2-4-2026 Board of Education Meeting

001The meeting is now called to order. It is February 4th, 2026 and the time is 6:38 p.m. Our mission is to provide a 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 to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> You're ready. Can you please call roll? The following board members are present at the district administration office. Gina Asivido >> here. >> Scott Andre >> here. >> Natalie Copeland >> here. >> Zack Dorhalt >> here. >> Diana Fenton >> here. >> Shannon

002Haw >> here. >> Heather Williams >> here. >> 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. a super assistant superintendent of E5 learning Nikki Hansen, executive director of community education and community partnership, Shannon Aansson. Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Amy Scallarude, Executive Director of Operations, Matthew Bucher. Executive Director of Special Education, Danny Mayor, Media Technicians, Paul Novak and Gordy Scott. Custodian on site is Emerson Beamer. >> Thank you. And then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's board of education meeting and work session agenda. So >> move second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. And Heather, can you call vote again on that? >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes.

003>> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Zack Doorhalt, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. Gina aspo speedo. >> Thank you. Then 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 monthly financial report for December 2025. Item C, approval of monthly treasures report for December 2025. Item D, approval of proposed revised board policy 624 online instruction, third reading. Item E, resolution for establishing school district primary election system. Item F, propose revised board policy 402, disability non-discrimination policy title change only.

004Item G, board policy 401, equal employment opportunity reviewed, no changes. Item H, board policy 404, employment background checks reviewed, no changes. Item I, board policy 405, veterans preference reviewed, no changes. Item J, board policy 406, public and private personnel data reviewed, no changes. Item K, board policy 407, employee right to know exposure to hazardous substances reviewed, no changes. Item L, board policy 408, uh, subpoena of school district employees reviewed, no changes. And lastly, item M, board policy 409, employee publications, instructional materials, invent inventions, and creations reviewed. No changes. At this time, does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda? Okay, seeing no removal, uh, request for removal. Looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as read. >> So, move. >> Have a motion by Scott. A second by

005Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Zack Dorhalt, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. >> Gina Eido, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. Dana Fenton. >> Yes. [clears throat] >> Thank you. Okay. Then we have one information item tonight. Um we have operations update presented by Matthew Boucher, executive director of operations and he's got a dynamite team lined up over there. So Matthew, are you do you want to introduce them? I don't know all at once or they coming up or taking turns. Thank you all for joining us. Cute your mic. Make sure it's on. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Hos, Superintendent Putnham and the board. We're excited to be here today. Quick context. Uh I've spent 30 years in education as

006a teacher, instructional leader, and educators prior to this year and and principal prior to this year. And this year, I moved into the role of supporting operations. Uh, and I'm very excited to do this work because I now get to support a whole cadre and almost an army of people who create the preconditions for that learning that I just described to happen. Um, and if we don't do our work at a high level, then we then we absolutely get in the way of students doing learning at a high level. Um, and so you you'll notice I'm going to I'm going to be pretty pedantic about this message tonight that we're going to celebrate the people who create the conditions for the learning to happen in our classrooms. Uh, and I'm going to ask my colleagues

007who lead the departments first to introduce themselves and then to kind of walk through um some of the insights. And >> so let's start with introductions. >> I'm Natalie Rotha, transportation supervisor. >> Uh Marcus Lewis, uh supervisor of building and grounds. >> I'm Sarah Model, the nutritional services supervisor. >> Matt Sherry, security coordinator. So again, um, tonight's purpose is to bring into focus the contributions that our that our dedicated colleagues within the operations realm bring to the to the learning experience for our learners. So that's nutritional services, as you heard, transportation, buildings and grounds, and safety and security. Uh, and to highlight that, we'll start with Natalie. She's going to share about transportation. >> Yes. Well, thank you for having us. We are all very excited to be here and share information from our departments.

008I've uh with transportation I thought of some things that you may not know. So, and I'm a avid I like to photograph my groupers of our drivers. Um, okay. For the the 2526 school year, uh, for this year, we have we transport for 18 public schools. We also have nine non-pub schools that we transport for and one charter. Uh, daily 144 vehicles. That includes 85 full-size buses, 32 short buses. Those are our sped vehicles, and 26 vans. Um, when I say base, that's like the the hub where we we take phone calls. We use the radio to communicate to drivers. We have long days. So, uh, usually it's two shifts. We're starting as early as 6:00 a.m. Um, closing up shop around 5:00 when all students have been dropped off. and we work with six

009uh transportation contractors in the area. Thank you. Safety first. So, all my drivers and parents can probably hear me saying these words. Safety first is very important in transportation. Um I want to share like all the things we have to follow to make sure all our vehicles, all our drivers, everything is safe for our students. Um, we do background checks on all of our staff who are on buses that drivers and paras. We have state of Minnesota annual uh requirements, eight hours of safety training annually, random drug and alcohol tests, checks. Um, we also do tests. Um, at any moment a driver could get called in to do drug or alcohol uh check. They just get an hour notice. Before morning route and afternoon route, drivers are checking in the office. We're looking to make

010sure they're fit to drive, that no one is under the influence. Driving evaluation. Every spring, every single driver has to be a part of a driving evaluation from the safety coordinator of the of the building. Uh we conduct evacuation drills with our students, all the schools. Uh you can see in one of the images here, uh we practice the the rear exit. um helping little especially littles feel comfortable jumping out of the the rear of the bus and in case there were an emergency and uh safety curriculum. We we get the support of the schools in the classroom to go over all the bus rules and I have an example here of some of some of the imagery we use um for the students. State Patrol comes around annually and checks every single vehicle. It

011is very intensive. They get under the vehicle. You get a sticker if it passes. If it doesn't pass, you don't get a sticker and you cannot drive [laughter] cannot drive that vehicle, but you can fix it. Like sometimes there's minor repairs within a month you can get your sticker. Um 3:30 in the morning. Minnesota, we have a lot of um fun weather in the the winter time. One person from each contractor is out on the roads on on those cold weather days to check that it's safe for our vehicles uh for stopping um making sure roads are clear. >> And you're one of those people. >> I am one of those people with my um minivan all-wheel drive. I just got new tires. Vigilant. I went all out with Michelin. [laughter] Yes. Okay. And um

012Yes. I just a couple other things I wanted to highlight. Uh we we work with Leaf organization. We run uh the Packrat bus, the big beautiful green bus in these pictures. Uh we maintain it, make sure that's ready to go each summer. Um, and a couple things I'm I'm most excited about in my tenure. This is my fifth year in my role. Um, I I have really worked hard with our teams to educate on our special needs students. Done done a lot of work with that um this Friday. And this all goes along with um making the bus a safe place for students. making them feel belong, have a sense of belonging and uh we often talk about the bus being an extension of the classroom where drivers are very skilled um with you know

013the mechanics of driving but we're working hard to help them um develop relationships with the students that we serve. this Friday. This Friday, my group for two hours were meeting with Matthew Buchet and Dr. Corey Joerger. Um really excited for for that work to do some um table discussions and really understand our students, understand where they're coming from, that sort of thing. So um and one well two shout outs uh before I pass the mic. Um well, and we have uh bus driver appreciation day coming up February 18th. We we uh celebrate both drivers and paras on this day. Uh print little postcards for our elementary kids so they can write little notes to their drivers. Um excited about um Shannon Zack who's watching. Shannon is really great with um our trips. She she's clerical

014three in our office show booking all the trips like when I was preparing for this I looked at the week for trips we had 50 in one week so she finds a driver from a like going down the list finding and all the accommodations were wheelchairs trailers all kinds of things so Shannon is a rock star and secondly um or the reason we're up here today my [laughter] I we're I'm very happy um with his leadership and um he he allows us to lead authentically and with autonomy. So I really appreciate it. >> Thank you, Matthew. >> Thank you. >> Kind of finish with that one. >> Yeah, we should have finished with that one. [laughter] Um, so I'm going to jump to my slides. I got a little bit. Um, so again, my name

015is Marcus Lewis. I am a supervisor of building grounds. So, [clears throat] um, Natalie was so kind in taking those pictures. So, that highlights some of our staff. So, I'm going to jump right into my presentation. Um, and I'm gonna hit you with some trivia real quick. Um, so [clears throat and cough] I'm making this a little bit easier to read for me on my side. Um, our facilities equate to a little over 2 million square ft. And thanks to you guys and all the the the community members, right, that's going to be growing. So, we're excited for that. Currently, [snorts] we have 66 custodians covering that space and 18 buildings. Um each day they're investing uh 528 total hours in cleaning each day to maintain that 2 million square feet. Um we have 12

016engineers as well um that oversee a total of 37 boilers um and six full-time grounds personnel that uh maintain in excess of 280 acres. So, we span the equivalent uh um area of 260 square miles. So, it's an awfully large footprint with an awfully large amount of buildings and an awful lot of work to be put in. And so, I kind of want to bring that to the forefront. So, >> how does it [snorts] compare to US Bank Stadium as far as square footage? >> Yeah, I was going to say, have any of you been to US Bank Stadium? So if you have, you can imagine the immensity of that building or or you've been a a a witness to that. >> US Bank Stadium is 1.75 million square ft, which means that equates to

