Northfield School District Board of Education Regular Meeting 3 10 2025

001call this meeting to order this is a regular meeting of the Northfield Public School Board today is Monday March 10th 2025 and the time is 6 pm. this meeting is live streamed and recorded the recording of this meeting will be posted on the district website as soon as possible before we get started I'd like to thank members of the public for attending the Schoolboard business meeting to observe the work of the board tonight we also would like to appreciate those who are watching online uh we appreciate the time you're taking to be here and we hope you learn something Dr hman we have some items in the table file yes we have several items in the table file this evening uh we have included for the priority based budget reduction process updates the first iteration

002of our frequently asked questions document that's uh now live on the website we just completed it this afternoon thought it was useful for board members we'll be adding to this as time goes on there are several GI gift agreements a number of personal items including appointments increase decrease change in assignment a leave of absence um a res ation um we also have in items for individual action uh an addition of the 2628 achievement and integration plan and Hope blankston from instructional Services is here to talk about um the submission of that plan we do that every three years and then we've also just updated the future meetings um to highlight uh that we are have postponed our meeting our priority based budget uh Pro public process uh public input meeting tomorrow night due to an

003error on my part and I have rescheduled that for a April 3rd and I'll I'll go over that in the um that segment of the agenda so that's the um table fire for this evening thank you Dr hman if there are no objections We'll add these items to the agenda as we move forward is there a motion to approve the agenda Jeff do I have a second Amy thank you move by Jeff second by Amy all those in favor say I I I oppos and then just as a reminder please turn your mics on so we can record the votes correctly now move on to the public comment portion of the meeting looks like we do not have any one here today thank you Kelly uh announcements and recognitions Dr Hillman we have quite a

004few this evening because we are uh we are now completed with our winter season and we have a number of really points of Pride to share with the community tonight so congratulations to Cali Graber and Ella Pagel who both claimed state titles at the Minnesota State High School league wrestling tournament we also want to congratulate Zan Engles who placed fourth Keith Harner and Owen Murphy who both secured sixth place finishes so congratulations to state champions Cali Graber and Ella Pagel and again a great season for our uh Northfield wrestlers we also want to congratulate our boys hockey team who played in you know one of the Stellar tournaments across the country the Minnesota State High School league boys hockey tournament um they won the consolation Championship which is fifth place so they lost their opening

005round playoff and then they won their next two games beting two very competitive teams in mamei and uh Northern Lakes and then uh for those of you who may have picked it up the New York Times wrote an article this weekend about the Minnesota State High School league tournament and specifically about the phenomenon that's associated with the tournament called hockey hair and Northfield high school as will cashion was photoed in a photo appeared in the piece so if you haven't checked that out yet there's a nice norfield Raiders jersey in that article and uh and congratulations to Will for getting a little National recognition uh we want to congratulate the Olympic weightlifting team they sent 15 athletes to the state competition this past weekend and they finished second as a team uh congratulations to boy

006swimm and dive who finished second as a team at the state meet this past weekend that's a real accomplishment um they've been in the mix for several years and to get the second was just it's a very competitive um meet and we did have um some state champions so we want to congratulate will rety who is the state champion in the 500 yard freestyle pton Truman Nick chowski Odin Bergs and will retki won the State title in the 200 yard uh relay and will R rety Nick shag glowski will udah hoffen and Josh kabby earned the championship title in the 400 meter relay or the 400 yard relay excuse me so congratulations to our swimmers that's an outstanding performance um at the state meet we also want to congratulate our knowledge Bowl teams two of

007our three High School knowledge Bowl teams have qualified for the state tournament and will compete heat uh at that event in April congratulations to team Northfield beige which is Cory Deus Eden kran Jenny dier Theodore Murphy and William flry who took first place at the regions and team norfield pedestrian yellow Andy ell Andy Elliott anakah rer Audrey Hinman Danica sorm and sta thorstenson who took second place so congratulations to our uh Northfield Raider knowledgeable team heading up North uh for the championship later in April um the norfield high school speech team placed third at the large School Division in oana this past weekend and this weekend we will be hosting 27 teams at the uh home Invitational at Northfield high school that's this Saturday congratulations to Northfield High School Visual Arts Teacher Katherine Nory who

008has made the semi-finalist round for the 2025 Minnesota teacher of the year award she's one of 31 teachers who have advanced to the semi-finals and we expect uh to see the um the pool narrow to 10 finalists before the winner is announced during a recognition banquet on May 4th uh we've been celebrating I love to read month in February and Greenville Park had a very successful I love to read month Pam Charlton the adess reading intervention teacher led the organization of the activities of Greenville Park and they hosted a GU guest author students had mystery passages bingo games and special dress up days and post donated serial for a special camping theme uh camping themed reading day so I love to read month alive and well Greenville Park and then uh we like to highlight

009uh Community Partnerships that we have as part of our strategic commitment so on March 6th St Ola physics Professor uh led by Eric Haslett brought Hands-On activities to the Greenville Park flux lab uh grades one through students in grades one through five participated uh in the activities uh during the day so as we said lots and I think there's at least one board member who also do you want to talk a little bit about today's day at the capital or would you like me to do that I can start the um the script and I'm sure you'll have more to say but um today was the msba which is the Minnesota School Board Association jointed a day at the capital with Massa which is the Minnesota Association of super uh sick school administrat school administrators

010and we had seven people from Northfield ago um uh superintendent Hillman and I went uh I went representing the board we had Laura stelter from uh Arcadia and then we also had the pleasure of having four students with us um you'll see some of the pictures there um we were able to visit with three different legislators again this is um uh representative roach right there in the blue um sweater in the middle and then um this is uh Senator leeski um and then the other one is of uh representative purcel and we also learned a lot about how uh how the legislature works and and and then the cream on the top of the um or the cherry on the top of the Sunday was um uh Governor Walt spoke to us and there he

011is so we want to thank the students and Amy for attending us it's a great day of you know for people to learn how the legislature Works um to be able to actually teach people how to lobby and how to articulate our needs and what we're looking for to the state legislature and I think I asked all the student participants at the end of the day you know real takeaways and I think their takeaway is something that many firsttime visitors to the capital Come Away with um several of them said to me I was really I was surprised that regardless of the person they listened right and so I think sometimes there's this perception you know at the capital that people don't listen to each other but our students were impressed that regardless of the

012circumstance and there was even some disagreement a little bit on some of the positions and it just went to show that you can have positive dialogue regardless of your outlook and I think it was a really great day of learning for us as leaders and for our students as leaders in their development as well so we appreciate everybody who had a chance to go today we thank msba and masasa for putting that on every year those are your announcements that I have for this evening and maybe just a note to add to that advocacy doesn't happen only at the capital I was fortunate to join Saturday's legislative action committee call and there were 17 people on that which is great to see that that is and now it's being Community run as well is that

013correct this was our first yeah this was our first weekend where we had a community facilitator something we've been working on for some time having people from the community step up you know to help lead that legislative action committee of course it's a work in progress but we really had some great work there on Saturday that's great to see do other board members have any announcements okay seeing none we'll move on to items for discussions and reports first up is item a priority based budget reduction process updates superintendent Hillman and Director of Finance Avail murder stor will update the board about the PRI priority based budget reduction process so just if board members will just end door me for just a moment just to again people come to this conversation at different times so I

014just want to do a very brief review of why we're here and uh what we have done so far so as Val presented starting talking about this in December and then very clearly in January with the amount of reductions um we are uh looking to make a $6 million reduction for next year uh the reasons that we are looking at these reductions are three areas declining enrollment and so as you know we are looking at incremental declining enrollment we heard this at the capital today a number of times that it is not just Northfield who is are experiencing these reductions in fact they asked uh the entire um room of uh participants and I I think it's heard to say me well over half the hands went up you know of different districts making reductions

015and throughout the day we heard about the demographic reports about Decline and not just here but across the country so in Northfield we're expecting a 93% decrease per year for the foreseeable future um in enrollment a lot of that is due to lower birth rates Rice County 12% reduction in birth rates birth rate in the last six years we also know housing in this area is a real challenge with only 28 single family homes for sale in the 178 square mile school district and of course when 70% of your Revenue comes from the state and around 70% of that is tied to enrollment BAS formulas that's one of the challenges we have with Revenue we also heard a lot today uh at the capital as well about unfunded and underfunded state and federal mandates the

