001you all set good evening everyone and welcome we are the autonomous school board this is monday it's may 23rd 5 30 i'm going to call this meeting to order eric our attendance perfect tenants all present good would you all please rise join me in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all first up tonight would be to approve the agenda as presented i move that we approve the agenda as presented second we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries item four tonight would be the mission moment i'm gonna turn things over to mr elstad mr
002chair members of the board tonight it is my honor to lift up as our mission moment our departing student school board representative daniela ortiz a few things about daniella this is going to be a list that i'll read and then i have a lot of other things i'd like to say about daniella daniela's involvement in activities at owatonna high school include she is the president of the national honor society student council representative helping students helping others choose or shock officer link crew commissioner she's a big sister mentor she's part of our ohs diversity and inclusion club she's a member of the volleyball team she participates in deca she's a member of the orchestra she was a leader with toys for tots she's been part of the alzheimer's awareness walk planning also is a donator as
003well as in a volunteer at the local food shelf and has been part of the owatonna community task force on facilities that's just the bulleted list of things that we did a little review for you daniela not only that but daniela has i think truly personified our four commitments as a school district 21st century learning daniella was part of a community task force that helped us design a new building to help meet the needs of our students moving through the 21st and even 22nd century safe and caring community all of the volunteerism and how much she cares for the various groups that she serves within our community to say the least the things that i write off like the alzheimer's awareness walk local food shelf toys for tots and many others high quality teaching and
004learning daniella has been the recipient of very high quality relationships of teaching and learning with our staff here at ohs but she will certainly pass that along i know she's not maybe picking an education right now but i'm still going to needle her to see if education might be a career for her and then lastly uh when i think about uh the work that we're doing within equity daniella has been a warrior for equity making sure that we continue to provide for the needs of all of our students regardless of ability race beliefs ethnicity and i truly truly believe that daniella ortiz is going to go on to do great things and at some point danielle i want to pick up the paper and i'm going to read an article about you and say i
005got to serve with her at one point so congratulations daniella thank you and i'd like to turn it now over to chair sebring mr allstate thank you very much you know this is a good opportunity board members to share a couple thoughts or perspectives i'm happy to just open it up and whoever would have something to say i'll start daniella you have been a gift to this board thank you and to this district in this community thank you you are going to do marvelous things i wish you all the best have some fun make some mistakes screw up a little bit because that's kind of fun too but make sure you come back and tell us all the wonderful things you're doing thank you so much thank you i'd like to take something from dr
006seuss all the places you'll go and the things you'll see and do i wish you the very best thank you thank you dad yeah i would just add danielle you know you and i have had some opportunities to um you know visit about some fairly serious topics and i'm just so grateful for your um your openness and your perspective and your willingness to educate those of us on the board about student perspectives and things going on and more personal to you so wish you all the best i know we'll be hearing more about her so looking forward to that thank you down here tim um i've i've never doubted once that you were connected more than just about anybody at the high school to tell us throughout your tenure about exactly what's going on and
007it's just so nice to have a representative like you to kind of keep us with that student focus thank you and go go first thank you thank you i think that you've really set the bar high for the future representatives um and they will do a great job following up thank you for coming on the board and it was great to see your parents tonight after first time ever seeing you was a little baby getting carried in the house so you've gone great ways and you're gonna go long distance thank you yeah i um daniella um you know my thoughts that you've always been a patient and very methodical listener um every time you're asked your response is always measured it's very wise beyond your years you demonstrate a seasoned maturity and a graceful acknowledgement
008of even divisive issues with a very calming reassurance our school district has benefited from your perspective and with that we have two more very special guests that are joining us tonight mr kirk schneiderwind and greg abbott and as they make their way up i'll allow them to do their own introductions they are from the minnesota school board association mr chair and oatana board members thank you for having me here tonight and i am the executive director for the minnesota school boards association we represent all of our public school boards in the state of minnesota and i am here tonight as you can imagine to name owatonna student daniella ortiz as a recipient of the minnesota school boards association robert e meeks student school board member scholarship [Applause] and i'm going to stay on theme here
