December 11, 2023 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

001I'd like to call this meeting to order uh please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks everybody thanks for being here um our roll call tonight all board members are in attendance and we have a special guest this evening it's um Rihanna mccrave who is representing the student council um she's vice president filling in for our normal rep welcome tonight um we always start with our open Forum which is is in accordance to board policy 203 I'll read the rules input from students staff parents and community members in major decisions can be a valuable form of assistance to the board open forum

002is an opportunity to address the board at least 10 minutes prior to each meeting a signup sheet will be available at the meeting site for individuals to sign up to address the board only those whose names appear on the signup sheet at the time the meeting is called to order shall be permitted to address the board up to five speakers shall be provided a maximum of 3 15 minutes total to address the board unless an exception is granted by the board chair speakers will not be allowed to verbally attack disparage or potentially defame individual board members employees or students nor May speakers use vulgar or profane language also speakers may be precluded from disclosing personally identifiable private data regarding employees or students speakers unwilling to conform to the rules or time constraints may be told

003that his or her privilege of speaking has ended if you have any handouts or materials for the board please submit those to the executive assistant Martha Waltz members of the public should not approach the dis the board will not review handouts during the public comment period board members shall listen respectfully to issues brought to them by the community but not engage the individuals during their time the board shall not deliberate or take action during the open form regarding an issue presented if follow-up by Administration is necessary the chair shall request that the superintendent follow up on the matter when the board chair proceeds with the meeting audience comments are no longer in order however the boards the board members retain the right to call on District administrators for information to assist the board in its

004deliberations I'll also add that um we've we've had a pleasant public forum more recently but I I want to just reiterate that open forum is a safe space for community members to share their experiences concerns and feedback so in this space we strive to protect First Amendment rights while showing respect for everyone we would like to ask the community to be respectful not only in speaking at open Forum but also in listening we as a community have an opportunity to elevate the conversation and create healthy spaces for dialogue and opposing views we thank the community for demonstrating this and it shows how we can all collectively do better so thank you for respectfully sharing listening and being engaged in our plsas community tonight we have four speakers thank you for listening to me um the

005first is best saterland and this is regarding contract settlement yes yeah all right um hi everyone my name is Beth sadland as she said um and I'm an educator in the district as well as a parent to one former Laker and one current Laker Educators in prayor Lake Savage are nearing a breaking point it is well known that these last three years have been the most difficult in public education probably ever having an unsettled contract only adds to the stress Educators feel on a daily basis educators are an essential element of our schools of course our voices need to be heard and our ideas about improving our own work should matter teaching also must be an attractive profession or else smart talented young people are going to turn to other careers that probably pay better

006in the private sector we need this talent to stay in Prior Lake Savage as our communities continue to grow in my current role as one of two autism and behavior consultants in the district I primarily support Prior Lake High School Bridges both Twin Oaks and Hidden Oaks middle schools for several for several years I also supported the elementary schools and I worked at grainwood elementary as a special education teacher this role has provided me the opportunity to see staff and action at every single building in the district I most often connect with teams when things are tough and students are struggling it's just the nature of my role the last three years have held more of these struggles that I have seen in my 16 years as an educator despite this each and every time

007I see teams of teachers who have worked extremely hard to implement interventions hold meetings make plans adjust schedules all to meet the needs of not just the student who is struggling but of every student in their classroom it's been a tough go veteran teachers are tired new teachers are overwhelmed Educators and prior leue Savage are asking the district for a fair contract that's good for our students our families and for our community we also ask for one which honors all the work we have done and all the work we will continue to do we ask for one that will help us attract new teachers and bring fresh ideas and perspectives to our district a strong Union contract is what allows us to have a voice in The District not just for ourselves but what is

008best for our students thank you thank you Beth um our next speaker is Chris Gratz and the topic is contract settlement uh thank you for allowing me to come tonight and talk to you um I'm not only an educator I teach third grade at Red Tail I'm also a parent I had two kids graduate from Prior Lake High School and I still have two kids hopefully going to graduate from Prior Lake High School in the future um as we know guys I know know our long list of worthy Investments to be made for 2023 uh but one of them would really be worthy of raising compensation for all Educators um from the first day through when we retire Minnesota cannot simply provide it students with an education they deserve to be addressing we need to

009be addressing the staff Staffing crisis um as we all know we have just received the largest increase of funding coming from the state legislative session and this bargaining season should really be bold uh we need to have contracts this year that acknowledge the effects of inflation on Educators and our families um those of us that have been here in the district for quite a while should not be going backwards um with increase to when we settle contracts as some of us have been doing um I have spoken with a lot of seasoned colleagues and many of them are rethinking their choices of how long they can continue in this profession and making sure that they do have enough for their families um conditions should be created that encourage experienced Educators to stay and also though

010have contracts that would persuade college students um that will come into the education career and again as Beth stated let's bring those in we need young people but we also need a district that people want to come to and without increasing and making sure we have a great package deal this might not happen and with the Staffing shortage we don't want to be one of those districts in that predicament um a fair and Equitable salary and benefit increase will of course retain a lot of good teachers it will also um hopefully bring in a lot of other good teachers and we need the best Educators to prepare the next gener ation of Prior Lake Lakers thank you thank you Chris next we have Sarah Summers um the topic is contract settlement hello I'm Sarah Summers

011and I um my high school teacher and I'll probably be echoing a lot of what um my colleagues just said but I felt it was really important to come here today and let you know that this is um a community that we all really like being and and our Union contract it allows us to advocate for our student needs yes it includes better pay and benefits for our staff but these pieces help us attract and keep the best staff in Prior Lake to support our students we need more consistent loving adults in our schools to help our students grow and Thrive and to that point um a role that I had for several years was a peer coach at the high school and in that time I was lucky enough to observe basically every teacher

012that worked there and it was one of the most affirming things in my career because of the staff and the staff um supports each other and um we just I know it's not just at the high school it's if you were to ask any peer coach or any administrator or any parent they would tell you that the the quality of our Ed Educators is topnotch um every person I worked with told me that they went into teaching because they want to help kids they want to help them learn math help them find self-confidence help them turn into Happy adults and um I'm a parent myself and that is the type of teacher an educator I want my kids to have um there's no greater example of this like was mentioned before the last three years

013was just so challenging for everyone but Educators and students we went through it together and it was it was challenging and so um because we've gone above and beyond for our students I feel like we have made this um this community and and I know that we have a community of people who live here who are you know not in the building that show up and support our schools as well and they support them in many ways like raising money for our colleague or um you know the model un is paid for or by rotary or just people bringing us snacks on conferences and so it really takes a team we have each other's backs to keep our community moving forward um the teachers in this District we need your support now and um we

014we need to come together so that we can have a fair return on our work which includes salary and benefit increases that will help us keep up with the pace of inflation and the cost of living um we are all very passionate about our work in our students we have shown that time and time again and um we want a contract that respects that work and the dedication we put into this community inside and outside the school walls thank you thank you Sarah next um our final speaker tonight is Katie Gabriel um speaking on book Challenge and supporting transgender students good evening chair Crosby Dr Thomas and board directors my name is Katie Gabriel I use she her pronouns I live in Savage and I have two students in the district I recently read a

015wonderful book Melissa by Alex goino it's a story about a transgender fourth grader who tries out for the part of Charlotte in her school play Charlotte's Web while it's about a middle-grade book meaning its intended audiences for around ages 8 to 11 I'd encourage everyone in our community to read this book my understanding is that there's a book challenge underway in the district targeting this book which was originally published with the title George I don't know the reasons given for the challenge but I can make an educated guest transgender people exist just as cisgender people exist there's no disputing that and transgender youth exist in our schools that is fact no matter how often some adults in our community Community declare their existence to be quote nonsense end quote imagine your 9-year-old self imagine your

0169-year-old self being transgender and finding a book in your school that stars a transgender character imagine the delight and sense of Peace in seeing someone like you reflected back in the pages of that book imagine your friends reading that book and as a result they're gaining understanding and acceptance of transgender people perhaps you're having a hard time imagining that scenario maybe we grew up in an environment where being transgender was considered quote nonsense end quote so instead let's imagine your 9-year-old self living in a community where some adults have declared that having brown eyes is nonsense and that the existence and Humanity of all brown-eyed people is nonsense and these adults want their children or any children to learn from or learn about don't want their children or any children children to learn from or

017about people with brown eyes and all books in the library written by and about brown-eyed people should be removed from the shelves and shame on you for choosing to be born with brown eyes you are nonsense how does your 9-year-old self feel about this what are you feeling deep in your gut young people deserve to see themselves reflected in the books in their school young people deserve to learn about people who are different than themselves most most importantly transgender youth deserve to be affirmed and accepted I call on everyone in our community to speak up in support of our transgender students and in support of all of our students right to read hate has no place in plsas thank you thank you Katie that's concludes our open Forum um for tonight we will move on

018to approval of agenda can I get a motion to approve please so made The Last Quest can I get a second second director olad all in favor I that passes 70 uh we will now move on to our truth and Taxation portion of the meeting um which I will hand off to executive director Frederickson to um present tonight and then we will be able to have public comments regarding that Amy chair Crosby can we remind them it's really loud it's just echoing this way just a moment thank you I don't know if you guys can hear it thank you can you hear Mr Marshall door being shut gave a thank you thank you all right good evening chair Crosby superintendent Thomas members of the board um I'll be going through the budget and the levy

