001thank you I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome you to our school board meeting this evening please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance 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 right roll call tonight all board members are in attendance We Begin our meetings uh in accordance to policy 203 with a 15-minute time period set aside to receive citizen input through an open Forum segment of our agenda signups sheets are available at least 10 minutes prior to the meeting time at the door given some of the open Forum sessions we've had over the last few months the board has felt it important to share a few more words
002about open forum and then I'll read the rules so the open forum is a safe space for our community members to share their experiences concerns and feedback 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 demonstrating this for and in our community shows how we can all collectively do better thank you respectfully for sharing listening and be engaged in our plsas community so I'll go over the rules and then we have five speakers this evening so input from staff students parents and community members in major decisions can be
003a valuable form of assistance to the board open forum is an opportunity to address the board at least 10 minutes prior to each meeting a sign up sheet will be available at the meeting site for individuals to sign up to address the board only those whose names appear on the sign up 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 three minutes so 15 minutes total to address the board unless an exception is granted by the board share speakers will not be allowed to verbally attack disparage or potentially defame individual board members employees or students Norway speakers use vulgar or profane language also speakers may be precluded from disclosing personally identifiable private data regarding employees or students
004speakers unwilling to conform to the rules or time constraints may be told that his or her privilege of speaking has ended if you have any handouts or materials for the board please submit those items to the executive assistant Martha Waltz members of the public should not approach the diocese 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 Forum forum regarding an issue presented if followed by Administration as necessary the church shall request that the superintendent follow up on the matter when the board shared proceeds with the meeting audience comments are no longer in order however the board members retain the right
005to call on District administrators for information to assist the board in its deliberations thank you tonight we have five speakers and the first is Natalie Barnes and her topic is sro's training board members and Community thank you for having me here so I am just speaking to the sros in training and I did speak at the last Prayer Lake City council meeting as well I am by character a person of action and if there's a problem let's fix it after Communications with both Chief Dugan obviously Dr Thomas Prior Lake City Council uh the board and also chair chair Crosby it came to my pen attention that our local stakeholders have really worked together for a plan that best suits Us in this day and age where sros are in a very difficult spot according to
006our state statutes they are not able to complete their tasks as they should in the schools as they had agreed upon with their current contract or previous contract I appreciate our local government response but what is the action for the Prior Lake School Board is the board going to vote to support our local law enforcement incentive request to our executive branch and legislators to revise the statute the local police departments City councils Mayors and school boards need to have a unified voice for the city planner Prior Lake has joined the league of cities and still requesting a special session the governor's response has not been adequate for our local police departments cheap Dugan shared that although the prone holds have not been used even once in our school district in the past three years the
007last few years have seen a triple number increase in fights since 2017. in 2017-1826 fights 2018 1948 fights 2019 20 48 fights and 21 22 74 fights in our district so what is the school district plan for training this will affect both our general education and special education students and I do want to share something from a mother from a local special ed mom she said that she had a son that was in seventh grade in a special ed resource room and got the worst call of her life she she was told that her son was there and he was hitting his head against a locker and the ambulance and police were with him when she entered the room she was horrified to see that her small 13 year old son was prone and handcuffed
008and she knelt down next to him made eye contact and then a convoys told him that he would if he would be calm that he would be able to be and still the handcuffs would come off and the hind coughs did come off and he immediately was held tightly by his mom now as an educator on myself adult education and I know that this mom actually became an education assistant she had de-escalation training that she received like 180 hours and she worked in special ed IEP areas that had large amounts of obviously kids that could could have been restrained in different ways but they only had to do it one to two times per year so with our lack of sros in our district what is our plan then for training training our teachers our
009paraprofessionals and everyone else that is in contact if this includes our parents what is our solution because that training is going to be imperative so that we don't have to use these holds or call in our local police officers and I have to say in just in closing that this this happened about eight years ago and again it has not had a prone hold in our district in the last three years so again we need our sros in our district to be able to prevent some situations like this from happening thank you for your time thank you our next speaker this evening is Katie Gabriel speaking on Unity around our shared goals good evening chair Crosby Dr Thomas and board directors my name is Katie Gabriel I use see her pronouns I live in Savage
010and I have two students in the district audre Lorde wrote it is not our differences that divide us it is our inability to recognize accept and celebrate those differences at the last study session you discussed division within our community and that division is clearly not serving our students the good news is that we have a shared goal that can unite us that is all of us working to ensure that all of our students not just those who fit the gender binary have white skin or share the same religious and or ideological beliefs as we do are safe welcomed valued and have a sense of belonging in our district exactly as they are as a result we help all of our students to thrive both inside and outside of the classroom so what does it look
011like when we're successful it looks like our board and Community supporting our Educators and staff as they teach about people with historically underrepresented identities this learning is a foundation for increasing everyone's ability to recognize accept and celebrate our differences especially those of our students and it's a building block and helping us to create an environment where students with these identities feel seen safe and welcomed in our schools it looks like collections of books that all of our students see themselves reflected in that provide opportunities to explore new ideas and that challenge some of their closely held beliefs it looks like trust in our school library and media center staff to build these collections that make all of this possible and trust that parents and Guardians are setting expectations at home regarding what materials their students
012engage with it looks like bipac students in our district walking through the school halls and learning in classrooms where they see teachers staff and administrators who look like them it looks like trusting our students to know what names and pronouns make them feel 100 themselves and it looks like the adults in our community thinking honestly and critically about whether or not our closely held beliefs may be interfering with our ability to achieve our ability to accomplish this shared goal interfering with our ability to help all of our students Thrive and if the answer is yes they are interfering then doing the work to evolve our beliefs we are capable of change human beings are capable of changing their beliefs if we weren't we all of you sitting up at that table or most of you
013sitting at the table would not have the right to vote today let alone have a seat at the table we can be United our students deserve it and their Futures depend on it thank you thank you our next speaker tonight is Michael gills or Gillis speaking on gratitude and board norms and ethics policy good evening board chair Crosby Dr Thomas board members and my fellow community members my name is Michael Gillis I'm a parent of two students here in Prior Lake Savage area schools as well as being a Community member a taxpayer and a voter also I thought I was an accomplished public speaker but I haven't been this nervous since the last time I sat in a dentist chair I'm here tonight to express uh two things first my gratitude and second my concerns
014I'll do my best to be brief first gratitude I cannot speak from direct experience but it is safe to presume that being a school board member or a school school superintendent is not always a comfortable state of being be it the sacrifices of your time or rather beyond the sacrifices of your time you sacrifice the comfort of anonymity for a life however short your terms may be as a in the scrutiny of the public eye and regardless of whether I agree with your personal viewpoints or the decisions that you make in the roles you occupy I acknowledge your work and I am grateful for it now it's come to my concern which involves the board's operating norms and its code of ethics to policies which are on tonight's agenda both of these policies provide clear
015and specific language regarding how board members fulfill their roles with respect to each other School District employees community members and most importantly plsas students all students in fact the district's own mission statement States our mission is to educate all Learners to reach their full potential as contributing and productive members of our ever-changing Global community all learners recently in our very own community um Excuse me while the benefits of public education to a healthy democracy should be a foregoing conclusion the United States has a long history of internal opposition to this very pillar of our society I do not have the time to go into that here I would love to have some future date a recent manifestation of this opposition can be seen in an organization calling itself moms for Liberty which although based in
016Florida has chapters Nationwide including here in Minnesota just recently this organization has been identified as an extremist Group by a renowned expert on extremist groups and hate groups in the United States an extremist Group by its very nature cannot have the best interest of all Learners at heart some Learners certainly but all Learners it is just not possible the Learners in our district deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential and allowing extremist groups a seat at the table inhibits that potential the policies you are reviewing and approving tonight provide clear guidance on how to interact with each other and the community to promote the best interests of all Learners I respectfully urge you boardshare Crosby Dr Thomas and board members to interact with extremist groups such as moms for Liberty with Extreme Caution I
017conclude where I began tonight with gratitude your responsibilities are not easy to fulfill thank you for taking them on and thank you for your time thank you next this evening excuse me next this evening we have Rachel Carlson speaking on the topic of parental rights good evening on August 14th I stood at this Podium and asked that a parental rights and transparency resolution be added to a study session for discussion nine days later I received an email from chair Crosby that read Rachel thank you for speaking at the most recent public forum your ask regarding a parental rights and transparency resolution was heard by the board you also requested a response to this ask and asked the chair I am replying on behalf of the board as we look to update our district strategic plan
018direction from our community of diverse stakeholders will shape and ultimately achieve our plan should a request of this nature arise from a collective Community Voice through this work it could come forward to the board for discussion we appreciate your time and commitment to plsas thank you Amy that same day I responded asking for Clarity on how one proves that there is a large portion of our community behind this resolution how large does this voice need to be to be considered I have yet to receive the clarity and guidance that I requested at the August 28th board meeting a motion to add this resolution to the agenda was made by director bullion and supported by director Atkinson I would like to take a moment to thank both of you for supporting this request the lack of
019support from the remaining board members was disappointing to say the least after reviewing meeting minutes from the public engagement and legislative committee regarding the process that the equity resolution followed it appears that the collective Community voice that was required in 2021 was three board directors one superintendent and 10 select community members tonight I'm here speaking on behalf of over 450 Collective Community Voices over 450 people have read and support the parental rights and transparency resolution and have signed a petition to support its implementation in our district I would like to request that Dr Thomas meet with me and several of the community members named on this petition to discuss the importance behind its consideration I believe and agree with you Dr Thomas when you say that you value partnership with parents and that we are