016largest of which is our special education cross subsidy that's the amount of general fund money that we spend on required and I would argue morally imperative services to students with disabilities in Northfield we spend around $4.3 million of our general fund to subsidize uh those really important Services it just it still means we have to spend uh general fund money to make those happen we also know there's a number of other mandates that have come down from uh the state in the last couple of years that are also not reimbursed and we've shared some of those with you the past things like you know the summer unemployment program that has been fully funded um we're hopeful that the legislature might fund that again but if they don't that's another $217,000 that would come from our

017general fund um a state required family medical leave and again we're not making value judgments on these we're simply being very straight up about how much it would cost us we're anticipate you know that would cost us around 174,00 ,000 the TR payroll tax increase another $225,000 and as we've shared before we learned that um we'll have some uh less state aid in terms of Transportation um next year as well and so that's another $160 70,000 increase over a couple of years to our general fund cross subsidy we also know that state funding has been improved but it has not been made up for decades we know that the state would have to increase the per pupil formula by $1,364 um to match the same buying power that the formula had um 20 years ago

018we just want to remind people too that Minnesota has a very highly regulated system of school finance and so a couple questions that we often get you know are around the bond refer in November remember that Bond refer and proceeds go into our debt service account and The Debt Service account is solely for paying off the mortgage if you will uh that the voters approved uh in November and so that those funds cannot be used for anything else and as the board knows we anticip will actually have a positive impact on our operating budget down the line more efficient building Etc also an attractive place to continue to recruit families as housing does open up um how did we do this we did bring together budget reduction teams a community- based priority based budget reduction

019team we had over 80 people participate that included parents community members without students administrators high school students participated we had a number of Staff members as well and anybody who completed an interest form was placed on a team and so we expected those folks to work productively together to identify reduction areas within their team using the district priorities and other relevant considerations um and we wanted them to provide feedback and recommendations and they did their work over three meetings and uh they did generate a a list of recommended reductions and those recommended reductions were released to the public last week and so we are starting the next phase of this process which is the community engagement process and so we are expecting I would hope that we would hear from the public about this my

020plan here tonight is just to give a very high level overview of the different packages and there's 80 some items in this list so I'm not going to go through each one of them board members um saw an advanced copy of it before it was released to the public and then you've had it for several days now um we will just go through a few of them and then we'll be happy to you know take any feedback or questions that people might have and and plan out the rest of uh the process we have a couple of Administrators here tonight who could assist with any questions uh should that be necessary and again we're at the beginning of this so we expect that there's going to be more detailed questions coming down the line um

021so I'll just roll through and before I roll through those I just want to point out one more time that we had originally scheduled our a public input session for tomorrow night and I apologize it was an error on my part we did not see the conflict that was with the state or the township meetings and we apolog I apologize for that we have cor as soon as we as soon as we understood that there was a conflict we promptly corrected it communicated it um and again I apologize for that uh issue and all I know how to do is when you make a mistake own it and then reschedule and say what's next so April 3D will give people more time to really understand what the reductions are so we have um rescheduled that

022public input meeting for April 3rd and we're going to do that at the middle school instead of the high school so as you'll see activities package um what you'll see is there's some things around increase in fees some reduction in the shuttle service from all year to just the winter season only you'll see throughout the packages that for a long time we've been able to pass or we've been able to pay the credit card fees rather than having the users pay the credit card fees of course as you know many different places are having people who use their credit card cover the the the service fee so you're going to see that throughout several packages um there are things that range in this package from you know going to All Digital programming programs rather than

023paper programs to increase adult ticket price sales um you know things like uh increasing um fees for um Family passes or increasing the cap for activity fees and so and there's also a number of positions that you'll see that had had been budgeted for but we just had seen a few years in a row where they didn't go and so we try to keep those in the budget sometimes you'll have a program that will not run one year but might run the next but we've got several pieces here um that the activities team looked at and said these are things that we should officially eliminate this time because they have not been filled in some time so the activities package again every budget uh area had a Target and all of them hit their target

024so you'll see the next area is the district services and again you'll see a range of things here from um eliminating full-time substitutes the full-time substitute positions uh looking at some um restructuring of departments and duties uh due to some retirements and in those areas looking at making sure that we're doing all of the chargebacks that we can do to Child Nutrition and Community Education we are able to charge those funds when they are taking advantage of things that um we might have another segment of the public pay for so for example uh Child Nutrition we can charge part of our electricity bill to them and just ensuring that all of those kinds of things are appropriately charged to those accounts um and you'll see a hand there's some reduction in cell phone reimbursement stien

025some people have asked about that so we have a number of employees who we um have identified as needing a cell phone to be able to complete their job this typically means that we need to be able to com uh contact them off campus or outside of school hours and so uh employees in that category have a choice they can take a school issued cell phone or they can um have a cell phone reimbursement for their personal cell phone we're recommending a reduction in that uh personal cell phone reimbursement um number number of other I'm not going to read through all of them just giving a few items in each one the elementary package um looks at specifically the declining enrollment related to the elementary schools where it's more pronounced they've also increased the class

026size Target so it's recommending a reduction of nine general education classroom teachers when you reduce general education classroom sections The Specialist time that goes along with that also can be reduced um in proportion because if there are fewer classrooms uh that means that there's a need for fewer fewer specialist sections so that goes in tandem um and then again you'll see that there's some reducing of some um couple or a small budget area and then a small amount of general education assistance and again you see that cell phone stip in piece as well in the secondary package uh you will begin to see things like reducing the high school licensed teachers by up to 3.6 F and those departments are not yet known because they're going through that registration process right now and the high

027school schedule has long been built on what are the courses that students are registering for so those um specific departmental areas will become apparent in the next couple of weeks and we'll make sure that we communicate that you'll also notice that there's some discussion uh about the six a six period day at the middle school that's something we discussed a couple of years ago that committee um recommended bringing it back and I do have Mr gelano here I know there's been some questions about that so he can answer some qu general questions about uh potential six period day you will see that looking to go back to pre-pandemic numbers in the terms of our counselor um counselor team at the middle school and high school by um eliminating one of the four positions at the

028high school and one of the three positions um at the middle school some administrative adjustments in terms of um replacing a high school assistant principal with a dean of students which is a teacher on special assignment with a an additional 10 days U Beyond uh the teacher contract and some additional compensation for coordinating advanced placement you'll see some other position eliminations you'll see some reductions in um consumable uh Supply budgets um and again some other hours uh some changing in some hours in some positions some increasing in some fees and again you'll see that um cell phone reimbursement stiped again when we take a look at the special services package which is the fifth package uh in terms of there's a few things so we've had some vacant educational assistant positions and so the concept

029is do we eliminate for every three of those positions that we are we eliminate replacing it with a teacher which we have had some really good luck in getting some quality special education teacher applications and so the concept is you actually save a little bit of money and provide a different kind of service um for those vacant positions again looking at some eliminating some additional special education assistant positions um looking at some reduction of some other uh positions as well one of these is looking at restructuring our health services department currently we have seven um licensed nurses in the district one licensed school nurse and six other licensed nurses uh looking at the six licensed nurses that are in school buildings and replacing half of them with a health aid that would be in tandem

030with one of the uh building nurses you'll again see some reduction in um some time that would is usually allotted uh during PLC time for educational assistance some professional development red uction um you'll see a reduction in an El teacher um while we'll still be able to remain within the alignment and State State student to staff ratio guidelines you know there's some pieces about using underutilized special education web-based subscriptions and so again what you'll see there is uh with a special services package they achieved their uh Target of $1 million so each each package was given a particular Target and again as we've shared before those were proportional generally to the um generally uh proportional to the spaces or the budgets that um they have in in the regular year so was the reduction was

031about the same amount as what their current share of the budget is special services a little different because of Maintenance of effort and all of these reductions are are painful um everything that's on this list means something to someone so we have to make these reductions because it's the responsible thing to do for the future of the school district we have to serve both the students who are here in now but also ensure that we have the resources to continue serving students well into the future again we're not alone in doing this uh I do want to complement the five teams they were well facilitated the people from the community had really excellent feedback and some excellent questions you know over the three sessions we surveyed um uh members of the Committees after every one

032of the meetings I've shared that data with you overall on balance people uh felt that they were was really a participatory process that what they brought to the table um was valued and while of course everyone's suggestions weren't Incorporated they gave the process very um positive reviews and two things can be true at the same time right we can um feel satisfied with the process that we're using to bring the community together to make these very difficult decisions and we can dislike the outcomes that can also be true so there's nothing about that this that is is good um everything on this list means something to someone and we will have people who share their individual perspectives and that's where as a board we need you to see the recommendations they recommendations for a reason

