May 10, 2021 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education- part 1

001okay i'd like to call this meaning to order please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one all board members are present this evening all right and next up is the open forum and in accordance to our board policy 203 a 15-minute time period is set aside to receive citizen input through this open forum segment of the board agenda so i have three this evening and first up is daniel tragiano and if you just come up and state your name and address and then yeah thank you so much my name is dan trujano i live in savage i'm a family medicine physician and a population health consultant our family has lived in savage for about 21 years and

002our children graduated from prairie lake high school as a doctor and a parent and just as a concerned citizen i have been increasingly concerned about the intersection of climate change climate pollution and human health and diesel school buses that our children ride in sit squarely at that intersection the science is really clear on this school buses that are filled with diesel fumes are harmful to children's health their academic performance and the environment diesel emissions contain ultramicroscopic particulate matter pm 2.5 and black carbon which are not only breathed into children's lungs they are small enough to pass right into the pulmonary blood vessels and circulate throughout the body causing numerous systemic health problems children riding in school buses are inhaling up to 15 times the amount of exhaust compared to someone riding in the car next

003to them 14 of children have asthma and inhaled diesel emissions are direct lung irritants causing respiratory irritation and severe asthma attacks diesel emissions are known carcinogens increasing the risk of lung cancer bladder cancer and leukemia including childhood leukemia diesel exhaust causes cardiovascular diseases heart attacks strokes and really concerning is the maternal exposure maternal exposure to diesel fumes is associated with birth anomalies learning disabilities and those newborns adhd and autism recent studies have also shown that high exposure to levels of diesel exhaust on school buses impairs academic performance a large multi-year randomized control trial involving over 700 000 students in georgia showed significant improvement in academic achievement in children who were selected to ride in cleaner buses this was especially true on elementary school kids and in their english test scores another really well done study

004at the university of michigan showed an eight percent lower absentee rate and improved actual pulmonary function tests in students riding in those cleaner buses that was especially true for those 14 14 kids who have asthma the transportation sector in the us and in minnesota is the highest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the united states and diesel buses contribute over 5.2 million 5.2 million tons of carbon pollution every year this year the minnesota pollution control agency is awarding 3 million dollars in grants to purchase electric school buses and future legislation is being proposed for more funding in the years to come as part of the american jobs plan president biden has an explicit goal right on his website to ensure that all new school buses are zero emission hundred percent electric and american made by

005twenty thirty and congress as part of that is proposing twenty five billion with a b twenty five billion dollars of funding for schools committed to transitioning to electric school buses now how are we in prior lake and savage schools preparing for the federal and state dollars that are sure to be coming as a first step what i'm asking each of the school board members to do is to take a pledge that every isd 719 student will ride in a healthier and cleaner electric school bus by 2040. it's a simple ask given all that's occurring your public commitment will ensure that prior lake savage area schools are on the front end of receiving federal and state grants that are sure to be coming our kids in this community and our planet deserver world without diesel emissions

006in our school buses i'm going to send a follow-up email please reach out to me anytime if you're willing to sign that pledge or if you have any questions or want to learn more about this issue thank you all right and next up is bill marchart you could just state your name address and your comments my name is bill markert i'm a retired taxpayer that lives in credit river in the school district during the past two public forum portions of the school board meetings i've submitted questions that were read or partially read by this board it seems that my questions and requests have either been largely ignored or the responses i did receive privately were not responsive to my questions why won't the school board be upfront with taxpayers and clearly tell how much money

007the school district is spending to train its employees and post the materials being used to then to my what i believe is indoctrinating our children in toxic social justice ideologies such as the concepts of equity versus equality critical race theory anti-racism white fragility systemic racism white privilege implicit bias and any other social justice term being used by the district since the school board recently approved a resolution to commit to developing anti-racism policies and programs does that mean that the school district was in the past allowing racism in its then existing policies and programs while receiving federal and state funds i don't think so at least i hope i hope that wasn't the case will you not share the cost the school district is incurring related to social justice training and indoctrination because will you not

008share it because you've you know you've spent thousands and thousands of dollars on it and while at the same time having to reduce the budget this year and reduce staff the school board should be transparent and clarify the policies that are in place to ensure students are protected from political and racial ideological indoctrination at school what are the safeguards for children please post them to their website it's my belief that only parents should teach their children about activist causes if they so choose public institutions should not because taxpayers such as myself pay your salaries and many of us like myself do not believe in what you're exposing the children to also the school board should clarify what policies are in place protect to protect the children from being exposed to the clothing that teachers are

009allowed to wear on school grounds or at school sponsored events that depict racial activism things like black lives matter humanize my hoodies or coalition for teachers of color conspirator t-shirts parents this is to you be wary of what the district and what the state is teaching your children and get involved schools should be teaching reading writing and math what is needed to get a job not what is needed to become an activist public schools should not be in the business of teaching radical social justice theories that only hurt children by pitting them against one another all because of the color of their skin parents pull your kids from public education and stop funding the district if they won't stop this harmful indoctrination thank you okay next up is anthony heiser hello everybody my name is

010uh tony heiser i live at 17327 wilderness circle in prior lake so i'm here today to advocate on the topic of electric school buses so as far as my prepared statement members of the board thank you for the opportunities to speak in front of you today my name is tony heiser and i am a 15 year old resident of prior lake i come before the school district board today to ask for their commitment to utilize only electric school buses by whether in its own fleet or contracted professionally i am the business development and product manager for commercial electric and hybrid vehicle applications and work for an industrial manufacturing shakopee which produces the power electronic devices or inverters using these vehicle types which include school buses as well as transit and coach buses coach buses excuse

011me and other commercial vehicles such as heavy-duty semi-trucks garbage trucks delivery vans etc as someone familiar with the industry i can attest that commercial electric vehicles are no longer a novel idea rather we are on the cusp of exponential growth starting in the next few years this is driven by two primary factors one is cost and second is government environmental regulations and more recently we can add a third probable driver government infrastructure stimulus in regards to costs are electric school buses more expensive than diesel diesel school buses yes in terms of upfront costs but is the total cost of ownership which should be considered that is factoring in comparative costs of maintenance maintenance and fuel or power over the lifetime of the vehicle here electric vehicles have drastically fewer components moreover less moving parts as

012such as in a combustion engine which reduce the maintenance cause and likewise the cost of electricity can provide savings as opposed to diesel fuel an additional potential strategy to offset lifetime costs include vehicle degrade cooperation with power utilities whereby the utility pays to store energy on idle vehicles for use during peak demand periods this is perfectly this is a perfect opportunity for electric buses which largely sit idle after typical close of business working hours and during summer times which are times when the grid demand is at its highest furthermore in terms of upfront costs as this cost of batteries has declined drastically in recent years and economies of scale are being realized by manufacturers the upfront cost of electric buses should continue to come down and narrow the price parity gap between electric and diesel

013buses additionally in terms of off-siting upfront costs there's the potential for state and federal subsidies from a variety of environmental and infrastructure programs as well as potential rebates or pilot programs subsidies from electric utilities why get started now early adopters have the most to gain as electric school bus is becoming increasingly economically feasible demand will gain momentum and thus there will be competition for subsidies in the case of potential pilot programs with utilities lucrative subsidies may only be available for the first projects likewise other subsidies could be available on a first come basis as well aside from financial perspectives from the financial perspective the estimated lifetime of a school bus is 12 to 18 years that means a diesel school bus purchased today will still be on the road in 2033-2039 to achieve the requested

