Northfield School District Board of Education Regular Meeting 07 12 2021

001we already I call this meeting to order this is a regular meeting of the Northfield Public School Board today is Monday July 12 2021 and the time is 7 PM we are present this evening in our new school board meeting room located at Northfield Public Schools district offices formerly Longfellow School this meeting is open to the public yep let's bring it just a little bit closer hi thanks Noah this meeting is open to the public and is being live streamed the recording of this meeting will be posted on the district website as soon as possible Dr Hillman there were some items in the table file yes this evening we had an updated version of the school bus transportation contract with Benjamin bus and we also had some appointments some increased decreased change in the assignment

002and That Was it some personal items okay thank you very much if there's no objection We'll add these items to the agenda as we move forward is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented moved by Jeff is there a second second by Amy all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries we now have an opportunity for public comment this is a chance for residents business and Property Owners parents students and employees of the Northfield Public School District to address the board is there anyone here who wishes to address the board seeing no one come forward we can move on to announcements and recognitions Dr Hillman yes we have two this evening Hirsch is a 10 year old student from Greenvale Park and she has been recognized with the Diana award established

003in memory of Diana Princess of Wales for her social action and humanitarian efforts Nika was diagnosed with Selective mutism and her family suggestions she find other non-verbal ways to express herself she decided to paint rocks and hide them in her community for others to find and Delight in she started a Giving Tree program to share warm clothes in the winter and a gratitude tree to encourage people to adopt an attitude of gratitude in the summer Nika has created videos about her creative projects sharing moments of joy and kindness on social media she is known as someone who creates little ripples of kindness that turn into big waves so congratulations to Nika what a wonderful award for this young person and a modeling for others what we should be doing to make our community a better

004place we also want to recognize several state tournament participants and we lead off with Nate Stevens a rising Northfield High School senior who won the State Golf meet and so if you followed Nate's career uh you know he's been at the top of his age group for some time and I encourage people to check out there was a really cool little featurette on Bally's Sports North where one of their reporters talked with Nate and so congratulations to Nate Stevens a state champion in golf Anna nesseth also participated in the State High School girls golf meet and we had several participants in the state track meet we want to congratulate Shelby Spain who placed third in The discus at State uh Clara Lippert Josie Houck Erica Lowe Nicole tierbarth Wendy bollum Adriana Fleming they were made

005it to state in the 4x800 relay Devin Jacks in the high jump and then the 4x8 relay team of Martin Bryce Nathan amundsen Sam Fallon and will tedona AJ riester will bowmaster and Devin Jacks so congratulations relations to those athletes on competing at their state meet and again congratulations to Nate Stevens state champion those are your announcements for this evening excellent thank you if uh is there anything board members would like to add okay we'll move on now to items for discussion and report and we first will welcome um the first annual school resource officer annual report and here to present that is Northfield police chief Mark Elliott and our school resource officer Bart Wiese chair and members of the school board thank you for having us here today um we have a unique opportunity

006I guess a first time to present to you on the school resource officer program of the Northfield Police Department which is a partnership for safety and learning in the Northfield public schools and I have our current school resource officer Bart Weiss me you'll have part of the presentation as well and I want you to be able to put a name with the face and the one that's in our schools all the time I had the luxury of being a school resource officer early in my career I found it to be very rewarding and really added to my abilities as a police officer but also really added to my understanding of the hard work that you folks do and that your staff does every day in providing for a very safe and successful learning environment within

007the schools so thank you for the work that you do and your staff um we currently have an officer assigned in the Northfield schools in um Bart as I said is that officer and he goes by Officer Barton the schools as officers we all have our last name on our our name plates for our uniforms but um Bart actually approached me and said can I get a name plate that says officer Bart because that's what all the kids call me and I said that seems to make sense let's do that so we have officer Bart with us today and he's assigned to be in the schools and he is to be present to interact with with the students before during and after the schools they as well as attend special events he interacts with the

008students between classes opportunity to build rapport with the students and to support students and staff in their activities and support learning and safety throughout the day um he assists Administration with questions and shares information as permitted as you guys are well aware Minnesota data practices law covers a lot of the school and learning information as well as a lot of the law enforcement and police information so we share where we're able to and where it's permitted and assist each other with going about our work uh he does a lot of assisting Social Services social workers and counselors we're serving the needs of the students and providing for students safety and support uh he instructs the Dare program we also have one-off one other officer that instructs the Dare program and that's been suspended for the

009past 15 months with covid and then the hybrid learning at the request of the district but we're ready to pick that up again as soon as you're ready to have us um and he's a guest speaker for classes law Constitution Health classes anywhere where his job intersects with the learning of the students he's more than happy to come in and be a guest speaker next slide please I want to touch just briefly on the Northfield police policy review task force this is something that we undertook at the Northfield Police Department this past year and it was coincided with the implementation of a brand new policy manual lined with 21st century policing practices police reform change as well as recent legislative changes related to police work next slide we had a diverse cross-section of our community

010with task force members and as you look at the list here you'll see that Northfield Public Schools was very well represented by principal Nancy Antoine and um as well as just many Community Partners that the school has too when you look down this list they're people that we work with from the police department or their institutions are and you'll see that they're ones that you folks work very closely with as well next slide so the policies that we reviewed we had about 30 policies that had a Nexus to police reform topics that we included in the review so our policy manual has hundreds of policies we didn't include the policies that cover like when these guys can take breaks and that type of thing for the task force but we wanted to be sure that

011we included those that did have a police reform Nexus and one of the things that really came out of there that was a little surprising uh to us was that there when we got into the deep questions or on some of the policies there weren't a lot of policy or questions on the policies themselves once the committee reviewed them they discussed them they talked about them yep that makes sense but they had a lot of requests for information they wanted to know how officers get their training what type of training they get what is their equipment used for um what type of calls do they receive here in Northfield you know they hear about the number of shootings in on the metro news all the time but what does that translate to in our community

012and what we came out of that with was really a need for more information sharing to occur with our community so that's a a direction we're going to try to take the police department in the next year or two with some additional information sharing to make sure that the community has that information one of the first ones we did was the community crime map and that's available online so everybody in the community can go in and look at the crimes that are reported in our community next slide please so one of the things that came out of that policy review task force was questions about police training I want to share a little bit of that with you folks you guys are very well aware that teachers need continuing education credits and uh they're uh

013licensing cycle goes five years each five years they have to have a number of credits that they receive in continuing education well police officers fall into that same thing they're licensed by the state and the state requires that they have 48 required continuing education credits every three years when they renew um those are in a variety of topics some mandated by the postboard and some uh are up to the department and the officer as far as where that training comes but I have a few listed here on the screen um question or classes and procedural Justice implicit bias Duty protect policing protests immigration law ethics and professional conduct those are just some examples of some of the classes the officers get as well as quite a bit of in-person training that we brought into the

014department and into the county here our CIT which handles critical incident training or responding to people in Mental Health crisis it's a 40-hour class that every police officer in Northfield receives and then receives a 16-hour refresher every licensing cycle classes on racial Equity training and implicit bias the government Alliance on race and Equity I know a few years ago the school district was a partner in bringing that into Northfield and going through those classes response to civil unrest the YMCA's Equity Leadership Institute as well as the city-sponsored speakers training the police department was very instrumental in trying to get our racial Equity core team up and running here in the city and making sure that we have training for all city employees as well as our police officers so I mentioned that the the state

015requires our officers to have 48 hours of training we just renewed seven of our officers this year Whose license were due and the average for those officers was about 200 hours of training so you can see here in Northfield we take training to be a very important part of the officer's job and we want to make sure that they are well trained and they get the training that they need to do their job next slide please unfortunately there are threats that we have at the schools that we don't like to think of school violence is a reality since 2000 there have been 44 shootings in pre-k through 12 schools in the U.S and in 76 percent of the shootings in education settings police response is what stopped The Killing the SRO provides an immediate response

016often from within the building a strong knowledge of building layout as well as relationships with students and faculty to encourage and respond to concerns and for early reporting are instrumental in preventing violence there have been numerous times when we've had threats reported on social media or from a teacher or student of someone who came to them with information that was concerning and often it is either that student or that faculty that immediately gets a hold of our SRO um to address it and those often occur outside of his regular hours in the school next slide please and these don't just happen somewhere else I'm going to have an SRO Bart Weiss here talk about a few of those calls that he's responded to just in the past year or two thank you Chief Elliott and

017thank you for the invitation for tonight uh one of them I wanted to talk about was we had a pipe bomb um that was not at the school but was out in our community and all we had to go off of was the actual pipe bomb itself and one of our citizens took a picture of uh someone so um when I showed up I was able to look at the picture saw that it was probably a juvenile and juvenile age and I was able to reach out to the appropriate Administration on the school board for the schools to see if you can help us identify this person which we we quickly solved and was able to move on from there um other other uh areas I uh social media threats uh we have social media

