School Board Workshop - June 1, 2023

001[Music] thank you [Music] foreign 2023 at 6 PM we are at the district service center in Cottage Grove Minnesota we would like to acknowledge that the land on which We Gather is the land of the milwaukeeton Dakota people Minna walkington means dwellers of the Spirit Lake our first item on the agenda is 1.0 and that is our roll call Dana Melinda Doles pet Driscoll semi-petnig Katie Schwartz Louise Heinz Eric tessner Sharon Van Lear here next is 2.0 and that is our pledge allegiance will you please rise and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all next we have 3.0 and that is the approval of our agenda can I get a motion to approve the agenda second move by Pat second by Melinda the all

002those in favor all those opposed motion carries next is 4.0 and that is our Workshop items 4.1 is the teaching and learning English language arts update that will be introduced this evening by our assistant superintendent Julie ano [Laughter] Julie could introduce it I'm sure she's she's very much a reading teacher at heart I think still but um so good evening I'm excited here to introduce members of our teaching and learning team um Leah bulo says our K-12 TLS supervisor and her specialty is literacy Dr Tia Clayson is our secondary director and Mr Arthur Williams is our elementary director and so as the at coming out of covid the Department of Education really got moving on updating standards and so we are hitting some pretty core some pretty big core subjects right in a row so

003you heard about science a few months ago they are here tonight to give us an update on where we are with English language arts and there are some exciting things happening at all of our levels so I will turn it over to them foreign good evening everyone um I am Arthur Williams director of teaching and learning for elementary schools and as you can see in the packet an overview for today we're going to look at the context for K-12 English language arts I'm going to provide you an update of Elementary Ela which includes our American reading company or you'll hear it referred to in our system as Arc we'll look at the objectives of the 612 standards and instruction review cycle or Circ teams composition of the 612 Circ teams summary of the work what

004our next steps as a TLS department for K-12 and implementation timeline for ELA and then we'll have an uh you'll have an opportunity to ask us any questions that you have so just a good good afternoon everybody I'm Tia Clayson I'm the director of teaching and learning for secondary and I'm just going to give a quick reminder that we're going to be talking about our Circ process Circ stands for standards and instruction review cycle so we that was an intentional um shift on our part to talk about standards and instruction rather than just focusing on resources um so if we take a look here uh just a reminder that we had new state standards that were adopted in 2020 uh the mde commissioner approved them in 2021 the reading mca4 goes into effect in the

0052025-26 school year so we're taking these couple of years to prepare our students for success all right so the context for K-12 Ela um looking at the changes in the standards bundling of the standards is encouraged and so when we talk about bundling mde has we have three strands in the ELA standards Reading Writing and then what I abbreviate to lsvei it stands for listening speaking viewing and exchanging ideas and so what they'd like us to do is take a look at those standards and which ones might overlay with one another and put those together so that we're things are more integrated so we're not doing like a reading unit and then a writing unit and then a listening or speaking unit we are going to be prioritizing voice and choice for students as called

006out by mde this was a big change or a called out change by mde emphasis on equity and perspective are two things that have been called out by mde and then the last one is that the literacy standards for other subject areas in the 2010 standards they were called out for science and social studies and other technical subjects we're part of the 2010 standards those have been removed and those standards now live within those standards so science has their you know as literacy is embedded there because not very often did we have science or math or socialized teachers that would go to the English language arts standards looking for like hey how can I Infuse literacy they're doing many of those things but it just was better housed within those standards all right for elementary

007it's been a very exciting year for our sites that have been early adopters for our American reading company or Arc here you can see the image of what a school year looks like for each grade level so unit one for all grade levels K5 the focus is setting up the reading community and culture in the classroom teachers get to know students as readers get to check their engagement and then you can see for units two and three unit two we have inform informational research and you can see different grade levels researching different topics and then we have unit 3 which is a genre study and you can see the genres that grade level study here you will see a picture of fourth grade in fourth grade they look at animal adaptations for unit uh two

008that's a research project and these pictures come from fourth graders at Crestview so you can see these students uh researched elephants and you can see the graphic they drew listing out the different elephant body parts one of the nice things about American reading company is that they have in this Research Unit they have a final or fpo and there are six research questions that students go through as they learn about their research as they research their animal and then they come up with the final product and you can see some examples here on the next few slides and the just hearing from the teachers this has been hard work but in the end it's been very good work the amount of Engagement that students have shown when you walk into the classrooms and the schools

009and just hearing students excited about what their reading and writing has been very rewarding for us for the teachers and here for us and TLS and then finally uh the progress report since we have our new reading resource and with the standards that uh Dr Clayson talked about moments ago we are updating our benchmarks for our elementary progress report to reflect our new resource and the changes and the standards and so those will be reflected on next year's progress report for the 23-24 school year quickly we had three teams we had the core progress report team which consisted of myself Dr Brookins Leah our other TLS supervisor Carissa Crawford and we also had a teacher feedback loop group a principal feedback loop group and our reading specialist so we've had many eyes looking at the

010benchmarks that will be on the progress report so that's very exciting for us as we change our progress report to reflect the standards and our new resource I'd just like to hear that was fun well we're in the thick of things in 612 and so we're going to update you on our work the Circ teams uh were in force this year uh quite a number of times and our objectives are listed on the slide we wanted them to really develop a deep understanding of what the standards were asking students to know understand and be able to do and then one of the things that that we worked with the cert team on was the development of a consistent scope and sequence for each grade level across all buildings and that was you know we worked

011with some Titan loosen that was definitely one of the tight ones we want to create consistency in student experience across all of our buildings and then an exploration of resources that could be common across middle schools and across high schools you know we know that every school has its own personality a little bit it has you know a lot of you know our students are are different across our district and we want to be able to provide some um you know you want to look for validation of of the fact that our students are you know are different everywhere but still have within you know some some some um uh ability to be able to use some different things within a consistent and common scope and sequence so on our team who's on our team

012we had classroom teachers from all buildings including so washco online and all Alternative High School we had instructional coaches we had represent representation from our principal group for all of our for all of our meetings and we had members of our teaching and learning staff so a summary of the work we started off by creating our actually one of the things we ended with was creation of a common scope and sequence where we were bundling the standards as I had mentioned before and we're looking at two standards or two bundles per trimester and really what the the point of this was is we didn't want a new teacher to walk in and be like hey here's 17 standards that we're going to cover first trimester go figure it out so we um we have the

013Cirque team kind of figure out you know what is what is the science of teaching like what needs to be taught first and in which which order while still allowing for the art of teaching so that teachers could be responsive to the students in front of them we really grounded our work in the writing standards we did all of our work with the writing first so that we because writing is really the product of what we are reading and then we looked at possible resources as Tia mentioned and then right now we are looking at cross-grade level teams meeting this spring we had 9th 10th and 11th who have already met and then 12th grade and the middle school teams will meet together in the fall so one of the first things that we did

014is we started with mde we need to start with what mde is telling us we need to be doing with the standards and so they've put out some really comprehensive webinars and resources around the shifts and the standards so the first thing that we dove into really is calling out because the 2020 standards are not that different than the 2010 standards but they're very different than the 2003 standards and so we started by taking a look at this document that MD put in out for us like Leah mentioned there has been a huge shift from 20 2003 to 2020 and the biggest chunk of that shift came in 2010 where the the standards were it was the largest revision of standards that I've seen until the 2019 science standards and I think that the two

015of them are are pretty neck and neck as far as the shifts that were made in not just um not just what students had to know understand be able to do but the pedagogy the instruction for the for the teachers themselves the shift ties things the good thing about the shifts now and the shift from 2010 to 2020 is that it ties things together better there's a better flow and things are less separate so for example you'll find vocabulary standards in both reading and writing rather than having vocabulary called out as a separate entity listening speaking and viewing or lsvei as Leah likes to call it it was listening speaking and viewing but now it's it includes exchanging ideas which is really really interesting and and I'm really excited about that because the language strands

016are in here but it also attends to audience and context so for instance if students are doing a debate or if they're providing peer feedback there there are things written in the standards to help teachers and students better understand how they come to a discussion or come to a conversation this was a helpful document for me because I've been teaching in Minnesota for 16 years now so I never worked with the 2003 standards but one thing when I went back during this work trying to figure out where teachers are coming from is the 2003 standards I found out only called out literature there was no informational text until the 2010 standards and as you'll see later on in the presentation there's quite a shift to informational Tech so that was something for me to understand

017why some teachers were still thinking of English as a literature class when it's it really morphed into more of a speaking viewing reading writing class all around so one of the things that we did is we took a look at the standards after we looked at the chefs we really got deep into the standards and we identified some big ideas for both middle school and high school we worked on a draft of a common scope and sequence that I'll show you an example of in a moment by trimester we focused on explicit writing instructions so what does that look like and then once we really took a look at the standards and we understood them deeply we were able to go in and say now where are our gaps where are our gaps and how

018we teach things and what we might need to teach them so how how would we need to be better at how we teach this or what do we need to teach this so this is an example of grade 10. of a bundle that they did and so we start off with some essential questions here you can see that we have two unit focuses here so we have a unit on the art of persuasion and understanding complex texts and we have a unit on the power of voice and so these are just kind of Snippets of it it's not a complete thing and then you can see we aligned like what writing benchmarks might be part of that unit what reading standards and what lsvei standards and then the teachers started to brainstorm some possible assessments

019and we'll talk about kind of why we did why we did that you can see the highlighting here for the the writing to persuade one thing that's different in the 2020 standards is that it calls out writing to persuade and writing to argue as two separate things and so the teacher said I don't know that teachers will know right off the top of their head how it is different and so we need to tell them how writing to persuade and writing to argue are different so we highlighted that as a point that we might need to revisit in um professional development and just uh um they did that for the mde standards just to let you know because the 2019 National assessment of educational progress the nape exam is has also called out argument and

020persuasion as two different strands and finally as I mentioned before these are the test specs for the mca4 so the new MCA that will be here in 2026 and you can see by grade band there's grade three through five the middle school grade band and then the 10th grade MCA what percentage of items are literature and or fiction and what are informational text so you can see at the secondary level 50 to 60 percent of what the standards call students to do is informational text and in 10th Grade it moves to 60 to 70 percent so you can see that over the last 20 years there's been a very big shift from basically teaching all literature to now expecting that students are doing 60 to 70 of their reading as informational text and this is

021going to take a bunch of different forms we still will be Reading literature of course but it might be that we're pairing newspaper articles to go with it or Memoirs or different things like that that are considered those informational texts and this also speaks to a really great opportunity for us to do disciplinary literacy and teaching students how to be how to read like scientists how to read like historians um and so this is we're really excited about this change and we all know that when things you know when we bring in new things we have to take a look at what we currently have it's like you know when you have to clean your closet right so you know you buy three new outfits or five new pair of shoes I'm not I never

022do that and I have to go and I have no more room so I have to figure out what needs to go so with the teachers we began some conversations and there they you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sugarcoat it it was they they were courageous conversations and they were um they were really thinking deeply about what instructional practices we currently have and what we might need to let go of to bring in new ones and what resources we might need to let go of in order to bring in new ones so we have a lot that we can use we have a lot of talent that we have we have great instructional practices that we utilize but what else can we bring in which means what can we sunset and sometimes this

