04/14/25 - Board Meeting

001I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll let the roll call reflect that all members are present. And uh I have just two board chair comments tonight. So we uh we ended the March meeting with close session for superintendent evaluation. So we had Mr. LM Sanllo, Miss Heagen, superintendent, Camp Herman, and then directors Boyd, Hacket, Holm, Andre, and myself um in that meeting. And uh Christine presented on the two goals that uh we have her working on and uh and the board provided her mid-year feedback and both goals are right on track. So we're excited to see where where they end up. Um, and then the second comment is, uh,

002again, we have just over $15,000 in donations this month again. So, a big thank you to to all who continue to support our students. So, um, that's all I have. Uh, does somebody want to move the agenda? I'll move the motion. All right. Director Holm, thank you. Second that. Director Trout, thank you. Uh, any discussion? All in favor? I I opposed. All right, motion carries. Uh, appreciation, recognition, and presentations. That's us. Chair Housestead, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Baram Herman, Caitlin Arnon, activities director. Tonight we have our Yes Club advisor and three of their members um and officers. Correct. I'm here to give a little um preview of what they do and what Yes Club is all about. Um I believe there is a video and then we can have some questions afterwards. Hello,

003my name is May and I'm the chairman and I'm the president and I'm the road officer and this is our team. real members meet on a monthly basis. In these monthly meetings, the officers will go over an agenda upcoming activities, events, and projects happening that month. This meeting ranges from 30 to 45 minutes. We often also have speakers who present information about the projects and activities that we will be doing. These meetings provide great opportunities for members to practice their active listening skills, public speaking, and communication skills along with having a little fun and learn something new. Another large pass project is the installation of four drinking fountains in our school, including a fountain and a bottle filler. This project was made in order to reduce the number of bottles being thrown away each year

004and improve public knowledge on the amount of waste we produce. By recycling oil, we are saving hundreds of native species from pollution and millions of gallons of water from contamination. This is accomplished with the help of East Side Oil who takes the oil away to be recycled. What project are we from our school and we give them a presentation on plants, read them a book and face with them and at the end of the day we give them a tree to take home and plant within their own community. Finally, our last yearong project has been one of our biggest ongoing projects ever, our native prairie. This project has been in action for three years and running, but started way back in 2020. The project started as a simple idea. By 2021, that idea became a

005dream. And in 2022, that dream became a reality. Our first steps started with tilling the land, planting seeds, and then building habitats, including bird houses for our native species. We then made signs in order to educate the public on the growing perry plants. On social media, we posted pictures of the prairie plans to advertise to the community. Such a diverse project needs variety of contributions and effort in order to maintain the maximum success for our project. We conducted several cleanups throughout the year to remove invasive plants from our prairie before they seeded out. These cleanups typically involve 18 dedicated students putting an hour and a half of work to remove these plants. The total time put into these cleanups this year is around 40 hours in total. Cleanups are not the only steps our club

006puts toward the prairie. We also host lessons to teach younger generations the importance of prairies and how they can make a difference in their own communities. During our lessons to educate over a 100 youthful minds, we teach about parts of a flower and seed as well as the students get to create their very own seed bombs. After they create their seed bombs, we take a triple tie to spread the seeds over the prairie. The results are not seen until the upcoming year. On the other hand, we experience many struggles for our prairies. of germination, unpredictable weather patterns, dry soil, relocation due to rain and restrictions on described in the spring. All of these have been factors that have produced migation and slowed our progress. In order to face these challenges, we brought in some wonderful

007innovative tips on how to help our praising station. The first step we took for this, we wrote out a proposal for the school board. So in their February meeting, they're able to approve it for us and we could start working on our project. The second step is we asked the janitors if we could be able to install the panels on the roof. We talked to them. They're willing and eager to put the panels on the roof. The panel will be installed in the roof in the school and have wires run down inside the school that will connect to the inverter and battery. Standards will also be capping out existing outlets in order to disallow the use of conventional power like coal and natural gas which will eventually help our environment. The first step was to

008research the capabilities of our solar panel and learn from a community expert. The expert we brought in on March 21st was Heidi from Clean Energy Resource Team. We talked about the benefits and location of our panels. She showed us the awesome website called Mm Solar Apps. This shows the amount of sun our panel will get for each month. after we learned about the benefits of our project and we will post them on Instagram and Facebook to educate the community about our project. Step four was to decide what solar kit we wanted to install. Our choice was a 200 W solar panel with a 600 W inverter, a 40 amp controller and a 12V 100 amp hour battery. All of which combined together to power our station. The fifth step is to fund the project. The

009solar kit costs around $500 plus the pay for janitors to install the panel. The way we are funding this project is working on a grant from Minnesota Power and we will also be asking the local fire department and Lions Club fund in order to ask these groups for funding. We will also educate them on the benefits of the project. The sixth step to be done is to host an open shop on April 9th to build a box that will be installed beneath the existing shelf that will host the battery, inverter, and controller. This shop will allow club members to get hands on and will make for a fast completion of the project. Last step will be to install it before the end of the 2025 school year. We will also be installing a banner above

010the station to serve as a reminder and a beacon of renewable energy. Our club is very excited about this project and willing to do whatever it takes to see it through before the year is up. Some of the benefits of this project will to provide 200 blocks of total solar capacity which allows the system to generate 8 to 1200 W hours per day depending on the weather and the season. This 800 to 1200 W hours is enough to charge four to six laptops or 10 to 15 smartphones per day. Over the years, this station could generate approximately 300 to 400 kilowatt hours. And with an average electricity cost of 13 cents per kilowatt hour, this would save our school around4 to $50 annually. And over 10 years, that would be $45 million saved in electricity

011with no ongoing fuel cost. If this station produces 400 kwatt hours annually, it prevents roughly 617 pounds of CO2 emissions each year. Over a decade, that's nearly 3 tons of CO2 emissions avoided, which is the equivalent of driving a car 7,000 m or planting 70 trees. This station will serve as a hands-on and visible example of renewable energy in action giving students daily practices while promoting interest in clean energy technology. All of this contributes to our smart goal better. You do this by the writing five advocates and demonstrations lead. That's us. I'm the adviser. We got Wyatt. I'm the chairman. Me too. The secretary. I'm on their order. Yeah. You have any questions or questions? So the video that they made was for a competition and we kind of tried our best to cut the

012video down a little bit from where it was at. So good work. What made you decide to as solar for the project? Oh yeah. Well um so earlier this year we went to a Wolf Wolf Ridge uh lodge um up north on the shores of Superior. Um, it was just our officer team and we decided on four different ideas that we wanted to um possibly pursue this year. Then we brought that back to our club and we decided that the solar one is the one we wanted to What's been the thing that you have learned the most from uh from being in the club? Personally, um I've learned um just quite a lot of little bits of information about, you know, um how how well now with our solar project, we've learned a lot about

013solar in the last couple couple months here and then um a little bit more about the prairie and um how that affects our ecosystem a little bit too. Um we also cuz on our prairie um we also added some like birdhouses and stuff to kind of um keep the ecosystem and you know encourage other native animals to even live in the area as well. Learning about soil type and then certain types of plants and flowers that would flourish best in the type of soil that we have up there as well as just like involving the community in all of this too. [Music] when you guys do the work of writing the grant, um what do you where do you go for resources for help with that? There's a lot of people in this building that

014can can help you. So, um you're going to laugh, but chat GBT does a very good job. I'm terrible myself with I know what's in my brain, but I can't get it out in the right words sometimes. And so if you actually do a very good job of being able to put what's in here and put it into a format, it actually does a very good job of helping you um take your thoughts and putting them together or those types of things. I've actually found that very helpful. So using technology in the world that we live in right now to help you is a good thing. I know our students are using it, right? I would say teamwork. That's one of the things that each year um like they was talking about Wolf um Ridge