033you have the final say as we enter into this community phase of feedback you're going to hear things from people which is what I would expect you would and then it's up to you to weigh and measure what those final reductions are so I try to be as efficient as I could there I I I highlighted them I'll be clear I I ones that I didn't go over there's no there was no reason that I picked some versus others I try to give a representative um description of the items that are listed in the budget reduction documents all published on our website and has been sent to families so with that I would just pause I would certainly entertain any questions that people have about the process about where we're going from here uh if

034there are specific items that you have about things on the list we'll do our best to answer them for you tonight if we can't we will certainly get back to we published the FAQ this afternoon you have the FAQ uh in your um in the table file as well as questions come up at they're more routine we'll certainly add them to the FAQ but I just appreciate the board's um support as we move through this because this is difficult for our community and as elected officials you know your job to be able to weigh and measure all these things is really important we want to give you a quality set of recommendations um that really came from a community based priority based budget reduction team thank you Dr Hillman before I open up for questions

035just a couple quick comments uh I too want to reinforce the Gratitude from the board to the community members ad80 St stakeholders who played a role in this this is obviously a very difficult process and for them to give up three days to help set the future for our district is vitally important and I hope we hear many more voices here in the coming weeks um I do want to also mention Dr hman mentioned at the end in today's table file we did have that FAQ I found that incredibly helpful to answer some of the more high level questions about some of these changes so if you haven't had a chance to look at that today I know it just came this afternoon or maybe late this morning uh please take a look at that

036um this is a highle discussion at this point this is the first time we're seeing this it's still freshed our minds that doesn't mean don't ask questions of course but know that we do have some time here to work through these problems so we don't have to solve everything tonight I do appreciate Mr jelo being here because I know there's some um curiosity to understand a little bit more about the proposed change so maybe we'll wait on you and hear from the board first um see what comes up so board members any questions Amy well actually that was a perfect segue to my question because we have principal gelano here and I know there's going to be a lot of community conversation about going from six periods to seven periods to six periods at the

037middle school and I just thought maybe you could do a short introduction as to what your thinking is what do you see the advantages and the disadvantages to the change sure sure you can come up now that's fine thank you for inviting me Dr Hillman um I think it's vitally important that uh the board understands uh the sixth period day and the why behind it so um I'm glad I could be here today so with the target as you saw in there for the secondary package the Middle School's piece of that ended up landing at $600,000 and in order to do that um you couldn't just cut a budget although that is one of the proposals is that did reduce budgets The Proposal States a r reduction of 30% of um all Department budgets but

038that doesn't get you close so the best way for me to explain seven versus a six period and why the need to go to a six period is this is that in a seven period day in order for us to make roughly $200,000 worth of budget reductions or make that proposal and stay in a seven period day what that would be doing is a taking two spots in a student's schedule and removing a class students already have either a study hall every day or every other day at a minimum on their schedule and that would give them um an additional study hall if not for some students additional two so you would have students having two study halls even maybe two plus study halls um throughout a day which is um to me not a

039good use of our resources or a good use of our students time that too much time um for students to be out of the academics um in there so by going to a sixth period day it actually obviously reduces by one hour the study halls themselves would kind of just be eliminated so the next question that does come up is well why not just keep the same classes and just eliminate the study halls and the an the very simple answer to that is study halls are free that's part of a teacher contract so just by eliminating a study hall gives you zero savings so if we that still doesn't get us to our Target or even make progress towards the target you have to remove classes um and a student schedule not study halls um

040to get to that Target that we were looking for so by doing that if you'll see in there is there was a um our seventh grade health which was a class that we added um a fair number of years ago um as a value ad and we value that um but in order to go to a six period day we need a space to allow for more elective choices so that's why that piece was there to kind of take that out of the schedule to open up a a space in a seventh grade schedule and then you see the re other remaining reduction as far as classroom goes is a0 6 FTE reduction and that um very simply is because in a six period day again if we keep every most of our electives right

041now or every other day and if we keep them every other day again there's no savings you have you have to make students have less choice or less classes in order to do that um things such as musics have to be every day our copero program in seven eth grades every day but now in sixth grade would be every day any art class would be every day versus every other day and that limits now that space which then um what the plan is or the proposal is is that would get us to that reduction that we need to be able to meet that Target so just as a follow-up question um how does that work with FTE if you could just explain clearly how many FTE you'd lose through going to a sixth period day

042it would be 1.6 ft thank you Ben you have a question yeah thanks Mr jelo if I remember correctly from last time we had this discussion so then in terms of electives right it's either art or music or I guess you get students will get a choice of two or one they get to pick one so there's right there is a class opposite P fed in um each of the grades in sixth grade it's opposite launch which as from the last time we did the budget reduction when we went to language arts in sixth grade um we reduced by one reading um f te um but we kept launch as a ke a key component um to start building skills soft skills um for our sixth grade students to kind of um prepare them for

043the rest of their Journey um in seventh grade it's currently um family and consumer science in eth grade it's um currently stem that's after those are the three exceptions to every other day because it's opposite PE that is every other day so it needs a partner to basically fill one spot gotcha okay and that was launch not lunch it is launch I thought I heard the first time so then music or art would be an option student have to pick one and stick with that for the year is that kind of the way that that is correct okay and that's true of six seven or eight correct and amastes as well and when you say that Dr hman you mean that's also an elective so somebody chooses amadis then they're choosing that in L of

044that is correct there's one spot so you have required classes five spots of required classes which leads you one opening and since classes are every day you have a choice between a music amadis if you were in the copos program or an art class thanks other questions Jeff um question uh I know when last time we looked at this um you went to the seven and then ended up sticking I mean sticking with the seven um my thought is what has changed or not changed in in view of parent positions um and uh your comments on that the number one change is the size of the dollar amount if not if having to stay in seven period day to be quite Frank I I can't see anywhere possible to get to the Target that we

045need without um going to a six period day uh the extreme example I gave to our staff is you could reduce Mr o'keef as the system principal myself and you're still not there and you don't have a single administrator so it's you it's a very large cut that you have to go you have to take it from classrooms unfortunately no one likes to do that I'm saddened to even have to say that but that is the reality and I think Jeff your question on parent feedback you know that's really what we're starting right when we shared those potential reductions you know with the community last week that kicks off really the community feedback part so I think we're starting to see some feedback from parents about that and I expect that we'll see more so

046the parent feedback is I think really just kicking off right now because we just let people know what the specific recommendations were last week so I'd anticipate we'll be getting a lot more parent feedback in the next six weeks here I apologize I misunderstood your question Amy I get have questions yeah just a quick question what happens to Industrial technology ology and family and consumer Sciences right now they are they would stay the same opposite uh PE but I put in asteris by that because we're doing registration so it is the final decision on what that will look like won't happen until after our registration is done thank you Jenny thanks Corey um so would you um so you said you know the students would be able to pick between an art or a music

047correct and So currently I know that we have multiple art selections at the middle school and multiple music selections so can you run down a list of what they would be able to choose from now I mean if it were to go to um be reduced in that way yep so the music stays the same it's a choice they have a choice of choir band and Orchestra art is going to have to do a change because of a some State art requirements which doesn't allow us to offer multiple individual classes they will have to be able to meet those standards within one class so they'll have to do units of study to reach those so we will have to work with the art department on what that will exactly look like but so the you

048for example we have a media art class right now um if you just told a media art class as an option that leaves out the visual arts it leaves out the other some of the other requirements that happen so you have to meld them together um in one class to make that work so you're saying though that because I I know um it seems like the students really enjoy all of the different art selections correct right now um and which is probably why you continue them year to year so but what you're saying is that you could um technically and still stick with the state standards um take parts of each each different art section and incorporate them all into one so the students would still be be able to experience um each of the

049Arts that is correct so it' be more of like an exploratory kind of as a basic way of explaining it so you get some media art you get some Visual Arts you may get some pottery you may get a little bit of everything within a class okay because I I know this is already um seems like it's going to make a lot of family sad um knowing that a lot of these different art selections are going to be removed so when would people be able to get a better understanding of really how that would work in all of the different um art um sections that you're saying would be incorporated um because I I mean I think I have an understanding of it but I can see that others may not so when and how

050would they um get that visual of what it would be included um I think the first thing that processes actually with all view is when the proposal is act um voted on and acted on so we know exactly what the schedule's going to look like in the end and then it's a matter of sitting down with our art um teachers and saying okay here's what you have for your state requirements how can we make this look in seventh and eth and sixth grade and then going along with that so we have we also have um more than one art teacher correct and so would that would would those positions all remain or would they be reduced in this specific specifically in the art Department again that will be a little bit dependent on our registration

