ISD 110 School Board Meeting June 23 2025

001All right, noting that all members of the board are present, we will begin seeking a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. All right, any comments on the agenda? Second. Oh, sorry, second first, yep. Yeah, just real quick, we are going to strike item 6A, Southwest Metro Intermediate Report. Did get a regret from Jeff Horton, who's at another district, giving his report and will not be able to make it, so we will reschedule him for a future meeting so he can inform us on the happenings of Southwest Metro. All right. Thank you very much. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries. Will you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under

002God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We don't have any special upcoming announcements. We do have for the board a retreat on July 9th, just a reminder for that. And then any other meetings are noted on the agenda. Do we have any public comment tonight? We do not. All right. So moving on to item four, seeking a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Oh, any opposed? Thank you. I always take that for granted. All right. Moving on to item five, consent agenda. All right. I forgot my cheaters. So although board action is required, it is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items in the event a board member wishes to discuss an item. Item may be moved for separate consideration. Would

003anyone like to have an item pulled for separate consideration? Can I just bring up one? So the Minnesota State High School League resolution, there is currently pending litigation on that. And I don't know what that means for us, and I don't know what that means like state and federal law in coordination with that are kind of in conflict. And so there's some debate like, does that affect your federal funding? So I'm just wondering, like, do we need to have a bigger discussion about that in a work session as to what the implications are for the district? Any comments? Yeah, I mean, do you want to do the other consent agenda items and then pull this separately? Yeah, pull it out. Okay. So pull that one out and discuss that and do all of the other

004consent items except for that one, and I can at least explain my knowledge on it. Okay. So we'll pull that item. 5D, right? Yeah, 5D. All right. And then seeking a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. All right. So any... Yeah, so items of note? Or do you want to? No, we should prove this first and then go to 5D. Sounds good. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, items of note. Yeah, sorry. And then you'll vote? Yes. Okay. So just noting the donations, generous community that we have, we've got $2,153 that was donated by the Waconia Boys Swim and Dive Booster Club for additional coach, $1,134.13 by the Waconia Baseball Boosters for... Baseball helmets and stickers. $736 donated by American Family Insurance for the high school robotics. $1,500 donated by American Red Cross for

005the Waconia High School Scholarship. $920 located by the Lake Town PTO for ambassadors and safety patrol to attend a twins game. $2,200 donated by Cologne Fire Relief Association for Waconia High School cross-country uniforms. $2,000 donated by Waconia Fire Department for the high school prom. $450 donated by Andrew Kutzke Memorial Scholarship for the Waconia High School Scholarship. $3,000 donated by Backyard Wishes for high school scholarships. A 1997 Toyota Avalon donated by Phillip and Ann Singwald for the Industrial Tech Department at the high school. $300 donated by the Waconia Baseball Association for baseballs. 2013 Nissan donated by Laura Jade for the high school tech department. A 2007 Chevy donated by Chad and Jessica Klostmeyer for the industrial tech department. And 450 art books donated by Roger Ramali for Waconia high school art class. And again, thanks to

006our generous community for their donations. Indeed. All right, seeking a motion to approve the consent agenda. We have a motion. We already did? Okay, I apologize. All right, so all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. All right, reports. Wait, so you're not going back to 5D. That's right. I got you here. So this wasn't in the script. That's okay. So as far as my understanding, so when it comes down to high school membership and renewal, the Minnesota State High School League is the only... player in town for our students to participate in sports and other athletics like the academic competitions for speech and other kinds of things. I know that right now there is a disagreement between federal government and state government as it relates to transgender athletes, which is the

007cause for the lawsuit. I think this comes back to at this point, we need to let them play that out. I don't see the direct impact to Waconia Public Schools because we don't have another option, but certainly when it comes down to Waconia Schools and our participation, we're going to follow the laws that are dictated to us. And again, I think right now what the high school league is doing is following what Minnesota has put out as the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which again has come into conflict with the federal expectations. And at this point, it's a matter of, you know, in my opinion, we need to let them play that out and determine. Which rules are the ones that they're going to dictate for the high school league to create? And I do know

008that that's why some districts are having this conversation. I don't know that it's impacting outcomes because it still is. If we want to put a football team on the field in the fall against opponents, this is the organization that sponsors that. So I'm not sure if that answers your question. No, I just don't know. I mean, do we open ourselves up to any kind of liability or anything? I just don't know if we... fully understand how it's going to flush out. I mean, there are like three districts being sued currently by a group of female athletes. And if there's any risk to losing federal funding, like we guess we just don't know that. And then. Yeah, I think we have to let that play out. And I think it just comes back to, you know,

009something that I've kind of mentioned before. Our federal funding comes down to roughly 2% of our general budget, plus maybe some of the. Food services that leaves 98% of our budget coming from the state of Minnesota So I think at this point the risk of losing federal fund is probably outweighed by the risk of losing state funding or otherwise But again, that's just from a practical perspective I want our kids to be able to participate and this is what needs to happen for us to be able to do that Failure to pass that resolution and participate means we put that at risk and again That's just my understanding not having really asked for a legal opinion on the matter. So I don't want to make it sound as if I you know if the board

010wishes I can go and ask for a legal opinion on the matter. Does anybody else have any thoughts? I mean I also am not speaking from a you know official legal. perspective, but I don't know if we need to, but I mean, if it would make people on the board feel better, we could, you know, consult with council, but my understanding is that we just need to abide by whatever is law now, right? And so this is the law now. Litigation, right, obviously takes time, and if something changes in the future, then that's, I think that's a bridge we cross if that happens, but right, as of now, this is the law of the state, and this is... we're under obligation to kind of be in line with that is my understanding. Well, and I

011think the other option is that we, well, I think we have two options. One is we don't sign this right now. It says we have to have it submitted no later than July 31st. So we can, in theory, delay a month. if we wanted to investigate more and see if we have any more. So that's potentially an option. The other option is we don't sign it at all. I'm not sure I'm doing that. I don't think that's an option. Like that's not really an option because... Basically, it would shut down all of our extracurricular high school activities, right? Yes. That's essentially what would happen is we wouldn't be able to participate with any other schools in most all of our activities. That's correct. If we're not a part of the high school league, then certainly

012we're not under that governing body. And even the ability to play out of state, which is obviously impractical. is that question as to who governs which of the different organizations. So I would say, yes, there's an option that says you don't sign it. That's a possibility. Another is to table it a month, and another is to pass the resolution and continue to investigate other options that the board might have at that particular point. As you noted, we've got until July 31st, which means you can approve this at the next board meeting if you're looking for more. I would just want some directions to what are the questions you're looking to answer so that I'm asking and bringing back the correct information because then we would not have enough time for a special meeting if we

013didn't take action at the next board meeting. Right, sure. I don't see anything in this resolution that would be concerning regarding outcomes of unrelated lawsuits that don't include us. I mean, basically we're saying we're going to join the state high school league and follow their procedures. And I mean, obviously, if there's some issue, they're going to have to change their laws as well. So to me, I would say we would go ahead and I would support signing this resolution tonight. Any other comments? Do you want to make a motion? I make a motion that we approve the renewal for MSH, the Minnesota State High School League. Second. Any more discussion? Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I'm going to say no just because I would like more information, but it's going to

014pass anyway. But I agree that we can pass it and still get the feedback from council. But one way or another, to Kim's point, we're going to pass it at some point so that we can participate is the way I see it. So, but I respect that though and we'll get that information. Thank you. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Now, moving on to discussion, excuse me, reports. And as noted, Dr. Horton will not be with us. So, let's move on to item 6B. Matt Thomas. I think he's just queuing this up and he'll be on his way out. There he is. The man behind the curtain. Entrance. Dramatic entrance. It's on, Matt. Right. Yeah, I should have just scared it. Sometimes it doesn't like when I press the button before I plug

015in. All right. All right. Well, thank you, Chair Emmett and members of the board for giving us some time here to talk about our end-of-year survey results. As you know... Every year at the end of the year, we survey students, parents, and staff. Ask them some important questions, about 15 to 20 questions, to get some important data, which we'll talk about here. I do want you to know, just for the sake of time, you're not going to see every result from every school from every question. They are highlights. If there's a specific question that you're interested in seeing the results from, certainly email Jess. and Brian, and we can get you those results at any time if you see something that's not in my presentation. We're at about 40 slides as it is, so just

016for the sake of time, we're trying to stick with highlights. I did want to invite Erica up here at the beginning. She's going to just talk a little bit about what building leaders and sites are already doing with some of the data that we're seeing from this year's survey. I think one of the things is whenever you put a survey out, people are like, well, is anybody really looking at this? What are they doing with this? And so, you know, it's exciting to say that we've already, leaders are already diving into the data. So on June 9th, we had a day where each building brought a building leadership team, which involved the principal, the AP, a couple teachers, those sorts of things. And we looked at a lot of data. We looked at academic data.

