School Board Meeting - December 14, 2023

001[Music] he good evening it is Thursday December 14th 2023 at 6 pm. we are at the district service center in Cottage Grove Minnesota we would like to take this time to acknowledge that the land on which We Gather is the land of the mawakan Dakota people minow walkington means dwellers of the Spirit Lake our first agenda item is our roll call Dana Eric Tesmer Eric Lise hin here P Driscoll here Melinda does here Katy Schwarz is absent simy Pat here Sharon here next please rise for our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all next we have 3.0 and that is the approval of our agenda can I get

002a motion to approve an amended agenda adding action item 7.8 tentative agreement with the principal Association and 7.9 tenative agreement with of office professionals so moved second moved by Louise and second by Eric is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor I I all oppos motion is carried next item on our agenda is 4.0 and that's comments to the board and there were no signups for this evening so we'll move next to 5.0 and that's consent agenda items all consent agenda items are considered routine and non-controversial by the school board and will be approved by a single motion prior to this meeting board members have had the opportunity to review each of these items and could have requested that any item be moved to action item for individual consideration can I get a

003motion to approve the consent agenda items so moved second moved by Melinda second by simy is there any discussion seeing none all in favor I oppose motion carried next is 6.0 information items 6.1 is the world's best Workforce and achievement and integration report this evening if this will be introduced by our assistant superintendent Tyrone brookens good evening chff van lir school board members superintendent Nelson I am here to introduce our staff who will share a report on achievement integration and the world's best Workforce this evening you will hear from M Jacobson who is director of program evaluation research and assessment Joyce beard Early Childhood family service manager Arthur Williams director of teaching and learning for elementary Dr T clayon director of teaching and learning secondary James McGee director of diversity equity and inclusion and without

004further Ado I will call Dr m to the podium so my colleagues and I are here to present on the world's best Workforce and achievement integration I'm going to take us through the world's best Workforce results and data first and then my colleagues will present on the strategies and programming that are being implemented in the district and then we'll close with a presentation on um achievement integration so the world's best Workforce is um State mandated for all school districts there's five goal areas and school districts are required to um identify measures in each of those areas and track progress um each year um with our new strategic plan it's also important to see how our world's best Workforce aligns with our strategic directions so as you'll see most um of our measur align with uh

005Mastery of learning and expectations uh which focuses on Student Success there's also alignment in student experience student Pathways and support as well as engagement and Partnerships so as I go through um the data is important to keep in mind that this data does not define our students so it is not a full picture of the student experience um in our district um the measures measure achievement at one point in time um with one assessment so it is a snapshot of assessment or achievement so the first area is all students ready for school and in this area we have two new measures because uh the uh assessment that we've used previously is no longer being administered in the district um as a result of implementing the new American reading company um Elementary literacy curriculum um so

006the first measure here is the percentage of three-year-old Early Childhood screenings um and my colleague Joyce will explain um what that entails shortly but this is a one-year goal um and we hope to increase the percentage of three-year-old Early Childhood screenings from um 38.1% to 40% this year so an increase of 2 percentage points the second measure is the percentage of kindergarten students reading at grade level um by the end of the school year and this is measured by the independent reading um level assessment um known as the eara as well as the Anil which is the Spanish equivalent of the eara um for our Spanish Immersion students and both of these assessments accompany the arc um literacy curriculum so this is a year that spans mult this is a goal that spans multiple years

007um so our Baseline data is 63.6% of kindergarten students are reading at grade level by the end of the year and by the school year 2425 we hope to um reach 80% of students the second area is all students in third grade achieving grade level literacy and here we look at the reading proficiency rate on the MCAS for third grade students um the goal for the 2223 school year was 83.6% and 50.3% % of all third graders were um proficient in reading and the goals and results vary by student groups there uh one thing to note about this goal is that this is the last year it will be reported due to the Minnesota read act um so with the Minnesota read act the expectation is that all students are reading at or above grade

008level uh not just in third grade the third area is close achievement gaps and here we also have two measures so math and reading proficiency on the MCAS um the for math the goal um for the 2223 school year was 84.3% and 53% of all students um were proficient for reading the goal for the 2223 school year was 85% and 55.2% of students demonstrated proficiency um and then again the goals and results vary across uh student groups the fourth area is all students career and college ready and here we look at the percentage of students um of a graduating class who meet the reading benchmark on the ACT uh so for the graduating class of 2023 the goal was 57% and 48% of students in that uh graduating class met the reading bench Mark for

009the last area is all students graduate and here we look at the four-year High School graduation rate uh the most recent data that we have is for the graduating class of 2022 and for this cohort the goal was 93.6% and 91% of students um graduated high school within four years so that concludes the data for the um world's best Workforce I'm going to hand it over to Joyce to start us off with the strategies and programming thank you Dr Jacobson and good evening because Early Childhood screening is new to the world's best Workforce plan we thought it important to provide context to this important Early Intervention Program so what's it all about what is Early Childhood screening all about in Minnesota all children have the right to receive a free Early Childhood screening starting at

010age three all children in Minnesota must be screened for entering kindergarten in a public school early childhood screening is provided by all public school districts Head Start programs and some medical clinics Early Childhood screening in our district is Under the Umbrella of early learning and Community Education along with the Early Childhood family education and preschool programs the purpose of Early Childhood screening in Minnesota is to promote healthy development to identify children who may need further evaluation to connect families to resources in the community when a child is screened a family can expect to experience Vision hearing and height and weight check activities where children demonstrate large and small muscle development thinking skills language and speaking skills a parent report of social emotional development an immunization review a review of Health Care coverage and resource connection

011Early Childhood screening is about early intervention and should not be considered as a kindergarten entrance screening although Early Childhood screening is required for kindergarten in all public schools Early Childhood screening is recommended at age three screening early at a at three is important because screening between the ages of three and four provides the best opportunity for any health or developmental concerns to be found early screening early allows connection to Early Learning opportunities and resources intervention before kindergarten has impactful academic social and economic benefits increased State funding reimbursement corresponds with earlier screening as a result of our commitment to increasing the number of three-year-olds screen The Early Learning program has implemented strategies that support internal and Community awareness cross- sector collaborations between District programs schools as well as Community Partners the focus on age three time

012to Screen through the world's best Workforce plan provides visibility and and demonstrate South Washington County School's commitment to the importance of early intervention and all students ready for school good evening over the next uh six slides you will see um end of the year reading level among kindergarten students and all students in grade three achieving grade level literacy uh based on the themes as we found from digging into our data you will see a number of targeted strategies in programming that we are confident will increase our student achievement and reading and as you take a look at these strategies and programming you will see a lot of it is professional development from for everyone in the district uh I really wanted you to see from a district level what our principles are doing uh reading

013Specialists our interventionists our classroom teachers um our interventionists and our students for um kindergarten and for grade three um uh literacy and we have a as we were digging into the data we found we have a group of students that are right at or near uh proficiency and so once again these strategies that you see over the next six slides um we are confident that they will increase scores and then for our math um these are the strategies that we use same thing as we were able to dig down into our uh math data these strategies and programmingsoftware I'm G to now turn it over to Dr clayon good evening this is our work this is what it is that we do every day we come committed and we come with our hearts um and

014to ensure that our students achieve success so I don't really want to call it strategies and and programming I really want to call it our work that we are doing we're continuing to focus on strong instructional leadership district and building level Administration so that they know what to do and what to look for when in classrooms we have documents for them we continue to create tools for them so that it's that they have it on hand to go into classroom we have a literacy lead tosa uh position uh at secondary uh she is out in schools all the time she's working in PLC she's working in teachers she's sitting down when student or when teachers are planning and um she's constantly supporting teachers disciplinary literacy um I know that I've brought this before and um

015it is absolutely an area that I am passionate about we need more work the data shows that we need more work on informational text and um now that Ela does not hold all of the um literacy standards in science social studies and the technical subjects and they have gone back to their respective content areas it provides us a wonderful opportunity to be able to help our teachers learn to be the experts in their classroom and Apprentice their students in their content area in both reading and writing and this includes writing I know that sometimes um in the vernacular out in in the public we talk about literacy and reading we use those terms interchangeably when they are not reading is a subset of of literacy and writing is an extremely important and strong component to

016strong reading success finally we have nwaa measures of academic progress at the eth grade level which is providing us additional data points not only in 8th grade but it will begin to give us a window as our students matriculate from 8th to 9th grade we are working uh with our instructional coaches on digging into that data to help them show their teachers how they can better utilize it our Circ our standards and instruction review cycle this work is tackling these these issues headon although we are analyzing new standards in our our Circ work it is providing teachers both time and space to reflect on their teaching with the current standards we always do a an analysis and a comparison of old to new and we give time teacher we give teachers time to chew on