009tonight the 3 000 scholarship is one of only two in the state and is given away as a reward and encouragement for students to become involved in governance at their local school level and learn about the importance of having locally elected school boards are there to help students we've heard that that is why board members run for office and why they put all the time and effort into being on the board there's no better way to get input from a board member from the board than from a student board member we show that 102 of our 332 public school districts in minnesota have a student school board member at the table and owatana should feel very proud very proud to have daniella working with them i'm going to turn it over to nikki who serves
010on the msba board of directors and represents director of district 1. nikki um again i am very pleased to be one of the representatives on the minnesota state school board association and we selected two winners as kirk mentioned from nearly 40 applicants and let me tell you it was a tough decision reading all of those applications was impressive and daniella stood out i tried to read them non-committally and without judgment um and as did the other board members and you you rose to the top of the list so the judges cited you for not only your personal high academic achievements but also for your involvement in school and community activities from sports to orchestra and google coding program the committee also liked your insight and contributions as the board worked through equity plans and long
011open forums about critical race theory and was able to give insight from a class that you took through mankato state university your insight and work with the mixed roots and diversity group shows a commitment to helping all students it's no wonder that your recommendation letter is referred to you as strengthening our belief in equity danielle daniella is a wonderful example of what a student board member can do and i'm pleased to help present the award to you tonight thank you [Applause] yes yeah lori can you get a picture of that too kirk greg thank you very much appreciate you making the trek over well [Laughter] you think you'd like to follow up with anything you'd like to say no no just a thank you to you all it has been an honor to work with
012each and every one of you i've learned so much from my time on the school board and it's something that i will always be grateful for thank you all and thank you to my community growing up in oatana is been a blessing in disguise even though it's been a small town it's been a town filled with such amazing people and an amazing amount of support so i just wanted to thank each and every one of you guys as well thank you [Applause] as we move on uh item five tonight is public forum check with sarah are there any cards any cards for public forum tonight okay we will move on item six tonight would just be for general information in your packet you had a copy of the enrollment report and this is a good
013opportunity if you have any questions for mr elstad with regard to the information on that report any questions hearing none we will continue to move on here uh item seven tonight uh nothing required by the board in terms of action the first would be board forum um jolene do you mind if i start with you looking for board form tonight i'm just wrapping up year in activities with kids in schools and it's good stuff it's fun nothing nothing tonight um i have a couple uh things in particular one um our june board meeting that would normally be on june 27th is going to move to june 20th so we came to understand that there would be some absences on the 27th we've moved it to the 20th so if you could just take a peek
014at your calendars and just make sure that you can make that change if there's going to be any issue just let us know with that and board members also you'll get an email from me or it'll probably actually come from sarah we're at that point where we would do a review of mr ellstad as uh we're coming up on a year-end you know superintendents go july 1 through june 30. so you'll see probably from sarah an email with regard to the review packet that you'll find there eric do you have anything for board forum nothing to name looking forward to graduation at the aoc and commencement at the ohs in a week or so okay um we just had a state school board meeting and i must say that was the hardest secret i've ever
015had to keep [Laughter] um i'm definitely looking forward to the ceremony but the last day of school for the seniors is in just one week and on our last day of school we get to go visit our past elementary schools to kind of just say our final goodbyes so i definitely think i'll tear up there a little bit so but i'm excited for graduation in 11 days but overall i would just like to say how i believe successful this past year has been for the ohs especially considering everything that we've had to go through throughout this entire year with all of the covid um code mandates and all those different rules i think at the end of the day at the end of the year it's been pretty successful thank you next up under um
016discussion items would be the policy revisions this is just the first reading they were included in your board packet and this is a good opportunity if you have any questions for members of the policy committee with regard to the changes that you saw in the policy revisions any questions i just had some comments about the bullying policies and i did notice that they're going to be reviewing those policies with students on a yearly basis and particularly lifting up the idea that the person who engages in an act of bullying is going to be held responsible but so are the people who are standing by and allowing it to happen if you see somebody being picked on and harassed pushed around step forward step up and help them that's it okay any other comments with regard