015that we went to um they were there for a weekend Friday night, Saturday night. We came back on Sunday and that was an officer retreat that Esco puts on and they also had a lot of educational they learned actually Brandon went with us as well but they learned about lychans. Um we learned about our constellations. Um we actually they went fishing. That was kind of fun. But fishing with what you guys wouldn't think they went fishing with I don't even know what kind of worm that was. There's like some before. Yeah. And it was literally just a pole and they had to chisel the hole through. It was crazy. But anyway, but they caught and they put us on a spot where there wasn't any fish besides perching noise, but but teamwork. It was just

016fun to see the kids bonding together and and I think they really bonded well and had a good time. And that's what it's all about when you're working with kids. giving them different opportunities to take them out of their comfort zones and learn and build relationships and help them to become better leaders. That's that's what our wellbeers. That's it for presentations. Correct. No. Okay. Um recognition of citizens for input purposes. All right. Um so reports board committee reports. Uh finance get through this month. You guys meet in between the last meeting and this meeting. Oh, I didn't think so. Okay. So that's really quick then. Um, and the same thing with policy. Uh, Midstate, we, uh, we're about 85% done with the goals for, uh, for our executive director for the year. Um, and, uh,

017really setting pushing the staff to uh, with their tenure plans. So, that's that's been very very informative for both them and us as to all the different things they have to think about for uh, for finance. So, um, I think we have some good goals that'll that'll help set us up to make all the districts, uh, see a lot more transparency in in what's going on and be able to, uh, anticipate some things. So, that's really it from Midstate uh, superintendent report. Um, so I don't have a lot just that the legislature has gone into their holiday session, so they're off right now for the next week. Um, right now the governor has put forward for us to have to keep the unemployment held harmless. Put some money onto that so it' be okay. Compensatory,

018we reworked it so we'd stay pretty much full harmless in that area. Decreasing, however, transportation um through special education transportation to 95% covered versus 100% covered. The Senate gave a zero target and a reduction for the next bianium out. Um they also are proposing to take away the inflationary um piece that we finally got in which we've been working for 20 years to get. Um they put in to remove that not for FY26 because they've already given that number but moving forward. And then the House has been pretty good to us. They haven't come to agreement yet, but they were ones wanting to add some dollars to education, K12 education to help district. So, they haven't done any of the work yet as a group, all three. So, um they're supposed to be done. I

019think it's May 19th or something like that. So, it's very possible that they'll go into a special session, which I always said is not so special because they do about it earlier. But, um if they can't finish by May 19th, they'll have to call a special session because they have to have a balanced budget figured out by June 30th. So, um, I don't have a lot of information. We're very cautious. One thing also the governor did was in his plan would be to reduce to change how literacy aid is given. And we are one of the districts that would get penalized for it. So, I do appreciate um other superintendent advocating as well to show them the cost differences on who the winners are and who the losers are. Um, we would be a loser

020in that case. So, um, as I learn more, I'll just keep letting you know. And just so you keep on your radar, we have concerts coming up here soon at all levels. And if you can come to those, please do. They're quite talented children. They're fun to watch. So, that's all I have unless you have questions. Oh, I can add just one other update for Midstate, too. We're still working through their FY26 budget. Um, we've gotten one. It looked better than what we had um figured it to be. So, we're circling back as superintendent groups with Lisa and Deian to talk through the a little bit more because I I think they're I don't think it's going to come in as well as what they were first showing on their initial budget and I don't

021want us to be out on that bill again. So, we'll just keep working through that. All right. Anything for Christine? All right. Uh business manager report. Did I was I able to get on? I am here. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. All right. I am presenting the updated treasures report for fiscal year 2025. April budget update. Enrollment has remained steady uh around students. We revised the budget to include 918 students. So we will see uh the benefits of a few students over that budgeted number. Uh the enrollment history graph shown there for reference. And then we're looking at the general fund revenues for month end February 2025 overall on track as a percentage of the overall revised budget at about 56.8%. Uh similar to uh fiscal year 2023, state aids are on

022track as compared to the prior year. Federal is ahead of the prior year behind uh the fiscal year 2023. That has to do with our title funds and our draws uh that I process monthly. Property taxes are on budget and local fees which includes fees that we collect for students participating in activities and athletics. Gate receipts for those that attend activities and athletics. And our interest revenue is ahead of budget uh with about 100 almost 100% of that uh budget line item collected. So, it's likely that we will see an increase over what we had budgeted in those local fees at the end of the fiscal year. Expenditures in the general fund month end February 2025 overall on track as a percentage of the budget at 57.8% 8% uh as compared to the prior years

023again on track within one to to 3% variance and I'll talk a little bit about specifics. So the salaries and wages are slightly under bud budget as we continue to track slightly under budget. Purchase services are on track with the budget. This includes our property insurance that has been paid in full since July of the fiscal year. LTFM, long-term facilities maintenance repairs and maintenance projects are all complete for this fiscal year. And the Midstate Special Education Services and PSO costs continue um to be paid monthly. Supplies are on track. Capital is on track with what was approved in the budget. We purchased a bus. We had planned technology purchases and curriculum purchases. Uh and the other categories also on track as it's a reclassification of chargebacks at the end of the fiscal year. I did

024want to well before I get into the next slide on just some general fund fiscal year 26 assumptions that I did prepare and share with the finance committee this last time we met. Any questions on current month general fund revenues or expense? All right. So, moving on. Uh Dr. Christine Workamp Herman did mention um some of the the nuances of the legislative session. Uh based on what we know at this time, uh we are uh Christine and I uh continue to work on the budget weekly for next year uh as we continue to glean more information whether from legislative session and or just year-to-ate uh trends uh with the current budget. But revenue overall is uh we do know that we're going to be receiving 2.74% uh which is an increase to the current state

025aid formula. uh we have assumed that our compensatory will remain held harmless. We are assuming that we will receive some for some form of unemployment reimbursement. Uh and all other categories for next fiscal year are being budgeted at flat for minimal changes. Overall expenditures uh we're doing we're assuming a 3% increase in all categories. The next fiscal year will be a gap year for curriculum which can be a high dollar amount expense given in any given year depending on the curriculum rotation. But next year is a gap year and we are planning for minimal capital and LTFM projects next year given the unknowns of where legislation will end up overall based on the work that Christine and I have done in partnership with our administrative team is that our unassigned fund balance projection for next

026fiscal year based on what we know at this time um is about 16.6% which is an increase from what we're projecting this fiscal year's unoffended fund balance to be which is about 16%. Any questions on the monthly updates and or the general fund revenue andor expenditure fiscal year 26 assumptions? I have a question, Heidi. Um, you said that the they're going to increase the formula to 2.74% for revenue. Um, what is the what's the current? Oh gosh, now you're going to cuss me. $7,281 per pupil adjusted pupil unit is this fiscal year. So 2.74% on that amount is uh okay 274 * 7381. It's about $199 per adjusted pupil unit, which results in about a $7,480 per pupil formula. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? All right. Thank you, Heidi. You're welcome. I'm going to

027jump off and join another board meeting, but I will be back for the close session. Sounds good. Thank you. Uh, principal report. Sure. Hosted, members of the board, superintendent camp, Joel Swenson, high school principal. Just a few quick things. We started MCA testing today at the high school. uh in middle school. Um we'll be doing that for about the next four weeks. Uh our MCAs are embedded into the classroom. So walking in the old days you had 60 kids sitting in long chairs in the gym for 3 four hours at a time and uh now they are scheduled right into the classroom in the subject in which they are taking the test. So, by and large, for most part of the day, other than not a lot of announcements going on during the testing, um

