I wanted to um ask more on that item 23. How often or I mean, I don't need a a hard number, but how often um do you use both substitutes? Um and then how often do is the district in a position where um we've used the two substitutes and we still have um need for coverage. Yeah, I don't have that data for you tonight. I can I can tell you that the the two substitutes are here every day, right? The full-time substitutes, they work every day at the same rate. As you heard Val say, 65% of the time they cover teaching positions, 35% of the time educational assistant positions. Um, my perception based upon what I have talked to the HR department about is that there are there have not been many
042times where they have not been able to cover there were my understanding is that so far there's been a total of 49 unfilled absences during the year. Now, if you think about that, but that can range from I need to leave 1 hour early to go to an appointment and I have my neighbor across the hall cover for me. That could be considered an unfilled absence, you know, all the way to someone who's gone for an entire day that we need to patch in um you know, during the prep time. And so 49 sounds like a lot, but if you think about the number of people in the district, 300 plus teachers, right? the number of days each year and the number of class periods that that could be it's actually a very small number
043comp in context and in talking with Emily Grody who runs our um or excuse me Brooker who runs our um our substitute management system she said this year has been one of the best years we've had in some time from uh other individuals outside of the correct picking up through the system. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Jeff. Yeah. I remember when we added that 2.0 0 um substitute um just a question you answered you know part of that but I mean within I don't know 10 years or what is the statistic or trend of what is what is kind of normal and acceptable for substitutes that they had I think the main one of the main reasons is we just when we did this was to really have somebody that's very accountable for substitutes and
044I'm just wondering does the pool for you know qualified substitutes go up or down or is that pretty stable? So, it has been I would say the pool for qualified substitutes has been um I would say that it it has it was peaking before CO we saw you know quite a few a pretty decent pool. Then uh during co obviously the the pool was not sufficient which is one of the reasons we added these and the pool is now deepening again for a variety of different reasons. Then I just had a question on 22. to the instructional services position. And can you remind us you know how are we seeing obviously hope does a lot of great work so recognize that but how are we distributing those duties obviously there's 80% that will go away
045right those other well not 80% of the duties 80% of the money goes away the duties still have to happen right exactly so it says 20% savings to support redistributed duties so can you talk about that a little bit just remind us I can so in uh the restructuring of our district office due to some retirements and partial return. You know, HR is also part of this overall approach. Molly's coming back and going to work three days a week. Um, thanks to the work that Hope has done, Hope has really developed some excellent systems with the instructional services department. So, um, we are not going to replace that position and I will run that team um, starting next year. So there are some instructional services coaches or specialists, whatever you'd like, whatever we determine to
046call them as we move ahead. Um, we've got people who are focused on mathematics instruction. We have an individual focused on the read act. We have an individual who's really focused on the CIRC process and career career technical ed um and more so with the secondary pieces as well. We're um looking at adding some days to those folks positions. Then we're also looking at restructuring one of the positions to focus on the execution of the testing process. So one of the big roles that instructional services plays is making sure that all of the statewide the local and statewide testing are executed in a way that is as seamless as possible. So we're looking at restructuring one of the positions uh to where that individual would have a lot of district assessment coordinator like duties, but
047it would really be about making the trains run on time. Um it would not be about the interpretation of the data or things like that, but it would be about executing making sure that the state has all the data that they need to be able to effectively um put our test files together, problem solving issues, you know, during the testing day, which happens every single day uh during testing, planning the testing um calendar, etc. So restructuring folks in that way and then um we are working right now on a calendar to where I would meet with that team every other week and provide the leadership for that team and keep them moving in the direction that hope has set um for forward. It's going to be there's there's no other way to say that there
048are going to be things that have been nice to have been done that will no longer be done. I can't tell you all those things right yet. Um, but we know are there are some things that we could do with a greater amount of administrative capacity that just will not be able to happen. So, we're going to start with what are the things that have to happen. What are the things from instructional services that we believe give the biggest bang for the buck to teachers so that they are in turn providing that to students. So, we'll there will be some things that we have been able to do in the past that we will no longer be able to do and we're working through that reassignment of those. Hope has a monthby-month spreadsheet of all
049the things that the department does and we're looking through that right now and redistributing those duties as appropriate. Um, and so you're Matt, you said you're going to be leading that team, the instructional team. Yes. Um, and then same with the um same with the I lost my the human resources line 31. So that's a little different because Molly is retiring and coming back 3 days. She will run the administrative services of the HR department. So again, think about the most predictable things within human resources, the hiring, the benefits, you know, all of the the items that you know and can have a general predictability over. Then um what I will take over from that particular area is I will go back to being the lead uh negotiator. So I'll I'll lead the negotiations team
050and then I'll also take a larger role in employee investigations. So um things that Molly and I have teamed on in the past where she's taken the lead, we'll just flip and she'll be the backup on those things while I'll take the lead on those as part of it. And when I say that I'm I'm going to take the lead on it, that also means that we're going to be building capacity within the system. So right now for any kind of investigation that's brought in, we typically do the Molly typically leads an investigation. And so that way it's very consistent no matter where it's at. The investigation is conducted by the same person with the same approach. It is likely that we'll be training some, you know, our principles have a a role in those
051investigations, but it's very likely we'll be training our principles to take a handful of additional responsibilities with those kinds of investigations, but it we're going to consolidate that into fewer administrators. Anyone else have a question or comment? So, okay. Okay. So, I'm hearing that you're going to pick up some of the work from the instructional services and from human resources. And then I wanted to hear about line 34 um the stutter educational contract that um there's still going to be work there, but you're not going to connect with uh stuttering. Correct. So, this our partnership with stutter education um goes back to 2017. It was originally funded uh through a grant from the healthy community initiative. So they funded it for several years and then we were able to pick that up um because we
052really found value in it. So our contract with student education does several things. They're the third-party administrator of three surveys that we run each year. Our district services survey, our student um excuse me, our um employee experience survey and our parent and caregiver experience survey. We'll no longer have them as a thirdparty administrator. Um we will work internally to run those similar surveys, whether that ends up being with a partner from Carlton or St. of whether it be partnering with the unions um you know to be able to make sure that they know we're conducting the employee experience survey in this authentic third party way if that makes sense. So we'll we'll continue to do the survey work. We just won't have that independent third-party um administrator to be able to help us with it.