017the district being 2 or 250,000 square feet larger than that building. That's what we maintain in our footprint. So, [snorts] um, in a single week, uh, custodians do 2600 hours of cleaning. To put that in perspective, a space shuttle pilot needs 2500 hours of training just to be qualified for flight. That's not even to be qualified to start the training for the space shuttle. >> [snorts] >> Um, another another fun fact is uh the mechanical horsepower that is uh overseen by 12 custodians is equivalent to 1 and a half uh 226 locomotives. So if you ever see the coal train or a freight train pull in those two front locomotives, that's the equivalent of the power that 12 engineers oversee in 37 boilers through the district. Um and they have collectively between those 12 engineers

01839 years of experience in boiler operation and uh they are with an individual licensing experience of on average of three and a half years. Uh that depth of experience uh has directly translated into the reliability and high performance that our buildings see every single day. Um the last fun fact for my grounds guys and uh that is the total grounds maintained by the district um that's frontage property and athletic facilities >> [snorts] >> um is 100 acres larger than Apple Park. So Apple their big huge headquarters in Certino. The middle of that is Apple Park. We are a hundred acres larger than that iconic park. So to just put in perspective and some fun facts on what the district is delivering every day. [snorts] Um so for 2026 or 2526 my focus has been really

019on establishing a unified vision with all our operational staff um an identity to the unit. um that's in service of what me and Matt have developed is um worldclass facilities. We believe that we have worldclass facilities and we want to take every day to make sure that we recognize those who provide that. So um that's been a big push for me over the last two years. [snorts] Um another big thing for me this year also is streamlining procedures and harnessing uh untapped potential. We have amazing buildings and we they are very well put together and we will continue to keep utilizing and and being creative to utilize the power that we have to to ensure that we have better spaces, better abilities to respond. Um better actionable items for our students and staff. um maintenance.

020A big thing for me this year is um switching from a preventative or from a reactive approach to a preventative approach. Too often you see in large buildings and facilities, we're reacting in the moment in the moment. Uh a lot of a lot of time goes into pivoting into proactive maintenance that allows us to better plan and better forecast what we're running into. So that's been a big push for me this year as well. Um, last thing is in tandem with uh, Matthew is uh, human development. Um, our custodians and our engineers and our ground staff and our trades guys, they're all immensely educated and they need that continuing push of education to make them better. Right? Our our spaces are evolving, our facilities are evolving. we have to tool them to make sure that

021they can evolve into that aspect and and be able to deliver all of the all of the amazing stats that you guys just heard um every single day. So, that's been a big focus on on my plate uh this year. So, [snorts] um my last or well, yeah, is that my last? Yep. Um, yeah, recognizing those who contribute to world-class facilities. So, my shout out similar to Natalie. Um, first and foremost, I'd like uh I'd like to recognize every engineer, custodian, subcustodian, and grounds member and trades member. Without your dedication and pride and unwavering commitment to each building day in and day out, um our department could not create the vital conditions need to for every child and staff member to succeed. Uh they truly set the stage [snorts] silently and thanklessly allowing our teachers

022to loudly impact our kids. I have the honor of learning from each one of them every single day. Um and I will continue to not take that for granted. Um another shout out I have is my three colleagues. Uh [snorts] their consistent compassion and collaboration um have challenged me to make buildings and grounds grow and improve in ways I never could have anticipated [snorts] on my own. I am grateful for their partnership and belief in what our operation team can do together um and achieve together in service of the students and staff for the district. Um two more shout outs. [clears throat] Sorry. Cue [snorts] the music if you need to. [laughter] Dr. Putnham, Dr. Buché, Tracy Bo, Mike Spaniard, Amy Scullerude, Shane Keading, David Cooney, Katie Herbal, basically all the executive leadership. Um, [snorts]

023thank you to your consist thank you for your consistent reinforcement, guidance, and support and direction. Your leadership has helped me reach potentials and adapt mindsets that I only once dreamed of. So, I want to thank them for that. Then lastly, I want to thank district 742. That's huge for me. [snorts] Um, the district uh shaped me, right? Uh, I started at Tilah, went to South, graduated from Tech. So, I am I am through and through district 742. So I have the honor of giving back. Um without the district uh investing in my development, I wouldn't be here presenting in front of you guys today. So um I'm a walking testament to what work was done and what work can be or example of work that could be. So thank you guys. [snorts] [laughter] >> Thank

024you. >> All right. Um, moving on to nutrition. Uh, food is always fun. So, again, my name is Sarah Model. I'm the nutrition services supervisor. Um, I'm a registered dietitian and I have a master's degree in clinical nutrition and I, this is my fifth school year, uh, with, uh, 742 nutritional services, which is really exciting. Um, just to give kind of a little background about nutritional services, um, in our district, last school year, the 2425 school year, we served over 680,000 breakfast and over 1.14 million lunches. Um, and so if you combine those together, we served over 1.8 million meals in 169 instructional days. So across the nation, school cafeterias are the busiest restaurants by far. Um, and that's really how we have to kind of operate. And it's so I love I love nutritional

025services and school nutrition. And I can talk about it for a very long time. Um, but I'll uh keep it brief. Um, research shows that school meals are the healthiest meals that kids eat. We have so many guidelines and regulations that we have to follow that come down from USDA. They're frequently changing. Um we've got new regulations this year. We've got some new ones that come into play next year. Um, we're constantly following and updating to meet those regulations and serve our kids the best food um that they that they need in order to grow and develop um and be able to meet those educational needs as well. Um, in that same regards, meeting all of those very strict regulations, um, we are always improving our menus and our kitchens to provide that best service

026and food for our students. Um, over the past couple of years, I have been able to update some of our elementary school serving lines. And I'll show you some pictures of that uh on the next slide. And we have upgraded a lot of our kitchen equipment to some really, really awesome uh combi ovens. So, they can be used as a regular oven as well as a steamer and everything in between. You can basically make them into a giant air fryer. You can roast fruits and vegetables. you can do just absolutely amazing things with them. And so we've been able to do that in a lot of our kitchens. We get a lot of student feedback as well. We do student taste testing because again, we want to serve the food the kids are going to

027eat. Uh it doesn't pay for us to make this beautiful menu and have this beautiful spread on the line if the kids aren't going to eat it. So, we are actually going to be doing some more student taste testing next week at elementaryaries, middle, and high school for some new recipe ideas, as well as we try to focus on incorporating local foods as well into our kitchens. We have local apples, we have wild rice, maple syrup, uh lots of different produce, local cheese, local turkey. Um we really try to bring that local food into our uh so into our schools as well. um for our students. Um and why that um meal number is so important for us too. All of our funding is based on reimbursement for meals served. So uh the amount of

028money we receive in our department is completely based on how many meals we served that month and uh the month prior. And right now, our current funding is $2.94 for each breakfast that we serve and $4.83 for each lunch that we serve. And that has to cover all of our expenses with serving those meals. So that has to be the food cost, our labor costs, our equipment costs, our maintenance cost, all of it. Um so we have some really tight uh financial um guidelines that we have to fall into. Um but then again trying to just make that the best food that we can provide for our students within um those financial parameters and keep our operation financially stable. So a few pictures. So this is highlighting some of our uh just one at a

029time. >> Sorry. >> Um uh so [laughter] this one is highlighting um those local that local food. So uh we highlight different local products each month with our harvest of the month program. Um, so these are obviously apples that we're highlighting. Um, and that is my crew at Discovery Elementary School. This is our new serving lines that we have at three of our elementary schools. We have two more elementary schools that will be getting some this summer. What's really great about these that is really exciting is that first kind of cart, the bigger one that's closer um to the camera is our cold serving line. So that's where we put all of our fresh fruits and vegetables. And the way that the serving line is, it allows the students to self serve their fruits and

030vegetables, which helps with um cutting down on food waste. So the students are able to take what they want and how much that they want, as well as allowing them to experience new fruits and vegetables and new foods because they can take just a little bit if they're unsure versus getting served a whole half cup portion or things like that. So, it's really exciting. When we rolled these out, um some of the comments from the kids were like, "It feels like we're at a restaurant. Like, these look so fancy and things." So, they were really exciting um to roll out. And like I said, we're going to be adding two more elementary schoolers are getting very, very similar lines um over the summer. And this is an example of um some of those fresh fruits

031and vegetables. This is at Apollo High School um their salad bar. So, just really trying to highlight all those different fruits and vegetables and have lots of different colors and options for those students. Some upcoming initiatives that we will be doing in our department. Um, we were selected as a pilot school from the Minnesota Department of Education. They are creating a global flavors handbook and we are going to be piloting that. So, we are going to be uh using that handbook, giving them feedback, what's missing, what's not, um what's working well, all of those things. And some of the activities that we'll have to be doing with this um pilot is offering some taste testing opportunities using recipes from their global flavors handbook. Um engaging students in learning about the origins of that meal and