028you don't uh you don't even notice that they're going on. The other thing, between now and uh between now and the next board meeting, I will send out the invitations and instructions for graduation for board members. Um it will um I'll probably email it to you. It will have uh instructions, seating chart, time to show up. Uh that the whole the whole works and uh that should be sometime in the first week in May that I should be getting that out to you. So any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Sure. Awesome. members of the board, superintendent Dr. Worcap, Tony Newman. Um, since the last time um I was here giving an update, we've started fourth quarter. We started that off with a bang. Um, senior Devid and Mr. Meyer got some pretty neat haircuts and

029uh four of us teachers got pied in the face. Um, that was fun. Uh, very sticky, but that was fun. Um, but it was a great way to kind of kick off and start off our our fourth quarter, and we're already well into that. So, here we are, um, midappril already. We are MCA testing. We'll get into Faspers testing after that and um we're going strong. So um we brought in an author Kevin Love Green last Thursday. Kids loved it. He did the Lucky Loop series of books. Uh kids were able to order and get them autographed. Um had kids come up to me afterwards and say, "Can we still order books?" No. Sorry we we we can't anymore. Um but it was super engaging. It was an hour. Um kids loved it. So, it

030was awesome way to kind of end that last week and then get us into this week for testing. Um, coming up here, uh, we have band concert May 5th. It's on Monday. Um, so first first half would be middle school and, um, sixth grade and seventh and eighth grade right away at 6:00 and then at 7:00 for that spring concert for um, fifth graders and the high school band. And then our choir concert for our fourth and fifth graders will be on Thursday, May 15th with a 1:30 and a 6 pm show. So that is that a week of the next board meeting. So any questions. Thank you. Um athletic director reported members of the board super Dr. camp. Um Kayla Hornson, activities director. Uh spring sports are off and running as you can see

031that we got a little chilly game of baseball outside. Um baseball's or softball is over in Payneesville. Um so I think by the end of this week all of our sports will have just about an opportunity to get to their events and have a competition. I think girls golf was supposed to have a meet today. Their golf course wasn't ready for us to go. So um that's exciting. Um some other concerts just so everyone's aware. um on April 27th, it's a Sunday, we have our jazz band performing um at 2 p.m. Um and then we have our band concert May 5th and then our choir concert on May 14th. Um so those are um some of the highlights and our band and choir have done very well with their um solos and large group ensembles.

032I think our choir solo participants go this Wednesday. So things are going and Jazz got 39 out of 40. Yes, 39 out of 40 on their rating. So that's really Yeah, it's really hard to get that close to a 40. So super excited for them. Any questions? Thank you. Uh next is the consent agenda approval. So the board is consenting to approve items listed below as presented one at a time or at one time. Uh at any point a director can pull off uh any item from the consent agenda for further discussion. So on here we have uh approval of the regular board meeting minutes from last month, the senior class trip approval, the claims accounts and financials, the approval of the new hires, and the approval of reservations and terminations. And that is it

033on the consent agenda. Is there anything anybody would like to pull? All right. Would somebody like to move the consent? So move. Dr. Hacket. Thank you. Second, director. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Abstain. All right. Motion carries. All right. Next is uh discussion and uh information action items. So the first one is uh looking at a board chair, vice chair or co-chair. We want to begin that conversation. Last time we talked about it, was it just the $400 did you say? Yeah, something about that. about an hour and a half or maybe two hours to have a draw the resolution a resolution we did that we just go with two co-chairs and then not have a vice chair I assume I'll move that I'll second that All right. Motion

034by director Hackett for co-chairs. Yeah. Co-chairs with no no vice chair. Okay. Uh second by director Boyd. I'd like to discuss it some. So if we're going to have them draw it up, we should look more than just this current board. Like you know, if in the future it happens, there'd be co-chairs, but if not, then there'd be a chair vice chair situation. just like I mean is that what everybody else would I mean that's what I would and instead of having to have co-chairs all the time I mean yeah right they could go back you could go back it would just because it's a sixperson board it could happen again it wouldn't be a waste of time and money if if it would be helpful again but just so we don't strap a future

035board to having to Can you imagine you got nobody else that wants to be a chair so you well somebody else has to run you know I just don't want to strap a future board to something that you know ju just so that it both possibilities are there that's so one thing I will check on is diplomas have already been printed and so it's the chair clerk superintendent principal have to sign those so I would assume we can just have one person do half and the other do the other half but I'll just verify for sure just to make sure we don't do something we're not supposed to run diplomas only if it really matter you could have both signatures and just book but you know I suppose if you approve it though we couldn't

036just leave it as is so I'll just double check with them I'm sure there technically we probably could because it would go into effect with the approval of the resolution true so you could just sign them right now and then let's do that then I don't Ask another question for research and cost money. We're sorry kids. You go get a good not make a mistake and it's not valid. Okay, we can do that. Yeah, that well that make law unintended consequences about the resolution thing. All right. Uh any other discussion? So, I have a motion in a second to uh have co-chairs versus a chair and a vice chair uh with a contingency that when they write it that we're able to go back and forth. Uh each board would be able to decide what

037that is. Uh all in favor say I. I. I oppose. All right. Motion carries. So with that uh I will take nominations for uh co-chair point of order. I think we should ask since we don't have a resolution we should just ask for nominations for chair. See if we get a tie or or not. Or do we wait till the resolution is on how Oh that's probably true too. Yeah. Yeah. We'll approve the resolution once that's written and then then do it next month. I think that's probably right. Yeah. Good call. All right. Well, we'll not do that. Um but I'll put it in the notes for uh for agenda setting for that one. Uh so the next one is uh is there any other discussion on that you guys want to talk about? Okay.

038Um, process for running open gyms, members of the board, superintendent Dr. Herman, Kaylin Arnen, and Amy Ker. Um, so a couple things around open gym and especially as it pertains to the Minnesota State High School League requirements. Um, open gyms must be open to anyone. um especially if they're on Sundays because the state high school actually does not allow any Sunday events during their compet competition year which starts the 2nd of August and goes till the first week in June when the summer waiver starts. So kids aren't supposed to have contact with coaches especially on Sundays. So if it is an open gym it has to be a noncoach running it. Um, and these cannot be mandated. Um, they cannot mandate athletes to attend these or have an effect on placement or playing time. So,

039they're completely optional. Um, and then the other side of it is coaches cannot provide any instruction during open gyms um exception during the summer waiver which typically runs from the first week of June until the first week of August. Um, and again, this is just state high school league rule. Um especially say like I'm a basketball coach and it's in April. I can't say hey we're going to get together as a team and practice. That would actually be a um Minnesota state high school bylaw bylaw violation which we could get fined and other punishments for it. So there's some rules around the state high school. So once somebody basically we follow the process for the district facility use um for anybody who was requesting to use space here at the um at the school. All

040of those go through community ed and follow board policy 902 which was just updated this year. Um we spent many many um meetings going over this policy and actually not so much the policy but the addendum. Um, so if you want to click on the addendum because that kind of guides the the work of this. If you scroll down, keep going all the way. Keep going right here. So this is kind of the bread and butter of what um both Sher and myself do. So typically um Sherry Bishop is the youth sports coordinator. So a lot of these go through her. Um but if you're in we have to determine when somebody is asking to use a facility, where do they fit? So class one um is that top priority with no charge. Um those

041are all Royalton public school activities, school related organizations and anything community education. Um so if they're what once they're they fit there, then we need to have those activities under the direct supervision of a district employee and um we're able to allow them to use that without any cost. Um, but they must fill out like the facility use request or basically through ax there's a request that they fill out. Um, if they don't fit into class one, we go down to class two. Um, this is our second priority. And so when I say priority, it's like who bumps who if there was if there were two people who won at the same time. Um, we possibly could charge for fees fees for equipment. Um and basically these are organized in district civic civic groups polit