053And then we used student education to do a lot of systems development and leadership development over the years. There's many things that you heard over about cascading communication. There's a number of things that we have used um that have really been effective leadership tools that was a result of executive coaching that we had from student education. So, we're very disappointed with that. It's been a great partnership for the last uh eight years. Um I think that our administrative team and our uh district culture based on day have really come a long way as a result of that partnership and the coaching that we've had, but we just can no longer afford it. Appreciate that. And then I have one more item and then I'll open it up again. Um um line item 32, how can
054ex you know share on how can we reduce an instructional coach? Well um or what's happening that we can reduce it or what are we going to see the impact of that? So um in this case one of the instructional coaches is going to retire okay and then come back at halftime and right now that individual has a broader set of responsibilities but when this person comes back they're going to at halftime they're going to focus solely on mathematics instruction so it will be expand extending uh the implementation of the bridges uh curriculum it will be the secondary mathematics curriculum implementation the coaching that goes along with it the teacher lab days but rather than having the entire breadth of for example being helping with the testing team. This person will solely focus on mathematics
055instruction. So the question is um how do we do it? We're going to find out. Uh you know there's just going to be fewer people to do the responsibilities as and that's in every one of these packages, right? We just have less people to have to do the work and there's going to be some things again that have been nice to have been done in the past that we're just going to have to say that's not something that we can support any longer. And again, that's part of the implementation process. We could give you a list of things today that we think, and I'm fairly certain by October, it'd be wrong, right? So, um, you know, we'll work to provide the best service that we possibly can. I can assure you people are going to
056work incredibly hard. Um, but there's just when you have fewer people, you can just do less things. Thank you. Anyone else have question or comment on this? You Ben have question about line 29, the non-instructional software licenses. that those those go into the capital budget that then it's always not the general fund budget. So how does the capital budget pay for it? Is that something that gets levied or is it? So the capital budget is a combination um there's a state uh the operating capital which is state aid levy mix. Um we also have the voter approved um capital projects levy which is part of that. And so we read through like all of the statute language basically to make sure that these would qualify. Um and so basically what this means is that there's
057$400,000 um of other projects that we're not going to be able to do. So I think we're we're in a great position because of the increase to the voter approved project capital projects levy. And so while there's some very specific things that we'll still continue to do with that, um we're just moving some of this into there to offset that a little bit. Okay. Okay. So, we'll move on to the elementary package. Any questions or comments on that package? That looks like it's items 42 through 47. Okay, Jenny. Thanks, Claudia. Uh so line 42 um I'll start off with I have I just have some questions regarding those targets underneath. Um it states recommended class size targets are 20 for kindergarten, 24 for grades 1 through three, and 27 for grades four to five. I
058was wondering if um that's inclusive of general ed students and teachers only or um special education students and teachers. Yes. So those are specifically for elementary general education classrooms, right? But the targets are also only specific to general education. That is correct. for those yeah the targets that we've set because the in an elementary schedule the the engine of the entire schedule are those general education classrooms. So um you will have those those ranges of um that you just mentioned and that's about where you go for your home room if you will your your general education classroom. So special education class sizes or class loads can be determined based upon in some cases the disability. There's some case case load guidelines that are set by the state that's that is separate from this. This is
059specifically about how many students do we place in each general education classroom at the elementary school. And so then we're also not including number numbers of EAS. This is strictly this is strictly teachers. Yep. So this is the teacher the licensed teacher to student ratio is what we're looking at. Okay. And then um how did the team um come up with those those targets? Um so what they did is they my understanding um Val and I Val if you can help. We were in and out of the the teams. The elementary um team looked at a variety of different ratios and what that might look like in terms of the savings. And so as they looked at the various levels of ratios, what they felt was reasonable to be able to help hit their target,
060their budgetary target, this is where they landed. So I think they looked at things that were smaller than this and considered other, you know, items that may have helped them get to their target. uh they even considered sizes that were higher than this to a certain extent and they felt that this was the reasonable middle in terms of keeping uh class sizes that were acceptable um and also hitting their budgetary target. So it's not an exact perfect science. It was taking a look at here's if we move to these ratios, here's how many general ed classrooms could be reduced and here's how much money that would save for the package value. You were also in that room. Yep. So um they I mean they they obviously had conversation about you know pros and cons. They
061did also gather some data on what other district class size targets are. And so that was shared with the group. And then um from what I recall they had like four options that said if we did this class size target here's the other things that would have to be um reduced. And then they had the team um kind of vote on their top two preferred and the this is what was recommended by the group. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thank you. And then um so these are just targets. So then what happens if um let's say next year those numbers are are higher? Um would there be repositioning again to to go back down to these targets? Tell me what you mean by repositioning. Well, so currently there's already we already have at
062Spring Creek um a couple of kindergarten classrooms that are over the 20. Um as well as at Bridgewater. Um we have two also, I'm sorry, two that are at 20. Um and then going into second grade, um we're already hitting one at 24 at Spring Creek and at Bridgewwater. Um we have two third grade classrooms already at 24. So, I mean, we're we're already close and then reducing nine uh full-time teaching positions. I I'm just having a hard time comprehending if we're already at or above these targets, how these targets are how we're going to abide by these targets. So, remember, a target is a target and it's not a specific data point, right? So, um when we take a look at class sizes, the the target is the divisor, if you will. So we
