001in our district YouTube channel the meeting is now called to order it is March 12 2025 and the time is 630 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 allegiance I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America thank you and then when you're ready can you please call R the following board members are present at the District administration office Scott andron yes Natalie Copeland here Al doen somebody let Mr drg know I'm back Zack dhol here Diana Fenton here Shannon HW here Heather Williams here the following cabinet members and staff are president at
002The District administration office superintendent Dr Lorie putam assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of E5 learning Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services Shannon avenson executive director of finance and business services Amy scaller Executive Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations Tracy fnbo executive director of operations Joel height Camp executive director of Special Projects Gary gangji director of community engagement and Communications Tammy Dand media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott and the custodian on site is Austin goodwater thank you then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's Board of Education meeting and work session agenda so move I have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Heather can you call vote Zack dhol yes Diana Fenton yes Shannon HW yes Heather Williams yes Scott andron yes Natalie Copeland
003yes Al dogran yes thank you then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items the board Toops 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 a Personnel staff changes Item B approval of monthly financial report for January 25 2025 item C approval of monthly Treasures report for January 2025 item D bid award Apollo parking lot improvements item e resolution appointing El ction judges item F Apollo Theater improvements change order totaling $7,150 item G approve proposed revised Port board policy 535 service animals in schools third reading item H approve approve proposed revised board policy 527 student use and parking of Motor Vehicles patrols inspections and
004searches minor legal reference change and it m i approved proposed revised board policy 529 staff notifications of violent Behavior by students minor legal reference change at this time does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda okay so looking for a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda as read so move have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Heather can you call vote again Natalie Copeland yes Zack dhol yes Shannon hos yes Scott andreon yes Al doen yes Diana Fenton yes Heather Williams yes all right thank you moving on to information items we have three tonight first up we have the Clear View Fields partnership um presented tonight we have Joel ham executive director of operations along with Marty Seer and Heather hebr um that are from the CLE Clear
005Lake Area Youth Baseball Association welcome thanks for joining us and your [Music] partnership all right good evening chair HW members of the board and uh um superintendent puton I'm sorry um uh excited here this evening to uh introduce again our guests Marty s and Heather helrick um to share the great work that continues to happen with our partnership out at the Clear View ballfields and a lot of work was done over the course of the fall and so we felt it was important to make sure that they had the opportunity to share both the the the partnership dating back to 2003 which they'll share about here uh in a second and then the uh the cool work that happened here in the last few months so I'll turn it over to our guests I'll drive
006the ship for [Music] you all right um just want to thank you guys for the opportunity to be here tonight um my name is Heather and I am the current president for the Clear Lake Area Youth Baseball Association I'm going to refer to it as CBA moving forward um just briefly before I get into the history of CBA I just want to share a little bit about myself um and how I kind of came to the CBA um organization um I have five kids in the St cllege School District um two of them are still at clear viiew the other three have gone through the program they're all in the Spanish inversion program um when I started out at Clear viiew um I I just love the sense of community out there both within the
007school district and within the Clear Lake Clear Water communities themselves I'm very actively involved in both of those cities um when um we started in the CBA program um my son started in the program itself and um the organization just just kind of brings you into the fold and so you become a very active part of it um it's great to be able to connect with the parents that are in the program um and then I myself became part of the program I started as a just a member at large with the board and then over the years I held the role of Treasurer and then ultimately president um and so um being able to be part of the program for the um for 10 years I was in the program um still in the
008program um but just being part of it you get to see all the needs that are out there um and what the kids benefit mostly from and so um the program um actually dates back to the early 80s um it was originated by Larry sainan and um throughout the years when clar was built um the relationship then became um a partnership between CBA and clear view in the the St Cloud School District um in 2003 during that time we have been able to utilize four ball fields out there as well as a we call it the shack it's a concession stand equipment storage for us in the offseason um we utilize the fields every year March through August for the most part um it is kind of a labor of love for everybody that's involved
009out there uh we are solely operated off of volunteers and donations and so our Board of um our our board goes out to local businesses community members Partners each year to um drop sponsorships to fund everything out there from equipment for the players um we try to sponsor for youth who are not able to play registration fees we partner with local communities to get them in for preseason training opportunities um field maintenance um even down to pulling weeds and things like that so um it is very much a a active program that we have out there um a big need that we've seen for years out there has been the dugouts um in the summer the sun is very hot the kids and to be able to provide them some shelter from from the heat
010um even on days where it's a little overcast and rainy um and so it has been something that we've been wanting to do for a number of years um but the cost itself was substantial we have four Fields out in that complex right now and to get um two sets of dugouts so a set of dugouts is defined as a Dugout for both the home team and the opponent team to gets two sets of just the the structure itself was $220,000 um and so we as a board took it on upon ourselves to be able to fundraise that and with the local Partners out there we were able to do that L last year um we are working on still putting some um like seasonal tarps and screens on it which we will take off