017But then this was a part of the... these survey results were a big part of the discussion too. And so within that, they build their school improvement plans looking at all that data. And so when you think about our strategic plan, we have those academic outcomes, but we also have those students, staff engagement outcome two piece. And so they really look at how can we bring these things together. And a couple examples that happened last year with this is Lake Town. You know, there was the one about staff feeling welcome, respected, and heard. They put a goal last year on their SIP plan that they were going to improve that, and they created action steps to do that. Last year they were at the level one, which was below 80%. This year they were at

01892%. So really being purposeful was what they did based on that data. And as we talked on June 9th, they're still in the developmental stages of their plans, but this was definitely part of the conversation. Thinking about some of the questions about students feeling overwhelmed or parents getting information. You saw things like the middle school was talking about, you know, how are we communicating with parents? You know, some of the high school was thinking about how are we talking about how are we... you know, thinking about the whole picture of our students, like what are the assignments that we're giving them to do? How are those sorts of things? Why are they feeling overwhelmed? And a lot of them wanting to dig even deeper into the data, you know, where is this certain spaces coming

019from? So this is really a part of their school-wide improvement plan as they look into it. And so it's exciting to have it as they look at those plans. I had a question. Yeah. That's great. Do the schools have access to get deeper in the data as in, like, they have separated by grade? What separations do they have to actually look more finely? Like, is it the ninth graders that are overwhelmed versus the twelfth graders? Because the twelfth graders have checked out and they're fine, right? We do have that data. I don't know if they've specifically looked at that. It would take a little bit more time to flesh that out. But if building leaders wanted that data, they certainly could access that. And I would say what came out of those meetings is like

020the high school has like exactly what you're saying. They have four questions that now, hey, I'm going to help them get that data. How can they dig deeper into it? You know, you think about adding link to ninth grade next year at the high school. But, you know, let's look at does that impact our data? That might be something that impacts how students are feeling at the high school from the beginning. So those will be the pieces that they look at over the summer, too. Okay. Before I get started, Principals Barbee and Claussen are both out of town, so we do have Principal Bowney here if you have any questions related to elementary school data. So feel free to ask those at any time. So we're going to start with the student survey results. The

021survey is given to students in grades 4 through 12, so keep that in mind as you're seeing elementary results, especially with the... the three elementary buildings, knowing that that's just fourth and fifth graders. And so what that means is when 170 to 180 kids are taking the survey, you know, a difference of a handful of kids can really make a big difference in percentages. So if you see, you know, a difference between 95% at Lake Town and 90% at Bayview, that really just means a handful of kids. It might seem significant when you're looking at a bar graph, but... Keep in mind, just encourage you to know that's just a couple of kids that can really make that difference in the percentages. So 13 students were opted out of the survey by their parents. That's

022typical to what we've seen in the past. So just a little over 2,000 students in total took the survey. The questions are reviewed by principals and the superintendent leadership team every year in late March, and we try to keep that language as consistent as possible from year to year so we can really analyze those trends. One important part is that the results are tied to our strategic plan, specifically to that strategic direction of creating and maintaining an experience where students and staff feel safe and supported, engaged, and belong. You can see the four questions there that really pertain to those measurements that we have as part of our strategic directions, and we'll get into those results in detail. So the first question, I feel safe and supported at school. You can see that district-wide we're

023at about 87%. Every school is above 85%. And when it comes to the strategic measurement, we fall into that level three there between 86 and 90. And as we're looking at the three-year trend, you can see we're fairly consistent here from year to year, just a half point percentage drop off from last year, but fairly consistent. Similar here with I feel welcome respected and heard District wide we're at 86% You can see Lake Town's just a little bit ahead of just about everybody else with similar results there And again, we're in level three out of five when it comes to our strategic measurement and then the three-year trend we did see a little bit of an uptick here of about two and a half percent from last year and and the question was not asked

024In this manner. This was a question that got put into the survey after we developed our strategic directions Our students engaged and involved in their school. Again, very high results here, over 90% district-wide. Lake Town, again, a little bit of an outlier up there, but everybody above 88%. And we fall into level four here out of five in the strategic measurements. And again, a slight uptick of about 1.5% from last year. Do you participate in at least one extracurricular activity, student club, and or sport that's connected to your school? You see, obviously, the secondary schools naturally a little bit higher here than elementary. You know, this could be a confusing question somewhat to elementary school kids. You know, the fact that I play for Waconia traveling basketball, is that connected to my school or not?

025You know, it's kind of a clunky question in that respect, but still high marks here. puts us in the strategic direction measurement is specific to the high school so that's why you see us down here in level four as the high school was at 80% and then the three-year trend again very consistent here across the three years And then just some other results that I just wanted to throw in here, a little quicker view, not one slide per, but looking at, you know, the relationship with students and teachers. I know that teachers and other adults care about me and respect me. Very high results there, all above 91%. Am I treated with respect by my classmates? 82% district-wide. Interesting there, you know, the high school. And middle school are a little bit above two of

026the elementary schools. That was a little maybe unusual to see when you think of older kids maybe not being as respectful. My teachers challenged me in my learning. Very high marks there, 88% district-wide. I can manage my classwork without feeling overwhelmed. You can see that we have a little bit of a dip there that would be natural there in the secondary level as high schoolers are juggling a lot of things. We had some discussion at the district admin level about the next one. I like being at school. We're going to consider rewording that question for next year. Just how it's worded is maybe not so helpful, I think. So we're going to try to play with that a little bit. And then I feel like there's at least one adult at my school who I

027would be comfortable going to if I was in a crisis. 87% district-wide agreed with that. Very high marks above 95% at the elementaries. And then this question, what do you feel like you need help with? Not all students answer this. You can see the numbers in parentheses of the raw numbers of people who selected those. Ways to deal with strong feelings, number one, at two of the three schools. Lake Town students were more in the organization and time management. kind of section there, but this is, I think, good information for all of our building leaders to see. I think Keith would agree that this is probably a pretty helpful question. And then at the high school level, this is one that we've seen consistently throughout the years that high school students wish we had more

028career and college readiness programming at the high school. And, you know, it's more than double of the next highest answer. That's something we also talked about in detail at the full admin team meeting about how we can continue to provide those things for our students. So that's it for the student survey questions. Anybody have any questions they want to ask before we move on to the parent survey? I do have a question. I don't know, Matt, if you would know this or if Brian would know this. So with the career and college readiness, I know they do a lot of that with, what do they call it in high school, connect, whatever that first, is it connect or advisory, right, whatever they have in the high school. Is that mostly where they're getting that college

029and career readiness stuff is in advisory? That's a good question. It'd be one for Sparbie and Brian. You know, I know they do have, you know, separate events. Christine Fenner in the chamber is involved in some things, obviously. And, you know, we typically have a career fair, college and career fair in the gymnasium for the high school students. I'm not exactly sure what kind of college and career readiness programming they're getting in advisory. So, I mean. I've got some high school people here too, but I think you've listed off a couple of examples of things that I know they do that are event-wise, but because this has come up a couple of times in the survey results, it feels like this should just be its own kind of board report to have some understanding because

030our high school kids have told us this consistently. So I think the first step in this is what's the current reality, and I think that might be a matter of taking Paul Sparby, probably Erica, and potentially some of our counselors, which sometimes would run those kinds of curriculum as far as... what's happening in those advisories and bring that back for discussion, which helps create current reality and maybe are some of those gaps that we would need to invest in from a career college readiness programming perspective. Yeah, that's exactly what I was hoping for, like a board report on exactly what we're doing already with it. So that would be great. Great. I just have a quick question. So on the previous slide, so you've got career and college readiness, boom. That one kind of stands

