001good evening everyone and welcome we are the otana school board this is monday it's the 21st of march 5 30. i'm going to call this meeting to order uh eric our attendance tonight we're just missing lori lori is absent would you all please rise join me in the pleasure pledge 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 everything tonight everything else uh first item tonight would be to approve the agenda as presented moved second we have a motion in a second any further discussion all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries item four is the mission moment i'm going to turn things over to mr ellstad thank you mr sebring and members
002of the board it is my pleasure tonight to introduce three students i'm basing tonight's mission moment off of our commitment to 21st century teaching and learning so i would like braelyn robbins landon sturgis and logan petrowski to stand up here please your talents are going to be on display here tonight so i've learned a long time ago that when you have students and you have issues one of the best resources we have amongst us are our students and the brains and the really cool brains that they have so these three individuals after the increased incidence that you may remember from last fall around tick-tock based vandalism these three oms students decided to make an app for a phone or an application for a device and classroom tablet to help track time outside of the classroom
003when they did this they used students lunch codes as ids and they ask the students to enter them into the app the apps finds the codes on a separate spreadsheet then loads them knows the name attached to the code the student selects a location like bathroom it turns it red and i actually got to see this mr robbins walk me through the app and on the back side of the app and again what it does is it tracks students when they're out of the classroom where they're at and how long they're there because as mrs sullivan and the administrative team may be investigating things that happen having that piece of evidence is really good and i say information but these students develop this app on the back side it tracks a student's name again location
004destination reason for leaving the classroom they help us solve a problem and i think they're they're to be commended for that but here's a couple of cool things mr robbins or advisor said my favorite part of this was watching the students work through their failures or having to rework their quote unquote working app to fill a need that was requested by the oms admin what that tells me is that experiencing productive struggle at times for kids is okay because it makes them think of something new and they get to reiterate again mrs sullivan the principal stated the app that these students created is already making a difference for us at otana middle school we have no doubt that as we set it up throughout the building and will continue to help us keep students in
005the classroom for instruction which is why we want to have them there this innovative thinking problem solving and collaboration between students and staff makes me as a superintendent very owe a ton of problem and so in introducing them one by one going from left to right as board we have landon sturgis braylon robbins and logan petrowski did i say the name last name right logan you did fantastic i'd like to give them a round of applause for their would you three ingenuity turning around real quick i think there's a couple other people that would like to take a photo there [Applause] while you're standing there waiting for another photo members of the board this is the kind of ingenuity and innovation that we encourage amongst our students to think outside the box solve problems maybe
006these three gentlemen will solve a world problem in the future and it's because when they're given that chance and thank you to for mr robbins thank you mr robbins for helping them and guiding them through this process and leading them through the productive struggle of learning but i can't thank you three enough and we're so proud of you and i'm gonna open it up to the board if you have any questions for these three gentlemen yeah you guys are great you're just great gentlemen you'd look as though you'd rather be anywhere in the world which of the three of you is the the brain trust behind this who did the heavy lifting with the uh the writing probably he did a lot of it at home and stuff which really helped out a lot yeah
007and was it something that the three of you spotted as an opportunity or did someone bring it to your attention and say we got to figure this thing out like started it by giving us like the proposal like hey this might be a cool thing to maybe try get this may challenge you because all of us started off going pretty strong into this class and we kind of got it really fast so then we said he challenged us to do this once i'm guessing once he started realizing how far it's coming he started realizing like okay this is actually something we could use and then and then when we kept going eventually the principal started getting in like okay now they see it too and then they start asking us questions and how to get
008it better and eventually we got it to where it is now and follow in a couple of classrooms around our school how did you learn to create apps trial and error trial is it a specific language that you're working in or we did a part of it in javascript on google script the other part of it was made on mit app inventor which is just like block code you're just dragging up login oh yeah you know block code but i'm familiar with the javascript i have a question um what was the class um for what class was it it was an elective that we had chosen at the beginning at the end of seventh grade so that we could take this here what was the like most difficult part of making the app do you
