5 26 2026 Paynesville Area Schools Regular Board Meeting SD 480p

001Okay. All right. It is so we'll call to order. All members are present including >> um so we will move on. There are no additions to the agenda. So looking for a motion to approve the agenda. >> So we'll second by Thomas. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. Motion passes. No public comment. We'll move on to the consent agenda. >> Cheryl, would you like to highlight bills? >> Uh, I did go ahead and look at the bills and there was nothing that I found a lot of officials for the baseball and softball and end of the year wrapping up type of things all normal business hours for business expenditures. Um, in other items, uh, the one I will call out for donations specifically, you'll, uh, see that in May here, we're

002acknowledging, um, uh, Miker County 4 ambassadors. Uh, what they did is they put together, um, some mental health bags, uh, to give to our, our guidance counselor, our social workers, and our mental health practitioners. And so, that wasn't a welcome donation. It was kind of a fun unexpected um arrival. So that was uh that was presented. And then the box hops for education for Payneesville Elementary. Um the other personnel items are a resignation and summer assignments for um pause. And then we do have one leave of absence, but all the appropriate documentations on file in the district office for a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda. I'll >> Second by Jacob. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. Motion carries. Moving on to communication items. Uh so

003share my screen and I'll share my superintendent report. Um, so this is uh and this comes up a little bit later on in the agenda again, but um there it's a a wealth of appreciation month, but I do always um you know the the bulk of our of our staff are are teachers and so making sure that we do our teacher appreciation. Um they drive the work of our PAR professionals. Um they create the spaces that our our custodians get ready. um they provide the instruction for our kids. So I think it is important just to uh take an extra minute and appreciate our teachers in the month of May. Also uh the legislative session has concluded. Uh there are a number of items in this document that I I will leave attached. Um and

004you know I I' I've come to realize over the course of time that not everybody knows how to access this document. You can email me anytime and I will share that the anything that's linked into the agenda. Um if it doesn't like if somebody's reading the minutes and they wonder what what that document was, they can just email me or Miranda and we'll pass those documents along. Um, so the probably the the key pieces that I want to um call out within uh within the legislative session that are are really uh pertinent to education. Uh is that there was some one-time funding uh that came into education through the omnibus education bill. Um there's there's two things that that were really front and center uh within the legislative session. One of them was compensatory revenue.

005And we've talked a little bit about compensatory revenue. And what that is is that's um funding that comes um specifically as a result of um free and reduced lunch forms. uh that provides additional aid for districts to serve and support students that live that are um generally uh um underserved because of of um poverty and um free and reduced status. As free lunches became more of a thing years ago, we've talked about how those forms have changed um the fluidity of completion and unfortunately that has impacted uh compensatory revenue. The legislature has been working on revising a formula to change how compensatory revenue comes into school districts. Um there are many school districts across the state of Minnesota that have been advocating and lobbying because uh with the change in the legislative session uh the

006way they changed the formula two sessions ago uh many school districts were losing significant dollars. Uh we were slated to lose approximately $30,000. Um some of our neighbors were losing $300,000. So it was a substantial swing and variant and then you had some school districts that were going to make an additional $1.5 million. So as you can hear there was a number of people who were not happy with this process and there was a handful that were really happy with the process. So a lot of advocacy took place at the legislature to say you've got to do something to hold some of this harmless. um all said and done, we ended up about $16,000 short instead of $30,000 short. Okay. So, so there was some money that was put into um from the go from

007the legislature into compensatory revenue and that's one of those areas. Um, you're also going to see that um there was some um additional there was some um there's additional money put into uh read act for a couple of um variations. One one of those areas are uh school districts that needed to um really put in an onslaught of staff development for their teachers to become certified in in a science of reading process. Again, we used letters. Um the legislature said you can be short on your instructional hours. Okay, that doesn't pertain to us, but that was one of the areas that you're going to see called out in the read act. There's also some money set aside for schoollength behavior health grants. Okay. Um uh we know that uh mental health for our students is

008um it continues to be a topic of conversation and the legislature has recognized um putting some money into um grants for school linked behavior health. Um there are also some I guess another area that's uh of interest to our district is a seasonal tax base replacement. So uh in the past we've talked about um our operating referendum. Our lake owners the P our seasonal rep does not contain toward the operating referendum. And so what that means is that there's two things. one, the district doesn't have that source of revenue, but then two, our residential taxpayers carry a heavier burden. Okay, so the the seasonal tax base replacement aid is essentially two, it's twofold. One, the f in one year there's going to be um initial additional aid for school districts like us and you have

009to have I believe the percentage is like 15%. I was going to try to catch Amanda's eye and see if she remembers off the top of her head, but a certain percentage of your tax base has to be deemed seasonal recreation. So for us with a large population around Lake Coronis Rice Lake, you know, there are a number of seasonal reconurs. Um what is going to be of benefit for our community is that in the second year we're going to see some tax relief and we're working with Ellers to find out what that means for us directly. Okay. So there's some money in year one and then um in future years they're going to spread out the tax impact um by uh so our residential will pay less money but the state of Minnesota will

010make that whole for the district by bringing in aid for the school district from the state. Okay, does that make sense? It was kind of an we've been talking about this um superintendents have been talking about this for a long time like we got to do something here. I liken it to the egg to school tax credit. Okay. It was kind of a way to make sure that our our agriculture owners, our large farm owners would support our building bonds because they got a significant tax credit. It's similar to make sure that school districts aren't voting down aren't uh losing opportunities for operating referendum because residential owners carry the bigger burden. Okay. Um, another thing that's of interest and um, some of our committee members may have heard um, just conversation about the increasing cost

011of health insurance. Uh, there's a there is an an advocacy push moving through um, the legislature to have a a statewide health insurance pool for all educators. Um so there's legislation and and the first thing that's coming through this year is going to be really um a mandatory study that uh is going to be conducted um at the state level, not just through our different organizations to pull our data. So it's going to be systematic at the state level um to really understand how health insurance costs are impacting and influencing school districts. Uh, that's an area that I'm going to stay really in tune to because there are some provisions that that make sense and there are some things that as a as a superintendent are concerning that I'd like to hear a little bit

012more about. Um, beyond that, why is this not moving for me? Try that. Um beyond that um there were some the biggest area of of topic that I want to just call out is that in the fall on the ballot you will see a constitutional amendment uh that is proposed to um uh alter the permanent school fund distribution for school districts. So, uh, currently there is a, um, there is money that comes into school districts from, uh, the permanent school trust fund and it's, so I have to put this in my own simple terms. It's kind of like our um, you get interest on what's in there, okay? But it's like a small percentage of interest. And the individuals who are managing the trust have said this small percent and I'll just say let's say

013instead of 2% we're going to go to 4%. Not the accurate numbers just for intents and purposes to get my point across. It'd be a slight increase. What that would mean for school districts is that instead of getting maybe $30 per pupil from this uh permanent school fund, we would get $60 per pupil from the school fund. But that cannot happen without legislative approval or without um voter approval. So, uh voters will see on the ballot in the fall a constitutional amendment. Um we as a um me as a superintendent and you as a school board. Um I'll be sharing information about how we can communicate and what we can uh talk through to make sure it's very similar to an operating referendum where we can educate. Um, we just have to really we're staying

014we're staying neutral in our advocacy, but we are that's okay. Um, and and we're staying neutral in our advocacy, but we are uh informing so that the public is aware of what they're working on. Okay. So, that's my administrative report for today. Um, lots of legislative things happening. Um but it is uh it was a pretty quiet session until the very end and then there was just a big flurry within about the last five days. So pretty typical. Um revenues and expenditures are linked as well. I would stand for any questions otherwise I'll let you move on to um our committee and organizational reports. >> Any questions? Hearing nothing we'll move on to the committee and organizational reports. Uh the only thing I have I attended the uh FFA banquet uh on the 17th and

015we received we the school board received a uh certificate of appreciation uh from the national FFA organization. So I want to pass that on to you Janelle and the district office. So thank you very much as far as the FFA folks everything that they do uh especially with Mrs. and uh she has put together with the folks that did go and you'll say something about new offic but your admin report pretty much highlighting correct >> large portion of the staff meeting um last week and districtwide staff development met last week too and really kind of wrap wrap up the school year and look forward to plans for for next year for welcome back to school and all that for the teachers. So, it's great place to be ahead ahead of the game. I feel like

016>> I would agree to be >> Yeah. >> hearing none no more than that. Um, a lot of places um, excuse me, a lot of like clubs are just getting ready for next year and like no old business will be letting on this. First off, it's the 27th preliminary budget. Um, so I'm going to pull up the um the PDF of the presentation. So this this document is a culmination of uh what I've been talking about coming up to this uh this school year. And then linked on this document is the second document that is the actual and I'll pull this one up in a minute too, but it's the actual document that you're used to seeing that is um the proposed budget. So, as we walk through the budget development, um what you're going