031alone. The next five, those are all like, you know, they go together, and that shows a pretty good need for mental health. You know, what's the plan there? Yeah, and I think, again, I think that'd be, you know, something we could include in a report to the board. I know, again, there's events. Duck Cup is something that Paul has brought. a speaker to talk about substance abuse the last couple years to the high school. But yeah, it might just be another idea like Brian's talking about that we need to come together and talk about what we're doing and where we can go. And just as an aside with that one, so because this has been something that continues to come up. just in schools in general, that we've had some conversations. I had a conversation

032recently after a chamber luncheon with representatives from Ridgeview about what do partnerships potentially look like to continue to evaluate and address mental health. And then Paul Tordoff was also tasked with trying to help us find a specific somebody to consult in this area. Maybe not as quite the same thing as Pivotalogic giving us a result, you know, the results of our... technology, but in a similar way, we have somebody right now who's working on giving us some current reality recommendations of what does it look like to support mental health needs within our students and what are some other recommendations we might have. It's just still in progress because it was kind of initiated a little more, a little bit later in the spring as we were, it's not the same as finding. tech consultant. Like

033this is a little more narrow of a market to try to find the right fit for this. So I'm hopeful that we'll have results. And yes, we could bring that back for a board report, but there are some specific things we're looking for advice on as to help us understand what else we could do with mental health needs, because that is a growing area. And you will recall Sarah Ishens, who was here at a recent meeting, she did address some of those things, obviously, that they're doing out of health services with the counseling team as well. Any other questions before we move on? All right. So parent guardian survey. We had about 945 parents take the survey this year, which was just slightly down, which was interesting because they got bugged to take it a

034few more times than they did last year. So maybe some survey fatigue. But you can see the breakdown there. Pretty even across the board. A few more at the high school and Southview parents. So similar, we're going to start with those questions that are tied to the strategic plan. My child feels welcomed, respected, and heard at school. You can see great results across the board. Again, everybody above 86%. You can see that the parents feel a little bit better into this question than the students themselves. So the parents have a little better idea, or not idea, but thought of how their child is welcomed and respected and heard at school. Again, that puts us at level four out of five in the strategic measurements and a slight uptick from last year. My child is engaged

035and involved in school. Again, 94% district-wide, very high marks at the elementary, still solid marks at the secondary, and in level four out of five with the strategic direction, and again, a slight uptick from last year. Teachers and staff care about my child's future and academic success, almost 95% district-wide and almost mirroring the results from the last two questions there when you look at elementary versus secondary. And then this question separated between elementary and secondary just because it's worded a little different. My child is challenged academically. You can see the elementary combined is about 93%. And then it's just my child is challenged academically, but is also able to manage their classwork without feeling overwhelmed. So I split that up into two different slides just because of the difference in the wording there. My child

036is receiving a high quality education. We're almost right there at 90%. As a marketer, I love to see that number keep growing. Those are good scores. And again, my child is receiving a high-quality education three-year trend. We upticked about 5.5% from last year and surpassed where we were in 2023. And then this question, almost exact same results as the previous one. Overall, I'm satisfied with my child's educational experience, right, at 90%, again, district-wide. And similar in the three-year trend. Any questions about the parent survey? Is it normal to have the high school so much lower than the elementary schools? I would say yes. You know, I don't know what's an acceptable downtrend from elementary to secondary, but I'd say it's very normal, you know, as kids get older. You know, parents start to lose a

037little bit of control with what their kids are doing. They're not as involved. And, you know, just life gets more complicated as kids get older. And so I think that's a normal progression. I see any comments in the data that would be, like, I'm assuming they can put in comments somewhere, so there was nothing like a trend that we saw. We actually got an email about that. Brian and I had a conversation about that, about the possibility of adding that. There actually wasn't anywhere where you could just, you know, a box where you could add any additional comments that you wanted. So Brian and I did have a conversation about the possibility of adding that for next year's survey. And we take into account that... We're talking about 13-year-old kids who are just struggling becoming

038adults at any rate. Right. That was kind of my question, too, kind of what you were saying, Amanda, because I was wondering if there was a place to put comments because, you know, a follow-up question I would have is like, okay, so what would make you feel more satisfied with your kids' educational experience? Like what is bringing you down to these, you know, 80% instead of like the 90s? And that's kind of my same question that we'll get when we get to the staff one, right, where the high schools, you know, rating lower about feeling supported and safe at work, is there a place for the staff to then say what would make you feel more supported and safe at work? Like what are we missing here? Like why? Like what is the why behind

039those answers? Yeah, you know, my experience with these has been you might get better data on something like that in more of a focus group setting than on a survey. Three years ago when we did allow, you know, comments, it kind of turns into more personal vendettas than data that you can really take back and use. You know, it's, you know, my kid got a D in this class and that was unfair, you know, something like that. That's not real credible data, but I like where you're going with that. And I think, you know, something like a focus group or something could probably pull out some of that data a little bit better. I also think it makes sense that the parent guardian results mirror the student results. You know, as a parent of high

040schoolers, let's be honest, the things I heard from my kids when they were young coming home, they were more excited and positive. Whereas, you know, now my kids come home and they complain about things. So, you know, while the education isn't necessarily changing, we just, we hear complaints more as the kids get older. So to me, that's probably why the parents. you know, why it dips more in the secondary is more just what our kids are telling us. And our kids never lied to us, by the way. I think it should be said, too, like in the secondary schools, expectations have a much bigger variance, too. Like what parents are expecting their child's education to be is going to have a much bigger spectrum than at the elementary level. So any way to word the

041question to take that into account or if you did provide an area for comments, just a way to ask for those comments with that kind of being the marker of like, let us know your expectations so we can address them. I also would be curious, I don't know if you've got the data, but I would be curious to see if it's the big fish going to, little fish going to the big pond. What was it starts at sixth grade in middle school if it's sixth grade all of a sudden it drops But then at seven were better and eight were better. So, you know, we're coming back up. Yep. That'd be good to look into All right Staff survey I saved the best for last 333 staff completed this year's survey. That was an increase

042by about 50 to 60 from the previous years. You can see the building breakdown there, even across the board with a little more obviously at the secondary since we have more staff there. And you can see heavy on the WEA group, about two-thirds exactly of staff who took the survey are WEA. And 62 ESP and then 49 in other groups. Next year, can you give us the total number of eligible? Oh, how many staff we have total? Are we talking 99%? I have no idea. It's not 99%. No. I can tell you it's not. Closer to half, probably. Just so we have that idea. All right, so staff who feel safe and supported at work, 86% district-wide. Again, higher scores at the elementary, pretty high score at the middle school actually as well. And it

043puts us in that level three out of five on the strategic direction. And you can see a significant jump from last year, about up 14% district-wide, not quite up to the 2023 level, but I did put an asterisk there because the question was worded slightly different. It was worded, I feel safe at work. So I wanted to note that there. I feel welcome, respected, and heard at work district-wide, 82%. And again, you can see the breakdowns there by building. And on this one, we are at level two out of five. Despite being a two out of five, you can see a 22-point jump here in this question from last year to this year. So that was good to see. I feel that I'm engaged and productive in my position. This remains very high mark, 97%,

044and puts us in level five, and is almost 2% increase from last year. I'm proud to be part and work in District 110, 95.5%. Give Bayview a shout out there for their 100% A plus mark, gold star. And obviously a huge jump here. I think Brian might have even shared this one earlier with people. This was one that... We expected a jump, but maybe not quite this significant. I think everybody expected a jump from last year or even the last two years, but to see that shoot up to 95.5% was a really good sign and something we were happy to see. Just some quick takes. 95% of staff feel supported by parents in the community. 82% by their direct supervisor. 85% feel that they receive clear communication from their building administrative team and 84% from

045the district administrative team. Almost 95% feel that their colleagues ensure an inclusive environment for students. 67% say they have time to do their job well and about 77% say that they feel there's opportunities for professional growth here in ISD 110. That is the presentation. Any other questions or reflections on those staff results? I just have one question on the high school teacher part. What I saw from there, you don't need to go back, is you've got the overwhelming majority who are saying, I'm good at what I do, I'm doing the best I can, I'm proud of it, but then 30% of them say, I'm not being seen. And that's a question for Paul, but what's the story there? Do we have... You know, any feedback on that or? You know, no direct feedback. I think

