November 23, 2020 School Board Study Session

001okay um thank you all for coming this evening we'll begin with our school board study session um i'd like to welcome you all here and i'll turn it over to dr stahlo for purpose and agenda thank you very much good evening everyone um uh the purpose of study sessions is to build trust and teamwork to exchange information and when applicable to provide direction to facilitate efficient and effective decision-making at the board table this evening as you look at the agenda in front of you we're going to start off with a review of a board resolution draft on equity and inclusion led by our community engagement committee and some of the stakeholders who are also part of that process and then as we look at the operational oversight items we'll get a construction update we'll also

002continue working on our revised budget for the current year jeff holmberg and marcus malazzo will provide additional information that the board members requested regarding a capital projects levy or a tech levy and then i'll provide just a brief update on our covert 19 pandemic planning and the current status of the ready to learn plan and then board members will be spending some time looking at some policies as well this evening okay our board agenda for 2021 working document is what we follow for our goals for the year um tonight we're going to be working more specifically um our focus will be on the budget and the tech levy as well as um the reference dr stahlo made to the in community engagement and equity and observing our role as an operational oversight um so the

003next option uh next item on our agenda is the board equity but i think part of the group isn't quite here yet is that correct yeah just running a little bit late she's she's leaving another meeting coming i can text her i do have a little do you have a start you want to start now and then we'll continue on and when she gets here or would you like me to skip to the next item what is the next day let me look construction construction update we could do that first let's do that first yeah um okay we'll move to our site of operations on the construction update just stepped out to give us space thank you she's coming i hear a door opening too so she might be here thank you for your flexibility

004tim how would you like to speak now sorry we bumped you ahead just because thank you jim i think you'll have to come up to the podium just so the mic uh so that your voice is picked up for the listening public out there quiet down good evening shimmick school board dr sallo a brief update on construction we are moving along finishing up terrazzo in the high school area g uh we are still slated to get that area turned over to the district december 18th um and now things are looking good there so the last uh piece of the puzzle and uh it's coming along nicely there will be some punchless items that will carry on for some time and uh but we're making real progress so thank you any questions are there any questions

005for jim good to hear oh thank you thank you thanks jim um can we just go on continue on with the budget [Music] that's a little bit long budget we'll take that's a little bit longer i believe isn't it julie depends on how many questions we have yeah um so we do have some introductory work yeah okay why don't you go ahead then we'll go back to um okay board equity and inclusion resolution thank you for those listening we are just waiting we have a few stakeholders this evening joining us for this agenda item which is uh the first presentation of our board resolution committing to equity and inclusion work just briefly to let you know how how we'll go through this first of all we're going to give you just some background on how

006we arrived at bringing forward this document that we are reviewing this evening we think it's really important you understand the process uh that went into it stacy and enrique will follow those comments briefly and then we have a few stakeholders this evening who have been part of this process who will share why they got involved and how their voices are represented and then we will present the resolution in full to the board and for the people listening and then with the chairs per mission we would open the floor to discussion on that resolution so it is my job and privilege to share with you how we arrived at the document that we are reviewing right now some of you may have attended the msba webinar on equity and inclusion last week and they ended the

007webinar with the proverb if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together what we're bringing forward tonight is the work of many who have traveled far together it is not the work of stacy enrique dr stahlo and myself rather it is the work of several people who represent various stakeholder groups in our district and our community it is the work of teachers students staff parents administrators and community members just to give you some sense of what led to taking on this project we all know as board members that both our strategic directions and our priority work include commitments to doing equity and inclusion work this is not something new for our district and the community engagement and legislative committee has been working on finding ways to increase

008meaningful engagement with different groups in our community prior to the covered 19 shutdown last march one of our efforts in the community was to increase engagement with stakeholders who might help us take a closer look at the district equity and inclusion work especially our role as a school board [Music] the shutdown in march did slow our progress at for a time as the district dealt with the need for planning for a switch to distance learning however as the pandemic timeline extended one of the results was the highlighting of disparities in the world both for schools and communities and then the murder of george floyd happened on may 25th right in our own backyard after that school districts started issuing resolutions speaking out against racism and supporting equity and inclusion efforts and while our district under

009dr stahlo's leadership did reach out to our community as a board we at that time did not issue any public statement so as the committee charged with community engagement the four of us realized that we could not put off our commitment to engaging these stakeholders to address these issues we reached out to nine stakeholders and invited them to join us on june 10th we reached out to people who had a connection with the district that we could easily assemble and we called it a listening session we opened the floor and asked these stakeholders to share with us their personal stories about how the events unfolding were impacting them as individuals and they decided to share with us ideas for what the district might do to better address equity inclusion inclusion and racism one of the

010clearest message came from the group that night wasn't asked that the prior lake savage area school board make a public statement about where it stands on the issues and the direction of the board the administration and the teachers have been doing this work in the schools but the board has not made a public statement you may recall at the board retreat this summer we shared our committee work to date and we were directed to move forward by the board we began collecting and reading the work being done by other districts in the area rather than just edit a resolution from another district we decided to pull together ideas that seem specific for us in prior lake savage and at that time we decided to reach out to a larger stakeholder group for input in assembling

011the resolution we ended up with a group of approximately 25 stakeholders as a reminder these were students teachers staff administrators parents and community members we held virtual meetings where we gathered input we started at a much more general overview of what the resolution should include and how it could be sure to reflect the voices of everybody who participated we also received feedbacks from participants who could not join us in the editing sessions but sent us via email their thoughts and those were incorporated as well as time went on after several meetings back and forth we asked a volunteer from each representative stakeholder group to join a smaller editing group in which we would go line by line through the resolution so for example we had a teacher represented and we had a student represented and

012a community member and a staff member when we had that editing session we found that we spent an awful lot of time sometimes taking one line out and discussing it at length and sometimes even taking a single word out and discussing that at length what was critical was that the intent of the group come forward in the words that were chosen after we had all agreed on final details sarah wheelock spent a great deal of time checking for our proper phrasing our punctuation and our grammar and she also brought with it her editing and legal background with the finished document in hand we invited all of the original stakeholders back to come full circle and review the finished document to ensure that we had clearly captured what the original intent was with the large group

013a few important notes to share with all of you we did consult with paula olaklan at msba a few times to gain clarity on the role of a board resolution and how to involve stakeholders she was incredibly helpful and helped us stay in line with what the state school board association would recommend we worked hard to clarify the difference between a resolution and action plans or policies we worked on this with the stakeholder group and for the sake of those listening tonight we clarified that the role of a school board is to govern and the role of a superintendent and her staff is to manage and implement so our job was not to figure out all the how-to's with this resolution and we also clarified that a resolution is a formal document that makes a

014statement about an issue so important that the board wants a record of it it also stands as a public record in case compliance with the resolution becomes an issue down the road and if a school board drafts a resolution it should be supplemented with the action steps and concrete guidance guidelines in later steps this could be through board policies or through implementation plans established by the administration the staff and the teachers throughout the process stakeholder input will remain important a resolution then is a firm governing type statement but it's not something that lists out specific action plans so as a reminder tonight we are building upon our commitments in our strategic plan and priority work we have been updating the entire board as we go and getting direction to move forward we have received guidance

015from msba and i um would like to just before we conclude here thank the committee enrique stacy and dr stahlo they committed to moving this work work forward not only in spite of what is happening in the world but because of what is happening in the world and we have worked with an incredible team of stakeholders people who took time from their work school family and more to help us put together the document we are reviewing this evening i'm hopeful many of them are listening right now and to all of them we are grateful they were brave vulnerable and gave so much and tonight we want to honor the intent in the words as we discuss them this work was challenging time consuming and intense and it was also an opportunity to learn how to

016lean into conversations that can sometimes be uncomfortable but i think i can speak for the committee when i say learning to stay with the work even if at times uncomfortable is the key to moving forward with that i'll ask enrique and stacy if they would like to add things that i left out um okay thanks harry kay um michael once again i'm going to just give a shout out to michael um and then everyone here obviously knows on the committee that she has poured her heart and soul into this um has really been the main communicator um it's been a lot of meetings and she's really kind of helped organize us and keep us all moving along so i just want to give a shout out to her in 10 years on the board i

017have never experienced such authentic public engagement and i really feel like this is a pathway forward for us as a board as to how to engage with the public i'm just really proud of our group i think as michael said we had conversations and i'm going to be straight up honest the first meeting in june when we called and just asked for people that had contact with us over the last you know few years if they would come together and we could just listen i was extremely nervous and afraid of saying something or doing something wrong and i've learned so much from all these people um but i just want to say thank you for educating me and making this a passion to continue forward because um you know this is really important for the

018district and the board to um have this resolution i think it sets the direction that a lot in our administration have been doing on their own without you know real strength from the board so i look at this as kind of a reset for the board moving forward i think as we had our meetings with people [Music] they shared with us their stories and their pain to be very honest um and it was hard to hear about things that you know happen within our district and i think that there was such a authentic feeling together that we were in this together and that they were so willing to be vulnerable with us that i'm going to be really protective of this document and i'm going to refer to it frequently to make sure that i

019continue to look at things and their voices are in my head when i do that so um i just i just want to say thank you to the group it's really been a privilege enrique enrique did you have anything to add thank you very much uh thank you for that stacey i can definitely hear the emotion coming through as you speak these were very impactful very important conversations we had i think michael said that they were brave and vulnerable absolutely very brave very vulnerable very safe spaces to share what the prior lake experience has been for many people from the community and while it was unnerving and sometimes just we had no idea what was going to happen or what was going to come next or what people were going to say it was that

020permission to be vulnerable that permission to put all that on display that they welcomed and they really appreciated that us as a school board wanted their voices one of their stories one of their experiences so that we could help carry that weight and burden alongside them and commit right there with them that we are going to drive change and that we are going to be very intentional about what this looks like for us as a board us as a an administration as a in as a district as we look to write some wrongs that have existed in the past and look to increase our own awareness increase education and reflect back to our community what it is that we expect of ourselves what do we expect of them so it was a tremendous effort but

021it's not done there's still so much more to be done and this is just a mile marker as we continue to fight forward so i appreciate the contributions of every single person everyone that supported the family members so that they could be a part of this experience with us and all the hours all the time that has gone into crafting the resolution as it stands right now so thank you so much at this time we'd like to have um we have in the room with us four of the stakeholders who are instrumental to the process who will just briefly introduce themselves and why they chose to participate in this process and after they do that we also have a teacher who is not able to attend this evening who has sent a statement that enrique

022will read after the introductions and then we will have stakeholders read the resolution to the group if i could invite uh the four of you to come up just try and keep your distance when you go to the podium and share a few words with the committee sarah do you want to start you can you hear me okay or should i take my mask off we can hear you you can hear me okay maybe step just a little bit closer but okay not a problem to heal was to be familiar with what destroyed ray young bear mesquaki i just said hello greetings relatives my mosquacking name is bona biqua which means lady bear who makes a den my english name is sarah wheelock i am bear clan and i am from the people of the

023red earth the musquakuyaki a federally recognized sovereign indian tribe i stand before you today i'm a squawky woman i represent my children aqua whose english name is ava a ninth grader at prior league high school and makkadee muk whose english name is jack a seventh grader at twin oaks middle school i represent my family who are indigenous to the lands on which the united states and canada now sit i represent the students and families from numerous tribes that that are part of the prayer lake savage area schools family including the dakota whose original homelands we are now sitting or standing on and our students and families from the initial nabeg people known to many of you as ojibwe or chippewa and the lakota ho chunk navajo mandan hidatsa arikara blackfeet brothertown menominee oneida potawatomi and

024so many more the original people of this land have experienced a history of more than 500 years of war genocide and destruction at the hands of the colonizers the settlers and their governments and yet we are still here we survive and we thrive ours is a story of strength and resilience and beauty this resolution represents an understanding by this school board in this district that our history and our present-day existence as indigenous people and people of every color including white people are complicated and fraught with the twin scourges of racism and bias it is also significant that many people are members of more than one group that experiences discrimination which is known as intersectionality the insidious forces of racism implicit bias and ignorance work against the ability of all children to succeed in school and