018threats before after in the middle of the night I've had many calls where um tried to stop the threat or try to figure out where the threat came from um so our young people can go back to school um and we would never let young people go back into school if we knew that the threat was valid or we didn't have it solved before the school day started um other incidents is with juveniles uh there's actually a lot of Runaways that we that we deal with and I like when I get those calls because I work with students and I'm with the officer that I can text these students and I in the past two weeks I've texted these students and I'm the one that they respond to after um they haven't responded to anybody

019whether it's law enforcement parent or anybody trying to help and I've uh I've had to pick kids up in different cities called called other students or even if a student was in a different state we've talked back and forth to actually figure out where you are and if you're safe or not those are some of the face when they see my face or when they hear my name uh the trust that I built with these students in the SRO program um one of those other things that's I'd always like to bring up um if you want to stop a lunchroom if you want to stop uh lunch disrupt a lunch in a middle school after they've been through dare program I can pretty much stop at lunch there too so that's real fun played bingo

020with those students yeah um but that dare program is really good I'm getting off topic about the threats something I want to bring up what I bring back to the community I also want to bring up to you that I've been doing this job for 14 years I've been in this school setting I'm coming up to my fifth year and this is absolutely the best position I've had as a law enforcement officer so you guys have a great Community great teachers great students thank you Bart I wanted him to be able to add that real portion of it of this is really how we're able to meet with the community to meet the needs of the community and safety and I've had that same thing as a former DARE officer as a former SRO five

021ten years later I've had students former students get a hold of me to report a crime that they're concerned about but they wanted to go to someone they trust or those runaways that have been gone in the middle of the night and everybody's working to get them back but they just won't respond to every anybody but you have connections you know other friends and they can get a hold of them and they'll say well but it's Bart and you can get a hold of him you can trust him and he will he'll help keep you safe he's not just going to bring you home to the environment that you weren't comfortable in he's going to help find another alternative for you so those relationships that are built in the school are really important for safety

022in our community next slide please we talked for talk about partners for safety we're talking about a lot of things that the SRO is involved in from the mock crash that we do before prom and graduation to try to drive home the importance of having a safe night for those students who want them to have a memorable experience we want that to be a positive memorable experience we don't want tragedy to strike to supporting those those events like prom and graduation being there to help our young people safely celebrate those milestones in their in their life events like shop with the cop or the bike to school day which are officers and our students both like a good opportunity to interact and safely get to school our dare program which we've talked about even things

023like school bus stop arm violations I know you guys have transportation is a topic on your topic on your agenda today and working with the bus companies to make sure our kids safely get to and from and to educate those drivers through enforcement and through talking to them if they're not safely giving our children are in the space they need to get off and on those buses and then other activities events Rock Revival just happened we're all good opportunities for us to not only provide safety but create positive relationships with those students as well next slide and we talk about our officers we talk about our future officers an opportunity to build relationships and Trust within that relationship of the SRO as well as career Expo exploration for our students we're always at the career

024day there's a picture up here of us at the middle school for career day and we always get a lot of students that want to come and touch the equipment and see it and ask questions but this isn't also an opportunity for these students to see their neighbors their friends their parents many of our officers live in the community 30 percent of the Northfield police officers or Northfield school graduates we want to see that grow one of our newer officers Officer eichlenberg is a graduate of Northfield schools and she was one that her first contact with the Northfield Police Department was in Middle School when uh she was being a typical Middle School school student maybe having some run-ins with the police and some little brush-ups and really it was that relationship with the SRO

025that she felt was a safe person to go to and to help her make some good decisions and guide some of the decisions in her life and she talks about becoming a police officer was because of that relationship with the SRO I mean that's what inspired her to do that so um we're talking about this as a kid that grew up in Viking Terrace and um a single parent family and was uh open to a lot of different influences but that relationship helped guide her in a positive way and we're very very fortunate to have her as one of ours now and she looks forward to being able to give back to the community too um we want to recruit from and we want to be reflective of our community at the police department we

026feel that our opportunity to be in the schools helps provide that for us and we'll help provide that into the future as well we're really excited about our new partnership with the Northfield Community College Collaborative and Riverland Community College we've just announced that in the past month and we're going to bring the law enforcement program which is housed within Riverland here in Northfield and within that Northfield Community College Collaborative is going to give an opportunity to expand that program from a two-year program to three to help those that are working that are parents and that really have would have difficulty coming into law enforcement and it would mean they would have to move to another Community to be able to do that that means they can stay in our community and still work work towards

027that degree to become local officers next slide please so in summary the police department it feels very fortunate I would say to be partners uh in this Community Partners working together in some of the same programs and with some of the same um Community Partners that you work with the strive program Northfield promise growing up healthy HCI the Northfield Community College Collaborative which I just mentioned Northfield ASAP where it's you know Brett Bart sits on that I'm to help direct it and we really share some of those same goals how do we provide a safe experience for our students to grow and become the best that they can be so again thank you for your partnership we appreciate it I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have those and I'd be more than

028happy to come back at any time excellent thank you for the wonderful presentation board members questions comments for other Chief Elliott or officer Weiss Amy thank you both for coming here it's really good to hear from you and I had lots of thoughts while you were talking so I have several questions um and a big thanks because I really think having you as part of our schools Community helps helps all the kids I know lots of kids who've gone through the Dare program and that made an impact and my uh the cat the crash the mock crash is huge you know my daughter was class of 2018 and she talked about the year she got to see it and it was very impactful to her because it was her friends that were dying you know

029in the mock crash and uh coming from my high school I actually had a crash happen and a freshman died back in the day so that's nice that you provide that and it is really the kids do the kids do learn from that um even though it's very hard way to learn but it's a good way to learn I would be interested at some point I hope you come back again sometime Matt will you invite them sometime again um I would love to have some crime statistics from the schools or incident statistics whatever that would be just to see what you're dealing with and I don't know if you quantify any of this and then if you have any anyway like if how you're working with to minimize incidents and and how how that works

030what your goals are within the school just to have some idea of what you're facing and what your strategies are working with the schools I'd be very interested in having another you know in a year or so from now and hearing more um of that type of information uh I have an extra neighbor who wants to be a future officer and has actually college degree and he's been waiting for two years to go to the place up in Alexandria but he and he's been accepted but it keeps getting postponed on him because of covet and stuff so I want to connect you guys up with that I think he'd be great um and then I also my question for Bart is this I see you're fully equipped with your weapons I'm wondering are the students

031interested in your weapons are they curious about them are they intimidated by the weapons how do they react to seeing you walking through the school fully Decked Out I think they're okay with it uh I do get a lot of questions uh we've gone back and forth about the uniform or a polo shirt with just uh more minimum I am under the thought process of I'm a police officer if I enter a room I want people to know I'm a police officer I don't have to introduce myself as far as the weapons I haven't heard any concerns myself um but you know I have to be careful if I'm in crowds especially when I'm uh with in elementary school because they do start crowding around me but um no I haven't heard anything directly they

032don't ask to see your gun or something like that or you know they asked me about what's on my belt so I try to go through my belts and I try not to focus on the firearm I try to focus on other things on my on my belt now when I do direct the firearm I just go yes it's a firearm and I go I move on to the next but it's it will be the last thing I talk about oh you talk about handcuffs Keys flashlights um the spray I have okay I was just curious how they would react because you do have a presence which is what you want and and whether that it sounds like it they're just fine with it uh then the other question I had was um can students

033contact you directly somehow when not when you're not at school I was a little confused by the presentation are they calling you up in the middle of the night and saying I'm getting a threat on social media or how does that work they don't call me directly but as far as a student I had a formal student that on my way here I had a message pop up on my email it was a former student that wants to contact me as soon as I'm back on duty so um do a lot of them contact me directly they can but it's through an email chain it's through uh my voicemail at work they don't have my actual work cell phone well again thank you very much other questions comments Jeff yeah thanks you guys for coming

034in appreciate your service I'm grateful for it um just uh wanted to say what um uh you know a lot of it I think it's it's great to have that presence around of of just security and for you you know you've known the school as well just reaction time I mean to be in in the right place at the right time but even just it's about if something happens how quick can you react so I think that that I mean it's very commonplace in other school districts bigger school districts they have an officer you know on on campus around so at least then I'm grateful that we have that as far as um bigger events and things like that how do we um if there's something and you need more help to kind of police

035different things going on do you just can you talk a little bit about that if there's an event going on that you might want to add some people yeah we work with the administrators at the building or the athletic director to talk about what events are going on and what the capacity is if there's any known threats if there are any concerns or anything like that and then we'll adjust accordingly is it something one officer can have or we need some more we do have a reserve program here at the Northfield police department and we have Reserve officers and you often see them at like hockey games and football games and things like that we know we're going to have a bigger crowd to help with some parking and congestion issues but also for having

036some eyes in the crowd or in the building and be available as well too thank you that whole eyes and ears thing is very important so thank you thank you Jeff other questions comments no thank you for your report and for being doing what you do I had a call from a parent who had moved into the district uh it was some years ago he said are the schools in Northfield so dangerous that we need police officers in the hallways and I was able to turn that around and say you know you know it really is a opportunity that students can see the role of a police officer in a very positive way and uh she thanked me and I said you know call me in six months after you've talked with your child and