063take the total number of students in those contemporary sections, we divide it by that number and then and uh we look at how many sections would that warrant. And it's not a perfect um oh this grade has got two over 26 that means we got to or two over 24. We're going to go back and add a section because in that case if we did add a section we'd be down to 18 kids right per classroom. So it's a range, you know, it's a it's a divisor and then we use our professional judgment if there's a need to add a section. Now class sizes are not perfect, right? You can have a class of 28 that feels like a class of 20 and you can have a class of 17 that feels like a class
064of 40, right? It depends upon the makeup of the of the student population. A variety of factors go into that. So from time to time, you know, we'll give um elementary principles uh their aotment and from time to almost all the time it works out well, right? From time to time, we'll see a case where they will say, you know what, I really need an extra section of second grade. Um and I'm going to I I'm just a little bit above the target right now in fourth grade, but I think that I can handle that class being larger, so I'm going to move an FTE from fourth grade to second grade. So within this construct um we can move sections from one grade level to another. Um just because it's 24 doesn't mean that we
065can't have 26 or 27. It also doesn't mean that we can't have 21 or 22 which sometimes also happens. So you're right, we're going to be running pretty tight. And in the past we also had the benefit of having contingency. So, in the uh district services package, one of the things you'll see is we are recommending cutting back from 3FT of contingency back to one. And what contingency did for us was if we did have a grade level where, as you say, we're right on the target. We get a number of moveins in that district over the summer and we now have a class size that has increased to the point that we're not comfortable with. We could use an FTE from contingency, which is FTE that the B board has already approved, and we
066could assign it to fourth grade at Bridgewwater. You know, as you said, um we still have the ability to do that if we did see a class size that we thought was pretty significant, we needed some change. The f the contingency is nice because it allows us to move quickly, but we can always come back to the board, come back to you and say, you know, we've had an increase in the enrollment at grade 4 at Bridgewwater. we're going to ask that you authorize another teacher, you know, for the coming year. And so at that point, there's just a there there isn't it's not as seamless as it is if we have uh the three contingency FTE. So I'm not sure if that's helpful or not, but it's not a perfect number. It's a divisor
067to help us uh determine how many sections there should be per grade level. Okay. And then also would we ever have to be concerned then of um violating the state statute regarding the K through three class size where where 17 is a a set class class size. So I have not ever understood that that was statuto. I think there's some guidelines and some recommendations is my understanding. Um I know that there are districts that have 30 in kindergarten. Right. But they could be violating that statute. They they could be. Yes. There's I know there's some class- size targets and there's some recommendations um and it would be nice to be able to hit that. We we've come pretty close for quite some time, you know. Um but I am not aware of a district that
068has run a foul of that or has been held accountable in that way. Okay. Thank you. Matt, on that same item, some districts um will hire another adult to support the ratio. Um, so there there it's a little bit of language there. So there's a class- size target that you're talking about dividing the entire population of incoming second graders by however number of teachers you have to try to get um about 24 kids. And if you happen or if we happen to have a um situation where each of those classes had more than 24, some districts will hire another adult to help with that ratio. What would that look like for us? then would we consider hiring another adult? So, we have done that. In fact, we did that this year. Uh so, we had
069uh a couple of larger classes at one of our elementary schools where even if we had wanted to, we wouldn't have been able to add another FTE there just for facility reasons. So, in that case, we did hire a 1.0 um or a I think it was a 6-hour a day educational assistant, so a non-licensed position um to support two grade levels. and so spent time at both grade levels just trying to but you think about one person between two grade levels that really didn't reduce the substantial amount of um it didn't really reduce the amount of supervision that the classroom teacher had to do. But what it did do is it intended to make sure that it could help um help the teacher get some of those other kinds of things done that require
070time that they did not have. So yes, there are circumstances where that has been done. We have done that on a limited basis. If when we've done in the past, it's typically been more so at kindergarten. Oh, sure. Okay. We do have some general ed EA time um per kindergarten class as well. Anyone else questions on this packet? Okay, Maggie. Um yeah, so uh same line uh 42 about the class sizes. Um we did discuss at our last meeting a little bit about the companos class sizes. Um, but we did hear from some community members about kind of how that will work with the class sizes and um, I think we've seen some information about the averages being roughly similar. But, you know, given that there are some outlier classes or, you know, it could
071be that by fifth grade it's become an outlier class. I would like to at our work session just have some more information about those class sizes and um, kind of what what that means for this particular line item. Yeah, and I think it's a fair we can certainly bring all the data. There are a couple of outliers across the system in Copenos. They tend to be at the upper grade levels and I I personally believe that is still a co impacted component. So I think it'll be interesting as we continue forward. But if you do look at the data, so for example, you know, at Bridgewater there uh the average contemporary class size projected for next year, this includes the nine FTE reduction uh would be 23.39 and the average Kaneeros class size would be
07222.4. Um at Greenville Park, the average contemporary class size next year would be 22.33, Paniro set 24. At Spring Creek, where they have the they have the two biggest outliers um across the system, um next year's fourth and fifth grade. Even with that, the average contemporary class size at Spring Creek would be 21.43. Um and the average class size would be 20. So, you know, you're talking about within a student and a half average. Now, it's it's fine to talk about averages, right? But it's different when you're looking at I have 26 students in one section and maybe 17 or 18 in another. And then again, there's a couple of outliers that we have, but when you look at the averages, it's far closer than I think what sometimes people perceive because of those outliers.