025the first step to helping our children is to have awareness of these obstacles and acknowledge them many steps must follow but this resolution which we have been honored to have had a voice in creating is a critical first step this resolution acknowledges the reality of marginalized groups within this school district and the need to take real concrete steps to address these issues i come here before you not to castigate lay blame or engender negative feelings i come in the spirit of my people and in the spirit of the laker way a guiding philosophy for this school district comprised of three core beliefs pride respect and responsibility this resolution aligns with these self-proclaimed laker values and gives them meaning for indigenous students in a manner not yet realized in this district one of the core beliefs

026of most indigenous people is that we are all related in mesquaki we say jagannagumenegwe what happens to one happens to us all we must take care of each other we stand with our sisters and our brothers from every race ethnicity religion sexual orientation and gender identity and telling the board that we want this resolution to pass we urge every board member to vote yes and we look forward to a partnership with the board and the district that will grow out of this resolution i look at this resolution and i see potential potential for better schools for better outcomes for all of our children and for a better world in these challenging times i urge you to be a beacon for a path forward that lifts us all up as i end my comments tonight i

027want to reread the poetry that i began with written by a fellow mysquakey tribal member and nationally renowned poet ray bear to heal was to be familiar with what destroyed allow those words to sink in and consider them when you vote gaddabi peter maya miguel thank you for your time tonight and jagannagamingway it is absolutely terrible to be second after that [Laughter] but thank you sarah i do not have as eloquent and put together as an introduction as sarah does so i'm just going to speak to who i am my name is neca cedarstrom and i am a transplant to prior lake only been here four years i have a wonderful husband charlie and two small children grayson who is four well nope supes five just turned five and heading to kindergarten at loyola next

028year uh and my daughter adayah who is 22 months going on 15 and will follow in the same footsteps as her older brother when i was asked to join the conversation in june it was difficult but i know necessary as an african-american and i call myself a true definition african-american because i am half nigerian my father was an immigrant to this country who actually arrived right he arrived in washington d.c the morning of the march on washington and martin luther king was speaking did they have a dream speech and that was the first thing he saw as a nigerian coming to america is he went down to the mall with his two chaperones who were there to show him america and watched martin luther king have that speech and had this impactful moment of understanding

029that there was a difference between who he was as a nigerian in america and who people who look like him were as black americans and that was a very hard thing for him to have to adjust to as an immigrant to this country at that time and my mother who is black american and the descendant of slavery and she grew up in south side chicago and the only reason why she went to college was because they integrated university of illinois the year that she graduated from her high school and she was one of the few that her guidance counselor thought had a chance of proving them wrong when they assumed that black people were not able to succeed in college and so she got pushed into the university of illinois and succeeded in going into

030education big education background in our household so i am true definition african-american i don't call myself black american because of that because i am very proud of my nigerian heritage and being half immigrant and my children are also considered african-american because i also want them to stay true to their their heritage of also having a nigerian grandfather and but they're but they are half white american as well and their white heritage is polish and swedish hence the cedarstrom very true medicine minnesotans but to address issues of racism and issues of the expression of racism and how we live in our society and to be a person who is a descendant of slaves in a place where it is very obvious that you're not of the community is difficult and it was difficult to do it

031during a time when the community was still reeling from the murder of george floyd and that was a very powerful moment because it was the first time i had to explain to my son what it meant to be black in america and that was a very difficult thing to say to him as a four-year-old but it was necessary and it's been necessary for many families to have to say the same things to their children and so that conversation made me feel like this community that we as a family chose to move into for various reasons and why we picked prior lake when we moved to minnesota needs help and i can't ask for people to do the job that i won't do myself so i decided to put aside my discomforts my worry my concerns

032of how this was going to be viewed what people are going to say how the political climate was and all the things that i knew were going to come up and i put on my armor and i said let's just do it and i'm very thankful that i did because joining that showed me that there were many many people who thought this was just as important to their lives as it is to mine and it's because of that unity and that deliberate intentionality that i chose to continue on with this process in this resolution is a beautiful hardcore full of evidence of that work and that love and that passion and that willingness to be vulnerable and that willingness to want to do the things that are very difficult to say and difficult to engage

033in and i'm very proud of the people who join forces to make it happen it makes me feel like staying here is the right choice makes me feel like putting my children in this district is the right choice and i will do whatever i can to continue that work thank you hi well thank you um hi my name is jayla henderson i'm a senior at prior lake high school i am also in mencaps i do the bismix program specifically the design and marketing program i'm also on the um black student union board and i would just like to say thank you for having me here really this is a really great honor to be here and to represent not only just the students but the black students and the people of color that have experienced

034microaggressions and racism throughout here my parents originally moved us to pryor lake for a better life because in south carolina it's really bad when it comes down to schools and how you get treated especially when you are a certain race and especially when if you're more on the poorer side or the richer side but moving here to have more of an opportunity for education and to have more of a comfort zone really but growing up it was really hard for my two siblings and i because we were different than other people i mean our parents weren't didn't really understand about the sports and the community that everybody got to build with their friends and family so it was kind of hard to really get friends and the only way we could really do anything was

035through sports or activities i know my brother is a really great athlete and my sister is kind of the brains and i'm kind of in the middle of everything but like just growing up in prior lake i have seen that it's a great community i mean it's a great place to raise family it's a great place for friends and just having that community bond and unity but there are still microaggressions there's still racism racism going on there is still sexism going on here and that i've seen and that i've experienced not only with school but online and on social media instagram snapchat and sports really because they automatically think since you're black you're good at running that obviously wasn't the case for me but um yeah it's just a really great honor to have just

036this area where i can express how i felt and seeing that prior lake is growing and seeing that prior lake is understanding and educating themselves on diversity and educating themselves on what it means to be unified with other people of color so it's really amazing that i get to see this before i graduated because i never thought i'd be able to see this 9th grade through 11th grade i never thought i would be able to see the the day where my white peers would understand or at least have an understanding of what i went through and who i am as a person and that my last year at prior lake high school i get to express myself as a black woman and they express how i feel without it being uncomfortable or weird so i

037get shut down or my teacher is understanding who i am and embracing rather than oh i know you're black but we won't see you as a black person we'll see you as a person i want you to see who i am i am a black american and i want you to see that so i'm really happy i do get to express that with this resolution thank you good evening i'm mark paulsen i'm an assistant principal at prior lake high school i'm feeling a lot of pressure not to screw this up this has been amazing i'm here for a very simple reason um it's because of students like jayla and all the students that she represents that have both either through teachers through counselors through other students have come to you know have expressed frustrations have

038expressed concerns have expressed disappointments and underneath all of those expressions was a message that somewhere along the way i don't know if it was from her family from her friends from whom but she learned that i matter and um you know that's really important that you know that that's key to fundamental development and when you when you hear the first whereas that gets read in the policy i'm not sure how you could work in education and not be for this amendment i'm here i've i've told the students that i've worked with i will never know i will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against i can't the only thing i can do is tell you i hear you and i believe you that's my power and i want to be part of

039this process um so that jayla and students like her hear that i hear you and i believe you and that hopefully we can change the messaging from students having to come to us saying i matter to there being an overwhelming resounding course of you matter and that that will never be questioned and they won't have to they won't have to stand up and make that statement for themselves they'll they will grow up with it from every angle and that's my role is to support the work that is being done here so thank you you to everybody at this time we'd ask our three readers to come forward and share the resolution um both for the board and those listening and uh those online who may be listening and not have access to it okay we're

040going to do this a little round robin style so you'll see me at least one more time [Music] so i will start now this is the prior lake savage areas schools commitment to equity inclusion whereas the learning and safety of the students of prior lake savage area schools is our top priority and it is our responsibility to create a safe secure and inclusive environment for all learners which requires that we promote equity and inclusion for all people notwithstanding race ethnicity gender religion national origin sexual orientation gender identity linguistic diversity socioeconomic status or membership and any other protected class and whereas providing a safe and inclusive school environment that ensures the physical and emotional safety of students and staff creates the conditions necessary to foster academic achievement and whereas minnesota including prior lake savage area schools

041consistently has one of the largest opportunity gaps in the country and whereas as the minnesota department of education states quote educational equity is the condition of justice fairness and inclusion in our systems of education so that all students have access to the opportunities to learn and develop to their fullest potentials end quote and whereas the concept of educational equity goes beyond formal equality where all learners are treated the same to providing a barrier-free environment where all students have the resources and opportunities to succeed notwithstanding their race ethnicity gender religion national origin sexual orientation gender identity linguistic diversity social economic status or membership in any other protected class and whereas the district strategic plan commits us to increase in measurable student learning and reduce opportunity gaps as we provide equitable student opportunities through personalized learning and

042student engagement and whereas district policy 413 dictates that the district quote maintain a learning and working environment that is free from harassment and violence on the basis of race color creed religion national origin sex age marital status familial status status with regards to public assistance sexual orientation or disability end quote and whereas racism and implicit bias manifest in myriad ways including but not limited to hate speech open hostility and bigotry systemic and institutionalized practices and policies microaggressions colorblind ideology willful ignorance and unconscious bias and decision making each of which have the effect of negatively impacting black indigenous and people of color and members of other marginalized groups and whereas discrimination hate bias and racist instances against black indigenous and people of color and members of other marginalized groups harm them mentally physically emotionally and academically

043and whereas the district's strategic plan commits us to engage students parents families staff and community members to strengthen a culture to respect and inclusion and whereas students parents families staff and community members have raised concerns about racism equality inclusion and social justice and expect board and district leadership to address these issues with intention and whereas as leaders in priorly savage school areas we are compelled to embrace an anti-anti-racist stance and speak out in response to all forms of racism discrimination and bias that impact our students parents families staffs and community therefore be it resolved the board of education of prior lake savage area schools is fully committed to developing and sustaining an inclusive and anti-racist school community where all students parents families staff and community members are safe welcomed and valued notwithstanding their race ethnicity

044gender religion national origin sexual orientation gender identity linguistic diversity socioeconomic status or membership in any other protected class commits to its own work as a board and individuals and to the training necessary to strengthen our collective ability and competence to oversee the district in becoming equitable inclusive and anti-racist and policies beliefs and actions affirms its commitment to support the superintendent and continuing to lead district priorities to advance equity and inclusion efforts including but not limited to professional development opportunities increasing equitable access to a diverse workforce and establishing a safe and secure environment that is free of implicit bias and is anti-racist for all people notwithstanding race ethnicity gender religion national orientation sexual orientation gender identity linguistic diversity social economic status board membership and any other protected class encourages and supports our educators and staff as

045they seek to adopt instructional practices incorporate restorative justice practices expand their own understanding of anti-racism and implicit bias and develop their skill sets and mindsets to respond more effectively to the needs and aspirations of all the learners they serve and demonstrate their belief in the value of each student commit as a board and as individuals to viewing and analyzing all of our work on behalf of the district through both a racial and cultural equality lens and a social justice lens and reforming current policies should they not be aligned with the ver vision presented in this resolution we will recruit we will create more opportunities to evaluate evil and evaluate and listen to the voices of students parents families staff and community members who are black and jewish and people of color and partner with them

046to identify and eliminate barriers that can interfere with opportunities to excel and will commit to being accountable and achieving the vision established in this resolution thank you we thought it important that the stakeholders read it as something they're bringing to the board and asking us to approve before we open for discussion i apologize i forgot to ask enrique to read the statement from the teacher who was unable to be here would that be okay sure go ahead enrique all right so the board of the prior lake savage educators association coalition for teachers of color endorses the 2020 equity and inclusion resolution we the board of the plsca ctoc endorse the 2020 equity and inclusion resolution it states among other things specifically that the plscs school board quote affirms its commitment to support the superintendent in

047continuing to lead district priorities to advance equity and inclusion efforts including but not alluded to professional development opportunities increasing equitable access to a diverse workforce and establishing a safe and secure environment that is free of implicit bias and is anti-racist for all people notwithstanding race ethnicity religion national origin sexual orientation gender identity linguistic diversity socioeconomic status or membership in any other protected class end quote this resolution both supports our coalition's mission and is a critical step in creating and sustaining an environment where all voices count and where anti-racism work can truly be successful it is only within this environment that healing amongst all communities begin the ctoc respectfully awaits the approval of this resolution to begin a partnership for the betterment of our community as the priorly savage education association's coalition for teachers of color

