001and welcome we are the otana school board this is tuesday it's the 28th of september 5 30. i'm going to call this meeting to order eric our attendance tonight we're missing lori and nikki tonight hopefully we will hear from nikki or here comes nikki correction we are only missing lori all right thank you as nikki makes her way forward if all of you would please rise and we'll give nikki just a second to find her place okay i pledge allegiance to the way of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible first item tonight would be to approve the agenda as presented we'll entertain a motion second we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor with an eye
002any opposed motion carries next up is mission moment i'm going to turn things over to mr elstad thank you mr chair members of the board as we do at our monthly meetings we honor staff and students and this month we are honoring our human resources team so i would like to have mallory hermann hr specialist cheryl summer hr specialist and chris pika our director of human resources please stand tonight we're looking at or honoring our strategic direction of high quality teaching and learning and as i look at the feats of the past year for this team as you can tell they're a smaller team but they certainly are committed to their work our hr team does things like employee related programs employee relations issues screening and interviewing employment records verification personnel related correspondence and reports
003general support to employees licensing and certification which i would add minnesota is a feat in all of itself and then obviously substitutes in coverage and i could pause there for a moment during the past year as you know substitutes were in high demand but we had a very low inventory because of coronavirus and the lack of subs that we're willing to substitute and this team was nothing less than amazing in their efforts to help us with that we also welcome nearly 70 new staff to our district both licensed and support staff and of course this team greets them and offers them their first orientation to the district and most recently uh chris was appointed uh covet coordinator because we had a long-term absence from uh amy johavelka who was our covet coordinator last year this
004team has gone above and beyond their normal work hours and duties for covet contact tracing answering questions and returning to school and it wasn't a short length of time it was now going on 19 months of having to do that they're also willing to go to other buildings and cover duties when we were short in other buildings and also providing phone coverage and things like that and school offices they truly are committed to high quality teaching and learning and making sure that we get the best and brightest in our school district and for that i'm sincerely appreciative and wanted to lift them up this month as part of our mission moment thank you so much [Applause] we'll move on thank you we'll move on uh item five tonight is public forum and uh this is
005a good opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of meeting decorum we do not allow slander defamation profanity personal attacks or revelations of private data and as chair i respectively request that the public refrain from interrupting speakers during public forum you'll be provided three minutes be asked to state your name and the subject you wish to address i know that there were a few people that made their way in just as sarah came down are there any last minute people that came in that have a card and would like to speak okay hearing none with that i'll introduce our first marlene nelson ms nelson come on down please marlene nelson 1726 moser avenue i'm sure you've noticed how divided people are they've got very short fuses these days some are divided by political party some
006are divided over vaccines some are divided over mandates the last thing we need to do is divide this nation by race and i'm still upset over critical race theory i do not want to see us going into another civil war and if we keep this crap up i'm afraid we might and i read an article in the paper an op-ed piece that said there really was no good explanation of what critical race theory is so i don't know why we're teaching it if we don't know what it is but i want to give you my my definition it's a woke indoctrination and thank you for your outstanding columns residing i'm reading a letter i had regarding dissemination of propaganda in america's public schools and universities and the kids are going to get this soon enough
007the ones that go on to college are going to get it we don't need to be doing this k through 12 because it's going to come up sooner or later like many i've been frustrated by the dumbing down of courses in the humanities and social sciences over the past few years obviously the moral bankrupt woke agenda has spread its tentacles into far more than just academia it's doctrinators are paid big bucks to infiltrate business organizations media sports political parties in order to spread an anti-business anti-american and anti-religious ideology the woke propaganda machine is in overdrive as it thrives on the chaos generated by critical race theory the purpose of crt is to balkanize our blessed nation along racial and socio-economic lines by utilizing the twisted saul alinsky playbook crt also discards the great principles of
008merit-based progress and personal responsibility moreover the woke movement ought to be renamed via sleep of the switch movement as its adherents are tone deaf regarding the aspirations of the american people these speech thought police strive to silence any individual who opposes them or dares to question their regressive marxist worldview common sense americans must fight this pernicious movement with every fiber of their being by calling out each contradiction and incident of hypocrisy within the woke arsenal the survival of our democratic republic hinges on the people's vigilance i wouldn't be here tonight if i could get a guarantee that you were going to pull this out of the public school and i mean pull it out in every aspect because i've been told it's in some of your alphabet soup things like clear and reach if you
009were to take all of this out they're going to get it soon enough when they go to college you don't need to be doing this on a public school level and i just think it's sad that we have to be here if we could get your guarantee that you'd pull this stuff out none of us would be here it's that simple but i don't like the division that i see happening in this country people are very short-tempered tubes and i think a lot of it's to do with indoctrination ms nelson thank you [Applause] that's a good question hang with us for just a second while these guys make some adjustments uh up next would be gary siegler mr ziegler as you make your way up i understand you've got some documents you'll pass along to