011in the winter but we will have on during the season when the players are out there um ultimate long-term goal is to hopefully maybe have four dugouts um so each field would have their own set um but we do primarily operate off of two an occasional three or four um during tournament season and so um today we just kind of want to say thank you for allowing us the opportunity to fundraise and to provide that for for the kids that play out there but then also as just an additional asset for the school district that will hopefully also draw in more more community members and more youth to to that school district um I think that's kind of where I will hand it off to Mar if you're not familiar with the fields out there
012so um uh one one of the fields is is kind of a practice field but there's three main fields and two again that we primarily use and we'll show you which fields we did the improvements on um yeah we kind of covered all that so our main sponsors for this were Clear Lake lions and and Clear Water Lions Club they each donated 10,000 so in addition so what was nice about this donation is we still put a lot more into the fields besides this um so again uh the maintenance of the fields and and we worked out a basically an agreement with 742 during the summer months we're going to take care of these so a lot of people spend a lot of time making them look good they look a little rough right now
013they're going to look better as soon as we get to Spring here but uh the dugouts are up that's basically what they look like um one of our goals is fundraising uh looking for new benches is where we're probably going to be going next to improve these but it allows the kids the protection a from the the sport of baseball itself for the people that are in the dugouts and then again we're going to have the shade protection for the kids because it does get hot out there in the summer just a couple more shots of it that's an example uh um of what we're looking at doing but again it gives that that coverage protection uh with the roof and again that's something that we can put up in the summer and then during
014the school year we'll have that down uh and it's obviously available for the school the whole time uh part of this deal is too that we realize as a baseball organization we don't own this property so this is we got to gift it to you so uh it's it's a permanent thing there now so I it's any improvements we make out there it's going towards a school district uh we're just grateful to have the opportunity to service it's 8 to 100 Youth and really what we can do on these fields is the t-ball the coach pitch and the Willie Ma so it's primarily ages 12 down so I had two kids who went to clear viiew uh Elementary and they just got too old from these fields and I finally got them dugouts so anyway
015um yeah so besides the the 2000 and what we're doing there again we're going to try to uh get some new benches out there at least for those two main Fields because that's what we use the most but with that thank you for your time okay anybody have any questions or comments Scott example so but it will be a tarp there is a hard roof there's a fence roof so if a ball were to come they are protected there will be a tarp that will lay over it that we will be able to take on and off that provides shelter from from the Sun and from any rain around sides the the sides will have something similar we're working with M the vendor right now on the material and the graphics and things like that
016because we're trying to stick within within the budget that we have for the season of samples of what it could be yes yeah y anybody else Al is there any bleachers there at all for parents I could from there are bleachers but they also are in bad need of replacement yeah there is one set of aluminum bleachers that we um we we can pull off to the side or move and then there's another set that um is stationary it's cemented in um but they are also in desperate need of replacement our Focus has been our Focus will be on replacing the players benches um because they are our Prime Focus of of program out there um and then bleachers would be another significant expense most of the parents prefer to bring their fold out chairs
017they can come out there but um the bottom right field that is the main field that we utilize that's got the best set of benches for spectators to come out there but on a on a tournament weekend all of those lengths are filled with with Y they put up tents for shelter and we pull a couple hundred people in on a tournament anybody else have any questions or comments well thank you for joining us uh thank you for your partnership and all the hard work you guys put into this we're very grateful for it thank you thank you our next information item is the 2025 26 annual Staffing timelines presented by Tracy fnbo executive director of human resources and Labor Relations good evening there we go I'm on uh superintendent putam and board members uh
018this is just a informational item to to set off for the board the Staffing process and the timelines so you know what's coming next uh the graph that you have in front of you that flowchart has been shared broadly with all of our um licensed staff and administrators beginning in January and I'm just going to review a few of those highlights on the right side of the flowchart are kind of key dates for teachers and that starts in the end of January with a staffing survey where each teacher has the opportunity to tell us about their current assignment to let us know if they're planning to return for next year and uh to request any transfers that they might be interested in either inside their building or to one of our other schools uh I
019was really pleased this year when I got that to see that 91% of our staff said they were returning so in a time when we're seeking desperately for uh to maintain um stability in our licensed staff that was a really good sign uh and so that process kicks off while they're doing that uh the executive team together with cabinet and administrators start the process of identifying priorities for the year um so that as we're thinking about the Staffing plan we're organizing around those shared priorities that starts again with administrators but it goes down and gets feedback from all of our teachers as well and at the end of that process the superintendent team identifies what those Staffing priorities will be for the year and so those are what we've been organizing our efforts around since
020then uh for the board this is the first event uh regarding to the Staffing the next um opportunity to hear more about Staffing will come on April 2nd Amy and I will be sharing with you any projected changes in FTE in any of our buildings um and in our departments when it comes to secondary those changes us this year are not largely will not be based on major Cuts we know that we've got some Financial vulnerabilities moving into next year because of some changes in funding around compensatory Aid special education Aid ending of literacy funds and some of those things that will change some of the resources that we've had um this year and so we'll staff accordingly but but typically we're making those FTE projections based on enrollments in all of our schools again