020our students first and foremost teachers and that you want us at the table to help prepare our students for their future please consider being the first Minnesota Independent School District to commit to protecting parental rights by adopting a parental rights and transparency resolution thank you and our final speaker tonight is Charles Johnson on school resource officers and parents rights good evening everyone ladies and gentlemen the board and superintendent Thomas thank you for allowing me to speak today I am an active duty military member and I have two children enrolled in Prior Lake Savage area schools today 22 years after the deadliest attack on America we're here discussing the removal of school resource officers from our schools the city council voted to end the contract school resource officers are not only in our schools to stop
021fights and Terrain in disorderly conduct they're there to Mentor guide be relationship Builders and they're trained to help escalate and de-escalate and resolve situations the presence of school resource officers is a deterrence to violence bullying and misbehavior when a parent sends their child to school they expect them to be safe fights in disorderly conduct are three times higher now it is not time to remove our school resource officers it's a time to increase them without school resource officers the question becomes how do you plan on maintaining the level of safety that we the parents demand without school resource officers in our schools look at the September 8th fight at Mankato East the school had to go in the lockdown this incident alone illustrates the value and the need for our school resource officers who do
022you expect to resolve these issues the teachers or the staff I have a solution it's simple bring safety transparency and increase parental involvement bring in the parents the law states an employer agent of the district parents are not employees or agents of the district parents would have a direct Avenue into the curriculum a first-hand view of the safety of their children and would promote accountability transparency and build trust I'll be the first to volunteer I'd be glad to start a Sign Up Genius beginning the school year with the issue of removing school resource officers lack of transparency because of legal issues on allowing parents rights and last year's MCA results prove that what has been happening in our schools is not working the community has raised concerns with parents rights the curriculum Financial transparency and
023now the removal of school resource officers these are real concerns that could easily be solved by welcoming parents back into our buildings so that teachers and students can focus in a safe learning environment there should be nothing to hide a decision must be made tonight because every day without a school resource officer is a day of unnecessary risk we cannot wait for a special session to be called we can't let politics determine what is best for our kids and our teachers let's work together and get this done thank you thank you we'll move on to approval of the agenda can I get a motion to approve so made uh director bernick and director allstead all in favor hi post that passes 7-0 our first agenda item tonight tonight um having our guests here we moved
024moved it up to the top um as around the school resource officer agreements and the mous that we are um here to have been excuse me have been requested to approve tonight for the City of Prior Lake and the City of savage um Dr Thomas I'll hand it off to you thank you chair Crosby board of directors tonight we are going to have a discussion with you all to address the challenges that are before us that have been so lovingly placed on our plates by our legislators um just to get some context to the board and to our community who might not be dialed into all the different details because this obviously has been hitting the media and different sound bites might not be telling the whole story so I will do my best to
025convey all of the details for our community locally here and what that means for us so in this past legislative session language was buried in a larger Omnibus Bill that restricted the ability of an SRO to do the job of a regular police officer who are highly trained and qualified to take various actions based upon the situations and scenarios as they present and in this language as it's being interpreted through various legal councils the sros effectively become agents of the district and as an agent of the district sros would no longer be able to utilize their full set of skills when they deemed necessary based upon individual situations or context yet their colleagues from the same precinct for example could be called on to the scene and fully execute their abilities as officers with no
026restrictions and essentially created two classes of officers that would be able to take on certain duties and that was not something that our local agencies Prior Lake and Savage law enforcement were comfortable with nor being legally advised to subject their officers to potential liability concerns where decisions that might be made in the moment may come back and prove to be harmful to that officer for making such decisions um there's a lot of conversation around the state about various cities and making different decisions and that's because every city based upon their unique legal councils is getting advice at the local level so this is not a one-size-fits-all determination so people are asking me why does this city still have a contract and this one doesn't why are you pursuing this and others aren't um so I
027just want to be clear that it's at the local level that those decisions and conversations are being had to best understand how to move forward based upon the mutual party's interests and I will also be very clear that this is not something that we nor Prior Lake and Savage police departments have put on our own plates this is very clearly the result of a legislative decision that was made and now we are trying to figure out how to move past some of the language that is very restricting um based upon some of the decisions that we feel that might need to be made in the school as you've heard this evening and I would say beyond the past three years it has not been our experience or history to have students in prone holds we
028have very extensive preventative training with CPI training positive behavior intervention supports training with our our staff we have highly specialized curriculum that meets some of the regulatory needs of our kids who might have some of those challenges that may become dysregulated so sros are not a One-Stop solution they're part of a larger safety plan that we have for all of our campuses but clearly our relationship that probably dates back over 30 years has proven to be highly beneficial and one that is not just there to respond to situations they are actually there building a lot of positive proactive relationships with our students and with our staff whether it's uh you know going into our cafeteria speaking in classrooms greeting families as they're dropping off students at our football Games Etc they're they're building relationships because
029they are in serving the community and our schools are the community it's a subset of our communities so we we have actually had a lot of value add for that relationship and through a lot of collaborative discussion with uh folks that you see here on our front row our police Chiefs Mayors city managers and our executive staff here at the district we have been working through the language in the law really striving for ways that we could find language that would suffice to keep the traditional relationship intact without having to feel as though we're doing these political workarounds to essentially carry out the same functions and that's proven to be somewhat challenging um I'll speak for myself but I think my colleagues could say the same it's been extremely frustrating to have to deal with
030this pile of lemons and try to make it as sweet as possible and we've reached a point where for our ability locally here for our law enforcement to continue their presence and I want to be very clear here they will continue their presence in supporting our schools both during the school day as well as at a variety of activities and events um for their liability sake it was determined that canceling the SRO contract would release officers from effectively becoming agents of our district and that's the operative word here because as you recall any other officer could get called to a situation and respond as they deemed fit because they were not agents of the district and that is actually the biggest challenge there's been various opinions offered since the law passed those opinions have not
031given the level of clarity and reduce the level of questionable liability to the point where our law enforcement agencies were ready to move forward in the current relationship under the current contract so therefore we are recommending to you the board here that you uh also make a vote to end the contract with Prior Lake Savage area police and Savage area police with the caveat to understand that waiving or canceling this contract what that means is that our officers locally will no longer be agents of our district and will still be able to enjoy the partnership that we've had for over 30 years and still be able to make critical decisions life-saving decisions in some instances that would be necessary based upon individual situations and context and I'll just bring out a point sorry let me
032just pull up something here um this is language in our contract currently around several severability and it states that any part of this agreement is rendered void invalid or unenforceable such rendering shall not affect the enforceability and the validity of the remainder of this agreement unless the part or parts which are void invalid or otherwise unenforceable shall substantially impair the value of the entire agreement with respect to any party generally speaking the notion here of enforceability um the legislative language essentially nullifies this contract because it puts restrictions on those officers that we have a contract with to do their job to the fullest extent and because of that this is also why we're asking the board to cancel this agreement in addition to waiving the 100 or 180 day waiting period so that tomorrow morning
033should something happen at one of our campuses that a critical decision needs to be made right there in the moment law enforcement would be able and ready to respond the last piece I would share with you is that this contract is currently supported through our safety Levy and um by canceling this contract the dollars that are associated with this contract are also now going to be picked up by our local law enforcement agencies respectively and the caveat language from our Council on this matter is um whether or not a special session would be called communities probably heard a lot of conversation about that as well and I'll just briefly share some context to that um the governor's office reached out to me last week to ready to be ready to come in as a representative
034a superintendent representative uh to have conversations about a special session that meeting never occurred and I just want to be very clear I stand ready for the governor or any other legislator who would like to have conversations regarding our specific situation to bring our story forward and share the value add that we have found through our 30 plus year partnership just today I also had a reach out from congresswoman Craig's office around this matter and I stand ready and willing to have conversations with our Congress as well this is something that is really important I think we heard from our parents in our community and you all have heard it from my mouth as well when when parents send kids to school they better be safe bottom line and compromising safety is not something that
035we are willing to do and so irrespective of the legislative language I want to assure our community and assure this board safety is something that's a non-negotiable for us and yes our our law enforcement plays a part in the larger ecosystem of of Public Safety and that being in our schools in addition to the extensive training that many of our staff continue and will be going through on a regular and annual basis in our district as well so um with that chair Crosby I think I've given enough context and I'm available for questions as well as any of our mutual colleagues here from the city that might be able to clarify as well okay before we move forward we'll start with the um memo of understanding joint Powers agreement with the City of Prior Lake
036because we'll do them individually and can I get a motion to approve still made by director of France in a second director Alstead okay I'll open it up for um for discussion and questions and we do have resources available as guests this evening too yeah one point of clarification so Dr Thomas I'll appreciate the the background in the context you mentioned cancellation the memorandums of understanding each state this would be a suspension of the contracts provided that we're able to come to some sort of agreement either depending on if well Prior Lake we're talking about right now June 4th if we're able to come to some sort of an agreement or maybe a special session proves that there is a different direction at which point the contract would essentially be nullified yes so so I
037guess language does matter and um and thank you for that so actually when I was talking about the special session that is actually the piece that I omitted a kind of uh button up so with regards to our general counsel they they wrote language here around suspension of the contract because the possibility of any type of special session that could be called and or if the um legislature goes back into regular session and any changes to not have to go through the whole ramification and re rebuilding a contract we could reinstate the existing contract and I can get clarity if that Emily do you is there any other context wrong that particular term I know our respective cities have used the term cancellation and our Council has used this term um anything that you could
038add contacts wise yeah thank you Dr Thomas that is this official suspension of the contract in order for if the under item five if there were to be any modification of the statute that would allow us to continue then we can move forward with compliance within seven days calendar days of that modification to the statute so we have been utilizing the term of a suspension not a termination of the contract although number six says on or before June 5th 2024 it'll automatically terminate with this one here it runs the course of the actual contract currently um so it's set to already expire so if nothing comes of that then it naturally we'd have to go that way okay a question I had about if I may questions um I know in there will be an