046to hear from Paul would be best. But, you know, I think when you're running a building with more staff, right, you've got more staff. And I think Paul has to tell people no more often than elementary principals have to tell their teachers no on certain things when there's coaches and advisors and clubs and all the things that are involved in a secondary school. And so I think some of that can be part of. seeing a bit of a lower response rate there at a secondary school when there's more people involved and more complications. Brian, I don't know, anything you want to add? Again, a lot of it would be speculation. But, you know, as he said, one of the things as a former high school principal I realized compared to my elementary colleagues, I did

047have to say no more to materials that are very different for tech ed, family consumer science, chemistry, than would be to kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. the needs and the materials and the supplies are just not quite the same. So having to be in a position of, you know, again, always fixed budgets and having to say no, you do say no probably a lot more versus, you know, elementaries with probably not the same needs and PTOs that have been really, really generous and supportive to help get the things that they need. And I think that's where elementary principals become very resourceful with funding that doesn't come directly from Pam's office. But again, it is speculation. It's stuff that we really want to lean in focus groups or other questions would have to you know

048be a part of that to really Dig in. I would love to get like a focus group or something where we could get some more specific. Because although I think we're all seeing like these really great improvements, right? And the surveys like and we're all really pleased, but still to have like our community ed in our high school, WLC at like 65% on the I feel welcomed, respected and heard at work. To me, that feels like we need to make improvement there. And we need to base it off of like, what are they really telling us? Not speculation. So like, I would love to see something more concrete to get some feedback from staff about. What is it that they need more to feel respected and welcomed out and heard at work? Is that something

049we can do to get something more concrete from them? I'd want a bit more understanding kind of from the full board, like what would you use that for? Because just as an example, if we came back and we said, well, we really want a smaller class sizes. Are we in a financial position to put resources towards the outcomes? Or is that part of what we did as a winter project? Not so much from a how are you feeling, but what are the things that people need and prioritizing, which led to... purchasing of smart boards and some of the other things that are still on the list. So I'd be looking for what are we going to do with the information before I necessarily say, I mean, I'm not ruling it out, and that's certainly something

050that Paul might want to do with his leadership team in general at the secondary where they would be making goals around that similar to what Erica said before. If that's going to be reported to the board, I'd want to know how you intend to use it, or is it more of a, at this point, the high school leadership teams deal with the high school team in that, and we potentially see if there's impact on it. Well, I just feel like we can't really make decisions on it if we just don't have more information, right? So, like, what will we do? We don't really know until we see what the information is, right? And so, like, is it something that would be a board effort, right, that we could do something? Or is it something that

051the administration and the schools needs to handle? But we won't really know that until we have a little bit more information about what that is. Yeah. That's not. just speculation. That's where I defer to the high school administration and, you know, part of the process that they have going of already starting to look at these results and potentially they digging into those. And if there's going to be a request for resources, that's where they would potentially have to come back to the board or obviously starting with me to say, here's what we need and why we need it. And at that point coming, coming forward, you know, with those proposals. Sure. And we could do it that way, but also like if there is something more systemic wide district wide, right. I would like to

052know that. Like if there is something we can do as a board like that, I would like to know that sooner than later, you know, and obviously, you know, I trust the administration to kind of work on their thing. But if there's something that we need to address district wide, we would be the ones to do that. And so we can't do that if we don't have the information, though. So that I feel like that would be helpful information. If if that focus group is already going to happen, like why not give the information to the board as well? so that we can know what's going on. And if there's something that as a board we can address, we could. Like it's not extra work, right, to get that information. It depends on how they're

053planning on using it. And if they were already planning on doing a focus group or if they had other plans, I would kind of, again, want them to be a part of the conversation to determine as a site leadership team how they were going to potentially look into those results or do other things with them. Sure. And then if they want to just like, you know, in their reports to us, right, the site leadership can kind of let us know what they have found out. I would wait for the building administration to come to me if they have a request and at that point I would bring more information to the board. Sure. I mean, yeah, I mean that, I see what you're saying. I feel like that is a way to do it, but

054yeah. Well, I think part of it is. making sure the board stays in its lane and we don't get down to the point where we're doing administrative things. At this point, where I see this at is the administration for each of the buildings needs to digest this and how this affects them. Does this change how they're going to look at this? Now, the high school might come back and say, we really do need to do a focus group. Because we need to dig into this staff issue. And that may come back to Brian and back to us for the funding to be able to do that. But it might be a known issue. Like Paul might actually know what's going on with his staff and what the issue is. And so he may come up

055with a different request for us. But for us to... initiate a focus group and jump in down at that level it's really not what we should be doing at this point we should make it clear to Brian that yes we support looking at these numbers and making them better and when you get requests we definitely will support whatever whatever comes from the the administration but that and I mean they're already looking at each of the You know, each building is looking at this data already and developing plans. I mean, I'd love to see those plans, but I don't know that we need to see those plans. And that creates extra work for people. Sending us copies of those plans is extra work because that means they have to clean it up. They want to make

056sure it looks good because it's going to the board. If it's not stuff that we need. then we probably shouldn't be asking for it because it's creating a lot of extra work and spending extra dollars. Well, I mean, I would never ask for extra work or extra dollars, but I guess I just feel like, and you would have to let me know, but my memory is that from the survey. we're not really seeing big jumps. Like this is a very similar response from the high school staff from last year's survey. So like, I don't know if we, like, I know we've seen movement district-wide, but have we seen movement high school-wide with their staff since last year? So like they've known this information for a while. So what has happened, what has changed? And so,

057yes, I'm not in their lane, right? They're doing the day-to-day at their schools, but as a district, obviously this affects us district-wide, right? If we have A significant member of the staff of the high schools who's feeling unhappy, you know, or just, you know, not respected and not heard at work, like this is a bigger issue that has been going on. Not just this year like I'm pretty sure my memory is that it was a pretty similar response from last year's I don't know if I've seen much movement there what I would recommend I think that we've got a good Subject for a discussion for a later work meeting. I think that for now just to keep the cadence of the meeting Let's take that and then we'll just put it on our work item

058agenda just we can right. Yeah, definitely I just just want to say like the things that we can do as a board I want us to know what those are so we can do them and then the things they need to do on their end Yeah, that that's what they'll do So we'll let the administration kind of formulate a plan, and then we can take it from there. Oh, sorry, one quick comment. I just did want to acknowledge the staff. I know it's been a hard couple of years, so thank you for sticking around, and it's awesome to see our numbers going back up. So, again, thank you to everybody who struggled through some hard years. For sure. Well, that's the thing that we want as the board that I want to, and maybe this

059is why I feel passionate about it, is because I want our teachers to know that the board isn't just like, oh, we keep seeing these low numbers from the high school, you know. But, like, I want them to know as a board we care, we notice that they're still having these, you know, these same results year after year of not feeling respected at work and that we're noticing and that we care. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to item 6c, finance report. And welcome up, Director Pam Carman. Hello, everyone. So this is our finance report for May. I'll just go through a couple of little high-level things. So the first page, as always, is just focusing on the general fund. And so here, if you just look at our total

060revenue, you can see that our percentage of the budget received. I have updated this, so now you see the updated, the original adopted budget as well as the revised budget, and the percentages are being calculated off of the revised budget. You'll see in totality we're pretty close to where we were last year. However, you will see a little dip. been federal. Some of that is the majority of our federal dollars comes from federal special education and there was an overpayment that was made so MDE took some money back in FIN 420 which is related to some of our early childhood programming. So that's why you're seeing some of these differences on that right now. That'll all get trued up at the end of the year. And then you can look at it by our expenditures

061on our salary and wages again We're really close to where we were at in 24 at 79.29 compared to 80.11 And then you can see the same thing broken down here by program series So that is everything on the general fund before I go on if there any questions about the general fund or anything that you want to know more about before I go on to the other funds Okay, so then page two looks at our other funds And so here I just want to point out And while it's been similar to where it's been in the past. I do want to mention here about food service and So what happens with food service is a lot of the money that comes from our local so when our families pay for a la carte Or