042political party meetings religious church youth groups open meetings of tax supported agencies non-religious school district nonprofit youth group meetings youth sports groups and charitable group meetings. Um they again must fill out a facility re use request through ax. um have the non the nonprofit if they are a nonprofit have that 501c3 status um proof of that and then they must employ a district facility supervisor and other staff. So there might be depending on what it might be there might be somebody who has to run the um speaker system that kind of thing. Um and so we have to determine who who's all needed at that and what they're what they're wanting to use. Um, for this they must provide a million-doll um, certificate of liability insurance um, and have the school listed as that with

043that aggregate piece. And then the third priority um, goes to all other groups and all the same things apply as group two. um in order to figure out if they're in district or not, the definition from the board given to us was the that 30% of the participants must currently be enrolled in Royalton public schools and that's how we could determine what's in district and what moves to third priority. Any questions? I have a couple. So, I have just been approached by a couple parents who I guess um just have a concern like they're authorized supervisors like a few of our activities or coaches and um I guess maybe they aren't running it as like an open gym, but if they say they want to go in with their child and a few friends, you

044know, in the district, um and they have access to the school because of being a coach. Like why they can't do that? As an employee, we don't get to you I mean everything all employees go through the the district use policy. So everything goes under this. So if an employee wants to use space um all of them go through the same the same process. So, um, if FFA wants to use the kitchen or the the cafeterium or any of those things, they're all going through either Caitlyn or myself between activities and the and community ed. Okay. So, I think there was a few concerns. I mean, I think the biggest thing, sorry to interrupt, but is not to overlap. I mean I mean they can check the calendar but sometimes like not all like sports

045practices and stuff like that get put on there on like my stuff. So they may think oh this should be open and then all a sudden they show up and then somebody who truly is supposed to have that and we requested it. That's where it's I mean it's more to know who's truly coming into the our space would be my understand like why we wanted. I mean, if it's a coach coming in and working with outside kids, I mean, there's also some stay high school league things that have to be watched in that as well, even if it's their own child. I mean, it depends on the situation, but again, like I mean again, it would be better to go through to have a request put in just so we know we can sticky wickets.

046And this is a newish type rendition of this policy. And so there may be things that are happening that we don't know of. And um but this is what we, you know, we ask everyone and if we find out somebody's, you know, coming in and we know about it, we try to have a conversation and just say, "Hey, here's what you need to do. You need to go through this process." And um we tried in community ed to find a yes. We've had a couple different groups that come in and say, "I want to do open gym for volleyball." Well, as soon as you say open gym for volleyball or open gym for basketball, it's no longer open gym. So, how can we get to a yes? How can we help you? Um, so oftentimes

047basketball came to us, girls basketball, and they wanted to do a um I don't know what it was, like a some tr some training with a a trainer and um and they said, "Well, we don't have the insurance policy." And we said, "Well, why don't we run a community ed class then?" So, we'll run it through community ed. We'll charge a little bit of money to cover the costs of community ed. the cost of um the registration system and um all those things and they were happy as larks that they could run it through there and you know so we try to meet them in the middle with how do we get to a yes for what they're looking for but yet still follow the policy. So the is the problem with the gyms the

048fact that there's a roof and a wall for the high school league because it's an outdoor court it doesn't matter right as soon as it's enclosed then all of a sudden the insurance and everything else is I mean I guess the state far as the state high school league there are certain rules that coaches have to abide by the coaches but I mean as far as unsupervised or supervised is as soon as because the kids can go and play on the field not a ball field, right? And that's where it gets tricky is because I mean unless we're going to gate off everything and I know and so that's where it being inside it gets a I mean there's a little bit more potential for things getting damaged um even if it's completely accidental. So

049if we don't know that somebody's using it and then something gets broken then we have to figure out what how did that happen and things like that. Um, again outdoor it's it's a little different and you know and that's and I think more of it's because it's inside and it's a probably a higher demand space and because we live in Minnesota and it's winter for a lot longer than we want to nine months a year. Yeah, that's why we like summer, right? I know of other districts that if you weren't a school truly sponsored event and you wanted to use their like baseball softball fields, you did actually have to pay a rental fee. So there are other districts that do because they lock everything up. So yeah, I can I can say uh because

050we had it for about nine months I think in policy. It was a long time. We talked about it for forever and ever. One of the things that we wanted to do as we talked about this was, you know, the definition of open gym is that it's open to everybody and that everybody can um come and do anything at the gym. Um, and that that wasn't happening between a lot of different places. Like a coach would say, "Hey, I'm going to open the gym up and we we'll do open gym for this." um but only their players or whoever got to know about it, you know, and the other part like what you were talking about earlier was uh a coach bringing their kid in to do it. They still only have access because they're

051a coach. So that really they're only they're they can only be a coach and not a parent at that point bringing their kid in to do it. So we wanted to make sure that we our policy said let's not do that because we don't want to look even like we have something like that going on. And that was that was kind of the driving force between setting setting those things up and making sure that all of them went through um a rock and and through the community the activities. So do we have a process with open gym now? Do we have something set up if there's gym time available? Is there a way to open it up and advertise that and say hey every Sunday we have open gym and it's advertised from this time

052to this time. Okay. Okay. And I don't know I don't know how long I mean I'm not sure what Sherry's got going on for how long that will go like during the summer. I don't think we will have it but it has been ever since Sherry's gosh since we finished this policy. I don't remember when that was but then we started with open gym just having it every Sunday and having supervisors through through us that and that that was the biggest part is if community ed does it then it's totally easy. we can put it out on Facebook and all the other places that people see it and then then we can get more more people to do it and hopefully more people to come in and say I'll run it. So any other questions

053[Music] for All right. Thank you ladies. Um and PSO discussion house of the board. Superintendent Dr. Wear Camp Herman Joel Swinson high school principal. Um the PSO presentation that I did a couple weeks ago nothing has really changed on it. I wanted to update the board on um we are looking at um a youth apprentice ship program here at the high school. Um, an apprenticeship program would open some avenues of opportunity for students who are seniors who are looking at a certain career field that they would have opportunities throughout the day to go out and work and gain experience in that career field while gaining gaining credit through uh the youth apprenticeship program. Uh, youth apprenticeship program is run under the workbased learning lensure. Um and it provides like you have to have 450 to

054900 hours of um opportunity to work throughout the year. Um there is training requirements like um if you receive certain certifications throughout a training uh throughout your apprenticeship, there's some requirements for that. um and we we provide that opportunity then for for students to have um a chance to do that. So, we are working through the process now of of of developing that and and creating that opportunity, looking uh working with I've been on the Minnesota Department of Education um getting the training agreements and all of those types of documents uh ready to go and our hope is that we can have our first apprentice ship opportunities for next fall. Otherwise, everything else with the PSO um that I described LA two weeks ago is is nothing has changed with that. Um there continues to

055be advocacy and uh conversations happening with our PSO partners um and the schools that are accessing those accessing those uh PSO courses around the state. So would would that apprentice ship um as you're talking about the lensures and things like that would that be a school responsibility to pay for that like we pay for uh PSO like we pay for that class for that even whatever whatever they get out of it. No, it wouldn't. The cost to us would just simply be we already have a workbased learning program um which is designed more for maybe shorter term job opportunities, work opportunities. Um the apprenticeship would be a little more intensive, a little more longer term for the student, but it would be run very similar and underneath the umbrella of work-based learning. We'd basically just