039officer around our middle schools our high school Bridges I wondered about the elementaries does this open up anything for him or her to for lack of a better word tour the elementaries over the course of the day are they I know they're not currently in our contract but I didn't know if that actually opened it up for them to go to elementaries I certainly don't want to speak for the agencies but I'll let any of you respond after I I share this but currently right now um an officer can come into any one of our campuses and check in with the administration check-in how is the day going if an officer would like to use an office in our room or in our schools to do paperwork make phone calls that would be made available
040as well so quite honestly I think the potential to open up that support at the elementary would increase not that they couldn't do that now but because they're not assigned necessarily that would open up some flexibility based upon you know their their human resource bandwidth as well right I only say that because elementaries aren't mentioned in either of these memos I know we're only talking about Prior Lake right now but in the memos only speak to the specific SRO assigned and we're speaking much broader support um with within uh by expanding that relationship so it's not just relegated to an SRO it's the partnership now that we'll have with the entire agency and any officer that may be unbeat or we I know some are working on regular scheduled patrols and having an officer that
041would be the point investigation officer for example at our high school would be continuity in that individual pending something that might be happening and they're not available but those are some of the nuances that I know that the the agencies will be respectively working through as they look at the assignments of of patrols for our schools question if all of our staff have received CPI training which is training that they use to de-escalate a situation Dr Edwards you want to explain which staff are identified to be targeted for training yes uh currently that training is for our staff who support our center-based programs specifically and we also have expanded that opportunity to include other special education staff and other support staff within the building that support for example social workers who often support the students
042within those programs so aligned with the requirements statutorily with regard to training in the up updating of that training and maintaining of that training on an annual basis now one of the things that I would add to that director Atkinson is that given some of the flexibility that we would now have within our Safety and Security Levy that may be an option for us to be able to expand Beyond special ed staff to broaden that umbrella of folks who would receive some of that training again when we talk about some of the specialized holds Etc it has primarily come from students with some physical or emotional dysregulation more time times than not than General Ed and so again that's where we've focused our our resources for the type of training but certainly this would give
043us some flexibility now to look at some other alternatives to expand some of that yeah and that's great so what percentage of our staff do you believe that makes up approximately we'd have to get back to you on I would like to how many staff oh I would need to get back to you on that unless you see director Chuka is in the office here yep we can definitely look into that um I also want to add that that expands to our pair of Educators as well not just our certified staff and another wonderful opportunity we had this over the summer is Dr Chuka and her some members of her team based on feedback we received from our peer educated group created a really wonderful training for all of our staff to go through promoting
044positive interactions with students now while it's not necessarily dealing with the holds that CPI would go into it really deals with the interactions that they have with students in different settings throughout the building and it's a wonderful opportunity to expand our training and that availability throughout and utilizing really great members of director chuka's team to create that internal resource that we'll be pushing out to all of our staff so looking at multiple different trainings to provide that that whole picture that Dr Thomas was talking about of security with all of our students foreign maybe even for the people in the community in the room and tuning in online does it make sense to what is a prone restraint and I know we have our our folks here from the city and from the police departments
045what is a prone restraint and was was this this seems like this was one piece and kind of the only reason that this piece of this legislation occurred or was passed and I'd be curious if there was any more to that Beyond just the prone restraint and I think maybe it it people hear that it's big it's a big word it's a big term what does that mean I certainly in the last couple of years were a little bit more familiar with it maybe than we'd like to be but what is that and just to educate us and was there more and I don't want to put anybody in the spot with the legislation and things but was there more to this or was that really the only piece that brought this whole thing to
046light director Olstead I'll say that um that was probably one of the larger challenges to try to overcome in terms of a specific action um and a prone restraint is where you know uh a forearm or a knee depending on if they're standing vertical or on the ground would be used to apply you know safe pressure to hold to potentially handcuff an individual that might be physically aggressive to not hurt themselves or other people and and the question was should that be used by school resource officers and the answer by way of legislation is No it should never be used in schools now aside from the prevention of bodily harm to themselves or others or potential death or something something like that and I I think the challenge and where things get really gray is
047in this milliseconds within a situation how do we go back and forth on Gray language of what was potentially going to be bodily harm to themselves or to others I think a scenario that has been used in several conversations that I've been a part of um is if we have a student that is emotionally dysregulated uh and decides to go into a computer lab and begins to smash computers um throwing monitors or taking a laptop and throwing it like a frisbee would that not potentially harm someone would they potentially not harm themselves by having glass shards fire back onto their face or you know into their eyes Etc so should I or shouldn't I use a physical hold to restain them because it's not like the student has a gun or wielding a knife or
048anything like that it's a computer monitor just destroying property do I sit back and let that happen until they are de-escalated or do I move into that situation I think that's the type of ambiguity that agencies are not comfortable operating Within that in a moment's notice a decision needs to be made and what we've seen across the country unfortunately is situations that can go from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds and if individuals cannot utilize the full training and tools at their disposal um seconds will cost hundreds of lives potentially and I think that's the concern if I'm speaking on behalf of our colleagues with respect to Prior Lake and Savage area law enforcement that's at the Crux of the decisions that we're coming to in our local communities um hope that helps
049answer that thank you other board members have questions or discussion points I have a question um thank you city leaders for coming I'm wondering if any of them were prepared or cued to speak to as to this tonight and I again I'm not trying to put anyone certainly we're on Prior Lake right now we certainly can open them for for you to enter the conversation thank you thank you yeah so the director and the and the board members and Dr Thomas and to our community members I appreciate that opportunity uh Dr Thomas excellent your an application will be in your mailbox very very shortly as we're hiring right now so thank you um I'll directly to your point rather than lament on what I'll call the negligent legislation that again has put all of us
050in this position here and speaking to our our parents and committee members and Educators as well who aren't here um it's most important to me that everyone understands that not only is the safety and peace of mind of our Educators our staff our parents and our students absolutely Paramount we want everyone to understand that in no way does this cancellation on the words of for the city language suspension for uh the language that's in front of you change it all our focus on absolutely providing that level of safety security and peace of mind already and what I'm calling an interim or the gap for this timeline until I don't like hope or luckiest strategies but I hope the legislature fixes this quickly in this Gap or interim period of time for Prior Lake and I'd
051let Chief Sawyer speak for Savage but I believe it's the same we've already got a heightened presence not only at the elementary but at the middle schools at Bridges we've got officers on The Daily walking through the schools so that in an event if we were able to prevent or respond to or simply for that peace of mind all of us know that your Police Department is still here for you that will continue without question should this become fixed and easy term very quickly here we are within 24 to 48 hours in a position to assign an SRO and get that that person into the schools and then continue that same level of response so I think that's really the biggest thing that I want parents and I certainly appreciate the passion of our parents
052here although my kiddo is much older she was in the school district for a period of time that's very close to my heart it's very important for our staff for our officers they know this feeling of uneasiness that this event has created for all of us and so we are going to continue to address that to be very present for all of those all those reasons and I want to offer to one secondary note not only are the sros critically important for that Safety and Security piece but as was mentioned I Believe by our parent really what I have seen in 26 nearly 27 years of law enforcement in multiple school districts the true value of sros is a consistent face for mentorship for developing relationships and I have literally seen lives saved by the
053relationships that consistent presence of law enforcement in our schools has developed we want those critical lifelong relationships to be developed so that relations between community and police continue to increase continue to get better so it isn't just we're there when there might be a problem we're there before problems ever start so that they never do and it's really critical that I think everyone understands that that's really the big press for what sros and consistent police presence does is develop that critical lifelong relationship so hear me very clearly for Prior Lake and I would believe Savage 2 in no way are we leaving our kiddos and our Educators out to dry in any way we are there already we will continue to be there and as soon as this gets fixed again my word we will
054move right back into that relationship so that's really critical and important that everyone hears that and I would be happy to answer any questions but the doc has already answered them very well so I appreciate the opportunity thank you thank you director Brian other feedback are questions from board members I do have one more question um just so just to share for the board and for I think for the community as well um I think first of all thank you for all the work that was done um the relationship between the city and the district and and the collaboration keeping the student safety first is is um very evident and we're thankful for that um what does so we are we're brought with this task of voting tonight as a board but the decision to
055um to stop the contract as is and and to add the memorandum of understanding has already been made can help the board and the community understand what a no vote tonight what what would that mean so um let me just pick up a couple of sentences before your question um the vote has already been made and and so let me just clarify some context around that and and I'm I'm really saying this respectfully um and I shared earlier the legislative language nullified this contract yes okay based upon the severability clause this is nothing that this board initiated it's nothing that our respect uh respectful agencies have initiated this was initiated in essentially sealed when that Omnibus Bill passed it essentially nullified the contract so in all intents purposes you're going through the motions of uh
056taking a vote on something that has already sailed ship has already sailed on this one so what happens if you if the board says no we don't want to suspend the contract or cancel the contract um I I would say that we would be putting um our law enforcement Partners in a predicament where they would have to make some critical choices as to their presence on our campuses because there's a level of liability that their respective councils are just not comfortable with at this time and for that matter um they may have to make some different decisions certainly can't say that they will or wouldn't but I'm just saying that would be the reality that we would in turn be passing this really poor plate of lemons to a partner who has nothing but wanting
057to collaborate and make something work for us and that wouldn't be fair so that's the best way I can answer that director bullion thank you for that clarification I think it's important to um yeah I just appreciate the the clarification because I think the whole thought of having the sros removed especially from community members even you know other leaders that don't understand it's scary and um so that you know what what a noble would mean wouldn't actually some someone might think that it it was trying to keep the sros but it actually would in turn be hurting and so just having that clarification I know I wanted it I had questions asked to me regarding it so thank you for that yeah I think that's a great distinction you just made voting yes to suspend