051and what that's going to ultimately look like but but there is a potential for those positions to be reduced only in the arts department as an elective class yes okay thank you y any other questions on the side Maggie thank you um so I know that there are called electives but are there standards for students to take arts class in their middle school years are they required to take something like art or music or yeah so the state has um five areas uh in the it's called um there's these art requirements and art is wish they had a different word for that because art doesn't necessarily mean a art class it actually is very specific in what the state says it can be um those um five areas um can be in a different class

052for example does an extreme case a fied class one of the the areas is dance so we have a dance unit in fied so if they really wanted to dig into the standards of dance and make sure they hit all I think there's 17 standards there technically you could cover that in a fiad class so just when it even when I say art requirements it doesn't necessarily mean an art class so is it required that they take an art class hypothetically probably not but realistically um you want as many students to take that because I think that'd be a good place for that but is it required that everyone takes in our class no it's about offering it's about you have to offer at least three of the five areas and then students have to

053take two and music is one of them is one of those areas as well so if a student has to take two what if they they go in in sixth grade and they only take Orchestra all three years are they not receiving the other option then and that's the part that we now have to look at now that the the state gave us these requirements La last year I believe um we have to look and say okay where are these with our new schedule where do these fit and that's why I said it's kind of hard to kind of wrap your brain around the fact that even though it's called an art requirement it doesn't mean an art class so there are some options within our schedule um that you can meet some of those

054requirements um without actually being in an art class so that that's the work we have to do once the schedule's kind of laid out I have one more question um can you talk about why um offering quarter classes or semester classes wouldn't provide us the savings maybe it's the same as the other question you answered but no that's okay because I I literally because some other um hope actually did some work with the big nine and there's some of them that do some quarter classes or semester classes um so I I did map out and it actually costs us more money part of the thing our here in Northfield with the last budget reductions we've narrow down the middle school schedule to or lack of better words Bare Bones so we really have nowhere else

055to go and where these other districts if we were going to go to a quarter or a semester class with some of these um it we actually not only do we not save money we it would actually cost us money to do it and another question can you just get into the weeds with me on that I will try cuz I'm just curious because it seems like logically right somebody could say well half the year you take music and half the year to take art right so you divide so now you have two adults right so it's it's about having the right position and the right mix of enrollment between those two semesters is that essentially where what walk me through sort of why it costs more it's because you're not reducing the point 6

056FTE correct yeah I had the same question thinking about the half day all year versus the same day one day all or every day all year but it's about the point6 it's about the point6 $75,000 saving off the top right and Corey is smarter than me but some days but give that every day but so walk me through how that doesn't save us the point 6 connect the D for me if it so if you have um if I had in seventh grade and I did two say two quarter classes like you had fed for um half a year a semester so gives me a half a slot left and I did two quarter classes with that um there's a mar and gold Day schedule with that so it's really even though it's a quarter

057it's equivalent actually to a semester with each one then by the time if you want to get all the students through that you're looking at um roughly I think it's about Point 5 FTE or something like that I don't have it off the top of my head but then times three cuz have to do it for all three grade levels and then what that doesn't do is now you've moved the things that we're currently calling electives into a required slot and I have nothing now L I have to now pay for something to fill other spot if you put it down in that last spot and you're doing quarter again instead of one class one teacher one FTE covering that spot you're now having multiple people have to cover that spot so if you do

058it for a quarter you're just shifting kits and I think one of the things that we can do you know the the fact is that these are really great questions and this is why we're asking this well ahead of your decision Point um I did ask Greg to come this evening he has not had a chance to give us anything in writing so what I'd ask is that what we've heard some really good questions about how does different scheduling options work what we if if it's okay we'll have Greg put some of those things in writing and and show you some examples and there are some things that um some some districts think about differently with scheduling and that might be something that we also have to consider within the construct of a of a

059six period day um but the truth is is that let for example in the arts section if you're if you were to offer a quarter of media art a quarter of um Visual Arts Etc you could accomplish the same thing in the year-long class just by dividing out what are the units of study that you have right so if you're hitting all of them there's there's a number of ways that you can accomplish those things and there's nothing about this that is easy right there's nothing about that that there's the truth is our middle school students who have enjoyed a tremendous amount of choice in the past are going to have less choice and so in in terms of regardless of how we look to hit that Target right there's obviously going to be some

060less choice in that mix given the budget targets that we have and so I I think the key part is you know coming back to the why why are we here and where we're at and I think Greg can put together and map it out for you so that you can see on paper why a certain schedule is more efficient from a cost perspective than another so Greg's been doing scheduling at a middle school for how long now uh 27 years so I think you know he has a number of pieces that I think will be helpful not only to the board but to the community as we move ahead uh we were able to be able to avoid having to do this in the last round of reductions but this is an area that

061seems to be one of the logical places for us to go given the circumstances so um I Greg can certainly take more questions but for some of those real detailed pieces I think it's probably better for everybody for us to have that on paper for you and get that to you well ahead of the next meeting does can everybody live with that I just I think that's a good space for us to be to see it mapped out yeah and I appreciate that we don't want to make it dance and do math up there for me but but I do think it's important because I think these are some of the logical questions parents will you know so why not split the year you know and I think by being able to put that on

062the FAQ site and really show the math and you know show why that doesn't solve the problem will be helpful not only to me but I think people that will logically ask that as a question thank you very much and I do think this is also a good point to I think this is a good illustration of the challenges that we have when we want to create a locally controlled schedule when the state requirements tell us we have to do certain things in so many areas right so those those state requirements those mandates are pieces that reduce the local flexibility that we have to make some of these choices that we would deem logical but we still need to make sure that we're following you know the state requirements to the best of our abilities

063so I do think this is a good example of many times we're going to face this at the high school right in the next couple of years very few people would disagree that the new requirement for personal finance is is a every few people would disagree that it's a great thing it's a very good thing right that's going to be one less elective that high school students get to take because what we tell legislators is the more that you require the less choice that students have and this isn't excellent example of that uh last stop Ben okay yeah I'll I'll use my last question but and just to follow on what Maggie was asking you know in terms of what the art standards and requirements are the requirement to offer but help me understand so

064if somebody takes on aades are they is there art requirement for the student as well so that they'll have to decide at least one of those three years they don't take amistades is that essentially kind of what we're what we're looking at no so what we're that's the work that we have to do now to see okay are where can we put some of those standards in classes that all students take so that they a student in amti or a student in Orchestra or band or choir still can meet that requirement it just won't because it's it doesn't fit in the musics or onast stadis so we have to find where else it could fit and when we say that requirement we're referring to one of those two the five areas which is theater dance

065visual um media art and I miss music thank you okay gota so it doesn't have to live in that elective space it can live some it canace correct okay that's helpful and I think I think the other part of this is when you're you're going through a reduction process like this you know many of there are things that are on this list that are cut and dry right we're going to reduce this budget by but there are some pieces that are more complex and will take more time to have the full plan and so that is part of this process is that as as Greg said in order to be able to to if you're really going to have a participatory process which we do people are going to bring ideas to the table where

066by the time we can't wait until there's a complete plan to release the potential reduction list right so there's a lot of things in here there are yep the credit card fee that's a very cut and right either you do it or you don't right there are some other things that will require some additional work and additional flush out and as you know we have a history of making sure we flush those things out for you just there will be a handful of those things that we we wish we had a complete picture for you right now but we just don't and we're not going to try to make it up right we're going to tell you what we know we're going to tell you what we don't know and then we'll take sequential steps

067to solve the problems in front of us had a final thought or question from Jenny then I'll go to Amy okay so that um the three music classes are remaining and um so so there's not less Choice there but how many music classes are they able to take right now they can actually take two they can take two so so they could have two music classes every day of the no it's currently our music classes are every other day which is why they can take two when a six period day they can only pick one because it is every day okay so then in moving to the other scheduling procedure um they they will still have be able to take two of the music choices they will not they can only pick pick one of

068the three one of the three okay so those students that are into band and choir let's say have to they have to choose or the other unfortunately yes okay thank you I think that'll be part of the follow-up is laying this out for us as well Amy well thank you for the presentation um that discussion you just had was something we were excited about last time that people the students would able to be able to take two and it's I'm sorry to here that it would revert back um this is a difficult time but I want to know from you as you think about the possibilities of a six period schedule what excites you what advantages are to it um there must be something moving forward that will be benefit our students um I'm a

