6-3-2026 Board of Education Meeting

001a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage, inspire, educate, prepare, and empower all learners in partnership with their surrounding community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's society. Heather, can you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance of the standy andice for all. >> Thank you. And then when you're ready, can you please call roll? >> The following board members are present at the district administration office. Gina Acivito, Scott Andre, Natalie Copeland, Zack Dor. >> We're gonna say here. >> Oh, sorry. >> That's okay. She's [laughter] going, >> but I appreciate it cuz I do want to go biking tonight. [laughter] >> Gina Oto >> here. >> Scott Andre >> here. >> Natalie Copeland >> here. >> Zack Dorhalt >> here. >> Shannon Hos >> here. Heather Williams

002here. The following board members are not present. Diana Fenton. The following cabinet members and staff are present at the district administration office. Superintendent Dr. Lori Putnham, Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education, Dr. Jason Harris, Assistant Superintendent of EVA 5 Learning, Nikki Hansen, Executive Director of Community Ed and Community Partnership, Shannon Avenson. Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Amy Scallarude. Executive Director of Innovation and Technology Services, Katie Herbolt, Executive Director of Special Education, Danny Mayor, uh media technicians, Paul Novak and Gordy Scott, and the custodian on site is Emerson Beamer. Thank you. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's board of education meeting and work session agenda. >> So move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >>

003Zack Dohalt, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Gina Oivo, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. Next, we have the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of non-controversial items. The board adopts routinely without debate. Any single member may remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption. On tonight's consent agenda, item A, approval of personnel staff changes. Item B, approval of proposed revised board policy 204, schoolboard meeting minutes, third reading. Item C, approval of proposed revised board policy 205, open close special and emergency meetings, third reading. Item D, approval of board policy 415, mandated reporting of malreatment of vulnerable adults. Reviewed, no changes. Item E, approval of board policy 526, hazing pro prohibitions. Reviewed, no changes. And item F,

004approval of board policy 505, distribution of non-school sponsored materials on school premises by students and employees. Minor statute change. At this time, does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda? Okay. Seeing no removal, looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as read. >> So move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Heather Williams, yes. Zach Dhold, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Gina Oto, >> yes. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, first up, we have a discussion item tonight. We have the systemwide literacy progress and next step. Let's welcome we have Anna Wilhight, director of E12 education, Katie Simc, E5 curriculum instruction and immersion

005lead. And Emily Schmidt, 6 through 12 curriculum instruction and professional development coordinator. Thanks for joining us tonight. What? He's too Good evening, Chair Hos, Superintendent Putnham, members of the board. Um, as shared, I'm Anna Height. I'm the director of E12 education and here tonight with my two amazing colleagues, Katie Simise and Emily Schmidt. And we are going to share our district-wide literacy updates. So, a brief overview of what we will share tonight. Um, we have some redact updates, our curriculum updates. We've been doing quite a bit of work with our elementary curriculum this year, our instructional focus, the 2020 ELA standards and our literacy assessment plan and tier 2 N3 intervention plan. So the first is um although it says 25 26 and 26 27 this has been a three-year in the making process. We

006have been working on our redact requirements for the past three years. Um we have trained now 650 plus staff members. So they have either completed the letters which is for our phase one um elementary special education and DL or um if you're in secondary carry all training. We also have been working on training our pareducators um and we will be continuing that into next year. Our focus for next year now that we have almost everybody completely trained that needs to be trained. Um we are going to be offering our letters training independently. Um Katie Simc will be leading that work so that we can prioritize our teachers now taking that next step in the learning. And then phase two so phase two um starting next year will be for our English language arts teachers 6th

007through 12th grade. they will be using a plat a program called NY house um and they will be having that all completed throughout the day through their PLC's and through our professional development and then this school year we trained our staff inhouse and so we will be continuing to train our pareducators that need that training um using our amazing coordinators that we have here in the district. Um, so our long-term plan and as we know and have learned throughout this year is to make sure that all of our teachers are trained in best practice. So as I shared, we have been doing quite a bit of work. Um, we did a curriculum pilot this year. Um, and um, prior to that we have been using [clears throat] the curriculum called Wonders since 2014 and this

008was our final year to use it. Um, as we have embarked on our science of reading learning, we have realized that we have had some additional needs for our students. And so over the course of the last couple years, we have also implemented essentials, which is a phonics-based um instructional platform. And then we have been utilizing Lexia, which is um an individualized um online learning platform. Our shift and focus to next year will be having everything streamlined and we will be using the curriculum emerge. Um we are really excited about the opportunities that this curriculum will provide. It's evidence-based. It's centered on foundational skills. Um and it truly has been created post the science of reading. So, it's really interweaving that rope together and really will help us provide um the foundational skills that our

009our students need and help support our teachers in making that happen. So, instead of them trying to use three different platforms and three different curriculums, they'll be able to have everything um allin-one. So, our instructional focus um so this year we did a lot of reviewing and seeing what we what worked and what we needed to focus on. So we reviewed our curriculum and we looked at our explicit instruction alignment across the district. So seeing what we were doing, how it was working, and where we needed to move next. One of the pieces that um really uh we realized was that we need to do a better job of ensuring that we have tier one explicit instruction for all of our students. We were doing a really great job of working to meet all of

010our students needs. um but speaking the same language and having everybody on the same page in tier one was getting hard with three different curriculums that we were utilizing. So for next year, our instructional focus will be on tier one for all and making sure that that instruction is explicit. Uh tier 2 and tier three will be based on our assessment needs. We'll be sharing a little bit more about kind of some of the shifts we will be taking with assessment um to better support our students learning and our teachers um instruction around that learning. But all of our tier 2 and tier three instruction um will be based on what the assessment is telling us that they need. And then we are really excited for an opportunity for next year. We will be utilizing

011a structured literacy framework for our teachers that are ready to take that next step because they are also going to have a heavy lift of of having new curriculum implemented. But we will be providing a train the trainer model for our elementary teachers um using an a structured literacy framework. It's called empower hour. And so we will have all of our instructional our academic coaches and um literacy coaches and coordinators will be trained in this. And so as teachers want to embark on this um model, they will have that that ability to do so. However, our emerge curriculum is structured in um a similar format. So we're trying to provide opportunities for our teachers to best meet the students needs. Um, and so just as we highlighted at the bottom here, training plus having the

012right materials and the right framework, we can actually get our science of reading into action now that we have we have everything working together. Okay. Oh, so the 2020 ELA standards, it might seem a little confusing because 2020 was a couple years ago. Um, but that is just how MDE works and the whole review process for standards. So this this school year was actually the first year that we were required to have implemented these standards. Um and so elementary has been working to implement these standards this year. Um we had the opportunity to do some professional development in the fall around standards bundling which was put out by the state of Minnesota. And the idea behind it is is that we will look at the different standards and what they require and try to bundle

013them together picking standards that go together and so that in a single lesson you would be hitting multiple standards. So we equipped our teachers with the ability to do that in the fall and then go forth and do that. Another um another part of the professional development that we focused on was the Dakota and Anishnab standards. the new standards for the state, not just the ELA standards, but all the new standards that the state is coming out explicitly call out reference to study of the Dakota and Inishabi. And the ELA standards of course have that in there as well. And so we created a bank of resources for our teachers in 742. And our elementary staff has been utilizing those resources throughout the years to help meet those standards. And at secondary, we were in