023might be a favorite unit or a favorite text that was taught and just trying to figure out where does it fit in the common scope in sequence now and there's been some really really like tsed great conversations around this and the collaboration across the especially at the high schools because we've gotten a little further with high school has been something that in my eight years in this department I have not seen and even the friendships and the collaboration we'll talk a little bit more about what's happening this summer with them but it's been really exciting so we've had the Cirque team and we've done some great work but that is a limited number of teachers and of course our job is to support every single 612 Ela teacher in our district so here are some

024of the things that we've done to support all of our teachers after each Circ meeting that we have we have created a talking point memo that goes out to our Cirque team members and then and the principals and then they share it out with their entire department after each Circ meeting so that they know exactly what's happened so they have access to all of our documents the scope and sequence along the way we've also sought and Incorporated feedback from all teachers so even if they're not at the table their feedback is valued and so we when the scope and sequences were being finished up this April and into may we sent out a survey for them to provide feedback on what worked what's not working for you I held Zoom open Office hours for questions

025and answers because I knew that for some this might be you know they maybe weren't reading my emails because they had other things to do and when it became a little bit more real this spring there would there was going to be questions and so for both middle school and high school we had open Office hours and we had teachers attend those and ask questions and they were really great questions we surveyed all teachers about the types of resources that they might need what do you think you might need when you're teaching thinking about teaching vocabulary when you're teaching different texts what kinds of things you need because we want to make sure that we can gear our work this summer and Beyond to what the teachers need in their classrooms um we have we

026are working together all grade level teachers I'm including special education and English learner teachers to learn and collaborate for each trimester scope and sequence for three full days so like I mentioned before we did that um last week was it only last week and the week before with ninth grade 10th grade and 11th grade we had a full day with each one um 12th grade opted to go in the fall and middle school will go in the fall as well and then they'll each have a day for a second trimester and a day for third trimester um and then like I mentioned before the collaboration there was there was an opportunity for summer curriculum writing and all of these teams are actually cross-district teams and so we have teachers from every single high school working

027on Ninth Grade curriculum writing this summer and 11th grade curriculum writing this summer so it's been really really exciting that we're breaking down the silos and we're working to create um great work great things for our students and we're working smarter and across the district and finally we have some optional summer book clubs for teachers to do some professional learning for themselves on the elementary side what it looks like for the next two school years for the 23-24 school year Newport will begin their Arc adventures with us the 13 sites this year were early adoption sites nuevas Fronteras already had Arc so we joined them and Newport will be joining next year as well as Newport Valley Crossing we'll be implementing arcs erla and erla means independent reading level assessment and that's where that's the

028assessment teachers give to see what level their students are at and then for the 24-25 school year Valley Crossing will be joining us with Arc so on the 24 25 school year all 16 of our elementary sites will be using American reading company at the secondary level like we mentioned before grade level teams are coming together um one day per trimester you know when they come for try two they're going to do some reflection on try one you know it's not perfect out of the gate actually every year you know might have some revision but to reflect to plan and revise and we're continuing the conversation of secondary resources as teams create units we're talking about and the teachers themselves are talking about building common assessments and which is based on standards and then we're

029having all of our documents that we have created we're putting them we'll be putting them in the staff portal so that all all staff including our principals have easy access to it so when they're going into the classroom they know exactly what's going on in there so that's our work for next year in 2425 it's full implementation of all of the scope and sequences across 612 we're going to be begin beginning a concerns based model adoption stages of work state of concern work to see how the implementation is going and 24 25 is the first administration of mca4 questions thank you guys so much this is very exciting um I did have a couple questions so Tia can you talk about how for the integration across or the scope and sequence how what happens for

030kids who take non like atypical classes like maybe you're taking AP class or CIS class or you've got some other kind of class right so that's a really good question we've talked with our teachers about the fact that if we're if we're offering an honors English class an honors English class that will that is um still under the purview of the Minnesota state standards and so the the scope and sequence will be the same but the the work within that will be at a deeper uh complexly you know a higher reading level that kind of stuff for IB English for AP uh English for CIS English those are all courses that are considered by the state of Minnesota to be beyond the Minnesota state standards and so they will be utilizing the University of Minnesota

031or the college board or the international Baccalaureate to work on their scope and sequence um you know I have my when my kids have been in school like there's been some opportunity for independent book choosing in you know English classes and so will the scope and sequence it's feels very loud well the scope and sequence across the three schools get more common reading materials more common literature for lack of a better word you know so in try one in ninth grade in honors English all ninth graders will be reading The Catcher in the Rye or whatever and that's the work of the team so the best thing the best thing about these standards is that they do not call out authors and they do not call out uh you know titles of books right they

032call out skills that students need to know to you know ever you know Finding evidence and you know argue points and you know author's purpose that kind of stuff and so you know we want to honor the art of teaching and so you know there might be something that they use for the the standard bundle at Park that they may not be using at Eastridge or they may you know I I the teams of the teachers are are coming together they're it's interesting when you leave them to start talking they get a little bit more and more aligned um it it but we're we're letting that kind of build itself um again knowing that the scope and sequence itself with the bundles and the bundles are based on writing and I and I can't stress

033that enough that writing and reading are inseparable and you know writers become better readers and readers become better writers because you teach reading through writing and you teach writing through reading right and so that's how we focus this um but the way that they do it might be you know the way that they do it might be a little different but they are going to be writing a lot more than they ever have I'll say that and to a point of um choice to the standards call out choice is something that is required now and so um what we used to call a whole class novel or an anchor text might not be as common as when I was in school so there might be you know a couple anchor texts that are used throughout

034the year but if we're focusing on the standard of citing textual evidence and seeing how a character develops over time we might be offering three or four different texts that have really strong characters in them and then the students are choosing or placed in groups based on some other sort of data or information and so that might be where it might not be the exact same thing that every child at every High School is reading but our bundles also have a larger overarching like essential questions or themes so we so that will also help keep it more cohesive you know when you're talking about I can't remember what that first the art of persuasion right is I think the first bundle of the 10th grade unit you know keeping within that theme there's a lot

035you can do with it so every every High School English class try one unit one will be the art of persuasion or whatever right okay um and then my last question Arthur is for you so you had mentioned that nuevas had start has started Arc a few years ago right um and so that's probably the only school that we have data on how it looks have we seen but what are the effects of the curriculum on students base like if you could just we could extrapolate from nuevas and I know it's kind of a yeah so one of the nice things about American reading company um they have a learning management system uh called School Pace and so as teachers are working with the students they input data into school pace and then myself as

036a TLS director the assistant superintendents the superintendent building principals teachers can see how their classes are or how their students are doing so we can pull up site by site by classroom if we want to and so it's really hard to say exactly how nuevases I mean we've looked at we've spent a lot of times and Dr Brookins can expand if you'd like to but one of the focus focuses of our learning leadership labs this year with Arc was looking at the data and how do we as Leaders really look at the data to make informed decisions to inform our instruction and so that's something I can share and you'll see it as we as the years go on but that's School Pace and so that's part of and Beyond the data too what it's

037provided is a great way for us to take a look at how literacy instruction is taught in Spanish and in English when they add on English there too and what that looks like and so being able to kind of figure out where we're going to go with the with the Dual language model and stuff too it's just a resource to start from and then build from there and then I lied when I said that was my last question I do have one more um so I saw in the paper that part of the new education bill has increased funding for phonics so is that integrated into these standards already or like was that already part of this and this just provides more funding for that or how does that work or maybe it's too early

038to know yeah um so the read act what you're talking about does look at phonics and so the nice thing about American reading company is they do have a scope and sequence for foundational skills phonemic awareness and phonics which really aligns with when you look at the read act the um what they want teachers to use that science based evidence for teaching reading and so Arc does provide that for our teachers it's nice to have a scope and sequence for foundational skills in K5 in terms of the funding though I think it's still a little early to figure out what it what it's going to be used for but yeah it um they definitely want to support districts to make sure that we have all those components and we feel pretty confident that this is

039that we have the components there that are needed but we don't know exactly what the money coming in will look like but we're excited that it's there that was one of the things that we were looking at when we were looking at curricular resources K5 you know I mean a good teacher of reading has all the components right they you know they don't ignore phonemic awareness or you know phonics or fluency they don't they don't ignore any of it so it's that was you know that when we were taking a look at resources for K5 that was definitely part of um our rubric and our Focus okay okay I'm gonna cut cut you off now oh all right any other Pat question and I think I underst when you talked I think absolutely absolutely any

040other board members okay well thank you everyone this was a wonderful presentation thank you all right next we uh have 4.2 a presentation on English English language Learners Kelly you're up again this time I got it right this time all right so um our next topic tonight is around our English language learner Services mde is also moving towards multilingual Learners and so these are students who speak a language other than English and so we have some exciting new developments and Nikki climber our our El supervisor Works within our teaching and learning department but crosses over into a lot of the work with the assistant superintendents as well so looks like Leah's gonna stay with her so um excited to hear more about and they had an amazing family picnic this last week and I know

041she's going to talk about so I won't take the thunder away so nope go for it hi good evening I'm can you hear me hello I am going to share some updates um about our our department and I'm going to frame these updates around the following questions our multilingual learners how do we ensure that all perspectives are valued and how do we equitably serve all students so we'll start with some demographics some students demographics we'll learn a little bit about what our primary languages are we'll talk a little bit about El identification and who makes up our El Department so we are growing we are growing and currently we are we're approaching 1400 students that are El identified K-12 plus because we have students at Next Step that are ill-identified as well and our multilingual

042Learners are I know you've probably heard this from Julie but um 63 different home languages that are identified at enrollment um our Els are emergent multilinguals who often speak three to four languages and we have representation in all of our buildings in our district so um here's just a a visual of um where we are last week actually Spanish Hmong Mandarin and Somali and then you see the um the beautiful rainbow of all those other colors that represent the other languages that are um identified with our students and their families so um Arabic and Vietnamese are up there after the four that I mentioned so our department is also growing um along with myself we have a 14 El teachers five of which we just hired a couple weeks ago that will be starting in

043the fall 10 El paraprofessionals and a new addition to our team this year is an El District liaison I just want to briefly just state that the El identification process is mandated from mde often families will ask well why do we do it this way or that way and those guidelines are given to us by mde and just to summarize when families when all families enroll they are they complete What's called the Minnesota home language survey and they answer questions around the language that they're exposed to at home or that they speak and if that if it's indicated that that is a language other than English we we screen students to see if they qualify for El services and Yale identification needs to happen within 30 days at the start of the school year after

044the school year begins then it's a 10-day window so it's kind of tight building Community this is something that I'm really working hard to strengthen in this district and family engagement and Multicultural opportunities are they're increasing El family engagement is a requirement of title III which is the English language learner funding and some of the examples are sealed by literacy our El Elementary picnic many cultural events that happen throughout the district that I know that you've attended and also just strengthening the partnership with Community Ed and our adult ESL classes Dei and the the reason is that this improves the sense of belonging we want our families to be involved with their with their students academic education just being there and being asked their perspective and to increase family involvement and just to validate that