062when they've if you actually look back in 23, you'll see we're at like 31 percent That's because a lot of our money that comes from our parents we don't actually get that all done and trued up and actually accounted for as Revenue on food service till closer to the end of the school year So that's why you're seeing that 65 percent right now It does include our state and federal dollars But it doesn't include like our cart and some of those other items that come from our parents and families and adult meals The other thing I want to point out here is our debt service. So you'll see our debt service looks like it's significantly over. That is because of the refunding bonds. So if you remember, we issued bonds so that we could end

063up paying off other bonds at a higher interest rate. So we've received that money, but we haven't actually paid off those bonds yet. That's going to happen in June. So that's where you're seeing that big difference there right now on the refunding bonds. And then if you look at expenditures, again, on expenditures, we're close to where we thought we were going to be. The only outlier there is the trust. That's because money that comes in for those scholarships that you heard about this evening, that has been coming in more than we expect. We typically just... budget that at about $5,000 because we don't know what we're going to get. So that's what you're seeing kind of happening within that trust fund is those high school scholarships. And that's all I really have with the finance

064report unless there's other questions or clarifications that anyone has. Any questions? No, but thank you for clarifying that service. Yes. All right. Thank you very much. Don't go too far. All right, moving on to action items. We'll begin with item 7A. So I think we may, if we can just kind of backtrack for a discussion item instead first and then come into the action item after the discussion. I probably didn't set this up maybe on the agenda, but Pam was going to do some exercise because our action items generally start with a motion to approve in a second. You don't necessarily know what you're moving to approve or seconding at this point. So maybe a continuation of the finance report as a previous work session when we were talking about. the referendum, there was a

065request for some modeling and to take a look at if we could, you know, potentially get into the sandbox here a little bit and say, what are the different outcomes? How does that work against the long-term projections and those kinds of things? So what Pam has put together here, and it is probably going to be a need to check different screens and things. So I apologize to the viewing audience who might suddenly see board members turning around. This is probably one of the better screens to see. Pam will walk you through what she's been able to do here. kind of give her some projections, some of which you've seen before, some of the baseline projections, and then some of them are going to be a demonstration of different amounts, what those impacts would have in

066the long-term projections, different decisions we might make of things that are coming forward, as well as this will have some changes due to legislative action that happened after what you'll see in the... the budget that you're going to approve. So it's a timing thing where there are some little pieces that were not included in the budget that you'll approve that'll have to be adopted later. You'll see some of those here too. Good enough of a setup there, Pam? Yeah, great. And I would invite the board members to pay attention because each of you will have an opportunity to adjust the levers. So that's great. Thank you. And so, yeah, this comes back to, I think, at the last work session, there just was some questions and wonderings about, you know, what does this look like

067for five years? And wanting to really know where we're going to land. And so I felt like the best way to... to really do that is to try to walk you through how we look at this as a district and at the administration level when it comes to a lot of this modeling and all the different levers and variables we're trying to navigate as we're doing this. And so I'm going to first start you with where we were at. So this is right here. This is the exact snapshot that I showed. we looked at at the June 9th board meeting. So this is where we were looking at our revised budget, our original adopted budget that you'll be adopting tonight, and then where our projections were gonna go for 26, 27, and 27, 28. And

068so what I did is I now rolled that out one more year. And so I went down here, and now I started to roll it out to 2829. So that's one thing I did. The other thing I did is I started to look at some of our restricted funds and our resources and started to figure out where would I potentially, and this is just me playing now, but where would I potentially start to move some of those and utilize some of those restricted resources in a manner maybe to try to flatten out some of these numbers. over those future years as we're going out the five years. So this, what you're seeing right here on the screen, this is what I'll be referring to as I go through all of the other analyses that we're

069going to start to change levers as the base forecast. So this is my starting point. And then now we're going to start to play with some numbers and variables and to see what that looks like as we start changing to the revised forecast and what that does with the numbers. So any questions on what I actually did with these two scenarios at this point as you're looking at it? I don't think so. The only question I have is could you go like one notch bigger? Yes. I almost got it. That's better. Thank you. Here, I can slide it. You want me to make it even bigger? You won't be able to see some of the numbers on the other screens, but I'll do what I can. Thank you. So are we good? Yeah. Okay. So

070then, so this is my base forecast. This is our starting point. So then what I did is I started to put together some different input and some input and base forecast assumptions. Then these are the pieces we're going to play with. This is an all-inclusive. I know, Jesse, you had said, you know, you don't need to include all the levers. I just tried to include some of the pertinent ones for right now. So the first thing I wanted to start with is just some of our enrollment assumptions. So these are what we have right now in there for our enrollment assumptions. And this goes from early childhood special ed all the way up through grade 12. And then it's calculating our adjustable pupil units. What I want to show you here is all of the

071operating referendum information that you've seen was based on 4,228 adjusted pupil units. However, that was because that was the number and where we were at with our projections when we did the truth and taxation hearing back in December. As you guys probably remember, our kindergarten numbers were coming in significantly lower, so we adjusted those. So in the modeling I've done, I have adjusted that based on on the new enrollment projections that we have with that lower kindergarten class size. So I just want to point that out. It doesn't change the 3 million and the taxpayer impact numbers that you were looking at. What it changes is the dollar amount per APU. And you'll see that when we get down to some of those numbers. But I just want to make sure you understand that. So

072any questions with that before I move on? Okay, so one of the variables you have here is if you guys choose we can start to change some of our enrollment projections and we can play around and see what that does and then what that does to our adjusted pupil units and that will then change our revenue as well as Anything we would potentially do on the operating referendum. So that's one variable Another one, if you recall, when I did the base forecast, I didn't assume any FTE reductions that would be corresponding to the declining enrollment. In the revised forecast, I have done that. However, I have done that on a very global level. So I'm looking at our total enrollment and our total FTEs. So while this is saying it's three FTEs potentially in 26,

07327, depending on where those kids land, that may not be the case, which is why I didn't include it in my original base forecast. The other thing that I included as an option is looking at a market correction. As you know, we started to work and collaborate with the WEA in looking at where we potentially might need to look at different comparables and what that might look like. And preliminary work that we've done looks like we may be off market by about a million dollars in salary and benefits. So what I have assumed is I've assumed that we would set aside an assignment in fiscal year 27 and that we would then roll in those increases. We'd kind of feather them in to our contracts, maybe over two contract cycles. And so I built that

074in as something that we can maybe potentially be planning for. The other thing I added is options. If you remember when we presented to the board earlier, I think it was this spring or winter, we met with the administration and talked about things that they would like to see us potentially put back into the budget. And we did do some of that, like with the smart boards and some of the instructional technology, but some of the items we did not do was the fourth specialist rotation and the K-12 media position. So we added that as options if that was something that the board would want to consider. So we included that in our modeling. And I'll stop before I get into the legislative. Anything, any questions so far or anything that you would like to

075add? No, just like some of those assumptions, for example, the contract, you know, about a million dollars. We talked about that number at a high level. Remembering we're putting those in there as exercise and assumptions. That's all subject to negotiations. And that is just market correction money, not your typical what you would expect for improvements to the contract, just by also keeping pace with what other raises are coming. So that's just market correction money, not all raises compounded. Then I got into some of the legislative assumptions. And so I assume that the basic education, the general education formula allowance is going to increase in the out years by 2%. You can change that assumption if we decide. I assume compensatory revenue, which was on there, I'm making the assumption that it's going to stay at

076our 10-1-24 enrollment participation and that it would continue at that 3-34. So that's the assumption that I made. We can change that one as well. The special education transportation, this one I do want to make sure you're aware. As Brian mentioned in the beginning, when we did the budget book, everything was not yet finalized. So the one thing, and I highlighted in yellow, that is not reflected in the budget book that will have to be reflected in the revised budget is the special education transportation reimbursement at 95% instead of 100%. So that is reflected in here for 25-26, and then 90% for the years thereafter. And then the student support personnel aid, I've made those assumptions in coming in on the per pupil amount based on the legislative changes. School library aid, I did the

077same thing. So you'll see that those numbers are reflective in the revised forecast. Then we get into the core of what I think you guys really want to talk about tonight, and that is to start looking at different operating referendum levels. So what I've done here right now is I just say, yes, I want to look at an operating referendum. And I put in the $3 million, which I have right here. And then I brought in the taxpayer impact. And because of the difference in the APUs, it's now $731,000 as opposed to the $710,000, which you were used to seeing. And then I actually then also built in assumptions based on the board renewal of the 2018 and 2020, if we're going to use the inflationary factor. And then I also put in what MDE