058the contract keeps the relationship in healthy tact voting no to suspend this contract jeopardizes that relationship even further thank you I was just gonna make that clarification myself so thank you director bullion that um some of the comments that I received in the community is we're not going to have officers uh on our campus if we nullify this contract or agree to suspend it and that obviously isn't the case but I did want to also point out that I appreciate the fact that Minnesota has local control and we've we have the ability uh to do this maintain the relationship and also basically free up the officers to act in the capacity that they've been trained most to do that I think is going to actually benefit our students more than even our previous agreement did
059and that's just my opinion I don't know if that's a correct assessment of what I understood for some of the limitations when we call them school resource officers besides just having officers you know on our campus and actually treating our campuses as was stated earlier by the officer to to actually include the elementary schools and things like that into a high Patrol area I think that's very valuable I think it's going to benefit the district more in the long run and I believe that the Folly at the legislature is actually a good learning experience and is actually going to do us better overall in the long run just from The Experience we've had in the suspension of the suspension of the contract as well as understanding the role of officers on campus and the importance
060of that and the importance of freeing them up to be able to do their jobs appropriately Chuck Crosby I have perhaps a different perspective I'd like to share um as a parent of a high school student my heart has been super heavy since I learned about the possibility of ending our contract with our sros I watched the city The Savage city council meeting and I attended the Prior Lake City council meeting and I understand and appreciate the hours of meetings and our partnership that have been built discussing the changes to the law and the vulnerable position that puts our police officers and our city in I appreciate our city leaders plea to the governor to call a special session but honestly I have little hope that a special session will be called and that this
061law will be changed this issue was brought to the governor in mid-august and no action has been taken Now 44 Minnesota dfl Representatives including two of our local Savage D 55 Representatives have released a statement opposing a special session to review this law I have also been following other City decisions including Lakeville Jordan Shakopee Farmington and my understanding that is that these cities have not canceled their SRO contracts and will continue their Partnerships now I understand every school district is unique as stated which impacts this decision knowing that the reported number of fights has almost tripled in our district since 2018 and there has not been any use of prone restraints by an SRO in our district in the past five our past three years I have seen videos of fights on social media from
062both our middle school and our high school and I have a hard time believing Any teacher or admin would just stand back and not feel compelled to break up a fight but under this new law and the ambiguous language it puts our teachers and our admin in a very conflicting potentially dangerous and legally liable situation so with this new law in place and ours resist our city is requesting to end our SRO contract one of the questions I had you answered already was about the CPA eye training I'd also like to know what other change changes particularly to our middle school and high school will be put in place to create a safe and supportive environment for our students and I'll let you answer that in a second as soon as I finish um as
063a school board director part of my role and my moral obligation is to ensure a safe learning environment while I agree with the concerns raised by both our city and our police department and the significant problems this legislation creates for both our district and the sros I still feel strongly that having sros in our building remain critical toward District safety as a board member it's my role to make the best decisions for students and staff while both cities have already voted to cancel the contract tonight you're requesting us to release the cities from their 180 day advance notice I'm having a hard time accepting this request knowing what happened to in Mankato last week I also know that many parents will send their students to school tomorrow with the question of what if is my
064students safe do our teachers have the right training to protect our children does the district have the right plan in place to protect our teachers and students I feel confident that our district and our city leaders and our Police Department would have enough time in the next 180 days to formulate a safe plan train our staff and communicate to our community that we have a thoughtful plan in place to ensure students and teachers are safe are safe my suggestion is to take the next 180 days to develop a plan that supports creating a safe learning environment and puts our parents hearts and Minds at ease as they send their precious babies to our school district tomorrow morning so I'm not I'm sorry I'm not in support of releasing them from the 180 day agreement and
065those are the reasons why thank you um I'll just weigh in watching Dr Thomas and our wonderful City leadership and police force leadership collaborate since August has been very humbling for me knowing the strong relationship you all have built and the work you've done to create a plan to be able to work within this this situation that we've been dealt given the decision made by the legislature and I'm thankful thankful that we were ahead of it we were proactive we partnered long ago on this and that our relationship was very solid so that we can move forward and provide that same safe experience for our kids regardless of what's going on behind the scenes because that's what parents care about right that's what I care about as a parent right is that the child at
066the school has the same safe experience regardless of what the paperwork says and so we found a way to do that in my opinion and I've been reassured by that with Dr Thomas and with the Chiefs and Mayors so I appreciate that the other thing that was brought up tonight was proper training and I really appreciate that perspective too so I just want to reiterate that because I think there's maybe a little lemonade here with extra resources that we can put forward to our staff in proper training and and I appreciate that we'll still have officers available on our campuses to do what they are trained to do without any hesitation or half second holding back and lastly in terms of advocacy I know Dr Thomas has worked and been very available to our state
067representatives and state you know you know it would have been great to have the opportunity to speak with Governor Wallace last week that didn't come to fruition but should he need the support of of our board to also Advocate we are here and and would be available if that call were to come so um I think we're ready for a vote on the Prior Lake mou all in favor aye aye opposed hi that passes six one we will can I get a motion to um prove the memorable of understanding the joints Powers agreement with the city of savage so made by director bernick in a second again my interaction of The Last Quest all in favor I I opposed I that passes six one thank you for your time tonight joining us and willingness to
068spend your beautiful evening with us we will move on to the consent agenda 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 requests in which event the item will be removed as a consent agenda item and addressed are there any items that board members would like remove this evening um Chuck Crosby on the purchase orders exceeding 25 000 I have one item that I've had requested to pull off of the consent agenda so I don't know if we need to pull the full purchase order exceeding 25 000 or if it would just be the one item no the entire okay thank you so that would be eight B and we will
069move that to the beginning of new business thank you so can I get a motion or is everyone any others am I missing anything can I get a motion to approve the consent agile agenda without item 8B please I mean director of Velazquez a second second by director uh France all in favor aye closed captioning not available [Music] and so tonight sorry everybody I have a new paper copy tonight we are um honored to well first can I get a motion made to accept so made by instructor Alstead and seconded by director Atkinson okay so tonight um the gifts received by the district are which we will honor in Linker Pride are smsc the 21 375 dollars for 15 aeds for the district Jim groover gift cards for Bridges students district office staff in kind
070for school supplies also families in the district Deerfield development in city of Prairie League 199 participants in kind for school supplies Jody Johnson in kind for hospital bed Walkers wheelchair and miscellaneous items for Min caps The Fountains assisted living in kind which is three hospital beds wheelchair and Hoyer lift for men caps five Hawks dogs twelve hundred dollars for a bike rack five Fox PTC ninety five hundred dollars playground backboards and first grade tables Jeffers environmental stewardship fund fifty five hundred dollars for Teacher stipends to attend Outdoor Learning Co-op program thank you all for the generosity um all in favor of acceptance of gifts sorry roll call director Atkinson director of Fallas hi director France aye Drescher thank you so we will move on to Laker Pride I am excited to recognize the Shakopee metal
071wakaton Sioux Community during Laker Pride tonight I reached out to the community with a big ask earlier this year Prior Lake Savage area schools had 15 aeds in which we could not no longer order replacement parts for or batteries the Shakopee middlewaka to the Sioux Community graciously donated all 15 aeds needed to replace our old ones we are truly grateful for the partnership with this community thank you for helping us provide this essential immediate medical assistance to ensure the safety and well-being of our students visitors and staff thank you for patiently waiting too to get to this portion of the board meeting so I just want to say that our partnership oh yeah we'll we'll get yeah you can come forward if you like yeah so please do come forward I you know I don't
072say that jokingly um so these AED units are literally life-saving units and I think it just speaks volumes to the partnership that we have with you that you would grant us the resources to bring in updated AED machines so that we can you know add to the safety of our campuses both while we have kids during their typical school day but we host a lot of community-based events and so this is also an investment in our community and we can't thank you enough for Your sponsorship for us to be able to update and bring in new AED machines you know throughout our district so thank you and we'll stand and recognize and get a photo for your donation to The District thank you so much thank you so much [Applause] thank you all right three
073two one okay thank you between the um police Chiefs that were in the building tonight and the aeds I'm not sure I've ever felt safer very true yeah okay thanks for coming tonight uh we will move on to our Personnel items so the first item um that is being requested of the board for approval is additional Staffing for 23 24 which com includes a communication Administrative Assistant support which is a 0.5 employee of the district and I believe director Herman is able to speak to that this evening thank you chair Crosby Dr Thomas members of the board today we're bringing forward a request to add a 0.5 administrative assistant position um to the Communications Department to assist with the influx of public data requests and other ad hoc communication special projects throughout the year we
074hope that this this position will help us respond to the need needs that are increasing and help respond to public data requests and redaction needs to ensure we're thinking within compliance thank you before we open it up can I get a motion to approve by director Velazquez a second by director Olstead thank you any questions from the board just one question um was is what was there room in the budget for for this position or was this is this an add-on based on the information we received at the last study session um de Boolean members of the board this is within the approved budget thank you other questions from the board no I just um want to make a statement so we um well I fully support the need to increase our communication and we've
075heard a cry from our community and both our teachers and our community from that and improving our communication I'm hoping that that's what this position will help so that Christy can focus on improving communication with our teachers our staff our community but I'm also really torn knowing that now we Face another challenge of safety in our building so while I was fully supportive this when we received it last Tuesday Wednesday whatever it was I I really have some mixed feelings I would love to put this money towards some form of enhanced Safety and Security in our buildings feedback from other directors um I you know agree with portions of that when I first saw it I was disappointed that we have to add more staff for things but that is what our job is in
076transparency and providing the public the information they request I did question it and then I remembered somebody said at the study session how much of our staff also not just Christy but the other staff gets pulled in so I'm hopeful that this will help alleviate some of our other staff members like Emily getting pulled in I mean can you address that is this person really going to take some of the load off of additional stuff thank you um director bernick members of the board um yes that is that is the ultimate goal of this position is to open up to director Atkinson's Point um director mussman's ability to focus on safety focus on security focus on other communication tactics that she's heavily involved in in that area and all the other areas of communication we're