014about year three of some deep work with the standards and um unpacking them led by the literacy specialists alongside task force teams of secondary educators. Um worked on through our vertical teams over the last few years and then now launched at the start of this year with our implementation year. Um, so we have uh crosswalked our curriculum study sync which we've opted to continue with after determining that that is a really high quality instructional material aligned to the science of reading. Um, but we did the backwards mapping to identify where the 2020 standards lived in that curriculum, identified where the gaps were, and then built our scope and sequence and uh district-wide curriculum maps with that in alignment and creating materials to fill those gaps. Um so this was that first year with implementing those

015and next year we'll continue the work with strengthening our uh standards aligned assessments. So really that deep understanding um that target at the bottom of the slide there that strong systemwide alignment uh standards delivered by trimester particularly at the secondary level as our guarantee um and then deep stab staff knowledge of what those standards are asking students to be able to know and do. So our our literacy assessment plan. So we um have been for quite a while doing fastbridge for K5 and our STAR assessment system for 612. And this year um through a state mandate um we needed to implement the CAPY screener for the first time. And we quickly discovered how informative this data was. um it really opened a lot of eyes to what we kind of knew, but then it really

016told us. And so, um it was a one of those great mandates semi like the ReadAct where you learn more and you're like, "Oh, wow." Um and so next year we we're really focusing on how we can best support our educators and our students. We know that our students are asked to complete a lot of assessments and our educators are asked to to to um deliver a lot of assessments and so in order to streamline this next year we will have fastbridge for K3 only we another state mandate have to have a Dibbles MC class which then will replace fastbridge uh for our students who are ML in K through three so they won't need to to to have a second assessment and then we had such great data out of our CAPTY. We have

017made that we're making the pivot to have all four through 12th grade um use that as their universal screener and then that will be informing as we're going to talk about here next um our tier 2 and tier three decisions. But first a little bit about elementary lit or elementary assessment. Um so this is data from our fastbridge screener. We give the fastbridge screener three times a year in elementary and then it is also made up of three tests. So if you look from the left to right the first test is called early reading and that is given in K1 and that tests things like letter sounds decoding words site words correct per minute. And so it's that one knee to knee testing we call it because one adult sits with one kid and we

018really get a clear picture on what the child can do with those reading skills. As you can see we did it does dip down slightly from the fall into winter and then came back up a little bit in the spring. And I will tell you this is mainly due to kindergarten. Our kindergarten graph always looks like this. So they always come in looking like they're they're set in the fall and then they dip down in the winter. And it's due to the nature of the test that the cuto off screener in the fall you only need to know one letter to be considered on track and then in the winter it's much more rigorous. And so we always see this our first grade graph actually looks pretty stable across. So that is why it's decreasing

019is it's being skewed by kindergarten. Um the middle test is called a reading and that is given in grades 2 through five and that is a broad test of reading achievement. So it's that universal screener that gives us a picture of overall reading performance. As we can see we did slightly go down from fall to winter and then held steady in the spring. um auto reading that last test is only given in four five and that is measuring um foundational subs skills. So it's more skill specific. It's not overall comprehension. It's more about more about accuracy and automaticity. And that did go up slightly. So this is this year's scores 2015 to 2000 2025 to 2026. But if you click next, Anna, thank you. Um these actually are a longitudinal report from FastBridge. So we

020have given FastBridge for three years now. So we are able to go back and click in and I was able to pull the last 3 years spring report and that looks a little different. So, we've got early reading since 2023, the fall of 2023, I think it's so the fall of 2024 to the the spring of 2024 to the spring of 2026, we went up 10%. Um, for a reading, we've gone up 3% and then auto reading 16%. So, we did have a jump after the first year we took it. might be partially due to familiarity with the test, but also it could be because of the the energy and effort we've put into reading interventions and that good letters training all of our teachers have been getting and the implementation of essentials. So we

021would hope that would be the reason. Okay, sorry I missed the slide. All right, ready? [laughter] So, um, in secondary, the CAPD read basics assessment was required to be given once this year by the state, uh, for students determined to not yet be reading at grade level. And so, in the fall in, uh, grades four through 12, four and five, we used FastBridge, 6 through 12, we use Star Reading, uh, as a universal screener. And in secondary, that's all we had in the past. Um and star reading gave us just a comprehensive uh comprehension score that was kind of the sum of all the parts that actually create effective reading and comprehension. So this is really groundbreaking for our secondary students because this uh diagnostic assessment breaks down the foundational skills that lead to reading

022comprehension. So we identified in grades 4 through 12 2497 students to take the CAPY assessment in January. That's about 40% of our fourth through 12th grade students. And uh of that percent, 40 or 71% of our students scored in the red yellow band, which is weak performance or low average performance in word recognition and decoding, which is kind of the first of the the sequential skills that lead up to reading uh comprehension. And so that covers uh skills such as phmic awareness, phonics, and decoding. And so that was really eye- openening data for us as we think about what should we be doing and how are we continuing to meet the needs at tier three, but what can we uh work into our secondary system for foundational skills instruction at tier one to better serve

023all of our students when we have such a population with such a need. So our tier 2 and three interventions uh as we've done this year uh we had data cycles happening in a small group by grade level um where we would look at the students data analyze it uh decide on what fastbridge interventions that we would implement and then we were using our Sunday essentials system and our Sunday's intervention system to then provide those additional interventions on top of our students receiving the Orton Gillingham program through Access, which is intensive phonics. And then we had our classroom, our multilingual learners, and our special education and intervention teachers all collaborating on different tier 2 and tier three um interventions. Our secondary um we've had the history of responding really well in our district of to

024tier three needs, but tier 2 has always been something that we've struggled with figuring out how to really adequately prioritize. And the beauty of the CAPTY data this year was it really helped us to to make a really clear plan for next year. And so um we were able to prioritize the FTE aotment that we needed to make it happen for middle school and high school which is just awesome. And so all of our students now who need it will be getting receiving a tier 2 or tier three intervention at the secondary. Um we also this year are launching uh I we have launched it's un it's launched it's it's going um a middle school task force and that has really been a focus of ours to look at what our kids are are are

025telling us they need right um and so we know that some of the traditional ways that we've been trying to support students really is is not meeting our kids needs at the middle level. So we are looking at everything. We've had a really great start. We're prioritizing kids needs. Um, and we are really excited to see where this goes and our hope is to be able to present that to all of you in December prior to middle level scheduling, staffing, um, and all of that fun. So, we are really looking at everything. We're looking at instructional minutes, the needs of intervention, um, our allies, how we're getting our students college and career aware and ready starting in middle level. So, um, I know that's not what we're talking about tonight, but just want to let

026you know that we are looking at everything for our middle level task force. Um and overall all all of our data is showing us that we need to focus on our foundational skills for all of our students um E12. And so that's where we continue to push um and focus next year on our tier one instruction for all and making sure that our kids all have that solid base, but then when they show us they don't that we will have tier 2 and tier three interventions that will best support them. So I'll get into what we're doing for elementary for tier 2 and tier three interventions for next year. So, as we know with the read act, we are required to give interventions to students not reading on grade level. And so, like thinking back

027to our screener that we do, we use that fastbridge screener to identify the kids that might need the help. Um, and then from there, we they fall into either one of two categories, tier 2 or tier three. Tier 2 needs less intensive help. Tier three is really intense help. And so we're going to move next year to a system where tier 2 kids will receive that instruction embedded in what is called focus group time. And so we'll be able to utilize our new resource to get those kids specific help um that is tied to their daily instruction. And so it really takes a look at what the kids are learning in the moment. if there's any lacking skills with that and then you pull them over for an additional little extra support and then we