017this one thing we have planned with Ela math and science is to help teachers understand the Benchmark achievement level descriptors um and those are documents that are produced by the Minnesota Department of Education that shows um for each of the standards what what the students are doing when um what they already know how to do well even if they are in um does not meet partially meets proficient and exceeds and so if we take a look at at The Benchmark um achievement level descriptors and teachers can see uh what students are doing when they're still not meeting standards and they can take a look and reflect on their teaching practice they can say oh I I really am teaching to this when I need to be teaching to this so it takes the standard and

018it actually makes it come alive a little bit more in in the minds of the teachers and their planning uh one of the ELA standards when I was digging into this data one of the ELA standards in craft and structure um which are the standards four five and six in ela um is called technical terminology and that sounds like super fancy but it's academic language and so one of the things that that um that we see with that particular standard is that it's really important for us to remember that atmology which is the history of words and morphology which is the structure of words is really really important we're lucky enough in in in subjects like science to be able to really dig down into word workk word work is not just for elementary it

019is very very much for secondary as well and so when you take you know our AP fixes Our Roots prefixes and suffixes and we take a look at like bio and and students understand what that chunk of word means then they on their own without having to memorize a whole bunch of stuff can go oh biodiversity biosphere biology I get it right and finally um our uh multi-tiered system of supports um it begins with core instruction that is why our standards and instruction review cycle and our scope and sequence planning that we're bringing teams of teachers together is is so crucial um the teachers we've the feedback that we've got with our teacher teams that have been brought together for both Circ and scope and sequence planning is that thank you thank you thank you

020it is giving us time to really understand our craft even better we have interventions and we have extension time provided during the school day different schools call it different things we have a retake policy um that is uh that is um accessible for all students and retakes are wonderful it provides time for students to relearn and reassess even even a system of test Corrections can provide a really rich learning experience for students grading for learning um our standards based instruction and Grading are critical components for Success we are seeing departments begin to ask for this and and that is super exciting news right when you have a high school art Department saying I really want to create rubrics standards based rubrics that I can that I can assess my students on that is that is

021the that is the direction right so doing this will provide really valid and reliable data at the classroom level with both formative and summative um assessment and those those formative and summative assessments when they become common it will provide an opportunity for teachers to be able to talk amongst themselves and learn amongst themselves and and enhance the learning that they're doing for everything so that is mine and I will turn it over to my colleague James for uh I will we'll turn it back over to Dr mauo for next steps so uh the next steps were for world's best Workforce is it's due tomorrow so I will submit it on behalf of our district um it is posted on our website right now on the assessments and grading website um and then each year I

022bring uh the world's best Workforce results to the district data and assessment committee and we meet in February um so that concludes our world's best Workforce presentation I'm going to hand it over to James to present on achievement integration thank you Dr M all right as a reminder this is a report of the last year of our three-year achievement and integration plan the plan was initially adopted in the spring of 2020 so talk through uh some of the challenges and successes that we've had with achievement and integration uh and as we go through this I'll also talk a little bit about the strategies and key indicators that you're going to see that are currently in our Uh current adopted achievement and integration plan um just for reference um Dei diversity Equity inclusion AI achievement and

023integration these terms are not synonymous however it is my department that oversees the plan uh but Dei being under teaching and learning we are all responsible to uh the strategies and the goals that we have in the achievement and integration plan so uh to start looking at the percentage of kindergarteners uh who met risk factors who had an early education experience with sashko schools you may remember the first year of reporting we're not able to report on this because the Jump Start program that was the strategy for this goal or the primary strategy for this goal we weren't able to implement because of covid uh so while we did not make our 100% goal uh it is an improvement from last year's report where I think it was 47% of students uh entering Crest 's

024kindergarten program uh had uh a jump start experience up to 61% last year when we look at um the percentage of students uh our bipo students who took at least one college in the schools course um you do see we did not meet our goal there's some background to that that might be useful to know um at the time when this goal was written there was six college and the school courses um Mid covid we drop that down to five a more representative look of what our um bipac enrollment uh in advanced academics looks like uh when we look at that number when we're talking about uh AP um advanced placement I interbit PSO options we see a much more representative U snapshot of our student enrollment there's not any major over or under representations

025when we break it down by race or ethnicity uh and we did see um a slight decrease in enrollment across all Races ethnicities so in our new plan uh one one thing that we want to key on is that these are self-select courses and so part of increasing enrollment is making sure students know that these options are available to them and setting them up for success to be not only enrolled in those classes but to find success in those classes of all the students who received at least one out of school suspension 36% identified as Black Or Hispanic this is an unacceptable overrepresentation of suspensions now this key indicator uh is going is currently in our three-year plan um however what we're going to be looking at uh is behaviors uh we want to look

026closely at behaviors both of adults and of students uh we want to analyze uh is suspension as a remediation tool having the intended impact um we're not looking to overinflate or deflate our suspension numbers artificially what we want to do is make sure that our staff and students are seeing a decrease in the behaviors that lead to suspension as the natural outcome or natural consequence uh and so as the state and the district are looking at uh increasing our non-exclusionary disciplinary practices uh we are intending to see a decrease in suspensions overall as well as a decrease in the over representation of our Black and Hispanic students uh that have had at least one suspension got warm sorry uh the percentage of licensed teachers identifying as black indigenous or people of color so we did

027not meet our goal of 7.8% uh however when we look at the retention of teachers um the number of actual you know the actual number is about floats around 70 teachers in our district that identify as black indigenous or a person of color uh that number has stayed consistent suggesting a relatively High retention rate for teachers of color um so in our current plan we are looking now more at uh first of all making sure we have strong retention practices for teachers uh including um course for black teachers indigenous teachers people of color and white teachers who want to be part of of a um wellness and creating a a safe affirming environment for all teachers um additionally we'll be working with human resources to look and analyze our look at and analyze our recruiting

028uh our hiring practices to make sure that our practices are inclusive and we're casting a wide enough net to have a representative teaching population that matches our student population and finally uh percentage of Staff uh that had an opportunity to participate in trainings that have to do with cultural Proficiency in our school system uh this is 100% this has been 100% part of the reason for that high success rate is because we have infused cultural competent and cultural proficient practices into all of our trainings so these are not every staff member had a standalone necessarily although we also had those opportunities we've tried to ensure that this is not that Equity work is not something that stands on its own that it's infused into everything we do so our practices for how we set up

029our trainings all have culturally proficient uh practices infused into them uh so that's one of the reasons why we're able to have this High uh percentage of participation moving forward uh p uh participation is the Baseline that is that is the the basement level for what we expect we're looking now at are these practices having an impact on student achievement on student wellness and staff Wellness as well um so next steps for us um in February I'll be giving an update regarding our current achievement and integration plan uh taking a look at some of the baselin measures that we have from the fall uh key indicators and the strategies that we're employing at that time I'll also do a uh an update regarding our Native American Education programming uh the aid that we get both

030from the state and the federal government uh some of the strategies that we're employing to uh address the needs of our Native American uh student Community thank you questions I have one question um with the acts we're measuring that for um secondary students how many students take the ACT does everyone take it now so the ACT is administr to um 11th graders in the district um and about uh I think 80% of our students are still taking the act in the district what do we do for um for students so for example I my when my daughter was a junior she didn't take the ACT on the ACT day in April because she had already taken it and was fine with what she had scored so how do those students who have maybe taken it

031early how do they factor into our act um are they are they part of that or are they considered part of the 20% who don't take the ACT NOP so our measure um for the world's best Workforce with the ACT comes directly from the AC from act and what they do is for a graduating cohort of 12th graders um they take um the highest composite score oh so like who so whether or not they took the the test with us or not okay yeah so what is the reading benchmark for the ACT yeah so the reading benchmark so the ACT benchmarks are an indicator of How likely a student is um going to pass a a college level course um for the reading benchmark it is uh the likelihood of how like or the likelihood

032of students um passing a social science um college level course so courses like American history sociology psychology um courses like that is there so what there's presumably a number that they have to hit or that yep The Benchmark is 22 for the um for reading um I have a bunch of questions um so one of the questions I had and um the new the states has a new Benchmark around kindergarten reading level or what kindergarteners are they hitting whatever metrics they're supposed to be hitting in terms of reading and you know I'm old and so when I was a kid kindergarten was not about reading right and so a lot of my first grade cohort didn't like they learned how to read in first grade or they learned how to read in second grade so

