001george are we about set for countdown yes everything goes online awesome sex just waiting on peter at the appropriate time okay yeah otherwise it could create feedback peter paul are you guys all ready all right well i appreciate that but it is it is seven so i'll count down yeah yep yeah you know i can learn i can learn uh ten nine eight seven six five four three two one good evening it is 7 p.m on monday september 20 2021 and i call to order this regular meeting of the richfield school board attending this evening's board meeting live in the board room our boardroom board members paula cole peter tensing alergus meshech christine malik and crystal brocky i am board chair tim paulus also joining us at the table is superintendent steve dr yanowski and
002also also at the table as board secretary and assistant to the superintendent cassandra quan the richfield public school's mission statement is that we strive to inspire and empower each individual to learn grow and excel and we'll keep that at the folk that focus at the center of our discussions this evening thanks to all of you for joining us here live and in the board room and to those who are watching via live stream tonight thank you for being with us um we especially appreciate that as people bear witness to us doing the work in public it is it is public work but we do it in public so you can give witness um it's it's essentially our meeting though so we'll do what we can to keep it flowing while not every item on the
003agenda is of interest to each person we have to give them all their due attention and we ask you to allow us to do that thank you with that our first item of business this evening is to approve the agenda before us i move to approve the agenda we have a motion by ms cole and a second by mr tensing any final discussion all in favor please say aye aye opposed say nay chair votes and the agenda is approved we move now to the information proposals non-action items tonight we have public comment a reminder that these occur on the second meeting of each month and instructions on how to sign up are on the district website under the school board link under menu about school and the school board tonight we have a few people
004signed up and so just to prep you for how that will go we will like we do not engage in dialogue with the speakers um however it is possible that we may cr make statements at the end or follow up with the speakers um since it's for those that we have contact info thank you to all who are signed up to share your comments with us and while we're expressing gratitude we'll thank you in advance for following our board policy 216 and guideline 216.1 in brief i will highlight the following from those documents the time allotted will be three minutes per speaker with an additional three minutes allocated if interpretation is utilized ms kwon will monitor the time and will hold up signs to give you a warning of 30 seconds and also time is
005up at the conclusion of the three minutes we ask the speakers to wrap up quickly so that we can give appropriate time to the other speakers as well as the other items that are on the agenda we'll recognize one speaker at a time so please uh we ask that you give those people their full their time without interruption if you could speaker should not include names of ritual public school employees their titles locations etc uh for your own legal protections if you're you know lodging complaints about them to be clear that is actually for your legal protection as well as the boards um if you are complaining about an individual we may ask you to stop and and rule your comments out of order praise of staff members of course are is always welcome issues
006related to mal performance of a district employee should be made in writing to the human resources department we trust that you understand personal attacks will not be allowed with that we'll move to the first speaker and our order is in order that people signed up and i believe we have jenny morin um yeah while you're giving testimony that's fine or giving giving a statement that's fine and we want to make sure the microphone is turned on like no there's a lot on top thank you perfect thank you thanks miss foreign thank you members of the richfield school board superintendent ownowski tonight you're going to hear from members of our community talk about the current curriculum that richfield uses for sex ed several moms connected with countless people from different backgrounds to discuss how this curriculum
007sabotages deeply held cultural family and faith beliefs i want to look at the board's policy and how this curriculum fails to execute on that policy first i applaud the board's thoughtful crafting of the five guiding pillars the academic potential value in extracurricular activities the executing a shared mission and vision embracing culture and communicating as a trusted partner i'm going to focus on the last two and i think you'll see how this curriculum actually works against the board's policy this board's policy is on culture and religion is clear on culture schools are to be warm welcoming and respectful with regard to religion no curriculum shall disparage any religious belief and teaching cannot inhibit religion yet this curriculum denies religious tenants such as god created us perfectly by telling kids that or implying that you might not
008know if you're a boy or a girl it coaches children into exploring and role-playing behaviors other than what they know to be true or what their family or faith have taught them this both inhibits and disparages their religion and culture by substituting secular values for what they've been taught by their parents now whether you agree with a faith institution's values is not the point schools should not systematically erase the values instilled by parents and faith using a curriculum that openly admits to pushing a secular value system given our diversity of culture and opinion i just have to wonder why we aren't teaching the basic principles of no one has the right to touch you and all people are valuable and should be treated with kindness and respect teach kids that they don't need to agree
009with somebody's beliefs choices or opinions to treat them with value and respect more importantly this curriculum also destroys the trusted partner pillar that the board has sought to build as parents and community this pillar is vitally important to us we need to partner with you but this curriculum pits schools against parents in a standoff regarding whose values should be instilled into our children the curriculum is taught using an opt-out premise while avoiding transparent details on what's about to be taught you're about to hear it's extreme and this sneak attack teaching of ideology that conflicts with family values destroys that protest trusted partner mission this type of teaching has no place in our schools i believe that the board has made this clear in their guiding principles yet here we are thank you thank you thank
010you our next speaker is catherine eckleberry okay my name is catherine elkeberry this summer after voicing a concern i was invited by the superintendent to review the sex ed curriculum for richfield school district the few days i spent reading through the advocates for youth 3rs curriculum it was clear parents are intentionally being deceived and misled about what their children are being taught the letter sent home to parents by the school district claims that this is age appropriate for grades k through 12. when is it age appropriate to teach a kindergartener what a clitoris is and to tell them it is a very sensitive little area when is it age appropriate to coach sixth graders and asking consent for sex and tell them that they know best when to engage in sex when is it appropriate
011to require ninth graders to role play a queer couple discussing sex everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect no matter their race gender religion or sexual orientation but this curriculum goes far beyond teaching respect and tolerance and is intentionally confusing children about their gender and sexual orientation in fact in 2016 the american college of pediatricians declared quote conditioning children to believe the absurdity that they or anyone could be born into the wrong body and that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse and quote the first amendment was designed to protect freedom of religion so how is it being honored when our children are being taught ideas that are a direct offense to deeply held convictions of the different faiths represented in this
012community and told that religious websites should be treated as an unreliable source of information when it comes to sexual health the richfield public schools letter also states that parents or guardians are the primary health and safety educators for their children we agree with that statement i am here tonight because the sexuality promoted in this curriculum is unacceptable it promotes early sexualization of children encourages promiscuous and deviant sexual behavior undermines parental authority and is destructive to deeply held religious convictions of our community regarding children jesus made his position clear when he said but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea thank you thank you our next speaker
013is julie quist so this is difficult you got it earrings are still in place okay i'm julie quist with the child protection league we're a minnesota nonprofit that defends children against exploitation indoctrination and violence thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak about the k-12 curriculum that the district has adopted rights respect responsibility the three r's by advocates for youth three hours is one of the most explicit curricula available it sexualizes children and normalizes sexual behavior at a young age teaching sexual pleasure masturbation anal and oral sex and that consent is all that is needed the alarming negative effects of early sexual activity are absent for example early sexual activity greatly increases a girl's vulnerability to stds an immature cervix has one layer of protection from invading st stds a mature cervix has
01430 to 40 layers of protection you maybe didn't know that three hours describes pornography use as normal activity for teens when in fact pornography is damaging and addictive to undeveloped brains in summary three hours is dangerous to young people this immersion in explicit sexual material for students is being sold as a good thing which uh with claims that it reduces pregnancy and stds and increases condom use but teaching k-12 students it's okay to be sexually active at a very young age is obviously dangerous proponents ignore the data proving this and programs like the 3rs are not effective the institute for research and evaluation conducted a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of programs such as this out of 60 school-based studies no credible evidence of effectiveness was found for sustained reductions in teen pregnancy or stds
015there was no evidence of effectiveness for increasing consistent condom use failure rates included 88 percent failure to delay teen sexual initiation and 94 failure to to reduce unprotected sex 12 percent of these programs found significant negative effects on adolescent sexual health and or risk behavior claims that explicit sex education has been proven effective or not supported by the evidence in fact there is far more evidence of failure than success and it has produced an alarming number of negative outcomes for children thank you and i have uh references to those studies that on and information that i reference that i can send to you email to you if you'd like me to so i will do that thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is aaron collins good evening and thank you for the
016opportunity to make a public comment i'm aaron collins a parent of a kindergartner at rps and also a mechanical engineer with an expertise in aerosol science i've been using this expertise to help promote the use of better high filtration mass both through testing and educational videos my work has garnered attention from various publications including the wall street journal washington post and scientific american to learn more google erin collins the mass nerd however i'm not here to talk about mass i'm here to advocate for other important technology that we have at our disposal portable in room hepa filters delta is different the delta variant is two times more contagious than the original coveted strain so the plans made in the spring will need to be updated many parents including myself recognize the strong importance of in-person
017education and are willing to accept the risk but also want to minimize it as much as practically can and we have a low-cost readily available technology that can help tools such as universal masking vaccinations and improvement in air handling systems are part of the swiss cheese model in which a variety of not so perfect mitigation methods are used together to reduce the exposure and limit the spread within spread within the school and community however in many schools these mitigations are not available and our elementary and middle schools vaccinations are not yet approved for that age group and during lunch children at all schools have to remove their mask to eat this reduces up to two layers from our swiss cheese model however we can use our technology to help with that and replace a layer
018in this case portable in-room hepa filters which are effective at removing infectious aerosols these devices are relatively inexpensive less than 10 to 20 dollars per student per year total cost quiet less than 50 db or around the same noise levels that take a typical home refrigerator and can provide significant improvements to the air quality they also benefit by providing a better mixing of the air within the rooms which enhance our current hvac systems so building on the improvements that are already in place by the district but don't take my word for it ashrae the american society of heating refrigeration and air conditioning engineers and their kovid 19 school guidance explicitly state as recommendation to introduce terminal or portable all-electric hepa uv machines in each classroom this was used in mirrored by john hopkins school of
019public health the cdc and in the mdh ventilation guides for schools note many are clear that they use not as a supplement for poor ventilation but as an additional layer of protection others in the aerosol community including leaders in infectious aerosol researchers don milton kimberly prather and lindsey maher have been vocal advocates for them today in fact two op-eds were published one by dr alex huffman from the university of denver a second by the plurality of professors in north carolina state university civil department of civil engineering both advocate for their local school districts to plan and install portable hepa filters however we need not look very far either at the as the adjacent school districts of bloomington and dyna have done the same as well my request is for the district to re-examine the use
020of portable happy units in rps support and plan for expedient deployment of these to help protect students teachers staff and the community as a whole i can't stress enough that the time is of the almost importance we must be proactive and even if vaccinations open up for 5 to 11 year olds at the end of october most will not be fully vaccinated before the end of the calendar year i also will gladly offer my knowledge and expertise to anyone at the bridgeville public school that want to discuss the science implementation perform building measurements using co2 or direct aerosol measurements as well as answer any questions on this topic thank you for your time consideration thank you thank you that concludes our public comments um before we move on i do want to clarify some things
021now the board does not actually know all the details of our curriculum i think i can say that with confidence we do support the curriculum that we have having been recommended to us by the administrative team in whom we place a lot of trust but hold them to that trust as well our health curriculum has been in place for a number of years the sexual health component of the health curriculum is introduced at elementary school and does continue annually through a student's senior year and each year content is introduced that is age appropriate for example younger students learn about making and keeping friends appropriate boundaries and yes basic body parts older students learn about consent responding to peer pressure media awareness healthy friendships and relationships and violence prevention these are all part of comprehensive sexual