045the home language is heard and that's it's an asset to be multilingual how many families next slide please um so this is actually these are pictures from last year so word got out because last year we had over 500 people that we served um picnic dinner too and this year was close to 800. So This was um this was an invitation to Elementary El students and their families so we had this at gray cloud and it was just a fantastic event and families talk it's really neat because families find each other that have that speak similar languages that maybe go to different schools and it gives them a chance to socialize and just just enjoy a nice evening with their children um the inclusive service model is something that we're that is aligned K through

04612 and it revolves around a differentiated instruction based on El proficiency level and it is a shift in the El service model where we really want to provide language instruction within the core content and to not remove students for language instruction when we can provide instruction with their peers and so this is just an illustration of the everything is a is a level in El lingle and students their English proficiency is measured or measured once a year through the access test and they're given a score and that score determines a composite of where they're at with the four domains of language and we're required to differentiate our instruction and the amount of instruction based on their El levels so again um our our service model K-12 is differentiated by El levels and it's just a

047reminder that El students are generated students first who have equal access to all course offerings and extracurriculars and um yes I think we can keep going so again a bit of a paradigm shift where we um we don't want to Silo language instruction and we want to use all of our data points to to provide the best instruction for our students and to um to be collaborative with a push-in model so the ways that we're doing this at the elementary school you heard about um you know the the arc adoption and we're really just learning with everybody else but the El teachers really want to dive into this work and to support students through using the art curriculum so we'll be doing more work with that we'll be providing some curriculum writing and other opportunities

048for El teachers to find what what works best during the literacy block with Arc and then our El service model is a blended model of um again pushing into the Gen Ed classrooms and then reserving our targeted small group instruction for our students who are Level ones and twos or new to Country students um this is just an example of some of the work we're doing with the arc lessons and um just doing a lot of scaffolding and just pulling apart the the the units to provide a better understanding for for a multilingual learners again with um graphic interactive support scaffolding and just instructional strategies that are actually good for all students so that's the really cool thing is that the strategies that are being modeled by the El teachers are beneficial for all students

049at the secondary level I just point out that the pathway to graduation is the same whether you are identified as needing El service or not and so um we created an El pathway team this year to kind of talk about what that looks like and to provide some alignment for all three high schools and working closer with the High School counseling staff and providing more support for our co-teachers we have co-teaching going on in all of our schools excuse me all of our secondary schools and we we want to just keep improving that practice and so next year we'll have professional development for our co-teachers we will continue to have a collaboration time but it will be a little more enhanced where we're going to provide time for for planning one day a trimester and

050then leaning into the instructional coaches to support um support the work at each site we have a uptick of our new to Country students currently we have 82 that meet the definition of what MD calls recently arrived El and we are working tirelessly to try to find ways to make the experiences more welcoming and um provide access to content that is required for all students and some of the resources are listed there that we're using specifically with our new to Country students we do have three teachers at our high schools that are duly licensed so they can teach a standalone Ela class and they actually attended the ELA Cirque process last week and then our family liaison has just been a huge benefit to our department so some key takeaways by law all English Learners

051are entitled to an education program that provides access to Core Curriculum and opportunities for language development and learning takes place through social interactions there's a lot of research to support inclusive service model so I certainly think that this district is a great place to be a multilingual learner but I want to add some student voice and let you hear it from someone who can say it better um class helped me because um when I was at America I didn't know much about English but now I am good I'm good than my dad especially just adorable yeah that's a red rock yeah thank you and I'm sorry for asking that yes so students students that are exited are put into monitor status and they will continue to be you know kind of just checked in on

052and the teachers know who those students are and there's criteria then to bring a student back into El service it doesn't happen very often but it did happen this year for a student so um can you talk about how how kids get evaluated so is it every child whose parents indicate that they speak a non-english language at home is automatically put into some test group even if they do speak English at home as well yeah so many of our many of our students that receive El service are were born in the United States and may may have somewhat of an English proficiency there's four questions that are asked on the home language survey and um they are does what language do you primarily speak at home what language are you exposed to and two other

053questions that are very similar to that and if a family indicates another language other than English they are um it's a it's kind of a comprehensive umbrella because it captures a lot of students and we have students that don't qualify that that end up getting screened but again these are mde procedures and not our districts yeah so then they are we we first look to see if they already are identified and if they were in a Minnesota school district we can find their um their El score their access score in the Minnesota student assessment database I was just going to add we also parents also have an option to opt out of yes absolutely so if if they even if they qualified through the home language survey they could still decide to opt out of

054being tested or being part of the Yale program as well okay do we see that frequently or yes um we do um I I guess I don't know I could I could find exact figure but um yeah every year we have opt outs and we have it's a dual opt-out because you can you have to opt out annually for El service and for testing so some some choose to not participate in the El service but then they still want to take the access test because if they exit then they're they're done um so yeah and so it allows for us to do it allows for families to do that that they can just take the test and stop getting an email so every as El receives a mandated letter in the fall that gives all

055the guidelines that tells them that they have the right to not receive service that they will be tested in the spring for their English proficiency and a few other things so that letter goes out to this year will be probably 1400 students yes and after the letter goes out that's when we you know get calls sometimes or families just want more clarification or thank you but you know we don't want this service and okay oh interesting okay and then the access program you said if you're or the access test if you've taken it anywhere in Minnesota there's some database or wherever were your scores but that's just a Minnesota specific test or is that externally normed as well Minnesota has chosen the state to adopt the Wida Consortium and the Wida is the assessment that

056we use access and that is used in many other states so if they're coming out of state and it's a weed estate then we can you know try to find that score too thank you Nikki is is the state talking about the reference to MLL there are a lot of talks about that and I I really like the terminology the one concern I have is that we have multilingual Learners in our district that do not qualify for El service so how do we differentiate that yes that acronym has been through so many iterations of ESL e-l-l-e-l and it's always turn to figure out it is a little confusing and I was just gonna add also it also is Under the Umbrella of title three so if you're title three that's also yell so and those

057are federal dollars that we receive correct and Nikki you didn't teach your horn enough about the El picnic that we had uh because honestly I arrived after our next step graduation and there were so many kids on one playground I and laughing and running and playing it was the most gorgeous night it was a great opportunity for families to talk they were in lawn chairs had a meal there were activities from Community Education we had our El teachers there a number of our other El and supportive staff there but Nikki's family was there serving food just helping their mom out but just a wonderful opportunity for our families to get together so thank you so how do you differentiate if you have a student in the El program and they're struggling how do you differentiate

058whether it's due to language or whether there's some special needs or you know learning disability going on so um we have many students that are duly identified and they're two separate processes and so one service doesn't Trump the other so there are different different ways that students are brought into both special ed and El but it can be it can be tricky sometimes to figure out is this an academic gap or a language Gap and sometimes they they it does get blurry and I it's it's hard I don't have like a really clear-cut answer other than working with the student um it often depends too on the students literacy skills in their first language and so if they have strong literacy skills in their first language but they're um showing you know slower growth with

059academics then maybe it's not language but it is a bit of a collaboration with the sped department and the El team to decide how do we move forward to figure out the needs for that student right um any other question for the board members Nikki thank you so much thank you wonderful presentation it is our 4.3 and that is boundary changes for new neighborhoods presented by none other than Dan Pine good evening everybody um tonight I'm just I'm bringing you as information I'm gonna bring this for approval uh this summer hopefully at the next board meeting a few Parcels in Cottage Grove that we're recommending that they would have their boundaries changed to Armstrong from Pine Hill you can tell by the maps in the uh packet um really where they are just to note

060these Parcels are not developed right now we were informed by the city that they're going to be not quite sure on the timeline but there are no students in these parcels no houses or apartments or anything in these Parcels right now the reason that we're recommending to change this boundary is to take the pressure off of Pine Hill based on what's planned there and the four Parcels we're looking at just based on using the projection model from Hazel Reinhardt so these aren't students yet but it would produce probably 102 students so those 102 elementary students would go to and I'm just talking to elementary students they would go to Armstrong instead of the current Pine Hill with that hopefully that's understandable enough I I think the graphic of probably shows at the easiest I'm not

061going to tell you parcel numbers are in here but unless you study parcel Maps and Dan and I took a drive over there and he did not ask me to go off-road he thought my vehicle would get way too dirty checking out these Parcels because that is how under construction they are right now so we know that there are no homes built because right now there are no roads going out that direction so are those all the empty Parcels that are down there or are there more that are still yet to be developed uh there's a few more well the only one that we know that we were told about was south of 110th but we couldn't get any information any more information on that and we couldn't get to it either right we tried

062to get there but the road was closed or there was no Road but these are the ones we know that developers the other ones are empty and there's no no development planned okay any questions for Dan and okay thank you Dan are you were you done here all righty uh moving along 5.0 with which are information items 5.1 is the atpps presentation by Miss Kelly Jensen assistant superintendent I certainly will not be giving the presentation but I am honored to introduce Tim Bunnell um we were just reminiscing when I first started in the district and um we were like you think we could start an instructional coaching programs and look where we are today um we have quite a few instructional coaches so Tim is one of the fiercest advocate for professional development and um

063growth in our teachers and he does a wonderful job running our atpps and our Q or also known as qcomp which is funding through the department of Ed that that Tim manages to um to a T he knows uh to the scent probably how much money is left every year so he has to do an annual report so he is here to do that tonight thank you is that working all right thanks for inviting me tonight my name is uh Kelly said and yeah I do remember those conversations we had in our office years ago can we go in that direction that time I believe we had about four or five ftes within the program and now we're sitting around 17 Again to 20 instructional coaches throughout the district it was fun to see them

064showing up in some of the little slides and infiltrated throughout the system long ago we started the program it was we Porter was one of our first and he often talked to me about how we had silos of excellence in this District it's fun to see those silos get connected throughout the district I think ATP has that's really one of the things we've tried to do within our program is be connectors between programs so this is our 16th year so I believe this is my 15th presentation to you guys so I get to do one every year and I think I have a freebie on the covert year so um it's a really atps is a professional development program um we provide a few different areas of support I've got them listed there below but

065really I kind of put them in three categories we support with professional development time we support with helping teachers develop academic goals and we support teacher leaders and those teacher leaders serve in a variety of positions throughout the district and I'll kind of touch base with them as we go along in the 2022-23 school year we brought in about 3.2 million dollars to the district from participating in the program the first area is professional development we have two types that we find and I say we don't provide the PD what we provide is the opportunity for sites to participate in PD there's the first is our atpps professional development days one occurs in August typically and one occurs in June I think is setting up the year we established goals and plans and then at

066the end of the year we reflect on those goals but that last day also serves a unique purpose that last day at noon well we actually break at 11 for lunch we come back at noon and when teachers return they return to the sites they're going to be in in 23-24. we give them a chance to look ahead it's a chance for those teachers to get connected at their sites it's a chance for teams and buildings to get started looking ahead at the next school year so we think that's really an important time for them um the second type of professional development we fund are the flex days you can read a little bit about some of the things we've done with professional development those flex days this is six dollars for the professional development