033what is considered uh the reading benchmark for a kindergartener because I mean we may set the metrics whatever but if kids aren't developmentally ready to learn how to read then what do we do I'm gonna this over to Arthur just gonna go back um so can you restate your question I just want to make sure I answer it sure so we talk about you know the new the state has this new um requirement that we track kindergarten reading proficiency of some sort so what is reading proficiency for a 5-year-old um and how do we you know if you know 30 years ago or 40 years ago you know 5-year-olds weren't learning how to read so what are um what do we do or what are we doing to make sure that 5-year-olds are developmentally able

034to hit those benchmarks yeah so on the um screen you can see we have um at the bottom this is our um American reading company this is is what we use for um determining grade level reading so you can see for kindergarten we have what uh yellow through green um and on those levels that's determined by the eara and the eara looks at all it looks at pheic awareness we look at the five pillars of literacy so pheic awareness and phonics really in um kindergarten so Within These levels they have benchmarks that that they have to hit for um phic awareness um then to move on to vocabulary as they go into second and third grade so at the end of kindergarten are kids reading books or are they just like they know site words

035or they you can look at like you know IGT and you know that that you know fight and might and yeah no by the end of kindergarten they are starting to read um decodable texts which are um texts with site words and for American reading company uh power words so for each of these levels they have uh Power goals and power words that they have to um read uh to move on to the next level okay um I think that was the oh and I guess actually maybe you know this or I don't know who would know the answer to this but when you're looking when we looking at the targets there are different targets for um achievement gaps and proficiency set by Race how are those set is that the state that sets them

036or um so those were actually set by us so it it's based on um the Baseline measure that was um recorded in 201617 and so um for the student groups um the long-term goal is that by the 2425 school year 85% at least 85% of students within each um student group will be proficient in reading or math um and so uh what my predecessors did was just um looked at our Baseline measure in 2016 2017 looked at um the 85% and then um divided the uh annual increase evenly across the years um okay go ahead yeah sorry I I do more um and then um for the I guess Tia maybe you can help me understand this you had talked about um grading for Learning and doing like standards based grading so how does that

037work for you know families are used to getting like a b c d f on the report card so how does how does standards based grading translate into what families have traditionally been able to understand so it it can happen a lot of different ways um districts that I've known in the past who have gone to a system of Standards based grading can will translate each one of those uh set um levels on a rubric to a grade level equivalent so if it's a five or a six you know that's in the a range and a four you know a four and a half and five would so it's they just set an equivalency oh okay yeah okay um and then my last question so James this was a question for you so you talked

038about college and the school classes so AP classes don't count as a measure for students taking advanced classes the way the goal was written in uh 2020 was only looking at College in the school um and so as we so that was a goal that was written before Dr Ma and I were able to start collaborating uh in our positions uh since then we know that a more representative look is to look at all of our Advanced programming which includes AP IB and all of those Advanced offerings are key indicators in our current plan uh but we report on College in the school because that's the way the the goal was written and adopted in originally okay and so when you're looking at um the bipac enrollment so that includes black indigen it also includes

039Asian students yes okay and then um for are there under or over representations within that eight point whatever percent of the you said that there's okay so there's 8.4 students are taking it out of an 18 and we had a goal of 18% of that 8.4 students who are taking it are there um you know I actually don't have the that breakdown for college and the school specifically for that goal and I can get that for you and then and then I'd be happy to share when we look at Advanced course taking overall um we do see some slight over representations by some racial ethnic groups um for instance Asian American students however when we look at student pop or like the population of student versus enrollment uh we see that disparity lessen a little

040bit so there's not over representation or under representation when you take large scale when we look at like AP and IB and you add all those advanced classes in okay thank you yeah no problem James one question did you say that um just for clarification that amongst our whole school district we only have 70 teachers that identify as bipod as of October 1st was 68 it makes sense that there's 1400 teachers we know that this is not a 100% accurate count this is a self designation and so uh we know that when we've done surveys there are people that have they do self-identify as black indigenous or personal color uh that doesn't show up uh necessarily in in our system and so we know that there is some opportunity for under or over reporting but

041generally speaking Yeah we're sitting in about that 70 thank you Eric yeah I have a question uh Mr McGee and kind of touching on what Melinda was talking about so I guess what is the system for categorizing students um by their race is it self-identification only um so yeah when we and let me be clear when we talk about race and all of this these are we're talking about the states designations uh we don't have any programming that is specifically built for students of different races ethnicities save for some of the funding that is set aside specifically for Native American students um when we are talking about then uh racial and ethnic designation yes this is something that families do when they register and then um update their Infinite Campus uh so this is a

042self- select as well we do not um make a determination don't designate we no we do not families do this um so is there I guess is there any kind of a way of determining what the I don't know for lack of a better term uh uh um I guess error margin is is is there a way to determine that that's something I can't answer right now something I can definitely look into okay um and then one other question um economic integration is included in this yeah is what's the measure for that the way we look at economic uh integration is specifically programming for students at schools that uh qualify for free and reduced lunch in our district we do not actually identify for us as a staff we can't go in and see which

043students or families qualify for free and reduced lunch uh that would be an invasion uh what we do is look at then where is that um where's that economic uh indicator is there a heavy population at some schools versus others and so that has helped determine where some of our support will go for instance um AI funds are academic success coaches at the elementary school we have uh got a a formula looking at both race ethnicity and socioeconomic makeup of the school to determine which schools need that extra support uh from our academic success coaches and those are at the schools that have the highest rate uh students that qualify for free and reduced lunch and uh racial eth race and ethnic diversity okay two well and two follow-up questions on that then um with

044the institution of free lunch or I guess free meals for everybody how is that going to change then uh that's a great question so one of the things that we we need to be mindful of is qualification for free and reduced lunch does not just impact meals it impacts opportunity for reduced prices on extracurricular uh and different activities that students can be part of and so it's some it's something that is still important for us to monitor uh because we want to make sure that if there are students that have a financial barrier to being able to fully participate that we're doing all that we can uh in order to have them participate fully but you are able to identify the individual students for which uh these I guess programs are being taken advantage of

045so that I guess so that you're able to cross reference to determine you know are are some of these students the same students that that meet some of the criteria in you know for example um I guess some of the um the categories you know based on race does that make sense I mean are you able to determine which in if there's individuals that meet both of those categories we would not determine any programming for any student where we have identified you are a student that qualifies for free and reduced lunch so we're going to put programming in place specifically for you because we do not have access to which students specifically qualify there are in our system people that can access that so when we are then looking at um scholarship opportunities or uh

046reduced fee um that that's very closed on who has access to that so when it comes to teaching and learning and programming we don't look at specific students who qualify for free inod y thanks yep anyone else me so I know um with the whole free lunch thing um the district still sent out um the application thing and encouraged everybody to complete that out what type of percentage of people did that as opposed to what we had hoped that is not an answer I have I can find it unless if somebody has it off the top okay that's something right now we do not have that information thank you anyone else you want to close it out Tyron thank you for your uh uh opportunity to present this information to you all and if there's

047any followup information we will provide that uh to you through superintendent Nelson and have a good evening thank you thank you for a very informative report I had I had to do that okay next is 6.2 and that is the summary of the superintendence evaluation that will be presented by you know who me uh Sharon vanleer board chair all right here we go at the last board meeting on November 6 2023 board members entered into a closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13 d05 subdivision 3A to perform superintendent Julie neilson's yearly evaluation the board has a duty to the community to evaluate whether the superintendent's performance is being implemented as intended the evaluation is a useful tool that helps drive and enhance a positive relationship between the board and the superintendent it also improves Communications

048clarifies leadership roles creates a common understanding and provides a mechanism for satisfying the community's desire for accountability the areas in which the superintendant was evaluated was based on seven standards one leadership Vision accountability two policy and governance three community relations and Communications four values and ethical leadership five Planning and Development six Human Resources relationships seven Financial cial and organizational management board members and executive cabinet provided remarks on the superintendent's performance with positive feedback the evaluation provided the board clear and convincing evidence that the superintendent had the ability to Lead South Washington County District it was also evident that the superintendent has provided social and emotional growth to our school district she has created an ongoing process connected to the so School District's Improvement goals and performance standards superintendent nilson leadership among along with her cabinet