010us as the board and then if you don't mind just doing a quick sound check so these gentlemen in the back of the room would be able to double check that thank you can you hear me now does that sound any better it's raining pretty good in my ear you can is is it okay it's all right okay mr cigarette it's all yours as educators the job of teachers is to educate not indoctrinate politics should not enter into the educational process at least in my opinion reading writing and arithmetic should still be the backbone of what today's children are learning in our schools obviously there's a lot more to it than that but a basic core of learning should be in every classroom at every level one has to be able to learn read to
011learn from those who have gone before them one has to be able to write to be able to express oneself you have to know math so you can work to earn a living so you cannot be taken advantage of and history is a big part of that equation too critical race theory takes away from much of what i mentioned it takes away the equal opportunity for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness which is what our country was founded upon crt reports equity not equal opportunity it reduces the drive for individualism individualism is one of the major reasons why the usa is as great as that is today that's why our people all over the world have chosen to immigrate here legally people in previous times came here to pursue better opportunities to make better
012life for themselves and their families we used to welcome immigrants because it not only gave them better lives but it gave all of us better lives because of the new ideas and creativity that came with them whether we were born here or immigrated here everyone had equal opportunity my how times have changed crt takes away the incentives into individualism offers it it promotes a guaranteed outcome it concentrates or centralizes power being the government to equalize those outcomes returns on hard work and extra effort are mostly gone should we be teaching this type of thing in our schools should we be passing students along who have not put in the effort or made the grade should we be graduating students who cannot read write or do arithmetic if they don't learn and we don't make sure
013they learn are we really doing them any favors or are we simply putting them into another form of slavery doing whatever our government tells them to do simply for a livable wage or welfare back in 2001 when no child left behind became a reality that seems to be when we started a backslide now crt taking us backwards crt in and of itself is racist it assigns all of life's grievances by one race to another it suggests that if you're white you have a better chance to excel that is not necessarily true effort driving goals are much more important to attain outcomes i'm not going to say that as a country that we've never been racist because i believe we have we were making great strides towards overcoming this but starting in about 2009 we had
014a big setback that was the beginning of a huge reversal in that process more recently we were making strides in the right direction again and then crt came along the wrong direction again we do not want crt period we do not want it in our schools we do not want it in our workplaces crt is marxism pushing resentment blame guilt fear silence and compliance does any of this sound familiar to you critical race theory is definitely taking us down the wrong path do we really want this in our schools true americans live and promote by values mr ziegler skin color mr sigler that's your time thanks [Applause] next speaker is jason jacobs mr jacobs welcome welcome thank you well once again thank you for allowing me to speak and thank you for serving on the
015school board i'm only here tonight because the last time i was here i heard an opponent the critical race theory state that she wanted to hear from local clergy i am not clergy but i am a person of faith in the old testament we read that moses warned the egyptians of the plagues god would impose upon them if they did not free the israelites and let them return to their home we further go on to read of their refusal to do so and the multitude of plagues that fell upon them some opposition to critical race theory have no problem reading or teaching about the misgivings of the egyptians and their demise however they do have issues with us teaching about the mistreatment of certain groups by our own country past and present maybe some do
016not tend to have a problem with learning about old testament critical race theory because we associate with the israelites however for a country that enslaved people took land from native americans established jim crow laws established laws against interracial marriage segregated schools we might want to change our perspective and ask who are we actually in our story furthermore at the last board meeting i heard concerns that teaching equity and critical race theory sheds white children in a poor light and teaching it may damage self-esteem and self-worth therefore we should not teach certain historic events and examine current policies if we were to eliminate teachings of the bible because it did not paint us in a good picture and made us appear inferior we would not have a bible the whole truth is that we are sinful
017weak people that constantly fall short of the glory of god thankfully he is gracious and merciful and provided us a way out of our peril if we accept the gift of jesus christ but with this we are called to self-reflect examine our lives repent from our sinful ways and be better whether this self-examination is within ourselves or an examination of our policies and laws it does not make us weaker to do this it makes us better and stronger for it lastly god honoring is not posting demeaning comments on social media about our school board it is not about making threats to make lives miserable it is not calling them your servants as i heard at the last meeting it is not asking for clergy to speak and the next sentence criticizing the way people place
018their hand during the pledge of allegiance god honoring is respecting one another speaking in love following laws meant to protect whether that be a fire code capacity or mandates to protect the vulnerable such as masking and distancing the bible says this all you have to do is open it up and read it thank you mr jacobs thank you [Applause] uh the next speaker would be jamie stanislav ms stanislav welcome thank you my name is jamie stanislav and i'm the mother of three boys who attend washington school our family is transracial through adoption and it's been extremely important for our family to understand the equity work that has taken place within the district seeing how the district is actively working to increase minority representation and leadership teach empathy and equity and educate students to think critically
019and compassionately was the main reason we decided to stay in owatonna and raise our family here i thank you as the school board for your commitment to the students of oatana and for the hard work it takes to make equitable decisions so many of the concerns brought up in a recent board in recent board meetings about equity and crt are looking at the same narrative through two different lenses we all care deeply about our students we want them to learn from all perspectives we know that limited and biased viewpoints are dangerous and we want our students to know their value no matter what their background is the beauty of teaching equity and critical thinking is that it teaches our kids to have these same conversations that we're having here tonight with with each other in