021early enrollment projections and conservative enrollment projections to make sure that we don't over staff um and then registrations at the secondary level which courses that our our students are registering for uh so we'll share that information if there's any major changes with you at that meeting and then for our teachers the next um date that causes you know some trepidation is that April 11th that's the date that we notify any of our probationary staff about non-renewals and again that's based on this very early Staffing plan April is um you know the time that we have to finalize that Staffing plan and make those notifications and we know that the Staffing plan will continue to evolve through May and June and into the summer and uh and so even teachers that may get a notice of
022non-renewal in April may find that there's a position that reopens and that they're back with us again for the coming year um but again we've worked really hard over the years with the SC EA to make sure although that's a that's a date that nobody likes if you're a probationary teacher it's not unexpected they understand what the process is they get high support both from the district and from sea in that process and uh We've I think that has gone really well and uh and that partnership with sea has really been useful so once they are notified on April 11th that's the end of the week the next board meeting on April 16th is when the board will see that non-renewal resolution typic there are 20 to 30 teachers out of 900 plus teachers and
023again so it's a small fraction of our teachers but it's very important obviously to those that are on that list um and the board will um review and approve that resolution we reserve um the opportunity in May if we have additional changes that require any continuing non-renewals but typically that's unusual and we'll be um through that process in April I think those are the highlights of that process where again I would just emphasize how much work this is it starts in January and there's just hours and hours and days and days of work um for the administrative team here at the district office and partnering with all of our principles uh and uh we'll in the week two weeks from now we'll start full day meetings and meeting for an hour with every single principal
024and looking at the at the wall up there that we create with every single teachers on the wall on a sticker and we really take every single placement um into consideration as we create that plan for the next year that will give us the best plan for our students any questions okay um this is primarily driven by uh enrollment then enrollment and course registration at the secondary level okay now I've heard that arthos is planning on closing uh we're making out Provisions for that yes yep we're watching that closely thank you all right thank you Tracy thank you all right our third information item tonight is the say something presentation and Gary gansi executive director of Special Projects will be presenting this tonight good evening set up here all right good evening uh this evening
025I'm going to introduce the the say something program in the anonymous reporting system that that goes along with that program but before we get to the details of say something I'd like to review where this falls into our work in District 742 here are the four pillars that we often often uh refer to and uh safety is the first pillar and uh uh uh the anonymous reporting would obviously fall right within that that safety pillar we've also visited with you about the U the Department of Justice stopping School violence Grant and these are the four elements of that Grant and then this would be element to the anonymous Reporting System say something's a program designed around recognizing and Reporting at risk at risk in concerning behavior and situations say something is made available through the
026Sandy Hook promise Foundation a respected nonprofit organization dedicated to improving school safety Across the Nation say something begins with classroom discussion it is through this discussion that students identify trusted adults the signs of atrisk behavior and the difference between snitching to get someone in trouble and something to get someone help um there are many ways to say something the best way uh is through a relationship with a trusted adult with whom the student is comfortable reporting if a trusted is adult is not available uh or if there isn't a trusted adult uh or if a student wants to R remain anonymous say something has multiple ways or portals uh for getting that help there's an app there's a web link uh text messaging is an option and uh making a phone call is also an
027option in our secondary schools the app will be loaded onto all of the Chromebooks so it'll be front and center for the for the students um all these methods of seeking help um uh go to a call center that's staffed 247 by uh trained and and licens uh crisis counselors the call center vets the tips they sort those into life safety and non-life safety and then they're routed to to different uh um different areas within the district based on that um there are there are really four teams that that they identify one is a law enforcement team uh which would get all life safety tips there's a district team that consists of our assistant superintendent and executive director of operations they would also get the life safety tips um there's what they call a special
028team it's uh it's our our uh HR administrative team which I guess is special we could call a special team um and any any tips that come in that are Title 9 related or having to do with a staff member go right to the special team and then there's a school team team that would get all of the tips during the day after hours the school team wouldn't get the um wouldn't get the life safety tips instead it would go to the district team which would be the assistant superintendent and executive director of operations and then they would determine when to get the school team involved uh they'd still be involved but it it first goes there after hours um the school team is is made up of building Administration uh counselors um um social
029workers possibly psychologists Deans each each building has has a little bit different depending upon their needs the week of March 17th say something will be launched to for to all of our sixth through 12th graders across the district the classroom instruction is being delivered during tiger time Eagle time Colt time and at McKinley and Katherine Johnson during other small group time um these are the concepts that that are delivered through the instruction you know I think the important thing here is we is as we've been working with with this product we we've kind of labeled the app say something say something really is in an app the app is is just a portal to get information say something is this it's the instruction uh it's it's teaching the um the signs and signals it's it's
