Owatonna Public Schools Board Meeting 8/30/21

001p.m i'm going to call the meeting to order eric our attendance tonight uh just nikki who is no one won't make it very good thank you would you all please rise and join me in the 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 amen first item tonight would be to approve the agenda as presented we have a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor with an eye any opposed emotion carries first up tonight is public forum before we begin public forum take this opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of meeting decorum we do not allow slander defamation profanity personal attacks or revelations of private data as chair i respectfully request

002that the public refrain from interrupting speakers during public forum you'll be provided three minutes asked to state your name address and the subject you wish to address i'm going to take these cards in the order that they were presented to me first card is from jane parr ms parr welcome hi um my name is jane parr and my address is 560 oakwood lane and what was the other thing your subject oh yeah so crt equity um that's what i want to make a comment about i'm a retired teacher from our school district and also a parent of two ohs graduates i appreciate that our school system is committed to equity in educating our students and meeting each student's individual needs so they can be a successful learners we're very fortunate in owatonna that some college-level

003classes are accessible to our students thanks to nearby colleges these are offered as electives such as the one on critical race theory some students elected to take this and hopefully their parents were aware of their course selection these electives offered for college credit increase the knowledge and critical thinking of our students students who are taught to think critically learn to solve problems for themselves this is a valuable life skill and i'm very pleased that we have students who signed up for the class and who acknowledge the racial issues in our community and schools and want to be part of the solutions i commend all of you on the school board who help provide these opportunities and who support the success of all students in our autonomous schools thank you ms parr thank you [Applause] next

004card is from joanna egbert ms egbert come on up welcome hello i'm joanna egbert do you need my address i'm sorry i have it here go ahead and i'm here to speak on critical race theory and this was a statement from my daughter she was not able to be here because she is at college hello my name is elise egbert and i'm very excited to share with you today my experiences in it the introduction to critical race theory class at oatana high school i am very sorry i'm not able to be in person with you all today but i'm very excited to share with you how much the introduction to critical race theory class has had such a positive impact on my life i would like to start by saying that i originally had no

005intent on taking any crt related class i did not see it as important in my education considering i'm going into a math-based field and thought there would be better classes to spend my time on but after the events of last summer that happened so close to home i found it my personal duty to learn more about the history of race in america and how that it still impacts our country and our citizens today i don't want to lecture you on what i learned through taking the high school crt class but i will say that there was a lot of eye-opening information that was presented to me in the class that i seriously doubt i would have ever heard of anywhere else take for instance the tulsa race massacre of 1921 or the japanese internment camps

006during world war ii i think it is important to note that all these new topics were introduced to me in a way that allowed me to form my own opinions on them i never felt as if a certain point of view was forced upon me i was simply being introduced to new concepts that helped me to expand my perspectives many people are worried that crt will teach our students a skewed view of history or even that it will manipulate them into thinking a certain way about race but i can say that this has been far from my experience crt like any other class is taught to educate our students with the skills to form their own opinions the only thing that crt does differently is that it exposes our students to things that are often

007overlooked in our history that impacts our culture and our society today people are also worried that crt is divisive yet my personal experiences could not be more different i can honestly say that never in my life have i felt more unified with a group of peers than in my crt class we were encouraged to share our personal experiences and opinions yet as different as our opinions and experiences may be we all had a common goal of bettering ourselves the class was ultimately aimed at a goal of personal growth for everyone and being able to apply that to the world around us we were encouraged to see things differently and found that we were able to grow more when we explored each other's views than when we simply kept our own it is because of the

008immense growth that i've noticed in myself and also my peers that i encourage you to support the continuation of a crt class at the high school i hope that being able to hear our personal experiences can clarify some common misconceptions about the klaus and encourage people more about to learn more about crt thank you our next card is zach radke mr adki come on up welcome all right so i probably haven't done one of these since high school so this will be fun um my name is zach radke um are we starting now or whenever do i need to tell you anything else but i show hands in here how many people are fans of history class including new board members and mr elstead that's a pretty large percentage of in this room i will

009be speaking on the growing problem in our country and trying to open eyes to the devastating things we are doing to our neighbors and especially our children does anyone know how nazi germany got their masses to follow and obey tyranny they use propaganda in everyday aspects of society they literally burn books so people cannot even think freely what the news outlets did to push hitler's narrative was even worse they were indoctrined without resistance to the tear radical regime america played a huge role in reading the world of tyranny then and it looks like we're gonna have to do it again do we want to be like the people of australia and what the government is doing to them right now this leads me to my main point we as a society are allowing the minority

010and mainly one person dr anthony fauci to be the know all end all of knowledge that is a scary path don't you think anytime information that goes against his word it is labeled as misinformation even if it is from world renowned scientists or doctors if they have information that goes against his they are automatically no longer relevant or reputable even if they have been for 50 years to me it sounds a lot like a dictatorship and do as i say not as i do we all know the people pushing these mandates have been caught disobeying their own orders there are too many examples to mention here and i think all of us in this room know it to be true if we mask our children any longer we are going to have permanent detrimental health

011and psychological effects and we will be responsible for it you me and everybody in this room and beyond for not taking action and following the real science about colgate and masking i believe all of you care about our children and if you think about it this is literally an experiment this has never been done before we have no idea what the effects will be it says right on the box of mass that they are not effective against viruses including the coronavirus this should be a checkmate for anyone that has any logical thinking skills maybe we should think about that instead of critical race theory thinking logical thinking skills if this is amanda if this is mandated i hope the community of owatonna stands up and elects members to this room that have our kids best

012interests at heart and i promise i will do everything in my power to see that through a quick note on critical race theory my study of this theory implies that america is inherently bad and racist now if this were true would we not have total control of the whole world since world war ii when we were the only country with atomic bombs no we as patriots and people that love people of all races took that technology and worked with the rest of the world so it will never be used again teaching kids critical race theory will inevitably lead our country into socialism and marxism thank you mr radke thank you uh next card is uh please forgive me cokey conky did i get it right about history but beyond there i think we're going to

013be in disagreement 424 prospect is correct that is correct please go ahead you have three minutes yes sir i'm reverend koki kaki a resident of owatonna i am a former middle school teacher i am the child of educators and i am the parent of educators i'm here today to express my support for the school board for summer superintendent elstad in the decisions you are making so that students are career and college ready that includes giving them tools for and experiences in critical thinking thank you that's all i need to say ms conkey thank you up next would be jason jacobs mr jacobs welcome as you're sitting down can i get your address from you hit the hagen place one more time 50 place thank you please go ahead all right well thank you for allowing

014me to speak tonight and thank you for serving on the school board and also thank you for your efforts towards improving equality in our district and community i was here a couple months ago in support of crt i listened to the opponents of this and left feeling there was more of a need for this education than i originally thought people opposed to teaching crt noted they were not racist that is not what it is about crt is not calling individuals racist it proposes that there may be racism embedded in policies and laws that explain why some groups of people may be at a disadvantage you have to be able to separate yourself out of this and look at it from a much larger scale instead of teaching crt and promoting equality i heard the argument