017to see is um that our preliminary budget is based on 867 ADMs. Um that is using our 50 as a number for our kindergarten class. Our hope uh what we have done is is Amanda and Carrie um and I have taken a look at the budget and we have planned the kind of the worst case scenario with some increased in expenditures and some limited again now we're in the years past we have seen kindergarten families move in um so all of those will be um added to our budgets and also um the other piece that I will just bring in is when you look at our our our um estimated fund balance this year as Amanda was coming on board and Carrie was and transitioning out. I asked them to do the revised budget earlier

018than it has been done in the past. So in years past, if you recall, sometimes we're doing that revised budget in May. Okay, this is from February. Okay, so there that could also change to the good in the fall as we close out the books as of June 30th. Okay. So, what are the things that are impacting our budget? So, our original budget, I'm going to make this a little bit bigger um just so we can see that a little bit better. Okay. So, the budget includes a 2.69% increase on the formula which goes from 7,481 to 7,684. Um, so last year our general ed revenue was calculated on 8.98 and this year it's on 867. Okay, so that's a that's a big shift. The one piece that is not accounted for here that I

019just want to be clear about is that that does not take into account are weighted pupil units. Okay, so if you remember our high school students are worth 1.2. So that's a bigger number for us to watch and pay attention to. Okay. Um, we are from a revenue perspective, we are banking on our title fund revenue to be projected as stable and consistent. We do continue to receive cross subsidy reduction aid or cross subsidy aid. So, just as a reminder, um, that's an area that has been open for discussion in the legislature as a cost savings mechanism for uh, the blue ribbon commission. So there's a group of people who were charged with coming together and telling school district or telling the state of Minnesota how to reduce your special ed costs. Okay. Um if

020they cannot come up with a plan, the default that was written into the legislature is that $250 million will need to come out of the cross subsidy aid. So that would impact all districts. Okay. So we're watching that pretty closely. Okay. Um and then as I mentioned uh we did have a decrease in compensatory revenue of about 16,250. Okay. Uh expenditures. Uh this does include the increase in all negotiated contracts. Um it includes our workers comp and property renewals. Just as a reminder, our budget is 77% salaries and benefits and 23% other expenditures. Uh this does also u apply our personnel reductions. So, and I'm going to get to those a little bit later. And then other outline increases are outlined below. So, we're going to talk about those. Uh, in our food service, um,

021there's no changes that are recommended, but free lunches remain as they are and we'll follow the federal pricing as we get that. Our capital funds, uh, we maintain their our trajectory to take a look at our softball complex. We've got our track evaluation and restoration and upkeeps in the fields throughout those are those remain in our capital ponds. Um ongoing building maintenance needs. We have um we've been budgeting for um our ongoing building maintenance and we've also been taking a look at our flooring processes. Um, I know Ken has talked to you in the past about um moving to sanding uh doing polished concrete versus waxing and tiling or waxing over. Um, and that continues to be a project that he's been working on. It will take it will take time though. Okay. um planning

022for our field projects. Um uh that sign that was on from last year because that has not changed um from when we initial initially talked about the complexes. Those pro costs have increased. Um as we pull together the facilities committee, one of the areas that we will continue we will be sharing is a a phasing way to start making progress without waiting for the all of the funding to be there. um because I think our community needs to see we've been talking about it long enough. It's time to make some of those things happen. Okay. Some variables and increase and increases. So all of our units um are settled. So um we did expect some deficit spending due to the contract amounts in comparison to state aid. So again it was 2.69%. Um, we did

023know we had pro some progress that needed to be made on some of our contracts. When we went through the pay equity study, um, we knew that we had some work to do in some contracts. Um, uh, what I what I'm going to share with you today is that that's we made progress and now that's where we need to really hone in and make some um, strategic decisions because our expenditures as they are are not sustainable. Okay. I think as board members, we've all talked about that kind of over the course of negotiations, knowing that we needed to get where we needed to be and then we need to um really be a little bit more strategic and conservative in negotiations. Okay. We did uh go from four sections of kindergarten to three sections due

024to our low kindergarten numbers and there was one reduction of uh special education in uh as an FTE as well. Um this is the this next statement is we need to watch secondary for continued enrollment decline um and section determination for the 2728 school year. So, as I was talking about, the the prop pupil unit is weighted more heavily at our secondary. Um, so we need to pay attention to that. We we've done some analysis of our kindergarten sections, so we're going to need to watch that and look at an analysis of that secondary sections if those numbers continue to decline. Um, unemployment costs have been are anticipated to be reimbursed this summer, our summer unemployment costs. Uh, however, we have been given notice that that may be prorated. So, we're taking that into account.

025So, just as a reminder for people that aren't exactly familiar with what that means is that um if we had $100,000 available or in bills and um there was only $80,000 left in the pot, everybody else's bills are going to have to be uh red or payments are going to be reduced to the 80,000 and we're going to have to come up the extra 20 on our own. Okay. Uh paid family medical leave costs are accounted for. Again, just as a reminder, this is a cost to employers and an and the employees and there is no in there is no aid to offset any of those increased costs. Uh we did maintain budget that was allocated for curriculum. Um this is something that as a board you may want to take a look at in

026the future as we continue to util utilize our fund balance. Okay. Uh so the strategic plan is going to provide goals for the future to really help the board in uh decision- making. Um we do continue to plan for our athletic fields, our softball, football, and track. Um again, those have been built in and we do plan to um strategically do those in segments so that we can continue to use those funds as they've been designated. Um, one of the areas that that was a variable is that we have seen quite an increase in costs associated with post-secary enrollment options. So, I wanted to be clear with the board what this what this looks like for us. And so, you'll see that in 2526, Payneesville schools paid $170,000 in tuition. Um, so you'll see Bridgewwater,

027Felac, Brain Lakes Community College, BL Tech, um, and Infinity Online are are are pretty substantial um financial commitments. What makes this tricky for us is that we have we don't really don't have the capacity to say no to that program. And so it it becomes one of those areas that we um we have to try to budget for. Um but yet we it really depends on how many students enroll in those courses. Um, oh, so that again I just said this is not an area we can restrict due to current law. Um, so some additional um items that were in the budget. Uh, the West Central Education uh district has increased some uh expenditures, our building leases, there was some increase to those salaries and benefits just as um we had increase in salaries and

028benefits. They also had salaries and benefits increase. um their travel um and then the personnel support. So they across the education district and and it includes our district as well uh we've seen an increase in student behavior that really is requiring a more um targeted expertise for programming. Um and and the really the intent behind that is to be proactive so that we can save costs in our special education placements down the road instead of placing in a setting for program we can search homes. Um but the board certified behavior analyst which is um the acronym for that is BCBA. You may have heard that in the past and and maybe not but uh the West Central Ed has has added an additional one of those. So those costs come into the school district as

029well. Another area that's been very unpredictable for us are care and treatment costs. Um so when we have students that are placed in care and treatment, um the school district require is is obligated to pay the tuition for that education and that can be anywhere up anywhere around the $50,000 range. Um and we don't know that kids are going to be placed there until we get a bill. and it really becomes a variable that um so these are some of the areas that we um were not planning on in addition to the areas that we were planning on. Okay. Um so all of that let me come back up to the top and I'll click on my on my link to show the the budget spreadsheet. So, what you're going to see is that uh

030this budget proposal does create about a 430,000 deficit spend into our fund balance. Um so, this is not sustainable as I mentioned. Um, but it is uh I don't when I look at our personnel and our negotiated contracts, we also know that that was we knew that that wasn't going to be a sustainable action, but we did know that we had some work to do in some of those areas. So, um, what I would like to do, um, I guess maybe first I'll just stand for any questions that you have and then I can talk through what I would like to bring for you in our work session in June. extracurricular college credits. >> Yep. >> I'm I'm confused. I thought the the parents or student had to pay for those. >> I did for

031my kids. There there was a fee to the school besides. >> So, how no that those are the costs that we paid that we've paid each of those schools. We get the state aid for the student parent still gets a bill to to pay for those credits. >> How many years ago was that? >> Graduated when >> uh five years ago. So when my kids came through, they did the same thing and I didn't pay a bill and that was four years ago. >> So this is so these are kids that are that are taking um >> college credits. >> They're they're taking college credits. Some of them are offered through our instructors. Some of them are just online through the schools. Yeah. and do it online through the school by who we >> Okay.