078has provided as their assumptions related to the inflationary increases on the cap. And so you can start to look at these and build, and that's the majority of what I have. So we can start to play. So just real quickly, I think it might be helpful. So can you show them after making some of these decisions an example of what that does to your projection? So just take your baseline assumptions that you've made here and jump over to the results piece so they also see like, so if I do different scenarios, what am I going to see? So I did end up putting this into a table as well as graphics because I thought maybe the table would be easier, especially since I have to make it larger. So I'm going to go to the

079table. And do I need to make it larger? Yes, please. Okay, so you won't see much changes in 24 and 25 because that's what we've already done. So here's your base forecast, here's your revised forecast, and this is what's showing to your total fund balance, your non-spendable restricted assigned and committed fund balance, and then your unassigned fund balance, and then the percentage of the fund balance based on total expenditures. So you'll see that 24 and 25 are the same. I would expect that, right? 26 is different. The reason 26 is different is because of that special education transportation piece. Because that we have to factor in. The legislative came after we did the budget book. So that's what the difference is between 26. So now we roll out if... you would go and move forward

080with a $3 million operating referendum and it was approved. The funding would come in in fiscal year 27. So what you're seeing here in 27 is the difference related to that operating referendum and what would be happening. And then we roll that out. into 28 and then into 29. Now keep in mind, I have that million dollar market adjustment assignment in here where I'm feathering in $250,000 a year for four years. So you're seeing 500,000 of that feathered into 250 and 28 and 250 and 29. But that's where you would land on the unassigned fund balance of right about that 5% with $3 million. Can you do also one other thing? Can you freeze column A? Oh, yeah. Perfect. So with your variables set as they are right now, and assuming the 250 being feathered

081in, 28 and 29 were basically just at policy. Correct. With $3 million referendum. Got it. And just what did you set as some of the other variables on this one too? I can just go through them quickly again. So my enrollment is at my current projection level. So I'm showing a decline in enrollment. I have those FTE reductions of three, two, and two, which is a global number. I have the feathering in of the market correction. I left the formula allowance general increasing at 2%. I left compensatory at our levels that we had in fiscal year 26. I have the transportation reimbursement going down to 90% in the out years, 95 and 25, 26. And then I've set the student support personnel aid, the school library aid, at what the statutory requirements are based on

082the new legislation. And then I have operating referendum of $3 million, so it's $731 per APU, with inflationary increases, assuming the board renews the... their existing operating reference have been 2018 and 2020. And just real quick, I think you may have skipped over one, but you also do, you have it switched to no, not adding back the three element or the elemental elementary specials or the immediate position. That is correct. So that's for FTEs that is currently defaulted to not putting those back in. Correct. And again, as you, anybody can say, I want this and this and this and see what it does, but that just so that we're clear what's in there, that's not in there. Right. My. Where do you want me to go? Thank you. I want you to go to the

083funding formula, the 2%. Here. Yep. Is 2% even realistic? Can I just comment to that real quick? It's all going to be speculation, right? I know it's speculation, but we do have history, and 2% is high, isn't it? Is this the inflationary increase? No, no. This is how much the... State's gonna give us right additional each each year right and I thought there was a schedule that was Following the inflation formula and that is that floor at to the ceiling at three following inflation So this year was a two point seven four my comment to that though is just to note that the net impact of the legislative session will be short of two point four or two point seven four which was the inflationary factor just take what we discovered here with the 95%

084reimbursement for sped transportation alone that is going to come from the bottom line because we lost revenue in that one. So 2.74 minus the 5% of special is one example that the other things that are in here. Media position money the other categorical funding This is kind of a little bit of a shell game here So maybe it'll be 2% but is the net gonna be 2% like there's still a lot of guessing with Cuts dumb and coming down the road when they have the 250 million dollar Special education task force that is tasked with cutting 250 million dollars and if it doesn't happen it comes off the cross subsidy that'll hack into the net Bottom line. I don't mean to pick two special education examples, but they're the ones that are significant that we're

085just on the slide too. And I did put this, this isn't the final version, but I did in the budget book, you'll see that this was what we had when it was done on June 9th. So, and it does talk about that blue ribbon commission on special education, which is what Brian's talking about. But to that point, yes, the statute currently is that 2% would be the floor and 3% would be the ceiling following inflation. I'm not trustworthy. Can you set that to 175? Assuming that they're going to pull out of a different... Sure. The net is going to be less than two. Yeah, the net's going to be less than two. They're going to pull out of a different bucket. They're going to quit giving us other money. I'm going to put you all

086on the spot, but I'd like to kind of go in order. Heather, I'm going to start with you, and I'm going to kind of work this way. I'm going to put you on the spot first. Is there anything that you would like to... You're changing too many things. You've got to look at it before you change another thing. You need to look before you change. I changed it back to null. Okay. But it's plugged in there when we get to it. I would change one thing at a time because otherwise when we move over there, we're not going to know what changed. Correct. And it'll give us a good look at how just one small factor has maybe a large impact or maybe not. You could pick somebody else to make the next change. Okay.

087Well. All right. Well, did you see what you wanted to see, though, Jesse? We haven't moved over yet. We didn't do it. I stopped. Okay. So we need to see Jesse's first, right? Let's... Okay. Okay. So the only change I made is it went from 2 to 1.75. Yep. Yep. Yep. Now, the base forecast is not going to change. Right. We're only looking at what's happening with the revised forecast, just so everybody's clear. Right. Yes. So we lost half a million. We fell out of policy. In 29. Yep. Because we were at three, weren't we? Yeah, it was 3,005,000. Yep. You can ask somebody else for a change. Change us back to no. Sure. Leave it at yes. You want to build? I don't know. What do you guys want? Put it back to its

088original two, I think. Yeah. Because as of now, that is the floor. But you were kind of trying to account for maybe other things that they're taking away, right? By changing that. But to Jesse's point, that's why I think when, Ryan, when you asked your question about, well, we want to make sure we don't have to go out again in five years, my response was, well, you tell me what the legislature is going to do. Well, and if that's the only variable that we miss in this whole thing, what that just told me is even if it goes down to one, we still have a fund balance at the end of 29. Right, right. I hope it doesn't go that low. You know, it's important to know how much these variables affect. And I'm seeing

089a collaborative effort here, so I'm not going to impede that. So keep this vibe going. Special education transportation, we dropped it down to 90. Is that actually what they've mandated, that it will go down to 90? Okay. Correct. I didn't know if we were just speculating that they're going to take more. No, we're speculating, though, that it's going to stay at 90. That is correct. 95% for next year, 90% for FY27 and thereafter was the change, which, yes, they could change again, but that's the current law. Oh, bummer. So those are accurate numbers until they move the number on us. 100%. Which is going to happen. We can't control, like, what we can do is this. So what if you add in those four FTE again? How does that change things? All four? Sure. And

090then we can play around. I mean, it's not going to be a huge amount. Okay. And I'm assuming, just so I'm clear, I'm assuming we're going to do that in fiscal year 27. Okay. That's a big impact. It is, yeah. Well, you think about it. 27, average salary simplicity, $400,000. 28, another $400,000. 29, another $400,000. Did you take a look? I did. Yeah, we already looked. Oh, sorry. Nope, that's fine. Blink and it's gone. I'm an eternal optimist, and I'm curious if we had an increase in enrollment. What would that look like? Do you want me to keep this on? Yeah. Okay. What do you want the numbers to be? And I have this broken down by, so the reason I have this broken down the way I have it broken down is because K-6,

091you get, it's a 1-0 weighting to go from ADM to adjusted people units. 7-12 is a 1.2. Okay. So that's why I have these broken down this way. I would say you probably want to stay away from early childhood special ed and VPK just because VPK, we have 54 seats. That's not going to change. Early childhood special ed just depends upon the needs from birth to five. But you can play with these two. Yeah, I'd be curious just to see an increase in the 7 to 12. Okay. Some of the parochial schools in town, if we've got more coming to Maconia Public High School than expected. Give me numbers. Say like 10 a year. I don't know what, I don't want to pick a number that's not going to move the needle, but I also