022health education teaching sex sexual education is not about teaching kids how to have sex or showing them graphic photos young people do have access to so many negative messages in our culture throughout through the internet social media etc and they deserve to have trustworthy information and adults to guide them through these often confusing and important topics in an age-appropriate way our sexual health program and educators do provide this in partnership with parents and guardians who of course are the primary health and safety educators for their children with that you know parents are provided opt-out information before and and and clear details on the on the information um in advance of each aspect of the curriculum they're able to opt their child out of specif of specific content or all of the content and no student
023is required to participate and the curriculum is delivered by trans school social workers at the elementary level and by health teachers at the secondary level with that um that that would that would conclude my statement on the facts about our program and you know the history behind it it is not new um it's been in place for a number of years and we would welcome any questions or comments uh to reach out to me and let me know if you'd like to have further discussion about that thank you with that we'll move on now to the superintendent update dr yanosky all right thank you very much mr palace there are three things in the superintendent update this evening um we have an update on the start of school and the first weeks of school um
024community feedback um as we have sr3 funding um we have been doing survey work um and doctors clarkson and mr holzey will have a conversation about the feedback we've had for esser funding and then we'll have an intro draft for feedback in regard to my goals for the school year and as a reminder we're aligning our overall strategic plan my goals and and then we do that across leadership throughout the organization and so as we did at our board meeting prior to our board meeting prior to school starting we are giving our update for school start um and obviously as we are all here masked we know that we are dealing with covet uh case race rates and this was up through friday when the board packet went live we had three confirmed cases in
025the previous 14 days however i believe we could add another five to that at this point give or take more than that seven eight i think it's 11. okay so we have an additional 11 confirmed cases from friday through monday and so obviously the delta variant is certainly adding cases to our community at this time um we do have um case rates going up to if we recall last year's learning model and our goal is to maintain school we do have around 50 per 10 000 in the city of richfield and so that was a very concerning number um and we have been advised that um covet is expanding throughout our community we do have a significant number of vaccines that have occurred in richfield ages 18 and above 81 percent um and our 12
026to 15 year olds are at 77 and 64 for our high school juniors and seniors um as we as we also heard we are hopeful that vaccines are available to five to 11 year olds um because obviously that is one of the additional forms of protection as we look at our overall enrollment we have worked and you all are aware we've worked to adjust our elementary class sizes with one of those strategic plan goals of maintaining our class sizes as low as possible within our budget uh we made our last shift just on monday of this week keeping our class sizes in line with board guidance and what we were looking for overall enrollment is slightly above projection at this point but we'll call this a very very preliminary snapshot as we all know october
0271 is the actual account that comes through and so this is just a snapshot that occurred at one point in time on wednesday of last week and these numbers change quite significantly as we move ourselves forward the other thing to note is that some of those numbers also do not fully include our online students and we are partnering with minnesota virtual academy in northern star online to provide our online curriculum and so this is just the snapshot of the 81 students so again as of wednesday of last week who had signed on uh 27 middle schoolers 22 in our high school and another 30 32 i believe in our elementary schools 33 and so we we're seeing only 81 of the richfield community has signed up for online at this time uh construction updates um
028and i'm going to tag into talking about air quality at this point obviously we've been in the midst of a very significant upgrade of all of our buildings we are in the final year of our construction project all the public spaces are complete we actually did open the school year without the kitchen prepared at sheridan we're delivering meals as we had done in the past but now all of our all of our public spaces are complete and we use the term complete that is we'll call that the soft complete so there's a very large punch list at each of the sites but the major transformation has occurred all public spaces done at central rms all public spaces except the auditorium and teen tech center and then all other spaces are also substantially complete i'm in
029that regard it's also important to note that we have overhauled the entire hvac system at all of our sites including at rdls for example which has an extremely advanced hvac system and as we've worked with our as we've worked with our air quality team members some of the goals of covid are approximately six times transferring the air in the in an hour and we are knowing that we are at or above that in each of our buildings um and so we continue to work on that um and as mr holgi is working he is also working with our air quality experts to talk about would air purifiers be in addition to this or something that we should consider so mr holgi is doing work in that particular area we've also launched social emotional work in
030all of our buildings knowing that our kids had quite significant interruptions to their education so we really prioritize community building expectations relationship building and rituals and routines across all of our buildings really making sure that you know a 9th grader may not have stepped in the building for a year year and a half and so we're really working to know names and and really welcoming every kid and help make sure that they are feeling at home and part of the community high school itself started with the first two days of full community time using airpods and advisors to make sure that they're really prioritizing that relationship building work to get to know things at our high school and the middle school followed a similar model just to make sure that we are really setting things
031together as one large community and then some of those larger things that we've been working on a reminder that at least through the end of this year all students are receiving free meals that's breakfast and lunch um exciting event something that hasn't happened in multiple years the high school varsity team won their home opener 35 to 14. gold football team i believe we have one of the coaches sitting in the room with us so it's a great way to start the season better than the vikings or the packers so well done richfield spartans rdls hosted carnival and bingo night so we do have evening events occurring with again safety protocols in our district and then we have the richfield high school cross country fundraiser and the girls tennis team 100 sets fundraisers so we are
032rolling to have as much of our full school experience as humanly possible the entirety of of our program offered to our kids we also similarly have some pretty exciting things coming up homecoming parade 10 o'clock on saturday followed by parade of schools and so parade of schools is our opportunity to share with the community um what their investment has purchased in regard to the significant overhaul and remodels of our buildings and so we've been communicating out about that uh dates are up there and being sent out for each of our buildings uh homecoming football game um ends the full week of homecoming activities and that's not october first at seven uh we also have walk and bike to school day and believe it or not we are already looking at things on the calendar like
033conferences that are coming up before too long so we are into a full school year um and really hitting the ground running so with that i will pause and see if there are any questions comments or anything i can answer all right thank you covered a wide range of topics so we'll open it up to the room and see if anyone has any questions or comments for the superintendent i'll look to the right side of the room first uh so steve did i hear you say that you that mr holgi is evaluating the air quality technology that our public speaker talked about or is uh yes yes there is um so there was a request for one of our specific buildings to review the option of adding air purifiers on a donation we looked at
034that from an electric perspective from a noise perspective and we had some pretty significant concerns mr holgie met with the group on friday and there was some additional information shared with him and so he is now reviewing air quality and reviewing some of the information shared with him and working with our air quality experts and then he will come back and we'll have that next conversation about is this something that we or what do we do with this information and what do we do with this request that's that's really a lot of like an administrative uh procedure process but is the board uh are we going to discuss it again when we're here or should we direct questions to um i would direct questions to administration um the board policies covering have to do with
035um conservation and small appliances um those are a couple of things that are there administration is empowered to take specific action in regard to student safety um in those areas so what we're doing is we're really thoroughly vetted vetting the offer and determining you know what are the positives what are the negatives and is that something that we could support all right and then uh one last question because things are changing so rapidly uh with the pandemic and kids being at school and it's not surprising right like we we uh what what kind of uh thresholds do we have to decide when we're gonna move to the next uh restrictive space uh within our policies uh like what will trigger what because i think we talked genetically about this is our procedure but then in
036real life it turns out there's a lot of like things attached to one thing uh so there's obviously a lot of things to pay attention to uh a lot of things that are changing so i just wanted to reassure uh the public parents uh of things that we are doing but also to be honest with each other about in our community about what are the things that we are still not uh you know working on right so one of the things that's very different from last year is last year the governor had set a clear threshold at which we were expected to close schools that doesn't exist at this time and so the main component we are working with because the increase in vaccinations and masks is community spread what we do is we partner
037with bloomington public health as our main health partner and we coordinate with them in regard to contact tracing and what is occurring in schools and they provide significant consultation so they don't have the hard part of my answer is i don't have an exact number or anything that will say this is what we would do to shut a classroom or to shut schools but we would certainly not be doing anything in that nature without advice from bloomington public health who helps us in in each of those conversations and creates recommendations that worries me and i wish we had a plan or i think it is within our i don't want to say power but to really have a plan and i say this because i think we did a really good job last year when
038everything was even newer and i would say super scarier i mean i guess it's not a spectrum for scariness right now but in a way it was unknown right and so i would hate to see us for be taken by surprise or have parents be taken by surprise who have to decide like what do i do with my children now uh i i would like us to follow the same thing we did before where we had plans for every little thing and it wasn't perfect but i think you know you know uh from comparison with surrounding areas i think we really had a very sound uh we seem to have found like the right level of both being careful but also keeping kids in classrooms and i would like to see us come back track
039and then have a lot of chaos around that so so we're so yes it is hard to say at this particular data point we would do something or make a transition obviously i have been in richfield this is my eighth year i try to be very transparent and really show where things are going if you were to ask me and again information always changes as we know um i would not anticipate us closing unless that was a requirement um and so um there are reasons that a health department might suggest that schools could close or would have to close and we aren't we aren't in control of that information or that recommendation otherwise every piece of information from every superintendent i have communicated with at this point giving the information and given our health recommendations
040our significant precautions are upgraded air handling systems are we should remain open unless we have a significant community spread that requires us to close and given that we have amongst the newest air handling systems in any of the surrounding areas and we have been masked from day one and we have amongst the highest vaccination rates actually of surrounding districts i would assume that we are not going to be the first district um and i'm going to do a craig hold you knock on wood right now um that would have challenges outside what other districts are seeing so i i understand it is hard to not know um i don't know any superintendent that's talking about closing schools at this point um and so and i don't i don't i i don't see that happening for
041all of the things that you said like all of the things you say were part of my own consideration as a parent to send my child to school or not i just felt better before when there was like a a there was a plan they was like well if this happens in this many days like i mean i was so amazed and spent the whole year talking about how great the plan and preparedness and change management was here and now it feels that uh you know just like the same way that we just we close schools when it's too cold and or too snowy and dangerous for kids to come you know i think i think that a lot of i think it is our responsibility to protect you know the thousands of kids who
042are enrolled here uh from like things that are really under control as well such as the weather um yes so what i'll say is if you are asking for a specific number so that came from the governor that came from the health department last year and it doesn't exist now right right every single other precautionary measure and so when you say a plan we have plans for all of these things all of the things we have done and all of the safety components we have put in place and our contact racing and our communication and all the interventions those are all still part of our overall covet safety plan we have a published plan on the state website our state our safe schools learning plan what we don't have and yes if you call it
043connected to a snow day just like a snow day we don't have a number of inches we don't have a specific degree and we don't have a specific infection rate that is going to say we are absolutely closing um and that can create both anxiety and that can also create a sense of security and so that that is the one component of our plan that you are correct is not is not clearly laid out and if you are suggesting or if the board suggests that that is something you would like crafted i think we should probably have a conversation about that i'm not sure that that is what i would push us to do at this time but we will absolutely continue to monitor and be very close in contact with our health departments yep
044what i would suggest is because i think i think you're absolutely right that um the the parameters are so different obviously it's likely that the public health parameter would relate to icu capacity and death right and so the infection rate that is going to correspond with unacceptable sort of strain on the health care system that would lead to a lot of people dying um is completely different than what it would have been in the spring right or in last fall so that's why those numbers don't exist however i think it does make sense paola it would be reasonable i mean it's not under our as educators it would not be under the school district's purview to be thinking about those public health things so that makes total sense steve that you wouldn't be trying to