056create another avenue for a different group of students. So, so when you say 450 hours at a minimum that yearong or is that just 450 to 900 or longer? Yeah. So, if it's a semester apprenticeship, I believe it's 450. If it's a year long, it has to be 900 hours or longer. It's like two hours a day, the minimum. And so we would be working it out to for a senior uh to be able to possibly have like up to a half a day of opportunity where they come schedule their classes in the morning for what they need for graduation and then be able to to run the apprenticeship in the afternoons. So then do they have to have their credits in order to do this or or try to fit a credit into a

057Yeah, they're going to have to make sure that they're typically in your senior year if you've done what you need to be doing, you have English 12 and civics are the two remaining grad requirements left. Now, some students might have to take an econ class or personal finance or maybe they didn't get in one of their art class, their fine arts credits, or um maybe they have a remaining FID credit to take. They just have to make sure that they're accounting for that. And doesn't mean that it disqualifies them. It just means that they would have to make sure that if they're with us for two periods, they're going to have or four periods, you know, 1, two, five, and six, so they can access the internship or the apprenticeship in the second half of

058the day that they have to make sure that they're taking care of those grad requirements in this our scheduled classes. So this youth apprenticeship program um these kids currently that we have here can't access anything like this under the workbased learning. they can't leave to go to a job or they can do we have work-based learning where they have that opportunity but that is they that starts at like it's one period a day and uh there's some different requirements with um the with the advisor visiting on the jobs visits site visits and things like this the apprenticeship is a little more open um we will rely closer on the industry partner to work with us to create that experience for the kid, for the student. Any other questions? That looks pretty cool. I think it's

059a great idea. I do agree. How how is it administered? Like so you're going to rely on an industry partner is there any rigor that's I mean yeah I mean they have they have some documentation they have to maintain documentation um they have to maintain like a work slips and things like that for us throughout the requirement there's some reporting just on like um I'm not exactly sure why that would would be important. But like the students are looking for like what is you know if they started at a certain rate is there opportunities for advancement and is there um you know those types of things but they have to document their certifications and training. I think there's 120 hours of training throughout the internship that they're supposed to collect. Um but it really is

060and then the goal would be long term is that every time we develop an industry partner that five years later access for somebody else right that the that they're kind of blazing a pathway so it's going to be kind of a pilot the first year as I am looking for and I have a few ideas of some industry partners where I can sit down with them and say what works and what doesn't work with this thing what do I need to fix how do I need to communicate that fix with the people who are coming next. Yeah, because you're going to have some guinea pigs up first, right? Yes. Yes, it will definitely be a um it will definitely be a pilot project, but I I believe that we will make it work and I

061think we'll make it to be a good opportunity for our students. And other schools do something similar, right? Yep. This is a approved program. It's called the youth apprenticeship program through the Minnesota Department of Ed. It's the same as what our workbased learning is now. This is just another wing of that program. We should talk about diesel mechanic and it I have some I have some openings there. I have a feeling there's going to be some opportunities for openings through these opport through through this program. Oh, that's great. All right. Thank you. Uh student discipline discussion. That's me. Um would like to uh give some information on high school discipline with some questions that came up regarding high school discipline. Um this is a chart um of high school discipline from a from September 1st

062through April 1st. Um the super tall building on the left is cell phones. Um this is just grades 9 through 12. The other tall buildings that you see over on the far right side are unexcused absences, parties, skipping detention, which students who get detention and have jobs sometimes don't show up for the detention and then they get the next consequence, which is a half day of inschool suspension. Uh, skipping class. [Music] Um, yeah, skipping classes. So, a lot of attendance related. So, this is just a chart. I could run this. I present this to PBIS as we go throughout the year to check out trends. Um, if you want to go to the next slide, this is middle school. It looks different. Do not be the 241 cell phone violations created made some of the

063other buildings look smaller. But, uh, at the middle school, cell phones are still our number one, but instead of 241, I believe the number is 50 on that chart. Um, unexcused absences are the second most. Uh, behavior language. Um, you get some more of those disruptive behaviors at the middle school level. What qualifies as an excuse to absence? Um, skipping. Yeah. Um, not coming to school and not having anyone present a note or a call to us. And we get a surprisingly amount of those. I thankfully I have parents who they'll call in and it's like he they overslept and they're unexcused and you know mark them unexcused. I'm not excusing their absence. Um and we have some that just never make contact with us when they're gone. They're they're not making contact. So that

064goes down as an unexcused absence. um some of the middle school discipline that you see there a little more disruptive in nature which is not totally uncommon for middle school kids. We're teaching them how to grow into adults. Um if you want to go to the next slide. So um as of April 1st there were 704 total incidents at the high school of which 338 were given lunch detention detention in school suspension or out of school suspension. That is that equals 48% of all discipline incidents were given one of those top those are the top tier discipline responses that we have in the arsenal. Um when you take out the cell of the 704 incidents, 241 are cell phone violations and 51 were notifications for things like we use the discipline letter and you for

065broken Chromebooks. It gets counted in the data. But we when David has a Chromebook that comes in and we send notification home, we just type it into that way we can track them over time to see uh when students are having uh Chromebook issues. Um plagiarism, cheating, which is not a detention or that kind of level event is um is documented in in the discipline tracker. um computer use violations if they're using the internet or doing something they shouldn't be um in school. Property misuse, which is most of the time the the discipline code we use for gaming when students are playing games in class when they shouldn't be on their computer uh surfing the net, those types of things. When you take out the 241 cell phone violations and the 51 notifications, 82% of

066the remaining infractions are given one of the top tier discipline incidents or discipline responses listed above. So, four out of five discipline incidences are hitting getting hit with lunch detention, detention, in school or out of school suspension. Um, I think that's high. higher than it should be. Um and so we need to take a look at that. When you look at the number of incidents, the things that we see, 10 out of the 704 incidents, this is just 9 through 12, 1.4% was bullying, harassment, chemical use, or fighting. Um we had 1.4% 4% for those. If you take out uh the attendance and cell phone violations account for 59% of all high school discipline. And if you take attendance, cell phone, and then those computer things, the gaming stuff was 66.6% of all discipline incidents

067fall into those three categories. If you go to the next one, middle school, 440 434 incidents, um 55% of the 55% were given lunch, detention, detention, ISS or OSS. There were 50 cell phone violations. 84 notifications for academic or computer related issues. Gaming at the middle school is a bigger deal than it is at the high school. Um, Minecraft is a popular thing with middle schoolers. Um, when you take out the 50 and the 84, 80.3% of the remaining infractions are given a lunch, detention, detention, in school or out of school suspension. A little bit higher percentage at the middle school with the bullying, harassment, chemical use, and fighting. Um, they're either not as good at hiding it. um they are more outfront with it, more expressive in their behavior. Um 10.1% of those uh

06810.1% of the remaining discipline incidents that we have of all incidents at the middle school are fall into one of those four categories. At the high school, 73 out of 294 students have a discipline referral that is not a cell phone violation. Um 24.8% of all high school students. We had 57 students who had 0 to five referrals. Six to 10 referrals equal nine students and 10 plus referrals for discipline between September the beginning of school and April 1st was seven students. At the middle school, 55 out of 20 students have a discipline referral that's not a cell phone violation which equals 26.4%. Um 0 to 5 equal 43. You can see the vast majority of those students are in between zero and five referrals. 6 to 10 referrals was the same at 9 and

06910 plus referrals was at four. A majority of the 10 plus referrals at the high school or chronic attendance issues. Um students who have missed who are truent to have missed 10 15 20 days of school um is the vast majority of ones at the high school. At the middle school it is a little more mixed. Um this chart is the major minor chart that we follow for discipline incidents. Um the minors are things that are mostly classroom based intervention with teachers, paras, you name it, office staff, counselors, social workers, whoever happens to be with the students at the time. Uh the pathway that they are supposed to follow then for the minor is the fir you can see the first offense, second offense, third offense on the left hand side. Um one of the