037and see what the response is and she did and it was very positive so thank you glad to hear that thank you thank you no questions oh Claudia hi um Bart I'm wondering if you could share what training you have gone through in the last couple years that has you found especially useful in the school and then also any experiences that you had at school that you took back to the Department so there's a School uh school resource officer board and we actually our city actually hosted that and we had other basically school resource officers have a different we deal with more juveniles than we deal with adults so we we learn more about um 504s about what the administration does as far as that level if we can step in if we can't step

038in privacy laws so there's a lot more privacy laws with juvenile we work with Social Services just some of those trainings that other officers won't get um I'll I have had and annually we do the influences bias trainings just like the one um Chief Mark Elliott was going over but um and then there's a training the school puts on before um before they start with all the staff they invite me to to uh who arrive there and I'll I'll sit in with that date training I think your training is a couple days but there's one that they want me to be a part of so they can be they're implicit bias training and everything that's what um so I share trainings with school and with the Department Corey thanks for being here Chief Elliott and

039officer Bart question about tip four one four one one kind of curious how often that's used by students to report social host ordinances parties I'm really close aren't I uh fights anything like that how often does it use among students so Bart follows up on most of the school ones on those and a lot of times with those depending on on the I guess immediacy of what's reported if it's immediate it'll go to the patrol guys if it's something that is um not an immediate threat maybe something that's coming up tomorrow or the next day dispatch a lot of times wrote so it's directly um to Bart and so that he can follow up on those um but he's also been known to get called at nine at night to help with the tip 4-1-1

040call and uh you know it it really varies we might have a week or two where he gets a couple a week but then we might go or five weeks without a tip it off hard to say can I get the tips I have it set up to where if there's a tip that comes in that school related dispatch will just call me directly but also those tips go straight to my cell phone I uh I have it on they're not hiding anywhere but I get all the tips so if there's a tip anywhere in 4-1-1 um I'm at a level where I'll even hear about verbal I skipped those but I have to read them all uh yeah if there's anything that's directly going on in school at the time so I have I

041gotten a tip that there's someone vaping in the bathroom right now yes they'll call me right right away do you find the most more legitimate concerns and not just kids goofing on you I feel when they're at the 4-1-1 tip level than they are that they're legitimate thank you um so my dad was actually a police chief from my hometown so um I have two questions uh Bart where do you spend most your time is it in the high school or do you get around to all the schools I get around to all the school but I spend most of my time at the high school I have I share an office at the high school and I deal with a lot of walk-ins and if there's immediacy somewhere else then I'll get called directly

042on my cell phone whether it's the administrator themselves from that school or their staff members all right and the the second question is you talk about all the the great relationships you have but are there students that either fear you because of something in their life or um that have negative reactions and if so how do you handle that with my words you're right there has students that have um negative reactions about police and we've talked about it and they've shared their concern with me on an encounter they had with the police officer I try to show them my side I try to listen to their Encounter of how they had it with when they were dealing with what they had to see or do or know or they know someone else um and I'll

043just sit there and listen I'll give some advice feedback and I want them to get no to know who I am get them to know our community our officers thank you okay thank you well I have a couple questions um so I really appreciate the presentation and you touched on so many areas one thing that um was really interesting is the community task force that you put together and I really appreciate the broad stakeholders of the community that you pull together and again really really strong people that did that work and I appreciate you recognizing that the community does need more information and so it'll be interesting to see how you know that's a goal of yours and how you will roll that out um I think we didn't we were remiss and not formally

044welcome you to Northfield I know you've been here for a while but you know chief chief Monty Nelson how long I so I've kind of lost track how long have you been in Northfield a little over two years now okay and uh Chief since last August since last August yes I knew that was that appointment was more recent so um welcome formally from the board since we haven't had this opportunity um one thing that you talked about which I think is really important is the training that your officers do and and um you know we we recognize that in terms of training our professionals and one um sort of challenge to that of course is the budget and how that um Can can work to support that training or be a deterrent to the to

045the training so as you look at your training and you did a nice job of detailing what you do what where are the strengths that you see exist in your training and where do you feel there's opportunity that you'd like to to see moving forward with additional training for for um really your staff well as you mentioned the budget is probably the most significant well significant challenge that we have and as well as keeping officers on the street we're Department of 24 from top to bottom and when we send officers to training it means they're not working their shift so we have to have enough officers to cover our you know our Patrol needs as well as sending them to training so that becomes a problem as well so Staffing levels are are an issue

046with training and being able to provide that and then the training itself and having good training of available locally we have to send an officer more than you know an hour or two away it becomes hard to fit that into a full training day and travel time and everything like that so we try to do as much as we can online um I guess the one the good thing that came out of the pandemic is some more technology to assist in some of that we're taking advantage of that whenever we can excellent thank you Dr Hillman yeah this one turn my microphone on you know I think that um what I just want to share with the board is our work with officer bardus far beyond what I think the average person thinks in fact

047I would say that Bart is probably one of my more frequent contacts with the city so not just about policing issues right but about about other kinds of things happening in the community a traffic issue other kinds of things where we need information um Bart serves as a conduit for that and so I think that that's been something that's been very valuable for us to be able to have that connection and I do want to just reiterate the level of seriousness that the police department does take if we I want to be really clear it isn't like we have threats coming out of our ears right but when they come when they are there it does require first of all a sense of seriousness but also getting to the bottom of it quickly to determine

048is it something that's a viable threat or not and the response that we have had when needed has been excellent so if we have had to call and say you know we have read this or we have heard this or a parent has shared with us you know we want to be able to make sure that we're able to help respond in a fairly quick way and so uh whether it be tip 4-1-1 we've had some things come through that or whether it be something that a parent or another student has brought to us when we call call Bart he doesn't matter what day or Saturday mornings I've called Bart we got this question uh what do you know about it and that ability for us to share information as appropriate back and forth you

049know has been something that's very been very helpful because it has allowed us to make some of the decisions uh that we have to make about keeping students to school and other kinds of cancellations with the best information that we can so that's something that I've always been really proud of that relationship that we have had between the department that goes back to Chief Nelson prior to Chief Elliott and the relationship that we've had to be able to keep that information flowing um between the schools and the and the city really not just policing issues but other kind road closures you know did the buses need to take a different route is there something block I mean you name it um we've talked on snow mornings from time to time about what are the officers

050seeing you know in town to make those kinds of decisions so I just want to share the more the fullness of the relationship that we have there are things that we see that happen you know during the school day but it is about you know quite a bit more than that and frankly a lot of times just you know it's going to be okay here's what we know and we're able to make decisions with the best information because we have the ability to call each other and to be able to share some of that information so I really appreciate that part of the relationship that we've had with the PD so thank you for coming tonight we really appreciate the presentation and the partnership yes thank you we we do appreciate it and I appreciate

051Dr Hillman articulating that uh the partnership because that came through loud and clear in your presentation and was also really heartening is the passion you have for your work and we appreciate the partnership and we know um that you know you work so so well with our administrators and our staff and and Dr Hillman and we just we really appreciate the work that you do and and as I say about teachers um your profession it's not a profession it's really a calling and so we we are grateful for your work so thank you and we look forward to these annual reports this is great thank you thank you all right our next item for discussion we have uh Val mertesdorf our Director of Finance who will present the Benjamin bus transportation contract and just as

052a reminder to board members there was a revised contract in the table file welcome Val thank you good evening so I'm just gonna give um a quick summary of the transportation process that we went through we had a four-year contract with Benjamin bus um that is the max we're allowed to do by state law so we typically have done a two-year contract with the option to extend two more years um this was the first year we published it in the paper requesting quotations this was the first year that we actually got an additional quote um so that was kind of surprising we obviously had a long-standing relationship with Benjamin bus the other quote we received was only for type 3 which is um specific to special ed for the most part um and Benjamin bus

053actually had the lowest rate um for that as well as the only rates for the other items that we need transportation for so my recommendation is to to go with Benjamin bus um pretty much all of the same um contract things that we've had in the past all of the same types of Transportation types of Rights and those things it's a four percent increase for for this coming school year and then a three percent increase in the year after that um I will say there were some intentional reasons for the four percent Benjamin buses have some concerns about the current rate of inflation fuel prices and just um they they did not provide any increases in wages over the last year and a half so they want to make sure that they're able to provide

054that for their staff and as we are aware and have talked about just finding stuff in general has been a challenge and so they want to make sure that they're able to be competitive in staff what we actually need um to partner that um I requested that we go from 24 routes to 23 so you might remember probably three years ago um we came to the board saying we had lots of extra students writing and we actually added a bus route we are now obviously seeing that go the other direction and so we can reduce that they were they thought that was absolutely fine to do and they're actually looking to see if we can get it down to 22 which would be an additional savings from what I included in the document in your