014timeline for a fully electrified fleet by 2040 the initial steps must start soon i believe this is an achievable goal as a coalition excuse me as the california air resources board has approved regulation that sets a statewide goal for public transit agencies to gradually transition to 100 percent zero emission bus fleets by 2040. likewise new york city has set a timeline for all city vehicles to be electric battery powered by 2040 and city operated school buses to be fully electrified by 2030. where to start as a final note i'd like to point out that the school bus manufacturers offer resources for school districts in regards to road mapping fleet electrification i thank you for your time today and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out thank you next up is the

015approval of the agenda uh do i have a motion to approve the agenda so made second second enrique and i'm going to say this with joy people we do not have to have a roll call vote [Laughter] because we're all here and present in person so all those in favor say aye aye opposed that passes seven zero okay and on uh the consent agenda this evening the consent agenda items are considered to be routine in nature and it will be enacted in one motion uh there's no separate discussion on these items and tonight's consent agenda is the financials the check wire transfer disbursement summary the wire transfer eft and ach banking activity the bank reconciliation statement from april 2021 building bond investment report the monthly wire detail the monthly health dental wire detail the monthly

016check detail the monthly ach detail approval of the school board minutes from the regular school board meeting in april 22 or 12th excuse me and the study session on april 26th personnel items candidates for employment district retirements resignations terminations and non-renewals and leaves of absence and i will just make a note we did get a number of retirements um again this this month um i did a quick ad and it's 152 years of very knowledgeable experience retiring so i want to thank all those members and i'll read their names jill blair special ed teacher megan bloomquist second grade teacher lisa delhi kindergarten teacher cheryl dement cheryl holst maureen johnson rita savoy eve saint maine and tim wendy with that do i have a motion and a second on the consent agenda second uh amy second

017by michael all those in favor say aye hi that passes seven zero and the resolution for the acceptance of gifts i missed that i should do a quick do i have a motion to accept the resolution of gifts oh i'm sorry it is a separate name i always get messed up yeah so do i have a motion to accept the resolution for the acceptance again second second hi jonathan this is a rule call vote jonathan aye enrique hi amy hi julie hi mary hi michael hi i that passes seven zero next up is laker pride dr solo good evening at prior lake savage area schools our mission is to educate all learners to reach their full potential as contributing and productive members of our ever-changing global community that mission in combination with our district theme

018which is we are pl sas voices is really the foundation of laker pride this evening so right now i would like to uh invite up next to me um one of our newest district authors sophomore samirta data is a published author a sophomore at prior lake high school and we are thrilled that she's with us this evening uh i told her that when we were out in the lobby talking and as we think about that mission of helping kids reach their full potential my goal has always been to be a published author and i am not uh so i know who my new mentor and who my new coach will be um we are so proud of you thank you and we are so excited that you are here with us this evening so that

019we can not only recognize your talent your drive your ambition but we can hear directly from you a little bit if you're willing to share a little bit about your book so with that please share a little bit about your journey in your book thank you um hi my name is rithi and i want to thank the district for giving me this incredible opportunity and i have to thank my incredible teachers at homes and pride lake high school because without their help and their guidance i wouldn't be the person that i am today and well i started writing this book in the beginning of quarantine because i found myself with a lot of time and i wanted to use that to my advantage and well i originally had planned to write it for myself but

020the more i was writing i found that i was becoming increasingly addicted to it and i couldn't put it down and i really just wanted to share my story with others because it just holds such a dear place in my heart and especially the characters i mean while i was writing they became my best friends because i wasn't able to go outside and see my friends because of the pandemic and and i just really wanted people to get to know them in the way that i had and i've always loved writing i mean you can ask my mom i'm pretty sure she still has the copy of my attempt to write harry potter deathly hallows part three somewhere i don't think it was good you know but i just you know i followed my dreams

021and this book is the product of that so i encourage you all to do that too because if i can then so can you thank you so much um again we are so excited to continue to watch your journey as an author and we will have fans all over this district as we watch watch the great things that you do thank you so much can we get one question michael well i just i just wanted to comment i've known smurfy for several years now and have known that she's gotten she's a hard worker and she's had great support from her family but what i most appreciate about tonight is you stood up here and you encouraged your peers to follow their dreams and do it too and so i just want to thank you for

022that thank you so much oh thank you congratulations christy did you get a picture thank you thank you and i've actually ordered about ten author copies and i'm selling them for a discount of ten dollars so i think i think we'll give you the details about that i think that's what my mom said for business too can i take a quick picture okay i suppose thank you [Applause] thank you thank you for everything wonderful well if you can believe this we do have so seriously marketing business author public speaker wow amazing um well there is a another student if you can believe this at prior lake high school another sophomore who was unable to be with us this evening who is also a published author so caleb smith was unable to be there but he

023has received national attention recently for both his business and his new book peace bunny island so we also have another student and again this is unbelievable and a huge celebration of the amazing work of our students of our teachers and our staff and of the families who support them in achieving their dreams so congratulations very much we have one other portion of laker pride this evening tonight we also celebrate this is our student representative to the school board abby hefferman's last official school board meeting with us um so we wanted to have an opportunity uh to congratulate her to recognize her and to thank her and as part of that as i was thinking about the comments that i wanted to share about abby this evening i was jotting down a bunch of notes and

024then i went to the letter recommendation that i wrote for her um for a couple different scholarships so i'm not going to read the whole letter um but i do abby get over here please but i do want to read just a couple of the lines um because to lead a school district as the student council president at any time is a huge task we ask for leadership and dedication and constant communication and we've had amazing students who have delivered over and over and over from our high school we've never had a student who has led the student body during a pandemic and the poise and the grace and the resiliency of abby set a standard for others to follow and an inspiration for me to lead through so i just want to share a

025couple of the things that i wrote about abby it's a little embarrassing working closely with abby has allowed me the opportunity to observe her effective communication skills her initiative her action-oriented mindset her commitment to equity and her capacity to serve and positively impact the school district i wrote about the first meeting the first student council meeting that i watched abby take the reins of august of 2020 in dan patch stadium because we had to be social distance and we couldn't be inside with masks with a whole bunch of new young members who weren't really sure what they were getting into and what abby did with confidence and grace is she set a standard of we can do this we can embrace this obstacle and we can create and do amazing things for students and i

026know throughout the year there has been disappointment after disappointment after disappointment and planning events and getting them cancelled and trying to do this but the restrictions wouldn't allow it so that first meeting where i watched her gather a team break people into small groups and empower them to plan and lead i think speaks a lot about your leadership and your inclusive spirit of honoring everyone's voice abian exemplifies an innovative mindset one of the goals along with being an author but one of the goals that i've had as a superintendent for the past six years was to create a student superintendent advisory council and until this year with abby it's not happened so abby and i talked about this goal the past summer and abby did not wait for me abby ran and went with the