030uh talking about trusted adults and how you develop that relationship uh and how to report here's why the instructions so important um these are reasons that warning signs and signals are not reported let's give you a chance to take a look at those the one that really resonates with me is that one in the middle I this is this is big to students they they don't want to snitch and so a lot of time is spent on uh it's it's not snitching if you're trying to get someone help and I look at that last one I I have to think about how many times I drive by a car accident and think oh someone's reported it you know and I I think students have that that uh same thought as as they see things in
031school obviously not car accidents but um here are some examples of the tips that that uh other schools you seen say something um have seen and I I think the important message when when you look at these is this this isn't just about active threat this is about a a lot of reasons why kids need help and and we can uh we can get that information through this product so let's talk a little bit about our road map to uh implementation we we actually started this last summer and we've been real we've been going slow and we've been real deliberate about it and I just I want to point out some folks in the room that have been um involved in the process uh Joel uh has been there since the beginning Tammy with the
032communication uh Kelly s is uh back there Kelly is a um she's from the diamond Arrow group and and we've hired her with some grant money to to help us with the roll out and training of the grant Kelly has a um um just a wealth of knowledge and situational awareness and uh behavioral threat assessment so she's really been a asset thanks Kelly uh and uh Dr too he's uh he's really uh kept this at the Forefront of the principal agenda meetings agendas at their weekly meetings so thank you um so first thing we did is we had to build the teams we had to identify who goes on that school team who goes on the district team who goes on the special team and who's on the law enforcement team once we had that
033then it was a matter of setting up credentials for everyone setting up a portal for everyone and then making sure that they can log in and the portal is where they get tips and so we we just wanted to make sure that we covered all bases uh are they going to use a personal cell phone number to get a text or the District phone you know so it's things like that a lot of logistics um once we got everyone up and running then it was a matter of of doing the training of the district teams and the training is was five five modules online training takes about an hour and so we did the the district team and the special team uh the idea was to split these out so we could see what the
034training was and then we could uh better explain to the principles what what the uh school teams would would see in the training so then we did the the school teams after that and it was the exact same training and got everyone everyone trained there um then we trained law enforcement which include the 911 call center and this was a um this was just a uh um um a web meeting for a half hour with with a crisis counselor from um from the say something uh call center um I uh I thought this would be a a a real quick step and uh it turned out that we needed to spend some time and dig a Little Deeper on this this step um what we wanted to do is we want to make sure we
035aren't creating more work for the the call our 911 call center dispatch is busy enough uh so we talked about how do you want to receive a tip uh we don't you know we don't want it to be cumbersome um how are you going to um how are you going to deploy that tip um and then that's where we got stcloud PD and we talked about that would go to patrol um it's not our SRO it's the patrol officers and so we talked a lot about we get a life safety tip on a on a weekend it goes toward District team we know law enforcement has it they'll reach out to us but how does it get back to us and so we needed to uh build a protocol and Sergeant Kleinfeld there was great
036help here built a protocol that the information would go back to him then it could come back to us and we could either clear it we're we're good or we could provide the additional uh supports that's needed come Monday morning um we're feeling pretty good and then we we realized we still got to dig a little bit deep we've got a big footprint here uh 250 square miles six law enforcement agencies they're all going to get the the tips so we had to align everyone so they were using the same protocol so now Way Park PD St Joe PD St Cloud PD Sterns County Sheriff Benton County sheriff and Sherburn County Sheriff are all using the same protocol so we get we get the information back um then we got to the point where we
037could we could test this um the tip test is a um a tech a text goes out to everyone to say uh this is a test tip please respond and so you pass the test if everyone responds you just say got it yes received it um but this is probably the most important step in this process because if someone has a technical issue there's a tip out there that we aren't dealing with and so you know we made sure everything was up and running then we got to the communication plan um we have a lot of people to communicate with um the school teams have very few very few staff on there that um um you know we have administrators and counselors but there are a lot more people in the building and so we
038needed to get information out to there that trusted adult could be a um a uh lunchroom helper it could be a bus driver uh could be the evening custodian uh we we don't know who it is so we needed to get the word out to everyone there um and of course we needed to communicate to families and staff uh next up was the teacher uh the teacher training and this was this was modeling by the principls there's a video to show um uh we created a study guide um at excuse me a discussion guide for um for staff and then um the the principls modeled it and then the um um the teachers will be delivering it to students next week um family uh family communication will go out at the end of this week
039in three languages along with that our Equity services department has um uh had had say something on the agenda of the family meetings for the past two months to make sure uh we don't uh run into any language barriers so that everyone understands we also wanted to make sure there weren't any cultural concerns out there that we were overlooking um so that's that's taken place and then of course it's the delivery to the students so that's where we're at got two more steps to go and and uh uh we'll be there um work doesn't stop there um we need to continue to work with our school teams um we know they'll need support on um on managing tips and processing tips um the um right before we we started to roll this out say something
040came out with a fourth and fifth grade uh curriculum for this um we we decided we let's roll this one out let's see how that goes for other schools but we want to also keep that on our radar and with that I'll open it up for questions anybody have any questions or comments give me an overreaching goal I I maybe I'm missing it I don't what what's our goal with with this what are we aiming at are we looking at behavioral situations within the schools are we looking at just anything uh what what what do we where do we want to where do we want to end up we we want to identify at risk behaviors um situations that could be caused danger in schools um this is happening daily I mean not daily but