020the classroom learning how to do that in a respectful and kind way as parents and community members instead of debating and wasting the time of the school board why don't we sit down and talk with the administrators and teachers let's hear about the equity training that the staff is receiving research and review what's actually in the curriculum at our schools and personally attend those diversity events that our schools are hosting um let's listen to the students who are actually experiencing these conversations i'm here tonight because i want to i want to stand up and be counted among the people advocating for continued equity education and inclusion for every student in our community thank you ms stanislaw thank you uh next card is sue robbins ms robbins welcome my name is sue robbins i'm here to
021talk about basically accountability for the school board just in case anyone needs a reminder about who the school board serves the school board doesn't serve the federal government they don't work for the state government nor the governor they don't work for superintendent elsted they work for the students they work for we the voters they work for we the taxpayers they work for we the people we want transparency and accountability and we are not going away ms robbins thank you next card is zach radke mr atkin welcome hi guys so first of all thank you guys for moving the venue to this location it really is appreciated also thank you for serving on this position i get that it can be pretty tough especially when you got a lot of people coming out with different opinions
022and different ways to do things and on that aspect you know us as parents and us as citizens of this community it's kind of on us you know things have slipped i agree with somebody that said this all started back probably in 2001 with no child left behind so really it's on us we've let it slide until then i also agree that there probably hasn't been a whole lot of transparency but if we're not coming here asking and not coming here to be involved in these kinds of things that's also on us so that's not your guys blame our fault um i have a really hard time with all this stuff this is to me we're getting pushed a lot of propaganda my speech last week our last school board meeting was about world war
023ii i love history what's going on in this country i see a lot of stuff that has a lot of similarities to what the germans and the nazis did to the jewish people a lot of propaganda push that goes along with mass mandates that goes along with vaccine mandates the science is not there to go along with these mandates and i know that that's not your deal but our kids wearing that is your guys's deal and i do appreciate you guys for keeping holding your holding your ground so far and not making that mandated to kids and keeping that the parents choice to um you know to make their decision on whether or not to wear those masks i do appreciate that um it's it's just sad there's a lot of stuff going on this
024country it is a hot button um you know what do you what's a guy do it's we really do need to come together and i really hope we can fill this room and maybe we people on the opposite side of the aisle i mean maybe we can come together and come up with better solutions because equity is not it i mean equity the word itself i mean you can all you have to look at is that one picture of equity where you have three kids standing on blocks but only one can see over the fence i mean equality is getting every kid the right size box so they can see over the fence i mean it's just equality and equity are two totally different things and equity is trying to make everybody on the same
025playing field i mean i but i really don't care as much about the critical race theory i'm here about the mass i really don't want our kids wearing mass and pfizer i've seen made vaccines they're trying to make it fda approved for five to eleven year olds i don't know what that means for schools and trying to get involved with making vaccines mandated on kids i know that schools won't make it but i don't know where that'll lead and i mean this stuff is not okay i mean we're the experiment on this vaccine and i know people feel strongly on it but they had no there was no experiments done thank you thanks mr radke our next card tonight is from nicole barfnick ms barfnick welcome hi thank you hello my name is nicole and
026i'm not from oatana originally i'm here today to share a little of my personal story with you and talk about my concerns as a parent of a student who attends your school district i was born at hennepin county medical center in an impoverished white family and raised in a neighborhood where you don't want to be caught with your windows down or your doors unlocked i walk through metal detectors to receive my state approved education and i walk the streets of north minneapolis to learn survival anyone from a neighborhood like that can tell you survival is just as key as your multiplication division does anyone here know why those neighborhoods are so dangerous it's the mentality you see where i come from you're either down or you're a rat or even worse you're a cop it's
027them versus us it's why police brutality is so high and don't be fooled by media every single one of us have had run-ins and beatings from police myself included thugs versus police is not the only example i have for you today of this toxic mentality we see it every day we are all guilty of it democrat versus republican white versus black religion versus science the list truly goes on which brings me to the issue i'd like to discuss today and that is equity versus equality i believe the example given at another school board meeting explained it as giving a blind child braille to level the playing field for seeing children this is actually an exact excellent example of equality so let me give you a better example of equity does anyone remember doing group projects
028in school everyone got grouped together and we all had to research and present to the class but from my experience there was always that one kid who did nothing to contribute to the group yet received the same grade as everyone else this is equity equity is the lack of accountability for yourself without accountability we are crippling our children and prohibiting them from becoming their most resource selves we are allowing them to blame their peers for their shortcomings do you think i've made it this far in my life because i was allowed to blame other people for the life i was given absolutely not i worked multiple jobs i saved and scraped and sometimes i had a meal to show for it and sometimes i didn't me and a majority of my friends who left that