067that each teacher gets designed um the newest one we've added this year is that second bullet which is a fourth day of new teacher Academy traditionally we had a three-day Academy for probationary staff and actually we only had it for first-year staff but under the leadership of Mark bakamoyle and James McGee we've now made that a mandatory all right I saw you waving yeah I didn't know if you were saying hi hahaha so um the fourth day um first year staff on their own they're working on a comprehensive induction model which I'll hit on later so that all probationary staff are coming those first three days and the fourth day is their flexing other continuing contract staff they participate in book studies they can do c T they can do they contend workshops do summer

068PD all kinds of different things to complete that day secondary mentioned were our student achievement goals and each teacher has two they have a site goal that's based on a standardized assessment um at the elementary level we use we've been using da and and signed the I ra we had to use the bass preview previous secondary the middle school is really focusing on the MCA and the high school transition from the NCAA two years every high school has had Act ual I've never scored that's what we think about our teacher leaders they're providing this assistance to psychologist the counselors they're there to support them they have four basic teacher leaders instructional mentors primary role as teacher they are I believe our Equity teacher leaders focusing PRT and atmosphere sites and 580ps we'll come back yeah

069one of the underlying goals about that that profile of teacher leaders while they're currently teaching foreign at other districts throughout the metro area so we're really proud of Tom James Lauren Ian now our peer coaching program is probably among our teaching staff other than compensation it's their favorite element of the program um our teaching our peer coaching program is very similar to other districts and that every teacher has observed three times every year and that our mentors provide three observations for our first year instructional staff how it's different is that we let every teacher coach every teacher has the opportunity to go out and observe others in addition to being observed and I think they bought into it because this year we've had over a thousand teachers act as peer coaches for other teachers in

070addition to being observed they've gone out and observed others and provided formative feedback what they tell me again and again is I get more out of observing others than I get when they come observe me so it's a great collegial process back and forth of building relationships between teachers it's a really important component of our program that kind of developed organically and has really grown now that's all the components now how do they come together and I thought maybe I'd give you an example of atps that work um really beginning with James McGee and continuing with Mark mcelmoyle we've been developing the teacher induction process for a long time we had some hours set aside for a probationary staff to get additional professional development over the last few years it's developed a little more substance

071and mold to it and our teacher leaders have been actively involved in atps has as well we provided that fourth day of professional development so all of our probationary staff instead of getting 22 and a half hours of new teacher training get 30. we had a 33 percent more training for them and when we get to the eight uh the new teacher Academy each fall this year our instructional Mentor our instructional coaches will will be providing much of the professional development during that Academy they'll be building relationships with the probationary staff and this year probationary year two staff will all participate in instructional coaching cycle with an instructional coach so if you're a new probationary teacher coming to our district you're one you have an instructional mentor year two you engage in a pretty comprehensive

072process with instructional coach looking at your own practices evaluating areas of strength and areas for growth and then year three you step into the peer observation process where you're getting feedback from your peers so it's kind of a step into the process and then they move into continued contract and have a lot of choice and those coaches just don't work with probationary staff they work with all instructional staff this year the inventors they mentored 143 new teachers across the district and provide a one-on-one support most times our primary goal is to align subject and building level alignment so if you were a special ed teacher at Eastridge you have a special ed Mentor at Eastridge at times it's not possible but we do everything we can to support that in our instructional coaches as we

073mentioned before they've just blossomed and grown into fantastic teacher leaders I've sat in on some of their professional development I sat in with their cognitive coaching development and I know some TLS staff has as well it's incredible there really are instructional coaches who can support all instructional staff I had someone asked me while they're not nurses how can they support the nurses but they're really job coaches they go in and support our teaching staff to reflect on their own practices identify how they want to improve and then support them in that process and we now have one instructional coach at almost every site we have them working with Next Step staff staff with our online staff with our our South Washington Alternative High School staff so they're touching almost every component of the district so

074with that that's kind of ATP in a nutshell we will be it will be with us for two more years we just voted our MOA in with 96 support so I think they're on board with us hello observation with someone else and I'm assuming that is yeah so what we do is we provide we with um virtual for a couple years in that training for our new teaching staff we are back to a live in person about an hour and a half two hour training to get them kind of orientated to the program and then we provide an ongoing probably a 30 to 45 minute training online each year for every coach and I think we had thirteen hundred and fifty-ish coaches finish it this year I got a question real quick thanks uh thanks

075for the information Tim just a quick question on the um the four day new teacher Academy yes can you elaborate a little bit on that yeah so um mark is really heavily involved in developing the content of it I helped him with organizing some of the structures what we do is for the week before um teacher Workshop we bring in all probationary staff which I believe is about 250 staff members and provide them um training in the areas that we've identified as important for them to have to be successful in their teaching or in their educational career right now it's the challenge you can see is all the pathways we have so we have to support counselors well they're going to need different training than you have an elementary teacher and we have social workers

076and psychologists so we're really working on building those Pathways some of the common things we get them through is some Avid training some CRT almost everybody went through some reading instruction and then we differentiated that to each group so there's presenters in so find an elementary teacher the art curriculum you know as I come in brand new and I've missed all that training our current teaching staff has we're going to try and provide that startup training for you to get started when we talked about kind of Envision it it's if you could have it used to be 67 and a half but now it's 90. if you had 90 hours to prepare teachers over three years what would we like every teacher in the district to have when they became continuing contract what skills you

077know what do you understand working with ell students might be understanding how to use assessments to drive instructional practices it might be reviewing academic standards might be some positive behavioral interventions conscious discipline things like that so mark is really going to have the charge of over the years developing those Pathways and helping them evolve to current needs because they will change over time and we'll have to reevaluate that constantly so it's just that's the best does that make sense yeah that makes sense I I was is there a syllabus or like an outline or something that you could provide I think there will be and again as at PPS we're a funding source and we provide so that training for the coaches and the training for the mentors and we support the people being that

078day our professional development department is really in charge of the content of the day so I don't want to throw a mark on the Bus Say here here's another project for you to do I think it would really come Kelly am I right and that's where that would come from yeah definitely and I I was just looking for last year's syllabus but that usually comes out in june-ish yeah where we have a pretty good idea of the session so it's a detailed agenda for each day so we're happy to share that with you yeah I appreciate that yeah absolutely okay any other questions thank you so much Tim with the technology down I'm good [Applause] can your uh meetings y'all took me off Zoom all right next we have 5.2 the long range facilities final

079draft plan and that will be presented by Christine Schaefer our assistant superintendent and Dan Pine Executive Director of Finance and operations and Julie Nielsen don't forget Julie all right good evening everyone we are here tonight as promised to talk through and present to you our final draft recommendation for long-range facilities so first we're going to go back to where we started and review The Guiding change document so remember we had our current reality our results and our unacceptable means so let's just quickly go through our results so part of our results were to use the information from our demographic report and our community input to create this Five-Year Plan and prioritize our needs and take into consideration the current economic condition we talked about considering boundary changes and we also talked about creating a funding

080plan so those are the three main results at our unacceptable means and the England is not ignoring our current economic conditions again using the input from our community and staff and and the results of the survey and our demographic report so a big piece of this as you will see and we will show you some updated graphs on all the input that we've gotten is that the we really took into consideration that community and staff feedback when you see what our final recommendation will be we will also not bring forth a plan that closes an elementary school and tonight you will see us bring forth one plan not multiple plans all right and I know um that that you've seen this many times again this is our feedback loop and the important part part of

081this um our our process rather the important part of this is that feedback loop that we have involves parents community members students and staff and I'll go through the meeting all the meetings that we've had but we want to show you that we have exhausted all of our feedback pipelines throughout this process all right and Sean put together just this quick um timeline to show where we've been so August of 2022 that failed referendum September to November listening we had dozens of listening sessions with staff and Community to gather feedback around that failed referendum December we did the community survey January the demographic study and then spring from March to May we've had three Community meetings three meetings with our parent advisory groups and three staff meetings at every school and Department in our district

082and in addition to that we've had two bus tours with our elected officials and also a lunch and learn with elected officials to show them and present the information to them and gather their feedback as well we've met with business groups to discuss the plan we have sent out a community postcard inviting everyone in our district all district residents to our community meetings and that is all residents not just parents in our district and also a printed newsletter to all residents of our district with all the long-range facility information in that newsletter all right Dan and as Christina mentioned of some of our feedback was in the form of a community survey a survey that was done by the Morris Leatherman company and it was interviewed 500 people representative of our school district and one

083of the main takeaways from that survey were that secured entrances and high school classroom editions the middle classroom additions were supported but for a tax increase they also had another demographic study done by the Hazel Reinhardt Consulting service and with that we can see that our enrollment is still Rising but not Rising as quickly as it was two years ago so from that demographic study we were able to see that what would it look like if we did nothing in five years so currently we have four schools that are over capacity right now we have two high schools two elementary schools error over capacity within five years we would have seven we'd have East Ridge Open Middle School Pine Hill gray cloud Bailey Liberty Ridge and Red Rock and we'd also have three secondary schools

084two high schools and middle school that are within five percent of capacity all right so this is just a quick reminder of the plan from August of 2022. so the items Below in the white boxes are all the items that have been removed from the previous plan based on feedback that we've gotten from our community and staff members the items up in the blue are the items that still remain as we look at feedback that we've gotten those items still remain so secure entries expansion renovation of high schools expansion of Oatman construction of Elementary School additions and Renovations at the bathrooms at the elementary so those are still rising to the top when we look at our community feedback which we'll show you here in a minute and now we go back to the ever

085important unacceptable means because we went back to this many times as we had our discussion to say check check and check does our plan coming forward to the board meet that criteria in terms of what's not acceptable and just to reiterate Christine's point that first one is not ignoring the current economic conditions we know that even our economic conditions right now aren't great um input from the community and staff results of the survey and updated demographic reports as was said by one of our leadership members this is not your plan or our plan it really is our community's plan and so we really took to heart the feedback that we got and in constructing this plan so with that our recommendation to the board and of course this is in draft and we'll have conversation

086at the end is that we would put together a package question one from the leadership team's perspective is our highest priority and across all of the feedback loops the demographic survey that these three continue to rise to the top and those three which we will break down and get into more detail were the security pieces first so those secured entryway that the schools that currently didn't have them the second was the planned Edition at the middle school Altman Middle School along with filling in the pool at Woodbury middle school so that's a usable space and not just a hole and the third area of high priority would be the planned Edition at East Ridge High School along with the extensive renovations to Park High School and Woodbury High School and so consistently with all the

087feedback we heard what we received those three continue to rise to our highest priority and we would recommend that they be placed in question one from there there was a slight gap between the feedback we received and so in question two our proposal is that we would add in the construction of Elementary School additions at the schools that are projected to exceed capacities and then the renovations of the Elementary bathrooms for those schools that were built in the 1960s 60s now one thing to take in mind and to consider that and was shared with the board and with our community and you will see the slide coming up is we know that there is not um necessarily a need for additional seats at the elementary schools but what we do know from our community is