055board packet but so then the net for just the regular to from Transportation uh will actually be a net decrease um in combination with the one less route which is about a 75 000 decrease um we'll have one less student contact day with the calendar and that's about another ten thousand dollars so overall um that will be a net decrease for the budget um which I think is a great a great place to be it gives Benjamin bus what um what they need but also helps us manage our expenses as well um and then the three percent um in the next year the um final two years of the contract um we are allowed to negotiate that um at the time which we indicate we would like to extend the contract um and I I

056recommended um to John that we just wait and we have typically done that up front I said a lot can happen in a year as we are um super aware now how fast things can change in 12 or 15 months so instead of locking both of our organizations and we decided to wait um and make sure we know where we're at with everything and do that down the road if we choose to extend it the only other major change um and I can't even really call it major because we don't have a ton of weather cancellations but we did change that language sorry knock on wood um we had uh the previous contract included just a straight 500 credit um they obviously do save some money if they don't run bus routes for the day

057so it was an acknowledgment acknowledgment of that we've changed that to just 10 of the daily contract rates so then that will escalate for us as the rate increases um as you can see in the narrative it's uh just shy of a thousand dollars instead of 500. um the revised copy in your table file um included the fuel Clause um that was not in the original draft of the contract it was included in the quote um so everything was agreed to um and submitted with the 2.75 fuel Clause um it just was missed in the actual contract so that's what the revision was otherwise everything else was the same um so if you have any questions about anything I will gladly answer them this will be asked for approval at the August 9th meeting um

058the contract is technically effective August 1st um and I did verify with John that he's comfortable um waiting till the night um apparently in the past they've gone two years without an updated contract so he was not very concerned about it um so that was I was like not on my watch nine days will be your max but um but yeah so he had no concerns about that as well so I will take any questions in my head thanks Phil Amy thanks Val um my question is if you compare this new contract to their last contract that we had with them are there any substitutes and changes that we should know about nope not other than just the raids everything else is pretty much exactly as as we've operated historically the contract looks different we

059used a consultant four years ago I was new to the transportation liaison role and kind of just getting my feet wet and understanding and so we used a consultant for that process um and I didn't love the way I felt like the contract was overly complicated um and so I simplified the contract reviewed a couple other districts um hold all the pieces that were applicable for our district um and tried to simplify it but everything will operate basically the same as it has I noticed it was really readable so thank you for that was the goal thanks Amy other questions comments Tom for the number of buses what data did they use to determine how many students they would have is it from like the cards that the parents mail in so they have actual

060date because if they went by last year um or even I don't know maybe or do they take an average or whatever do they actually know the numbers so they they do have actual ridership data um that they track in their system that they use um last year was exceptional um because of the spacing and all of those pieces we have um we also have an annual Transportation report so there's a tracking mechanism in Skyward that tracks students as well and that number has been declining so they felt very confident that going from 24 to 23 wouldn't be an issue um that going from 23 to 22 they wanted to wait until the first couple weeks of school um because even with the bus cards and all of those things there's always kind of all

061the people that didn't know they should fill it out or filled it out and then something else changed in their schedule so until we kind of get a regular um regular average of who's riding and when they can't really make that assessment but they do have all of that data thank you other questions Jeff I know with fuel costs going up I'm sure there's some kind of parameter in there on a scale of how fuel costs would work as far as an increase and then also too I know employees and people are hard to get for for hiring so however we could help incent that and whatever form that would come in financially or promotion or whatever just some comments on that yeah so the the fuel Clause that we have is um basically 2.75

062cents um less whatever the fuel exercise tax calculation is for them um the district pays anything that's over and above that based on whatever their current price um the contract lays out um that they would have to substantiate um the dollar a month that they're charging us and all of those things but um and the access calculation I want to say average is like 46 cents I haven't looked at it recently but that's um so take that with a grain of salt but that's roughly what it is so the district then pays the difference on the actual field that they used for transportation that month um that was anything over that range so that's how that piece Works um and then as far as employment we do have a link to their website on our

063employment page that says um okay we're looking for bus drivers click here to apply and it takes them to Benjamin bus's website um so that they can do that outside of that I'm not sure um if we included in parent updates or anything like that but we're working on that so um those are some other other ways that we can go about it I know they have lots of signs around town um hanging on big buses but I know that's that's a big issue and maybe you should have more jobs Fairs around town or something to encourage people to apply yeah we usually also allow them to park a bus you know at some strategic locations with the big sign on the side you know come work for Benjamin bus and so and I think

064that we're seeing that in a number of similar positions within the district as well as Benjamin bus I know we have 20 plus educational assistance opening openings and they're similar in a lot of different ways so we are concerned about that um for along with our bus drivers as well nutrition part -time nutrition staff who also Drive bus so we try and partner schedules to provide more of a full-time position for staff between the two organizations if that works for their schedule too other questions or comments thank you Val for working through the contract it it looks good um how often then when we have that feel um that agreed upon field charge um you know is there an average amount that we pay over and above that historically um I don't have that off

065the top of my head I can go back and analyze that we track all of the the bills monthly so I could go back and do that and provide that data for you I was just curious is it is it a substantial amount um I don't even know if I could guess okay um I haven't I didn't look at that recently as We Gather it for the annual Transportation report which is due in August so I haven't done that yet but um when I pull that together I can share that okay I was bored curious thank you again thanks for your work and we do appreciate the partnership that Benjamin bus we have developed with them and I know as the transportation liaison you're in the weeds every day on some of that stuff particularly

066as the school year um school year rolls out uh and then in terms of the um route that is it's a route that we're discontinuing at the middle school how will parents be alerted of that because it will be in effect for this school year yes so um one of the things that we have had historically um is 246 has been our Division Street um by the high school middle school in Bridgewater has been declared um a hazardous Crossing so for families who lived right across the street in those neighborhoods would technically be considered in the walk boundary but they would have to cross so we have been transporting those families from across the street basically so they were safely able to get across 246 and now with the roundabout and the um um tunnels

067and the actual crosswalk that they put down by the middle school and by the high school we feel that that's um they have safe options for that now so we are going to just continue that um I don't think it's a huge impact I am getting a list from Benjamin bus of the families that were currently being transported and we will notify them individually so that they're aware and then probably send some kind of notification um from probably Sibley and the middle from High School Spring Creek thank you um that'll take a while we're working on it yep and so that way those families are aware of it too just as a neighborhood kind of piece as well yes excellent as I recall that I mean that was the plan all along as we were

068going to add those additional safety measures and that was before the roundabout was you know that construction was secured so that was the plan all along in fact I think we delayed it by a year even so so I think that the communication to parents and I think the options for students are there so that's a good decision yeah and we'll communicate multiple times I mean we're getting the list as Val said we don't think it's a large group of people so we will if possible we'll try to uh connect with them personally it's going to depend on how many people are on the list excellent thank you Val thank you okay um our next presentation is legislative wrap-up Dr Hillman you provided a very nice recap for us well it wasn't it was from

069the schools for equity and education as I said at this top I didn't write it I we copied and pasted it highlights and lowlights well that's from the sea that would we caught we took it the schools for Equity emails don't print quite perfectly for you so we copied and pasted it um for it so we give credit to Deb Griffith says always right because she's outstanding and I'd invite you know Claudia and Corey and Julie of course you to to weigh in as well on the legislative update I think at the end of the day uh what I would say is that we we did see one of the more significant investments in the basic formula that we've seen in many years um and we also had very limited policy change are there some

070policy changes yes in fact in uh the packet I included for you the 50-page summary from msba which really gets very detailed but if we use the schools for equity and education highlights and low lights again the basic formula is something that you know that we are very serious about looking at uh 2.45 percent increase in the first year of the biennium two percent in the second year uh this is good it's above what we had projected but I and I'm very grateful and I want to thank the legislature for coming together on this uh we have the only divided legislature in the the nation we are the only state that has a house of one party and the Senate of the other and so the compromises that did come were significant right the house

071gave up things that were very important to them the Senate gave up things that were very important to them we came to a resolution that um I think as frankly about as good as we can get on the base increase than we could have really predicted or thought of so I'm really proud of the fact that there was compromise and that we did get some good investment on the basic formula and at the same time I do want to just caution I want to throw there's a lot of discussion uh about the historic investment and while that certainly may be true uh when we take a look at the basic formula increase over the last 15 years I just think we have to say yes and we still didn't get enough to match inflation uh

072inflation through the first five months of 2021 is 2.98 using the CPI and so even the one of the better increases that we've gotten in uh a decade and a half doesn't match inflation so while when we look at the number yep is it larger than what it's been in quite a long time yes but we still haven't gotten inflation so we're still trying to play catch-up so I just want to caution we want again we go back to that we're grateful for it we're very grateful but at the same time we also just want to bring some reality about the long-term sustainability of the basic formula I'm also grateful that the legislature did see um value in continuing to put money toward the special education cross subsidy and the El cross subsidy um but