032And maybe and I guess I I will tell you as a parent I know I didn't I didn't pay a a fee to any of those schools that my kids got credits to either. I guess I I was not aware that the school was >> So, one of the This is an I I think uh when we were talking about legislative priorities, this was an area where um we've we've as superintendents have been asking for a little revision to uh make sure that if students take those credits and they fail a class, for example, then there could be some reimbursement to the school district. because currently if students take if they take a class, they fail it, the district pays the tuition, they can they don't there's no cost to the parents. And so there's

033that's been an area of concern that we just talked through that um it really is an increased expenditure for school districts without having some skin in the skin in the game, so to speak. >> A few years change. >> Yeah. >> Like I guess I don't want it to change. >> I mean, and and I I don't want I don't want this to come across that I don't support this. I mean, again, I for me, this was a a a great benefit for my kids. I've seen a this is a strong priority that has come through our strategic planning conversation. I just want to be really transparent about the cost because I do think that it is important to understand when you have that much money that's committed to a college and then we're still

034having classes here. Sometimes the same class, you know, we have students that might be taking a college course and we offer that same course here in our school. We're asking >> can we maybe do something about that? >> They don't get that credit. That's the problem. >> Nope. there's some that they could get the credit here and they take it they can take it at Bridgewater too. So that's another area that we've just been talking about. It's just a it's I think as as postsecary enrollment options have have evolved um it's it's become much more accessible because kids can do them all online. Back in the day when it started the intent was to go to the college and experience college and be on campus. Now we just take the class online and we can

035do it from wherever. So it's just evolved and uh the conversation just hasn't shifted. So those are some things that we're watching >> questions. >> Well, I guess my perspective is the loss of the students is a big deal. >> Y >> um really big >> big deal. And so you lost the students. What always has concerned me a little bit when I look at this process, we have a referendum, a 10-year referendum, and then we were broke when I got started. We were right on the bottom line. >> Yep. >> Then we managed to come up with a million3. And then we decided as a board, okay, that's going to be our minimum amount. Okay. Those are designed to flow flow over time. And I think what worries me when we get to a

036point like this is that we don't cut stuff for the kids on a on a basis that because we're trying to keep it at whatever that top revenue was. Every cost everywhere personally everywhere else has gone up. >> Yeah. >> Let's not get ourselves. It's all going up. >> The idea to that referendum is you pop the referendum in there and it goes up. But the plan is for it to work itself down to start the next one. Now you get to those high points. Well, now everybody wants to cut in the deal, right? It looks like a lot of extra money we have. What's really not designed for that is designed for the slow down. We just have to be careful that we don't fall off the edge >> that it's a slow and

037gradual. So when did this last referendum pass? >> 22. >> Y. So, we are four years into it on a 10-year referendum. >> And we're still holding from fairly decent balances there. Doesn't say that we're mismanaging here. >> No, >> it just says that's the flow. And sometimes you look at that and it's like, oh man, we are really down because we're down 300,000 or 800,000 from two years ago. That's really how that not that I agree with the system. I understand because it's ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. But that's kind of how it's supposed to work. Always what worries me is we get to the point we're cutting kids cutting things that we can't cut for the kids. >> So that's why I'm so excited for our next agenda item to walk through

038the strategic plan because I think that really does do it protects that Bruce. It really protects that the the priorities that the board and our community has talked about can become the focus of is something that the shiny object, right? We're not talking about the shiny object. Let's focus on what is it that we need to be doing from what our community talked about, what the board has talked about, what our staff, what our students. So, I do think that that strategic plan will help that. One of the things I would like to do, Bruce, is and if the board would like this, I I think it would be helpful to pull some of that historical data of how that that um looks. And we've talked about that from a um an operating referendum advocacy

039and and education. We talked about this is why this the district needs this because of that reason. And we've talked about how it goes up and then when it starts to fall, if you're not careful, it falls really quickly. We want to really expend like make that last as long as possible. So I I when Amanda and I were looking at this information, what we talked about is that might be really helpful to bring forward at the June work session is just some a little some visuals and some kind of here's here's the trajectory. Um and then talk about how to kind of slow that decline. Well, the one I like are longterm forecasts. So, um, we take things that we had at one time and I I don't recall right now, our facilities based

040on a 10ear plan. >> Yeah, >> we're looking forward and amazing how well lots of stuff that we looked at got under control with that. This should be on a plan of knowing that we're going to have some reduction in that so we have an idea where it is and then we as a board have to pick out when we go for that money again and the public may not buy us holding back a million three. The theory was that was one of one's operating costs. But >> one of the things I think that is also and you you nailed the you hit the nail on the head. Our enrollment, we need to figure out how are we going to recruit students and bring students back in to our enrollment and and that is because

041when you when you're losing students and you're having increased expenditures, it's twofold. So that's another area that we have to continue to have conversations around. So that's what that's the preliminary budget proposal to the strategic planning. >> All right. So I'm going to invite up Mr. McKitrich. Wade if you want to come on up. Uh board members in your course you have a copy of um the strategic plan that was also linked into the agenda. Welcome. Thanks for being here. >> It was so exciting. I pulled into town. I pulled in the parking lot and saw all these cars out here. I thought, man, people have heard about this plan. They're coming right through the roof. >> You did drive around. >> I did. I really took all my confidence from me. and and no

042pressure or anything, but the strategic plan's going to solve everything. >> Sure. I like it. >> All right. >> I like it. >> So, well, number one, thanks thanks for making time tonight. The uh plan that you've got in front of you. I hope you've had a chance to to go through and review and look, we're going to walk through the through the plan and again look back at process because I think process is really really important. As you've heard me say it a handful of times already, process is important because where the information come from matters. If you're going to use it as your guiding governance document, then where the information comes from matters because in essence you're then establishing a plan and use utilizing a plan that your stakeholders have said this is

043what's important and this is what we want and I think that's really powerful. So as we ask a question before we start yes I'm always the questions. The one thing I mass in here is how this flows through time. What I see so far is a document that looks really good for today. Yep. >> Where are we two years down the road? Because that's what we tried to do with these to try to have them move with us so that goal number one is in a process so easily change. you can keep the same format because all of a sudden you have some emergency come up that's mega expensive and then all the thing changes. >> So hold on to that thought. >> Okay, I'll hold on to the thought. >> Follow with me through

044the plan and you'll you'll see where that ends up. All right. Um so as we walk through again just that first page uh is that superintendent introduction into the plan. I'm not going to read things to you that you can read for yourself, but I want to stop and highlight on some areas that are important. But what you know in the introduction you see Janelle highlighting the five the five priority areas for your district and those are bolded out on next page again just to be able to share with people who's been involved with this the creation of the plan so that people know that you know this wasn't Janelle and and her principal sitting off in a corner. This wasn't the school board going on a retreat and coming back and saying we've got

045all the answers. It gives you a a little bit of an overlook of who that planning committee was, the diversity in it that you see parents, you see teachers, you see administrators, schoolboard members, and working our way right through next page. >> Wait, can I just add one thing? Absolutely. Um, the one piece I do think is really important is that 175 stakeholders that was on that first page. Um, I thought that was really solid turnout from uh community engagement from those focus groups in addition to the staff. And so I I think that was uh all the work that that that planning committee did came from those groups. So I thought that was really helpful >> and that's really important to to be able to share with people. You know, if anybody's ever asking

046where where the heck did this come from? Well, it came from you. that came from representatives of of our district. So, you know, whether it's students, whether it's parents, business people, community members, staff, uh well represented. So, how did how did the timeline look like as we're going through the uh you you'll see the again, I won't read the narrative. I'm going to stop on the the process timeline, but the uh laying the groundwork, the community engagement, the collaborative planning down to finalization and adoption. I'll I'll let you read through that, but we work our way from the 30,000 foot level down to boots on the ground. And as we all know, you know, that worked in some of the small groups, sometimes that's really hard because we want to get to the boots on

047the ground first. It's what we're what a lot of us are naturally wired to do. And uh my job was to keep pushing us back up in elevation until we were ready to to hit the ground to to ensure that we know why we're doing things before we do them. So on the timeline page then 256 process timeline, you remember back in November when we were in this room and and actually those two pictures on that page came from that that date. So you'll always remember it. You'll always see my smiling face, something to remember me by. But in November, we held a schoolboard workshop where where we we went through and if you remember, you created some values and some and envisioned future. You went through that process and of beginning to look at

048that big picture from the 30,000 foot look that information that you created that day. while not word for word has shown up in this document that became part of our launching point with with our strategic planning committee. Uh so we'll go there in just a minute but fast forward then there was a a little over a month uh that there was that hiatus because we identified with Thanksgiving and Christmas season probably not the best time to kick off the planning and focus groups process. We we might be hardressed to get people at the table at that time. Uh so we kicked off the focus groups in mid January. Uh and you see from January 19th through February 10th is is when we we met with that 175 people. And uh there were there were some

049long days in there. It was a lot of fun to be able to just sit at the table and hear your community talk about your school. both from a very constructive standpoint on what's positive, what's going well, but also the the freedom to be able to share, hey, here's where I have concerns and and here's where I I picture in my mind where I think the district should go because as we wandered through those those eight questions that we conducted a SWAT analysis, right? We were looking for what strengths exist, what weaknesses exist, what opportunities there are out there, and what threats there are for the school district. So all that data made its way through that that slot at that time. So on February 10th, then after meeting with you that that evening and