073And we can bring a detailed analysis to the work session. Yep. Anyone else? I had one more question. That was item 46. So, um, do we does the district currently own these instruments and then we have a budget to send them out for repair? So, now those instruments if they were damaged, who will the the family will Yes, we do. We do have an overall um district repair budget that covers that. Um, and so I I anticipate probably if it goes over budget asking for support from NFAB or something like that, but um, it can really vary from year to year. And so overall, I think we've we'll be in a an okay spot based on what the historical budget looked like, but there are some avenues for for support if needed if there was
074a larger year. So there'll be a reduction and the anticipated amount is 6,000. So, what is the current budget? Uh, I want to say it's a little over 12 right now. Thank you. Okay. Should we move on to the next packet then? Very good. Then we will go to the secondary packet. Can I frame one thing at the beginning of the secondary package? So, um, as you know, you know, we continue to look at each of these line items. I just want to call out one item. You've seen one line item that's changed a couple of times related to the high school administrative structure. So, um, eliminating a high school assistant principal position, if you recall, the early recommendation was to replace that with a full-time dean of students. You then saw that that um
075continued to evolve and it was fully eliminate the assistant principal position. No replacing with a dean of students um using a non-licensed security liaison to be able to help with that. Um, Mr. Byer is investigating now uh something in between that, right? looking at actually potentially having a part-time dean of students, someone who might teach part of the day and also be a dean part of the day. He's still putting some of those numbers, but the length of this process, you know, we will have a handful of these. So, I just want you to know we're not there yet, but um it it's going to be close to what is in there. He might need to have a little bit of additional money to make that work. And we have some ideas about where to
076offset that. But there are some of these things we don't want to say just because they're in there, this is exactly what it's going to be. We want to give those teams the ability to find out what's the right method to do that. And so I appreciate Principal Buyers, you know, continuous thinking about what's the best way to serve the high school in the reality of of losing one of their three administrative positions. Thanks for letting me clarify that just ahead. Thank you for adding that questions or comments from the board members. Any questions? Yes. So we've obviously heard a lot about the kind of seven sixth period day at the middle school. So if I look kind of at the way that the items are laid out, there's some like some of those things
077are contingent on each other, right? So you could group them together. So which line items is it 49 and 64? Would we add those together and kind of say that those are the the dependencies between a six and seven period day? Yes. So I would um I would submit to you that there are three line items that are related to the shifting from seven to six periods. The first would be line item 49 um reducing the middle school electives by6 at a savings of $75,000. Um I would also indicate it would be um line item um looking for the health line item 64. So that's that's another position that would be part of moving from 7 to six. That's uh for a total of $125,000. And then I would also say that um the media
078um the middle school media um educational assistant that 62 for $55,000 is also part of that. The rationale for reducing that middle school educational assistant in the media center was that you were going to go to no study halls. And the vast majority of students use um the media center without their classroom teacher during a study hall. So that I would say those three are really the financial impact of the seven period to six period day. Okay. So 55 + 125 plus 75 255,000. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, Jenny. Thanks, Claudia. I I also um am going to focus on um line 49 um regarding the the seven to six period day. Um I do have some questions regarding going into um the proposed schedule that we did receive from Mr.