029life behind us kept our nose to the grindstone and we worked hard we held ourselves accountable for the direction our life was going and we never once took from another because we felt it was owed to us your job as high school educators is to prepare our children for their futures as adults so let me leave you with this last question how well do you think you've done your job at the end of the day when you have taught our children that the world owes them something thank you our next card tonight is from deb groutman ms groutman welcome thank you good afternoon this has kind of been done to death tonight but i i have prepared my speech and it's on the critical race theory as well and i didn't know anything really about
030this until i started coming and so i did a lot of my own research and i'd just like you to know that from my research i found it to be a progressive movement that's funded and supported by our government and other words for the progressive include liberalism being politically correct and democratic socialism these are doctrines that lead to marxism nazism and communism they promote fear and division among groups any groups these theories have been taught for some time at the college level they promote gender and racial confusion young people emerge with no rules no work ethic and no christian values they promote violence and are anti-police they plan to teach these theories to younger students to go after the next generation one of the basic goals of this movement is to eliminate christian beliefs and
031ultimately christians then they will promote obedience to government control this is completely against our constitution our beginning fathers were all christian men who used the bible to write their agreement the separation of church and state was meant to keep government out of our churches not the is out of government christians are not haters white supremacists racists or homophobes the book of galatians gives us an example those with the spirit of jesus are humble and deeply touched by others suffering they are gentle and kind they long for goodness in themselves and others they are merciful to those who struggle and fail they are peaceful and leave a legacy of peace they are kind to those who mistreat them returning good for evil they are single-minded in their love for jesus i am a christian and i
032want our history and our values to return to what was intended by our constitution all people are created equal please do not teach otherwise thank you ms grobman thank you [Applause] next speaker tonight is mike peterson mr peterson welcome hi there thank you and thank you everybody for being here tonight out in the audience and up here i was asked by a few people to comment on uh mandatory masks you guys all received my letter a few months a couple months ago it's really that mandatory part that i'm emphasizing i have no issue with masks i don't think the school board should be involved in testing people for bmi or for vitamin d serum level testing to look for viral spread because those are also important factors i'm just not big into the mandate part
033of it i actually have a short video uh one of my issues also as i'm sure it's everybody else's issue is all the um epic amount of experts we have that comment on these things this is a fellow named dr osterholm who is the right-hand man actually of governor walls he also sits on mr biden's panel um for the national policy and this is his quote on cnn about the face masks coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out either you're breathing out or you're breathing in and in fact if you're in the upper midwest right now anybody who's wearing their face cloth covering can tell you they can smell all the smoke that we're still getting and the reason he makes that smoke comment
034is there a there's a lot of study on the micron size of the virus and the smoke so again that's dr osterholm who's probably top of the mark he doesn't not quite as famous as dr fauci um talking about the questionable nature of that and one of the downsides or one of the many downsides as i think i put in the letter if you guys read it there hasn't been any study at all about the diaphragm and the long-term effect of shallow breathing the concept would be say put a kimono on someone at five years old and have them walk like that how would their muscles develop i would argue your diaphragm is probably your most important muscle in your body and limiting that breathing over a long period of time especially in youth has
035never been studied and i'm i'm very concerned about that long term and the people that are doing that for long periods of time uh there also been a number of studies i don't quite frankly know how they do this uh but they talk about um we find that children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal motor and overall cognitive performance and one of the pictures you'll see circulating is the picture of smiling frowning you know happy sad and then what happens when you have a mask especially on the younger kids and again this doesn't have anything to do with being anti-mass it has to be to do with anti-mandating that action again people have talked about being a free country and there are multiple things that limit both uh viral spread and then what's
036called viral load your ability to pass that on uh and it's not just masks so isolating that kind of in my opinion teaches a bad rule to a kid who sleeps three hours a day doesn't get the right food has a lot of things that his immune system his or her immune system is down and it prioritizes the mask over in my opinion much more important behaviors so i just wanted to make that comment a lot of that's in the letter and there's oh yeah that's good thank you very much for your time mr pearson thank you next card is from chris bussie ms boosie welcome thank you first of all i just want to thank the school board for everything you do for our community i know that each and every one of you
037care deeply about our children about our community about what's right and i know that you have the very best intentions for us all and i truly appreciate that just a couple of questions i think a lot of this discussion about critical race theory is there's a lot of confusion there's a lot of multiple definitions of what that is my understanding is it all started with that one elective uh course that was offered that is not being offered again is that not correct right and then um your current curriculum for uh social studies is remaining the same as it has been four years is that not true this is actually your opportunity to tell us okay well that's my understanding is that um you are not proposing to change it it's the current uh curriculum that
038we've had for a number of years and so um that's all i i guess i wanted to say other than thank you ms bussie thank you [Applause] our next card is from roger wasseck mr wasseck welcome good evening july 27th 2021 minneapolis star tribune article state gets electrical vehicles rolling reminded me of a question for my cousin sunday at little missile summer festival are we going to have enough electricity for electric cars my response was yes we could generate electricity in many ways and you can even have a solar powered car i stood the conversation down a different path with a more pertinent question with a more important thing question are we going to have enough gas to power children's cars oil is a non-renewable finite resource it has been almost 20 years when i