050going through the eight questions from that point, then I took that and we began compiling. I shared a couple pictures. I think did Sydney send those to you? And I I joked I said, you know, once once I get into a strategic plan, my office just kind of becomes this newly wallpapered place that exists. And for I can't tell you how long it is had Payneesville data covering my entire walls from ceiling to floor. Uh it's what I look at every day. So it's it's it's been kind of fun to to you know stare into the into the eyes of the data that your folks have given you. But I took that data then and that's when we started looking at what are the themes that are coming out of that. What in the areas

051of strengths, what are the themes that come out that are strengths that your community wants to make sure that you continue having as a strength? You know, what are those weakness areas that that the the community members are saying, "Hey, this we think this is kind of important and we really think you need to shore this up." What and get off opportunities and threats. And we took that information, we put it into a format then that we could bring to the the 10 member strategic planning committee meeting. And at that meeting, this group was given the data up front. It was the focus group data. It was the survey data uh that was utilized from school perceptions as well as just raw data on performance. And the first thing we did and and that was

052we just spent time looking at data. We gave people a chance to to look through that that data packet and start jotting down what aha moments do you have? What are things that jumped out at you? What are what are you surprised at? That data was then used and that grounded us in what we were going to be doing as a as a strategic planning committee. Right. So with that planning committee that met on March 16th and 23rd, I think we met for like eight, nine hours. you know, it just felt like it, you know, we met for for a few hours each night. Um, and then that was then after we completed that work, and I'll point out which work that was, then that was handed to the administrative team to finish to get

053it over the finish line. So, we held a administrative retreat that began early in the morning with with Janelle's egg bake. Was it egg bake? It was breakfast. >> We had breakfast. >> It was a whole host of things. >> That was >> at 7 a.m. You have to have breakfast. >> The team was much more lucky when Janelle was ever met with me. I never did that. Not once did I try to make breakfast. I would have food poisoned everybody. But so there we go. So we met for a long time uh on that day and then we came back for a one-hour session, one and a half hour session and the just to to wrap up the strategy component and that took us up to today, you know, from that administrative team meeting,

054then the plan was compiled uh given to Janelle last week to to get out to you to be able to take a look at work through uh to be able to comment on and and to let us Is this are we in the right direction? Then we're able to do so this is the essentially the first meeting if you want to call it that of of the plan between now and your next board meeting is our opportunity for revisions in the plan is is either the school board or the administrative team request. So Janelle has or is with your administrative team. Yes. >> So Janelle is going to be meeting with the administrative team to walk through everything to make sure that that as you read through the goals, strategies that one is clear, but

055two it's implemented. You don't want anything that's not that you can't implement and you know are they are they difference making and then that's brought back on June 23rd for your official adoption of your plan. All right, that's the quick overview. So along with everything else you have to do in June. >> Yes sir. >> So so where did we start you know with that with that strategic planning team? The very first question that we had to answer was what why does the school exist? What is the purpose for the school? You want to talk starting at a 30,000 foot level. There it is. Because if you don't have clarity on why you exist, you can never accomplish what you're supposed to accomplish. And when it boiled down to it, uh this was a long

056discussion by the way, this purpose part. This this took some time and it it was great to to hear the depth of conversation in it. But when you boil it down to what is the reason for the school to exist, it was simply to prepare and equip students to contribute to something greater. and and in and in the end just that big overarching that's why we exist. We're preparing kids to to contribute to something great and from that then we continue on. Well, if we're going to accomplish that, then what's going to what's going to guide our behavior? What's going to guide our work? And that's where you get your core values. The core values become your non-negotiables in your district. So, this is how you do things. This is how we act. This is

057how we behave. This is how we work. These are the things that when you hire, you hire based on them. And when you fire, you fire based on them. They're the things when you're making curriculum decisions, they drive what you're doing. So, we we we established what we believe were those characteristics that would drive our work. Need to back up one step. As we compiled the data, what what we created was you began to see the the themes of what the community internal and externally what they desire. The data allowed us to overlay here's our current results. This is who we are. This is who we want to become. The difference between the two, that's what I call attention. So you you identify your tensions by what what do we have to improve on in

058order to get from where we are to where we want to go and then those tensions end up becoming working into our priority areas. Okay. So back to those values we identified what what are those core values and that was purpose driven integrity accountability value everyone and courage. The uh by the way the courage is the one that came directly from the board that you know when we showed that kind of got a eye that eyebrow kind of raised like that's pretty cool and it got got brought in as is. But uh you know as we shared with you that night we talked about values. It's not enough to have a word. You have to know what the word means. Right? Purpose driven. You can tell that to 100 different people, you'll get a 100

059different definitions. So, we we worked on during our time together and defining what does that actually mean. And then take it one step further is when it's put in action, what should it look like? These aren't just supposed to be warm fuzzy words on a paper. Because I like this, Jesse said it a couple different times as we were going through this. If these are non-negotiables, then we need to be evaluating based upon these. And if I'm going to evaluate, you know, what we're doing and who's doing it based on our core values, then I need to have clarity on what that looks like. And and I think he hit the nail right on the head as he was talking about that. So, do you see the the defined uh portion of the of the

060value as well as the look like? I love that very first one, purpose driven. That looks like we set clear goals, we align our actions, we connect our daily work to the bigger picture, and we stay focused on what matters. Everything Janelle was just talking about with budget is defined in purpose driven. Every dollar you spend, if you if you're a strategic planning purist, every dollar you spend falls into your strategic plan someplace. And if you can't find it in there, maybe we shouldn't be doing it because we might be chasing a shiny object. So that's the the values. And then we then we took the step in into the envisioned future, which you guys worked on as well. We created that that envisioned future. And I love reading these to people. I'm not going

061to do it tonight because of time, but again, I would encourage you just even if you have Janelle do it for you to take some time, shut your eyes and listen without any sensory overload at all. Just listen to that envisioned future and see what comes into your mind because that is what you're trying to create. And this was a compilation of taking the data, the desires of the internal external uh stakeholders and trying to put it into words. This is what people want you to create. From that then we went back and created our vision statement. What we're trying to accomplish. We envision a school where every student is known, valued, and prepared to contribute to something greater. Where purpose drives our work, integrity guides our action. Courage shapes our decision. Accountability produces results

062and our community is proud of our school. And then from that, you kind of grab the tagline that I believe you'll start seeing more of is preparing students for something greater. All right. So, this is the this is the the overarching portions of the plan. This is the 30,000 foot uh that was was difficult. But once we got into that, now you start to to narrow down the boots on to the ground. So in those five priorities, each one of those attaining goals. The priority is the big overarching concern area. Then you get into your goals. What are you wanting to accomplish? And again, I won't read each one of these to you, but uh as far as the strategies and indicators of success, but in those goal areas, so what are we trying to

063accomplish in academic excellence and high expectations? We want to ensure consistent high quality instruction is a training in every classroom. That might sound like something you anybody could say, but when you think of it, so that's what we want to accomplish. What do we need to know? We need to know what highquality instruction looks like, what that's defined as. What are the practices that are non-negotiable that are in place? As this school district, you have a view on what high quality instruction is. It's not the same as the district down the road, and it's not the the same as the district north or south. You have your views on what high quality instruction looks like and as you define it then you're affecting the rest of your goal areas where you're now saying this is

064what it looks like. This is what we believe gets results. So this is who we want to retain and this is who we want to hire. These drive those processes the uh professional development this drives professional development. So while they they start to look on the surface, they're still coming down in elevation. It's what we want to accomplish. How are we going to accomplish that? That's where you get into your strategies. Now you're looking at the strategies we need to define and communicate what high quality instruction looks like at at Payville Area School, including the non-negotiable instructional practices expected at each learning level. That's a pretty powerful strategy. That's a very powerful strategy because that's that is creating the framework for which you act in. Um goal two increase student engagement again came out as

065a really really strong area both in the internal and external focus groups and and from the instructional side and then improving student achievement in math and reading. How will we know if we've achieved that? That's where you get into your indicators of success. How will we know if we've ensured are ensuring high quality uh instruction in every classroom? If we do this then this. If you think of an if then statement, if we do this then this should happen. This gives our baseline data which will come from our this the spring benchmarking and then the target of where do we want to end up at? So, where we're at, where we want to end up, uh, if you're a smart goal person, which I've been a smart goal person for years and years and years,

066uh, this is how things get smart that in all of the reports that that Janelle has to do on whether it's a literacy plan, maybe you don't have to do that. Okay. Who's ever doing that? The the literacy plan, whether it's it's your world's best workforce, whichever. It's not even called that anymore. I just dated myself. All of those things, it all comes out of your strategic plan now and those are your those become your smart goals. So what are we what are we working for from that very tangible standpoint is we expect in our district by this date this percentage of students will be meeting growth targets. And that happens because we ensure high quality instruction happens in every single classroom because we've implemented and taught our staff these strategies in order to implement