088the perception and how they feel about attendance boundary changes and so question two is really allowing our community to have a voice in saying do we want to do additions with perhaps small and slight attendance boundary changes or are we going to do what we would consider attendance boundaries that would set us up for seven to 10 years so that really would be what question two would be asking and I want to just finish my portion up here with this was the feedback around question one and this was pretty consistent across the time we started through the very end and so you can see that in that original study done by Morris Leatherman security secured entrances whatever we can do to make sure that our schools and our facilities are secure continues to rise to

089the top both with community and staff right below that were our high school additions and then third again were those Middle School additions and you can see the community uh the blue keeping it in q1 and for staff it is the orange or reddish color that they wanted to see that continue in question one so then I will look a little bit more of what's involved in question one as Julie mentioned is broken into three different areas security planned additions and plan expansion of Middle School plantations of high schools we'll get a little deeper this slide shows you the cost it's about 160 million dollars which is estimated about six dollars a month cost on a medium valued home in this District so on the security size security Safety and Security enhancements overview about 25

090million dollars will be constructing new secured entryways and relocating some main offices in kaiserable Middle School Lake Middle School Woodbury Middle School and also as a safety measure we'll be adding a new bus Road at Woodbury Middle School at Park High School we will be renovating and consolidating the student services space for added visitor security relocating the main office and the support services to one spot at Woodbury High School will also be constructing a new secure entry in the student services wing and realign the parking lot and Service Roads the second part of this question is is the Comprehensive High School changes it's about 105 million dollars at Eastridge would be the construction of a previously planned expansion increasing the capacity about 2 300 students expand the cafeteria to handle the students and then construction

091of additional careertech education science technology engineering and math programs and Robotics space at Park High School there'll be construction of a new cafeteria and kitchen and once again renovating the CTE stem and Robotics spaces and additional CTE space and then Woodbury High School construction new cafeterian kitchen renovating those CTS demo robotic spaces and renovation of the media center as we look at the high school enrollment as you look at this chart quickly the dark blue or the current capacities the light blue is the projected enrollment in five years and you can see that this would take care of East Ridge and the other two would be leveled off as we look at the Middle School portion of this question about 30 million dollars be constructed of a previously planned open middle school expansion it was

092built to uh for 990 students and but the plan was always to expand it to 1300 students it also includes demo special education spaces expansion of the cafeteria and kitchen and have some new stem spaces and special education spaces and then at Woodbury Middle School we remodel some existing space the old swimming pool for additional educational space the Middle School level I said the dark blue is the capacity the light blue isn't is the projected enrollment and the expansion of open Middle School will level that one off all right so now let's look at question two as Julie mentioned earlier the elementary school additions and bathroom Renovations so as you can see Elementary School editions would be about 31 million dollars and the the bathroom's 9 million dollars Which is less than two dollars a

093month on a medium value home and so this is an interesting graph that I want to talk through for a minute so if you look at the feedback around question two if you look at what the red and the blue signify and this is community and staff together the red and the blue mean keep that in question two the dark gray is move that to question one and then the light gray is not needed so when you look at for example the Alternative High School and the next step transition program that light gray is a larger percentage meaning the community and staff felt like that is not needed yet not that it's not needed but not needed yet at this time and so when you when you see where bathrooms and additions land and and

094land as well purchasing them for future use but when you look at elementary additions and bathrooms when you look at that dark gray percentage move to question one in addition to the red and blue that's a large percentage of staff and community that would like both of those in question two or one all right and so what does that look like so the additions are classroom editions on the schools projected to exceed capacity which is Bailey Graco Pine Hill and red rock including Jim space at Pine Hill and the new cafeterian kitchen on those buildings expected to exceed 700 which is Bailey and gray cloud and then of course the bathrooms on low 60s buildings that are listed there below and this is just a reminder from that Community survey the input from the community

095around boundary changes so this is the 500 community members total that said it was very important to limit it to limit that but remember that 85 percent of our parents said it was very important to limit boundary changes so when we so as Julie mentioned earlier when we look at the addition to the elementary schools and we'll show you in a minute again the seats when we look at the elementary school additions we know that we have seats but we also are hearing from our parents that 85 of them wouldn't would like to not have boundary changes so that is consideration and putting this plan together and so when you look at this graph it's showing our capacity our current open seats at 1663 and with additions we would have 18 1843 seats so we

096know that we have seats available at elementary but we also know that those seats are not on the correct schools of where the gross growth is occurring you're going to add something Julie and so so as Julie mentioned earlier um question two being additions on the elementaries would be to give our community a choice on additions for elementary or boundary changes and then again here's our enrollment so these are the schools that have open seats Armstrong Cottage Grove Al Crestview Hillside Middleton they do have open seats and they are projected to have open seats in addition to Newport Elementary Pullman Royal Oaks and Woodbury Elementary they will also have open seats and then here are the schools that will be over capacity the ones that we had mentioned putting additions on Bailey gray cloud Liberty

097Ridge will have will be a little bit over Pine Hill and red rock and then these are the schools that we can control their capacity because these are choice schools nuevas and Valley Crossing and I'm going to round out with the other priorities that were considered mostly just to make note that this is a not yet I think depending upon the outcome in November that will also lead to next steps because while this is a five-year plan we know that there may be things along the way that we have to go back and address and the first one is that space for the Alternative Learning Center um and as I said the need still exists but you could see from the feedback we received it includes about 120 students right now our Alternative High School

098serves 11th and 12th graders and our goal with it being a not yet is that in the future whether that be two years three years that we are looking for a space something to accommodate 9 through 12th grade students for alternative high school and then next is space for our next step transition programming we've talked a lot about actually I would say it's three spaces it's two locations but three actual different spaces because if you go up to the Woodbury strip Next Step they're actually in two separate locations they have one on one side of a hallway and another space on the other side of the hallway and so again depending upon the outcome of the election there are options for us to look at other lease spaces that might be available um but that

099one ended for us in terms of feedback as a not yet and then lastly while land purchase Rose a lot from our initial and from the results of the referendum and what we heard about you know people were planning for 10 days not 10 years we certainly saw that land landed somewhere in between but a little bit lower than the bathrooms in those Elementary editions and So based on the feedback of looking out five years what are the needs land next step transition programming in our Alternative High School are not being recommended to move forward for a fall referendum so in summary the recommendation first question 160 million which would total about six dollars a month on a medium valued home and again that Medium valued home is 409 thousand dollars that second question 40

100million dollars approximately two dollars and that total 200 million dollars for approximately eight dollars a month on a medium valued home and so that takes into consideration that threshold of 10 to 12 dollars when we look back at the information that we received that we also would meet that criteria so what we'd like to do with the board is based on the feedback and the information that you have heard and that you have seen some of you have attended the community meeting so you've actually gotten to hear firsthand is there anything that the long-range facility planning team has missed did you feel like there was some piece of information or something that you saw that we missed that might change the recommendation and then I would ask or we would ask is there anything in

101this recommendation shared tonight that you could not support and this is your time to speak up if there's any concerns comments because when we get to the business meeting there will be no discussion this is where you're asking the questions and we'll decide here tonight when we get up there that we are unified this is what the community has asked us to do this is what we will do so Pat [Laughter] I have a clarifying question first so when we talk about the open seats that open seats with Edition is in five years right yes okay yes I thought that's what the 800 meanings I've heard but I just wanted and then I also had a question which is that would these two questions are you in is your recommendation that they be um independent

102or interdependent um I think based on our discussion and our conversations tonight is we've talked about what has been consistently the highest three priorities that we need that we can't live without and so with that being said um question one question two would be contingent on the passage of question one well I was going down the line y'all dismissed if you go ahead yes absolutely so um if question two does not pass um what will that do if we start moving around boundaries within all of our elementaries is that going to result in boundary changes for an environmental or high schools as well we have the answer for that because some of it is about the feeder program from our elementaries to our middle school and then to our high school so I don't have

103the answer by the end of August we would have a better idea some have referenced this as like large-scale attendance boundaries I would say this to our community first of all no one enjoys attendance boundary changes no one enjoys them we don't enjoy them either but we are at a point with student enrollment that we're going to have to make some shifts we can't have additions and keep our schools uh you know without students in them and so we have to find that balance which is going out to the community and asking all right you got ready for my direction now talk a little louder I think maybe okay now can you hear me oh yeah maybe it's cat's warming up too um for our board members to be thoughtful about I think that individually

104there are a lot of preference that we may like or that we may want to support but really this comes back to what information did we receive through this whole process pretty much what I was going to say so okay there you go but you speak half the hook but yeah I think it's a good plan and I I think it'll go because where are we going to put those buses Melinda I do think it's a good plan it's the things that I had wanted when we discussed all this minus the land component um and I really like the idea of having question two with the community making that decision I just want to make sure it's not going to be put out into the community as a threat and more as a choice kit

105you see me yeah I basically uh agree with both pad and Melinda I like this plan because it's very tight right and it really is very focused on what uh people have said they needed the one I do have a sort of a think of the future school board members like 20 years from now annoyed because they don't have land but that's a 20-year problem not a five-year problem and we're being asked to look at five years out and so um I think this is a very this gets exactly at least what we've heard at the community meetings and what I heard talking to members of the community as well I'm very Pro and for me um I like this program and I'm glad that we went out to the community and listened to them

106more so and that it's below ten dollars I like that I really like that but you know I think that we have to remember that we're here to serve the community not our own self-interest so this is a plan that they brought to us we need to listen to them and move forward Katie um I do see what the community is saying I don't know necessarily that the community is saying as strongly as we're saying that we need those additions on the elementary schools um I do understand we have the 85 percent of parents saying that they don't like boundary changes but we have to remember that what is a 30 percent of our community as parents the other 70 is not um and my guess would be if we would have hit more of

107that other 70 percent we would be looking at a very different um feedback I think the security would probably still be up there because that's a big right now um but I I don't think the elementary editions would be just based on the fact that we have so so many open seats our current boundaries right now do not make sense at all um and I just I think I need to hear more when the community sees this before I can 100 say that I'm going to support the plan but um yeah I just feel like it would be very different when we actually look at the fact that 30 percent of our community is parents the other 70 isn't and I don't really know that 70 percent of people that aren't parents would really care

108that we did boundary changes I think Katie regardless and I think Melinda you mentioned that boundary changes is a threat and I think we're looking at it as a very matter-of-fact thing if the additions don't go on it's very matter of fact we will have a plan for attendance boundary changes and I think the board has said then that's the attendance boundary plan that's implemented this isn't we're not going to debate it we're not going to argue it this is very matter of fact on the other side if the additions are approved we also have concerns about space being underutilized that does however allow us some opportunity to look at the spaces and the needs we have in the district to perhaps repurpose and so I think it's something for us to think about we

109still have a number of needs that are unmet Alternative High School Next Step we want to make sure that we're not getting in the habit of adding too many new buildings and utilizing the space that we have and I think that there are still needs that we could utilize the some of the space that right now or that would be under capacity if additions were built okay here Eric oh Eric thank you I tend to agree with Katie on this um the plan is acceptable to me and I appreciate the the community input and I think we did a a pretty good job of of listening to that this is the one area where um and I guess this is how I I agree with Katie it's our job it's our job to use the