009need to communicate with other websites it's really gentlemen thank you congratulations [Applause] item top five tonight is a public forum it's a good opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of meeting decorum we did not allow slander defamation profanity personal attacks or revelations of private data as cherry respectfully request public refrain from interrupting the speakers during public forum you'll be provided three minutes as to state your name and the subject you wish to address the only card we have tonight april st martin miss st martin welcome thank you good evening good evening beautiful day outside thank you very much first of all i would like to say thank you to nikki and tim for responding to a couple of my emails this last month i do appreciate it and i look forward to continuing that
010conversation a little bit more i am still waiting for someone to reach out to me first but at least it's encouraging to me that two of the board members responded uh to a couple of my last emails so thank you now with that being said one comment that was made was that it wasn't clear exactly what the school board was that it isn't clear to the school board who i am requesting a response from personally i don't care who answers my questions but i would figure if i sent you a personal email that i could expect a response from whoever i emailed it to but i just want an answer so it doesn't matter to me who responds and at least if you can't find the answer at least just say your you'll help me
011find it or you'll help me find the person who can help me get that answer so for instance i requested a syllabus for the critical race theory class last year it is almost a year later and i still do not have a syllabus to look at the answer i received is that the owatana that owatana doesn't keep that and i should ask minnesota state in mankato to where i can get a copy of that i called them and they told me that they didn't have it and that i needed to ask the teacher who taught the class so i emailed her and i didn't get a response so excuse me so i emailed and talked with mr sebring one time about this and he did state that he would help me get something to look
012at a syllabus and i never got a follow-up so i tried to follow up with somebody else that didn't work either so i emailed michelle krell and i still didn't get an answer or a response so shouldn't it be common courtesy that if i have a question regarding anything especially something that the school board is supposed to know then shouldn't i be able to get a response and it shouldn't matter who the response is from if i email you and you're not able to email it send it to somebody else who can at least touch base with me so i just think it would be common courtesy to just reach out and say you'll help me find that answer and even when i do ask for help on where to find the information most of
013the time i get zero or little very little response but once again i do want to thank tim and nikki for at least reaching out and trying to re not trying but responding to my email the last month didn't get all of the questions quite answered but once again looking forward to that so just one question is that if you ever question why i question the school's transparency or lack of communication then i have one more question for you why do we elect school board members to be the bridge between the district and parents and the community if we have to do all of the research on our own to find the answers thank you thank you moving on item six tonight would be the general information that would include the enrollment report does anybody
014have any questions for mr alstead with regard to what you found in the enrollment report okay hearing none we're gonna move on uh item seven uh for discussion no action required by the board first item would be board forum nikki or nikki jolie i'm gonna start down on your end okay nothing debra um last thursday i went to the community education building and got a tour with deb johnson very interesting got to sit in on some of the adult classes and stand in a corner and watch some of the kids that play with their parents and learned a little more about the parent and student children classes that they have it's very really interesting i had nothing uh eric name tim i heard there's basketball here tomorrow other than that um so yesterday and today
015i had state school board meeting and during during it we discussed um we had a presentation from katie peckle who apparently used to teach in oatana so she was very excited when i said hi i'm nikki from owatana the presentation was they apparently recently did a survey of principals within minnesota and got some feedback and i'm pleased to say that a lot of their time that they've spent they felt that it was worthwhile that they loved their jobs um so again from from that perspective they love what they're doing and that was good to hear um some of the opportunities um that they just that they were most concerned about again which i believe all of us are is student and staff mental health so that was raised quite a bit the other topic that
016we discussed was cosa which is the new organization i believe there's 21 state school boards that are looking or that are creating a new national school board association and so they are working on bylaws right now and hopefully in june of 23 is when they are hoping to have the first um national school board event for everyone so i'll keep everyone updated on that daniel um just some updates throughout the high school is that the speech team did really well at big nine they won um there is a boys basketball game tomorrow i'm excited to go to that we all get to we're all excused like halfway throughout the school day so that's nice um and i guess we're all just excited for spring break that's about it and adapted floor hockey made it to
017state as well yeah thank you mr allstate anything to add for the administrative report yeah just a couple of things tonight um i reported to you last time that we had zero covet cases for the first time in a long time that number didn't stay the same we had four cases across the district which is negligible i believe it is still my recommendation to take down our covid district tracker until we reach a spot where maybe it would be more significant again let's hope that never happens that we have to do that legislative update wanted to share a couple of things with you that this morning we had a meeting with our um our group that's lobbying for uh equalization of levy there are two bills that are currently in committee that have a particular