017to these policies okay hearing none i'm gonna move on turn things over to mr allstate for the administrative report thank you mr chair members of the board um i wish my legislative report were longer this evening last night the legislature of 2022 adjourned they i believe they did reach agreement on a tax bill but there was no spending bill agreement yesterday at last report just before i stepped into the building tonight i know governor walls held a press conference with representative portman as well as senator miller to discuss the potential of a special session but nothing's been decided yet a couple of implications that are hanging in the balance for us as far as the target or the four billion dollar framework that was said in spending there's a significant impact to owatana and the
018results of special education cross subsidy to a point where that would really benefit our taxpayers uh give us additional revenue every year that's a big one and then we're also waiting to hear about a bonding bill that provides a significant career pathway opportunity for our students all of those are simply waiting they've made it through both that bonding bill made it through both the house and the senate and was just waiting for the final approval on the bonding bill before headed to heading to governor wallace desperate signature so again there are a lot of things in the balance here a lot of impacts to our school district and our taxpayers and i'm hopeful that we can get some of that done in a special session so that we can continue to provide the great opportunities
019that we do for our students so uh moving on uh as as was mentioned graduation uh we're coming up in the last few days of school here our alc graduation is next wednesday june 1st at 1 pm at the owatonna foundation building at the fairgrounds the cannon valley special education cooperative graduation will also be next wednesday june 1st at 11 a.m over in faribault and we do have a couple of graduates coming through that program this year as well and then of course we'll host commencement here on friday night uh june 3rd at 7 pm uh on the field which was the request of our students that we return to an outdoor graduation ceremony we're crossing our fingers for good weather and if we don't the rain date will be sunday afternoon as we've typically
020had it but a lot of students and families like the idea of being outside again the friday night option offers an opportunity to have a whole weekend when extended family might be in town to be part of uh graduation parties and the ceremony itself so and then of course the last thing uh in a couple nights we're hosting um our high school scholarship awards here at the high school where i think uh there'll be well over two hundred thousand dollars in scholarships given out that night so it's a great night for our seniors and our students that are moving on uh to the next step of their journey so that's all i have this evening thank you and i'd like to move on to the next item if i could um a little over a
021week and a half ago i had the opportunity to attend the owatonna education association year of and year-end banquet as we were progressing through the evening and honoring retirees we got to the part where there was teacher of the year candidates that were to be introduced and unfortunately a storm came in inclement weather came in that sent everybody sort of scattering for their car i am eternally grateful for the great staff we get to work with here in oatano and i would like to make sure that tonight we take an opportunity to lift up our teacher of the year candidates in this way in front of our school board and community so at this point i would like to ask matt mccartney and mark langlois to come to the front to please introduce our teacher
022of the year candidates thank you for being here tonight mr mccartney mr langley here you can go right there all right well thank you board uh for inviting us superintendent elstead chair uh the rest of you it's quite an honor to be part of this banquet and to experience it is is a lot of fun and so like superintendent elstad said cut short dramatically and so the tradition is with our teacher of the year the prior teacher of the year does that announcement so i asked mark if you would join us as well since he was our teacher of the year last year and so i'd like to ask mark to come on up here and join uh take my spot actually and introduce this amazing crew that that we have before you here uh
023thank you for allowing me to be here today i've got just a couple thank yous first of all i want to thank the oea for finding ways to support and recognize so many educators in our schools we all appreciate just honoring years of service retirees and the annual otana teacher of the year next i just want to thank you the board we appreciate your time commitment to your continuous support through all of our challenges and successes over the last couple years and uh and the years to come the last year has been really a humbling experience for myself it's been full of support encouragement and reflection which i'm deep deeply thankful for one of the true gifts of the year is i've had the unique opportunity to represent the teachers of owatonna and share with
024others what amazing things are happening in our schools tonight is another one of those nights as i get an opportunity to share a glimpse about these amazing 2022 owatonna teacher of the year finalists as i connected with colleagues and watched videos they have created it is my pleasure to talk about each gifted educator tonight i will begin with heather bay she is a leap and el teacher at oms she's described as very being very kind and thoughtful knows what kids and coworkers need before they even ask she has a strong yet calm voice of equity she's the mastermind behind the we are oms event which has happened a couple years now as equity has been an emphasis in our district over the last number of years she has always been that voice which we are