079Gelano um proposed middle school schedule um and then going into the arts standards area. I just want to make sure that, you know, we're going to be in compliance um before um I I guess we go any further and even maybe before we go into our our workshop, it would be beneficial um either to have the information now or maybe at the workshop, but um what and I know this question has been asked before, but I'm I don't remember how much detail we went into it, but can you talk about um the consequence or penalty um that MDE would or has imposed on districts not meeting an art standard. So, I've got Hope Langston, our director of instructional services here to help us with questions about the art standards. So, if I can have her
080come to the podium and and to be I'll ask I don't ever recall um MDE taking any adverse action against the district for not meeting any academic standards. I think the theory is that the adverse action is if you don't, you know, if you're not following the standards for those areas that are tested, you would obviously not perform well on the tests. But we do have a number of standards that aren't tested. So, what have you learned, Hope, or your experience in this case? I've not ever seen MDE adversely uh take action against the district. No, I have not either. And I know that there's a um and I will pull this for your work session. um somebody did some kind of study of how many districts are beating all the standards in all the
081areas and it was actually a shockingly low percentage. Um so I don't think there is any financial penalty that I've heard of or any um action that's taken against the district. all obviously we're all trying to do the right thing and meet all the district standards but I'm going to tell you um in the big nine and elsewhere meeting this new arts requirement has been extraordinarily difficult. Okay. Okay. And then going into that further, um, according to those standards, are there any two of the five arts areas, um, where the standards would maybe overlap, um, making it, I guess, easier to meet and even exceed, um, those standards. I know when we when we do this work, they talk about standards bundling. Um, and so that's part of the curricular work that we do to
082to take a look at all the standards because if you if you put them all together, it would be really hard to teach all of them in every content area in a single school year. So you bundle those together. We actually do it crosscurricularly as well. That's why we looked at what dance is being done in music, what dance is being done in PE um to see if we can bundle standards together in that way as well. Okay, thank you. Now, anyone else have question or comment? Ben, do you have one? Maybe. Let me get back to the slide, Maggie. Um, I think mine was also about the arts requirements and I think particularly looking at the schedules that Mr. Gelano sent out um the the students who are not in any music, I would
083think that they would be particularly at a disadvantage in terms of getting the two arts requirements given that there's then only it seemed like, you know, there would be needing to cover multiple arts in one art class. So, um I think that that was a concern for me. Um and then whether or not those art classes will feel have enough time to fulfill those requirements um that they feel maybe some pressure to do. So ask Greg andor hope to come forward and I would say we we would have in one of the schedules you we would have the same concern for PE who is shifting from you know having a little bit longer of a time frame to meet those standards to a shorter time frame. I'm just going to tell you that the that
084based on the research that we both did, this quarterly model is pretty common. So, people are finding a way and we need to put our people together with districts who are successfully doing this. Um, how they're bundling standards together to to fit them in a quarter class. I I think that goes back to that they're in the quarterlong class and whether or not they're meeting all of the standards is another question, right? And that could be different quarter to quarter depending on the uh student body that you have in that class. So, um I think what we're seeing is in some of these areas like art, like PE, some more what people would consider to be electives, you are seeing that quarter or every other day for a semester, those shorter time frames being used
085um especially in middle schools. Yeah. And I I will say that I I think what I like to see in middle school is exposure to lots of different things. So it does seem like a quarter class or you know half a semester every other day would allow for exposure to lots of different um activities. So that I commend those those models. Thank you. I keep thinking at line 48. Can you remind us or kind of walk us through? We've got the licensed teachers there, but kind of what does that constitute or represent right now as best we understand? So the high school is completing their registration and they will um they're they have given each of the departments their FTE based upon the registrations including larger class size targets typically for um core curricular areas.
086So you will just see less sections across the high school and you see 2.7 uh teachers there. That might be I don't have this for sure yet. That might be one full FTE right in in one area and it might be partial components of FTEES in other areas. And this is not uncommon for the high school. The high school has always done its registration or its FTE based upon the registration. Over the years, you've seen we've had some departments that have been bigger in the past that are smaller now. Some that were smaller in the past that are bigger now based upon the student registration. But what will happen is you'll see there's to my knowledge there aren't coarse areas that are going to be eliminated, right? Unless they had so few registrants, right? The
087intent was to reduce keep as many of the things as you could that were registered for and to be able to do that you're going to see some larger classes in some of the core areas. Um exception I think is science. And how how representative do we feel that this year's registration is going to be? I mean, you have to go with what you know, right? But obviously that cascades through in in future years, too, right? So, we're sort of stuck in the middle, it sounds like, in terms of Well, in a high school registration reinvents itself every year, right? So, you know, I I use family and consumer science as an example. There was a time at the high school that there weren't enough registrations to support one full-time teacher. Now, baking and pastries
088is the most popular elective, and there are two full-time teachers, right? Um, there were times where there are other departments that had two or two plus full-time teachers, and that content area just hasn't been as appealing to students uh for the last decade or so. And so, you see those areas are down to one or just a little bit more than one. So, it's really a student-driven schedule. There are some requirements obviously of what they need to take, but even within that, they have some uh flexibility in terms of choosing AP versus not. There are some um areas where they have electives or elect we'll call them electives courses that they are required to take but they have some choice in how they take those courses. So the high school registration reinvents itself every year