048we exist to facilitate a network for educators and stakeholders where traditionally marginalized voices are heard supported in uplifted work to build a staff that reflects our student population while advocating for students access to staff of color who share their values and experiences believe that anti-racism is only achievable through an indigenous democracy signed by the ctoc board carmita adrian culplitz isa santiago and sabrina that completes your presentation it does thank you for your patience for letting us do that foundational work thank you before i open it up to questions i'd like to thank uh the board and dr sallo the committee members for heading this up but more importantly i'd like to really thank the community members that step forward that is a brave move and i appreciate your coming forward looking forward to learning more

049i'm almost a little envious that you guys got the first hand um experience and um some of us were not able to but i look forward to your sharing that so um thank you that's very admirable um and a scary thing to do so i appreciate your stepping forward with that i'll open it up for questions from the board i i i can start um echo the appreciation clearly for all of those who were involved in the process and also echo the uh little tinge of uh jealousy or envy for not having been able to be a part of it we all have a lot to learn i know i do and so i i would have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of that process i'm wondering if any of you could speak just ever

050so quickly uh one of the phrases that i highlighted in here um in the whereas about things that are problems or things that are challenges the the colorblind ideology and i think it's worthy of maybe just expanding a little bit on that on because i think there's probably a lot of folks that can't figure out why that's a bad thing so i'd love to hear a thought on that i'm laughing because that's what my husband said was going to be the first question so you know you just sent me a text saying i told you [Laughter] yes so that would that is very important and it's important because people don't quite understand that when you say things to a person of color like oh i don't see color i just see you as a woman

051or as a person what that means is that you don't honestly see me by devaluing my color or saying that my color is something that ought not to be seen makes it feel like something about me is wrong when you see me you need to see all of me and all of me means that i am a black woman and by acting like saying black is negative then you're putting a judgment on a very important part of me that i don't feel is negative i love everything about my blackness and the culture that comes with it so colorblind ideology is something that we have to do better at explaining because people feel like making that statement shows that they're somehow not racist or that they're somehow a good person and it's not to say that

052they're a bad person it is to say that they don't quite understand how that they're the intention behind it of trying to be to try to say to me that i see you as who you are doesn't come across when you denounce who i actually am and we have to do better at understanding that that is very much part of this ingrained systemic racism that we just saw every day practice that jayla was talking about earlier about the continuous microaggressions and things like that or oh you're pretty for a black girl or you know bringing in color as an element of of whether you're good or bad that is all in the colorblind ideology and so it has to stop thank you that's exactly what i was looking for um and can you all can

053you share who from the process of the words getting on the page um how did that come about who who did the writing how collaborative was that and i mean i'm assuming that every word on here was poured over many times that is correct there was a what i'll call a first cut which when you have an important document you want to have multiple drafts and you want to have multiple readers and you want to look at it through multiple lenses so the board had a listening session apparently with a few stakeholders nine stakeholders in in june i think of this year and then i don't know who it was that put the initial words to paper but i brought with me just for having the record with me all of the different versions that

054we went through and i would say the version that you have technically we could call it the fourth draft but really the back and forth and the discussions that went into what words do we want to use was intense every single word every single comma you see on that page is intentional it has a meaning the selection of terms like black indigenous and people of color some of those things are terms of art talking about uh you know diversity and inclusion a lot of these things again they're terms of art they have a meaning and if there was anything that one or myself anybody on it or myself did not understand i went and researched it or they went and researched it um you know i don't proclaim to be an expert in this area

055what i do love is i love something that's well written and meaningful and if there's a word in there that wasn't worth our time it would have been cut so i don't know if that helps you um i think the description that ms nelson gave at the beginning was probably very helpful because there was something that was given to that initial group of stakeholders to get ideas reactions we like that we don't like that what about this how far does the board want to go and what they're saying one of my first questions was how far do you want to go in studying policy how far do you want to go and this is where we had then some research done and some back and forth with the school board the state um guiding board

056i'm not sure what you called them msba msba and so um so that that was definitely part of it and then it came down to those really fine fine moments fine-tuning of wordsmithing and saying is this is it getting at what we want to is the tone right i think that i told um michael was that you read one time for substance you read one time for editing and then you always read another time for flow and so some some words might have been chosen just to make it flow better so it would be a thing that would stand the test of time i think that's something else for you to know is that there was a lot of discussion about what's going to age well and what's not going to age well and do

057we want to lock ourselves in or do we want to give the sport the flexibility to use this as a platform and i think we accomplished that so do you have any other questions about the editing process i am i'm going to just make one comment and then let my fellow board members be able to ask some things i think uh mark paulson said when he stood up i think i just want to make sure i don't screw this up and i honestly as a board member i look at the work that you have all assembled and there's there's nothing we could improve in my opinion i um and all i want to do is not screw it up and so i've i'm going to support from wholeheartedly i'm going to ask my question because

058it kind of tails off of yours jonathan um first of all the document i think is very well written um i'm in support of it i do have a question i need a little more explanation on one of the last statements in the document where it says we'll create more opportunities to elevate and listen to the voices of students parents families staff and community members then you go on to say who are black indigenous and people of color i'm wondering why you pulled that group out versus all the other people that you've been listing through the whole document why why wouldn't why you pull that out i guess is i'll start with that part of my question there may be others i'll wait till i get up here there may be others who also want

059to comment on that but one another piece of this that we talked about is that some of the groups that are listed in the whereas section i'm sorry yeah the whereas sections some groups that people belong to that experience prejudice they're in a group where nobody would know that information unless they shared it what what their religion is maybe uh what their sexual orientation is or their gender identity then there there are those of us who we don't get to take off the color of our skin we don't get to take off intergenerational trauma and so we thought it was really important especially given that the nature of the the growth and the development of this resolution partially came out and was probably accelerated by the racial incidents that happened over the summer in our

060home state that we did call out those groups it wasn't meant to be exclusive or exclude other people in any way but it was really just to say we understand that we have to listen to these voices in no way means that we shouldn't be listening to everybody's voices but simply kind of a nod to that additional piece okay that that's exactly where i was going it feels like it it leaves other people out when we're trying to be more inclusive and i understand that there's more of a focus on these three groups but um i was with you until i got to that statement put it that way and i still will be supportive but um it feels like we're all of a sudden making differences that we don't want to do um as

061i read as i read it and outside outside eyes right yeah i can only speak from my perspective and the people i spoke with but i welcome naka too yeah no i'll just i'll just add to that a lot of the intention behind that is because other marginalized groups besides the fact that it's something that you don't necessarily see they're black and brown and indigenous people within those groups too so it is still inclusive of them if we look at the areas where they intersect and part of the reality of what we were trying to address with calling out that is you will get lgbtq religious other marginalized women issues will get all that in a population when you talk to black brown and indigenous people because those people still represent those other populations as

062well and so part of what we were trying to ensure we did was not to say that these other marginalized groups somehow should be separated out of and you would find a person of color who is only cisgendered who is only a woman or who's only this thing and then go and find an lgbtqia person if you find people within that community to discuss the issues of the community you will bring in those other marginalized issues in the conversation just by the fact that people exist in those other marginalizations as well as being black or indigenous so that was part of the the rationale behind okay i i guess i read it differently than than what your intention was when you explain it makes sense but it concerns me that if it has to be

063explained that maybe that needs to be looked at a little bit again so that we're clear there is the brilliance behind the words [Laughter] are there any other questions hey um i know mary brought up some additional questions that she emailed us in advance it looks like she had to step away for uh personal matter so um i don't have those enrique okay um i could i have them up here so i could go through them one by one if that works well we have the stakeholders here maybe yeah what do you want you want them what do you mean what do you want him to do he's coming up to him if he wants to read him okay yeah i don't have any questions yeah she had sent to enrique and i to be

064careful not to send to everybody um how many people were listed on the email some questions or concerns um i do see she had to step off um i can we can do one of two things you can share those or we can take them back uh to the committee as well before we bring them forward i think that would be more appropriate to that they go back to the community the community to the committee for discussion unless we want to hear them now i it's not usually that we have somebody else read questions that come from another board member i understand that she has a personal reason that she's been called away um okay i mean i just think there are quite a few of them i know if there's not consensus to move

065some of them forward i don't know as far as questioning i mean just want us to answer from the committee there's like 12 or something wasn't there how many were there i didn't get it directly so i didn't what's that stacy i said i didn't get the emails i think it would be more appropriate to bring those to the com to the committee and if mary has more um questions for follow-up questions to what she has to say i think that'd be more appropriate than asking the questions that we're interpreting how she wants them read i don't think that's fair to marry and it's not fair to the committee are you comfortable with that committee members thank you and we we do have time we have another work session and the board meeting in december

066so it'll be two weeks before that that can be um fleshed out so everyone's all right with that yeah they're on the same night though right i mean yes they are yeah okay okay everyone's in agreement thank you all right thank you to our okay thank you very much i appreciate you coming can i can i just share something i'm sorry i love that dr stahlo has not spoken very much i can let you speak that's all right thank you as a white female leader you have heard me read or share this mission a thousand times our mission is to educate all learners to reach their full potential as contributing and productive members of our ever-changing global community this mission and this strategic plan gives me permission and responsibility to serve all students and it

067gives me permission responsibility and expectation to make sure that i interrupt practices and policies that don't show or display ways where we support all see all hear all encourage all to be their absolute best the theme this year that we chose is we are pl sas voices sarah neca jayla mark michael stacy enrique your voices and the voices of those others on the team will now be with me in a way that is very different than the other thousands of times that you've heard me read this my perspective is limited by my lived experience and the only way that i can be a wise leader for all students families and staff in this organization is to surround myself with multiple perspectives who give me wisdom courage and ensure that i'm making wise decisions as i

068lead this district with the board and with our team i don't know that i've ever been more proud of work that's been done of our board members who have led this work with passion and persistence and in community folks who continue to show up and show up and show up until we got the words right so the words can be turned into action thank you so much for sharing yourselves and for helping us all get better i guess i need to clarify one thing because it is it is it important for the board that this come back to the work session or are we going to bring it right to the business meeting would you like to answer that question after you meet again when you have gone over why don't we do that digest

069it everything follow up with mary okay because it won't necessarily come to the work session it would go right to the business meeting unless you choose to bring it back to the board i just wanted to sure i mean i guess you're okay with the wording as is i mean i would simply say in the absence of substantive change to any of the language okay it could come straight to the meeting okay in mind all right and you as well i'm gonna yep i'm in agreement with that um just wanted clarification because we plan the agenda going forward thank you okay thank you now you're off the hook i'd like to give a standing ovation because i love that work okay now we'll move on to the 2021 final budget discussion and review excellent as

070julie sink is making her way to the to the podium i just want to uh welcome you all again tonight and what you'll be seeing tonight is the continued work as we've looked at the revised budget for the current year which obviously propels us and takes us into the projected budget as we move forward i can just share the next couple julia or sure okay i think actually the next one if you want to share that and you've heard julie say this as well uh the next slide is is simply our strategic plan which obviously budget decisions um are about what it is that we value and we know that the strategic plan with the priority work is certainly that which we base all of our decisions on and that becomes difficult as we're in

071a time where we are looking at budgets and because of the enrollment slide that you're going to see next we know that we've got continued work to do in order to revise this current year budget so every good evening i'm chair chemic board member dr stello tonight we are talking a little bit about our revised budget and really this revised budget um begins the work that will start for the next several months on the next year's budget in the following years and what does what are those assumptions for us to begin that work but we really needed to have a really good look and a solid look at where are we today um enrollment of course as you know drives our budget and um october 1 numbers that's really important because we start to get

072paid based on from the state of minnesota based on those october 1 numbers but our final enrollment numbers is what we get our total revenue from and so as we work through that we've always talked about our enrollment being that um that we would lose those 70 students throughout the year and as this is a very different year than every year that we have had in the past we have seen quite a dip in the last month and a half of 55 students that have been lost and and they're not all at the high school and secondary level and so many of them are coming as well from our elementary school and so you can see our enrollment for november 16th at the elementary k-5 was 3632 which is down almost 20 students 21 actually