070areas that we're going to work on and continue to try to get better at is um making contact with parents before the problem becomes too big of a problem. And uh that starts in in the classroom and having teachers reach out and make a contact home with parents. I have over the years have always had parents that are thankful for get us getting to them before something becomes too big of an issue. Um so they can have a chance to fix it, so they can have a chance to address it. Um it is a successful uh way of managing the consequences before they have to get over to the major side. Major side is usually things that are going to come directly to the office, usually going to result in a discipline notice going home,

071something that is usually Caitlyn and I are dealing with. Um, uh, those abuse of language, I'll use language because language is something that high school kids have a tendency to display. walking down the hall and they're talking to their group of friends and they let one fly to each other is one of those where we're trying to correct that behavior on the spot. Say, "Hey, come on. We don't talk like that in school." Now, you use that language at the direction of I'm going to say speak to Lucas and tell him where I think he should go. That is a whole different deal. That ends up being a major. They're in the office with us most of the time. They're going home. Um, and so those are the the differences between the minors and the

072majors. Um, and so most of the time, almost all the time, the majors are coming almost directly to us. So our goal overtime is to make sure we want to support teachers, we want to support cooks. Cooks have done a tremendous job with PBIS this year of building relationships with kids. Um they have really really a few years ago we had some interesting relationships between kitchen staff and the kids and that has through their adoption of PBIS and and really celebrating the kids and building relationships with them. It's one of the strongest relationships in the building. Um I love seeing our kids. If you if you counted the number of kids that say thank you when the lunch ladies give them their tray. Um the Lions Club did vision testing here a few days ago,

073a few weeks ago and yesterday at the Lions Club meeting. I did not put them up to this. I didn't even notice it. I was running the computer for the computer for the vision testing. The Lions Club made the uh report that it was amazing to see how many of our kids said thank you for having their vision tested. Um, so we have really good kids in Royalton. That doesn't mean that we don't have kids that struggle and that need help. Um, we continue to work with them. We continue to try to build better decision making in them. We are looking at a character strong program in middle school. Um, character strong is kind of a seal is kind of a dangerous word today, but it's it is a character building um program that you

074go through with kids in different avenues of growing up. And so we are looking at implementing that uh into uh the middle school at for next year. Uh we have done whole training catalyst this year. Catalyst is a nonverbal classroom management program um that teachers can use the strategies to bring their classes back on task, minimize distraction, get kids back in the learning zone. Um and so we have not only we did a large group training in November, but we also have the coaches, our coach coming into the building and providing individual coaching for teachers in their classrooms to help them further develop and refine the catalyst strategies. Um the catalyst training at teacher uh teacher input was one of the most valuable trainings that they've had in school. Um, so we're constantly looking for

075ways to do this better. I'm the first one to admit there's probably times where a kid deserves something and it should have went that way and Caitlyn and I have discussed those. And um we are always trying to do the best for the kid, the school um and make sure that we uh number one don't quit on kids and number two that we continue to uh try to address the behavior and then get them back on track and try to to write the ship. I am excited by the fact that there countless examples of students who really struggled in middle school who find their footing as they get into early high school and upper high school and they would have been the kids in the 10 plus category and by the time they get to

076high school maybe they have one or two they're not going to be perfect but they have one or two maybe three uh uh discipline notices uh for the year And um I think we have a very good success rate with that. One of the things I think we do maybe need some to work on is maybe middle school is a turbulent time for kids and finding a way to help teachers help kids navigate through those challenges. Um I wish I had all the answers for it. I I also wished I had I was a kid. I I got a detention in 10th grade from Mr. PL. I got done with the math test and I yelled something. I yelled something like, "Your brain wasn't on and I yelled something. Other kids were taking the test."

077He made me stay after class. I had to clean his overheads. Um, I was embarrassed. It's the only detention I ever got in high school. Um, maybe not the only one I deserved, but it was the only one that I got. Um but it was enough of a deterrent for me that I'm I'm not doing again. Um the students who are in that right thinking brain and I don't mean right and left, I mean right thinking. They are in the rational state of mind process those consequences and those inputs and they make the necessary adjustments. uh students who are in fight, flight, or freeze aren't necessarily responding to punishment the same way as us as I did or as another student who's in that right frame of mind. Um they don't process that discipline the

078same way. Um, and so we're trying to always find ways to to to deal with the discipline and try to get kids back on track, minimize the amount of time they're out of class. Um, try to, you know, reason with them on and sometimes it works and sometimes sometimes it doesn't. And so, but, uh, we continue to try to work with all those students as often as we can. We spend you're looking at we've had,00 disciplines which is right on pace for what we usually end the we usually end the year somewhere between 13 and400 discipline incidents for the year. um we are doing the best we can to make sure that we address it and if there are area I'm I'm open to I'm open to finding ways to uh to open new avenues

079to do to do things better connect kids up with resources find things that uh that work to keep kids on track and making positive progress in school. Is there another slide? Oh, thank you. You know how many of the kids that are in your 10 plus category are involved in like after school activities or not. Is that something? Not very many. I would love to get them involved in something. Yeah, I I kind of thought maybe that that would track that way, but I was Well, when they get involved with the activity, they have to be here to be involved with the activity. And almost of the of the what was it, seven kids at the high school who are above 10, I'm going to say five of them are um attendance related, chronic attendance.

080So, if they build a connection to a program, I don't care, it could be a class, it could be a teacher, could be building a fish house and shop class, it could be FFA, it could be the the BPA or the choir is a great one. Um, the plays, anything that we can do that builds that connection for them to come to school and to not have such a negative outlook on what school is about is a positive gain for us. It might not fix the issue but it is it moves the needle in the right direction. So this data is this all referrals or is this you may get a referral and then it's like well maybe that's not what it is and that goes away or is this every single every single thing

081that gets put into the system thing that a teacher put. Yes. So about 90 when a teacher puts in a referral to us, it comes to us. We process them probably two or three times a week. Um when a teacher puts in a recommendation, we're estimating that between 95 and 98% of the time, we're following the recommendation of the teacher with what they want. Once in a while, we have to upgrade. If I say to you what you said, what I said I said to you and you recommend that I get a lunch detention for that, there's sometimes we upgrade it. No, that's got to be that's more there's more of a consequence than that. The time we downgrade it once in a while people will say, I I want this kid to have a

082week of lunch detention next week. I mean, we don't do lunch detentions in that big blocks because we already have students scheduled in for things. That would be more of a if you need it to be a different consequence, just make it a detention level event than than than scheduling out 4 days of lunch detention. That becomes just a scheduling nightmare. But 95 to 98% of the time and I would say it's closer to the top end of that. If a teacher provides a recommendation to us for a discipline consequence, we are following it. I'm not in the classroom. Caitlyn's not in the classroom. We're depending on the teach. They experience what it was and provide that data to us and and we follow them. So, well, they have their chance to provide grace, too.