027idea and we worked together but by the time we had finished a conversation about what we might be able to do she was ready to do it and have the process in place so we started a group of 16 students and we met throughout the year sometimes in person sometimes virtually but through that entire process i was again able to be reminded of the power and the importance of having student voice around me as i make decisions for our district so it was amazing and finally one of the last lines i could go on and on and read this whole thing too but one of the last lines says my interactions with abby hafferman have made me a better person and a better leader and i can think of no greater compliment to give someone

028we are going to miss you and we have been bettered because of your presence with us i know this has been a really hard year and i am so proud of how you have led and how you have helped others [Applause] all right um next up is personnel items gym good afternoon or evening board chair board member superintendent stallow there's one personnel item for tonight i bring forward excuse me i bring forward the job description for the director of equity and inclusion heard those two words and the last presentation this was the new position that was presented as part of the budget proposal and approval at the april board meeting as discussed this this position will be funded from the additional funds levied from achievement integration program the director of equity and inclusion will be

029a senior leadership level and report directly to the superintendent that will afford the administrator the responsibility and authority to oversee many district level programs such as achievement integration the american indian education program and a few others also they'll have the authority to supervise and evaluate staff and lead and collaborate with other district administrative leaders and staff on equity issues since i sent out the board packet on thursday we've continued to elicit feedback from staff and we've incorporated a few changes i know martha sent out a revised one with a couple in there if you if you want me to i can go through each of them and why we did it but you also saw it in the board packet so let me know what your you want me to walk through each of those

030no well let's have a motion let's get and then we'll get discussion questions okay do i have a motion um to approve the director of equity and inclusion so made by mary seconded by jonathan uh any questions any questions on anyone i guess um why don't you just highlight a couple of the little tweaks that we did okay so one of them that was a bit confusing i think is that we put we had on their classroom teaching experience preferred but we're requiring administrative license well in order to have an administrative license you have to have three years of teaching experience so that was just one that was highlighted that we're like yeah that's confusing so we changed that there's a couple other ones in there where we added staff to the descriptor in order

031to not just support students but to support staff and then we struck out a word in a couple of places so that we weren't too restrictive in our language because we just don't anticipate going forward what other groups might fall under that underserved student population so those were the changes is there any other questions comments seeing none all those in favor say i i opposed that passes 7-0 okay there's no unfinished business this evening new business uh strategic direction six engaging students parents families community to strengthen a culture of respect and inclusion and this i believe is our annual stakeholder survey chrislyn thank you hello hello superintendent stella and directors actually uh dr sala will kick off our presentation this evening i will kick it off and uh good evening again everyone um tonight's kristen

032goodman and i will be sharing an update on our prior lake savage area schools fifth annual stakeholder survey uh we questioned whether we should administer the survey this year during a pandemic in a year when we have sent out a lot of surveys and communication and we know that people are really busy but we predicted uh we also predicted that the response rate would be low and in some of our satisfaction levels would dip however we value stakeholder perspectives and because of the pandemic we wanted to and knew that we needed to listen to our stakeholders and the ideas that they had for how best to plan forward we don't know how we're doing if we don't seek input and feedback from stakeholders so the survey aligns with our strategic plan with our core values

033and with many of our strategic directions we use this data annually to help us with our site and school improvement plans as well as our department improvement plans the goal we set around the strategic direction to engage students parents families and community to strengthen a culture of respect and inclusion was to add focus groups to the annual surveys so tonight as chris lynn talks about the original questions of the survey she'll also talk a little bit about the focus group so with that and much gratitude to chrislynn uh for the work that she has done on this i will hand it over to her thank you thank you so much dr sallo i will start with some changes that we made to the stakeholder survey this year so to make the survey more attractive and

034focus it on the most important feedback we reduce the total number of items on the survey for each of the groups responding and those groups are students families and staff to be able to continue year-to-year comparisons we maintain survey items which appear on the district's scorecard we also added items that address the pandemic and social emotional aspects looking for more detail and stakeholder perceptions of what worked well this year in social emotional aspects the number of open-ended items was increased to three and as you heard dr stalos say focus groups were important this year to get varied and wide perceptions we interviewed 20 groups of students families staff and administrators in our focus groups and about 180 people were included i will now move on to reporting about the participation rate in the survey we're

035really pleased to see that in this challenging year so many people took the time to give feedback especially in this year where the participation rates were below where they had recently been the introduction of the focus groups really helps us give a clearer picture of community perception it's always important to view these results in context especially this year where educators and students experience significant and profound changes in teaching and learning as well as social and emotional well-being the following slides give a brief overview of results from students families and staff a focus this year has been to make sure students feel safe and connected the rights of students feeling safe and secure and connected to at least one adult at their school are within two percentage points of previous years when we see an overview

036of parent and guardian feedback parents and guardians believe their children can do well and report that administrators are accessible to a high degree parents and guardians also shared their perceptions of the effect of this past year as well as their concerns about their children's education and staying connected to their friends results show that we still have strong majority of staff proud to be with our brand even after this hard year i'm now going to take you through graphs which show trends over the past five years and provide us with data that is going to help us improve i'm going to be going quickly but i'm always available to answer questions so we focus our improvement around the strategic directions which is how the summary results are organized we'll start with student engagement items and their

037trends over the past five years in the following graphs gold depicts elementary students parents and guardians are represented by dark blue and secondary students are in teal this graph shows student and parent guardian perceptions of students liking to go to school represented here are student perceptions of their culture religion or ethnic heritage respected by other students which decreased this year as we think about and plan for school experience going forward we're responsible for every child feeling cared about and appreciated and are very invested in the student experience the next slides are aligned with the learner experience notable is the change in our secondary students reporting about their teachers knowing how to teach so that they can learn this speaks to the exceptionally high quality of teachers we have the flexibility that they have displayed and

038the way they were able to innovate and personalize learning adapting through multiple learning modes this year throughout the this presentation slides the orange denotes certified staff and the gray educational support staff and this year that we needed people to be flexible they were and they innovated every step of the way next we'll look at survey responses about a safe environment in this year that we as a district knew it was so important to feel cared about is really positive to see student connections staying so strong it was our goal all year that students feel safe in our buildings through this pandemic and we are happy to have been able to follow through on that our last area is around engagement it's important that staff feel pride for plsas and focus groups and conversations with staff

039staff will help us explore the increase in educational support staff and decrease in certified staff ratings on this item and we'll now move into items referring to school board and superintendent responding to feedback about past surveys this year we added a new response for parents and guardians who might not feel informed about the superintendent or school board and that is un the unsure category so parents and guardians could respond with strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree or the new response unsure so this graph shows responses about vision and mission here are responses about encouraging community and staff collaboration and overall satisfaction is depicted here superintendent feedback is shown here around vision and consistent goals and here is overall satisfaction with the superintendent we'll now shift our focus to open-ended responses from the survey and focus

040group interviews i want to thank every individual who responded this information really helps us when we're making decisions we're going to be looking at what the community's responses were in this next section and i want to make sure that it's reflected that there was a really wide range of experiences and opinions for the purposes of the study the focus groups were made up of around 10 individuals from specific groups who were chosen at random to participate in interviews those 20 groups included students at the elementary middle and high schools plsas employees from every building and employee group and families from many backgrounds seven peer coaches specialists bicultural liaisons and myself set up and facilitated focus group interviews mainly via video conference and we recorded themes focus groups allowed more nuanced and detailed feedback than just