049designed and implemented an approach that informed and involved the community establishing a message that ultimately resulted in the recent passing of the bond referendum and capital project Levy I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the board and the cabinet members for their time thoughtfulness and candid feedback for the superintendent evaluation again the overall performance was very positive from the direct reports as well as board members superintendent neelson we appreciate and thank you for your leadership your vision your positive attitude and your commitment to the community the district and to the students of South Washington County Schools [Applause] all right next we have 6.3 Transportation update presented this evening by none other than Dan Pine Executive Director of Finance and operations along with K Olsen uh good evening chair van members of the school board

050superintendent nson um tonight we're going to give you some information on the progress of the work of the transportation routing steering committee um as we've talked in the past um with the labor market and the number of routes we need to take we basically have 8 to 10 drivers ABS absent per day we don't have that many backups we want to create a sustainable plan that will allow us to run a system in which we do not have to um cancel routes um but tonight I'm going to have over to Carrie oler a director of transportation to uh give you the update good evening superintendent neelsen board members thank you very much for allowing me to be here to give you an update um just want to go over a couple of things I think

051I was here a couple months ago and since that time uh just want to remind you that we've got um we're responsible for transporting over 12,000 students each day we have approximately 88 general education and 78 special education routes that we run on a daily basis Minnesota State Statute requires school districts to transport all students who live um over more than two miles from school our district has chosen to um transport students who live more than one mile away for elementary 1.5 miles for middle school and 2.0 for high school we have 92 daily drivers and seven substitute drivers right now and like Dan said we we have about eight to 10 drivers that are absent each day um the shortage of available bus drivers caused cancellation of routes as you were aware of last

052school year uh leaving families with the task of getting their kids to school we are trying our best to avoid that this year and so we um convened a transportation steering committee to explore solutions to the Staffing problem and I'm going to give you a little bit of an update on that this evening so our transportation department works hard to ensure that our families do not feel the transportation challenges that we continue to face we have an aging driver Workforce thus the potential for a larger number of retirements in the coming years and as I mentioned we've got about 8 to 10 routes not covered by a permanent driver right now so we have mechanics and office staff that are currently driving um and the mechanics really serve as that cushion when we've got the

053absences or illnesses of employees we're considering several systematic updates to create a more efficient and sustainable transportation system to provide busting to those who need it and who qualify for it and these changes to our transportation system um is again with the intent of not having to cancel routes or use outside contractors for general education routing so we've kind of broken this down into phases and um each of these phases we've looked at we're kind of in Phase One and phase two right now the first phase is for us to continue to refine improve and grow our transportation opt-in system as you're aware this fall was the first year that we really um put out a a parent request for folks to let us know if they needed bus transportation or not and that worked

054very well um second thing is reviewing our hazardous areas in the district which are a number of those and we want to take a look at removing some of the hazards that our cities and our Washington County have made modifications to the infrastructure and I can give you a couple of examples for example down on um adth Street there was not a crosswalk that existed so for on South side of 8th Street and that crosswalk now exists at 80th and Joliet so we took our Middle School cot middle school students last year and allowed them to now cross so that was kind of a hazardous area that um had a modification made to it in other instances we've had paths along County Road 19 Keats that never hooked up fully between 80th and up to

055like where carbonis is now that that's complete again that's considered a decent walking path that the city maintains for us so th those are those types of hazards that we take a look at and modify where we can um the other thing that that we're going to be doing is implementing an ID tracking system the student ridership system which will be a badge swipe on and swipe off the bus we're hoping to have that in place for summer school to just give it a try and then it will be fully implemented next fall that's the goal and then finally we're reviewing the radius model for measuring distances to schools right now which also would change um need a change in our board policy right now we've got the distance in the non-transported areas is determined

056by measuring the most direct route from from the roadway opposite the private residents basically at their driveway to the student drop off point at each school and that distance is measured um on a public Street or Highway we don't use paths cutting through Parks or anything like that finally the third phase um these are all considerations that we are looking at and exploring one is the larger non busing zones changing to the radius model which I'll talk about that in a little bit a little further changing school start times I'll also look um get into that where we think that would be possibly beneficial if we needed to do that and then continue review reviewing the Hazardous areas opt-in transportation system this year we moved to that opt-in transportation system to increase the efficiency of

057our transportation department and it definitely did it resulted in the reduction of 10 afternoon and 10 morning routes um and then we'll launch the 2425 Transportation opt-in campaign after spring break with the help of communications and uh we're hoping again this year the emphasis really was getting parents and families used to a new system last year we know we've still got inefficiencies I think some families still opted in thinking okay if I don't opt in I'm never going to get a bus if I want one um and that's especially true in our high school some of our high school pieces that we're seeing so the tracking system for bus ridership for load counts will also help uh as I mentioned we'll be implementing that next school year the ID badge system for students it will

058give us a more ACC accurate load count we'll know who's riding those buses Who belongs on those buses and that will help us as we go throughout the school year to be able to make those changes much quicker than we can now right now we literally ask our drivers to do load counts at each stop how many kids are riding on a daily basis um it's a very manual time consuming system for both drivers and the office staff non- busing Zone distances school districts are required like I said to transport students who live two miles or more from their school elementary 1.0 for us middle school students 1.5 miles and high school 2 miles from school and we will continue to evaluate how changing those distances used in our current non- busing zones could impact

059Transportation routes for example we may um look at what would 1.5 miles um for elementaries do you know or what would 2.0 for middle school kids do to our routs how many more kids would be non-bus versus busing so those are things that we're looking at we also will continue to evaluate the Hazardous areas and develop safe routes to school in partnership with our city Traffic Engineers as well as the County Traffic Engineers we also um are utilizing the extraordinary Hazard traffic committee to determine criteria and review each school walking area as needed that's an ongoing process and um we've identified a couple of areas that we took care of last year like I said cge go Middle School open Middle School had some areas the gray cloud had minimal ones so we will continue

060to do that on a yearly and and annual basis the radius model um we are considering implementing a radius model to determine Transportation distances if implemented and what that is is basically it's a point at the school and you literally draw the radius one mile two miles out 1.5 miles out whatever that is it's a lot easier to understand there's a couple reasons that we're um wanting to do that number one is Route efficiency and I'll get to the numbers in a moment and the second thing is it's really an arbitrary debate right now with parents and families that question that they go to Google it's 2.0 2.5 miles you know the walking path that we have deemed safe is actually under two miles so it's a constant struggle with that that's one of the

061reasons for doing it um but it would have an impact right now and these numbers by the way are this um Year's enrollment so that could change obviously with grade progressions these numbers are going to change if we would go to a radius model in the coming years but it would have impact approximately 430 elementary students 175 middle school students and 215 high school students so it's a little over 800 students again I don't know how close that would be as we progress grades in the next year or two so this radius model or we call it straight line as well it's a simple straight line measurement like I said it it reduces um the the debates I guess with parents over what the path actually is and the walking path can greatly increase that's

062one um example here this map you're looking at is a map of Middleton Elementary walking Zone non- busing zone so the black circle all around is the one mile radius out from Middleton down on the bottom right hand corner where that red circle is that's an example of um those homes are within the one mile radius but to walk to school on a safe walking path it's about 2. 5 miles so that's something that we look at and and need to keep in mind as we're looking at moving to a radius model or considering it um the other thing with that then would we consider you know would we create a maximum walk out distance as a hazard for example okay if this is a 2 and a half mile walk for them and they're

063within a mile that they live from the school would we say okay they can't walk more than one and a half miles for example again that becomes real murky and now it's putting buses again in those zones that we're trying to you know get more efficient with so it it becomes very difficult to do but it's something that we thought that you should know to consider we're also not sure would we see an increase in parent traffic in school drop offs or not it's hard to tell right now if parents are already dropping their kids off without any of this or not but it's possible that if we did increase um go to a radius model and had um more non Busters that we could increase traffic at some of those schools especially the elementary

064so and then finally again I had said it would need a board policy change actually to the wording on how we would measure things other considerations so right now we have three tiers primarily in our first year and and the uh nonu schools are spread throughout the three tiers primarily in the first tier we've got middle schools and then the four elementaries which are Crestview Newport Royal Oaks and Red Rock second tiers are a mixture of of elementaries and all of our high schools and the third tier is again um the late elementary schools and then we've got Math and Science St Ambrose and Valley Crossing that are combined this year um so this year the third tier runs are lighter and the biggest reason for that twofold number one the opt-in but the bigger