041it's happening now where where kids will report to to staff this gives us another portal for that but is it in schools or is it CommunityWide that that's one question that I have and then it it could be CommunityWide we don't know what tips are going to come in but when they're vetted if it has nothing to do with schools it would go to law enforcement and um what our goal would be would be those those tips that impact our schools and our students is the grant so I'm still confused and is this a coordinated Grant coordinated with law enforcement and schools and communities or is this specifically run through schools and those other areas would benefit from it the the grant was submitted Twice first time it was through law enforcement and we were
042a partner second time it was through us and they were a partner so I would say it's a coordinating effort with us in law enforcement and how long is the grant for three years okay and what's the cost of the grant what's the annual cost of of this program of this program you're going to love this answer it's free free we we wrote a Anonymous Reporting System into the grant at this before we did that this is something we've we've had our eye on for years before we did that we applied for the Sandy Hook Foundation um uh they have a a a grant in for for for their product say something and um they pick a couple schools a year uh we put in kind of forgot about it um and then once you're
043in they pay for everything from here on out is is it free so when you say there's no cost is it the the we can continue so it's a three-year grant to get it set up and running y we can continue using it forever as long as they provide it Y at no cost is there any annual cost in just in in operating and continuing the program to the district I I just so many so often times you get grants you jump all over a program you find out it's beneficial and then the grant ends and program ends yeah the yeah the the um the grant has four pieces so when we're talking about the sustainability I'm talking about this one being free I don't see I don't see a a lot of cost the
044we we visited with Elk River who are using this they they use their annual training with students as one of their five drills for the year and it you know it aligns well so it's it's something we're already doing uh we aren't doing the workbooks we aren't doing any of that uh the videoos provided um so the the cost of this one no I don't see any okay schools that have are ahead of us in this what's the report volume that we've asked that question uh to our our Sandy Hook uh Foundation manager many times and um she the answer it's kind of lawyer response it depends you know um sorry Tracy um the um yeah okay the best um um the best answer we got was right when you roll it out it's new
045and shiny expect the volume to be higher and then it will level up and that is a question from our principles that's everyone's wondering yeah so if uh What uh student you know younger student um not necessarily a high school student but a younger student so they can besides talking to um somebody at the school how how else do they do it it's there they could call or they could go on the website or I mean how would they know the number is there something so we're just doing it for 6th through 12th grade 6 through 12th okay we have posters in the building with QR codes um the you our our shift in cell phone policy that slowed us down a little bit we had to rethink that um still a student will be
046using a cell phone after hours so we have to have a a way that we can load that we're using the QR codes when we're posting online so um you know shortcut to the the App Store but it will be on all our devices okay okay Scott can you tell me a little bit about the mapping setup uh sounds kind of cool but yeah it's probably a a that's probably another um board board meeting topic that's that's a big one but just in a nutshell what what it is it's um it's a tool for law enforcement we've mapped all our our schools so when you um if you're ever in the 911 Center you see a 911 call come in it's a Google map and it puts a DOT right in the center of a
047building Crossroads it's right in the center Walmart right in the center for our schools it will put the dot right where the Call Comes doesn't matter if it's a cell phone or a landline phone um and then uh law enforcement can see that if it's a cell phone and they hang up um that signal stays as the the phone moves as a matter of fact we're we're testing that piece tomorrow morning just to make sure it's functioning right in some of our buildings um and uh the idea is uh quicker response because minut save lives okay um I was just thinking my granddaughter went to a Boy Scout camp and forgot her pock ET knife in her pocket when she went to school the next day I'm not sure how they found out but uh
048she got suspended for a while um I would imagine that this program is maybe she showed it to a classmate or something but this is what something like this C caught her eventually a tip could come in this way or or another student could have told a teacher yeah it's um um it's you know it's just a another way for the information to to come in thank you okay Natalie I just want to say that I think that parents that I've talked to you about with concerns with safety are really going to like this and some of the parents that we've talked to both of us um when we talking about you know that this is going to be rolled out it's really well received um and I just I really of course for um
049life safety you know those sort of instances that's what we first think of but I really think of you know in my Middle School teaching days of the kid who nobody really talks to or listens to or you know and the kid themselves doesn't say anything and then maybe they say one thing to one person and it's really scary and so um I I just really like it I I don't like that but I mean I like that we have another there can't be any um hesitation on our part to roll out all of the ways to keep our kids safe even sometimes from themselves so I really appreciate your work on this thank you Gary L one more question on that just so you say the calls are vetted if if a call goes
050in it's vetted and then then it's routed back to the school district who vets and how do they vet and what if they mistakenly vet I does would a call go in and in the process of being vetted it wouldn't come back it would be determined that it wasn't serious or we would get we would get all the calls back by the vetting it would be whether it's life safety or non-life safety um 100% that go in will come back yes and the um the um I I think the ones that would be prank would probably end up with PD um you know in their prank will still come back yes nobody's determining whether something is serious or not right before they send it okay that makes more sense yeah and um when we've asked