083They have their chance if they thought that would be an avenue. Yes. The other thing in the data with the 82% is there's a lot of times where the teacher says, "I just want this documented and want a notice sent home or I gave the kid no further action needed. I talked to the kid. I just want it documented." That's included in the 18% that's not covered by the top tier discipline notices. So, so that works sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, when you have when you see the percentage of kids who are not repeat offenders, Yeah. And I I think we have a pretty good success rate. And like I said, I wish I I spent more time with the, you know, I spend a lot of time with the kids who were having trouble,

084but we have so many kids walking around our building that show up every day, work hard, they're pleasant, they're kind, they're good to their friends. Um, I have always felt in 26 years, I've always felt very fortunate uh by the student clientele. I receive reports all the time from restaurants, from places where our kids go, "God, you those Royaltton kids, they can come back anytime." And it doesn't matter whether it's a sports team, uh a a club, um a field trips, uh grade levelwide field trips to places that we always have had positive comments about our kids. They're they're polite and uh and that's a I I take a lot of pride in that. How about the egregious incidents like the illegal stuff? So vaping, cyber security, stuff like that, is that being moved on

085to the next step? So if we have a vaping issue in the school, which is illegal, right? They can't do that if they're underage. If you have the vaping stuff in the school, it's illegal. Is that going on to the authorities? So the next level so they can come in and take care of the We are situation. We are working with um Royaltton Police Department has just put in through planning and zoning and yeah I'll talk can I jump? Yeah, we had a great meeting today Jason. So Royalton city of Royaltton is finally going to put through a ticketing situation. So if a child a minor is um caught with a vape they would get a ticket and pay an $80 fine. The county attorney is still not charging those out. So, um, but it

086doesn't mean we can't send them to the county attorney. That's not on us to not send them. You know what I mean? If it's illegal or if it's not right, the authorities have to take care of it. You know, if we know that the county attorney is not doing anything about it, that doesn't mean that you don't charge the person with it, right? There's plenty of county attorneys that aren't doing anything, but you still have to take care of the situation. You still have to bring the authorities up here. Doesn't if it's illegal, it's illegal. Period. And we've called Jason and talking to him. My understanding he hasn't been up here at all this year. I guess I'll talk to Jason call up here. If I see vaping at five, vandalism at five, some of

087these other things that really are illegal, we should be up here. We're definitely calling him on vapes now because they can take it up and that's what we but it should have been prior as well, which we have called them and I mean and from talking to him and sorry I didn't interject but he said the biggest thing is when they wrote the vaping into law, they didn't really have a consequence for it. And so that's where a lot of the county attorneys aren't because there's so it's like yep they get it but there's no consequence for breaking the law. So it's not like if you get a speeding ticket you know you're probably going to get a fine when they wrote that law they didn't actually add the consequence. And that's also why a

088lot of the county attorney aren't satisfied. But we have called um for several different reasons. Yeah. I would love I I I am very happy about that movement in that direction because it does provide the it provides the teeth and the hammer behind making that behavior stop and did say to the c because it is in statute that you cannot smoke on school property whoever you are adulting. I remember in my prior district I was driving in the parking lot construction worker was there and smoked in and I both jumped out of the car. my husband and grand like back it up and be all right if you're not but um he brought that up to them saying it's in statute showed him the statute um or told him whatever and so he said that's

089against the law you know so there is a law there that's different even from but he hasn't the county attorney didn't say anything at that point that I know of and then as far as like progression for discipline if we've got students that are it's egregious right they've 15, 20 different incidents or more or whatever it is. What are we doing to stop that? We don't want to leave any one child behind. I understand that. But if we're taking a child that's got multiple incidents for bad things, either vaping or fighting or whatever it is, vandalism, and we keep putting that child back in with the kids because we don't leave that one child behind. We're leaving a whole class of 26 behind because this guy could be taking away a lot of time from

090these teachers that deal with the situation. And I know there's some teachers that don't feel like they have the backing from administration because they bring these situations to administration and administration says, "Well, there's nothing we can do." We called the parents. The parents don't care. There's nothing we can we can't prove that this student did this. And now the teacher's like, "I saw that student do that and now you're telling me that we can't prove it." when I'm telling you right now it did happen. What are we doing with that? We can't be putting these kids back in these rooms with the other 26 or 25 kids or whatever it is because we don't want to leave one behind because when we do that, we're leaving 26 kids behind and that's a problem. So, what

091are we doing in those situations? That's my issue. The egregious situations, what are we doing to fix it? Well, we have very few egregious situations. We have disruptive situations. um you have to be very careful about excluding kids from the educational setting. Um like expulsion is not on the table as an option for us for disruptive behavior. It is not um it is not an option. We contacted the attorneys for the principal association. He was like don't even think about it. It's a10 to$15,000 expense for um expulsion. Um not that we're not that you're not that you're saying expulsion. You're not saying that. But right um it can be done. Um it needs to be done. If we've got students here that were expelled from other schools and we just let them run wild. Yeah.

092I would that's a problem. I would challenge I would challenge the input and the feedback that that uh we have students that are Um the chronically egregious are very very few and far between and we are doing our best with them. But they they are not a very large population of students at all. Right? But you still have to deal with them. Even if it's small, you still have to deal with them. You know what I mean? And they I can they I can assure you they are being dealt with. that might not. We are very careful to make sure that we protect the school district and protect ourselves from making sure that we don't make wrong decisions and get get ourselves in trouble by um uh you know not providing due process to the

093students in the event of of those incidents. But I think that's where our discipline flowchart when we bring it back up needs to be fixed. I've looked at other schools and I mean you look at soccer Rapids, you can expel a kid. If this is out there and everybody knows it, it's there. It can be done and it should be done. And our little flowchart there is not nearly good enough because if you advertise what soccer Rapids has, you can expel a shot. So to be scared about getting rid of somebody because you don't know what's going to happen. I've talked about this before. We shouldn't be scared because we don't know what's going to happen. If you have a disciplined action like this, you know what's going to happen. The students know, the teachers

094know, the parents know. and with that you can't do it. So I would agree with you with that it's not going to happen. So I think as a board we need to look at a true discipline action plan for the school district not that in my opinion you're right I'd be I'd be afraid to expel somebody looking at that. So that's where I stand. I don't know where the rest of the board stands, but something needs to be done. When you have parents and teachers reaching out to board members saying there's a problem with discipline, something needs to be done. If anybody wants to see Sock Rapids, I'll email it out for the whole district if they want to see it. But something needs to be done. I sit in the seat for the teachers,

095for the community members, and parents. And when I've got multiple teachers, multiple parents coming to me and saying that there's problems with it, that's where I draw the line. So, And um I think with like Lucas said um as a board to sit down I think in the heat of the moment too for like a teacher or Joel or Caitlyn, you know, to like decide is that a minor offense today? I'm really ticked off. So it's a major offense today. You know, I think some clarification maybe and I don't know like you know how many parents do you hear count to three nowadays? Like just like three offenses. I don't care what you know whether it's minor or major. To me, an offense is an offense. You know the rules at school. These are the

096rules. after three, you know, maybe just talk, you know, as a board deciding like so it was out there so parents are aware. I mean, we all know we have lots of parents who don't care, but yeah, you're taking away from so many of the other kids when you're dealing with these kids over and over. I agree. It's probably something that we have to talk about. Yeah. I I don't know that that's necessarily board work to do that, but I think, you know, kind of framing the policy saying that this is the limit that we're ready to go and then they can they can make it to go within that I think would make sense. Maybe that Well, we have policy 506 that's heavily legislated. Yep. So we have to follow so we have to

097the parent has to have an opportunity to fight back on the you know it's you read the policy but it's big but we do have to follow that and like Ryan said maybe something that's just outlined so then we could whether we put it in the handbook or put it you know I mean I understand we don't discipline like Joel and Caitlyn do but you know something that they could even go cuz I'm sure you get stuck in an instance that it's hard, you know, to always make those decisions where as if it was just like this is our policy and this is what we do. You know, you always have kids like you said that, you know, they maybe don't have support at home, but time after time after time and the teachers are