069firm believer that with Changers opportunity so I do think that there will be opportunity within our schedule um I think there'll be opport Unity even with the um with the art requirements to be putting in maybe some other courses that could give them a a maybe a different look than they've had in the past um I think we have as part of the six um period day there is a 20 27 minute block of time that I'll call like a flex study hall so it's not a study hall every day but it may be the morning it may be in the middle of the day to give kids a Break um it gives us an opportunity to give students an extra minute passing time we've been really seriously considering so they can have a little

070bit of a little bit more time to catch their breath use the bathroom socialize a little bit before going back into class um I think we should be able to um the plan is still keeping their launches grade pure which is important to our students they had many years ago went back to that they've verbalized to us and that's an important piece um to their school day they want to eat with their same grade friends so we can keep that um so I think there's this is hard and change is hard um but I in the end um I'm I am excited that okay this can bring some also some opportunities for us Greg appreciate the clarification on some of those things I do have one request for you a question then maybe a question

071for Dr hman uh so you had mentioned the new requirements from 2023 related to the five disciplines of art from the state You' mention as an extreme example dancing in PE right um when you report back to us with some additional information could you provide some examples of what it would actually qualify that aren't considered in your words extreme sure we we have a better idea of what could potentially fill those spaces I can yeah I can come back with some areas of thought that we some content are is that we're at least would want to explore that maybe they could take on some of those okay uh and then this might be somewhat semantics but you know looking at the 1 point6 FTE the $200,000 savings is that that what's driving the schedule change

072because you had electives you could pull out to get to the six periods or was the idea of six periods is what drove you to those selection of those 1.6 FTE I'm looking at the card in the horse here yeah what's driving what it's the the amount drove us to this drove to the sixth period day that we in a seven period day not being able to get to our Target so it had to go to Six period day and then the making sure the sixth period day works with in including with hitting the target then came to the elective piece because everything else is a required class all right thank you then final question maybe for Dr hman maybe Mr gelano um if we don't meet those requirements let's say worst case scenario for

073some reason next year we go to Six period day and we don't meet this art requirement what happens to the district is there any understanding of is it a penalty is it a a slap in the hand I actually don't know that answer but I can tell you that with Hope's research that the whole big nine is struggling with this we're not alone okay and I think we will we will find a way right to certainly I would expect so but I'm curious in the event for some reason yeah if you're asking if there is a financial penalty I'm not aware of any of those kinds of things but that's not our focus our focus is how do we make make what we are expected to by do by the state work within the schedule

074that we would have presented all right thank you thank you Greg okay thank you board members have other questions about what's in front of us we're going to let you free Jenny thanks I have a question about the elementary package now um so regarding item line item 42 reduce 9.0 FTE General Ed classroom teachers uh would that be contemporary or compos sections those would be contemporary sections Okay so so we have we have we have 15 companero sections that sounds right total and all 15 would remain based on our projections right now we would remove nine contemporary correct and that's based on the class size um calculations so in those sections you would see um the class size you're you're right we're talking about the Contemporary the non-o sections and we're resetting what the class

075size targets are for those areas so that is part of it is just the overall General reduction in the student numbers and then resetting what our class size divisor is for those areas so they would be nine contemporary sections so then we're going to be severely increasing our class sizes for contemporary but the companeros will remain low uh it depends on the comper section you're right there's some that would remain low you know some that would be low there are some that have more students you know in those compano sections than others so it depends on the it depends on the circumstance we have some I think that there are likely some sections that would be close to what that divisor is I'd have to look at those class sections but you're right there would

076be some that would be lower than what those targets would be in contemporary because the in our um districtwide um priority or prioritization um the class sizes for elementary was listed at three times as the highest importance and companeros was listed zero times so I'm wondering why if that's such a big priority why why is there a discrepancy why are we not adhering to those priorities so there was discussion about those class size priorities in the elementary and valon helped me out with this she was also we moved from um from section to or from Team to team and my understanding is that what they looked at when we looked at these class siiz sections is that they did increase they remember we are seeing some of the more uh declining enrollment first begin at

077the elementary and we do also know that we had Educators from other districts you know on that team who when they saw even these increased devisers um that they were favorable compared to several other districts that's in terms of when they weigh all of those different pieces out this is what the recommendation was from that group did you have anything you were also in that I was just going to say um I I gave them kind of a a Sandbox um projection model to play with and even with their increased um class sizes that they're recommending the difference between contemporary and compos averages one to maybe one and a half students per um between between the two so the I think on average they'll be similar and I don't anticipate it being different than it

078is now where there are some classes in compos that are pretty small um and that's just a product of you know the students that chose to take it and there's some attrition throughout the years but some of them are actually larger than the Contemporary and so I think that um variability will continue to happen but when we look at it holistically across the system it's a pretty small difference on average according to the projection model that that we're playing with which obviously we'll see what happens when all the students actually show up next year but in terms of what we forecasted with the current students and the current compos classes it's um not a significant difference between the two okay thank you Ben do you have a question about this topic just by range do

079you know roughly kind of what the range is small to large for compos and the Contemporary under the 9ft reduction so so the I want to make sure I'm on the right model yep yep so when I look the um average contemporary size for Bridgewater would be 23.7 and companeros is 22.2 um just for an example Spring Creek has the the largest variants uh there at 22.2 and 20.2 for companeros and then average oh we should fix that K3 is so if we look across all three um like 22.7 and four five is 23.2 so it obviously varies by building um and again it's taking current copos numbers and rolling them forward assuming they would stay the same well it's also just taking the current enrollment and rolling it forward and assuming it'll be same

080which isn't a given but um overall I think they were trying to balance out um as much as they could without making it seem very dramatic so and are there separate entry paths to the company Ros program I I don't remember the specific I mean you so when somebody comes in do they start kindergarten and then once you start you can't if I was in third grade and I wanted to join comps would that be an option so the comps program begins in first grade and then there are some on uh there are some Pathways to join the program you know throughout um typically I would say third grade is likely the latest that I've ever seen and and there would be some determining factors there about previous experience of the language you know things

081like that but I do know that they do add it's not a ton to be very clear it's it's very few but there are Pathways to be able to join compos after first grade but typically you wouldn't see anything after third grade and that third grade entry point is probably the smallest but it would be safe to say that somebody entering a family that prioritized smaller class sizes if those in fact existed within companeras would have an option to to look at that as one variable in their decision making process yeah suppose that could be a I mean again I would say up until third grade at the latest so I took a look at the enrollment report in today's packet and certainly the administration should manage how this is doled out next year but

082I just want to point out the Greenville this year so uh to Jenny's question about kind of the comp companeros versus contemporary so if you look at second grade at Greenville companeros has 26 students in it and of the and this is a particularly large class size so there's four other contemporary classes with 20 or fewer students so in theory those third graders next year if you reduce that by one teacher you'd have 24 kids in one class and 25 in each of the other two and then the companeros would have 26 if all things stay the same of course we don't make that decision same with kindergarten uh we have four classes that are averaging less than they're averaging 18 students per class if you assume a quarter of those go to compal which

083seems to be the trend year after year if you split down two you have 24 kindergartens which I think is above what the new goal would be but again that's for staff and District administration to figure out but there's a lot of moving Parts a lot of layers to it I guess is my point of illustrating that other questions about this specific topic otherwise do you have other pieces Jenny please just one just one more thing to add to that um before you move on um so I I know that it all is depending too on registration um at the time for first um graders anyway starting first graders and so if if um we don't see that quarter or so as Corey mentioned of students who choose companeros and let's say it's much different

084uh for this fall or um the coming year will one of those teachers are they readily available to reposition to a contemporary classroom then all of the elementary teachers are licensed in that area so comp there's not a specific license required for our compan Aros classrooms we look for another set of skills that would be there so all of the teachers at the elementary schools are licensed the teach at the elementary level almost all of them now quite a few of them have a K5 license there's still some people of my vintage who got the one six license years ago but on in on principle anybody at the elementary could teach any contemporary class thank you as a reminder again first thank you as a reminder this uh is the first time we're seeing we'll

085see this again April 3rd at the community meeting April 14th and April 28th at the board meetings and I trust we'll probably have a work session at some point yes we're we're working with board members to schedule that work session likely April 7th I think is when we're looking at that yeah do board members any other board members have kind of some initial thoughts or questions that can help this process moving forward okay Ben you have one more is it back different topic are we could to move up you know your day at the capital today any kind of read on I know the state budget kind of projection is not particularly great when we go out a few years but any any read on you know kind of what we might expect this session