089anyway. We're just going to have to do it with fewer people. Gotcha. Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. I did want to hope when you are last up just thank you and Greg too for navigating all this especially around the middle school issue. I know that's been very much a work in progress trying to figure out just different iterations of what's possible within the constraints that you've been given. So, thank you. Okay, Jenny. Thank you. And then I am going to go to line 53 um eliminating one of the four high school counselor positions. And I just have some general questions about um th those high school counselor I guess duties if you will in regards to attendance because I know and I'm not sure if this is because of the pilot or just because we're trying
090to institute um measures to help um because the high school has had such um low consistent attendance. In fact, it's much lower than the statewide average right now at our high school. And so, we're sending out letters um stating um to, you know, parents and students stating to reach out to our counselors um for help in that area of attendance issues. And so, I just want to make sure that um I understand the counselor duties when it comes to attendance. So, can you just kind of walk through um what they might do to offer assistance when a student is chronically absent or is experiencing um issues with consistent attendance? So, I'm going to ask Mr. Gelino to help me. Even though he's the middle school principal, the there's the same reduction at the middle school
091and they follow this exact same procedure. So, Greg, would you go ahead and walk through how the counselors um help with the attendance piece? Sure. So, our counselors at both places, they do a lot of connecting with kids. I mean, that's a big part of their job is connecting with families and connecting with students. So, when you have a student that is not um attending on a regular basis, first of all, there's many type of interventions and things that happen prior to getting to the point of um doing something more formal like the letters letters and things that you um suggested. So, through all of this, it's just a lot of communication. It's a lot of meeting with students coming with plans to stay on top of uh homework. Um it's both um not just
092the counselors but the classroom teacher tier one interventions um administrators. It's finding anything you can to make a connection with those students and those families to um find what's triggering the attendance um to not be consistent and then working on plans and then implementing the plan. And typically um the counselor will take the lead for the student and um their kind of their cohort. Thank you. And then um it also these letters also list um the the counselors and our social worker and liaison. Um Matt, maybe this question might be for you. Um would these I I know our counselors are full-time, but would the social worker and and liaison um when it comes to attendance issues um are they also full-time able to assist with these issues? So the social worker um at most
093buildings is full-time. Um at the high school, I believe we've had a a little bit less than a full-time social worker for some time like a point8. Our social workers typically have focused on serving students with special needs. So in terms of there are some times where in the past where we've coded the social worker so they could assist with some general education needs from time to time. So it's likely on the consistent attendance piece the social workers may be working with the students who they've already worked with. So they're part of a team. It's an overall team approach um looking at who is the best person to be able to help try to break that log jam around consistent attendance. And I think it's important when we talk about consistent attendance, we're talking about
094students who are attending 90% or more of the days. And um you know on any given day we have you know well more than 90% of students in attendance. It's just the matter of who are those students that are missing you know more than 17 days a year. And uh that's an eye openening piece for some families if you think about it. If you're sick for a week, you take vacation for a week and you do some college visits, you're very quickly there. So, you know, not all consistent attendance problems are created the same. Some are fairly straightforward fixes. Some are choices, right, that people are making. So, I think it depends upon the level of intervention that the student needs as well. Who's the best person to be able to intervene? Okay. Thank you.
095Hey, Jenny. Anyone else? Maggie, question related to the counselors. Um, I believe we've seen numbers that over the next several years, the middle school will actually be growing in size. Um I'm curious if the reduction team that proposed um line 53 and 55 if they knew about that particular um fact of our declining enrollment and whether there were other reduction considerations around the counselors. Yes. So I'm going to ask Ray to come up. I I do want to point out that um truthfully we're not even close to where we were at the height of the middle schools. I mean, we were almost a thousand students, you know, at one point with two counselors. So, even though it's going back up, you know, we still aren't close to what we were at one time seven, eight
096years ago. To answer your question is yes. Um, there was discussion about other possible items. Um but the fact of the matter is the middle school schedule and the structure and the systems we have in place are about as whittleled down as we can get as lean as we can get and still function. So the the options in lie of that would be coming out of the classroom and that committee was adamant that to try minimizing the impact in classroom. Thank you. Anyone else? Oh, then it's just the time horizon for both the third counselor at the middle school and fourth at the high school. When were those added? Do I remember? So, those would have been added 2021. Okay. 202122 school year. That was they were added with the first round of the um
097there were so many different names of of the I think it was the ESSER funds at that time. Um and there were some specific things that you could in those counselors there were three counselors I think that were added. One was at the high school, one was at the middle school, and one was at the area learning center. And the one at the area learning center is scheduled to remain. Okay. And hope I think you presented some information on your absenteeism data, right? Or attendance data earlier in the this calendar year. I think it was October or something like that. And if I remember that presentation, there's no consistent way that districts really measure or compare that. Correct. not remembering actually Jenny when you said our high school attendance rate is worse than state average
098I actually went straight to the report card um because that's what we found actually is that that uh we there's not consistent coding across the state. So when Northfield looks like its attendance rate is drastically different than our neighbor down the road or some other we knew something was a miss. and we got on the phone with Michael Dedric at MDE to say like what is happening here? So, we have seen improvements in attendance. Um the latest data that's that's publicly reported is from fiscal year 23. So, it's pretty outdated at this point. Um but I know what we see live on our own district dashboards. Um so, yes, I think that the attendant it's a it's a it's a village effort in the Eden building. um and secondary has attendance teams in each building