073and then we also are down a few students at the middle level 10 there since october 1st and of course we're seeing that dip at the high school level as well as expected um so we are changing a little bit when as we work through this budget is looking at um a hundred student decrease from um october one through the end of the year so that's a 262 student or adm decline from where we had the original budget of 125 students increased i truly believe that this would not be a year of covid that we would have seen that 250 student increase this year we had budgeted 125. i truly believe we would have seen that 250. we were well on our way on in july we were 202 students increased since the previous year

074we see a large increase typically in august so i do believe we would have made that 250 student increase um i don't like to tell if you want yeah we just we put in these slides again just wanted to remind you um and again as we we see those declines in our district we know that statewide many districts are struggling with the same thing amsd which would in which were a member did a survey of the 43 districts and we just highlighted a couple here but the majority of the districts i think all but three are showing that they have declining enrollment as well from what was was projected and this is not updated from the last time we shared it but i'm confident that districts are seeing something similar to us and the next

075slide is also a repeat that you've seen and this was the the kindergarten numbers just showing again that not only do we have a decline in what we projected in terms of kindergarten numbers but other other districts do as well so we just wanted to be sure that we set that context as well thanks julie so we kind of stayed with this theme of that was then this is now i'm looking back at what we had approved for a revenue budget based on 125 additional students and 2 percent on the basic formula as well as increases in special education achievement and integration and some students attending from another district that 3.8 million dollars looking at what it is now i think this number of estimated change in revenue of 262 students less is a little

076bit higher than i originally projected in a lot of there's several reasons for this but some of it has to do with we are receiving some declining enrollment revenue that i hadn't had in originally and there are some other factors as well and so overall i'm also not seeing as large of a special education decline there for this first year and then so we're seeing a negative 1.1 million dollars from where we started the year in revenue and then as there's some other revenue changes as well we definitely are seeing some loss of local revenue simply because we aren't having activities we aren't having parking fees those other things that we are not seeing as much as we have in the past as well as interest revenue that we are not seeing come in because

077interest rates are so low at this point so we're also seeing that increase in revenue due to the coronavirus relief funds i have as we look through this budget i'm going to show you where we've created an assigned category i think it's a good idea to put it in an assigned category simply because we can track it that way and then it doesn't become part of our budget we're wondering why it went up a little bit and then it went down and we can actually see that happening and then because it does have some specific uses and but those corona relief funds can't be for things that were originally in the budget right that's correct the whole amount the whole amount okay i'm just trying to clarify that correct so those coronavirus relief funds these

078are what affect the general fund we do have some also affecting the community education fund and some affecting on the food service fund so it's not all in the general fund but some portion the largest portion of course is in the general fund and so you're seeing another revenue change which is an increase but of course we also have an increase in expenditures due to that as well offsetting and then you saw the approved expenditures that was then we had an estimated increase of 2.62 million with those adjustments we are we if you kind of think back as when we had a question at our audit about how do we go through and make these reductions and it has to be some incremental adjustments and so we really looked at this year what kind of

079some adjustments can we make in the current year that could help us in the future these are one time adjustments and so you're going to see a decrease in some of our expenditures but next year they'll go right back to where they were until we go through this process again of making some adjustments to our budget for next year's for next year and so we have reduced our supply budgets district-wide by 560 thousand dollars we do have some personnel reallocating expenses to restricted funds and so we have the ability we carried over some funds in some restricted areas because we didn't spend them last year because of the coronavirus and shutting down schools so we're able to like free up some unrestricted funds and spend them out of restricted unfilled positions we have 492 thousand

080dollars of unfilled positions and we've really looked at that this year to say will they continue to be unfilled and for now we believe they will it really depends on what happens this spring and come after after the holidays to see what happens for bringing back students and staff we know we have reduced substitute teacher costs that's about 400 000 that we are looking at here for those reductions and that could change still could and continue to increase it just really depends on what happens and so this is our best estimate through the rest of the year and then of course we have some increased cost due to the federally mandated covered leaves that we are seeing some increased costs that we weren't anticipating as well i have a lit um nothing by our savings

081and utilities and energy right now it's a hard one to pin down and we're looking at that really is has a big effect on how cold is our winter how much energy will we use and so we do know as well that we will see some savings there jim and i are trying to work through that what that number is but that one is a tough one to pin down it may be something that we will look at as each month goes and will report to the board and say that we anticipate this savings and may be coming back to the board for another adjustment and then we have that 2.3 million dollars of covert expenditures that we anticipate will be spent this year um the big majority of that has to be spent by

082december 30th and so you'll see that the majority of this will be spent there are some smaller funds the gears and ester funds which could be that we're really still looking at for this next um at the beginning of 2021 here and then looking at what are those needs that the district will have so we have a total of increase expenditures of 682 thousand 1555 and then some restricted funds adjustments outside of the unassigned area what we usually typically do is allow carryover so those fund balances that are in these restricted funds we allow them to be brought into the expenditures for this year so they can spend those that money this year if they choose to so alc targeted services is another 147 so these are funds that we currently have on hand that

083we're allowing them to spend down staff development is 315 000 actually we from our budget because we have lost so many students that learning and development is a total decrease there safe schools were anticipating spending an extra twenty five thousand achievement in integration we had a little bit of carryover of thirteen little almost fourteen thousand dollars long-term facility maintenance is two hundred and forty five and operating capital is seven twenty five and those increases in ltfm and operating are really to do with the construction budget simply because as we were going through construction those things i didn't know how much each year they would be spending we just pretending just depending on when those events happened and so i've kind of budgeted for them each year but if we didn't use them we carried them

084over now we're spending them and so we know we're at the end of our construction period and we'll be spending those funds down they were planned expenditures i just didn't know when exactly they would happen so this was the preliminary budget in the general fund and you can see what those numbers are and i wanted to make sure you saw both of them and actually the revised budget i do have one adjustment in here that you're that is not on your information as i reviewed it i did not move the um assigned carryover to be spent so it needs to be spent and shown as a being spent and so i missed that unfortunately as i was creating this and it's in my big spreadsheet it just got missed on this one so that's my

085error and i want to make sure you're under the revised so 620 yes okay so and then as we so you can see actually you can see that our fund our unassigned fund balance looks pretty good still because we're making the adjustments these one-time adjustments this year um and we're seeing some a little bit of offset just because of the declining enrollment we are seeing some that it looks doesn't look as bad as we anticipated um but i will caution you as we get into next year with those one-time funds going away it's um and depending on how we look at enrollment for the future that will be a big driver of of the next year's budget and so you can see a lot of our fund in our fund balances in that restricted area

086is also being spent down if you look at the audited fund balances compared to the estimated you can see we're spending all of those down as well so it's about a six million dollar overall decrease in our fund balance but in the unassigned um it's about the two and a half million dollar decrease there from that 14 million down to the 12 4 is what that new number is any questions about any of this it's a lot of information we've been talking about this is a large budget where we are you know not over a hundred million dollar budget there's a lot of components to this budget that um we need to take into consideration and as we look through to the next several years we'll be looking at all of those components and seeing

087how they affect our budget and if we want to look at the preliminary budget for all other funds i'm the biggest piece of these other funds you can see our food service we are spending that down that also has to do with construction when that is hitting you can see our high school kitchen was the biggest component of that and that all happened in this fiscal year and so you see us spending some of that down we are getting a larger reimbursement for all of the meals that we're serving under the summer food program but mainly the reason that this is being spent down isn't because of that it's really because of the construction the planned expenditures there as well and if we look at community education they originally had we're going to see a

088large increase in their fund balance they unfortunately are not able to do that but they are able to maintain that fairly well to this so we're looking at that i mean the six million in comparison to the three million right and that's because of they think can you just repeat oh that's because of the the increase in the decrease in revenue from community ed is because of you're not able to offer the programs okay yeah right okay i just want to make sure yep so you can see we're planning on spending on all of our construction fund really isn't any changes in our debt service can custodial internal service fund those are remaining the same any questions so here we have our next steps i'm in december we'll have our truth in taxation hearing we'll

089be looking at our approval of our revised budget those two things we do together but they don't really go hand in hand you know we're not a county or a city where the budget where the levy drives our budget in the in our current year our levy is for next year even though we're approving our revised budget what we're approving in december affects next year's budget and then we'll be looking at the board really to develop our parameters for our budget for 21 22 and really beyond because those will be the drivers for what we want our you know where does the board want to go with that we'll be bringing budget scenarios based on those parameters for 2122 throughout our budget process monitoring our student enrollment monitoring those things that we have talked about

090already our utility costs our sub costs those kinds of things that could affect the current year budget and future budget as well and then really our legislative updates i've heard a few things already because of the free and reduced lunch i'm you know if anybody is listening i recommend that people if you've applied in the past and haven't this year please do so because it does affect our budget i think throughout the state of minnesota school districts are losing 157 million dollars in revenue because families don't have a need to apply for free and reduced lunch and so the state is saving those funds school districts will be losing those funds that's the latest number i've heard and so it is important that families if you have applied in the past and you think you

091can qualify it's important for you to apply because the schools receive funding for those both in federal and state funding because all of our title funds as well um are based on that economic indicator go ahead okay apologize a few i don't think you said this one but on the other funds what what's up with the opec did i miss this part okay so our auditor yeah changed how he presented that we do [Music] we do have money there and that's why it's so frustrating to see that oh yeah so this we do have about 8 million over 8 million there in that fund but this is the 3 million dollars was short from that implicit rate which we never really think that we're going to hit and so i'm not really sure how you

092want to see this i think it looks very odd as well so um but we do have money there but it's required by our auditor that that shows us the negative what we're short of the of the total funding oh okay so the given the so 11 for potential post retirement futures there's another three million whatever then up so there's a lot we should have like saying that you should have 11 million right could be something in there okay well you know well that would mean it would show a zero if we have a million i think it's weird or i could make some sort of notation on there that the district has you know well it makes it look that might be helpful yeah i think so yeah so what's changing is they're changing

093the calculation of the liability they're showing the calc they're showing the liability as what we're deficit when we actually have enough funding to meet our actual liability what we don't have funding for is the implicit rate subsidy which we'll never need to pay and so it doesn't make sense for the district to try and keep accumulating money that we won't spend they keep changing this i mean it's like they keep moving it more towards that direction but it is extremely confusing for the average person to look at this and think what does this mean looks like you're especially into the negative i agree yeah a notation would be i think a notation of some sort because it makes it look like we don't know what we're talking about we've had quite lively discussions in my

094office about how we present this but this is how the auditor is requiring this and so i need to show it this way but i can certainly make a notation to say that's please do i think that makes more sense to me i don't know what the other book but it makes it look like we don't know what we're doing and we do so thanks for pointing that out there any other questions jonathan um just just in general for all of your tuning in and talking to colleagues in this work um stacy and i were in the delegate assembly pre-meeting um where msba people were talking about how what they were going to lobby for and we talked about things like holding harmless for not not having applications for free and reduced priced lunch because

095that will directly impact students so severely in other districts harder than ours perhaps but also the you know possibilities of holding harmless pupil counts or using the grader of like this october versus you know that october for calculating um revenue from the state are you picking up on any of that or is that all just in your opinion way too hopeful a bill went to both the house and senate to hold districts harmless it went nowhere and so i'm not optimistic about that um that doesn't mean they're in special session so maybe that just means they don't want to do anything in special session we certainly will be pushing for that as well i'm hearing that they're really looking at saving the funding because the state won't be in a great place cash-wise as well

096as shifting school district funding from a 90-10 where we received 90 percent of our funding in the current year and 10 percent in the following year to something less than that i have not heard what that is but if you recall in 2014 we were shifted all the way to 60 40. so i don't anticipate that will happen in one year however i wouldn't be surprised at a 25 or 70 30 i think it will be more than a 80 20. that's that's a guess as well so i mean don't hold me to that but i i know that the they are deficit spending you know 6 billion and so i believe that that will i have not heard anything from all of my sources that have said that there's any hope for any of