065reason we think is because we did in fact combine Valley Crossing and St Ambrose students together so it becomes more efficient there um one run instead of two the second tier run have the flexibility for additional ridership efficiencies especially the high schools that's where I talked about the opin we got a good response from some not so good of a response from others and we're finding that a lot of those High School runs still we think we can consolidate and we'll be doing that here probably in the next couple of months as we get time to do that um so the high school runs have low ridership and can be Consolidated first tier runs are heavy for ridership and challenging to reduce further so that's where I talk about that the bell time changes perhaps

066we would not recommend it for the middle schools but perhaps looking at the elementary schools one or two of those a combination of those to reduce routes in that first tier any questions I have a question so with the radius model um obviously the line's going to have to hit some point you know so when it hits say you're on a road like you know in a residential area and the line hits somewhere three4 down that road would that 1/4 of those students not be able to take the bus then correct your neighbor might not have a bus route than you do that's correct and that that happens honestly right now even with the walking path that that we've got it's same thing I have a question are the walking paths cleared in the winter

067they are we work Pat really closely with the cities to make sure that those paths along County Ro 19 or wherever we're using along um Lake and Pioneer are cleared off M yes there are exceptions I mean some days when we get you know 8 inches of snow they may not be but they really make a concerted effort to make sure they're clear for us um so with this radius model um you actually happen to have gotten my house in this in this map so thank you because now I know exactly where we are um does this takeen so I know that um not all of these houses that are in the Middleton one mile radius are about bounded for Middleton so does that does that affect at all um how many students are impacted

068like my house I would get um I would be a walker to Middleton but I would be but my neighborhood Elementary is Royal Oaks so is that not that doesn't get impacted at all correct it's just the students that would be attending that boundar school okay and so there's no but sorry so if you if you're going to Royal Oaks right you'd be an inter District transfer so not provided Transportation no I think no no no I'm bound I'm boundar for you're boundar yes it would be the radius correct for just Middleton y the radius is different than a School boundary and those are not those are okay um and then one of the other questions I had was you mentioned that mechanics are kind of our backup are those are me mechanics are separate

069from subs or are they the same thing nope so usually what happens is if we have Callin um absences every day the first point that goes out are our standby drivers we have several of those that go out then um mechanics and then office staff that's typically the and substitute drivers right now all of our subs literally they're covering our long-term routes people that are out on medical leaves for several weeks or whatever because again it's consistent for them to drive the same route if possible every day so yeah okay and then you had mentioned that you're looking at in the next couple of months looking at at um redoing some routing especially at the high school level because of the number of students who are or are not riding the bus um how do

070you um do you ever work with the high schools like you know as like kids get their licenses or whatever and they start to drive do we ever does that information ever come from the high schools back to Transportation not to the best of my knowledge not up to this point okay um and so do you know like how many for these high school routes like how many what the load count was planned for and what it's looking like it is so some of the runs we um typically try to put on about 52 kids maximum on a bus High School just because size winter coats Etc and um right now we've got some of those runs that are still at like 30 35 40 people so the the problem becomes or the challenge I

071guess becomes um morning isn't too difficult it's that afternoon piece where we've got to be to the next that third tier afterwards where sometimes even though we'd like to put more students together it's not possible because of the time of those runs that are running but we do in fact know there's there is still an efficiency in some of them and then are there I know that it's really difficult to get busing for activities in athletics would some of these changes do you anticipate would free up busing um availability for those or is it really just to solve the problem that we have now it's really just to solve the problem right now it's hard to tell if it would free anything up more in that third tier because we're pretty efficient in that third

072tier right now already by combining St Ambrose and Valley Crossing um and I think we've got I think there's about five or six routes right now that don't have that third tier which leaves a potential for those drivers to bid on field trips if or the athletic trips if they so choose okay but I'll be honest I mean I know there's several drivers and not all of them some of them do bid on the trips others want that shorter work day because it works for their schedule okay thank you you're welcome thank you okay any other questions thank you Carrie okay moving on to 7.0 which are action items we have 7.1 which is the final Levy of for taxes payable in 2024 that will be presented this evening by Dan Pine Executive Director of

073Finance and operations good evening again chair van Le members of school board superintendent neelson uh tonight we will be having our public hearing for taxes payable in 2024 uh we will go through the presentation and talk about the requirements uh this this presentation is required and the public hearing is required after it um it was coined a long time ago and people teased me about it but it was we did say you know this is the this presentation that I've been doing for 28 years um is the Super Bowl for business managers because we don't have much of a life you know um and I was I don't know it was it is our Super Bowl and I was thinking about the Super Bowl and um I don't know if I ever told you the

074story about the the Green Bay Packer fan at the Super Bowl and I think it was EBY would know 2011 or so um they were playing Dallas it was a great game no they in Dallas they're the Packers was at the Super Bowl so this guy goes to the game and just having a great time and he's with other Packer fans he's sitting there cheering and all this stuff and um the guy next to him says hey buddy um you're having a great time I noticed that the seat next to you is empty that's kind of odd that that person didn't come goes well actually know my wife and I are big fans and that was her seat and she had passed away he goes oh that's too bad I I really really feel bad

075he goes you couldn't find like a family member or a friend or anyone else to to take the place so well not really they're all at the funeral oh God okay I thought that was true story we have to do this because it's required by law so why are we here um because M state law requires that we hold a public meeting meeting between November 25th and December 28th it requires that it has to be at 6 p.m. or later it may be part of a regular scheduled meeting we must allow for public comments and we may adopt the final Levy at the same meeting we must adop a final Levy by the end of end of the month and this includes it must include a presentation of our current year budget and our proposed

076tax levy and tonight I'm going to kind of tag team it with um with Chris black our director of Business Services um wonderful employee and this person that keeps the whole finance department together and I hope I can remember when I hand it off when I don't so it's your slide you let me know um the agenda for tonight is that we'll give some background information on school funding we will talk about the District budget we will talk about the proposed tax levy and we will allow for public comment as you know the state sets the formulas that determine most of our Revenue those our basic general education formula and most of our revenue is based on specific uh amounts per pupil it also sets tax policy for the local school districts and the school

077boards and it also sets the maximum authorized property tax levy the district May Levy for less than the max but they cannot Levy for more and and also authorize the school boards to submit referendums for operating Capital needs to voters for approval as a result of the state setting all these rules we we understand that funding is very highly regulated in Minnesota the general education formula since uh 20022 2003 has not kept pace with inflation uh for this last fiscal year the one we're in right now uh there was an increase of 4% to that formula about $275 per student um and they also set next year's which is 2% or about $143 over the previous year um 4 and 2% are not close to the rate inflation and close to catching up um we

078would need an increase of about $1,300 per student to catch up with the rates that we follow to inflation over the past 20 years they also set in law that after 2425 that the formula will increase by the rate of inflation So in theory that should stop the bleeding but it doesn't do anything about the blood that's already on the floor this chart just shows you the difference we see between what the formula would be if it kept pace with inflation because most of all our expenses you know are controlled by inflation the prices are everything from from supplies to heating oil to salaries to benefits um and you can see if it kept with inflation it'd be sitting at about over $8,000 per student and it has not and right now it's going to

079end up being about $7,200 per student in the next school year we also have a an issue funding wise with underfunding of special education now the state has made pretty big INR roads in the last um session to try to catch up with What's called the special education cross subsidy and that's really basically the difference between what we spend on special education and the aid we get for it and in our district it runs about $20 million difference the state put some flat dollars towards that last time in our case about 8 million um but before that it was underfunded by about Statewide about 712 Mill milon and we're projecting that after with the new programs in place that it'll be underfunded by about $400 million the reason we bring that up is is to

080point out that the school boards have to look for other options to to fill these funding gaps and more likely more than likely they're filled by what's called operating levies um and our district has been District taxpayers have been very generous and very supportive and we have an oper operating Levy per pupil that's really close to the State Maximum with that I'll turn it this part over to Chris Blackburn good evening as Dan said um this is kind of our Super Bowl so I told them I thought odd it was but um budget information tonight then from my slides so again the approval of the School District budget legs behind the certification of the tax levy and so by six months so as we have this presentation for us it's always a little awkward timing

081because we've already approved our budget for this current year um which is what we'll talk about this evening and then we won't set our new budget until next June so um it's always a little interesting for us because we've already set our budget and then now we do this presentation School District budgets are divided in separate funds based on purposes of Revenue as required by law our District's funds largely you'll hear us talk about general fund most commonly that's where housed all of our classroom instruction our general our special education instruction our transportation um is all housed in there food service community service building construction Debt Service trust fund internal service fund and our OPB trust are the other funds that we utilize so this summary is a budget publication that we're required also to