073we have to go beyond that initial statement because there was a 10 million dollar investment to reduce the cross-subsidies Statewide and I think many people if not all at this table know that Northfield Public Schools alone has a 50 or 5 million dollar cross subsidy and when I looked at the state report the other day I believe we're going to get fifty thousand dollars uh from that 10 million for our cross subsidy I'm thrilled that they are starting to recognize that there is an English learner's cross subsidy in the state um we get some funding for English Learners through the compensatory formula but we routinely easily Eclipse that probably two or three times as much now I'm fairly certain and so four million dollars Statewide is not it's a drop in the bucket but again

074it's a recognition that it's there so that foot in the door for these kinds of discussions um we think are really important so those things are all positive in terms of moving us forward again not a ton of mandates which we thought was a good thing our request was please let us get our feet back on the ground after the pandemic and then we will certainly work with folks on policy issues as we move forward um I also as we know a couple of other things that I just that were not included in the final bill that are of interest to our board and community number one was that uh we did not see any Equalization in the tax bill so you know that schools for equity and education really focuses on Equalization so having

075the state pay larger proportion of local property taxes so that we don't have this wild disparity in what school districts can provide for their communities because of the different tax spaces uh there was some Equalization money in the tax bill but it did not make it to the final round so we will continue to work on that you know that that's been a passion of our district for years because we just don't have the same tax base as other school systems so it costs our taxpayers more for bonds and operating levies than it might in a district with a higher amount of property wealth and then unfortunately um the organization that Northfield promised as part of was not funded as part of the final agreement and just so you know what that that's an impact

076of 250 000 a year of what Northfield promises is able to do for the community so again something that it's many people are a little confused because it was in both bills and both Chambers but we know when you get down to the end of it and they're negotiating those final pieces there are a number of things that a lot of people wanted that didn't make it into the session or into the final uh bill um and so those are some things that are disappointing but we come back that we did get some some I'm going to use the word decent increase on the formula and I'm very grateful that we were listened to about the need for the formula because it is the most flexible piece of funding that we can get um I

077wanna we did have our first legislative action committee this year and so I want to thank Claudia and Julie and Corey for their work we did have a spreadsheet of all the contacts that we made and we made quite a few contacts we divided up the work we looked at specific bills we targeted our local representatives and other specific Representatives that we felt we could try to help make sure we shared our story with we kept track of it we think it was a good start and as I have said before the legislative action committee is not waiting until next January now to get started we'll be actually starting in Late July or early August to begin talking about next year's session because we know that the caucuses really start to develop what their priorities

078are for next legislative session pretty early and so if we want to have an influence on how those are decided within those caucuses trying to make sure that we're getting to our Representatives now we think is really important not just for Northfield but I think for the rest of the organizations that we work with so we take a breath because they went a little bit longer than what they were supposed to and we have to get right back up and we have to start looking at what are the things that we would like to continue to advocate for in the second year of the biennium which of course is not typically seen as a funding year so that's my brief update on the legislative cycle and would open it to Korean to Claudia and de

079Julia for any additional comments you might have Corey Claudia any additional comments wanted to say um that a lot this decent increase and the and the you know other bills that passed and the um the gains that public school had just recognizing again that that was the effort of um mspa and schools and superintendents like yourself Matt and um parents and community members calling in and and you know letting our local legislators know how important our public schools are so we wouldn't have gotten such gains if you know people didn't keep calling and being present especially you know msba being present there daily um so just grateful for those organizations and grateful for our community members that called and rode and drove up there when they could and thank you for your work Matt oh

080it's fun yes it is um we are we are grateful for for what the legislators were able to give us of course and the districts to you know Claudia eluded the districts Statewide really coalesced around put put money on money on the funding formula and two percent and two percent that was really our Mantra towards the end of the session um couple interesting things of course low lights I guess they're being categorized as um Val we talked a number of times about declining enrollment and compensatory revenue and that that was also a competing priority that didn't quite make it through the finish line so so that was an issue the other thing that was interesting and I know that you know administrators and and uh are still kind of working through the actual bills for

081for the nuance and some of the uh requirements but I thought it was interesting that um they allowed for um hiring retention hiring and bonuses and or retention bonuses for shortage areas and we highlighted you know we always highlight special education and I wonder if you see that um how districts might respond to that um to that opportunity yeah so I think the key thing is unpacking those parts I am there there are um if we separate out and get away from the the money part right and we go to the limited amount of policy I think there were some significant wins in I'm not nor I've told many of you I'm not a huge fan of one-time grant funding um because you know you get something started you get excited about it and then

082when the grant funding goes away we have to figure out what do we not do within the district to keep that program going but I am a big fan of what they did around the one-time money this time to try to diversify our educational Workforce and that includes some of the so the the signing bonus and some of those things we're still unpacking what that means there's once that um passes then we have to learn what is allowed and what is not allowed and how we're going to have to code it and things like that so some of the things you're talking about are some incentives for people to come from out of state into Minnesota for some of those specific shortage areas and so it's really about trying to recruit people from other states

083where they may have a larger number of teachers in a particular area so those one-time grants are things that we think are they're timely they understand what we're facing in the educational Workforce both in shortage areas and making sure that our our staff reflects the diversity that we're seeing in the state so these are good things we're really excited to see how they take off and we will find what are the best evidence-based practices to do that so the details start to get ready to come from the Department about what can you do and what can't you do how you code it what situations are you allowed to use those things we've already had some discussions with with HCI for example on the grow your own teacher program that's something that we've done kind of

084in an ad hoc way locally here and we are interested in continuing that program to be able to try to get local Northfield students to be able to go on and get their teaching license or work in other educational fields and be able to come back here so there's a number of those things that are exciting but as we always know the the truth and what we need to do in the details sometimes you're pleasantly surprised at what you can do and other times it's very narrow and we may not in some cases we may not qualify for some of that funding okay great thank you and um I I do want to thank Dr Hillman you um really are an incredible Communicator with our legislators I know um Senator drayheim has said to me

085you know I when I want information I email all the superintendents in my district and Dr Hillman is the one who always gives back to me and there are some that I never hear from and that communication is key and Claudia you really touched on that and I so enjoyed working with Claudia and Dr Hillman and Corey and we had our Monday noon calls and it really kind of it was it was a really good buddy system and and the check-in and and I think it made a difference and it was really a pleasure to launch the legislative action committee and and the work we'll do this summer and ongoing I'm really excited about so thank you for for your efforts okay so we will move on now to the next well I'm sorry I

086didn't ask board members if they had any questions I apologize before I move on if anyone no thank you for the report Dr Goma and thank you for the board members who associate uh who get together and and form an association to uh find out what's going on um it's it's clear that it's clear that those who show up get the information and get some of the funding so thank you thank you Corey thank you Julian thanks Joel any other questions or comments on the legislative session okay all right thank you all right so we will move on now to the summary of the superintendents superintendance performance appraisal this is one of the things I most enjoy doing um this was Dr Hillman's fifth uh performance appraisal so it's been an amazing five years right

087so I'm just going to walk through this is the summary of um the appraisal that all board members did so for this review period which was the school year of 7 120 through 6 30 21 all of seven board members completed the annual performance um it the evaluation is is quite in depth and it covers all facets of Dr Hillman's job responsibilities board members provide numeric ratings on a scale of one to five one being low and five being high for 44 job responsibilities organized organized around eight major topics in addition to the numeric ratings board members provide additional comments so as board chair I compiled and summarized board members evaluations and for the numeric ratings means were calculated and all written comments were shared verbatim with Dr Hillman but were not attributed to a

088specific board member and I met one on one with Dr Hillman on July 7th to ref to reviews the to review the appraisal and I'm really delighted to share that to no one's surprise Dr Hillman received an outstanding appraisal and achieved an overall rating of 4.98 on a five-point scale so um that that was really um a rating that was very well deserved and board members really talked about um the uh reasons that they supported their ratings with a number of narrative comments and collectively we cited his work around three key areas first and foremost to no one's surprise obviously the handling of the covid-19 pandemic so I'm going to read the summary of the board members comments so Dr Hillman's handling of the pandemic was phenomenal he worked tirelessly from the onset of This

089Global Health crisis to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff students and their families his cascading approach to communication provided regular clear and concise communication that earned High marks in pulse surveys of District stakeholders he ensured the district was Terence parent in its approach to the pandemic through regular reporting of the district's case numbers and explaining the why and the how the district would follow Minnesota Department of Ed's safe learning plan and guidance from the Minnesota Department of Health his decisive leadership was a significant factor in the district's ability to quickly and effectively adapt to the ever-changing nature of the pandemic with a total of 263 cases during the entire school year among students and staff the district's safety protocol protocols were clearly outstanding one board member's comments best summarized Dr Hillman's work in

090saying I was impressed thankful and proud to have him lead our district during this historic time second uh key area Financial stewardship the board recognized Dr Hillman's exceptional management of the district's finances notable this year was The District's due judicious use of pandemic related funding from state and federal sources in addition Dr Hillman relentlessly pursued other funding sources including District counties and the City of Northfield to help offset pandemic-related expenses his strategic decision making including the freezing of discretionary budgets at the onset of the pandemic resulted in a significantly improved financial position going from a projected deficit to a surplus these actions were instrumental in helping the district to avoid further disruptions to our system and services to our families during this critical year the board lauded Dr Hillman's strength of leadership in formulating the