015that our district needs to be teaching people about real history such as martin luther king this comment implies that racism and racism racism and policies immediately ended after the life of martin luther king the fact is a lot of history has happened since then in relation to racism and continued struggles and we should not we should not ignore this past but learn from it finally i heard one of the solutions offered up by an opponent of teaching equality and crt was it was that people just need to work harder this comment implies that people are disadvantaged because they just do not work hard enough as if there is something inherently lazy about them versus facing additional obstacles in their way i know a lot of different people of different races including white that work hard

016and things do not necessarily pan out feel that proposed solution helps nothing this is all the more reason to create education that sparks conversation understanding and hopefully new ideas i do have a recommendation for the district as i realized that crt has been removed due to unavailable staffing in your pursuit to the quality in our district i encourage you to take a look at our extracurricular activities and the obstacles that may be in the way for those that might be disadvantaged as an example our family paid an activity fee from the school then i was told at a parent meeting there was a check to the boosters that was required in addition to further fees for warm-ups sweatshirts you add this to the ask that parents serve the entire team a meal and it starts

017to make it unaffordable especially for those already at a disadvantage then times this by more than one child maybe it's two or three and it all starts to add up if this is not enough your child is asked to go door to door to sell and raise money for that sport if i were a parent of a minority in this community i would have some safety concerns asking my child to go door to door when i know by reading social media comments of certain community members that they would not be welcome if you look at our sports teams music and theater the numbers do not reflect the percentages of diversity in our community why is that i believe it is because we have created an unintentional environment where the advantage privilege and accepted have a

018leg up thank you for your time jacobs thank you next card is rebecca moore ms moore welcome 1156 jaden right yes thank you i live in the school district and currently have three children in various public schools here i also have two who have graduated from ohs i have been debating saying anything over the past month and have decided that i would regret it more if i stayed silent than if i offered up a few comments i want the school board to know that there are individuals and families many in this room who support the district's commitment to equity i can say unequivocally on behalf of my family that we appreciate the school district's leadership and its stance on creating a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for every student it matters to many families

019that we continue to pursue a world that includes many perspectives celebrates differences and looks honestly and critically at the status quo i've listened to concerns shared recently during these meetings about offering critical race theory i have heard a lot of misinformation and fear in these comments i can understand wanting the best for your family that's why i'm here too i was left wondering though if any of the concerned parents had requested a syllabus or actually looked into what a crt course offers before coming and condemning the school district as i understand it crt was not going to be offered at all grade levels it was only an elective offered to upper level students crt is a framework to look at how systems and policies in america have treated people based on race there is no

020denying that people have been treated differently based on race in this country talking about this and learning about this isn't divisive the problem is not crt the problem is racism let's start saying that and just because something makes us uncomfortable does not mean it's wrong my family is biracial my children deserve to have a true and fair accounting of history taught to them and their peers and have the opportunity to examine practices and policies with their critical thinking caps on and so we learn how not to repeat the mistakes of our past now it seems a concern is equity we see equity play out in many forms every day actually it is equitable to give a blind student resources in braille it is equitable to give the student in a wheelchair proper access to buildings

021it is equitable to give every football player the proper sized equipment not one size fits all in fact in all those scenarios it would be dangerous and ridiculous to not provide an equitable solution it only seems to be in the context of race that equity becomes a problem i'm an optimist and i believe in the common good so i believe that those of us in this room who are on opposite sides of this can find common ground we may not agree on everything but finding common ground should be our first good starting point listening with open minds and curiosity would be a good place to start so i urge the school board to remain steadfast in your commitment to equity it matters more that is your time and many families are counting on you thank

022you uh next card is angie langley ms langley welcome hi you have my address uh 1810 yep rosa drive got it thank you members of the board and superintendent elstead i'm here today as a concerned and disappointed citizen first i and everyone else in the community owe each of you an apology we must own our own responsibility in the lack of accountability and transparency that has developed in the school district we reached this point because we the people have forgotten that we are the government we're still you have forgotten that you are our servants each of you elected appointed and hired together we are all here to blame excuse me mr elstad i watched with dismay as you use the platform of your position as superintendent of our school district to appear in the barbershop

023talk show youtube channel from rochester on october 1st of 2019 in that appearance you were introduced as the superintendent of the owatonna school district i'm going to stop you no you're not this is a personal attack it's actually public knowledge in that appearance you are introduced as the superintendent of the iotana school district and then refer to yourself as community leader in watana in that interview speaking as a representative isd 761 you refer to the staff of the owatonna school district as not only being unconsciously biased but consciously biased the reality of that statement is that you accused isd 761 staff of openly engaging in racism but mr elstad that wasn't enough for you not in the least in that same conversation you state that you actively interrupt people in the community when you hear

024them sing inappropriate things in public and that otana is a racist community i cannot emphasize enough mr elstad that as a public servant speak in your official capacity you had no right and no permission to speak about your employers in such a way if you choose to speak as a private citizen and say these things that is your right but not as an appointed servant isd-761 i and many others here defend your first amendment liberty to speak of your beliefs in public and in any forum but as your employers as we the people you have no permission from us to speak in this official capacity neither does any member of the school board have the authority to grant you such permission one can reasonably deduce what your response would be if a staff member of

025the school district stood outside holding a sign that read as an official representative of isd 761 i know elstead is a submersive marxist shill while that would have they would have the right to hold that opinion they do not have that right to speak as a representative isd 761 mr elstad you are that employee but instead of holding a sign you went on youtube and called your employers we the people community of racists you sir should be censored by the board and you should publicly apologize to each and every member of this community for denigrating all of us in that way until then we the people will be here at each and every school board meeting speaking to this issue of insubordination and feckless and callous fight for us your true government thank you next

026card is angie stowe miss still as you're coming up at 6 15 cherry correct correct thank you everyone for being here you all play a very important role here i'm going to talk about the pledge of allegiance the meaning of the pledge of allegiance is the official oath of loyalty to the flag of the united states of america the meaning of republic is a form of government in which the power is held by the people and their elected representatives one nation under god this is not only one nation under god because god is above all nations so every nation is under god this is not about the united states it's about our nation this is not about the founding fathers it's about god this is not about man's government it is about god's kingdom and

027i would like to add with all we're all held accountable for our actions indivisible definition not divisible not separable into parts incapable of being divided one nation indivisible liberty meaning is equality or state of being free and justice for all means we aim to provide and protect liberty and justice for all individuals regardless of gender race economic status political ideology or religious background the opposite is being implemented in our society and our world right now the hidden agenda sneakily inserting these various topics to cause hatred division demean suppress take out christianity take out our constitutional right and i could go on and on you can lie and you can hide it all you want but there are consequences for what we bring to our mind and speak out throughout our actions and our words in

028the bible proverbs 18 21 states the tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit dr caroline leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist describes the science of thinking the way we think changes everything in our brain it triggers and activates facial expressions external stimulation how we react to positive or negative is so important we need smiles facial expressions to show love kindness and more we see the impact of what all this negative has done when we say something we need to mean it examples put on your mask take off your mask put on your mask take it off it's better dr leaf also states it takes 63 days of doing the same thing over and over that will change our brain look how long all this confusion and