032how different cultures use different ingredients. And we are going to be also working with uh our full-ervice community schools and conducting a family or community event um around global foods as well. So this is very new. We just I just had my meeting I think two days ago with MDE about it. So I'll be uh working with our full service community schools will be our two pilot schools. So, Discovery and North um and so I don't have all the details yet, but we're really excited and that'll be in this spring that we'll be piloting that uh new program for MDE. We are also going to be taking over the summer feeding for all of our summer school sites. Uh in the past, the YES network has done that for a number of years and uh

033we just felt like it was time for us to um provide that service to our students. And so we will be um doing th that summer feeding at our school sites. The yes network will continue to do the community sites uh throughout the um area and we are continuing to explore partnership with the city of St. cloud for uh wasted food to energy product uh project. And that would be looking at taking some of that food waste that we do have in our kitchens and sending it out to the facility and then they do all of their magic and make it into energy. Um one thing I do sometimes hear about nutritional services is that we waste a lot of food. Um and that is not really true. uh when you compare the number of

034meals we serve compared to um the amount of food that gets thrown away. Um and I always challenge people to kind of reframe um their thought around food waste in schools. So like Natalie said, the school bus is an extension of the learning environment. The cafeteria is part of that learning environment as well. Kids are learning what a full meal looks like. They're learning to try new foods. They're learning how much food it takes to fill them up. They're learning some time management skills of I need to eat all of this food as well as talk with my friends and how can I do that in this amount of time. There's lots of really important learning that's happening in that cafeteria. And um there's going to be a little bit of food waste that goes

035along with it. And I compare it to the classroom. I have three elementary age children. I get a stack of papers home every single day between art projects and spelling tests and math worksheets, all of the things. Um, and people don't look at that and say, "Oh my goodness, the school district is wasting so much paper. That is so wasteful because we know it's part of the learning process." Um, and that's the same in the cafeteria. It's part of that learning environment. There's going to be some food that gets thrown away and it's part of that learning process. Um, so I try to challenge that and kind of reframe that a little bit when we talk about food waste. And then a few more pictures. So this is uh walking tacos at South Junior High.

036You can see the roasted peppers in the one side. So, that's again highlighting those new ovens we're able to get to make those roasted vegetables. Um, some seasoned black beans, kiwi, you know, a whole tray. Um, and that's definitely one of the student favorites. This is our mac and cheese bar that we have at our high schools. This was at Apollo. So, we have our whole grain mac and cheese and then we have different toppings that the students can put on. And so this one has some buffalo chicken as well as some turkey ham that um we added on top of that. We have expanded our grabandgo items at our middle schools and high schools. And so we have different chicken wraps every single day that have been very very popular. Uh this also again

037is at Apollo High School and they make almost 150 wraps every single day and they're gone every single day. uh fresh baked cinnamon rolls at Lincoln Elementary School that with a build your own yogurt parfait uh as a brunch for lunch item and it has been very do throughout the year. Um and the students really enjoy that one. I think there's a couple more. And u some whole grain pasta with homemade uh meat sauce and a a variety of different vegetables. A favorite. Um this is our sambusa that we get locally from a company in Bloomington and brown rice and you know a whole bunch of different vegetables as well. Um, and that's been really fun to add to the menu. And we do that exciting. The first time we did it, um, I was

038out at some of the elementary schools and just hearing some of the students be like, "I know what Sambusa is." And, you know, some of their friends in line like, "I'm not 100% sure what Oh, it's so these new foods and be really, really fun. And kind of along the same vein, um this was in our notebook um a few weeks ago and I think it just really sums up um the nutritional services staff. So um our kitchen staff, we have about 115 throughout our 13 schools that have kitchens and they work so tirelessly every single day um to get the food out to all of the students. And this one was this call, this shout out was really talking about those late starts and early outs and how they're able to still do all

039of that same work usually in less time um to feed all of those feed all of those students. Um my staff have such an incredible job and they do such great work with those students. I tell them this all the time. They probably get sick of me um saying it, but nutritional services staff are the only school staff that get to see every single student every single day for every single year that they're in that building. And so they really can and do make a tremendous impact on the students. I have many stories of some of the great connections that my staff have made with students over the years. Um and so they really do all of the hard work. Um my job is just to make sure that they have the tools and the

040support to do their jobs and then it's my job to make sure that their hard work and their dedication is recognized um because they really do truly make that really positive impact and really impact the whole culture of their school. So thank you so much. >> Okay, I will do my best to follow those three. [laughter] >> Good luck, buddy. >> Yeah, I might just leave. Um Uh my name is Matt Sherry again. I'm security coordinator for the district. Uh a little bit about myself. I was a police officer for 22 years. Um nine of those in Wisconsin where I was an SRO for three of those. Uh stopped for a cup of coffee in Rogers and then came to St. Cloud PD in 2013. Um and finished up there in June of last year.

041Um six of those years of previous six I was the SRO at Apollo. Uh so a lot of experience, nine years total working in buildings. Um it's a big reason why I wanted to come here and uh work with the safety and security. Um I had recognized some needs in our district uh while I was here for 6 years and I'm thrilled to be here doing that. So um I'll go over a little bit about uh what I've been up to. Um, as I said, it was created in uh started in June of 2025 through the Department of Justice grant that we have uh here at the district. Um, the main goal uh was to create a safe and secure learning environment. Um, our buildings have always been great. Um, our staff have always done

042excellent at creating safe and secure learning environments. Um, but I want to continue that and make it even better um than it already can be. Um what some of my job uh what I'm going to do is continue to work closely with the staff, students, school administration, district administration, uh local law enforcement. Um being here for 6 years, I already had a pretty strong relationship with a lot of staff here. Uh that's been very beneficial for me um to come into this role and uh continue to work uh at that. Um I have a strong relationship obviously with local law enforcement. I'm uh very close with uh the SRO group uh at uh St. Cloud PD um as well as weight park and St. Joe PD. Um so that's going to continue to um work

043towards our goals of uh creating that safe uh learning environment. Uh one of the things that um some of the shout outs that I wanted to give uh is for staff um throughout the district, the administration um students uh building uh district admin uh is for embracing um the training encouraging crisis go utilization within the buildings. Uh that crisis go program that we uh had implemented a few years ago never really got off the ground. Um, fortunately this past summer, uh, Matthew and I were really able to, uh, take that on and really start utilizing it within our buildings. Uh, there's a lot of great things that that, uh, notification application can do, um, to get our staff and students, uh, moving in the right direction for safety. Um, we've trained just about every school

044building, I believe, now. Um, I think I'm going down to Clear View next week. Uh but we're just about at the end of training uh everybody from our admin to our non-licensed staff um to try and get everybody on board with this. Uh it's a an excellent tool that will be very beneficial and it has a lot of uh a lot of things that we can do with it. Um one of the things that I uh did was or that we have done is uh training act active threat to non-licensed staff uh AB staff and district administration office staff. Um, and that was great to get into those other areas of the district that I I'm not sure had been gotten to yet. Um, and it all goes back to continuing to create that uh

045environment for our district uh to help out with that. Um, I know that the non-licensed staff were happy uh to get that training um and I was very happy to provide that um implementing the standardification method. uh to bring students and families together. Um the I Love You guys Foundation uh standard reunification method um is a fairly streamlined process um to if if students are in a crisis and there's a crisis in a building, parents want their kids, kids want their parents, and the standard reunification method uh is a very great process uh to get kids back with their families. Um, so we're gonna we started to implement that. We're going to work toward um that with our reunification um and we're going to hold some training this summer uh with our district uh office

046staff who is going to be part of that reunification team uh and try to get that uh moving in the right direction. Um last summer we actually the past two summers I think we've uh participated in uh active threat training with St. Cloud PD and uh district district 742 staff. Um we're going to continue that this year. We did it last year. Um it gives staff an opportunity to see um what what the process is with the police department, how they respond. Um they can participate as actors. It's all voluntary. Um and the feedback from that has been uh pretty great. They enjoy getting in there and seeing what actually happens. Um, a lot of these staff are if if something really bad happens, they're going to be in a in a room and they're

047not really going to see what's going on. So, it gives them it it allows them to feel a little more comfortable with the process. Um, that's the feedback that I've gotten. Um, and they're happy to do that. Hopefully, we can increase the amount of staff that we have this year. Um, and then continuing to uh work with the Apollo remodel. um getting some additional security um items in there. Uh we're hoping to hoping to use uh the remodel as an opportunity to uh get some uh new security items and kind of a new integrations of um you know up-to-date security things that are out there. Uh there's a lot of things out there a lot of buildings uh throughout the country are doing. Uh so hopefully we can get some of those in. Um I'd

048like to recognize uh every ISC 742 staff member who have embraced the changes so far. Um I've got probably some lofty goals. Uh and there's going to be more uh change possibly coming. Um but so far um a lot of the change has been embraced by the district uh by the staff and that's been uh very good uh and very rewarding for me. Um I'd also like to recognize every administrator that's embracing use of crisis go. Um this is a an an application that uh is you know it's another tool that's going to keep their building safe. Um and we haven't had any push back at all on it. uh which has been excellent. Um finally uh Dr. Putnham for taking the chance on implementing this position. Um it's it was in my opinions as

049as we've talked about it's been much needed. Uh and I'm very happy to be here and without you taking that chance uh we wouldn't be here. So I thank you guys for that and I appreciate that. >> Uh with that again I want to take a moment just to to say thank you to my colleagues. It's wonderful to work with leaders who who lead and support and serve colleagues who create the preconditions. If kids don't get on the bus, learning is interrupted before it starts. When they get to the building, if they walk into a classroom that's not conducive to learning, that's an absolute interruption to the to the engagement that we hope to create. Um, if they don't have nutrition at school, we know what happens relative to the capacity to continue to learn.