045come up with that number however i think what could make some sense would be the thought on what is our contingency in terms of transitioning to distance learning for large numbers of kids because that could be something that we could see even without having to close that we'd have a lot of kids doing distance so i mean does that seem like you're asking because we're really i mean i think it's true from a public health perspective it's really not our call or steve's call but it is our job to try to support transition in the event that we have large numbers of kids who are not able to be in our buildings so right that is a fair point we do have things for small groups of kids we do have quarantines occurring right now
046as we speak right because that's going to happen we know that's going to happen and that that's going to be a flux we're going to have kids in who are missing school um because of various you know reasons so yep yeah and we do have i mean we do have the contingency plans and the things we've used in the past for all the various options that have came up right and so we would figure out a transition based on our past history to distance learning several days off planning coordination with the union distribution of technology and a switch over to full school agency and the work that we already have in place um and so the good thing um and i guess what i would um what i would remind us is is that everything
047we are doing this year we did last year right so these are these are a reiteration and a return to the same types of things um which we can enact much quicker um then then we might otherwise because these are all things that we've done before um so like we have contingency plan for meal delivery same kind of thing yeah if we found ourselves in that particular position and i wanna like i don't feel concerned uh i mean i'm concerned as any other parent is concerned uh but i'm also uh the fact that we did it last year is really reassuring to me about how healthy uh and how okay you know for for what it was right like i i think we had a successful year in the middle of and you know from
048the very beginning with the kids who you know who wanted to come came the ones whose families didn't want to send them stay home and it wasn't perfect by any means so i just want to make sure that we continue on on that and that any learnings that we have from last year we are able to consider and incorporate into any changes um i think that the time calls for like being more proactive than ever and this thing happened really is really good at that being proactive and anticipating and i think i said last year in like reading the future uh or seeing the future uh so it's just like my encouragement that we continue to do that and uh please let us know um if there's anything that needs to be done or added
049differently to support staff into following through with the guidelines that we have established in case i volume changes and and whatnot like this is a very fast moving and i'm going to stop talking now because i've taken a lot of the work but thank you for um for your responses and your comments videos always nice to hear about that the logic behind some things that don't make a lot of sense to me outside of the medical field but but it's it's fair to say along those lines we have the the decision tree in the action path all planned out we just don't have we don't have the numbers like we did last year that say when this happens you go here we have all the same things we've had in the past we just don't
050have a hard deadline saying boom and last year that was given to us by the governor the governor and the department of health et cetera and this year that they've not come up with with actual numbers that say i mean i think at the rate we just talked about we would if this were last year we'd be in hybrid right but we don't have a an issue you know so and it would be up to us then to come up with numbers and we're not qualified to come up with numbers right so yeah and we'll continue to consult and we will reflect on this input um and we will we'll definitely keep ourselves moving um be as transparent as possible we'll move on to director tensing questions comments on the back to school uh wow
051how do you follow it i've lost all of them paula you've stolen everything i had i drank too much both um i'm going to i'm going to pass the baton to uh miss meshech i don't have any comments or questions but thank you for the update ms malik um i just like all the summary of all the things going on and it's exciting to see everybody back in buildings and activities occurring and there's some level of normalcy for our kids and it's really nice to see some of that so that's great and i'm very excited about the parade of schools so those are my comments no questions thank you thank you yeah just want to echo the excitement especially about the week ahead and just all of the things that are happening and just it
052feels really nice to be able to be together again i have two what i believe are short questions one is um is it accurate that families and students could move to one of our online options at any time if they felt compelled to do so given uh just their own level of comfort and safety who are we waving to mr holgi is walking to the microphone thank you yeah so um we're currently working with our two online providers just as far as the right timing okay um as far as the transition in because there's a certain level of transitioning into the online programming that's different than a classroom environment and so we want to make sure that if individuals are moving into that online environment it's at an appropriate time where they can transition it
053in so it's not any time what we've communicated to the community is that grading periods would be the most appropriate time to do that but we're continuing to evaluate what that would look like okay and if there are other options minnesota virtual academy specifically has um about like another opportunity where there's a cohort coming in in october good um just so there's that cohort option but um it will also depend somewhat on staffing and it may be otherwise but the goal is to make sure it's successful yeah it makes sense that on demand is not feasible on lots of levels and i think important to be really clear about what those windows are especially given how quickly things are changing so that people feel like they know when they're going to need to make that
054decision and actually have the opportunity to do so and then my second question is actually by virtue of being on the board every once in a while i get one of the emails that goes out to you know a school community when there has been an exposure and one of the things that i've noticed in a couple of them is that the number of days that somebody has been in the school community and potentially exposed others is longer than i would have expected like we are talking three days four days and i can imagine that feels a little bit unsettling and i know that there's a very clear protocol for notifying close contact um but i i'm curious if that is different than last year if there are things that we're doing to encourage people
055that if you do not feel well we actually do need you to stay home the same way that i think people were pretty good at at the end of last year i it it was surprising to me to see some of those date ranges and i guess i'm curious to know more about that and dr clarkson is going to educate me the short answer is um we're doing it the same okay um it all depends on when we are notified of a positive case of covet so i think that one of the things that's happening is exposures happen and symptoms don't start for a while and so that timeline of when they're in school till when they actually get a positive test is longer we are doing a big push over the neck we've done
056it all along but a real strong campaign to say we want schools to be a symptom-free zone i think that that is one of the biggest challenges that we have right now is sending children to school when they've got a you know stuffy nose and a little sore throat and parents are like but i gave them some medicine and they seem better so we just need to do a little bit more education about please keep stay home staff stay home students if you're not feeling well but the timeline has been the exact same are the number of those potential exposure dates similar to what they were last year then and it just didn't jump out to me as much um you know i guess i'd have to go back and look i just finished doing
057some reporting tonight um and i think what stood out stood out differently for me this year from last year is um how the you know like we know how the exposure came and so the exposure to the symptomatic or to the positive case was outside of the school and so the onset of symptoms was later so there's like this big leg time in between and we also have to encourage families to please if your child is unvaccinated or someone is unvaccinated that you keep them home if they've been exposed and to get tested right i mean i feel like that's the other part is like how to really encourage rapid testing as soon as those symptoms actually do present themselves because that is a community safety issue yes and there's a communication that'll be going
058out soon that outlines some of those things that we can do as a community to keep our schools and our students and staff safe great thank you if that was going to be my next if am i remembering last year wrong and that if you were exposed you did not come to school absolutely or go anywhere correct absolutely and so is that not that's the same that's the same that's the same i think that some of the things that are that are different that feel different are if you're fully vaccinated you do get to come to school if you've been exposed and you're fully vaccinated you can come right but right just those things feel if you're symptom-free if you're symptom-free so it's likely the breakthrough cases that are causing this this gap right well
059our vaccine coverage rate isn't yeah our vaccine covered rate isn't quite high enough for that i mean we where are we at about about a third unvaccinated among our among our sort of secondary grades so i mean we have enough unvaccinated that we're still going to see that population potentially having cases um and the breakthroughs aren't going to be necessarily driving it the majority of our cases have not been breakthrough cases yeah and that's that that's pretty consistent that breakthrough transmission and breakthrough cases that happen but they're they're still the minority and of course for severe cases it's the substantial minority but thank you i'll just comment as a parent that that the the notification is robust you get a lot of emails um with the secondary child and secondary who has multiple classes you
060get one for each each class in which that the exposure occurred and so i think we got we got a handful of emails today yeah that is the hard part but we didn't get the phone call right i mean that's always really positive yeah reminding people that you're gonna get letter after letter after letter after letter again and again and again and again and i don't want to say it doesn't count but until you get the phone call there hasn't been a close contact exposure so that's for most people that's that's the biggest clarification i would hope that they would they would have and and outside that notification system which i appreciate there's been a lot of things in the launch of this year that have felt almost like normal and that's been been awesome
061to be a part of so it's it's been fun to see but of course guarded any other final comments or questions on back to school all right we'll move move forward then stay there dr clarkson and come on back mr hold you so now we are going to talk about community feedback on esser um and the sr-3 funding so we did some survey and some work and so we'll turn it over to our esteemed team members all right well i'm back again along with my colleague holgie and we're here just to summarize like we said we'd come back and talk about the community input on how they their recommendations on how sr3 funding should be utilized to support students based on the impact of coping so our primary way of reaching our community our parents
062and guardians staff and our secondary students was through a very simple survey to be honest we had hoped that we would get more information from committees but it was a really rushed start to the school year and so very few of our committees actually had the opportunity to meet but there was communication with um on our on our website for this survey that started in i want to say mid august staff received the survey as they came back to school received an email and it was communicated and talked about at all of our school staff meetings and asked staff to complete it and then our middle school and high school students had an airpod class that talked about what the sr survey funds were and they also were given the survey during airpod time during
063open houses we did have paper copies of the survey available in spanish somali and english they also had qr codes where students or families could complete the survey so we did we worked hard to make people aware and asked for them to please complete the surveys quickly the survey design like i said it was very simple um the first questions were demographic questions the second survey question the second page was just the survey questions it was a rank order so one being their highest priority to 10 being their lowest priority you had to fully rank one through ten you had to mark each one of them um and some of the information well we also had a write-in section you could complete the first page of the survey and not rank all of them all
064of the one through ten so you'll see numbers look a little different for those that actually started the surveys to those that had the number that were actually completed so here is who actually participated in the survey we had nine 1963 individuals that opened the survey uh and that started it and those were counted those that completed page one the demographics was 1898 individuals um you'll see that we broke out who actually by parent and guardian we had 780 parents or guardians completed 726 students and 364 staff members 28 were other the breakout for middle school and high school was 431 high schoolers and 288 middle schoolers and the demographics are below by race ethnicity the two largest groups that identified are those that identify as white and those that identify as hispanic or legends
065so i want to just pause them for one second and say in the first two weeks of school we had eight 1900 people respond to this survey i was on a state call last week for training around this and they were a lot of people were asking what do i do if we don't get feedback what if we don't get feedback i think we did a great job of getting that out you'll see parents staff members students all represented in this area so well as dr clarkson was saying it's not perfect we got a lot of feedback for something that isn't an immediate connection for an individual necessarily the next series of slides we're going to take a look at it's a graphic representation of those 10 priorities that were identified just to kind of
066see where things landed we did notice especially with the students there was some sequential trending where the first question had one a rank of one the second question had arrived at two and kind of going that way um but we didn't see that necessarily across all the spectrums um so this first one is looking at physical and mental health um this came across very strong and just i'm going to step back one second so the priorities that were identified came from state priorities for funding it was district priorities that were aligned with the grant according to the state priority guidelines as well as a look at our strategic plan and some of the other places that we've gathered some feedback in those areas at the end we will take a look at combining some of
067the rankings and what this means and some analysis that way and then one thing as we look at these just to point out is the scale on each one of these slides is a little bit different so you do do need to look a little bit at the number that's on there in addition to where that fall within the ranking so let's look at the numbers always look at the numbers always look at the numbers so this first one was the physical and mental health components and services and programs associated with that you can see that this had a very large ranking of that top priority and then we'll see how that combined when we start looking at the first top three priorities later on so that was strong in general especially at that number