067them in our classroom. Dot connects dot connects dot connects dot make sense? We'll get to the timelines yet. Trust me, I haven't haven't lost that. So as you walk through each each one of these areas, you have the same thing in high quality staff. That high quality staff is greatly affected by goal number one. By the way, if the goals are listed in priority area, we had the our priority rank. We had the the team rank out which of these areas will impact that have the greatest impact on trying to accomplish what we're doing. And these are rank order. be s time keep moving right >> sure >> I want to make sure I've given you enough detail where you're able to ask any questions you want but I don't want to I don't want

068to read everything to you that you've already read >> I didn't raise your hand I guess >> you ask I think I think this part I guess that I really high popping for me, which I thought was nice. You got your core values and you got the depth defined and then you have looks like I guess I uh I really like how that's working because I very impressed. You guys do a heck of a job. >> I think so. Ron, to just build on that a little bit, we had a lot of discussion about what it might look like for Gerald or for you or for Cheryl. you all might look at purpose driven differently. So, we we've spent a lot of time going back and forth about what does what does it how do

069we define it? And and for our district, what does this look like? Because we also felt like um ambiguity was just being unclear wasn't okay. So, that was we were all I was excited about that too. One that caught me was the courage to define leading the bold student first choices and you got looks like and I guess I kind of call that common English. Uh we make hard calls, name real problems, try new ideas and change course and results fall short. Yeah. So, we're always willing to change, I guess, is what I wanted to say something earlier. >> It's about the continuous improvement cycle, you know, with that with that courage. We've got to be willing to change. We can't keep doing things just because we've done them this way. If if we're six

070months in and we're getting cracking results, boy, don't don't wait another three months for the year to be done before we we change courses. Uh, and best I'd love to say that I'm I'm just this master wordsmith. I just take the words that the team was saying and put it in into paper and everybody gets to see how smart a people you have in the district. So, it's fun to be able to do that. Um, so on high quality staff, I think it's important to really note in goal number four, there is very specific wording there. recruit and retain highquality staff. It doesn't say recruit and retain staff. It says high quality staff. And there's a big difference between those two phrases. So determining what high quality is, what the high quality practices are. And

071I it's it's important for for staff to hear this as well is that if you don't if you're not high quality according to our definition, it doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you a bad employee. It means in this district based on our values, based upon our practices, you don't fit that definition, but you might fit it really well down the road that selfless has a different focus. You know, it's just like the girl I dated in high school. She's a great girl. I'm sure she she's married to somebody and is a awesome wife and and mother, but she did, you know, that wasn't my world. It doesn't make her a bad person because she kicked me to the curb. No. NO. >> I WAS WAITING FOR THE punch line. I was

072waiting. >> Wait. No. Animosity there. Got it. Yeah. >> No. You know it. Same thing is true with employees. It doesn't make them bad people and it always has to be looked at that way is it just wasn't the right time or place or fit and we shouldn't be working so hard. uh narrative. We shouldn't be working so hard to retain people that aren't high quality and aren't getting the results simply because we don't have employees. And that's a frustration that everybody in administration has is some we get caught between that that that rock and a hard place of we have to have people in place, but our our goal is to have high quality people in place. So then it turns to the if if they're not there yet, can we get them there?

073And if we're going to get them there, then we're jumping into our our professional growth goal. Number two is how do we work with people to get them to that? And if they show the willingness to be able to do that and to put that work in and do the deal, then we can turn them into high quality staff. And that's part of your internal growth uh plan. So uh I love I love Priority number two, I love that whole process that was created because it's really foundational in getting everybody to a common vision, mission, and values and starting there. Once you have your foundation in place and you have buy in across the system on this is where we're going and this is how we do it. Once that buy in is there, the

074other things are easy. you know, then the the how-tos, they can be implemented relatively easily if everybody's growing in the same direction. So, the team work really hard on that one. Um, pri priority three, that important piece for the community, especially that culture of belonging and accountability. Internally, we want to improve consistency and attendance, behavior, and accountability. That's not just students, by the way. If you look down into the into the indicators success, it's also staff. We want to make sure that, you know, if we're expecting our kids to show up, we're expecting our staff to show up. So, if we're concerned about chronic absentism rate amongst our students, we should be concerned about chronic absenteeism with our staff. And if we're catching that data, then that would suggest that if you're in a chronic

075absentee rate, you're probably not fitting into that high quality instruction model and therefore you're not in alignment with our values. Therefore, you can't work in our district. And I I heard Bbe I was just talking to Josie. Um but but how do we how do we accomplish that? We improve cons that consistency. We strengthen communication. We build culture. So those are the the goal areas that we want to hit in. Then we move to priority four. There's three goals within that. Operational stewardship. How do we make sure that that our operations anywhere from our our policy and procedures to our systems, our HVAC units, our our facilities planning, how does that all fit within that? So, you want to establish efficient and reliable systems that support district operations so that when we're talking about potential

076deficit spending, we can do it full full well knowing that we put in efficient processes in each of these areas. and we simply we don't see it any more efficient ways to do that and still get high results. So, you know, really establishing those and those help from a from a financial standpoint as well as an effectiveness standpoint. Implement clear and consistent evaluation systems that drive accountability and growth uh growth in people. And then the last one, increasing student enrollment, which is to Janelle's point, what she just said earlier was really the only way to stabilize funding. You can run every operating rate firm you want, but in the end, the only thing that stabilizes financial situations is stable enrollment or growing enrollment. So that becomes a really important goal within your within your system,

077within your plan. This all this other stuff you're doing works towards that big piece of increasing student enrollment because you're just so darn awesome that everybody wants to be. Um and then career college and life readiness, you know, we want all kids to have that that post high school plan. We want them to experience real world and career connectedness learning opportunities for all students. That was a big one by the way that came from community is hey use us bring us use us as resources if we're willing to come and help not just write checks but actually show up which that thought was super cool and then strengthen student skills and critical thinking and problem solving. So how do we do that? again you go back into the strategies and you see those strategies that

078are in place indicators of success measure the progress that you're making towards that so you can't you can't to go back to Seinfeld how many of you remember Seinfeld okay a few of us just sorry it's going to go over a couple of your head back to Seinfeld you can't you can't eat the whole moatza ball at once right you just can't. So that goes into that next page. Then what are the year one strategic plan priorities? This goes into timeline. Now so when are you doing what? You lay out your your year one strategic outline and how did we accomplish that? It wasn't just sitting at a table and saying who thinks number one is the most important. Okay, that's not how it was done. We went through and and did the administrative team

079then went into each one of the goals and they they completed a priority matrix and not necessarily knowing what the end product was going to look like but went in and was able to rank order things on on what do you see the impact of this of this goal being? What do you see our readiness and being implemented which turns into an urgency score and a capacity score and a priority score. So the the urgency uh you have impact readiness urgency and then if we take for capacity score this is a world according to weight and statistics right capacity equals impact time readiness. So impact times readiness divided by the pos the maximum possibility and then the priority score is the impact times urgency divided by total potential and they each tell us a little

080bit different story. So as the team went through they looked at as far as this goal goes what is the impact this will have on us accomplishing our vision. What what impact will this have moving us forward? And so there was an impact score. Then the next one was readiness today. Could we how if we wanted to to implement this today, how ready are we? Is this going to take a ton of a ton of work to where it's going to take a year of planning before we can ever get into it? Or are we could we just throw this thing in tomorrow and bam, we can do it effectively. Um and then priority based on everything you see. What do you feel has the highest priority in moving us towards our vision? Because if

081you remember us talking about the paral principle, the rule of 8020, you want to focus on the top 20% of things that spend 80% of your time on the top 20 and that will actually produce the bottom if you were to put equal effort into all of it. It's just a mathematic economics equation. So in doing that we identified five five goals then that became year one priorities. So call them your priority goals. Uh number one is ensure consistent high quality instruction in every classroom. That goal is is a is a non-negotiable for the team that this we need to do this. So here are the strategies that we work through that we begin implementing in year one. Some of those strategies are literally they can be done in a couple a couple cities and

082then they affect another strategy. Others of them are going to take a little bit longer. Uh priority two, align all staff to clear shared district vision and direction. Three, improve consistency and attendance, behavior, and accountability. Those are the three goals. Make sure that that wording works for you. I want to make sure there's absolute clarity. Those are the three goals that strategies have been put in place for. So this is what will drive as as Janelle works with the administrative team and puts in implementation plans for this year. These are the strategies that we're looking at. Goal four and five. So priority priority one goal two and priority one goal three. Those will be directly impacted based upon the work that's done in number one, number two, number three. So no additional strategies are focused