050And then they don't feel safe and a sense of belonging at school. Um, we've again interrupted what we're here for. Uh so again I I just really want to thank all in each of these departments that that create the conditions for the things we are so focused on and the outcomes that we're we prioritize to happen and without them and their colleagues um we would be talking about very different things and and they're not productive. So um with that I want to say thank you and my goal tonight was to talk very little so you could hear from them. So with that um we just want to open up for any questions you might have. Okay. >> Anybody have any questions? Scott, >> go. [laughter] We started with transportation. Um, you mentioned that, uh, we're

051servicing 18 schools. Uh, that's more than just this district, isn't it? >> I included everything. Uh, I think I counted correctly, but uh, Katherine Johnson, ALC, >> you're doing charter schools, too, aren't you? >> We have one this school year. Success Academy. >> Okay. Um, you mentioned State Patrol inspections. >> What's involved in that? >> So, our inspections are in cold December. They come and um check everything that we check on our daily pre-trips. They're checking oil, brakes, um tires. They get under the vehicle. Um it takes maybe like 30 minutes per per bus. Vans go a little quicker. checking that all the lights work. The windshield wipers are good. Um, a lot of lights. >> The state patrol has commercial vehicle inspectors. Are those the folks that come out to uh look at our

052buses? >> Yes. >> Are they also look at the buses for the contractors? >> Yes. Yeah. >> And how many contractors do we have? >> We have work with six contractors. Six. >> Yes. >> Oh my. I'm only familiar with four. >> So, you're probably thinking of uh school bus. We I hope I can rattle them off here. We have uh Spaniard, Voits, Trollbeck, Palmer. >> Uh we have a couple van uh type three vehicle providers, bridge transportation, and CST. >> Okay. And then we also have our own. >> We have our own. Yes. Okay. Uh you mention mentioned special training for special ed drivers. What does that involve? >> Yes. So uh the district employees, all drivers and paras do CPI training. We've also had um Jack Peterson do a presentation on um deescalation

053techniques. He has visited all of the contractors to do same presentation and opens it up to questions and answers. >> Do we have cameras on the buses? >> Yes. >> Uh how accessible are they to the public? >> Uh it's a privacy so not accessible to the public at all. Um, sometimes parents want to see want to see that their student did or did not do something that um that they're dealing with. We don't even allow parents to watch due to the privacy of the other students on the vehicle. >> Okay. [sighs] Building and grounds [laughter] hit me. Um, how are you guys working with all this construction that is going on at Apollo and other locations? >> So, with everything coming up for construction, right, it's dayto-day. Um, I'm lucky to be added into

054a lot of the the the planning meetings. Um, and so we're able to quickly pivot um, as far as uh, what custodial needs or mechanical needs we have. Um, so we fare pretty well. I mean, the last year was pretty tough at Apollo, right? We were dodging um, some some summer school, but we were also coming out of the theater project, right? And then um, we had expansive work on on the cafeteria that also had to be done. So, correctly pivoting our custodians to to, you know, service other areas of the building. we always have something to do. So, um I'm lucky to have that work. But, um it's usually pretty pretty uh ying and yang as far as um special or construction or special projects is what I call it. Um but I'm lucky

055to be added to a lot of those meetings. So, it helps me to streamline what what we need um as far as custodial and engineering um needs. >> Okay. Um, we had a former board member that was really interested in the exterior of schools. How are we doing about cleaning and keeping up the exteriors of schools? >> I'm glad you brought that up. [laughter] Um, we are actually doing really great um because of that. Um, we've kind of found creative ways to take care of the the outside of the buildings. Um, I've been uh lucky enough to be tasked on that prior to Joel departing. Um, that was a big goal for us. So, I really worked to canvas the entire district and take a look at what it what it took to get said

056buildings taken care of. Um, right now we have a new vendor that we actually have on um that works uh specifically with restoration of brick and and power washing. So, we utilized him in some of the areas. I assume OILL is what you're referring to. So, we were able to um we entertained some of the options that were brought forward to us on one side and and I brought a vendor in to showcase what what a vendor could do. Um we will continue to in my focus pivot to preventative maintenance. A lot of that work probably would disappear or will be absolved through preventative maintenance rather than than reactive maintenance. And so, um I'm dedicated to that. I I've also toolled our buildings and grounds and and some of our engineers in in ideas and

057practices around um really emphasizing curb appeal and outside building appeal. >> Okay. U we have a 10-year plan for uh maintaining buildings. How's that working for you? >> So, I was lucky to get right into that. Um it's been been uh 18 months since I've been in the position. So onboarding and getting everything um up to speed has been really my focus. But recently um I have seen our LTFM plan for the next 10 years. And so there's a lot of ambitious projects in there. I I think we're very aligned in where where we take that strategic step. I always try and partner to the best of my abilities to assess where we're at in the field to provide that that information that um you know they desperately need um to to allocate those dollars

058and to correctly present those those projects to you guys. Um, and so I work in tandem with Mike and Amy avidly to try and get them the information that they need to to make sure that we hit, you know, the goals that that have been put in that LTFM plan, but also to re-evaluate and position us to maybe look at some areas that we weren't um, you know, so cleared on. >> Okay. Uh, nutritional services. Um there has been a food pyramid out there that seems to get switched around every once in a while. What's your take on that? Uh so uh yeah the food pyramid changed again and it does impact our school nutrition because the dietary guidelines for Americans that comes out that is what Congress uses to then make the standards for

059school breakfast and school lunch. So we are supposed to align with that. So there may be some changes happening with that. I don't anticipate significant changes and always things get phased in over time. Uh the newest change that just recently happened that um was just recently signed is that we can now serve uh skim to whole milk in schools. Unfortunately, the law was only written for lunch and it did not include breakfast and so that may need to get updated or changed. Uh we have not made any changes with that yet. Our milk provider wouldn't be able to make those changes that quickly. Um but that was a recent change that was kind of along those same lines of that new uh pyramid that came out uh just recently. And so we'll see if there's

060any other changes that trickle down to the school breakfast and lunch programs. >> I understand the Department of Agriculture provides a lot of the funding for uh food. Yes, we get our funding through the USDA. >> Has there been any changes in that recently? >> There has not been any changes recently with that at all. Uh we So, as I talked about our funding, it's completely based on the reimbursement for our meals served and so that was already passed [clears throat] previously and so that can't change um at this time. There has with the government shutdowns and things that have happened. We have not seen any uh lapses in any of our payments which has been great and uh the state keeps us really updated on if there's going to be any potential lapses in

061payments when we submit for our reimbursements. And for us, we are communitywide eligibility provision, which means that we basically have a really high free and reduced rate and you use a conversion factor. And so 99% of our funding comes from federal funding and only 1% comes from state funding. And so we really rely on that f federal funding. And we we're really helping out the state budget for sure uh by being community eligibility provision because um as you as you know 1.8 million meals uh that really adds up with that reimbursement. And so having 99% come from the federal is is great. And but we have not seen any impacts to our uh reimbursements. >> Okay. uh during CO we had uh a lot of food delivery. How did that work? >> So I was

062not actually here during CO so I can't really speak to that too much. I was working in public health at the time uh which was also really fun. Uh so yeah so I can't really speak too much about what how we did uh the COVID meals. >> Um you made mention of the yes network. How did they work? >> Yeah. So, they provided the summer feeding at our schools and the community sites in the past. Um, and this year we'll be taking over that um the summer feeding with in our school sites. Um, and so then they're a completely separate organization and so they will be doing all of the community sites um on their own. >> Is this going to cost us more to do the summer feeding ourselves and you rather than use

063them? >> No, we will. So, it it'll probably increase our fund balance some with or it'll we'll I know Amy's excited. Um, it will probably allow [laughter] it will allow our department to continue to be very financially healthy um by taking on those summer meals. It will not it will likely be a net positive gain for us >> and a net positive experience for students >> and yes a very positive experience yes a very positive experience for our students we have because one of it one of the big summer programs is our ESY which has a lot of special needs a lot of allergies and things like that um and we are able to provide that service at a higher level and so it'll be a much better experience for our students and for staff.