029chaos has gone on god can heal and most importantly he will in concluding the battle belongs to the lord he wins he has called us to step out for such a time as this the darkness that many are entertaining is and will get shut down amen and thank you still thank you uh ms robin sue robbins i i will i will apologize to you i did look through our policy i did not find the policy specific that said that you would not be able to speak uh sue robbins 6134 east 118th street blooming prairie well no you you have the opportunity for your three minutes no she can't do that in congress all the time we're gonna move on next card would be a beth gilfett ms guildfett welcome it's 56 42 rows correct correct

030unlike most others i do not have a prepared speech for you today first of all though i want to thank the school board and all the members of the autonomic community for electing you because that you are doing your duty by having these meetings and i really appreciate that and thank you very much i am a parent of owatonna high school grad and i grew up actually in oklahoma and in oklahoma we had a whole year of oklahoma's history our whole semester excuse me of oklahoma history during that time because of the indigenous peoples in oklahoma we learned a lot about native americans we learned a lot about the trail of tears for instance we didn't learn about racism against native americans at that time that was in the 60s and we learned nothing about

031the texas race massacre nothing i learned about that myself last year and i was ashamed to say that growing up in oklahoma i had no idea that that had happened despite the fact that my parents had lived in tulsa they were a little young during that time but they had lived there so i really believe in the founders ideal of equity and people having the right to speak the media to be here you know all of those things that are in the declaration of independence i really believe very very strongly in that crt is it's a theory that provides techniques to analyze u.s history and the legal institutions that acknowledge that racial problems don't just go away when martin luther king is assassinated or you know when the john lewis voting act gets passed these

032things don't just go away they don't go away as long as we leave them unaddressed and i believe that we have left them unaddressed and i think we need to continue to address them and one of the ways that we address them is teaching people critical race theory so they can analyze history and learn history the way it the way it happened and it doesn't need to be whitewashed black washed it doesn't need to be washed at all but we are learning more and more when we learn things like learning about the texas race massacre about what has happened in this country how there have been legal codifications that promote no equity and uh allow certain system if everybody is equal under the law then everyone is equal under the law and just a little

033historical aside that i like to sometimes mention um the pledge of allegiance when that was formulated did not have under god that was added in the 1950s during the communist scare thank you next card is uh sarah zimmerman sarah as you're coming up it's uh it's 805 15th street right 505. [Music] are you ready okay um my name is sarah zimmerman and i want to talk about the equity slash critical race theory conversation um parents and americans of all colors are standing up by the masses to protest this vile marxist ideology that has taken over our public schools this evil and less than transparent shift has been well crafted and is being implemented behind the backs of parents all over the country although you are trying to get out in front of it and squash

034this community interest by saying crt is not offered in our district um it is and it goes beyond an elective class it's the equity and the whole culture that you guys are ushering in um you have been implementing and training staff on equity for years now equity crt these are just a couple of the long list of terms that are used to describe this abhorrent culture you are also invested in uh you were hired and elected to protect and care for all children um you are feeling them and your teachers uh we as parents need to take responsibility for not holding you accountable sooner that is on us we trusted that you have the best interest of all children in mind when you make decisions that directly affect them and shape them for the rest

035of their lives we trusted that you would continue the values that we as americans and as parents teach them at home to love one another based on one's character not their skin color that we love god in our country we are all fortunate enough to live in the greatest country ever the land of the free because of the brave where opportunity is endless regardless of your skin color but instead you are teaching these children to first put their color lens on this is the most mentally emotionally and socially abusive thing i have ever heard of instead of teaching these children that the sky is the limit and anything is possible if they put the heart grit and determination into it you're teaching them that they are either one oppressors of their classmates or family members

036of color or too oppressed by their white classmates or family members and whatever they succeed or fail at is a result of the color of their skin that is very offensive um what a grotesque heaviness and confusion you are placing on all of our children since dividing and segregating our children isn't enough you are implementing a new curriculum that takes facts and data out of our classrooms and replaces it with a perverted rewritten history our children are not pawns in your social justice justice experiment you're a public school system and you need to come back to the reality of what your duties are we expect you to educate them not indoctrinate them we expect that you show them that skin color does not matter that we love each other we help each other and we

037lift each other up that when you apply yourself and that or that you do well when you apply yourself and that failure is not a symptom of the color of your skin january 17th is mlk day students do not have class and it is marked as a staff development day mr alstead i truly hope you take this opportunity to stop undoing everything that mlk fought for and dreamed of for our children and our country and that you get our district back on track after meeting with a couple of you and being told that this is not what equity is and it isn't happening in our district zimmerman that is your time oh thank you uh next card is jamie van oosbery as you're coming up it's 520 cedardale drive correct yes hello i'm jamie um

038i don't have a pre-written speech but i just came to tell you guys that i really appreciate all the hard work um that the entire school board is doing right now um i've seen the videos on social media that other school districts are having to deal with um with things that are not even on the agenda or sometimes things that are on the agenda and that are you know the videos are going viral because of um the violence and behavior in the crowds and i want to thank you um for you guys being so upstanding and so celery that you have control of your meeting that you're listening to all the things and and your willingness to continue and stay the course um mr l said i did see when you were on barbershop talks

039and i have to say that that was a turning point in my household i've talked before about my son who is black and about some of his experiences at the oatana high school and i appreciate you going on there and i appreciate you acknowledging um the issues that were present in the school at that time and i appreciate your dedication to changing those issues and to making sure that kids moving forward aren't going to have to have those same experiences the negative ones that my son did my son did say that his junior and senior year were very different than his school year up until that point and so i appreciate you going and speaking very publicly instead of trying to hide the issues that are out there and bringing them to the light so

040that we can work on them together as a community so thank you thank you the next card has been presented in the form of three uh cards and it's my understanding that the three of you are going to come up together is that right so it's natalie hurtado riviana skalrud and jenna dahlin is it ellen bach do i have that do i have all of that correct yes and you three realize that doing it in this approach you're sharing your three minutes is that oh okay i'll go with it mr sebring i think it would be fair to let all three of them have three minutes to come here is that is your preference to have each of you you just wanted to be together i'm gonna talk separately and then we're gonna like yeah

041because we were a little nervous thank you who which of you is speaking first uh me riviano go ahead hello everyone and thank you for having me my name is rivanna scarout and i'm a senior here at the oatana high school i'm here to speak about critical race theory because i feel that there are many misconceptions about the class as a student who recently took the class i would love to speak with you all about my personal experience so throughout the course of my life race has always been a topic that we continued to brush off during conversations whether it be at school with friends at work or even for some at home this is why at the beginning of the semester i was eager i was so eager and excited to take a course

042called critical race theory because i strongly believe that it is important for students to become educated on the impacts that racism has in our society i will forever be grateful for this class because i am now able to use crt as a lens to examine problems in our society in a way that i never would have looked at the same prior to taking this course being able to have this courageous com being able to have these courageous conversations with my classmates has been so crucial in my evolving understanding of the world and how it impacts others in so many different ways thanks to this class it has encouraged me to become more socially aware as well as learned as well as learn the importance of staying involved in these courageous conversations not only in class