086in terms of anything well I am known as an eternal optimist and what I'll tell you is we're getting nothing in fact what we're I've I mean I've been following the legislature for decades and this is the first time that I heard today people hoping for a target of zero because they do believe that there are some committees that will get Negative targets which means they have to reduce the amount of money spent in those areas um do I think that there's a chance for some things yes I do think there's a chance for a handful of pieces um but what I would say is that didn't matter the the tone was you know we have some work to do on um the state budget and not just they have a they have money on

087the bottom line this year but they're they just received the February forecast last week it is showing uh some deficit in both of the they do two cycles out and so what I would say is it was a very somber tone in terms of that and again when you hear a committee chair saying we would be satisfied with a zero Target I think that that tells you something as to where they're at so and this is a really important year obviously because it's a budgeting year so they have to set the budget it it's there there is no help in my the way I read it and Amy I'd like to hear you because you were there with us I just I think we should not be counting on any anything above the inflationary increase

088from St Paul and in fact we already know the you know part of the governor's budget is to reduce special education Transportation by 5% next year and 5% the next year so talking1 165 or $170,000 in addition uh that will have to come from the general fund of the next couple of years so I Amy I again I try to be the eternal optimist and that might that actually might be the optimistic Outlook right now and so a few things to add to that with the people we talked to there was a really mixed reaction about um scaling back on some of the mandates from two years ago so I get the sense maybe that might happen a little bit but some people were very much against it some people weren't some the two in

089particular were the uh family leave one and then also the unemployment or the um yeah the employment insurance yeah unemployment insurance so um maybe a little bit of change in that front um I think there's also um some somberness at the capital um just not knowing what's going to be affected at the state level because of all of the things that are happening at the national level so they're sort of waiting to see what other pieces they might have to pick up um if the state stops funding things so even more somber than what you're saying and when you said zero on the budget then there's obviously the inflationary piece do we have as is that still was thinking 2.4 or what is the we did get the the commissioner of education required by the

090end of February every year to set that inflationary factor and it's going to be 2.74% 2.74 so the the bottom line is that would increase our Revenue projections by just under $100,000 but at the same time we also have the special education Transportation reimbursement um decline right from 100% to 95% and 90% And then also we just recently learned and I've shared this with board members before that we also learned that they didn't allocate enough money for this year's special education payments and so we're going to get a prorated amount of 95% that's actually quite significant for the district if Val wants to share the number she can but it's it's quite significant 525,000 so that's Revenue we had projected we would get for this year that we won't we in talking with Kathy Ericson

091today uh from the Department of Education this has happened before but typically what has happened is that there's been a bill that has been part of the education budget to make that whole if you will and there's just some they felt they needed to share that directly with people earlier in the session because of the concerns that they have about the state budget getting done by the statutory deadline the value so that's we'll just break it down that the five 95% in that special education Transportation specifically no what was there's two different pieces different special and transportation yep so um the transportation is one component of the overall special ed formula so the 95% is roughly 85,000 um I think is that the number I sent you 85,000 um so then when it goes to

09210 it's about 170,000 annually that we would not be receiving that we currently are and then the 95% pration is on the full formula so whatever Revenue we were calculated to receive we're getting 95% of and that's five a 525,000 difference and the difference is the the transportation is a proposal right that's in the governor's budget the pration is something we're dealing with right here and now because the legislature did not allocate enough money or as much money as as districts generated in reimbursement so that's why they have to prate because they have a hard stop of how much money they can spend based on their legislative Authority usually gets cleaned up you know during the session obviously this is a different session so one is proposed one is for sure okay thank you and

093maybe just for clarification dror hman and please correct me if I get this wrong but you're referencing 0% for Budget increases or reductions because there's dozens of committees some committees will be told they have to spend less money or the same money education in Minnesota is one of two things constitutionally that has to be funded by the state and then two years ago in the last bonum it was passed in the law that funding would increase every cycle by a floor of 2% or a ceiling of 3% or somewhere between there is that fair to say yep so there's the inflationary increase that is baked into the projections now so that no one has to pass that that's just part of the mix what they're talking about is what is the what are the new

094monies essentially that these uh committees are able to achieve a Target so every year each committee gets a Target the education committee usually is finance Comm is usually one of the largest targets so it is possible there are Target you know some committees could get a small Target of new money for them to be able to allocate some might get zero and there are some committees that the leadership um would say they need to reduce their overall what their overall current budget is their current budgeted spending for next year would be thank you for that uh good discussion so far Jeff question what percentage is the um interest addition you you said inflation i what does that end up being so so they the the commissioner of Education set that recently as two they're going

095to add 2.74% to the formula as as Corey said it's the statute says it's a floor of two and it's a ceiling of three they use I'm G have Val help me there's a it's I think it's the December there's a particular date where that CPI is used as the driver for what the commissioner sets but the commissioner has the authority to set it between 2 and 3% 2.74% is what's going to be the inflationary factor for next year that's automatically as you say baked into the cake so would would you consider that an increase I mean that's it is an increase y for sure of course it just that they're not going to have the targets might be smaller but of the typical legislative session any other questions for tonight on this topic I

096really appreciate the discussion tonight and there's going to be more coming down the road there's a number of things um that we really want people to to take a look at in the um budget reduction proposals and and give us some feedback we want to hear from people and hear how they would affect them all right thank you board members we're going to move to Item B now District committee's update as you know we are have now performed or not performed but have had two CommunityWide committee meeting nights which I think has been pretty well attended and overall positive but Dr Hillman's going to review kind of that process and kind of how it's been going so far yeah I just want to give a very basic update that we again tried these all district

097uh committee meetings this year part of that was to be able to cross-pollinate ideas between committees as people had a chance to visit before and after it was also really about efficiency we also know that trying to reduce the number of times we expected those committees to meet we are hoping to have better and more consistent attendance so in the packet I just gave the agenda from the March 3rd session uh we are surveying people afterwards and so so far we've had 10 respondents and all respondents so far have um you know given positive review used in terms of you know question was the advisory committee well organized we've had 100% giving that a three or four on a four-point scale um I learned something about the district strategic plan again 100% gave that a

098three or four on a four-point scale so far um same thing with the committee being a good use of their time and so um again each committee met and I if if there are board members who attend any of those if anybody wants to give you know just some analysis or you know share a few things about what you uh experienced what I'd like to know is also this was something that we tried differently this year we would have all of these committees on different dates in the past and it seems to be just a little bit more streamlined when we do it this way we we did two meetings this year um that that may be enough for some committees maybe not enough for others there are some committees that do meet Beyond those

099two times but since board members were involved in both of those committees I'd also welcome any feedback that you have we have from folks we did get some we did make some changes to the schedule between the first session and the second session based on some feedback um we think that it was successful we likely want to add one more meeting I think that that's something that would be welcomed based on the feedback that we've gotten but I'm also just curious board members perspective these are advisory committees they're intended so board members have a chance to hear from members of the public you know about how they're thinking about a particular topic we don't give people homework there's no jobs that helps people coming back because sometimes if we give homework people stop showing up

100but would just of course certainly want to hear what board members thoughts were about the process and anything that you'd like us to think about as we start working on that for next year well first off I owe you an evaluation I would encourage other board members to also do that if you haven't done that yep beef up those numbers a little bit uh I also know know that we all had new assignments this past time so I'd be curious to hear from folks just how the you know going to a new session meeting new people and obviously have a new topic also when so anyone want to jump in share their thoughts about their experience Jenny thanks Corey um I really appreciated the format um first and foremost I guess because um you could

101see U all the members of the community um on that one night come together and I mean what else can you ask for um for everyone to be able to see even though they're in separate committees as we break off into separate rooms they do meet up all in one room together and so you could see people looking around you know if especially when they recognized um which a lot of people did recognize others um that were in other committees and maybe they would have had no idea um that those folks are in also involved um and it gives them a chance just to to take a look and see who is um participating and also too to um give them a chance to see the sheer numbers of people involved from our community and

102maybe gets them thinking you know I I should call you know some of my friends and see if they you know want to be on some of those committees um for in next year or um even now and then I also just wanted to um so so I was part of the career in technical education committee that night and I just wanted to make a couple of quick notes um we reviewed uh Career and Technical education enrollment data um that night and although um unfortunately as we know High School enrollment itself is decreasing um I think by 37 students Career and Technical education high school student enrollment um increased by 188 students this year um in comparison with last year uh so that's a huge increase um that I saw that as really promising um