041a survey can provide because participants can be asked about the why behind their responses the themes you'll see in this presentation are from all participants so it combines the open-ended items from the survey as well as the responses in the focus group interviews so these are some of the themes that emerged these two questions appeared in both the open-ended items of the survey and in the focus groups because we're most interested in the lessons we can learn from this year and how we plan for school in the fall the themes that emerge from all these groups are following so this was the what worked well this year overarchingly this need for flexibility and the way that flexibility was delivered upon to meet student needs came up repeatedly and i wanted to emphasize that there and

042as we're really excited to learn about what our stakeholders are looking forward to this fall as we plan and work to ensure flexibility engagement and support as we move forward this item is from the open-ended part of the survey we wanted to get at what students feel like when they're cared about and we see the importance of feedback being connected and acknowledging that different students have different needs answering that question staff responded to what they need to feel successful at work and we heard how important support and collaboration are to staff as well as staff feeling empowered and trusted these last slides report themes found in the focus group as students staff and families responded to social emotional support needed especially noting transitions students go through from one level to another as well as building

043social emotional supports right into each school day as we ask stakeholders about how to increase engagement equity inclusion in the focus groups and one of the things that we heard about was that flexibility with consistency coming back through again and that means utilizing personalized learning and being responsive to the individual needs of our students by maintaining high expectations for all the responses the last question reiterated to us the important importance of student choice in learning the next steps that happen with these results are that over the next few days we'll be sharing the results with stakeholders this helps us to determine goals the results of the survey help us returning determine goals which will shape our actions and the plans that we will be making for the fall and of course we will be reviewing

044this process for the stakeholder survey next year thank you so much okay um this is report only so i'll just open it up if anyone has any questions comments anything um i i just wanted to point out a couple things i think and then there's a lot of slides i'm turning it was one of the first ones um but where we talked about staff and being able to basically pull off what they pulled off this year about being flexible and and how what that was in the 90s i think i mean pretty amazing um from i think our stakeholders from our parents and so i mean i think everyone knows how awesome our staff is but um i think i just want to highlight that that that's incredible given the year and i think um

045kudos to them because they have pulled off an amazing thing um over the last whatever 15 months um and then i think as far as the participation actually when you look at the number of of respondents it's still six thousand i mean i i anticipated it'd be down um you know and it was but honestly i i i'm really kind of pleased with the with the information i think there was a i like the fact that we did the stakeholder groups and got into small groups and got more detailed feedback um i think it's really important i do think still our strong scores in the social emotional piece which i think has been really critical this year too i mean obviously learning we're here to educate but to see that come out very strong um

046is commendable for everyone um so thank you yeah i'd just like to add a thank you to the the staff and the students and the parents who took the survey again we we take it seriously and our administrators actually this closed at midnight on tuesday night i believe and chrislyn had preliminary data for administrators at nine o'clock on wednesday morning so we started to look at it already but our administrators now will work with their departments their staff they're building instructional leadership teams as they you know look and ask questions and um you know try to continue to set goals that will ensure that we get better results not just with perception data but with our achievement data and our social emotional data and all the data that we triangulate in that balanced scorecard so

047thank you all thank you thank you so much thank you okay uh next up is the review of the summer programs into including targeted services and special ed mr holmberg this is a report only as well yes good evening chair well members of the board dr stallow here this evening to give a very quick overview on some of the things we have in store for the summer um it actually is a nice segue into the information that was just shared we're going to talk about a couple of different things with targeted services special education programs community ed plans and then time for if there are any questions so again purpose tonight is just to give you a broad overview of some of the things that we're planning we are in the process of still registering

048and going through those those planning phases but to give you a sense and also too to the listing public that you know as as you're looking at summer plans and summer programs there may be some information that you as well can take from this so for targeted services the programming is designed to meet the needs of the whole child where we are focusing on academics as well as social emotional learning the the formatted format of it is highly engaging and hands-on so it's not a sit and get but really couple years ago there was a shift into the focus of the program so it is more project-based aligned with uh more projects experiential learning where they're applying those academic skills they're available to students entering grades one through eight who meet criteria and referred by

049their teacher and the programs are offered at four sites uh hamilton ridge jeffers pond westwood and twin oaks middle school and there's a bit of a strategic approach to that we are working to combine and find a commonality or wrap-around programs for our targeted services to our kids company as well and so that's really a strong partnership that's emerged and we're finding some great opportunity there the session dates you see there happen over the course of two weeks which we find is uh with feedback from our parents to be very much appreciated students can be in one or both uh at the same time and when you're thinking about families take trying to find some family time and vacation this gives them some options as well we currently have about 140 student elementary students registered

050but registration is still open closes on the 20th and then middle school is offering a program from july 12th to august 6th again interdisciplinary focus and that registration will is also open as well special education extended school year is available to students who are eligible who are on an iep and the iep team has determined the student's eligibility it's based on their individual needs specific critical skills important to their overall progress on the iep and so as we look at this past year i know deb anderson and her staff as well as the principals and case managers have been looking at the overall progress of students during the course of the pandemic and so that is very closely aligned with the programs that are being developed for this summer as well offered at three sites

051the high school hamilton ridge and redtail and you can see the dates there three to four days per week we currently have approximately 30 students planning to attend and our extended school year is staffed by our posas staff special ed teachers and paraprofessionals and so students who are not served through extended school school year are able to be served and attend our targeted services so if they're iep for whatever reason they're not recommended for extended school year they are able to attend targeted services as well community ed uh under the leadership of leanne wyrock and her staff you know again part of the the robust uh nature of of the program is trying to meet families and communities and students where they're at and so you see some early childhood things that are that are

052in the process of being scheduled and created youth programs camp options all the things that we we look at and take for granted that we were not able to offer last summer and so we anticipate that there's that there's going to be um you know some demand for these you know families looking for options for their kids in the summer uh from swimming driver's ed again looking for a ways that the you know being there for the community for the community to connect with them and participate you also see adult programs as well again it's important that we have programs across the board for our families so that as a school we find a connection to what we're offering and then you see the kids company school-aged care program as well that we offer two

053families so with that a very quick overview you know i think the takeaway here is is we're still in the process of planning and registration it's not too early for families to register or to inquire um or to look into these programs for community education and so again there's more to come and i would anticipate you know we will also do a report i believe in september just to sort of give a full recap at the board's discretion about summer programs in these areas as well okay um this is a report only as well um is there any questions amy um i'm just wondering maybe you said this and i missed it but relative to years past is this pretty in line with what we've offered or are we doing some new programming is it

054kind of tbd because of the unsure situation with the pandemic at the time of planning so for special education uh deb anderson put in here that the numbers are these are typical numbers compared to years past with targeted services it has been i think two summers since we shifted a bit of our program approach and so i guess i wouldn't say it's it's on it it's on a trend uh but i think 140 our numbers are similar to where we have been in years past and then as far as community education you know last summer again very little opportunity to offer some of those things and so again i think you know they're always interest based you know when families sign up for those we offer those programs and so again leanne does a great