025thankful for she asks difficult questions to get the most out of the students the students are very much loved and they get whatever they need so if we could give a round of applause to heather bay uh next i have the honor of introducing uh lauren gendron she is a language arts teacher excuse me mr langley yes might we have lauren stanford yes thank you yes [Laughter] lauren is a language arts teacher and avid teacher at ohs she was in her videos was recognized as a great colleague multiple times her students always feel loved she's a positive and caring teacher and she's described as a relationship builder she has a great listening ear she's the teacher that has that students she currently has or those that she has had in the past come to visit
026her just to connect with her she's a jack of all trades she's a part of the avid speech team and teaches in rich classes her students always feel loved for who they truly are in her classroom if we could give her another round of applause [Applause] next we could have emily lechner stand please [Applause] emily is a life science and forensics teacher at oms she's described as genuine and student centered she's committed to get to know all of her students she's an extremely hard worker she often displays student learning which is great to see what is happening in her classroom she not only has a passion for science but more importantly as an advocate for all of her students she's kind spunky fun and is the definition of a team player she desires to develop
027students as leaders as she is one of the leaders of our web group at oms if you give her another round of applause next if we could have abby olsen please stand [Applause] abby olsen teaches sixth grade she teaches language arts and social studies at oms uh when described it's three words and they're all the same and that's relationships relationships relationships she knows all of her students academically and personally she attends activities or does google meets with students just to learn about their interests she's constantly checking in with students and colleagues she's got a knack for knowing when stu when people need to be heard she jumps in right away to get the task done but often questions things when we're doing things that maybe aren't best for students she is very creative and out
028of the box thinker which makes her lessons very engaging if we give her another round of applause next christy roman christie is an english teacher and ap college in the schools teacher at ohs she is defined or described as the ultimate professional she's a hard worker that always goes above and beyond she's committed to give students a first class educational experience she's all about loving and supporting people she challenges students that need to be challenged challenged and knows how to intervene when that is needed as described by a colleague she is the teacher we all want to be the truest friend and a gifted teacher she sets the bar high to make us all better if we can give her another round of applause [Applause] and i've saved our 2022 uh teacher of the year
029is andrew melo [Applause] andrew is a spanish and world languages teacher at oms creative is an understatement when it comes to what he does in his classroom students say it is fun and we learn to and i know that from personal experience with my own children connections with kids are off the charts with andrew he has a passion for life and positive energy that he brings every day he's flexible and always is helping colleagues and students in whatever they need kids come first and he brings a sense of student ownership into his classroom as a student council advisor he does not have a student council agenda but he is about inspiring kids to be a voice of change so you could give us another round of applause for arch thank you very much mr langley
030thank you very much and mr mccartney if you would have just one more second for us um we also came to understand uh that wednesday night that there is a bit of a changing of some leadership within oea um talk us through that yeah so uh it's been a handful of years when my good friend todd andrews and i have been in leadership with the oea uh 14 years together as vice president and president todd actually took over a year before with president so he's been there for quite a while it's been has 22 years in our district about 20 my years has been serving either as vice president or membership or other pieces of that and over the last course of the last year and a half or so todd and i sat down
031and said hey it's time to we've been here a long time let's uh let's break let's keep this thing going with other people and so uh graciously as we as we decided to walk away and had um elections we had some again more amazing people in our district that were willing to stand up and take on that and run elections and be part of that and we had new people brought into leadership really top leadership as president vice president but as well as other places as well with our exec board ellen peterson typically runs our whole banquet uh she was done after this year she's been grooming an aj franco as well as a whole team of people so it's it's pretty exciting to see what's to come next with new new blood and really
032a mixture of new and old coming back in and and stepping up to continue that process so make some introductions yes i would love to introduce uh to the board some of the people that you'll be working with uh vice president they'll take my spot eric oppelgaard and then our new oea president gail trotz again board thank you for this time and recognizing these amazing teachers here mr chair if i may i'd like to publicly thank and recognize mr anders and mr mccartney for their leadership and service to the teachers and our district and community in general it's not easy taking on a leadership role like that and i appreciate the work that they have done and continued to do to foster a great relationship between the district and teachers and certainly our other staff