082U publish each year and so it's a little bit hard to read on the slide um but know that it is soon to be available on our website I did realize it wasn't out there but it does describe our audited fund balances for 2023 um coming into so it was actually the end of 2022 our actual expenditures for and revenues for 2223 fiscal year that we just completed and the fund balances thereof followed by in the blue there columns is the revenues and expenditures for 23 24 so the Year we're currently operating in and then our projected fund balances and so it's always nice I think D and I have been pleasantly um not surprised but worked very hard maybe would be the word um through a lot of effort of a lot of people

083to increase that fund balance and so this is reflective of that as well so the general fund just you know the top two lines you have to combine to get a total fund balance it's restricted on top um and then other fund balances below that so Revenue all funds which we don't commonly all talk about all funds but we thought it helpful to illustrate this as well and when we talk general fund again here you can tell it's 82% of our total revenue budget and so when we do focus on that that's largely the reason why it's certainly important to our food service um community service the building construction Debt Service trust and OPB um but particularly the Food Service community service because they're touching our community and our students as well general fund revenues

084um as Dan said the you know $31 million so we crossed that threshold now for revenues this year our state portion of that is 71% I did do just a little looking when Dan was talking about the four and the 2% that that revenue or that increase is only on about um half of our revenues so when I looked at our state revenues of that 71% it's like 65% of that so it works out to really be about half of our general fund dollars where that 4% and 2% apply as Dan indicated we're extremely fortunate to have the gener generous support of our community with our Levy dollars and so that local funding is 27% and we've certainly seen that increase as we've passed those operating referendums the federal portion on this I would only

085point out that of the 5 million um there's a little bit yet carryover from Co monies um but we do that's for district our size we feel that's quite a small number uh in it for a variety of factors U but it's always just kind of like sometimes it's surprising to people how little Federal money we do receive general fund by object um so we always talk about kind of the largest two ways we look at it are object and by program which we'll cover on the next slide object is really the um like how it's used and so in this case salaries wages and employee benefits make up the most significant portion of our general fund expenditures so of our 300 million 79% goes directly to our staff and again we're very fortunate to

086have some wonderful staff working in but this does where some of those challenges posed by Will here comment you know like well what if we just cut all of supplies you know and that's 4% of our budget is supplies and so it does pose that challenge that um as we look in at Staffing the importance of contract settlements and the impact it has general fund expenditures by program so this is I call it by function um but it's kind of the how do we um kind of where it's used and so when we talk classroom instruction I would point out the regular instruction plus vocational education plus special education structure really direct to classroom costs direct to our students if we total those um three areas up that's about 65% of our budget goes directly

087into the classrooms um the other one that's probably most um direct to our students is the pupil Support Services which would include Transportation costs at 12% um and then I would you know the other District Support Services um which would include finance nhr and a lot of the operational departments technology um is about 3% administration at 10 million is about 3.4 our sites and buildings while our facilities costs um is about 11% and then instructural support is about 4.7 um and that includes a lot of our professional development a lot of the staff you saw up here earlier that supportting I called the team supporting the teachers really this is just a slide with a little agenda of the next several slides and it's the payable 24 2024 property tax levy so first we'll talk

088about the determination of the levy how that is comparison of the 23 to the 24 tax levies the reasons for the changes in the levies and the impact on taxpayers so on this slide is just the sample notice that goes goes out um is required to go out and the county mails this to every property owner between November 11th and November 24th contents that they're required certain things by the statute to include are um compared current year compared to Prior year by taxing jurisdiction and by voter approved and other um so they do break down those levies on a school district and then it also includes the time and place of public meetings in our case this year we did include the verbiage um as required to say that the impact of the referendum so

089any of the ballot questions that happened in November were not yet reflected on this statement um as the information would have been available to distribute I'll pass the Baton so our district proposed tax levy uh for 2024 is an increase from last year of about $14 million or about 12 and a half% uh we'll go over some of the reasons for the increases uh one of the main reasons is that it includes about a $5.2 million increase from the initial proposal l u due to the referendum questions that were passed by the voters and on November 7th um I'll talk a little about some of the major uh Levy changes and why this summary is is here for reference um it does break down the levies um by general fund community service fund Debt Service

090um and it does show you what the voter approv referendums were as people see in their tax statements they're going to see voter approved they're going to see other levies and the voter approved levies in the general fund are mainly the operating Levy and then the voter approved in The Debt Service is is for the bonding so which change which fairly large changes that we have um in the general fund at the voter approved operating referendum increase inreased about $1.6 million in Levy the use of that those funds are for General operating and the reason it changed is because um the voter the um operating referendum Authority is based on a formula of a set amount approved by the voters and multiplied by the number of pupil units um as enrollment goes up this number

091will go up then the other factor is this one was approved with with a caveat for inflation to be included and um as inflation went up this the amount that was multiplied by those students went up also uh another one a voter approve is a technology referendum um that is increasing the levy about 2.2 million and the voters improve that increase as the authority was was requested to go to $5 million per year for um capital projects Levy dedicated to technology and that was passed now the reason didn't go up $5 million because it was approved for $2 million back in 2017 tax rates had increased that Revenue to about $2.8 million long-term facility maintenance went up about $3.4 million and that's mainly because our long-term facility maintenance of which we spend about $20 million

092per year is funded by a combination of pigo Levy which is a straight Levy it's it's funded by also bonding which comes through the debt service and then there's some Aid too from the state and as they combine those different levies and try to balance the tax rates on the bonding um this in this um time through it went most of it went to the page you go Levy and then they do prior year adjustments and that will make your levies change meaning that they didn't Levy enough the year before uh mainly because as they Levy this stuff they're using projections for enrollment and as you know we're always very conservative in our projections so we we put in lower projections it comes in higher that way you're not going the other way you don't

093go self the other way and then Debt Service um that went up about 5.2 million and that's mainly because we're starting to work the bond payments in we're going to asked to issue bonds tonight and then sell Bonds in the uh January 18th um so we were able to tell the state this is how much these bonds will we're guessing this how much they'll cost this is how much the payments will be and as as all the numbers come in straight once we find out we sell them and see what the interest rate is and all that kind of stuff they'll adjust these levies but um we're able to get the levy in for passing the bond and just a a word on how levies work and and taxes work because I know it's a

094little confusing when people look at their tax bills and they say oh you know my tax bill is $5,000 and 2500 of it goes to to the school district so every time another house comes up there's another $2,500 um that's not really the way it works in in property taxes and it's it's actually the same for counties and cities um these jurisdictions um in the school district you're setting a levy tonight you're setting a set amount and that's set amount you know that's your pie now they take all the property and say who's got what what's worth what and if you see a higher market value increase the P doesn't get bigger you're just going to pay a bigger slice of the pie if you so you see your market value go down doesn't mean

095there's less money coming into the district it just means that your payment is going to be less every owner pays a portion of the pie just for a quick example so say we have two properties in the district and they're both worth $100,000 a piece and the district is leving $500 each property will pay $250 of Levy now the orange house increases by 10% in valuation it's now worth $110,000 and the blue house increases by 25% is worth $125 $225,000 the school district will still get the same amount of Levy even though the values increase it's just that we'll still get the $500 but it just that the the blue house is going to pay more than the orange house because their value went up but it does not increase the Val the revenue to

096the school district that I'll turn back over to Chris and she'll talk about um how the Levy's looked in the last four years thanks so as Dan said the next few slides there's you know I think 34 maybe it's really four slides for your Levy School comparison the examples on the next on the following slides include School District taxes only and they are shown based on a um no change as one example and then they show with the cumulative 33.7% in property value for residential home over the past four years which is what we've experienced actual changes again it's not reflective of any individual household it's just intended for to be illustrative purposes and a fair representation of what has happened to taxpayers specific to the school district portion of their taxes for typical properties

097the examples included are for the prop would be a sample property in City of Woodbury and the amounts in 2024 are preliminary estimates and the final amounts could change slightly the estimates that provided have also been prepared by Ellers which is our Municipal financial advisers for the district so again one I get the slides that are a little bit difficult to read um but this comparison is the estimated changes in school property taxes from 2021 to 2024 the caveat to this is that it um this is says kind of if there was no change in property tax value so if your value of no change across um there was no value change to it this is what property tax would have done and I think we' worked really hard to keep that tax impact low

098even though it hasn't always seemed that certainly as people write that check but the residential Homestead for example on the average $410,000 property over those four years if we look even with our two ballot approved questions if you look in that second to last column has been a decrease of $210 over that time again that would assume that if the value stayed flat which we know that hasn't happened but it does help illustrate just as far as our hopefully our stewardship of the taxpayers funds as well on these slides then it takes some of that information and busts it down into a little more illustrative examples um and the estimated change again this would be if no changes in property tax value and the example on the left is $250,000 residential Homestead Property and the