043but throughout my daily life in order to continue to educate myself as well as advocate for others to my best of my ability this has been one of very few unlimited classes where we are truly able to have these courageous conversations and actually go into debt so i honestly think it would be truly disappointing to take away this opportunity to learn about critical race theory because it has made such a huge and positive impact on me and my classmates it is to my understanding that a misconception about this class is that it creates a divide between the community as well as fueling this anti-white culture but my personal experience i believe that it's completely false crt does not argue that white people now are to blame for the past but that we all have the

044moral responsibility to do something about how racism still impacts our society today not once in my class were we ever singled out for the color of our skin but instead brought together by our differences with our racial autobiographies where we got to present our own backgrounds something i've never done in one in any of my previous classes our differences are to be acknowledged and celebrated not stored away in a closet like a dirty secret america is a melting pot we are diverse whether you like it or not why can't we acknowledge that why are some of you ashamed to learn the truth about america ashamed of the diversity that makes her country being pro-critical race theory is an anti-white it's pro-diversity that means everybody not just one race majority of majority of us have a

045multicultural background a majority is blended including me why do i have to learn just one side of my story the future isn't just all white or all black it's blended okay hello my name is jenna dahlenbach and i am a senior at the owatonna high school i appreciate the opportunity to share i've listened to students of color in my school's personal experiences and after hearing these stories i cannot stay silent as a student i would love the chance to take a class and that allows me to better understand my fellow classmates these conversations may be uncomfortable but they are necessary for growth and taking this class that provides guided conversations about race can be very beneficial for us students we can always learn more and i can always learn more and i want to have

046love and compassion for everyone and i think taking a class like this can be a start so thank you miss dollenbach thank you natalie okay um hi my name is natalie and i am a graduate of owatonna high school i have been in watana for about 11 years now i moved here at a young age from lima peru although watana might not have been where i was born it has always felt like hometown i went to school at mckinley elementary went to middle school at willow creek and ojhs and graduated from ohs i have a deep admiration for my community and due to that i want what's best for it growing up in awatana i have always had a sense that i was different whether it be because of my appearance or a language and

047cultural barrier i felt a sense of alienation from my peers freeing out my identity and placing my community would take me years but once i did i grew to appreciate my individuality moving forward to my senior year i jumped at the opportunity to take critical race theory race something that has hardly ever been discussed in school i had no previous knowledge of crt i only took the class because the name sounded interesting however i can say now that crt is one of the most important classes i have ever taken crt made sense of so many things that i have seen and experienced that i could not explain it gave me a voice by encouraging honest conversations with my classmate listening to others experiences helped me realize that i am not alone i think when we

048look at racism in our community and nation we often hope to find something to blame someone to point a finger to that is responsible for the past present and future however crt does not enforce or promote that crt teaches us to look at the past identify patterns learn from them and use that knowledge to our advantage now crt hosts us responsible for our own actions and it pushes us to be better i as a latino woman and just as responsible as anyone else to fight racism to fight for a better community to fight for a stronger and more united obatana next card is april st martin april is you're on your way up would you give us your address please sure uh 427 large thank you as one of crt's most popular evangelic speakers just

049say speakers ibrahim kennedy shockingly writes the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination while you might expect a racist statement like this to come from someone in the 1950s alabama crt and anti-racism scholars are pushing intentional racist discrimination against oppressors across the united states in short crt is a marxist ideology which claims to uncover racism baked into american society in institutions like the police as well as our own individual hearts and minds crt then tries to remove that racism by tearing down institutions and discriminating against the privileged this new discrimination discrimination is intended to produce equity not equality and racial outcomes crt claims that every social outcome is race influenced and crt measures whether racism exists by the outcomes people of different races experience across society

050so if one racial group is wealthier or performs better than another in a certain area of life that difference was caused by racism crt avoids reviewing individual instances to see whether there was actual discrimination crt claims that people with power not individual decisions create social constructs that determine how we think and what we do for example crt claims that race is a social construct not a biological difference and it has been created by white people with power to oppress black people therefore our everyday lives are controlled by those in power and our existence is just a competition between groups over power not a product of our individual decisions so those who are oppressed can mostly blame the oppressors for their personal situations i want to make it very clear to everybody in this room that

051i am not against open dialogue and against conversations about race i have absolutely no problem with that but this is not the answer crt is not the answer i implore you as who work for us to do what is right by our children and know more of this no more crt what we are asking for is something like the 1776 project which gives good and bad history which this this history this nation was not founded on perfect people on people who did no wrong and people who haven't done wrong and i'm not saying that we're not perfect say martin that is your time okay well thank you very much thank you next card is anthony hernandez mr hernandez come on in can i sit on your lap and i'm just double checking it's 332 east

052rose right correct okay hold on don't start yet go ahead sir okay may the lord jesus christ bless us all prayer for all those lost and stranded in afghanistan amen school mass mandate elderly required grades 6012 durable optional mankato required k-8 bortana recommended rochester required austin strongly recommended i've witnessed people children wouldn't mask my observations i witnessed mass violations a mask under the chin every single person with a mask either took it off pushed it off constantly touch the mask wipe their nose and touch everything around them do we really expect a child to wear one and actually use it effectively when adults cannot themselves a mask if made to wear properly will cause irritation distraction and failure in the classroom not to mention contaminate the whole classroom so why put our children through it

053government compliance or tyranny kids cannot properly and constantly function with a mask i know i can't god bless so equity is not the problem if you look at the word and we're not talking about your house or power it's actually when you type in google equity versus equality else everything changes and that's the problem here if i was a minority i would not have a problem going hosa house for funds for school fundraiser because i think people would be more afraid of the minority than vice versa god bless on that thank you mr hernandez thank you our next card is tanya paley miss paley welcome thanks 3008 north ridge lane yes so i also don't have a prepared speech i just i was aware that um there have been a number of people who have

054come and made arguments against equity and the district's commitment to equity i really think that this critical race theory piece is just part of that i um i'm hearing them saying that they that it's really all tied up in whether people should wear masks and whether we believe in equity and whether we and you know for me it's all about um having empathy for other people and understanding that not everybody's experience through history has been the same and that that might color the way things turned out for them and i will i will also say you know when i think back to my history classes um i just i think that we have been teaching history in a way that kind of only shows one side of the story and so for me it's really

055about just um opening up the box and saying you know so for for me it's it's just about how we we teach history and it and it's not indoctrination it's it's examination of the facts and how they happened you know i was talking i have you know i'm white i have two white daughters they've both been to college now and taken a lot of classes that have addressed history in different ways and i think about how we want to get our children to succeed in life and be able to be part of the future and the future is really about understanding where we came from and where we're going and having a positive empathetic approach to humanity so to me that's that's really what this is about and i i really want to say that