028go back to the next thing. Um, and so that will be built into our new resource and that will be helpful for our tier 2 kids. For the tier three kids that need more help, we'll continue continue to use a what is called a diagnostic prescriptive approach. This is approach we learn in letters. The basics are that we screen the kids to find out who is not on grade level and then we further determine who needs more help through further assessments. So what specific skills are the kids lacking? Um and then we'll form small groups to deliver instruction in those skills. And those groups are small and they're systematic and we utilize explicit instruction. Um they're usually delivered by an ANCST teacher or an intervention teacher and then we will progress monitor which means we

029will continue to check if the group is working um and if we need to adjust our instruction from there. >> Okay. And then in secondary um I'll begin with tier three since that's kind of our more long-standing like robust system. We've been implementing tier three interventions at the middle and high schools for a number of years now. Um we have three levels of science of reading course which is a credit bearing elective course at our middle and high schools. Um each level corresponding with kind of a higher level foundational skill set. And uh the newest addition for next year is the science of reading three which is uh transitionary up to those kids that hopefully we can bump into a tier 2 need uh with a shortterm intervention at one trimester whereas science reading one

030and and two uh could be up to a full year of intervention. Um, and this was of course we were able to pilot on the north side at both both North and Apollo this year and determined that it made some uh great movement for our students and now we're able to staff across the district. And then tier two was that kind of mystery moment that we've been pondering on for the last few years and we're able to come up with a plan for next year um utilizing our eagle and tiger time and we are actually about to train teachers tomorrow morning um into uh interventions content area teachers will be delivering these six week interventions uh nonredit bearings. So this is during that um kind of win time during the day uh 3 days a

031week. And we targeted kind of the three biggest skills that we saw as need in the captive read basics assessment. So multi-elabic word decoding, morphology, and fluency. So we've identified pockets of kids who need that bump and we'll hopefully see quick growth with this tier 2 intervention. Um and then since that Eagle and Tiger time, especially at the high school, wears a number of hats for our kids. Um we are looking into continuing to de develop our plan for combining the reading intervention with uh course credit extension opportunities in language arts, social studies and science. And so that's why we've enlisted our content area teachers and not just our reading intervention teachers to come along this journey with us. Um those teachers will be readact trained with the phase 2 model uh throughout the year

032as well and then supported uh regularly by our building literacy specialists in in addition to their training. And then we're going to use our middle middle school task force to uh continue the plan for how to implement this at the middle school. So with that whole uh comprehensive picture of our middle school programming. >> Uh so focusing on aligned tier one instruction for all students and provide needed tier 2 and tier three interventions based on students needs is is where we're going. Our goal is to rebuild our foundation of literacy instruction using our new science of reading knowledge and ensure our students have the literacy skills needed to be successful in the future. Thank you. Questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Appreciate that recap. Does anybody have any questions at all? Scott and then

033Natalie. >> Uh, not a lot of questions. Um, it sounds like you're trying to identify areas of a specific weakness and then address those areas of weakness. And it appears that we've [clears throat] are going from older testing methods to newer testing methods. Um, how do they differ? How do these testing methods differ? I think you talked about letters and carry all and then a knee house model that might have been more different. I think our biggest change um for secondary was moving having just the star reading or other like broad comprehension measures to now having access to uh really diagnostic like tools that get at the component skills and that's what this captive read basics tool is and there weren't many especially for you know the upper grade uh students that were designed to

034do that and so this is the the biggest shift for secondary. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Uh that makes my head swim. So way to go y'all. Oh my gosh. This is like you're down to the letter and then you're not to the letters and then you're you're so broad with it, too. And so um thank you for all your work on that. I have four things. One is I'm just really proud of the streamlining of curriculum because I think that takes so much off of our teachers too. Like which one are we doing and what am I using for you? I mean I'm sure our teachers don't ever say that they just do it but like that 3 to one like thank you for that and great for students too. um what I'm reading

035from your graphs and tell me if I'm wrong about this that K1 comes in um 41% efficient and by the time in that same graph they are leaving us leaving leaving leaving um elementary four five they're at 60%. So is that I mean I know it's not it's cohort based so it's really messy but what it looks like is that it's trending in the right direction number one and number two it's just highly concerning as always that if we get kids at 41% proficient in kindergarten and then our expectation is somehow get them to 100% by the end of the year like that's obviously not going to happen but um am I reading that trajectory correctly kind of um so they're different assessments. So they're assessing different pieces essentially. >> Um >> but this really

036kind of goes back to the foundational skills gap we have, right? So we have kids who come in with certain a certain set of skills >> and then we're able to build on and help them to keep moving along. But it's the kids who come in who don't have that set foundational skills piece that we believe we are now identifying need that that that foundational skills piece to grow even more. And so now that we know that we're able to redesign how we instruct, how we teach, how we ensure that that base knowledge set is there. Um because >> we could talk for hours probably about right theory around this, but um >> that's really just the normal trajectory. So what are we going to do earlier to intervene? So it goes from 40 to

037100 and not 40 to 60 because if you look at it in that realm >> that's that's not the level of growth we need to be having. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um I know this is like Yeah. on that same >> on that same graph from from fall to spring, what are they testing differently? Are they asking the same questions and you're seeing the growth or is it a completely different question because it's really hard to interpret that information >> and have have it have any meaning if it's not the >> same. Do you know like we used to get or maybe years ago you know you got a a student is at fifth grade ninth month or something like that >> which puts it in some sort of context. I don't know what

038that means to be honest. >> Um so it depends on the test. >> Early reading it's mostly the same skills except in kindergarten. So, in the fall of kindergarten, they are testing letter sounds, letter recognition, and then um pre-ereading skills. And then by the time you've moved on to winter, you're testing sounding out words, the sounds in the words, site words, and letter sounds. And so, kindergarten is the exception in that we they develop so quickly in that grade level that the tests do change. Um, and the targets also change, which is why I was saying the kindergarten graph always looks like this. Um, because the tests in the fall are much easier than the tests in the winter. And then the cutoff rates for being considered low risk, which is purple in FastBridge, purple

039is good. Um, is a moving target, too. So, for example, in the fall, like I said, if you get one letter correct in a minute, you're considered purple. And then in the winter, I believe it's like 22 in a minute to be purple. Um, and we often see our kids don't meet that that target and that's why it dips. Um, for first grade, it does remain the same test that they're taking, but the targets also differ. So, they're easier in the fall. We expect kids to read less words per minute in the fall than we do in the spring. So, it's a progressive um a progressive rubric, but it's the same skills that they're tested. And then I believe in a reading and auto reading, it is the same test, but again, it's that progressive

040rubric that we expect kids to be progressing throughout the year, if that makes sense. >> It makes more sense. [laughter] I I guess I'm trying to interpret um I mean I would like to say that from fall to spring you would see pretty incredible I mean in any given year a student should from a reading perspective improve particularly in elementary years pretty substantially from September until May. That's not the indication that I'm getting from these reports and in fact in some cases we're going backwards. That's highly concerning to me. Um, do we have comparatives from other districts or other populations that can help us? I mean, is this common? Is it do we face something different? And obviously, we know our school district is is different and our demographics are different, but how do we

041read that in comparison to like what what should we be expecting? If if we felt really good about our performance, is there is there something we should be expecting? So it's hard to compare to like nationally or other districts because fastbridge gau gauges the kids on what they should know. It doesn't gauge the kids on compared to their peers and which [clears throat] is a normative test. So when we used to give star you they would get the report that says the kid is in the 60th percentile compared to their peers. FastBridge doesn't do that. it only compares them to the skills required to learn to read. And so that that moving target of like that progressive rubric, that's why we don't see dramatic growth for kids. If you look at what is called their