099that work on these um chronic situations. But I think Ben's question is we know that there's no consistent way of coding these across the state. So we made an potentially to our um against us. We had done just before this big push on attendance had happened, we had done a lot of work to streamline and align all of our codes across all of our buildings. And when we saw that initial, which by the way, that attendance data, as much as as much as we didn't like it, it did help us get into that pilot grant. And the data that we have now compared to what we was the last public is, as Hope said, far better, but we were still able to get the advantage of being part of that pilot grant. But if you
100call five schools and ask them about how they categorize one kind of absence, you will get maybe six different ways, even just a full day or a half day. And the pilot the pilot districts have actually raised this point like accurate recordkeeping is one of the top priorities um for the state and the state um told us like it got disrupted by COVID. they were on their way when attendance became an accountability measure um to making it more consistent and then it got disrupted. So you are absolutely correct that right now we're not there yet statewide. Yeah. And not not that it's not an important issue, but it's just hard to make that kind of district to district or statewide comparison at this point. And as the parent of a high school senior, I can
101tell you, yeah, you got to got to visit colleges and go to admitted students days and those are all generally during the week. So That's happens. [Music] Anyone else question or comment on this packet? Should we move on then to special services? Any questions or comments for the special services package? I know we looked sorry um I know we looked at kind of 76 and 76A but maybe you can just kind of do a little deeper dive there just for the the comparison. Yes. So um under line 76 the right now we have seven uh professionals who are part of our health services department. There are seven licensed nurses. one licensed nurse at each school building and then there is a licensed school nurse that is flexible and supervises all of those health offices. That
102is a relatively recent phenomenon that just uh started a couple of years ago when we hired an additional nurse. And so the concept behind that team's recommendation was to maintain all seven positions right in in that way but taking the six um individuals who are in charge of a school site maintaining three licensed nurses and then shifting three licensed nurses to three health non-licensed health aids. The concept was to partner or pair a licensed nurse with a health aid and they would serve two buildings. So they would schedule who needs to be at this building at this time, who needs to be at this building at this time. As you know, we received a tremendous amount of feedback about having any kind of non-licensed health personnel in the health office. And so that prompted us
103to go look back and say, what are some other ways that we could address the budget reduction issue in health services? And the determination was to offer 76A, which would maintain a licensed nurse in each school site. and we would revert to the previous practice where the licensed school nurse, remember school districts are only required to have one licensed school nurse um in the entire district. That's what the requirement is. Um and so that person would then now also need to oversee a school health office site like they had done prior to 23 24. But it solves the issue of people who have had a concern about not having a licensed person in each building. But we go from seven FT, if you will, in that department to six. And so there may be some
104need. Um you'll see that this line item uh 76A is about 70 about it's um about $7,000 more than the savings of line 76. we may leverage um that difference to offer the licensed school nurse some additional days or some additional hours to be able to complete some of those district-wide reporting requirements um above and beyond what their regular schedule would be. Okay. Yet to be determined, but that's a a conceptual piece we would consider. And just under kind of this the current model, if a nurse were absent for a day, is that kind of the the seventh nurse then kind of picking up that building or she can. And so we do have a a stable of nurse uh substitutes. That was an area we were struggling with for a while, but Sarah Pratt,
105who's in charge of our health service department, we've now have a handful of substitutes who can come in and substitute for a day here and there. If we don't have a substitute, that's where the district licensed nurse would come in and cover that building for a day. Okay. And so then if we go to six, then presumably there could be a gap, I guess, if you're not able to get a substitute nurse. Yep. For sure. And and sometimes if that happens, you know, again, um we partner that office then with another building. You know, thankfully we have our buildings that are fairly quickly located and we do have where people can call one another or a person can go over and step in and assist as needed. Okay. Not not perfect, right? But again, this
106is about reducing rather than eliminating 76A, right? Thank you. Anyone else on this package? I just have an overall question. We're done. Okay. If we're good on the the packages. So Val, if we kind of look at that total amount and reduction and move forward with that, you know, roughly six million, where does that land us in terms of our fund balance percentage? That's a good question. Um, don't have that right off the top of my head, but I can pull it up. um I want to say the six million recommendation when we had it in the financial forecast tool um made it that we would be above our fund balance target through fiscal 27. I don't have the exact numbers but I'll look it up. Um, again, there's lots of variables that are in
107that model and so there's things that could, you know, swing that one way or another, but um, it it looked pretty solid for for the next two years. Um, but let me pull that up. Um, if there's other questions and I can circle back with that just related to that and have we updated that with, you know, kind of the reduction in state funding that we know is going to hit this fiscal year. I think we were at 95% for some of the special education reimbursement and um we haven't updated it yet. Um so part of part of that will be there's they're still determining you know whether or not that's going to go through but yes we will update all of those all of those metrics as they um get finalized. Okay. And that
108might be an ask just from me for the kind of work working session is maybe come with a couple of those model, you know. Sure. Let's assume that it happens. Let's assume it that it doesn't happen. Kind of what does that look like from a fund balance standpoint? Absolutely. Yeah. And we have a chart of all those summaries that we've shared before in a board bulletin that we'll bring to the work session. Yeah. I just if there's anything that's changed or maybe maybe they're pretty close to what they're going to be. I would just say if we can hit refresh on that and make sure that we're as close as possible for the 22nd. Anyone else question or comment? So, we've gone through each package. I think we've captured some of the pieces of information.