019certification process um a little later in the agenda we'll ask you to approve both um The Levy and the um um amended budget the levy certification process this is just a review of what the process looks like um you approved the preliminary Levy um back in September um the um final Levy is due to the uh Department of educ and the county by the end of December and then Property Owners will pay their taxes in May and October based on our final adopted Levy and we will be able to recognize the tax revenue for the school year of 24 and 25 The Authority that we have for school levies um has to either come from the Minnesota statute 126 c48 which is set by the commissioner or voter approved um the voter approved legislation is

020Minnesota statute 126 c17 and some of the factors that would impact our change in any of the taxes for the state level decisions you could have changes in the state formulas which we did this year um there could be changes in the sales ratio which impa impact our adjusted net tax capacity which again also happened this year there can be some compliance Law changes um for the local voter you have either the voter approved Bond referendum uh the voter approved operating referendum or um a voter approved capital projects Levy we do not have a capital projects Levy but we do have an operating referendum and we still have um some of the Bond referendum um from when we built the high school other considerations that would impa impact the tax changes are um changes in

021the real estate market there could be property improvements that uh have not been previously taxed there could be changes in the assessed market value of property which um this year happened and then if there's any changes in classification so for instance if you had Homestead and was changed to uh rental property some examples that we have of school levies for the voter approved they're things like the operating referendum Bond and capital projects um some of the levies that we have use uh enrollment as the basis for calculation things like the local optional um operating Capital the safe schools levy and our Equity Levy I'll look at enrollment number numbers and then some of them use expenditures as a basis of what you would get uh in the future and examples of those are the long-term

022facilities maintenance the career and tech ed Levy the achievement and integration Levy and the lease Levy so because most of uh our biggest portion of those dollars are going to come from the enrollment based um levies I have put on here what our enrollment projections were um beginning of this year we were projecting 8,71 students in K12 um as you see later on the agenda our current enrollment is at 8,643 so we're still about 58 students uh short of what we projected that's going to have um slight impact on the budget however we do usually see an increase in students students in um right after the winter break so the final Levy certification there's not a lot of difference than from what you saw in September um the general fund Levy we asking for $19.9

023million which is about a 10.13% increase those biggest increases comes from local optional um the operating capital and the long term facilities maintenance which U there was changes in legislation to increase that formula we also have a slight decline in the community services fund most of the community service funds are based on census data so there is just a slight Decline and then you'll see a a slight decline about 3% decrease in our debt service because as we're paying off our bonds we're not um getting new bonds so as we pay them off that debt service will decrease so in summary uh we're asking for 35.9 million in as a final Levy which is about a 3.92% increase over what we had um the previous year and if we look at the history of um

024what our levies look like that increase in pay in 17 pay 18 was uh when we sold the bonds for the high school but other than that we've had um fairly consistent changes in the um Levy last year there was a decline um there was a decrease in the prop in some of the property values and also the long-term facilities maintenance this year however property uh values have increased quite a bit and if you look at the impact that um our school school levy will have if you have property value that did not show any increase at all you're going to see about a 3% increase in the property tax value or in the property taxes that you'll see on your tax statement if you're um showed a 2% increase in the property values you're

025going to see round a 5% increase in your taxes and if there was a 10% increase in the property value you're going to see um a little under 15% we look at the tax levies for residential Homestead for um this Levy certification you'll see that there are two districts that actually have a smaller um tax levy for residential Homestead than us and that's Jordan and Bloomington um everybody else will have um higher tax levies than what we're going to to be showing the amended budget that we're asking for this is going to look the same as when we talked about at our study session we're not changing the general fund um as we've looked at the analysis month by month it's going to be very close um to what we originally projected and that's a

026revenue of about 11 15.1 million with expenditures of about 116 .5 million the Food Services did not change um the Community Education changed slightly they adjusted the revenue and expenses to reflect some changes in specifically kids Co and um some of the um enrollment numbers so uh this amended budget has been changed that First Column reflects the actual audit results that we had and then the only other changes would be the community services so again we'll be asking you later in the agenda to vote on these two topics and if you have any questions I can certainly answer them there you go okay um thank you um director Frederickson um I have a question for the enrollment numbers that you um quoted on the slide do those enrollment um numbers include um both open enrollment

027students and Resident students is that the total correct so so the local tax so what I'm trying to understand is does any of the property tax um money from open enrollment students does any of their property tax money come to our district or is it just the the local tax paying that fund the Open Enrollment students uh it would be just the local that we get the state aid on any of the um students in open enrollment uh so the the referendum used to be the the formula used to say resident students um was calculated using for the referendum they've since changed that I believe was in 2017 they changed the law to be only the um actual attend students so the pupil units so um our tax levy is only used to support open

028enrolled and the resident students not open and rolled out or any of the non-pb or any of the charter schools get their own state aid okay thank you so just to be transparent with our community the um about the revenue that's coming into our district that it does support and and don't get me wrong I do support open enrollment I'm not saying that I don't but our local tax dollars are supporting the 1300 open enroll students that are coming into our district I just want to be clear about that we get the state aid for them and it would be um again their formulas are based on per pupil units but not their tax levy dollars tax levy is there's different formulas for the tax levies and again the referendum used to be but it's

029not anymore correct thank you any other questions from board members believe all this was talked about in the study session um so we most of these questions were already answered so thank you very very much director Frederickson so now if any people would like to make public comment or ask clarifying questions regarding the pro proposed property tax levy and budget you are welcome to come speak all right no takers um we'll move on to our consent agenda um so consent agenda items are considered to be routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a board member or citizen so request in which event the item will be removed as a consent agenda item and addressed do we have any um consent agenda items

030um that board members or public would like removed chair Crosby um I would like to pull the month I have a question in the monthly Financial reports that i' um I'd like to ask a question on that and then I also um would like to pull the um resignation report as well I'm sorry the what um resignations it's under Personnel items resignations terminations and non-renewals okay so F2 8 F2 okay and then the monthly financial report as well so we will pull 8 C and 8 F2 and we will move those to um right before new business okay and I'm going to ask other board members to help me remember to address those um can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda without those two items please made by director Olstead can I

031get a second second by director ban all in favor I I okay that passes 70 um and we have a resolution for the acceptance of gifts and I think we have two it's a roll call vote but I'll I'll list what these gifts are because we are so thankful um moms for Liberty of Scott County donated 667 pocket constitutions to seventh graders and jod and Donovan Johnson donated um items to The mcaps healthc CARE program um can I get a motion to accept these gifts so by director berck can I get a second second by director Atkinson uh I will start with director stead y director bullan director bernick I director France I sorry I director ainson I I that passes 70 and we'll move on to Laker Pride this evening a lot of Ru

032in the bottled up all that energy thank you Mr Marshall do you want to introduce him okay yeah okay I'll just let him jump in sit or stand along the wall whatever you want chair Crosby board of directors as of our students and families come in this evening I just want to um thank Mr Marshall and his whole team of folks who support our students engaging in athletics and activities it's clearly a a phenomenal way for our students to Showcase their talents outside of the classroom so thank you to the students in advance and I will um I have recognition certificates Mr Marshall okay that I'll give to you and I'll allow you to disperse um to the appropriate students as uh upon completion or at a later date so with that I'll turn it

033over to you perfect well thank you uh good evening Dr Thomas board chair Crosby and uh school board members uh my apologies for the rockus crowd out there we they get get to be a little excited and uh and certainly um excited to be able to be honored and be recognized here this evening so um before we get into the individual um student recognition I'm going to start with um our annual fall uh curric ular report um I know you've all should have received this and I think it's really important um each time that we do one of these reports to go back to our vision statement and the reason why we do what we do um and so I always kick off with making sure that we are reminded of the fact that the

034whole idea of having an experience at Prior Lake High School in our co-curricular programs is to experience an enjoyable environment of a wide array of extracurricular activities that promote Pride character sportsmanship and development of personal and team excellence and again these are things that are super important for our coaches and our advisers to always be able to go back to as well and to remember this is why we do what we do and this is what makes education based Athletics very different from the club sports and the other sports that we might see out in the community so um we've created a definition of success and I think so often a lot of people define success in terms of wins and losses and how things happen on the field or in the pool or on

035the ice and um that is not our definition of success I mean again it is important for us to try to do what we can especially at that Varsity level to to compete um to be able to win where we can but uh more importantly um we are looking at these three things we want to create lifelong Memories We want to be able to develop lifelong relationships and we want to be able to teach and learn lifelong lessons so again um so often I think we need to be grounded in these ideas and and these beliefs and and be able to go back to that uh a number of years ago as we looked at different character traits that we were also looking at um each one of our coaches and our advisers does create

036um a purpose statement and at one point I think if many of you if you had been on the board for a while you may have actually gone through that process of creating a purpose statement I know our learning leaders have gone through that um within the past five six years as well and creating a purpose statement in terms of the why the why why it is why we do what we do as coaches as advisers as teachers and um through that process of developing a purpose statement we also came up with these different character traits um and I can thank Mike Dean our our head volleyball coach because he was very instrumental in creating this years ago and if you walk into our gym now you will actually see a a large board up