056we as a community can stand for that without coming up with labels about critical race theory or equity i think it's really about being a welcoming community being a caring community recognizing the humanity in every child and giving people an opportunity i mean i was so moved by those young women that came and spoke just now because really for them they know that we are in this moment in this country where we're facing a lot of really difficult things and i know i mean i i i sense the fear in our country um around so many different things and i think that um what that okay what they expressed was love uh next card is naomi girlie do i have to sit here can i just stand you can stand okay as long as the

057microphone is able to pick you up you're fine all right i'm naomi girlie 133 west mill i know so many people in this room like i just really wanted to look at everybody and i know so many of you i know so many of you and so many of you are completely unpolarized ends and that really hurts my heart so to me i'm glad we're all in this room together because it means that there is an answer i personally don't believe critical race theory is the answer i do know my story and my story is that i've given my life to jesus christ and everything i do for this community everything i do for this community is because of him because he gives me gifts to give this community and i i ask all of

058you to look inside and find out the gifts that you've been given and how you can use those to give glory to god help the children and help families in this community grow to the greatest extent they can thank you miss julie thank you uh next card is marlene nelson ms nelson come on up as you're coming up can i jot down your address quick 17 26 more first of all i i noticed something at previous school board meetings i don't want to forget to ask it during the pledge of allegiance i had noticed some of the school board members put their left hand behind their back what does that mean as an abnormal position to get into everybody else has their arm hanging down by the left side i was told that means you're

059not proud of your country if that is what it really means there's a jet on a runway somewhere feel free to take it i love my country my husband gave a fourth of his life for this country and so i have a problem if somebody can't honor my flag also pastor scott peterson had an article in the paper wednesday august 4th in the steele county times i was so pleased that we had a member of the clergy come out and speak against critical race theory and i was wondering where's the rest of the clergy i heard some of it here tonight and they're in favor of it but like he says crt is attempting to force upon the american population a single false victimization attitude when it comes to certain people groups but this time

060it is not socio-economic status divisions but race divisions whites versus minorities crt divides based on two negative outlooks either you are the oppressed or the oppressor and it is all based on your race crt wants reparations made by white people based on the actions of some of their forefathers to tell today's white people that they are oppressors is absolutely ridiculous we're talking way back in the 1800s when people owned slaves and there was a time black people even owned black slaves and we were the ones who ended slavery so fast because president lincoln put in the emancipation proclamation we have been a melting pot here for such a long time i didn't really see this racial issue getting bad until obama was in eight years of him and everything was race race race and it's

061only gotten worse since he was in but i'm so pleased that this pastor spoke out and he says you are the one you are the one that holds you down because america as a country is not racist you can be anything you set your heart to be and no one is stopping you but teaching this unhealthy teaching of oppression is what some are trying to push through our education system this is an agenda it's a communist marxist agenda and i don't want it in our schools and it's not just in our schools it is permeating other areas i understand no it's being taught at west point academy general miley was on tv and he's less worried about the war in afghanistan and more worried about teaching crt ridiculous just ridiculous what's going on in afghanistan

062is ridiculous but anyway um if this is all based upon pitting one race against another there's no way that this is going to bring peace and harmony between people nelson that is your time you're kidding my three minutes are up already yeah he's right okay uh next card is a darlene schmidt ms schmidt as you're making your way up i just want to double check it's 2085 filled stone avenue southeast correct i was hoping you'd run out of time before i got my thing short and sweet i'm too old to do this and i'm not a public speaker but i've lived a long time i'm from the second world war the depression days that's where i grew up went to country school and believe me consolidation was not the poor country kids that didn't learn

063anything i just had a classmate of mine who just passed away this summer tell me we couldn't believe it when you country kids came to town you were smart kids my gosh she said i couldn't believe it that tells you something this has all been about trying to control the kids kids are like little sponges they soak up things that are you tell them when they're little tell them the right thing don't talk about race you don't need to talk about color of skin or anything else carter's book when he was growing up how they never paid attention to the color of the skin until they got a certain age because then the grown-ups had gotten in on it and they were telling the kids and so he could tell by his friends how he

064was being treated when he got a certain age we don't need to talk about that we need to talk about loving each other loving each other it's foolishness it's just foolishness your kids all of you yet i grew up like i say during the second world war i watched my brothers go off to the second world war it was not easy on my parents believe me that's all we did roosevelt was our president he was in there so long when i was a kid i figured there was never going to be another president it's it's just unbelievable what's been happening i've i watch the news all the time and i just think what other nonsense why don't we spend our time seeing what we can benefit the kids for reading better for writing better we

065used to have the board up here with me we did our penmanship from off the board we did our penmanship and stuff i've talked to people for years who have said people who come out of autonomous stool some of them can't read or write decent and stuff let's teach the basic things let's teach them not the color of our skin yes i think that's all i have to say uh miss schmidt thank you uh that appears to have been our last card i do want to thank all of you that came up for public forum tonight to uh to share how you feel and i very much appreciate that the audience was uh respectful of the folks as they were speaking i do appreciate that we are going to move on uh the next item

066tonight would be reports first item would be the oatana online report i'm turning things over to mr ellstad for some introductions here thank you mr chair members of the board uh tonight we're going to hear a presentation an update on owatonna online which is a new program that you know we started we've applied for last winter and were approved working through the pandemic being able to offer other opportunities for our students and so i'm going to ask michelle krell to come up she's our director of teaching and learning so that she can address otana online good evening thank you for um having me tonight i'm i'm excited to share about otana online last winter we talked about the fact that we were going to look at being an online school i'm going to pause you

067for just a moment we'll allow for a minute for the folks that are exiting to take their conversation out well i wanted to give you a report on ota online last winter we started having the conversation about the fact that we had many of our students um who had benefited from an online experience and how we should explore becoming an online provider and so as i reported last spring it was a very rigorous process we applied to the minnesota department of education we were approved to be a fully accredited online provider so not only can we have students from oatana but across the state of minnesota because we're approved as an accredited online provider through the minnesota department of education so i just want to share some information as to how this has come to

068fruition for us so as i said we are a full online provider for kindergarten through 12th grade students approved through the minnesota department of education we are tuition free because we are a public school um and of course we have really focused on high quality teaching and learning um with developing this program as a as a district we are providing devices for our students so kindergarten and first grade students get ipads um students in second through 12th grade receive a chromebook and as i said we're not only open to students in otana but also the state of minnesota so when a student enrolls in otana online they're enrolling in a fully accredited provider where students can meet all of their educational graduation requirements to graduate from high school through autumn online i just want to

069talk about the different programs and what they look like so there's been a lot of work there's been a lot of teamwork happening to just decide what is it that we want to provide for our students so as we looked at what we experienced last year we learned a lot i think one of the things we learned is that our elementary program um really worked out well for our students and so we've really created an otana online k5 program that mirrors but much improved from last year during our pandemic so our students are in a classroom with a teacher an online classroom with a teacher they begin their day with a morning meeting they're able to have some social emotional learning working together understand what their day looks like and then throughout their day they