109We've answered a lot of your questions tonight. Hopefully, we've answered them sufficiently. um we'll be able to provide additional data at the work session. My goal for the work session is that by that the end of that time you have everything that you need to be able to come to a conclusion. Right? That doesn't mean that we can't have questions on the 28th, right? But what my hope would be is that by the end of the work session, you may not have had it be ready to make a decision at the end of the 22nd, but that you have enough information, you have enough of a direction where after you thoughtfully continue to consider the data and the information that's been shared with you that you're really just now wrestling with what is the decision
110I'm going to make, not what are the components that are going to make up that decision. If I mean, these are very difficult. This is we'd all prefer to be talking about a million other things other than this. It is loss, right? It's it's real loss in the classroom. It's real loss to people who mean something to kids. It's a loss in our systems, which I know people don't find systems very exciting sometimes, but we talked tonight about removing some of the margin that we have so that we can be nimble and adjust to changing circumstances. All of those things are lost, right? Both real to human beings and also for the system's ability to respond effectively. Um, but this is what the responsible financial management looks like. And so my goal is to be
111able to get you as much as you have so that these difficult decisions that you have to make. You've got what you need to say yes or no line item by line item line item on the 28th. And I think it's just worth it to go through that process here so we can foreshadow it for you and for the community. You know, on the 28th, what we plan to do is take take each um budget package as if it were a consent agenda. So if you think about how we handle our consent agenda, we'll bring forward the activities package and we'll we'll ask are there any board member would like to remove any line item from the activities package. Any board member can remove any line item. So if you say I want to remove
112line item 22, that line item comes off. Once board members have said all of the line items that they'd like to remove from the package, we approve the remainder of that package except for the line items that you've removed. Then we go line item by line item and you discuss that particular recommendation and you either approve it, you know, or you don't approve it. And so that's how we'll go through. We'll do that for each package so that every package has its due and anything that you want to remove and have an individual vote on, you can do. So obviously 86 line items, it would take a long time to go line item by line item. So, this is a way that we can try to do it efficiently and also make sure that there's
113due diligence and appropriate discussion on any item that any board member would like to remove um from the package for individual consider. This is how we did it two years ago and so I know many board members are familiar with that. I think it's just worthwhile to foreshadow that right now. And if you think about something between now and the works, let us know and we'll make sure that we bring it for you. Um, we will we'll depend it'll depend on how much we think of a packet needs to be published. Otherwise, we'll make sure we get you the information that you've requested ahead of time. It's unlike a regular board meeting where we have to publish a packet, right? But we may very well depending as we go through what are the things that
114we need to share with you next Tuesday. Thank you, Jenny. I just have a question then. Um, since you brought up the details of the work session, it says it starts at 5:00 pm. Correct. Um, and then do we just go until all of our questions are exhausted? We can. Yep. So, typically we've um done a a 2hour segment for a work session, but we can certainly go later if needed. Thanks. Okay, so we're um we will wrap up that item C then and move on to our consent agenda. As a reminder, there were some personnel items in the table file that were 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. Moved
115by Ben. Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion passes. Item seven is our items for individual action and we have one item and that is the policy committee recommendations. So I'll take a motion first and then we can discuss. Is there a motion to approve the policy committee's recommended changes to policies 411 412 415 417 423 and 903. Okay. Move by second. Second by Ben. Right. Okay. Is there any discussion on any of the policies? I'll call on you. Any questions, comments, any discussion? All right, we have a motion in a second. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Right. Motion passes. Our items for information. We have a construction update. This is number eight. Dr. H. Yes. Uh depending on what's in the construction update, I might just leave
116the report for you, but there are just a couple of items I want to highlight in the report tonight. Um we are getting very close to substantial completion of the core planning teams. Um and so very exciting to see those uh drawings come um as they progress. It's very exciting to see how they continue to develop over time. We had originally planned to have a board report um at the April 28th meeting. And obviously at the April 28th meeting, we're going to be talking about some very heavy issues. So we felt it was worthwhile to move that report to May 12th. So just know that we'll have that really be the first time that the public sees some of the big picture drawings, right? It's not detailed floor plans, but it's enough to where people
117will get the sense of what um the school is going to uh lay out like, if you will. And then I just also want to uh highlight that we continue to coordinate with the city of Norfield. So we had our second coordination meeting with the city of Norfield just last week. Again, this is a complicated project and we're just trying to make sure that we're working with our friends at the city to ensure that we're meeting their expectations as we go through the process. And then, uh, finally, I just wanted to highlight that, uh, the district did receive the first million dollars of the $2 million that Carlton College had pledged. We received that wire transfer. I can't even say we got a big check. It was a wire transfer that we got on March
11827th. And again, the second half of that $2 million we're anticipating will come in 2027. So, we are just so grateful for Carlton College's investment um in the Northfield School District. Again, very unusual to see um a prestigious and elite private college investing in its local public school system. So, we thank President Berley and Carlton College uh for delivering on what they told us they would do. So, that's the construction update for this evening. You members, do you have any questions or comments for Dr. Helman at this time? Right. Next, we have our enrollment report. It is the April 2025 and you can find that in your pocket. We're trying to bring up the enrollment report here on the screen, but maybe Tim can help me out with that. Okay. Apparently, we're not going to
119see this this evening. So, you have it in your packet and uh you can take a look at it. You will see that we uh did increase a little bit over last month. You'll notice there is a fairly substantial increase, especially at the ALC. That typically at this time of the year is non full-time students. It's students who are in the credit recovery or um need uh to be able to get some additional credits. you know, they've been behind in credits. They're joining the ALC for some of the credit recovery component. But when you take a look um at the full-time only, you'll see that we did increase um over last month as well. So, uh interesting to see this time of year, that is unusual. Something I've been hearing from a lot of districts
120that they've been maintaining. It's typical that you see it decrease toward the end of the year, but maintaining and holding our own at this point. So, um, also just encourage people to take a look at the second page with the class sizes because as we talked about before, a couple of outlier Paneros classes, that's where you're able to see those outliers. Um, and you can see those uh, elementary class sizes as they exist today. So, that is the enrollment report for this month. Any questions or comments about the enrollment report? Good. Right. Item C is our um board work session and um Dr. Helen talked about that already. Uh it's Tuesday, April 22nd, starting at 5:00 PM in the district boardroom. Our future meetings are Tuesday, April 22nd. That's the B um workboard session. Monday,
121April 28th, and May 12th, 6 p.m. It's a regular board meeting here in this boardroom. Tuesday, May 27th, a regular board meeting as that Monday is Memorial Day. Okay, that is all the business that we have tonight. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Moved by Jeff. Second by Jenny. Thanks. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Right. Then we are adjourned. Thanks.