077hoping this position will also be able to not only be the point person for organizing all the requests and responding to the redactions but that one point of contact that can really be fully trained and versed in redactions to help reduce the um the load on others having to support those questions and those different needs so that that is our hope and our goal for this position is to help streamline and the efficiencies to allow other individuals to focus in on those roles and really dive deep into the other areas of need that we have throughout the district thank you all right if there are no other questions we can move ahead all in favor of supporting this additional Staffing I I opposed I that passes six one uh the next item on our agenda
078agenda is a memorandum of understanding so um director Herman can elaborate on this it's a superintendent PTO accrual mechanism um so so an mou change to the contract thank you chair Crosby member of the boards um I appreciate you allowing me to bring this to your attention as we onboard a new payroll staff this last year it came to our attention that one of our contracts had a completely different accrual mechanism than all of our other employee contracts which is the exact opposite of what we've been trying to do in our district streamlining our benefit packages streamlining our operations so that we reduce workload we also reduce the chance of errors that are occurring in addition to that as we've spoken to in the past are HRS does not have a lot of functionality to
079it so the current accrual mechanism in the superintendent's contract is a manual process every payroll a month on a monthly payroll which really takes away from the payroll's ability to do something else so we are asking for your approval to change how it is accrued not making any adjustments to the amount of paid time off or the utilization restraints but simply allowing us to utilize the same accrual mechanism that we use for all of our other employee groups to help streamline our efficiencies in HR and payroll thanks for that clarification can I get a motion to approve Soulmate by director bullion and a second second by director Bernie questions or points of clarification I have one question just thinking more farther down the road for the next contract is this something that we will look
080to adjust so that we don't have to worry about it an additional mou thank you director of Vasquez members of the board that would be my um my recommendation this was not the accrual mechanism and the previous superintendent contract I think it was just simply a maybe a Miss in communication between how human resources and payroll operates and and the contract this year so something that we can fix this time and hopefully we can fix in the future contracts moving forward so we don't have to deal with an mou perfect thank you all right all in favor of approval of this mou bye post that passes 7-0 we have no unfinished business we do have new business before we go into that we will start with the 8B is that what it is okay um
081purchase orders exceeding 25 000. um can I get a motion to approve so made by director bernick in a second my director of France and I'll open it up for questions comments yeah thank you um there was a concern brought to me um today actually about the BrainPOP and um I just want to elaborate that my understanding is that BrainPOP is an app we use it's a group of short animated educational videos for students K-12 it's not used in all districts well that sounds like a great resource parents in our community have cited concerns with certain videos that teach subjects which go against their personal and or religious beliefs examples of this are critical race Theory or sexual orientation and gender identity we experience this example this past spring with a BrainPOP video that was
082shown in our Middle School it has also been cited that certain videos only share one perspective with students about numerously numerous highly politically charged events in the U.S such as black lives matter so I have a couple questions for Dr Edwards this evening what percentage of teachers utilize this resource in our district and what grades are using it uh it is I'll answer the second question first it is used across all grade levels primarily however K-8 most most notably K8 however I don't want to say that it is not used at all at the 912 level and as far as percentage of teachers using it I don't have that specific data here tonight but I certainly can provide that as an update I do know that it's widely used by all content areas of the
083secondary level specifically at the middle school level and which is one of the benefits is there a video specific to each content area and it certainly also used similarly at the elementary level as well um thank you so the understanding is that BrainPOP video should be listed on schoology for parents to access and View and opt out of the videos before they are shown can you confirm that if BrainPOP is utilized that parents will have access to login to view the videos before they're shown in class I cannot confirm at this point whether or not that is true but what I can say is that teachers are expected to share specific information related to their content in their schoology week at a glance that they provide via schoology that parents have access to um I
084think one thing that I'd like to also get clarify clarification on um is how many logins does this fee cover um specifically this spring I had requested a login as a board director and a parent and I was told that um there we do not have enough licenses for all parents and board directors yes this login is a staff Based Teaching staff based number of logins that we provide to our teaching staff so then can you clarify how a parent would be able to access a video prior to being shown in a class so Dr Edwards said he could not confirm that that was something that would be able to be done just a moment ago that the to your point and what we learned from the situation last spring is that it's critically important
085and an expectation was stated from me to our principals and ultimately with our staff any subject matter materials that are included in your lesson plan need to be made available you know to parents now we don't have access parents don't have access to a login for you know all the curricular resources that we have but teachers need to give a context of what a video or a vignette or what a lesson is going to entail so they understand the topics and if they want to make a decision as a parent to say you know what that topic is not one I want my you know student exposed to then that parent can make that decision and that arrangement in advance with with the teacher so I just want to give that kind yeah so what
086would you suggest for a parent who would like to view a video what's the process okay I would I would make a request that that parent talk to the teacher and make that request to go in and view the video to talk with that teacher and find out what protocols could be addressed so that I have a better understanding of said content whether it's a video whether it's a pamphlet whether it's a book whatever it might be I don't want to relegate it to just a certain video okay thank you and do we as a district put any restrictions on any of the BrainPOP videos shown in our district I'm not aware of any restrictions on any BrainPOP videos at this time of the content thank you all right any other questions from bar directors
087um I would just like to add one small list thing um you know given our recent MCA scores my understanding is BrainPOP is often used as a Time filler um just speaking to several teachers in our district and my request with the 27 349 dollars for the renewal of BrainPOP would be again to take that money and put it towards Safety and Security in our building and have those students focus on reading on some core academics versus renewing the license for the brand BrainPOP apt given the controversy that is surrounding this app itself and the fact that we're not able to offer get logins or have logins for parents to access this I'll just add that we you know in the the year that I was here um I can't speak to previous years there's
088um been one uh scenario where there's been a question with related uh which related to the content of a BrainPOP video I'm not aware of any other videos have been brought to my attention specifically citing that this video was shown and I have concerns about that and we never knew so if that again I we tried to rectify that by putting protocols into place for our Administration and our staff to ensure that any core material supplemental materials are published so that parents can have access and understand and ask questions about content so they can make some decisions as they see fit a couple of items that you noted around using this resource or another resource in lieu of investing in safety I just want to remind the board that our Safety and Security Levy that
089will no longer be going to the SRO contract can be used for that specific purpose and I mentioned that earlier as well that I would encourage the board as we look at that Levy now that it's not paying for that contract that's where we would supplement those resources or supplant those resources to enhancing our security Focus for training Etc private security if we needed that you know until the remainder of the year just want to put that context out there to you other feedback questions I have a question on the purchase orders exceeding 25 000 the the four that are listed here um thank you director Atkinson for um for the you know questioning on BrainPOP um I too have also received Community feedback regarding BrainPOP and I I will say that it was based
090on that one particular Brain Pop um my question is is when we approve these purchase orders are we approving one at a time or is it all of them um at once and um although I um I caution my own self in um you know making a decision based on one um negative feedback regarding something I I do think that there is um because it was multiple concerns not just one of that of that you know of BrainPOP it was multiple people bringing multiple concerns regarding that one video uh that's and I guess what I'm saying is that if in um if approving these are a one one approval that's my question are we approving all of them or do we approve each one individually um I believe we can pull out I I would
091I don't see why we wouldn't be able to pull up that particular item out separately for a vote thank you if the board would be my request I have a question for Dr Edwards if you don't mind how long have we been using BrainPOP I know it's been around since 1999 but can you tell me our district specifically I hate to put you on the spot yeah I wish I could tell you specifically but I know that it's been in existence for quite a number of years I I'm if I was to give you a number it would be a guess but I believe it would certainly be more than five and possibly as many as 10. thank you okay so we need to re we would need to um rescind the motion to approve
092as a as in its entirety can I get a motion to rescind that motion it's all made by tractor bullion and a second second by director Atkinson okay so we are looking to approve uh the first three listed in your packet so Clan mechanical illuminate education and another illuminated education as one slate can I get a motion to approve that so made my treasure Atkinson a second second all right director bullion on favor opposed that passes 7-0 can I get a motion to approve the uh Brain Pop portion of the purchase orders exceeding twenty five thousand so made by director bernick can I get a second second my director of Velazquez all in favor can we have a discussion please I just wanted to add one thing um I did check with some other districts
093and not everybody uses BrainPOP um so are there other resources that we could look to to given the controversy of the one this resource um is there are there other resources that you've come across that could be reviewed at curriculum committee I'm just asking that's outside of our scope tonight okay all right thank you but so tonight we're talking about the approval of this particular thank you yep so um all in favor hi hi opposed I that passes five two now we will move on to Edition sorry nope we did that I'm sorry new business uh 13A activity fee proposal we have our athletic director Marshall here this evening to go over um the request for board action thank you good uh good evening Dr Thomas School Board chair Crosby and school board members I
094am here with a proposal to increase our event worker stipends that would allow us to keep in line with other districts and it would allow us to better pay our event workers for the work they do in addition it allows us to better recruit people from within the district to work these events and probably more importantly allow us to be able to retain our event workers for these those pieces um if you take a look at the current event structure currently it's it's more or less a stipend pay um for our typical workers for zero to five hours they receive 46 dollars for five to seven hours they receive seventy dollars and for seven plus hours they receive ninety dollars and that's for our regular workers we also then have site supervision or site management
095those are the ones who are overseeing those events at the time which is why they get paid more currently uh they get paid sixty dollars for zero to five hours ninety dollars for five to seven hours on 115 for seven plus hours the proposed change uh would would allow our workers once again to to see an increase that's more in line with our neighboring districts and More in line for the work that they do there's no piece out there that is under an hour in fact there's nothing really that's under two hours on average it's about two and a half hours so when you look at the approximate hourly pay down below it's using a two and a half hour time span for the zero for the one to three hours which would be 55