042scale score, if we went down to the individual kid, almost all our kids do make growth in their scale score. they start with a certain score at the beginning of the year and then they end with another score and the number is always increasing in except the most drastic cases. Um and so since it's compared to >> the skills that's why the graph reads like that. I wish I had a better answer for you compared to other districts but it's hard to say. And I think Heather, I'll just add that I could be a student who is in low risk in the purple and make growth and still hit some risk in the fall in the pink. So even though you're seeing a dip in some of that, we really have to look at the

043individual child to see their growth line and their trajectory and needs to be able to be responsive to it. >> Can I I have a question also for you. Sorry. Um I was talking to a kindergarten teacher at one of our schools um uh last week when I was out visiting and um 12 of their students had turned over in the course of the year. Um and we know that uh on average right our our mobility rate is 40% across the district. So, how does how do we interpret >> comprehensive results like this um when it's not when at any given point it could be a third of a different right like I I don't know how how do you make sense of that >> and some of how we've made sense of things this

044year granted again we are a completely new team here so we've been asking lots of really great questions this year but some of it too is about um the interruptions that our kids and our teachers face on a regular basis so by having um we also did not share but we have redesigned our instructional minutes at elementary to ensure that there's less interruptions in our core instructional time so that all of our students are receiving that. Um, but that is still a wonder and that is our our hope and our goal and our focus based on what we've learned through the science of reading is that if we can develop common language consistent instruction that if our kids are mobile across our district, right, um that they should be having similar experiences and if we

045can ensure that we have core tier one instruction for all of our kids, um that will just progress us even further. Um we've been collaborating quite a bit with the amazing uh Danny Mayor and Christa Potter, our our multilingual um learner uh director, and we're really prioritizing how we set up a student's day as well. So we um we're really focusing on all the ways we can try to control our our day and our instruction to best support our students, but we are still left with quite a bit of of wonderings. And that's part of why our our shift with our um assessment as well is that we know that fastbridge once we hit a certain level really is not giving us the diagnostic information that we need, but we know CAPD is. And when

046it says, oh, you need support decoding and and here's what you can, you know, the skill you can work on, then we can put that in into action. So, we're really hopeful with the alignment of all of our plans that we're able to move that work forward. Um, and then we'll see where see where it goes. The next thing I have was what about our transient population? So [laughter] here we go. So I mean in that kindergarten class knowing our levels at kindergarten that's almost that's 50%. Um and you know it'd be better if they made an indistrict move but the likelihood of that is I mean I imagine we have more coming in and going out of our whole district which we can't control of course so I know that that's an issue. Um,

047this is a big broad question and I know you've answered some of it, but those students that were identified is that like what are the what's the main way they're identified? Is it classroom teacher? Is it, you know, I mean like there's probably so many ways, but what is the main kind of catchall? >> Yeah. So we use the um fall fast brbridge data for fourth and fifth graders and then fall star reading data for the sixth through 12th graders. Um so if they met or didn't meet the benchmark at that point then we determined in the winter to give them the capy to see what was going on there that we could intervene upon. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um, I could talk about this forever and you could talk about it longer than

048me, I'm sure, but um, what are our, if I asked you guys, what's your top three obstacles for students being on level with literacy specifically in our district? Um, what would you say? >> I think Katie and I might say the exact same thing. [laughter] Do you want to go first? >> Write your answers down and don't show each other. And then we're probably both going to say >> well I think like l the foundations of language >> um particularly oral language. So reading starts before school >> because reading is based the ability to read is based upon the skill that you have for oral language. So, if you don't have a strong vocabulary or you don't you haven't been talked to and you haven't um developed that rich language skills, when you get into

049school and you start to learn to read, you have a weak foundation and you have nothing to stick it to. >> And we see lots of kids coming in that are deficient in their oral language. Um I know preschool's been working with um some PD around conversational turns to foster that. Um, but we know that our best our best chance for helping kids get on track is early elementary. The earlier the better because the older they get, the harder it is to catch up. And the research says if you're not on track by second grade, it is not likely that you will catch up. That's from our letters training that we have learned. That doesn't mean we we stop trying, right? Because every kid deserves to learn to read. Um, but those early foundational skills,

050the lack of that is the number one barrier. And so thinking strategically around how to build that up. That would be my number one answer. >> Mine too. >> And that's a community issue. That's not I mean we're dealing with after effects of it, but it's you know. Yeah. >> Actually, it's it starts when kids are babies, >> right? >> Because that is when you learn language and from ages 2 to three. that is the golden window to develop strong language skills. And if you don't get that and you don't have that, that's going to impact you for life. >> Um, and so yeah, >> well, and seeing that as a privilege that kids come in with, and not all kids have that privilege. So, yeah. >> What would be your number two, Anna? >>

051Y'all are asking each other questions now. This is going [laughter] off the books. >> Well, and somebody's question. >> It's it's an obstacle I think we are tackling, but our I might be opening cans of worms. I don't know. Um but we have our kids are on screens a lot and they're that goes right along with that oral language piece, right? And um they they need to be talking and writing and reading more and uh that is our hope and our focus by aligning our curriculum work. Um Lexia is an online platform. We will no longer be utilizing that. Um we have these really beautiful robust um workbooks that are coming that kids can annotate in and write in, right? And so, um, it's it's this developmental hurdle that our our kids face and this

052is a larger community national issue that we could talk about for hours, but um, so what can we do within our control, right? And so it's an obstacle that we're we're ready to tackle and support our teachers with and and how once they're in our doors, what how do we serve them every day and how do we provide them with what they might be missing and what they didn't get. Um, we're also doing the early childhood curriculum pilot next year and looking at our early childhood curriculum and how we're we're teaching our earliest learners and how it aligns with EIP. So, that's work we're we are embarking on for next year as well. So, >> and we have a waiting list of how many people for preschool and so that's a state issue. Hello, free

053preschool for all. Yes. Did you have any top three things? Um, oh, I guess from a secondary lens, like time is crucial because we only have so much more time with students to develop these skills, but they can't just sit in a tier three forever to build every skill because we have content area skills to build. We have um graduation requirements. We have all these things that move really hard and fast for our upper grade students. Um, but I've had the joy of stepping out of my own language arts classroom in the last few years as being a literacy coach in the district and now as a coordinator and seeing how literacy lives in every content area's standards and as we continue the work on standards focus and how we can unearth that and we've

054been really doing a lot of capacity building with our secondary staff around their literacy knowledge. um even before our face our teachers our language arts teachers are receiving phase two like they are primed with a ton of knowledge even in other content areas to um to be able to do something in across a student's day to read and to write and to build those foundational skills. Um we've been dabbling with some tier one uh just routines that can happen in different courses and even at 10 minutes three to four times a day. Um we with multi-elabic word decoding in various class contexts. Um on the captive read basics we would hope to see like you would normally see three to five points of growth in a year on a student um with no intervention whatsoever.