037there that has all of these different character traits that are up there and if you look at the the acronym Laker going down specifically for uh moral character traits so these are traits that we want our our athletes and our students involved in activities to be able to carry with them throughout their life um and from a moral uh character trait we want them to have love we want them to display love love for the activity love for the people who are involved with that we want them to display an appreciation an appreciation of the fact that they have these opportunities an appreciation of their opponents and appreciation of the officials and appreciation of their coaches and advisers as well we want them to display kindness now again we realize sometimes that on the football

038field or you know on the on the ice whatever the case might be they might not seem like they're always being really kind okay but the idea is that um you know we're no different than those that we're competing against the only that thing that is different is where our parents chose to live okay the difference between us and Shaka is our ZIP code that's it otherwise those people growing up there and going and having experiences there are just the same as our students are here so um empathy you know it's super important I think that our our student athletes and our and our co-curricular participants learn to display empathy for their teammates and their coaches and their opponents and then lastly still need to have a respect a respect for the game a respect

039for um for those all involved um and again this is one of those pieces that we share with our parents as well too because we do feel that um you know from the from the parents who are in the stands it's important that they are also displaying these traits whether it be toward other parents toward teammates toward coaches toward officials whatever the case may be specific to our to our performances then we also have these five performance traits once again utilizing the acronym Laker um we ask that all of our participants think about what kind of Legacy they're leaving you know when you leave here how is it that you that you want people to remember you um what kind of Laker Legacy are you leaving we want them to be able to be Advocates

040we want them to be able to step up and take responsibility for themselves but be able to speak up um for others as well too we want them to have knowledge not only do we want them to have a knowledge of the sport of the activity in which they're involved in but certainly a knowledge of um you know the the other teams their opponents um and the background of the sport that they're in we want them to have enthusiasm and excitement you know we want them to be able to go out there and and be excited and ready to go as you heard out there in the hallway I think we have a lot of enthusiasm with this crowd tonight and lastly and you know perhaps one of the most important is we want them

041to be resilient we want them to be able to to experience setbacks we want them to be able able to know that it's okay to fail and what we're going to learn from that to be able to move forward so again these are things that we continue to stress within our programs with our coaches our advisers our parents and our um students themselves uh we have our participation numbers as well our participation numbers have stayed pretty pretty similar um year in and year out there has been certainly an increase coming out of covid from a few years ago with these numbers I think perhaps the the one number that I do want to point out is the very last one with our interal soccer program uh we do find it's very important to to continue

042to offer uh Sports and activities for all of our students at Prior Lake High School last year we added interal soccer and again at that point we only had 14 but we did jump up to 24 students this past fall which again doesn't seem like it's necessarily a whole lot but that kind of growth is something that we want to continue to be able to see and it's been a nice program because it's uh with inter real soccer we're able to play outside we're also able to go inside and play footall um which is just again been a nice opportunity for a lot of our students to be able to participate in so for me the inter murals are are some of those on ones that we want to continue to see that growth in

043so specifically with our scoreboard update from this past fall um we had we had a lot of success um both in what I defined earlier but also specifically in uh how we competed and what we did out there um there are eight eight sports that we participate in in the fall within the sou Suburban Conference in three of those eight Sports we ended up as self Suburban Conference champions there's not another school in the self Suburban Conference who can who can say they did the same thing this past fast of all so it was very very uh successful in that sense um additionally our numbers in terms of Spectators and and people coming out to the events also increased um so it's been really I think a a nice opportunity to be able to display

044a lot of school spirit um if you're around during the homecoming football game unfortunately the second half of the game ended up Rihanna you might have been there um we got rained out we had some major weather delays but um certainly ended up being a a a a unique experience and something that I think will stay with these students for quite a long time so some of these individuals who are up there are individuals that we are going to recognize tonight one of our teams girls tennis they finished 9 and0 um unfortunately we didn't have anybody move on to the state level and that's what we recognize here but uh for them to finish 9 and0 in the conference was was very impressive we did have some injuries right at the end of the season

045which did prevent some of those individuals from being able to qualify for the state tournament uh the first person I want to recognize tonight though is from our boys cross country team um hoody heg hoody where are you come on up so hoodie's a senior this year uh he finished eighth um he finished eighth in the South I'm sorry the team finished eth in the South Suburban Conference hoody finished as the individual conference Champion he went on to sections at sections his whole goal was just to make sure that he made it the state which he did and at the state meet which they moved to the first time up to uh to the boustead golf course by by the UFM uh hoodi finished 10th this year finishing with all state honors um at the

046state meet so congratulations hoody I do think it's important to note as well uh with hoodie uh his coach John marish he's one of our teched teachers um coach meish is stepping down as our coach this year he's been an absolutely unbelievable coach and I know he just wants to go in some different directions and will'll continue to teach at the high school but certainly Kudos out to coach marish as well for everything that he has done for the [Applause] program the next we're going to recognize is our girl swimming and Diving team and let's have um those individuals who qualified in swam at State come on up so our girl swimming and Diving team finished 9 and0 this year as conference Champs I think perhaps even more impressive is that they are now on

047a 55 consecutive dual meet streak um which is unbelievable I think we go back um coach hcraft is at five or six years of consecutive conference championships six Alex knows six years of consecutive conference championships um which is truly amazing um to win that many in a row so um they went to the section meet where they finished third at the section meet and uh here we have some of our our individual qualifiers from the state doublea meet where they finished in seventh place this year Ivy Sut was second in the 500 free and she finished at state champ in the 500 yard [Applause] freestyle who not with us tonight finished 10th in the 200 free Alex Peterson finished 14th in the 50 free and in the 100 fly Alex is with us tonight Kiff

048is with us tonight she finished seventh in diving as [Applause] well freestyle relay of Alex Natalie Livy Sut and Ivy finish uh in 11th and 400 freestyle relay of Janessa centers Alex Natalie and Ivy finished in fourth place so um truly some remarkable swims as the season went on um and I think Anna is the only one who's graduating from up here right now right so uh many of the crew will be back next year and uh really another big shout out as well to our coach Katie hcraft co uh Katie's been coaching and working within the district for quite a few number of years and the program that she and her husband Justin have developed over the years is just absolutely outstanding and certainly one of the best if not the best in the

049state so [Applause] congrats real quick if that's oh did you want to talk [Laughter] no and the last uh team we're going to recognize here tonight is our girls cross country team girls come on up the girls cross country team finished as the conference champions this year I believe it was the third year in a row if I remember correctly it's all three years that I've been athletic director so that must be why I that happen um in addition they finished a section champion this year which hasn't happened in the last couple years uh qualifying for a team uh as a team for the state class daa championships at the state class doua championships this group of girls they ran remarkably well and actually ended up finishing in second place overall at the state meet

050and uh this this year's team at the state meet consisted of Isabelle reinders Leila venick Sarah gastony key mulling Clara Gillan Maggie Hayne and Brook marquart now obviously they're not all with us here tonight but certainly a big congrat ulations to those of you who are here nice job just real quick so if you want to go up in the front and then we also have to recognize uh coach Dan sad coach has been uh coaching the cross country team now for 20 over 20 years1 years 31 years over 30 years with this program and I think this is probably the best this team has ever finished is that correct the highest finished 2009 second in 2009 so there we go so parents if you want to take some pictures then girls swimmers we'll have

051you come right back up after this and diver come on up ladies yeah [Music] congratulations m congratulations okay who would he come on up and Coach marish yeah all right congratulations again to all of our student athletes and coaches congratulations have one final group that we want to recognize tonight and that's a number of our students who are part of our our choir program this year we had 11 singers from Prior Lake High School have been accepted to the 2022 2023 ACD da of Minnesota N9 and 10 honor choirs um so we've got the the SSA which is our treble voices Grace galbus Sienna Hava and Caitlyn Weinberger if you're here come on up as your name gets called off ladies come on [Music] up the ttbb which is our teners and our bases are

052Wyatt Gillis Justin Borg and Sawyer Olsen and then our satb which is the mixed voices Chloe Ericson Sophie Callis ingred Olsen Sabrina Jaspers and Lucas kutson and I think that it's important to note with our choir program that since 2015 this district has sent 266 students in grades 4 to 11 to a state level Honor Choir or an Allstate choir um and so that that is that is huge in the spring we usually will recognize um the All State and so they have not had those auditions yet but this is we max out with the number of students who are who can qualify for this every year and and we are one of very few high schools who actually do this so again to have all 11 of these students be able to receive this

053honor is truly uh a credit to them and a credit to both Randy Han or Randy erison and Rob Han um are two choir directors as well too so congratulations to all of you very [Applause] good congratulations again few more pictures the last piece I just want to mention uh in in addition to our wonderful singers and Fine Arts programs um our theater program put on a fantastic production of Greece this fall um hopefully many of you are able to make it out to that um they did receive an honorable mention through the henpen theater Spotlight award for our fall musical which is again a big accomplishment for them too so lastly again I just want to say a big thank you um thank you to certainly our coaches our advisers our students who are