083on in year one for those two goals, but they will be directly impacted by the work we're doing. That's how closely tied together they are. Does that make sense? Okay. So that is that's year one. As we work through year one, then you uh you begin to look at what are year one, what are year two and three projected and what's the 35 projected. So when when you go down our matrix, there are definite looks at at what are our year two and year three, which is to increase ownership and accountability. It's is to recruit and retain high quality staff. to build culture where all feel valued and connected sense of belonging and to expand real world and career connected learning opportunities uh and strengthening social social skills and critical thinking and problem solving. Those

084fall into that two to three but those can adjust based on year one. What impact did year one have on year on the things that we've identified as year two and three? That's where that flexibility exists that I think you're talking about is what if we get into this and we find out, oh man, we really don't need to implement another strategy here. Our math scores based on what we did with tier one instruction, our math scores are just taking a rocket right now. So we're not going to mess with that just because on a sheet of paper it says we have this strategy we think that what we did here had high impact and high intention. So at the end of each year we're you we're looking at that data determine okay are we

085continuing on with how we have things mapped out for this for the priorities uh and those goals or do we need to adjust? That's the continuous improvement cycle. Um, I've seen lots of strategic plans where every year was mapped out and you, you know, when it's created and I always looked at them and said, "That doesn't make sense to my head." You know, that doesn't doesn't resonate in my brain because if we're going to continually improve and we're going to continually look at our data and let that drive what our results are, then we have to be flexible in analyzing that every year. So that's what we've created. And once once we're we're affirmed that these indicators of success are are exactly on, then Janelle gets a a data scorecard handed over to her, which

086has all of our indicators, our progress monitoring on it so that we have have our benchmark where we're at. It has our target and you're able to see the progress that you're making as you go across the scorecard. very simple visual. I I typically recommend to districts put that scorecard right out there for the whole world to see because you're good, you're bad, you're ugly, doesn't matter. It's just data. It is where we're at. But if it's if it's in the red, if we're really not doing well in that area, the public is really forgiving on red if they know you have a plan in place to address it. If it's out there and it's an area of deficiency, you have no plan and no acknowledgement of it, there's little forgiveness, then there's just judgment.

087When this stuff does get approved, um then this will go all this be like on our website. Um >> so even a mailer of some sort or is that >> Oh, I think so. No. Well, I mean I think we can figure out. So, if you look at the I'm going to jump forward real quick to the last page. There's kind of a one pager >> that's a summary of essentially all of this. This would be easy to send out, >> but this is the important work, >> correct? >> Yeah. >> It's condensed one. I mean, I know it's simple. pulls down one page, but this one it's written out explaining. It's good. Okay. >> So, I I'm I'm not skipping over because one of the components of this is about how we brand, market,

088and promote our district because we need to be increasing our student enrollment. And how do we do that? by telling our story about this is who we are and what we do. So that's one of the things that's and perhaps it is that might be part of the discussion is how are we going to get this plan into the hands of all of our community members. How are we going to and we can talk through that because I think that's one of the areas that we um many of us have acknowledged um some of our surrounding communities that have done it very well. they've marketed themselves. You know exactly when you see it, who it is and what they are. Um, and I think those are things, Ron, that we can do better. And that's

089one of our goals. That's one of the areas and and I think we continue to have conversation around what's the best way that we feel comfortable doing that because I think your point's really valid. This this should be a living, breathing, like active document that people know, they know what it's all about. You're on the home stretch. >> Yeah. Yeah. I apologet. >> Yeah. Mine mine comes out crystal clear. >> Yours a little fuzzy. It has everything to do with that in your plan. I put it in as a JPEG and stretched it. It didn't maintain its clarity. Yeah. So, and in the final document, you'll have the the clarity >> and our green is going to be different. By the way, we talked about green. >> This is not Kelly Green. >> It's the

090minor details, right? >> Exactly. Exactly. >> I So, I think I can agree. I'm saying I like just the document. I like the meaning, the words, the the thought process behind the whole document. My just hesitations is this last, you know, two pages, the year one strategic plans, the year, you know, two through three, four through five. To me, it just sounds like, oh, well, you know, when we have a decision to make today, we're not going to pull out the document and look at our oper, you know, what that decision means within our operational stewardship or our college career life readiness. And I would like to see this as a condensed version as well because there's not a single person in this room that will memorize it. and we wouldn't expect anybody to. Nor

091do I think are we going to grab this booklet off the shelf when we have to make a decision what page was that on again to find that out when we look at I one of the things I think I liked about our old strategic plan is it was relatively simple. It was actionable. You could have it on your your your board in your office and it was when hard decisions be made. what are these priorities that are in our strategic plan that I can look at on this wall and say where does that fit in here? Not let me get this document. That's just my opinion. And then like I get the understanding of the need for kind of like a a year-to-year plan as we look at and think about what this all

092means for our district. But operational stewardship, college and life readiness is happening today, not happening years four through five. But according to this, if I and I know it's not that way, but if as I read this, if I'm a community member reading this, if I'm this that like that's the way that looks to me. It's like, oh, we're just going to hold off on these priorities until this point. No, those are priorities today just as well as anything else. So, I I get the road mapap idea with it all. I just don't know that I like the fit of it in here. And I and I don't know that Cassie is grabbing this book off her desk and she's got to make the hard decision to look through which these and how does it

093fit and of those inside the indicator success? How am I going to make that affect my indicator success in those key moments? So that's just my opinion. So if you were to see the, you know, the the goal, your priorities and your goals listed out, >> you know, under each one of those goals, >> would that help you? >> Yeah, I think I think I think if it was again, I don't think this document should go anywhere. I think all the words in the document are very important and key success to have in everybody's possession. But if we can find a a simplified version for for that purpose of when we're making decisions that it's like this is what I'm looking at today. >> So So I'm going to liken that to the spreadsheet that

094I've shared with the board >> which is the road map or the the document that he's going to >> and I like that idea that Yep. I like that idea. Our old strategic plan also was pages upon pages with lots of goals, lots of activities, but it was it was streamlined then it >> and that's what I think I'd like to see then as well. >> Sure. >> Before we finalize everything and see that because I I don't I like that but I just want to see >> this is the expanded version. >> Yeah. I want to see that functional version that we as a board or you guys as admins can say this is what I'm looking at using when I'm making decisions. >> Yep. And that's >> and then and then again I'm

095just kind of thrown off by that year one priorities versus year two and three priorities versus year four and five priorities when we're kind of like saying well and I get the reasoning um you know I get the whole thing that's a data person myself. I get that, but I don't see where I fit data in with, you know, making a decision on operational stewardship versus readiness is >> and that's just how it reads to me on those two pages. So >> yeah, that's kind of that would be the other part that I just want to see kind of be tweaked just because when we're looking at you want you look at the overall the volume of what goes into the five years. >> If you're trying to work on if you're trying to do

096a little bit in everything >> Yeah. >> you're doing a lot in doing a lot. Yeah. >> And that's that's where that prior year priority comes out. Yeah. >> Is what are the foundational pieces in order to really it doesn't mean that we're going to we career and college readiness. >> Yeah. >> It means in year one as an administrative team and as we're laying out our our strategies. This is where our focus is. It's not going to be in creating strategies for this. We're going to continue doing what we're already doing. >> What we're doing here level though that we're already doing that. I mean, I think a lot of our decisions are made behind all of those. >> So, this is consistent. This is consistent with our old strategic plan that fiscal stewardship

097was an underlying current of every decision we made. Was it fiscally responsible? I don't see this as any different. I think some of the things we talked about are operationally um uh ensuring consistent evaluation processes for example. Okay. Well, evaluations are taking place. They're just not consistent. Like what happens for our custodians isn't the same as the paras isn't the same as the food service. They're all being evaluated but it's not consistent, right? >> Yeah. Um, it's more of a priority in our mind to focus on our student achievement and our student outcomes than than ensuring that that evaluation document is the same for us. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. But isn't that part of the college and life readiness as well that their outcomes is >> Oh, sure. >> To that point. You

098know what I'm saying? That's >> they're intertwined. >> All that's intertwined. I don't think you can take one piece without the other with most of those. All these priorities are extremely important. Again, I agree with I agree with all of it. It's just that part kind of gets me because I'm like >> we're not not making a decision due to you know this or that. We're all of those priorities I think are core to most decisions that we make and how is that how are what's the outcome in those priorities when we make certain decisions because >> you may be facing one of those you may be facing one of those your work session >> all of your programs are important and all of your programs have high have an impact for kids positively But

099if you have to reduce what are your priorities and you as you work through if you were to work through this strategic plan with it right now today you would say your priority has to be in improving your math and reading across your district. >> Okay. >> And it would be great to fly more planes. It would be great to to make more partnerships here for for some CTE, but this has to be the priority. This will impact this. >> Yeah. And as this ship, this water rises, all ships will rise. And once we have we have what we believe is is an acceptable target here where we feel like we've gained the momentum. Then we shift our our priority thinking on our strategies. We continue to do the things that are raising the the