091framework to develop and adopt a new strategic plan that includes full engagement of District stakeholders in the process board members praised his long-term vision for the district including his commitment to a sustainable five-year priority-based budget beginning with the 22-23 school year and lastly board members cited Dr Hillman's work District's Equity work in light of the Urgent and competing priorities of the pandemic it is especially notable that Dr Hillman continued to prioritize the district's racial Equity work the anti-racism framework he developed is guiding long-lasting systemic excuse me systemic changes in The District board members expressed gratitude for his commitment to the core values embodied in the difficult but important work of ensuring an equitable respectful positive supportive environment for all students he effectively guided the board through the renaming of the buildings the retirement of the

092mascot and the adoption of a land acknowledgment statement all tangible actions that supported the district's work to address symbolism in summary Dr Hillman is a kind caring and compassionate leader but also a very humble one his leadership is what made this year truly phenomenal while always quick quick to give credit to others he rightfully deserves these accolades this Stellar annual performance appraisal is a reflection of not only his incredible work but also his strength of leadership and the board's confidence in his ability to move the district forward so thank you thank you foreign excellent so thank you for a really a truly phenomenal year and your incredible leadership and I'll just ask board members if they have any comments they'd like to add okay thank you um and thank you to board members for uh

093completing the appraisal doctor can I just I do want to say thank you I we do have an incredible team you know from our administrative staff two of whom are here tonight who I couldn't do the work without you know to every person in the district who takes our values seriously and tries to live them out every day so it's my pleasure to get to drive this ship it was a little rougher Waters over the last year but it was worth it nonetheless and I could not be more proud to work for this board it is uh a dream job for me it continues to be that way and I look forward to serving you for many years to come so thank you for your support again thank you okay we'll move on to our

094last item for discussion and Report which is superintendent report doctor yeah so you're going to notice that we changed the title of this this has been I had been our covid-19 operations report for quite some time and we're shifting it to be more just a a regular update and we're going to use a formula to develop the topics but not be so tied to the formula that it's robotic if that makes sense but we are going to continue to keep a little bit of the kova 19 update at the beginning of this to begin with we're going to typically give you kind of three topics at each meeting that I think are important for board members in the community to know um so the first one is the covid-19 update and uh what you all

095are aware of is that all state covid-19 mitigations or mandates they sunset with the expiration of the state's peacetime emergency it was on July 1st and we did update our uh our summer covid-19 protocols and that accompanied the report now the key difference between the previous set of protocols and the protocols that went into effect just after July 1 was that that there was a DHS the Department of Human Services requirement that all licensed Child Care Centers continue to mask through June 30th so even though most of the programs in the district were able to eliminate the masking requirement on the last day of school our licensed Child Care Program needed to continue through that through June 30th so we are now on the point where all masking is strongly recommended but not required and

096so really we have some fairly simple requirements that you can see around face coverings physical distancing cleaning and hygiene we do have a couple of points where people will still require them to wear a mask if you're going to go into the nurse's office you put a mask on because if you go to the dentist or you go to the phys you know your physician they're asking you to do that same thing and then if we did have a student who was on campus in one of our summer programs who is displaying some symptoms but not enough for our nurse felt that they needed to send them home they might look at having them wear a mask they may also call the family and say you know what you can either come pick up your

097student or they can wear a mask for the rest of the day and so I think so far people in those few situations are opting for a mask I am happy to say through the first roughly what month of Summer programming Aaron we have no reported cases so this remember schools are a reflection of the community and we are seeing very low transmission right now within Rice County the last reported number was like at five and I noticed that they have now five per ten thousand residents if you remember that per 10 000 resident number and I've noticed that Rice County has actually taken that off of their website now in terms of reporting that Weekly number per 10 000 residents so I just wanted to make sure that you were aware because again I

098think that sometimes we hear um things from a national level I want you to know what are our protocols here in town and then I also shared with you the vaccination pieces and what I did is I did click on uh 16 and older so you'll see within Rice County we have 64 percent of people 16 and older uh who have at least one vaccine uh dose completed if you go to 12 plus we're down to around 61.7 percent um of this is as of last Thursday uh we're working on uh one of our parent updates that will go out this week and really just re-emphasizing the importance the safety of the vaccinations that are available we emphasize that we respect that vaccination is a personal choice but we have numerous Outlets numerous scientific organizations

099the American Association of Pediatrics who are saying that these are among the safest vaccines that we have and that they think that they are really important to delivering that final knockout punch to covet 19. so again while we are not requiring vaccinations you're going to hear that too the school board does not have the ability we don't have the authority to require vaccines of our students that Authority only comes from the state and if you think about it even when the state does grant us the authority not just grant us a story but tell us you're going to require these vaccinations in Minnesota they've also offered a conscientious objector a conscientious objection Clause where a parent can sign and say I'm not going to have my Stu so we see that as the template you

100know for this moving forward but we do know we have work to go especially in that 12 to 15 year age group we're working on getting those numbers by a zip code we ask Public Health to give us that data by a zip code and if you just look at the straight up numbers we're a little concerned about the percentage of students there yet who might have that again as a personal choice we understand but we know that this is also our best tool to knock out this virus once and for all and I think it's important when you start to hear some of the national discussion about the fall so you're reading on Friday they tend to come out with these things on Friday which anyway they come out with these things on Friday

101and what the CDC said on Friday is that uh their recommendations are around that uh vaccinated staff and students do not need to mass there's a lot of uh conjecture about what does that mean if you have to remember that the CDC is also making recommendations for States like Minnesota who had hit their 70 Mark right before July 4th and then also places where the vaccination rate is under 40 percent in some cases so we don't generally take the CDC recommendations and just adopt them the Minnesota Department of Health takes the CDC recommendations and adapts them to Minnesota and in Minnesota we don't know what those recommendations are going to be yet but what we do know is that Minnesota is in the top tier of the percentage of people vaccinated and we do believe

102that that's going to be an important factor in how the Department of Health makes recommendations for the fall so on covid you've got that update uh right there at this point I'm also then very pleased to shift to our summer programming and I am thrilled to tell you that summer programming is not just up and running it is up and running in full swing so I gave you a list of the programs uh that have already started but I want to give you some numbers that I received today from director of Community Education Aaron Bailey and I think it's really important for us to take a look at the summer of 2021 numbers versus the summer of 2019 numbers last year obviously it was a washout right we didn't have we had some but not

103nearly as many people as we normally have so I did not get to include this in the table file for you but I just want to share with you summer plus that is what you would typically think of as Elementary School summer programming right it's a combination of academic recovery and um recreational kinds of opportunities summer of 2019 253 students summer of 2021 261 so far so we're back to pre-pandemic level there and more so summer blast that's our Middle School similar programming but it's again the combination of academic support and those kinds of enrichment opportunities and what we can tell you is that we have 90 students signed up for this summer 82 were scheduled in 2019 with an average daily attendance of 54. in that so we've really made some Headway there Bridges

104to kindergarten a unique program that we have where we bring kindergarten students in for a couple of weeks so that they get the lay of the land um we did drastically change the requirements to participate in that program basically if you're coming to kindergarten you're eligible and in summer of 2019 we had 76 students participate in that program are you ready 140 this summer so this is what this is telling us is that parents really want to make sure that students have that ability to be in the building before it's I consider to be the spring training you know I love baseball right so it's the spring training for kindergarten uh recognizing that last year's kindergarten experience was not the same for everyone specifically for our Portage kindergarten students who may be coming back uh

105this was an idea that I I said to Aaron one day could we try this and like that we are doing it and so we're having something called a jump start the first grade program so we started by offering it to all of the kids in Portage who are in kindergarten Portage last year because they didn't get that same opportunity we are not then expanding it Beyond kids in that depending on the number of Staff members that we are able to be able to have and so we are estimating that there's going to be between 30 and 36 students who take advantage of that program youth recreation is a hard number to give you because there's not the same number of offerings every year so we try to find a piece of data that we

106can share and I'm thrilled to share with you that we are blowing the doors off 2019. so in 2019 uh summer of 2019 our revenue for youth recreation was ninety six thousand one hundred and seventy dollars and this is the revenue from April to June right so we're not even talking about the rest of the summer yet are you ready in summer of 2021 126 000 so um you can do the percentages in your head but that's a pretty significant increase now we tell you the things that are going well and then we tell you about the things that we are concerned about and we do have a little bit of concern right now about our school age child care so Kid Ventures again which typically serves kids in like kindergarten through well through eighth

107grade through age 12 um when the pandemic hit and people didn't have that we think that people found some other things that for their kids so in the summer of 2019 we had 235 students participating in our kid Venture summer Child Care Program this summer we have only 130. so while early Ventures is was back right away in all of our other programming is back we just are not seeing that return to that school-age child care programming we think that people found some other things to do and Aaron you're going to say something yes so again we give you the good news and then the not so good news right so I think that what this data is telling us is that people are ready to be back right that people want to be back