055job with her staff in putting out these options for families and and when we get families to sign up we provide those classes so thank you yeah i just have a question kind of as relates to community ed um because i know a lot of these changes kind of were just happening as far as a timing perspective though of getting the message out you know about these things i'm assuming this is a slightly tighter time frame than normal um are we you know doing more blasts are we trying to get that information out or how quickly do we think we can i'm just i mean as you know as programming comes alive i want to make sure people have enough time to register and you know what i mean and get the word out the

056programs that we offer always subject to the guidance that we've received from the governor and and stay safe and so we we have some very uh recent news last week from the governor about what we're able to provide and offer and do and and all of our programs are subject to the trajectory of the pandemic and so um you know we do have families that are that are asking and seeking and and in our communication our communication is always the caveat of we're able to offer these under the guidance that we're allowed to given what the governor's executive order is allowing us to offer as well so right um you know it sounds like that we will hopefully get to a point where we can sort of take that um disclaimer off yeah but i

057don't think we're quite there yet well no i'm not saying that i'm just saying in light of changes and recent changes you know we send out the magazine and we get the things changed i mean obviously as we all know so i'm just saying is there are we getting enough time to be able to get the classes to get things to get the words out so that i mean because a lot of these offerings for you june people are going to be looking for stuff for their kids to do it's may 10th yep so i mean it's a tight time frame that's all i'm saying and i just want to make sure we're making inroads and communicating it is yeah i think from the communication standpoint we're utilizing all of our current communication channels and

058information out and list serves and information so okay people are paying attention and people are asking so right um and yeah in light of the new information is there more opportunities now than there were two weeks ago or not necessarily that's all i'm saying i i think from the planning standpoint our our hope and our intent is that we're able to continue to offer things that parents have expressed interest in the past as well as you know the work that leanne has done with her staff to say you know what are those programs that we're going to be offering uh to the community so that would be the the the direction that we've been taking and planning okay john i was just going to say from committee meeting last week um leanne did report that

059that classes are filling they're getting good response and one of the creative things that was done this year that i think will be really helpful is in the catalog there's actually a section of what is being offered when as opposed to just simply here's a class and it says the dates there's actually a spot where you can go say hey i might have some time on july 10th to 20th what's available and it's listed that way so i just i think they've i think they've made good changes and from what i heard last week it's they're doing a brisk business good and they're filling up doing well what they want to hear all right awesome okay thank you um yeah very question jim um we do have a lot of secondary students particularly high school

060students that struggled this year what are the opportunities for them for let's say summer school credit recovery things like that so yes that we we continue to have credit recovery uh through our high school runs their program through the alc and dave brown so we have students that are registering for that as well so that they're able to get those credits so they get back on track we've also been working on a rising ninth and tenth graders program where students who may need a smaller setting to be able to come in and participate in that learning so that they can get us early start on credits as well entering into the high school so those plans are in place as well when students work with their guidance counselors and with mr brown and his staff

061on registering for those courses okay i just want to clarify though because not all those kids would be in the have an iep or would be eligible for the alc normally it's just that this year was unusual so is is that all falling under one umbrella or how is that so with special education that would be according to extended school year with with under deb anderson targeted services is for grades one through eight so for high school it would be under the credit recovery umbrella of working with their counselors and teachers in order to get back on track with graduation requirements okay any other questions all right thank you thank you next up is the technology levy planning presentation very good well as uh director of technology marcus milazzo and executive director of business services

062julie sink make their way to the podium i just want to kick things off this evening and set the stage and the purpose for this presentation so a few months ago the board provided direction to administration to continue to plan for um a technology levy and to bring a proposal to you later on and we'll be showing you that timeline later today so as part of that we want to share with you a technology levy planning presentation so i want to be really clear this is not the technology levy presentation this is a planning presentation some of which you've seen as we planned over the last and talked about this over the last year with updated information as we keep getting more eyes on it and more information we know that as part of that

063action for planning we also have engaged with the morris leatherman community survey peter leatherman will be with us on may 24th sharing input from that survey which will help board members in their decision-making moving forward we'll also we've been talking about what other data or input we may need to collect in the next month from students from staff from families as we continue to plan and then it would be our intent and you'll see this in the timeline as well that we would bring forward a draft proposal to you in june for your discussion and direction as we move toward a proposal to you in july so with that i'll hand it off to director malazzo who has uh done a whole lot of work excellent work on this along with julie sink um and

064we'll go ahead and let them present this evening and see what questions you have thank you mark members of the school board good evening my name is mark smalazzo i'm the director of technology for pride lake savage area schools i'm here with the executive director of business services julie sink to go through our technology levy planning presentation so what we have in store for this evening is a brief recap of district technology uh we'll be talking about additional revenue themes and long term strategies in this case our technology level uh planning and then we'll also be presenting some staff and student feedback that we have received through surveys and student focus groups who we are i know that's tough to read so i'll go through it the information technology department consists of myself i have

065an administrative assistant i have two data systems people one is a technician one is a uh um she is a specialist so i want to be very clear in those terms one is a technician one is a specialist so and they have very different roles i also have a network systems specialist and a network systems technician they're all things network and infrastructure i have two technology specialists and they are all things mobile devices so anything that involves macbook airs ipads chromebooks those two technology specials are in charge of all things mobile devices i also have two field technicians and they are level one and two field tech support they go around to the buildings and troubleshoot issues with classroom av equipment or other services that we support and then i also am in charge of

066the district print shop so anything sent to district printing those two print specials are under my purview as well and that makes up our technology department our technology department is part of a larger team of teaching and learning and you can see that org chart there what we support we support 1.6 million square feet of spare square feet of space 8 700 students e through 12 then numbers dynamic as we know 700 plus plus staff members hardware desktops laptops mobile devices access points network switches file servers voice over iphone systems that's all under what we support and then software we we categorize that as instructional systems databases as well so we support it this is an interesting slide this is our this is what we've lived in the past two years coming up on two

067years so i want to take some time to explain this slide um in 2019-22 we had a 8-12 one-to-one throughout the district and every kid grades eight through 12 had an ipad then we also had a two to one deployment for ipads whether they were in a classroom cabinet or in a cart students k through 7 had that had those devices readily available we also had chromebook cards k through 12 and we had a lot of chromebook cards i'll speak to that here in a little bit pandemic hits and we are given our marching orders to make sure that every student has a device for to support distance learning and hybrid learning so we took apart every card we had in the district and we redeployed everything that we had so now grades k through

068one have ipads grades six through twelve also have ipads and i'll speak a little bit more about what we did with six seven and eighth grade ipads as well because uh we had to deploy ipad minis they were seven plus years old you've heard me say that multiple times we'll speak to that grades two through five since we didn't have enough ipads to round out the entire district we had to pull those chromebook cards apart and distribute those to grades two through five which is great i'm thrilled that we had enough devices for every student to support our distance in hybrid learning but pulling carts apart and and has a impact on day-to-day operations and how students access technology so if we had chromebook cards at the elementaries and then each middle school had a

069number of chromebook carts and the high school had a large number of chromebook cards if students were in the ios environment and they were working on ipads and apps with their teachers that's great they have those devices but if they wanted to use microsoft 365 or google workspace for education plus they would go grab a chromebook and and work on that device for document creation chromebooks are great because i have a physical keyboard and they sync really well with g suite or now it's called google workspace for education those devices are gone they're no longer in cards they're not available for our middle school students because we had to redeploy them to to our grades two through five so it's great that we have the devices but it also has a has an impact on