054involved in all of these wonderful programs um our parents who are there to help and support our community in general and certainly all of you up here as well because I do think that all of you view our our co-curricular programs as an extension of the classroom as something that is extremely vital and important for the development of our students and without your support we would not be able to do the things that we do so thank you very much thank you I just want to thank you all for coming out tonight and and sharing your wonderful accomplishments with us I I cannot imagine the amount of work you all have put in and in representing our schools and we're just very thankful and grateful and um proud of you so thanks thank you thank

055you so quiet when they come in here thank you chair Crosby board that is our Laker Pride for this evening them exit for a minute we're losing our [Laughter] crowd pretty fun to hear about their accomplishments so moving on uh in Personnel items direct uh director Herman will be speaking to us tonight um uh asking us to approve some additional educational support staff um and the juneth mou but we'll start with the first thank you chair Crosby member of the board um we're bringing forward uh Staffing request um based on a a new student need to um change a resource Pera to a center-based paa um that is a different um Lane in that contract um and also is increasing it by 0.5 hours per day um so that is a total of around 2,8

0564230 cents out of the general fund for additional costs all right thank you can I get a uh motion to approve made by director Vasquez a second second by director bernick any questions or comments go ahead could you explain the difference for us between the center lane perah versus the other type that they're moving to and what this entails as far as the workload thank you um Vice chair France um the difference between centerbase and resource par Center based perah is working within a center-based program within one of our schools um whether um that's our life skills or another one of our Center based and they're solely in or they the vast majority of their time is with um Center based students in those specific programs resource um Paras are also with our special education

057students but they're um supporting within the classroom not within one of our center-based programs um and depending on where the program is um the level whether it's elementary middle or High School those hours change based off of the needs of those students um and the times of the days that they support them any other questions okay all in favor I I opposed that passes 70 um the other item for uh requested approval is the juneth memorandum of understanding director Herman thank you chair Crosby um members of the board Dr Thomas as we brought forward um last year um with the um change in legislation to add juneth as a state holiday um we quickly Pro provided aou um because it changed in May and we had to quickly get it done for the for June

058um but this is for for this upcoming juneth then um next round of um contract negotiations for our 12-month employees at this impacts We Will We Will um look at upgrading uh updating the contracts but for this year we are asking for the approval of this mou with the corresponding employee contracts that have 12-month employees that this would impact thank you can I get a motion to approve by director glasa second second by director berck any questions or comments all right all in favor I opposed that passes 70 thank you director Herman we have no unfinished business uh we do have new business and but I believe this is where we will return to our consent agenda items that were pulled the first is the monthly financial report yes thank you chair Crosby um I'm

059going back to item 8 C um so on the first page of the monthly financial report um I just have a question for um director Frederickson um my question is so as I'm looking at the expenditures and it says year-to date our general fund expenditures as of October thir 31st 2023 were 29.9 million compared to 26.9 million to the previous fiscal year can you help me understand if we are 3 million ahead in spending are you projecting our budget to be the same for the 23 24 school year um based on the increase where we're seeing the increased um expenditures so far this year uh yes um direct ainson that that is what we assumed as as we talked about in the um study session there are some things that we bought last year that

060were one-time expenses that we won't be seeing going forward um and there are also some things that we have this year um that will look different we haven't settled all of our contract yet so we're making some assumptions so um as I stated before we are continually watching this um it's a lot of these are cyclical um so it's just going to depend you can't really compare necessarily month to month by the year to year because there are different things that we've purchased last year that we're not going to this year so um again we're just watching it every month to make sure that we don't have any surprises and that we're right on track for what we projected our expenditures to be and so far we have been thank you for that um do

061you have do you happen to have an um a easily like put together report certainly not asking you to create any work for you but I know Lakefield does has a really nice report that shows like a rolling these are our actuals for the months that have passed and then projects the budget out for the rest of the year so that every month we can see sort of where you know if there's any movement um on the yearly B budget from a protection standpoint does that make sense um I can get you an example of what they have but I don't want you to recreate anything that's why I'm asking if you have some already created yep no so as we look at our analysis that we do every month we have a report called

062trial balance that we look at every month that projects out what the future years are going to look like you make some adjustments and assumptions um again we kind of put it together in this document um we don't necessarily give the entire analytical package that we do to go through all of the monthly reports it just summarizes everything in here but I can certainly give you that report if you want to see it every month um again it's it's um for what it's worth it's at a point in time and you're making assum assumptions to get through the rest of the year um which is why we've been trying to compare you know year over-year on here um and so far I mean if you look year-over-year we've been pretty consistent in what we're spending

063um when you look at the expenditure summary on page two um you know salaries are at 19 21 and 20% so there they're not hugely different um as you compare the three years um and the percentages that we've spent so far um but again we can certainly provide other information if if you're interested in seeing it well like I said I don't want to create extra work for you if you have a report I think it's helpful to be able to see this is where you know these are actual numbers and this is how the rest is rolling um but certainly would love board feedback on that as well comments from the board I'm very familiar with trial balances and no we I wouldn't need it we have the year-to date actuals which is 10

064times better than what we had in the last couple years so thank you very much Tammy but the year-to DAT actual is on a monthly basis showing the rolling and then also um showing the breakdown which the trial balance would be overwhelming and not have this summary which would be very hard to read um it'd be like getting our dis dispersement at that level um so I'm fine with the year-to date the monthly year-to dat actuals um that is actually much easier to read I would agree with I agree with Mary I appreciate the summary and I don't need to see the cheat analysis every month anybody else want to I would say um I am fine with how the information is uh presented as is however um you know anytime there's more information and

065it's given in a in a way that is easily um discernable from community members that might not have um School Finance background anything to uh give information um is always helpful I think that the information that you do provide is is sufficient for me any other feedback from board members yeah I would agree I think what we're working with here on this with this document has really really been a really helpful for for us as a board um in comparison to the past and also I think to director Atkinson's point of asking questions when we need to ask questions because we're seeing something that just is maybe raising a question that's why we're here that's our job and so um I just I I think we're all able to do that with the information you

066provide so I appreciate that and and I don't want to Discount that this report because I went back and looked at what was provided last year at this same time period and it was not at all what you have put together so I do agree I would just ask for transparency where if you are seeing um major shifts on how the end the year is going to end up if you could please just you know keep us a breast of that um thank you that's what's actually really nice about the monthly highlights that you give um that's an opportunity to maybe lay that out there too yeah and I didn't see am I missing director Frederickson already stated she did go over these details and warn us that there were some fluctuations and she's been

067watching it closely in the study session in which we did go over these numbers so that was that was very very helpful can you help point me to I'm not seeing where is the total that shows the 116.5 million of that you're forecasting because I see it broken out by month but I'm not seeing anything that shows this is where the total is going to end for the year is that in this report maybe that's just the piece that I'm missing like that the total 16 the total number it's on that page it does say on page two under the budget amounts um I mean it's broken out by the general fund and then Food Services Community Debt Service so it has 11 15.1 million Revenue budget 116.5 million expenditures and then the next column

068has a year to date and then it just shows what the year-to date is at as a per percentage of the budget so the 116 is just to the left of the 29 it's that first section the project well the budget on page two um page six P page six okay let me see I'm I'm just going to go there and make sure I have that that's clear page to of the document sorry so well I'm looking at the expenditure sum I see it on page six thank you that's where I was looking for I did not see on the re the the first page recap so now that I know to look to page six I will I'll go to there thank you for clarifying that if there's other information that you guys would

069like to see on here I mean we can certainly add it um it we were trying to follow our financial statements and this is kind of what's included in financial statements but we can we can add or delete things on here and that's also why the percentages are nice so we get an understanding of where we're running ahead or not I really appreciate those okay I think we're ready can we get a motion to approve so um oh sorry there was one other thing P from the consent agenda so I don't know do we approve them separ okay direct director berck motion to approve 8C second second director Vasquez all in favor I I passes 70 and then the other item pulled was 8 F2 the resignations yeah so thank you um I just have

070a question on the resignations um I see that we have four Paras um in the resignations and my question is um are these positions currently listed online I saw we have seven listed online for that we're currently um have posted and then so my question is are these four included in the seven or in these addition to the seven for Paris that are posted online for employment Dr ainson thank you for your question um I would have to specifically go look at the current postings to make sure I give an accurate statement on that um what I can say is in general practices as soon as we have a resonation um on hand and it and we move forward with the posting um we don't go forward with the a hire um until the board

071approves it obviously but as soon as we are aware of an opening we do um post that as soon as possible to make sure we can fill but I can verify um what specifically is posted Uh current openings whether these have been hired or not since some of these um due to the timing of board meetings it's it's been about a month since they've been opened so they they may have already been hired but I can definitely um look into that and get back to the board with a report on that and it looks like we did hire a PA as well in the in the approval one of the yeah yes chair um Crosby that is accurate so since it's kind of a moving puzzle in which openings are filled and internal moves when

072openings happen and all that kind of stuff it's it's difficult to to State um right now but I'll definitely look into that and send um an email to the board with a report on on the openings and how many pairs do we have total in our district um Dr ainson members of the board I can get back to you on that on that that FTE currently I don't have that on the top of my head okay thank you any other questions okay can I get a motion to approve so my second second in and then all in favor I I I that passes 70 um that moves us on to new business our first item on there is the new course proposals at Prior Lake High School Dr Edwards is here um so they're being