051they they air on the side of caution for Life Safety all right thank you very much okay next we're moving on to the reports we have the Board of Education standing committee reports um I believe we just have one report tonight board development policy and governance committee chair Zack dhal do you have a report and oh we'll keep them rolling um so for February of 2025 the committee met on the 26th assistant superintendent Harrison and avenson presented proposed board policies policy 707 regarding transportation for public school students policy 527 student use and parking of Motor Vehicles patrol inspection and searched and proposed board policy 529 staff notification of violent Behavior by students the three policies were reviewed and recommended to move forward for tonight's board meeting that is thank you uh board Finance audit committee
052chair Heather Williams the board finance committee met March 10th um Amy presented us with a proposed tiered fee structure for facility rentals um including reviewing a proposal to move to a tiered fee structure for our Community Education facility rental fees um the new structure would have different rental rates based on the type of organization with the first priority for the use of District facilities for district use uh it's consistent with how many districts structure their rental fees including surrounding districts we the district would also do an analysis of the current fee structure um however the fees have to be approved through the Community Education advisory Council will begin the process only if referendum question two is approved because the tiered structure would likely result in the reduction of some existing fees and the revenue from
053the new facility would be used to offset offset the reduction in revenue from existing facility ities um we talked about FY 26 and FY 27 special assessment costs um we are informed the committee uh that the district has approximately $400,000 in special assessment cost for City water sewer Street and sidewalk improvements at tahi and Westwood that need to be paid for 2025 26 and we are legally obligated to pay for these I because it is a one-time cost we will not make permanent reductions um to pay for them but will instead use unassigned fund budg fund balance uh this will result in 2025 26 General budget fund budget that the board approves in June being a $400,000 deficit for the year um but it will not bring us below the minimum unassigned fund balance percentage
054we set in board or that set in board policy uh we talked about the primary election for spe for the November special election um because we are currently opted into the primary system for November elections we'd have to hold primary election in August for the November special election to fill the vacant board member seat unless the board approves a resolution to opt out before April 12th since the primary election would be at The District's expense the committee agreed that we would not want to hold a primary election in this instance uh our attorney is working on drafting a resolution and this will come to the board for approval on consent agenda at the April 2nd board meeting um we got a phone system update uh Katie presented information on the need to update our current
055phone system due to our current EC system becoming obsolete in the US market she discussed the pros and cons of five options which were considered and the recommendation is to move move with 3cx um that transition will occur this summer uh the ongoing annual cost for the new system will actually be less than our current cost however there's a one-time cost to convert the new to the new system which includes actual new hardware as well as conversion costs um the purchase of the hardware will occur this spring and will be funded through a one-time Tiff reimbursement the district received which was not budgeted uh the conversation or the conversion cost will occur after July 1st and will be included in the 2025 26 budget that the board will approve in June thank you uh Personnel
056negotiations committee chair Natalie Copeland yes we met on February 25th we talked about two different things one was what you've seen already um with the 2025 2026 um um Staffing timelines and then um we Administration presented information regarding the restructuring of administrative team for 2526 as well for alignment to District priorities and budget reductions in anticipation of funding changes for 2526 and then also Administration reviewed plans to reimagine the district retirement event to focus on school and department-based celebrations with board acknowledgement at a meeting and that's it and then Dar I asked did achievement integation and okay um there was one committee left is legislative committee and recognizing that um El dalren is back uh first meeting tonight here and he will be taking over Bruce's positions and one of which is that he will
057be chair for the legislative committee welcome back Al all right um we are moving right along tonight so I'm looking to adjourn our regular board a motion to adjourn a regular board meeting oh no I lied I have future agenda items uh future agenda items the March 19th 2025 regular board meeting topics will include the local education and activities Foundation report otherwise known as Leaf A systemwide literacy progress and next steps uh Point board members to award diplomas at Apollo and Tech commencements and policy readings at this time does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item okay and then if you caught that that um next board meeting if you will you think uh if you want to hand out diplomas so we can make that decision next time um now I'm
058looking for a motion to adjourn our regular board meeting so move have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie all in favor say I I okay um meeting um is the regular board meeting is adjourned at 7:22 p.m. and at that time time we are opening up our Board of Education work session we have one policy reading tonight it's a first reading of proposed revised board policy 707 the transportation of public school students presented by Shannon avenson assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services good evening cheraz Dr putam and members of the board um I am happy to bring forward board policy uh 707 tonight uh as you can see we have not uh reviewed this for a couple of years so it was timely also we had received some recommend ation from um msba
059and some other legal guidance uh that we could add some language to this policy uh to support our transportation department and um special education needs and so um I want to start by saying that um a majority of the items that you see if not all are really State and federally statute related so you will notice that as I go through I won't read everything it's pretty comprehensive um but the reason that there's not a lot of language changes or very very minimal is because uh we can't change them they're they're federally and state legisl yeah um and so just pointing that out for our team um I'm going to begin by looking through um we have the purpose of this policy is to provide for the transportation of students consistent uh with the requirements