070have whole group instruction for reading whole group instruction for math and then they have small group instruction that happens throughout the day based on whatever their needs are and so one of the additional things and then in addition to that we also have a fully online curriculum that supports the work our teachers are doing in the we'll say virtual face-to-face kinds of times and so students are doing independent work that's based on reading math science and social studies in addition to that we also have students that are working doing live meets with a fayad teacher live meets with a music teacher and live meets with an art teacher every week so that they have the opportunity to have a really well-rounded education um one of the things that we have done this for our town

071online is to really work on having learning coaches a learning coaches a person at home that's supporting them one of the expectations of otana online is that there's someone at home it could be a mom a dad a grandparent a college lady brother or sister but someone at home that can help support the learning that happens in that virtual classroom and then of course we have one in one one-on-one check-ins with the teachers so our students really instead of being in a classroom with their peers they're virtually with their peers um as far as our elementary program for oatana online this is what i just yes yeah what is that k5 interactive look like with the teacher so i'm thinking about when we had to do distance learning at my house elementary kiddo there was

072morning meeting with everybody in the class live reading sessions because it's k5 are you grouping them like if there's five kindergartners ten first graders like what is that yeah no great question so our enroll first we were thinking maybe we have two teachers and they have three grade level bands um we're at the point where we have full classroom we have a k1 teacher and she has a full classroom we have a 1-2 teacher with a full classroom we have a and then we have let me see k-1 i'm sorry k-1 2-3 and then we have so many third graders that we split them up so we have a two three and a three four and then a five six classroom so um and what i can tell you and i'll talk about enrollment in

073a little bit um it has been it was fast and furious the last two weeks of school or two weeks prior to school starting here um people enrolling into otan online so we've had to pivot a little bit from our original model that we had thought because we didn't know what to expect you know and michelle what i get so excited about is it it describes it reminds me of other multi-age classrooms that we offer in our district and how that can suit kids needs you know when they're kind of i don't know because they're in different places sort of back to that what a kids need they need different things at different times and absolutely exciting absolutely and and we're committed to making sure that students get exactly what they need that's where small

074groups come in play um you know students are being able to whether they're reading at a certain level or whatever it is they're able to have that same practice that we would be giving within a regular classroom in person our middle level program um so our sixth grade students have kind of a combination of what we're doing at the elementary and what we're doing 7 12. we really felt like we needed to bridge that and so our sixth grade students start with a morning meeting with their teacher and then they have courses online courses that they're taking and then they have five music and art live with a teacher like our elementary students do and then there's an office time where the teacher has to connect with students middle of the day to answer any

075questions that they might have the classroom teacher is is watching their progress in the online curriculum that that we've chosen and so that classroom teacher and student know exactly where they're at every single day as far as how they're performing within the online platform um we've it's really self-paced m so half of the courses are self-paced and half of them are really working through with the teacher when we get to i'm going to jump to 7-12 now 7-12 really is about students that are enrolled in courses so our middle school 7th and 8th grade students they have courses pretty much all year except for their elective courses are you usually for a quarter semester but they have reading math science social studies all year long for a skinny or a we'll call it a skinny

076but a shorter time than a high school student does but all year long and um so we really encourage with all of our students 7 12 is really thinking about goal settings setting timelines it's really helping students to um create this independence for the learning that they that they need to do and really taking ownership over it um here's our sixth sixth through eighth grade um courses that they're given so you can see we've got some core content courses and then we have some elective offerings for students when we get to our high school model it is is completely online it's completely self-paced so what i what i tell students is i've done a lot of parent orientations in the last week or so and what i what i've told them is you're very fortunate

077in the fact that because of the online curriculum that we've chosen there's a teacher online on that online curriculum teaching them the course content so if i'm in math there's a board certified teacher online in math pre-recorded lessons that students are able to watch the video they can go back and replay the video as many times as they want to they can go back to sections they don't understand there's practice within built in within this core course so there's an instruction there's a warm-up there's instruction there's practice for students there's quizzes and then there's a test and so actually before a student can take a test they actually have to the tests are locked teachers unlock tests only when they believe the student is ready to take that test based on the work and the

078quizzes that they had prior to that so really trying to make sure that students aren't just hurrying through the content but actually they're learning it and then we're providing support if they're struggling with anything so they have the online teacher and then they also have a teacher that's assigned to them um that is their their teacher that will connect with them if they have questions and so it's very much self-paced it's flexible um the system that we're using is very intuitive so there's a there's a progress bar for every course so they have a dashboard and i should have put that up here they have a dashboard and each of their courses are on the dashboard and there's a there's a bar there's a line and it shows you how how the progress is in

079each of the courses so if they're on on par they're at the line if they're working ahead they're above the line if they're behind then you can see that you can always see what their percentage of their grade is you can see how they're doing at all times every time they complete an assignment their grade their their cumulative grade or their actual grade is what we call it is showing for them and so as i said you know we have teachers that have they provide support so we have a teacher of record for all of our courses that are otana public school teachers and then teachers have office hours where students can say i need a little bit more help with math i'm going to connect with my math teacher she has office hours between

0801 and 1 45 daily i'm going to send a message to my teacher i want help or this or the or the teacher can send a message to the students to say hey let's connect at one o'clock looks like we need to work a little bit you need some help in this area um and so that's the way that's the way the program kind of works um obviously ortana online um adheres to our graduation requirements so here are all the grad requirements that we have i'm in the oatana public schools and we have actually over 35 electives for students to have chosen from when they enrolled in montana online one thing i want to note too is that 9th through 12th grade is high stakes you know students need to get the credits to be

081able to graduate and so um you know we have an antenna online counselor who met individually with every single one of our high school students and took their transcripts and really identified what courses they should be taking and talked through them so they are we want to continue to have them on target to graduate at the end of their senior year and so that's really important to us we want them to be successful and so that's that there's been a lot of work put into developing their schedules so that they meet the needs of each of our students right now here's the current enrollment we have 184 students that are enrolled in ontario online how many would you have guessed you know it was so hard to know like i thought maybe 50 or 60

082100 would be great we're at 184 and um we did have because of staffing like we we hit our max capacity um so we did have to close enrollment on the 16th of august because and we contacted mde and that was totally allowable because they recognized the need for ensuring we had enough staff to cover the students that we had um michelle how many of these students maybe are getting to this how many are um would you say our residents you know of our district and maybe how many have opened and ruled from other communities so i would say that um about 115 of them are otana residents and the rest are open enrolled so about a third maybe yep and then i just want to just be able to share with you what we

083have for staff you can see i've got pictures of the elementary staff right there so those are our five elementary teachers um and then um we also i think this clicks open and this is this is this is our um 612 staff so you can see that we've got some administrators um you know i can't thank enough our administrators um who've really pitched in erin halverson has done a great job six eight working with developing schedules mr brenton shavers has done a great job of making sure that we are getting all of our students enrolled into our online program phil wyken has helped with a lot of the logistical things of the high school um and then justin keel and anne michaelson have been the lead at our elementaries working through that and so if