064>> Is a lot of the food uh made at a central location and then transported out? >> No. So, we have 15 schools. 13 of them have their own kitchens. So, those are all made on site. The only schools that don't have their own kitchen is Roosevelt and Katherine Johnson. And so, those meals are made at McKinley and then sent out uh to uh those two sites. >> Okay. only have Oh, Matt. >> All right. [laughter] >> Um, I know we've the board has recently spent a lot of money on camera systems. Uh, how's that working out? Our cameras are great. [laughter] Um they're uh right now we're looking into some different um cloud-based systems uh to help with storage. Um as far as the IT part of that, I can't speak to that and

065I don't think you want me to. [laughter] Um but uh from my understanding, we have servers that are coming to the end of life. So, we're looking at transitioning over to a cloud-based system um that's going to be cheaper or maybe not cheaper, but more efficient for us. We won't have to replace those servers every I think it's five or 10 years that they get replaced. Um five. Yeah. Um so, uh with the new um Apollo remodel coming in, we'll be adding some cameras in there for um the um athletic facility. Um, so right now we're kind of exploring some some options to better our cameras. Um, and as with anything, technology moves so fast. So, um, we're I'm working with the uh Katie Herbolt and, um, Amy trying to get money. Amy, [laughter] >>

066um, is there a central area where all the cameras feed into or is it school by school or how does that work? Are they inter interlocked? >> I I'm not 100% sure how to answer that question. I know that uh like each each building I believe has their own servers. Um so they're individually throughout those buildings. So some buildings have 10 or 15 cameras. I think tech hasund >> a lot. >> They have a lot of cameras. >> But they can be accessed. They can all be accessed remotely. So Matt can be here and look at at all buildings. >> Okay. That's what I was wondering. >> Yes. Yep. Yeah. I can I have access to all the cameras on my computer. So I can be here. I can be wherever and pull up cameras

067if needed. I remember when uh tech first opened uh during the first week there was going to be um a battle between two gangs and the I the RSO officer hit the button, gates dropped down, doors closed, cameras started rolling. >> Mhm. >> Are we going to have that in Apollo, too? >> Let's hope so. [laughter] Yeah, we're going to have some integrations with our cameras, with our crisis go uh panic button um that'll uh be able to shut fire doors um section off the building for safety purposes. Not only just for fire purposes, but um if there's a an intruder somewhere, we could section off uh a building where that person may be um and have them accessed by law enforcement in one spot. >> Okay. uh [sighs] active shooter. Uh I participated in

068an active shooter drill a couple years ago out at St. Cloud State and it seemed to me that they were looking for volunteers to be victims. Are we still doing that this year? >> Uh the the everything that we've done is all I I was it two years ago that you went? >> I think so. >> Oh. uh with the like it was a whole day. >> Yeah. Whole day. >> St. Cloud State. Yep. >> They had lecture part of the day and then they had drill. >> Yeah. So that's when the uh federal uh law enforcement training center came in and and did the single officer response to an active shooter. Um so yeah, we had volunteers. Um it was the same thing. The the level that we did then uh was not to

069the level that we did last year um and that we're not looking to do this year. So what we did this past summer was we had three separate sites. Um one did have um act like one one site had they were using uh sim simun munitions but there were no district staff that were part of that. It was only law enforcement. Um we had two other sites that were they were uh actors for the scenarios. So um yeah law enforcement they designed the scenarios. Um, I made it clear to our staff that if they were uncomfortable with it, they could sit out, they could leave if they, you know, it was, we were very transparent with what was going to be happening. Um, and the the feedback was great. >> Okay. Um, this one might

070be a little bit more for Matt. Um, the [clears throat] St. Cloud School District is uh particularly Apollo has been designated as a safe site during a nuclear emergency down at the uh power plant in Monaceel. I guess we're up wind from what usually blows. Um how is your team going to respond when all of a sudden we get called on for that type of a situation? So, um, it actually isn't our team. We will act in support of the county team as the county training coming up in May where we do that. So, they come and they practice that. >> I'd like to watch. >> And so, we uh we work with Sterns County on setting that up. It's called the rep program or the rep um training. Um, but really we provide that

071they come to Apollo, we provide the the space, we support the event, but they're the experts. Marcus is brilliant, >> but he's not a nuclear reactor [laughter] not trained. >> Not yet. >> He's got a lot of trainings. This is not one of them. Um so no, our job is to support them as community partners and and then and our some of our folks will participate. I think you might have participated in the past. >> Um but but we are we're hosts. We are not the responders. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I I think uh if if something were to happen, excuse me, happen during the school day, um that's where our team would step in. We'd make arrangements with with Natalie at transportation. Um, we would activate busing, notify parents, um, and get the building

072cleared out as quickly as possible so that Sterns County could come in and, uh, do their thing. >> And just impact size from that 742, we we have a very small number of families that actually sit within that that envelope. Um, so even though they're coming to our space, it's we're talking a small number of 742 families, but a larger number coming from other communities. >> Okay. I think I worry you all out. Somebody else can take a crack at you now. [laughter] >> Natalie, >> first of all, I love that all of y'all are up here and what a >> I think um what I want to say about that though is that I can really tell um that Dr. Putnham and you work closely together. you have the same vibe about how you

073treat your staff and um what you expect from your staff and so I really um appreciate that. Um Natalie, I love your name. Um [laughter] and I really appreciate how you spoke from the heart. You know, I I think that sometimes we can forget um if our kids don't ride the bus kind of about everything that you do. Um and I can tell you that you bring the best of yourself every day and that it really matters to you. So I appreciate that. Um Marcus, um you you said you like the compassion of your colleagues. Like that's that's rare, you know? It's not like like their hard work, right? But like there's more than that. And so thanks for being that kind of guy. Um I didn't never thought about it that way, Sarah, that

074food waste was learning. So thanks for reframing that for me. And that's that's really important. [snorts] Um Matt, thanks for crisis go as a a parent in the district. Um, I appreciate it and I can tell that public speaking isn't your jam and way to go. You did it anyway. Um, and then, um, for all of you, um, including Matthew, um, when you talk about you say my staff, it's it's beautiful. It's actually like tearjerking me right now. Just be like like this doesn't happen in every school district, you know? So, um, I'm I'm just really proud of y'all and proud of us. So, thanks for all of your hard work. Thank you. Enjoy these guys forward and just seeing the faces behind it. So, thanks for being brave and and coming here and and

075certainly you have proved how knowledgeable and talented and how fortunate we are. So, thank you very much. Were there any other questions, Heather? Sarah, can you talk a little bit about food allergies, sensitivities, special diets, and those sorts of things and how you manage that across thousands of students? >> Yes. So, um again, uh to follow and one of them is that we accommodate uh food allergies and sensitivities. There is a process that they have to follow. So, we have to have documentation signed by a medical provider in order for us to accommodate a food allergy because if we're, you know, so a good example is gluten-free. We have lots of gluten-free kids. That means I can't give them whole grain foods, which is a requirement. I have to give 80% of my me of

076my grains have to be whole grains. And so then I'm woulded I'd be giving a student that a meal that's not a reimburseable meal unless I have that medical documentation saying they can't have it. So that's why they get the gluten-free um products. So we work with the school nurses to make sure we get that documentation and make sure it's updated and on file for all of our students. And then we create an allergy menu that's on our website. And so then families can see. We try to make it as similar as possible to the main menu that we're serving that day. We know that that's really important for kids to not feel like they're different. Um but it's also important to keep them safe. And so it's that balance of serving them something that's

077really similar but also keeping them safe and having that balance with that. So we yeah we work really closely with the nurses. Um we also have texture modifications that we do at our schools especially at some of those higher need schools uh with pureed diets and mechanical soft diets. um and just yeah working with that and sometimes we have a couple really high need or really um complex students and so then we'll reach out to their families too of like what are they eating at home, what are things that they like and what can we get in and so sometimes we have to get um some special order products in and things but we really try to accommodate for those students because we want all the students to get those meals. I don't often interject

078or or talk. Um but Sher has said that I uh she gave me other permission. Um I just went re to all of you, right? Every one of you. Um and Matthew, thank you for your leadership and bringing um letting bringing this team forward to shine and and uh giving them that space you so exemplify, right? It's it's in your your words, your expressions, right? the the pictures, um the work that you do, um the safety, our pillars of safety, belonging, collaboration, and excellence through high standards and high supports. Um and every single one of you could be hired somewhere else tomorrow, right? Should you choose, but you choose to be here. Um and that uh it just means the world to to me, to this board, um and to the students and families and