073proposed for board action and he can speak to that tonight yes uh thank you uh board chair uh members of the board I would like to uh first of all call attention to a couple of typos um in the opening paragraph there I referred to the 2324 school year we're currently in that um this is the time of year when it gets a little bit what here are we talking about so I apologize at the end of it uh that memo it does state that uh your action tonight would allow us pending approval to move these courses forward into the registration guide for the 2425 school year so that is accurate at the end the last statement of the memo uh the other thing I wanted to also call attention to is uh I refer

074to the district curriculum advis this is a memo uh an annual memo that we bring forward to the board in December and I caught I didn't catch the change in title for that particular advisory committee but on that topic uh the teaching and learning advisory uh did meet in November uh and had an opportunity to review uh and get uh clarification and understanding around these course proposals that are being brought forward once again these are each year we bring forward uh some course proposals that are brand new uh some that are coming back uh after um possible years of not being offered um and some are replacement and others are expansion of offerings uh variety of courses uh there and again we went into detail provided a paragraph description of each of these preliminary description

075of each of these to the district teaching and learning advisory back in November uh got uh input from them uh and any clarifications or questions around each of these courses and the format uh that we're asking for tonight pending approval would be that it would go into the registration guide that we would begin then in January and as always uh registration particularly in the list of the courses which many of these are elective offerings actually all of them are I think uh essentially elective offerings uh are based upon registration uh interest drives that at the secondary level and at the high school level specifically with these courses is that uh they appear in the registration guide we register and uh the students based upon what they desire and then uh we take a look at

076that from a staffing scenario uh which we're planning to do in uh mid-February uh through mid-march with our uh leaders at the secondary level and all levels across the uh district and uh that's what we have uh and I think in summary I would say of the courses again it's responsive to interest uh students uh expressing interest showing interest uh in certain offerings and uh the Departments responding accordingly thank you Dr Edwards uh can I get uh well any questions or comments before we move forward go um Dr Edwards thank you very much for this I have a couple of questions um first of all with the astronomy and the immunology and pathology are there prerequisite science courses for those uh in some cases there would be yes and those would all be listed those

077are all listed then in uh I'm not prepared to answer specifically to each of those but there if there were prerequisite courses they would be listed as such in the registration guide okay because that's what I was wondering so astronomy I'm not I'm not quite sure what that would be but immunology and pathology I would assume that at least one biology course correct and the 10th grade biology course I can speak specifically to that is a is a requirement that would be a precursor to this course for sure okay is this uh the immunology and pathology seems very specific and some schools they do have that as an AP course and replacement for AP biology is that an option here uh that is not what is being requested here we have AP biology that also

078is a um complimentary course to the biology course that's taken in 10th grade this is not an AP designation course okay um and then the um Spanish Immersion B for Heritage speakers I assume that our current Spanish Immersion for Heritage speakers becomes an a correct okay yep yep so this would be the sophomore uh level course second year in the high school level course um that students would continue into if they so desire now we also have the Spanish Immersion for Global Studies and and all that so that's just just a continuation for the uh Lao uh continuation through there um and I was kind of wondering um is that also open to native speakers that is okay correct both of those courses are open uh we did that if you recall coming into this

079year to uh increase uh interest and have more students because we had a small uh group of students coming in and have found that that would be a desire to continue okay um and then I just want to clarify because being a former member of the um teaching and learning or the dcat committee as it was previously called um each one of these requires a certain number of students so if they don't get filled and the students need to be notified in a fairly short order so they can register for another course are all of these then uh from what I remember I think it was like 20 students yeah typically it it it has been in the 20 to 25 uh student range that has varied uh from year to year over years depending

080on our staffing model allocation but it's been somewhere in that neighborhood uh that we try to get at least 25 uh from the standpoint that often when we have 25 students uh expressing interest it becomes a single Lon offering and then from a scheduling perspective there are challenges um so that that's been our number between 20 and 25 um we have made exceptions for example we did make exception last year in a staffing model for the uh immersion uh because it was a new program getting off the ground at the high school right that's what I was just going to ask that about the um immersion B for Heritage speakers if that was going to be an exception then potentially potentially we would look at that as the numbers come in yeah okay um and

081I don't see we're not dropping any electives off we're just we're adding or did some naturally drop off that are not being represented here um there are some uh courses that these uh offerings would replace the one of the conversations that the high school administrative team has with each of the respective departments uh on an annual basis is looking at numbers and if certain courses don't seem to have the the desired uh interest from our students that those courses go by the wayside and get replaced by courses that might be more current to our students thank you y other question or questions or comments um yeah so that actually was one of my questions do you have um a list of those courses that these will be um replacing I don't have a list uh

082currently here I could certainly uh consult with the high school admin team and bring that back to the board yeah and then if they all are just a one for one replacement um would that be would it be to assume that we will none of these will um require additional Staffing or will they require addition Staffing because they have different licenser requirements uh all of these courses would fit within existing uh departments and we would adjust you know there is flexibility or fluctuation from year to year by by Tenth 210 4/10 within each of particularly in well frankly in all areas that VAR um but it is again a registration student interest driven process that we take into consideration if I excuse me if I can also just add you know we talked about this

083at the committee as well um these are also supported by the Departments so they can't bring forth a course unless they are willing to be able to support that so it's got to be within the confines of the support within those department so just want to add that additional extension and and I'd add one further comment uh within the department from a sustainability standpoint as well that we don't want any courses being brought forward one instructor is advocating for and so that we can sustain all course offerings that we desire to yeah thank you for that and and is it safe to say that should we have demand for all of these and maybe others you know that that we've that we maybe are considering not offering but if we have demand for them we're

084going to offer what we can that's right yeah each year that is a exercise that the high school administrative team with the Department chairs goes through with each department chair from each uh respective Department to say these are the courses uh we are going to want to offer particularly when we're offering new courses want to get them off the ground um we might have to accept some slightly larger class sizes in other courses for example great other comments from board members okay um can I get a motion to approve soate by director Atkinson and a second second by director bullan all in favor point of order are we doing all sorry we'll be doing to are we doing them separately it was my understanding we were doing them all but yeah we actually should probably

085now that I order yep I shouldn't should have spoken to each of them too so thank you I may sure wait and do them all then yep yeah okay so uh what you see here this this also was presented um to the district teaching and learning advisory the secondary uh math sequence um as part of our math curriculum review process uh that has been a K12 process uh we recently engaged in the month of October and November more uh fully uh with our secondary 612 uh math teaching representation uh to the math committee or from the math committee and talked about the course sequence and have created a document uh that shows the pathways uh for our students as they uh transition through our system one of the things that we shared with in detail

086with the teaching and learning advisory we had a representative from the middle school as well as a representative from the high school department uh speaking to this uh they would do it much more Justice than I uh but uh specifically we are looking at the foundational skills of algebra one being so key to our students success to accessing further uh math content as they move through our system that we are ensuring that eighth grade is is uh the linear algebra distinction or the traditional Algebra 1 course giving students the option to take the traditional Algebra 1 course course in 8th grade um or take linear algebra followed by uh algebra course Algebra 1 course in n9th grade um so you can see the different Pathways reflected there in the document and one point of uh

087note why we have two different documents one for next year 2425 and one for 2526 is that uh we have as we go through this transition we have six graders currently who have been uh identified for two different courses either a uh honors level sixth grade course or a general level sixth grade course given that we have those students identified uh next year we will be offering that similar identification in two track two pathway uh system in seventh grade but the following year this year bringing in this year's sixth graders uh we will be maintaining what we are doing currently at the elementary level in fifth grade where all students with one exception we have students in the sage program at fifth grade who are receiving uh sixth grade curriculum they will come into our

088system next year and be in the seventh grade Advanced but uh that's why we have two different uh pathway uh descriptions that were provided in your board packet again ultimately uh getting that our foundational skills of math are solid so that students can have multiple Pathways to follow as they get into their Junior and Senior year uh setting a course uh for those Advanced uh students that desire to uh take on a heavy course load in their math by the time they're juniors and seniors they are well prepared for doing so thank you uh questions or comments from the board have a question do you have any sixth graders that are going into algebra we do not currently have any sixth graders uh we no I take that back we probably that that are currently

089doing algebra correct no not to my knowledge okay not to my knowledge we do not that would be a double grade skipped we would refer to that as uh we do have students in our system that have been and we certainly have had situations historically where that's the case there's a process uh a policy related to subject specific grade acceleration that we apply uh apply the that too um but the frequency of that has decreased in recent years uh we have single grade skip students and the only reason why I asked that is because the delineation between middle school and high school that if they were to do that they would be out of math then in Middle School what's off offered and and we do we have had students who are transported to the

090high school to take their math of course I see a not over here we might have one sitting at the table potentially or just aware just aware I have some friends that did okay other comments or questions I think it's important to this process was fascinating to me personally um going through this on the teaching and learning committee um and I think it's important to point out too that the bottom and if this changed let me know but the computer science electives they count toward a math credit um they do not they are taught by members of the math department um but they do not count uh as they they certainly again they're taught by they do not count as three there are three math credits right at the high school level right so Algebra