110public funds as efficiently as possible um and we're doing that when we do boundary changes to make sure that these schools are used efficiently and the seats are filled so there's some heartache there I understand that um but like Katie said the the population isn't made up 100 of parents so um I just want to make sure that we're doing that we're thinking about that and what we do and sometimes you can manipulate the way questions are formed to get the answer that you want saying I necessarily know how to do that but I know that can be done so let's just be careful that we're not doing that if you know if if there's a if there's a contingent that wants to to do additions I guess that's if that makes sense so that's

111all Little Miss hold on Miss Miss Louise sorry um thank you I like very much that the top priorities have been consistent in community meeting after community meeting after community meeting they've been consistent in the surveys whether that's staff whether that is community and so I I very very happy to see those all put together in question one I understand Katie and Eric's perspective and I like the idea that question two is bringing that back to the community so agreed that 30 percent of um of the community as members here but 100 of the community has the opportunity to vote and so given that I absolutely can support how this is set up who who will get Limited yeah I just wanted to piggyback on something that Eric said also I wanted to clarify Julie

112that I wasn't saying that it was a threat at all just that I don't want the public to think that it is um but one thing I was thinking about after Eric just spoke is as far as um one concern I have is with the second question is because we have so many seats opening cheers because we have so many seats available in the elementary schools that aren't being utilized and the bathroom thing was like what the fourth thing right below um that you know most staff really really wanted that I just one thing I fear is that a lot of people will be kind of forced to have to vote Yes on that question and spend that extra 31 million dollars on the elementary editions when maybe they really just want the bathroom additions

113so that's just one thing I wanted to throw out there yeah anybody went up yeah so and the bathroom editions are nine million so that less than 30 cents a month right or maybe about 40 cents a month anybody want to respond to that Eric Katie Sammy I do think that's an interesting point I hadn't um at the last community meeting I heard a lot of people mentioning bathrooms I also heard that some I think Julie you might have once phrased it as like kids have gone 50 years with four toilets what's another 50 years or whatever right and so um a 9 million isn't a lot but one one thing I like about keeping the top three the top three is just because they've always been there and there's been no real variance in

114how people have have seen their importance um you know to your point though if you had if you moved bathrooms into question one you would then have like a true Standalone binary more more space for more dollars or boundary changes for fewer dollars did you guys is there was there like a particular thing we heard in the community feedback that we coupled those two together I think uh the coupling together was because they remained consistently together throughout the process in terms of the feedback we received from both staff and from Community there was a different definite difference between our top three as Louise said her top three remained the top three through every step of the process and then the other two were just Landing right together and I think depending upon who you ask

115you know we had teachers that supported our staff that supported additional bathroom and others that said well we've lived this long without it and so it was again one of those questions of in order to make that happen people are going to have to vote and I think that's that's why we kept those two together as a question too so so question one passes then question two has to pass for question one to move forward or no they're they're not tied together right question two is but one of one doesn't want that um so that kind of changes I don't know that I would be in support of the plan I think they need to be if we're tying something to question two if we're tying possible boundary changes to question two it needs to

116stand alone and can be able to pass on its own right so boundaries otherwise if we're otherwise we're tying question one also to those boundary changes because we're saying even if you don't want a high school edition if you don't want your boundaries to change then you have to vote for everything or nothing so yeah um yeah I would not I am not in support of that so you're in support of two Standalone questions so we have the opportunity for our highest priority items to not get passed over the other that's not a high priority item we have a price either way we do it it they could both not pass because if even if people vote for question I mean people could vote on both of them or they could vote down one or

117the other but I I don't feel that we can tie something to a question and we're telling the public do you want these additions to the elementary schools or do you want boundary changes and then we say oh but wait you also have to agree to our secured entrances our additions to the high school and our additions to the middle school if you don't want Elementary boundary changes have we made have we done the kind of contingent stuff before where like I know we've had questions that have been contingent on and have the um when we're asking voters to make kind of that binary I don't I don't know or remember if we've asked voters to make this kind of binary Choice before where they have to vote on one to get okay yeah we

118have yeah we had question one contingency and a question two contingent the last Bond we had was 2015. and two is contingent oh that's right three was contingent on one end two yeah two is the one that bill Oldman right well actually one was operating Levy two was the bond and three was the high school bond oh okay Old Man passed and the third one didn't know questions so three was dependent on two or three in that 2015 election or three years dependent Levy was the first question was on its own right and then the second question was Altman Bond middle schools and then the third was high schools and the bathrooms or Elementary bathrooms and um but that was contingent if that would have if three would have got more votes to pass and

119tune in past three went to gone okay but those ones seem to be more we had to have the operating money in order for us to be able to have the staff but the operating wasn't tied to anything the operating operating was just the bonding parts were contingent um just just a reminder as we're talking about the idea of boating on Boundary changes or additions to the school that when we take a look at being on the school board we need to take the interest of the district is our priority and for a parent that's the interest of their specific child I happen to have a child who went to five different schools and was well received and things were put into place to make that possible I just I just want to say out

120loud that our job as a school board is to have the district's interest in mind not individual child and so I still like having the top three together and then the elementary question as the additions and the bathrooms tied together in question two more thoughts what are your thoughts I like it the way it is just like that Dan has there ever been an instance where question two has gotten higher votes than question one on anything uh well not in history I looked at here I really haven't there's been many many elections that I don't really know I've never heard of it but doesn't mean it hasn't happened and I look at it's our way to communicate the priorities like our highest priority are those top three the second question is out on the ballot

121because we value Community input um but I would say not over the needs that we have consistently seen across the district in those three areas I would agree with that I like the way that it is because I think that we need to take care of those top three things you know to look at the whole District as a whole in our future and why not just remove question two because it's an opportunity for Community feedback right like if you've got community if you've got community telling us if you have some people saying I don't want boundary changes and some people saying I don't want more to spend more money right those are not I don't know where the line is none of us know where the line is right and so this is an

122opportunity for us to see exactly where the line is but if we want to take District interest and not talk about that we have to look at the big picture if we want to look at the big picture we have plenty of room we have plenty of seeds we may need a building down the road that we're going to be asking the community for money they're going to be like we already gave you this much money for this we've given you this much money for this so if we really want to just focus on those top priorities then let's focus on those top priorities let's do the boundary changes and think of District interest but what if District interest is oh this but what if District interest is that we do additions and then we

123have an opportunity to repurpose buildings for other interests that we have right so I mean I don't know one way or the other right but I don't know that it's I don't know that everything is so black and white correct but if we do have those other District interests and we want to pass this so that we can do those other things we're not being transparent by not sharing that we want to do those other things so we're telling the we're telling the community that we're not going to do boundary changes if basically it's boundary changes or it's this but then there's other things that we might end up doing later if we get these additions I don't think we're telling the community that there's not going to be any boundary changes you know that's

124five years if that doesn't if even if it passes I'm saying the current the big boundary changes that we were talking about or these additions or as semi mentioned there's other things that we might do with these buildings right right exactly but that's that's what I'm talking about when we talk about District interest we're not I don't think all of us are talking necessarily the same thing and and I because we're talking Community interest in the survey so if we're talking Community interest that's Community interest that's not necessarily the district interest and I don't want the message to leave here that we have other things in mind that we're going to do whether this passes or not because that is not the case at all what we would do was restart another plan so this

125is a five-year plan we would start another the next Five-Year Plan that could incorporate some other things our repurposing of schools so I don't want anyone to leave here or the community to think that we have conversations about other things we're doing because we have not because we know that believe it or not anything that would pass now wouldn't be until 2026 that it's even ready to open and so this process takes a long time and it's not quick it doesn't it just doesn't turn around like that and so that's a long time to wait with an Altman middle school that's already overcrowded and that's one concern I have a little bit is if we say hey there's not going to be boundary changes if this question two passes and then you know before all

126these builds would be able to happen there have to be boundary changes because our numbers are so off with the different schools because you know it takes a while to build all these things I think in that three-year period Melinda that we would do what we're doing now and figure out other options and other Alternatives even if that meant that certain students at the high school level had to take an online class or figure out other options for kids and we'll look at how the Romans going and projections on which elementaries to start on first Pat okay okay I I don't like the separation of district from community and because we're all elected and we all represent the community so if those are the top three the community has said that's what they want so

127we have to go with it this way the ambulance put support of the question one I know I I'm down with that but Katie makes a good point to me and Linda and well we all make good points but but I'm I'm trying to process this in I don't know and with all the building going on you guys have seen the building where there's no land by if there was land but but we don't know who's going in those buildings for one thing though and the town homes and and I know there is an effort would Barry um what is it called equity we are talking with the um the builders about having um homes and and those town homes that people from low income families can afford to be to buy those homes so

128if we do that then what's what is not liable probably probably will happen is that we'll have more kids because people will come and then what we do where'd they go and what we sure I mean you if we're gonna if we're looking long term what does that mean for our community where do we put those in the end and I know at East Ridge those I was in that school and I thought I was going to get trampled that those kids I mean they if there's it's near I don't know so Katie come on back okay with all the I'm still waiting though for the online fee I mean I want to hear the online feedback if it comes back overwhelmingly that this is what the community wants I'm not saying that I'm going

129to say no I'm not gonna you know put my foot down and be like nope I'm never voting for this I'm just saying I I don't like the idea of tying the questions together when we're tying it to something else as well if we weren't tying it to anything else I'd be like fine question one has to passive question for question two to pass but when we're we all along we've said the the main reason we're putting out these Elementary additions is because we want the parents said they want an opportunity for to vote on it but I I it just feels to me like we're not giving them the opportunity to vote on it when we're tying it to something else and that's where my issue is coming in I feel like we're not

130we're not giving them the opportunity to just vote on what we've been telling them all along why we're doing that Katie my my perspective is a little different about where this came from because even prior to these surveys we recognized we have a need for more Elementary space in this location the the bond issue that was that was voted down included a new Pine Hill because we know we need seats in that space so I see these additions coming from those needs not from the need of of the community to vote I I appreciate the community gets input here but I see the need existed before that okay Eric um all right I have to apologize I'm a little bit confused on how this is tied to question one question one is not isn't I

131guess that's what I'm confused about well because question one has continued to be our highest priority so if we're looking at District interest that is District interest right prior question one question two we're saying we're going to allow the community to vote on it and tell us if they want the additions or if they want attendance boundary changes that's basically what they're saying so the reason question two is contingent on question one because as District leaders we owe the opportunity to talk about what has consistently been the highest priorities and so that is why it's con we're basically saying to our community that we have determined through all of the information we've gathered that consistently these three things have been the highest priority those three things need to pass before we're going to even take

132a look at any additions in our school district because even if question two didn't pass um or wasn't on the ballot we're going to do attendance boundary changes I mean either way we're going to have that established so for me it just communicates that those three items are the priority right now and so when the community told us that it was too much money and we scaled it back now to was it six dollars a total of six dollars six dollars is our highest priority right now I don't think that we can gamble with the six dollars and muddying up between what's in question two because six dollars and that investment is the priority not what's in question two that is not um the highest priority as District leaders it certainly has shown up over