108they want to keep these things rolling uh they want their kids to be involved and so this is really good news for community services and again we're keeping an eye on uh Kid Ventures we're going to see what that does during the school year summer Ventures is a little different of a program than the school age Child Care Program during the school year but we also knew that that was down a little bit too but again I wanted to share with you we've heard a lot about how important summer programming is we've been very intentional in how we designed ours are plus and blast have not started yet they'll start I think in the next week or so yep next Monday so again we're trying to create this as an on-ramp to the school year

109typically summer school has seen as kind of this off-ramp from the previous School usually starts we're intentionally starting those programs later to be an on-ramp to this school year again because we think the upcoming school years where any recovery that needs to be done is really going to make uh the most Headway I also wanted to give you a brief update on Portage Online um the transition to the all the time online program is moving um when we publish this document we had 29 students enrolled in Portage Online we're up to 32 I believe as of today we have had our first open enrolled students specifically to come here for Portage now we are not marketing it outside of the district yet as more and more districts um become online learning providers uh we are

110just being very thoughtful about building the program and not necessarily doing direct marketing to people and other systems with other school systems we are on the state approved list see us we've had inquiries through that you will start hearing that there are some other districts who are being a little bit more forceful about recruiting people from other systems and um I think we're all going to learn about that as we go into the next few weeks about what is the right marketing strategy we are going to staff this program in fact we meet tomorrow to talk about the Staffing we're going to staff it by the end of the week based upon the numbers that we have with a plan to scale it one of the things that we think people are waiting for is

111what are the mitigation strategies for the fall so whether you're a person who thinks students should mask still or whether they're not we think that there's a group of people there who are going to wait and then we're going to see some influx um into Portage but the good news is that we are prepared and we are officially authorized which not every district is officially authorized to be able to offer these programs and so we are in a very good position the hard work that hope Langston and the Portage team did to get us approved is go going to be paying off so we're very excited about how we're moving forward and again we did our first webinar last week we we did send a postcard to every homeschool family because we think that this

112does have an opportunity to partner with our homeschool families in a way that we have not been able to in the past and so we did have six people who showed up to our webinar last week we've got another webinar coming up and we'll continue to offer them through the summer you know for people to have an interest so that is the report for this evening excellent thank you questions or comments Amy so I'm just curious about the online program and how many students you think we will end up with and if you have 50 students over you know 13 grades how does that work as far as Staffing yeah so it's gonna number one I do not know how many students will participate our our initial plan was about how we could serve around

113100 students but I think we'll get there I think it's going to be I I think it's going to be interesting to begin with we are planning to be able to do some first year subsidization of the program because we look at this as a long-term strategy not just a reaction right there's a lot of flavors of the program that we think are going to be very good by way of example students participate in the high school program and the middle school program they are able to come onto campus to take some Hands-On courses so you can come and take CTE classes Career Technical at industrial Tech you can take five classes online you can come into school for up to two so there are things that aren't ideal to be delivered online we think

114that that's going to be an interesting component I also think that there's societally I think there's quite a few people who want to get back to what they deem is regular including some of the several hundred people who participated in our Portage program last year I think some of us are talking that we're going to see people who want to come back in person and then realize the level of flexibility that they had with the online program for them to be able to just have a greater flexibility in their schedule and their locations some things like that so we are preparing for a year that will be a little bit we think could be an initially smaller group that rises through the year in terms of depending upon I think Public Health but I also

115think about what people look at from that flexibility perspective so I we have committed to this we are looking at potentially using some of our federal funding to support and subsidize but we have some people we're not going to have more than one uh we're not going to have more than 40 students with any one teacher that's the required ratio we are looking of course at adopting if we have to do some multi-grade at the elementary that's something that we can do we've got several creative ways that we could address that and then our learning coach model the secondary is really scalable as well we're also building some of the supports in to existing positions so by way of example the counselor that will support Portage to begin with is also going to serve the

116area Learning Center the area Learning Center has never had a guidance counselor before right they have under a hundred students so with Daryl Keller who's in charge of the Portage program that's an example of how we can leverage that position in multiple ways so we are prepared to be nimble um and we are also wanting to make sure that we are setting this up not as a flash in the pan right but something that's a long-term uh tool that we have in our belt to serve the needs of the community and other communities as well um we don't this district there are school districts this is somewhat like open enrollment so there are some school districts who will send a bus to the downtown of the neighboring School District we do not do that right

117we respect our neighbors we are a net gain on open enrollees from traditional public school districts we have not had felt the need to do that that creates contention it creates animosity with our neighbors and we are an overall School community so I think there's some we're really trying to be thoughtful and intentional about what would we do to recruit people who are not part of this district and so doing so in a way that lets people know that we're available with not necessarily Doing Hard Sell come to Northfield right now I'm not We're not gonna we're not saying that we're not gonna play that card at some point we are not yet and we're looking at how we can develop this here and then serve people here's the bottom line you create a great

118program and in this community it's Word of Mouth people will come if they hear we won't have to do a tremendous amount of marketing for people to know that this is a quality program so we're just being very thoughtful about that right now because we do have neighboring school districts and others throughout the state that we need to be good colleagues too and so we are going to act with ethics and we're going to it's we can certainly recruit people from other districts we just aren't to the point where we think that that's the right thing for us to do yet I have a follow-up question um how will this interact with the alc at yeah so the program is separate from the area Learning Center but our area Learning Center students for years having

119used an online component for credit recovery the odysseyware program that we used up through last year was something that was actually the area Learning Center brought that to the district that was an important thing that they brought so to begin with for sure they are separate programs they are actually separate schools so we actually have a Northfield school district Portage Online elementary middle school and high school that gets all of the numbers and the same kinds of things that any physical school would get so to begin with those programs are clearly separate I do see that over time you're going to see some some other pieces from the online program that look and feel more like area Learning Center kind of customized programming that's what I'm talking about customized programming but we are building it

120to begin with as simple as we possibly can so that we can gain Steam and then be able to make those kinds of individual personalized decisions as we move forward thank you other questions Corey yeah I have a comment and a question so concerning Kid Ventures this is anecdotal of course but my organization I work for has been extremely flexible with child care in the past 15 months and ours are we've been allowed to layer work in child care like a lot of places it's been extended through Labor Day so I'm guessing that's where some of the Gap you've been seeing again anecdotal but from my friends who I've talked to they've had similar experiences so I'm glad you know that so a lot of people yeah [Music] sure on this right Dr Hillman concerned

121uh Bridges to kindergarten so year-to-year enrollment varies for obvious reasons we saw a decline in enrollment last year for kindergarten do you have a sense for what number of that increase because I think it was like double if I remember numbers correctly what number percentage are those who didn't join us last year kindergarten guard I don't think we have that do you have that data disaggregated yet no I don't know right um I don't know that I mean um I see okay yeah and when when these kids show up we'll start to do that disaggregation but I think this goes to show typically we limit it to about 25 students but I think this is a good Harbinger to see that parents do want their kids to have this experience because remember this thing involves

122Transportation right we drive we we pick the kids up on a school bus to bring it's the full meal deal you know for this kind of kindergarten preparation work and so I think we're learning there is a greater appetite for this that we might be able to continue that into the future excited thank you and Tom how far away can the Portage students come from someone like someone from Southwestern Minnesota any place in Minnesota oh we are we are we are allowed to we are well the truth is we're allowed we would be allowed to serve any student anywhere we only get the funding for the students in Minnesota right so we've limited it to students who are Minnesota residents so you could live in Grand Portage you could live in Slaton you could live

123here's you could live in halleck you could live in Preston you can all I get all four corners of the state pretty good that's right Northwest angle as well so um we are allowed to serve anyone who is in the state of Minnesota and again we could serve people we have the option to serve people who do not live in Minnesota but we don't get any of the funding for that so that is not some place that we're going to at this point do the students have to show up at the school ever they do not under this program though I do want to point out that we are doing some especially in our elementary program one of the things that the teachers all of our teachers in Portage last year were amazing I mean

124they built something that was from the ground up right and one of the more popular things that we saw with our elementary students was some intentional outdoor meetups right now not every family was comfortable but many families were comfortable doing something Outdoors so a class might meet at a park for a kickball game or something like that I don't know what activities they did but that is a core part of our plan moving forward so for the elementary students playing them even if they are coming we just talked with a family the family who is open and rolling and we shared that they're not too far away from Northfield and I do think that at the end that was something oh sure we could drive to Northfield for that that would be really cool so

125it's not just specifically um you know it is mostly online right but there are going to be some of these activities that we do to try to bring people together if they are comfortable in doing so Corey yeah the follow-up question to Tom's question at a prior board meeting I think Amy asked about the requirement to be at school at any point and it was a way to standardized testing I believe has that been resolved do we know if students will have to come physically be here or is there an online component to that as well so what we understand right now is that the state of Minnesota requires you to come onto a campus to take the MCA test okay now parents do also have the option to opt out of the MCA test