0911 geometry Algebra 2 is the standard right of Meeting those requirements these are above and beyond uh why would I have had that written down am I thinking college or possible or are we did talk a little bit about how the offering comes out of the math department or is initiated in the math department we do have some other departments that currently do teach that okay uh courses in that sequence um I think it's a a tech education uh teacher that also has taught uh in that area thank you okay all right we'll start over can I get a motion to approve these courses so made by director ban a second by director Vasquez all in favor I opposed that passes 7 uh now we will consider open enrollment for 2425 um so Pake savager

092schools welcomes non-resident students through Minnesota's open enrollment program we welcome their contribution to our community of learners for school year 2425 we have capacity and are accepting applications for open enrollment up until January 30th 2024 plsas May admit your child after this deadline if there is capacity board approval of accepting open enrollment applications for 2425 as requested chair Crosby could I just um make a clarification so the students that come into our district open rolled in we get revenue for those students um for any of the um funding that we give formula based um any of those students going out whatever the open enroll District that they're going to get those revenues for the students going out we um see more students coming in than we see going out so the net effect to our

093um revenue is going to be an increase because of the open enrolled students in thank you any questions or comments from the board all right can I get a motion to approve 2425 open enrollment I made by director Olstead second second by director Vasquez all in favor I opposed that passes 70 as well uh now we will move on for the official approval of the 23 payable 24 Levy certification um so that was all presented to us in the truth and TR taxation portion of the meeting and we are requested to approve as it was presented can I get a motion made by director Atkinson and a second second by director bullan um questions or comments before we vote okay all I say I just have one question or I have one comment um I

094just say I've reviewed other District's Levy certifications and even with a Max certification our property taxes paid to the school district are lower or in line with other districts so my hope is by supporting this Max certification of 3.92% that we can continue to be fiscally responsible and avoid an operating referendum in the 24 election so thank you all in favor of approving the 23 payable 24 Levy certification I opposed that passes 70 and next is our 2324 final budget approval we also had that presentation earlier and so board action is requested can I get a motion to approve so Me by director Vasquez uh and a second second by director Olstead questions or com comments prior to our vote um director Cosby can I request a roll call vote for the budget please yes

095thank you and then I do have a point of order question um in regard to enrollment um so um director Frederickson you had stated enrollment numbers of I wrote down 8643 but I think there was another number um my question is in the community budget guide that's posted online under the um finance department the October 1st budget numbers were 8,619 and with all the conversation we've heard of declining birth rates and people um you know fewer residents moving into our district can you help me understand how we're projected to see increased enrollment of almost 100 students when the October 1st number was I'd have to look at the so enrollment changes like on a daily basis so we have to do enrollment the official account is October 1st we have to report that you technically

096have until December 15th to finalize your October 1st enrollment um students have to be enrolled on October 1st but you may not have had them all reported we do have a Mars um final tape going in I believe the end of this week or beginning of next week which will have the final numbers for that October 1 count um I'd have to look at them but again I when we do the enrollment report every month those are students that we have sitting in our classrooms um it there's just going to be changes every every week we're going to have changes um when we do budgets back in the spring we're making an estimate of what it's going to look like based on the previous couple years um we've seen increases from last year we saw

097few increases from the year before um so they're they're going to change um depending at what point in time you ask me I'm going to give you whatever the updated numbers are at that point so I'd have to look at at the documents that and what the date was that we um gave you those enrollment numbers it's on the community budget guide that's listed on our website and those were done from October 1st they that was done from the spring okay with those um enrollment projections and then of course we have the October 1st and then you just saw tonight that there's 8,643 compared to the 8,71 that we were um hoping we were going to get this year so in the spring we were being not quite as optimistic um during the summer we

098did see increase in number of kids which is why we opened up a couple um new sections in our classrooms that that the board graciously approved for us thank you I appreciate like all the all your hard work and Dr Thomas's hard work on the budget and for added transparency with the community Town Hall meetings that we had and the financial dashboard um looking back to when we started the budgets process in April I was under the understanding that it was my elected responsibility to support bringing a balanced budget to our taxpayers now knowing what our 5year forecast looks like I strongly support following our board policy 701 which states that the school board shall bring forth a balanced budget with expenditures within the projected revenues point of order Let It Be 7 policy 701

099does not State balance budget nor does it even mention those words um I would point to order on that um I'm not sure who can read the policy but my understanding is that it reads that we I I I'll pull it up okay under part policy 7 101 point of order like why are we debating 701 right now yeah I'm just I'm just stting that my understanding is that that it's my elected official to follow board policy 701 which states that the school board shall bring forth a balanced budget with expenditures within projected revenues which is state in board policy 701 um I'll just finish you know let it be known that while I supported the majority of the Investments that we have made in our district my concern is the width of 1.4 million

100that we will be deficit spending if this budget is approved tonight A fiscally responsible board would have found a way to carve off unnecessary spending while shifting Fundy to cover the new Investments versus putting the added financial burden on our community for the future thank you any other comments from board members I think the one thing I want to point out is that 1.4 that came out of the general fund we talked about this at the study session they were one-time funds um this is not it's not sustainable funds which is precisely um why the general fund balance exists and it also gets us more within our border policy closer to that cap of 12% um so so I'm real comfortable with it based on our conversation in the study session and just want to

101point that out it's not even the definition of deficit spending since we took it out of the overage from the G from the uh fund balance so um so I'm I'm comfortable with that and I'm glad we made those expenditures and I'm glad we added the the additional counselors and the dean and everything else that we did add it was needed it was needed for student support for mental health support uh in general so I have no problem with it either any other comments from I can support the budget as it's presented tonight as well um I agree with the amount of conversations we've had at study sessions and the investments in our kids and our community I personally saw when I toured our buildings our class sizes are trending in the direction that it's

102really great to see for our teachers and to support them so so I would agree that I mean we've been talking about that $1.4 million deficit spend or I'm sorry out of the um reserves our fund balance um as we've been talking about that since April or May and we've put those we've put those dollars into work into our buildings and I feel like I'm seeing some of the results from what I'm hearing from teachers in our community so I support it and we don't have an obligation to we don't Define balance budget anywhere in the policy um we Define responsible spend and that we uh do what's right according to the mission and vision of the of the district and um we were over on our general fund I mean on our um on

103our um fund balance uh and it was a responsible spend of that money and I'm again I want to reiterate I'm glad we did it anybody else all right I think director a request a roll call vote so we will do that um director olad I director bullan I director berck I director France I director Vasquez I director ainson a i that passes six one next we have our approval of sorry just a minute we have approval of combined polling location resolution so so do you want to speak to this yeah I'll just thank you chair Crosby board of directors this is an annual resolution that we take um I won't read the the full resolution in its entirety but essentially it allows us to uh establish a combined polling place and so we do

104that at Spring Lake Township Hall each year or in the portion of of a voting um so this combined location um allows for us to merge Spring Lake Township and San Creek Township and Cedar Lake Township into one polling space for efficiency so that's what the resolution is recognizing and just for the point of order for you all um red tail is uh one of our schools that's also designated as a polling space um not a combined but it's just one of our regular polling sites as well thank you can I get a motion to approve so made all right we got a motion in second director V Quest director ban and then this is another roll call vote uh before I throw it out any questions or comments from board members okay director ainson

105I director Vasquez hi director France I director I director ban I director allad I I that passes 70 uh next is just touching base from a process standpoint on our organizational meeting discussion so the organizational meeting for the school board happens in January um and the process for that is in policy but what will happen happen is the board chair will send out um an email to the board and it will identify a list of committees and a request to let the board chair know of those you are interested in for the next calendar year um also included will be meeting dates and times and then the board chair per policy assigns the board members um taking into account past history serving on a particular committee strengths Etc um and then that completed document will

106be passed out at the organizational meeting in January and voted on um so please reply to that email just to the board chair um with your interest and then as a reminder the roles of chair Vice chair Clerk and Treasurer are are determined uh via nominations and board voting in that January meeting um and I think that sums it up if there are any questions please uh don't hesitate to ask um yeah I have a couple questions actually um my first question is as it relates to policy 213 which does govern this policy and I apologize I'm just trying to pull it up here um I believe there's something in the policy that states that I'm sorry I'm it's going to take me a second to find it um which number are you talking about

107yeah I thought I okay so let me just I'm just going to sayate what I was going to say so basically I've received some feedback you know we went through this process last year I've received some feedback from other districts and um the feedback I received um is that you know while we send in our committee assignments that um our our preferred committee assignments um something that another District does is that when we get to that January board meeting is that the chair brings the list of everybody's requested assignments and then collaboratively as a board we discuss it as a board so the decision is not made solely by one individual on the board who is the committee chair becomes a very collaborative process of um amongst the board regarding like which committees we feel

108we'd both all be suited for or what are our strengths weaknesses all those things so it becomes a much more collaborative process and I thought I read something in our policy that sort of lends to that but it's going to take me a second to find it because I apologize I can't find it so I just wanted to get feedback on that because like I said um I liked the way this other um discrict did it did it because it felt much more collaborative versus the chair assigning so I I don't want to get too deep into this discussion because this would actually lend itself to a discussion of the policy but to clarify I think you're looking at general statement of policy two if you go to number two scroll down and it says

109committee assignments and it kind of explains that whole process um I can read it if you'd like I'll read the first part unless unless otherwise specified board members will be assigned or appointed to advisory committees councils and agencies by the board chair in consultation with the board that's exactly where I read it in consultation with the board so that's where I felt like in policy it doesn't become a sole board director decision but you're in consultation with the entire board 1.4 says that as well and that's happens at the January organizational meeting which is which is our first board meeting and then our second meeting is following that right in the same time because we only have we have two board meetings in January one is the organizational meeting and the second one is the