084i just scroll through here you can see that you know we do have quite a few teachers that are working with oatana online um so and these students or these teachers are working um at the at the high school middle school high school level they're they're part of their their um job is one period a day where they're doing ortena online and that's completely dedicated to um a ton of online students and so what i continue to tell parents is it doesn't look anything when you think about 612 it doesn't look anything like distance learning last year um i think we have a lot to be proud of and we're really hopeful um and thankful i think i think we have a lot of families that are very thankful i can't tell you how many

085families have reached out to me and said thank you so much for providing this opportunity and there's a wide variety of why families will choose oathen online maybe they really just enjoyed learning online last year and it was it was a good fit for them some of our students may be having some some some mental health issues that prevent them from being successful in person some of our families have some of their children are immunocompromised or they have a family member that's that so i think that when we look at this it not only benefits our students but it also made it so that some of our students didn't walk out the door because we were now providing what other districts or can provide for students that maybe need a different type of learning style

086so that is the brief update on hotel online any questions good work thank you and i should point out too check out our website there's a lot of information on our website our registration guides are out there i'll be honest it wasn't an easy task but we're there of the 184 how many are possibly attending for going to schools for band orchestra we you know we do allow that so if you if we have some banner orchestra or choir students particularly at our high school those students can come in person to those classes and we do have some elementary students who are taking coming in person for lessons we're not doing virtual of any of those things if they're interested in participating in our music program they're going to come in person in addition at

087our high school level we do have some students that are taking um some some advanced placement courses or some specific courses that like internships we just have a handful of students that are coming in person for that um but yes great question maybe into just piggyback on that can can you speak to other extracurriculars you know athletics or other activities yeah are these students also engaged in in that way or so if our students live within the oatana boundary our owatana public schools they're able to participate in sports and activities beyond otana public schools there's mshsl rules that we have to abide by so that doesn't work out so um anybody that lives within the oatana public schools is able to be part of the soccer team or whatever it is and we do have

088some we do have some athletes that have chosen to do this how about staffing was it tough to find teachers to assume that that role or are were there teachers that just gravitated towards you know i i worried about that and actually our staff like i put put the word out that we need another like even just friday i need another language arts teacher for high school and the first phone call i made i got a yes so i mean i know that there yes it it honestly um it hasn't been difficult there's a right niche you know there's people that have really enjoyed have enjoyed instructing online too so um i haven't twisted any arms so i think it's it's it's worked out well good and i can say that today was our first

089day um with our 912 students and so before them about two hours before this meeting um i contacted mr shavers and just said hey how did we do on like kids logging into our online curriculum and so i'm proud to say that 46 out of 47 have already logged in and started their academic work on their first day of school and that one student might be a night owl and he might do it tonight at 10. who knows but i mean that to me is a success as well terrific any other questions thank you thank you thanks uh up next would be uh uh discussion items only board forum i'm gonna start down on this end daniella do you have anything for board forum tonight nope just had a nice first day of school tell

090us about it uh in the morning we had like senior sunrise so all of well only the senior girls showed up but we like watched the sunrise together and had breakfast and then in the morning like student council was greeting everyone at the doors and then i just had my classes and it was nice wonderful deborah anything for board forum not tonight eric uh facilities committee we met today and the new high school was still on budget online or on time um just advise people if they want to follow there are updates all the time on the website with the drone pictures for all the change and hopefully in the next week or two the masonry work will start being visible weather permitting thank you nothing for me okay uh the only thing i have

091for board forum tonight is uh at the end of september our next regularly scheduled regular meeting would be monday september 27th and we're moving that just a day later to tuesday the 28th there was a scheduling conflict that we had with that day so i just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention right now that would be the next regular meeting we're moving it from monday the 27th to tuesday the 28th laura do you have anything for board forum no julian no thank you mr elstad uh administrative report you have anything yeah i have a few other updates for you um as daniella mentioned we had a great opening day at oatono high school and our alc today it was great to see kids back in the building and interacting with one another we also

092had sixth grade orientation today with our new sixth grade students i was able to catch up with a few of them during the lunch time today uh having all of the students together uh the sixth graders together is always that first day of remembering that you have to put your lunch pin number in and those sorts of things but i went really smoothly it was great to see kids we also have been conducting before school interviews in our k-5 buildings uh which really helps to kind of build that relationship with families before the school year starts and we also are able to kind of get rid of some of the stuff that takes up time during the year like pictures and those sorts of things so those have been going really well i wanted to

093provide you a legislative update i have recently reached out to senator jaczynski and representative petersburg and i'll be meeting with them to kind of discuss the upcoming session as we prepare for their start in january for the 2022 legislative session um and then i also want to make sure so we have during kovid officer ultron brunson officer veit left our schools because there's a general rotation of officers that come in and out as our school resource officers and i know you haven't been able to meet our new officers yet so i wanted to take this opportunity tonight because we do have steve officer bowman who's here bob if you want to come up please and you could introduce them um come on out thank you um officer bowman actually started last year but because but

094because of colburn we weren't able to uh have him introduce himself and then derek is in new office too so bob will let you introduce that well thank you we got steve bowman here and derek quinlan steve's been on for a year and i think it's a five-year term isn't it so he's stuck with us for five years we don't want to see any of these guys ever going there's a long-standing tradition of us working with the autonomous police department and has been nothing but spectacular uh since the autonomous police department has come on board with us so we wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you guys to these two who are going to be out and about with students every single day and uh making their lives even better so yeah these are

095the two guys so yeah questions fire them at them if not no big deal nobody no i appreciate you guys being in the school i've worked with a wide variety of kids that have a wide variety of experiences with local law enforcement and because you guys are there and you look different than what their maybe previous experience has been it matters and so thank you for doing what you're doing i appreciate it i don't know could one of you just address briefly kind of building assignments or sort of how that how that plays out for you on a daily weekly basis sure uh at the i am assigned to the middle school but i also oversee the elementary schools so if they have any cares or concerns or issues or questions or anything they would

096like me to participate in they call me and i enjoyed it so my office is at the middle school uh derek and i'm at the high school in the alc so i kind of i'll mainly be at the high school and then if the alc needs me i'll go there as well all right thank you we're glad you're here thank you thanks for coming tonight thank you i also wanted to make sure that i provided a covet update to the board this evening and so as you know on a weekly basis we consult with steele county public health and we look at our coveted numbers especially the number of cases that are impacting students between the ages of 5 and 18. in general the county case count doesn't always tell the story and so i'm

097i'm actually pleased the result that last week the report came back that we had 26 cases of owatonna students again between the ages of five and 18. i'm happy to report that actually this week it's down to 15 cases so we're seeing the number drop which is great to see as we start the school year through that consultation we try to work with how do we either are there next steps when you take steel county public health is supportive of our plan moving forward which again is that we'll be strongly recommending masks and buildings we have updated our air filtration systems in every building to make sure we're exchanging air more often to make sure that the air is cleaner and safer we're also doing social distancing where it's feasible we are working on a

098testing program right now that will be available if students or staff want to partake in that we're finalizing that protocol as we move forward and just as a quick reminder when we monitor our daily attendance we're looking for are we starting to see more and more kids maybe start getting sick and that doesn't include just always being positive but also just we're seeing the spread like we would for three or four years ago when we talked about the flu if we had five percent of students in a building uh that had uh contracted flu-like symptoms we have as a right as a district we had the right to close the building to do some disinfection and then put other mitigation strategies in place that's the same guidance we've been receiving right now so we continue