096dollars which is approximately twenty two dollars per hour three to six hours would be eighty five dollars for an average of about four hours each time very rarely do we have an event that's over six hours if it is it's about right at six hours which would be a hundred and ten dollars and then for our site management uh one to three hours we'd be looking at seventy dollars three to six hours a hundred and ten dollars and anything that's over six hours would be a hundred and thirty dollars if you do look to see then as well in terms of what the pay increase has been over the years we have not had a pay increase for our event workers since 2009 um so we're looking at almost 15 years ago where the last
097pay increase did occur um and that forty six dollars is specific to the event workers for that piece so again this would help us better to be able to recruit and retain event workers uh it's been very challenging to be able to do that um again it's it's mainly staff members within the district there was a time where I think people really stepped up and did a lot of that volunteered their time and and it's just a different way that we live in now and we want to be able to I think accurately and be able to reflectively compensate them for for the time that they're spending during that during that during our events so thank you um can I get a motion to approve so made by director Atkinson at a second so made
098by tractor bullion questions comments from the board um I would just say looking at pley and what they paid their umps to um baseball I was shocked by these rates that we only pay our people this much so um you have my full support um because it's it's a it's a way to recruit and keep good talent so thank you I just had one question um when we have volunteer people from different organizations oftentimes they do it for to to earn money for their organizations uh have we done that with uh these particular positions and if we have uh is then the dollars donated back equal to the proposed pay or how does that work so typically if we have any sort of volunteers it's not so much from a supervision standpoint or working some
099of those pieces because there's some you know I think there's some concerns if they're supervising Elementary age students or or middle school students so um what what we've done for any sort of volunteer work specific to events is usually like a cleanup after a football game or something like that and really it depends upon the numbers um it's a it's a flat fee in terms of what they're they're given for their organization to come out and do something like that okay so in summary this isn't this isn't a one-to-one at all in any part good right thank you yeah go ahead um are these mostly like a lot of community members that want to um that are doing these a lot of these jobs or is it a lot of Staff they're doing this on
100their it's staff time okay most of it is staff members it's obviously events that are that are at night and over the weekends and so it's uh it's a wide variety of teachers administrative assistants we get some paraprofessionals to help out as well too so but um they've virtually all of them are staff members it's it seems like the right move thanks for bringing it forward do we have and I apologize I didn't get this question to you sooner because you may not know the answer but do you have a rough idea on budgetary impact they do it's approximately 7 500 to 8 000 annually thank you yeah thank you all right very important question yeah Mr Marshall um so with these the proposed rate changes seventy five hundred dollars seems pretty low will we
101see a reciprocal change or inflation of the overall fees that parents or community members pay to cover that's a great question one of the pieces that I will say that there has been a slight increase in revenue is when we made the switch to online ticketing last year when we went to vanco the ticket prices went up by a dollar at that point so eight dollars for adults six dollars for students and senior citizens we do still offer a a cash option at our games and so by by that increase of a dollar that's directly going back to the district as some increased Revenue additionally the main reason why we went up by that dollar was so that we weren't charging the the vanco fees the online ticketing fees directly back immediately to our users
102so when you add up the expenses for that it comes out to be about 75 70 to 75 cents per ticket so there's also even with the online ticketing piece there's a little bit of extra Revenue that's coming in that that being said director Velazquez there is talk about the potential looking at at next spring for the following school year at looking at our fees and comparing what our fees are to neighboring school districts to make a determination if we need to increase our fees at that time so at this point we're not asking for a fee increase but that is a piece that is something that we'll be looking at over the course of the school year right thank you I would also add that while comparing to neighboring districts is great we should
103also look at what does it actually cost to run the programs here and how much of that is supplemented versus outright born by our community sure thanks great thank you very fine tonight I think we'll call it to a vote all in favor of the activity fee proposal increase post uh passes 7-0 thanks for being here tonight our next item on our agenda is the 2324 Levy certification update there is no board action but Tammy all sorry director Frederickson will give us an update thank you chair Crosby Dr Thomas members of the board the Minnesota Department of Education released the levy certification report for FY 2425 late Friday and then this morning they had a webinar to go over the report we are looking at all 39 pages of the report and going through line
104by line to make sure that everything is as we expected it to be I did give you all a handout before the meeting that just shows you what our proposed property tax levy is according to this mde report um as I said we're going through it line by line so this is not final there are we've already found a couple minor changes that will affect the final report um but on February or September 25th at our board session we are going to discuss this so I wanted to give it to you tonight so you could kind of peruse it and see if there was any questions you had that we can talk about on the 25th and then the 25th we will need a board action to either pre-certify the max or we have to
105pre-certify some amount of the levy by September 30th to get in to the Department of Education we have until December after the truth and Taxation hearing to make final changes so the September 25th vote to pre-certify will just be preliminary again we have ample time to go through and and make any adjustments that we see that may be needed but I did want to give this to you tonight just so you have a couple weeks to look at it and think of questions that we can talk about on September 25th study session thank you um director Frederickson I have a question um when we do pre-certify if we don't certify at the max can we still go up to the max or are there some rules that there is a rule you can either pre-certify
106the max if you pre-certify it less you can't go above what you pre-certify so if you pre-certify the max you can always reduce it in the final December report but once you certify whatever amount you're going to certify you can't go above that so we'll always recommend certifying the mat the max so that we can if there's any changes have that opportunity to to look at it for the October and November before the final certification okay thank you their questions okay uh we'll move on to the 2223 audit updates it's a report only also coming to us via director Frederickson thank you we have been in contact with our auditor mmkr they are finalizing their management letter we've asked them if it's at all possible to present the audit report on the September 25th study
107session they will let me know this week if that's going to be possible they're like I say they're trying to get the management letter finalized we because we're moving up the budget timeline it would just be advantageous to us to have that final audit report done by the end of the month so that we can move on with preparing the 24-25 budget according to the budget timeline that you've seen in the last couple board meetings so because we are moving that up we just want to get a final audit so that we know what we're working with for the 25 or 24 25 budget questions or comments from the board for discussion okay thank you uh the next item on our agenda is our annual resolution for Columbus Day indigenous people's day this resolution is
108passed annually so that school district business can be conducted on the second Monday in October it is a roll call vote can I get a motion to approve so made by director of France in a second second my director Velazquez I'll uh Martha Iva do I need should I read the resolution okay everyone it's in the board packet to be read um all in any any discussions or questions from the board yep any okay uh thank you so we'll do a roll call director Atkinson aye sure the Last Quest hi director um France aye Georgia bernick aye Jordan aye Charleston aye aye that passes seven zero thanks everyone uh we are now on the superintendent evaluation process so this process was presented at the board study session on August 28th in board approval is on
109the table tonight uh before I open that up for discussion can I get a motion to pass homemade I director bernick and a second second I attract your France I'll open this up for uh discussion and and hand it off to you Dr Thomas thank you chair Crosby board of directors um just a real quick update the framework hasn't changed the only thing that we have done working with Jenny's on bush with our district continuous Improvement division is put together a goal aligned to The Domain that's set by msba and then gave examples of measurables that you could use to help frame your decisions on rankings so that's the only thing that has changed but other than that it's ready for your approval or your vote right questions or comments from board directors at this
110time the only comment that I would make is I really appreciate the new format the alignment to msba and the emphasis on the objectives so that we are not trying to literally boil the ocean with this but we have very prescriptive Direction and objectives here too to evaluate any other comments from the board I would just add that um I appreciate Jenny's work on that sorry uh director zambush thank you if you're here this evening I don't think she is I appreciate the work you guys have put into this I know it's been a lot of work to re to rebuild it and make the format um uh in a way that isn't boiling the ocean like you said so I appreciate that and examples are helpful but certainly not limited to or you know
111they're there as an inclusion aspect um okay I guess I'm I'm waiting for no it's okay I'm I'm not we can wait for director of The Last Quest to come back at this time any other questions from board members about the superintendent evaluation um I have a question I noticed that on the and this is just for my clarification um there were measurables in the um the first part of the review and then the second and the final final that was more General can you I'm sorry if I missed this yeah nope sorry those will be applicable there to director Atkinson we just didn't cut and paste all the way down into the mid-year form but that's the same throughout the whole entire year okay thank you for clarifying and a point it's it's illustrative
112it's not exhaustive so there'll be various things that you know we may bring in throughout the year that are really critical and we say Yep this is where you know we're going to go so foreign [Applause] so at this time barring any further questions from board members about the superintendent performance expectations and review um I think we're ready for a vote all in favor aye aye opposed okay that passes 7-0 our next item is Proclamation for it professionals appreciation week we have director of Technology milazzo here and no board action is requested but director of France will read the proclamation for us I.T professionals appreciation week September 18th through the 22nd 2023 Prior Lake Savage area schools recognizes September 18th through the 22nd of 2023 as it professionals Appreciation Week I.T professionals play an integral
113role in ensuring the functionality Safety and Security of technology in the 21st century classroom this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these essential staff whereas Prior Lake Savage area schools has 14 DSC I.T staff whereas I.T professionals manage over 14 000 devices in our district that students and staff depend on daily including 9000 iPads 900 MacBooks 1600 desktops 100 Apple TVs 600 projectors 1070 telephones and 1050 wireless access points whereas I.T professionals manage and ensure the safety and security of our network servers and infrastructure to follow practices that keep children safe online in education whereas I.T professionals provide technical support to staff and students across our district including but not limited to classroom audio visual account setup and maintenance mobile device and phone management and Hardware software licensing whereas our district print shop
114professionals provide well-organized and efficient printing operations for the district by operating high-speed high-capacity copiers industrial Cutters and other miscellaneous equipment along with organizing and processing materials at the curriculum Repository therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to all Prior Lake Savage area school I.T Professionals for supporting the education of our students and staff and Proclaim September 18th through the 22nd 2023 to be I.T professionals appreciation week and Prior Lake savagery schools thank you chair Crosby members of the board Dr Thomas good evening I'm Marcus milazzo I'm the director of technology for Prior Lake savagery schools I have a brief statement it's only one page so I'll go quickly on behalf of the Prior Lake Savage area schools technology department I'm here tonight to express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation
115to the school board for the proclamation of the I.T professional Appreciation Week within our school district this recognition will continue to inspire and motivate our technology department to excel in their roles to contribute and to continue advancement of our educational programs my team is dedicated to supporting all stakeholders by providing top-tier technical support they possess several traits that I feel are important to acknowledge now this is not an entire list but these are ones I want to highlight they are responsive they empathize with our stakeholders technical technical issues and patiently guide them through resolution they follow up and they're uncountable they are lifelong learners they continue to look for ways to improve their processes tools and skill sets and maybe most importantly the I always say this they have sharp minds and kind hearts kindness