103it could help us um plan for the future in creating more courses possibly in those areas um and then that got us to talking about um some of our CTE staff um and their assignments and SE and then also we talked about work-based learning which I know is is we're probably going to talk about that later but that is something that we talked about as a committee as well and received a lot of information and input from so in our committee we had Parents uh community members business owners and teachers so I mean I think we kind of covered it all and we heard feedback from everyone uh for that topic as well so it was fantastic and I I can't I kind of wish that they we had them more often but um maybe

104that's something too that we can think about in the future thanks Jenny anyone else Jeff yeah had facilities and Justin our facilities leader basically just went over a list of each building and kind of you know what what's going on there not a lot of of um just some general maintenance and things nothing really Earth shattering obviously we have the big things going on in the future here with the high school but the one the one thing that I I thought was interesting is the potential to get um a really good deal on some light bulbs from Excel some program coming up but uh look like really an advantageous price so we'll learn more about that in the future so thank you anyone else Magie um so I joined the communications committee um and it

105was run by Aon Bailey Our Community Education director she did a great job um and I was really impressed um with all of the people who participated um I think you're right having no homework was great but people came with ideas and thoughts and so that was uh that was just really neat to see we talked about um you know just what people are hearing what messages they've been getting around the budget reductions around the um uh High School uh reimagine project um so that was really helpful and I would say that um we spent a quite a long time talking about how we can um have communications have the website and maybe other materials um ready for people who might be considering the district in in light of declining enrollment you know we want

106to have every all of our Communications um welcoming to families who might be thinking about coming and how can we um tell the stories of The District in ways that are uh enticing to people to to come to the Northfield school district so it was a really great really great opportunity thank you anyone else Ben of course and then thanks to V for facilitating the finance committee that was a good discussion you know we had a chance to go through the 80 plus items that we previewed on tonight's agenda you know I think that was helpful to go through really line by line with the participants there some very thoughtful questions and just a good QA QC check too in terms of getting it Road ready so that was appreciated um in time certainly time

107well spent for me anyways thank you Dr hman uh Jenny had mentioned the number of people involved can you just tell the folks we know we have um a really involved Community whether it be with the school district the city nonprofits other areas but we know we have a lot of people involved in these committies how many people are in yeah I I believe the rosters uh not not having them in front me I believe the rosters are more than 80 people we'd have to I can certainly get you a full number um we we don't necessarily take attendance at each one right but we know that there were there were certainly I would say estimate 65 Plus people there is that seem like a fair estimate to people I mean so I think we

108have typically like 80 or 80 say it again yeah so we have 84 or 85 people on that list and you know we had we had a number of people who said can't make it tonight sick you know or I had something out of town but again as you saw the visual as Jenny pointed out you know a lot of great participation yeah and for those listening or who are here I wanted to put a number to it because you can't visualize it quite and it really is powerful to see our community come together in that space and I found myself energized by that because these are all that already existed but we met at 4:00 or 5:30 in our corner of the district and seeing everyone come together as a community to work on

109things I think is very powerful so thanks for bringing that up Jenny initially um I have joined the equity advocacy committee and Becca being at the high school LED that conversation and it was really uh raw and authentic and very healthy conversation um like Jenny mentioned there's a variety of stakeholders there from staff and community members and teachers um and I too feel like there's opportunity for more meetings but I have to remind myself this is an advisory committee we need to let the district take this you know advice and run with it but uh talked about a lot of good things that have been happening certainly some challenge areas that can be worked on uh but I felt very good about that conversation and certainly in light of where we are in today's world

110I feel like a committee like that is going to serve an incredible importance in our community moving forward so I would certainly invite more opportunities to meet before I think October the next scheduled committee meetings for most of we haven't scheduled next year's yet where we were looking at that same kind of approach but potentially adding a third one a third evening meeting next year so we're still we wanted to know what people thought before we develop the and I just looked at the list 83 people um you know are part of those committees very good all right we will move ahead to item C which is policy committee uh recommendations we had a number of policies superintendent Hilman will present the policy committee's recommendation ations uh recommended changes excuse me policies 411 4112 415

1114177 423 and 903 uh hopefully everyone had a chance to read them they're all pretty minor but we'll let Dr hman explain them yeah I think the way that I'll go about this is that um there are a number of policies that the committee has bringing forward I would argue that there are uh very few if any major changes mostly some phrasing there's some statutory references a handful of other there's you know in the in the expense reimbursement one it really specifically talks about the kind of receipts that you have to have you know that kind of thing so I would just open it for any questions on any of these policies that are coming forward tonight rather than going um policy by policy I think that's appropriate any questions from board members Amy I

112have a question on policy 42 and it's really the procedures for it um and that's um I'm wondering ing when the meal expense total was last considered uh you know I think $50 a day in the current uh environment doesn't get you much more than fast food if you're paying for three meals with it and I'm just wondering how that gets reviewed and also tipping at 15% um I think tip levels have gone up a little bit and if they get that screen often the lowest tip your option you're given um is 18% these days so sure so um I would say these rates have been set for for quite a while we also do not have a large number of people accessing this um most of the people who are going to training it's

113they're driving for the day lunch is included um and so I would say this is very infrequently used um and a lot of times if they are going for an overnight it's something where their organization is providing food as part of the fee um so I have not had any um any complaints about this there are often people who will tip extra on purpose um but then that we just reimburse them the 15% um so I don't have concerns about it at this point just because it's really in frequently used um but certainly if people um that's helpful concerns we would certainly take it into into consideration but it's pretty infrequent thank you yeah any other questions on policies okay these will be part of our actions at our next meeting on April 14 believe

114it is all right we'll now move to the approval of the consent agenda as a reminder there were some Personnel items in the table file added to the consent grouping as as well as one action item which will come later uh is there a motion or I'm sorry is there anyone who would like to pull anything from the consent agenda Jeff I'd like to take a closer look at is it 6C under uh it's not on this sheet hold on a second is that the handbook okay so moving 6C to make it uh 7B is that correct because we have 7 a now so 7B okay that's a motion do we have a second okay we have a motion in a second to move ahead with consent agenda and pull item 6 C make it

1157B to be discussed later all those in favor say I I all those opposed see none we will move ahead all right me get back over here so now we're up to items for individual action uh oh that's what we just did we just removed the one item as an action item that's what we just did that's what we happened last time I did you get that vote yeah so we approved the cons in the same motion time okay I was thinking we're doing approve the consent agenda thank you you're welcome uh so we have one item to take at or two items now but the first action item is 2026 2028 achievement and integration plan this came today in the table file uh the board has asked to approve the 2628 achievement and integration

116plan the achievement and integration program was established to increase racial and economic integration of students and to increase student academic achievement by reducing academic disparities based on students diverse racial ethnic and economic backgrounds we have hope Langston here to share some information but Dr hman I don't if you had anything to add beforehand okay so thanks Corey because you just read my opening line oh you're welcome what is achievement and integration um so this will be our third three-year plan um we first received AI money back um in 2019 we developed our plan but that was for fiscal year 20 through 22 um for for the first time this year uh we are considered a racially isolated District um that kind of surprised me so I uh talked to MD about that um and basically

117that determination is made if our class of protected students which are uh non-white students is 20 percentage points higher than any one of our adjoining districts so if you think about every District that adjoins Northfield um and the reason why we are racially isolated this year is because we are 20.7% um greater than Randolph in our protected class students so that was a new um designation for us um we pulled together a team to come up with the goals that are required for achievement and integration you got the very full report 22 pages I think um but in a nutshell we have to have student achievement goals we have to have teacher equity and Effectiveness goal and we have to have a racial and economic integration goal those are required uh we have to have

118strategies for each goal and we have to have um key indicators of performance for each of the strategies so the team came together um the process was a little bit delayed this year because we wanted to see the impact of the budget um reduction recommendations on both adsis and achievement integration and integration so um I apologize for getting this to you at uh at a later time than we typically would have um it is it is due this Friday so we're in good shape there um but you can see the the goals that we have written for this year um we are reducing the gap between nonf FRP students and F FRP students who are credit deficient or not on track for graduation we are reducing the percentage of kindergarten students who um have characteristics

119moderate or significant characteristics of Dyslexia over the three years our teacher um Effectiveness will be coaching um tier one teachers or core content teachers um in strategies they can use to make more stud students more successful in the in the tier one classroom and then we will continue our data Summits uh which we started in 2019 those have been a really effective way to bring four districts together um about 20 students per District to look at data uh that is common to all of the districts so those are the goals again this year we're looking um at a budget amount of a anticip ated 354,000 in change um so we submit this and then we go on our way we we actually uh did really well on our goals in the last three-year plan so