068one ranking if we move on to the second one this also was one that came out strong across the board with 350 respondents identifying this with a priority level two this is focused on students social social and emotional needs this next one was improved communication and support for our multilingual learners and their families you'll see that this was the the highest ranking was in the mid-range i'd also like to point out that those that complete this is kind of a special i call it special interest group so this doesn't impact all of our community members that may have answered this question so i want us to also notice that it was mid-range so it could be viewed as important for those that identify as needing these sports this next one was expanded access to tutoring
069and this was solidly great in the mid-range across the the respondents um in the next category rebuilding connections between home and school again you can see this one has lower rankings at the one and two and lower rankings of the ten but again another one that has a lot of strong middle spread with nearly 200 responses at three four five six seven and eight i'm really in that middle range area and then when we look at smaller class sizes this was really interesting because we saw a lot of one and a lot of at the ten what we found here is um at the ten it was much more our students that were responding that it wasn't as important for them the ones it was our parents and our staff members that were connected in
070with it as i said you know what kid doesn't want to have more kids in their class so they have more friends and more connections it doesn't mean that it's a priority or less of a priority but it's just an interesting piece and also the students who are responding here just to remind everybody are middle school and high school kids so it's not at that elementary level necessarily in that same way access to technology at home this was pretty standard across the board with the two lowest rank as nine and ten so you know it's it's an area that is clearly stating that we just need to make sure that we have technology available for our students and this next one culturally diverse curriculum and instruction um was not one of the highest rates but
071you will see later on that um our there's a group of our student or our families a group that identified as um black that about 25 rank this as their highest priority moving on to the next area opportunities outside of the school day you'll see that this also has a large ranking towards the bottom of the list which was really interesting you'll see that in some of the comments there are some comments that are addressing activities that might be taking place outside of the school day um and just a reminder for the board we have about 20 of our set aside for sr3 that needs to be used to target lost instructional time and what the state has really kind of guided is that that really means after school summer school summer programming extended day
072or extended year programming as the primary focus there are some opportunities to look at how we do that within the day but we have to make sure that we're addressing the factor of time if we're doing it so even though this is a lower priority from the state requirements we will be building in some areas around that last instructional time that takes place outside of the traditional school day and then finally expanded transportation services this pretty much came across the board with 512 individuals saying this is the number 10 priority i think some of this draws to the fact that we reinitiated our hazard as walk zones and so we really shrunk down our walk zone boundaries and increased our transportation boundaries um so other than programming that is perhaps connected with some of our
073after-school programming and transportation services this was identified as a lower priority in that area moving on one of the things as you look at these numbers or look at the spreads there's just so much variation we looked at if we rank the top if we combine the um votes or you know i hate using the word votes but if we identified those who had identified um a one two or three ranking with those priorities that's the high ranking or the high priority a four five six seven is the medium priority areas and then the low priority low priorities are the nine and ten so this is connecting in here with the high priority votes you can see that of the high priority votes physical and mental health and social emotional support are clearly up at
074the top with those number of people interested in those areas um and then smaller class sizes with 600 670 identifying those in a 123 area we talked a little bit about that disparate perspective on where that is so that's another consideration that we move into when we look at the medium priority votes you see those with the rebuilding homeschool connections communications with multilingual learners families access to tutoring culturally diverse curriculum instruction and access to technology at home being in that mid-range and then the lower priorities being the outside of school opportunities outside of school hours and expanded transportation services so those are kind of where we file into those areas and then as marriott indicated we also had an open ended question for what are we missing what other priorities do you think should be
075considered this highlights that information you can see some of them align with those areas already for example music and arts and athletics might be lining up with opportunities outside of the school day we have additional intervention staff connects a little bit with the tutoring component of it whether it's after school tutoring but additional supports to instruct in those areas and then emotional support for staff different connections that way that are expanding beyond what was listed specifically one of the things that we found is most of these things are things that we're already doing so it wasn't a brand new idea in any one of the areas but it just is an opportunity for individuals to identify things that are focused on their interests okay the next two slides really are looking at focuses on the
076differences different responses based on how you identify so this first one looks at the differences between roles so the differences between students parents and guardians and staff and i think the one thing that just stands out here is clearly the class smaller class size it was a higher priority for our parents and staff and we kind of smile at the students ranking because um when they were doing that one two three four this was the only one that they did not do in the number order so our secondary students are really giving us some information that smaller class sizes does not necessarily need is not one of their priorities next slide okay this next slide um looks at the differences um based on how the individual identified as a racial or ethnic group and the
077two things that i'd like to point out here is first of all 25 of our individuals that completed the survey that identify as black identified culturally diverse curriculum and instruction is their number one priority so that's something to pay attention to um there were about 15 percent that of the two or more races that talked that rated rebuilding connection between home and school as one of their top three priorities and then the largest group of respondents which were our white families our white respondents really were reflected in the overall rankings of the priorities next we also looked at it by school to see if there are any variances between the different schools and what their interests were we saw very consistent approaches in most of our buildings with what you probably have been picking up
078along the way um centennial there was really a tie between physical and mental health and social emotional supports with smaller class sizes being a number two priority with rdls smaller class sizes was the number one priority with a tie between physical and mental health and social emotional supports being second um stem sheridan hills and rms all had the same three rankings of smaller class sizes being number one physical and mental health being number two and social emotional supports being number three and at the high school we have the smaller class sizes being won and here we see the introduction of the access to technology at home which as families and students are more independent with technology access or needing those areas that showed up at the high school a little bit more than the other
079buildings and then the physical and mental health connected in with that next we're only going to move with some general conclusions as far as the summary of this information there's general agreement that physical and mental health along with social emotional needs should be prioritized so those showed up one and two pretty much across all the spectrums similarly smaller class sizes came out strong but as we talked about there is that difference between what parents and staff members were saying versus what students were staying we also saw that there was a little there was less priority for the class sizes with our black and latinx respondents in the survey not as focused on that as the larger population most respondents did not highly prioritize programming outside of the school day but we saw that there was
080some passion around that with the comments that individuals were putting in expanding transportation was not generally prioritized and the greatest number of write-in comments concerned more options for meals additional funding for athletics and music arts programming and additional staffing for academic interventions so our next steps and what we think this means and where we are moving forward to is our application and our budget are due by october one so we have a very quick timeline to get these things systematized into that application uh the good news is as we look at program priorities it really we believe it aligns up with what we have been doing as an organization what our strategic plan has been saying all of our investments over the last few years with class sizes with social emotional supports with physical and
081mental health in addition to the academic supports and interventions continue in that same area so strong alignment continue with those areas other areas with those smaller interest groups or individuals who may not have been as vocal in responding to the survey also need to be addressed we saw those in those middle range areas of looking at our curriculum looking at additional supports for families with multi-language learners and things like that need to also continue to be a priority in our work while outside of the traditional school day was not a priority in this area we do know that we need to address it um from that lost instructional time and so we will be building in some activities around that and part of that will be looking at our partners with beacons and looking at
082some other partnerships outside of our school community which is also a big focus for this grant application according to the state and then one of the things we heard at fiscal planning last spring and again this fall is balancing that expansion of programming with sustainability so we don't add something for a year and then take it away in a year but then look at what are those value-added programs and so how do we respond immediately where we need to have that acute response but then also make sure that we're planning that moving forward as well so we will be working actively on that mary and i have an appointment set up tomorrow afternoon to start working on that application and fine-tuning that along with the grant um there any questions or comments um that would
083also be helpful for us at this time all right well thank you that was thorough for sure there's a lot of content i'll start with the left side of the room if that's all right we'll start with crystal feeling given how much i have talked about this in the past um so i do have a number of things unsurprisingly um one thing it would be helpful if you can share with us the student results specifically i would like to see them disaggregated from the totals and a question related to that that you might know you might not know off the top of your head are the student racial demographics of who took the survey as unbalanced as the overall demographics the student results are more reflective of our actual student population so that makes me
084want to see it even more um because i think you said in in the presentation that uh you know our our white folks are well reflected i would say they are over represented and so the desire to see what our students who are more reflective says um it feels really strong for me and i think connected to that i would say as you're having these conversations and really putting these plans together how to use the lens of our equity policy when looking at this and when looking at this data and making sure that it isn't kept in context and just thinking about what that equity policy would call us to do um and then i think the the last two things i was going to say one is that it the there was a big
085survey that was just released from the university of minnesota steve might know the name of it off the top of his head because i do not the one that katie pickell did do you remember what it's called okay it was released recently and it was students families and staff who were surveyed last fall and then again this spring just about what they were experiencing what they were wanting from school and i think again there were some really interesting differences between what students were saying and what the adults in the system were saying um and so for for there in those results the number one concern for students was actually around academics and it was around being academically behind and being concerned about that and so i think that's something that i'm interested to hear more
086about from the perspective of our kids and then i would say final comment um is just how we're going to follow up on this with our community and really sort of close that circle of what we ended up putting in the plan and i i know our director of communications jennifer valley is watching our meeting and and so suspect that this is already in her mind but so one example is you know long-term class size reduction is not something we can do with this funding and so i worry that we set people up to think that that is a viable long-term strategy that we can use with these dollars when actually we cannot and so just how we talk about that and how we share with people the decisions that we end up making as
087a district feel really important to me that's it [Laughter] thank you so um you brought up a lot of the things i was thinking but thank you for getting this out in the forefront for us to talk about it um i know you mentioned it multiple times so i appreciate that my interest also is in disaggregation of some of the data so if you so um elementary or primary family primary school parents versus secondary parents and secondary students right they're you're going to have different experiences and those kids will have different needs so i think it's important to look at what the elementary school if you're an elementary school parent what their what their priorities were versus what secondary student families priorities are because i think they're going to be very different i think one
088thing that obvious is obvious through all of this is that social emotional and mental health needs are at the top of priority and i think it's really important to look at that across the board for all of our students and to make it a priority and i don't think that the repercussions of these past couple years are just going to go away so even though we only have this money for now i think it's really important to look at what we can do long-term for our students and that and make it a priority for all of our kids going forward and i think the equity lens is important but i also think it's really important to recognize that boy this is really hurting has really hurt all of our kids and i think it's important
089to remember that too let's see and then i think this it was the same thing i was going to bring up about class sizes and yeah it would be great to decrease our class sizes but it's it's not sustainable without additional money coming in and you guys addressed that already that you've already talked about it so i think that is an important thing and i know so the loss of instructional time and the i'm also interested in the disaggregation when you talk about tutoring for kids and that kind of thing because i would expect that that's where you'd see a lot more in the secondary and even from the kids like if they are feeling that they are behind that they may be the ones asking for that or secondary parents who aren't able to