100ships, but now we've the new prior or the new strategies we're putting in place are going to target this other area. >> Yeah. >> Manage that. >> Yeah. And I and I just think and had it been hard to create these priorities to create that year one through four list and and all this that because again I think when I read over these priorities and I read over these priorities they the bulk of them are going to be made in that for almost all your decisions. You know what I Like I think there's a level of those that are all taking consideration for the fall decisions regardless of what it's for programming wise. It's still affecting students today, students tomorrow, whether they're in kindergarten or 12th grade. It's >> one of the other things that

101we wrestled with as we kind of talks through these priorities is that we have a really strong and established CTE program. that has been that has been our priority for a number of years and some of our academic outcomes are not as strong. So I think there was part of us that that felt as though we're doing this well. >> We're we've we've really established we we can continue to build on the partnerships. >> Yeah. But when we have community members, board members, parents concerned about our academic outcomes that do you know what I'm saying, Thomas? I think that was our our struggle is how do because we felt like that was pretty established and we've done that work pretty consistently. Um, and we heard from our students too, like we heard them say, you

102know, we can take all the uh we can take as many CTE classes. I can take wood shop. I can take lathe. I can take I can do all those things as many times as I want to, but I don't have the same opportunity to take AC like a higher academic. >> Right. So th that was some of the >> I think the quandry that we sat in because I would agree with you. There's not anything that's in this document that I would say we are not going to work on over the course of the next five years. It's just a matter of how do we how do we communicate it and prioritize because I also don't want to be so spread across that we're not doing anything well. >> Yeah. No, I I I

103agree with the >> Yeah, >> I'm in I'm in agreement with what Thomas is edging on. It's a hard concept what he's talking about. He's talking about all the stuff that's kind of going on to make everything better. So, we want to get academic excellence and we want to add all these things and then the state decides they're going to change the program and wipe out all the initial data and we start all over again and then this organization changes all theirs. But we brought up tonight two times when we talked about student enrollment. Priority four, goal three. If I go to the last page, it says priority four. The first thing we're going to work on is goal two. On yours four and five, priority four talks about working on goals one, two, and

104three. Three is is student enrollment. That says to me, student enrollment's last. And I will say that student enrollment has come up at every strategic plan and it goes to the back burner somewhere. >> Sure. >> Seriously. So if you hit all the numbers and we start getting the numbers there and we're having to be at a really good time getting students in to grow the the student population. Is that dependent upon what we do all the time or is it dependent upon something that we're not doing today? I relate it to a business. So you got a business going to manufacture something for the industry, right? And they get all the processes done. They figure out how to build it. They get their patents in place. Manufacturing's in place. Everything's in place. But if

105they forgot about where they're going to sell it, and it happens quite regularly, it was all a waste of time because you have to have a sale for it before you get everything else done. I'm saying that the priority of population growth in our numbers of students is more of a priority balanced, not necessarily holding till you achieve a whole bunch of baseline information. The way this reads, >> it went from priority four number three went to year four the next month. to me if I'm sitting at home and I read this. We are not going to worry about student population for four years and Thomas is I looked at it a little differently but he's saying the same thing, right? >> Um what we're saying is yeah, you can have all this great stuff

106and we would probably get an A on this in some class. We're not talking about a class. We are talking about um how we direct the students and how we achieve the goals. And if we have all this going on and we start hitting all the numbers and we lose another 30 students and then we lose more students, well, all this doesn't really make all of difference. It's no different than somebody that's got a whole company developed and all their sales are gone. >> We got to somehow one piece that I and I I hear what you're I do hear what you're saying and I'm not I'm not disagreeing. What I want you to also think about is that there's a reason that students have ch not been coming here and is it and what

107is that reason and so what we're taking a look at are some of the priorities that we have for high expectations and excellence for students. If parents are given a choice and they're seeing what our outcomes are and we've talked about that at the board table in previous years. um does it make sense to say come back here when we haven't addressed the issues that might have caused them to leave in the first place? Right? So I I feel like around us they have many times I haven't looked at it for a year or so as many kids going around as they do coming in and we're all kind of similar. We have to get ourselves in a position to step away from what is happening everywhere. And how do we do that? Sometimes people

108go to a place to shop just because the people in there are so nice and so comfortable to to work with that a lot of the rest doesn't make any difference. I don't know what it is. I don't have an answer for it. I just know it ain't going to happen here because nothing we're not going to look at until you're four. according to priority four number three it doesn't come up agree with you could you take a look at that thing black and white I'm not saying that that's not a wrong way of looking at things but you lock yourself in saying that this is the way it has to be because it says it right here >> they double front you can do all your stuff but you still have to keep the

109basis in mind to grow the population >> and and that's and that's what all of this stuff in here you have to remember the the uh stakeholders in here. We heard from the community. This is what we see as far as a priority. The people that put that together as far as these priorities are the ones that are going to have to try to implement that here as far as administration. We hear we heard from uh Wayne and he said many many times, you know, as far as ch that change management side of things. This isn't saying although we they put placeholders in, that's not saying that that stuff can't move left or it can't move right. What it's saying is is that you first have to have the core stuff done before you start

110taking a look at all of these other priorities. And I agree, we need to get more students in here. But if you're still failing in math and reading, there's no sense bringing students in here. And that's why those things are the priorities first because that's what our stakeholders told us that they are very concerned with. Stakeholders being the people in the community and that's not so so the things that you see right here and I agree if it's year four or whatever those things can start moving to the left instead of being pushed to the right being pushed out further. Those things can start moving to the the left. Wayne even brought a good example. you saw that you're the the mass scores all of a sudden are just jumping, you know, and and maintaining

111that, then why aren't we then moving that? But we don't know that yet. We have to first get into that year one priority. And I think that's the biggest thing as far as us as a board, even the community and our administration is to understand that the the way that we start this is what we have right here. Check and adjust. Is this working for us? versus saying, "I don't like any of this because we're looking at it bold or I think that this nobody said we don't like anything there." Okay, that was not part of the discussion at all. And so that was not in it. I'm just saying there's more than just one priority we have to be looking at here. And >> this tells me that we're not looking at student population.

112We're doing all the things to make it work, but you can do everything excellent, too. We have to have other things going somehow to get the student violations. And if we're going to wait till everything is perfect, I'm going to go back to the state changing MCAS and wiping out the previous data. Are you ever actually going to get there? We're always going to be moving forward. That's a system that may not change, but nobody's saying that anything in here is invalid. I can see it all, but I think it it zeros us in to just getting all the base work done and not looking at the picture of bringing people in. >> I would caution you not to look at it linear because that's kind of what I hear you saying is you're looking

113at it linear that you do step one before you get to step two. >> I think it's just that last two pages that's how it reads where they're actually everything everything spirals around itself. That's what I was wondering. >> Yeah, it seems like some of disagreements some people might have here. Maybe instead of putting year two, three, year four, five, it's kind of arbitrary. What if we put immediate future and know some of these things we're kind of worked out? Yeah. >> Some are going to be later and some we're going to be immediate for years out. second to last page I think is what's where you talk about year one just seems that both sides of that page we could I don't know maybe possibly clean up somehow or just remove it because it

114just kind of talk about priorities and I think that's where we're getting into maybe just treatments on and everybody's got good points I know we need students and whatnot. But I uh I realize I think I think it's human nature. I got my priorities. Gerald's got his priority. There is no document that's going to satisfy the priority. >> So it's it's a you know saying we should take one priority over another. I don't understand why we're doing that because they're all interconnected. If we don't have quality staff, we're not going to improve our math scores. If we don't improve our math scores with quality staff, we're not going to get more kids coming in. If we don't, you know, it's all interconnected. We don't need to put fear one this year that >> I I

115and I disagree, Cheryl. You have to because you have to know what you're going to focus on because if if if you take that away then you're going to say that everything is equal which means that if everything is equal then nothing is going to happen. >> I don't agree it's not all equal it's just interconnected there I agree with others. Absolutely. >> Everything is interconnected. We don't need to prioritize one thing for one year and one thing for another year. >> Work them all. >> No, you're you're absolutely right. Everything is the whole thing is is is yeah interconnected but you still have to have a place to start. I've wor too many books where I like Jacob. Well, that's my question is I think >> I think if there's your I hear what

116you're saying and I also understand that there's all these items that came up came up because they were important >> and the way that many of the like on that last page well one two and three they are going to be impacted impacting one priorities one through five. I I think can we charge Wade with taking our feedback and redeveloping a little bit so that it can be more of a it is not a sequential first step, second step, third step because they do all interconnect and they all matter. >> Okay. simplify. >> Well, and then so then what what we can do is um I can also make sure so this will um we can put this on the work session in June so that we can have another set of eyes on it.