018importance for us one of them is a school levy tax relief and reform this is a tax reform bill so this is not in the education committee but it's in both the house and senate tax committees one of the things that i've stated before to our community and certainly the school board is that we are considered what they call a tax poor district in that we don't have a lot of really big businesses that pay taxes like other communities do and so unfortunately because that's in place and because the actual formula they use um is in my opinion somewhat archaic it means that our individual property owners pay more for the same amount of revenue this actual tax reform for our district would provide tax relief for our taxpayers in the amount of 3.9 million
019dollars a year it's a big deal and taxpayers would see immediate relief on this and it is something that i have been advocating for with our local legislators both senator jacinski and representative petersburg are supportive of this bill because for them and the constituents that they represent it means savings and taxes which is i think what most people like to hear the other thing i would lift up to you is since 1975 special education has been funded only at a certain percentage from the federal government and so the state government was supposed to pick up the rest of it unfortunately they haven't and so local taxpayers have picked up quite a bit of that bill one that's being proposed right now would eliminate the cross subsidy which is meaning taking general fund dollars and putting
020them towards special education needs on top of what is already there this this particular bill for us means that we would be able to get back about 5.4 million dollars a year in general at revenue which means that again how that translates to our taxpayers is to really provide some relief for taxpayers but continue the funding uh we're one of the only countries in the world that that has all students attending public schools and i'm a special educator at heart i believe in it wholeheartedly that every student deserves a free and appropriate education this helps us fund that from now into the future without having to put burden on other programming to do that so those are two bills that we're really trying to reach out to legislators and get them to support i'm not
021certain i have yet to contact i haven't reached representative petersburg yet about the special education cross subsidy with our surplus that we've all read about there's a lot of people asking for different things these two solutions though might really propel education funding and take the burden off of school boards and school districts of asking for continual operating levy so those two are very helpful other things the current owatonna high school task force will meet again tomorrow evening as i mentioned at our work session last week there will be two proposals that are being brought forward for the task force members to consider one of them is very fleshed out has a lot more detail behind it the other one does not but the both of them will be presented to the task force for their
022discussion leading to an eventual recommendation coming to this board proposal the proposed date is monday april 11th at the work session to do that and then uh as daniella mentioned congratulations to our speech team who are big nine champions it's great to have um i got a chance one of the best events i've i've been to and i've been to it a number of times is the state adaptive floor hockey tournament probably one of my favorite events ever because when the students are done they're just happy they got to play and i just think that that just warms my heart about how activities mean so much to all of our students we had a great crowd there on saturday and it was really fun to see that our parents and community members come and support
023our kids uh that means a lot to them because they saw a lot of clapping and cheering even when we were down by four or five goals but they came it was a very close game it wasn't so these the other teams scored with 54 seconds left in the game uh to win otherwise it was tight it was anyway it was a great game but it was fun to be at and then of course tomorrow we'll kick it off and we sent off our basketball team in a send-off today for the state tournament so proud times at owatonna high school and certainly in the owatonna public schools thank you thank you moving on to the consent agenda three items in it the minutes from the february 28 and march 14 meetings disbursement and personnel reports
024anybody have any reason that any of these should be pulled out hearing none i'll entertain a motion to approve we have motion in a second any further discussion eric it's roll call vote yeah deborah hi julian hi nikki hi tim hi mark hi and i myself and i six so fast motion carries thank you i'm gonna have you introduce the motion on the next issue right here uh item nine tonight board action requested the first one being the resolution relating to the termination and on and non-renewal of the teaching contract of probationary teachers sorry i don't want you to introduce that one i'll have it item b have you do item b mr ellstad would you uh give us an update on that uh this is uh something that we're required by statute every year
025that if there are staff that we are terminating or non-renewing their contract this is part of the statutory requirement to not only evaluate staff but also we have to look at licensures if there's a staff member that doesn't have the right license they received a variance by statute we have to let them go and then apply for another variance if necessary but it's something that we typically do at this very meeting every year because of that situation questions i want to be kind enough to introduce this motion for us i move that the board approved the resolution relating to the termination and non-renewal of the teaching contract of probationary teachers motion in a second eric we'll call deborah aye julian hi nikki aye tim hi mark and i myself motion carries item b ratification of