116truly matters and when we're supporting all stakeholders this is essential I'm honored to lead and serve with this amazing team I would like to once again extend my sincere appreciation to the school board for proclaiming I.T professional appreciation week thank you so much for your time thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you to your team yeah we have a date change worth noting um due to conflicts and scheduling the board studies session will be moved from Monday October 23rd to Monday October 30th I'm still at the DSC starting at 6 PM so for anyone who's curious that's the that's the calendar change we are moving on to policy and board policy approval we are at the final step of approving board policy 203 which is our school board operating norms and
117board policy 209 which is our code of ethics we'll take them separately tonight can I get a motion to approve 203 so my made by director bullying can I get a second second so made by director Olstead I'll open it up for any um for each board member to speak and then we will call for a vote um I appreciate the legal review on the language under how we govern 5.1 I do like legal suggestion to change they had provided two different suggestions just to be clear to change the language without negatively impacting others the language they suggested was while considering the potential impact on others and I I appreciate that I think it adds Clarity we do know that people are sticklers for language and um I would support that language change um and
118then the second thing on that there was one other thing um on 6.1.3.5 I noticed that I built I thought we had bored um how do you say board majority to remove the language of in order for the office of the superintendent or the chair to provide instruction and sure arrangements are made to prevent a quorum and that is still in the language Other Board member concerns or comments say again what 5.1 I'm sorry my computer fell asleep um the language is that legal recommended or not recommended necessarily but advised said it out loud yeah legal provided guidance on two different guidance versions of language 5.1 under how we govern the language in question and that's being added to the policy is without negatively impacting others legal's guidance was um to change that to while
119considering the potential impact on others director Herman um I know you spoke with legal illness do you have other feedback or additional feedback to consider thank you chair Crosby member of the board I just would like to clarify that legal guidance did not find such a significant liability risk with how it's currently worded they did state that if they're while they do not see a strict legal need to revise the language that the option could be to revise the language to say while considering the impact potential impact on others or something similar to that and that was the same conversation I had with her on the phone as well thanks for that clarification other comments from board members is the will of the board to move forward with the language that's in the proposal now
120I think we're fine with it okay I'll call to a vote or chair I'm sorry chair Crosby um I have something I'd like to add to the policy discussion um at the March 28th study session board director of France made the request to bring fourth policy 203 board operating Norms even though this policy was reviewed and approved previously in November under our executive committee's France Crosby and Burnett's leadership we have spent out countless hours time and money on professional development and even taxpayers dollars on legal fees on the review of this policy just for the record this is our sixth reading with a new with much of our school board director roles being defined by Minnesota state law I have had a hard time understanding why the crust was even made to review this policy
121except we do have a new board bringing new diverse perspectives and new ways and ideas of operating with a new board and new leadership and the focus on trust and transparency I have to ask myself compared to where we were at with this policy back in March do the changes made to this policy primarily recommended by your executive committee do they increase trust and transparency with our fellow board members and our community or not was there value added to all the time and cost to taxpayers to review and make changes to these two policies as I mentioned in our last study session our 203 and 209 policies are unique to the fact that they do not follow msba policies and they're a mixture of ethics and norms and do not tie back to Minnesota and
122federal law these have always been my primary concerns it has also been brought to my attention by community members that we do not have a policy in place which allows our community to add an item to an agenda in the hierarchy we as school board directors report to our community and when a concern is brought up there should be a policy in place like msba policy 206 which guides our community members on how to add an item to the agenda for discussion while I'd like to believe that everyone has their fellow board members best interest in mind When developing policy my experience of serving on the board this past eight months has not been what I expected I have received pushback from our executive committee not only on this policy but with the request to
123attend meetings push back from our chair when requesting information to support making important decisions which impact our budget I have been requested to self-censor and have received written violations from our board chair in June which was stated they were given to help guide a pattern of behavior as I stated to the board chair in response to these alleged violations and asked her to share my comments with the rest of the board which did not happen I disagree with all the allegations made against me on June 22nd 2023 and a request that they be retracted immediately in writing to me and to the public to be transparent with the community I believe these allegations are a form of harassment with the intent to control how I serve in my role in the future what information I
124requests and meetings I attend as a board director and an attempt to get me removed from serving on committees I believe that selective and retaliatory enforcement of board policies against me specifically is being pursued despite my First Amendment right to engage in the communication and activities addressed I have a strong passion for our school district our students our teachers and parents and I am fully committed regardless of the harassment to serve in this role representing our community I personally don't believe that the changes made to this policy by our executive committee really have the best interests of all board members I believe that these policies do not increase trust and transparency but in fact create further division I would like to rescind the motion to approve this policy this evening and I'd like to make
125a motion to adopt MSB policy msba policies 203 and 209 in place of 203 and 29 this evening msba policies are not only are they examined carefully by their legal teams to ensure compliance with Federal and Minnesota law but the policies are organized and easy follow by both the school board and our community thank you do I have a second to rescind and the motion proposed by director Atkinson okay that does not move forward um any other comments from the board all in favor of moving forward with policy 203 as it reads in the board packet hi hi opposed I that passes six one moving on to code of ethics 209 can I get a motion to approve by director Alstead can I get a second second by director of France I'll open it up
126to the board for any comments for each member to weigh in all right I'll call for a vote all in favor of passing policy 209 as it stands in the board packet I I opposed I that passes six one we will move on to administrative reports and we'll start with Dr Thomas superintendent report thank you Jerry Crosby board directors um just a couple of things I want to highlight this week first and foremost we just you know welcomed our students back last week and it's always great to have the energy of students back into our schools and the staff as well and lots of smiling faces and today I was actually at preschool drop and so you also balance smiling faces with tearful parents and things of that nature dropping them off in schools for
127the first time but just generally speaking the launch was hugely successful and I can't thank our community enough for a great start of the school year and look forward to you know a great year together I I will say that a couple of a couple of changes that have taken place that I've been getting some emails about and feedback about and and I just want to speak to that tonight for our community um you know we've changed the lunch schedule at the high school and um you know minus the first couple of days there were I think some hiccups and getting used to it um I was there I was also there for the entire uh duration today um also serving orange chicken mind you um and uh but also observing uh the time it
128takes to move through the lunch lines and the seating all the emails and the Facebook chatter that I'm hearing about and I just want to let folks know in every single lunch there's ample seating um there's ample time a lunch today there were 17 minutes by the last time the last Rush of students to come through I think the second lunch was 20 minutes and the last lunch is 23 minutes um and for to from what I understand um our largest lunch size this year is still 100 short of our largest last year so um working a lot better it's more smooth this week and I just ask our community to um if you if you got questions you know make the questions directly to the schools not to Facebook because the the answers are
129there and I think people have kind of piled on to you know the the rumor mill of kids aren't having time to eat and there are no place to sit I can tell you I have observed many tables of high schoolers maybe 15 of them all standing on a table for eight while there's vacant table is you know open and so they want to kind of hang and congregate with their friends there's plenty of spaces to sit and so as we work through this new schedule we'll continue to monitor that but I want to assure the community of that um and I will also put a plug out if you ever have the desire I think I tweeted this out today to work in a commercial grade kitchen and serve hungry Minds any of our
130schools is a place to do it but Prior Lake High School is definitely um definitely could use support so it was a great time to connect with kids and I'll just tell our students the amount of please thank yous how are you have a great day the the respect level of our students I just need to give them props because they don't have to say that but they do and so that was really impressive to see speaking of seeing I want to put out a very strong expectation for our students and a strong expectation for our our community and that is our dress code we expect our students to come to school dressed to be professional a professional learner as if you were going into the professional workspace and um you know I think fashion
131these days could be debated and I won't say that I could even win any remote debate about fashion but what I can say is we cannot see private body parts or private undergarments I don't know how much more clear we could get this is something that I want to make sure that we balance uh fashion with what's respectful and I think showing of those uh undergarments and private parts is not a respectful thing to do so our high school communities and our Middle School communities where you typically see some of these things taking place please families again I'm not telling you what what to buy where to buy just I need your support too because they come to us this way and then we have to figure out how many gym shirts do we have
132to have people start swapping out clothes throughout the days so that we can get appropriate things that that cover everything so I can't stress enough it's a it's a two-way partnership and we we want to make sure you know through our policy and our our handbook that those two things are non-negotiables and and so we will have conversations as necessary with our our students about that um I will also say that we are working this year in partnership with livemore screen less at the middle school and prior to the year starting just seeing visual signs of changes of technology and how students and families will really from a Grassroots standpoint help change I think the direction that we go with regards to student usage of technology and how we have more balanced approaches to that
133so I will continue to update the board and the community as that transpires so really looking forward to to some of that um also I'll just share that the state of the district will be is set for October 10th from 6 to 7 here at the DSC like we did last year excuse me and the promotions for that will start coming out this week and lastly I'll say uh given the conversation in both this evening with regards to sros we'll be putting together a comprehensive communication to our families in our community so that everyone understands what this vote means and our expectations and commitment to ongoing broad systems of school safety of which our law enforcement are a critical partner in that so those are the updates uh that I have and I know we
134have a couple of administrative updates tonight as well okay uh so I actually um do you mind if I just call a couple forward um kind of in my flow does that work okay um I think Jim might still be here um so uh we've had a big project at the middle school with uh Capital Improvement project with our pools Etc which kind of was a little bit of a Pandora's box but we also had a partnership with the city to remake Fish Lake Road and adjusted some of our parking and things of that nature and if you could just give an update on those two big projects and how that traffic flow is is Flowing sure thank you good evening chair Crosby School Board Dr Thomas we did have a large project at Twin