099example on the right is $410,000 residential Homestead Property and so this shows from 20121 to the estimated 2024 what that impact has been and you can see it has shifted around slightly but these last couple even with this um there's been a slight decrease in that overall tax impact for our property to homeowners similarly on these next two slides um again would be if there's no change to the property value in that time frame from 2021 to 24 on the left is a $500,000 residential Homestead Property example and on the right is a million doll commercial industrial property and so again as we' worked to um hopefully minimize that impact for our tax payers there has been a slight decrease again without property value and the reason we wanted to show these slides is really

100to show the impact um of really that valuation increase so we get sometimes phone calls I tease Dan every year that I think he goes on vacation when actual statements come out um and I'll say hello uh I will answer the phone um but we do try to take a look at that minimize but with that value that's outside of our control um and we're happy that as homeowners are selling houses they can sell them for more um and hopefully or potentially sell them for more but it does have a significant impact on that U property tax amount that they're paying so the this slide then reflects if there was the 33.7 cumulative impact which is largely what we've seen so this reflects that and as you can see the property taxes have increased um

101but again that it's largely a result of that change in value so from 2124 on the left side is the $250,000 property and as you can see it's gone up approximately $300 in that time frame with the value change whereas previously it had gone down just slightly the $410,000 residential Homestead Property similarly is increased as well but largely due to Value so the last slide then um that I have is state property tax refunds and referrals because we recognize that that is still extremely important to taxpayers because it's challenging to especially on fixed income or individual family scenarios to pay those um and have those amounts keep continue going up we have several of our staff who are um local taxpayers as well and so we definitely hear from them too sometimes when they get

102their tax statements the state does have several programs available to help um homeowners offset their tax so there's tax refunds and there's deferral programs so on this slide we discuss the homestead credit refund which is available for all Homestead um they call it I used to do taxes years ago and I called the first two the property tax refund potential um not everybody qualifies but for those that do um there's a sliding scale refund on the homestead credit um refund the second one is a special property tax refund and that's on all Homestead Property um and it's basically a if it increased more than what the state says would be kind of tolerable um then there's a special property tax refund they can get be eligible for final one is a senior citizen property tax

103deferral and so again for our um community members on fixed incomes this can sometimes be an attractive if you're over 65 years of age with your household income of 96,000 or less you can choose to defer a portion of your property taxes on your home um when it's sold or if the homeowner would pass away then those property taxes including all deferred um acred interest would be payable at that time so it is there's can sometimes be a bite at the end a little bit depending so it's definitely important for them to talk to their um financial advisers but they are available now I'll turn it back to Dan thank you so the next steps in this process uh the r uh the first step will be to um have the chair call for public

104comments um and allow for public comments and after the public comments are done then I'll ask the board to approve a motion to um certify the 2023 payable 2024 property tax levy okay is there anyone that would like to speak to this issue okay see none can I get a motion to approve the final Levy for the TA in by and seconded by Pat is that okay okay I'll second move this Mo this was motioned by simy and second by Pat is there any discussion um Chris can I ask you a question so you had mentioned um our um when the state provides a funding increase is um not on the full amount that the state provides funding for so you said that 71% of our money comes from the state but only uh like

105two-thirds of that money is actually subject to this to the funding increase can you talk about what's in scope and out of scope for that funding increase or do you know off as far as like in scope as far as the other dollars or yeah like yeah like what dollars are and so the because the basic formula makes up the largest um portion of our state aid right and so that's that half um that largely is impacted by that 4% 2% the other remaining part as Dan talked about the special education Aid and I'm making some inroads on that there's also compensatory education they call it basic skills Revenue gifted talented English learner Aid um you know kind of a I'll say a little laundry list a little bit of other programs that they fund

106um in different ways and some different AIDs that we do receive that make up that other um part I would say the most significant of that remaining Third Kind of of state aid uh or the remaining portion is the special education would be the biggest chunk of that okay um and so the so roughly 50% of our a of our expenditure or our budget each year is subject to the state's increase in Formula so when we increase for inflation if if inflation goes up 5% that amount will go up 3% correct the state aid the state aid portion because that's it's capped at 3% right correct and that's where right now the way the legislation stands that's correct so um do we have the same this year is four and next year is two but

107after that would be the three after correct do we have the same cap on our local our local um the inflation Factor no I think purely CPI okay yeah so like the loc if inflation's 5% the state will go up 3% but our local Revenue will go up 5% generally speaking okay any other questions okay let's take the vote all those in favor I oppose motion is carried next is 7.2 and that's resolution of uh special laws related to the TIF district 13 presented by Dan Pine thank you good evening again I'll be here for a while be here all night um we just have some some items here that we um we need board approval on uh this item is has to do with um approving a special law relating to Tiff District number

10813 uh the city Woodberry employed tax increment test increment financing better known as Tiff when they developed uh Central Park and and mainly there was a tiff designed for the development next to Central Park um as Central Park is being renovated of which we are a a partner we're not we're not paying for the renovation but we we do rent from there and we will have to um we're involved in the design and and a partner with city of Woodberry um the city of Woodberry is is funding it through many different sources one of the sources they asked the state if they could extend this Tiff um for five more years which the Tiff proceeds would then go towards funding part of Central Park um the project is about 41 million I think this Tiff

109District produces about 1.6 million so it's not a large portion of their budget um but in the law that was passed by the legislature they required that um Washington County and South Washington County Schools um governing boards um would approve extending this Tiff um and that's what we're here tonight is to asked um majority vote of this board to approve W City woodbery to continue using this Tiff that was originally set back in developing the property next to Central Park with the proceeds of this Tiff going towards the renovation of Central Park okay can I get a motion to approve the resolution of special laws related to TIF district 13 so move second moved by Melinda second by Pat excuse me okay and seconded by Louise is there any discussion this is a roll call

110Dana Eric Tesmer yes Louise Hines yes Patroll yes Melinda dolls yes Simi Pat yes Sharon vaner yes motion is carried thank you next we have 7.3 resolution declaring contract factor default and authorizing pursuant of claim also presented by Dan Pine so as including our long-term facility maintenance plan um new floors were installed at Woodbury High School uh the general contract of that project was parkos Construction in paros construction they contracted with grini Brothers for installation of the flooring School District architect for this project coma has determined that the flooring installation does not meet project specifications and requirements uh The District staff and Consultants have attempted to work with paros and grini to correct the flooring however no resolution has been achieved and under its agreement with parkos for the contract we must declare a contract

111contract default to pursue recovering damages for it um so our attorney has drafted a resolution declaring contractor default and authorizing pursuit of claim with that I Administration would um ask the board to approve this resolution okay can I get a motion to approve the resolution declaring contract default and pursuant of claim don't move move by Eric second by Melinda Melinda is there any discussion hey Dan can I just ask like a technical question so what like what mechanically happens as a result of voting yes on this resolution what like what are what are the actual steps that we take as a district uh the main step um would be to work with the the bond company that that guaranteed the performance of the contractor it's called a performance bond um and this allows us um

112to pursue um action with the with the shity bond holder okay okay this is a resolution Louise Hines yes Patroll yes Melinda dos yes Simi pnck yes Eric tesner yes Sharon bener yes motion carried next Dan you're up again 7.4 resolution calling for the sale of General obligation bonds and finally as you know uh November 7 South Wasington County schools held a bond election uh asking voters for authorization to construct $200 million in school expansions and Renovations it uh was put into questions question one worth about $160 million and question two worth about $40 million um both questions passed so this $200 million will be raised through two different Bond sales the first 100 million will feature a bond sale on January 18th of 2024 have a typo in here the sale will also include

113selling bonds for long-term facility maintenance projects as we do every two years we sell bonds for ltfm we're combining this Bond these two Bond sales together for economy of scale on closing costs issuance costs and hopefully to catch interest rates at a good time so as the Tas is a draft resolution relating to 1119 19,41 15,000 General Obligations School building and facility maintenance bonds series 2024a the resolution is stating intent to proceed with and authorize the issuance and sale thereof and provide for credit enhancement board's asked to adopt the resolution uh some of the mechanics after this will be at the next board Workshop um uh representatives from ERS will be on hand and they will um give you the pre sale report explain how the how the funding happens who they be bidding with