098frustrated with it. Everyone's frustrated with it that time, too. What you're talking about, Lucas, is more so just not stopping there. Is here's the next thing that we're going to do and here's the next thing that we're Exactly. Yep. Okay. For each offense. Yep. Right. I mean, if you want to look at Soccer Rapids, they've got a great one. St. Cloud also has one. I don't have St. Cloud on my computer right now, but St. and cloud has one as well. Each offense, if this happens, this is the consequence. First time, second time, third time, boom, that's it. Yeah, we talked to Jason today. He's being going to be very willing to come. We call about vape. He said to St. Cloud, they just take the vape away. They're not doing anything about vapes in

099St. Cloud. So, at least Royaltton will have we have to. I mean, that that's the health of the children. I mean, if people don't understand what vapes are doing to your lungs, go online and you can see what these vapes are doing to these kids lungs. Oh, yeah. It's unreal. They think it's safe. Oh, it's okay. It's just water vapor. It's not. It is not. So, something needs to be done at a higher level like through legislation, through something. These county attorneys have to be on board. They do. And I think when we talk about discipline, the uh parameter of success is different in the different audiences that are taking a look at what discipline means. I feel like the administration here um thinks that our discipline is fairly successful. I think teachers have a

100different perception because they're in the front lines. And I think parents also carry a different perception because I also have had a lot of parents in the past talk to me about frustrations with the disciplinary process here. So originally prior we tried to take an offensive stance on that and bring in some positive change with the pro the proposition of a you know the um the whatever the police officer or the whatever was called. Yeah the school resource officer but that was not successful. So now we are in the defensive position of having to change course if this isn't working well and inputs coming from various places to a board level then I think that that's the proof in the pudding that something's not working here with our disciplinary process. So it needs refinement or

101it needs to be looked at in depth and given a a quality inspection. um because it wouldn't be coming to the board if it if it was successful in everyone's eyes. If you remember correctly, SRO was voted down for this school year. I want to get it back on the agenda to talk about bring people in. We'll go through the whole thing again for next year because I do think to have a person in here. It would be huge. It would the kids a lot of those egregious things would go away. We would have another role model in the district. It's a partnership between the city and the school. And it's not stepped on anybody's toes. They're here to help. And if we use the program the way it should be used, the way it's

102used at multiple districts across the state, I think it can only benefit the kids. We went through this last year and we said we don't need it because we don't know what it's going to do. We turned it down because we didn't know. Well, now we know it's what we're doing still isn't working. So, I'm 100% transparent. That's the direction I would like to go to. Get that back on the agenda and I know we've got the support from St. Cloud to come up and talk to us again and we can bring other people in from other areas if we want. We've got a police chief in town that set up an SRO program in Foley and did a great job with it. I'll be willing to help out again. So, I only see positives

103with it. But I need you need support from everybody to make it work. And it's never going to be a detriment to the kids. And if we're here for the kids, that's what we're here to do. And it's not going to hurt them. Anything else for Joel? All right. Thank you. I have agenda. Thank you. Um and uh world strip robotics team. You want to send members of the board to dependent Dr. Campson again. Um we had a middle school robotics team uh earn a bid to go to Worlds. Um we had a team go last year. Um great experience for them. Um this other team would like to go. um because it's worlds and we don't necessarily have a comparable to other activities. Um we kind of initially said after last year that the

104district would be willing to cover more every other year type thing just to keep in line with our other activities. Um so on there from talking to their advisor today, I believe one family is planning on flying. Um the adviser would need to drive a van down with their robotic materials and his son would go with him and then another um participant would ride with and then um another parent would actually be going to have another driver um just to make sure they can get back on the especially on the way back so they wouldn't have to stop. Um so the breakdown of the cost of it is up there. Most of it is coming from their student activity account. Um they've also done a really good job of getting donations and just having a

105good use of funds through their different activities um with running concessions and stuff like that. Um so the recommendation would be for the school would provide a van um pay for the fuel to get down and back and then the cost of five days of meals for four people at about $50 per day. and they've already brought in some donations and stuff to offset like most of their stuff I believe with their donations is pretty much offset. So I think that what the board would want to consider you in the event we have a robotics most other groups don't have an worlds you know you have a state you might you know that's about it. So FA would be close by that'd be the closest one or sorry or FFA but normally it's not every

106year the other side is that robotics also has a national event as well. So they have a national and a world and a state you know they have more levels. So it's fine. But just so you know, if you are you comfortable with appro if they were to go every single year and this were to become an annual thing, would you be okay with that knowing that other groups don't? If we were to approve it and it comes to us aboard next year, is that a past practice? No, you'd still approve it. It's an expense. So you'd still approve it every single year. You don't have to look at it again. Yeah. Yep. for sure. So is that like what we normally like somewhat cover for other like go to the state? So typically for

107state um it's whatever transportation get down there. If it is overnight, we have covered hotels. Um, and then we give them a pdeium or the Williams, which is the that $50 is what we give our state participants. I think that's what we did last year was all that plus the rooms. I think we did the rooms. So, we're not doing, right? And just because of it, you know, again, being a little bit more expensive um for the rooms than what you know what we cuz it's multiple days, you know, you know, our longest state that we typically have would be wrestling and then that's only three, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, three at the most nights, maybe four if they end up staying Saturday night. So that's kind of where it being a little bit longer of

108a stay and there's potential having to get lodging on the way down which hopefully with having a second driver we can potentially avoid that. But we don't want people driving when they're super tired. Sorry. I'll I'll make a motion to uh approve that district recommendation of providing the van, the fuel, and the and the predium. I'll second that. Any other discussion? Just just as a point of discussion, they use a school event for their other competitions. They I drove them to the state competition because just once, but otherwise most of their competitions are on Saturdays. So parents strive themselves an advisor advisor coach that that would bring it more into the realm of the other sports and any other discussion. All in favor say I. I oppos. All right. Motion carries. All right. Uh donations

109by resolution. Would somebody like to move the resolution? Is that me? Sorry. Director Trout introduce the following resolution. So, um, Royaltton Fireman's Gambling Fund has generously donated $2,500 to the Royalton School District to be used towards uh, crisis go bags. Doug and Gene Lagott have generously donated $500 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the robotics team registration supplies, tournament fees, and or travel expenses. Royaltton Fire Relief has generously donated $3,000 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the robotic team registration supplies, tournament fees, and or travel expenses. The Royalton American Legion has generously donated $1,000 to the Royal School District to be used towards robotics team registration supplies, tournament fees, andor travel expenses. Metronic has generously donated $2,500 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the band program.

110Subway and Rice has generously donated $50 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the robotics program. Cyber Grants on behalf of the Charities Aid Foundation of America has generously donated $100 to the Royalton School District to be used towards unspecified district needs. And the Bolis Fireman's Relief Association has generous gen generously donated $2,500 to be used towards a robotics team. And the Royalton Legion has generously donated $3,000 to the Royalton School District to be used towards the Royalton Honor Society. So, be resolved by the school board to greatly accept these gifts. Um, does somebody want to second that motion? I'll second. Director Andrews. Thank you. All right. And upon a roll call vote, could you? Director Trout. Hi. Director Holm. Hi. Director Hackett. Hi. Director Andre I. Director Boyd. Hi. Director House. Hi.

111All right. And no one voted against. Um so the resolution was approved on today. Uh upcoming meeting schedule. So, we are going to have a finance committee and policy committee meeting this month, which will be good. Um, so, uh, that's on the 23rd at noon and 2 p.m. respectively. And then strategic planning, uh, meeting is April 30th and then back to our regular board meeting on May 12th. Um, anything else? Soon as we adjourn, we're going to take our picture before we forget. Yeah. And then uh then we'll take about 10 minutes uh to go into a close session. So what time are we thinking post session? I got text. [Music] All right. So, uh, would somebody like to make a motion to close the open meeting to discuss negotiation strategies as Minnesota statute 13.33

112at 7:45 p.m. That was director Hackett and Director. Um, any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion carries. sir.