120we we took the input from the team to develop these new goals and strategies all right thank you hope yep any questions from board members any thanks great so previous years that we so we so we had to fill out this plan um for the last three sessions so you you apply every three years right you develop a new plan every three years you report on the goals in your plan annually okay and but so in previous years we were I we were identified or classified as just an adjoining a racially adjoining school yes and now we're and now that's gone and we're racially identifiable instead of the adjoining right in the last two plans we qualified because we adjoined farbo who was considered a racially isolated District this year we are considered racially isolated

121that could change next year um they reconfigure that every year and and what parameters do they use for reconfiguring that annually same thing 20 percentage points higher in your protected student in class and that's the same percentage year to year no matter what so far that that's what it's been yeah 20 percentage points okay thanks any other questions I just have a question about the 20% racial isolation since we were adjoining farble last couple years and now we are identified this is there a geographic piece in this as terms of isolation is it really is about the percentage so I'm thinking if Farmington and Lakeville Apple Valley all the way up to the cities at what point you no longer isolate it you're just an extension well that's an interesting question um so it really

122is about comparing you to any District that physically AB buts your District right so we have one thing that could change um with our designation as racially isolated is we now have more districts we could partner with um in an integration activity we are not going to do that this year just because they've already started the planning phases for our student integrate our student data Summit so we will continue to partner with Waterville allean um Tri City and farbo all right thank you any other questions no okay I will move to approve the 2026 28 achievement integration plan which will bring approximately $354,000 in funding for this program do I have a second Magie okay any further discussion okay all those in favor say I I I all those oppos all right thank you all

123right thanks all right and we did pull one item from the consent agenda so we'll move on to 7B uh this is the request in front of us is for the board to approve the updated student student citizen citizens it's always a tough word student citizenship handbook with a couple of updates for alignment with recent changes to the federal Title 9 program if you recall our last board me we did make some updates to the policies and Jenny had requested some additional changes um with the handbook and some other pieces Dr Hillman and miners have addressed that in this this is why it wasn't a consent agenda but we do have a question so um first we need a motion to approve and then we'll take a second for discussion is there a motion to

124approve Jeff uh motion second Amy okay Jeff you pulled this you have comments or question I just kind of more of a point of information um I just wanted maybe Matt to explain that a little bit more and there's a lot of moving Parts with Title Nine and other issues um with State versus Federal and one thing we've never ever really brought up uh even in my time is that you know what is the personal liability of board members that they may or may not be open to lawsuits so I don't know I just I just kind of looked at that and I thought um I just needed a better explanation and um I I don't know where my other than that just kind of wanted to have you talk about that a bit Yeah

125so the uh when we passed the reverted Title 9 policy at the last meeting uh what we did is We There were some requests to go and look at the alignment of some other documents so for example if you take a look at the reporting forms on our website we had been using a singular report form that covered both Title 9 uh complaints and harassment complaints and the language was unified between the two of those when we reverted back to the tital line policy that was from 2022 essentially um those those introductory language items change so we now have separate forms for each uh complaint forms for title n and harassment violations in the student citizenship handbook what we looked at is we probably actually should have also listed the Minnesota human rights act as

126a statuto uh reference if you will under non-discrimination so when we went back to look at the impact of that title n component that title n change on the student citizenship handbook it really came under that section in rights and responsibilities on non-discrimination and so the language from that non-discrimination when the Title Nine policy was when we the title n policy that we just went away from had very similar language to the Minnesota Human Rights Act we should have had both references there before but as we looked at it um the Title Nine uh referenced no longer made sense was no longer valid so adding the Minnesota Human Rights Act there was the appropriate piece and I think the question there this stems from we talked about the uh lawsuit that was settled by a

127district court in uh Kentucky a federal court in Kentucky that vacated the 2024 Title 9 rules and so schools in Minnesota there are some questions about some executive orders and some things that have come from Washington and looking at the differentiation between executive orders right and what the state Human Rights Act says and so I do think that there's going to be continued discussion we have an attorney general's opinion on this as well and I do think you're going to see some additional discussion and clarification in the courts coming down the line so the Title Nine uh vacating the Title Nine that took that out of the non that part of the non-discrimination piece it just changed the reference to the Minnesota Human Rights Act is that helpful Jeff yes I mean I'm just you

128know with the state law and federal law so you're comfortable that we're conforming with federal law i i as of right now based on the legal information that has been presented to me yes all right any questions could change but I feel as of today that's we are on the right spot we'll monitor as it uh whates that you got it any questions Jenny okay so now Dr Helman that you bring up that there's two separate um report forms I see that um when two were created instead of just using one to com combine so then which Report Form would students use for discrimination of or offenses or violation so they would they could use either one right depending on the circumstance I would think that frankly more often than not the harassment Report Form

129probably covers a larger variety of potential incidents because the Title Nine reports has the the scope of that has shrunk so I would see that there would likely be less use of the title n report and if someone were to file a harassment report we are trained to see is there also a title 9 issue there and if there's also a title 9 issue there then we would also execute any of the procedures that are appropriate under Title 9 I would say the vast majority of complaints would probably come through the harassment form just because of the scope that that covers versus what the uh smaller scope of Title 9 now would be compared to what it had been before if that's the case I would suggest putting uh discri adding discrimination then as a

130offense under the uh report form for harassment and violence because harassment and violence is very separate from discrimination they're all separate crimes separate violations separate offenses and so otherwise you're going to go back to having conflict so if you're telling me that students are most likely going to avoid the Discrimination report form for discrimination and go over to the harassment and violence Report Form then I would say you legally you definitely would need um discrimination um under that report form instead of just harassment and violence you would have to add discrimination okay we we'll take a look at that and and see what we can we want to make create the um as clean as we can right within what the requirements are so it isn't an attempt you know to try to make it

131difficult it was just trying to se operated out based upon the feedback uh that we had had before so we can certainly take another look at it and see if there's another way to adjust that so that it's really clear but I we'll have to take a look at it and we can discuss with our school district attorney as well as what the right methodology of creting those report forms are thank you so the handbook comes back to us as an extension of policy but the reporting forms of those traditionally come through the board or those hand administratively correct the reporting forms are procedural in nature and so we of course take feedback on all of that from the board and then we would execute it in the way just like we did the last

132time we didn't bring those uh forms back to you because those we we took the direction and uh we adjusted those report forms to align with the policy change and that's the exact same thing we would do with this as we look through what is the appropriate methodology for um creating that Avenue for complaint thank you so I'm I'm okay moving ahead with this tonight I know we have another question over here but and then having the administration follow with that maybe directly with you you or other board members table that you can come back the board and one of your superintendent checkins or an email maybe you can connect on that piece uh any other questions or comments from board members all right we have a motion in a second all those in favor

133say I I I I all those opposed say nay we have none motion carries all right we are going to move on to items uh for information let me switch gears here sorry uh and the first up is superintendent's report for uh Focus area number update number two superintendent Hilman provided a written statement or written report rather uh in the items for information for us to review does anyone have any questions for Dr hman on this most recent update okay we'll move ahead to Item B for items of per information related to the construction update number seven Dr hman will provide an update on where we are with the construction project y i I will just leave the report stand if uh board members have any questions we are just the one piece that's new

134is the geothermal test Wells we're getting that to be able to move ahead so that was included in the report but otherwise we're working through the core planning team and the activity subcomittees they meet again this week very good thank you any questions for Dr hman okay and then finally we have the enrollment report uh the March 2025 enrollment report so pretty fresh so we don't usually see a ton of changes this time of year but you'll see that you know our fulltime only students increased by five uh over the last month and again you you see we see some modest changes once we get into the cruising altitude of the school year so you know we are right at 3700 um as of the last enrollment report and then um as we talked a

135little bit as you know every month I show what the class sizes look like so these are the current elementary school class sizes um and we just make sure that we have committed to showing those each month so I'd be happy to answer any questions I can about the enrollment report at this time board members do you have any questions for Dr hman all right seeing none we'll go to Future meetings uh as a reminder our meeting for tomorrow was moved to April 3rd it will be at the middle school instead of the high school and that starts at 6m it's a two and a half hour meeting that I think all of us are probably looking forward to hearing from our constituents and stakeholders and students and families and staff and uh looking forward

136to that engagement following that our next regular board meeting is April 14th Monday at 6 p.m in this office uh after that April 28th 6 P p.m regular board meeting in the norfield district office boardroom then finally already looking ahead the May which seems pretty wild but May 12th 6 PM district office boardroom is there a motion to adjourn motion Jeffrey we have a second uh okay we have a second from Jenny sorry blink there uh all those in favor say I I I all those post we areour