026the 2021 through 2023 tentative agreement with the ohatana education association one more time mr olstad thank you this was in your packet the information about our attentive agreement with the otan education association to see that their bargaining unit ratified this on march 9th that's now being proposed for your consideration tonight and i as well as chris peak our director of hr stand ready for questions you might have questions appear to be no questions yes i move that the board approved the 2021 through 2023 agreement oea owatana education association second there's motion in a second i'll have you do the roll call vote one more time deborah aye julian aye mickey aye tim hi mark aye myself pass motion carries item c is the compensation and benefits for individual non-affiliated employees mr alstad typically once our
027largest bargaining unit which happens to be the oton education association reaches a tentative agreement with the board other groups of employees then we try to get contracts taken care of for them as well so again you received information on this and this is not anyone that's non-affiliated with one of our collective bargaining units any questions one of you be kind enough to introduce this motion i move that the board approved the 2021 to 2023 salary and benefits package and employee guidelines changes to individual non-affiliated employees and authorized the chair and clerk to execute the individual agreements on behalf of the school board we have a motion in a second eric deborah aye jolene aye nikki aye tim hi mark aye aye myself tonight pass motion carries item d is the ratification of the tentative agreement
028with the yotanna education support staff mr alstead again again this is one of our collective bargaining units this happens to be the special education paraprofessionals that we've reached out of agreement with the information was shared with you in your packet i would stand ready or chris would stand ready for any questions you might have board any questions i have a question did the para professionals agree to the same thing that the teachers did then yes okay in total further questions jolene would you introduce the motion i moved that the board approved the 2021-2023 agreement with owatonna educational support staff special education paraprofessionals and authorized the chair and clerk to execute the agreement on behalf of the school board second we have a motion and a second eric if you would yeah deborah aye jolene aye
029nikki hi tim hi mark hi and i myself sanai 6-0 pass motion carries item e is the compensation and benefits for district directors that would be non-cabinet mr alstead yes these will be uh people that serve as like district director of technology and innovation director of student nutrition some of our departmental directors in this group they are non-affiliated but they're part of the director group any questions hearing none tim you have it queued up could you sure i have moved that the board approved the 21 2021 through 2023 salary and benefits package and employee guideline changes for individual director non-cabinet employees and authorizing chair and clerk to execute the individual agreements on behalf of the school second we have motion in a second eric if you would deborah aye julian aye nikki hi tim hi
030mark hi and i myself said i 6 pass motion carries item f compensation and benefits for individual cabinet employees mr alstad likewise these are cabinet level directors so director of human resources director of finance and operations teaching and learning community ed and so on questions none nikki you have it queued up i move that the board approved the 2021-2023 salary and benefits packages and employee guideline changes for individual cabinet employees and authorized the chair and clerk to execute the individual agreements on behalf of the school board second motion and a second eric if you would debra aye julian hi nikki aye tim hi mark hi i'm myself and i 6-0 pass motion carries item g is the ratification of the tentative agreement with the oatana education assistance mr ellstad yeah uh this is a group
031of employees that serve as sometimes supervision assistants they're in classrooms providing educational supports that are non-special education so it's just other educational assistants that are needed to support classrooms and students questions deborah do you have it queued up yep i moved that the board approved the 2021-2023 agreement with the educational assistant staff and authorized the chair and clerk to execute the agreement on behalf of the school board second we have a motion in a second eric deborah julian aye nikki hi tim hi mark hi and i am myself sonia six sold pass motion carries last item tonight would be the gifts to the district mr elstad looks like there are some nice things on that list again yeah another nice list of philanthropic gifts given to the school district i would call it one in
032particular for our owatana clay target team that's getting started i can't wait to have go go back out and be with them again this spring the 20 rifle and pistol club and straight river archery club donated four thousand dollars uh toward their effort to cover costs that are incurred to make sure we could get more and more students that are interested to be part of the clay target team it's quite a robust program you want to go out and shoot with the kids last time i did yeah i lost horribly um but i'm willing to go out and do that again it was a lot of fun out of 25 how'd you do less than 10. more than one less than ten but i had so much fun is this one of those things where
033you say pull and they send the table and then the target goes out yeah and um when i was there the two young ladies that i was actually shooting with went uh 23 and 24 for 25. outstanding pretty nice yeah and other than his less than spectacular shooting capability anybody have any questions for mr alstead hearing none i will entertain a motion that we approve the gifts to the district with great appreciation second we have a motion in a second eric one more time yep deborah aye jolene hi nikki hi tim hi mark hi and i'm myself sonia 6-0 pass motion carries final item tonight would be to adjourn so moved second motion in a second all in favor with an eye opposed motion carries thank you folks