090help their kids that are struggling at that secondary and otherwise it was very interesting and i'm glad they managed to get this out in two weeks and get this much information together so thank you all right thank you ms meshach um first i just want to thank you for the time and attention to this i haven't seen this kind of data from any other districts in terms of how they're engaging their community around esser so i'm very impressed by that and especially with the numbers um i also was grateful for the breakdown of the demographics i think in surveys one downfall can be sort of a majority rules mentality and that can be contradictory to equity so i did appreciate how you broke that down some of the things you highlighted from racial and ethnic
091groups i didn't necessarily see in the program priorities on the next step slide so i would just echo what crystal said in keeping that equity policy in mind as we complete the application um and then kind of a technical question my assumption is it has to do with tier of interior levels of intervention but how would you differentiate between mental health and social emotional support between those two questions the way um we were looking at it is the social emotional is more the curriculum the embedded um uh practices that are happening in school in the actual health and mental health are the actual services so school linked mental health services now i'm not sure you know i speak to that um so to your point it might not have been clear in the survey to
092those that were completing it sure that's right it makes sense to my brain that social emotional is kind of like the tier one yeah instruction thank you for clarifying that i think that's everything thank you so much can i just make one comment just on those priorities what we're trying to communicate is while we saw the strength strength of physical mental health social emotional needs class sizes putting that equity lens on and looking at where some of those other voices were showing up in that second bullet around other areas need to also be addressed in those next step formulas is what our intention was is trying to communicate that oh thank you thank you for clarifying i think i overlapped we're disregarding the results we're just saying that while these were the strongest these are
093the things we also need to make sure we're including in our plan thank you cool so um i really appreciate the comment on the special interest questions and you know because that was the thing that stood out to me is the distinction between questions that really have that general affect everybody um scope and those that are really going to be much more targeted in scope and so have we i mean i mean i think you kind of alluded to this that to some extent this survey could be sort of a scoping exercise as we think about doing a whole variety of different things but it's kind of like how big do you go with your access to tutoring or with your communication to multiple language families because i would for the most part i felt
094like there was that the feedback we were getting was telling us that a lot of this is important i mean obviously we sometimes can't do everything and we've got to set priorities um but if it's possible to sort of right-size our efforts and you know maybe do several intensely directed but smaller efforts that are directed where they're particularly needed then that feels like a good use of this sort of feedback so that's kind of what i had but i would agree with the overall assessment on i mean it felt it felt pretty clear on what your top sort of broad priorities are uh which would be the you know social emotional side in the physical and mental side so that seemed like something that would be covering across the entire across the entire district so
095it makes sense to me all right miss cole you ready we're ready all right so thank you like allegra said i don't know anybody else who's doing this and i know that you were very intentional in sharing the survey uh out with the community and trying to get uh that said we know and we have said before that surveys are not culturally relevant ways of getting information they are fastest as from the researcher point of view you get a lot of information that you can dissect and you know work with and get a lot of information so i'm curious to know this is one of the things i i have a lot of three things in my mind so one thing is that a way that with the understanding that uh we have 30 of
096our families in the district are white race but 47 of them set their responses we know that 42 of our students are latinos we only have about half of that a little bit over half we responded so and then we only have seven percent of participants uh uh black of non-hispanic origin but we know that 30 of the students are you know black so i'm curious to know is if do you think it's fair to take these numbers as a of the 30 percent of white and then cannon valley kind of like doing like a curve and this is like a math question to you team but does that make sense as saying are we taking if we're thinking representation like can we take this representation to say like about overall groups because what's what
097i see here like i'm not surprised to see that black and latino families don't see class sizes as a priority because in our community this is more of our life and death situation and maybe not life and death in that sense but it is to us because this is what we're fighting against and and our kids and thinking about the future so i think that's why it's so important that we think about and like to in my head culturally relevant uh instruction and also having the resources to do it is an investment into the inequity that we have in discipline disparities in our district not only by race but also by special needs uh you know exceptionalities here so when i think of sr funding and this thing that we have where we don't we
098know we don't only have this for a couple of years so class sizes definitely why are we going to hire a lot of teachers and then fire them we can do that however there's a lot of priorities that we have had that we haven't had money to to do before because you know we are a fiscally responsive district and and we are doing a lot of great things so i think this is a a great opportunity to really think about what are these great things that i believe um for culturally relevant instruction that are also going to support social emotional health and i want to be long-standing because if as a district i know that uh when i joined the world i know that steve was on a mission along with you to really improve
099uh the way we deliver curriculum here and there and the work was amazing we've seen that the results we have seen for years so like an investment that keeps on giving going forward because we have changed the culture of how we teach and how we plan lessons and how we see students which is very in line with what we do already because i do know there's an interest from this district to to do that but i just don't want to miss out on the opportunity of something that could be so great and be long-standing because of responses didn't you know what i mean like they that the responses are not showing based on the percentages so that's a lot in my head i'm speaking very fast sorry i do that and speak a lot too
100but thank you uh you've been really great uh eye contact and listeners and i'm very grateful for this i do want to acknowledge though what you're saying and i think it's the same thing that crystal and the others have said is not taking the overall data as just the overall data we need to look at our groups our our respondents that identify as black as latinx as two or more races and what are they saying we also when we write the grant can write it broad enough where we have some flexibility i mean they they how social emotional learning um and culturally responsive teaching to your point they're very much aligned and so that's work that we've already committed to do but how do we is there something else that we're hearing from our communities
101and maybe need to go back and speak with our students to get a little bit more clarity on what that might look like and how that might show up so i i just want to comment paula bro ask the question that yes you can re-weight the responses um if you feel as though the cells for example for you know the whites were overwhelming were over represented within the sample you could re-weight them and present them representing you know 30 percent that they actually are within the district for example and you could re-weight the replies for the hispanic latinos to to which to be 40 or you know to be closer to the actual number etcetera and you you could if you believe these responses are valid um as as survey responses within the categories yes
102you could take them in the distribution of their responses and then just re-weight them to amplify some and to dampen others i so love the expertise that comes out and board meetings every now and then i'm useful i know you know the answer to that do you think we have enough well now we're getting too technical and whether we have enough enough enough n in those cells to do that is n big enough um yeah exactly that's a i mean how much time do we have right i can see that with the white and the hispanic cells i'm a little concerned about some of the others but at any rate nevertheless that's way too in the weeds but but that's not so what i'll say is as administration what we hear is pull out the
103students do more work in the demographic data and examine to make sure what it actually says um as we continue moving ourselves forward so we're sure that our responses are aligned to our equity and to the vision that we have as district um i hear that we did a very good job in getting a wide range of voice and so that is something we can be proud of and we want to make sure that how we interpret it really aligns to our value system and so uh cassandra already sent it back with some of those notes and one of the joyful things of doing such a wonderful job that the outreach team did and the administrative team did and our teams did is now we get to do some more and so we will continue
104on with our survey and we'll continue on to look at um are there other ways to look at this that that represent our values really really well and make sure we're actually hearing all of the voices we want to hear right and i want to say i'm not saying that i want to value everybody's responses and i don't want to say that on value you know anyone who takes the survey is doing a great service in sharing the information i just want to make sure that as we do with everything where there's a survey related this is a data point or plenty of them but not the whole of it so that what you've said about thinking what what's going on with the students what what do we see in buildings every day like that's
105also uh important and uh so thank you right how we honor and value and respond to the the responses we got and do things that we can do that that are sustainable and that you know hopefully we learned something um you know different than what we would have imagined on our own for direction here that would be real value i think so so thank you and similar to as you have suggested one of the ways to value that is then we report back on what we are doing based on the voice that we heard and you can see some of that in our reimagine rich field work in the video that just came out so and i think to the point that this is one data point you know both in that data collection so
106looking at this in addition to what we've been doing with our student engagement committees and the student work um that is the voice that's come out through a lot of those areas so for us as we looked at this this is one data point it's a more most immediate response data point certainly has some limitations because it was a one month at the beginning of the school year get a survey out we have to turn this around by october 1st but we haven't looked at it exclusively and this is the only voice that we're listening to as part of that process and i do want to just shout out to cassandra who put together a lot of this information so she's like over there saying okay here's the student stuff and she was responding to
107that and helping us and so i just want to give that shout out to the work that she did as part of this process too so thanks to all three of you thank you thank you and everybody else who did a lot awesome all right all right so one more in the superintendent reports so to our board candidates we're at 8 30 and we're only two items in it's not always like this this is not difficult because i didn't come last time i noticed we ended like a day the last meeting was was very quick this one not so much and that's okay i was still here come on all right so the superintendent goes right superintendent goes which is really the evaluation process as you think about the roles of a board member um
108as you are in governance guiding our policies as you are working on the vision you are supervising one employee of the district that is me um and so one of the things that i do as part of that transparent evaluation is present goals this is a first draft um this is the second step in the process the first step was my evaluation back in july where we had conversation about goals and and some of the areas to work in uh reviewed our strategic plan and began work on the overall evaluative process uh just as a reminder from the last year process which rolls forward to this year and this aligns to q count student achievement is 30 percent of the overall evaluation of specific data based on the gains and achievement of our students process
109goals which is my work leading our strategic plan and specific activities to improve our district and then also the other 30 is my individual performance board evaluation of me how i'm doing there's a survey that goes into that process and a bunch of other components for a student achievement perspective we have now gotten creative and advanced some of our work based on on covet and some of the good learning so we had to move off of standardized testing in a very significant way and moved to achievement growth and so we're looking to finalize achievement growth measures and common informative assessments in reading and in math and other curricular areas that occur within our elementary schools and each of our elementaries are now documenting our students their student achievement and growth and so we're looking at
110that as one measure um and then creating that process at the secondary level to make sure that that works and so that we are matching some of the work at elementary on with what we'll be doing in our secondary so you'll see a sample of what that might look like and what we're doing is making sure that the board is aligned to this vision and then we'll get some of that data up and and we'll pop that together for a draft too a typical measure that we have graduation rate growth and so continuing on with our graduation rate growth often i would have a goal in regard to gap closure but as you know and as we have been recognized for uh we actually have no outcome gap and graduation rate by uh racial demographics
111of our children we are one of the few districts if not the only that has no predictability by race for graduation in the state of minnesota something we can be very proud of and something that we will work very hard to continue on however we do have other areas where we have significant gaps in our outcomes 2021 achievement on the 8th grade mca and these are some of the touch points of of where students find success in the bigger picture we have a gap 67 percent of the students participating in the grade 8 mca were students of color but only forty percent of them who scored proficient were by cox students and then on the third grade mca reading another signpost that the state has asked us to look for in our world's best workforce
112uh 72 percent of the students participating were bipolar only 52 percent scoring proficient we're bypassing so just trying to figure out ways to look at our gap um one of the things that we have as a baseline challenge from last year is only about two-thirds of our students actually took the mca's last year and so really trying to figure out how do we try to match match our outcomes to to make sure we're having gap closure and so our biggest feedback from board which you can give me either in this meeting over the next couple weeks is are we on the right track in terms of some of those measures that we're looking at um for my evaluation process goals are those things that i'm doing overall to lead our district aligned to our strategic