060of the law so that's the overall purpose of this policy not making any changes to purpose or general statement of the policy when we get into definition you'll not like we have in uh previous policies just some uh language updates by uh msba um so we have made uh those changes as recommended the removal of the references to the statutes but as I've noted before those statutes and what you'll notice at the end of this particular policy um the list of statutes and references is quite long so that's where all those uh legal mandates are coming in for this one change that uh I did recommend to our team is uh our board policy team is the change back from the language of uh transitional back to homeless and you'll see that throughout this document
061um I am not aware of that first when we went from homeless to transitional um what the decision- making was behind that but in looking at the mckin vento um act and additionally um the definitions that are given to us uh the transitional term is not one that is widely used um that is something that we use internally in our district and that that is purposeful we will not change our internal language we will continue to call our programming transitional programming um it we we preferred that language however when it comes to the definition um we felt strongly that we needed to go back to the actual definition that is within the mini mckin vento Act um and then um if I'm going to keep going through that is you'll see that Homeless to transitional
062has been changed throughout the definition and then that will show up as we go throughout the remainder of um those definitions and um pieces okay I'm going to keep going through again just some statute updates um as recommended by msba no changes to eligibility transportation of non-resident students again just some statute updates there taking out the reference to those and that is similar for transportation of Resident students to non-district schools and again with special education students and students with a disability and temporary dis disabilities again that reference uh change from transitional back to homeless I think the other key piece to reference there is that when we use that that phrase transitional we are being much more comprehensive and so we want to make sure that we're following the policy and um being specific specific
063to that definition so um the use of the term transitional does widen that and would increase some potential needs for additional Transportation so we wanted to narrow that back down to the um to the intent of this policy no changes to availability availability of services other than that statute uh reference elimination and same for manner of transportation and similarly for restrictions now you'll notice we're getting into this is where we um are adding are ranking a recommendation to add quite a bit of language here there are a number of districts throughout um the state that have added um language around what is reasonable Transportation requests um and so it msba does not give uh model language or guidance around this in their model policy um but I did uh work with Amy ma our legal
064adviser um to come up with some language and they have actually given this exact language to to other districts that's been advised um I will say the the first piece here and I won't I won't read the entire um uh definition for you but in looking in it basically is referencing closer facility um we can refuse to transport a student to a care and treatment facility if another care and treatment facility is at least 10 miles closer um there are some exceptions around that regarding insurance and again I I want to point out that the word is may we may um and so this just gives us that opportunity when looking at some of these requests that we get to have some some ability to look at what's reasonable within those requests um that language
065mirrors what has been recommended by uh Amy mace to other districts as well and is being used um when you look at the um Part B 50 m radius or 60 Minutes uh the district May refuse to transport a student to or from a care and treatment facility that is located more than 50 miles outside the district's Geographic boundaries or 60-minute drive from the school district not to exceed either um this language we did shift a little bit internally um but Amy um again agreed that this language would be appropriate um some of the guidance has been a 40 mile um radius and we just felt and and again in consultation with our transportation services uh Joel height Camp um and my special education director vors it this seemed like a much more reasonable based
066on our geographic location and and and and what we are currently doing um and so that is why we went with this recommendation instead um and again uh the part C regular operating hours we may refuse to transport a district a student to or from aare and treatment facility outside our District's regular operating hours um and we actually had that question come up recently and so this is a good um reasonable uh Clause to put in here um and and again um when Amy mace gives this guidance it really is around um case studies and things that have come up with mde to make sure that um what we're putting in our policy is something that we can that we um be able to follow through with and then lastly um item D um this
067is language that uh my again my special education directors myself uh Jo he camp this was language that we uh we wanted to add to just um make sure because that is this is what we're currently doing we have a lot of consultation between our um Special Education team and our transportation team because we get a number of requests and we want to make sure that we we're being really thoughtful about those requests and trying to um and trying to make sure that we're not not stretching our transportation department to um too far so when we have this language the district Reserves the right to set Transportation times in consultation with IEP 504 teams and transportation services the the team should consider both the students day treatment um program needs and their educational needs it's
068just a reminder of our teams to do that it's just a reminder that we want to do that in consultation and consider all the student needs um but for example we can have a request to have a student go to a day treatment facility two days a week they could go ask to go to a daycare three of those days a week and then home one day a week what happens is we have to run those routes and so really this is about giving us some reasonable language so that we can we can look at what our our transportation department and our iip teams what we're maybe doing for other students that are already at that site um and work around those pieces um to make sure that we're we're being not only reasonable but
069that we are um making sure that we our budgets stay within the means for for transportation as well so um and uh again uh that language was um something I shared with Amy and she said that felt really comfortable to do that we just want to make sure that we um we would not reduce a student's time at a treatment care and treatment facility due to this it would just be a way of U being thoughtful about when those times should occur no changes to fees um other than those statute changes that you see there just some removal of the those items and then again our long list of legal references um at the end of this policy um and updates to those language pieces in those references as well anybody have any questions on