133the course of time when we talked about adding additions onto elementary schools so questions be very clear question one can pass and and if they don't want question two we still move on with question one oh yeah then I'm all I'm on board yeah it would be irresponsible of our district if we get all this tax money from our voters from the home community and then don't do the top three things that were in all the surveys so I know what I was going to say now okay so with all this building going on eventually we'll have more tax money and so maybe then we can do something in the future well and Pat as you talk about that as we get into the final stages these next two weeks Dan is already working with

134Ellers to talk about that tax base now the six dollars that we have been communicating the two dollars um we're looking at that adjustment too so when we come back on the 15th we will have even more accurate numbers spread across a larger tax base and so we're going to assume that it's going to be a little less than what it is right now but those figures are just being run right now um Dan can I ask a question totally sort of sideways related to this we had talked about in our fund balance discussions that one of the benefits of the fund balance discussion is that it gets our bond rate lower with this um is our fund balance in a place where this would have where that would have a material effect on what

135the interest rate of the bond would be uh I don't know yet we haven't been rated since and which shows that and we could go for a rating and pay for it but oh we we don't go for Ratings until we borrow so it you would think it would but there's no guarantees when will we know the online results for what the community think of the two as far as next steps I would say that these are not online results we are not asking them we're not Gathering the data to make a pie chart or a graph we're way too far along in the process and we worked as hard as we could to get as many people to engage with us as possible what we are going to be asking for is any input

136or feedback they're not filling out a survey with questions they're just going to Simply State yes we want the opportunity to vote on boundaries you know hopefully people are tuning in tonight and and hearing that um so that is it's a week so Sean June 2nd tomorrow yeah so we'll put it out we'll basically put this meeting online and have people watch it and then have the question of similar to this discussion what what do you what would you like to see what can you get behind what what would you change and uh that would be it's a week so is it's the second tomorrow through next week the 9th have to have this on the ballot yeah we're yeah go ahead Dan uh because of the review and comment new review comment law we

137would need to have the board approve the submission the review and comment and the ballot June 15th and that date was just changed so the legislature made some changes to the timeline for review and comment and thankfully we have time with that so is it just the presentation so it'll be a like a clip to this the presentation but it's not the whole board meeting that they have to go through oh can we we're going to we're going to we're going to make it so that they're going to see this part of the board meeting that's what I wanted and they're going to watch it through the whole board meeting I'm like nobody's going to listen to it's just this part that's what I wanted to make sure of course okay any other comments are

138we good sorry one last question so if the online feedback comes back and you know to Katie's Point like some large percentage of people say I don't I don't care for this or I do care for this that would be our opportunity to alter the questions prior to the next board meeting I would say that would be our leadership's team opportunity to alter the recommendation that we would bring forward to the board I want the board to understand that we are a long way we are far along in the process and so it's going to take a lot to make those adjustments because we've done a lot of listening very helpful thank you Next Step Sean do you want to just whoever has a slide deck just real quickly next steps so this is on

139the little part there we get to see that Gathering feedback June 2nd through the 9th the final approval of this plan with review and comment because we need to meet that timeline on Thursday June 15th our regular school board business meeting and then pending the approval referendum election which we'll talk about specific wording on questions I know we've had questions about that to be held on Election Day in November and again as we go through this process so washco.org backslash facility planning and board members thank you I know that many of you could give this presentation you see these slides Katie and I know you just want to start talking um but we also have been really intentional not just in the communication and the meetings but also in the sharing of information and so

140to Christine to Dan to Sean to Dan Hines to Kyle Euchre members of our executive cabinet this is no small task when you're talking about long-range facility planning so to individuals around the table in our executive cabinet members thank you so much okay that ends this discussion all righty you all did a nice job all right here we go moving along to 5.3 preliminary budget for the 23 24 school year I mean not years so now we get to hear about a whole bunch of numbers so if you're not tired yet it's not up yet sorry the powerpoint's not up which way there we go the other left what's the other up or Downs the other down okay so as you know um by June 30th of every year the board must approve a budget

141for the next year we call that the preliminary budget tonight I will give you uh a presentation on this budget so that you can consider it and approve it at the next board meeting going the wrong way so we'll talk about tonight we'll talk about a few budget notes and terms we'll talk about where the money comes from what we spend it on some of the highlights of the budget some of our challenges and what our future schedule is as you know our general fund budget alone is over 21 000 lines if we spent one minute on each line in which we spend a little bit more on that on some lines it takes 350 hours of manpower to compile this budget many you can almost say every revenue and expense is speculated I mean

142there's no sure expenses um we actually look at each person each employee and calculate their salaries and benefits we got in that practice because of caution because we were so tight on our budget that we couldn't afford to make a mistake and and Chris says they know enough to keep doing that and it's just a guide it's just a guide to keep us on track to remain solvent just a few terms so you understand what we're talking about when we talk about fund balance we're just going to call it fun balance but we're really talking about the unassigned fund balance um that's the one you're judged on those are used for operations instruction instructional support Transportation maintenance activities Administration when we talk about the percentages we're talking about the fund balance as the percent of

143expenditures it is our savings account and the board goal is to have that percentage up to 16 by 2027. it does not include funds that are reserved by Statute those funds are pretty self-explanatory these had to be used for the purpose the revenue is received I do want to point out after that um a great presentation by Tim on a t PPS I have to say it's slows I don't get them screwed up um the board is very instrumental in the in the um development and um progress of that program I look back as he was talking and um in a fiscal year well in 18 it'd be fiscal year 19 the board increased the levy from about 700 000 to 1.5 million and that's helped a lot to keep that program to expand that

144program so the board has really supported that program greatly too those these expenses um basically when you see these terms when we talk about using these expenses we have to use them only for the purposes specified in statute so as we talk about Reserve funds operating Capital ltfm long-term facility maintenance um if we reduce or increase our spending in these funds it will not affect the unassigned fund balance and we can only spend by what's targeted in that fund we put this in the presentation every year because we want to make people aware so that people know for students living outside the state a tuition for our district next year would be thirteen thousand nine hundred dollars for secondary students and eleven thousand five hundred and ten dollars to Elementary students it's it's we cannot

145allow an out-of-state student to attend our school district for free because we get no funding for that and besides it doesn't make much Financial sense um the state does not allow it they will not give us aid for out-of-state students so we must set tuition prices for out-of-state students of course anyone that lives in the state and if they get by our parameters through open enrollment of course they do not pay because they're funded by the state and just so you know special education students from other districts who attend our schools they create tuition and those are added to our special ed revenue and then as vice versa those that go elsewhere from our district special education students we are billed through a state process and those dollars are subtracted from our special ed Revenue

146so the legislation had a a pretty eventful time not only with dollars but with different um requirements and mandates but I'll just talk a little bit about the new funding from the 23 legislation um the largest increase in our funding is is with the increase in special education across subsidy Aid uh that's always been the difference between what we receive in special ed Aid and what we spend on special expenses I mean there's some calculations but that's generally what it is for us it runs 20 million dollars um so there they put money in with from the Surplus to contribute 44 of that cross subsidy so that's an increase in our Aid there of 8.2 million dollars um in two years they've they've pledged to make that 50 so you so we will see keep

147saying you but we will see that um another increase of about six percent of that 20 million dollars um the basic formula increases were four percent in this year and two percent in 2025 the increase for this year resulted in 5.5 million dollars they also started giving us cross Subs of the aid for English learner um the deficits from which we spend more on serving the El students than we receive an aid and that's about 410 000 dollars they came up with a library Aid of 331 thousand dollars or commentatory aid went up about 261. because the legislation our student support staff ages new that's 245 000. some of those have um requirements attached to may require new new hires to fulfill those those revenues so in general about an increase of our general fund

148revenue is about 15 million dollars oops just real quickly as we look at our total revenues and this is the first you've seen there's a 300 million dollars it's I I don't know if I'd ever be here when we hit 300 million dollars in revenues when I started it was 181 million dollars um it's broken up into state aid which is funded by income and sales taxes from our taxpayers and some fees that's about 71 percent of our Revenue local levies it was funded by our local taxpayers through property tax and that's about 26 percent and then we get a little bit of Federal Aid um about 1.7 percent in other fees from our students and our admission fees of about 1.8 percent so as we look at our revenues this is just a comparison

149chart um you can see our state AIDS went up about eight percent we talked about where all that new money came from our local Levy is about seven percent um or federal AIDS and the reason the local levies went up mainly is and we'll do more of that in the truth that takes taxation meeting but is because the inflation was a tie to our operating referendum now Federal AIDS are down because there's less covid money and then there are other revenues pretty flat so increased revenue is about seven percent as you know the student account drives the budget we talk about enrollment during the long-range facility planning presentation those enrollments were based on housing projections and future growth whereas when I do the budget I only use the cohort survival method I don't get into

150fertility rates or birth rates um I do a little bit I look at the birth rates for the county for kindergarten but so it's pretty flat in fact as we look further you'll see that I had to budget a decrease of 184 students just because at this moment that's all I got on the books um we do know the formula increased to about 7 138 dollars we know that our special ed Aid with that new CrossFit to the aid is now almost 45 million dollars um and the federal government still likes behind their promise of paying 40 of the subsidy that the state can't handle they haven't really Budget on anything on that and the voters are proven to operating Levy in 2021 and it provides additional per student to our district for operating operating

151reasons so as we look at The quick summary we have talked about the revenues already 300 million went up seven percent as we look at our expenses they went up about 6.85 percent um yeah so about 299 million expenses this budget is balanced it shows a net of about 1.5 million dollars revenues increased by seven percent expenditures increased by 6.8 um special education increases increase about 12 percent regular instruction 3.7 admin District support facilities total about 3 percent and we'll talk we will approve the debt service and construction budgets at the next board meeting by program this is our dollar um you can see you know as we increase the 6.85 percent uh the biggest increases in special education of almost 7 million dollars so we received um eight million dollars in Cross subsidy aid

152but because of the increase in our in our child count and the services needed we're looking at an increase of up over seven million dollars in them special education expenses the rest of them are pretty flat people support us up because we're planning on trying to handle the driver shortage in transportation and we have to make sure that we have enough dollars to contract if we have to our famous dollar uh as you can see the 41 cents of every dollar goes to classroom instruction 21 cents of every dollar goes to special ad student support is 14 cents and that includes Transportation instructional support is the TLs team that we're we get to see tonight District support is our our Bean counters and our HR people student information and Facilities cost about 10 cents of

153every dollar so with this budget this is the fund balance we're look we're looking at for 2024 coming in at about 10.5 percent things that could affect that total percentage would be how we end in 23. um obviously it doesn't end until June 30th uh once we get our all our teacher payroll posted um we should be able to have a pretty good idea how we're going to end up in 23 we do have to wait for the audit to get done but um a little better idea by the middle of July or end of July that you know a larger beginning fund balance will increase our um projection for the next time some of the factors that we worry about the unemployment bill and maybe our next financial update we'll do it as cfac