070what we're doing at the middle schools in the high schools as well okay this is a slide that breaks down that device in 2019 2020 it's extremely granular but again we had a two to one ipads grades k through five ipad cards grades six through seven ipads one to one eight through 12 and then chromebooks cards district wide and then this slide shows you the breakdown of every type of device we had at those grade levels plus the number of carts we had available as well i've received the question why do you have so many chromebook cards the reason why we had so many chromebook cards is because in years past we've had wired desktop workstations or labs in the high school in every pod we had a wired desktop pc lab when when we

071started the the equipment started to age we had space restrictions and crunches on our spaces and we were pivoting to more of our learning flexible learning spaces those labs came out and every time we replaced a lab or pulled a lab we replaced it with a chromebook card so that's why you see those cart numbers is where they are 2020 here's where we ended up now we have a k12 one to one whether it's an ipad or a chromebook and again this slide provides a breakdown of what device is at each grade level through essays and cares funding we were able to replace a large number of ipads at the middle school level so grades six through eight now have an 8th gen ipad they were they did have those ipad minis i keep referencing

072that are seven plus years old so anytime we have an opportunity to pull those from our inventory and e-recycle them we're doing so the so the only ipad mini deployment currently is at our kindergarten we have a plan for that as well for next year okay what's the impact of our k-12 one-to-one um it's had a huge impact especially on our liking laker learning companies which really advancing personalized student-driven learning this k-12 one-to-one is contributed in that area it's helped make our teaching and learning more personalized purposeful and empowered so that whole theme of anytime anywhere learning students have devices we're not bringing the devices or the students to the devices we brought the devices to the students that has a huge impact on these areas in specific what impacts did it have in grades

073e through five what we listed here were some of the things that we had been using in the past but through this one to one really elevated and invented what we were doing um whether it's our learning management system which is see-saw or our new platform was ixl which is standard uh standards-driven self-paced skills and practice we have just an example of the google workspace for education plus which is formerly known as g suite and then we also have some just examples of our e-content areas for elementary kids the next slide is similar but it's also um our lms for the secondary kiddos is schoology we're using ixl in a number of areas g suite or google workspace for education plus and some additional e-content areas like mcgraw-hill or tci so having those devices in

074the hands of students has really accelerated that personalized learning our strategic plan you've seen it um in years past 21st century's technology skills was a call out a couple years ago we had that community roundtable at the high school and one of the themes that came out of that was technology is embedded in everything you do you have it called out as 21st century skills but it's real it's embedded in all these strategic directions so the decision that came out of that that roundtable was don't have it as a call but make sure it's embedded in everything that you do which it is now and that's why we're here tonight to talk about the purpose of a tech levy the tech levy at prior lake savage area school would provide funding for students and staff

075devices instructional software and network infrastructure additional technology staffing the benefits of a voter-approved technology levy are as follows it's an alignment and support with the district strategic plan and the laker learning plan which i just showed to you and guides our work in advancing personalized student driven learning it provides equitable access to instructional technology for all students it helps facilitate a four-year replacement cycle if we're talking about a voter approved 10-year lap technology levy we can get three replacement cycles out of that 10-year period and having that voter approved tech levy would help facilitate that replacement cycle just jumped ahead it provides a sustainable funding for 10 years to acquire maintain infrastructure it's not only about devices it's also about the things in our network switches it's about the access points and our switches to

076make sure that everything is up and running and providing the services that kids need to utilize these devices for learning and then it also provides funding to sustain and enhance school safety whether it's our raptor systems or our camera systems or expanding our capacity of our camera systems whether it's not just the ability to add more cameras and more areas but you also want to increase the amount of time that you have for recording as well and retain that information so it does help support our crisis management plan well as part of this planning presentation what we're talking about is areas of focus for a potential tech levy or student and staff devices instructional software and e-curriculum network network infrastructure and operational software and technology staffing i'm going to hand it over to julie she's

077going to talk some budgets and numbers good evening cheruel dr stahlo and board members i will talk about the budget we do have a five-year technology budget that we're looking at for the past five years and you can see it's kind of gone up and down a little bit you have to remember maybe stacy you couldn't remember this just a few five six years ago we actually started a one-to-one program in grades 8 through 12. and so it hasn't been very long that the district has had this type of technology budget and uses of our technology and so you can see back in 2015 and 16 it was almost 3 million dollars and over the past five years has increased to 3.5 million and you can see the jump in 1819 and 1920 and those

078budgets were simply because we had additional needs for infrastructure in 2018 and 19 and the continued expense in 2019-20 for the laptops for our staff and so that's why the increase that you see those increases in those years we have um just a short comparison of the last two years you can see that we have our 20 20 21 revised budget and we're showing the budget because this year isn't complete yet but we're showing the actual activity from the prior year of what we actually spent and as you can see our general fund does support all of our technology and so all the infrastructures the general fund expenditure all of our classroom and teacher devices all the devices for students all are are coming from the general fund and so we have our staffing included

079in there as well and there's two other components our assessments in our e-content subscriptions those don't come from our technology budget they're part of our curriculum budget and so but we wanted to include them here because they are a very important part of why we have our technology in the district and so you can see we are looking at a 3.7 versus a last year of a 3.3 if you go back to the previous slide you can see that we had a budget in 1920 of 3.6 but we only spent the 3.3 and so what we do in this district in which you as board members know that we allow staff if they have a need for something that they know they'll have a big purchase they may carry over their budget from one year

080to the other and so you can see that mr milazzo did carry over his budget and you can see that's why you're seeing a revised budget a little bit different and a little bit higher this year and then also in addition and marcus referred to it was the cares funding we did use cares funding some of our cares funding which had to be spent on things that weren't included in our current budget and that were an additional need which we knew that we needed to update those ipads at the time and so we did utilize those funds for that purpose and again those funds needed to be spent by december 30th of last year and so we did quickly order the necessary technology for our students to have a successful successful educational experience in prior

081league savage area schools our combined technology budget for fy and you can see mainly our technology budget is in the blue and then we also have those call outs of the e-content and the assessments and then the federal piece of that as well this is just a comparison of other districts that have a technology budget we're often we look at lakeville burnsville shakopee as our neighbors and they have somewhere between almost 7 2.8 to 3.8 million dollars in additional revenue they receive for technology purposes however we're often compared to other metro districts as well in terms of things that we are we do and so you look at minnetonka eden prairie and iseta they are much higher um and going out for more for your edina they're at a four and a h or 6.5

082million dollars almost 6.5 they are actually going out for additional technology dollars or they did did they pass it i can't remember it was it last tuesday or is it tomorrow it's tomorrow okay so we will know after tomorrow if they pass that and then so you can see that significantly higher than what we are receiving which we don't have a current technology budget so it is hard to compare prior lakes having schools in terms of technology when their budgets are significantly higher than ours simply because they have that additional funding stream that we we do not take this slide this is a slide you've seen in previous school board presentations it's just a comparison staffing comparison uh number of tech staff to and staff to student ratio so this is this was from last