117>> I I I like that and Wayne I know just working with you or you know as far as going through this you you'll figure out what it's going to look like. I just really caution everybody we have to know where we're going to start. So part of what I think is important from from my perspective is there is a lot in here and it is important for me to know from when when our administrative team sits down and say what are our priorities for this year. We know that it's all of these items. These all are the underlying but whack-a-mole is not super like effective, right? It is really going to be important to know what are the what are the key focus areas and as we make decisions, do they align with with

118increasing our student enrollment? Does it align with hiring our top-notch staff? Does it align with increasing our student outcomes? Right? All of those things are going to be ongoing conversations. But when you think about what we focus on in our professional development, what we focus on as we I guess promote our school, how do we make how do I make sure that I'm doing what the board wants? And that's what I think that's part what is is important is to know what are your priorities even though the whole thing matters. It's just what's the top focus areas. >> I have one more question. The score card >> explain the scorec card again. >> The score card is your indicators of success. So all those are >> so you would put in there what percentage we

119accomplished, how many students had changed, where everybody's hitting all the numbers in a fashion that you could score it. >> Can we see what a scorecard looks like? >> Yeah, he mentioned it. I think give us some kind of scorecard, you know, for myself. I'd love to see this just kind of like >> a visually, you know, shorter documents >> just, you know, still this is this whole thing is important. All the pages are important, but just something a little more sustain >> and then and then this that rewarding the the the laying out the priorities from what we should be focusing on in that level. So part of part of Bruce when you look at um I'm going to just take a here I'll just scroll up on this one. I'll just pick uh

120I'll just pick um okay indicators of success yeartoyear en enrollment trend baseline that would be where we are right now what is our target that's part of what administration is charged with gathering is so then as the as the plan is I guess year overyear revisited we're going to talk through what seems like a reasonable target based on where we are today, right? It's it's taking that data and and I frankly don't love using MCA data because exactly of what you've talked about. Perhaps we as a district say we're going to prioritize our use of FastBridge or we're going to whatever we're going to take into consideration those, but that's part of what we're we are charged with is establishing those that baseline data of where we are today. So, does that information end up

121on the scorecard? Goes back to making it concise. >> Yeah. >> So, we know what we're looking at because for most of us, we're going to take a good glance like we get all the bridge stuff. We're kind of looking where it was and where it went to. And Kathy always explains that card is meant to be a one page piece where you're able to see here's our here's this goal. Here are the indicators of success that are showing us we're making movement towards accomplishing our goal. And what are what's our trend data look like? So, you know, you'll have your baseline year. After year one, you'll have your baseline year, your year one data. It just keeps building out over the course of the five years. So, you're seeing the data trends, not just

122one year snippets. >> Yeah. >> So, you're the next time we meet, you'll have an example of a score. Oh, I can send you an example of a scorecard. >> Okay. So, email. Then my my next question is is that public record for other schools. >> Oh, yeah. So, then because ours would be public, then we would be able to have access to other schools that use your same. >> Absolutely. To see how we kind of compare. >> Yeah. >> But it is no indic scorecard is the same. >> Yeah. district. >> But but that scorecard, I mean, if we do this, >> when do we do this? >> Um, is public record, right? >> Oh, yeah. So, um I think this is something that can become a standing agenda item on a board meeting.

123>> Yeah. >> And it can become a um the conversation of um what it is that we're doing and what we're focusing on. I think it's easy to bring that bring that um accountability. I mean, let's just let's just use our use our words, right? That's accountability for us. >> For quite a long time, it was supposed to be on every item, but it's kind of the same as one day it's here and then three years later it's sitting on some shelf there with dust on it. And our idea was to be looking at all times so it didn't get the dust. I think when Bruce and I came on the strategic plan was a 600 page 800 pound book that set somewhere in the district office. >> We never saw it. >> Yeah. With

124dust on it. >> Yeah. >> But this 810 pages I don't feel is >> this is very concise and it doesn't take long for the subject. I don't feel like it has to be sharpened up more and more. Now, this is understandable. >> Yes. >> Isn't what I'm hearing? I just want to make sure I work direction. Basically, I'm hearing you say you don't like the work priority. >> I don't know. I don't like that. I don't priority is fine. It's Yeah, it's I I think just the way that that last >> I mean pages. Yeah. I mean, not on the last two pages, not in general. Sorry. >> Not in general. Yes. Yes. If >> even if that last page just >> it seemed it seems very linear, like Bruce said, like we're not

125going to look at student enrollment till you're four or five. And that's not and I don't believe that's true. >> But that's just the way it reads. And I think >> does the word focus have the same effect as priority >> to me? Um, say that again. Wait, I'm sorry. >> Focus. focus area. Yeah. Focus area number one. I think so priorities in my right way. >> No priority doesn't just >> we can all lost on this. I'd lose this page. >> Yeah. >> That last bit in the in the tire plan. >> This last part could just become the working document for the administrative team. >> Yeah. >> Not not in >> and we can report on we can report on each of the areas through the scorecard. I think it just needs to

126be clear that and that's going to be part of our role in communicating administratively, communicating to you what we're focusing on and how the initiatives, the efforts, the um the tasks um align with the work that has come through the strategic planning process. Well, and as we're working on one priority, it probably will impact the other priorities >> which will reflect in the scorecard which will impact what we do with the next project. >> Exactly. >> Like I say, it's all interconnected. >> Part of this, it's not that any of these bad or any of these goals are important. It's just which ones are going to have the most impact on moving things forward, which means they're going to have an impact on other goals. So, if we do really really well in in improving

127our high quality instruction in every classroom, that should have an impact on our student enrollment. You know, if we if we're doing things to align our staff to clear shared district vision and direction, it affects our marketing, which direct could directly impact our student enrollment. It's really easy to see the the intertwining of one action affecting multiple goals. It's just when you when you write them on paper, they do appear linear. And it's being able to see it nonlinear and that it's all meant to fit together. That makes sense. Thank you. That'd be great feedback. Thank >> because in the end I want I just want to reiterate in the end this is your plan. It's not my fault and it's gonna be something you're comfortable implementing and my job is to make your desires

128come out on paper. >> Okay. >> So, I appreciate the honest feedback. >> Thank you. >> With that, we will move on to the next item of the state high school league resolution. Uh every year um districts have to um walk through the resolution process process for membership. Um you will all be receiving the video uh that we need to watch. It's the same one that we've seen year-over-year that you all have seen year-over-year. Um but uh this is a required resolution to be part of the state high school league. Uh, and what this is saying is that we agree to follow the the the bylaws, the rules, the uh procedures of the Minnesota State High School. >> It is a resolution. So, >> to introduce the resolution for adoption of the 2026 2027 resolution

129for membership in the Minnesota State High School League. >> Second by call. >> It is. I >> hear sorry too. >> Yep. Um, next item resolution establishing filing period for activates of candidacy. >> All right. So we are at the time of the year where we have to set the filing dates for uh school board election. Uh this is um the resolution that has been prepared for us as it has been in the past. You will see that the dates that are established are um oh goodness I'm have to pull up the resolution. I'm just looking back here. resolution are um >> July 14th to July 28th. Uh so there are four board positions available. Um if anybody is interested in has questions about running for the school board or has questions about what that

130looks like, um happy to answer any questions. I think in years past the chair has kind of fielded some of those questions as well. Um but uh this is the formal resolution to establish those dates for file lease for candidacy for a motion. >> I make a motion for a resolution establishing dates for filing evidence can be seen >> by Thomas. >> I'll second by Jacob. >> Is there no roll call on this one? >> Uh no, there should be a roll call. >> Okay. >> Because it's a resolution. Hi >> I >> Thomas >> Hi >> I >> no motion carries. >> Moving on to the employee appreciation information. So as I mentioned earlier uh May is a month of many moments of appreciation. We had our food service workers who were recognized on

131um it was the national lunch hero day on May 1st. Uh we have our principal day also on May 1st. Uh our teacher appreciation which is a week of May 4th through the 8th and uh the national school nurse day on May 6th. So uh just a a special thank you. Um I our school does not function without all of our people and uh I can tell you as soon as you have a a chunk of time without one of them, you notice really quickly when they hear. So um thank you and and a note of appreciation for all of those employees. Moving on to the upcoming meeting schedule. >> The one piece I do want to call out is that our work session is at is June 16th. As a reminder, um I needed

132to be gone the week before. So, thank you again for your flexibility to move that to the 16th. And then that'll be followed by the following week with the business meeting on the 23rd. >> District staff that was canceled. >> That one got cancelled. >> Thank you. >> I feel like I got an email on that the last day said, "Can I see it on there?" >> Yeah. Just wanted to verify that my calendar's not wrong. I think it probably was on my calendar until I declined it and then it got cancelled. So, >> y no other comments. Looking for a motion to adjourn. >> Motion by Ron. >> Second by Jacob. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. every time. That's