039read a lot about the topic called peak oil i'm not going to comment on the politics of electric vehicles but we'll close with four questions for our local government officials eden prairie police department got its first tesla squad car last week so what about otana and or steel county and i forgot what about the school district cars when we're going to get smart enough to get an electric smart bus or at least a plug-in hybrid smart bus ditto with our school buses is a new public works building led certified is our new high school building led certified can renovations to the old high school building be led certified can the city administration building would renovations be led certified has anyone checked on small solar a small win for any of our county city or school
040district facilities for those that say there's no money for small solar or small wind i ask you to consider using some of the money spent satisfying the turf grass lawn obsession for small wind or solar lead building certification is a sustainable architectural movement started in 1989. here we are 32 years later and i bet most people don't even know what led building certification is since we teach by example i suggest we stop arguing about curriculum building costs in a local economy and started educating ourselves about energy starting with led certification with that said the city council county board and the school board can hold the feet to the fire of our city administrator our county administrator and our school district administrator the pun intended is that's in that statement probably isn't understood by most people
041unless you've read the book reinventing fire bold business solutions for the new energy era by amy lovins and the rocky mountain institute that explores converting the united states to almost total reliance on renewable energy sources such as solar energy and wind power lovin says that renewable energy is very cheaper than fossil fuels and his analysis predicts further reductions in renewable energy prices conservation minnesota fall 2021 newsletter mr wasseck that's your time this is free money thank you for coming appreciate your thoughts our next card is april saint martin miss a martin welcome hello thank you first of all i would also like to thank you for changing the venue um i do appreciate that in many ways um and what i want to do before i even start to go over anything is i want
042to give god all the glory and i want to thank him for the opportunity to come and have the freedom for everybody here to be able to give both sides and give you their opinions on what's going on something i'd like to read parents are equality and equity the same no equality and equity are not the same when applied to curriculum equality is about equal treatment while equity is about equal outcomes we believe that all children in public schools should experience equality which treats everyone the same giving all students access to the same opportunities regardless of circumstance skin color economic condition gender disability age mental emotional status or religious background equality is something every person child and adult deserves in the united states of america lifelong we all know that equity is an achievement measurement
043racial equity being just one tool to achieve equity ratio or other policies and procedures may result in unequal distribution of resources this equal outcome and gold demands each person's needs and circumstances be favored into the equation but it is unrealistic to expect equal i'm sorry it is unrealistic to expect to equal outcomes for all students teaching from an equal outcome basis goes against human nature since all children are unique and born for very specific purposes we desire that all students to achieve their highest levels and potential comprehension skills so that they are prepared for careers following high school graduation critical theory of any type that fuels teaching ideologies toward equal outcomes is not the new answer let's better define equal treatment and start from there i would challenge anybody who has already said that they
044think this is a waste of time this is never a waste of time to get our opinions out there and get things the dialogue rolling so that's what we would like to see more of so if you agree with us please consider how you can get involved and god bless you as we together pursue happiness for all americans one question that i had regarding somebody who just spoke she said there was equity training that was done in the school systems i'd like to learn a little bit more about that and maybe we can work together to find a solution on how we can come together better as a community uh this uh country the state this the school district uh me myself personally i am not perfect but when i pledge allegiance to the flag
045i pledge allegiance to the ideals that america stands for and equity is not it thank you ms st martin thank you our uh our last card tonight is from jeffrey doyon mr dillion if i mispronounced that no you did you did it right thanks thank you school board for hearing us all tonight i mean we honor everything that goes around here i want to start off with the origins of critical race theory critical race crt originated in the 1970s the legal studies that sought to identify and rectify legal inequities in the 1970s and 80s a group of lawyers activists and legal scholars recognized they needed a new framework to combat racism and oppression in america they blended concepts from critical legal studies and radical feminism with the influence of the black power and chicano movements
046of the time and critical race theory was born at first it was mainly referenced in legal scholarships but now it is used across many different fields and disciplines is critical race theory dangerous critical race theory uh presupposes that racism is everywhere and all the time therefore it has a potential being misused especially since it has marxist leanings it divides people into the oppressor and the oppressed based on skin color and aims at having the government force societal changes for the greater good it sees people as groups not individuals it tends to view everything in terms of its own criteria and judging all areas of society based on critical race theory therefore white people are guilty of racism because they are white this of course this of course reverse racism it sees free societies as bad
047because such freedom only supports further racism and it keeps the racist problem alive and actually contributes to to the thing it's supposed to prevent let me list them here racism is everywhere all the time crt presupposes that white people are inherently racist it views people as groups not individuals a free society only supports the racist puritan encourages the racism to purports to events are all white people racist critical race theory implies they are but how can that assertion be validated when developing methods for discovering something we often find exactly what we look for if a social scientist seeks to uncover racism within a person or group or people white people it's is possible to gear study to find it or even create false positives because that is what he or she is looking for after