055we saw five to seven points on average in like a six week period just happening in the context of a social studies class. Um, so we're really excited about what we can do with like small bits of focused work across a student's day. So >> I guess it's a a win and a a barrier, but we're on it. [clears throat] >> Yeah. Well, and that's how how I've experienced the way y'all talk about it is that we have real barriers, extremely real barriers, and we are moving in the right direction and we're Yeah. So, anyway, thanks for your work. Appreciate it, Heather. in response to that um and particularly the couple of points that you did about the age of 2 to three as well as um not catching up after second grade. What partnerships

056and I'm just trying to think because reading is the foundation of absolutely everything that we do from a learning perspective including math, science, and everything else. What partnerships or what opportunities do we have to work with healthcare providers, social workers, um all of those types of people who are seeing e educating parents, um trying to get to them early, resources that we could be developing, community groups that we could be involving to understand this better. because as much as I'd like to tell you that there's lots of people listening to this conversation right now, um my guess is that's not the case. [laughter] Um and obviously I'm sure teachers talk about it, you know, individually when students are coming in, but in many cases if you've missed that early um particularly before the age of

057preschool even then so the question what what can we do? what are we doing? How do we help educate spread? Um, get people to understand how important this is and also how detrimental screens are. >> Yeah, I'm so glad you asked cuz I was going to interject and then I was like, no, we'll just leave it be for now. Um, but one of the pieces that we have been working really hard on as a team this year is with partnerships. And so what we've been developing is a uh developmental and instructional milestones continuum which is artifacts used from the CDC for those early years as well as our EIPS for our early childhood standards as well as our Minnesota state standards to make really visible and clear one-pagers for parents to have conversations around of

058skills and expectations. So that will be coming and maybe is something we want to bring here to just show you the work that we have done. In addition to that, uh, Bara Davis sits on many, uh, community committees and councils, United Way, Baby Cafe, with Centricare, working to align. We know we have kind of this mixed bag of opportunities for early childhood, whether it be an inhome daycare or Head Start or um, part of our early childhood opportunities and experiences. But really, we want to try and express the importance of oral language, of vocabulary, of literacy, of reading to your child, and and focus around those EIPs to give us common language and experiences and activities. Um, so that we're seeing kids get exposed in to those skills that help them to be school ready.

059Um, so through those community partners, we're having clear conversations and coming next year, we will have packaged one pagers to really align and narrow our conversations with families around expectations and partnership in how we work together to create student success. >> I appreciate that you're doing that. Do do you ever and and I know you you mentioned centric care and those sorts of things and again I don't know what sort of training that they do um or you know that sort of active sort of training. Do you ever have is there a time where you go into the OBGYn group um and and they're and the nurses who have probably the most contact with the patients while they're in you know like do the one pager is great. >> Yep. There's also something to be

060said about interaction and and relationship building. Do you have those opportunities? >> We do have within our early childhood team some outreach coordinators that have information and opportunities. That baby cafe is going to really be that experience that brings new parents together to have conversations around development and education. Um 742 is connected through part of our roles and responsibilities with that early childhood outreach. Um but I think there's still space to do more. So I think it's a good wonder. I know nothing about baby cafe. Um [laughter] >> yeah, >> is that representative of this community and do various demographics all engage in baby cafe? >> Um I can say from having a one and a three-year-old. Um I got the information and resources. Um at that time the nurse and and lactation consultant was

061really talking about trying to engage our community. So as I asked a lot of questions, I never got to attend. Um, so I can't really speak to the true representation that shows up, but I know that they had a lot of efforts in trying to engage community as well as QR codes, which I did look at, right, for for new families and moms about developmental milestones, which is what sparked some of the curiosities and ideas as we were actually getting together to set our CACER goals and saying, "Okay, what evidence of impact are we going to bring bring to this data point, right? And how do we know um we have the resources needed to support parents And then I have one last question. Obviously it talks about um or your information talks about what

062you do for interventions with tier two and tier three or tier three and then tier two trying to move them along. When you have students who are tier one um how do you work with students who maybe are already meeting standards to continue to uh build them and and um not let them fall by the wayside or continue to challenge them. I mean to some degree it's a little bit of talented and get the old language of talented and gifted. You know what what do we do to continue to incentivize and excite people um who maybe are already meeting the standards? >> Yes. So, we do have talent development services. Um, but we again with our instructional minutes focus, we we're really pushing into um our inquiry. We're calling them inquiry blocks. Um, and how

063to continue to enrich all of our students at tier 1. Um, and so we really have the most amazing teachers in our district who are super responsive to our kids. And um, once they hit um, that second, third grade, we start to look at see who might need need a little more, need a little different. And then we start to differentiate in that way. Um but we know that um having all of our students first making sure they are getting all tier one um is our primary focus moving forward. So um our teachers continue to enrich and empower our kids to have have the best experiences possible and we're hoping with our our new curriculum and our new instructional minutes that we're going to be able to do an even better job with that. Um,

064you mentioned the importance of a two to three year olds learning oral language. What do you do with the kids that don't speak English? >> So that doesn't mean they don't come with language. So they come with rich language. If they speak another language in their home, they are developing the networks in their brain for that language. And so when they enter school and they learn English, they're learning the content through English. As the person that works with immersion, I see it kind of flipped, right? They'll learn English in school along with the ability to read, but they need to leverage their home language to do that. Um, so yeah, so oral language is imperative no matter what language you teach. You just we need parents to know that talking to your children, whatever language

065that might be, is vital. >> It's it's even better if they have some early foundational reading skills in that language. Accessing literacy is easiest in your first language. And so if they're getting read to at home and the parents are engaging them in that first language, when they enter school, transferring those skills to English is going to be an asset. >> Yeah. Okay, >> thank you guys for joining us. >> We appreciate it and we're very curious about this and look forward to more updates about what's going on. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving on to an action item. We have the summary evaluation of the superintendent. Um, this is being presented by board personnel negotiations committee chair Natalie Copeland. Uh yes. So I'm just going to go ahead and read the um

066public report for our 2025 2026 superintendent evaluation for district 742. Um this is also for all the vast amount of people listening that Heather was talking about and any media folks. Um also in board book um as an attachment um if you wanted to reference it at all. So, uh, let's go. On behalf of the District 742 Board of Education, we share our sincere appreciation and strong support for Superintendent Dr. Lorie Putnham. Following the completion of the annual evaluation process throughout the 2526 school year, Dr. Putnham continued to lead with vision, integrity, and a deep commitment to students, staff, and families across our district. This year, Dr. Dr. Putnham was recognized nationally as one of the National School Public Relations Association's 2526 superintendent to watch, honoring her innovative leadership, communication, and community engagement. This recognition

067reflects both her impact in District 742 and her growing influence in education leadership nationally. Under Dr. After Putnham's leadership, district 742 continued to build strong momentum throughout the throughout the year. Most notably, district enrollment increased, bringing the St. Cloud Area School District back above 10,000 students. [snorts] This milestone reflects growing confidence in our schools, our staff, and the opportunities available to students and families throughout our district. Feedback from both the board of education and community leaders reflects exceptionally strong support for Dr. Dr. Putnham's leadership. She is consistently recognized for her communication, visibility, responsiveness, and ability to build trust across the district and the community. Board members describe her as proactive, thoughtful, and highly effective in keeping both students and district priorities at the center of her work. Community feedback similarly highlights her as a visible,

068approachable, and trusted leader who brings people together and strengthens relationships across the St. Cloud area. One community leader shared, "Lori has become one of the stronger leaders in the area and has elevated the importance and contribution of the district beyond what we have typically seen in St. Cloud or in the rest of the region. The board recognizes Dr. Putnham's continued focus on strategic alignment and organizational leadership through the advancement of district-wide continuous improvement plans or SIPs, ensuring schools and departments remain aligned around student achievement, operational excellence, and equitable opportunities for all learners. As we look ahead, the board remains excited and optimistic about the future of St. Cloud of the St. Cloud Area School District under Dr. Putnham's leadership. Her emphasis on relationship building, transparent communication, and authentic community partnership continues to strengthen trust and