110regular board meeting and we usually assign it at the organizational meeting right and last year if I recall there was no discussion we were handed a piece of paper I'm not talking about the exec the three the main committees I'm talking about all like I want to call them the subcommittees um so there really was no discussion of those subcommittees so that's where I wanted to get board feedback on that does the board it's not written in here and I can't remember does the board vote to approve the representation on the Committees not the sub committees not the sub committees just the executive it's only the executive commit want to make sure I understood that okay so the executive teaching learning policy and finance are the ones that um board members nominate and vote for

111and then any add hawk or and or they they don't nominate you put in your request and the chair assigns after speaking with everybody um on their own and then the chair assigns and lets them know ahead of time I that's correct but I'm requesting that we look at a different process that I just descried and I and I think I in my mind given that we've been Guided by this policy um that would require a change in policy yeah and I'm saying I don't don't think it would because the policy actually states that um by the board chair in consultation with the board and when I read the word the board that is total of all individuals on the board and I would one off convers I would read it like the board chair

112asks like our processes asks for people to declare their interests board directors to declare their interests and based on their interests and their experience and they get assign um that's how I would read it because that's how it's been done just because we've done something in the past doesn't mean it's always the way we need to do things I'm say that's how I would read this I'm say because president has been set now if the board is interested in reopening this policy to take a different approach that's another conversation yeah and I'm saying I don't think we need to open up the policy based on the way it's worded I'm just recommending um a more collaborative way of doing this can you give examples of what kind of discussion you're looking to have in January

113yeah so in December um we we turn in our um corre requests for different committees all of them and then at the board table um after we vote in the chair because the new chair would be the one who would be at that point would fall under this policy um we would hand out the list of everybody's requests and then we would have a collaborative discussion on where do people fit within those committees and it might be as simple as like yes Jess you are on curriculum you want to be on curriculum perfect great check Lisa you're on curriculum you want to be in curriculum great we'll continue but the process becomes much more collaborative versus the um the chair who is currently the chair who may not be the chair because it is a

114voting process um then that chair is not making the decision in December for how the board is going to to serve in the future does that make sense so it becomes a collaborative process at the board table so if I may add um so we have a policy here um the primary concern is that the board chair in consultation with the board and then board members right after that um with the way it's been done um there is an appointment there is consideration for how the chair assigned people to committee including um The Proven ability to work effectively and collabor collaboratively in a committee environment amongst other things as well as availability so if we are going to change the policy then we probably need to bring that up um as as a at at

115the study session the way we normally do and then review the policy but right now the policy does say that the chair does assign um and the and consultation um you're saying that that's the part that you're confused about and if that's not SP out then we need to change the policy point avoider I don't believe we need a change of policy the wording of the policy says the board chair in consultation with the board which is all of us in all of us sitting here at this table well that's I want to that's maybe I'm stating that our past policy did not follow or our past procedure did not follow policy no I heard that chair Crosby said she interpreted one way and you're saying you interpreted another way and then she added on

116precedence and if there's a problem with interpretation then the policy needs to be changed to be more discreet and that's not something we can do right now in this board meeting so um if if there's a concern that we weren't following policy or if there's and and because of the confusion of the language then then then we need to bring up the policy for review but right now it clearly states that the the definition of consultation is not defined here per se and the way it's been done in the past is one way so if we're going to change it we probably need to change the policy can I speak quickly yes please I recall an example and I can't I don't have my notes out from a time where we did attend a meeting

117it was handed to us like here's kind of what you want you were interested in and I think we had made some changes at the table this is going back at least two or three years I've been here a little bit so I would say I felt like once that sheet was handed out there was conversation which I would be called consultation with the board but I feel like if there's not if everyone comes and then we all have to try to think that's possible but I think that there has to be some structure given and then if changes need to be made that would be open for consultation and conversation with the board to collaborate but I feel like I've been moved before based I don't remember that but I'm well I feel like

118it was because we didn't always have the days and the times of the meetings exactly laid out so if you didn't know when they were you might have been surprised the other thing I want to point out to everybody is that just because you're the liaison to a committee from the board doesn't you're the liaison to that committee you can still attend we all can attend any committee meetings that we so choose and listen which is our primary role anyways to listen and get feedback so between what you're saying and and I I am going to lean on President because when it comes to Legal policy that to when it comes to to legal which policy leans on legal precedent is what takes place does it mean that there wouldn't be flexibility I believe it

119happened this year with mshsl where Amy you became the mshsl rep so I mean it's not like there's no flexib ility with consultation with the board if there's a date change if there's a difference of interest if if the board all says yeah this makes sense so there where it makes sense when it makes sense I think that's I guess in my world of business I'm all about collaboration and so I fully support that um when I filled out my report where we get paid for sitting on committees that we serve on I had one committee because the Committees that I was put on last year they don't actually have meetings so I think that needs to become part of the process versus the chair assigning someone to committees where there really is no work

120to do which is what happened to me this past year I'm not trying to whine or complain but I think a collaborative process where we can all sit and discuss how much time we have available I know we all have different skill sets we all have different times we can give we all have different talent and so I believe rather than having one person assign it having a collab collaborative discussion like you said director berck I think is a much healthier thing for our board I think we're saying the exact same thing to be honest with you I think that if you don't is challenging me if the board if the board chair does not I don't hear challenging this at all if we don't come to the board with some sort of structure to

121start let's be honest we need some sort of structure and if you really have an interest in knowing what my first choices were is that what you're asking because I heard you say I would want everyone to share their I mean again it's it's an email I think it starts the process of collaboration and consultation and go from there and absolutely at the assignment bring up that you didn't have enough to do that'd be great I mean we can all talk about like oh I had plenty of committees to go to I just did wasn't the primary on them so um And to clarify for that the other District that I spoke to which I know you're very close with that um the chair on that committee or on that um in that District um

122um he referenced that he does bring as the chair the whole spreadsheet of everybody's um assignments and then they do discuss it as a board so it's very transparent it's a very transparent process and I can I don't know who you're referring to but um I can shareit making changes to the policy and I think in the meantime um I'm collaborative effort yeah I'm not making recommending any changes to the actual policy see thank you if it's a clerical thing just bring every everyone's requests and stay put them together it's you don't have to build a spreadsheet but you can copy our forms happy to share what I was interested in in the past thank you um so in January we will be having our organ organizational meeting and and like I said I think

123in the next day or two I'll be sending out an email to board directors so be thinking about um where you you believe your strengths will serve the district best in the next uh calendar year uh we'll move on to our msba leadership conference registration we are all registered the dates are January 11th and 12th at the Minneapolis Convention Center and um just like years past we've had some really good learnings come out of there and it's a um an opportunity for us to improve our strengths and grow our weaknesses um so I just wanted to touch on that and then that moves us to policy so this is our second reading of policy um 208 it's been reviewed and a first reading was held November 27th prior to this final reading for board approval

124so board action is requested um I'm going to ask for a motion in a second and then we'll open up for questions or comments uh can I get a motion to approve policy 208 I made by director olad and a second second by director bullan and um I'll open it to board directors for comments yes I'm I me I'm happy with the changes that were made to the policy um I I like how it is simpler to read um and I like that we added um you know the two different statutes on the bottom that the policy is Guided by I was question what are the little the statutes were already there but yeah you want to know what those little things are that are floting on one of the little bubbles um director Herman

125that's just for the draft that's so does the policy reflect those changes we remove those those comments thank you we're clarifying yeah I think it uh the revisions are good the discussion was robust and so if we're ready to approve and there are no other comments we should do that all right would this be the the right number of readings of this policy just to clarify that's my understanding that's what it says uh in I can't find it I'm sorry 14a second reading of policy board policy approval thank you thank you all right all in favor I I oppose that passes 70 thanks everybody uh second reading of policy we have a list uh they're all listed there in the vo board packet you don't need me to do that um so these have been

126reviewed and presented for two readings prior to this final approval and board action is requested um I'll ask for a motion in a second on all unless someone wants one pull one or two pulled out for any reason okay can I get a motion to approve all nine I by director ainson and a second by director France any questions or comments okay all in favor I I oppos that passes 70 then we move on to our administrative reports we'll start with superintendent Thomas thank you chair crowby board of directors just real briefly tonight um just reminding our community that on our district website you'll see a box um entitled strategic planning the application has been launched um there's uh calendars there's kind of the the process of what will be entailed and so I just

127want to remind our community to take a look at that we'll keep that open through December we have that open for a little bit longer to catch some Publications that we want to make sure that we can put that in as well to capture all the different sources of medium that we can advertise through so that's my update and um I'll keep you all posted as we go into the next phase of um uh assembling the team and share that roster with the board when we get there thank you Dr Thomas you know I'm sorry go go ahead do you have a a date that that um application closes uh CH was 31st December thank you and then just one second [Music] here uh yeah let me just grab ah sorry I'm turnning you know