113plan and the challenges that we have so obviously as we know we are going through the ongoing pandemic and that is a lot of work for our district to effectively lead our way through draft create communicate our vision cards we launched those out and now we really have to use those as that transparent tool to talk about a wide range of measures um to to analyze how our performance is overseeing substantial completion of our construction project on time and within overall budget we are in the last year last significant year of our overall construction project um very exciting component to have completing and launching the equity guidelines to accompany our equity policy and so we are working on i believe around five specific guidelines and some pretty significant in-depth work uh beyond just the policy
114itself but really talking about what are the actions that are going to accompany that and then one of our large strategic plan pieces of work that's happening in all of our schools across the district is a transition to standards-based grading and standards-based grading isn't just grading it's also transforming the way we assess and then transforming the way we teach based on how our students are doing so so far what we have done um pandemic-wise we worked through the summer again how to create safe in-person learning plans expanded our blended learning at rsep and online learning through our partner districts and have continued on with new covered protocols to start our school year to our vision cards um on july 7th we published our draft vision cards with our baseline data and we will be creating
115a schedule to gather that updated data and present those to our board and also our community and jennifer valley communications who is listening online will also help us with how do we then communicate that out to our community so we can effectively share what are those measures and how are we doing across a variety of areas i'm looking at that substantial completion component of our work pack construction is completed centennial rdl seminar hs 90 to 95 percent of shared in rms and central and we are currently on time in the bigger picture and with an overall budget within that bigger picture and again as a reminder not every step of the piece is within budget and not every step is on time but the bigger picture of our project is is within that window and
116remains that way um continuing with our equity policy and so we did as you remember approved that back in april 19th part one of equity guidelines is drafted uh currently is about to go in front of safe and supportive schools uh it's gone to leadership team members and staff and will continue to work that way um until we have something to share out with the board and then we'll continue on and again we estimate approximately five guidelines will come with this policy approximately um as we continue to see what are all the areas for us to focus on but then we have worked on the concept of standards-based grading we introduced that to all of our teachers um it was in workshop week and in some of our plans um and so everybody has heard
117this we've worked that out with our initiative mla committee which is our partnership with education richfield and just making sure that we figure out what is an appropriate timeline for this is not a one-year project this is something that we'll be doing and hearing about over the next several years uh last year we began and did the setup for that launching a digital grade book at elementary which allows that goal for student achievement to show what is the growth of our formative assessments and our summative assessments at elementary and then creating professional development and making sure our teachers are really set up to be successful as we move ourselves forward in some of this work uh then obviously moving on to my overall performance and just as a reminder we do that staff and parent
118survey often happening in february you all then reach out to my direct reports the principals and the cabinet team members for feedback also then you provide feedback to that evaluation in which case we culminate with a closed session and evaluative process and so with that again a lot of information we can take feedback or input on ideas you might have now or over the next couple weeks because what we'll do is we'll refine this and we'll try to solidify my goals and measures and then continue on with our leadership team and work on on everybody's goals across the district all right well thank you so just as a reminder for those watching at home or with us in the boardroom this this document represents the superintendent's goals for the year it's about what we use
119to measure his performance of course missing from this is the obvious we expect you to superintend the district which is lead us in general but there there are specific tasks we ask on an annual basis and so this this document is somewhat of a living document we update it uh sometimes the goals shift right like when covet happened we kind of had to throw the old one out because we well we just weren't able to do normal things for a while so anyway um that with that as a preamble i do want to make sure that the board knows that if there's their items they wish to see represented within here to reach out to me and let me know so i can work with the superintendent to include them within there so with that
120we'll start on the left again okay um i do you're afraid of starting with me we may never get to the all the way to the right i don't know of course we will no i just i appreciate this first draft the the timing of it it feels nice to be back in our regular cycle so thank you for all of that um i think everything looks really good as a start the the one thing that surprised me was that i didn't see the strategic plan mentioned anywhere and i think that that's probably implied in vision cards but that's the one thing that i wondered about making more explicit in some way shape or form related to your goals and i can see miss kwam writing that down and so a draft two will absolutely
121be spelled out thank you i think it looks great so thank you for all the effort in mapping everything out and i am sure miss cole ah this looks a really great start and i'm very excited to see focus on growth uh you know i believe growth tells us more than the mca uh as a former teacher i know what how kids feel about the mca so it's kind of like yes i know the story but it's a great great start and ah i'm excited to see what we find actually or the end for now for now that's excellent thank you it's very important that the vice chair is comfortable with this this tool since you'll be very important in operating this i'm sure so um to me again i i want to acknowledge it's
122a it's a really really nice uh beginning to me um as we talk about successfully continuing to lead the district through the pandemic my feeling about the prior academic year was that obviously that year that we've just experienced everything got derailed um you know the the pandemic and the the substantial complete disruption or of our ability to deliver instruction the way we were used to um really through kind of everything out the window what i would and and i think that i feel very also very grateful that we sort of went through that disruption with the degree of success that we did what's been really important to me moving forward then as we start to resume with some semblance of more normal is that we regain the momentum that we that i feel like we
123had built prior to the pandemic hitting us um so what i'm thinking about is i'm thinking about some of the items that had been substantial focus areas of um 1718 or 1819 um and i'm thinking about the our our focus area on radical hospitality and i can't recall if that was ever in a goal but that was i think an important focus area and one that i want us to not lose sight of and then the second would be work that we've done to focus in on athletics and activities um and to continue to drive more participation more engagement and and you know more success in athletics and activities we've had some transitions there uh in terms of you know who we've got personnel wise bleeding and i would like us to sort of continue
124to see uh you know progress in that area so again i don't know if that was ever formerly part of goals i know steve that you had taken a relatively direct approach there a few years back and and uh and i think i appreciated that we were seeing some some really good outcomes from your direct involvement there and i guess i'm encouraging us to keep that on the radar we'll review that and look for a golden alliance or strategic plan within that area yep all right thank you nice me shaq i think these look very strong and i just want to give personal thanks for taking some time to walk me through the vision cards and your process for that i just found it really fascinating um and really liked seeing that big picture so
125thank you for that as well well that will conclude the superintendent update thank you and that will bring us to next item on the agenda is the consent agenda this is the basket of relatively ordinary and mundane and routine business items that we consent to pass in bulk with no discussion so with that said does anyone have anything they'd like to remove for discussion before we remove the item i don't hear any so we could entertain a motion on the consent agenda remove approval of the consent agenda as presented a second we have a motion by miss malik and he's second by miss smishek all in favor please say aye aye [Music] chair votes i and the consent agenda is passed all right now we'll move to old business and the first item is policy
126704 annual audit all right we're picking up speed now all right uh read two of policy 704 annual audit just as a reminder we have three reads the first is to re-familiarize ourselves second is the revised and then the third is the passage ideally so this is the annual audit um just again minor changes have gone through uh mr holgi has worked with the fpac group i'm in a later policy the insurance advisory group to make sure that we are getting those voices in um and so all you'll see is changes um to style specifically in this area um and so just presenting you redlined copy for your review all right well thank you um right we discussed last time that the the audit is seems to be a fairly straightforward copy from the msba
127model policy and is driven by statute and expectations for government entities to be audited so i i appreciate the cleanup and style does anyone have any questions or comments on this one all right it is a second read if you have any please share them with the superintendent before the next time otherwise we'll bring it back for a third read and passage at the next meeting super policy 705 insurance second read also um again another short policy that just very much aligns to msba this is more an insurance advisory that is reviewed by the insurance advisory committee um and so you'll see that i'm running past this again for a quick review um and we'll again be back be back for recommended passage in two weeks all right we had a spirited discussion last time
128about who would actually i want to make sure i understand what i just heard you said insurance advisory has yet to weigh in uh is that what i just heard it hasn't gone through anything no this is but it is more insurance advisory than f-pac correct uh the other way around i was my my thinking last time the insurance advisory committee in my experience deals primarily with the insurance that we offer to employees as benefits and the fpac is our financial oversight committee and i think the risk management that property casualty insurance would bring would probably fall under theirs under most corporate structures so what all this is really doing is indicating that the board is going to be working with consultants or agents of record to secure the insurances associated with the district um
129the in july every year the board appoints who those agents of record are for both the benefits as well as the property casualty liability so insurance the specific insurance categories haven't been addressed in fact previously because it's more about financial planning versus the risk litigation is really more of a specialist partnership with our insurance consultants so right it hasn't had a committee structure in the unit specifically if the board wanted to put something in saying that the administration it's recommended the administration um work with committees for as appropriate or seek consult that could be added but all this is really doing is appointing saying that we're working with insurance agents right and i think if we were to address that the the the f if we were to include language like that within this i
130i really do think it would be fact that would be considering our schedule of insurance and looking at that just doing just so they could understand the that we have standard risk management i mean we we talk about risk and things that could go poorly for us on fact right like do we have that's why we have uh we have a reserve reserve fund and things like that right and so they i think would be the ones who should consider the various coverages we have to keep us from getting sued or to replace buildings and and other things that that suffer damage you know there's property or liability some sort of claim there so that would be something we could consider um if you want i could work with mr hulsey to figure out if
131it's appropriate to include in policy or we could just change how those committees operate and and put it within there that they have an expectation to review as necessary i don't know which is more appropriate i tend to like policies that are general yeah so a couple i'll just speak to a couple challenges so our property casualty liability generally comes up in september and october okay so our fiscal client advisory committee is first in september so much of the work is done over the summer around uh securing our insurance first time first time caller so i'd say that there is a little structural challenge to how we operate for the timing around when our property casualty liability is in place certainly we seek information about general planning around it during the fiscal planning process as
132well as around the insurance advisory process for the benefits side of it this is kind of general and it's not indicating whether we're talking about property casual liability or whether we're talking about medical benefits um in fiscal planning just for information we do talk about our benefits insurance program or self-funding program the value of that as far as the reserve and those different components it's less about the selection of a carrier which is guided much more by a state hit a process for the health insurance transparency act component of it so to answer your question i would prefer to keep it general and we can work on building that in just from an advisory recommendation from the board um knowing that that's another place where that information is being gathered as part of the process
133for both of those committees really in addition to the professional recommendations coming from our agents of record and the work that they're doing okay thank you for for that detail um i appreciate that so why don't we why don't we take what we have here um mr tensing if you want to talk to me about where it might go we could work together with sure mr holgi and yeah since uh i believe you're on fbac i'm on insurance advisory and fair enough i'll definitely get to talk i know that anyhow i think that that any other comments or questions on 705 before we move forward and probably bring it back next time for a third read and possible passage wonderful thank you mr modi we'll move now to a second read of policy 707 commission
134sales vending machines and school pictures all right and so again very minor changes to the policy just a couple of very small updates i'm really just talking about uh what to do and how to handle commission-based sales something that is very small in our organization at this point but definitely still has a small presence does anyone have any questions or comments on does the uh in the the so the most substantive change that i saw was that we were changing the threshold um for triggering the requirement to advertise from the 50k to 175k is that statutory got it thanks mr holgi has indicated it is statutory excellent thank you mr holger all right questions comments on the second read if you have a a light bulb moment uh later in the evening or sometime in
135the next two weeks please let us know let the administration know when we'll get those the edits incorporated as needed all right we're moving forward now community education a third read of policy 901 community education that is correct and one for actual passage so hang on to your seats ladies and gentlemen uh we are pushing this forward for actual passage as the board had recommended and it took us an extra month to do this i went to the community education advisory and also the community education department not huge substantial components just a couple of small pieces feedback to proactively create facilitate inclusive opportunities for all ages and then again some some minor other changes throughout things that you have seen before and nothing significantly substantial since then but definitely got those got those voices and