070this policies all right thank you Shannon thank you okay last up tonight we have school's updates uh we have Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of E5 learning Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of secondary education and Shannon naon assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services presenting perfect good evening chaira superintendent putam and members of the board tonight for our elementary update we get to highlight our Westwood Wildcats here for our first picture of safety you're going to see our second graders here in the safety around water program at the YMCA here they work on skills such as floating on their back floating on their stomach getting comfortable around water uh discuss discussed life jacket safety and identification of lifeguard skills here you see their example of belonging and this is Miss penna's kindergarten dual language immersion class that
071had a celebration performance in honoring the independence of the Dominican Republic and performed at the February student assembly students danc and performed multiple songs here is an example of collaboration in Miss Reynolds fifth grade class working on a stem project this was a team building and collaboration as a themed project and they work to see which group could build the highest tower using marshmallows and toothpicks and then lastly there comes our picture around excellence in high expectations and high supports is our Westwood robotics team who finished in second place at the state robotics meet uh here in the first week of March they lost by one point to not advance to the Nationals in Texas this year and our team finished fourth place at State go wild cats all right good evening chair house superintendent
072putam board members we just wrapped up uh winter activities season so over 500 plus students took part in activities shout out to the students that participate the coaches the refs the 80s all the things to make a good experience for our students in that time so uh here's just a quick one around safety our uh Apollo and Tech student leadership teams continue to work with Minnesota high school league and other schools across the state to specifically focus in on uh safe respectful inclusive environments you see a couple of pictures here where they were at a Wilmer event in uh early November and they do this big thing now with the schools they uh change their t-shirts with each other right and so if I'm a Tech student and I might be a St Michael student
073and then we have an activity where we get to know each other so that's just a quick way of uh sharing safety and collaboration around that and then the next one is uh our specifics and uh lagging in time I apologize I pushed the button a while ago sorry should know I I should know I should know that I should know the slides though so even without you clicking shann so all good just a uh uh a sense of belonging our uh Somali female students have really found belonging in our Deca activities they have been competing uh within the state in the last month and multiple uh Communications specifically in the areas of retail merchandise and Human Resources they've qualified in the top uh students around uh across the state and they've been really uh
074kicking butt so here's a great way collaboration uh Tech South uh North uh and uh Apollo specifically around collaboration all our teams have are competed in stayed and Robotics uh a couple of teams are getting ready for worlds uh when you look at our future problem solvers on North and South they're moving right along to compete in the State uh April 12th and then when you look Apollo swim and dive and so collabor around working together our students are really competing at a high level we can't shout out enough of what we see in our students and doing a great job there and then just High expectation High support and Excellence uh you have the first pitcher Isaiah Washington he just broke the school record with 25 200 plus points and Apollo basketball he's staying
075home and going to St Cloud State you have the three uh uh uh activities uh around uh academics uh activ and uh I'm missing something my eyes are getting Shannon we got to get this thing bigger my eyes are bad right all our students that they have to have a 3.0 and specifically uh competing in the classroom in in in their activities you had our students that uh the two young ladies down at the bottom Crush around dance uh the tech girls gymnastics teams is a co-op crush with all the all our surrounding schools uh they're uh just got down the state we had our wrestler just compete at State and they've done a great job I think it was second kenning and then we have uh fening our one of our students just uh
076had a good fening experience so just the wide range shout out to all our activities and Athletics and all the things that happen around that all right I did push the button a while ago um here I'm gonna refresh quick oh there we go all right um this uh picture is showing you that in January our special education supervisor uh Jack Peterson provided trauma and Aces training for Tech staff they had um some choices training on those days and so we have about 30 uh Tech staff who who elected to do trauma and Aces training all right there we go um belonging I couldn't help but share these awesome pictures um these are Apollo students who are very Apollo proud and love to cheer on their peers at activities this I have to thank general
077robach for these great pictures it's these guys can see it on my screen behind me so they know collaboration um again Westwood highlighting um again gen robok sent me this beautiful picture of one of our Westwood students who was nominated for student of the month from our wonderful nutritional services staff and the word of the month for um that month was honesty so he was exemplifying honest one more it's coming all right high expectations High support um our base curriculum it is a tier 2 tier three um uh curriculum that is a virtual tool that is being used to support students in teaching skills and strategies in a in a wide variety of areas including solving conflict stress anger management chemical health awareness um as of the end of of January over 15 1,580 modules
078have been used districtwide we started out with it at secondary schools as kind of a pilot last year this year um some of our schools have just taken off with it and um even our elementary schools have been asking for this curriculum um and the response from students and staff has been really positive it is um a very effective way for staff to be able to give a student on a lesson let's say they are in in school suspension for um a conflict that they had with the peer the day before there are lessons around that that they can give to that student um and Student Response has been that it is engaging um that the lessons are very engaging um so we've been excited to see the the um the number of students and
079staff that are are utilizing this program thank you okay thank you this look for a motion to adjourn tonight's work session so move and I have a second uh motion by Scott a second by Natalie all in favor say I I meeting is adjourned 7:41 p.m. this is exciting it's warm it's not too dark I know it's just by