099to monitor that daily attendance for that and as i mentioned before we monitor weekly public health data for our for that trend data to see if there are other states mitigation strategies and steps we have to so far we're keeping with the plan that we have issued before terrific thank you any questions hearing none okay we're going to move on uh item seven tonight would be the consent agenda quick reminder here is we are going to approve the minutes from july 12 august 9 and august 11 as well as a disbursement personnel report anybody have any reason to believe we need to pull any of these items out vote on them separately hearing none will entertain a motion so move second we'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented we have a

100second approve yes uh eric this is a roll call vote yep deborah yes julian hi laurie aye mark hi tim hi i'm myself sinai six old pass motion carries thank you uh there are a couple items that need board action tonight the first would be the truth and taxation hearing date and i'm i don't think amanda is here but you're gonna yes so this is a regularly scheduled meeting that we schedule in every december which is our truth and taxation meeting that meeting right now is tentatively scheduled based upon your approval this evening on monday december 13 2021 at 6 pm at the o'town school district office any questions i'll make the motion that we approve the truth and taxation hearing date for december 13 2021 at 6 pm here at the district office second

101i have a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor with an aye any opposed that motion carries item b there's an extended trip for the ffa kids yeah so this is a national ffa convention that our students attended indianapolis this year it's in october and so they have applied for an extended trip request which is a part of your policy whenever there's a request that goes overnight uh for a group of students or advisors that has to go through board approval so this is what's being offered up tonight for your consideration who's in your packet anybody have any questions with regard to the trip hearing none would one of you please offer up the motion i move that the board approved the trip request for the national ffa convention in october second

102we have a motion in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries item c which is the strategic road map and i'm looking there she is uh is the strategic roadmap and i'm going to ask dr sherry allen to come up in an overly simplistic sense uh this is our working document to address our stated priorities and it was accomplished with the professional assistance of an organization called teamworks international and tonight dr sherry allen joins us to provide a quick synopsis of the development that went into this final draft board chair sebring members of the board um and superintendent alan it's an honor to be here to say we are to the point where we are bringing it to you for approval of the strategic roadmap i'm going to pause

103you for just a second and it harkens back to all of your days of being the superintendent allen in the mankato school district but ours is superintendent elstad what did i say allen forget it that is embarrassing sorry mr elstead so superintendent nelson i appreciate uh stopping me mark i appreciate that um so the work that we have been doing with you as a district i will tell you dr ray queener my colleague and i have been very involved in this since the beginning of this last school year practically and working through it and i want you to know that it's been a very comprehensive process very transparent open and we have a process called classroom to boardroom in that work we work very clearly on majority of the time of getting feedback from people

104in the community from stakeholders students staff and parents and this process i will tell you we had a great response to our survey we had hundreds of parents staff and students that participated people were excellent at getting the link out and the work and also focus groups where we needed to to make sure that we had a very comprehensive plan the work started with a story wall which talks about the past of the school district there were community members that were asked to be a part of that along with a very large staff group from decades of those that have been in the district from our most experienced to our newest staff members all the way through the department the desired daily experience is where we pulled in the surveys desired they really experienced what

105is it that the owatonic public schools wants each and every student staff and most importantly making sure that parents are a big part of partnership what is the desired daily experience every time a student walks into the classroom into your schools onto the fields into the gyms in activities and so all of that work has come to district vision card which now we're here to the board with your feedback again around the strategic plan the work of the board to govern the work to make sure that stu superintendent elsted has the vision and the permission to work with teams so that students like daniela are very successful every day when they come to school so that is what we're doing at this point and we've had updates to the board all of this when you

106think about the work that has happened truly looking at what you want next for the autonom public schools as it relates to inspiring excellence every learner every day thank you for the opportunity thanks for the quick overview any questions we spent a fair amount of time on this a couple of weeks ago and i thought that that was um it was time well spent and i do just like the um the manner in which it there's a level of accountability that we have to ourselves to say this is our goal what are we doing about it it's a great and i i would like to say you know as we work with um ray queener my colleague myself and our other team part of team works is we work with districts i want you to

107know you had excellent participation from all groups and very transparent in that process so it's a real compliment to your school district and your staff students and families thank you with that uh i will move that the board approve the strategic roadmap as presented in your board packet i'll second that in a second any further discussion all in favor with an i any opposed emotion carries uh item d contract award recommendation it's a good thing mr olson is still around i'll turn things over to mr ellstad for a couple of introductions and some updates yeah i'm just going to in i'm going to bring uh mr olsen here to talk about this so as we have moved forward with our our progress on the high school uh there are times when things need to be

108uh switched around a bit because maybe there wasn't a vendor that carried something so we needed to adjust that so tonight what's being offered up for your consideration is just to recommend of some operable partitions and rebid of elevators and i'll turn it over to bob further information that sounds good you said it very well jeff sometimes when when you're designing buildings um you have to design them in a certain way based on certain recommendations or certain specs specifications we had we got questioned our architects got questioned on a couple of them that it was solely only for one group of uh or one company in minnesota bidlaw you got to make sure that other everybody can bid on it if they can meet those specifications well there were questions about the elevator and there

109were questions about the operable doors or the glass doors that go so walled and cross anderson needed more time to do investigations to make sure that the people that were looking to bid could meet those specifications so what we did is we pulled those from the uh the first bid re-bid them and we actually had more people bidding on it the second time and i think we came out pretty well so um we're pretty happy with what we have right now and we're as we said earlier we're still on budget and we're still on time so i'm just asking you to approve the two that came out after being vetted out by our architects and our construction manager that these are the two top um they give us the best beds and they're gonna give

110us the best product so met your standards met our standards met the specifications i'm going to do a few little tweak a few little things but it we don't need to get into that tonight so they're going to be great for us good any questions for bob one of you be kind enough to introduce this motion is that ford metro be awarded the bid for operable partitions for a total bid amount of 573 700 and schumacher elevator company be awarded the rebid for elevators for a total bid amount of two hundred twenty two thousand eight hundred forty eight dollars as recommended by crossings second have motion in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries last item tonight would be gifts to the district mr elstad anything to add here

111yeah thank you i just wanted to make a comment so as we approach homecoming which is coming up the first week of october uh we during this uh the gifts of district at this particular meeting you're being asked to approve i think three thousand five hundred dollars in gifts that are going towards homecoming festivities for a total amount tonight of 5 700 with one unique gift and that is that we had a patron in our community offer up a 2009 nissan murano for our high school students so that they could use that for automotive class and things like that any questions one of you please introduce this last motion i move that the board approve the resolution for gifts for acceptance of gifts as presented second i have a motion and a second eric one

112more time deborah yes julian aye lori hi mark hi tim all right and i'm myself and i 6-0 pass motion carries thank you very much that brings us to the end i'll entertain the motion that we adjourn our meeting second question in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries good meeting folks thank you very much