048all we are after all we all could we all critical race their crt is viewed that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself instead of being biologically grounded and natural it is socially constructed concepted that it is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color mr dillion that's your time thank you thank you [Applause] sorry for being lazy actually uh our cutoff time was when we started the meeting if you'd like to leave that with sarah down here at the end that would be fine ladies and gentlemen that draws to a close the public forum i do want to take this opportunity to thank all of you here in the room for being very respectful of all of the perspectives
049that you heard here tonight it's very much appreciated thank you we're going to move on item six tonight which is general information item 6a would be the enrollment report any questions board members on what you saw as part of the enrollment report hearing none we're going to move on i'm going to ask eric to speak on item b there's a city of oatana public hearing this regards tiff funding and that does in fact impact us i'll let eric do a quick explanation there coming up on tuesday october 18th they'll be going over a potential tiff boat for the building downtown on um 224 north cedar the old bubba's bar building it has been sitting bank banquet and i know the roof it's it's a mess so they got some interested into it that they're actually
050looking at trying to repurpose the building and bring it back and future taxing than for school district city and county good so any of you that have questions regarding that to funding if you'd like to eric would be happy to pass that along to you nothing no action that's required on that we will move on item seven tonight which is board forum uh julian i'm gonna start down here with you anything for board forum tonight yes policy meeting last week buckle up folks so what i did was i just recapped some of the um policies that we reviewed minor adjustments nothing major but i'm gonna go through each one and so stop me if you have questions if i can't answer it chris is here to help and jeff is here to help um laurie
051and i were at that meeting so policy let's see here hang on okay policy 102 equal educational opportunity that was just a few grammatical changes as well as language that is now student focused such as prior to the minor changes it was disabled students now it's students with disabilities so minor things such as that and stop me so i'm going to go through these so 104 is school district philosophy minor changes that resulted from our work session two weeks ago it went from strategic plan to the strategic roadmap to approve the roadmap from last month item number 213 realigns again as a result of the work session two weeks ago it realigns our role as far as a board with regard to governance versus committees 406 is cleaning up public versus private personal data i
052should be reading these i'm sorry um 413 is harassment and violence that's just statutory law updates the language again aligns with some of the state statutes that were updated as well 501 is a school weapons policy language is aligned again with state statutes it adds clarity and referrals to the law enforcement use and some provisions that fall under that as well 503 student attendance that adds new language for parents so if you're pulling your kids out for religious observation or religious holiday you just have to notify the school 507 corporal punishment adds additional references in the bottom of the cross section so the policy itself stayed the same reference points to laws that have been passed were added at the bottom 515 the protection and privacy of people records that's grammatical cleanup and it's aligned
053with ferpa which stands for family educational rights and privacy act 524 electronic technologies now that we're one-to-one i think this policy is just going to be evolving because we have to add language to try to keep up with the ever-changing social media world and it also puts definitions in as far as when the devices that schools give to kids and families are used only for school related purposes 534 the unpaid meal charges that language has complete completely been rewritten because we don't have students don't have to pay right now for their school lunches and so we don't need a policy for collections because between the law change and our angel fund in our community we essentially have a zero balance for our school meals which is awesome new policy for review daniela two weeks ago
054asked and she shall receive about the student representative so this policy just highlights the requirements of students that can apply for the position and calls out students have to be in good standing and at the high school as well as students from the alternative learning learning center are encouraged to apply and participate as well and it also talks about how we'll be having two student reps we initially wanted to have two but then because of covid we didn't get to have a second one last year and so they'll be a year apart so there'll be consistency on going when one graduates there's another one that's kind of been pseudo up caught up to speed and then last but not least policy 103 the complaints regarding students employees parents or other persons there's no changes but
055state statutes we have to review it every year so that was really fast does anybody have any questions no okay that's what i have thank you deborah what do you think for board forum i did take my take the first part of phase four in the msba classes last thursday and we'll have the second one this thursday it's got a lot of good information and it's been well presented i have nothing for board form tip uh aside from thanking the policy committee members because some of those some of those privacy policies are long the curricular curriculum advisory committee met about 10-12 days ago for our organizational meeting that meets every month during the school year and uh there are it was basically the organizational meeting but there are places on that group in that group
056for parents or non-parent community members as well if people are interested in that they could contact i think michelle for to throw their hat in the ring i have nothing for to this evening nikki so i have an msba meeting this coming sunday we are going to be reviewing resolutions that have been submitted by the msba membership so there still is time for school districts to send us resolutions um the deadline is the 30th so i don't know if i've not heard of us having any but other areas other school districts are sending resolution requests msba just had a webinar on demographics i'm sure it's very fascinating and i encourage all of you to go online and see the video that's there have you watched it i have not but i did get a summary