069confidence around District 742. Together, we remain committed to preparing, engaging, educating, empowering, and inspiring all learners to thrive in today's and tomorrow's world. That was way more than she wanted to be said, I'm sure. Um, and we could continue and say more and more, but um, thank you for another great year, Dr. Putnham. >> Thank you. So, this is an action item. The board personnel and negotiations committee recommends adoption of the summary evaluation of Superintendent Dr. Lorie Putnham. So, I'm looking for a motion to adopt the summary evaluation. >> I think I'll go. I have a motion by Natalie, a second by Heather. Heather, can you call vote? Zack Doorhalt, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Gina Aso, >> yes. >> Heather Williams,

070yes. >> Okay, thank you. Then moving on to um board of education standing committee reports. I believe board development policy governance committee chair Zach Dorhalt has a report. >> At the May 27th meeting of the development, policy and governance committee, five board policies were reviewed. Policy 414, mandating reporting of child neglect or physical or sexual abuse, was updated with changes and is recommended for first reading at tonight's meeting. Policies 415, maltreatment of vulnerable adults, and 526, which includes hazing prohibition, and 505, distribution of non-school sponsored materials, required either minor statutory updates or no changes at all. And all three have been included on tonight's consented consent agenda. policy 531 which will undergo further review at the June 24th committee meeting. >> Thank you. Then we have finance audit board committee chair Heather Williams. >> Yes.

071I have a very quick report. Uh we met on June 1st of uh this month. Amy reviewed the 2026 27 preliminary budget that will be presented to the board at tonight's meeting. >> Like it. [clears throat] >> Hold on. [laughter] talked about it. >> Okay. Then next next we have future agenda items. The June 17th, 2026 board meeting topics will include ready set school update, early childhood opportunity, 10-year long-term facility maintenance plan, approval of the 2025 2026 revised budget, approval of the 2026 2027 budget and policy readings. At this time, does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item? Okay, that was everything on our regular meeting agenda. So, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting. >> So, move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by

072Natalie. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Meeting is adjourned at 7:31 p.m. And at that same time, we are opening up the board of education work session. We have two agenda items today. We have first up Amy Scallardude, executive director of finance and business services, presenting the preliminary 2026 2027 budget which she has put in front of us. Yes, I paper copies are good. As much as I like online, um it's really hard and the pages rotate. So, paper copies um to follow along. Good evening, Chair H, Superintendent Putnham, school board members. Uh we are looking at the preliminary uh 2627 budget tonight. I know you're really sad, but we're not going to go through every page uh because if we did, we would be here all night, and I don't think

073anybody wants that. Uh so we'll hit the highlights, which is mostly going to focus on um the financial statement information pages in the back of the book. Um but before we do that, I do quickly want to look at one page um in the front, which is page four. Uh so one thing we always want to highlight in the budget process um is some of our uh significant trends and things that impact our budget. Uh this is not uh new news to anyone that we um as a district realize significant uh funding cross subsidies in the areas of both special education uh and English learner programs. Um so this page on page four is a a snapshot of of where each of those cross subsidies is. Uh so the top section is our special education

074cross subsidy. Um and it's got a number of years presented. Um if we look at uh going from 223 to 23 24 uh we had some significant growth. The legislature approved special education cross subsidy reduction aid. Um and we saw a nice um kind of rebound uh in in the ability to to have some funds come in um to do you know other things um increase staffing some of um those literacy intervention things that we've talked about um and addressing needs. Unfortunately then if we start to look out um we're sort of moving in the wrong direction again as we project out this budget um for next year. And so there's really two components that are impacting that. Uh the first is the way the special education funding formula works. There's a delay in funding.

075Uh when we have to add staff and so um as our special education student count increases and we have to add staff year-over-year, that revenue doesn't come in until the following year. Um because the the formula for a given year is based on your spending from the previous year. Um and so that's one of the pieces that's that's impacting that that trending upward. Um and then the second piece is um a reduction in special education transportation aid that was approved last legislative session. So historically um up through 2425 the transportation piece of special education was funded at 100%. Um that proration um there was a proration factor added. So that was reduced to 95% um for 2526 and then 90% uh for 2627. And so that reduction in that transportation component um because we have

076a lot of students who are on specialized transportation uh is really the the bigger factor that's driving um that that um increase in that cross subsidy. On the flip side, uh our EEL cross subsidy um has the opposite story this year. Uh a couple legislative sessions ago, uh there was some um significant increases approved in EL funding that weren't set to uh begin until 2627. Uh we were a little bit fearful that the legislative session uh would look to repeal those. Um we're still a little bit uh fearful that they could still look to repeal those next session um when it's an actual funding year and they they have to balance the budget. Um however, they they did not repeal those for uh 26 27. So for the budget that's presented tonight, um we do

077see that there's a an increase in that the revenue component um a much larger increase on the revenue side than on the expenditure side. Uh so we actually see that cross subsidy drop from about 3 um 3.5 to 3 um to 2.7 million. And we'll talk a little bit um when we get to the general fund about um some of that that concern about that funding going away and how the district uh plans to address that and how that's reflected in the budget. >> Yep. [clears throat] >> Can you tell me how I'm supposed to interpret that last line which is on both the percent special ed spending compared to total general and transportation spending? I >> Yeah. So that's basically what percent of the budget do these programs equate to? Yep. So, if you

078look at our total um general fund and transportation spending, so excluding capital and LTFM and those things that aren't really providing instruction, um our special education budget um for next year is about 34% of our total budget. Um and our English learner budget uh is represents just over 4% of our total spend. >> Thank you, Amy. >> Okay, we are going to flip to page 21 unless people want to go page by page. I'm willing. [laughter] Uh so page 21 is the summary of the district general fund. Um and so we'll actually uh look at each um fund separately. Um but I I want to point out on this page that when when we talk about the general fund at budget time, uh it's actually a one um it's actually three separate funds. And so

079when we get to the audit presentation in November, they refer to the general fund um as [clears throat] one fund. When we budget it and when we account for it in our system, um we split that into three separate funds. It's the general fund, uh the transportation fund, and then the operating capital fund. Um years back, those were all separate prior to my time, so you know, many many years back. Um and then the state consolidated them and said, "No, we're going to report them all together." um our district had made the decision to continue um to break those out um just for a little bit better transparency uh and accountability. Um so just always like to point out that general fund is is really three separate funds um in our accounting. Uh if you

080go to the next page, page 22, uh the largest piece then of the general fund is the general operating uh portion. So this shows comparative information um for a number of years. We're not going to look at all of the years. We're really focused tonight on on the 2627 budget. Um and so in both revenues and expenses, you see um an increase of over 10 million. Uh the majority of that really uh being driven by that increase in state aid. Um and so there's a couple pieces to that. There was an increase in the per pupil formula allowance. Um that increased EL funding that we talked about. Um and then our district did see a large increase in our compensatory revenue. Um the uh concern with that however um is that the state is currently

081reviewing uh the compensatory revenue formula um we actually uh if you recall from last year uh were on the losing end of a legislative proposal for a hold harmless. Um there was a hold harmless this year um that was much better um thought out and um much more [clears throat] equitable I would say and so we didn't end up losing any money. Um but we did go into staffing with with a large fear um that we wouldn't actually see that large increase. Uh and so we did not allocate all of our compensatory money uh during staffing. Um we held back about 2 million of that. And so uh those have been those funds have been allocated um in the budget um mostly for one-time costs. Um there's a there's also a component of that that's