135Oaks we all saw it probably all summer long it looked like a mess we made some significant changes on our parking um our parking lots along with the city really a collaborative effort with the city and their Engineers our Engineers Marine Mullen Matt Garrison just really um the outcome is great we pulled a lot of cars off Fish Point which really you know really helpful um excuse me and then pool filtration was another one as long as the buildings were down we were able to get in and get that project done too so a great summer for Twin Oaks and Hidden Oaks thank you and Jim I just want to thank your team because I know that summers are big workloads for your team and they did a phenomenal job with the amount of projects
136that we had going this summer so um hopefully that they'll now be able to Exhale a little bit and uh be prepped for the next summer I know I will I'm going to Canada tomorrow yes I know you are so I figured you'd be home packing by now yeah thank you oh thank you very much yeah thanks for staying and updating us as well yeah tonight uh just kind of in the whole Spirit of school safety just want to have Dr Edwards and director Hermann speak a little bit to our comprehensive all staff training that we modules that we've put together this past summer knowing that some of these things would be coming down the pipe and the unknowns of special sessions but again sros are just one layer we have other conversations in in
137training protocols and they'll speak a little bit about this new approach that we took this previous onboarding or summer launch with our staff thank you Dr Thomas members of the board um would like to give a huge shout out to the operations team the health services student Support Services teaching and learning really a whole department collaboration in partnership with our principals and our buildings we created a pretty comprehensive slide deck and then did a train the trainer technique with our principals and we spent a two hour long session I believe it was going over a really in-depth overview over our entire Safety and Security program that we have throughout the district with our principals that then provided that opportunity for all staff before the school year started to hear about all of our different levels
138of of Safety and Security throughout the district from the district level down to the different departments and into the schools and then provided them flow charts to know what to do in the event of a student crisis who to contact that training that I mentioned that Dr tuka's team developed would be available so really did a deep dive into our entire other ecosystem of safety throughout the district if you will to provide that update and training to all of our members so I'll still one of director delmo's comments that was unprecedented that we were able to set aside that dedicated time for safety health and safety updates to our all of our staff and I think we heard some really great feedback that it was very much appreciated in partnership with the Investments that the
139board approved with the additional Deans social workers psychologists culture Liaisons all of these additional adults in the building they're going to help build those relationships help address any behavior issues that do occur but like our our police departments said earlier today it's really about building those Partnerships to prevent any of the buffet errors from happening and a lot of that was shared out that we're really really happy for I'd also like to just add on with the back to school a big shout out to all of our hiring managers principals and the human resources department this was an unprecedented number of new hires this year and we are in a significantly better space than we were last year with the number openings we have throughout the district and significantly better than some of our neighboring
140districts so we are still hiring though noon supervisors para Educators Child Nutrition please please join our team just one just one last piece I'll add to the safety component to um you know specifically tied to the Deans you know even working with some of our contractors specifically speaking our bus drivers we are going to be working in cooperate in collaboration with our bus company and putting together our own training protocols for bus drivers in our district as well and so it goes beyond just the classroom anybody who's coming in touching the lives of our students the those are the folks that we want to make sure that they are building those relationships so that they know how to engage as well as should something happen here are the techniques that we would recommend that you
141can use you know on the bus we had a meeting with the bus company and all of our Deans just last week that Dan Dr Edwards facilitated and I'll tell you the feedback from the bus companies like this this was extremely helpful to have that personal connection to have that personal training um putting you know working with Christy and her team to put together you know a training video for the bus drivers to include them as actors if you will so that they see themselves that this is this is what it means when you're driving for plsas so just a big shout out to our bus company and their willingness to partner on that preventative safety measures with us too uh last one is Dr Edwards uh an update from you as well yeah so
142if I could piggyback on some of those comments thank you Dr Thomas members of the board I wanted to share just a little bit more on uh that's specific to the dean uh situation there Dr Thomas alluded to the meeting uh with the bus drivers and I've heard from multiple principals uh that the the appreciation for the investment uh this week as I've last week and this week as I've been in buildings seeing the difference already four days in that full-time Dean at each of our elementaries and one full-time at each of our middle schools is paying already paying dividends and will continue to pay dividends and I look forward to us continuing to develop those relationships as additional ways to meet all of those needs of our students and so I just wanted to
143emphasize that point and then finally I wanted to share a couple of uh just an update with regard to the upcoming celebration of Constitution tuition day slash week with some updates from each of our respective levels regarding that so just in talking with our elementary principles about the what experiences they will be having in their schools actually this aligns quite well with the kickoff of the school year and this is something that they have been doing for a number of years through the responsive classroom in which the each classroom sets up their own Constitution and so they utilize this as an opportunity to talk about the importance of the Constitution on a school-wide basis but then break it down to the classroom level specifically reviewing the Constitution as I have in quotes here as they
144implement the aspects of their responsive classroom having the students even including signing their names to that respective Constitution that guides their work and then subsequently throughout the year as well where appropriate specific to the social studies at each grade level tying in aspects of the Constitution also similarly at the middle school during the week of September 18th so the day Constitution Day being the 17th each building throughout that in that week will be incorporating additional information they have a weekly pledge of allegiance that they lead across the building over the microphone over the PA system and during the weekly pledge they will be acknowledging the importance and significance of the Constitution as well as additional curricular context once again that come up throughout the school year within our social studies courses and finally our high
145school will be planning an announcement and acknowledgment on Friday September 15th specific to the importance and significance once again on the Constitution and its impact on us as citizens of the United States and certainly as we as it relates to the high school I I do know that in many of our actually all of our social studies classrooms this is a key element of conversation particularly with our seniors as they are preparing to go out and have the right to vote and talking about the specific aspects of the Constitution and and how that impacts their lives as students both within our school and the broader world and community that they will enter as adults you those are all the reports right thank you for those updates they're all really informative uh board reports um I
146just have a small update um in regard to the teaching and learning advisory committee um our first meeting is October 9th at 4 pm Jessica and I both surround that committee and we added we added two additional members to that committee Shannon Bixby pancrets and Gene wheeler will be joining us on that committee they were alternates and I believe they both been informed that they'll be joining us on that committee and that committee is now well balanced between community members parents and administrators so thank you Dr Edwards for and director Olstead for working on that thank you other board directors with with any updates we had our first policy committee meeting I was actually really impressed by the engagement comments and knowledge and professionalism of all the members at the policy our first policy committee
147meeting we had no policies to present to the board because they were very thorough and the second reading of the policies based upon recommendations will be coming forward in the next policy committee meeting and I had the date in here and I lost it Emily do you know what it is director Herman yeah it's it's I believe it's um I think it's October it's our next one yeah uh um I think it's the first week of October actually the first Thursday but don't quote me on that I know it's on the count October 12th okay October 12th okay um and then also um I've always been heavily involved with Min caps and uh next week they sent out a a message saying that they were requesting help and still need volunteers of uh professional HR
148Health people and trades people to help in the uh teams first and the students first in practice interviews and this is their very first time there's not a lot of prep for it it for anyone who has ever been involved with Min caps in this particular process it's really a tremendous experience to see our students come alive and talk about their hopes their dreams what they want to do and these and these mock interviews um it really really is a feel-good time so I know they have a first thing in the morning and also the afternoon session so if you care to please go to the Min caps site and volunteer thank you any other board reports I'll just take an opportunity opportunity to report back about our board development that happened at the end
149of July which um uh was facilitated by studer and um you know it was open to the public but some outcomes of that for our board were were for us to focus on two standards the first being conduct and ethics and this was also part of a board self-evaluation process so the first being conduct and ethics so continue to continuing to do board development leadership work with studer as it coincides and relates to other work that students doing in our district um that that could potentially include you know if the if we went down that path strategy work and also under conduct and ethics to note state tax statute and our policies as applicable because as we discussed policy is rooted in law the second standard that we were focusing on for this next year
150is advocacy and communication so um that's really like studer's um students training with us was really powerful to reinforce our commitment to utilize and focus on a positive language of leadership as a team and managing up as board directors so we hope to emulate that as we move forward in our work just like we're seeing in the leadership leaders in our district um also another measure of advocacy and Community engagement is around realizing the outcomes we hope and and certainly expect with the increase of community engagement and representation on our committees and memberships and then as a board supporting and engaging in our Outreach community outreach events that will be going on this year um that at that time we talked about it directing plsas's profile of a graduate and the work that's being done
151with that um and again that could potentially link to any any strategy refresh work that we would possibly do um so that was just kind of I felt the need to Circle back with the community on that even though it's we're leaning into September now um and we did have an MSD meeting this week and it was mostly all that's out there for board directors to see via email the presentation was really solid on on kind of demographics and Laura sutherman's work in the state surveying and understanding kind of the future and direction of our schools and public support so you want to add to that or the only thing I would add is that there's a lot of interest very early already around legislative agendas so a respective msbas amsd I anticipate this is
152going to be uh a more aggressive approach to taking on some non-funding pieces so I think it'll be really important for us to spend some time thinking about that earlier than we maybe typically have given given what we are seeing with the legislature I'll just leave it at that great thank you future events include no more board director updates I don't want to sorry go ahead um the equity and inclusion advisory committee is looking for applicants so if anybody is interested in serving on that committee applications are accepted through September 29th so if anybody's interested that would be a great place to serve and put your Equity hard at work so so just wanted to put that out there thank you so future events uh fall Community Fest is September 18th at the high school
153at 6 PM our board study session is September 25th 6 p.m here uh Laker Hall of Fame celebration the intro at Dan Patch Stadium happens uh 6 30 p.m before the homecoming football game on Friday the 29th with an awards dinner at Legends Golf Club September 30th at 6 30. tickets would be purchased in advance can I get a motion to adjourn please so made by director bullion and a second second by director bernick all in favor that passes 7-0 we are adjourned thank you everyone