097that but i don't want to be that negative i've got to hope that they're going to do something for schools and i don't know if there will be another coved relief package coming out and if there is we're really hoping that there's a way that they will allow us to supplant instead of supplements so that we can utilize it for that deficit spend that we've been planning for these students they're not here can we use it for that we're hoping maybe there's some additional funding for that as well but i have not heard anything about that either so but that's always a possibility as well thank you i just have a quick one um the the special ed increase being less than what was anticipated do we have fewer students is that changing that formula

098different than what we were anticipating so when you're a growing district you get additional revenue for the additional students that you have because we're no longer growing district we don't we won't see that revenue but we again mostly a function of enrollment any other questions thank you julie thank you next on our agenda is the capital project tech levy jeff and marcus all right good evening chair shimik members of the board dr stahlo mr malazzo and i socially distant are up here this evening to continue our conversation and dialogue around a technology levy discussion for the board our presentation tonight has several distinct portions that we're going to start and talk a little bit about a brief history lesson a recap of why we're here uh we'll also be doing so we'll be going over

099what we talked about the last uh study session at that point as a board you'd asked us to go out and get more information and feedback from stakeholders notably students and staff regarding technology devices largely because the student experience the teaching experience but also that does drive some of the budgetary components too as a board as you continue to talk about a technology levy and then we'll just at the end of this evening again encourage your discussion questions and just provide us additional uh questions or provide us additional steps moving forward so as a board you can continue to have this conversation around a tech levy so back on august 3rd we we had spent the time uh talking about you know areas of a potential technology levy and really where this whole topic came

100out of was last spring's budget conversation looking at what are some of those long-term revenues as a district we should be looking at and out of that process a capital projects levy or a technology levy also interchangeably used came out of that process and as a board directing administration to start looking at what does that look like for prior lake savagery schools and so mr milazzo and i spent considerable amount of time going through and spent and doing a lot of planning internal look and what you see there highlighting yellow was the lion share of what we brought forward to you on august 3rd was really kind of the back of the house what what is the current overview of our of the department and technology currently look like so i'm going to turn that

101over to him to kind of do a quick refresh and then we'll get back into really bringing you that update information on the staff and student stakeholder feedback good evening as jeff mentioned the next couple slides are a review of our meeting from august 3rd so i'm going to go through them quickly stop me if you have any questions so this first slide here is a tech budget overview and it is a uh comparison from 2019 to 2020 2021 and you see there what we have listed is software uh hardware salary consultants e content subscriptions district cell phones and assessments so not a lot of change between the years but it's it's good to review um this slide is our comparison of how we're staff compared to our neighbors the mobile device inventory this is

102has changed not so much the numbers but the types of devices since august 3rd we have had to pivot and go to a k-12 or in some cases e12 one-to-one so what we did is we pulled apart every cart of chromebooks that we owned in the district and so those chromebooks are no longer in carts but they are in the hands of our students um our ipads as well we we had ipad 4s and ipad minis and and they were um seven years plus and as far as age and what we did as as some of this covered really funding became available and some other revenue streams what we were able to do is leverage those funds and upgrade the ipad minis so six or eight just got their new ipads through through that relief

103fund and um and we'll be able to e-recycle those ipad minis and get them out of the rotation again there's over seven years old what we were hearing from our stakeholders uh was battery life um you know just general age of the equipment could not upgrade the ios to the latest and greatest so we were losing some functionality there so again we were able to um act quickly and get new devices in the hands of our middle school kids so i'm happy about that and the ability to do that so thanks for everybody that was involved in making that happen next couple slides are just again some of the the review of some of the options we brought forward in august at august third meeting we're going to talk more about devices and what we

104heard from our stakeholders later on in the presentation so again these are just reviews of some of the options we brought forward it's you know in this one it's a mix of ipads and chromebooks option six was uh ipads chromebooks and then macbook airs um this slide was the board at the time asked uh you know what does average repair cost and and this is holding true even today now that we have even more devices in the hands of our students is this is what we're averaging for even though the slide is refers back to august 3rd bless you uh it is it goes to it's it's holding true and it's staying pretty um pretty uh current as far as what we're experiencing with replacement costs we break a lot of screens and it happens

105accidents happen so that's just one of the realities so that's what we see quite a bit slide refers to our levee referendum uh comparison again with our neighbors and we covered this back in august third and i'm going to turn it over to mr holmberg so that he can explain this slide that we did present back in august 3rd about the tax impact thanks marcus back in the tax impact as part of our presentation the board for discussion was looking at three different potential levy amounts two and a half million three and a half million four and a half million what that impact would look like again just giving the board uh the standpoint of what that tax impact would be relative to uh capital projects our technology levy as you continue to deliberate and

106so again this is just a quick recap of what we talked about on on august 3rd and again out of this came the the question of you know again with the options you saw option five and six we had several other options that we had also presented that evening and as a board the direction you gave us was really to talk about what is what is the staff experience what what are staff saying about devices what are students saying about devices and so that's what we're here to update you on night for the new information um and so again you heard some key pieces here as a result of of covid 19 we've pivoted from a uh 812 one to one district to an e-12 one-to-one district so carts you see a lot of things

107that have been broken down and redistributed you heard earlier julie talk about the coronavirus relief funds and using those dollars for things that were not budgeted to you know basically to supplant without the coronavirus relief funds it would be very it would have been very difficult for the district to number one go to one to one let alone replace those ipad minis and that aging equipment for our students but because of the necessity of going one-to-one and having students have their own devices for distance learning that funding mechanism did help us but also where we started with our one-to-one initiative quite a few years ago it was used for we paid for that out of capital expenditures an existing budget it was not funded out of a tech levy or capital projects levy and so

108you see that comparison as a district we've never had a technology levy the the devices and technology that we've been able to provide to students and for that student and staff experience has been out of our district's general fund so we're going to spend some time talking a little bit about what we did we we surveyed staff employees and students in grades 312. looking at we didn't look at kindergarten first or second grade just from the standpoint of uh you know obviously they would have a lot to to share and offer but we also spent realize that probably our intermediate students would be able to give us maybe a little bit more direct perspective on how they were using the device all the way up to 12. and then from there we also broke out

109into focus groups for elementary middle school and high school students gathering the narrative around uh you know the survey that was was sent out so let's break down the employees first uh employee survey was sent out uh via email there were five questions 417 responses uh overwhelmingly you see a high teacher staff that that participated in the survey but we also had secretarial staff paraprofessionals administration child nutrition services operations and ground and we're excited to see that because as a as a district everyone has a primary function central to our mission and vision and that's to help the students help the organization and that feedback is absolutely key critical in order to have for those individuals to feel successful in their job in the district and so we'll get into so it's exciting to see

110and i'm very we're very thankful that they participated in that you also see the surveys by grade level with the employees from early childhood people who selected that they support all grades are not applicable and then you see the breakdowns by grade bands 3 5 k 2 9 12 6 8. reason why it's out of org why the why the groups are out of org or disorganized a little differently is based on the graph we had a higher percentage of grades six through eight employees participate in the survey we also asked employees which devices are currently using and these are a balance of school-issued devices but also devices that people are using at home we have so people indicated windows laptop chromebook ipad hp desktop and macbook air the high percentage of of teaching staff

111participating will all have a macbook air that's why we have a high level of people indicating that they use macbook airs also too as mr mazzo has presented in previous presentations all of our classrooms with the smart boards have an hp desktop in them as well and so teachers are using can use both either for the mobility of the of the macbook air as well as the hp desktop in their classroom how do employees use the devices this is a breakdown and you see a real high percentage of what a productivity tools that staff are using for their jobs and you see you know across the board and and this is we're very happy to see that from curriculum to apps software and then you start to see the application and creation of in collaboration

112with other colleagues and then accessing the internet i want you to kind of remember the percentages here 60 percent and above for all of these because when we get to the student one i'm gonna we'll see a little bit of a difference um we also spent some time asking employees what else do you need your devices to do and this is a site we have to pay particular attention to the number one thing or the prep one of the prevailing items that came across was being able to preview the student experience and when you dig deeper into that comment it was if i have a macbook air and my students have an ipad if we're asking students to do something different we're not necessarily able to see the student experience from the device that we

113have or if we're asked if with some of our paraprofessionals that have a chromebook and they're working with students and students have an ipad they're not able to transfer or essentially replicate or preview that experience that students have so it's a bit of a something that has to be navigated from the teaching and support standpoint for the student experience hybrid and distance learning showing multiple screens or windows and this was really we'll highlight this a bit here too a lot of times students and staff are saying you know what we use our our macbook airs to be able to do our google meet we have our desktop computers with other windows open in order to see the presentation or whatever or to see another document you know for some people i like to see myself

114present but then i can't see the presentation if i'm seeing the presentation i can't see my students you know that are that are on the the google meet and so you see people using multiple devices during a distance or hybrid learning again as we look at our remote learning and distance learning from covet 19 absent of covet i don't think we would have i don't think we understood this so i guess i wouldn't say it's a silver lining but certainly the amount that staff are relying on technology is giving us a very rich uh perspective about how they're using it the functionality and effectiveness camera usage is also a big one too um students demonstrating or showing their work either through taking a picture and sending it through schoology or seesaw or vice versa from

115from staff as well and then also secretaries one one note in particular we were able to pull from the secretarial uh participants is you know secretaries are working in their office they have an hp desktop however as we start looking at remote work that is something that did start coming up how how does that work you know with an hp desktop as we look at employees and again you can recall the the percentage of people who who participated the rank uh choice device preferences macbook air you know overwhelmingly the comments people really appreciate the mobility the functionality the hard drive the ability to you know do internet searches as well as do things locally on their on their computer hp desktop was the first choice of secretarial staff and then from there it kind of

116goes to that windows laptop we do have have some individuals that have hp laptops as well ipad and then alt and then the last choice for staff is chromebook so what this helps us with is as we plan moving forward on a capital projects levy we would want to focus our for our teaching and teaching staff having looking at a macbook air as our continued product or continued device in helping them contin you know do their work as teachers and working with students from there we'll kind of shift to the students survey part this was that we sent the survey to students through our learning management system uh either schoology or through see saw with a number of survey responses there were eight items we asked them to respond to we had 700 1733 responses

117a very high middle school participation rate which we love seeing um you know uh certainly because you know if you're sixth seventh and eighth grader you've got a few more years in the prior lake savage area school pipeline from the standpoint of engagement and then ultimately too with our elementary so from our what devices are students currently using and you start to see that breakdown certainly students in priority coverage savagery schools are either issued an ipad or a chromebook but you also see two students using other devices at home as well in their work and we'll and that the survey will or the focus groups will also shed some light on that what our device is commonly used for and you start to see some of these same things that staff are using it for

118but you see a a marked decrease in the percentage of what they're actually using these tools for we we intentionally didn't leave person left personal use off of it certainly i'm sure students are using it for a variety of reasons but evidently not a lot of them are creating or editing spreadsheets or at least depending on the class that they're in so again humorous but also you kind of see the the perspective of of what students are sharing the rank choices for students as you think macbook air chromebook windows laptop and an ipad from the survey from there we mr milazzo chrislyn goodman our director of evaluation research went out and we worked with our tech integration specialist and with our our principals to set up and find student groups to talk to and we

119were looking for diverse participants we didn't want all the tech gurus likewise we didn't want people who really you know students who really struggled with technology want a balance we wanted to try to figure out what's working really well what are challenges and so we're looking for device use and experience we're also looking for expertise you know some of the students were were swat kids those are the students that are highly techie in our schools and some are you know students that you know just you know just by the the teachers knowing them our tech integration specialists knowing them say hey you have a great voice let's get you involved in this process and then also demographically diversity in in the students we're talking to gender students of color across the board we did do

120this in person several weeks ago physically distant mass you know and then we also allowed students who were participating in distance learning to also participate in this process remotely as well so we had in-person students and we also had students at home or in distance format ins we're going to break it down by elementary middle school and high school insights that we receive from our elementary students is students do do a good deal of typing you know the necessity of having a keyboard the size of the of the device is important too you know you have mobility and you have backpacks you know certainly a smaller device would be less cumbersome than a larger device camera placement and then drawing capabilities too uh just from the standpoint of in science or some of those other