079staff that you uh support every day. So, thank you. >> Yes. Thank you guys. Okay, then we'll move on to our discussion and action items. First up, we have um approval of tentative agreements. And we do have one. So, we have Amy Skellard, executive dire director of finance and business services, presenting a custodian contract. Good evening, Chair Haw, Superintendent Putnham, uh members of the school board. You have in front of you the summary uh as well as the final cost sheet for our custodial uh unit um that we just t got done talking about. So um in the costing uh model, the group represents 89.5 FTE, which is approximately 90 employees. Um you see there the new starting rates for each position um in the various classifications. Um, just for context, class one um would

080be our entry- level um custodian positions u moving all the way up to class 7 uh as our um district-wide engineer uh position. All existing employees who were hired um prior to uh 1125 would receive a 2.75% increase. Um that's also what's reflected in those new starting rates. Uh, and then there's also some longevity increases that you see there at all of the longevity increments except for the three-year increment. Um, we have an increase in the single insurance contribution in the first year um that we uh the board had approved previously um prior to the October 1 renewal date uh as well as those EME caps. Um and then [clears throat] of course the paid family leave contribution um required by statute um that went into effect on 1126 that's 444% of wages. In year

081two then you see those new uh starting rates uh which reflect reflect a 2.2% increase um with the exception of class one. The starting rates um for those class one positions are slightly less um if you're a new hireer than the 2.2% 2% to try to keep some um some distance in pay between our existing employees who've been here um versus someone who's coming in new. Um but for anyone who was here, that would be that 2.2% increase. Uh we also have increases in single and family insurance in year 2. The single insurance contribution goes to $660 per month. Uh family contribution goes to $1,193 per month. um which again is that last step in that that board's commitment to having those equal contributions across all groups. Um that now matches what we have in

082our director and principal groups who've historically had a higher contribution level for the family plan. Um and then we also have some increase increases in the second year uh to certification pay and certification pay is the boiler certifications. Um so those are going up. Total two-year cost is 6.37%. Are there any questions? >> Okay, doesn't look like we have any questions. This is an action item. So, looking for a motion to approve the custodian contract for 2025 2027. I have a motion by Natalie and Scott. Are you seconding that? >> Yeah. >> Do you want to second? Do you [clears throat] want to second it? >> Okay. So, Scott is seconding it and go ahead then. Um, two-year cost 6.37. Is that per year or for the two years? >> That's a two-year combined cost.

083>> Combined cost. >> Yes. >> Okay. That's what I need to know. >> Okay. Any other questions? All right. Heather, can you call vote? >> Yep. Uh, Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Zack Dorhalt. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Gina Speedo, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. Heather Williams. Yes. >> All right. Thank you, Amy. Then one more action item tonight. We have uh proposed revised board policy 410 first reading. And this is family and medical leave policy. Looking for this to be an action item it looks like tonight. And presenting is uh superintendent Dr. Lori Putnham. >> Good evening, Chair Hard, members. Um this is a first and only reading because it is being brought forward law change. Um as you know this went into effect uh January

0841. Um so it is the family and medical leave policy. Uh Katie uh sent it to you a week ago so you had time to review it um and ask any questions ahead of time. So I'm not going to go through it here because this again just complies with state statute. So you can scan through and this is our our current policy as well. Um the uh you can see in the red um in the past we had a a 12 month look back period um for for uh acurola benefits. Now uh in law it is a 12-month look forward period. Um [snorts] so that change brings now this leave will run uh concurrently um with any other um leave that uh already uh exists and you can see here the statutes referenced. So um

085compliance with law um and so we are asking for your approval this evening. Uh looking for a motion and a second and then if anybody has any questions. The proposed revised board policy 410. [snorts] >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion by Scott and a second by Diana. Was there any discussion at all? Heather. Do you want to call vote? >> Sure. >> Please. >> Diana Penton. >> Shannon Hos. >> Yes. >> Heather Williams. Yes. Gina. >> Scott Andre. >> Yes. >> Natalie Copeland. Yes, exact. >> Thank you. And then we have one discussion item tonight which is AS6 2027 middle level courses update presented by Dr. Jason Harris, assistant superintendent of secondary education policy go before this and so we didn't catch it but superintendent went right through it really

086fast and so I'll uh just share uh we're in the midst of uh our middle level students uh new courses registration currently right now uh our folks have been out uh getting students ready for 26 27 right and so we'll share I'll share specifically uh just middle level course offerings and then I'll share the middle level [clears throat] course registration process uh that is taking place currently right now uh just in the sense of middle level and just our our vision around middle level sixth 7th and eighth grade when you think about it students are uh 11 12 13 14 years old and so at this time they learned learn a lot of things and we want to help them start with, you know, self-reflection, planning, looking at opportunities and start to think about, you

087know, they'll have a lot of time to think about their future, but we've really got down to the experiences we want students to have at middle level and try multiple things and when they find that interest, how do we grow from it? And so, uh, you heard me up, uh, a few weeks ago with the high school proposal and, uh, talking about pathways, but we want to get kids exposure and interest early, uh, coming from fifth to sixth grade. And so, uh, when you look at the new courses or the courses currently right now, sixth grade, a sixth grade student would take when they are getting ready to register, what are the options? So, all students get an advisory. In the advisory, you kind of get social emotional learning, what's going on in school, how

088to be a student, all the things come in advisory, and they have that every day. Uh you get your core curricular uh courses, sixth grade, everybody takes math six unless you're at advanced level and you test into a pre-alggebra. And so you can have a a year track uh advance or two years depending on your skill and ability. And then uh we go into language arts. All students take language chart six, but if you're in that advanced skill track, you can take uh advanced LA and students take that uh advanced track, earth science, Minnesota studies, uh or all students take that. No uh specific acceleration in those areas. We just do the language arts and math. And then all students get a chance to take the elective courses where they all get a chance to

089take what we start to talk about CTE and pathways. So, teched, art, life smarts, uh, fire and, uh, next year you're have the option of theater, uh, in the allied rotation for students that want to be able to take that opportunity. And so, uh, our folks have been really, uh, starting to think about, you know, we feel we give a good option to choose, but what else could we bring in to catch students interest? And so then they have choice of all the performing musics uh band choir orchestra and then uh in sixth grade you have the career college community and citizenship. And in that piece of when you talk about career college community citizenship our students go through a good experience in sixth grade with Bistown, right? and start start to help them talk

090about financial literacy, all the things that start to get them because they and you all that have middle school kids talk about money and all of it in the in the senses of what do you want to do with yourself? So, they get that exposure uh in sixth grade early. And so, you see it's kind of a well-roundedness. You get the course, but then you get all the interestbearing courses along with that in sixth grade. In seventh grade, you uh we still have advisory. The only difference in uh seventh grade uh you have uh US history instead of Minnesota history's life life science and uh in your science courses but you don't have an advanced track and so students get a all students get an opportunity to take honors distinction. So honors distinction looks like

091uh it's like a asynchronous student learning uh pathway if you want to try I think I talked about a student that had said hey I can't take honors and I'm not in that level but in seventh grade we can give kids exposure to do that right and so uh they get assessed it's kind of individual learning they do a research project and you can you can take it all three trimesters you can take it one trimester and then when you uh meet the the the recommend ations, you'll have a distinction on your report card saying, "Hey, I did this in seventh grade in that in that piece." And so then the students have all the same ally rotations and then uh the the one in seventh grade outside the performance is making music. So it's

092those kids that uh maybe haven't found an interest in uh performing music, they get a a chance to kind of just learn about uh all all things of music, if it's the history of music and just multiple things in in seventh grade. When you get to eighth grade, uh you still have the same things. They look at algebra 1, intermediate algebra for the advanced kids. Same thing in the honors courses. Uh you have when you get to 8th grade, you have honors uh courses in the in the course. And so students that have, you know, demonstrated that they want to take uh more advanced courses can do it in the sense of in 8th grade. And then you have the specifically uh new and uh the choices band core orchestra uh teched 8 but all

093of them are the same in the choice model. But when you look at like from from a student perspective I have a wide range of options to get exposed to to find my interest as I prepare for for high school. uh we have immersion programming on the north side at north you have the Chinese immersion program 6 to8 and then you have the Spanish immersion program at uh at south on the south side when you look at the registration process kind of what I was talking about our counselors uh well it starts I'll go back to uh families have a choice to where they want to go and we see it in the in the transition from elementary school to middle school. And so we do a parent information night. Used to be called your

094middle school open house, but families start to shop around in that in that transition from middle uh from elementary to middle school. And so the parent information night gives uh many community members that have students the opportunity to see what we can offer them uh if they come and choose district for uh 742. We see this that our privates do this in December, right? And so, uh, we've learned over time, families still select where they want to go all the way up until, uh, summer, right? But they want to get in the schools and see all the way up until May and get an opportunity. So, this is the opportunity to see what we can offer for our private uh, families that are looking to transition and come to public school. when we when we