083october we would like to update this slide for future presentations as well and get updated numbers on this one didn't go too far yep and this one i'm so sorry it is difficult to read this as as board members you've seen this a couple times we have worked with our financial consultants which is ailers and associates in helping us determine what the amount would be if we were to go out for three different scenarios for a technology level levy the first column is the type of property that the district has which is residential as we know that we have very little industry in prairie lake savage schools and so the majority of this does fall to our local taxpayers and then we have the estimated market value um i do have on the bottom left

084the district average home price which is almost four hundred thousand dollars those of you on the board remember that it was four short years ago around three hundred thousand so it's quickly increased the median home prices on just under 355 thousand dollars so if we were to look at the average home price at four hundred thousand dollars there are three scenarios at 2.5 million dollar increase to a for a tech levy 3.5 million and 4.5 million and so it's about 143 dollars per year at 2.5 million on the average home price 200. at 3.5 million dollars and 257 dollars at the highest of three 4.5 million dollars and that's on an annual basis now that number does adjust every year depending on our enrollment so it is based on student enrollment and so that number

085does fluctuate however as many of you have seen in the district as the districts expands and grows the school levy has gone down each year really depending on your home value but if your home value is going up significantly or you've made major improvements you may have seen an increase but for the majority of homeowners that number has decreased slightly last couple slides here deal with the staff and student device data that we conducted in the fall i will start these slides by saying that our plan is to revisit this with our stakeholders and do something very similar in the spring to see okay you lived with a k-12 one to one for an entire school year has your opinions change what what's new what's different what's the same so we will be circling back

086with our stakeholders in regards to that but this is the information from the fall of 2020. uh we surveyed staff and students three through twelve and then we myself mr homer chrislin went around to various grade levels throughout the district various school buildings and did focus groups which is an absolute blast i love meeting and talking with kids and it's one of the highlights of my of what i do anytime i get to speak with kids and hear their honest feedback on what they're using and how they're using it what they like and don't like that makes my day so makes my heart happy so more of that hopefully in the future when it's safe and of course we with all the protocols in place but i'm looking forward to that as well so we

087did survey our staff we sent it out via email there's five items on there we got 417 responses you can see who responded there uh which devices are employees currently using majority or hp desktops or macbook airs how are employees using devices and you can see i'm just happy to to note that it's all structural reasons right and that but it's whether it's accessing textbooks or e-curriculum to accessing the internet there's a variety of ways that our teachers are using the technology to deliver instruction we also asked them what else what else do you need your devices do and one of the themes that we heard is that more screens it's it's nice to have a macbook air with a forward-facing camera but having the ability to have a camera on you and then another

088screen for if you're doing a google meet to see your students and then potentially another one for the presentation is that more screen real estate is one of the feedbacks we heard quite a bit and having the ability to work from home do remote work is a lot of the feedback that we heard we sent our survey to our students through our lms's whether it's seesaw or schoology that was had eight items and 1733 responses you can see who responded there as far as grade levels we ask kids what devices they're using it's chromebooks or ipads and what do they most commonly using their devices for very similar themes but um you see that the lms is probably accessing the lms is their number one um learning apps and and google meets are right up

089there along with accessing our lms about those focus groups so um diverse participants we wanted to know what their device use and experience was their expertise it was in person it was physically distance and massed and again it was we got great great feedback from the students i did not include the feedback in this presentation but i can sum up the feedback really quickly is what we heard is having to having a device number one having a physical keyboard was huge uh um again some of the having touch capabilities was great forward and backward facing camera but that having a physical keyboard for document creation was it was a reoccurring theme at all the grade levels that we that we heard you're shaking your head do you agree with it okay thank you thank you

090planning timelines so april 27th uh the community survey went out through morris leatherwood uh may 5th we presented to flirt i'm here tonight to present the planning technology levy presentation may 19th we'll be having uh we'll be meeting with me and confirm to review this planning presentation may 24th i believe morris leatherman will be here to review the survey results june 14th i'll present at a regular board meeting the the results of the survey plus a uh technology levy recommendation to the board and then on july 12th at another regular board meeting we'll ask for board approval or take action if if approved then the the stakeholder technology levy information campaign would then commence so those are our timelines and we're at that point of the presentation okay thank you a lot of information um

091we have questions comments i know i have one question but does anybody oh michael go ahead i would just make comments i appreciate all the thoroughness you put into this and i know it bears repeating that it looks like right now public schools are getting a lot of outside funding from government resources but that funding does come through to different amounts to different districts and it does come with restrictions and schedules and allocations and so there can be a misperception that boy those public schools are just rolling in the money right now and and you can just for very good reasons other districts are getting higher allocations than we are and so we are funding our technology through that general fund in addition our general fund continues to struggle because our state funding does not

092keep up with inflation and currently legislators are discussing whether we will get any increase in our funding or a slight increase and so we've got to anticipate that and also i think it's it's good to note that when we we went out for the last referendum technology was intentionally not a piece of it we got our facilities built we focused on what it would take for personalized learning and at that time we did not ask for community support to start increasing the technology so now that those facilities are up and running it'd be great to see what we can do to support that laker learning compass and pull that out of the general fund if possible to really help our students excel to the best of their abilities so thank you for the thoroughness of

093that presentation thank you anyone else yeah amy i i'll jump on board and just kind of reiterate what michael said which um which is that obviously we've been pulling this these dollars from the general fund and and unless we do a tech levy that's not going to change and when we hold ourselves to such a high standard of education we're the third largest district in the state we compare ourselves to some of the best districts in the state but we're comp we're on totally different playing grounds we're not even in the same ballpark so you know when we're looking at pic pick one on the slide when you're looking at edina that has over a six million dollar tech levy and there went out for two and a half million more it's i don't know

094how we can provide and keep providing technology at that level that they're doing so if we want to keep our standards high i think it is something we have to seriously consider um okay i just had a couple little questions so i just wanted to confirm um you're gonna do a technology department staff comparison you're going to update that yes right before the 12th about the ratios yeah yes okay so that that will come with us with some newer information i just want to make sure and then um julie had a question and i apologize if i missed this part but i was looking at the graph intently and using my bionic eyes here but the tax rate to include on the ballot in that bottom section here there's percentages is that new have we

095had to include a percentage on that bottom section i just don't recall seeing that percentages right we have to by law have a percentage and we do that all the time with anything that we go out for a vote for i think we did that with the referendum and the obsolete oh the percentage is it's reported as a percentage not a dollar amount this isn't the percentage of what it's the tax rate it's all expressed it's the tax rate yes it's on the ballot was the part that screwed me i'm like what i know right so i that's what i just wanted to clarify i'm like we don't put this number out there we do we do put the 4.7 or whatever but it's based it's a tax rate it's not neces it's not saying

096that's the percent of increase oh okay so it's the actual tax rate that that is based upon okay all right something else to confuse people the ballot will be very specific and i know i'm required to okay do that i just don't recall seeing that line at the bottom that's what kind of freaked me out i've been doing this a while so but you know it happens um and remember that this is a this is a draft and so if the board would decide to go out we would get um the final numbers you know things are changing quickly so this is april 13th yes and we also had one of these last fall and the numbers have dropped so i was going to say has it gone down because i seem like it has