121things where they're drawing or in the case of the ipad using the notability app which you know you you're receiving some you know and use your finger and you on an ipad you're you're drawing out an answer or sharing an answer with that their preference uh was a chromebook but their desire was for a touch screen you know and a keyboard and a stylus and we'll talk about that too here in just a little bit this was really working with elementary students was really a great uh great experience uh they you know they kind of controlled the conversation you know they they really didn't need a lot of prompting um i always thought it was good because i thought it was great because they asked one one of the students asked asked us if you

122know mr milazzo ms goodman and i were like good friends and it's like well of course we are you know we hang out all the time we work a lot we're close you know and then they asked me if i was a professional and so i had i said well certainly on most days i'm professional you know and that type of thing so it was really a great experience again talking with students and hearing their insights but you can see some of the some of the feedback that that they were they were also that they were also sharing too it was interesting too and we didn't put this up here is um we sort of asked word of mouth you know chromebook with a stylus what if you had like say a macbook and a

123lot of kids were like yes you know that would be great because it's apple but one student couple students did point out the chromebook one of the limitations is it is an online device you need to have wi-fi and so the challenges of if you don't have wi-fi doesn't allow us to do some of the things and i think you know as board members at the last couple times at the august third meeting i think that was something that one of the board members brought up around having a hard drive for students to work locally on a device without wi-fi and so it's it you know it is it is a theme that does start to emerge in our conversations with kids middle school you see some similar things keyboarding is essential compatibility with our

124learning management system for efficiency touch screen keyboard stylus all desired they also said too in addition to what we receive all students are using personal devices as well again the multiple screens of participating in the google meet and then being able to do the homework on a different device preference chromebook preferred over an ipad but the macbook air was 100 that would be what they would want and they also pointed out too the hard drive piece you know not so high school this was interesting too they felt the the the chromebooks were restrictive relative to the wi-fi piece they the hard drive was desired to be able to work on things without have necessarily having wi-fi access touch screen keyboard stylus all desired compatibility with the learning management system again all students are using personal

125devices in concert with their school issued device and then their preference macbook air and windows a windows device that seemed to be the one thing that really came through was a windows device this was kind of a strong theme of this focus of the of the high school folks they mentioned surface quite a bit too in our focus group what the high school kids is so we'll talk about that i'll have you talk about that shortly here in just a second so here's what our takeaways you know what functions or tasks are critical moving forward from the student focus group perspective keyboard touch screen stylus battery life battery battery life is a is an issue especially with our older equipment our middle school uh we we met with them prior to the seventh and eighth

126graders getting the new ipads battery life was a significant challenge i mean it wouldn't hold a charge during the day and then also software access and i believe that had that was also a hard drive related issue as well so our device options to explore for students and i'm going to turn over to marcus to talk about those and and give kind of some overview perspective on yeah going back to this slide here is with the student takeaways and the functionality that they're looking for again the keyboard the touchscreen stylus battery life and software access um is there one device that does all that maybe you know to be determined um it was exactly what mr holmberg said it was a lot of fun going out meeting with the students and listening as a former

127teacher i thoroughly enjoyed it it's always good to get back in the buildings and hear and see kids and just to hear their perspectives and their feedback and you know a lot of the kids brought up the battery life with the ipad minis and as a former teacher and now as a director of tech i'm thinking well how many apps you got open but i also know that hey this is an older device and it's also you know we know what as these devices age their battery capacity is um it decreases and it's limited so again it was really great to hear that feedback directly from from our kiddos and going back to this slide here there we go thank you um there's a desire they like chromebooks uh the elementary kids loved them from

128what we heard but they were so big and they made their backpacks heavier and which they do i mean they're 14 inch screen and their backpacks only have so much real estate so having a a we one carry around a backpack filled with their supplies their lunchbox and their and their chromebook we heard about it and they they let us know that they're big they like them but they're really big and they don't have room in their backpacks but they they really wanted our chromebooks don't have touch capabilities and that's something that they were really felt strongly about that they thought they would be more productive and useful if they did have touch capabilities keyboards came up in every group a lot and i think that's you know we could attribute that to the fact

129that there's a lot of document creation whether it's in office 365 or g suite i think and i know that our students are doing a lot of document creation and it's hard to do on an ipad with the on-screen keyboard um they're probably better on their phones with their thumbs but it's the reality is it's hard to knock out a paper with that on-screen keyboard so we heard about a physical keyboard time and time again they do have keyboards for ipads but as we as we look at and increasing this functionality with the devices that does add to the the overall price tag and i just want to be really transparent about that is that if if there is this device out there that checks all the boxes we're going to need some peripherals or

130add-ons and that will have an impact on a potential tech level of what we go out for and to cover those costs so just please be aware of that again i mentioned earlier the surface came up at the high school and i was kind of surprised to hear that um i think students like we and the reason why i was surprised is that we haven't offered a surface in the district before it's not a device that i mean i i know many many years back when we originally went out for um you know a one-to-one it was we looked at ipads and serv we looked at a number of devices there was dells mixed in there so we looked at it since you were you're not in your head so we looked at a lot

131of different devices that's the last time we looked at a surface and they've i know they've come a long way but i was just it was interesting to me to hear that that was something that the high school kids really thought would be a good fit in some way shape or form because it does have a stylus and touch screen and a keyboard and a kickstand and some other things so that came up and i just thought it was interesting um and then overall choice every time we asked about devices hand shot for the macbook airs i just i think they love the idea and concept of having a a mac an apple product that has a solid state drive it has a physical keyboard doesn't have touch screen but it doesn't have a stylus

132but it has some other functionality that i think students were really interested in so those were my observations so you want me to keep going on this one yeah okay um device options to explore for staff as mr holmberg mentioned and as the data shows that we collected from our staff or stakeholders that are teachers is that the macbook air has been a valuable tool i think people appreciate and recognize that not everybody in the district has a macbook air we again what is mentioned is secretarial staff and other office workers have um hp workstations that are running either windows 7 or windows 10 and we're working through that process get them all up to 10. so that needs to be considered too is what do we do for uh staff members who are in

133an office or not teaching staff so that we can't lose sight of that as well the desktops i believe have a place in our district we just need to identify what that is and and the rationale behind it so but i don't want to lose sight of that um as you know the we pulled ipads from staff to redistribute to students ipads did come up but not in huge numbers uh through what we saw uh i mentioned hp desktop and and the other staff are groups that use them and then we do have a very select few of individuals that have an hp laptop as well but those that number is very very small but if if we're looking at you know hp desktops for office staff is that hp laptop with a dock that's

134on you know because what we find a lot is that it's screen real estate people who are working in the office spaces or administrative they're looking for a larger screen multiple screens to to take their work and spread it out so that they can they can be more productive so one of the advantages of a laptop is portability and you can take it anywhere but one of the what i would argue is one of the negatives and downsides is that you're limited with screen space and real screen reality so um we we constantly get uh requests for is there a way i can hook this up to a second monitor because i want to take my work and spread it out and back in this presentation earlier a couple slides that was discovered and covered

135as well as that screen real estate and the ability to want to take that it and spread that out across multiple devices so um i'll pass it back to mr holmberg for timelines and next steps yeah so again uh this was a follow-up to the third of really uh again coming out there to say bring us more feedback regarding staff and students i mean tonight there's there's not a choice we're asking any board members to make but we just again wanted to bring that back to you and provide that information allow this to open up for you to ask any questions but also uh provide us some some direction for next steps you know do you want us to keep you know would you like us to go out and start to research these different

136options a little bit more as we look at that slide that we kind of highlighted the three parts of of a tech levy that you know there is another component of looking at staffing around that as well i know the last board meeting our tech integration specialist provided an update of how they're supporting staff it's a great showcase of their time and talents of how they're supporting staff and distance learning but and there's also a back of the house group the ones that make all the widgets and the lights work everything's plugged in you know that we also have to consider as well too and so those would be possible next steps but at this point we want to open up for discussion for the board you know any follow-up questions and then ultimately two

137next steps that you'd like to see us do and move forward from here any questions i have film go ahead stacy yes um okay so um just and you maybe answered this in august but august seems like a lifetime ago so i'm gonna ask it because i don't know if i did or not um on the um department staffing comparison for the 15 technology staff where are the tech integrationists are they in this are they under teaching and learning are that they're in this but they're yes they're included in this number that is correct they are yes so they're not considered teaching online that's i just didn't know so how they're funded some of our are fun they are ptosis so they're teachers on special assignment right so they are teachers um their funding source

138either comes from the technology department or staff development because they provide the support staff okay so this isn't necessarily all four of them is that what you're saying or they are included in the ratio calculation okay but from a budgeting standpoint okay yes that okay sorry um as far as on the elementary um you know you're talking about you know their area what they what they preferred um it was a keyboard now you know anecdotally what i hear sometimes and i don't you know i hear snippets obviously so is there a difference between first and third needs and fourth and sixth like like as far as a writing or like i've seen kindergarteners use the ipads they can do some pretty cool things out on the screen and that kind of interactive they're not necessarily

139doing reports we're like i know a fourth to sixth grade teachers were like really begging for things with keyboards so i just when it said elementary i didn't know if that was a cart blank like everybody or could there be a difference between one to three or whatever there certainly could be a difference so when we looked at three four five you know we expect i mean one of the things in the student focus group was you know stu we asked students to think back when they were younger and they said they love the ipad i mean we know from the curriculum standpoint there are more app-centric experiences for kids where you know that better facilitates through an ipad same thing with a picture same thing with the draw screen and so it is certainly

140um from what we understand and know and what kids and teachers are using ipad is a great tool at our primary elementary but as you pointed out what came up in our focus group is students identifying that typing or that keyboarding component to papers and projects and things like that coming forward so certainly what we shared with you tonight was a third fourth fifth grade perspective but looking at primary i i would think you know right now we have second graders using chromebooks and and because we we've run out of ipads you're right so we're k1 ipads and then two through five yep and so they do have screen so okay but we certainly could do ipads at the primary level kindergarten first grade and i think that probably would be a direction we would

141we would look into more deeply with our teachers okay so we have second through fifth right now in chrome and then six to eight or no did six get new or seventh and eighth grade knew six seven six two orders so seven and eight was uh what we originally ordered and that additional funding became available so we ordered sixth grade so six seven eighth grade have the brand new ipads okay okay nine through twelve have the fifth or sixth gen k1 have minis i'm sorry k has minis one has the full-size ipads that are fifth or sixth gen and two through five have the chromebooks we took everything apart to get it out in the hands of students so that's our current reality right um and i do i mean i see the need of

142multiple devices i i mean i think especially in today's world of zoom and technology and trying to read something while you're on a meeting and that kind of thing you know hopefully this isn't going to be our new reality and we'll go back to normal at some point um so i think just trying to be aware of that of what that looks like is it still a multi-device type situation and in regular time is that what we think or not necessarily as much i you know i think we all dream of regular times but i think we're going back to a new normal um you know one of the things that we prior to prior to covid we as a district we always prided ourselves in what's the tool that best matches the learning outcome

143or experience for kids that's why we've had that's why we have chromebooks and we had carts or chromebooks and ipads and where we've had students with ipads we've had chromebook carts and vice versa at the elementary so we'd have carts of each so that there was a diversity of tools and so we we do have a student in a population that has had experiences working with both both technologies um same thing with our staff and so one of the things moving forward is the equipment that we have it does have a shelf life i mean we we the ipad mini seven or eight years the things that we're buying now we're going to continue to use as a district until they until they go end of life and i think one of the things that

144we've always committed to is continuing to evaluate that student experience and continuing to evaluate the tools that teachers need in order to deliver that curriculum content so we're going to continue to do that we're going to continue to try to be as responsive as we can you know to staff and students but also look for ways that we can be more standardized in the in the equipment and in the devices that we have for students moving forward if there's anything you'd want to add to that okay and then um with talk of the hp desktop and you said you see a spot a role for that um i guess what would you see that i mean in the dream world what what role would you see that the hp desktop has you know moving forward