095when we talk about it and we look at enrollment, we look at those transition uh numbers and our numbers are solid. We get students and then we look at where they coming from. It's that piece where if I'm going to continue to either pay in private or I'm going to take the leap and come to public school, uh we see uh families or charter, uh we see families start to make that choice. And so they get that option at parent information night. And then our counselors go out to uh the elementary schools. They kind of, you know, really share like here's what you're going to expect when you get to uh middle school because middle school is a whole transition from uh elementary. If I'm only taking a couple of classes now, I got to

096take a full load of of sixth grade. Nikki and I was just in a meeting recently on how do we really create fundamental transition skills to help them be prepared for what they're going to know in middle school because it's a lot coming at them when I'm now have to have peer relationships all of it. And so we've been looking at what's the springboard, what programs do we have to make that a smooth transition from elementary to middle school so we can help students be successful. We talked about the locker, uh four minute passing time, like that's a a lot of pressure on the kid. if I got to if I I didn't have that that pressure of uh I got to go to class to class. I got to find the fastest route to

097my class. I got to do it in the time of four minutes to get through the to through the passing time and not be late. And so when you see kids at the beginning of the year, we always are like they got that deer in that headlight look, especially for the sixth graders, right? And so how do we help that smooth transition for them to learn? And so I have our counselors go out and start talking to the students, getting them ready, and then we have some uh time for the students to come uh in May where they uh get a chance to tour the schools when school's in session. So, and then we do some summer programming to help bridge that. And so we've been kind of looking at how do we even do

098more of that in this sense. And then when you look at it in uh April and May, they start to look at the master schedules by what kids register for what. And then you get your course offerings as a student uh to see what what's my course [snorts] uh load going to be for middle school uh the following year. And then here are all the folks that do it. So first to I you we heard it from our folks. We have amazing staff in our buildings that really care and love our kids. And so you see our north counselors, they're in the front lines. They go out and talk to kids on a regular basis to make sure I'm stable. I feel good. Schools are belonging because the counselor is the one to set the

099schedule up to know if I am have a a food allergy. All the things your counselors have uh a lot to deal with and these folks do a great job. These are our north side counselors and then here are southside counselors. These are all veteran counselors. Uh all of them have been doing this specifically in the system and I've been here 10 11 years and they've all been here. I've hired a few of them and so they really have a good understanding of child development and what stages and so they do a great job. Shout out to them and then our our building leaders that you know making sure that we're really supporting our kids to have a good thriving uh part of their learning and uh you see our Kennedy counselor and uh Diana

100here. And so then how do we support kids? When we go out, we do the presentations. Our counselors do individual meetings, the presentations, the school web page. Here's our middle level guide. We got a chance to really look at it. Is it up to date? Does it have all the things? I get it to the activities folks. Everybody kind of goes through it. And so here's just a good product for our families that are looking or shopping. Here's the middle level guide with the information around that. And these all on our school web pages that share information for our kids and families. questions. >> All right. Thank you, Gina. >> Um, you talked a little bit about the transition from fifth grade to sixth grade and how you have some supports in place for that.

101Can you share a little bit more detail on what that looks like on kind of in the summertime or when counselors come into school? Yeah. So, uh, after the after the parent information night to come in and say, "Hey, here's what middle school, they walk, they tour, they go in these sessions and then they the counselors come out and do the registration." After that, families want to get in to kind of see the school in their own times. And so May uh is the time where the feeder schools go into the middle schools when school's in session for a few hours to really get a feel like passing time the lunchroom and then they kind of you know get that feel that only sparks more right and so then we've really looked at summer programming

102of how can I do a a camp right to have another step in school to visit to feel you know get that my bearings of how the school set up and so we do some summer programming around that. Uh the other piece that we looked at is the sixth grade students have a day all to theirelves when nobody's there before school starts with your web leaders and those are your student leaders that walk them through and give it from a student perspective. Like teachers aren't going to tell you what the students tell you, right? And they're they're going to listen from their peers. And so then you have that other opportunity. Then we do it in when you get to August, you do kind of a connection conference, right? Where I can sit down and

103say, "How do I get to partner with you? How do I know your uh son or daughter strengths or weaknesses? How do we really get to know each other to partner?" And so kids kind of uh really have in the sense of how do we transition in our C uh meeting this week is what else, right? what are we missing and what could we do to continue in that transition because we know that's the critical transition five to six and then when you're out 8 to nine and so we were looking at that and so that's kind of the specifics of how uh multiple opportunities for families to get in the environment fill it out get to meet the teachers the the staff and then do it in the way when I'm in off of

10413 weeks how could I do some type of summer program in in that piece >> Thank you, Jason. So true. Even Milo is like, "If we just had one more minute on Apollo for passing time, I could go to the bathroom." But [laughter] so true. Um, just wanted to give a shout out to our North Side concerts that are happening uh this month. I got to go to the orchestra one. Mila was playing some drums um with the high school orchestra and remember how hard we worked on getting our programs up in music and I just was I mean first of all it's in the beautiful auditorium right but then there's two pieces at the end where all of the kids play together 6 through 12 and um they first of all they played somewhere

105over the rainbow by Israel and they like instead of doing their regular bows like they plucked most of it cuz it's a ukulele song beautiful Um, and then they ended with a K-pop demon hunter song, which um, this just so cool that um, you know, as a former music teacher, like you can have them play classical till the cows come home, but if you can't really reach them with the music they actually listen to, um, you know, you can't really get the hook in there. So, um, both our orchestra teachers were just so proud of those students and we were also proud of those students. Um, and then next week we have, uh, band and then on the 23rd we have choir. And so it's just um in my time on the board here to

106see the growth in those music programs, co just did such a number, right? Um but we've been intentional of growing them and it's working. So just thank you for all of that work. >> Yeah. Uh we've seen large groups of families north side uh in that uh the superintendent and I get us pictures from Sasha like look at this right. We have a problem that you know of that we have so many kids that want to try a performing music. I think our number was almost over 400, right? to have that experience to how do we make sure everybody gets that experience to try an instrument and play an instrument and so we do have some momentum of getting students into a music just what we've been looking for specifically when we went to the

107consultant to from elementary to see and so I think that some of that plays a part into it and then what you talked about right when we talked to the music folks that music has to be meaningful and relevant to the students right you can't >> play something that's been played in the 80s and they don't have a clear understanding that unless >> it's a throwback day. >> No, not in the way. No, I I listen listen uh uh Chair Haz, I I love our 80s music, but when you talk to your middle school kids, they look at you like you're foreign from, [laughter] uh bringing some of those things up in in in the sense. And so, uh no pun intended, uh a former board member, uh over here, but [laughter] but yes, and

108so we have good numbers right now what we're seeing. And so we want every kid to get that experience. >> Well, and that parent engagement, you know, that whole place was packed >> with parents. And what I really love is seeing um especially like the the younger kids, maybe it's the first time that I remember seeing my kids for the first time in a in a full band or full orchestra or choir. And I'm like, this is so wonderful. And then many of our parents bring flowers for their kids. It's just >> absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. So great work on that. >> Yeah. So when I'll just finish up in in the sense when we talk about uh family engagement where folks may not show up, they always

109come up to see their kids perform. We we always have good crowds. When if my kids performing, I'm bringing the parents, the grandparents, and all the things. And so those uh gyms and auditoriums are always filled because folks want to see their kids, especially if it's my first time. >> Yeah. Thanks, Jason. Um, and then I wanted to just recognize Danny Mayor had wanted to jump in here and add a little your question, Gina, about what are we doing for fifth to right now um of special educators both at the elementary and middle school level um that have come together for we've had two meetings now. We have another one coming up midFebruary of how do we specifically improve that transition process for students on IEPs. So, we have some great ideas in the process

110and I'll be working with um Nikki and Jason on that to really move forward with increased tours and visits and having the middle school staff come over and observe and elementary staff do the same thing and um go over and observe as well. So, we have some really exciting things coming. >> Thank you. Okay. Anybody else at all? All right. Thank you very much. >> Thanks. >> Um, moving down to reports, we have a board of education standing committee reports. And I believe we just have one report tonight. Board development, policy, and governance committee chair Zach Dorhalt. [clears throat] Our committee met earlier this week. uh the board policy and development committee and addressed several series 400 policies policy 410 which you saw Khiv undergoing substantive substantiative I'm trying not to enunciate uh revisions to

111align with recent legislative mandates. It will proceed to a first reading tonight which we passed. Um and policy 402 disability or just the first reading we didn't pass it I'm sorry. Uh disability non-discrimination underwent a title change only and is recommended for the consent agenda while policies 401 and 404 through 409 remain unchanged. The committee also reviewed questions related to renumeration uh and approved dates for all 2026 meetings. These are my old bif focals. I was in the shot. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> And then we have future agenda items. The February 18th regular board meeting topics will include early childhood update, American Indian education update, the Native American parent advisory committee NAPAC compliance documentation, the 2026 to 2029 achievement and integration plan goals, um approval of tentative uh agreements, and some policy readings. At