082being used to offset that loss of that sped transportation. Um, and the same is true with that EL uh funding. There's about 900,000 um of specific cost subsidy reduction funding um that again we as a district have uh concerns whether that could potentially be um something that gets taken back in the legislative session. And so we don't want to allocate um those to to permanent ongoing items uh and then have to make two or three million in in budget cuts a year from now. Hopefully that is not the case. Um but we we just don't know. there's just too much uncertainty uh in the state's overall budget in the compensatory formula. Um there's also the issue of unemployment that's um the funding runs out next year. Uh and so for that reason uh we've taken

083and and set aside uh those to cover uh primarily one-time costs next year. Um so there is some additional prek offerings um that we've added that we would hope to to make um permanent if we uh if the funding continues. Um, again covering some of that transportation. Uh, covering um, we have a number of IT related costs. Um, the software conversions that have been presented to the board. Um, some security camera things. Those were things that we would have originally um, thought we had to take out of operating capital or general fund reserves. Um, because they're really out of our control, right? We don't have a choice. They have to be done. Um, and we're not going to make permanent cuts to cover onetime costs. Uh so we're fortunate that we can um use some

084of these funds to cover those and not have to spend from reserves. Um and then it also gives us the ability to do some of the things um that have really been on our radar as needs for years um with no funding source um to to cover them. Um the largest of those is a parking and drop off issue at Madison. Um we know there's not enough parking there and um we can't use LTF fun LTFM funds to expand parking lots. Um, and so we have the ability to use some of those funds uh this summer to address that concern. Um, so those are just some examples of of what those funds are are being uh set aside for. The only other thing I want to note on the general operating fund uh is the

085current year uh readopted budget. We do have a deficit um this year. I just want to remind everyone that the board originally did approve a deficit. Actually, the original um deficit was 324,000. Uh that was to cover those city special assessment costs as well as the special election. Um those assessment costs ended up less than we had planned. Uh which is why we now see that deficit being um slightly smaller. We may not end up in a deficit, right? We may end up with interest revenue and other things that offset that. Um but we always want to present kind of the um the worst case scenario I would say uh when it comes to budget. Uh the next three pages are um a breakdown of uh the expenses in um each specific category that we're

086required to break them down um based on state coding uh and reporting requirements. Again, we are not going to go line by line. Um, but certainly as you're reviewing this or looking through um between now and when the board approves um in two weeks, if you do have specific questions on why a number changed or what's included in that line item, um please don't hesitate to to reach out and ask. Uh so we'll skip then next to page 26. Uh [clears throat] 26 is the transportation budget. Uh and not shouldn't be a surprise based on what we just said about um the cross subsidy uh we actually have revenue going down which is you know typically not the case. Um fortunately the um the reduction in the special ed revenue uh is going down um

087uh but it's offset somewhat by the increase in the formula because there's a transportation component to that. Um but still overall we have uh decreasing revenue. Um and I think we can all um assume that our costs are not decreasing uh in correlation with that. So uh while it looks like this fund is balanced um for [clears throat] next year as has been the case for a number of years, the general operating fund um really has some of those uh transportation costs um essentially charged back to it. Um and for next year that's to the tune of about $2 million. Um, and so some of that comes from um that that gap now in that transportation cost. Um, some of that comes from um charter school and non-public uh transportation where our costs exceed our

088funding. Um, and and some of that is just uh based on the nature of our district, right? We are a large geographic district. We run a a lot of routes. Um, but I always want to point out that this fund looks beautiful and balanced. Um but it's it's it's really a little bit misleading because there is um transportation uh showing up in the general fund. And then page 27 is the third and final component of the general fund which is the operating capital. Um the largest portion of this is actually the long-term facilities maintenance program. Um that's about 7.7 million of of um the activity in this fund. Um this fund uh is operating um has has operated uh in a healthy position for a number of years. Um there was a few years where

089there was some board approved intentional spending down of those operating capital reserves. Um but we're still sitting at a a fund balance in operating capital of about 2.2 million. Um so very healthy reserves in that fund. Are there any questions on general fund before I move on? All right, we will skip to page 30. Uh page 30 is the first of two um what they what we call special revenue funds. Uh the first special revenue fund is food service. Almost all of our revenue comes from um the federal government for food service. Um that was not historically the case preandemic. Um but post pandemic um a lot of that came through um based on on waiverss and and certain programs. um after the pandemic. Now it's um kind of tied to the the state free

090meal program. As part of the state free meal program, uh there's a requirement if you are over a certain threshold for free and reduced uh to participate in the community elig eligibility provision, which we do. Um and so with that over 99% of our revenue uh really for for general food service not counting allocart and extra meals and um some other state funded uh programs comes from the federal for our uh general breakfast and lunch programs. The good news with that is um while not likely that the state free meal program would be repealed by the legislature, the community eligibility provision has a five-year um it's a 5-year program and so we'll reapply for next year and relock in for 5 years. So even if for some reason the state program were were to be

091repealed, uh we still retain the the ability to um have all of our students eat for free because we're in that um community eligibility provision. And again, this fund has a a healthy fund balance as well. Um, those uh this grew to a large reserve uh in those post-pandemic years um when there was a lot of supplemental funding uh coming for for food service. Um and so that continues to maintain a healthy healthy balance. Uh on the next page is community education um which again our community education fund also has operated at a very healthy um position. There were um similar to operating capital a few years where the board approved um planned spendowns of that for um one-time costs and projects. Um but even after that spending uh sitting at about 2.5 million um

092in projected ending fund balance in uh in that fund. Uh the next fund is our capital projects fund on page 33. Uh so this is uh this fund is only used to account for um issued debt for construction. So that could be board approved like when we did the long-term facilities maintenance bonds or that could be voter approved. Um so in 2526 um we see the bond proceeds coming in uh for the uh referendum projects for the voter approved um Apollo and athletic facility um about $66 million. And then in 2627 uh we're expecting that to spend down about 32 million although you know some of that in terms of timing um is sort of like throwing a dart at the wall. We don't exactly know um how things will time out and and how

093much will get spent. Um but that's our kind of our best guess at this point. Um and then obviously the remainder of that uh that's sitting in fund balance would be spent through the duration of those projects. [clears throat] uh the debt service. Then on page 35, um this fund is pretty straightforward. It's it's really um just accounting for all of the required um principal and interest payments on any uh any actual bonded debt that's issued. And then um that's all covered um primarily from um from uh property tax levies. There is some state aid that comes in uh mostly for the LTFM portion. Um we have some LTFM bonds. Um and the state does fund a portion of of the LTFM uh program. Um but this fund really generally um is is just going

094to balance in any given year because we're levying what we need to pay the debt. Um it looks a little strange though because we see a $74 million deficit last year. Um and that's because we had refunded the tech bond um back in 2122. And so in 2122 we can see a big proceeds coming in. uh we refunded that bond, but we weren't eligible to pay off the old one yet. Um and so that money just kind of has to sit there for four years until we can legally um pay down the the old debt um at the call date. And so now uh that activity has finally kind of washed in and out uh and we see um that uh repayment happen in 2526. Uh then we have two uh proprietary funds which are

095used to account for our insurance. The first uh is on page 39 uh which is the dental insurance fund. Um the dental insurance fund, our district has been self-insured for dental for many many years. Um this activity is very consistent from from year to year. Um we don't see significant swings in the number of people on the plan. Um it's had a healthy fund balance uh for for many many years. Rates have have not increased for many years. Uh and it continues um kind of based on you know the annual spending. Um if you see there's a fund balance of about 900,000 which almost 100%. That's almost would cover a whole year of claims. Um so very healthy reserve uh in that fund. Uh the health insurance fund tells a little bit different of a