145officers okay comes to mind right away um right now all all the two buildings have hp desktops in their classrooms and that's connected to all of our av infrastructure so if it's a smart board it's connected just like this scenario here here's hp marcus can you can you go more i can't sorry better yep sorry more for the people not here absolutely and i'm wearing my mask i'm sorry um so the question was what role does hp desktops have and i see it in in office spaces and um when i was what i mentioned earlier was that the hp desktops are all connected to our classroom av equipment um whether it's you know smart board or epson short throw so um there is a need um but we've leased our desktops in the past and

146right now we've we've paid that lease and you know that's an area we have to look at upgrading again because again we're either on windows 7 or windows 10 they're four to five years old and it's we try to stick to a four or five year replacement plan but um you know interesting unique timing um with where our replacement plan falls in our budget situation and our current realities with distance learning so we try to stay flexible but i definitely think there's a need and um there's a be a good fit for them but where is to be determined i could identify some areas so i think this absolutely they need to be but uh i think it's based on further conversations too moving forward i i don't know if if there's a will or

147a demand or a need to have two or three devices for every staff member um again it's it's hard to find a device that does everything and meets everybody's needs on the first you know go go around but it's what we try to do but it's it'll be all part of this discussion is what what does that replacement plan look like moving forward um something that we didn't mention yet i believe we mentioned maybe in the august third meeting is you know our short throw projectors our smart boards those those are aging devices as well and we we have replaced them as they go out or their parts aren't available anymore because of the model number we replace it with new but it's something that it goes back into that infrastructure that i definitely want

148to take a look at as well and just say you know is a smart board the way to go is there an epson short throw or a bright link it's you know and smart notebook for software versus other software tools out there so a lot of moving parts but go back to your original question i do think desktops have a place and i we can identify a few right now but moving forward i would like to have that conversation on if they're a fit in the classroom um and then my last question and julie i might be putting you on the spot over here just might need you um just as far as the funding piece and looking at that preliminary information um i can't remember this from referendum stuff but comparison the capital project

149levy as comparison to an operating lovely the impact to the homeowner this i don't know i was kind of like this seems like a higher impact per household you know what i'm saying is there is there a difference there i can't remember there is okay i haven't done the research into that yet to see what that impact would be versus tech levy versus an operating but we will certainly that's on our agenda to do that and because i just yeah depending on where it goes or whatever i think maybe looking at options on that even just the impact to the taxpayer depending on what type of funding source would be helpful too i think one takes into consideration market value and one time adjusted that tax capacity that's the difference i knew it was on

150something else because i was like oh this amount it just seems a little different than so and we'll do some research for that okay perfect thank you that's it for me uh jonathan or michael do you have any questions just very quickly i would assume um seeing the commonality of the request from students and teachers for a macbook air that would answer the concern of teachers to be able to preview what their students are seeing and doing is that correct i know that we've talked multiple devices as well but yes that's that is correct i mean they're you have teachers and students utilizing the same devices it is a much more streamlined experience jonathan i just have one um refresh my memory back when we looked at these in august um and we laid out

151the kind of the estimates on the cost for the different plans you and you added two of those back in here that that total number was a one-time acquisition cost that's not an annual depending on how it's how it's structured that's a one-time acquisition cost correct correct so you want to talk a little bit marcus as far as you referenced it before and the answer about a replacement plan the capital projects levy is typically 10 years we would anticipate at least two if not three replacement plans sorry chair shimak so so we would anticipate you know over the course of a successful 10-year technology levy or commitment would have multiple refresh cycles for this equipment so yes that would be the one-time cost but that cost typically like we've done previous contracts for technology has

152either been leased to purchase over four years or five years you know with the terms of that type of agreement can you talk a little bit about the replacement plan usually the cycle we're attempting to hit yeah we're trying to hit a four to five year replacement cycle that's not always the case and and that's obvious if we have ipad minis that are seven years old but it's uh we also like to get a return on our investment if we we see a device that still works and meets the needs and and can provide a service and be a valuable tool then we do it um and to be honest people they get used to their stuff and get territorial don't want to give it up as well i mean that's that's human nature we

153all do it it's like i like this device don't take it away please so it's uh but we we try to stay true to that that four or five year cycle again there are some exceptions um we also look at the the capabilities of the device to upgrade to the latest and greatest os as well and if you know if like for instance the ipads start following two or three ios versions behind then they they don't get all the feature sets that are available with the latest and greatest updates so that's another sign so it's not we're not always locked into a four or five year i mean that's just our that's our guiding principles are getting you know it's one of our benchmarks but it also depends on the device and what it can

154and can't do anymore as well so yes mary actually i would like to ask a couple questions first mary oh i'm sorry um i guess i want some i guess my comment is uh when we go move forward on this if we move forward obviously there's you've asked what preferences are so there's the nice to have and there's what we can get by with or a little better than get by with i mean technology has become pretty obvious that we need it and it's you know overwhelming how much we need it actually um in this last nine months so i guess i'm just kind of wondering i mean if somebody asked me what i prefer i'm gonna top of the line right why wouldn't i so i guess i'm a little bit concerned about that

155question as to what how we move forward um and the other part is i just want to understand a little bit maybe to what jonathan was saying those options you gave are just for the devices so that doesn't include any staffing i mean it's great to have good devices but if we can't have the staffing that can help us use them that's an issue so um not sure where next steps are except to find out that kind of information to get those dollars on the impact of what kind of a of a ask we have from the community i mean what the numbers that are here are kind of high but yet we don't want to go halfway and end up back where we are now so i mean i get that there's a balance

156um so i i guess i don't really have a question as much as i have comments just to see what i have um mary did you have a question um well first of all i'm sorry that i got on late again um things went a little longer than i anticipated but i had a couple of general questions that i'm sure have already been answered and then some that i don't think have based upon what i jumped in on the first thing is just to clarify that regardless of when the levy goes through at this point the earliest we can get it then is january 2022 the money i'm just trying to put that into perspective also no that's not correct um i'm gonna have we'll have julie come up and and talk about what that

157timing looks like pending a successful just did somebody already ask that question am i asking you to repeat it no we haven't gotten that far okay so um no matter what happens between now anytime that you have a vote between now and no but next november that would go into effect the following school year and then anything after next november would be again the following school year after that so anything between now and she is 2022 is right then for next year so january 2022 is when we would start to actually receive the money because we start being taxed january july you would start being taxed in january but the district doesn't recognize or receive that money till may and it doesn't get recognized until the following school year any money that's in our current

158so any money for next year that we receive for instance and taxing is part of our 21 2122 budget tax so so anything that happens between now and next november is in our 22 23 budget okay so after july so july july 20 i apologize because they were kind of you know between the tax year and then the academic year when we realized money if we were to do a levy in may let's say it would actually hit the homeowners in january of 2022 and then we would start to realize that money in the 2022-23 school year correct okay all right um then i had a couple of questions for um the whole process of determining where the you know the the longevity uh the um life cycle management plan etc um you know from

159obviously the the students haven't had a chance to touch a surface pro or anything like that um so the the survey there would be a little off but really the common denominator is they want to be able to store locally on their device and they want to have a keyboard is what i'm gathering from the surveys of both the staff and the students and then i would think that what we would want to do is look at a configuration that would last longer and one of the issues you have with going with with giving the students anything but an actual microsoft laptop is you're going to be limited on the cost of the memory which is really one of the you know other than they've done dropping it or something like that is one of

160the primary determinants of of the longevity of a device so for instance if somebody got a desktop or a laptop right now that has 16 gig instead of 8 gig for memory it's much more likely even though it may act slower it's much more likely to survive longer and that's you know in in and we've talked about this back in july where you go with these smaller pads and the average configuration is eight gigs of memory so you run into roadblocks on on the next major not the next couple of ios upgrades or something like that but a year and a half out all of a sudden a lot of your apps won't even load at the same time that you need to load particularly from an internet and so you know when i look

161the keyboard um requirement and local storage um i add in the memory and that kind of does limit our options here which what we're gonna cost out as far as if we don't want to continually to pay a replacement fee for these devices and or we want them to truly last four years and not be crawling to the finish line in four years with some of our students and then be stuck with this massive you know redistribution of devices and i'm not sure if you have an opinion on that but that's kind of the way i see things you're asking for an opinion well i mean that's the way i look at it if we're trying to maximize the price maximize usability and give students the technology and teachers the technology whether they work remotely

162or in the classroom um so that's the next thing two things the common denominators the keyboard and local storage and the next thing is is that we're looking at having something that's not going to limp to the finish line when the lease is up that one of the variables that we have is to be able to increase the memory capacity on these devices now i'm not sure how you guys have interpreted this but that's kind of why i'm seeing it i'm asking for your opinion is that is that am i seeing this correctly so i agree with with a lot what you said i those are all factors we need to consider as we we you know determine our next steps and i i agree um a local hard drive solid state drive came up

163a lot keyboards came up a lot and then you got to start looking at current current demands on the device and the memory storage that it has and and factor in the growth so to your point mary so that when we get to the end of the lease it's not something where it becomes a doorstop so i agree and our lease is up when for which or which devices for the ipads the hp lease that we have on the ipads i think we voted on that in 2017 uh we don't have that in front of us we do have several different components for leases so we can get that information for you and follow up with you mary as well as the other board that is the difference between when we need to resign the

164lease and maybe if we can get a technology let me pass when we're going to get the money in and how are we going to limp through the ideal situation that covers our needs you know i don't know what the gap is sharing what the risk level of that gap is historically just speaking um just again i'd have to confirm this historically our lease our lease terms have been approximately four years that that has been historically how we've done a lease and once we complete the lease we purchase the equipment and that becomes the district's equipment and as you know you you probably heard part of this when you came in the ipad minis that we've just replaced with the coronavirus relief fund those were devices our devices that were seven years old so we

165are getting an effective or i guess a longer term than just the four years we're getting multiple years beyond that but again when you get to a device that you cannot update the ios so your two or three updates behind it does limit the functionality of the device and so i would say that would be exactly what we would want to avoid is getting to a place where our devices are no longer relevant or helpful tools in the hands of students or teachers and so you know as we i mean that's the i get that's the planning that we have to do that's the planning we continue to do when it comes to devices the planning that we have done as a district has been around a replacement plan where we target four to five

166years around the technology that we have for staff so that they can do their jobs as well as for for students what has accelerated the demands on the district is going from an 812 one to one to on to really a k-12 and e-12 one-to-one as a result of the coronavirus and distance learning and so that has number one tax the equipment that we've had but also we've had to use equipment longer and with more students than what we've originally intended and so yeah all of that we i you know i think we we can agree on all of those components but moving forward those are the plans we're going to continue to do as the board continues to deliberate you know a capital projects levy moving forward you know the new ipads that we

167have in place for our sixth seventh eighth graders they're part they're now in our circulation we'll cycle out those ipad minis and and that will be things that we continue to track for that student experience those were purchased and those were purchased those were not leased the recent ones i i did see that on there and i think we had to because the crf conditions but um so you know and i agree with everything you said but i want to go back to at least comment about staffing to do because as those as those devices age it takes more effort from the staff to keep them up keep them updated to handle issues with them stuff like that so we're always better off being on a standard life cycle even if we can cycle some

168of the older equipment out into replacement temporary replacements uh while certain things are being fixed or whatever so i agree with that um it did the crf funds actually help with the issue of when the lease is going to be renewed and potentially when we can get funds in from a tech levy because that was kind of if the lease is up let's say this coming summer and we've got to resign it are we entering any into any type of financial jeopardy area because no we're not um the crf funds have nothing to do with our current lease agreements with equipment so the crf fund i'm sorry i don't mean to rob because i can't see you it's okay okay that's all right um no my question was is when we resign the lease then

169we need to work out some money correct right and so when we do that and i'm happy we purchased some so i understand that maybe we have a little bit of leeway in how much we're leasing or something like that that's all that's the only reason why i threw that in there i'm just wondering if we let's say the leases do um or something similar to that and we need to work out a whole bunch of money for that and let's say we are successful get a tech levy passed i hope are we okay with the financial gap uh of when we would get the money in versus when we have to pay the money so that we have to pay and then we don't get it for a while does that is that a