057so that was probably part was good minnesota is apparently growing slightly above what the national average is the national average growth is 7.4 percent and minnesota is at 7.6 wow so we are slightly above that um the executive director of msba met with commissioner mueller to discuss shortages that are being experienced by districts um in particular bus drivers pairs and teachers um so they wanted to make sure that commissioner mueller was aware of that this is going around everywhere some districts are also experiencing supply chain problems for breakfast and lunch so apparently that is now some school districts are now not able to be in compliance with some of the mandates so they are requesting exemptions and msba has a new website that just launched so i encourage you all to go look it's much
058more streamlined than it used to be thank you at the high school homecoming week is coming up in just two weeks there's going to be a lot of fun activities as well as a parade football game and the game but other than that there's not much there's a national honor society induction next school board meeting so i won't be here i have to kind of run the show for that but other than that there's nothing else good for you thanks for representing uh that takes care of board forum uh julian gave us a nice update on uh the policies the first reading for the policies anything else you feel like needs to be added to that i don't think so that's a pretty good summary uh any questions from mr ellstad with regard to the
059administrative report or members of the team that are here hearing none well thank you mr chair just to give a brief covet update because i know that um that's something that people um ask me questions about daily um so um as of uh right before i left here um i computed our cobed percentage that is the percentage of students or staff that have tested positive for covet our district currently stands at 0.53 percent the numbers have dropped since last week which is great news and we met with steele county public health this morning this afternoon excuse me and we are continuing moving forward with mass that are recommended in the building but not required thank you any questions hearing none we're gonna move on to item eight which is our consent agenda again the quick
060reminder we would be approving the minutes from august 30 as well as september 13 disbursement and personnel reports anybody have a reason to believe we should pull anything out hearing none will entertain a motion to approve still move second we have a motion and a second eric this is a roll call vote yep julian aye deborah aye mark aye tim hi nikki aye and i myself and i 60 pass motion carries thank you very much we're going to move on to item 9 with some action that we need to take tonight with regard to several items we'll invite amanda hallman up with the preliminary tax levy certification everyone good evening welcome yeah thank you i'm here once again to ask you to take action tonight to certify your preliminary loving for the 22-23 school year
061these taxes will be collected during the calendar year of 2022. as you'll see from the attachment in your board packet we are expecting our levy to decrease this year by approximately one point four six percent um this uh compares to a one point five four percent increase from last year uh the state average for school district property tax levies across the state is increasing by about 4.5 so we are well below that um the largest portion of our levy about 64 of it comes from the great community support that we have through our bond and operating levees and then if you take a look at the latest mde report 150 thousand dollar residential property owner in oatana pays about 823 annually in property taxes whereas the big nine average is about 849. for that same
062property and the state average is about 1063 for that same property so we're well we are below that as well so tonight we are actually asking you to certify the preliminary levy there aren't amounts yet as we'll continue to do revisions through december and then i'll come back and we'll do the truth and taxation presentation in december to finalize all the numbers so that's what that is for tonight any questions all right no questions thanks amanda so with that i will move that the board certify a preliminary levy in the maximum amount provided by law second we have motion in a second one last time any further discussion hearing none all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries item b i'm going to turn things over to mr elstad uh there's a
063conversation tonight about the existing oatana high school and a task force to uh offer up some determinations as to the future of this building thank you mr chair members of the board tonight you're being asked to consider uh directing me to put a citizens task force together to determine uh the future use of this facility that we're in currently the task force is being convened to examine the future of our existing high school facility which will no longer be used for 912 instruction once the new building is opened in 2023 as a part of our november 2019 bond referendum the community voted to approve question number two which allocated funds for the conversion of portions of the building for district uses as a part of this funding request the district is committed to engaging the
064community about the future of the facility and this existing ohs citizens task force is a part of that process in your packet you received a timeline of overall projected timeline uh the timeline for this task force would begin their work or we would actually start accepting applications here in october the work would be conducted primarily in november and december perhaps leaking into january and then we would look at the group itself finalizing a project scope and potential partnerships and make a presentation and recommendation to the school board for their consideration in january perhaps into february the nice thing is we have a little time with this so we are leaving some of those timelines rather open right now the design of this whatever is decided by the task force would begin somewhere in february through
065april in schematic design may through august would be design development september through november of next year construction documents would be created and then we would go out for bid in december of 2022 construction of course would begin we may be able to do some pre-construction parts of the building but we still have students here until june and so if it's permitting to do that we would certainly start where we can the large construction would begin june of 2023 and continue through august of 24. with substantial completion uh projected to be august 2024 if you remember question number two actually allocated eight million dollars but just for clarity uh question one which i uh passed for 112 million dollars also allocated three million dollars within that question should question one have only passed the three million