092don't want to. Like that? Sure. I'll just leave that in there. And you wanted me to leave these on? Yeah, we can leave all the other variables the same. It did not move. It doesn't move as much. No, it didn't. Something happened. It didn't change. It did change, yeah. Oh, here's why. Here we go. Here we go. I turn on my time. I actually do that intentionally. Just so everybody knows, I do that intentionally because you can also accidentally leave it on. Yeah, right. And so that's why. No, that's right. It didn't change still. Oh, yeah, that's the same. Okay. That auditing. Did these numbers change? They did when you switched it over to yes. I don't know if the baseline number there did. Yeah, I don't know. Row 73 might not have. Let me

093just undo this. Just watch. Sorry, I might have missed that one. No, it did. It did. Oh, is it because it's next? What about the third year? Oh, yeah. I'm going to check one other thing just to see if it just, I didn't bring it into the table, right? Just hold on. Sure, you pick the one thing. I'm so sorry, Pam. No, it's great. It's great. It's just I will. I'm so sorry. Any mistakes at all in this massive of a situation? I mean, it's just unacceptable. No, it's, I can try to fix it if you want after we have the other discussion items. I'm not sure what. I'll have to look. It says something in my formula. Sorry about that, guys. It's okay. So I pick a different factor. Okay. Yeah, I didn't. Okay.

094Sorry. Okay. I'm going to check something because I know I checked this here. Sorry. I think in the end, certainly just pointing out maybe the obvious of what has to result here. Some consensus as to which of those optional things you really say, yep, let's include this as part of our long-term planning. Knowing that nothing on here. is aside from what we've talked about, which is our goal here is to maintain a quality public school district. We're not looking for fancy new things or shiny new objects. This is about the needs and the essentials that we believe we need as a district, which includes, you know, your opinions. Obviously, our team told us as among the things they want to those elementary specials as the K-12 media specialists. We've got to make some decisions on

095that one, make some decisions on what we've said we believe. is a rough estimate of what we need for market corrections for salaries and benefits. That's another kind of thing that we have to resolve on and kind of running through the rest of it. And then at that point at the bottom, really we have to decide at amount. It really is now at the, whether it's the amount of the referendum, which is now seven 24, seven 42. You saw the difference came off of 710. $3 million, $3.5 million was kind of the window we ended the last one at. That's what we have to really pin down. So if we can somehow get a consensus on the other switches, as a board want to plan for, and then move towards that particular item, that's action

096item 7. One, the first action item that you're looking for is to take action to direct us to prepare for an operating referendum with a specific amount. So that's what we start to do ballot language and other calculators and things around. Does that make sense? Yeah. So ultimately, that's what the outcome of this discussion needs to be. Yeah. And I think if nothing else, you know, the $3 million number was talked about before. And I just, this helps to show where that gets us in 29. And that's... to ask anybody to project out further than that would just be ridiculous. So I appreciate it just on that level. And you basically have shown us that, not that we didn't believe that the $3 million was a calculated number that you came to with a lot

097of factors that went into it. It's just to see it as a different level, if you will. So. Yeah, with the survey, we've seen that 3 million is the number that the community is comfortable with. And then as a board. The consensus has kind of been no more than $3 million, no less than $3 million. So it's looking like that's going to be what we shoot for, but obviously that's still a decision that we need to make, which is a factor that we haven't, a lever that we haven't moved. Is there any? So if we have everything as yes and no increase in enrollment, where does that $3 million leave us? Think it was that what about the legislative formula? We stick with We're going with your And this is this is I'm leaving this

098at 3 34 is that okay, yep It's more just the added expenditures. Yep. Okay. Yep. So I've got it. That is yes, and except for enrollment. What do you want this to be? Just at the three. Like, are we still good with everything? I think that got us at 3% of a fund balance. Okay. So that was every day. Yeah. Okay. I was just making sure everything was yes. Well, and I think for us, the real question is, at 29... what do we feel comfortable with the fund balance being? I mean, 3%, but we're on the way down. Correct. I mean, do note that that fund balance is going down, and it went down $2 million between 28 and 29. So that's the rate of decline at that point, which means if the projections are

099hazy, but in 30, it would be down to zero. The fund balance would be down to zero. Now again, we can't project forever and we don't know what's going to happen forever. Anywhere where we start to see that decline, I'm expecting that from a managerial perspective, we're going to have to make some recommendations to change what we're doing, go through a process. It just shouldn't be as dramatic as what we did two years ago with 4.7. We're talking about always planning today for what we see coming three, four years down the road so that $100,000 reduction over four years is easier than $400,000 by waiting too late before we have to do it. Right, right. Because, I mean, we saw how, just four head count of four changed that by millions of dollars over the

100years. So yeah, I mean, if we're planning ahead in 27, maybe there's a cut in 27 that then, you know, changes that instead of the deep cuts that we had to make. Correct. Right. And maybe like those head count come on slower or something so that it's less impactful. Yeah, or we cut half a position here or half position there because enrollment is lowering, right? Yeah. That's, I think, just try it. I think the right sizing is kind of in there. It's already in there. Yeah, there is some right sizing in there, too. But there are other things, for example, within those specials. You know, if Lake Town is bringing in three sections of kindergarten next year and they bring in three sections the next year, the need for that fourth specialist starts to slowly

101work its way out as well. So, again. there are just unknowns as far as where the kids are coming or otherwise that even adding that in there might be fractionals or shared positioning of a special that has to happen if we don't have enough four sections to necessitate all of those specials but optimistically we are hopeful that obviously our enrollment starts to increase again so right so hypothetically i know we talked about how the big the difference that that adding those back in so what if we did even A slightly bigger levy amount. What if we did 3.2 million? What does that look like? Or what does 2.5 look like? Well, I'm just saying, what does 3.5 look like? Because then the numbers will just tell us. If it puts us at 6% after 29,

102then that's more than we need. And we can say that just by looking at it. I didn't want to go up too far. I know. I hear you. But 3.2 will get us somewhere between what we just saw and what this shows us. Let's do 800? Yeah, sure. Now let's hope this works. Yep. Still not even within policy. What was that total? That was a 3.5, right? No, I did $800 per APU. Just under 3.3. 3.3. Can you go back to the input and assumptions? And I also just want you to encourage to look at this, too, and just see where you're kind of at. This is the 2018, 2020, and then this is whatever you input up here. Can you scroll up just a hair? This is the for 400, yeah, okay. And I

103didn't put the taxpayer impact for $3,250,000 because I didn't have that information. I can get that if that's what's decided. It's obviously halfway between those. Yeah, I was going to say you're probably about like, you know, 30. So your monthly increase of $3. But it just comes down to, even though it's just $3, you know, Survey showed a real sensitivity. Well, some of that is the marketing. Do you say $400,000 or $450,000 house? Yeah. You can change some of that, too. I mean, it ends up being the same dollars. Do you want to change anything based on the conversation with any of these numbers? What if you take out the media's position? What does that look like? And what if we go to, like, one and a half or two on the, like, if we

104share them? And is that at three? That's at three, five, or three, two. This is the $800. Yep. So I have 800, and I took the media support out and put the specialist at two. So what if we then go back to the three million and see where we're at? Oh, down here? Yeah. 4.79. So, 3 million. Yep. No media. Two specialists. 3.99. What if you drop it to 2.75? What's it look like? 3.75 million? Or if you have 2.5, it's fine. Just go down 2.5. Oh, okay. I just want to see. Yeah, because then you have the number. 608. Oh, no. and i still have the two so that's leading into it's still losing about two million a year a little more and you don't even have that in that's at 275. is it

105two that's no two and a half two and a half yeah it's two and a half and i still have the two specialists in i mean my feeling just for the for the board is I would like to see as much in reserve in 29 as the rate we are declining. So if we're declining at 2 million, I would like to see at least 2 million there. Sure. Because then we're at least giving, we have some of that room, we have some of that cushion so that we can make administrative calls of what can we cut, where can we cut, so that we're not bottoming out. I think that's prudent. I mean, I think that that's where I feel, you know, the balance between Do we want to say we're not doing any ads versus,