126and so that that potentially for someone who did not want to come to campus that would be their option now who knows um we will see I'm really hopeful that we will see as the you've seen numerous articles in Twin Cities news outlets about the dramatic growth of school districts offering all the time online programs and as that grows I think that that's going to put pressure on the department of Ed to be able to offer that online testing experience can it be done yes when you are the thing that you're looking at with a standardized assessment like that is making sure that you're eliminating as many of the variables as you possibly can so that the results can be generalized you know in a way that are useful I know that that's the psychometrician's

127concern learn mostly about that every student takes it and most students take it in a similar way so the difference between you being at home you know versus a school where there's a proctor you start to run into some questions about that now there are some other assessments that do in fact the Northwest evaluation Association the map testing they did allow students to take it and so we're going to see you know what does that say nationally about can you develop can you administer those standardized tests in different formats just to clarify when you say a campus if they're a poor student you mean Northfield campus so if they live in halleck they can't go to halleck high school to take the test at that point so I would say that that is true Corey

128I'm going to double we'll double check on that but here's the reason I would say that that is true those students are if you were living in Alexandria for example and attending the Northfield school district Portage program you're open and rolling into the program so you are officially our student and um while I would hope for some I would hope but you can't ship the tests anywhere else right you can't ship a Northfield student's test to Alexandria so there's the part about the chain of transmission right the who has the tests at what time that I think would prevent that not saying it's common sense I'm just saying that's what I think it is your comments as we're kind of talking about you know ramping up for the new school year here I just kind

129of had a quick question I wanted you to comment on I mean we're mid July and as we ramp up into um fall Sports and fall activities uh what can you comment on and how normal that will look or are we just Full Speed Ahead or you know what I mean because we're kind of yeah Jeff I I think everyone wants to be able to have a regular year right we want to be able to have a Friday night football game you know that people get maybe to have some pizza downtown and grab some popcorn and sit in the Memorial Field stands and and just enjoy that wonderful rite of passage and if we're looking at what I am hearing is that the protocols that we have for the summer which you've seen I include

130in pretty pretty basic right is it back to complete regular you can't I don't know when we'll be backed regular I think regular is going to mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people but if we're using what the protocols are right now it would look much closer in fact it would feel very much like 2019 I think that's fair to say about how our summer programming is running you will see people who choose to do mitigation strategies on their own right so we will continue running the live streams for people who want to enjoy you know some of those activities from home people choose to wear a mask if we're not required for that you know that that's certainly you're going to see some of them we want to respect

131folks choices we will wait to see what the guidance is but what we are hearing is that we heard this this was clear to begin with they thought that this as long as the progression of vaccination and we continue to see low infection rates which is what we are seeing we are seeing incredibly low infection rates um and we do think that's because of the number of people who have been vaccinated in the state I anticipate that you will probably see something that looks much more closely to 2019 uh than to what you saw last year I I do anticipate I do not see unless there is an outbreak I see fans in the stands right I see it coming back this as regular as you possibly can be but I have to give you

132the caveat Jeff that that's what I know of on July 12th at 8 44 pm and as we know this can all change but if we keep going like we are if we keep on this same track we are in a position to be back you know as closely to 2019 kinds of protocols as we we could be so people just need to keep still keep doing their job don't stop washing your hands right that was good before the pandemic it's good after the pandemic right it's good to stay home if you're sick if you're not feeling well stay home or if you've got a sniffle don't hesitate to put a mask on for to protect people around you but those are the kinds of things that individuals will do so we're very right now

133what we're seeing in all of the summer Athletics you are seeing regular kinds of things it's there are there aren't there aren't the restrictions there aren't the we are back to probably as close as anything of what we were to 2019 as we have we have been and I don't see I don't see that changing for the fall unless there's a dramatic change in public health or there's something you know an outbreak in a particular area thank you that's good to share yes Claudia students the elementary age kids they likely will not be wearing masks in the fall you know I'm going to withhold judgment on that one quite yet Claudia because they are what I think there are a couple of different things here number one we know that those students can't be vaccinated

134yet so we know that that's one consideration we also know that the state is diving deeply into the data there's a lot of data remember all of the cases that we had in schools were reported to mdh so really looking at what were the transmission rates amongst students under 12. then looking at the ability for uh the hospitalization system to be able to handle you know that was another key concern of why we had so many um mitigations so I think that I I don't have an answer for you yet on that uh what I would say is that there were no it was strongly recommended for summer programs and not required so I think that that tells us I think that that tips the state's hand as to where we're going and even though

13512 and under are not able to be vaccinated yet we know that that is the group that did transmit the least you know when we look at the data and we also know that the adults at school around those students are the the rate of vaccination among our staff my calculation is above 90 percent so those are all factors that I think that will go into the recommendation that comes from the state I don't I am not convinced that you can see a requirement from the state anymore unless there's some time of additional peacetime emergency that would be implemented I had another question um do you know how easy it is to determine the home state for the Portage program so we're talking about students should be from the state of Minnesota do you know

136how easy it is or what the process is to determine that you're from and it's what I'm imagining um you know people who are traveling or yeah situation yeah I think the key thing there is that they would give us their um address right and every student in Minnesota is assigned a Mars number so whether if you're the moment that you actually what you actually do your preschool screening that number is generated and so if you live in Minnesota you're going to have that Mars number we'll very easily be and there also could be students who have moved into the state right who could then show that yes they live within the state of Minnesota so I think it's a fairly straightforward process still there are circumstances we might have to ask a few more

137questions good questions thank you yes excellent presentation and excellent questions and with Aaron here we just have to thank you because like last summer this summer you are front line for implementing you know some of the rollbacks of guidance and protocols and you and your staff are doing outstanding job and we just appreciate you being that uh the uh one who see what what could be coming and and how it's all going to work so thank you thank you very much foreign thank you okay um that is takes care of our items for um discussion and reports so we'll move on now to approval of the consent grouping as a reminder there were some personal items in the table file to be added to the consent grouping is there anything anyone would like to pull

138from the consent grouping for separate consideration no is there a motion to approve the consent grouping moved by Amy is there a second second by Tom all those in favor of approving the consent grouping said AI opposed motion carries okay we have six items for individual action tonight so we will move through those um policy committee recommendations that were policy 102 441 and 713 that were presented at the June 14 2021 school board meeting as first reading so um the motion to approve is there a motion to approve policies 102 441 and 713 as presented moved by Amy is there a second by Corey all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries we'll move on if people have any questions oh I'm sorry did we have any questions or comments I'm moving too

139quickly thank you Dr Hillman any questions or comments on those policies all right that was a bit after the fact I apologize so those policies are approved with a unanimous approval um our next item is the um fiscal year 2021 audit engagement letter and the Hippa business associate agreement so is there a motion to accept the 2021 engagement letter from Clifton Larson Allen in the amount of 23 700 plus expenses and approval of the HIPAA business associate agreement as presented by Tom is there a second by Amy questions or comments okay all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries our next item is a co-curricular Edition I will ask for a motion to approve and then you have any questions or comments um for Dr Hillman we could answer them at that

140time so is there a motion to approve the robotics head coach advisor level H stipend up 2582 moved by Jeff is there a second second by Claudia are there any questions or comments about this motion okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries our next item is a resolution that we do have to do every year which is a designation of identified official with authority this is a mde requirement for reporting Etc so I need a motion to approve the resolution to authorize Dr Matthew Hillman to act as the identified official with authority Iowa and Christine Nessa to act as Iowa to add and remove names only for Northfield Public School District number 659 moved by Amy is there a second by Noel this is a resolution that will require a roll

141call vulpit or are there any questions on this motion okay there's no questions again resolution roll call vote Aaron I I motion carries um the next resolution is one that we have done every year and that is regarding conducting School business on the federal Christopher Columbus holiday which does fall on a meeting for the Northfield Public Schools board of education for the 21-22 school year so is there a motion to approve the resolution as presented regarding the ability for us to meet on Christopher Columbus Day which is this year is October 11 2021. moved by Jeff is there a second by Tom so we have a motion and a second that we are saying that Christopher Columbus Day on October 11 2021 shall not be a holiday for purpose of the school board meeting so

142again this is a resolution and requires a roll call vote Erin aye hi I okay motion carries um our last item for individual action is set the date times and location for school board meetings which was in um your packet so is there a motion to approve the schedule for school board meetings July 2021 through December 2022. moved by Tom sorry is there a second second by Claudia are there any questions all right we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries so we do not have any items for information this evening so our last um item on the agenda would be future meetings those um would be in August so this is our only board meeting in July so we will move to August when we

143would meet we will meet on Monday August 9th and Monday August 23rd uh both at 7 pm in our Northfield district office boardroom so thank you for a great meeting everyone have an extended um I don't know vacation from school board meeting since it will be a month before we will meet um all those in favor or I'm sorry I need a motion to adjourn moved by null is there a second by Jeff all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries we are adjourned