066dollars was to be used for potential demolition of the site so we have eight million from question two and an additional three million dollars from question one that was could have been used for demolition so a total uh package of 11 million dollars for the potential repurposing of this building and so we're also going to be seeking any potential partnerships perhaps 11 million does not go very far when it comes to buildings especially if you're looking at refurbishing buildings particularly buildings that are 100 years old and so in saying that we'll be looking and that group will be exploring potential partnerships we do have some suggested uses by the district and perhaps that would include sale of some of our current properties to reduce our footprint in the city of otana we would be looking
067for again a group of probably 25 to 30 members excuse me 20 to 30 members with a wide variety of background skills and perspectives to best represent a broad cross-section of our community school district administration will be available for the task force as resources but will not be participants we will be pushing out dates and materials on our school district website as well as communicating with the applicants that are chosen for the task force we anticipate that meetings will occur about every two weeks during the time in the evening to accommodate people's work schedules and that the task force meetings will be facilitated facilitated excuse me by world architects and engineers we are going to begin the application process starting october 1st which is this friday we'll be using a similar application that we use
068for the new high school task force just reworking some of the verbage within that to accommodate this specific task force we'll be reviewing those applications to identify task force members by october 15th and making selections so we can begin our work in early november again i'm asking for you to consider that task force directing the superintendent to facilitate in forming that citizens test force questions can you offer some clarity in the packet or in the information that was made available there would be there's like five bullet points in there that talk about things like the sea plaza and the ag building and are those are those good examples of serious considerations are they hardened fast are if the if the task force comes up with something that would be contrary to that does the task
069force recommendation uh prevail over what we see with these five bullet points these will be presented as potential ideas for the task force to consider and again it includes repurposing some of the parts of the building that are in the best condition to alleviate potential costing and also looking at currently our maintenance shop is in disrepair and looking at our ag building it might be a great spot to relocate district maintenance shops again our goal would be shrinking some of our footprint across the district so that we can repurpose facilities and be more centrally located any other questions i have one um so how will the selection process work for selecting the 20 to 30 members what we're looking for again based upon that what you're being asked to consider is kind of a wide
070variety of experiences um maybe even age groupings to know that there will be so we have some that may be looking at what would the potential future use versus maybe what it's been used for and maybe other potential uses moving forward we don't we don't have a blueprint right now so we're asking the task force to really help us with that but again we're trying to find varied experiences and and not only lived experience within oatana but also experiences perhaps in vocational interests and things like that that kind of give us a great parents we do look to include a couple of students that are interested have already expressed interest actually me and will be applying uh moving forward so one final question so i know we were very unfortunate when we were looking at
071the school that we were able to tour other schools that had been recently built to get some ideas are there any schools that have been repurposed that we would have that same opportunity for the task force to visit there are and and we will lean on walled architects to help us identify projects that they and or others that they know of have been interested in maybe converting school buildings into i know one in particular that i'm aware of is eden prairie did some refurbishing of it i think it was a middle school or elementary building into a district office location so again i think we'll have opportunities and perhaps that task force will even have some individuals that would tour other places to see what's been done perfect thank you i have a question are
072we married to wool architecture or can we get bids from other companies so when we um when we contracted with wool the part of that bid or the or the contract for wool was to design the new high school and to help us repurpose this facility okay we are married to a man well for this particular project we are any future projects just like we would we would go out and interview various architectural groups as we did for this particular project okay any other questions do one of you happen to have the motion queued up no you got it i move that the board authorized superintendent jeff elsa to form an existing owatonna high school citizens task force to review ideas and potential partnerships in order to make a recommendation to the school board about
073the renovation of the existing high school including areas to be remodeled and areas to potentially demolish second we have a motion in a second any further discussion all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries uh item c tonight gifts to the district mr elstad yeah as you can see we have a number of gifts again uh there's uh a couple of some gifts coming in yet to support our homecoming festivities from from some of our local businesses we did receive 500 from rv repair and renovation to wilson elementary for various student needs as well as we also received some in-kind post-it notes tape and other school supplies from 3m as a part of their give back to schools so those are the gifts you're being asked to consider for approval tonight thank
074you will you be kind enough to introduce the motion for this please i move that the board approved the resolution for acceptance of gifts as presented second we have a motion in a second eric it's a roll call vote yep julian aye deborah aye mark aye tim nikki hi and i myself senate 6-0 pass motion carries thank you uh tonight item 10 on our agenda is closed session and so here at 6 35 and in this small group forum i move that the meeting be closed as permitted by minnesota statute 13d.03 to consider strategy for labor negotiations second we have a motion and a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries we'll take just a second now at 7 13 here in the small group forum i will move that
075we reopen the open session second so you've motioned and eric did once again seconded all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries and item 11 tonight is a motion to adjourn i move that we adjourn our meeting second we have a motion in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries yes good meeting tonight folks thank you