106I mean, we can debate that, but I think that's where I would feel comfortable moving forward. I think that's a solid suggestion. And so that would be, was that about $3 million then? $3 million does that. If we go back to $3 million here, that's for sure. Leave the specialists in? The two specialists? Yeah, why don't you leave the two specialists like that? I think the two is a good compromise, to be honest, yeah. And no media? And no media, yeah. And then, yeah, I mean, that gives us that cushion. This is at the three. This is at three, yeah. Well, and it seems like last time, I mean, there were some people saying not over three. Some of us were saying not under three. It kind of seems like three million is kind of

107where we're all feeling like. Like that's where we're lining up. And I know that's where Pam started. It is. But this also, the model also gives us scenarios. The model also allows us to look at the other decisions that have to go into it, not just the 3 million, but are we going to add media specialists? How many media specialists? Are we going to add the... The art and specialists. Those specialists. But even the media, or sorry, the market correction. Yes. And just so you know, my hope would be is that this is a model now we build on. Right, that we can use. So I'll fix the enrollment. So we can see what those decisions will look like. Exactly. Yes. And the other thing I just want to mention so it's not lost is,

108and if Matt were here, is the survey results and what Peter Leatherman also recommended, and his recommendation was the operating referendum at $3 million. It all comes together. And I think it gives us a little breathing room so we can make some of those other decisions. I think if we come in at 2.5, we would just have to say no to everything. All of the other things would be absolute no's because to not bottom out in 30, we would have to say literally no to everything. With that in mind, then, I'm seeking a motion to direct the district administration to proceed with ballot language preparation for a special election to be held November 4th, 2025, with an amount of $3 million. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Thank

109you again, Pam. Thank you, Pam. Sorry the enrollment didn't work. I'm sorry that it was me. No, it was great. It's great. Somebody's got to test it, and we just didn't have time for that, so that was the problem. All right. Moving on to Item 7B, adopting the FY26 budget. So I just want just to read a little statement that I just kind of wrote and just so if I can read that and then we can go on to the actual approval. So I just want to know that as of today, I have been the Director of Finance and Operations at Waconia Public Schools for nine months and one week. And I just want to sincerely thank you for the opportunity to serve the district and this community. It's been an honor to work alongside

110such dedicated leaders, educators, and staff who deeply are committed to doing what's best for students every single day. So tonight, as we bring forward the proposed budget for 25-26 fiscal year, I just want to take a moment to reflect on the significance of this work. A school district budget is more than a financial document, it is a moral document. It reflects our values. our priorities, and our collective responsibility to ensure that every student has the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive. So the budget you are being asked to approve represents months of planning, analysis, strategic decision making, and it reflects our commitment to fiscal responsibility while remaining firmly focused on student achievement, staff support, and long-term sustainability. It also aligns with our strategic goals, prepares us for continued enrollment and funding challenges, and lays the

111groundwork for future planning efforts, including the referendum. So thank you again for your leadership, your trust, and your partnership in this work, and I look forward to continued collaboration as we move our district forward together. So with that, I respectfully request the board's approval of the 2025-2026 budget as outlined in the 2025-2026 budget book. All right. Seeking a motion to approve the, or excuse me, to adopt the FY26 budget. So moved. Second. Any discussion, any questions for Director Kerman? And just a quick highlight. Obviously, Pam went through this in detail. Again, the slides were there as part of the Finance Committee last time around. We've talked about this at the work session recently, so this isn't the first time you've seen it, although the work that went into the budget book was incredible. So I

112thank Pam for that and all that she's done. But just so that people watching. I realize you've seen this before. There isn't a lot of new information, even if the presentation of the material is a little different. All right. So all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Thank you. The budget book did look really cool. It did. I want to encourage you to start to look at some of these. I'll see just while you're looking at it. It's this page. I can't find it on here right now. But these. Because this starts to really lay the groundwork for what we're looking at with these restricted and unassigned. It's page 26. This one's for the general fund. And that's some of what you were looking at tonight when we were doing our

113modeling. So, all right. Thank you. Moving on to item 7C, workers' comp insurance renewal. Dr. Carman. Let me get to that page. So we did get our workman's comp renewal. And there's a couple of things that were with regard to the increase. One of them is when we actually started to update some of our payroll numbers, we found that the estimates they were using clearly were outdated. They were outdated fairly significantly. And so after talking to our broker and going through some of it, because... I really wanted to get this trued up and I really wanted to know what we were going to be looking at from a workman's comp premium perspective. I didn't want to wait until after the fact and let the audit show us what that correction would be. I wanted to

114get in front of it. So we actually used some of our projected numbers to update some of these payrolls, which then also gave us a larger discount. So we went from a 22% to a 27% discount. So that was one factor why it's going up. The other one is because we did have our claims experience in 23-24 did increase. So our mod experience went up from a 0.82 to a 1.1. We do expect that experience to go down a little bit when we start to bring in our 24-25 claims because those did go down. So I do want you to go ahead and approve the renewal, but I just wanted to give you some of that historical context as to why we saw the increase that we had. All right. Seeking motion to approve the

115workers' comp insurance renewal. So moved. Second. Okay, so who made the motion? I'll move. Okay. So moved. All right. And then Jesse? Sure. I'll be the second. All right. Any questions for Director Kerman? All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. 7D. Pam's going to go. She's going to. All right. I get this one, too. Resolution certifying population estimate for the 2025 payable 2026 levy. So with this one, I just want to just let you understand that as part of the levy certification process, we are requesting the school board's approval to certify the updated population estimate for ISD 110. According to the Minnesota State Demographer, our district's population has increased from 22,370 in the 2020 census to 23,876. And as you know, we do a lot of our recreational services through

116our community education department, so this is really important. So this updated figure is what we'll be using to calculate our revenue for the 2025 payable 2026 levy. And so approval of this resolution allows us to formally certify the updated population of the state demographer for use in our revenue calculations. So I'm recommending the board approve the attached resolution certifying the updated district population estimate. All right. Seeking a motion to approve the resolution. So moved. Second. All right. Any questions? Any discussion? All right. This is a roll call vote. Jess? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries. All right. You're out of the hot seat. Yes. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Moving on to item 7E, secondary board policies. Seeking a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Any comments or questions on these? I

117mean, these were, I think all of these were just. Minor changes it's all or no changes at all It's all just the on the three-year cycle and we talked about a little bit about them last time But I don't I don't recall it anything in any of these change significantly so Okay all in favor aye aye any opposed all right motion carries I don't believe we have any discussion items at this point. So moving on to item nine, board committee reports. Anything to report from any of the members? I have a quick one. I attended the community education advisory council meeting tonight at 5 o'clock over at the community ed. And just a couple updates. Preschool enrollment is at 159, which is a couple less than it was last year at this time. But they're

118hoping for full classes. And Bayview is up and running with their new preschool class. So they're very excited that they have the classroom picked out on the kindergarten hallway and they're ready to go. We're looking at a playground proposal for the ECFE playground. There's some major repair that has to be done with the ground. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you're familiar at all with the ECFE playground, it's kind of like a... black tile that in heat starts to shrivel up and cause cracks and it really affects any students who are wheelchair bound or have special needs to be able to navigate through that playground. So they're going to get some donations from the lions, dandelions. They're really looking for the community to step in and help a little bit with the project.

119I asked about the budget. It was around $65,000 to do all these repairs. So it's quite robust, but they're looking at some assistance there. And they put the new coordinator position on hold as far as hiring for community ed. They were looking for someone to kind of take on recreation and facilities, and they didn't find the right candidates. So they're looking at passing on the facility. duties over to Derek a little bit more and looking at hiring someone who would just focus on expansion of recreation. They're also focusing on the new brochure for fall and that's coming out in July. So kind of exciting. New t-shirts this year and new route races for the Nickel Dickle race. The t-shirts will be red. Yeah, they're looking for new recruits to join the advisory council. There were

120two of us that were there tonight with Stephen, and we'd love to have at least nine or ten community member students or anyone who's interested in that advisory council just to build some momentum and get some good discussion going. That's all I have. All right. Thank you very much. Anybody else? All right. Thank you very much. All right. Moving to item 10. Thank you. Any closed meeting for superintendent evaluation the school board may close a meeting to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority under Minnesota open meeting law Seeking a motion to move to closed session