033in the in the district as well so thank you to all of you the teachers that came tonight and i very much appreciate that um having been to your banquet and the very abrupt ending to uh how things uh concluded i really wanted the opportunity for for all of you to to have this chance tonight so thank you so much for for coming tonight uh we will move on in fact we'll pause for just a second i know you probably all want to stick around and hear the hear out the rest of the the meeting that uh as as they are making their way out mr allstate you have anything else for administrative report i do not this evening thank you we're going to move on to the consent agenda quick reminder here we are
034going to approve the minutes from april 25th and may 9th the disbursement and the personnel reports we'll entertain a motion to that effect so moved second we have motion in a second any further discussion pairing none uh eric it's a roll call vote yep deborah aye nikki hi laurie aye tim hi jolene hi mark hi and i'm myself and i 7-0 pass motion carries thank you very much we will move on to item nine which would be board action requested the first of which would be policy revisions we had an opportunity at our last meeting to to go through those policies uh we'll entertain a motion to approve at this time i move to approve the policies as presented second we have a motion and a second any further discussion with regard to those policy
035changes hearing none all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries item b which would be the ratification of the 2021 through tentative agreement with the local 147. i'm going to turn things over to mr elstad thank you mr chair members of the board tonight i have asked chris pica to be present if you have any questions regarding the tentative agreement we've reached with our secretary and clerical employees and employees in the district hearing none we'll entertain a motion to approve i move that the board approved the 2021-2023 agreement with local 147 asks me a fl cio secretarial clerical employees and authorized the chair and clerk to execute the agreement on behalf of the school board second a motion in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries
036item c tonight would be the 2021-2022 school calendar mr ellstad thank you mr chair members of the board tonight you are taking final approval of this year's school calendar our current year this is something we do in the may meeting every year to recognize that we did have some slight changes due to weather or inclement weather days citing those as friday december 10th and friday january 14th were the two weather-related school closures this year the rest of the calendar was approved previously but i'm seeking your approval tonight for this final calendar of the 21-22 school year any questions i have one so just curious with graduation listed as june 3rd heaven forbid something actually happened with the weather and it get changed but would we have to revisit this and reapprove it if there were
037a change let me see if i captured your question right so friday if this if the friday um june 3rd if there was weather there it would still it's a school not in session day it's a staff professional day a professional day for them and so if graduation is you're asking for students if it's rained out yes the ceremony then moved to sunday afternoon yep will it have to be reflected in the calendar and what do we have to do it will not have to because it's outside of the normal school day perfect thank you thank you sorry if i misunderstood your question you're fine any other questions want to be kind enough to introduce this motion i move that the board approves the final 2021 through 2022 school calendar second we have motion in
038a second all in favor with an eye hi any opposed that motion carries item d tonight is 2022 2023 school calendar mr elstad yeah so members of the board you've previously approved this 22-23 calendar which is our next school year the administration is proposing one small change and it really only impacts our grades 9 through 12 students as the calendar ends next year the last day of school previously was set for friday june 2nd it's also the same night as we would have graduation there are some difficulties and some real logistic problems with having a full day of school and then trying to do graduation ceremony that night mostly because we need staff to help facilitate graduation this is our first sort of issue we've run into with going back to a friday night graduation
039ceremony so what i'm asking for you to consider approving tonight is that you would re-approve the 22-23 calendar noting that the last day for our students in grades 9 through 12 would be thursday june 1st and then friday june 2nd would be a new no school day for grades 9 through 12. staff will still be here on that friday june 2nd but they'll be assisting with graduation preparation any questions um so i know typically in the past seniors have gotten out a day before the rest of nine through 12. do you see any issues with that and also don't you normally have rehearsal the day before graduation and have you we do we're trying to move towards a rehearsal the day of so we can have the rehearsal the morning of and then that evening