114what they're expecting for interest things like that and then on January 18th in the morning the bond sale will occur we'll get a phone call and say so and so one and then they'll come to the board to um have the board approve the sale okay can I get a motion to approve the resolution calling for the sale of the General Obligations Bond so moved moved second s second by L Louise is there any questions Dana resolution Pat rcll yes Melinda dos yes Simi patn yes Eric Tesmer yes Lise Hines yes Sharon vaner yes motion carried moving to 7.5 Dailey Elementary drainage and utility easement Dan Pine I wonder where you going forgot I have up here um I have it I apologize four is not enough five's not enough I guess we'll do one

115more the city wood bury and Associated contractors requesting Perpetual access rights for construction of utility infrastructure within the Bailey Elementary School property what does that mean it means that um the uh contractor Excel needs to put down some new power lines the city needs to put some new water lines down it's on the west the east side of our Bailey property um so they need an easement to do that um this easement agreement will also transfer tree and shrub vegetation maintenance responsibilities um so it's really worked out it works out good for us we don't need that part of the land um it's got some vegetation there that needs some maintenance we don't necessarily have a lot of Maintenance Landscaping staff on hand so they'll take over that part of the property and they'll also

116maintain the vegetation um and you may see some goats run around there eating Buckthorn for all we know um anyway we recommend approval of the of the proposed eement between South wash County schools in the City of Woodbury okay can I get a motion to approve the Bailey Elementary drainage and easement agreement move second move by Pat second by Eric is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor I I all opposed motion carried thank you am I done am I done all right we getting there y'all we're getting there all right 7.6 calendar uh the calendar for 2425 presented this evening by superintendent Julie Nelson thank you uh the calendar steering committee met several times to review feedback from famili staff and students regarding the 2425 calendar steering committee included executive cabinet members

117and representation from professional development United teachers of South Washington County student information and principles the steering committee consulted and sought feedback from staff teacher Union Leadership School leaders instructional directors operational directors Athletics and activity directors families and our district Ambassador committee uh this calendar was introduced at the November 16th board meeting there have been no adjustments since that time and so tonight I am seeking approval for the 2425 school year calendar okay thank you can I get a motion to approve the 2425 calendar so moved moved by simy second second by Melinda any comments all in favor I opposed motion carried 7.7 resolution establishing combined polling locations for school district elections presented by superintendent Julie Nelson thank you uh statutes required our district to have the school board designate by resolution combined polling places for

118the upcoming year by December 31st the following resolution establishes the polling locations for 2024 this evening that resolution is attached along with um also outlined are the polling locations for our school district so this evening I am asking for approval on the polling locations for school district election okay can I get a motion to approve the resolution establishing combined polling locations at for 2024 second Mo move by Pat second by second by Eric any discussion or comment Julie I just had a question so even though we don't have an election next year we still have to have a resolution around polling locations yes Dana shaking your heard yes and yes we do do yes they it's required by law that we pass a combined polling location every year by the 31st September in case something

119were to come up and we would have to hold an election for something okay thank you all right this is a roll call Melinda dos yes Simi pag yes Eric Tesmer yes Louise Hines yes Pat Driscoll yes Sharon Van yes motion carried 7.8 tened agreement with principal Association presented this evening by Abby Baker Director of Human Resources good evening chairperson van leer members of the school board and superintendent nson um this evening I will present 7.8 the tenative agreement with the principal Association um negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement between South Washington County schools and the principal's Association have resulted in a tenative agreement to be effective July 1 2023 to June 30th 2025 members of the bargaining unit approved the tenative agreement on on December 4th 2023 the economic costing of the tenative

120agreement includes the following um a year one increase of 5% a year two increase of 5% increase to steps and Lanes an adjustment from seven steps on the salary scale to Five Steps um for health insurance as of January 1 2024 it would be a 10% increase um to the district contribution on high deductible plans on January 1st 2025 a 10% increase of District contribution on the high deduct plan um other contractual items was the addition of the juneth holiday to the holiday schedule and we recommend approval of this contract okay can I get a motion to approve the agreement move move by Melinda second second by simy any discussion or comment seeing none all those in favor I I oppose motion carried thank you thank you stay there I will 7.9 is attend of

121agreement with office professionals presented Again by our very own now I will present 7.9 the tenative agreement with office professionals um I know we have some of our friends in our in the audience tonight so thanks for hanging in there on an extra long meeting um negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement between South Washington County schools and the Office Professional employees International Union Local 12 have resulted in a tenative agreement to be effective July 1 2023 through June 30th 2025 members of the bargaining unit approved the tenative agreement on December 7th 2023 and the economic costing of the tenative agreement includes um for wages we did a restructure of salaries and career increments um which is also referred to as longevity um so we combined them into a single um so the combination of

122the current salaries current longevity pay and Market adjustment resulted in an aggregate pay increase across the schedule of about 75% in year 1 and about 6% in year 2 um longevity pay is no longer in the contract so we will we move to a six-step salary scale for health insurance as of January 1 2024 um there' be an 11% increase of the district contribution on the high deductible plan and as of January 1st 2025 it would be an 8% increase of the district contribution on the high deductible plan other items in the contract would be the addition of the juneth holiday to the paid holiday schedule um a ceu reimbursement for Health Care Specialists increasing the annual 43b matching District contribution $200 in year one and year two um an increase in Viva contributions for

123the high deductible plan from $166 per month to $200 per month and then a dental insurance um premium increase to um $40 currently in 2023 um on the single plan 4296 in 2024 and in 2025 4410 for single um for family in 2024 it would be $63 and then 6615 for family in 2025 um we recommend approval of this contract okay can I get a motion to approve the agreement so move second who who Moved first I did Pat and Melinda Lise Louise okay seconded by Louise is there any discussion okay seeing none all those in favor I I oppose motion carried thank you thank you oh you was getting there didn't I all right next is 8 point oh and that's a superintendent report and that will be given by none other than Julie

124nson thank you andk thank you all for attending this evening it's nice to have people actually in the audience so feel free to come back again um let me start by today we had our student ambassadors met um it wasn't quite the energy because we were not in this space we were virtual um so just after you know a couple of minutes of figuring out how to get in and get settled in uh we did have an hour meeting and for the board to know that starting next month we will have student reps at our business meetings so those will start next month there were a lot of eager students um I think I probably had 20 names today of students who wanted to come so we're going to have to figure out a system

125now to make a selection but we do have our first three up for January and they're all scheduled um our executive cabinet has been working on the construction phasing um getting leadership teams identified in user groups individuals that will be part of that work uh this week I was also part um of a new project at the middle level and high school level um I think one of the greatest things that we can do as a school district is to show unity and I think about our marching band and how it's all of our high schools and so one of the things that um assistant superintendent Schaefer and assistant superintendent Jansen did is working with the school leaders uh the suggestion was how do we make registration for 8th grade a joint event where the

126principal from Woodbury High School and the principal from Eastridge High School come to the middle level and they welcome students to one of the high schools so taking a look at the pathways so this was their first opportunity um for students uh this week at Lake Middle School to be talking about the process of registration you know to show that we are one district and that while you all went to the same middle school there's going to be a little bit of a a divide and you're going to go to a different high school but we're still South Washington County Schools uh both principal smokovich and principal Soren and Wagner did a great job of greeting the group and then the counselors and high school students were there also to meet with students and talk

127with them as they began that registration process and as all of you know when we roll over into January we ALS also roll um all of our students over so now it's registration time and then we hop into Staffing right away uh but it was ju just really a nice event in terms of unity um there's so many opportunities when we can be competitive against one another and so we're really looking for opportunities where we can come together and be one South Washington County school um knowing that really we are one District um and then finally uh just to remind the public and the board that this Saturday December 16th we will be hosting at Woodbury High School among New Year celebration with performances and a lot of good food so if you're available please

128plan to attend thank you okay thank you I'm going to digress for a moment as you may or may not know this is the last board member meeting of our beloved Louise oh this is hard okay I just we want you to know that you have been a jewel you've been a mentor you're silently leadership will be sorely missed and that we hope that you stay in touch and that our C our paths may cross again but Louise is what you've done for others that counts in this life and it it's a better place because you're in it and we love you okay okay 9.0 our future meeting dates we have a Schoolboard business meeting on January 4th 2024 at 6 p.m. followed immediately by a workshop meeting there will be a business meeting on

129January the 18th 2024 at 6: PM meetings will be held here at the district service center at 6: p.m. and now we are at 10.0 and we are adjourned thank you [Music] he [Music] m [Music] m [Music] he [Music] n [Music] he [Music] m [Music] he