128why don't I let uh our student come back yeah it's not we'll start with the admin reports if any administrators have reports at this time okay thank you so that leaves us to board reports and we'll start with Rihanna Hi everyone um again my name is Ranna I am the student body representative so some of the things that we've been working on um our development committee has just is they're finishing the college penants that we're putting at on the classrooms and the just around the school for the teachers and everybody so we just finished that this week um our communication board uh just created the Laker lens which is a really fun way for our students to um be be more involved with spirit and it's it's essentially it's a Google classroom and then at

129any sports games they can submit a picture of them being there dressed up in school spirit and they submit that and it just gets everybody more involved uh so we just started doing that and we are still doing our weekly Graphics graph graffics to uh update everybody at the school on what's going on uh for our special events committee we just finished No Shave November um which went really really well I we do not have the final numbers yet but that is something that we just finished this month our Sunshine committee is currently working on a pancake breakfast for the students free of charge on Monday for Christmas uh winter break um and then uh our community service Committee just uh finished with Sonia's hope for children wrapping gifts on Friday and Saturday this past

130weekend which also went well um and then they are working on a cocoa and cram for students on Monday which if you're not familiar with what that is it's hot cocoa and studying for finals so that's on Monday Monday yes and our concessions and fundraising committee we are currently basketball concessions which are going really well so far and we are working on some fundraising ideas for charity and also student council and anything around the school and then that's just general for the year we are starting our work on our Winter Dance our winter for semiformal and all the events that we have and we also have some new events which I'm really excited about that we we're currently working on um yeah that's pretty much it if anybody has any questions on anything specific I'm

131here to answer them thank you thank you very informative yes briefly yes thank you sorry I could the document was just like stuck spinning opening but I I have it open for my notes um just want to bring uh just a couple more things to the community so we have um our MLK Junior uh breakfast uh that will take place January 15th um again partnering with Prior Lake Rotary Club uh for that uh it will be January 15th at 7:30 at the high school um we also have uh several City Township and Community organizations who are again co-sponsoring this event that's open for our entire public to attend simultane simultaneously with that for our um staff we um partner with our teachers of the year program so also want to invite folks to join us

132on Monday January 15th um following the breakfast we will um recognize our teachers of the year so that's going to be a great opportunity uh for 23 24 um school year um kindergarten registration um all principles will hold kindergarten information night Tuesday at 6:30 um at redtail Ridge and then uh Spanish Immersion parent panel will be on Wednesday at 6:30 :0 uh this week at Lal and this Thursday online registration will open so very exciting um for that so please Community um attend uh info sessions great opportunities for you to send your kindergarteners here to uh uh Prior Lake aage Area Schools and then lastly um with the season upon us our tree of warmth I just want to thank everyone who donated clothing items um to the Prior Lake chamber of commerce uh tree

133of warmth clothing Drive um um uh the Prior Lake Rotary Club also assisted with the collection this year and we collected more uh items than we have ever historically done in years's past all winter clothing items are being distributed to students throughout our district who are in need of uh during this season so just a huge thank you to our community for stepping up and helping out um our students and families who need it most so those are my uh reports for tonight thank you uh we'll go back to uh board director reports any work um I have I was going to talk about uh the delegate assembly Enrique um Enrique and I went to the delegate assembly last weekend um in Bloomington it's a Statewide assembly of school board members that were um voted

134to represent um their area um we are in area 17 which includes um us of course Shaka Jordan Bell Plain feel like I'm forgetting one Jordan didn't I say yep you said it okay um there were 40 submitted resolutions in this very well not all of them made this book it's good bedtime reading if you're wanting to put the kids to sleep I recommend this um but it's very interesting so uh 40 submitted resolutions and 23 were actually forwarded to the assembly um msba gives their recommendations um they recommend either passage or no passage or no recommendation um 15 passed and eight did not um in our assembly um among the ones that passed um a couple of them of course were the clarifying the SRO language um eliminating the sales tax on construction projects

135um legislation um pardon me the legislature to provide permanent funding for the approved science of reading programs um and then also um a resolution that passed um eliminating the per pupil cap on longterm uh Facilities Management Revenue um so it was very interesting and what I personally took away from this was it was great to get perspectives of course from people around the state but also rural versus um more urban uh districts so for example the SRO resolution there was somebody who got up from a very rural district and she said it's not like I don't support moving this resolution forward but she said our district district will never have an SRO she's like so this is this is not something that really hits home for us very much and it was just a good

136perspective to have and there was a lot of really great conversation in terms of okay I thought I was going to vote on this resolution this way but now I might have changed my mind and it's kind of a a very Split Second very fast decision you have to make it's a Voice vote um with the room of what was it 300 people 115 delegates but it felt like 300 okay it felt like 300 okay so it was half that um but so if they couldn't determine you know from a Voice vote we had a little paddles that we had to put up um and so the next steps it's this this isn't writing laws this isn't writing legislation it was just resolutions to forward to the state government um and I was really impressed

137with the like I said it's a very big book and we got this ahead of time so we could review it if we had questions or things we wanted to say at the assembly um but it was very interesting and it's a two-year term so I'll go back next year and you will too right Enrique okay um it was just it was very interesting I loved it I loved the experience and um it was great to see what other Schoolboard members from around the state were thinking and what was top of mind and maybe what you thought might have been top of mind but really wasn't for some districts it was just very interesting so glad I went it was wonderful thanks for being our voice thank you both of you other board reports okay

138well we we go ahead yeah I'm following the order waiting patiently sure sure I can add on to that and say that you're right there there was definitely kind of a dichotomy of urban versus Rural and then us in the middle of suburban where some of the um effects we felt were more urban While others were a bit more Rural and then some other things were kind of uniquely our own along with other uh second or third ring suburbs um there was quite a bit of robust discussion we got to see kind of what are those current pain points that various districts are dealing with whether it's gun control gun safety storage of weapons uh we saw one perspective from the urban schools whereas the rural schools were saying hey what about our skate shooting

139club if we put this into effect then what is that what's the impact for our ability to uh compete or have students walk around with their SK shooting equipment uh so just open up the the entire conversation and able to view the world a bit differently um we got to see quite a bit of discussion and engage a lot of discussion with respect to Public Schools versus charter schools and what would be some of the unintended consequences if we were to put certain measures in place for accountability or for funding and restricting funding going One Direction versus another um yeah it was a riveting time for sure and it went very quickly it went fast even without snacks it went fast snacks were forbidden this year uh versus last year uh let's see other updates

140policy advisory committee and the special occasion special education not occasion education advisory committees both meet on December 14th so that should be a fun day to uh do more policy work and then also see what more uh special education uh professionals have for us there Southwest Metro currently working through uh teacher contracts we were uh I believe we were close to a tenative agreement then had to reverse course and are reworking that presently uh we also made the decision to uh dissolve our Southwest mitro Education Foundation just from a sheer nature of we didn't have enough interested people willing to do that hard board work so we had to dissolve that which means one of my subcommittee subcommittee assignments will go away um delegate assembly we talked about and that's pretty much it for me

141thank you um we had our teaching and learning committee um this this evening uh 4:00 and we had a robust discussion around a 600 series of policies um regarding 606 which is our um review of learning resources policy we honestly ran out of time and we decided to move that discussion to um I believe our next meeting is January 8th so we'll be taking a deeper dive into that policy so that we can um um just give it the fair amount of time since it's it's an important policy in our district and we have a lot of different um diverse perspectives that we want to make sure are included in that conversation then I have some exciting news to share with you all um last night at the VFW banquet um a teacher from our

142district was selected as the Prior Lake VFW second district which represents 36 posts across across the state um this teacher was selected as a teacher of the year for this District um this teacher um is a fourth grade teacher at Jeffers Pond has been teaching our district for eight years and congratulations goes out to um Brook on as the VFW teacher of the year um she will now be entered into a selection of seven other District winners for a chance to be awarded the VFW State teacher of the year so fingers crossed for Brooke and thank you thank you is that is that an annual award um that I'm not sure okay cool thank you thank you congrat congratulations um any other board reports okay just briefly we had the MSD meeting that um they

143we talked a little bit about legislative platform which we've heard and a lot of the similar themes are coming through um and that will be on our study session uh next week and then uh we heard from a state demographer and it was it was really informative I took a lot of notes uh but the bottom line is we are becoming more and more diverse I I think we were um our one stat was uh well I yeah I if I can find it I took a lot of notes um very 2.3 jobs are currently available for everyone who wants one um and a quarter of those are all in healthcare um but others being retail Food Service manufacturing and of course education um I don't know how depressing I want to get here I

144I believe I also uploaded I'm sorry I believe that's also in the Fridays five from a couple of Fridays ago I put the link to the report so you all can catch it there as well but yeah very interesting yeah and just uh declining to Flat birth rates and um becoming extremely more diverse uh particularly in the metro area so um and more women I believe yes yes more women than men yes um onethird of school age population currently in Minnesota is bipac and that was 10% 1990 I mean stats like that right the growth is tremendous so I just wanted to touch on that briefly and uh um that is the end of our board reports and we can um touch on future events which we have an added Schoolboard study session next Monday

145at 6 and then there's no school for the winter break December 21st to January 1st which I'm sure everyone is looking forward to um so we'll adjourn can I get a a motion to adjourn so made by director ainson and a second second by director Vasquez all in favor I I that passes 70 and we'll go to close session here after a break