136feedback that you would ask for so with that i present it to you for recommendation for passage all right so does anyone have any questions or comments on the edits provided now that they've been through the the respective committees and departments no i just appreciate taking the time to do that i think it's really meaningful it would be a massive error on our part to not have those those groups review it so questions or comments from this side of the room if we don't have any i could entertain a motion i'll move that we approve uh the community ed policy as amended second we have a motion by mr tensing in the second by miss brackey any final discussion on policy 901 all right all in favor please say aye aye opposed say nay chair
137votes out in policy 901 on community education is updated and approved all right i think we are now into new business we're into new business administrative guidelines 216.1 public comment right and so is 216 public comment allows administration or requires administration to oversee um public comment and how that is run obviously we know um from around the metro i think we are approaching 70 school board members across the metro have resigned from positions um things that have been occurring at board meetings have suggested that more advanced planning might be necessary and also we had some adjustments on that were really supportive during colbid that aren't necessarily quite as needed anymore and so we are recommending so that we have time to review and time to plan and prepare moving sign up on the district website
138towards noon and then if needed condensing condensing some of that public comment if we were in a situation where things would get really long and again that would be something that could be had in a conversation just a reminder that we will take things into consideration and may provide response and we had not had that in there before but we feel it is important to do that and then also really just clarifying um about personal attacks because as we've seen both here and in other locations around around actually across the country there have been some pretty aggressive things happening at school boards and so just being clear in what does that mean how would that be handled and how do we how do we support that open dialogue with the community and making sure that
139it is a safe and effective place for everyone so we are presenting that administrative guideline which has been worked on by dr daniels in consultation with a wide range of different folks as we continue moving ourselves forward all right does anyone have any questions or comments i'd like to offer the administration uh on the proposed edits as listed here i want to thank uh superintendent and assistant superintendent daniels uh for the diligence in in doing this uh it shouldn't feel unsafe to be a public servant uh and these are sad times that we are living in and timely a timely process with this uh and and i'm glad to see that it's very clear that we're not changing the policy itself we're just really tweaking the the guidelines to make a a more transparent process
140and uh that allows us to conduct our business of uh governing at the school district right yeah i mean i think i think you're absolutely right hello and if i think about sort of our collective experience as we've grown um i think there's been a there's been a process for for many of us of um trying to find that trying to figure out where we can where we can get the right balance between seeking uh the input of our community which i think we all genuinely and sincerely wish to hear and also governing effectively and so it's it feels like a it feels like a learning process not only for us but for the community as well so that we can all figure out how to be most effective and working together presumably to uh
141to have a you know just for us to be able or whoever is sitting in this chair you know to be able to do their job in the most effective way so i really do appreciate that dr daniels and dartinowski have taken this very seriously appreciate it questions or comments i would echo the appreciation to superintendent but also dr daniels and her patients in waiting for me and finally and and persistence in finding me i i tell people who are looking for comments or feedback from me to be um very direct and and never feel bad about about reminding me that that i owe you a reply so please feel free thank you for your patience i think the only thing i was going to share is i i want to make clear that this
142is not intended to say that people cannot and should not criticize or critique right correct correct absolutely i'm not saying any of you to that yeah no no i think it's important that that is also what we are here for um and this is not intending to to change that or our expectation of being able to hear tough things and figure out what is our responsibility to do with them as a board um and so that is not the intention behind this it is i think to make clear what the guard rails are and to do so within legal bounds of the first amendment and this is a public meeting and i think those are all things that have been very carefully considered in putting this together so i appreciate the hard work that's gone
143into it yep i mean you're absolutely right that um being able to respond effectively to criticism um i mean i feel like that's really what this policy is about is to be able to hear that criticism and then to be able to um to be able to come up with a response that is really effective well but to be fair it's also how to fit that if someone chooses to deliver it within this setting i mean we are always available people reach out to us routinely to to let us know areas we could improve right or things we could do differently and they do so in outside of this setting the the public meeting setting they can choose to do so you know as often as they wanted we're just trying to to make the
144operation of this meeting a little more orderly um or to ensure that it's it's it's a little more orderly than perhaps it has been it in certain brief episodes so i think there are some situations where it's very appropriate for someone to come and speak to us publicly as a board and hold us accountable to things and i like crystal said i think we are all very open to that and that is what we're looking for in public comment i think the other thing that is really beneficial to this is having some advanced notice about the topic so that so that our admin team can address and look into any potential issues and possibly have a response or at least know you know know how they are going to respond to that so i think
145it's important to have as much information as we have as we can in advance so that we can be transparent about what might have happened and so that if somebody is coming to us with a lot of accusations if they aren't true we're able to address that as well that's great so this is this is a guideline not not a policy policies you know we usually have a very uh you know first second third unless uh something deviates from that out of necessity so we could pass this the recommendation is that we pass this or adopt this tonight correct um yes although again with guidelines you were just reviewing it we're just reviewing it okay correct we typically vote on guidelines and we do it with policies you are reviewing it so you can acknowledge
146that you have reviewed it um and that is all that's actually required okay um if you wish to vote on it as an action you certainly can but that is not actually required of guidelines um i'm happy to to accept it as having been reviewed uh okay excellent all right moving forward then there we go uh authorization for board members to substitute be employed on a casual temporary basis for some unbeknownst reason mr palace likes to umpire referee and even support volleyball and or anything else he is asked to and so having all of our board members present allows him to do that in a role where he would not just be volunteering his time um and so um this would be the board of proving him to perform casual part-time services um and i
147believe i have described most of the roles are there any other roles that you take on mr palace no it's mostly just sports officiating i don't know how to drive a bus yet you better watch out you said yes yes just signed you up for training with mr president so that is on the way but no it's just that and so it's um right i ran into this last spring there was a cancellation for a makeup baseball game and i can umpire except we we had a conversation and so just for clarity i declined it i might and and they found someone else i could have done it for free and i did do a subsequent subsequent game for on a you know no pay basis um the volleyball program what happens is the parents
148on the volleyball program serve as line officials and get paid and then the the convention is they donate it to the booster club but i can't even do that step we can't get it you know get get the donation directly to the booster club otherwise that would be out of line and so this would facilitate that if the board would allow well i will move that we authorize board member tim palace to perform casual part-time services during this school year i will second all right we have a motion by ms brockie in a second by ms smith any further discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed nay and the chair of what's up now it's holy time no it's not all right so now what we'll move forward now we have preliminary
149levy certification and mr hology is with us very good thank you very much um so we are requesting that the board of education certify the maximum for the levy allowed in each category and authorize the school board clerk to sign the preliminary levy certification in addition it's recommended the board of education established the truth and taxation presentation to be scheduled for december 6 2021 at the regularly scheduled meeting which begins at 7 pm in the boardroom at the district office at 7701 harriet avenue south richfield minnesota again this is something that we do annually in september um at this point we're just asking authorization to certify the maximum levy um that is what then shows up on the tax notification that goes out to individuals the board has the opportunity to set or the board
150acts on the actual levy in december after that truth and taxation hearing just a highlight of the current status of that maximum levy currently that levy would be for 27 million 532 799.46 that may be adjusted yet with changes in enrollment or other adjustments that are still being made at the state through the mde processing of identifying what that actual amount is that is an increase of eight hundred forty two thousand one hundred thirty six dollars and eight cents from our current uh levy year um but it is five or 269 235 dollars less than it was two years ago in fiscal year 20. uh just a reminder last year when you set that levy we had a number of negative adjustments that were showing up on the levy because of uh unanticipated reduction in
151enrollment one year from what we had originally projected so we saw our levy go down and then now it's going back up with those adjustments our adjustments are much less this year than what they were last year so that's the biggest reason for that on levy differential at this point at the december truth and taxation hearing the board will get a full report of the actual recommendations for the levy for next year as well as an opportunity for the community to hear our current budget information and um present any comments at that time at that meeting on december 6 in relation to the budget for that um in relation to the levy for the following year so with that i'll respond to any questions that you have otherwise we are requesting your authority to certify
152the maximum levy and set that truth and taxation date all right any questions or comments from the board see none on the left on the right we've done and again this this this step provides the the budget team maximum flexibility for setting budgets and then as we learned last year in prior years there are often adjustments downward from here all right so with that uh if no one has any other questions or comments from mr hulsey we could entertain a motion on the preliminary certification i will move that we certify the maximum levy i'll second the motion by mr tensing in a second by miss malek any further discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed chair votes i and the preliminary levy certification is approved next up we move i mean twice
153in one night we will be talking about insurance we have a workers compensation so we have um up for renewal the workers compensation renewal uh we work with todd oz and debbie thunder from dollop insurance agency todd has been our agent of record on our workers comp as well as property casualty liability for i'm going to guess 30 years plus at this point um he is worked with sfm specifically on this renewal it is a 3.03 decrease in the premium rate including schedule credits and experience mod adjustments this results in an actual 0.64 projected overall reduction taking into account the payroll changes from the 2021 year um total projected premium is 409 773 dollars which is 2 643 less from 2021 uh there's a couple additional detail backups just for comparison purposes on those rates
154included in this but we're asking your authorization to renew that at this time all right thank you does anyone have questions or comments on the proposed workers compensation renewal the only comment i have is this can be our this can be yours and my object to study together to determine which committee gets there which committee gets it that's right it's the rubber stamp because this is obviously the you know a great example of a consultant giving us a nice reduction in premium and that's great and we're really happy and let's um let's make sure that we're doing our due diligence and all this so yeah yeah and i mean compared to other things that i propose for those committees this one is statutory you have to have workers compensation insurance so yeah there's no escaping
155this one and it and within the globe the broader market it seems completely reasonable and fair from from my work experience yep so any other final questions or comments all right seeing hearing none we could we could understand a motion to approve it i will move approval of the workers compensation renewal as presented we have a motion by ms brackie in a second by ms cole any final discussion all in favor please say aye aye opposed nay chair votes eye and the workers compensation renewal is approved mr holgi remains in the chair and we have some good news to to consider next the collective bargaining agreement with education richfield for years 2021 slash 22 and 2022-23 very good thank you i am pleased to recommend for your approval tonight that proposed agreement with education richfield
156uh for to the summer july 2021 through june 30th of 2023. um we've reached attendance agreement that agreement was ratified by um education richfield on wednesday september 8th um with strong support that way a summary of the changes is included we say made some market adjustments on the salary schedule during the first year um with varied dollar amounts on each one of the cells no changes in health insurance or dental insurance premium contributions two percent increase in co-curricular salary schedule as well as some other adjustments in some of the hourly rates and extended time daily rates of pay and added 500 to our bilingual stipend in the second year of the contract we added two percent on all cells again no changes to health and dental insurance premium contributions uh similarly a two percent in
157the co-curricular salary schedule and then additional adjustments in the hourly rates for summer school instructional as well as staff development and curriculum writing there are a variety of memorandum of agreements that we also negotiate as part of this work as well as adjustments to some language around our viba selection and some just different cleanup within that contract at this point so uh with that we seek your proof of that master agreement with education ritual all right well thank you for those who've been paying attention to our various agenda items through the past few meetings we've had closed sessions on the on the agenda for a number of meetings in a row when it was to discuss labor negotiation strategy on this item in particular and so i'm very pleased that that we've come to a