040what we've run into in the past and i know we've kind of stumbled over this a few years is that we'll have um students that come to rehearsal get sick and then all of a sudden so when it's spread apart by days and sometimes we have two or three days in between them and so this actually makes it where there's a rehearsal in the morning the ceremonies at night so it's all a little better organized if you will so that would be the only thing and then as far as the seniors last day i don't have that on this calendar i don't think but it would be assumed that the seniors last day would be probably tuesday may 30th or wednesday may 31st and typically mr cath goes through that with seniors at the beginning
041of second semester when they start to formalize that okay and their schedule thank you [Music] any other questions eric would you introduce this motion i move that the board approved the revised 22 2022 2023 school calendar as presented making june 1st last day of school for grades 9 through 12. second we motion in a second all in favor with an eye are you opposed motion carries would be the health insurance renewal mr ellstad yes this is an item that we have to do annually and so i've asked amanda hellman our director of finance and operations to be present tonight to answer questions and perhaps amanda if you could give come to the podium and just give a little response if needed in regard to our health insurance renewal and entertain questions from the board thank
042you yeah sure so over a little over a couple weeks ago we met with our insurance committee district-wide representatives for each employee group of the district with our agents of record national insurance services who did the calculation that's provided in the in the packet for you guys to kind of forecast what our revenue needs are moving forward for our insurance plan and they are recommending a six percent increase for next year right now trend is setting about seven and a half um so we are fortunate that we did go self-insured because we've been able to manage through that a little bit better than some of the other cooperative groups and things like that so they are recommending six percent um as our increase for next year question amanda can you remind me were we flat
043last year in other words we didn't take an increase did we or five percent oh we didn't yep but still given still sort of still under trend at that point yep yep yep yeah and we were able to weather the storm a little bit because we had about 10 large claims that came in that were over our stop-loss insurance of about 150 000 and if we would have been part of a cooperative group that would have looked quite different and national insurance has said that we probably would have looked at a double-digit increase so we are fortunate to have the self-insurance pool to be able to help manage those claims a little bit better any other questions one of you be kind enough to introduce this motion i move that the board accept the self-insured
044health insurance renewal with blue cross blue shield second motion in a second all in favor with an eye are you opposed motion carries item f is exciting mr elstad thank you mr chair members of the board um as we honored daniella tonight for her great accomplishments and service to the board it is my honor tonight to introduce you to the new student school board representatives that will be seated in june as part of our vision for adding student perspective to board meetings when we brought daniella on board the vision was to have a cohort join her and then we ran into covid and that was not possible for us but we are able to realize that vision now of naming one sophomore to be junior and one junior to be senior so i'm going to
045introduce them one at a time and so our first representative haley if you would stand please is haley chairston haley is a current junior to be senior at owatonna high school we'll learn a lot more about haley as we move forward but i do know she's part of our speech and debate team um and uh haley is going to be serving a one-term year during her senior year of next year so thank you haley for being here and thank you for choosing to be part of the board and then the second person i would like to lift up is jace forsell jace forsell is a current sophomore at owatonna high school and he will be a junior obviously next year jace will be serving a two-year term and so during his junior and senior year
046and as we would go forward then we'll add a new to be junior every year to join uh the to be senior so we'll constantly have folks that have some experience on the board i want to publicly thank haley and jace for taking this step forward and i think we should give them a round of applause [Applause] thank you any questions one of you be kind enough to introduce this motion for us i move that jace forsell and haley chairston be appointed as student board representatives as described with chase serving a two-year term in haley serving a one-year term second we have a motion in a second all in favor with an eye opposed motion carries haley and jace welcome glad to have you a part of this uh last item uh gifts to the
047district mr allstate uh thank you mr chair members of the board tonight we have a uh another good list of gifts of the district uh tonight i think we're close to the 1200 range of gifts for a varying number of activity gifts everything from the track club to scholarships for a third grade field trip from mckinley walmart gift cards you name it we reach out to the community and the community continues to support our students in their activities so i lift these up for your consideration of approval tonight questions one more motion please i move that the board approved the resolution for acceptance of gifts as presented second we have motion in a second eric if you would please deborah yay nikki yeah laurie hi tammy hi jolene hi great meeting tonight folks uh thank
048you all very much uh i move that we adjourn the meeting second promotion in a second all in favor with an eye aye opposed motion carries thank you