097gone down since like november it has gone down due to the tax number of people the tax base has increased and so the amount gets spread across the higher tax base um and just one more thing before jonathan and the difference here with the technology levy as far as what tax base it's off of it's different right than the referee on the net tax capacity which means it includes seasonal and agricultural land whereas a referendum does not an operating referendum does not okay okay jonathan i i think you said it during the presentation and i was looking at numbers and i i looked up and i'm like i think you just said what i was wondering um can you just clarify you start talking about with the growth of the tax base these numbers when

098we think about a bond issue as the tax base grows we all see again if we haven't had significant improvements to our homes over time we tend to see that amount of tax actually decrease because it's the same number spread out over a larger tax base does a capital projects levy work the same way is that similar in that respect or is it based on is it a per student it is a person it is a per student so as we grow that number will increase which is why you see the odd numbers when you look at all of the other school districts it's not just 3.5 or 4.5 it's an odd number with sometimes it has sense with it as well because it is based on what they're projecting for their on their for

099the student population on their levy certification so it doesn't come but so does so does an operating referendum it's based on student population so as that increases but when you see a larger tax break base and it's growing then that gets spread across all of those homes so if you think about four homes just say the whole city comprised of four homes you had a hundred dollars they'd each pay 25 if you included went up to eight homes now you can see on a hundred dollars it's less for every it's half but so if as eight homes if you wanted to keep at twenty five dollars you now could collect two hundred dollars of taxes and everybody would still say the same but the school district could now see 200 instead of 100 very simple

100math here so but that's how that works with that tax base going up thank you um i had one other question too it's actually from marcus um you had said k through second grade has those ancient ipad minis right right now currently aren't they like seven years old k through two only kindergarten has the only kindergarten okay i'm looking at the wrong one sorry um but you said there was a plan for yes uh so our graduating seniors what we would like to do is take those when the seniors graduate return their ipads we'd like to repurpose those to the kindergarten and then use existing dollars in the next fiscal budget to buy new ipads for the sixth graders typically when our seniors leave and graduate we repurpose those to the new sixth graders but

101in an attempt to get rid of those ipad minis and remove them from our inventory we would like to repurpose those to the kindergartners the incoming kindergartners remove those ipad minis from our inventory and recycle them in a responsible manner and then purchase ipads for the new sixth graders for the next school year so that we that also provides consistency with the type of device we would have grade six seven and eight they would all be eighth gen ipads the eighth graders would take their ipads to ninth grade they would also have an eighth gen ipad as well okay all right did i answer your question yes thank you i just wanted to make sure we were getting better yep lots of moving parts our goal is to to remove the ipad minis again they're

102seven plus years old right they can't handle the ios updates so we would like to have them out of our inventory right i i am thrilled that they lasted this long oh yeah i mean we definitely definitely get a return on our investment right with those but uh again if you once say once devices stop handling the updates that the the you know the vendors push out you lose functionality right the batteries are going on them too yeah i'm sure that's pretty old um okay so as far as timeline i just see that we're doing this presentation again to some small groups meet and confer and um and then so the next kind of input would be morris leatherman's on the 24th yep and then we'll we'll we'll ask the board to you know after

103they hear that input to continue to give us direction because the really the direction from may 24th in terms of getting an amount that the board is is providing us direction and really then helps us with that draft proposal that would come forward in june okay i think i think julie had a question sorry and maybe i should know the answer to this but when you surveyed students and you heard a theme about keyboards where does that play a role in any of our ability to provide that i mean do i'm assuming they don't have keyboards correct they they are the chromebooks do they have a built-in keyboard but that's great it's two through five the ipads do not so if i'm in high school i don't have a keyboard you do not have a

104physical keyboard you have an odd screen keyboard that is correct okay is there a plan in place potentially to provide that how does how do you do that so we uh we're actually in our my department right now we're we're piloting some external keyboards for existing ipads through two vendors uh one vendor is the cases that we currently have and then the other vendor is a comparable keyboard um the main difference is one uses the three pin connector which is great because it's a solid connection the other one is bluetooth which can be a nightmare if you're trying to sync up all these bluetooth keyboards with those devices i'd rather not go down that road so we're looking at a physical keyboard that has uses a three-pin connector and not bluetooth so we are doing

105some rd on physical keyboards um the other conversation we've had is is in providing devices that have a physical keyboard so i know that and again we'll we'll get to that part where we start talking about devices but in previous presentations to the school board we had we presented six different options and they were chromebooks and ipads and macbook airs and all the above so we will look at physical keyboards that are embedded in the tech we will look at external keyboards that use a physical connector and not bluetooth because i really don't want to go down that path mary's shaking her head no you agree with me mary don't do that okay no thank you all right so that's that's some of the things that we're doing right now uh to to look at

106to address that hey i need a physical keyboard and they're able to create documents efficiently and effectively yeah and i was just gonna well i'll say one thing um november december's board meeting last year it would be a good board if you want to look at board book and it just gives you the options and i mean it's not current numbers but it's a good idea just to kind of see what the kind of scenarios were i think the other important aspect of what julie just asked and and marcus talked a little bit through was it wasn't so long ago that we had computer labs right several in our high school so when students needed for particular classes or in particular work there were there were labs computer labs that they could go to that

107had the desktops that marcus was talking about and they could use those so they had access even though they had ipads they had access to those computer labs and then he talked about as we worked more toward flexible learning when we were replacing those desktop labs um and to get that was partially because of state uh space partially because the you know desktops were were getting old but as we replaced those we replaced those with chromebooks so that our students would still have access to devices with the keyboard then because we had to move and provide a solution for distance learning for k12 all of those ipads are i'm sorry all of those chromebooks had to be discarded and moved to other students so so julie i'm glad you asked that because we did have

108that solution until we uh got in a position um that we needed to be a one-to-one district and now it's going to be hard to not be in that position so thank you and then one other thing too to keep in mind i think when this was all kind of transitioning there was also requirements to have hardwired for testing there was requirements about having labs so what you know state-sponsored tests were given you were given in the same environment and all that kind of stuff and i assuming a lot of that's gotten changed up but all wireless and on ipads are good books now but i mean like so when some of these decisions are being made those were requirements too that you had to have physical space that you had to have a kid

109at a desktop for a certain amount of time and those labs were going busy with just that kind of thing so yeah um but obviously as everything changes changes like words are pretty important because obviously the kids would sometimes go into those computer labs before and after school to be able to print stuff and the chromebook carts required them to return them at a certain time so they didn't have that luxury so the use of the keyboard went away it didn't it got partially replaced by the chromebook hearts but not nearly enough so it's going to be good to get keyboards to kids i have a question yes so official you are so okay so um if the goal is to get keyboards back to students then why are we trying to get the new

110or the incoming sixth graders ipads and not have them keep their chromebooks that they have currently good question so when when you make a shift thank you for asking that question first of all when when we had to pivot and go do a k12 one to one well we had access to ipads like we like we discussed but then chromebooks were available for kind of grab-and-go when we didn't have enough ipads we we made the decision was working with it i'm sorry i always do that just throw something at me i always do that i apologize sorry abby can everybody hear me now all right so when we pivoted and we didn't have enough ipads we had to make decisions okay what grade levels are gonna get the chromebooks and and through lots of conversations

111and discussions is two through five but now we've just taken a new a new device a chromebook with a different os and gave it to teachers who had previous experience with ipads