096story. If we go to page 40 um we as a district uh moved to self-insured um a number of years ago. Uh we were fortunate during the pandemic when things were shut down and people weren't, you know, able to to really uh seek services or do elective um procedures. We saw a a huge growth in that fund balance which was great. Um that's the advantage of being self-insured is that that money stays with you and and doesn't go uh to a private carrier. Um unfortunately uh since that time we've had um a a a significant spendown of some of those reserves. Some of that has been intentional um in uh an awareness to to uh minimize those premium increases for our employees as we were still coming out of the pandemic. Uh some of that

097was unintentional as we've just had high cost claimments. Um the health insurance uh market inflation increasing at rates greater than what anyone could have projected. Um and so uh there are there is a couple years that you see some large decreases in spending. Um, but we've really leveled off to a point where we wouldn't be intentionally spending reserves. Um, we're really working to um to maintain or to continue to build those those reserves back up. >> Uh, what was the health insurance uh inflation rate or health care inflation rate? >> So, they used to say 5% um but really now they're saying it's closer to to 8 to 10%. Um unfortunately 5% is what had we had used historically to say there's about a 5% inflation in the market. Um but that really isn't holding

098true anymore. It it's um it's become higher than that. Um and that will that'll be part of uh that presentation when we talk about what we need to do next year um for premiums and rates and that information comes to the board in August. >> I had heard it was like 19% inflation rate in health care >> I would say. to 18. Okay. But that's everywhere. >> Yeah. >> Um the other thing I want to point out in the insurance fund is uh when we look at the 2627 budget, the dollar amounts that we're budgeting are um very close to what our our claim spending was in 2425. I just want to call that out because we know there's healthcare inflation. So that kind of looks like well how is that possible? Um but we've

099seen a significant decrease in the number of people on our plan um either because they're you know pursuing other options outside of the market um or for you know we we know there's an awareness that some people um based on rising health care costs are forgoing insurance um variety of reasons but we have seen um a pretty significant decrease in the number of people um taking our district insurance. And so that's really what's driving um the leveling of the ex of the claims. Um it's it's not that we're you know pretending like there isn't cost increases. There is. It's just offset by the decrease in the in the number of people. Um so that is the financial information. Um there's a few pages offormational um information. I'm only going to look at a couple of

100them. On page 42 is enrollment. Um, and I want to be clear that when we talk about enrollment in the context of the budget, um, because we just heard that beautiful 10,000 student number, um, this is the number of students that actually generate, um, per pupil funding. And so we unfortunately don't get funding on all 10,000 students um because we have a lot of um early childhood and early childhood special ed that might only generate partial funding um or or don't generate funding at all if they're um in community education, school readiness, and preschool programs. Um, so I always want to point out the distinction between the enrollment um that we talk about in the context of budget uh and the enrollment that you'd see on an MDE report where it says this is the

101district enrollment because those numbers are showing over 10,000 um but that doesn't convert to 10,000 ADM um that the budget gets to be based on unfortunately yeah um regardless though we have seen increasing enrollment for a number of years and so that's really um something to celebrate And uh we're continuing um in the for purposes of the budget to project a small increase. Um but we know uh our district budget approach is conservative and so we're not going to project a large increase. Um particularly we're always really conservative on those kindergarten estimate numbers. Um and I I want to point that out because it looks like well you have 770 kindergarteners you're only estimating 675 for next year. Um we just don't know right. uh it that kindergarten number can be so so variable. Um

102and we can always as we're tracking enrollment over the summer add a section, it's very hard to do the opposite. And so uh we're going to stay off conservatively and add if we need to. Um and so there's clearly uh potential that um just like we had this year that our enrollment ends up more um than we project. And then page 43 is the levy comparison. uh the dollar amount of our 2627 levy increase that's um 100% really driven by that debt service line with the addition of the um bond for the for the approved referendum. Um we don't tax on a tax rate basis like a city or county would. Uh but we do show on this table what our um dollar amount would convert to um on a tax rate. And because of

103the increase in the district tax base and tax capacity, um even though the dollar amount of our levy went up by um almost $2 million, 4 almost 5%, um the tax rate actually decreased. Um and so we don't really get to take that same uh benefit of an increasing tax base and increases in home valuations to generate new money like a city or county would. um our our levy is um are prescribed in statute um more based on dollar amount. A lot of it's enrollment driven. Um and so I always like to point out that that we're not um the same as how a city or a county would tax. And then the last page I'll just um quick point out is page 44, which is our uh our staffing levels. uh we are projecting

104an increase of um or not projecting our staffed and this budget uh reflects an increase of about of 22 staff. Um the majority of that uh is in the teacher line. Um there's also an increase in the paraprofessional line. Um some of that is coming from our additional special education staff that we've added. Um but then also um that increase in compensatory revenue. Almost all of our compensatory revenue gets put directly into staffing in our buildings. um generally again teachers and so those are the two things that are are driving that um that overall staffing increase. So that is what I am covering unless there's questions. >> Okay. Thank you Amy very much. Appreciate it. This will be back um next meeting. No action tonight. Yep. Next meeting. Next meeting. Super. Okay. We have one

105more item up tonight. Um Shannon Ason and Katie Herbald have been waiting patiently back there. [laughter] Um presenting tonight proposed revised board policy 415 first reading. Shannon Ason is our executive director of community education and community partnerships and Katie Herbald is our executive director of innovation and technology services. Thank you, Chair Hos, and members of the board. I will be uh doing our first read of policy 414, mandated reporting of child neglect, physical or sexual abuse. Um the purpose of this policy is to make clear the statutory requirements of school personnel to report suspected child neglect or physical or sexual abuse. Um once again, as you've heard me say several times, this policy is really dictated by state law. So we are staying in alignment as much as possible with the MSBA model policy. However,

106the most recent redlinined um the MSBA policy under uh letter M does uh recommend some changes that our team is agreeing to um the threatened injury. The definition of threatened injury. You'll note here that the actual definition the language around the definition does not change. However, MSBA is recommending as you can see there in blue um to include the related statutes within that definition. So, we are recommending that as a team as well. And then in our current policy, you'll note under reporting procedures, uh we had originally listed out our procedures, which includes a number of uh phone numbers, uh fax numbers, addresses, and our team is um not for really including our procedures and policies. Um especially in this case where the those numbers um phone, fax, numbers, all those pieces could certainly change

107and have changed. And so instead, we are recommending to take out our procedural piece and you'll see there to know um refer to the district 742 child protection mandated reporting directions. And then um just for this team's awareness to our MH team, quite a few members have been working really closely with Jen Lesey in the last couple of months and we have updated our uh procedures um really with some more specific instructions. um so that we can keep that process really consistent across the um as soon as we finalize that, we will be sharing that back out with our mental health team with a training in the fall when school starts. And so it's it was great timing to address it within this policy as well. And so we'll have that. And then lastly, um

108are Oh, there we go. Lastly, um you'll note that uh there is a legal reference update in the Minnesota statute section of this as well. And those are the only recommended changes. Any questions? >> All right. Thanks, guys. Um, that's everything on our work session. So, looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's board of education work session. >> So, move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. A work session is adjourned at 8:01 p.m. Have a good night. Thanks for watching. I don't know what everybody Scary.