158conclusion and a great appreciation for mr holgie and his team and for also the the negotiators from education richfield yeah i want to echo that appreciation for the uh diligent work done by mr holdings team and in particular want to echo appreciation to education richfield for being really a great partner and really focusing very strongly on what's right for our students and on student success and so i want to just specifically call out our ed ridgefield partners here i second education richfield has been a great partner very student focused uh very inclusive of processes and teachers are just really great overall and their heart is really in the right place and i say this from knowing about a lot of other unions where we might not see that all right the side of the room
159questions comments no congratulations to everyone yeah all right well with that if no one has additional questions or comments we could entertain a motion i move approval of the proposed master agreement with education richfield second one we have a motion by ms mishak in a second by ms bracky any final discussion all in favor please say aye aye opposed the chair of otay and we have approved our collective bargain agreement bargaining agreement with education richfield excellent and now we we have we've advanced to the change order section of the agenda we have a couple scrolling through the extent of this contract i should just go to the shorter version here we go change order number 24 at the middle school very good and um similar to other times i'll go through all three of these
160different buildings with their change orders that are associated with that first of all we have richfield middle school facilities project change order number 24. uh net increase of 24 441.29 um primarily around the addition of a handicap automatic door opener um some additional electrical for the cafeteria where we're going to be installing vending machines to help support our a la carte options around the programming there as well as some miscellaneous ads for mechanical items and finishing associated with that district with that building that brings that project up to 17 million nine hundred 606 three dollars and eighty-eight cents uh moving on to sheridan hills uh we have facility change pro chain facilities project change orders numbers 25 and 26 net increase between the two of them forty eight thousand one hundred and six dollars a
161change order twenty five is twenty two thousand nine hundred fifty one dollars for modifications to acoustical ceilings for duct work some washable wall panels in the dry storage room some additional electrical in the new office location as well as some electrical cabling to be code compliant and some additional painting and then we also have change order number 26 for a net edition of 25 155 for re-roofing to an existing section of the rookie near the kitchen that was originally planned to remain but needed was in poor condition so it needed some adjustments that way that project is now at 10 million 25 746 dollars and finally central facilities project change order number eight for a net increase of twenty two thousand one hundred ninety three dollars and eighty one cents uh primarily associated with costing
162the cost of pipe piping modifications in the tunnel due to some existing conditions and concerns that way also some modifications to ceilings and a credit to eliminate a portion of the fin tube radiation that was determined not to be needed that project is now at four million four hundred twenty six thousand six hundred seventy nine dollars and sixteen cents um as we do all the time we continue to watch what the contingency factors are what projects are still remaining what availability and we believe that we still remain on sorry it's 9 15 and my brain just flipped on target for being able to finish the project as dr yanovsky said earlier i'm within budget and making modifications to the final projects moving forward excellent i i appreciate learning about all the different parts of our
163building learning that we have tunnels all always good to know didn't know we had those in some of our buildings that's excellent um so with that does anyone have any questions or comments from mr holgie on either the rms sheridan hills or central change orders excellent and so we will take them in order we'll start with the rms change order number 24. i'll move approval of rms change order number 24 as presented oh second we have motion by miss malik in a second by mr tensing final discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed nay the chair of otay and change order 24 at rms is approved the next item is sheridan hills change orders numbers 25 and 26. i will move approval of sheridan hill's change orders 25 and 26. we have
164a motion by ms bracky in a second by ms cole we'll give her that tie any other final questions or comments all in favor please say aye aye opposed say nay the chair votes i and we've approved sheridan hill's change orders numbers 25 and 26. and the central change order number eight i will move the approval of central change order number eight i'll second we have a motion by mr tensing in the second by ms meshach any final comments or questions on change order number eight all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed say nay chair votes eye and change order number eight is approved excellent and that concludes the action items on our agenda we now move to advanced planning is is there a legislative update to offer so i do have uh
165some information for you and ms brachy can check me on my accuracy as i report out on avery seems ready no i'm anxious yeah i just i just put you on the spot didn't i so um just a couple of couple of pieces from msd so the first thing is amsd has completed their legislative survey and there are absolutely no surprises but the important thing for me to bring forward right now and for our candidates also to be thinking about is this is the time of year when we start thinking about are there any things that we would like to be uh prioritizing to [Music] talk about with our legislators the amsd priorities and again there are no surprises here at all these are all familiar players but it's indexing the formula to inflation allowing
166local boards the authority to renew existing levies reducing the special ed cross subsidy and no new mandates so that's where amsd will be putting their energy in terms of the upcoming legislative session as we you know sort of kind of work with our legislators to advocate on behalf of public schools in the metro area so um i think for us in richfield we want to be thinking about you know typically we would be traditionally having a sit down with our legislators in january or february so probably uh you know it's heads up to the administration to start planning that um and then maybe thinking about are there policy items especially this will be a policy year in the legislature and so it's a good time to be thinking about if there are educational policy items
167that are important to our community for example in the past we have talked about mca testing and potentially allowing high school students to move out of mca into a standardized to substitute a nationally standardized college entrance exam for mca that might be something that you know that had been a priority for us last year um [Music] and then the other piece and i guess this is as much a question as anything um when will we be getting new board new student board reps involved um we believe they'll we believe they'll be joining us at the next meeting all right so so we'll bring that we'll bring that back when we have our student board reps present hopefully we'll have some veterans back again and we'll get that student input on stuff that's important to them
168so that was one piece the second piece reporting out on a survey amsd commissions morris leatherman to sort of survey the general mood of the population in the metro region relative to k-12 education issues and also relative to sort of general political issues and amsd has been commissioning this survey annually for some time um and so reporting out kind of what morris leatherman have found the um sort of the general feeling is again this is i think going to resonate as not being too surprising is that the the the voters that were surveyed are just exhausted folks our folks are tired we've been through a lot um as a as a country and as a state and as a community um and so you know folks are just tired um and so you know that
169that kind of mood is there um in the electorate um and so the thing for us to be i think um mindful of as we're you know thinking about our own planning is you know if we do need to approach our voters we would want to approach that with that mindfulness that that folks are you know folks are feeling a little bit more guarded and um the uh sort of the general tolerance for government coming with the hands out is not quite what it might have been two years ago um and so um you know there's a little bit more a little bit less willingness to to say yes and a little bit more skepticism on what are you asking me to do so i think that as we are planning and looking at our
170own expiring levees and referenda we just kind of keep that in mind i don't know that we have we actually talked about this on fiscal planning last week we don't we've got some time two years yeah we've got a little bit of time so we don't need to necessarily get too bad out of shape right now but just kind of keep watching you know watching that um needle um as we sort of plan on on what we want to be doing um yep so that was the main thing i mean i think the rest of it was again really stuff that won't be surprising you know they found that in terms of general kind of questions that were aimed at sort of more not necessarily k-12 pacific issues that people were moving towards the polls
171in terms of opinion that you know polarization has increased that the extremes are feeling more extreme and the middle is shrinking and that would be true on either end and so again not necessarily a terribly surprising result the minnesota constitutional amendment uh that has that had been brought up pre-pandemic pandemic took all the wind out of the sails on that one but now it's kind of circulating circling back again you know the the notion of amending the minnesota constitution to change the language from guaranteeing an adequate uniform and adequate system of funding for public schools to guaranteeing a quality education in the state of minnesota that voters actually kind of want both there was general support for the idea of putting the word quality in there and making that a duty of the state to
172ensure a quality education but when asked whether voters preferred adequate or voters preferred quality they actually said no we want both and so that was interesting so we'll see if that if that amendment has any legs to it um and that's what i've got crystal i don't know if you have anything else to add i don't well that was thorough thank you yeah that's great no thank you and it is a good reminder that the legislative session last last year was the budget one and this year is this year's policy policy and so when we meet with our legislators and and usually what january february time frame um just to make sure we're you know we're aware of that right there's some funding to it too uh some adjustments and some tax extra money that
173we might you know so there's there is some funding there is something that is not exclusive it's no it's not exclusive but it's not the big one it's not the big budget yeah does anyone else have any any questions or comments on legislative update if not we could move them to information and questions from the board ms cole um i have a question terrifying question about enough the the that uh covet diagnosis numbers that we have because when you stay step four and then uh mary clarkson said 11 and then he sounded like 11 overnight versus total versus like easy whole district he said by school so i just wanted to um that is by the whole district and so the numbers were accurate as of the time we published the board packet um which
174i believe was three and then we've gone up a significant number since then um and so kovit is currently more and more present so did we get 11 notifications between three and seven is that what happened dr pleasure clarkson please thank you dr clarkson for still being here and joining us i have no problem um we had several cases over the weekend and today i know please don't quote me it was a number of cases over 10 cases that came in today across all of the buildings okay so we had some last week we had several over the weekend and we have a number that came in today okay great thank you and there it's updated on the website on fridays at 4 30 so those numbers um at that given time for what has
175been reported i'm not good that we have contact you thank you mary sorry are the are the regional support teams is that whole structure still in place um we no i don't believe the regional support teams are still in place um what we do is uh we fill out the it's called the red cap it's a reporting forum for the department of health and if we have a need to communicate with them about a particular case we mark that and then they'll get back in touch with us but it's i think that has been different so i don't know what structure they have but content the work of contact tracing is still being carried out by the health department as opposed to us doing the actual um no we do all of the contracts okay
176gotcha okay well our principles and health services nothing for me miss baracki yes i wanted to just share uh two ways in which people board members community other could share input on the superintendent search for intermediate district 287 there is a virtual engagement session tomorrow afternoon actually from 4 to 4 and then likely of more interest and i would love for as many people to take this who are willing is an online survey that is very brief it is anonymous and confidential it's available in multiple languages and the survey is open through october 9th and so if you are interested in helping to shape the profile for the next superintendent of our partner district intermediate district 287 you can find those opportunities and the links to the survey specifically at the superintendent search share your
177views page on district 287 287.org and board members i've asked the superintendent at cassandra to get that link to you in the next weekly communication so you can look for it there thank you i just had one thing um and it piggybacks on something peter had said about the paige kashkari amendment there is a zoom call with justice page and president kashkari on thursday that i planned on attending and the one person who's sort of organizing it um i i spoke i spoke with her and realized that that one's opinion of this is like a rorschach test that that depends on who you're talking to um it has broad bipartisan support it has broad bipartisan opposition it really hinges on these two main components one is the the switch from adequate to quality education but
178the other is is that a paramount duty of the state to provide it and so there's some details to be sorted out about what that means and and how that you know how that would actually flow through and so i don't know i'm curious to hear what um justice page and president kashkari have to say about what they think it will mean as a starting point off see what i can get there and report back it it seemed to me to break down to do you trust do you trust our legislators to to work out the details correct if you don't if you don't you would prefer the amendment i think is what i was told because right now the funding for education is entirely within the legislative legislatures control and this would introduce courts
179and others to measure if it is in fact quality and if they're meeting the standard of of you know primary goal or primary importance or whatever the wording was so right now no one has you know it is entirely up to the legislature's discretion to fund to the level that they do and so the discussion is it would perhaps more from that interesting we'll see all right well with that we move on to future meeting dates monday october 4th 7 p.m right here and monday october 18th that will be our next meeting with public comment opportunity does any do any board members have uh items they'd like to request for discussion and up on an upcoming agenda that you have not previously shared all right well i won't go around the room and make you
180say no comment individually since you just shook your heads at me so with that i believe that moves us to the next item on the agenda which is adjournment and so with that it is 9 29 pm and i will adjourn this meeting if you all walk out the door with me it will be all adjourned you