170financial issue that we need to discuss or is that even a concern that would be some you know i think that's to your earlier question we would we could certainly come back to to another to the next board meeting or send a follow-up as to when our leases are up for the equipment and the age of the equipment no matter what i mean as as a board as you continue to have deliberations about a tech levy and the future of that moving forward we still have to have a plan around either you know right now the leases we have are typically as i mentioned four years and then we would purchase them it doesn't automatically trick if we don't have a funding source or dedicated funding source and we haven't come to the board seeking

171a dish approval to use either general fund dollars or fund balance to purchase devices we don't go off and sign new agreements and new leases we j we just we stop doing that we start you know we work within the means that we have and within the budget that we have and so i i think to some of your specifics we would have to come back and you know we could certainly share that in greater detail okay um my final just comment is as we make these decisions i would focus on what the core requirements are of the equipment not necessarily the operating system and what's going to be easiest to deploy and the longevity of that deployment on in the ease to maintain them on the staff rather than and then go back and

172say okay it's going to be hp or apple or maybe even dell i mean who knows right uh go back and and make those requirements of what we actually have to have for the students and for the staff first before we make the rest of the decision thank you yes good point enrique did you have anything to ask or add actually i think mary's final point kind of hits on one topic that i want to bring up which is making sure that whatever devices we look at whichever path and plan we look at going forward that we circle back and look at what exactly is that we're trying to accomplish in terms of educating our learners making sure that our staff have the devices they need to do the work to be able to reach

173our students and that our students are able to do the work that we're asking and requiring of them that the devices along with the software and whatever different applications and learning management system that they are very cohesive and work really well together because there's nothing worse than having a powerful top-of-the-line device that really doesn't meet the need for what the software is capable of doing or that's not compatible with the software packages so there's the two-part evaluation that needs to take place good point thank you okay um i guess what i'm hearing you're looking for next steps um and what i'm hearing generally from the board is that you've gone out and found out what what what works for the different levels and right now i think our questions have to do with timing and

174timing in a couple of ways one is and when we can go out for a levy when we would get the money and then also um obviously i don't want to say what our needs are because we already have those needs but how long we can go out before how long we can continue before we have to go out for that levy so um and then what that cost is what the best way is to go out to what the impact is to our taxpayers um it is a sensitive time even though we need the technology it's kind of a scary balance so i believe that that's the kind of information that we need now um if other board members have anything else to add or disagree please speak up is there a time frame

175that you'd like us to come back to the board again i know in august you had said fall please keep this topic at the center of our conversations is that something you'd like us to work with dr stahlo i think i think you know without taxing you too much with all the other things going on kovid related that the sooner you can come back to the board the better at least then we can make a decision easier to have the information now and then delay it than to say oh why didn't we do this before and sure does that make sense for everyone yeah i guess i just so as far as um financial impact um just kind of looking out what a levy would do you know depending on if there'd be relief to

176operating dollars and that kind of thing i guess i'd like to see what those impacts are and the timing you know right i don't know if that's more like spreadsheet-ish but you know what i mean like like really see specifically how the dollars can change depending on what those what those numbers are so yeah and i have a question on that timing sure what stacy just said um when you go out and do the the dollar breakdown are you going to do it according to the same tiers or are we going to do it according to the three groupings that were presented the um you know the equipment for staff and students only um the uh overall technology needs of the district including smart boards all that kind of stuff are you know the three

177pricing tiers there and then seeing that net tax impact is that possible i'm not exactly sure i'm getting a little bit of some confused look so i'm not sure what you're what you're actually asking mary well there was three areas of focus for the potential technology levy in the presentation there was one student in staff devices two instructional software network infrastructure and three additional technology staffing um obviously there's going to be um different prices and different costs for for all of these and some of these you may not be able to decouple which i get i'm just wondering if there's a way that we can look at three tiers of what it's going to end up with as a tax impact so we have something to chew on and and know what where the pain

178points are and know how to ask it from the community connect options with very different variables jeff is going to respond so if i may all of this you know these are you know three distinct areas we are able to track our instructional software and network software for annual costs you know same thing with staffing um the com the student staff devices you know narrowing down those options will give us an amount you know again that annual amount that we can factor in over the course of a of a tech levy and and we could take a look at our current tech staffing and we can also evaluate perhaps maybe what other districts are doing relative to tech support we would have to spend a little time there so we could look at these three

179different areas with the idea of saying this is what this option would cost these are our costs here you know you already in this presentation you see what our current staffing costs are and so uh you know it's relative to you know you kind of put those together and you can determine we should be in that three and a half to four million correct me if i'm wrong julie but projected you're you're looking at basically here depending on the student staff device and rounding out you're looking at about a three and a half million dollar tech levy annually projected uh and julie is is mentioning and whispering from the back at least and so we would need to again fine-tune this a bit dig into this a bit more as far as yep again that

180option does drive this number a bit as well as if you know it's from from additional tech staffing too that does drive this a bit as well yes i'm sorry jonathan did you have something new i i was just gonna say i think i i think you're headed in the right direction what what what we need to be able to see the options that you laid out with different devices are a lump sum for acquisition that doesn't translate to what's an annual mate you know what's the annual cost of of owning those things through a lease and adding that in with the operational costs of your staffing and your budgeting i think keep just keep trucking um and you know we're in a perfect world an ideal world julie said three and a half maybe

181isn't enough i don't you know whatever amount we determine that we have it is going to pay for devices and it's also going to take a weight off of the other off of the general fund because it's going to provide a funding source for something else but those details i think will continue to flesh out but that's i think that's where i would like to see the the rest the work good and i think you know we've talked about a couple very different things this evening but it all comes together we've talked a little bit about the revised budget and our needs going forward as we look at declining enrollment as we look at increased expenditures as we look at not knowing exactly what's going to happen if anything with additional coronavirus relief funds or

182what's going to happen for years to come on money that we can count on additional revenue from the state so we've got a big piece to continue to flush out in terms of what's next year and the next couple of years look like with that the technology levy then becomes a really important strategy and tactic that we can use to say okay that's a huge need and and thank you to marcus and jeff and and chrislyn and team who have done a whole lot more research on this but the tech levy becomes an opportunity for us to have a sustainable mechanism and funding mechanism for all three of those areas we all of a sudden have a whole lot more devices than we have which means a whole lot more support that's needed in that

183so so i mean that becomes that becomes a all of these are going to be vital but i think these two things really have to work together in terms of saying okay what are we solving for exactly what what are what are we solving for what do we need as we look at the next couple of years as the we come forward and the board helps with parameters around enrollment assumptions assumptions about what we're going to get from the state some of those kinds of things so that we get a picture of what the next couple of years budget looks like and how this is a strategy to assist us with that as we look at other budget adjustments that we're going to need to make over the next couple of years i think it's

184all kind of part of that same puzzle you're right yeah okay clear as can be you have given us good direction and and we'll work to to do more research and and we'll come back to the board again soon thank you thank you for your work already thank you thank you okay ready to learn plan dr yeah thank you you know i don't have a a lot to update you on i think you're all um well versed on where we are um obviously as you know we're in this bit of a transition right now today and tomorrow we're uh planning days for our elementary folks our secondary teams are in distance learning right now by november 30th all e12 programs will be in distance learning as you recall we had to put a pause on

185our early learning programs so they are going to be distance learning on november 30th our hope is because we really had to make that decision based on staff being quarantined so our hope is by december 7th to be able to bring those early learning programs back to the in-person models that they had on november 30th beginning november 30th we'll also have some other groups of some students in session as the minnesota safe learning plan calls out as you know we continue to be required to provide tier one child care we also are providing fee based child care to help our families during this trying time students who are receiving special ed services in our center-based programs will be transitioning back on november 30th again after some time for planning and transition for staff our bridges

186students will be a reduced time in person for both students and staff but they will be still having some in-person learning um during the pause that we're all currently in and then we also will have especially at the secondary some of our english learning students as well as some students who need additional academic support so i just wanted to remind the board that even while we're in distance learning we still are encouraged by the minnesota department of education to continue to provide services as we're able so we are still doing that at this point um you know we get a lot of questions and i'm sure you have them too about well what's the transition plan back and many of the conversations that superintendent colleagues have and as we talked to the minnesota department of

187health the minnesota department of education regional support teams you know we all have that question of what what's the threshold and we don't have a specific data point or target that we've been given at this point i think guidance will continue to come our way so it's a really hard question to answer so i usually don't answer it right now here's what i'll say it's really important that we have some local data so i'm going to make a request that our parents continue to call the school and let us know when your children have positive cases we will continue to track that even while kids are in distance learning because one of the things that we want if you remember that scalpeled approach that we've heard about one of the things we want is to

188be able to use school data our county data could still be really high our zip code data could still be high but if our school data is lower then we can start transitioning and i don't think it would be all at once i think we do some transition slowly monitor data case data see how things go and then start transitioning more so just just want to remind families that's really important that they continue to let us know when there's positive cases with their students so that we can continue to track that and have some local data so i know i wasn't really asked a question nor did i really answer a question but what i do want to say is you know this isn't what any of us want we want our kids in school

189and parents want the kids in school and teachers want the kids in school and kids want to be in school and we'll we'll do everything we can as soon as we can in a safe way get our get our kids back so i guess just in closing the other thing that i want to do is as we are on in this week of thanksgiving is just to again to thank our our staff our students our families our administrators for their amazing and difficult work during these really impossible times again this isn't what we want and navigating a public health crisis and trying to make the best decisions possible for educational purposes are often in conflict with one another and that's what we've been living for sure but i'm grateful to the support and want families

190to continue to work closely with principals and teachers to make sure that we have amazing experiences for our students thank you okay move on then to the board governance policies um i asked to have policy 203 brought back forward or brought up again it it's not up for review it doesn't need to be changed or voted or go through the whole process but through the course of um the way we're doing our meetings now i'm specifically looking at policy 203 section 6 how we conduct meetings and under 6.13 open forum the last couple of meetings we've been deviating from our policy of how we read or how people are able to express themselves from the community so um basically we've i've read letters um on topics that have been on our agenda that's not what

191our policy says um and i just want the board to be aware that that's what's been happening and if we want to continue to to allow that my personal feeling is that we don't allow the public to come into our meeting so the very least we can do is read their comments at a meeting and i checked with msba on this and because of the executive order there's no reason that we need to change the policy at this time it's based on the executive orders so the policy would stay the same it does not need to have any revisions or anything like that but i wanted to make sure the board is okay with that because that is a deviation that's happened twice already and i expect it's not gonna the situation won't change real

192soon so if everyone's okay with that just wanted to bring it forward yeah i think as long as we're in this if they can't come in it makes sense to read okay um anybody dissent disagree everyone okay all right great thanks um then we have no first readings of policy second reading um is policy 521 student disability section 504 i'm not sure who's presenting that jeff and this policy would come for approval in december i believe yes this is this policy has come before uh yes you've had a couple looks at uh at this just as a quick recap uh this was drafted by our our district's legal counsel i think i i know it's you've had a couple conversations on this i've not heard any uh any additional uh revisions or questions as a

193result of this policy and so stands before you as is okay as i said this will come to the december meeting for approval um does anyone have any questions or comments to make okay thank you great thank you jeff uh moving on to superintendent relations anything to add terry no i continue to welcome and enjoy one on one meetings that folks have unfortunately i know many of you have been scheduling those and we've had opportunities to spend some time in buildings and that might look a little different right now but please continue to schedule those and we'll get back into buildings and and see kids soon hopefully thank you i have no informational items however i do have one note from a community member for the public forum this is from tonya sharper credit river

194parent educator and community member good evening dr stahlo and members of the board i want to take a moment to thank you for the work you are doing to ensure the safety of our students and staff i know the decisions you are making are not always popular you are following state and county guidelines and using our local county and state data to make those decisions the decision to go to distance learning is for the safety of all of us these are difficult times thank you for continuing to use a data driven approach to decision making we as a community know that we need we know what we need to do to get our kids back in school it is up to us to do the hard work to get them there thank you for all

195you're doing you are appreciated and that was the only one that was submitted um at this time i will adjourn the study session and co to go into closed session