112this time, does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item? Okay. Um, so looking for then a motion to adjourn a regular board meeting. >> And do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a motion by Natalie, a second by Scott. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. Um, regular board meeting is adjourned at 8:15 p.m. And at that same time, we are opening up our work session. We just have one item on our work session. Tonight is the school's update presented by Nikki Hansen, assistant superintendent of E5 learning and Dr. Jason Harris, assistant superintendent of secondary education. We have a couple more friends joining us. Good evening and thank you for having us. Chair, superintendent [snorts] and board members. Quick school update. I'll lead us through it. I'll start. We're going

113to talk a little bit about safety here. Um crisis is one of the items that we're going to address. I feel we may be okay on that. So, let's talk about our friend there. That's assistant principal Burks. >> That's assistant principal Burks at Tilah. Um, demonstrating safety as students come and go from school. Um, which is all of our jobs. You heard one of my colleagues say it, but at the building level, um, it is all of our jobs and apparently Nikki tells me that, uh, that he will spend that the mornings outside in this attire. We now have a a construction cone uh costume at most elementary sites. Uh they have found it a very fun and safe way to welcome and greet uh students and also get some laugh with parents along the

114way. So high visibility and high safety across our elementary sites in the morning. >> Um so the one other I I won't spend a whole lot of time unless at the end of there's questions around crisis go. Um, but I do want to bring up another initiative that we've done recently, uh, working with Natalie and our, uh, bus contractors. We decided that, um, to help us have better conversations and be more analytical about what behavior is telling us on the bus, we needed a common framework across our contractors and with our bus drivers to talk about behavior. Um and so we and my colleague to my left who was invaluable in the experience in the process developed really a three basket, three areas, three tiers, whatever we want to call it, but we're calling it

115three baskets. Uh way [snorts] of defining behavior so we can then talk about and then what are we doing about it? Um what often happens is drivers will submit a referral and then they want to talk about numbers. Well, well, you know, young Natalie has had seven referrals. What's happening because of those seven? Um well the number is far less important than what it is. Um so hopping seats at a stopped light is not the thing that's going to get us worked up but doing something that creates safety conditions on the bus is. And so we created this uh three ways of looking at it and we're uh working with the align to get our contractors in alignment. Finally we found out that that two of them are using a three tier system. One's using

116a red yellow green system. So there's some alignment there. Um, but it's also to help us have a better way of of supporting students in understanding their role in creating the a safe environment on the bus and how they contribute to that and getting past just admiring problems on the bus, but really having substantive conversations then about what do we do about it. Um, so that's a that's a new step. Um, we presented principles last month and there's and building leaders and there's some appreciation around just unifying our language so we can get more precise about what are we doing and the therefore part of it. So >> all right, I have the opportunity to highlight belonging tonight um just with a few pictures that we have. So the first photo on um your left

117you will find some artwork that was made by the Talahi team for uh par educator appreciation week which um Governor Waltz declared January 19th through the 25th and we know how incredibly valuable our paras our schools run truly we could not do what we do without their support daily. Um in the middle picture at the top you will find um some students at North Junior High who support our sales store. So, they are students with um developmental delays that are working on their functional literacy and math skills and they do a um staff order and delivery system throughout the school day as part of their functional skills that they're working on which really does bring pride and joy to them and making connections with um all staff in the building and also gives them a

118sense of confidence and belonging in the building. Um in our top right corner you will find one of our talahi timberwolves who was student of the month um displaying empathy. So can't find a cuter photo than that one right there. I just got to throw that out there. Um at the bottom you will see Westwood recently had some fifth grade students there that are working on um the skill of honesty which is the monthly theme for Character Strong the social emotional curriculum that our elementary sites are using. And then the bottom right picture you will find some of our students. Um, at Katherine Johnson Education Center, we have a new partnership with Rebalance, um, which is working on kind of some community building, social emotional competencies with a community partner. All right. And next up,

119I get to take us through collaboration. Um, on the top left side of your screen, you're going to see Oakley, the Oakill Owl, uh, who helped Oakill kick off our one District 1 book with our February I love to read month. A shout out to Shields and our community partners who all helped to make a plethora of activities and engagement and enjoyment um around the celebration of literacy this month. In the middle picture there, you see our Discovery Dolphin team of knowledge bowl uh scholars who are getting prepared for a big event. And then to the right on the top, you will see some South students who engineered that Lego parrot uh and worked together to get it created. on the bottom left or bottom left you'll see a very fierce competition of some tech

120staff verse tech students um bringing some of that collaboration and engagement enjoyment to the court and then on the bottom right you see some of our teachers who engaged in professional development on January 20th um to support learning for themselves and bringing that back to the classroom and I I do want to shout out our teaching and learning team who did a phenomenal job of structuring that day of learning Um, lots of good feedback from our teachers and just enjoying the space to continue their learning and crafting their skill. And then I get the uh great job of doing the excellence. Uh on the left you see our uh DECA students from Apollo and Tech. Uh they competed last week at the district 5 DECA tournament. Uh you have multiple students that'll compete in state

121in March. Uh at the top you uh congratulations to Brennan Tate from Apollo for uh being Boys and Girls Club uh student of the year. Um and then you have uh we have four teachers uh four teacher of the year candidates from Ed Minnesota, Jod Blair, a language arts teacher at Tech High, Devon Bulker, science teacher at Apollo High School, Paige uh Janorski, fourth grade teacher at Lincoln, and then Vita Peterson, talent development teacher at Madison. I've been nominated for teacher of the year uh for 2026 along with uh 124 other uh teachers across the state. Then we have uh Chloe Tomshiks. Sorry Chloe if I messed up your last name when I see you. Uh from Apollo, she was chosen and this was big to be the uh winner Amadeus Chamber uh symphony, right?

122And so, uh, this is a semi-professional orchestra. Directors choose the top senior, uh, musicians to perform with the group. And so, that's real big for her to be selected. They kind of give her a run to go through the music, uh, with them and see if she can do it. And, and that's huge. So, shout out to her and Chloe uh, at Apollo uh, there. And then uh, you had the AAA award winners. I'll uh kind of uh kind of me me and superintendent Putnham had this whole thing about this. So uh the triple AAA is academics, arts, and athletic award. Um Apollo had uh Lucy Herren Lake and uh Nathan Lam and you had winners tech uh Lauren Gazic and Marcus Wade from Tech. Uh you have to have a 3.0 O GPA or

123higher and you have to participate in league sponsored athletic and fine arts activities. And our conversation was how do you diversify that? But what we found is in the sense of the fine arts, you don't have a lot of students of color wanting to uh uh perform in the in the arts. And so in our growth of uh music and performing, we need to help kids understand here's a pathway and so we can promote that in in the sense. And then uh our fierce leader uh Superintendent Putnham uh and receives a national award for being uh one of those leaders that you want to want to be around and you you feel that her uh leadership of uh compassion, empathy, and she leads with that and and for all our stakeholders within our community. So

124shout out to uh Superintendent Putnham. And then in the middle you have um uh our robotics students from North. Uh, let me make sure because they got a nice name and I loved it. Oh gosh. The premium penguin team. And then so they took the design award last week at the Kimble tournament. And then you have your style students uh uh you have academic achievers and these students were uh your academic achievers. they were celebrating at their uh breakfast for their hard work and uh academics uh and kind of what we talked about with middle school, not just the academics, how do I treat my neighbor kind, how do I do all the things to create that pride in the school and so these were some of the students and then you have at the

125bottom your Westwood students of the month and so uh just I got lucky to do the excellence again. So we see across the system uh we have a lot of excellence taking place amidst all the things that are going on in the world right now. And so when we put this together, it makes us smile. When you walk outside some our system and you see some of the chaos, but this when you look at this, you see our kids' faces, they're smiling. And this is this that is that belonging that we want our kids to be able to uh belong and thrive in. And so I I am always lucky. I know I won't get excellence two time three times in a row. So, they're gonna switch me up pretty soon. They they look at

126me and like, "All right." And so, shout out to the team right here. >> Thank you very much. That made us smile, too. So, >> I know. [laughter] Uh it it was a um recognition from uh the national school prof school public relation professionals. Um so ENSPRA um they uh it's a communication uh award. So if you had 5 years or fewer experience um you could get the award and so grateful for uh Tammy Dand who nominated me um and they uh selected me as one of their their awardees. communicate very well. >> Thank you. >> All right. Okay. Uh that is everything on our work session. So looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's work session. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion by Natalie. We'll go. Second by Heather. And all in

127favor say I. >> Opposed. Uh work session is adjourned at 8:27 p.m. Thanks for watching. Have a good night. We'll be back on the 18th.