154we'll go over some of these bills that were passed the unemployment bill I always forget the term Abby it's between between terms so basically what they've done is there's employees that are considered between terms meaning well just an example of your bus driver so they're done driving bus on June 4th whatever our last day of school is and then they don't start up again until September 1st um so between terms they still have their job but they have no work to do in the summer the new law says that they are eligible for unemployment no this isn't like outrageous when you consider that construction workers have the opposite you know they work in the summer they get unemployment in the winter the issue we're worried about um is Staffing is if you get unemployment where

155you want to come and do the few jobs we have in the summer and we we do provide you know um Credit Recovery which needs parents and needs transportation and needs food service we have kids club that needs some food service needs Paras so we'll have to see how that goes Staffing wise we don't know enough about it we don't know what's going to happen until it happens and then they've tied some Aid to it um because we can't Levy for this unemployment our normal unemployment we pay we just Levy for the next year but this one they won't allow us to Levy for it so they'll say they'll give us some Aid but the only allocated 135 million dollars um and I just did some quick math Statewide and I see it I mean

156it could cost up to 150 million dollars so once that money runs out I don't know what's going to happen so I'm a little worried about that of course inflation Staffing the cost of substitutes of course utilities and then contract negotiations make a big difference in how we end up financially so what's next you will prove a preliminary budget at the June 15th meeting we will monitor enrollment obviously we keep you updated every month with our financial updates we start auditing 22-23 in July we started working on our Levy in September uh you will approve a primary 11 in September then you approve your final Levy in December the audit will be presented the school board and then we'll start working on the 2425 budget with that remember we have a budget book here if

157you need more details that was attached to your agenda and I think Dana printed one for all the board members if anyone has any questions or this is information tonight um and I don't know if Dan thank you um this was great I don't know if you're planning you've mentioned something about talking about this at cfac but for the unemployment or maybe Abby you would know is there um was there any appetite for treating this unemployment the way that the state allows us to treat other unemployment did it look like that at the legislature were they just kind of like this is just an expense the school districts will have to bear once the aid Runs Out I only heard you know from people that had talked to some of the authors and stuff like

158that and I what came to me was like oh they're going to pay for it that's all they told me I don't I really didn't know about this between terms that they were going to be different there was all kind of rumors out there I mean um that you had to offer jobs this way in that way and that never that never came out of the bill is just basically you are now eligible if you're not working you can apply and the state will decide if you get it or not it's not our responsibility to determine if someone's on unemployment anybody you want to add anything to that yeah so the between terms unemployment the new legislation really doesn't change how unemployment is currently established and given out the biggest difference is that now these

159employees that weren't eligible between terms in the summer months are now eligible everything else as far as determinations of Eligibility remain relatively same the process stays the same in terms of the aid that the state has provided to pay some of these benefits we just won't know until we get into it what our actual exposure is right school districts um and there might be a handful or less than a handful that don't do the school districts do a straight reimbursement so whatever the cost is for those claims we pay the claim out right and then we Levy for it most businesses pay an unemployment tax rate and then the people the people on unemployment are paid out of that tax pool um so that's why it's a little different for us to go to between

160terms and then to say that you can't Levy for it but we'll give you some Aid I mean they're just kind of through it some more gymnastics into it I really don't understand why I think they had to do it that way mainly because they wanted to um they have some kind of cap on the allocation and without that if we went to the straight Levee it would put a lot of burden on the local taxpayers because we Levy but to be honest maybe three four hundred thousand hours a year for unemployment and out of a 100 million dollar Levy that's not a lot of money any more questions okay hearing none thank you Dan next is 5.4 and that's the first reading of proposed policy changes and that will be presented by Julie Nielsen

161thank you Sharon by the way we do get to take a break in July from policies so for our policy committee that is the one month we get to take off but I will just say that as a policy committee we have been doing our way through the policies so thank you so much tonight I'm bringing forth four policy 713 Student Activity accounting you're going to note in there that the changes and the highlights were reflective of msba language 713.1 gate receipts and admissions there were some added additional free events and those free events included attendance at adaptive floor hockey adapted softball and adaptive bowling 720 vending machines there were updates to the legal references and 806.2 buildings and grounds security there were no proposed changes in that policy and so with that I would

162open it up if there are any questions yeah they have just one I noticed on the um 713 the gate receipts that for our athletic events there is free admission for staff and for senior citizens and when we get to the non-athletic events it's for District employees but not senior citizens and just wondering if that was purposeful or I mean intentional or if that was an oversight and we had a conversation about that Luis so after you asked the question we did Dan do you just want to address a little bit from your perspective with Athletics and budgeting yeah um as we look back to our most senior activity director and we'll name his name but um he has all the history of the world in his head and um he said for a long

163time the musicals and concerts and plays relied on data missions to do their next year's budget so they really didn't feel they could afford to give weight too many free emissions and then the other side of it is now that we go to a reserve ticketing system and I suppose they they they told me they don't they really don't have a way to have a free person in the Reserve System I don't know if if that's that big a deal but that's the history behind it we now budget for what they need and we don't have to use our gate receipts because it's an inequity to me you know that one school might have do better than have a competitor play the next year but we still have this policy and I guess I got

164to talk to the to the Fine Arts people to see if that's what they want to continue thank you I was already on um no I was just going to I think you just talked about it that we don't set the pricing because I know we talked about it in the policy thing that we don't set the prices for what gated Mission and all that's going to be that that's done by right well activities that as as an old ad I remember doing it and then Sports the the conference all get together and decide this is what we're going to charge um and then the sections are set by the high school league but each play or other activity they're on their own just I don't know we have standards Christina no more than I

165would if we have standard prices for plays or not don't I don't think yeah I think this depends on the production yeah yeah and I will say that it is true that there's no way to be able to go into those systems when you're reserving seats because I've worked with those um to have a free thing so normally when I'm working like at the ticket booth at a at a play or musical and a staff come in because staff get free tickets they can't reserve that ahead of time so they just get there early so we can find a spot for them but there is when you do Reserve tickets there is a senior citizen discount when you're resuming them yeah okay oh I think I applied for that last night and I got it

166no hey no we we actually had the conversation too Louise after you brought it up and as staff members we talked about we go to plays all the time and we just go online and purchase so it was nice to know that we can get it free now we'll still probably buy the tickets but you might have to do stain room only too but then you might not have a seat though if you get free stay in room only yeah that's it [Music] for the public to sign up for policies to comment on policies only Sean has anyone signed up no no one signed up oh thank you uh we are now at 6.0 and that's reported coming uh from the board first we'll start with superintendent Nelson I'll keep a briefing for the board

167members around the table you're probably looking around and seeing a new face and wondering who is this new face uh this is our new interim director of special education Aaron McCoy um she is in the role of a special education supervisor but starting July 1st she will assume um the director of special services and so we are excited for her to start in that role and we welcome you here this evening so thank you and I'm sure you're learning a lot already about our Workshop meeting versus our business meeting they look a little differently the assistant superintendents and I visited each of our schools this week to extend a thank you for a great school year as we visited students were engaged in many different activities from scavenger hunts Field Days outside activities there was

168community service and a whole host of other end of the year fun and so it was really nice to see students connecting one walk around oltman apparently at lunchtime the students get to do one lap and it's like a 10-minute lap around the whole building they were so hot as they were coming back in so the temperatures definitely have warmed up this morning I had the chance to attend the kindergarten recognition at Middleton Elementary and if you've never been to one of our kindergarten recognitions and I understand that not all of our schools do kindergarten recognitions we do really lead that up to the site specific but it is really the reminder of all of the students we serve and the power that our teachers have when you watch where kindergarten students come in as

169one of the kindergarten teachers said they didn't know how to get the toilet paper off the roll and they didn't know how to get a paper towel out of the dispenser and now they're pretty much filling the dispenser with paper towels but just so much growth in that short nine months our kids did an amazing job singing and with their speaking Parts in addition each of them got to walk across the stage and you think of something so simple as walking across the stage it's so so much so bigger than just walking across the stage it is that presence in front of a whole bunch of people it's the life skill of shaking a hand and so just being able to look for those small moments of of teaching and intentionality um my favorite part

170Kelly is when they were singing and so I thought I'd sing just a little bit Kelly because I know I'm on real good key but they sing the song um Start Spreading the News we're leaving today we want to be a part of it first grade first grade darling and then they get to the end and there's a pause and of course all the parents think they're done so they clap and then they say watch out first grade teachers here we come um and you know just kindergarten as a whole uh the teachers had memory boxes I sure would have liked a memory box I had a memory tub for my kids and I threw every art project and writing sample our kindergarten teachers had nice little pizza boxes with their little hand prints on

171and they were a little memory box and so just how are teachers and in particular this was a kindergarten setting but how are teachers and staff go above and beyond every day to recognize students and also to wrap up the school year and finally um congratulations to our class of 2023 we are days days away we're excited to wish them all the very very best I'd want to acknowledge that in May 23rd our Great Rivers adult diploma and GD ceremony we had approximately 10 students graduate or receive their geds on May 25th we had our next step graduation Saturday we will have our soul washco online and our Alternative High School graduation and then Sunday as all of you are aware we will have our Comprehensive High School's Woodbury East Ridge and park and so

172we say congratulations to all of our graduates we thank the parents for continuing to work with us and support us and wish our graduates the very best thank you thank you Julie next we have school board members report committee reports I will start with Melinda to me stop you're crying already [Laughter] um so none of my committees have met since our last meeting other than policy review which just summarized as far as Next Step um you know that we haven't had a meeting for that either since our last um because I mean it will be next week for there but I just want to recognize that we did have many 833 graduates in the 916 next step program and um I mean not next step 916 program and um so uh last night was the

173wells North graduation and tonight is chorus of course graduation and then South Campus is on June 6th Pat no report the weave a couple of my committees met the high points were covered in tonight's presentations so I have nothing to add excuse me ditto Katie okay Eric real quick um just went to the or attended the amsty May 26 board meeting uh they talked about the essentially the 2023 education bill Dan covered a little bit of it with the increase to the general formula talked about school lunch uh Universal school lunch funding special ed cross subsidies Dan covered that funding for voluntary Pre-K non-certified so um sorry School Employees unemployment covered that and just general curriculum guidelines so just among the topics that were discussed and basically uh the how districts it'll change the management

174of districts in that regards so that's it thank you all right um my report uh nothing but I just want to say I did go to Newports kindergarten graduation and I cried and I didn't even have a kid in there so I look forward to this weekend to the graduations um and going to y'all's house fixed dinner that's all I got to say except now we're moving on to 7.0 our future meeting dates we have a strategic planning meeting next Thursday at on June 8th at the district service center at 5 30. our next meeting will be our business meeting on June 15th and July 13th here at the district service center at 6 PM next on our agenda is 8.0 a closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d .03 for labor negotiations we will

175return to the boardroom following the closed session only to adjourn there will be no additional action items occurring following the closed session now can I get a motion to approve the agenda move by Melinda II by Eric those in favor those opposed motion carry we will return from the post session foreign